Ten(der) Command #9: Be Very, Very Careful What You Say About People

And God says, don't go that way, go this way.

So these ten tender words we've been looking at.

We're coming close to the end.

This morning we're going to look at actually a very simple one.

Most of them, frankly, are very simple.

They're simple to hear, they're just not so simple to do.

So we read in Exodus chapter 20, verse 16: you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

You shall not fail to speak the truth about one another or to one another.

I'd like to ask you to turn as well to James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

We're also going to be looking at some very important principles about truth-telling as it relates to our tongue from James chapter 3 that is intimately tied to this ninth commandment.

James 3 · chapter mention

So I just want to read at this point, verses 1 through 12.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brother, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

That's a very specific command.

And he broadens that out.

And he says, For we all stumble in many ways.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, you hear that?

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, and that's not just for me standing up here or a Sunday school teacher with a group of kids, that's for all of us.

We all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man able to bridle his whole body.

We'll look at some of the rest of that, but the point of all of this is be very, very careful what you say.

And be very, very careful what you say about people.

Can anybody in here relate to that?

I can.

How we use our tongue, how we speak.

Do we speak truth?

Do we speak truth in general?

Do we are we careful?

Very careful what we say, and especially what we say about people.

That's what I hope you will walk away with this morning.

I hope I can walk away without having to twitch my ear and adjust my microphone too many more times.

Alright, there's really three ways we could look at the passage.

We're going to touch briefly on the first, the specific context here is truth-telling in a court of law.

If you read this in its context, that's primarily what this particular commandment is referring to.

There's an underlying issue that we also want to examine, and that is truth and truth-telling in general.

But the very interesting thing is the way the Bible primarily picks up this theme and uses it and draws back to the ninth commandment for its underlying source is the use of your tongue.

And basically says, bite your tongue, bridle your tongue.

And when God tells you to bite your tongue, put your teeth in it.

Put your teeth in it.

Be very, very, very careful what we say about people.

So let's look briefly at the specific context, the matter of uh truth, truthfulness in a court of law.

This is the narrowest sense in which our Exodus passage, uh the narrowest context for this.

Perjury, perjury, lying under oath, giving a false witness in a court of law, perjury.

That's in its narrowest sense what this command is all about.

It was a problem in the days of Israel, and it's a problem in our day as well.

There's a couple of passages we could look at.

I just want to point to Exodus chapter 23, and uh just a couple of chapters over, uh, verses uh one and two and six and seven, you shall not spread a false report.

Exodus 23 · chapter mention

And you might think that's a very general statement, and it is, and it applies generally, but it goes on.

You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

A malicious witness, to knowingly not speak the truth in a court of law, maliciously, with malice of forethought.

Don't do that.

Be a truth teller in a court of law.

If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no blood guilt for him.

Uh sorry, I just skipped to the previous chapter there.

You shall, verse two, you shall not fall in with the many who do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit along with many, so as to pervert justice.

No perjury, truth speaking in a court of law.

It's a very big deal.

Verse 6, chapter 23.

You shall not pervert justice due to the poor in his lawsuit.

Just because someone is disadvantaged and in this case impoverished, then don't take advantage of them, particularly in a court of law.

Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent with the righteous.

And this is all talking about in a court of law, for I will not acquit the wicked.

And there's many other places we could go in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Truth telling in a court of law.

This is a big deal because God is a God of truth and God is a God of justice.

We in our evangelical subculture are far more concerned about other kinds of ills than we are social justice.

Why have we given over to the liberals the concern about social justice?

All you have to do is read the prophets, read your Bible, read the Old Testament, read the New Testament, and we ought to be moved to compassion and to action with social ills in our society.

These are big deals because God is a God of truth and a God of law and a God of law and order.

And when justice is perverted in the courts, it is not a laughing matter.

Now, I have a son who is a lawyer, and uh he learned all of the lawyer jokes.

Um why is it that we have lawyer jokes?

Because it's so easy for justice to be perverted.

And it's so easy in a court of law to be more concerned about winning than telling the truth.

Uh a man, a university committee was selecting a new dean.

They narrowed the candidates down to a mathematician, an economist, and a lawyer.

Each was asked this question during the interview: How much is two plus two?

The mathematician answered immediately, four.

The economist thought several minutes and finally answered, four, plus or minus one.

The lawyer stood up, peered around the room, and motioned silently for the committee members to get close to him, and in a hushed conspiratorial tone, he replied, How much do you want it to be?

