World of Lies

If I was going to describe the world that we live in today, I could use any number of adjectives. I could go down any number of avenues and say, you know, we live in a world that's dangerous and I could talk about North Korea and I could talk about China and I could talk about Russia and I could talk about Iran. I could talk about a world that is in turmoil, even internally, with the things that are going on in Washington. I could talk about our economy. I could talk about a world in a state of flux. And there's a world that I can talk about in another way, too, that maybe we haven't thought of, even though it is front and center in front of us every single week.

I look back over last week and I see some of the things that have made the headlines. And it's not the first time they've made the headlines. It's just a continuation of the same thing that we've seen going on for the last two or three years. You know, last week we saw, we saw if we look at this whole Russia probe thing that's going on in the government, you know, we have the President and his son involved in a meeting and it makes headlines that the son issued a statement about what happened in that meeting and then it comes out after the President denies he was involved that indeed he was involved.

And so we have that whole issue going on around with that. We can go back to the presidential campaign and we see things happening in the campaign that were not totally different than what were happening before but in a different light than they were before. Both candidates were repeatedly accused of lying over and over and over again. Both candidates had the highest negative ratings in the history of American presidential politics.

Both of them were caught in lies. Both of them never apologized for those lies. They just stood by them. They stood by them. And we had that going on and that's front and center in our minds. We've heard terms, brand new terms. Some White House spokesman coined the term alternative facts. We, you know, alternative facts. We have something going on and I don't know what alternative facts are. There's one fact, you know, just like, kind of like saying there's an alternative truth. No, there's one truth and that one truth is the Word of God.

But we have all day, we live in a world of alternate facts, you know, and someone interprets there what's going on in their own eyes, maybe just a partial picture of what's really going on as opposed to the whole picture of what's going on. We have an FBI director who, in his testimony, came out and said that of some of the papers and the reports that have been put in there, the reports were just false and not based on any facts. And something that we may have supposed as we read some through some of the sensational stories that are out there and wondered, where is the truth?

You know, where is the truth? And what we hear on the news, where is the truth? And what we hear from spokesmen from both parties, because it's not about getting to the facts, it's about coloring the picture in the way they wanted pictured.

And so we find ourselves living truly in a world of fake news. When we hear the term fake news, it's real. And when I turn on the news, when I read the newspaper anymore, I question everything I read. If it sounds too sensational, I think that's sensationalized. This is someone's opinion.

When I hear a quote, and more often anymore when I hear someone deny that they did something, I think, well, within a day or two, we're going to hear that it really did happen. And we just live in that world, you know? The... I was maybe a little sickened this week when I heard an interview with a legal analyst who made the comment that it's not a crime to lie to the media. It's not a crime to lie to the media.

It's a crime if you lie under oath. But you can say whatever you want to the media, you can just kind of do whatever you want. That's kind of the world we live in and we all listen to that. And our children listen to that. And as we see things go on that we simply know are not as bad or as good as we hear they are, then what can have an effect on all of us?

You know, we talked about living in a lage of lawlessness. And certainly the deception that goes on, the sensationalism that goes on, the fake news, the alternate facts, the total commitment to destroying character and destroying someone's reputation is an age we live in. And it can rub off on us if we're not watching what we are doing. If we bring it down to our level, because we're not involved in politics and we're not involved in the media, we live in a world where we can be part of that deception as well.

You may be sitting there thinking, well, I don't do that. I don't have any part of that. That's the world we live in and I know better. But we also live in a world of social media.

And you know, I don't participate in Facebook. But over the years that Facebook has been there, I've heard family members be upset when someone will say, you know, I got unfriended. I got unfriended by so-and-so. And I remember the first time I heard that I thought, you got unfriended? That seems awful. I mean, I would hate someone to come up and say, I'm unfriending you. I'm not talking to you anymore. But that's the world we live in, right? And it's like, if you say something someone doesn't like, they just unfriend you. But beyond that with social media, maybe you've never unfriended anyone.

I understand there's little profiles you can put on of yourself. And you can say, you did this, you did that, this is your job, this is where you live, this is how you live your life. And you can create a whole fake picture of who you are. I think the dating sites, never been on one of those, but I think they're renowned for that, right? People go on and they'd paint themselves as this marvelous person. And then if you are on one of those sites and you meet the person, you are quite surprised at what you find.

