8th Commandment Refresher Course

Today we're going to do an in -depth study of the 8th commandment, which I think is an important thing for us to do.

Yes, sir? You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. But before we dive into it, we're going to pray, and then we will get started.

Lord Jesus, again, we come to You humbly with open hands, knowing that we have nothing except for turned -out pockets and that we depend upon You for everything.

And so as the beggars we are, we ask, Lord, that You would forgive us our sins and teach us and instruct us from Your Word, send

Your Holy Spirit so that we may rightly understand it, so that we may believe and trust confidently and boast almost even in Your forgiveness and grace, and bear fruit in fervent love towards our neighbor and others.

We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, a one -off study.

Eighth commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And what we're going to do today is we're going to work our way through a large swath of Martin Luther's large catechism on this, because Luther, in this sermon that he delivered, and that's, by the way, what this is.

When you look at the large catechism in the book of Concord, the large catechism is a series of sermons that he gave on the different parts of the catechism.

And so this is an entire sermon on the eighth commandment, and we want to consider its implications.

So when we think about the eighth commandment, this is the sin of bearing false witness against your neighbor. This manifests in several different primary forms.

Most importantly is the form known as gossip. Gossip. And I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but those who seem to have a proclivity for this sin like to self -justify their bad behavior by saying, well,

I'm not bearing false witness against my neighbor if it's true. That's a flat -out lie.

It's a flat -out lie. And we're going to take a look at what Luther wrote in this because he's nailed it as far as what

Scripture teaches. So today you'll have to kind of follow along on my screen.

Eighth commandment, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Besides our own body, our wife or husband, and our temporal property, we have one more treasure which is indispensable to us, namely our honor and our good name, for it is intolerable to live among men in public disgrace and contempt.

And so you'll note then that starting off here, Martin Luther is comparing our good reputation in our community to the very possessions that we have.

If you're a farmer, you think about that great combine that you own. And I won't even talk about colors because I know that starts a war.

Okay. I - See, I told you I wasn't going to go there, right?

There's green ones and red ones and blue ones. And we won't talk about which one's better than the next. But the important thing is that if you're a farmer and you own one of these things or you own these farm implements, of course,

I know the Linn farm, they're all green. That's all I can say, is that these are possessions of ours.

And if somebody were to steal them from us, there would be great loss.

If somebody stole our car, stole valuables from our home, this is a great loss.

But the thing is, is that breaking the eighth commandment steals somebody's good name from them.

It is a form of theft and God's word explicitly forbids it. And I want you to kind of think of it this way.

We'll put it into a bigger context. All right. You guys remember when you watch the news?

You watch the news, right? All right, if somebody is put on trial for committing a crime, they're innocent until proven guilty.

So if there was a bank robber here in our area and they had knocked off a few banks and Grand Forks and Thief River and all the way down to Bemidji, right?

And if that guy was finally caught until he was proven guilty, how would the news talk about him?

He's the alleged bank robber. He's allegedly robbed these banks.

He is not a bank robber in the eyes of the law and even in our discourse until it's been proven that that's the fellow who did it because he might actually be innocent.

And there have been court cases where the news media has basically described a person and talked about him in a way that they were guilty.

And then when the trial was finished, it was found out that they were innocent. And because the media depicted that person as being guilty without any due process or before the due process had run its course, those news outlets have been sued successfully for defamation of character in those cases.

So I want you to think about that. It takes somebody who holds a proper office to say of somebody else, you're a thief.

You're this, you're that. That takes somebody who has to have the proper office to make a judgment.

Slanderers, and we're gonna see this in Luther and what he writes, slanderers arrogate to themselves the authority that only exists with judges and those who hold proper offices.

And that's something to consider. Talk about the arrogance in that. So Luther's now gonna talk about this fact and he's gonna make some distinctions and we'll start with the court of law.

So therefore, God will not have our neighbor deprived of his reputation, his honor, his character any more than of his money and his possessions.

And he would have every man maintain his self -respect before his wife, children, servants, and neighbors.