And sometimes we have the impression that our legal system is broken, and perhaps rightly so.

But if we're more concerned with winning the case or us coming out looking good or whatever, we are far from the matter of telling the truth in general or in a court of law.

There's a lot more that could be said about this narrow context of truthfulness in a court of law.

I want to spend a little bit more time talking about this underlying issue of truth and truth-telling in general.

And then I want us to spend some time talking about bridling our tongue and telling the truth as we talk about people.

Um have you perhaps turned to Proverbs chapter 6?

Proverbs 6 · chapter mention

Proverbs 6 is a very interesting passage in part because it reminds us that there are some things that God hates.

We're so focused on God being a God of love, and he is a God of love, but there are some things that a God of love hates because he's holy and righteous and truly loving.

It is not loving to play fast and free with the truth or fast and free with justice.

And God is a God who hates some things.

Now, there are some things that you hate, there's some things that I hate.

The question is, do we hate the same things that God hates?

And it would be worthwhile to spend some time this week in Proverbs chapter 6, verses 16 and following, to remind ourselves of things that God hates.

Proverbs 6:16

And to ask ourselves, do we hate those?

Or do we perhaps do some of them?

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

And when the in in Hebrew, when they say there's six or seven, it's not really a numeric term.

That's a cue to say there's a there's a number of things.

There's more things than this, but here are six or seven things that God hates.

They're an abomination.

Haughty eyes, that's arrogance and pride.

A lying tongue, our subject today, and hands that shed innocent blood.

Hmm.

Seems to me we talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

Things that uh the Ten Commandments are all about.

A heart that desires, devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

Now, if you focus, if you think, maybe take some time this afternoon or this week to look at that, of the things that God hates, two out of the six that are mentioned, that's 30%, or two out of the seven, that's 28%, have to do with lying tongues, have to do with false witness.

If you look at the Ten Commandments, a misrepresentation of truth is not only what the ninth commandment is all about, it's what the second commandment is all about.

No idols, don't make for yourself idols.

Idols an untruthful representation of God, a false representation of God, whether a carved stone or simply creating in our minds a God that we want to be instead of the God that is.

It's a misrepresentation of the person of God.

So 20% of the Ten Commandments, 28% of the things that God hates, according to Proverbs, have to do with truthfulness.

Truthfulness.

In this connection, the Psalm of David.

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent, who shall dwell in your holy hill?

And in the context of the nation Israel, in the context of the Psalms, the question is, what that is really saying, who shall sojourn in your tent and dwell in your holy hill?

It's really a question of who can be close to God, who can approach God?

And it says, he who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth with his heart, speaks truth in his heart, does not slander with his tongue, does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against a friend, in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out money at interest, does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be moved.

Now we cannot do these things on our own strength.

This is not a psalm that's intended to get us to kind of screw up our best efforts.

It's a kind of a psalm that shows us the utter impossibility without the cross, without Christ, without a transformation of our heart to do these things.

But among these things are truth-telling and speaking truthfully to one another.

It is an outworking, it is an indicator of spiritual life to true, uh to tell truth.

It is an expression, an outworking of new life in Christ.

I won't take time to look up that passage and read it, but that's talking about when God is at work in our lives and we have new life, we give up the old ways because God gives us a new set of desires, a new set of instincts, and among those are speaking truth to one another.

Speaking truth to one another is an outworking, if it really comes from our heart, it's an outworking ultimately of God working in our lives.

It's a part of new life in Christ.

It's very interesting that God himself, uh, one of the terms describing God in Titus 1 verse 2 is God who never lies.

Titus 1:2

God never lies.

God never lies.

What God says is true.

He is the way, the truth, and the life.

What he said is true because he is a God whose character is truth-telling.

We might as well consider that one of the names of God, the never lying one.

That's kind of the way it's portrayed to us in Titus.

It's very interesting that the opposite is true of our enemy.

We read in John chapter 8, verse 44, that he is a liar and the source of lies.

John 8:44

And it says, when he lies, he speaks out of his own character.

God speaks truth because that's who God is.

That's an expression of his character.

Our enemy is a liar from the beginning, and when he lies, he speaks from his own nature.

One of the writers said when he lies, he's speaking his native tongue.

That's why he lies, because he is a liar.

What language are we speaking?

Are we speaking our native tongue?

