Series 2010, Edition 2011 Lesson 10
The Ninth Commandment
Adapted for ROGMA International, Inc. by Janice G. Osborne
Introduction
“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren” (Proverbs 6:16-19).
“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we are members one of another”
(Ephesians 4:25).
Importance of this Lesson
1. The Ninth Commandment deals with the issue of truthfulness. Many of us grew up in a moralistic society where we were taught that if you grow up telling the truth, you might have a better chance at becoming someone famous or at least a man or woman of great character. There was this concept of truthfulness that is not the world we live in today. Today we see leaders of all kinds, religious, political, and business, tell lies.
2. Jesus told Pilate, “…for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth” (John
18:37). “Pilate saith unto him, ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:38). In many cultures lying has become just a way of life. One statistic found that 91% of people lie on a regular basis. Most cannot make it through a week without lying. One in five cannot make it through a single day without lying. Two thirds of the people polled believe there is nothing wrong with telling a lie. Only 31% believe that honesty is the best policy.
3. Are we doomed to be liars? Why should we tell the truth? Why is telling the truth so important? What is truth? Where did we go wrong?
4. We lost the battle for truth when we stopped being Christians and became moralists. We trained people to believe that telling the truth is the right thing to do. And when people questioned morality and said,
“Why?”, we just said, “Because it is right.” We became self-righteous.
THE LESSON
Speaking The Truth In Love
I. THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FOR TELLING THE TRUTH
A. The Ten Commandments are a guide to love.
This Commandment is simply telling us how we are to love God and love our neighbor.
People look at the commandments and say, “Oh, they are so negative.” Jesus said, “No, the essence of the Commandments is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” We are to tell the truth because it is how we are to love our neighbor and how we are to love God.
B. Untruthfulness is inhuman and unloving.
One of the things that make us human is the fact that we can deal in truth.
For example: Intimacy among humans is based on truthfulness. Animals don’t care about truthfulness.
Do you think that the buck chasing the doe through the woods cares if his female is truthful?
In the Garden of Eden, the Bible says that Adam and Eve were created naked. There was nothing between them. There was no lie. Into the world of innocence and openness came Satan who introduced

Series 2010, Edition 2011 Lesson 10
The Ninth Commandment the lie. When they believed the lie, they hid from each other and from God. Intimacy among human beings died because we have things in our soul that we want to cover. Is intimacy now based on hiding our faults? When relationships are based on a lie, is there really love? It was a lie that plunged the world into such broken and fractured relationships. Then Jesus comes on the scene and tells the truth and humanity can’t even believe Him. He says, Your problem is that “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. …When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Part of the Gospel is this concept of truth. God, who is truth, came into the world and He looked at our ugly hearts and said, “I know who you are, and I love you anyway. I chose to come and pay for your sins, that I might truly embrace you, even in all of your ugliness.” That is love. This is why Christians ought to be the most honest and open people in the world. We are loved in spite of our flaws! We are not loved because we ‘put on’ (pretend), but because
God knows everything about us and is still committed to us. Christian love is when you look at your mate and say, “I know everything about you and I choose to love you.” “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). Again, lying is dehumanizing!
C. Only human beings can make promises and keep them.
Animals can’t promise. We live in a world where promises mean so little, where promises are broken so quickly. We are the people entering into promises and covenants who have already lied so much to each other that the promises mean nothing, and in the long run will not hold. This is not making us more human. It is making us like animals. It is not a reflection of God who makes promises and keeps them. Lying destroys. Lying is not loving. Lying does not build deep relationships or great societies.
In fact, we have lied so much that people today even have a hard time believing God. We do not reflect His image when it comes to truthfulness.
II. BECOMING A PERSON OF TRUTH
“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25).
Paul tells us three things about how to begin to be a truth-teller.
1. Put away lying – We have to come to the place where we recognize that lying cannot be the answer. It is unloving. Lying is inhumane, and it is destructive.
2. Speak the truth – When is a liar no longer a liar? The answer is not when he stops lying. A liar who stops lying is just between lies. A liar is no longer a liar when he speaks the truth.
3. We are members one of another – Paul says we speak the truth with our neighbors because we are
“members one of another.” We speak the truth because we are a family. Speaking the truth is not something we do in a vacuum but something we do for the sake of other people with whom we have relationships. Paul says it this way, “But speaking the truth in love, (we) may grow up into him in all things,…” (Ephesians 4:15). We’ll speak the truth because it is right. It is speaking the truth in a loving way to build up and to help your neighbor. Gossip never builds up.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Emphasis here is on not hurting your neighbor. Gossip hurts. It is unloving to lie.
III. TURNING THE NINTH COMMANDMENT INTO A POSITIVE
Positively “do not bear false witness” means “speak the truth to your neighbor.” It does not mean ‘just don’t lie,’ but it is ‘tell the truth.’ So then, positively ‘don’t lie against your neighbor,’ means ‘speak the truth to your neighbor.’ Speak the truth in love.
A. Facts about the truth.
Don’t speak untruthfully or unlovingly. There is a kind of truthfulness that is obnoxious to God. Some
Christians tell the truth in such an arrogant, smug way that I don’t think God is really pleased with them. Often we get into an argument with someone, and in the middle of the argument, we decide to finally be honest, so we pull out the truth and smack him with it. What we said was true, but it was not loving. It was not in keeping with the spirit of the Law.