So in its first, simplest meaning as the words stand, you shall not bear false witness, this command pertains to public courts of justice where a poor, innocent man is accused and maligned by false witnesses and consequently punished in his body, property, or honor.

This problem appears to concern us only a little at present but among the Jews, it was extremely common.

That nation had an excellent orderly government and even now where there is such a government, instances of the sins still occur.

The reason is this, where judges, mayors, princes, or others in authority sit in judgment, we always find that true to the usual course of the world, men are loathe to offend anyone.

Instead, they speak dishonestly with an eye to gaining favor or money or prospects or friendships. Consequently, a poor man is inevitably oppressed, loses his case, and suffers punishment.

It is the universal misfortune of the world that men of integrity seldom preside in courts of justice.

And so we'll note here, if somebody is actually a court, you know, a justice, a judge, and they're a lousy one, they're a lousy one because they don't judge cases based upon the evidence, they judge cases based upon who's their friends and who are not their friends.

If a verdict will give me more clout and maybe help me in my career, I'll say that person's guilty even if they're innocent.

You see, these are wicked judges, and God's word does not permit that.

In fact, the law of God in the Old Testament makes it clear that those who are judges cannot be partial.

They cannot be partial to the rich, they cannot be partial to the poor. They cannot, by God's law, take a bribe.

And don't think for a second that bribes only occur in monetary form. That's not true.

Whatever currency can ensnare a person's mind and cause them to make an unjust judgment, whether that's money or power or prestige or influence or whatever, that becomes the currency of a bribe.

So we recognize then that we do not want judges who are partial.

We want impartial judges according to God's law. So Luther then says a judge ought above all to be a man of integrity, not only upright, but also a wise, sagacious, brave, and fearless man.

Likewise, a witness should be fearless. More than that, he should be an upright man. He who is an administrator of justice equitably in all cases will often offend good friends, relatives, and neighbors, and the rich and the powerful who are in a position to help or harm him.

So a judge must therefore be quite blind, shutting his eyes and his ears to everything but the evidence presented and make his decisions accordingly.

So you see the depictions of Lady Justice, right? You see the statues of Lady Justice. She's got a sword in one hand.

She's blindfolded and she's holding a scale. Justice must be blind.

It must only look at the evidence and let the scales tip whichever way they tip. And only then, if they tip into the guilty, does she wield her sword.

That's the idea. So that's why Lady Justice is depicted in these ways. So the first application then of this commandment is that everyone should help his neighbor maintain his rights.

He must not allow these rights to be thwarted or distorted, but should promote and resolutely guard them whether he be a judge or a witness, lest the consequences be what they may.

Now in this context, protecting your neighbor's rights means making sure you're gonna get rid of lousy judges and that trials are conducted properly and accordingly, according to real evidence and real testimony, not according to lies.

That's kind of the idea. But it extends further and you'll see this then, is that the question that Cain asked

God after he murdered his brother Abel, am I my brother's keeper? The answer to that question is yes, by the way, for those of us who are in Christ.

So it is our responsibility to protect each other's reputations.

And when you see that somebody's reputation is being stolen from them, you say, stop thief.

Put that character down. You're committing a crime against your neighbor.

You see, we have to stand up for our neighbor in these senses. So Luther then continues. So here we have a goal set for our jurists.

And our goal, it seems like a lofty one, perfect justice. We do not want the innocent found guilty and we don't want the guilty to be let free.

That's the idea. Oh man, that got small. Hang on a second here.

That's like totally unreadable. I don't know what happened. I'm using a program I don't normally use here.

Hang on a second here. Let me see if I can bump this up to senior citizen size. Anyway.

All right, so, all right. So goal, perfect justice. I can't read it.

I am not talking to you. Fourth commandment, fourth commandment. Oh, this is just becoming worthless.

Knock it off. At least it's not a walker this year. Okay. Okay, justice accordingly, here we go.

Perfect, okay. All right, so we talked about, okay, so the application of this is then to all people should help their neighbors maintain their legal rights.

