This morning we're in Exodus chapter 20 verse 16. You can find that on page 61 in the Blue Bibles. We continue through the 10 commandments and this morning we reach the ninth commandment and this one's about truthfulness and how truthfulness or lack of truthfulness impacts others. Exodus chapter 20, verse 16. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And this is God's word for which he's to be praised. Let's pray now and ask his blessing. Our Father in heaven, we give you our praise for your word and its truth. We pray that you would use your word this morning to teach us, make us more deeply aware of the value of truth and more thoroughly honest by the grace and the power of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We ask it in his name, amen. When families go to the beach during a certain age range, the kids are going to be probably into digging holes. And that's a lot of fun. You can see how deep you can get, sometimes you go down to the water level. Or you can just try to make some sort of a massive pit. And maybe you cover someone up there into sand or something like that. So that's all a lot of fun. You do know that when you leave the beach, you're supposed to, you know, kick sand in there, fill in the hole, because somebody strolling on the beach, especially maybe at the dark, is not going to be, you know, pleased when they step on a piece of the beach that isn't there. So those kind of holes, that kind of pocket of emptiness creates a hazard. You know, a lie, a lie is an attempt to create a sort of hole in reality so that in the midst of true life and life as we know it, life as it is, a person in a lie will try to carve out a little piece or create a little space for what isn't true. And then what they're going to do probably is try to get somebody to move in there. To try to help somebody to live in this alternative reality that they've created. Or sometimes, of course, lies create a, as we imagine, create a space of safety for us. A sort of little pocket of unreality that we can hide in. Isaiah talks about those who take refuge in falsehood. What a liar is doing in the biggest analysis is, yes, of course, setting himself or herself against God, but even by opposing what's real, there's a sense in which every lie opposes creation itself. It opposes all that is. And we could say, putting it somewhat differently, lying generally reflects the inability to freely function in the world that actually is. And this morning, we're going to look at this phenomenon from the Ninth Commandment. We'll look, first of all, at the good of truth, then the harm of lies, and then thirdly, we'll dig into this tremendous saying of our Savior that you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. And we'll think about why that is. So first of all, the good of truth, to tell the truth means, again, to say what actually is. and we constantly make assertions about reality with our words. If I tell you coffee fellowship is out the doors and to the left versus the right, that is a kind of assertion of where you're gonna find the coffee. But even indirectly, if you say hello in a friendly tone, you're painting a picture that you are a friendly person and the person you're talking to is in some degree welcome. And those words are true if and only if they describe something that's real. So speaking truth is depicting reality, is describing what is. We could put it maybe in slightly philosophical terms that to speak the truth is to stay within the realm of being and to step into lies is sort of like stepping into the terrain of nothingness. Again, in that sense, truth-telling is to be faithful to the God who is. God says in Exodus 3.14, I am who I am. He is the God who is and is the fount of all being. And likewise, in Him we live and move and have our being. as Paul says in Acts 17, 28. So, again, truthfulness is loyalty to God and, in a sense, loyalty to the creation. It's faithfulness, fidelity to what exists, to the actual world. Truth-telling, too, is so helpful. It is helpful when you paint an accurate picture for people with your words. So Psalm 119.105 says, and you probably know this verse, your word, Lord, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And what that means is that when God speaks, when you read the scriptures, that's describing an actual reality. God never tells us everything about everything, we couldn't understand that, but what he tells us is accurate and true, and it's like a bright lantern shining on a solid path. And God is saying, step here, step here, and you'll be fine. So in terms of what you believe, in terms of what you choose, in terms of what you do, you can depend on God's word because it's the truth. and you follow his truth and it will lead you to life. Remember how Jesus calls himself the way, the path, the truth, like a light, and then the life. All those things hang together. You know, it's the same with your words and with mine in the sense that honest words light up the way. So the ninth commandment forbids a false witness against your neighbor, and that's especially referencing that kind of courtroom scene where you might bear witness. The positive side of that, we actually can see in Leviticus chapter five, verse one, which says that in Israel, in ancient Israel, when there was a crime, a call would go out to testify, and if you saw something, If you have information, you need to speak. You need to let the truth come out in your words so that, of course, the guilty person, the murderer, let's say, can be apprehended, or somebody who's falsely accused can be set free. Words, truth, so important. Now, as we think about the value of truth, we may wonder, are there any exceptions to the truth-telling rule. And I suppose we could think about what we could maybe call