We have a new language, a new tongue.

We have a new heart.

And our words need to come from within and come from that new nature.

What language do we speak?

Do we speak truth?

There's a whole lot more we could say about this.

But I do want to make a comment here.

If you're listening to this, you are perhaps, and I know you're here, I just don't know if you're listening to this.

But um, if if we think this through, we're likely to say, well, duh, duh.

Of course, truth telling is extremely important.

We we believe that.

However, I just want to I want to challenge you with some things to avoid a simplistic approach to telling the truth, as though it goes without saying, and we always know how to tell the truth.

I don't know if you're going to uh to have dinner this afternoon.

I suspect most of you will.

I don't know if you'll have it with your family, I don't know if you'll go out to a restaurant with somebody else, or maybe you'll just uh uh stop at Quisnos or something and grab something and watch a football game.

But instead of just talking about the weather, or instead of watching the game, you can you can put that off a little bit.

I would encourage you to talk about a couple of things.

Parents, talk with your kids about it.

Um adults, talk with the others that are around you, young people, interact a little bit.

I want to ask two questions.

First of all, is it always wrong to lie?

Is it always wrong to lie?

And before you say glibly, of course, I want you to consider a couple of things.

First of all, uh a real life example, and then a biblical example.

When we say it that way, it almost makes it sound like the Bible is not real life.

But um, you know the story of Cori Tinboom.

Actually, Cori Tinboom, if you're uh Dutch speaking.

Uh Lowell, uh uh no, it was uh Scott, shared a couple weeks ago in Sunday school class a little bit about her uh her father.

Fascinating.

Cori Tinboom, uh, as recorded in uh The Hiding Place, uh, during the German occupation of Holland, lived in Harlem, where um their her father's watch shop was in effect part of an underground railroad.

And it was a time in which the Jews, and this was in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood, were being carted off by the Nazis.

And at a given point in time, the Nazis required that everyone would turn in their radios.

And there was significance for this because in the German occupation, the radios were used by the resistance to send coded messages to the citizens, to the uh the patriots, about what was going on, and particularly through coded messages where people could uh take Jews that they were trying to hide.

And so Corey went in, and Corey possessed two radios, and she took a radio in.

The officials asked her to turn in her radio, and she went in and she turned it in and she said, There it is.

And then the official asked her, Do you have any other radios?

And she had two.

Her answer was no.

And it was a lie, but to have told the truth would have jeopardized a good number of Jewish lies.

And in that moment of time, she chose intentionally to lie.

Was that right?

Or was that wrong?

I'm not going to answer the question.

I would say just don't pretend that it's a simple matter.

Okay?

And maybe you ought to talk about that.

And parents, if you talk with your kids about that over lunch, don't be too quick to tell them what you think the answer is.

The question is, are they wrestling as well with these kinds of things?

Or another example, this one is a biblical example from Exodus chapter 1, uh, about the Hebrew midwives who had been instructed by Pharaoh to kill all of the baby boys.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

The text says, the midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do.

And then a little bit later, they were summoned before the king and specifically asked what they were doing, and they lied about it.

And the text then explicitly says, so God was kind to the midwives, and the people increased and became even more numerous, and because this is quote, because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

And in the context, their fear in God was lying when it came to.

Killing or not killing in an inappropriate way.

Is it always wrong to tell the truth?

Again, I'm not going to try to answer that.

We could spend another whole message on that.

What I just want you to say is, you know, we're talking about tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.

And the reality is it's not always so simple and so black and white.

So when we emphasize what God says, let's emphasize all that God says.

And the fact of the matter is, sometimes in a broken, fallen world, we're so far away from the way things ought to be that we're not sure how to move forward in a godly way.

A second question worth chewing on is just how honest do you have to be?

Just how honest do you have to be?

I came across something that I just couldn't resist.

Let me just read it.

For example, and this is the question, just how honest do you have to be?

If someone were to ask, do you like this couch?

Do you like this couch?

Your response may be influenced by whether you are out shopping with a friend who is buying the couch or whether it is already in your friend's living room.

If you are out shopping and your friend is considering buying the couch, you might not want to say that is the most hideous couch I have ever seen.

It is even appropriately, entirely appropriate, to say it doesn't do anything for me.

That's true.

But how truthful do you have to be?

Or you could say that's not quite my style.

