Traditions of truth verification originate in the ninth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

This is the command about telling the truth.

This command sets in motion a long tradition, through the Old Testament and the New Testament, of the verification of truthstandards and methods that were devised to ensure that we don't bear false witness.

In Western law we have many of these verification traditions. In a court of law, you take an oath before you give a deposition. Note also the witnesses needed for signing and all the traditions of business arrangements that ensure integrity.

The tradition of vow making goes way back; here is one Old Testament example of this tradition developed, from the Book of Jeremiah.

In Jeremiah chapter 32, God gives Jeremiah a new covenant of hope. He has Jeremiah buy a field that belongs to his cousin, a field that's actually occupied by Babylonian armies (though they won't end up with the landthat's to prove that God is going to honor that land). Here are some interesting lines that will help you understand the tradition of vows and of the verification of agreements:

Jeremiah 32:9-12 says, "So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him (see the tradition of weighing) "17 shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed (the tradition of sealing; that's so nothing can be changed), " had it witnessed (the tradition of witnesses), " and weighed out the silver on the scales (there is the weighing in front of everybody's eyes). " I took the deed of purchasethe sealed copy containing the terms and conditions (so nothing can be slippery around the agreement) " as well as the unsealed copy (the idea of two copies; Xeroxing went way back to the time of Jeremiah!). "And I gave this deed to Baruch (to another person to hold it, like a safe-deposit-box tradition).

All these traditions of verification go back to the Old Testament, and originate in the ninth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Illustration: When you were a little boy or girl, did you ever say, "Cross my heart, hope to die, if I tell a lie ? Well, if you ever say that, that's a vow. Or, "If I'm telling a lie, may my hair turn white. Or, "May I be struck dead with lightning. The only problem with these traditions of verification is that someone will decide to tell a lie and say, "I'll make a vow to prove to you I'm telling the truth: Cross my heart, hope to die, if I tell a lie. May lightning strike me dead if I'm telling a lie. Then no lightning strikes! So then the person says to herself, Wow! I can make all these vows and people will believe me!

So the rogue and the villain were able to use these verification techniques and have a field day with them. They became good at it. That happened in the Old Testament, and has throughout our history. These techniques of verification actually became aids to dishonest people.

Illustration: By the way, have you ever thought to yourself, I'm a great judge of character.When I look you in the eyes, I can tell if you're lying. You know what you'll discover if you live very long? You'll discover that pathological liars love to look you square in the eyes. The best liars learn that the way to lie is to look you square in the eyes and not to blink. If you've ever been tricked by a con artist, you know they verify a lot. But they're conning you.

That's the dilemma with the traditions of verification: those who lie use all the techniques.

What we've discovered in the history of the Old Testament and New Testament and also through our times is that the best test of truth is time. "Wisdom is justified by all her children (Luke 7:35, RSV). Time is what finally undoes falsehood. You may steal from a person once and get away with it because you're clever and you employ verification techniques. But believe me, you won't be able to pull the same trick twice with that person.

Someone may say, "I've never heard the law, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' So how can I be held guilty for it? But here's one of the ironies of the law: You may not know the law, but you still suffer it.

Let me ask you a question about people who supposedly don't know this law: Do they have many friends? They definitely have no long-term friends, because after a while, no one believes you when you regularly lie. In a sense, the law is justified in the end by time.

Jesus simplifies the ninth commandment for us.

Open to Matthew chapter 5, and watch our Lord handle this law. The Sermon on the Mount is a commentary of Jesus Christ on the law. He has commented on several of the great laws: "Thou shalt not murder, and "Thou shalt not commit adultery. He simplifies each of these commands, although he actually makes them harder to obey. But he also simplifies them. He does the same thing with the ninth commandment. Jesus takes the ninth commandment and marvelously simplifies it.

Starting with verse 33, he starts with the traditions of verification: "Again you have heard it said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn' (note the traditions of vows and swearing oaths).

Now we start coming to our Lord's simplification of the ninth commandment: "But I say to you, do not swear at all. He's referring to the expansion of the law; those traditions for oath taking: how you hold your hand, what to do to prove you're telling the truth. Jesus decides to throw out those expansions of the law. He says, "I say to you, do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for that is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

Now comes the grand simplification of the ninth commandment: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil.