well-understood fictions. as in kind of pleasantries and conventions like, how are you? I'm fine. And these are, you know, we don't overread these. We kind of understand that these are sort of pleasantries and that those may be in some degree a kind of fiction, but in a way not fictional because we don't take them seriously usually. There are maybe other of these that we could think about. One of my, well, One I seem to run across a lot these days is that little box that says, click here if you have read and agreed to all these terms and conditions. And they don't even, you know, you have to click on a link to even get to it. They almost assume you won't read it. And I think that's a giant, it is really a fiction. Because even if you tried to read it, you probably couldn't understand it. Even the parts in all caps. It's very long. So I would put those things in the category of understood fictions, and I'm kind of setting them aside in this message. So that's kind of over there. Scripture does also make an exception, I think, when people are on a war footing. So God, in times of war, again, in Israel, will tell his people to set an ambush or attack in a surprising way or something. And that kind of presumes a sort of deception in time of war. I think there's also a case can be made from scripture that somebody who is trying to kill someone else is not entitled to accurate information. So, for instance, in Exodus chapter 1, the midwives tell what I think has to be a lie to Pharaoh in order to shield the babies who are at risk. And so one can argue that there's an exception that can be made in that case. And I mentioned that mainly for the sake of completeness. So we'll kind of note that and set that off to the side as an extreme cases of life and death. In all normal cases, what a blessing truth is and how healthy it is to know what actually is real. In these very 10 commandments that we're studying, they're real. When God says that he means it, and this is really his will for us, there at Mount Sinai, as the ground shakes and as God speaks so loudly that the people tremble, God is telling them something about his great holiness and the danger we are all in. because we sadly break every one of these commandments. That is also true. It's good for us to know it. These truths, of course, make us hungry for the grace of Jesus Christ. And we can think, fast forwarding to the New Testament, as Christ comes into the world, he clearly comes claiming right up front that he is coming with the truth. John 1.17 says, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Meaning, at the very least, the true way of salvation Jesus sets before us. And I don't think I have to convince you what a blessing this is, and I don't think I have to convince you what a value it is to know the truth. It's no wonder that the book of Proverbs says, buy the truth and don't sell it. Seek the truth. So the value of truth. And then secondly, the harm of lies, where we kind of like brace ourselves and look at what the ninth commandment is actually saying. The ninth commandment says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Again, that most properly and specifically refers to a sort of testimony that someone might give in court, and that's a serious business. You may remember the Old Testament story about when Queen Jezebel hired some false witnesses to testify against a man named Nabof. It's kind of an obscure story, but many of you probably know it. They said Nabof cursed God and the king. Again, moving to the New Testament, we could think of our Lord Jesus Christ on trial. False witnesses arose against Christ, and they said, basically, He wants to tear down the temple. And the end result in both those cases was that the person falsely accused was executed. So this is very, very, very serious stuff in a legal context. In false witnessing more broadly, not in a legal context per se, but just in a sort of life context in terms of things we say about others? There's plenty of false witness that occurs in life and causes harm to others. Whenever we set about to criticize someone needlessly, and here, you know, I get into kind of like very close territory. I think you, really, if you haven't done this, you're a robot. We have all been here. It's a sad place, but let's talk about it. Going to criticize somebody without without cause or truth. not criticizing as any sort of supervisory capacity or a need to confront someone who's doing something dangerous or any needed thing, but just setting out to criticize, be it with lies, which is the worst, and then distortions, which it actually almost usually is, it's distortions about motive or like not getting the whole story straight, or it's sometimes a truth that didn't need to be said on that occasion. And so whenever we are tempted to do that, we have to remember God's truth that as God deals with us, he longs for redemption. So scripture says that love rejoices in the truth on the one hand, but also says And this is a verse that gets said in the Old Testament and repeated in the New, so it's really important. Love covers a multitude of sins. So both these things. We tell the truth, we try not to go where it's not necessary, and we have to understand that it grieves God to see people harmed by sin. Words that didn't need to be said, and at worst are untrue. It's hard for people to recover from that. Also, it can drive somebody into a sort of defensiveness and a bitterness and a resentment from which it's hard to recover. So we really can drive somebody into a sort of tailspin with our words. And that's harmful. You know, in our day and age, we have really amped up capacity to spread truth and errors on the social media and the internet. So it's pretty amazing. what gets passed around on the internet. And unfortunately, not