Exodus 20:16 ESV
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Dear Friends in Christ,
Most of you here today have probably heard the phrase, “the shot heard round the world,” and you might even remember from your days in history class that this was the first shot fired in Boston back in April of 1775 that in turn started the Revolutionary War. Well, on Wednesday, September 9 of 2009 many of you may recall hearing what I think could very appropriately be referred to as “the shout heard round the world.” That shout consisted of just 2 words. It took place in the hallowed halls of Congress where the President of the United States, Barak Obama, was giving a speech outlining and explaining his much-debated health care reform plan. After making the claim that this plan would not cover illegal immigrants, a Republican Representative from South Carolina by the name of Joe Wilson let loose with what could very easily be dubbed the shout that was heard round the world because of all the publicity it received. And that shout was “You lie!”
Now regardless of how you feel about former President Obama or his much-touted health care plan, I think most Americans would agree that such an outburst was out of place. And apparently Joe Wilson felt the same way for later on he publicly apologized for his extraordinary breach of congressional decorum. But having said that, with all due respect to the former President, what Mr. Wilson said about Mr. Obama was true. He lies. Now before you start accusing me of being disrespectful to this former leader of our nation, please hear me out. Mr. Obama did and still does lie, just like you lie and I lie and we all lie. Indeed, there’s not a single person on the face of this earth who has not shaded the truth, colored the truth, tarnished the truth, or intentionally hidden the truth at some time or another. Forgive me for saying this, my friends, but at the very heart and core of our beings, we are all liars. And that is one very good reason why God has placed a divine boundary around something as important as the truth. That divine boundary is the 8th Commandment: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” And that will be the focus of our sermon this morning.
Now as we study the 8th Commandment, I thought it would be a good idea to examine the context in which it was given. Remember, God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai just 3 short months after the Israelites had left the land of Egypt after having spent 430 years there as slaves. So all of a sudden they were on their own, this vast sea of people that many Bible scholars feel may have numbered anywhere from 2 to 3 million. And here’s the kicker. There was no police force, no FBI, no CIA. There were no jails. There were no prisons. There was no 911 number that you could call if you found yourself the victim of a crime. And you’ve got to figure that out of 2 to 3 million people there are going to be a few shady characters. There are going to be some people who are going to take advantage of their neighbor and do some pretty bad things.
And so we need to ask ourselves, what kind of system did they have to keep some sense, some semblance of social order? That’s where the 8th Commandment came into play. This commandment was given by God to protect the truth, to provide justice, and to promote and encourage trust. Though we’re going to see in our study of this law that it has some much farther reaching applications to our lives today, the primary application of this command when it was originally given was that it was to serve as a major component of Israel’s court system. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”
So here’s how it worked. Let’s say someone stole something from you. You then would conduct your own investigation, trying to find individuals who may have witnessed the act. If you were fortunate enough to find any, then these witnesses would be brought before a judge and they would testify as to what they had seen. So the entire judicial system of Israel was based upon eyewitness testimony. Everything about justice and social order hinged on people obeying the 8th Commandment, not giving false testimony against their neighbor.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Well, that sounds like a pretty shaky system because all you need are a few people telling lies and the system begins to fail miserably.” And that’s true which is why God included in some of the other laws that he had given to his people certain guidelines and warnings regarding this system. For example, in Deut. 19:15 it says: “One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Then in vv. 18-19, 21 it says: “If the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you…Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Now I don’t know about you, my friends, but I personally feel that would be a strong deterrent to lying, to realize that if you intentionally told a falsehood about another person, perhaps out of revenge or anger, in the hopes that they would be executed or punished in some way, and your lie was discovered, then whatever you wanted done to them would be done to you.
So this was the context in which the 8th Commandment was originally given. Truth was required in a court of law. The New Testament then broadens the meaning further to include truth in all circumstances of life. For example, in Eph. 4:25 the Apostle Paul says: “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” So our founding father Benjamin Franklin was right: “Honesty is the best policy.” But if that’s the case, then why do we so often fail in that regard? And we do fail, my friends. Consider some statistics I came across while working on this sermon. 40% of all Americans admit that they lie on their resume. In one survey that was conducted 60% of adults said that they lied at least once the previous week. In a book that came out in 1991 entitled The Day America Told the Truth, 91% of Americans admitted that they lied regularly. One in five said they couldn’t make it through a single day without lying – and we’re talking here about conscious, premeditated lies. Here’s one quote on lying that I pulled from a chapter in this book: “Lying has become a cultural trait in America. Lying is embedded in our national character…Americans lie about everything – and usually for no good reason. The majority of Americans today (2 in every 3) believe that there is nothing wrong with telling a lie. Only 31% of us believe that honesty is the best policy.”