Maybe you find that on Facebook as well. But we are in a world that we're tempted. And we have the opportunity to paint the picture of how we want to be. Again, I was listening to an interview and you know, you've seen the news where you have teens, they say, in a record number for over the last 40 years committing suicide.

And many of them are really a result of what's going on in Facebook and social media. Because people paint a picture of themselves, and I heard one interview with a college girl who said she was depressed. She looked at all of her friends, she looked at their Facebook pages and they were doing this and they were doing that and they looked so happy. And their lives just looked so much better than hers and she thought, what's wrong with me? My life doesn't look this good. But then she found out, her life isn't that good either.

It's just pictures and a painting that they put up there. And she realized, we live in a fake world. We live in a fake world and our teens and us sometimes may not be able to navigate that as clearly as we think we can. But all around us, we live in a world of danger, we live in a world of uncertainty, we live in a world of lies and deception. Today I want to talk about the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

But before I go there and talk about some things that maybe we haven't thought about for a while, let's go back to Romans 1. Romans 1, beginning in verse 28, you remember Romans 1, it's the chapter where Paul is describing a world that continually departs from God. And in verse 28, he says that exact thing and talks about people that depart from God and what their lives are like. And what we don't understand, the world doesn't understand, we should understand.

When we have God as our anchor, when truth is our anchor, our lives are stable and our lives are secure, if God is not our anchor, if God as the truth is not what we hold on to, then our lives drift like what is described here. Romans 1.28, even as they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge, that defines the world we live in today, even if they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, meanness, looking to hurt other people, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, deceit in actions, deceit in words, evil-mindedness, they are whisperers, back-fighters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undeferning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but approve of those who practice them.

Now, everyone in this room would say, oh, we know we shouldn't be practicing those things. But do we buy our actions and our thoughts and the way we live our lives? Do we approve of those who practice them?

To our children, are they learning to approve of those who practice that way of life?

Let's go back to the actual commandment. Exit is 20. Exit is 20, verse 16.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Now, false witness. This is the commandment that we all know that we repeat. False witness comes from the Hebrew word shaker, S-A-G-Q-E-R, I believe it is. It's number 8267 in Strongs. Let me read what false witness, the one that's translated false witness there, means. It says that it is an untruth by implication of sham. Without a cause, deceitful falsehood, liar, lie, lying, wrongfully. False witness.

It equals lying. It equals lying, is what that command means. Now, the Bible dictionary goes on to explain what lying is because we may just think, oh, I lie when I got caught in doing something and say I didn't do it. But there's lying that goes beyond just the things we say. Let's listen to this, how they say this word shaker should be, but what it means. It says, in its very essence, a lie is something said with intent to deceive.

It's not always a spoken word, that's a lie, for a life lived under false pretenses, a hypocritical life may be a lie equally with a false word. Anything we do that would give a false witness of ourselves, we project our way in how we want people to see us at church, on Facebook, with an intent to deceive on the dating websites, but we're not really that way. We want to paint a picture, but it's a false impression of ourselves. It's a false witness that we're giving, is what they're saying here. The denial, they go on to say, the denial of the deniability of Jesus Christ is regarded as THE lie. Satan, you know, is the father of all lies. Jesus Christ says that, John 844. When he's lambasting the Pharisees, he says, you are the father of Satan the devil. He is the father of all, he is the father of lies. He is the father of deception. He is the one who will lead people astray. He mixes error with truth. He knows a number of things, anything to lead people away from the truth of God. And in the end time, it says, if we are not close to God, if we don't love the truth, if we don't know the truth, it says in 2 Thessalonians 2, we'll believe the lie. None of us want to believe the lie, we know the truth. Why would we ever want to believe the lie? But we better understand what the lie, what lying, and everything that it is, that it includes, if we want to continue to let God build His character in us. Now, lying is one of those things, it's a universal sin. There's not one of us in this room that can say we've never lied. I dare say, I'm not even going to say one week, certainly within the last two weeks, if we look back over our lives, if we look back over every word we said, every word we emailed, every post we made to Facebook, probably, right? Probably something was done with the intent to deceive, to cover up something we did, to make it look different or better than what we really did, something that was there. We all do it. We don't even realize what we're doing sometime because it's just second nature to us. And we live in a world where we would say, wow, compared to everyone else, I keep this ninth commandment perfectly. Let's go back to Psalm 58. Psalm 58 and verse 3.