Look what Jesus has done: he has brought us into contact with the grand positive of this commandment. This commandment is about our relationship with reality. Our relationship with truth. It is about a truthful relationship we have with ourselves (you're not to make any oaths with your head), it's about a truthful relationship with God (no vows using heaven's name), a truthful relationship with our neighbors around us, and also a truthful relationship with what is around us, including the earth itself.

The grand simplification, Jesus says, is simply this: Let your yes be yes and your no, no.

Without the ninth commandment, we can't have the media, science, sports, or communication.

The ninth commandment is the media commandment. Many of you in this room are in the media--you work for radio or for a newspaper. You are to report real facts and real events. You are not to bear false witness in what you report. You are not to lose touch with reality. Sooner or later, if you do, your readers will lose confidence in you, and you'll be undone.

Some of you know about yellow journalism, and you think, I can't trust the newspapers. But this is the heart of journalism: it must tell the truth.

Illustration: A few weeks ago, NBC simulated a wreck with a General Motors pickup. Because there had been several General Motors pickups that had exploded, they decided to simulate a General Motors collision. The only thing is that they faked it, making sure it would explode. I admire NBC, but I don't admire them for simulating that stunt. But they were caught, and they admitted it. That's an unforgivable sin in journalism. When you're caught, it's a serious thing.

This is the media command: do not bear false witness; tell the truth. Let your yea be yea, your no, be no.

This is also the science command. Many of you in this room are involved in science. Many of you are young scientists studying chemistry or physics. Did you know that you must tell the truth in science? It's the cardinal rule of science.

Illustration: Two years ago, Yale University took a Ph.D.'s doctorate in chemistry away from him because of falsified experiments the student had conducted en route to his degree. Although they were relatively modest experiments, because they were falsified, the school took away his Ph.D. In science it's an unforgivable sin to falsify data.

Think of all the terrible dangers that could result in medicine if medical research used falsified data. The symbol on the crest of the University of Washington is a Latin quotation from the Bible: "Let there be light. Let there be truth. Let the yea be yea, and the nay, nay. Otherwise there is no science at the university.

It's the command for science. It's a good command. Who wants research done with false data? Who wants to buy a pill or some sort of medical treatment that the FDA approves without true testing of the data?

This is also the sports-lovers command. We must have truthful stopwatches, or there is no sport. We have to have truthful field judges, or there is no game. There cannot be steroids in athletes if they are going to compete in an Olympic event, because then there are two sets of standards, two different kinds of conditioning; there's false witness. Athletics cannot endure a rigged game or a referee who is dishonest. Otherwise there is no game. It's unforgivable in sports.

One of the reasons I love sports in schools programs is that they teach the ninth commandment. Everybody knows you can't even have a sandlot game without fair rules.

Illustration: At a girls' basketball game recently, in the last seconds of the game, a girl threw a basketball the entire length of a basketball court, and she made the basket. But it didn't count because she had one foot out of bounds, beyond the line. Talk about the three-point shot! She threw it further than a whole court. She should have gotten five points for that shot. They should have a whole new scoring system! But instead, it did not count because a referee noticed that one foot was outside the line. It didn't count. Otherwise, there would be no game. That's the ninth commandment.

We love the ninth commandment, don't we? Because we can't have games, we can't have science, and we can't have media without it.

Most importantly, this is the interpersonal-communication command. This command shows the grand goal of God for us, that our relationships with people and with God should be without false witness and should be honest, open, and based on reality.

Think of it, brothers and sisters: the Christian gospel is encouraging you and me to be in touch with reality. This command encourages you not to create fantasies about yourself and other people.

To think you're the president of the United States when you're not is of no help. You're not any help to your family if you go around thinking that.

To have delusions about other people, that they're persecuting you when they're notmost people aren't even paying that much attention to you to persecute you. To have delusions about other people persecuting you when they're not is to have a false signal of reality, and it's no good. This command urges you to be in touch with reality, without games and deception.

In fact, in the Bible and in the Christian faith, it's evil that always tries to detach us from reality, and tries to tempt us to lie.

Illustration: Those of you that took my C. S. Lewis course know that one of the marvelous quotations we read together was from The Screwtape Letters, where Lewis himself does a beautiful job explaining the dynamics of this. In chapter 13 of the book, Screwtape, the senior devil is writing to a junior devil about the difference between his father below, which is the devil, and the enemy, who is God, and the way each of them relate to human beings. Referring to the devil's strategy, Screwtape says, "As a preliminary to detaching him from the enemy, you wanted to detach him from himself, and had made progress in doing so.

