on the ninth commandment. So why don't we take out our catechisms and our Bibles, more importantly, and look at Catechism questions 82 through 84. So 82 asks, what is the ninth commandment? And we all answer, the ninth commandment is, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And in question 83, what is required in the ninth commandment? And we answer, the ninth commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor's good name, especially in witness bearing. And finally, question number 84, what is forbidden in the ninth commandment? And we answer, the ninth commandment forbids whatever is prejudicial to truth or injurious to our own and our neighbor's good name. So you'll recall that when Jesus stood on trial before Pilate, Pilate asked him, so you are a king. And Jesus answered, you say that I am a king, and for this very purpose I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth, Jesus says, listens to my voice. And how did Pilate respond? What is truth? Now, what you need to understand about that is that's what we call in grammar a rhetorical question. And what that means very simply is he wasn't really interested in what Jesus' response was. He was essentially giving not an interrogative, but an indicative. He was essentially saying, truth is not what you say it is. Truth is really something to be spun, something to be twisted, and something to be used for a political agenda or whoever has the most power. In fact, there was a philosopher in the last century named Michel Foucault. I disagree with almost everything that he said, but one of the things that he said, which was very insightful, is that much of truth today has to do with what he called power plays. And what he meant by that is truth is something that is imposed by people at the political level with political agendas or in special interest group levels where people just basically do baits and switches in order to push their particular agenda. I'll give you one example of this power play. When we talk about the unjust killing and murder of babies that we call abortion, isn't it interesting that what we call our position or what has become known as our position is pro-life, which means that we frame the issue in regard to life versus death, but not so with the power players. For the power players, it's not an issue of life and death, but it's an issue of what? Choice. That's called bait and switch. That's called a smokescreen. They seek to wiggle out of what the real issue is, and with their political power and agendas, they give a smokescreen and make something other than what it really is. They call untruth truth. They call evil good and good evil. And this is something that has been with us for a very long time. In fact, it's something that the prophets railed against. And what is the root of all this problem is a corrosion of truth, a refusal to see truth as that which aligns with reality, and more importantly, as Jesus says here, that which aligns with what He says. As Jesus said, Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice because his whole ministry when he was on earth was a ministry sent by the Father in heaven. He was sent by the Father to give a revelation to the world which would actually bring salvation. And so we need to listen to Jesus. We need to listen to what he has to say. And we need to go out into the public square and proclaim truth. But here's the thing. before we can go out and convict the whole world of how horrible they are for not listening to the truth, we kind of need to have, we need judgment to start with the house of God, right? We need to make sure that we, when we think about the ninth commandment, not bearing false witness against our neighbor, which is another way of saying telling the truth in every single situation, we need to ask ourselves the question tonight, do we do that? Do we do that in the small things? Do we do it in the big things? Do we do it when nobody else is gonna find out whether we are or are not except for God Himself? Do we do it in all of those circumstances? As Paul says in Romans 14, 16, do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. What do people think of our approach to truth based on our actions? You know, it was Paul who rebuked the self-righteous Jews who called themselves teachers. They boasted in God. They boasted that they knew His will and approved of what is excellent, that they were instructed from the law. They said that they were sure that they were a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of the knowledge of truth. And then he asked this question, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? So I just want to ask tonight a very simple question. Do you lie? Do you lie? Now, if you say no, then guess what? You're a liar, okay? We all lie, right? And I think that sometimes in our culture, what rubs off on us is the kind of light and giddy attitude that our culture has toward truth. There was a popular gossip columnist who once said, and it was a quote that people laughed at, if you don't have anything nice to say about somebody else, come sit here next to me. Let's gossip about it. And I think sometimes that kind of rubs off on us, and we kind of get this attitude that, well, everybody does it. You know, everybody kind of talks about other people. And you know, for those of us who have children, I hope that this convicts you like it convicts me. In the next moment, I'm telling my children not to say bad things about their brother and sister. And yet they could say the same thing, couldn't they? Everybody does it. You know, Caleb does it, Daddy. Cohen does it, Daddy. So why can't I do it? And we tell them, well, you are being brought up in a Christian home, you're made in the image of God, and you're going to be different. And so we must ask ourselves this question, are we any different? Do we distort the truth to accomplish our own agenda? You know, we may not have the power of the President of the United States or special interest groups or a particular political party, but we do have power in our own particular realm of influence, don't we? Do we use that power to accomplish our own agenda even if it means distorting the truth? Remember that the very first sin that caused all of mankind to be plunged into the world of death was due to a lie. Satan told a lie and we believed it. Adam and Eve should not have believed it. They had every reason in the world to believe the truth, but they, as Paul says, exchanged the truth of God for a lie. So I want to just say very simply that the heart of the ninth commandment is to image God and not Satan, because Satan, Jesus said, is the father of what? The father of lies. And we are made in the image of our Father in heaven, and more importantly than that, we who are believers have had our image renewed and recreated in the Son of God. So let me just give a few thoughts very quickly. The ninth commandment, yes, very simply was originally about bearing a true witness in court. So we might say the original setting was court. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a broader setting to this. But very simply, the original context was when accusations are brought against your neighbor, okay? And oftentimes, some of these accusations were capital punishments with capital crimes that meant death. If you are called as a witness against your neighbor, your brother or your sister, you need to tell the truth because here's the thing. If it's a capital crime that deserves capital death, guess who the first person is who's gonna throw that first stone at your neighbor? You, because you're the witness. That's how it worked in Old Testament Israel. And so literally, and I mean that literally, telling the truth was a matter of life or death. And so what Moses is getting at here is that we are to preserve the witness and the life of our neighbor. It's not simply their life, like when they breathe their last breath, but remember that their reputation makes up their life. Many occupations, whether it's an occupation in ministry or not, many occupations can be taken away in a moment if somebody's reputation is tarred. And so it just as, and I would just say, this is a simple application of the golden rule as Jesus gives it to us. How did Jesus sum up the second table of the law? Love your neighbor as yourself. So if you would not want somebody to tarnish your reputation, you don't tarnish another's. Let me turn very briefly to Psalm 15. Psalm 15 verses one through three. It'd actually be good for you to turn there. Because what we see here is a sort of broadening out of this commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The psalmist says, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart, who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up reproach against his friend. Let me just give a few thoughts for the 9th commandment tonight. Gossip and slander are violations of the 9th commandment. Now, oftentimes when we talk about gossip, I've had people tell me straight to my face, people who love Jesus and I believe are going to be in heaven. Well, what I said about that person was true. What I said was true. But remember this, Proverbs 11, 13, whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. Now, I can't and we can't tonight answer every specific particular application of what that looks like, but here's the thing. There is a place for keeping our mouth shut when people are talking about somebody else, even if it is true. because what we're doing is we're guarding their reputation. And even if it is that true, even if it is true, we care so much about their reputation that we want to have that covered and dealt with appropriately rather than spreading the fire of gossip. When you gossip against your neighbor, you are slandering somebody who is made in the image of God. And what James says is that this is such a contradiction because with our mouth we bless the Lord our God and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. And he said, brothers, this just ought not to be. It's like taking a big swig of Pepsi and right after that taking a big swig of chocolate milk. That's got stomachache written all over it. And so it is with our tongue. How can we who represent and claim to be made in the image of God, and we are, curse and denigrate the reputation of our fellow neighbor? So how do we gossip and slander? Well, Let me tell you a story. There was a minister who, this is a true story, there was a minister who was walking down the street downtown, and this is a big city, and two things happened very, very quickly that spiraled into incessant gossip. What happened is he had some change in his hand, he's walking down the street, and he happened to drop a coin on the ground. And that coin started rolling away from the sidewalk into a storefront. And right at the same time, there was one of the parishioners from his church who happened to be driving by just as that coin was rolling into that storefront. Well, this minister, he saw the coin, and looking down at the coin, follows the coin, and he's going into the storefront, and guess what? It's an adult movie theater. And a person just happened to see him as he was going in, didn't see him pick up the coin, and now she's gone and doesn't see what happens, and now she's got a big, fat, juicy wad of gossip to chew on with her friends. That minister went into an adult movie theater. Well, here's the thing, what I see on social media so often is people getting a little tiny sliver of something that happened, and then they post it on social media, and they claim to be omniscient about the motives and intentions of everything they were thinking, and they proceed to slander a person on social media. And this is very disturbing to me, frankly. As far as I'm concerned, if you believe somebody has sinned that you know, you really have only two options as a Christian who follows the Bible. And here's your two options. Option number one is to go and confront them. That's what the Bible says to do, to go and confront them. And if you're unwilling to go and confront them, that's because of the second option, you're willing to overlook it. Psalm 19, 11, good sense makes one slow to anger and it is glory to overlook an offense. And Peter says this too, right? Love covers a multitude of sins. But if you don't wanna do those two options, you don't have another option. There's not a third option to go and talk about that person. Rather, we are to put out the fire of gossip by closing our mouths and guarding one's reputation. What is the antidote to gossip? What is the antidote to slander? What is the antidote to tearing down people made in the image of God? Very simply, it's love. It's love, and Paul says something in 1 Corinthians 13, 7 that really became a paradigm shift for me. He says in 1 Corinthians 13, 7, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Let me ask you a very simple question. When you say something that is questionable of your character, when you do something that calls into question your character, Do you not want people who are around and experience that to interpret in the best possible light that they possibly can out of love? Do you not want them to assume, you know what, I'll bet they had a good intention, but it just came out wrong, right? You want them to assume that, right? Because it may be that that's the case. In other words, you want them to put the best construction possible on your word or your action. That's what love does. And that's what we owe to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's what we owe, frankly, to everyone. We owe to everyone to put the best construction that we possibly can on a situation. Now, some people give us no option whatsoever than to conclude that they did something stupid and they're sinful and it's wrong, okay? But there are many situations that are questionable, and because we're not omniscient and we don't have all the information, the best thing for us to do is to love them and put the best construction possible on the situation. So I think that's the biggest thing that comes out of the ninth commandment. Other than that, don't cheat on your taxes. Try not to tell lies to your children. Remember the lies that you tell them or they're going to be perpetuated by them. Keep a clear conscience in everything that you do, especially in the context of marriages. Make sure that you keep short accounts with your husband and your wife. Make sure that if you even slightly lie to them, that you confess it as quickly as you possibly can. Because if those things go unchecked, that can, like gangrene, spread in a marriage and bring destructive results. But thanks be to God that though we are liars, there was no lie or no guile found in the mouth of Jesus. He spoke the truth even when it meant that he was gonna be nailed to a cross. And this is where our hearts need to be. We need to live as though Christ were standing next to us in every word that we speak because guess what? He is. He's there every moment of the day. He's there with you. In fact, he promised that he would be with you. He's not only there to comfort you, He's not only there for you to be accountable to Him, but He's there to forgive you when you do lie. And thanks be to God that we have Christ to atone for our sins. So let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would give us help in being truth tellers and not liars. And we just pray now that as we go into this week, Father, that we would be prayer warriors, that you would give us grace, that we would seek to uphold the reputation of others. Help us to make much of Christ in all these areas. We pray in your son's name. Amen.