RULES FOR THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS
Dr. JIM DIXON
EXODUS 20: 1-17
JULY 7, 2002
One of the most incredible stories in all of the Bible is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Their story is told in the book of Acts, the 5th chapter, verses 1-11. We really know very little about Ananias and Sapphira. We do not know where they were born. We do not know how they fell in love. We do not know how they came to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. We do know that they were members of the Jerusalem church in the First century A.O. We know that the name Ananias is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Hananiah” which means “God is gracious.” We know that the name Sapphira is the Greek form of a Hebrew word meaning “beautiful.” Perhaps Sapphira was beautiful, and certainly God is gracious. But we really don’t see the grace of God in the story of Ananias and Sapphira. What we see in their story is the wrath of God. We see the wrath of God and the judgement of God.
To understand the story of Ananias and Sapphira, we need to understand that in the First century, around the year 40 A.O., the church at Jerusalem was deeply committed to Christ and to each other. The Holy Spirit had come upon that church with great power. The people were radical in their commitment. Many of the people in the church of Jerusalem sold property. They sold possessions and valuables, and they brought the proceeds and gave the proceeds to the church to form a church treasury that would serve the greater needs of the church.
Barnabas, one of the great leaders of the early church and an associate of the Apostle Paul was a member of that church at Jerusalem. We’re told in Acts, chapter 4, that he sold property and brought all the proceeds and put the money at the feet of Peter. Certainly, there was some recognition in the community given to those who made radical commitments and brought great gifts to the church.
Ananias and Sapphira sold property. They kept part of the proceeds for themselves and they brought part of the proceeds to the church. This was permissible and proper, but when they brought part of the proceeds to the church, they told the Apostle Peter that it was everything; that it was the full proceeds from the property they had sold. They lied. Perhaps they wanted to be recognized like Barnabas. Maybe they wanted the recognition and the popularity that came from radical commitment, but they lied. They gave part and said they gave everything. The Bible tells us, in one of the most difficult passages of scripture, that the judgement of God fell upon them and Ananias was struck dead. And just three hours later, Sapphira was struck dead. The judgement of God and the fear of God came upon the entire community and the church at Jerusalem. They knew God hates lying.
God hates lying, and it’s a strange story, particularly for us in our time, living in a time when sin is not taken very seriously. In our culture and in our nation, lying is not taken very seriously. In our culture and time, we’ve seen many examples of lying, many examples of lies even in high places. So, we come to this Ninth Commandment which really has to do with lying. “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Don’t lie. But this Ninth Commandment needs to be understood within its context. It’s not talking about just any kind of lie. Certainly, any lie is bad, but the Ninth Commandment is really focusing on two different types of lies. First of all, a lie within the legal context, a lie within the judicial context, a lie given in a court of law. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” it says in this Ninth Commandment. The language is legal language, referring, all scholars agree, to the context of a court of law. Do not lie under oath.
Now, I know that all of you have sung the hymn “Amazing Grace.” You’ve all sung that hymn, and most of you know the story of John Newton who wrote “Amazing Grace.” Just this last week, U.S. News and World Report came out with a special double issue on the History of American Music with Elvis Presley on the cover. They have a full-page article on the story of John Newton and the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Of course, John Newton was English, but this song, “Amazing Grace” which he wrote, is so popular here in America. According to the U.S. News and World Report, in some ways it’s the most popular song ever written in America, ever written that has been sung or performed in America because more, according to the Library of Congress, American artists have performed renditions of “Amazing Grace” than any other song.
John Newton, who wrote the song, was an 18th century slave trader, and he made his living by the buying and selling of human beings. He worked in the British slave trade in the 18th century. He worked along the coast of Africa. Like most slave traders in the 18th century, he lived a debauched life, by his own testimony, and he used young African women, not only for financial gain but also for his own sexual gratification. He treated them as though they were prostitutes. What he did to them could only be called rape. In the midst of this debauched life, he came to Christ.
As it says in U.S. News and World Report, the year was 1748 when John Newton gave his life to Christ. He changed radically. He came in repentance, and his whole life changed. He wound up going to theology school and incredibly he became an Anglican minister. Along with William Wilberforce, he became one of the leaders in the movement to abolish slavery in Great Britain.