Psalm 58 and verse 3. The wicked. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Now, you know, before you and I were called and we responded to that call and were baptized, we were wicked. We were living in darkness. We weren't living in light. Every one of us, from the time we were born, were speaking lies. All of us were parents. We remember our children and remembering how this innocent little one or two-year-old, whenever they could speak, would tell us something that we knew absolutely was a lie. It was like, where did you learn that? Something was innate that was in them that would be like, I'm going to deny that. No, I didn't take that cookie. That's the famous one, right? No, I didn't have my hand in the cookie jar, even though you saw I'm doing it. No, I didn't do this or that. From the time we're very young, it's something that's part of us, something that has to be weeded out. Colossians 3, that was who we were, but God's called us out of that way of life, from darkness into light, from a way of falsehood into truth. Colossians 3, verse 9, don't lie to one another, he says. Now, before that, he tells us to put off all these other emotions and traits that we might have, but don't lie to one another. Now, we know the world is full of lies. We know that. We don't even have to think about that, but he's talking to church people. Don't lie to one another. Be truthful with one another. We might say, tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right? There's an oath that you take when you're in court, and we affirm not soir, but we affirm we will tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because there's different types of lies. We can have the bare-faced, bald-faced lie. When we know someone did something and they look you in the face, as often we see on TV, right? With both candidates, I'll say, not just one. I didn't do it. But we know they did. It's a bare-faced lie. Blatants lie. There's other lies that are half-truths. Other lies that just are leaving out something important to lead you to a conclusion that you would not otherwise come to. Now, maybe we've all done that in our lives. We have examples of that in the Bible, right? We have half-truths. We have, remember, Abraham, when he's talking to Abimelech. And Sarah is there, and he's afraid that Sarah, his wife, while she's so beautiful, the king is going to want to kill him because he's going to want Sarah to be his wife. And he says, no, no, no, she's my sister. She's my sister when Abimelech finds out that he's given just this half-truth.

She was related, but he left out the part. She's my wife. He pretty much chastises him. We can do the same thing. A half-truth is a lie. And you've probably been involved in situations where you hear one side of the story, and it sounds awfully good, and you think, oh, I get the picture. But then you talk to someone else, and you get the other side of the picture, and you think, well, you left out. You left out the large part of what went on there.

It's a lie. It's a lie. If we don't tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we're guilty. Just getting part of the truth with the intent to lead someone astray is not keeping the nice commandment. It's something far, far different.

We can have lies in another way. Not too long ago, we talked about Absalom. Remember Absalom? Son of David. He murdered his brother. David allowed him back into the country, allowed him back into the courtyard, to the court of the king, if you will. What did Absalom start doing? He started making it appear to people that he was something he was not.

I'll win the graces of the people. If I was the judge of Israel, if I was just the one, these things would be mattered so closely. Well, he was very proud and he was looking to himself, but he was also casting his versions on his father, David. David doesn't know what he's doing. David's not running this the way that he should. David could be doing this better. And if I was the one to be running it, how much better things would be? Absalom was a liar. He was intending to deceive. He was saying things, but he was also giving a false impression of someone else as part of what he was doing. And he was also promoting himself. A key part of lying is, what is in it for us? What are we doing to promote self? What are we doing to cover up something we've done? What are we doing to protect ourselves? We have lies like Peter. Peter, right? Peter lied. When he was confronted in the garden after Christ was arrested, he said, I don't know him. I don't know who he is. Well, he was scared. Does that excuse that lie? No. Why did he do it? He was afraid. He hadn't prepared his heart. He hadn't gotten ready for that thing. And so he did what would come naturally. It's not me. I don't know him. And he lied. Just like Satan would lie. Just like we can lie to each other. Just like we can lie to ourselves. We can lie to ourselves and say, I never lie. I keep that commandment perfectly. I don't do. I don't have to worry about that one. That's one I checked off long ago. Not me. As soon as we say, not me, we better look a little more closely. And I include myself. I include myself in that. You know, God looks at all those things. And even the way we live our lives and the way we promote ourselves. Is it a lie? Are we truthful? Are we projecting the real us? You know, in King David, when King David was praying his prayer of repentance, remember what he said as part of it? And you probably know that prayer very well in Psalm 51. He said, Give me truth in the inward part. Let me be marked by truth. Not just the words I say. Not just the Facebook posts that I put. Not the images I want to display, but who am I really? In the inward part. It's a matter of heart. That's what God is looking for in all that we do. Not that we give lip service, but that it becomes us. And that we become truthful people just like the man who never lied. The only person who never lied. And that is Jesus Christ. None of us are there. And in this physical lifetime, we may continue to aspire to that. That should be the standard we set, right? Lying and untruth is out of our lives. Certainly not comparing ourselves to the world, but comparing ourselves to Jesus Christ. Let's go back and spend a few minutes just looking at some verses here where it makes God make the crystal clear what he thinks about lying and that ninth commandment. Let's go back to Proverbs 12.