One must not allow these rights to be thwarted or distorted, but should promote and resolutely guard them, whether this person is a judge or a witness, no matter what the consequences may be.

So in the plainest, so this is the one aspect then of this commandment and its plainest meaning apply to all that takes place in court.

Next then, the eighth commandment extends much further when it is applied to the spiritual jurisdiction or administration.

Here too, all people bear false witness against their neighbors, wherever they are upright preachers and Christians, they must endure having the world call them heretics, apostates, even seditious and desperate scoundrels.

And I would note that this is just goes part and parcel with being a faithful pastor.

You preach the word, you preach the law and gospel, sin and grace, you preach the truth, the devil hates you, and he's gonna send people to accuse you of all kinds of nonsense, that is not the case.

It's just goes with the territory as part of bearing under your crosses that Christ has put on you.

So moreover, the word of God must undergo the most shameful and spiteful persecution and blasphemy.

It is contradicted, it is perverted, it is misused, it's misinterpreted, but let this pass.

It is the blind world's nature to condemn and persecute the truth and the children of God.

And why does this keep doing this? I'm gonna get out of this view, hang on a second here.

I've solved the problem, hold on. I'm gonna go to a different reader view because this one is really messing me up.

Yes ma 'am, yes, desperate scoundrel.

Yeah, they are, yeah. They're desperate for their own inner passions, you know?

So think James four, right, yeah. All right, so third then, the third aspect of this commandment then concerns us all.

It forbids all sins of the tongue by which we may injure or offend our neighbor.

Now a little bit of a note here. Luther did not live in the day of modern laptops and iDevices and iPads and iPhones and things like this.

So this will also then occur to sins of the fingers upon a keyboard, shall we say.

This is where social media has become a cesspool. And I am not overstating this.

So that falls under the general category of a sin of the tongue. So false witness is clearly a work of the tongue.

Whatever is done with the tongue against a neighbor then is forbidden by God. This applies to false preachers with their corrupt teaching and their blasphemy, to false judges and witnesses with their corrupt behavior in court and their lying and malicious talk outside of court.

And it applies particularly to the shameful vice of backbiting or slander by which the devil rides us.

I would even add into the mix, not just backbiting but tail bearing and things like this.

And those who are gifted in this sin, oh, they have a wonderful way of hooking you. It goes something like this.

You pick up the phone and they go, are you sitting down? No, I'm standing up.

You're gonna need to be sitting down. Oh, wow, okay, I better sit down. Why? Oh, when you hear what I have to tell you.

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Okay, I'm sitting down. All right, you're not gonna believe this but so -and -so did such -and -such.

Oh, no. Are you sure?

Yes, I heard it from so -and -so. Ah, well then it's gotta be true, right?

Yeah, and they've got you hooked. Unnamed sources. Yeah, yeah, unnamed sources. It's gotta be true because you know, right?

And here's the issue. They're sinning by calling you and now you're sinning by listening to them.

I hate to say that but that's the truth. And so we're gonna make a very important distinction that Luther makes and the scriptures make as well.

When it comes to people's private lives, you have no office whatsoever to be airing people's private laundry publicly.

When it comes to sins committed in public, we can talk about that. We can talk about sins committed in public.

I mean, so Luther, you'll see, makes this distinction. I mean, Luther corrected the Pope and pointed out that the

Pope's and Rome's doctrines were contrary to scripture and he did that publicly. Why? Because the

Pope was putting all these doctrines out publicly. If it's out in the public, we can debate it in the public. But when it comes to people's private lives, now we're getting into some really murky water.

Now, Don, I'm gonna pick on you for a little bit here. I'm gonna pick on you for a little bit. Now, we had this worked out so it's okay that I can talk about the sin of his.

But I don't know if you guys know this, but in 1862, Don stole a horse.

Yeah, no, just hold on, hold on, yeah. He did this in the New Mexico territory.

It's a really interesting story. I mean, he was kind of down and out. I mean, there was, you know, he lost his money and he was really hungry and stuff like that.