The year was 1772 when he wrote the words to “Amazing Grace.” In 1772 he wrote those words. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” He did not write those words to be sung. He wrote them as a chant. John Newton wrote 348 chants, and the words of Amazing Grace were meant to be spoken, not sung. But, you see, as it’s explained in the U.S. News and World Report, the song came to America.
The words, the chant, came to America. During the Great Awakening in the 18th century, during the Great Awakening in the American Colonies, many of the slaves in southern plantations loved the words of this chant written by a former slave owner. Those African Americans took one of their favorite melodies that had been brought from Africa, and they combined that favorite melody with the words of this chant and they produced this incredible hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The hymn “Amazing Grace” comes from a former slave owner, the lyrics, the words, but the melody comes from African Americans. The hymn itself is an act of God’s grace, an amazing expression of the grace of God. That hymn is loved and beloved all over the world.
Even non-Christians love the song “Amazing Grace,” and they love to sing it because I think everybody wants grace. I want grace in my life. You want grace in your life. We all want mercy. When we stand before God, we’re not going to ask Him to give us justice. We’re going to want mercy. We’re going to want grace. We’re going to want grace not only for ourselves but also for all whom we love. God is the God of grace but He’s also a God of justice. In this world we can’t operate solely on the basis of mercy and grace. There must be a concern with justice. The Bible acknowledges that. The Bible acknowledges that earthly governments exist by the will of God, and they are to establish justice on the earth so that people would be treated fairly.
This Ninth Commandment really has to do with justice and with criminal justice. Of course, in America we have a criminal justice system that consists of a police system, a court system and a correctional system. The court system wouldn’t work at all if people bore false witness against their neighbor. There would be no justice because whether a person is tried by a judge or a jury, justice requires accurate testimony and the speaking of truth. If, in a court of law, the people bear false witness, justice is tough to arrive at.
What’s true in our country was true in Israel. Israel was the covenant community. Both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, the Old Testament and the New Testament, established covenant communities. In the covenant community, God wants justice to be served and people to be treated fairly. That’s not possible if this Ninth Commandment is not honored and people bear false witness against their neighbor.
Certainly, many verdicts have been improperly rendered because of lies in courtrooms. But this is not the only application of the Ninth Commandment. If it were the only application of the Ninth Commandment, I think most of you would just have little interest in the Ninth Commandment because perhaps you’ve never given testimony in a court of law and perhaps you never will. This Ninth Commandment applies to another arena, and every Bible scholar agrees on this. It applies to the whole arena of slander and gossip. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” relates to the whole subject of slander and gossip.
Recently a book has been published in France by a man named Thierry Masson. The book, when the title is translated into English, is called “The Horrifying Fraud.” The book is extremely popular in France. It’s a top ten seller, and it’s been in the top ten for longer than 3 months. In the category of History and Politics, it’s the most popular book written in France in more than a decade. It’s going to be published here in the United States of America, and it’s going to be given a different title. It’s going to be called “9/11—The Big Lie.” But the book itself is a big lie, and you’ve probably read about it.
The book claims that what happened on September 11 had nothing to do with radical Muslim terrorists, nothing to do with Al-Qaida, nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. The book claims that it was all a government plot by the United States government, a conservative segment of the United States government; that we did this to ourselves here in America. The book claims that a plane did not crash into the Pentagon. It was a missile that went into the Pentagon, and it was fired by the United States government. The book claims that the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers, into the World Trade Center, were robotic, controlled by remote control, controlled by the United States government. It’s a ludicrous book, an absolutely ludicrous book. And yet in France, it’s a best seller, and that just makes me incredulous. How could that be a best seller anywhere?
And it’s slander! It’s a lie and it’s slander against the United States government. It’s offensive to those who died and to the loved ones of those who died. I think Thierry Masson who wrote the book can be grateful that he lives in a time such as this rather than in prior times when society was not so generous and kind to people who tell lies.
