Exodus 20:16 - “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
If you have ever had anyone say something untrue about you, then you can appreciate the importance of this commandment. As human beings, we were created to be in honest fellowship with one another, but for all kinds of reasons we can say things about one another that aren’t accurate and the result of doing so can be devastating.
Imagine that one morning you wake up and get in your car to drive to work. You are feeling a bit too tired from staying up too late the night before, and you probably aren’t ready to drive just yet. But, because you are running late, you start to reverse out of the driveway and because you aren't paying attention, you go too far and back up into your neighbor’s fence across the street.
You hear the crack of the fence and realize what you’ve done, but because you are late for work, and because you don’t want to get in trouble, you quickly drive off. While at work a co-worker notices some dents and scratches on the back of your car. When asked about it you say, “Oh, some neighbor kids were throwing rocks on the street and hit my car.” You know it’s not true, but no one will know whether it happened or not.
Then after a long day of work you return home and see your neighbors across the street picking up pieces of their fence, wondering what happened. As you get out of the car, they walk up to you and ask if you saw anything this morning when you left. Here’s the chance to be honest, right? But instead, you tell them, “You know, the neighbor’s son just turned sixteen. I hate to say this, but maybe he wasn’t paying attention this morning on the way to school and backed into your fence.” In this scenario you have lied at least twice, and the result of those lies is that now your co-worker thinks the kids on your street are terrible, and the neighbor across the street is assuming the worst of the sixteen year old boy who may have a hard time defending himself. Out of the motive of self-preservation, your false witness against others may have terrible consequences.
God is the father of truth because God is truth. He is opposed to lies because he knows the damage that they do. When we allow ourselves to bear false witness about someone else, we are not imitating the Father, we are actually imitating the devil. He is the father of lies, and he loves to destroy trust within relationships. This is one reason why God has not merely given this as a suggestion for us, but as a command. Our integrity in the truth is of tremendous importance.
As you think about your interactions that you’ve had this week and the ones you will have today, be a person of integrity when speaking with others. Don’t save yourself by throwing someone else under the bus, or wrongfully accuse someone of something that they didn’t do. The truth sets us free, but lies imprison us and steal our strength. Make it your aime today to live in the truth of the Lord, loving people by being a true witness in a world of lies.