But here's the thing, he got away with it. He totally got away with it. And as a result of that,

I mean, justice wasn't served until long, long after. And where things started to unravel for him is that when he was at a

Beatles concert in like Candlestick Park in the 60s, okay, he, yeah, that's right, right, right, right.

He may have let it slip that he stole that horse in 1862 in the New Mexico territory.

And that's when things started kind of turning for him. And he was eventually, that was what, 96 they found you guilty finally?

Yeah, so he had to go to court. He had to go to court and they provided the evidence.

And he was required, after the judge declared him to be a horse thief, and lucky he was convicted in 1996, not in 1862, because he would have been hung.

Okay, he had to do some community service and like give reparations back to the family that he stole the horse from.

So I mean, he's pretty, and that's all there is. When you check his record, it's clean after that.

So, now, you did, you did, you did.

So we're gonna talk then, so we're gonna talk then about, you know, what do we do with this information about Don at different phases along the way?

All right, so it just so happens, I think it was what, 24 in New York that that lady thought that she recognized you from the

New Mexico Territory, right? And she started spreading the rumor that you were a horse thief and that you had stolen that horse back in 1862.

And so here's the thing, is there was a bunch of people, I mean, the telephone was already out and there were party lines and everything.

And so Don ended up having to like leave New York because like his reputation was totally smeared by all these rumors going around.

Do you still have the horse? It died, yeah, yeah, it was glue, yeah.

Anyway, but so here's the thing, is that we know for a fact that the lady who recognized

Don in the 1920s in New York, she was right. But you know what she didn't do?

She didn't go to the authorities. So she got on the phone and started telling everybody about Don. Oddly enough, what she was saying about Don was true, but she was still sinning and you're gonna see that.

Okay, now, thankfully, the judge was able to finally slap horse thief onto Don and we got that all sorted out.

But then we'll talk about later now as Kongsvinger, how then are we to view

Don, you know, the convicted horse thief? You know, we'll talk about that as well.

So you got the timeline here, 1862, we got a 1920s event, the 60s when he let slip that he did that and then eventually him being caught and having to face the judge.

So keep all of that in mind. Thanks, Don, for letting me talk about this. I know this was some really private, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so we got this in our scenario here. All right, so it applies then to the vice of backbiting and slander.

And so we noted that the woman in New York, she was actually slandering you, even though she was telling you the truth.

Weird, but we'll talk about how that works out. So much of this could be said. It is a common vice of human nature that everyone would rather hear evil than good about his neighbor.

This is so true, right? And evil though we are though, we can't tolerate having anyone speak evil of us.

Isn't that weird? It's weird, it's double standard how this all works. And we want golden compliments of the whole world, and yet we cannot bear to hear the best spoken of others.

Therefore, to avoid this vice, we should note that nobody has the right to judge and reprove his neighbor publicly, even when he has seen a sin committed, unless he has been authorized to judge and reprove.

Hence that lady in New York in the 20s, she was like spot on, you were the one.

The problem was she did not have an office from which to judge you, a horse thief, even though she was fully aware that you're the guy who did it.

You see that? These are important distinctions we have to make. All right, so there is a great difference between judging sin and having knowledge of sin.

Knowledge of sin does not entail the right to judge it. I may see and hear that my neighbor sins, but to make him the talk of the town is not my business.

If I interfere and pass sentence on him, I fall into a greater sin than his.

When you become aware of a sin, simply make your ears a tomb and bury it until you are appointed a judge and you are authorized to administer punishment by virtue of your office.

You see, God wants these things to be handled properly and individuals do not hold the office and individuals who are executing these judgments outside of an office, there's no due process at all and they don't have the ability to do this.

So those are called backbiters who are not content just to know, but rush ahead and judge.

So learning a bit of gossip about someone else, they spread it into every corner, relishing and delighting in it like pigs that roll in the mud and root around in their snouts.

Ah, the pig pen, yeah, right? Mm, some lovely mud here, yeah.