And as you're turning back to Proverbs 12, I'll remind you about Strong's number 8267 that I read the definition of. The word she-ker, S-H-E-Q-E-R. She-ker. That's there in the commandment. And when we read Proverbs 12 and a few of these verses, we're going to see that same Hebrew word show up. Proverbs 12, verse 22. Lying lips are an abomination to the eternal. Number 8267. Lying lips are an abomination to the eternal, but those who deal truthfully are his delight.

Proverbs 13.5. One chapter over. Yeah, one chapter over. 13.5. A righteous man hates lying. A righteous man hates 8267. A righteous man hates she-ker, but a wicked man is loathsome and comes to shame. Back in Psalm 40. Psalm 40, verse 4.

Don't respect the proud, nor such as turn aside the lies. Don't respect. Remember Romans 1.32? Don't take pleasure in those who like lying and all that it means when we look at the ninth commandment. Psalm 101. 101, verse 7.

He who works the seat, and all lying is the seat, he who works the seat will not dwell within my house. Quite a command from God. For you and me who are here and who follow God and hope and have our hope in Him that one day we will dwell in His house and we will one day be in His kingdom. If the seat is in us, we won't. We won't. Let's move forward to Proverbs 19. Now, before we do that, let's take a stop in Proverbs 6. Proverbs 6 and verse 16. Solomon, Solomon writes, Well, you can say two or three of those, the things that God hates, they have to be God hates, they have to do with lying, they have to do with false witness. He hates a lying tongue because God is not of lying, Satan is of lying. God is truth. His word is truth. God is not about false witnesses who speak lies. He is looking for truth in the inward part. And so often when there is discord among brethren, it is because someone is violating the ninth commandment. Someone is leading someone astray, someone is trying to paint the picture that so-and-so or such-and-such, something isn't right and you should follow me. A simple fact of life, so much of discord is because someone is violating the ninth commandment. And when we violate the ninth commandment, we're violating a whole lot more than that. You know, there's a famous quote out there, What a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Remember that one? Everyone's heard that one. Lying leads to so many other things. Lying is almost when we are violating a commandment, something that we do on top of everything else or it leads to something else. Let's move forward. Proverbs 19. Proverbs 19, verse 5. A false witness, here's A.D. 267 again, a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who speaks lies will not escape. He'll be find out. Some of those in the public eye, they're being found out. Maybe it's embarrassing. I don't know if it's embarrassing to them. Maybe it's just, hey, that's just the way life is. That's who I am. I'll say whatever I need to say. He says it again in verse 9, a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who speaks lies will not escape. We didn't get it the first time. Four verses later, he repeats it. Unless you think that's only an Old Testament thing and we've progressed and God isn't that interested in lying, let's go back to Revelation 21. Revelation 21, and verse 8.

Begin in verse 7. This is the chapter after the millennium Jesus Christ has returned to earth, or after, yeah, Jesus Christ has returned to earth. The kingdom has been established, something that you and I are all looking to become part of and to be there as we follow Him. And this is what He says about His kingdom.

That is, He who overcomes the sin that does naturally beset us. He who overcomes shall uncare at all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. Verse 8. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Go home and look in your songs and chordants, and you'll see the Greek word translated liars there. It will point you back to the same meeting as Hebrew 82-67. The same meeting that's in that ninth commandment. All liars will have their part in the lake of fire.

