LAW HOMILY: Lying In Silence

You may be seated. Every week we look at the law of God because we want to understand what

God's heart is for his people. We want to understand what biblical obedience is. We want to understand how can we follow this great

God and what he's called us to do. This week we're gonna be on the ninth commandment and it's verse 16 of chapter 20 in the book of Exodus and it says this, you shall not bear a false witness against your neighbor.

Now I want you to imagine for a moment a man and a woman awake and they realize that their home is on fire and the air is really thick with smoke and the walls are painted orange with the flicker of dancing flames that are climbing up the staircase and his wife is stirring anxiously beside him and down the hall his children are asleep unaware of what is happening.

Now I want you to imagine that that husband looks over to his frantic wife and says, don't wake up the children, honey.

It'll only frighten them. What kind of a man would that be? What kind of a father could see a fire, hear the crackling of future destruction and then choose silence in the face of it?

We would call such a man a heartless, deranged monster and a coward and yet how often do we do the same thing?

We smell the smoke of sin in our homes, the smoldering embers of pride and bitterness in our marriages and we stay silent.

We see hypocrisy grow in the church, injustice in our friendships, deception in our own hearts and yet we turn over in bed pretending that nothing is wrong.

We call it keeping the peace but peace that hides the truth is not peace at all.

It's cowardice wearing a mask of war and this is where the ninth commandment exposes that deadly instinct.

It forbids every shade of falsehood and it demands from us fearless honesty, not merely that we're not supposed to lie.

Yes, of course, but not lying also means standing for truth in all things and this is because God himself does not lie.

He cannot lie, he will not lie. Deuteronomy 32, four calls him a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteousness and upright is he.

Isaiah calls him the God of truth which means that every deceitful word and every half truth and every cowardly act of silence is an act of betrayal towards him.

When Jesus says that the devil, when he speaks lies, he speaks out of his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies,

John 8, 44, we see that same impulse in us whenever we twist the truth, when we borrow from his forked tongue or whenever we flatter or whenever we conceal or whenever we remain quiet when

God calls us to speak. When we do that, we speak in traffic in the language of hell.

The Westminster Larger Catechism reminds us that this commandment requires us to appeal for and stand for the truth and for the heart sincerely, freely, clearly and fully to speak the truth and only the truth in matters of judgment and justice in all things whatsoever.

In other words, truth is not to be measured by convenience or by cost.

We are to speak it sincerely even if it exposes us, freely even if it offends, clearly even when it unsettles and fully even when it threatens to break the fragile peace that we crave to keep.

Paul writes, lying aside false or laying aside falsehoods speak truth each one of you with his neighbor for we are members one another.

The church is not a loose collection of consumers who come to church for a product.

We are a single body woven together by the truth of God. Every lie severs a nerve and dulls the body sensitivities and when one member deceives another member even through silence, we participate in falsehood.

The hand that no longer feels the pain of the foot, the heart that no longer senses the sickness in the limb is the heart metaphorically speaking where love has grown numb and silence has become an excuse.

But when the truth is spoken clearly, courageously and compassionately, it restores the circulation of the body of Christ.

It is the current of life that makes the church feel. We are not a people of falsehood and we are not a people of the shadows, we are people of the truth.

So in whatever way, if it's blatantly lying this week, if it's withholding something that should have been said and anywhere in between, let us repent for our participation in the shadows and in the darkness and let us come again to the

Lord of glory to ask him for forgiveness. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together and then

I'll pray over us. Lord, when your command says do not lie, there's so many ways that we can do that.

We can lie blatantly, we can do those things that we like to call white lies, whitewashing that sin, we can speak half -truths, we can speak in ways that avoid the truth and speak in a double -tongued way or we can just be cowardly and not speak the truth at all because we're trying to maintain some kind of peace.

Lord, in the same way that a father would never do that if there was a fire in his house, Lord, let us not do that if there's the fires of sin are accosting us.

Let us see sin for what it is. Let us flee it and let us confess it and let us be a people who speak the truth even if it offends, even if it causes consternation.

Lord, help us if there's anyone on earth that would be people of the truth, let it be us because we serve you, you're the

God of truth. Forgive us how we sin, Lord, and remind us of the grace of Christ and his gospel.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All throughout the scriptures, we're reminded that we're forgiven.

The bloodiest part of our worship service is now passed. You've been cut by the word.

You've confessed your sins. Now you come to the cross of Christ to be reminded that you are forgiven of your sins.

In John 10, 28 through 29, our verse four today, this is what Jesus says, "'And

I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.'"

I love this verse because while it doesn't explicitly say that you're forgiven of your sins, it absolutely says it in the fact that Christ has grabbed you out of death and out of darkness and he's holding you.

Think about it this way. Christ who is perfectly holy doesn't hold unholy things.

So the fact that he holds you means he's made you holy. He's cleansed you.

He's sanctified you. And now he holds you. And raise your hand if you think that you can pry yourself or anyone else out of the hand of Christ.

Yeah, you and me, my friends, are not that strong. So therefore we're secure, we're cleansed, we're sanctified, we're safe.

So if you will stand with me as people who have been forgiven of our sins and let us confess our faith together through the definition of Chalcedon and then through the

Heidelberg Catechism, all together. In further confession of our faith, let us confess through the

Heidelberg Catechism, question 45 this week. I'll read the question if you'll join me in the answer.

What does the resurrection of Christ profit us? Amen. Let us join together in singing in thankfulness.