You’ve all heard of Cicero. Cicero was a famous Roman orator and statesman who lived in the First century before Christ. He was executed. Cicero was executed for slander, and he was executed by the Second Triumvirate, executed by Octavian, Lepidus, and Mark Antony. It was because Cicero had slandered Mark Antony. He had told lies about him, and he had spread malicious gossip, and he was executed. By one account, his tongue was cut out, and by another, he was strung from a tree with his tongue. They didn’t like slander. They didn’t like gossip.
We live in a different world today. We live in a world today where slander and gossip has become entertainment. Everybody winks. A book like this one by Thierry Masson can be a best seller. Tabloids in supermarkets are bought en masse by a society that loves gossip and loves slander, but God hates it. God hates gossip, and God hates slander.
In the Bible we have that passage in the Book of James where God warns us about slander and gossip and the misuse of the tongue. God says, “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire, and the tongue is a fire, an unrighteous world amongst our members, setting on fire the cycle of nature, set on fire by hell. Every kind of beast and bird, reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue, a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our God and Father and with it we curse men and women who are made in His image and likeness. Brothers and sisters, it ought not to be so.” That’s what the Bible says, but of course it IS so. People use the tongue for slander and gossip. How dangerous the tongue is.
Our son Drew is traveling in Europe right now. He’s in med school, and this is the end of his first year. He’ll be going into his second year in med school, and the only summer you have free in med school is your first summer. He went with some college friends. They went to Europe. They have a Eurail Pass. They’re staying in youth hostels, sleeping on floors, eating one meal a day and just traveling cheap across Europe. They arrived in Spain. He wrote us when they were in Switzerland. He told us that he had just bungee jumped off a 240-foot cliff in the Swiss Alps. Barb and I are thinking, “Don’t even write us!”
Today, he’s gone from Barcelona, Spain, to another part of Spain and he’s going to “run with the bulls” this week in Spain. Again, we’re just praying that he comes home in one piece. Things are dangerous in life. Things are dangerous. Some people like dangerous things. Nothing is more dangerous than the tongue. You can destroy your own life, and you can destroy the life of other people through gossip and through slander.
I know you’ve all studied a little bit about the starfish, and you know how a starfish has normally five arm-like extensions. Some species of starfish have forty arm-like extensions. You know how they’re capable of regeneration. You can cut off one of the arms of a starfish and it grows back. In fact, did you know that you can cut off all the arms of a starfish and they’ll all grow back? In fact, scientists tell us, you can cut a starfish in half and both halves will grow into a complete whole. Incredible regenerative powers. But human beings aren’t like that are we? I mean, we’re not like that physically. We’re not like that emotionally. When we get damaged, when we get cut, when we get hurt, we’re not so easily repaired. When you bear false witness against another human being, you do damage that sometimes is irreparable, and God hates it. God hates lies.
I know I’ve shared with some of you years ago the story of the Taurus Mountains, modern-day Turkey. Actually, where the Apostle Paul was born was the city of Tarsus. Next to the city of Tarsus are the Taurus Mountains. The Taurus Mountains, ornithologists tell us, have these special birds, a special species of cranes, and these cranes fly across the fertile valleys in the Taurus Mountains. These cranes are beautiful, but the cranes have a huge problem because there are predator birds, raptors, eagles actually, that dive down from the cliffs and attack these cranes and eat them. The eagles can easily identify when a crane is flying over the valley because the crane has this big mouth cavity and the crane makes this noise as the tongue flaps in the mouth, ornithologists tell us, every time it flies over the valley. To the amazement of scientists, in the Taurus Mountains, these beautiful cranes have adapted so that they can fly stealth and their tongues no longer flap in their mouth. They’ve actually found that these cranes, before flying, will pick up a stone or a rock and put it into their mouth to hold their tongue down and then they’ll fly across the valley. Isn’t that amazing? I think that’s absolutely incredible!
I’ve met a lot of people who need to do that. Haven’t you met people who need to do that? It is a dangerous thing when we bear false witness against our neighbor. Running with the bulls is dangerous. “Shooting the bull” can be more dangerous! Be careful when you’re having idle conversation with another person. When you’re just talking with somebody, be careful what you say about another person. You can violate the Ninth Commandment and God cares greatly about that.
As we conclude this morning, we need to understand it’s really all about character. That’s what this is really all about. This Ninth Commandment and so many of the commandments. It’s really all about character. What kind of people are we? What kind of person are you? It’s all about character. When we lie, it says something is wrong with our character.