In case we missed that, it went over our head. He repeats it back here, down here at the end of chapter 21 and verse 27. There shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Think God is serious about lying? All sorts of lying? All sorts of intending to deceive? All sorts of the things that we can say, do, project? That will lead someone to a false or a wrong conclusion. And in case we didn't get that, let's look at chapter 22 and verse 15. Outside that kingdom, inside will be those who keep His commandments, it tells us in verse 14. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie. Well, that adds another wrinkle. Whoever practices a lie, whoever loves a lie, whoever loves and practices a lie.

Because we might hold ourselves to the standard that we don't lie, but we might really enjoy what God would consider lies. Whoever loves and practices a lie. Well, you know, God is truth. And what He's looking for is truth in the inward part.

That means the things that we say, the things that we do, and the things that we love. The things that we might even find appealing in some way or another. I can mention, and I have mentioned, a number of things that are lying. And I want to look at one specifically. Not to the exclusion of the others, because they all are something we need to pay attention. But one that has become prevalent and almost to a point where it's become something that I see in the nation and that they love and practice a lie.

And again, if we look at what God says in Romans 1.32, and if we look at what He says in Revelation 22.15, and when we look at what we do, but what do we like to do, we might find some things about us and ourselves that we might say is a violation of that ninth commandment.

I mentioned social media. I mentioned social media. And it is a tough, tough world out there in social media. I've never been on Facebook. I've never had an account on Facebook. I've seen some of the posts on Facebook. I don't want to be on Facebook. Frankly, I think Facebook can be a detriment to a lot of people. I'm connected. Sometimes I don't want to be connected. I think that it can be a detriment to our young people to be connected and so connected and to have something that as our kids were growing up, I never had to contend with. I knew where they were. If they were talking on the phone, they were sitting in another room where I knew what they were doing.

And I saw the phone bill at the end of the day. And I'm telling you, we're going to look at a few verses here that I think, you know, parents need to really know what's going on because it is a world out there that is, and I'll use the word, ridiculous, because it's so ridiculously corrupt. And our children can run into things that can absolutely destroy them. If we aren't watching what they're doing, there's things that we can run into that will destroy us if we don't watch what we're doing. Let me talk about slander. Slander is one of those ugly words, right?

None of us would say we slander anyone. But we live in a world where slander has become the norm. When I watch the news, I don't really know if things are true or not anymore. But if order's on slander, the whole mission is to turn me against this person, this person, that person, or whatever. The whole political campaign was based on slander. I'll make you hate him or her, and that's what we will do.

Both parties were guilty of it. Both parties still are. Part of the stalemate in our country is the things and the things that go on and the pictures that we want to paint. But that's politics. But you know, I watch TV, and I watch some comedians and comedians have a heyday with slander, don't they?

Absolute heyday. It's to the point where some shows that I would watch before, I simply won't even turn on anymore. Not because I don't even think they have a basis for what they're doing, but it's so out there and it's so cruel that I think I don't care what someone did, that shouldn't be being said about them or portrayed in that way at all. When God says, everyone who loves and practices a lie, and those who take pleasure in those who sin, I think we have to ask ourselves, do we take pleasure in that?

Is that the type of thing that we say, high five to that comedian? High five to that skit? High five to that news cast? High five to that news report? Or do we sit back and think, wow, that's, you know, that's something I can't let myself become? When we look at social media, when we look at what's going on with teens and young people in colleges, so many of them are slandered online. They don't, they see a picture of themselves and people when they hide behind computers and hide behind Facebook and hide behind texts.

And they can say what I understand are very cruel things. And to a young mind that can't accept those things, they think the only way out is, I must be so horrible and so terrible that I don't need to be here anymore. We live in a world that does that. How disgusting is that? And we live in a world that we have given ourselves and we have created things and give to our children that the same thing can happen to them.

I think God looks at a lot of things that are put out on Facebook, a lot of things that are put out, a lot of people that have suffered, not among us, you know, and I hope it never comes to us. And looks at it and says, you are violating the ninth commandment. You are lying. The things that you do are violating that and He will punish. And the world has a lot to learn and maybe we have a lot to learn as well.

Let's look back in Psalm 25. Let's look at a few of the things that God says about slander. Slander. Psalm 25 and verse 18. Or, I'm sorry, Proverbs. Proverbs 25 and verse 18. A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow.

