Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 5, where you'll find the Ten Commandments? And look with me tonight at verse number 20, which is the ninth commandment. And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone always told the truth. I mean, in every situation, that thought is unpleasant.
That means the 55-year-old guy, 60-year-old like me, that gets a spike haircut and tries to act like he's 25, shows up at church and says, How do you like my new haircut? You'd have to say it's embarrassingly ridiculous. Or how come the only ones laughing were the young people down here? How many of you have this kind of haircut? And I can't see you because of lights. Or the middle-aged woman who wants to dress like her 18-year-old daughter and she says, How do you like my new outfit? This could be painful to answer that question. Tell her there's too many children and too many lattes down the road for her to be wearing something like that. Young man, ask a girl on a date, now that you won't be laughing at this one, hey, would you like to go out and she says, Oh no, you're quite homely, thank you, I've got that. The politician, the president, asked by these press people that go to press conferences to the most embarrassing and intrusive questions, would have to say, Yes, we intend to strike Al Qaeda in Tehran in 24 hours on a secret mission, but don't tell anybody. Telling the truth, all the truth, all the time, may not always be nice. In fact, one internet spoof about what if the world and the internet always told the truth, created a fake link. This is what it says. Confirm Christina as a friend. Christina would like to spam you for porn if you want a friend who will constantly send you links to the website that will give your computer deadly viruses than just click here.
What would happen if we always told the truth? And yet God commands us. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The question that is begged by that commandment is, is it always a sin to tell a lie? Is it always a sin to tell a lie? If during World War II, for example, someone was hiding a Jewish fugitive from Nazi troopers. Was it a sin to lie to the soldiers and say no, there are no Jewish people here. Or was it a sin if a doctor sees a person who is dying of cancer and she tells the patient, oh, you've got a 50-50 chance of making it. Because the patient is so depressed and yet the truth is, she doesn't believe the patient will last for six months. What would happen if we always told the truth? And is it always a sin to lie? Well, there honestly are three different responses to that question in theological and philosophical circles. The old philosopher Emanuel Kant who lived in the 1700s says that all lying is always wrong. Regardless of what the benefit to the lie is, the side effect of it or the motivation lying is always wrong because he said that human beings have a human dignity and essential worth. That is predicated upon the fact that there are moral beings and therefore they need information to make moral decisions. And when you lie to someone, you do two things that are bad. You impune your own character as a moral being and act out of conduct with what you believe to be the truth and therefore it impairs your ability to make the correct moral decision. And you manipulate and deny other people their information that they need to make moral choices in a rational and positive manner. So, Kant said that it was always a sin to lie. There's another view called the virtue ethics view. Virtue ethics is focused on the development of character or what people should be. Virtues, they say, are these desirable qualities of a person that predispose them to act in a certain manner all of the time. Fairness, for example, is a virtue that we may choose to strive towards in pursuit of fulfilling our human potential and our divine calling. And in virtue ethics to be virtuous is to be ethical and to have what they call a unity of the virtues, moving simultaneously towards all of these virtues at a higher level all the time. Which means that sometimes it may be necessary to throttle back on the virtue of truth in order to move forward in the virtue of, say, compassion or self-defense or military prowess. We may have to give false information, we may have to lie to our enemy to accomplish the greater good of our victory on the battlefield. The virtue ethos, frankly, are not able to answer the question of what is a virtuous lie because it is a self-contradictive statement, a virtuous lie. The third approach is the one that is most popular today. It's called utilitarian ethics or sometimes situational ethics. And it says that based upon the circumstances and the desired outcome, a lie can be determined to be good or bad. If a lie ends in the greater good for more people, then it was a good thing. But if a lie leads to the greater evil for most people, it's a bad thing. The situation ethosists will say, you really can't tell whether a lie is good or bad until the lie is done, it's been accomplished, it's over, and you measure the altruistic or noble outflow of that purposeful mistruth. Now, the danger is that the individual's subjective opinions about what is ultimately good, what is altruistic, what is noble becomes the standard for telling the truth or not, and there is no objective measurement of what is true and false. Time magazine, back in 1992 when Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush the senior and Ross Perot were campaigning for office for the presidency, wrote an article about lying everybody's doing it honest. They said the injunction against bearing false witness branded in stone and brought down by Moses from the mountaintop has always provoked ambivalent conflicting emotions. On the one hand nearly everyone condemns lying on the other hand nearly everyone lies and they lie every day. How many of the 10 commandments by the