Would you believe it that we are still on this ninth commandment?
Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor.
Beloved,
one's reputation is vitally important to one.
One's reputation is something that is very precious.
So precious,
so priceless,
so important is one's reputation
that literally God has given a commandment to protect it,
to safeguard it.
Therefore, we know at a glance
that a fool is the individual who cares not about his reputation.
To just shrug your shoulders and say,
I don't care what my neighbor thinks about me.
I don't care what my relatives think about me.
I don't care what anybody thinks about me.
That man is very foolish.
When we see from God's word
that in these ten rules for living
a man's reputation is so important
that God has given a commandment to safeguard it.
Thou shalt not,
don't you do it, God says,
don't you dare do it.
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Now, this commandment has a twofold intention.
First, it guards the reputation.
And secondly, it closes the door of opportunity
against unworthy men
who might seek to enter therein upon false testimony.
Just one second.
Because I closed my last heart-to-heart talk with you
regarding this thing of reputation.
And the fact that one is to avoid
even the very appearance of evil.
Character, you know, is the true fact concerning oneself.
I may know you well enough.
I may know you personally.
I may have such confidence in your character,
your principles,
that I could stake my life on the fact that you would not do certain things.
And yet there are those who may not know you so well.
And you do things that are so close on the borderline
that if their eyesight isn't extremely good,
they may feel as though they saw you do the thing.
You were so close to the thing.
That's the reason over and over again the Bible tells us
to avoid the very appearance of evil.
In other words, stay so far away from doing wrong.
Stay so far away.
If needs be, walk on the opposite side of the street.
Don't do anything that would even give the appearance of evil,
the very appearance of doing wrong.
Don't give that long-tongued sister something to talk about.
Don't give your neighbor something that they can feed upon.
Stay just as far away from it as possible.
Because I'll tell you, that tongue,
one of the smallest members of our body,
is a very vicious thing.
If you don't believe it, I'll give you the word of God.
James describes it perfectly in the third chapter.
If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.
And the amazing thing is, there was only one who was perfect.
Only one person who ever walked this earth was really perfect.
And that one was the very Son of the Living God.
No man, no woman is absolutely perfect.
For I do not believe there is a person who has ever lived,
who is living now, or who will ever live,
who has not offended in word one way or another.
It's because we're still in this body of flesh.
This body is still corruption.
And the most corrupt part of this which is flesh
is that one little member, the tongue.
If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man,
and able also to bridle the whole body.
If you can control your tongue,
then you are able to control the rest of your body.
Isn't that saying something?
Behold, Jane says, we put bits in the horse's mouths,
that they may obey us, and we may turn about their whole body.
Behold also the ships, which though they be so great,
and are driven of fierce winds,
yet are they turned about with a very small helm,
with us whoever the governor listeth.
The tongue is the little member, and boasts great things.
Behold, how great a matter, a little fire kindles.
The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.
I believe that the tongue, the human tongue,
had done more damage, has broken more hearts,
has committed more murder
than all of the battles that were ever fought on anybody's battlefield.
I believe that.
A world of iniquity.
That vicious little member of the body.
That tongue that cannot touch your character,
because remember the character is the true fact concerning oneself.
But the tongue has besmirched more reputations
than any weapon that has ever been used.
God knew it.
That's why in these Ten Rules for Living,
he gave a commandment to safeguard, to protect.
Your reputation against that one with a vile tongue,
that one who would dare to bear false witness against you.
Isn't that something?
Now, remember this as we go a little deeper into this Ninth Commandment.
I've been telling you over and over again
that if any one of these commandments are broken,
should you break any one of them, you will pay the price.
You cannot go against any one of God's laws and get by with it.
It's impossible.
You will pay the price in this Ninth Commandment.
Sooner or later, I'll prove to you from the Word of God,
you will pay the price should you bear false witness against your neighbor.
Take that portion of the Word of God as found in the seventh chapter of Matthew.
Judge not that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.
And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye?
Considerest not the bean that is in thine own eye?
For how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the moat out of thine eye?
And behold, a bean is in thine own eye.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the bean out of thine own eye,
then shalt thou seek clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye.
Oh, that's a masterpiece.
Just five short verses, that's all.
Only about 100 words, not more than that.
And yet, it is hardly too much to say that at its simple face value,
this portion of the Word of God that I had just read to you
is the most staggering document ever presented to mankind.
In these five verses, we are told more about the nature of man,
and the meaning of life, and the importance of conduct,
and the art of living, and the secret of happiness and success,
and the way out of trouble, and the way into trouble,
and the approach to God, and the salvation of the world,
than all of the theologians and all of the philosophers
have ever told us, all that they can put together and try to tell us today.