So why is that? Why do we lie? Well, let me give you a few reasons. For starters, sometimes we lie out of fear. In fact, that’s probably the most common reason we lie. We fear the consequences of what we’ve done wrong. And we learn this habit from early childhood on. Your mom asks, “Did you hit your little brother?” “No,” you say, even though he’s got a bloody nose and you’ve got his blood on your hand. Or she says, “Did you take that cookie out of the cookie jar when I told you that you couldn’t have any?” “No,” you say, even though there are cookie crumbs on your lips and shirt. Why do we do that? Why do we say no? Because we know that if we say yes, we’ll probably get spanked or put in time out or have some of our privileges taken away. There will be consequences. So we lie out of fear. And this continues into our adult years. The state police officer pulls you over and asks if you knew you were speeding and you say, “No, I didn’t officer. This cruise control of mine has just never worked right.” Or, “Yes, I know I was speeding, Officer, and I am so sorry, but I’m trying to get to the hospital to see my dying mother,” when in fact you were on your way to Wal-Mart. So fear is at the heart of many of our lies.
Then we also lie when we’re hurt. Here the goal is payback or vengeance. Someone has done something to hurt us or upset us. Maybe they’ve told a lie about us or maybe they beat us out of that promotion at work. So we attack their character. We spread malicious lies and rumors about them to make us look better or to make us look like the victim in the hopes of garnering some sympathy for ourselves.
Then thirdly, we lie because of insecurity. Or to put it another way, we lie to impress. Though I’ve never visited an online dating site, I have talked to people who have. And apparently there is a lot of lying that goes on there. People lying about their jobs, their income, the car they drive, the home they live in, the looks they have because they’re afraid people won’t like them as they are.
I remember when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade I was the master of lying to impress. And those lies came out in the form of book reports. We had on the wall of our classroom a chart with each student’s name on it. And every time you handed in a book report, the teacher would put a gold star by your name. Well, being very competitive even at that young age, I was bound and determined that my stars were going to far outshine and far out-distance anyone else’s. So I began to spew out book reports at an amazing rate, all of which, however, were made up. I would visit the town library and get ideas from books I would see there and then I would simply fabricate the title of the book, the author’s name, and the whole report. And I was good at it. But I was lying, lying to impress.
Pastors are notorious when it comes to this. We get together at our conferences and we start playing the comparison game, comparing my church to your church. “So how large is your church these days, Fritz?” “Oh, I’d say we have about a thousand members now,” when in fact they have only about 700. “And how many do you have attending each Sunday?” “Well, last Sunday we had a total of 587 in all our services.” While you’re sitting there wishing that you had a church with that high of a percentage of members attending, he’s omitting the rather pertinent information that there was a baptism with a large family represented and the parochial school children sang and that the average attendance on an ordinary Sunday is really only about 30% rather than way above 50%.
So we lie out of fear. We lie when we’re hurt. We lie to impress. And then lastly, we lie out of habit. Have you ever noticed that once you tell one lie, you often have to tell another to cover that one up and then another to cover that one up and so on down the line. And it’s a simple fact of life that the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the less it bothers you, and the more you even begin to believe your own lies.
Before I close for today, though, I want to say that sermons like this one that I’ve just preached are very hard for me to deliver because I love you people and I don’t like making you feel guilty. But let me remind you that that’s really one of the primary purposes of the Law. God gave us the 10 Commandments to serve as a mirror, to give us an accurate picture of ourselves, a picture that is not all that pretty. For the Law shows clearly and unmistakably the ugliness of our sins, all of which, however, is necessary in order for us to appreciate the beauty of our Savior. So if after hearing today’s sermon you’re determined that you’re going to try your very best this week to no longer lie and to instead be more honest, let me suggest that you be honest first and foremost with God. Admit your sins to him. Confess your shortcomings. Own up to your faults. Recognize your desperate need for a Savior whom he has already provided for you in Jesus. Trust in his death on the cross as the all-sufficient payment for your sin. And then live your life no longer enslaved or encumbered by guilt but now encouraged and embraced by his love and empowered by his Spirit to speak the truth at all times and in all situations. Amen.