way can be broken so easily and consistently with so little risk of detection over the telephone. Hence the never ending paradox, some bedrock of honesty is fundamental to society, people cannot live together if no one is able to believe what anyone else is saying. But there also seems to be an honesty threshold, a point beyond which virtue turns mean and nasty, constantly hearing the truth, the cold, hard, brutal, unsparing truth from spouses, relatives, friends and colleagues is not a pleasant prospect. T.S. Alias once wrote, human kind cannot bear very much reality, so true telling makes it possible for people to coexist together and a little lying makes that coexistence much more tolerable. This 9th commandment brings us into a practical dilemma, more so I think than the other commandments. Because you and I can see situations where we really believe in our hearts that lying is the better thing to do than telling the truth. Saying Augustin classified lies into 8 categories. Now when they asked Mark Twain how many categories of lies are there he said jokingly, oh about 869. Augustin said no there are 8. And here are the 8 categories, lies of religious teaching with a heretical and they're always wrong because they're always destructive. Secondly lies that harm others and help no one. For example, Hitler's deception of the German people and the world during World War II. Thirdly lies that harm others but help some like sending false intelligence in time of war to hurt the enemy but help your own troops. Fourthly lies told for the pleasure of lying, fabricated stories that can become counterproductive and even pathological. Then there are lies to please others in smooth discourse. Don't you look stunning today when the person looks anything but that. Or lies that harm no one and help someone. Our speaker today is the foremost leading authority on the subject of such and such. It's what he's really not. But it helps him have some hearing and some kind of leverage with us as he speaks lies that harm no one but save someone's life like hiding a Christian from the KGB during the days of the Soviet Union. Lies that harm no one and save someone's purity. The young girl who's being bothered by a man in a restaurant or a bar. The single girl who says, I'm sorry, I have to leave. I have to go meet my husband. It's a lie but a protector from the harassment and danger of an aggressive single man. Augustin did note that there are jokeous lies, lies that we tell that are fabricated stories. They're ridiculously untrue and everybody knows that he did not consider that lying, but simply fun. And in today's discourse, we can take those lies and break them into four categories. White lies, little white lies. When I was just thinking about you the other day, when you weren't thinking about the person at all until you met them. Or utilitarian lies. I lost my term paper when my computer crashed. The truth is, you forgot to do it. But it serves your purpose to tell the teacher that the computer ate up your report. Or lies of manipulation. Trust me on this one. You buy this car and you'll never want to buy another one. How many lies have men in this congregation heard from car dealers like that? These are the ones by the way we fear the most. Lies that are purposefully manipulative to our disadvantage on someone else's gain. And then there's lies of selective information. The one that is probably the most manageable, most common most subtle. When we conveniently leave out part of the story, pass on a rumor, give a false impression in order to accommodate ourselves in some awkward situation. The fact of the matter is, we lie all the time. And we can't say that about any other commandment. We're not always sexually immoral. We're not always at every moment of our life idolaters. We're not always dishonoring our parents or authority. We're not always cheating and stealing. Not always being vitriolic and violent. No. In fact, the only thing I know in the Bible, where God makes a statement about all men, he says, all men are liars. He never says, all men are idol worshipers, all men are vain, all men are profane, all men are Sabbath breakers, dishonoring, murderers, letharists, immoral, cheating, stealing, manipulative, he says, all men are liars. And it's the hardest thing to face in our own souls that I am looking at a room full of liars and a big liar is looking back at you. So that this commandment becomes one we wrestle with the most. Because again, there are times when pushed to the brink where we feel compelled to lie. And yet we know what God says, Deuteronomy 5 verse 20, and you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. How do we deal with this? Well, we deal with it the way we deal with all the commandments. Each one of them has something to say about the character, the essence of God and his being, something about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and something about protecting ourselves through this truth. So what does this commandment say about God? Well, this commandment points to the veracity of God. When God says you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, he is rooting this commandment in his perfect nature just as he does the other nine commandments. John Calvin says, the purpose of this commandment is this. Since God who is true, a poor is a lie, we must practice truth without the seat towards one another. Calvin says the out working of this commandment begins in the character of God who is true and a poor is a lie. God always speaks the truth. He always acts honestly. He uses information, knowledge, facts, figures, truth for the good of other people, for his own glory and never to the harm of anyone. God possesses what we call intellectual attributes. Most of the time when we think about the attributes of God, we think about his moral attributes, his goodness, his love, his mercy, his faithfulness. But