Sermon Tone Analysis

TO TELL THE TRUTH      EXODUS 20:16

 

            A *lie* is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement with the intention to deceive, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, or to avoid punishment.

/To lie/ is to state something one believes is false with the intention that it be taken for the truth by someone else.

A liar is a person who is lying, who has lied, or who lies repeatedly.

This morning, we are going to examine the ninth commandment which says, *You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor*.

This commandment in essence protects the reputation and integrity of others, as well as, ourselves.

In other words, God desires for His people to truthful.

As I have stated earlier in the preaching of these Ten Commandments, they are a reflection of the character of God.

And we know from Scripture that God does not tell lies.

In fact, all through Scripture God is portrayed as a God of truth.

In Exodus 34:6, as the Lord revealed Himself to Moses, He proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness /and truth./"

As David prayed after God made a covenant with him, he exclaimed, "Now, O Lord God, You are God, and /Your words are truth/" (2 Sam.

7:28).

David prayed and exhorted in Psalm 25:4-5, 10, "Make me know Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths.

/Lead me in Your truth/ and teach me... /All the paths of the Lord are /lovingkindness /and truth to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies./"

In Psalm 31:5, he calls the Lord, the "God of truth," as does Isaiah in 65:16.

Poetically, as David pondered the Lord's protection, he mused, "For Your lovingkindness is great to the heavens /and Your truth to the clouds/" (57:10).

Zechariah speaks of the Lord's restoration of His people in which the Lord declares, "I will be their God /in truth/ and righteousness" (Zech.

8:8).

In the New Testament, John tells us that Jesus is "full of grace /and truth/" (John 1:14); and that "the Law was given through Moses; grace /and truth/ were realized through Jesus Christ" (1:17).

Because God is the God of truth, He can only be worshiped "in spirit and /truth/" (4:23-24).

Jesus Himself is the truth, so that if we know the truth the truth will set us free (8:32).

He told the religious people of His day, "I speak the truth" (8:45).

Indeed He does, for He is "the way, /the truth/, and the life" (14:6).

Further, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as "the Spirit of truth" (14:17; 15:26; 16:13).

He declared as He prayed to the Father, "Thy word is truth" (17:17).

The revelation of God in the gospel is called "the truth of God" which men exchange for a lie (Rom.

1:18).

The gospel is called "the truth of the gospel" (Gal.

2:14).

Paul declared that God "cannot lie," so His promises are faithful and true (Titus 1:1-3).

As you can see in these verses that God is a God of truth and truthfulness reflects His nature.

So God commands us to portray His nature to the world by being truthful.

And when we lie, we offend the God of truth.

Yet, our culture is full of lies.

According to some surveys, it suggests that 91% of Americans lie on a regular basis.

In fact, some people cannot even go a day without telling a lie.

People tell lies for a number of reasons.

I want to name just a few.

One reason people tell lies is that people are jealous about other’s success and desire to be equal to them, if not better than them.

Some people cannot stand for others to flourish while they lack behind these individuals in athletics, academics, business, reputation or prestige.

Some people lie because they want to cover up a mistake or misdeed.

King Saul did this in the Old Testament.

After the Lord had given specific command to King Saul to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites and all that they had, Saul went into battle and met with great success.

However, he did not obey the Lord's command.

He kept the Amalekite king Agag alive, as well as "the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good" (1 Sam.

15:9).

When the prophet Samuel came to meet him, Saul, knowing that he had not fully carried out the Lord's command, met Samuel with these words: "Blessed are you of the Lord!

I have carried out the command of the Lord" (15:13).

Clearly, he sought to deceive Samuel by giving an answer before the question came concerning the Lord's command.

"I have carried out the command of the Lord."

But Samuel replied, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" Saul continued to get deeper into the scheme of lying.

"They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, /to sacrifice to the Lord your God;/ but the rest we have utterly destroyed" (15:15).

Did they really have the intention of offering sacrifice or instead, having a giant barbeque?