As a preliminary to detaching you from God, evil wants first to detach you from yourself, to have you believe a fantasy, a false witness. It may be a false witness that leads to despair, like the false teaching that you are a lost cause, and there's no hope for you. That's a temptation from the devil. Or there's the temptation to pride: "You are so great and so marvelous, everybody owes you a living.

As the ninth commandment instructs, we must be honest with God and face up to our sin.

I'm glad we're celebrating the Lord's Supper today because it supper is the reality supper. You can't come to this supper, according to the apostle Paul, and take it worthily if you come in deception. You come only in reality. Face up to your sin, and face up to your need. When I face up to my need and my sin, I can come to this table.

There's no need to play games. You may have to play games to get invited to some dinner parties. T. S. Elliot has that line about putting on a face to meet the faces that you meet. You may have to do that in some circles; you don't have to do it here. You don't have to put a face on to meet the faces that you meet when you come to the Lord's Table.

Screwtape continues by saying that God "really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctiveness of every one of them.

Don't you love that line? God made every one of us in this room; he made every one of us uniquely. We are each separate, and he celebrates our separateness. He celebrates our uniqueness.

God is not threatened by your loyalty to your parents; he's not threatened by the commitments you make to your spouse; he's not threatened by your things, by the fact that you love your Teddy bear, your skis, or your Porsche. He's not threatened by that. It's a part of your distinctiveness. You're just known by your Porsche. That's you. There's nothing wrong with that. It's part of you, and God honors that. He really likes "the little vermin. He really likes us.

Now listen to Screwtape some more: "While He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamor of self-will. That's the fantasy that says, " I'm God. That's the only thing God wants you to abandon. He doesn't want you to think you're God. He doesn't want you to be your own guidance mechanism. That's a deception. That will destroy you.

Here's the last line: "Once they had done that, He really gives them back all of their personality and boasts (I'm afraid sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.

God likes you, and he wants you to be in touch with who you are. He wants no false witness about who you are. No lies. There's no need for them. He wants you to relate to other people and to have some people that you can trust. You can definitely trust him, because he gives you back your whole personality when you trust Jesus Christ.

Part of the strategy of evil is to try to make us game players, tempting us to distort the truth.

Sometimes, as you well know, because of human sinfulness, we have no choice but to tell lies. If a burglar comes into your home and asks you where all your treasures are, are you going to tell him? No. He doesn't deserve to hear. So you have to tell him a lie because of sinfulness. But wouldn't it be tragic if you went through all of life thinking everybody is a burglar? Everyone is not.

That's why every person needs to have a fellowship. You need to have some Christian friends. I hope in this church you can have Christian friends, whom you don't have to lie to or play games with to be their friend. You don't have to make believe you're some super saint in order to have their friendship and respect. You can confess your sins to them and be honest with them, and they can be honest with you. You can discover that in Jesus Christ you stand on level ground with each other and not play any games.

Every one of you needs friends like this. We need some network. We need someone whom we can be honest with.

I'll tell you one thing: you can be honest with God. You don't have to play games with him. He's the one that dreamed up the ninth commandment. He's not going to bear false witness to you. You don't have to bear false witness to him either.

This is the grand design of God. He wants you to have a relationship with reality. Do you have a relationship with reality? Is your life series of games that you've played in order to fool people about who you are? Have you even tried to fool God? Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ?

We are at a great evangelistic moment in the Ten Commandments. We have discovered a wonderful command where God wants us to be in relationship with him without games, without a subterfuge, without hidingbecause he's good. The Lord's Supper, which we're going to celebrate right now, is the gift that Jesus Christ gives to us when we're totally honest and open with him.

Let me ask you a question. On the basis of what you know about Jesus Christ, do you trust in his trustworthiness? Do you trust in him enough that you can be open with him and bring your life and rest upon him?

Earl Palmer is pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington. He has written a number of books and commentaries, including Signposts: Christian Values in an Age of Uncertainty and Mastering Teaching.

Earl Palmer

Preaching Today Tape # 120

www.PreachingTodaySermons.com

A resource of Christianity Today International

Earl Palmer is a writer and speaker for Earl Palmer Ministries, and author of Mastering the New Testament: 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation (W Publishing Group).