He may as well be coming at him with a club or an arrow. A man who bears false witness, who's looking to destroy someone, who's looking to make them feel bad, looking to be malicious, looking to hurt, looking to deceive, looking to have people think something different about what it is. And God says, they're armed.

Those words and bad attitude, they are like clubs, they are like arrows, they are like swords. Back in Psalm, this time, Psalm 57. David writes about this. And we know that David was the victim of slander. We know that he had to endure some of these things in his life. And some of his Psalms speaks to that. In Psalm 57 and verse 4, he says, A sharp sword. Look what they're doing to me.

They're attacking me left and right. I've got gashes everywhere by the things that people say and the things that they do. And David knew it wasn't truth what was being said of him. Maybe sometime in the future you and I will be the victim, I hope not, of slander. And it's going to hurt. We're going to know it's not true. Slander is never meant to build up or edify the things that God would do. Slander is always meant to tear down, to divide, to separate, to cast aspersions. You know where we're in Revelation 12.9?

You can mark that down. You know where Revelation 12.9 is. One of those verses we know very well. It says Satan. Well, you know what? We know we have some newer people on this. Let's go back to Revelation 12.9. 12.9, speaking of the time before Jesus Christ returns, the time, what it's going to be like in the years preceding his return to earth. And in verse 9 it talks about Satan being cast out on the earth. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world.

He was cast into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. The devil and Satan. Do you remember or do you know what the word devil means in Greek? It means slanderer. It means accuser. Now when they translated the Bible, they gave him the name devil. But God was saying that slanderer, the one who slandered Jesus Christ, who led him to his death and spoke all evil of him so that people turned against him.

That slanderer, that father of slander, that father of lies, that father of murder, that father of deceit, that father of all the things that are evil, that father of slander. You know where else the same word translated wherever you see devil in the New Testament is? It's in a few other places. It's not described as devil there. Let's look back at 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 3. A chapter that talks about how things are going to be at the end in the last days. And we've read through this before and I'm not going to read through all the verses of chapter 3.

You can read those over again. As you do, you will remember and see that every single thing listed there can define the world we live in today. But let's look at verse 3. 2 Timothy 3, verse 3. Unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, the same word translated devil in Revelation 12.9. They could have said, they could have said, unloving, unforgiving, devils without self-control, brutal, despisers of good.

The devil slanders. When we slander, in whatever form the slander is, it's a violation of the ninth commandment. Let's go back to Proverbs, Proverbs 10. Proverbs 10, verse 18. 10. 18. Whoever hides hatred has lying lips. And whoever spreads slander is a fool. It will catch up. You can't violate God's commands and have it ever turn out good.

Before harboring hatred for someone, what does the world do when they hate someone? They slander them. They talk down about them. They try to make them look like an idiot. They try to make them look anything but what they are. We can tend to do the same things. The teens on Facebook, who eventually killed themselves, they were slandered. People hated them for whatever reason it was, and they used their words to kill. Whoever slanders is a fool.

I can Psalm 101. God gives us a pronouncement on that. Psalm 101, verse 5. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor is usually done behind our backs. Rarely is it done to our face. No one comes up to us and tells us, you are this, this, this, this, this, because they don't want the retort.

They don't want to hear the truth. They just want to paint the picture of what you are or whoever they want to slander is. Whoever slanders, secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy, God says. The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, him I will not endure. I cannot be in his kingdom. If that's any part of us, then it has all been, at least some of us in the past, with us.

We need to be looking at it. We need to be weeding it out. And if we love those who slander, if we really like hearing the dirt on these things, you know, that's part of it as well. It's not just the spoken word. The commandment says, Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. And when you look up the Hebrew word bear, it doesn't just mean the spoken word. It's what you will tolerate. Will you stand in the presence of someone who is slandering?

Do you enjoy it? Do you want to participate it? Do you want to hear every dirty bit of it? Will you bear false witness? Because it can be what we do, but it's also what we accept and what we tolerate. Bear is the Hebrew strong 60, 60, 30. Anything that we heed or pay attention to, respond to by extension to begin to speak specifically to sing, shout, or testify, or announce.