On the other hand, if your friend has already purchased a couch and it is sitting in her living room, while your aesthetic equilibrium might be reeling, it is perfectly acceptable to say it matches the room perfectly.

And that may say as much about the room as anything else.

Or you might say, it's very nice.

There must be something nice about it.

Maybe it's the uh the fluffy pillows or the pattern or something like that.

In other words, you can always find something nice to say as an alternative to giving a negative, insulting, or hurtful answer.

Just how truthful do we have to be?

I think that would be a great uh discussion question uh over lunch uh today.

Uh let me give you one thought that one thing I've learned uh about that.

Umy requires that everything we say is truthful, but we are not required, unless we're put under oath about it, to say everything that is truthful.

We must always speak the truth.

But there are things that are true that may not be necessary or right or helpful to say in a given moment.

And sometimes we think we just always have to say everything there is to say that's true, and sometimes we bring people into harm or we expose them to things that are not helpful for them, and it is not a lie, it's not necessarily a lie to not say everything that is true, but everything we say needs to be true.

All I'm really saying is it is not as simple as we might think it is.

I want to move then finally on to the the primary application of, I believe, the Ninth Commandment and certainly of the New Testament passages that reach back to it.

This has to do with gossip that destroys friendships or churches, gossip that defames character, malicious talk that harms other people, whispering and innuendo that undermines people's confidence and views of other people and damages reputations, slander that shakes communities, how do we use our tongue?

And all of these things that I just mentioned malicious talk, whispering in innuendo, gossip, slander, etc., etc., etc., are not only problems out there, there are problems in here.

I've only been here three months.

There are problems in here, but there are also problems in here.

All right?

So don't just look around to other people on the outside as we're talking about the danger of our tongue.

Look in and look in.

All right?

This is not a theoretical problem.

Uh we we turn to the to the James 3 passage.

Um we're going to be actually working through the book of James when I finish with the Ten Commandments, and we will spend significant time on James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

Um but again he says, we stumble in many ways, and if anyone is never at fault with what he says, he is a perfect man able to hold his whole body in check.

And he uses the illustration of a horse and the bit of a horse that controls the horse by controlling its mouth.

Or the illustration of a rudder, small thing that directs a large and powerful thing.

And what he says in verse 8 of James chapter 3 is very clear.

James 3 · chapter mention

No human being can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.

Almost every time we open our mouths, we get it wrong.

Okay?

And we cannot tame the tongue in our own strength.

No man can control his tongue perfectly.

And I'm speaking gender neutral here, as though women can and men can't.

It's not what we're saying.

Mankind, fallen mankind, without the power of God transforming our hearts, and that transformation working its way up to the title of the tongue, without God doing that, we don't have much hope.

So as um James chapter 3 clearly says, bridle your tongue, slander, gossip, whispering, innuendo, idol, and malicious talk.

James 3 · chapter mention

Have you ever caught yourself saying, Did you hear?

Do you know?

Did you hear?

Have you heard what's going on over there?

Have you ever, can you ever imagine yourself saying something like that?

What I would say is before you say that, stop and think.

Do they really need to know?

Do they really need to hear do they need to know that from your lying tongue?

Sorry.

Do they need to hear that?

Is this helping them?

Does this edify?

And when we catch ourselves saying, Do you know?

And you have a pretty good idea in your own heart where that's going and why you're saying that, bite your tongue.

Just as simple as that.

Or now this is terrible.

I find myself saying this.

Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but well, if you probably shouldn't say it, don't say it.

It's pretty simple.

So if you catch yourself saying, no, I probably shouldn't say this, then maybe you can train your wife, if you can't train yourself, to say, Walt.

Stop.

If you even think you shouldn't say it, then maybe you shouldn't say it.

We were out walking yesterday, and we were talking about somebody, and I started down a path, and she looked at me and she said, What are you going to be preaching on tomorrow?

I love my wife.

Or, we need to pray for this person because, now there's all kinds of reasons.

We may need to pray for people, but there is so much harm that is done by sharing prayer requests about another person.

Share prayer requests about your own need, not about your perception of someone else's need.

We have a prayer chain that goes out, uh, emails.

Those should be emails that are the the person who has the need and has the prayer request ought to share it.

Be very careful about sharing someone else's prayer request.

Much harm has been done by prayer requests.

It can be a subtle form of voyeurism.

Or I can't believe what I just heard.

Well, if you can't believe what you just heard, don't repeat it.

Stop and what you're saying with something like that and think about it.