The Hayman fire was apparently started by Terry Barton. Initially she said she did not start the fire, that someone else did it, but she arrived too late to stop it. Then she said that she started the fire but unintentionally as she burned a letter from her estranged husband. Now, authorities think that maybe she started the fire on purpose. They think they have evidence that perhaps she started it on purpose in order that she might become a hero and put the fire out. Nobody knows for sure because she lied once. The problem is that when we lie, it puts our character in question. Doesn’t it? It puts our character in question, and you don’t know whether to believe a person at any other time. Lying is like that. It’s a character issue, and God is so concerned with your character and with mine.
I read some time ago a story about Harry Emerson Fosdick. Harry Emerson Fosdick was an American Baptist preacher who died in 1979 at the age of 101. He was liberal theologically and liberal politically. He was very skilled homiletically, and people were tempted to steal things he said in his sermons and pretend that they were their very own. On one occasion, Harry Emerson Fosdick was traveling with his wife on vacation, and they came into this little village in New England, into this little town. It was Sunday morning and they thought they would go to a little church in this little town. Fosdick and his wife went to this church and were just sitting there as you are today. The pastor stood up. He was a young man just out of seminary. He gave a sermon, and Fosdick was stunned because it was one of his sermons. It was the exact sermon that Fosdick had given five years before.
After the service, Fosdick went up to this young minister. He said, “That was quite a message. Let me ask you, young man, how long did it take you to prepare that?” The young man was kind of proud and said, “About three hours.” Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “Boy that is amazing because it took me over 20 hours to prepare that exact same message five years before.” Now, Fosdick didn’t go on to call him a thief and a liar. He was too compassionate for that. But that young man, you see, was a thief and a liar. A thief because he had stolen another person’s sermon and a liar because he had pretended it was his own. Something was wrong with his character. We’ve got a character problem in America today. A character problem in America.
I love what Dean Madison Serrat always said to his classes at Vanderbilt University, a famous professor of mathematics. He specialized in trigonometry. His classes in trigonometry were famous. Before every examination, this professor would say to his students, “I’m really going to give you two examinations today. One is in trigonometry and the other is in honesty. I sincerely hope you pass them both, but if you must fail one, fail trigonometry because there are a lot of good people in the world who cannot pass a test in trigonometry but there are no good people in the world who can’t pass a test in honesty.” Strong words. You wonder whether people really believe that.
This Ninth Commandment is really about character. John Wooden, one of the greatest basketball coaches, certainly one of the greatest collegiate basketball coaches, former coach at UCLA, is in his 90s now. He made this statement. He said, “Be more concerned with character than reputation because character has to do with who you really are and reputation merely has to do with what other people think you are. Be more concerned with character than reputation.” I think most people are more concerned with reputation than they are with character. What God is looking at is your character.
As we close, I want to say something about this. This is Pinocchio. I was going to show a clip from it. I was too late, but you all know the story. This is the video’s 60th Anniversary Edition of Pinocchio. Reader’s Digest is quoted on the back saying “It’s the greatest animated movie ever made.” I think that’s a matter of opinion but it wasn’t Walt Disney who wrote the story of Pinocchio. The story of Pinocchio was told by a man named Carlo Collodi whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini. He wrote the story of Pinocchio in 1883, and you know the story. You know how this wooden puppet, every time he told a lie, his nose would grow. If he told a bigger lie, his nose would grow all the more.
Wouldn’t it be an interesting world if that were true? Wouldn’t it be an interesting courtroom if that were true? Some noses would be dragging on the ground. Wouldn’t it be interesting over a meal or over a lunch table if every time somebody slandered or had malicious gossip, their nose would grow? But it isn’t like that. You can gossip. You can slander. Maybe no one will ever know, but God knows.
You’ve got an audience of one as you live your life. I have an audience of one as I live my life. There’s one we need to please. That One is God and He sees everything. He knows your character and he knows mine. He knows whether or not we speak the truth or whether we lie. So, we have this Ninth Commandment, “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.” It applies to a legal context of a court of law. It also applies to the social world of slander and gossip. Let’s close with a word of prayer.