Series 2010, Edition 2011 Lesson 10
The Ninth Commandment
B. The motive of truth.
Real truth is honesty motivated by love, not honesty intended to hurt. You are not to speak truth against your neighbor; you’re to speak truth for your neighbor. This is so very important because God went to great length to be both truthful and loving.
IV. THERE ARE TWO GREAT TRUTHS IN THE SCRIPTURE THAT GOD WANTED TO CONVEY TO
US
A. Our sin is absolutely putrid to God.
We have rebelled against God and we deserve to be cut off from Him and to be punished for all eternity. That is the truth.
B. God loves us at the same time.
He loves us not because we are so wonderful, but because He has chosen to set His affection on us.
God decided to illustrate truth and love in such a very powerful way that you and I would never forget it. He did it at the cross. When you read about the crucifixion account in the Bible, you will see the horror, the punishment and the brutality of the cross. The message is that this is how you ought to be brutalized for your sin. You ought to be flogged and crucified and hung naked on a cross and cut off from God forever. And yet, Jesus took that brutality that belonged to you and me. He laid down His life for us so that the message of the cross could be: you are an awful sinner, but I love you enough to pay for your sin. The truth is that God took the punishment on Himself that He might love us.
Note: Truth and love kissed at the cross.
Note: You are a sinner and God cannot overlook your sin, He must punish it.
Note: God took the punishment upon Himself that He might love us.
If God went to those great lengths to be both truthful and loving, then you and I must work hard at being both truthful and loving also. The reason that the world has not accepted the Gospel of Jesus
Christ is not that we have not proclaimed the truth; we have just not done it in a loving way. We have been smug and arrogant and moralistic instead of Christian in our proclamation.
V. HOW DO WE BECOME PEOPLE WHO CAN SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE?
A. We must become very honest about our dishonesty. The Bible says that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. If you are going to become a truthful loving person, you need a critic, somebody who can look at your heart honestly and give you real insight into your life. That One is the Spirit of God. We need to come before God and say, “I know that my heart is dishonest in some way. Search me and know me and try my heart today. See if there be any wicked untruthfulness in me.”
Note: You cannot be honest until you are honest about your dishonesty.
We can be dishonest in two ways:
1. Refuse to tell the truth.
2. When we do tell the truth we often do it in exasperation and not in love!
B. We must begin to practice truth in love.
We need to begin to practice truth in love within the body of Christ. If we cannot be truthful with each other, then we do not have a gospel. The gospel is the most truthful and loving thing we have. It states that we are more sinful and wicked than we can imagine, and we are more loved and cherished than we could ever hope for. The gospel says we have nothing to hide, and if we cannot live out our honesty in the body of Christ, then our gospel is worthless, and nobody on the outside will want it. The

Series 2010, Edition 2011 Lesson 10
The Ninth Commandment church must become the community of the honest and the open that have nothing to hide because everything is spoken both truthfully and lovingly. We must live the gospel before we can proclaim it.
Note: People want to see Christians live the gospel before they will accept it.
CONCLUSION
1.
It is time for us to engage our world. It is time to take a truthful, loving heart and go into the world and begin to speak the truth in a loving way.
2. We cannot say we love the world if unless we speak the truth.
3. We certainly cannot begin to speak the truth unless we love.
4. We cannot speak the truth lovingly if we do not love people who are without the truth.