Or I don't want to be negative, but well, if you're even afraid of being negative, bite your tongue.

I had a uh a friend, a friend of Jane and mine, uh, a woman a number of years ago, who um I was talking with her, a wonderful, godly uh woman, and she got talking and she got talking about people, and the conversation started to go over here, and I could tell where it was going, and she could tell where it was going.

It was so beautiful to watch.

She stopped and she said half under her breath, put a muzzle on it.

Speaking to herself, put a muzzle on it.

There is a woman who is seeking to learn how to bite her tongue.

And when God wants you to bite your tongue, put your teeth in it.

Okay?

Um, I want to share um a thought.

A middle-aged pastor in a small farming community in the Midwest had been falsely accused.

Thankfully, this is not written about me.

Not about this community.

It was a vicious, scandalous story, and it swept through the town like prairie fire.

Have you heard about the pastor?

Can you believe it?

He ought to leave town.

You'd never think such a thing to look at him, would you?

Guess he has a lot of us fooled his poor wife.

And you can just fill in the blank.

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 believed every word and were now reluctant to revise their opinions.

After all, there must be some truth to 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 that they had known the rumor to be false all along, and they asked they asked the offended man for forgiveness.

Of course I will forgive you, he replied somewhat gravely.

But could you do something for me?

Something that might seem a little strange at first.

Relieved that the pastor was willing to forgive them, they said, although they were a little confused about what he might be asking, uh, they agreed.

All right, he said, here is my request.

I would like you to go home and butcher one of your chickens and pluck out all the feathers and put the feathers in a bag.

Could you do that for me?

Now they were really confused.

They nodded yes, they certainly could do that.

But is this man asking for a chicken?

Next the pastor went on, I'd like you to go throughout the town and at each corner scatter a few of the feathers at this corner and at that.

And then climb to the top of the old city water tower, you know, the one by the feed score, and scatter the rest of them to the wind.

Could you do those things?

Mystified at this point, they nodded in the affirmative.

Fine, he said, just fine.

The couple stood up to leave, but as they reached the door, he he he called out to them, oh yes, kind of shades of Columbo.

Oh yes, just one more thing.

Oh yes, there's one more thing.

Please, after you finish scattering all of the feathers, I'd just like to ask you to go back through town and gather them up again, okay?

Make sure that you pick up every one that 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 are 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 wind will have blown them all over three counties by now.

The pastor did not say a word.

He just looked at them.

And slowly the truth of the word picture began to dawn on the couple.

They hung their heads in shame.

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.

Be very, very careful what you say.

Be very, very careful what you say about people.

When you say to or about anyone something that God would not say, bite your tongue and put your teeth in it.

Whenever God may even remotely be saying to you, bite your tongue, bite your tongue and put your teeth in it.

Bridle your tongue.

Bridle your tongue.

I want to close with a prayer as a response.

I'm going to ask you in just a moment to uh to stand up and I'm going to read the prayer out loud.

I want you, if you feel so led, uh, if it speaks to you, to pray it silently when I pray it out loud.

Let me uh let me just let me read it to you first.

Lord, you know how I struggle with my tongue.

I want to control it, and I know you want me to, but I am weak and I've not been successful in my own strength.

So if my tongue is to come under control, then you must help it.

Help me with it.

Father, Heavenly Father, I confess my sin.

Holy Spirit, I ask you to change me from within and to help me bridle my tongue.

Lord Jesus, let me honor you in all I say.

Amen.

I'd like to ask you to stand.

And if this is something that reflects your heart, then silently, as I say it once again out loud, silently repeat it with me if you would, please.

Let's pray.

And you can look at that prayer while you're praying.

You don't have to have your eyes closed.

Don't tell your kids that, but Lord, you know how I struggle with the use of my tongue.

I want to control it.

And I know you want me to, but I am weak and have not been successful in my own strength.

So if my tongue is to come under control, then you must help me with it.

Heavenly Father, I confess my sin.

Holy Spirit, I ask you to change me from within and help me to bridle my tongue.

Lord Jesus, help me honor you in all that I say.

Amen.

I invite you to turn in your hymn to hymn number one as we conclude our time together and sing Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee.

Hymn number one, let's close by singing together this great and wonderful song, Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee.

Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.

Have courage, hold on to what is good, and honor all men.

Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, and share the gospel.

Love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit, and may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.

God bless.

And amen.