Commandment #9 - Sins of the Tongue

You’ve all probably heard about the Index of Leading Economic Indicators. This is a series of 11 key statistics that are supposed to paint a picture of how the American economy is doing.

Well, recently, William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administration, put together something that he calls the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. These are some key statistics that show where our culture is headed. Let me share with you what Bennett found.

In 1960, the average SAT score was 975. By 1992, even though we are spending billions more on public education, that average had dropped to 899, a decline of 8%.

In 1960, the average American household watched TV for 5 hours and 6 minutes per day. By 1992, that average had risen to 7 hours and 4 minutes.

In 1960, there were 16.1 violent criminal acts per 10,000 people. By 1991, that figure had risen to 75.8, a 560% increase in violent crime. There is, on average today in the US, one violent crime every 17 seconds, one property crime every 2 seconds, one murder every 21 minutes, one forcible rape every 5 minutes, and one aggravated assault every 29 seconds.

In 1960, the teenage suicide rate was 3.6%. By 1990, that had risen to 11.3%.

In 1960, the percent of children born to unmarried women was 5.3%. By 1990, that figure had risen to 29.5%. In the black community, that figure is a shocking 67.9%. Lee Rainwater, a Harvard sociologist, recently testified to a Senate committee, that by the year 2000, 40% of all births, and 80% of minority births in America, would be births out of wedlock.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that our society is in trouble. These leading cultural indicators show what happens when a nation turns its back on God’s design for human conduct as expressed in the Bible.

We have been studying the Ten Commandments and seeing how relevant they are for today. We come now to the Ninth Commandment, which is found in Exodus 20:16. It says “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

What does that mean? Does it mean that if you are subpoenaed to testify in a court case involving your neighbor, and the bailiff places your hand on the Bible and asks you to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you’d better do it? Is that what it means?

Let’s go back to the Old Testament to find out. When God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel back around the year 1400 BC, there was no sophisticated legal system, with lawyers and judges and courts. The children of Israel didn’t have jails. They didn’t even have a police force.

The code of law that God gave the people of Israel was to be self-enforcing. It was based on citizen involvement and citizen enforcement. Punishment for law-breakers was in the form of either restitution or death. There was no such thing as imprisonment for offenders.

If a man committed a crime, it was up to his neighbors, and perhaps even his own family, to take him before the elders of the community. The elders would hear the testimony of the neighbors, and would render a verdict. If a man had committed a capital offence, he would be executed by stoning. The first people to cast stones would be the witnesses who had testified against him.

Deuteronomy 17:7 The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

So the witnesses became the executioners.

Why did God tell them to do it that way? To make sure that those witnesses would not give false testimony. You couldn’t take the witness stand and tell lies and half truths about your neighbor if you knew that you were going to be the one who would have to carry out the sentence on him.

If you bore false witness, and that man was condemned to die, you would be guilty of killing an innocent man. You would have his blood on your hands. That was a powerful incentive to make you tell the truth about your neighbor. His life was literally in your hands.

Imagine if you were called on to give testimony in a criminal trial. You walk into the crowded courtroom. Your name is called, and you take the witness stand. All the TV cameras swing around and point at you. Court stenographers sit with their fingers poised to take down every word that you say. Newspaper reporters strain forward in their seats, holding tape recorders to record your testimony.

I don’t think you would look on that experience as just a routine occasion! When you get on that witness stand and the lawyer asks you a question in that courtroom, you are going to give careful thought to your answer. You’re not going to just blurt out anything that comes into your head. All your powers of concentration are going to be focused on telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, because there’s so much riding on it. You don’t want to commit perjury.

This is the thinking that is behind the Ninth Commandment. God is telling us here that when we talk about our neighbor, we should weigh our words carefully, just as though we are on the witness stand. We need to speak truthfully and objectively. We had better not make rash statements or damaging claims.

That’s because every time you open your mouth to say something about someone, you are speaking on the record. The courtroom is full. The person you are going to talk about is sitting right over there at the defendant’s table. The court stenographer is taking down every word that comes out of your mouth. And God himself is on the bench. He is the judge. So you’d better be very careful what you say.

In Matthew 12:36, Jesus said that you “will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word you have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

This is what the Ninth Commandment is all about. But how easily we forget it!

Whoever said “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me” didn’t know what he was talking about. We can kill people with our words. When Patrick Henry said “The pen is mightier than the sword”, he meant that words, more than weapons, are the most powerful force on earth.

Children can be damaged for life by the careless words of a parent. Friendships can be destroyed by an offhand remark. Marriages can be ruined by heated words spoken in anger. Churches can be divided by gossip and backbiting. All because our words have tremendous power.