So this is nothing else than usurping, and listen to this, this is nothing else than usurping the judgment in the office of God, pronouncing the severest kind of verdict and sentence for the harshest verdict a judge can pronounce is to declare somebody a thief or a murderer or a traitor and only a proper judge in the proper office has the authority to declare somebody to be that.

So whoever therefore ventures to accuse his neighbor of such guilt assumes as much authority as the emperor and all magistrates, for though you do not wield the sword, you use your venomous tongue to the disgrace and the harm of your neighbor.

You see the issue? Therefore, God forbids you to speak evil about another, even though to your certain knowledge, he is guilty.

All the more urgent is the prohibition if you are not sure, but have it only from hearsay.

But you say, well, why shouldn't I speak it if it's the truth? How many times have

I heard that? Luther replies, why don't you bring it before the regular judge?

Oh, I can't prove it publicly. I might be called a liar and sent away in disgrace.

Ah, now you smell the roast. I like that phrase.

Ah, now you smell the roast. If you do not trust yourself to make your charges before the proper authorities, then hold your tongue.

Keep your knowledge to yourself and do not give it out to others. For when you repeat a story that you cannot prove, even if it is true, you appear as a liar.

Besides, you act like a knave, for no man should be deprived of his honor and good name unless these have been first taken away from him publicly by the proper people in the proper offices.

So that lady in the 1920s, I mean, she flat out sinned against you, but she was telling the truth, but she had no authority and no office from which to do that.

So sorry you had to move to Minnesota, but that explains how he got here, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so we make these important distinctions then. All right, so every report then that cannot be adequately proved is a false witness.

Every report that cannot be proved is a false witness. No exceptions.

No one should publicly assert as truth what is not publicly substantiated.

In short, what is secret should be allowed to remain secret or at any rate be reproved in secret as we shall hear.

And now we're gonna kind of get into the idea then. This is where Matthew 18 comes into play. You become aware of somebody's sin because they've sinned against you.

That's still a private matter between you and the person who sinned against you. And what does Christ tell you to do?

Go to that person privately. Go to that person privately first.

You only make it public after a process, a process laid out, and that's only public to the church.

All right, so no one should publicly assert as truth what is not publicly substantiated.

Therefore, if you encounter somebody with a worthless tongue who gossips and slanders somebody, rebuke him straight to his face and make him blush for shame.

In other words, put away the Minnesota Nice and you just tell that person, you are sinning against God and your neighbor and this is wickedness and you need to repent.

I will not hear any of this. You have no office from which to judge this person regarding their private life.

Then you will silence many a one who otherwise would bring some poor man into disgrace from which he could scarcely clear himself for honor and good name are easily taken away.

They're not easily restored. That is the truth of the matter. Yes, Mike. Yeah, you make a good point.

Because at the end of the day, when somebody's alleged to have committed a great crime and they are found guilty, how many people believe that that verdict of innocence is right?

You see what I'm saying? But they comment on it and write stories about it publicly because technically this is all transpiring in the public.

But we must be very careful that anybody who is convicted, that is who is alleged or they're on trial for a crime.

They haven't been actually been convicted but they are facing charges. They've been charged with a crime.

It doesn't matter what the crime is. They are innocent until they are proven guilty and our constitution guarantees that right.

And that right happens to come straight from God himself, from the eighth commandment. But this is the reason why

I don't pay any attention to most of the media. Most of it is just nonsense. Most of it is slandering.

And by the way, those gossip magazines at the checkout aisle, right?

I don't care who Beyonce is sleeping with. This should never be put into print for anybody to read about.

You see what I'm saying? This is just, as a society, we have literally taken human beings character and turned it into a meal that we relish.

And this is sick. I don't care who's sleeping with who, who's getting a divorce.

Doesn't matter in that case, okay? Certain things matter but it has to be handled publicly.

So you see that we are absolutely forbidden to speak evil of our neighbor. Now exception is made, however, of civil magistrates or preachers and parents.

For we must interpret this commandment in such a way that evil cannot go unpunished. For we have seen the fifth commandment forbids us to injure anyone physically and yet an exception is made for the hangman, all right?

