Pants on Fire

Pastor Dusty Mackintosh

Exodus • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Exodus 20:16

Four Stories of Liars

My Headphones

You have probably noticed that most of the time I wear this strange looking contraption around my neck. Notably, it occasionally flashes a little blue LED here, and generally looks extremely nerdy and slightly mysterious.

At youth group, when we have a newcomer, there is usually a countdown to when they ask me the question: “what is that thing around your neck?”

And I tell them. It is the brain stem relay that sends the signal to the controller here at the base of my spine (look, you can see the scar), and that controller directs my animatronic legs. You can actually see where they are kind of waxy and fake looking.

They get this look on their face… it says, that’s awesome if it’s true, I’m skeptical… but I don’t know you well enough… so maybe?

And then I tell them the truth, because it isn’t a lie if you tell them within 5 minutes… it’s impromptu Fiction, an art form, really.

Rahab and the Spies

Corrie Ten Boom and the Nazis

Most of us are probably familiar with a more modern parallel of this story.

Corrie Ten Boom lived in the Netherlands which was conquered, in World War II, by the Nazi army. Her family built a Secret Room in Corrie’s bedroom at the top of the house where Jewish refugees could hide from

… and when the Nazis came knocking at the door, the family faced a moral predicament. Could they lie to the Nazi soldiers when they asked if any Jews were in the house?

Corrie Ten Boom did. Multiple times, she simply said “No, no Jews here.”

We want to call that Righteousness. Success. Admirable in every way. There is a tension there, a moral tension.

King Ahab and Naboth stealing land

One more story about lies.

Ahab was King of Israel… and he was not hunting a whale. Naboth owned a vineyard right next to the King’s gardens. Ahab wanted to expand his gardens to grow… vegetables. So many vegetables.

But Naboth would not sell his ancestral land. “Land of my fathers… I am staying.”

Ahab sulked on his bed and refused to eat. Not kidding, 1 Kings 21, read your Bible, good stuff.

So Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, solved the problem. She wrote letters to the nobles and elders in Ahab’s name, requesting two “scoundrels” who would swear, as false witnesses, that they cursed God and the King.

She got her witnesses, they stoned Naboth, and Ahab got his vegetable garden expansion.

Bunch of liars!

Exodus 20:16

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Familiar words, and internally we tend to translate them in our head: no lying. But you’ll find, across all the major translations, that they don’t do so. It’s always this long lengthy sentence.

… which is consistent with the original Hebrew. We see the last three commandments are VERY short, and this one is quite specific.

13לֹ֥֖א תִּֿרְצָֽ֖ח׃ ס

14לֹ֣֖א תִּֿנְאָֽ֑ף׃ ס

15לֹ֣֖א תִּֿגְנֹֽ֔ב׃ ס

16לֹֽא־תַעֲנֶ֥ה בְרֵעֲךָ֖ עֵ֥ד שָֽׁקֶר׃ ס

It isn’t specific like the last commandment, with all sorts of examples. It is specific to action, location and intent.

Action – Lying

We are very familiar with the action part of this commandment: no lying. That is what we internalize this command as, that is how we generalize it… and it leads us into some moral quandaries. How do we justify Rahab’s place in the Faith Hall of Fame of Hebrews 11, when she is really only there for the courage of her lie? How do we applaud Corrie Ten Boom when she broke one of the Ten?

How do we justify our Pastor deceiving teenagers with hilarious animatronic legs?

Well, there is more to the command. I know this is going to raise some tension, and we will tackle some of that, this is not the only law or the only time pure honesty is addressed… but there is more to this command.

Location – Courtroom

There is a context, and in this case, it is a legal context. The picture here is in a courtroom, testifying as a witness against someone who allegedly broke the law. The trial of Naboth is a perfect example. God said no one could be convicted on the strength of one testimony, they needed two scoundrels!

So the context is the system of judgment that God himself sets up in the Civil laws following the 10 Commandments. Civil authority, witnesses, judges, possessing divinely appointed power and authority, something God intended for good. That is the location of the command.

Intent

And finally, there is an explicit intent in the command. Against your neighbor. This is the first appearance of “neighbor” showing up as a general term for “other person” instead of actual person right next to you. But “neighbor” is not confusing at all here, it’s only possibly confusing for people trying to weasel out of this command, that is really what Jesus was addressing with his story of the Samaritan. Neighbor = other human being.

“against.” There is an intent there for harm, for destruction, for injury, perhaps for stealing. In the story of Jezebel and Ahab, they managed the Triad: they broke the ninth commandment, false witness, to break the sixth commandment, murder, in order to break the eighth commandment, stealing the land.

Impressive?

There is explicit intent condemned in the command, the purpose is against one’s neighbor, wishing them harm or injury or loss.

The ninth command prohibits lying on the witness stand for the purpose of harming one’s neighbor.

Technically Not a Sinner?

There, we have successfully made the command so specific that most of us have probably not had opportunity to break it. You are welcome! When is the last time you were called as a witness in a courtroom? Did you tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

Well done.

But, let’s just say, hypothetically, that we aren’t interested in “technically” not violating the law, but instead, we are interested in Righteousness. And the 10 commandments lay out the Course of Righteousness, signposts along the way, marking out moral boundaries.

What is the moral boundary here?

As we did for the other commandments, we look to the heart of the command.

Is it really about lying?

Is this command really about lying? Now, there are other laws about lying. There’s a good parallel one in Leviticus 19:11

You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.

Straightforward honesty. And it’s not just there, but scattered all throughout laws, wisdom literature, and Jesus addresses honesty and integrity. But, and we touched on this weeks ago, Jesus connects simple honesty to the question of oaths relevant, not to the ninth commandment, but to the third commandment. Jesus says not to swear by heaven (and so profane the name of God), but let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.

