When a Snake Takes the Stand

Title: When A Snake Takes The Stand
Text: Exodus 20:16, Deuteronomy 19:16-21

This week, I was browsing through a collection of essays written by the great Sinclair Ferguson. And landed on an essay on Satan entitled: Naming the Enemy

At the beginning of that essay, he talks about the three dimensional work of the cross. The cross of Christ deals with:

Sinfulness – sin as a power that holds us
Sins – the various sins that we commit that bring guilt upon us
Satan – the enemy of our souls

Or to put it another way, the Root (sinfulness), the Fruit (sins), and the Brute (Satan).

Today we’re talking about lying. Our text simply reads:

“You shall not bear false witness about your neighbor.”

And it seems like the right place to start, when talking about lying is to talk about the brute – the devil – who Jesus says was a liar from the beginning.

Almost every name for Satan is connected in some way to his deception.

Deceiver: self-explanatory

Accuser: self-explanatory

Devil: This name (from a compound of the Greek verb to throw) conveys the idea of slandering, of throwing falsehoods against someone; “mudslinging,” we might say.

Satan: Some commentators suggest that the root idea here includes attacking someone from an ambush. The attack is unexpected and the attacker is hidden.

All of these names were manifest in his initial appearance in the story of the world.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:1-5

There you see Satan bearing false witness about God.

“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

I suppose you might say that the first sin to ever be committed on the face of the earth was committed by the devil.

And then the second sin to have ever been committed on earth was Eve’s. And it was to believe it.

That’s where I want to spend the majority of our time today. On that second sin. We live in a fallen world where even our saints are still sinners. Even if you and I refrained from ever lying in any way ever again, we would still be surrounded by lies, false witnesses, and slander.

So I’d like to deal today with discerning and dealing with slander. This seems to me to be essential. After all, slander is as harmful as it is believed.

There are many companion texts for each one of these ten commandments. And one of the companion texts for Exodus 20:16 is found in Deuteronomy 19:15-21. So turn there with me now…

“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” – Deuteronomy 19:15

So the most literal application has to do with their system of justice. Upon which our system of justice was built. You could not find a person guilty without at least 2 witnesses.

The temptation to frame someone would be high. You and a friend could agree to take out any of your enemies simply by accusing him of some capital offense. And so a provision for this kind of thing had to be included in the law.

That’s what we see in vs. 16

16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently,

That’s the aim for this sermon. To help you become a priest and judge. To arm you with some discernment so that you can inquire diligently.

And let me tell you, the stakes with this sort of thing should be very high. Go back to vs. 16

16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. – Deuteronomy 19:16-19

How many of you have read To Kill a Mockingbird? Do you remember the name of the accused man? Tom Robinson. And what was the name of the malicious witness? Mayella Ewell. What should’ve happened to her if they were following God’s law? She’d be in jail at minimum. May have been executed.

And as a result, the next time someone thought about making a false accusation, they would’ve remembered how it turned out for ol Mayella. Which is what we see in vs. 19-21

20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. – Deuteronomy 19:16–21

Notice the words describing the false witness: Malicious (16), Evil (19), Evil (20), and your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The command is to be totally merciless with the false witness. If a snake has dared to take the stand, you must crush it.

The Court of Public Opinion

So those were rules for formal court. But the same principles apply to the informal court of public opinion. In that court, false witnesses are referred to as slander.

In Leviticus 19:16 we read, “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.”

Definition of slander:

“The intentional or unintentional spreading of falsehoods that threaten damage to another person’s reputation.”

Error – you have the wrong facts

Embellishment – spicing up the story

Confabulation – interestingly enough, advanced alcoholics can get this due to a Thiamin deficiency. I read somewhere that during certain ancient periods of time, lots and lots of people were drunk like most of the time. When the bible talks about being sober minded…

Assigning Motives – You did this because X

Recategorization – lumping a whole bunch of behaviors into a particular category or pattern that is not actually true.

The big idea is that though the setting changes (from the formal court to the court of public opinion), the sin does not. Whether in a courtroom or a chatroom, this sin is seen as a great evil.

The Puritan Richard Baxter wrote, “It is forbidden of God among the heinous, daming sins, and made the character of a notorious person. He’s talking about how this sin appears alongside many other sins which we all consider to be truly evil.

Take Romans 1:28-32 for instance,

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Indeed, in almost every church Paul writes to, we see slander addressed: 2 Corinthians 12:20, Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 4:31, 1 Timothy 3:11, 2 Timothy 3:3, Titus 2:3.

Slanderers often present themselves as Mayella Ewells – victims. But they are villains. Villains against the fundamentals of civilization. No matter helpless or broken or confused they appear. The truth is that slanderers are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, pulling at the very fabric of society.

That is because the whole world runs on trust. “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” – James Matthew Barrie. Trust is the base layer of all human relationships. Without trust, nothing gets built or maintained.

Success is replaced with suspicion.
Progress is replaced with paranoia.