everyone is concerned with the truth. Oftentimes, it seems like for a person of viewpoint X, you know, any stick is good enough to beat the other side with. They're not really, really, really seemingly concerned a great deal with the truth. And, you know, as we think about how to navigate through our time as Christians, and we think about whether we believe something or whether we know it strongly enough to pass it along, whether we think it's necessary to pass something along, we do have to remember the ninth commandment, which quite simply is, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And neighbor includes everybody. And we would certainly be a lot better off in America if widely the ninth commandment could be recovered and adhered to. I mean, that would be such a blessing. This is just so needful for our health individually and as a culture. You know, the ninth commandment, by implication, really forbids all kinds of lying, and I'm just going to survey some common ways in which lies get told, and I'm not going to detail the harm of these. I think you'll understand it. Clearly, sometimes people lie on behalf of others, so... This would be providing cover for someone else in their deceit, laziness, addiction, abuse, or so forth. So there's that kind of pocket of types of deception. There are certainly lies that people tell to cover their own wrongdoings. Again, Isaiah talks about those who take refuge in falsehoods. You know, we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood, we have taken shelter, Isaiah 28, 15. And this starts at a very young age. It seems almost instinctual to young people in a fallen world. You know, did you have any cookies? No, just boom, there it is. Al Pops, the lie kind of put out there is the shelter. Then there's a category of false statements that are made to authorities about compliance with rules and that sort of thing. There's also this sort of falsehood, this is sort of trickery where someone is deceived in order to make a fool out of them. And, you know, this kind of gets into the gray area of practical joke and when does joke go too far and so forth. One rule I think that's helpful there is if it's cruel, or if the person doesn't laugh and doesn't think it's funny, then that's out of bounds. There's the kind of fibs which are used for frightening someone or for manipulation, like if you tell anybody, you'll be in trouble too. And that's a whole pretty dark category of lies. And then there is a sort of untruth about, you know, issues of import in our day. So, you know, to affirm what God says across the board on all moral issues is needful for us. And if we cave on something, figuring like this one is socially too costly, you know, I'm just gonna, Say, I used to believe that, but I don't anymore, in order to avoid social heat for it. There's a couple things to remember there. One, we have to uphold God's word no matter what, so we have to be willing to be brave. Two, It really doesn't provide support for people who are struggling and want to do right and want to do well when other people gave in. So there's a sort of discouragement aspect, too, when the truth is not upheld. So one last category of deceit to mention are white lies. You know, these are sort of fibs told to smooth over social situations. So, but I'm gonna caution against this too. This is the sort of like, how do I look? Great, you know. There's something wrong with her outfit. But you didn't know how to say it, right? So off they go, looking not right. And you know, in some small way, they're diminished, because they didn't have the truth. You thought that you could withhold that from them. I think a lot of times in white lies, we pretend it's for the other person's sake, but it's really for our own. We just, we didn't know how to navigate. And we do have to navigate. We don't want to be brutally honest on the one hand, but we don't want to be false on the other. And so in those kind of situations, there's a sort of gracious truth we aim at. It's not always easy. But I think to withhold the truth from somebody denies them an opportunity for maturity and improvement. Indeed, it denies yourself an opportunity for maturity and improvement by telling the truth. So all those things noted, and that's a kind of sad list. You know, probably the greatest harm in lying comes to the liar himself or herself, because they imagine they're opening up this kind of air pocket of deception for someone else in many cases, but they immediately start slipping down the hole that they're opening up because they're leaving reality behind. And the liar is slipping into danger, first of all, by dreaming that I can mess with reality as I choose. And also by thinking I don't owe my neighbor the full truth. And then furthermore to imagine no harm, no harm will come of this, I can keep it on a leash. And it's just a small step from there to say, well, it was justified anyway. And then, oh, there was a grain of truth to it. And then comes the old cliche that the liar believes their lie. And this is not just something Christians say, this is well-known in the world. The liar does come to believe his or her own lies, you know, almost. And so it's opening up that hole. As scripture says, if you dig a pit, you will fall into it. Speaking of pit, It is, I think, well, sad but needful to reflect that the primal liar, the one who was a liar from the beginning, the devil, scripture says that his fate will be to be cast into a bottomless pit. The one who delighted to hollow out reality or to create deception will be thrown into a big hole in this sort of, you know, we can think of a sort of nauseating free fall. The devil who delights in nothingness, God will consign to a sort of existent nothingness. And I think that's what the pit