It's kind of an important point. Now we don't have that many hangmen anymore but here's a strange thing is that the guy who's in charge of putting the noose together to kill somebody is actually in a godly vocation.

Weird to think. And their only job is to kill somebody. Yeah, police and military do the same.

I hate to say this but when guys in our military get in a firefight and they kill terrorists, that is a good work.

But Scripture says thou shalt not, wait a second, it says thou shalt not murder. There's a difference between thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not murder.

So by virtue of the hangman's office, he does not do his neighbor good but only harm and evil and yet he does not sin against God's commandment because God of his own accord instituted that office.

And as he warns in the fifth commandment, he has reserved to himself the right of punishment. Likewise, although no one has in his own person the right to judge and condemn anyone, yet if they whose duty it is fail to do so, they sin as much as those who take the law into their own hands without such a commission.

So necessity requires one to report evil. Notice it says report it.

You report evil to the proper people who need to hear about these things.

And so we are required to report evil, to prefer charges, to attest, examine and witness.

It is no different from the situation of the physician who to cure a patient sometimes is compelled to examine and handle his private parts.

Just so magistrates, parents and even brothers and sisters and other good friends are under mutual obligation to reprove evil where it is necessary and beneficial.

And this is where the fourth commandment comes into play because we recognize that it is in the fourth commandment, honor your father and mother, that all of society is ordered.

So the primary place where evil is dealt with is in the family first.

Father in that office, then mother in her office sees their child committing sin and reproves, punishes, rebukes and exhorts that child so that child turns from their sin.

And that stays within the family. It doesn't go outside of it, it's properly dealt with.

God has dealt with it in the proper offices. So you kind of think of microcosm, family, and it works out to community and then to state and then to country.

All of this is the ever increasing epicenter, the shockwaves of the fourth commandment.

So the right way to deal with this matter would be to observe the order laid down in the Gospel of Matthew. I don't know why the typo was there for 19, it should be 18.

Matthew 18 where Christ says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Why? So that you can win your brother. Here you have a fine and precious precept for governing the tongue, which ought to be carefully noted if we are to avoid this detestable abuse.

So let this be your rule, that you should not be quick to spread slander and gossip about your neighbor, but admonish him privately so that he may amend.

Likewise, if someone should whisper to you what this or that person has done, teach him if he saw the wrongdoing to go and reprove the man personally, otherwise to hold his tongue.

This lesson you can learn from the daily management of the household. When the master of the house sees a servant failing to do his duty, he takes him to task personally.

Now we don't have servants. I mean, I can't afford any, but you kind of get the idea here.

But let's say you hired a lady to come in and clean your dishes or clean your house from time to time, right?

So you can get one of those maid services. So you call the dial -a -maid and she comes into your house once a week and is cleaning your house.

And you walk through and you realize, man, why am I paying this much money for this? Because look at the toilet's still dirty and there's food on the counters and stuff like that.

So that's your situation. Well, if the dial -a -maid service isn't doing a good job, the maid that they sent isn't doing a good job, it's not gonna do you any good to go up to the restaurant in Oslo and say, the lady who's supposed to clean my house is totally worthless.

This is just awful. I mean, she's got food on the counter, the toilet's still dirty. I mean, what's going on here?

People look at you like you're nuts. Why are you telling the community about how awful this lady is when you need to have that conversation with her personally?

Because that'll actually solve the problem. You see what I'm saying? But no, gossips, no, no, no, no.

As soon as they got some dirt, they gotta spread it. They gotta muck around in it. And that's the point that Luther's making, that you go and you take these things and you deal with the person one -on -one.

So if he were so foolish as to leave the servant at home while he went out into the streets to complain to his neighbors, he would be told, you fool, that's none of our business.

Why don't you tell him that yourself? And that would be the brotherly thing to say.

For the evil would be corrected and the neighbor's honor would be maintained. As Christ himself says in the same passage, if he listens to you, you've gained your brother.