Later, Saul puts the blame on the people, "the people took some of the spoil."

In other words, it wasn't me.

One lie led to another to another.

The pattern of covering one's tracks, to impress others, and even attempt to impress the God who sees everything, shows the folly of lying.

Who did Saul deceive with his lies?

He certainly didn't deceive the Lord or the Lord's prophet.

Saul deceived himself in thinking that he could prosper before the Lord by lying concerning his disobedience.

Today, politicians, celebrities, religious icons, etc. have lied to cover up things that have been wrong in their lives.

Some people lie to try impress others.

Remember several years ago in the sports world when a coach was caught lying on his resume.

A young coach applied for a job on the staff of Syracuse University.

He was asked about his athletic background, so amidst the truth, he wrote in his own hand that he lettered three years in football at the University of New Hampshire.

Twenty-one years later, this coach had been successful at an ACC head coaching job, and then was hired for his dream job: coaching Notre Dame football.

A couple of days into the job, a reporter trying to write about the path that George O'Leary had taken to the one of the top coaching jobs in the country discovered that O'Leary never played football at the University of New Hampshire.

In an effort to bolster his resume and impress an athletic director two decades earlier, his lie caught up with him.

He lost his coaching job and reputation overnight.

He wanted others to have a certain impression of him that was not true, so he lied.

So you can see that people lie for various and multiple reasons.

Yet, as I have stressed Christians obey the Ten Commandments because of what God has done for us in the work of Christ.

We are not saved under the Law (because we have obeyed the commandments to earn or merit salvation, but we are under the Law (as a pattern for life and in response to what God has accomplished for us in His Son Jesus Christ).

So the Law serves as a tutor, mirror, a signpost leading us to a Savior.

Alec Motyer put it this way, “In Christ the law becomes a minister of life to those who set their feet in its path.”

Lying takes on many shapes and comes in all sizes.

Before we draw application for this commandment, I want to spend some time speaking to the possible context in which it was written.

Again, I remind you that this commandment is broad in its nature.

Phil Newton, pastor of Southwoods Baptist Church wrote, “As with the other commandments, this one takes the worst application as an example for the whole family of this sin.

Just as murder is the apex of hatred and bitterness, adultery the apex of lust, and stealing the apex of coveting, bearing false witness against one's neighbor takes lying to its ultimate platform for evil in the community of relationships.”

The literal reading of this verse is you shall not be a lying witness against your neighbor.

Immediately when we read these verses our attention turns to the courtroom setting.

When people testify today in court they must swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and not just part of the truth.

We have the means to investigate truth that the ancient tribes of Israel did not have.

We have investigators, DNA evidence, forensic scientists, tape recordings, video tapes, data files, and many other tools for determining a person's guilt in a particular accusation.

But the ancient world differed greatly.

The evidence presented in the courts of the ancient world mostly relied on the testimony of witnesses.

In many ancient cultures, just one person witnessing against the accused would be enough for the death sentence to be delivered, and that without the accused having the right to explain or defend himself.

As Douma observes, "So witnesses could hold decisive sway over life and death" [314].

God's law provided for two or three witnesses to testify against the accused in the case of a capital crime.

"On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness" (Deut.

17:6).

And to make matters more telling, "the hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death" (Deut.

17:7).

If a witness fabricated his story in order to do harm to another, then the same punishment that he sought for the accused would fall upon him (Deut.

19:16-19).

A person's life rested upon the accusation of his neighbor and the testimony of others in the community.

In the New Testament, Jesus demanded truthfulness among His followers.

If you will turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5:33-37.

"Again, you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’

But I say to you, Do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is in the city of the great king.

Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.

Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No’; any more is from the evil one."

You see Jesus criticizing the Pharisees.

They had developed a scheme in which they could swear by certain objects and fudge on telling the truth.

For example, some would swear by heaven or by earth or by Jerusalem or by their own heads.

As long as you swore by these things, you did not have to tell the whole truth.