This parallelism is echoed in the passage we just quoted, Leviticus 19:11, for the following verse, Leviticus 19:12 says

12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

It is later in Leviticus 19 where we see the expansion of the ninth commandment. Leviticus 19:15-16 says:

15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

And why do we care so much about Leviticus 19? Because in a very few versus, after addressing hate for your brother, which we quoted when talking about murder and the sixth commandment, Leviticus 19:18b says this, in summary of all this expansion of the 10 Words:

but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Is this command really about lying? That is, without question, the action in the command. What were the other two pieces?

The location was the courtroom, but word was “witness.” What was happening here? This was the greatest position of power your average Israelite was going to get. A moment where their words mattered. They were given weight and authority. And they were given that weight and authority so that people could obtain justice. Based on their words, someone could live or die.

The reason God creates these courts is good, this is something God intended for good, and to accomplish that good He gives the witnesses’ words great power and authority.

Couple that with the intent of the command in the phrase “against your neighbor.” This is the sense that comes through in Leviticus 19against the life of your neighbor. It is this sense that so infuriates us against a story like King Ahab and Jezebel while wanting to applaud a story like Rahab or Corrie Ten Boom.

King Ahab took the power that God gave him as King and used it for evil. He and Jezebel conspired to further twist the court system to obtain their selfish desires and the destruction of their neighbor. And to the outside world, they get away with it. Their hands appear clean! The system did it.

But they took what God created for good and twisted it to evil purpose.

We are witnesses – people with power

We translate this to simply “no lying” because we can easily generalize that one piece of the command. We know ourselves to be liars, and we can repent of that, and we can pursue simple honesty. That has more to do with the third command, and we talked about that more weeks ago, it is all about not manipulating people but rather being people of integrity.

But what about the rest of this command. What about the heart of this command. When are you a witness, when do you have opportunity for testimony?

A witness has the power to condemn or give justice.

It is less about lying and more about abuse of power. Abuse of authority.

When do your words have weight and authority? When are you a witness? It so easily goes beyond the courtroom, doesn’t it? That’s not a common experience for us.

What power and authority has God given you, intending it for good?

How easily could you twist that, through deception (or other means) into evil purposes. Selfish purposes. Just maybe to take them down a peg or two. A little humility. A tiny bit of personal justice, maybe.

Maybe you really, really, want that vegetable garden. Or that parking space. Or that promotion.

What does God want you to do with the power He has given you, with the authority He has given you? How angry it makes Him when we use that delegated power and authority He has given you to injure or damage, to murder or steal from, to wound, to slander, to gossip, to hurt our neighbor. How angry it makes him!

How Serious Is It?

We feel this. We want to applaud the courage and results of Rahab and Corrie Ten Boom. We are repulsed by the actions of King Ahab and Jezebel. Clearly that is despicable!

But forget about how what King Ahab and Jezebel makes us feel. How did it make God feel?

Well… it made Him angry… and you won’t like Him when He’s angry…

God hated this so much, he told on Ahab and Jezebel. He told his prophet Elijah and sent him with this message, 1 Kings 21:19

19 Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”

That’s brutal. And Elijah speaks God’s expanded words of judgment. I will wipe out your descendants, thus saith the Lord. Dogs will devour Jezebel!... Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab… and the birds will feed on those in the country, thus saith the Lord!

God hates that we should take something He intended for good, twist it with our deception, and use it for our own evil purposes, to the destruction of our fellow persons.

How much does God hate it? “Dogs will devour you… and lick up your blood. Yes, yours!”

When are You a Witness

When are you a witness?

When do you have the ability, with your words, with your actions, to harm or bless others?

Much like last week, we have a huge boundary, a flashing sign at the edge, that shows us the outline of the path of Righteousness: do not use your power against your neighbor!

That isn’t love, to use deception to twist what God intended for good to evil purposes. We know that.

Instead, Jesus calls us to use some words of power:

To bless those who curse us.

To pray for those who mistreat us.

Those are words of power, but rather than witness against our neighbors before the great Judge, we become Advocates for them. Praying for them, blessing those.

A witness has power, to destroy, or to give justice.

Power to condemn… or to give blessing and life and, best of all point the way to the Truth.

Our Lying Pastor

So why is Dusty lying to kids about his headphones. I could tell you about my grand strategy of opening conversation and disarming tension, charming newcomers with ridiculous antics by becoming the awkward one, so they don’t have to be, and uniting the students in the common bond of knowing that Pastor Dusty is a dork.

Or, I could tell you, I do it because it’s just kind of funny.

And you might be horrified by my little Fiction. If so, please pray for me. I suspect that God thinks I am funny. That He chuckles (animatronic legs, that’s good) and is thrilled that I got to connect and laugh with another of His children.

It is when one of them comes to me, or one of the other youth leaders, and they say “Can we talk?” “I need help.” “I need advice.” Or best of all, “who is this Jesus guy… and how can I get to know him?”

And we become a witness. And our words matter. And your words matter. And we get the opportunity to bless… or to harm…

True Witness to Truth

We are a witness.

Witness to the Truth

I think of false witnesses in the Bible. False witnesses condemned the first martyr, Stephen, to death.

The high priests sought out and found false witnesses to speak against Jesus, and condemning Him to death.

But I think of a little girl asking Peter, friend and follower of Jesus, aren’t you with Jesus?

Peter said no three times. And it broke Jesus heart. But then, confessing his sin, repenting of his sin, and then Peter spent the rest of his life living as a witness to the Truth, who in the end is not just a proposition, but a person.

Bear true witness for your neighbor. Witness to the Truth.

Use every moment and every bit of power and authority you have to live as a witness to the Truth.

That is the greatest act of love for your neighbor.

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