For it explains the great law, God's great law of retribution.
That's right.
Right here in these five verses of not more than 100 words,
you have more gospel, you have more down-to-earth truth
than all of the sermons that you have ever heard preached in your life.
You may have been going to the Methodist church
ever since you were a little girl and you've sat there in the pew.
Today, you're past middle age.
You've had some of the finest ministers.
You've had some of the greatest theologians in your pulpits.
You've heard masterpieces, and you've heard the masters.
But right here in less than 100 words,
you have more of the meaning of life, the importance of conduct,
the secret of real success and happiness, and the way out of trouble,
than all of those sermons put together.
Oh, to me, these five verses are something.
And it's vastly more important than a man,
and still more than a child should be taught the meaning of these five verses,
than that they should learn anything else that is taught in schools and in colleges.
I believe in education.
I wouldn't for one minute sit here and decry education.
Not for one minute.
And please do not misconstrue anything that I am saying just now.
What I'm trying to say, that it's vastly more important
that your child should get the true meaning of these words
that I've just given you from the Word of God,
than that he should be taught some of the most profound things
that come later in his college, his university, and his school training.
That's right.
There's nothing to be found in any of the ordinary courses of study.
There's nothing to be learned in any library or in any laboratory
that is one-billionth part as important as the information
that's contained right here in the five verses
that I just read to you from out of God's Word.
Judge not that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.
And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
That's something.
Read it.
You've had the Bible on the shelf for so long,
you only pick it up whenever you dust it.
Maybe you have permitted it to remain closed too long.
If you would open it, begin reading it, begin studying it,
live according to God's laws,
there would be success in your home life, in your own personal life.
This Word of God can absolutely transform your entire way of living,
can transform you as an individual.
If the average man understood for a single moment
the meaning of these words and really believed them to be true,
they would immediately revolutionize his whole life from top to bottom.
It would turn his everyday conduct inside out and so change him
that in a very short time his closest friends would hardly know.
And remember, this God's Word holds true
for the man who may be in the highest office in our land to the man in the street.
The man who's out there pushing the broom, cleaning the street,
is as important to Almighty God as the man who is at the head of our government.
We forget that sometimes.
What holds true for one holds true for the other.
When God gave his rules for living, he made no exception, none whatsoever.
That's right.
These few words express the simple and inescapable law of life.
Go contrary to these laws, you get into trouble.
That's what's wrong with the people in the world today.
That may be what is wrong with you or your family, the peoples of our nation.
We're trying to live contrary to God's laws.
We forget he is God Almighty, absolute sovereignty.
His laws are simple.
They've almost gotten too simple for the men and women of this 20th century.
We want something more complicated.
We want something that has to be analyzed.
Why, we are the people of the age of the atom bomb.
We must have things given to us at our heart.
Sometimes I think honestly the trouble with men and women of this generation
is the fact that the things of God are just too simple for them.
The word of God is just too simple.
But my friend, his laws, his words are inescapable.
The law of life is inescapable.
And the plain fact is that it is the law of life that as we think, as we speak,
as we act towards others, so will others think and speak and act towards us.
It's that simple.
A child can understand that.
You don't have to go to a seminary to get that knowledge.
You don't have to get all of your degrees to understand that knowledge.
You don't have to go to some university to get the knowledge of God's word
or to learn the law of life.
It's just that simple.
A little child, a little youngster five years of age can be taught that very thing.
And that's exactly where and the age that we should begin teaching this law of life.
You can't start teaching the law of life to somebody when they're in their 30s,
in their 20s, 18, 19.
But as a little child, when children are playing together,
as a good parent, begin teaching this simple law of life
that as we think, as we speak, as we act towards others,
so will others speak and think and act towards us.
Whatever sort of conduct we give out, that we are inevitably bound to get back.
What you give will be returned to you, good or bad.
Oh, listen.
Anything and everything that we do towards others will sooner or later be done to us
by someone somewhere.
You dare not turn up your nose and say, I do not believe it.
You dare not pull down the shade of your mind and say, I will not accept it.
This is not my law.
This is the inescapable law of life.
This is God's law.
I cannot escape it.
You cannot escape it.
The man in highest office cannot escape it.
The prime minister cannot escape it.
The queen on the throne cannot escape it.
The garbage collector cannot escape it.
The saleswoman cannot escape it.
The doctor cannot escape it.
The preacher cannot escape it.
The little housewife cannot escape it.
It is God's inescapable law of life.
Therefore, I would be a fool to live contrary to it.
Yes, sir.
What sort of conduct I give out, that very thing will come back to me again.
I shall continue this heart-to-heart talk when I come into your home in our next visit.
God bless you.