It can even be the things that we repeat, that we hear. Tail-bearing is certainly something that everyone has engaged in, right? I've done it at times in my life. I hear something and I pass it on to someone else. I hope I haven't done that in a while, but perhaps guilty. Perhaps all of us are guilty in that regard. Tail-bearing can be fun. Gossip can be fun. Whenever I hear the word gossip, I think back to many of you here will remember.

Remember the old TV show Hee Haw? Kind of a variety show. Every time I hear gossip, from the time that that show was on the air, because in our family we watched it every Sunday night. They had some funny skits, but one of them would have a group of ladies.

I hope I can remember the words. If I could sing it to you, I remember it very well. But to speak it without singing, I'm not about to sing it. They had this clever little tune that went with it. Let me think while I think of the tune in my head. The boss part is, really, we're not the gossiping kind. You'll never hear one of us repeating gossip, so you better listen close the first time. And isn't that how we are?

Okay, I'll tell you this, but I'm not going to say it again. And it can kind of clever, and we chuckle at it, and sometimes, in that show, it wasn't directed to any specific personality, but it was skits and whatever. And we can make fun of it, but it's not a laughing matter. It's not a laughing matter at all with God, tail-bearing. Back in Leviticus, he specifically talks about that. Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, verse 16, he says, instructions to ancient Israel, same instruction he would give us, you shall not go about as a tail-bearer among your people.

Don't you gossip. And Timothy talks about some of the widows. Don't let them be given to gossip. You shall not go about as a tail-bearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. He says, I am the Eternal. Back in Proverbs, Proverbs 26. You know, we have to watch sometimes even the things we say. Sometimes we can be given the jokes, and I know sometimes at home we can say things and whatever. Maybe in a comfortable setting we can say things, and it can be taken the wrong way, and it can be looked at as, oh, slander or tail-bearing or whatever.

Proverbs 26 talks to this, because remember what Christ says in Matthew is that we're going to be held accountable for every word we say.

You know, in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, when he says, bring every thought into captivity of Christ, and bringing every word into captivity of Christ, I think is even, well, equally as hard, if not more difficult. But in Proverbs 26, he says this, verse 18, like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death. Well, there's quite a description again. Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death. Something that destroys, something that hurts, something that doesn't have the effect that our words should have.

It's the man who deceives his neighbor and says, I was only joking. Wow, haven't we all done that sometime in our lives? Haven't we said, let someone astray, and then we have to say, oh, no, no, no, I was only joking. I didn't mean that. That's another type of lie, isn't it? Sometimes just the things we say can leave an impression on people that hurts. Then saying, I was only joking doesn't wipe that hurt away. Very careful with our words. Very careful with the Ninth Commandment.

God isn't messing around. He is looking for truth in the inward part. He's looking to weed out all those things. For us to become closer and closer to the way He is with each passing day, month, year. Psalm. Let's go back to Psalm 5. Psalm 5, verse 4. You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. God says, you don't take. You and me. You don't take pleasure in wickedness. You don't practice a lie. You don't love a lie. You don't take pleasure in those who lie and slander and who live a hypocritical life and who give half-truths and lead you astray by the things they say that you've got to figure out what the rest of the story is.

You don't be a person who is given to that. You don't be a person who has cast aspersions on others to try to make yourself look better and then lower. You don't be a person who slanders. You don't be a person who gossips. You don't do any of those things. You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. Nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful won't stand in your sight.

You hate all workers of iniquity. You will destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord of Horrors, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Put some both in the same category there. The bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Let me ask a question. The commandment says, I shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. We know that there can be, we can lie by the things that we admit from the story to try to color it in the way that we want the person to receive it.

We know that we can give a different version. We can blatantly lie. We can do any normal things to keep away from giving the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We see it all around us. What if someone comes to you and says something that you know is absolutely wrong? They come to you and say, so and so did this. So and so said this. I think so and so is doing this or whatever the thing is.

If you say nothing, are you bearing false witness against your neighbor? Can silence, when you know that what is being said is not true, is that bearing false witness against your neighbor? Remembering that bearing isn't just speaking, but allowing it to be part of who you are and being party to it. I'll let you, I'll let you contemplate that one. I know in my life there's times where, and not in church settings, but I learned that sometimes you can be silent and people will just accept your silence as acceptance. You said nothing, so you believe what they said.