So then you have done a great and excellent work. Do you think it is an insignificant thing to gain a brother?

Let all the monks in the holy order step forth with all their works heaped up together and see if they can make the boast that they have gained one brother.

It's a big thing to gain a brother. So Christ teaches further. If he does not listen, then take one or two others along with you.

The circle gets a little wider, but we're still keeping this private so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

So the individual is to be dealt with personally and not gossiped about behind his back.

If this does not help, then bring the matter before the public, either before the civil or the ecclesiastical court.

And you'll note then that you can either take it to, you know, if it's a crime, you could take it to the police.

And if it's not a crime, you know, it's a sin against the brother, then we can handle it within the Christian community. Pastors have authority in these ways to make judgments, but not without due process.

And we make these decisions as a group together. So then you do not stand alone.

You have witnesses with you through whom you can convict the guilty one -on -one whose testimony the judge can base his decision and sentence.

This is the right procedure for restraining as well as reforming a wicked person.

But if you gossip about someone in every corner and root around in the filth, nobody will be reformed.

Moreover, when you are called upon to witness, you will probably deny having said anything.

I didn't say that. Who told you that I said that? That's usually the voice that's delivered in too.

So it would serve gossip's right to have their sport spoiled as a warning to others.

If you were acting for your neighbor's improvement or from the love of truth, you would not sneak about in secret shunning the light of day.

The fact that you are slinking about. That you're whispering. That you don't want anyone to know what you're saying.

And don't tell anybody that I told you this. Uh -huh. Yeah, the problem is you're not working for your neighbor's improvement then.

So all this then refers, as Luther says, to secret sins or private sins. But where the sin is so public that the judge and the whole world are aware of it, you can, without sin, shun and avoid the person as one who has brought disgrace upon himself.

And you may testify publicly concerning him. For when an affair is manifest to everybody, there can be no question of slander or injustice or false witness.

For example, we now censure the Pope and his teaching, which is publicly set forth in books and shouted throughout the world.

Where the sin is public, the punishment ought to be public so that everyone may know how to guard against it.

And so if you listen to my podcast, my podcasts, I take what preachers preach in public, post on the internet, in the public record, and then

I critique it according to Scripture publicly. And I can do that because the false doctrine that they've taught is public.

It can be commented on publicly, and I can even draw conclusions or judgments about that false teacher based upon the false teaching that they're teaching.

And I can do that publicly and name them because this is all taking place in public, right?

Kind of a crass joke or a crass example, but I remember this, what is that comedian's name?

Is it Ron White? He tells a story, he tells a really funny story of how one time he got drunk in a bar and the bouncer threw him out of the bar and no sooner did he get on the sidewalk that a police officer arrests him for being drunk in public.

And his defense was, I didn't get drunk in public, I got drunk in a bar and they threw me in the public.

So the idea here is that what's in public can be commented on in public.

Can be judged in public. But what isn't in public, that's none of our business. And we have to point people back to the proper ways and the people who have the authority to address issues that are private.

So coming back to the Don incident then, right? So again, you know, Don went, man, that was a long time by the way.

You went 100 and yeah, something years without ever being convicted of being a horse thief.

So although he was guilty of it, it wasn't until 96 that he was actually, a judge said he was a thief.

Yeah, karma man, karma. Okay, but I mean, it's been a while, right?

You know, it's been a while since, I mean, and you did your community service like that. I mean,

I don't even think Marilyn recognized that was what we were doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

So now, you know, Don's a member of Kongsvinger. And so, you know,

I don't know how it happened. I think Cliff actually did it. He was doing criminal background checks on all of us.

And sure enough, he got a hit on you, Don. Okay, so Cliff figured out that you were a horse thief because it's right there in your criminal record.

And now Cliff has got, he's got a little bit of a guilty conscience because I mean, you're a worship leader and you're on our team. You're on our church council.

And he's got this issue. It's like, what am I supposed to do about this? We've got a convicted horse thief.

You know, it's like, ugh. And so he's a little conflicted because he's not sure how am

I to treat you. And so I was like, remember that time you came to church with that 10 -gallon hat and he tipped his hat at you?

