1st December 2025

1st December 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20:16)


Message (Alan Burke) 


It’s been a few weeks now since ‘The Celebrity Traitors’ final in which Alan Carr managed to lie and deceive his way to the entire winning pot of £87,500 which went to his chosen charity Neuroblastoma UK. I have to admit I didn’t watch the series, I’ve no interest in such a TV show but I had to tolerate it in the background from time to time when it was on and hear about it from people at the school gate and the odd visit. The premise for the show is pretty simple, contestants must work together to compete in various challenges. However, among them are a select number of "traitors" whose aim is to sabotage the group's efforts while maintaining their cover. At the end of the game, the players vote on who they believe are the ‘traitors’ and the game is won if either all the traitors are eliminated or the so called ‘faithful’ manage to eliminate or rather vote out all the ‘traitors’. Whoever is left standing wins the entire prize fund, if there is six of them it is divided equally but if there is only one left as in the case of Alan Carr then the entire prize fun is theirs. The show makes lying into entertainment for the masses. 


Today we being to think through this the ninth commandment and it speaks of bearing false testimony, or false witness so we may think from the wording of this commandment that it only pertains to the court setting and does not speak to shows like Celebrity Traitors or lying in general. Yet as we have looked at all the commandments we have seen the scope of the commandments is much wider than first imagined and they speak into many aspects of our lives that beyond what we initially may have though. 


The language that is used in this commandment is that of a courtroom setting, ‘witness’ or ‘testimony’ depending on the translation that you use. In the context that this commandment was given witness testimony was curial as there was no such thing as DNA, CCTV and the like so convictions were made on the basis of eyewitness testimony. When it is one persons word against another then it really matters the words that you speak. In a capital case false testimony could not only lead to damaging someone's reputation it could be deadly. For if your testimony was accepted then it could lead to them being executed. 


Now there were checks and balances too. Two or three witnesses were required (Deut 19:15) and if you were the accuser then you’d be responsible for carrying out the sentence so if the person was to be stoned to death you’d get to throw the first stone (Deut 17:17).Remember the commands are being given in the context of community, they are concerned for the whole of the community and as individuals if they and we live according to what they command it benefits the whole community, but if we disregard them then the whole community suffers, not only one person is impacted but many. 


That is why this command is given because our words matter, they matter not only to us, but our neighbour and the whole community. But the implications of this command go much further than bearing witness, much further than giving testimony, much much much further, for the underlying principle of this command is that God forbids all falsehood, all untruth, all lies. In Proverbs 6 we are told there are six things the Lord hates, seven things that are detestable to him and there we are told twice how the LORD hates lying. Two of the seven things listed are lying (Prov 6:16-19). In effect you could say that lying is doubly hated by the LORD. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord (Pro 12:22). Although the ninth commandment deals with that of a court setting, we see how behind the command that the underlying principle is that God forbids every form of falsehood. It means that not only is the Lord prohibiting false testimony but also lying, deceiving. Our words matter so much so that when we lie, when we bear false witness and pour out lies then it is detestable to the LORD, we are detestable, our sin is detestable to the LORD, when we lie, when we bear false witness, every kind of falsehood is detestable to our LORD.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q33 What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
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