there are intellectual attributes. God's knowledge. He is omniscient. God's wisdom. He always applies information in a way that is to our good and God's veracity, his truth. It is veracity that gives rise to this particular commandment. God is true in a fourfold sense. He is true in the serves of metaphysical truth. God is truth. Just as God is love and God is holiness and God is life, the Bible says that God is truth. He is one who always acts truly, faithfully, consistently in ethical sense. He always knows the truth in his logical workings with mankind. It is always truthful or faithful in his relationships. Luis work off in his systematic theology says the veracity or truth of God is that perfection of God in his being by virtue of which he fully answers to the idea of God and is perfectly reliable in his revelation and sees things as they really are. It is because of this perfection that he is the source of all truth, not only in the sphere of morals and religion but also in every field of scientific endeavor. In other words, there is nothing false or fake, dishonest or manipulative or even foolishly incorrect or silly about God. He is the truth. In fact, in 1 John 5-6, John says that the Holy Spirit is truth. This is he who came by the water and the blood Jesus Christ, not only by the water but also by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies to this because the Spirit is truth. The third person of the Trinity is truth. So as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, John would go on to say, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true. In his Son Jesus Christ, he is true God and eternal life. Jesus Christ is true and he is true God. And John would say in his gospel, whoever receives this testimony sets his seal to this that God is true. God is true, the Son is true, the Spirit is true. I am the way, the truth and the life. This means that there is what we call perfect congruence in God. That's a word we don't usually use. We use it mainly in mathematics or in engineering. But congruence, listen loved ones, is the key to a more truthful life. When we say that God is congruent, we say that there is a perfect harmony, listen carefully, between what he in his nature is and what he in his actions does. God always acts the way he is. God is always just because God is the judge. God is always merciful because God is love and God is always reliable and truthful because God is truth. There is the major difference between the creator and the creature, the fallen man or woman. There is a lack of congruence in me. I am a Christian, a saint, but I often act like a pagan or a sinner. I don't always do what I say. In fact, I don't always say and do what I believe. There is an inconsistency, a lack of parallelism or congruence or harmony in my nature that is not true of God. And that congruence of God enables him to establish all of his truth based upon his own nature. Let me have you turn to Hebrews chapter 6. This is where the idea of congruence is explained in the scripture although that word is not used. Hebrews chapter 6 where the apostle is writing about how we can know that we are really going to go to heaven if we trust in Jesus Christ because he talks about the veracity of God and the congruence of his nature in truth. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 13 for when God made a promise to Abraham since he had no one greater by whom to swear he swore by himself saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes and oath is the final word for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the errors of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. Listen carefully. So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have fled for refuge, might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. By two unchangeable things, what unchangeable things? The congruence of God's nature, God is truth, and the congruence of God's promises or actions or words, his revelation. God swore by his own congruence. God said, if you can find any inconsistency in me, if you can find any instance where I promise you something and do not act towards that promise. If I act in the slightest way inconsistent with what I say or say something inconsistent with who I am, then you can't believe anything I say, but I swear by myself that in Jesus Christ you will be saved. What a marvelous truth. And it illustrates just how important these two unchangeable things are, God's perfectly truthful nature and God's reliable and infallible promises, God's character and God's words and actions, how important it is for us to have divine congruence. And this divine congruence makes itself most visible when truth is incarnate in a person named Jesus Christ. Here's where Jesus Christ enters into this command and into our struggles with the truth and falsehood. Jesus is the truth of God made flesh. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. There is a statement of congruence. God's Word and God's being in the same person Jesus Christ into beginning was the Word, God's promises. And the Word was with God and the Word was God, God's essence or nature or character. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as the only son from the Father full of grace and truth. John bore witness about Him and cried out, this was He of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me because He was before me. And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. For no one has ever seen God at any time. But the only God who is at the Father side, He has made Him known to us. That's the beginning of the Gospel of John where Jesus Christ is set forward as the Word, the truth, the veracity, the congruence of God in flesh, this veracity that can be seen by men. Jesus Himself makes an incredible statement. In fact, of all the statements that Jesus made, this is the one that gets Him in the most trouble and causes people to be most upset with Him. I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know Him because you have seen me, for whoever has seen me has seen the Father. If there is anywhere where Jesus Christ in an unashamed, unabashed way, states His divinity, it is here. The truth of Christ as the perfect revelation of God is the divine congruence of God made flesh. The truth of God is who Jesus is as a person. And the truth of God is what Jesus says and does as a person. How true is Jesus Christ? When we look at Jesus Christ, we see both the nature of the God we worship, in the nature of a man like us, and we see the will of Almighty God worked out in submissive obedience in a person like we are. Anything that Jesus says, anything Jesus does, however Jesus feels, who Jesus is, remain the perfectly true picture of God. Turn to Hebrews 1, where the author of this epistle that we just looked at is beginning to talk about the revelation of God at different times. And He begins with Jesus Christ. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom He also created the world. He's the irradiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purifications for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. This author of Hebrews says that Jesus is the last and perfectly true revelation of God. In these last days, God is only speaking through us on Jesus Christ in the Word. He is the radiance of God's glory. He is the exact imprint, or what the New American standard says, the perfect representation of God's nature. Jesus' words, the author of Hebrews says, are God's true words, and His atonement is true salvation from God. Paul verifies this fact by saying, for all the promises of God find their yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory. All the promises of God come true, are answered, are guaranteed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. His life on earth and now in heaven is one of speaking the truth, fulfilling God's true promises, displaying God's true nature, and accomplishing God's true work. One theologian said, truth is a matter of precision, and so it is, truth is precisely found in Jesus Christ who is precisely God, nothing more and nothing less. If we want to know how to tell the truth, if we want to see what it looks like, we'll see it in Jesus Christ represented in perfect divine form and in congruent human behavior. The kingpin of our religion is what I'm talking about, folks. If Jesus Christ is not who He says He is, if He lied about that. If Jesus Christ didn't mean what He said, He somehow gave us misinformation or led us astray, or if Jesus Christ was not able to do all the things He boasted that He would do. Then our lives are tragic, we will never know the true God, never, and we will never be saved ever, and we will never know any truth at all. But in Christ, as the scripture says, all things are true and amen. Because of that, we can make a stab at telling the truth, because the truth protects Christians from evil. First of all, we have to go back to something that I think we've lost in our age, and that is the truth defines who we are. We are as Christians, a people of the book. This is what makes us different from other religions and even from other people that claim to be Christians, but are not gospel people, that we are people who abide in this truth. Our worship services are different from the majority of people around the world, even the majority of people who would bear the name of Christian. And although they may seem boring to us at times, they will change our lives more than a rote and repetitious liturgy that is ancient and somehow mystical, but never deals with the living reality of God's word and God's people in God's world. We are to work hard at the congruence of the truth we know, and of the truth of our character, and of the truth of our actions. We call it integrity. And if we had the time, we could look at Ephesians chapter 4 tonight. Paul is talking about the church, talking about the truth, and talking about speaking the truth in love and growing in the truth and being shaped by the truth. And he says, therefore, having put away all falsehood, let us each one of us speak truth in his heart and do his neighbor for we are members of one another. I fear that we are drifting in evangelicalism slowly but surely into a very socially acceptable false religion. I'm not saying we're there yet, but I'm saying we're headed that way. We're feelings are more important than truth. We're seeking our own will rather than doing what God wills is the order of the day where we are ignorant of Scripture and comfortable with that especially when that Scripture brushes up against our pet sins. We are increasingly in evangelicalism in America less and less the people of a book and more and more the people of an experience. And it shows in all the ways we deal with one another in the church. And I must say to you brothers and sisters, as a matter of prayer and as a matter of searching your own consciences and of living cauldron day before the face of God with congruence that we in the past written more so than when I began in the ministry some 25 years ago. We are people who lie in counseling more than ever. People who disregard church vows more than ever. People who brush aside the scriptures when it becomes inconvenient to obey it. People with a disdain for the churches authority and doctrines pastors stepping into people's lives a low view of the ministry of truth. I had lunch with my dear friend Dean Faulkner this past week and Dean was saying that he had a pretty rough summer and that lunch he said you know after dealing with all of these divorces and all of these immorality issues and all of these troubling things in his congregation these inconsistencies between what they profess and how they live. Dean said where did all of this come from in