According to Ron Mehl in his book The Tender Commandments, a middle-aged pastor in a small farming community in the Midwest had been falsely accused. It was a vicious, scandalous story, and it swept through town like a prairie fire.
- “Have you heard about the pastor?”
- “Can you believe it?”
- “He oughta leave town.”
- “You’d never think such a thing to look at him, would you?”
- “Guess he had a lot of us fooled.”
- “His poor wife.”
After a period of time, however, the rumor was found to be just that…an ugly empty rumor, without any basis in fact. But the damage had already been done. Many people in the town had believed every word and were now reluctant to revise their opinions. (“There must have been some truth in it, or why would everybody be talking about it?”)
Sometime later, the couple who had spread the false tale came under conviction of sin and went to the pastor to apologize. Confessing they had known the rumor to be false all along, they asked the offended man for forgiveness. “Of course I will forgive you,” he replied gravely. “But could I ask you to do something for me? Something that might seem rather strange at first?”Relieved that the pastor was willing to forgive, the couple readily agreed to do whatever he asked.
“All right,” he said, “here is my request. I would like you to go home and butcher one of your chickens, pluck out all of its feathers, and put the feathers in a bag. Could you do that for me?”They nodded yes; they could certainly do that. But it seemed so strange. Was the man asking for a chicken? “Next,” the pastor went on, “I’d like you to go throughout the town, and at each corner, scatter some of the feathers—just a few—from the bag.
Then, please take the remaining feathers and climb to the top of the old city water tower—you know, the one by the feed store—and scatter those to the wind. Could you do those things?” They were mystified by this point but nodded in the affirmative once again.
“Fine,” the pastor said, “just fine.” The couple stood up to leave. But as they reached the door, he suddenly called them back. “Oh. There’s just one more thing, please. After you’ve finished scattering all the feathers, I’d just like you to go back through town and gather them all up again. Okay? Make sure that you pick up every one you’ve dropped and every one you’ve scattered to the winds, and put them all back in the bag. Please be careful that none of the feathers is missing, and bring the bag back to me. Could you do that for me?”
The couple just looked at him. “Pastor, that’s impossible” the man said. “The wind will have blown them all over three counties by then.”The pastor didn’t say a word, and slowly… the truth of his word picture began to dawn on the couple, and they hung their heads. Yes, they could be forgiven for their actions, but no one could undo the damage they had done by scattering their false and slanderous words.
Notice Exodus 20:16, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Other translations put this: New Century Version, “You must not tell lies about your neighbor.” The Jewish Bible, “Do not give false evidence against your neighbor.” The Living Bible, “You must not lie.”
Today and for the next two Sundays, I want to talk to you about THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. I dare say that there is no other commandment that is broken more often than is this one. You have broken it; I have broken it. You see: The command covers lying; telling any untruth.
The command covers what I call “verbal violence” — any discourse between human beings that would violate or harm another person. The command deals with giving false evidence in a court of law.
In short, the words “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” demand truth in the statement, directly or indirectly, made by a person, to a person, concerning a person.
WHY WOULD GOD INCLUDE THIS COMMAND AS ONE OF THE TEN? I will give you three reasons.
1. GOD WANTS US TO BE LIKE HIM
Let me tell you something about yourself that you may not know. God’s ultimate purpose for your life; my life, is that we be like Him. That’s it in a nutshell.
In but the third book of the Bible the Lord told the Hebrews in Leviticus 11:44, “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” Then again in the very next verse the Lord again charges His people to “be holy, because I am holy.”
Later on, this time in the New Testament, the Apostle John wrote, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and we have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him, because we will see him as he really is.” 1 John 3:2 (New Century Version).
God created us in His image. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve violated God’s law and as a result they became sinners. Their sin marred the image of God in us. Every since then God has been busy trying to recreate His image in us. He gave us the Ten Commandments in order to make us more like Him. Jesus came and died on the cross in order to make us more like God. As I read but a moment ago, the Lord Jesus is coming back again in order that we may be like Him.
When I spoke on the First Commandment, I told you that God wants to be your God. Now in this commandment we find that He wants us to be like Him.
Whenever we lie, we not only sin, we at the same time move farther and farther away from this divine plan and purpose for our life. We also lessen His image in our life. How can that be, you ask? Again and again the Bible speaks of God as being “the God of truth.” This means that God is true in all He does and is. He is true to His Word, true to His character, true to His nature.
Numbers 23:19 (God’s Word) notes, “God is not like people. He tells no lies. He is not like humans. He doesn’t change his mind. When he says something, he does it. When he makes a promise, he keeps it.”