I think he was trying to send a message. But anyway, the answer to this question is how we then treat each other is actually found in 1

Corinthians 6. And let me pull that up. This will be very helpful. So we make a distinction between the right -hand kingdom and the left -hand kingdom.

The right -hand kingdom is the church, the congregation, the kingdom of Christ. Left -hand kingdom has to do with the civil affairs and government.

But as Christians then, here's how we treat each other. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

So don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolaters or adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, or look at that, horse thieves, right there, verse 10.

Or thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

This is most certainly true. Watch what he says then. And such were some of you.

But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And so although the law, because of arrest records and things like that, will always remember our sins,

Christ doesn't. You were a horse thief. And in Christ, you are no longer that.

You are a forgiven sinner, like the rest of us. And so that title that the state, or actually now, well, the state of New Mexico, and I happened to try that case, but the state of New Mexico put on you, of horse thief,

Christ doesn't remember that, and we shouldn't remember it either. We never think of Don as that desperado.

No. For other reasons too. But you get the idea, right?

And it died. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you coming to Don's defense there, yeah.

But every time now I hear that song, ♪ Desperado ♪ I'll only think of Don. Why don't you come to your senses?

Anyway. But so you get the idea, see the distinctions then. So when somebody is spreading information about somebody's private life, you have to put a stop to that.

That is not, none of us has that office in and of ourselves to address private matters publicly.

And so you tell that person you are breaking the eighth commandment, you're slandering, you're spreading hearsay, and you need to repent, and you need to go to the person that you have slandered, and you need to confess your sin to them and be forgiven by them.

And you need to, as best as possible, undo the damage that you've done to their reputation through your unbridled tongue.

That's required. And trust that you are forgiven in this because Christ has bled and died for these sins.

But so many interpersonal conflicts can never be resolved when somebody is refusing to actually act in love towards their neighbor.

If they've learned that somebody has sinned, they're not going to them privately, they're going to everybody else. This is no way to handle the situation.

This is no way at all. This is sinful beyond reason. You have a question?

Yeah. Yeah, how do you undo stuff? I don't think you can.

That's kind of the nature of sin is, you know, I remember one of my pastors describing sin like a very, very beautiful, frail, like China vase.

You know, beautiful and elegant. The law of God is like that. And when we sin, we shatter the whole thing.

Good luck putting that thing back together. And so the reality is is that there is major damage that is done to people's reputations and character when we do not follow what

God's word says. And I've said it before, this is a congregation full of sinners from the pastor all the way down to the youngest person who comes here.

And we are going to sin against each other because we still have a sinful nature.

But the question is not whether or not we're gonna sin against each other. The question is, are we going to address sin according to the way

Christ has told us to address it? And where we have fallen short, we must confess. And we must ask forgiveness.

Where somebody has fallen short against us and refuses, we have to go to them and say, brother or sister, you have done me great harm by sinning against me in this way.

And you have sinned against God's law, you've sinned against me, and you need to repent. I wanna be reconciled to you, but you're gonna need to confess what you've done here.

And if they say go away, it ever escalates to a point where it finally, after a proper process, goes public.

But gossips always go to the public first to self -justify. Always. And that's not the way

Christ would have us act. Not towards each other, no way. Your reputation is far too valuable.

And it cannot, Christ refuses to allow it to be stripped from you without a proper process. And those who do so, either here in the community or on social media or other ways, they are doing the work of the devil, not the work of Christ.

They are making themselves look good at somebody else's expense. But they have no love for neighbor because love for neighbor says sin harms you, therefore

I want to help you. You're harming yourself and harming others through this sin.

Open your eyes, see what God's law says, repent. Be free from this. Whereas the gossip says, ha, they fell into the trap.

I'm gonna let everybody know that they're stuck. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And this is why over and again, the psalmist, when they pray, let those who speak these types of lies, may they fall into the pit that they have dug for others.

May they fall into it themselves. So, all right, that's our lesson on the