my only answer was Dean we live in a society of lies where relativism have robbed us of the glue called truth that holds society together. You realize that my friends not saying this in a way to censor you are be scolding but truth is what holds society together truth is what makes all these relationships work. Do you know listen do you know why people who sleep together before they're married have twice the divorce rate that people who marry as virgins have. It's more obvious than you think when they're young people and they're dating and they're establishing a relationship and building a life that's supposed to last forever that relationship has to be built upon trust or it just isn't going to make it trust is built upon what truth. But when you're fordicating when you're living together you're lying to your parents you're lying to your friends you're lying to god and to the church and to the pastors you're lying to yourselves you're even manipulating one another you're using each other and the lack of truth in that relationship will not allow that relationship to bear the reality of life why is business why is our economy in such a collapse because we just decided not to tell the truth about interstrates and where your mortgages were invested and how much you really could afford four or five years from the time you signed the note and I could go on and give one illustration after another how American society life in the church and life in the home is absolutely collapsing because we will not tell the truth we pay fast and loose with integrity. In that same article that time magazine that article called lies lies lies the author said lies flourish in a social uncertainty when people no longer understand or agree upon the rules governing their behavior towards one another during such periods skepticism also increases. There will be a perception that more people are lying whether or not they actually are that seems to be what is happening now campaigns now consist of offending as few people as possible so that the possibilities for mischief and misunderstanding are endless politicians know they are widely perceived as liars voter say they want the truth but when they get the truth and hear it they get angry. Furthermore the prolonged recession is created endemic anxieties if survival seems to hang upon getting an edge cutting a corner telling a lie then many otherwise moral people who would never lie will choose to survive by being dishonest the economy will of course improve but the hangover from the recession may stick around the impression that doing business and earning a living is a con game with rewards going on. To the clever and the unscrupulous finally a phenomenon has become so pervasive that is almost unnoticed everyone seems to be incredibly nosy the presses part of this problem particularly the aggressive new tabloid and infotainment TV shows but reporters would not yell intrusive questions into the faces of private people if they did not know that their viewers really didn't care about the truth we must begin folks become a people of the book people of truth where truth is more important to us than anything because the master said the truth will set you free. Let me give you five ways that you can guard the truth by the way if we had time tonight I would read as I have on on every sermon what the Westminster larger catechism says about the ninth commandment we don't have time because it is the longest of all of the answers in the catechism about the ten commandments when you read the thing it's jaw dropping all the ways that we are able to violate the truth. So I couldn't cover them all not even all the strategic ones but I will mention five that are very common in our life together that we need to address some of them I've addressed before most of the time when I've addressed them they made you angry so I'll stay behind the pulpit at this point and talk about what you listen to on the radio watch on television and what blog sites you go to talk show host blog sites internet gurus and other social commentators have a shock job mentality where truth is less important than sensationalism they would rather tell a lie and have a big audience than tell the truth that is boring and lose their hearers and I want to tell you that that's dangerous because the more that sludge goes in the more that sludge will come out sludge in sludge out Jesus said the mouse speaks of that which fills the heart and what is filling the heart of most Americans is this sensationalism this silly preoccupation with something that is titillating rather than something that is in the heart that is true. Second, how we use email we would never say some of the things that we do say on our email correspondence if we were not people who lacked a congruence about truth in our own souls and when we become disappointed and we say things like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me these pastors here care more about their own egos than Jesus Christ this church is abusive it cares more about its procedures and its rules and regulations than it does the souls of mankind all direct statements your pastors have heard from this congregation this summer because they were disappointed you need to ask yourself this question before I send that email to that defenseless person on the other end am I willing to take what I say in that email stand before God and give testimony against the other person the God of all truth and justice would you be willing to stand before Jesus Christ face to face with the other person present and say before him the things you put in your email if you don't want to do that please don't send it I don't know how much more I can say this loved ones it's hurting your pastors it's hurting us it's doing us a grave injustice and if you're doing that to us only God knows what you're sending to each other practice the 48 hour rule