James 3:8 The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

The Ninth Commandment is about the tongue, and the enormous power that is resident in our words. Power to build up, power to encourage, power to heal. Or power to tear down, power to wound and destroy.

There are many Christians who would never let a swear word cross their lips. But those same people somehow feel free to go around slaughtering others with their mouths. Their tongues are like sharp daggers that cut into people and draw blood. They slander, they run down, they gossip, they whisper tales about others. They don’t have a good thing to say about anybody.

PRO 12 The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, their reckless words pierce like a sword

There’s another way that Christians wound each other with words.

Proverbs 16:28 A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.

Do you know what it feels like to have someone talking about you behind your back? I would rather have someone cuss me out to my face. I would rather have a person turn the air blue with language that would embarrass a sailor, than to have someone smile at my face, and then the moment my back is turned and I’m out of earshot, have them plunge the knife between my shoulder blades with their words.

There’s an Aesop’s fable about four bulls and a lion. The four bulls were great friends, and they always hung around together. Now the lion wanted to eat the bulls, but he was no match for the four of them together. He could take each one of them singly, but he could never take all four at once.

So here’s what he did. Every chance he could get, whenever one of the bulls was grazing in the pasture and got a little distance away from the others, the lion would sneak up and ask that bull if he knew that the other bulls were saying unkind things about him behind his back. The lion did this so many times that the friendship of the four bulls became strained. Finally, they became so suspicious of each other that they decided to split up. Their friendship was broken. They went their separate ways.

This is exactly what the lion wanted, and over the next few days, he killed them one by one and he had roast beef for dinner.

This is what happens in a church where there is tale-bearing, where people are running each other down with their words. Let me remind you that there’s a spiritual lion out there in the tall grass. And if he can succeed in dividing us, in getting us talking about each other in a negative way, he’ll have us for lunch.

A divided church is ineffective for God. People are wounded. Reputations are destroyed. Evil thoughts are planted. Satan has a field day in that kind of situation.

Have you ever told your kids “If you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all?” We seem to think that that is good advice for our kids, but then we forget to take it ourselves! If you can’t say something good about someone, just be quiet. Hold your peace.

The ancient wise man Publius said “I have often regretted my speech, but I have never regretted my silence.” Learn to restrain your tongue.

If you want to obey the Ninth Commandment, you not only have to make sure you watch your own words and put a lid on your mouth, sometimes you have to put a lid on your ears, too.

As a Christian, there are some conversations you simply shouldn’t get into. There are some people you had better not to talk to. They bring poison words that can go into your ears and stain your heart. And if that happens, pretty soon, you’ll be the one doing the talking.

What’s your favorite delicacy? Some people like caviar. Some people like shrimp. Some people like nuts or potato chips or pretzels. I like all of those delightful things, but I especially like chocolate.

Give me a good hunk of solid milk chocolate, throw a couple of almonds in there, and man, I’m in heaven! When somebody offers me a piece of chocolate, I have a real hard time saying no.

The Bible says that we all have that kind of weakness for hearing gossip about other people. We all love a scandal. The juicier the better! When somebody’s got problems, we want to know all about it.

Somebody comes up to you and says “Did you hear about so and so?” And we just eat it up. We can’t say no. We’re addicted to it. It’s like chocolate.

Proverbs 18:8 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.

The problem is that those choice morsels don’t just go in one ear and out the other! They go down into your inmost parts, into your soul. They affect you spiritually. They poison your heart. You’ve got to say no, before that can happen. You have to guard, not only your tongue, but also your ears.

There may be times when you have to say “I’d really prefer that we not talk about this subject.”

How can you determine to obey the ninth commandment? Three things:

1. Ask God to purify your heart.

Jesus said: “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad…

If someone has a problem with his tongue, it didn’t start with his tongue. It started with his heart. We need to ask God to make the tree good - cleanse our hearts, so that our mouths will bring forth good things.

2. Dedicate your mouth to the glory of God.

David said “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” We need to pray that prayer every day: “Lord, guard my mouth today. Set a watch about my lips. Don’t let me say anything that would dishonor you or be damaging to other people.”

If that is your desire, you will enjoy the blessing of God on your life. You will experience God’s presence in a special way:

Psalm 15:1-3 Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man.

Earlier, we read in James 3 that no man can tame the tongue. But thank God that the Holy Spirit can! We can’t keep this Ninth Commandment on our own anymore than we can keep any of the other commandments on our own. But God has given us His Holy Spirit who lives within us. That is how the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:4).

3. Make it your goal to speak so as to build others up.

Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Every time you open your mouth, ask God to help you say something good about somebody, something wholesome, something encouraging.