Then Jesus, in John 14:6, proclaimed, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
The Apostle John added in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John added in John 1:17, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Psalm 15 starts off with the question: “Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD?” In the four verses following, it lists the eleven characteristics of the righteous who can enter God’s presence. Four of those eleven characteristics center on the right use of words. One of the final characteristics, though, is most challenging: It is, they who “keep their promises even when it hurts” (Psalm 15:4 New Living Translation).
Truthfulness is at the very core of who and what God is. David therefore wrote, Psalm 51:6 (New Century Version), “You want me to be completely truthful….” The Message puts it this way, “What you’re after is truth from the inside out….”
The Ninth Commandment helps us be more like God.
Next, this command helps us…
2. PUT A CONTROL ON THE TONGUE
A preacher got up into the pulpit one Sunday morning with a big sack in his hand. “In this bag,” he told the congregation, “I have the most dangerous thing in the world.” He put his hand into the sack and pulled out a sword. He swung it round his head, chopped the air with it, and talked about all the terrible things that you could do with a sword. Then he said, “But the most dangerous thing in the world is not a sword.”
He put the sword down. He reached into the bag again and pulled out a pistol. He pointed it at the ceiling and talked about the awful things you could do with guns, but then he said, “Guns are not the most dangerous thing in the world,” and he put the gun down.
Finally, he reached inside the bag and pulled out what looked like a long bit of red, fleshy meat. He held out the repulsive object for the people to see. “This, my friends,” he said solemnly, “is the most dangerous thing in the world. The thing that he was holding was a tongue.
Do you realize that five of the Ten Commandments can be broken with the tongue? Tis true. Jesus told us that there was only one sin that couldn’t be forgiven in this life or in the life to come. We call that sin The Unpardonable Sin. That sin is a sin of speech. Moses missed out on entering the Land of Promise partly because he blew his cool and spoke words in anger. Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven specific things that God hates. Three of the things are vocal sins.
The wise Solomon therefore cautioned, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).
Robert Fulghum, in his book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, shares a powerful illustration of the power and force of words. He writes: “In the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific some villagers practice a unique form of logging. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax the natives cut it down by yelling at it. Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The tree dies and falls over. The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.
Fulghum goes on to write: “Me, I yell at my wife. And yell at the telephone and the lawn mower. And yell at the TV and the newspaper and my children. I’ve even been known to shake my fist and yell at the sky at times.
The man next door yells at his car a lot. And this summer I heard him yell at a stepladder for most of an afternoon. We modern, urban, educated folks yell at traffic and umpires and bills and banks and machines — especially machines. Machines and relatives get most of the yelling. I don’t know what good it does. Machines and things just sit there. Even kicking doesn’t always help. As for people, well the Solomon Islanders may have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts….”
Norman Vincent Peale in Christianity Today tells the following story: “Once walking through the twisted little streets of Hong Kong, I came upon a tattoo studio. In the window were displayed samples of the tattoos available. On the chest or arms you could have tattooed an anchor or flag or mermaid or whatever. But what struck me with force were three words that could be tattooed on one’s flesh, born to lose.
I entered the shop in astonishment and, pointing to those words, asked the Chinese tattoo artist, “Does anyone really have that terrible phrase, Born to lose, tattooed on his body?” He replied, “Yes, sometimes.”
“But,” I said, “I just can’t believe that anyone in his right mind would do that.”
The Chinese man simply tapped his forehead and said in broken English, “Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.”
Who puts the tattoo there? We do. People. Loved ones. Friends. Fellow students and employees.
A mother who had a baby rather late in life, was discussing this fact with a neighbor lady in the child’s presence. The mother said she did not understand why she had to have another kid after all of the others had grown up and left home. (I am surprised that she didn’t know.) She then went on to state how she wished that it had never happened but now that she was stuck with the child she had to learn to make the best of it. How humiliating for the little child!
I must read to you a piece from Annie’s Mailbox. It appeared in the Gazette on Friday, July 22, 2011:
Dear Annie:
I work as a clerk at a clothing store. Yesterday, a woman came in with a boy who looked to be about 13. She wanted him to try on a specific outfit, and he refused, saying it “looked stupid.” I silently agreed with his assessment.
The outfit was ridiculous for a boy his size and age.
The two of them got into an argument, and I heard her say, “I want you to look nice for
the wedding. Try it on.” I walked over and gently told his mother, “I’ve heard this from other customers, and I can assure you, if he doesn’t like it, he’s not going to wear it, and you’ll be wasting your money.”