before event pray for two days if it's true the truth will abide and then bounce it off two people who are objective and godly and know you well and then never say in an email what you could say to someone face to face or on the telephone listen I'm telling you I practice what I preach I got an email from a brother of somebody in another state about three weeks ago a four-page email telling us how evil we were because we did X Y and Z none of those things we'd done so I sat down and I wrote him a four-page email it was so hot they had to turn to air conditioning up in the office then I sent it to Chris Decker and I sent it to Bernie Lawrence that four pages came back some what reduced by about 80% and both of them said you know better not to send this so three weeks after I received his email I sent him a two paragraph email that says I'm sorry for your disappointment but I don't think you've received all the information we did X we did Y we did Z and the reasons we did it were because we thought that's what the situation needed I suggest you go back to your sister and ask her if whether or not this email I'm sending you is true three learn to practice Proverbs 18 17 you know what that is turn to it Proverbs 18 17 I touched upon this briefly last week it has a lot to do with our dealings with people in the area of stealing and cheating but it has more to do with bearing a false testimony against someone Proverbs 18 17 the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him here's how the new American standard brensers it the first to plead his case always seems right until another party comes and examines him you know the easiest way to bear false witness is to believe whatever the first person tells you without checking with the second person now let me ask you a question I want you to raise your hands I want everybody to raise their hand and I'm going to keep asking this question till everybody raises their hand okay how many of you believe that you should always hear both sides of the story before you make a moral decision raise your hand you two people don't believe you should yes you do believe that okay how come then you don't do that when your child run home and says the teacher was unfair to me she's a bad teacher she doesn't like me and she gave me a low grade because she's abusive why do you always pick up the phone and go with the teacher when when the the word of a 10-year-old supersede a teacher with 20 years experience when did that happen because my parents never bought it I tried it all the time but those nuns always won why is it when your sister is upset with the church the church is an abusive place why is it when your spouse comes home and tells you what a jerk the boss is you never go find out what he's really like it's easy for you to take the boss to lunch just to get to know what the jerk is like how come it is that when your girlfriend talks against another woman you'll always believe here until you date the other woman who's talking about your girlfriend and you're able to live with these inconsistencies and that is so legion in our community that is sad the Bible says that Jesus would not entrust himself to anyone for he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man you'll never find Jesus Christ listening to only one side of the story God does not break that way neither should the children of God fourthly very quickly avoid gossip even when it seems pious you know gossip is more dangerous than slander because slander is when we know we're telling something untrue about another person we're just making it up but gossip is when it's true they really did do those things but what makes it a sin is other people don't need to know it there's not a need to no basis here and we drop that little thing oh have you heard about so and so I just heard you know you're doing that to bear a false witness to pass on a report that may technically be true but really in its motive is to damage another person's character and the proof of that is you never gossip about the people you love only the people who you don't like Proverbs 18 says the words of a whisper are like delicious morsels they go down into the innermost parts of the soul Proverbs 26 verse 22 says the words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels they go down into the innermost parts of the soul two times God warns us about the words of a whisper they are delicious morsels people love gossip they love it that's what the soap operas are all about that's why they're so popular but they go down and ruin this whole and finally this may be the hardest one to accept tonight but folks we have become as evangelical Christians a very sensorious type of people we bear false witness all the time when we go on which hunts against people we don't agree with it again happens often time on the internet you go to a blog site somebody said something about somebody else some author some politician some pastor some speaker and you you know that it's gossip you know that it's landers you know it's a sin when the blogger says now so and so said such and such and this implies and the fact is you don't know what he's implying until you ask him and what makes it so despicable is the internet makes it so easy to contact people today a few years ago when I first came here someone passed on a bad report to me about David F. Wells a fine godly reformed professor of systematic theology at Gordon Conwell Seminary I couldn't believe what they said I didn't read about this in his books I heard him speak one time I didn't hear him say this I didn't think he'd believe these things so you know what I did I simply went with all my vast technological skills on the computer and I googled in David F. Wells and up came a site that gave me his email and I said doctor Wells I recently heard such and such tell me if this is true he wrote me back to page response saying that