A shocking piece of research
You’ve all seen them. Those
messages that come up on your phone or social media feed usually with some shocking
heading like “Local man finds treasure in his attic” or “Remember this famous
actor – you won’t believe what they look like now.” They are called ‘click bait’
for good reason and we tend to ignore them.
Well one did catch my eye and it was about lying. A
recent study conducted by a major university discovered that the majority of
adults cannot engage in a 10- minute
conversation without lying at least once. Actually, the study found that the
average adult lies approximately
3 times in any given 10-minute conversation. And since most adults engage in about an hour and a half of
conversation per day, that averages out to almost 25 lies a day. With a little calculation we
can figure out that 9,125 lies are told by one person every year. If that same
person lived to 70
years of age, they would have told over 630,000 lies.
The ninth Commandment
We are nearing the end of a study of what is
referred to in the Old Testament as
the Decalogue, or as it is more commonly known today, as the Ten
Commandments. These so called
“10 commandments” or
“ten words”,
found in Exodus 20 provide us
with a general overview of the MORAL law of God which is contained
in the pages of the Bible. And
today we’ve come to the 9th commandment. And perhaps there is no other
imperative given
to us in God’s moral law that is more convicting to us as followers of Christ
than this particular
command. And that’s because no matter who you are, or how old you are, or how
far along in the
Christian life you are, each and every one of us as human beings struggle daily
with this piece of
divine instruction.
In Exodus 20:16 God speaks to us these soul piercing words, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.”. The Westminster Shorter Catechism in Q&A 77-78 tell us that, “The ninth commandment requires us to tell the truth and to maintain and promote it…” and that “forbids anything that gets in the way of the truth or injures anyone's reputation.”.
You see, the 9th commandment is a call for you and I, as Christians, to tell the truth. You and I are called to speak the truth. We’re called to promote the truth, to write the truth, and to defend the truth. For the Christian, our calling in life is to be men, women and children whose word is our bond.
The Scriptures are full of imperatives, reminding us and exhorting us to be known as truth tellers! Zechariah 8:16 tells us, “These are the things you shall do: Speak each man the truth to his neighbour; Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace.” In Ephesians 4:25 the Apostle Paul tells us, “Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbour,’ for we are members of one another.” We are reminded by Solomon in Proverbs 12:22 that, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight..”. And Jesus Himself told His disciples in Matthew 5:37 to, “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”.
The effects of the fall on human nature.
Brothers and sisters, as Christians, you and I are called to be truth tellers. We are called to be those who are honest and trustworthy in all circumstances. As Christians, our word is to be our bond. This is such a convicting command because, this command runs absolutely contrary to our sinful, fallen human nature. You see, because of Adam’s fall all the way back in Genesis chapter 3, we are by nature, not truth tellers, but truth suppressors. In our natural fallen condition, we do not seek to promote and maintain the truth, but instead we seek to stamp it out.
As the Apostle Paul reveals to us in Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…”. Jesus Himself spoke to those who rejected the truth about Him by saying to the unbelieving Pharisees in John 8:43-44, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”. We know, when we search our own hearts, that by nature you and I are not truth tellers, but truth suppressors.
Summing it up
Remember that research that I started with -how
many lies the average person tells a day?
As Christians men, women and
children, may that never be able to be said of us! Because you and I have been
given a brand-new nature.
You and I have been transformed by God’s grace into a brand new creation.
We read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new.”
You see as Christians, we are called out of a life of lying,
deceit and deception into a life of honesty, trustworthiness and integrity. In fact, how can we
point people to the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6) if
our very word cannot be trusted? What does the 9th commandment require of us? It requires
us to tell the truth and to maintain and
promote it…and
it forbids anything that gets in the way of the
truth or injures anyone's reputation. In essence the 9th commandment reveals to us that our
word is to be our bond.
Prayer for the day.
Our Father
We come to you as Isaiah did, as men and women of unclean lips – who live among a people of unclean lips. We confess that all too often we have allowed lies to be spoken by us an we ask your forgiveness. Make us a people who are known to be truth tellers. That our speech and written word will be an example to the watching world that we are followers of He who is “The way the truth and the life”.
We ask in the name of Jesus
Amen.
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