The boy then said, “See, Mom? Listen to this guy. Even he knows this is stupid!’
The mother then shouted, “No! I want you to look nice, and you cannot wear a dark suit with a dark shirt. You’ll look like a pimp.”
The boy calmly replied, “Well, in that case, I won’t go.” Whereupon the mother said she’d make him wear a dress to the wedding and called him a moron.
At that point, I politely told her she’d have to leave, and I escorted her out while she screamed that her son was an ingrate.
Was I wrong to have escorted her out? My boss wasn’t angry, but I know he would rather have made the sale. I thought the woman’s behavior was inappropriate.
—Sales Clerk in Kansas
While I do not excuse the 13-year-old in this story, I have to place most of the blame on the mother. After all, she was the adult in this case. As she started to lose control of the situation, she resorted to branding, name calling, and shouting. In the process, the mother put a tattoo on the young man’s mind — “Born to lose.”
I need to have seven volunteers to come up and help me with my next point. As you can see, I have seven signs here. I would like for each of you to take one of the signs, place it around your necks, and then wear your sign everywhere you go for the next seven days. Work. School. Church. The store. Culvers. Wherever. Will you do this for me, please? Oh, you want to know what the signs say first? The signs simply say “Fool”, “Moron”, “Lazy”, “Ingrate”, “Stupid”, nothing bad. Here, let me hang them around your necks.
Now, just to be honest, I would not allow this to happen. Can you imagine the shame, the humiliation that would go with such a prank? I mean, the whole thing would not be fair, nice, or even Christian.
I do have a point though. Each of these people could remove their sign from around their neck at any time. However, they can’t so easily remove these words when there are branded into their psyche by a insensitive parent, a sibling, a teacher, or a bully in the classroom. And the truth of the matter is, none of these signs are true. They are lies; all lies. They are false witnesses against the character and person of these volunteers!
The Bible notes that we are made up of body, soul and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 declares: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” THE BODY is that which is on the outside. We pamper it. Dress it. Cleanse it. We spend thousands of dollars over a lifetime caring for this piece of clay which will eventually be put into a hole in the ground. We also possess A LIVING SOUL. The soul is eternal. It will live on long after the flesh has turned to dust. The soul feels; expresses emotion. Music and art originates in the soul. Then finally, we are A SPIRIT BEING. The human will has its seat in the spirit. The spirit is, in fact, the real you.
The Bible teaches us that words do little harm to the body, but they can deal a death-blow to one’s spirit! As the natives on the Solomon Islands have come to understand in reference to trees, so it is that sins of speech can kill the spirit of a person. Proverbs 15:4 confirms, “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.”
Some of you have heard me use the following illustration. I use it every so often in marriage counseling. As you can see, I have here a book. (Kick it, step on it, mark up its pages and then tear the book to pieces.) Does my treatment of the book say anything about the value that I place on it? Would you say that the book is one that I treasure? I love my Bibles. Do you think I love this book?
The answers to those questions are rather obvious, aren’t they?
Now let’s suppose that the book that I just mistreated had been a genuine Gutenberg Bible. According to the Luxist website, “there are countless rare books in the world, but by most experts’ standards the rarest of them all is the Gutenberg Bible.
It was the first book ever printed back in 1456, and although several hundred copies were originally printed finding a complete first edition would net you $25-$35 million. In today’s market single pages alone go for $25,000 each, and several years ago just 1 volume (it’s a 2 volume set) sold for $5.5 million.”
Now who in their right mind would treat a Gutenberg the way I just treated the other book? No one. A genuine Gutenberg would be handled carefully. Treasured. Guarded. What makes the difference? The value of the book. The worth that the owner sees in the book. The fact that it is rare, oh so rare.
Now judging from your words, how do you treat those around you? Your friends? Loved ones? Those one of a kind individuals in your life? Do you treat them as any old and worthless book; or do you treat him or her like a Gutenberg?
The Ninth Commandment helps us keep the tongue under control.
AS I CLOSE OUT THIS MESSAGE, I want to remind you of something that I have said in each of the messages that I have preached in this series. The Ten Commandments are meant to be taken as God’s love letter. He loves you. He cares for you. He doesn’t want anyone lying about you. He doesn’t want anyone committing verbal violence against you.
The commandments are in place in order to restrain evil conduct on the one hand and to provide peace of mind and comfort on the other. The Lord has gone on record saying that He wants to protect the lives of His people, the marriages of His people, the property of His people, as well as the good name and reputation of His people.