And I learned in business, if I don't agree with something, speak up. Even if it's not important because if you don't say anything, it's going to come back that you agreed to it. Is that the case? Is that the case with the 9th Commandment 2? You can think about that one. Let me, let me, let me, in the little bit of time I have remaining, let me hit one more. We talked about a number of things that are lying, slander, tail bearing, perhaps silence, repeating, gossip, living a hypocritical life, half-truths, partial truths, things that will lead people astray and intent to deceive, all those things.

Let's go back to Proverbs 29 and look at one more. And all of you who work out in the world, you know that this, this, what we're going to talk about here is alive and well. Alive and well. And you have those people you work with who, you know, there are names for them that are given that I'm not going to repeat. But we have those who really, really, really like to butter up the boss, right?

Helen, he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Every idea that he gives, it is just absolutely like, has been, you can't even believe someone could come up with that. You all know the type of person there is. God doesn't like, God doesn't like that either. What we say should be honest, should be sincere. Nothing wrong with giving feedback. We all need feedback. But if it's designed to butter someone up, if it's designed to get something, boy, that's something God doesn't like.

29, Proverbs 29, verse 5. A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet. Spreads a net for his feet. It means he's going to be caught. It means he's not going to go well, not going to turn out well for that person.

It's alive and well in the world. It's all over, I hope. It's not in the church. I hope it's not any of us. If it is, we should be looking at it. We should be cutting it out. Let's turn to Psalm 55. 55, verse 21.

This will remind you of a hymn that we sing.

Verse 21, Psalm 55. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter. Ah, they just flowed off of his lips. But war was in his heart.

His words belied what was really in his heart. He was looking to get something. He had a hidden agenda or he had a hidden emotion where that person is concerned. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

Ah, those weapons. Oh, those weapons, they're all over the world. They're all over the computer. They can be all over cell phones and the things that we can arm ourselves with and arm our children with. If we're not watching what's going on, we can have ourselves a problem. And we can have a problem with this ninth commandment and maybe not even realize it. Back in Hebrews 6. You know, we trust God and we can take him at his word. Satan, you can't take him at his word. He's the father of lies. But the only reason we can take and have stock in God and trust in him and have faith in him and see him as our rock is because he can't and he won't lie. If we caught God in one lie, would we trust him? If we found one thing in the Bible that wasn't true, would we trust it anymore? The rock, the faith, the anchor in our lives is God who can't outlie. And it says that specifically in Hebrews 6. Hebrews 6 in verse 17. Let's read through this verse here. Hebrews 6, 17. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, not you and me, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, don't we count that as a tremendous blessing? God won't lie. Oh, if that could just be said for every single one of us. Oh, if that could be said about the world. You know, as we... I'll finish reading this verse here in a minute. But you know, as you think about the ninth commandment, and I've said it before about other commandments, if everyone in the world kept just the ninth commandment perfectly, just the ninth one, how different would the world we live in be? If just the ninth commandment was kept by everyone, what a wonderful world it would be. If everyone in the church that God has ever called, that has ever been baptized, that they would just live perfectly for the rest of their lives, by the ninth commandment, what a difference it would make.

What would a difference it would make in my life? What a difference it would make in your life? That's what God has called us to do. To learn to live perfectly the ninth commandment. And we learn it through the rest of our lives. God doesn't lie. Because of that, we have hope in Him, and we can tie that to Him. Going on to verse 18, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hopeset before us.

Without that trust, without that confidence, without that knowledge that God doesn't lie, our lives are so, so different. They are so, so miserable. They are so, so hopeless. We need to become like God. Let me close here in Psalm 15. We talked about the people who won't be in the kingdom of God. Let's look at the people who will be.

Psalm 15 is a good chapter to go back to every now and then.

Psalm 15. I'll just read through the whole chapter here.

In his heart. Truth in the inward part.

We will follow Him forever. We will let Him lead us and guide us. We're lying to Him. If we don't keep enduring to the end. When we commit to our spouses, to be faithful and to love them forever. If we don't keep that commitment, we're lying. We've lied to God. People of God keep their promises. People of God honor their word. Just like God honors His word to us. And then in verse 5, he talks about usury and taking a bribe. Inclusion of verse 5, He who does these things shall never be moved. Let's all think about, let's all look at, let's all strive to keep the nice commitment. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Thank you.