symbolizes. When we are tempted to dig holes with our lies, we need to remember that there's a big hole that waits for all liars. And somebody who persists in a life of lies is following in the track of the devil, the father of lies, and will end up where he is. And scripture's very clear about it. So lying, it's a huge hazard. but we need to think about how Christ sets us free in the truth. You know, you could characterize the work of Christ as being set free from lies. Again, thinking of the devil long ago, our great enemy laid a trap for our first parents, Adam and Eve. What he told them is essentially that God cannot be trusted. That was the lie. And they slipped down into that hole. And in a way, the fallen human race has been wallowing around in that hole ever since. God can't be trusted. But God in his mercy determines to pull us out of the hole. Exodus actually pictures this. It's a kind of story example of a rescue from lies into freedom. Where as Exodus opened, Pharaoh is telling lies about the people of Israel. He says they're dangerous, they need to be suppressed, they need to be enslaved. Oh, did you notice Pharaoh just happens to have a lot of building projects he once worked on? But anyway, he's telling his lies and he's enslaving the people and then God comes and what God is saying is he's bringing the truth and he says the truth is I made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I love my people, and I'm gonna rescue them. And so God covers his people with the blood of a lamb, and he brings them out of lies and bondage. He brings them symbolically through death as they pass through that sea and out into freedom and towards a promised land. It's a picture of escape from lies into freedom. And as we've seen many times in Exodus, this picture's what Jesus will do As Christ comes into the world, he comes as a distinct truth-teller. The Apostle Peter writes that Christ committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. We could think too of the We think of a kind of nauseating free fall of a bottomless pit, in a sense, on the cross. Christ, as he feels abandoned by the Father, is kind of feeling that destruction and desolation. And he's taking that on our behalf. It is really remarkable to think about Christ as he's going to the cross, how in his trial there are these who rise against him and bear false witness. And you have to ask the question, in light of everything we've been talking about this morning, those false witnesses, what kind of lies must they have been telling themselves before they could ever get to the place of telling lies about the Son of God? I mean, it is just heartbreaking to consider how twisted they are, telling lies about the perfect one. And yet, as they do that, I mean, that's us. That is us who in so many ways have stepped aside from the truth, have not been straightforward people, have been very cavalier about that and have not been careful about our neighbor either. And yet Jesus Christ goes to the cross for people like us. And then he rises to pour out his spirit on people like us to change us inside and to teach us to walk in the truth. And it's with that in mind that we come back to the saying of Christ. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. What is it that binds people and lies? Why do people lie? People lie because they can't trust God enough to be honest. They think they're gonna suffer harm if they admit their own failings. And they think that in this kind of, they envision life as a sort of like melee or scramble in which the lies, you have to tell lies to get ahead. You have to tell lies to protect yourself from other people. They're unable to trust the Lord. But see, if you've come to Christ, you're in a vastly different place. You come to Christ and you're set free. You don't have to cover up your failings because Christ has forgiven your sins and washed them away. You don't have to tell lies about it. You can admit it. And also, Christ rules over all things. We can trust him. He is our shield. If you tell the truth, for God's sake, He will not let you suffer any lasting harm for doing so, but only good, only good. In other words, we can walk forward in honesty because God will work it out. He is our Father and we can trust Him. He's our shield. In that sense, Although in some ways, Christians are uncomfortable in the world, because it's a fallen world. In other ways, Christians are able to be most at home in the world, because we can, as truthful people, receive the world as it is, and try to interact it without any distortions. Because again, we know that God rules it, we know that God, Christ, pardons our sins, and therefore we don't have to try to manipulate things with lies. I'm not encouraging any sort of naivete here, like giving a wicked person whatever information they ask for. So I'm not talking about a sort of simple-minded view, but rather a constant quest for honesty and integrity and a determination not to lie. And as we live that way, we step forward in harmony with God and with all being. We step forward in sync with reality as we learn to do what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4.25, therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. We don't have to distort. We don't have to take refuge in falsehood. We don't have to create pockets of unreality for we have Christ and we're safe in him. Let me pray for us. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for this word. We pray that you would cause us, as those saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, to leave behind the bondage and chains of falsehood. We pray, too, that you would work such integrity among your people that you would enable us to shed the light of the truth of Christ wherever we go. And we pray it in his name, amen.