And if someone is eroding trust in someone or something that ought to be trusted, then they are real and present danger to human flourishing.
Again, I want to be transparent in my aim. I want to stir your zeal against slander. I want you to become diligent judges who discern rightly.

Here are 4 Things You Can Do:

Cherish your neighbor’s reputation

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello, Shakespeare

Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.”

So slander is in essence, the defrauding of a brother or sister’s reputation – which is nearly priceless.

Show no partiality

Check your own quiet biases
Leviticus 19:1 says, ““You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”
Are you more likely to believe a man or a women?
Are you more likely to believe a leader or a non-leader?

Expect biblical order
God is not the author of chaos…
Let all things be done decently and in order
Matthew 18

Look for elements
Error
Embellishment
Confabulation
Assigning motives
Recategorization

What should be done to the slanderer?

16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. – Deuteronomy 19:16-19

You shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.

In the formal legal court – if a slanderer falsely accused someone of a capital offense, the slanderer would be put to death. If it was for a lesser crime, the slanderer would pay whatever penalty that was prescribed for that crime.

What should be done for the slanderer in the informal court of public opinion? At minimum, the reputation of the slanderer should be significantly diminished. He or she should not be trusted.

Church discipline may be appropriate.
Severing the relationship may be appropriate:

Titus 3:10-11 says, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

But what is most appropriate is to pray diligently for this individual. God is not going to let that rest…

Psalm 15:1-3
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

Psalm 101:5
Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure.

Slander is pride. And God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So pray for humility and repentance.

II. How to Respond to Being Slandered

Which brings us to a final objective – in addition to helping you handle slander when you hear it, I also want to give you some biblical counsel on how to respond when you are the object of slander.

The more you grow in Christ-likeness, the more you will be persecuted. And the vast majority of persecution that happens in the world is verbal. Something Jesus himself predicted in Matthew 5:11-12

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

We want each of you to become more and more like Jesus. And if that happens, you’ll be singled out more and more for slander.

Anglican bishop: “You know, wherever the apostle Paul went, there was either a revival or a riot. Everywhere I go they serve tea.”

As Jesus said, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26)

Hopefully you and I will have more in common with the prophets than the false prophets. Which means slander is on its way. How do you handle it?

Well the first thing to ask is – is this true? And you can use all of the diagnostics presented earlier to hopefully arrive there. But I warn you of this… yes, God can use crooked sticks to draw straight lines – but, I will warn you of this. God is not in the habit of using the accuser to edify. He doesn’t send a liar to teach you truth. If there is something going on in your life that needs attention, he will send people into your life who aren’t liars to tell it to you.

But even if it not mostly true, I would warn you. Slander can be utterly disorienting. I was reading an article on gaslighting, slander, etc… and found the following to be spot on.

The consequences might be depression, anxiety, self-destruction, the broken mirror syndrome (deformed picture about oneself, internalization of abuser’s negative emotions and thoughts, mind knots, destructive self-criticism, low self-esteem, strong inferiority complex, strong somatization of emotional pain, increased suggestibility), suicidal ideation and suicide.

I know one example from history. John Calvin

When Theodore Beza broke the news of Calvin’s death to the Geneva Academy students, he said, “Having been a spectator of his conduct for sixteen years, … I can now declare, that in him all men may see a most beautiful example of the Christian character, an example which is as easy to slander as it is difficult to imitate.”

And Calvin writes,

Godly men, even when they do well, must be exposed to evil reports. By these strategies Satan attacks our faith and unjustly slanders us among men. The temptation to be terrified by such reports is highly dangerous, for we want our integrity to be well known. When we are well disposed, we take it ill if other men put a different interpretation on our conduct. Satan tries by slander to overturn all that we have done out of a good conscience. Or he accuses us of something that we are not at all guilty of. Or he loads us with unfounded slanders or contrives what never came into our minds. – John Calvin

And so we wind up where we started. The beginning of slander is Satan. We must never forget this! Not only so that we have zeal to discern false witnesses against our brothers, but also so that we can do so when the snake slithers into the courtroom of our hearts.

Communion:

For Communion today I want to reflect on the last line of Paul’s Communion Text.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

When I used to travel around the world, I was surprised to find so many countries where littering is not considered a moral wrong. There is trash everywhere.

Then I would return to certain parts of America and see basically no trash whatsoever. There was something so calming about the cleanliness. All the trash in those other countries was like visual noise, detracting from the beauty of creation. And then to return home, to parts of this country that see litter as a morally bad thing – and to feel a kind of peace and order.

Friends, if we are in Christ, we are going to spend eternity in a place entirely free of lies. No more lies anywhere. Just truth, goodness, and beauty.

Jesus made that possible. We all deserve a harsh sentence for the various ways we have misrepresented God. But Jesus took our place, receiving the wrath of God on our behalf so that we could be forgiven, adopted, and rooted firmly in eternal truth, goodness, and beauty.

Today when you come to the table, perhaps you ought to take a minute to grieve over the state of this fallen world. It is littered with lies. Very few places or people seem free of that litter. But this life will not last very long. Eternity is coming. Unpolluted truth is coming.