Exodus 20:16 – “You must not testify falsely against your neighbor”

Matthew 18:15-17

“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. ¹⁶ But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.”

Instead of bearing a false testimony as believers we should be:

2. Bearers of Freedom and Truth

A. Truth

So, what do you do if you struggle with lying lips, well the cure is found in Ephesians 4:25 “So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body.” The antidote to lies is to tell the truth. This is what I call a Replacing principle. Our problem is that instead of applying the replacing principle we try to use the removing principle. We focus on removing lies instead of replacing them with truth. God’s Word focuses on replacing lies with the truth, why because when you do you displace the lies. When you find yourself lying replace it with the truth. If I had a bottle of water that was only half full of water and the other half was filled with air how would I remove the air? The most effective way would not be to try and squeeze the air out but to fill it up with water. When I do there is no room for the air. The same is true with our lives we need to fill them up with the truth of God’s Word so that there is no room for the lies. Are there any lies in your life that need to be replaced by the truth? Truth is not only designed to help us walk right in a crooked world, but it can also set free other broken people and restore broken relationships. When we have relational rifts God’s Word calls the two parties involved to sit down and work it out with truth prevailing, but truth that is designed to heal not hurt. Matthew 18 prescribes a Godly process for dealing with brokenness in an honest way that will bring glory to God and restoration to our relationships. Yet rather than deal with relational rifts many of us avoided conflict, why because conflict is not comfortable. And as Americans many of us value comfort more that we do obeying Christ. Now while some are conflict avoiders’ others are conflict creators, they don’t just love drama they live for drama. When there are broken relationships we are called to the uncomfortable work of restoration. How do we do that, well look with me at God’s prescription for people peace in Matthew 18:15-17:

1. Talk in Private

Our problem is that we want to talk about people instead of talking to people. This is Face to face communication not Facebook comments. Are you being confidential or carless, because being reckless and running your mouth rarely results in restored relationships. If you want to restore relationship then make it personal, go to the person. Is there anyone you need to talk to instead of talking about?

2. Take others along

But only if they refuse to respond rightly. And we need to be careful who we take with. What’s the goal, restoration that means we need to choose mature believers not just people who will agree with us. They are witnesses to truth not your warriors to twist their arm and defend your feelings. Mature believers base their decisions on the bible not on feelings.

3. Tell it to the church

Go to the Pastor and Elders of your church. But only after you have followed the first steps. Do you see how important restoring relationships are?

4. Treat them as an unbeliever

If they still refuse to repent, we are to exclude them. This step can seem callous and uncaring because it is countercultural. But how much of what Christ taught was countercultural? Why does this command of Christ feel wrong to us because in our culture we tend to value the individual above the group, but the Bible values the community above the personal. Albert Mohler makes a painful point when he writes: “No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members with minimal accountability to God, much less to each other.”Why would we treat them like an unbeliever, because they are acting like one, refusing not just to listen to truth but to live it. The idea is that exclusion will cause the believer to repentant, in the meantime we are to wait with open arms ready to receive them as soon as they repent. Are you pursing this Matthew 18 principle or are you following the worlds way? Because when we follow God’s Word and do it His way, we see the power of truth to:

B. Transform

Notice the goal is to win them back not to win. Win them back to what, your way of thinking? NO, Win them back to the truth. So often we make the goal based on our feelings not the Father. It’s not about what I want but what Jesus wants. Our flesh wants to make it about us winning but the Father wants to make it about truth winning. Because when truth wins people are transformed, but when we win someone has to lose. What do you value more being right or restoring relationship? Winning or wining back? Are you focused on the temporary feel good of winning or the transformation of people being won over? If we are not careful, we will make it about the justification of our feelings instead of the transformation power of truth. But to be won over and restored there has to be repentance. Our problem is that we want repentance without restoration. But that is a false gospel. God calls us to deal honestly with one another and when we do, we will see a transformation not only in the Church but in our culture. The 9th commandment calls us to honor God by honoring the truth in ways that build up and not tear down. The fabric of all healthy relationships is woven with truth. Lying tears this fabric apart and so destroys all trust and confidence in one another. My prayer is that through God help we will speak the truth in love and raise the banner of honesty to the level of “normal” again. So that as His people we will bear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – so help us God! What about you is your talk one of truth or is it truth mixed with trash?

Exodus 20:16 – “You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.

Deuteronomy 19:15-19

“You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. ¹⁶ “If a malicious witness comes forward and accuses someone of a crime, ¹⁷ then both the accuser and accused must appear before the Lord by coming to the priests and judges in office at that time. ¹⁸ The judges must investigate the case thoroughly. If the accuser has brought false charges against his fellow Israelite,¹⁹ you must impose on the accuser the sentence he intended for the other person. In this way, you will purge such evil from among you.

After looking at the following types of lies, the obvious lie, the libel, slander and exaggeration we come to the fifth:

5. Silence or Innuendo

We can even bear false witness by failing to speak the truth, sometimes by not saying something we can hurt others or allow a false witness to exist on someone, or we can create a false witness by holding back truth! Comments like, “If you only knew what I knew about so and so, but I promised not to say anything…” can lead people to believe things that are not true. It was the failure of many who chose not to speak up in World War II when Hitler did his atrocities that allowed them to continue. This failure to speak the truth can also be a form of bearing a false witness. The following story reveals this so powerfully. After a speech, pro-life activist Penny Lea was approached by an old man. Weeping, he told her the following story: “I lived in Germany during the Nazi holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. I attended church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was really taking place.  A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from a distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we noticed cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews. They were like cattle in those cars! Week after week that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear the sound of those old wheels because we knew that the Jews would begin to cry out to us as they passed our church. It was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor miserable people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow, and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. By the time that train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we’d just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene. When it comes to truth we need to speak up. It’s here that we see the:

B. Tragedy!

Deuteronomy 19:15-19 reveals that it was so important to God that peoples’ lives be preserved from false testimonies or witnesses that He required that there be at least 2 or 3 others to speak the same thing before something should be regarded as true. This is a good idea for today also! Too often things get passed around as “truth” on the sole testimony of one person. We must remember that a single person can slant the truth in such a way as to be viewed from their own framework but coming through several sources helps to mitigate that the truth will remain intact. It’s amazing when there is a car accident how different witnesses will describe it differently. But God didn’t just require more than one witness He also said that someone guilty of a false testimony would be punished with the same punishment that he intended for the person they bore false witness against. You see it isn’t the things that go in one ear and out the other that hurt as much as the things that go in one ear, get all mixed up, and then slip out the mouth. People’s lives are too important to God to tolerate false testimonies. As the Father of all truth, God is inherently against all lies! Satan however is called the “father of all lies” he is the “deceiver,” and when our lips lie, we are speaking the language of Lucifer and not the Lord. Think of Lies this way – Living investing evil and Satan. The truth is lies only yield more sin! As Oliver Wendell Holmes said “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.” The tragedy of lies is that both the one who told them suffers, as does the person for whom they are about. Ultimately, the entire society suffers as well as our relationship with God. So what about you, is there any area in your life where you are tempted to not tell the truth?