is not true I never spoke at that place I've never said those things I'm not associated with those people and I don't know where they got that information would you please pass on my response to them why don't we do that more often why is it that rash judgments that we usually credit to the media have all of the sudden become common in our spiritual lives we live in an age that is afforded by our computer technology we are the people in all of human history so far that have the easiest time of verifying a report it is easier for us to find out the truth by asking the source of the rumor or the object of the slander for clarification and when we pass on something even under the guise of piety we're trying to be truly reformed we have the gift of discernment we're a champion for truth come on we're not at all if we're passing on unchecked out information we're passing on a false testimony you shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor especially another professing Christian those are five ways that we deal with information with reports that are flowing through with Facebook and blog sites in the internet which makes it all the easier to play fast and loose with truth and I want to mention one more thing before we end this subject and that is simply this God gives us permission not to answer every question that's asked us you ever noticed that about Jesus Christ sometimes he was asked questions and he just didn't answer and his book on ethics, Dietrich Bonhover tells the painful story of a little boy in elementary school in Germany where the teacher asked him in front of the class does your father come home drunk every night a seven-year-old boy against an adult male ask that question in front of his classmates to which the little boy simply hung his head that is an inappropriate question that is taking information and bullying someone else with it that little boy did not have the presence of mind to say sir you have put me in a difficult situation you have asked the question that is private that you should ask my father if you were a man and that pits me between two difficult commandments honor your father and mother and do not bear false testimony I know more want to answer that question I will not answer that question and you should never ask me those things again sometimes people ask you things they shouldn't and the beginning of the lie starts with the question you have permission to say to people I think that's an inappropriate question and I will not answer it because telling the truth helps people paying fast and loose with the truth is very harmful not only to seven-year-old boys but to their struggling fathers their wounded mothers and the community in which they live may God give us the moral courage and congruence to tell the truth is it always a sin to lie I don't know the church has taken the view of Saint Augustine that it is always a sin to lie even in times of war even to protect Jews from Nazis even to relieve someone from pain and despair sometimes the lie may be the lesser of two evils but we should always strive to tell the truth to play tight with the truth and be compassionate to people and when that's not possible God will give us grace and someday someday soon I hope we'll live in a world where we never have to worry about not telling the truth until that time hear the Apostle Paul let no corrupting talk proceed out of your mouth but only such a word that is good for the occasion and is edifying that it may give grace to those who hear before you speak send the email forward the blog site pass on information ask yourself will this give grace to those who hear if it doesn't just don't say anything amen father this is a tough thing for us because you're right we are by nature liars we are people who out of fear out of self promotion out of unbelief out of indignitous and anger we we don't play faithful and consistent with the truth but fast and loose with it and we as Christians unfortunately in this world in which we dwell in America we are just as prone to misuse the truth and pass on false information and lie to people as the people of the world and yet that is the sterling character of our most holy religion that we are people who know the one who is the way and the truth in the life that we have the truth of the gospel and of word the truth of your promises and it's this truth that sets people free your son once said to us in our unconverted state that we were of our father the devil who is a liar and a destroyer from the beginning but any promised us that if we came to him and abide it in his word that we would know the truth and this truth would indeed set us free free from an inconsistent life a bearing false testimony free to abide in the truth and to take its comfort and course in our life to its blessed end help us in those difficult situations where lying seems to be inescapable help us find some truth when creative honest way to not answer those questions to avoid those situations and to not respond in a way that would be inappropriate when we come to the point where we feel we must lie for the greater good then forgive us for that sin and see in our souls that we are trying to do what is the better thing and because of our fallible and weak natures we know no other option than the incorrect and insufficient one that is open before us do a work of grace in our life so that we are more on the word and less with people so that we listen more and speak less we pray more we read more we spend less time before television and radio and internet so that the truth that goes into our hearts will naturally reflect and rebound out of our souls and through our lips let us be a blessing of people who give grace to those who hear us in all of our situations in life and all of this we ask for our good and for your glory for the pleasures of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray amen