First, let's start out with the Ten Commandments, okay?
Now, you'll often hear people claim
that one of the Ten Commandments is thou shalt not lie.
That's not one of the Ten Commandments.
It just isn't.
You'll hear people all the time say,
yeah, Ten Commandments, thou shalt not lie.
There is no commandment in the Ten Commandments
called thou shalt not lie.
Now, there's plenty of scripture telling us not to lie.
There are all kinds of verses telling us
that we need to tell the truth, don't lie.
I'm not saying the Bible doesn't say not to lie.
I'm saying that that's not one of the Ten Commandments.
What the Ten Commandments actually say is,
thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Now, the Ten Commandments are an abbreviated form
of the Old Covenant or God's law
or, you know, the moral code of the Old Testament
or what have you, really not even the moral code
because it's really just the entire covenant is summed up
because the Bible calls it the tables of the covenant
in First Corinthians chapter, no, no, no,
Second Corinthians chapter three,
it talks about the 10 commandments
as being sort of indicative of the entire Old Testament law.
So it's like a brief thing, it's not the whole law.
Obviously the Bible in the Old Testament
has hundreds of commandments,
hundreds and hundreds of commandments.
The 10 commandments aren't the only list,
but what are they?
They're just a basic abbreviated list
of the most important basic requirements
of God's covenant with Israel
that he made with them on Mount Sinai.
And so it just has basic, super important teachings.
No other gods before me.
You know, don't make a graven image.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
And then we get into the second half
of the 10 commandments.
We get into the very famous,
thou shalt not kill,
thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,
thou shalt not covet, okay?
Why does this get its own commandment
in the 10 commandments?
I mean, stealing,
it's pretty obvious why thou shalt not steal
is one of the 10 commandments.
Why do you think that is?
Out of hundreds of Old Testament commandments,
why single that one out and put it in the 10?
'Cause it's common.
What about thou shalt not kill?
It's common.
It's a big one, it's common, it's out there,
it's happening every single day.
It's happening twice a day in Chicago.
It's happening at abortion clinics 3,000 times a day.
So it's happening constantly.
It's very common.
It's a basic thing.
Thou shalt not covet is happening every second
of every day a million times all over the world.
Covening is when you desire things
that belong to other people, okay.
You know, honor thy father and mother.
I mean, these are really important, basic things
that are constantly applicable in our lives
in one way or another.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Obviously, committing adultery is common, okay, unfortunately.
But what does the Bible say?
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
This is in there, you know, couldn't God,
if he wanted to have just,
he could have saved a little room on the stone tablet
and just said, "Thou shalt not lie."
It wouldn't, you know what I mean?
It would have taken up less space on the tablet.
Maybe Moses wouldn't have had to carry such a heavy tablet
because "Thou shalt not lie"
would have been shorter and easier.
But is that what God chose to put in the Ten Commandments?
"Thou shalt not lie"?
No, what he chose to put is,
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
You know what that tells me
is that bearing false witness against your neighbor
is probably something that comes up a lot.
It's probably common, it's probably important,
or else why would it be in this abbreviated list?
You know, just the Cliffs Notes of the Old Covenant,
10 things, and one of them is,
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
And let me point this out too.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
You know, I like the term bearing witness
because to bear something means to carry something.
So even if you're not the origin of the false witness,
if you're repeating something unsubstantiated,
if you're repeating something without evidence,
you end up bearing false witness
by repeating and redounding lies told by others, you know.
Like what if somebody put out some slanderous video
and then yours, I'm just gonna mirror this.
You have borne false witness.
Your channel is bearing false witness
'cause you decided to mirror something
that you know is slanderous.
Well, I'm just putting it out there, people can decide.
You know, let me tell you something.
False accusations can be damaging to people
even when they're found innocent,
even when people go to court
and all the evidence shows that they're 100% innocent
because it puts these seeds of doubt in people's mind
'cause most people don't know
what I'm preaching this morning.
They don't follow the principles
that I'm preaching this morning.
And look, I'm getting up and preaching
on principles of justice.
I guarantee you that there are a lot of people in this room
who need to hear this sermon this morning.
And I guarantee you that there are tons of people
in our church that have warped views on justice.
Even in our church, I mean, I haven't seen anything like that,
but just knowing human beings, knowing human nature,
I'd be willing to bet,
just conversations that I have with people,
that this kind of preaching needs to happen.
Because it's possible for us to be influenced by the world
or just not to think these things through.
And so, you know, this idea of,
well, let's just put every accusation out there.
Let's just put every accusation out there
and let people decide, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Because if it's not substantiated, don't receive it.
You know, don't receive means don't download
in order to upload.
Because then you're bearing false witness now.
If you're going to download a false witness
and then redound it on some other channel, well, guess what?
You're bearing false witness now.
Bearing false witness is common.
That's why there's so much scripture on it.
That's why it's in the 10 Commandments,
because people constantly lie and make false accusations
against other people.
It happens all the time.
Now you'd think we would have all learned this
in junior high and high school.
I mean, when we were in junior high and high school,
let me ask you this.
Were there false accusations made about people?
There were rumors.
'Cause teenagers are infamous for gossiping.
And so when you're a junior high or high school student,
there's all kinds of rumors and gossip
and wild-eyed stories going around
that turn out to be lies.
So really, did you really become an adult
without figuring out that false witness is common?
Did you actually make it to adulthood
without realizing that people making false accusations
or giving false testimony or lying
about what they saw or observed?
You really haven't noticed that and you're an adult?
Because I remember seeing that my entire life
in school and beyond.
So it's common.