Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: The Ninth Word — You Shall Not Bear False Witness

Deuteronomy 5:20

Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri | August 28, 2011

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Word. Today we enter the section on the Ten Words—that is, the ninth word. We’re going through the version in Deuteronomy chapter 5, which is helpful. We’ll see today again why it’s helpful to use this second version. Please stand for the reading of God’s word, which is Deuteronomy 5, verse 20: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your scriptures again. We thank you for the one law to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you tell us that this is reflected in our love for our neighbor. We thank you, Lord God, that from these laws, you’ve given us a decalogue—ten words, ten laws—that are set in the context of sermonic phrases that teach us how to love our neighbor, how to love you. We thank you, Lord God, for your Holy Spirit who speaks to us by means of your word and by your church.

We pray your blessing now upon us. Give us, Father, the power of the Holy Spirit to understand these things, to be transformed by them, and to grow and increase in our love for you. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

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Too many laws, too many rules. That’s what a man muttered as he left my office this week. I shouldn’t laugh. It was sad really. We were talking about—and not at my initiation, at his initiation—his general failings in several areas of his life. And he seemed to be saying the problem was the rules rather than his ability to keep them or not. We’re a church that, you know, helps people. You come to us and you say, “Well, I think this is what I should be doing and I’m not doing it.” We’re not going to beat you up. We’re going to say, “How can we help you do that?”

This particular man, one of his concerns was tithing. Couldn’t sleep. But when invited to come in and talk about it and go over his budget and try to help him think it through, well, no, that never happened. Instead, you know, the dissection grows and it’s too many rules. Too many rules. God gives us 90 percent to pretty much direct as we see fit. Only takes a tenth. Now, if you don’t believe in tithing, that’s okay. But many of us here in our church believe that’s what the scriptures teach.

And if you don’t believe it, that’s okay. We would have to come to a meeting of the minds or agree to disagree. But for those that believe it, as this man supposedly does, I mean, too many rules. God wants a whole ten percent of my money. It’s astonishing to me the lack of discipline in our culture. And particularly in the context of a church that, as I said, is so willing, bending over backwards. People in this church put a lot of time and effort into helping each other, encouraging each other, providing funds for each other and help for each other.

We live in a tremendous age of difficulty relative to the very concept of rules or laws, let alone ten of them here and then case laws upon those that help us understand them. Too many laws, too many rules. One day out of seven. Wow, that’s tough. Six for you. One day set apart, really for you, but in a special sense, consecrated to God. That’s hard. I don’t know. We live in strange times.

Well, we’re going to talk about more rules and laws today. We’re moving on to the ninth ruler—law—found in the Ten Commandments. And you know this ruler law: the idea of witness in court, which is what this concerns. There’s a whole bunch more rules about that, and hopefully by the end of today’s sermon, you’ll at least be thankful for the ones we’ve touched upon—these particular rules and laws—and for their great value to us. I’m convinced that as we understand the word of God, not as rules and laws (there are laws contained in sermonic texts), but as God’s love for us, telling us how to love each other and love in community and love God, our creator, and how to honor him—I’m convinced that the end result of this is human flourishing. This is how we get better. This is how we have a wonderful life. This is how we make this world into a beautiful place. May the Lord God grant us as we come to this topic today that he would give us understanding of this particular word.

I know I’ve got a little enigmatic thing there on the cover of the order of worship, right? Hand with three rocks in it. You’ll see why I put that on there in a couple of minutes.

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So, first of all, we want to say that this is a commandment, a word that has to do with perjury. Number one: this is the forbidding of perjury. Perjury is to swear falsely in a court. And this particular word—don’t engage in false witness. The word “witness” has its home, as the lexicon says it, in the courtroom. I mean there are other things we can witness to, but this particular word has its primary application in court.

So it’s like the third word, you know, don’t take God’s name in vain. When we went through that, we recognized that what that’s talking about is having a full witness of God. It’s not about, you know, swearing—that’s what the third word was about, which is kind of funny because this is the one about swearing or taking an oath. But anyway, it’s not just about that. It is about that, but it’s about having a full witness.

Well, the ninth commandment frequently is, you know, kind of rephrased as don’t lie. But that’s not really what it says. It’s an implication, and we’ll get to that in the next couple of sermons. But what it really is saying in its first place is this idea of not bearing false witness—means not to witness falsely in court. So what it’s prohibiting is what we would call today perjury.

Now another interesting thing—I said that this is a little different than Exodus 20. Remember, we’ve looked at the relationship of the laws from Exodus 20 to Deuteronomy 5—the first giving of the Ten Words and the second giving. And there’s one reason we’re going through Deuteronomy 5: to kind of triangulate on the meaning of some of these things.

Well, this word “false” is a different word in the Hebrew in Deuteronomy as it is in Exodus 20. In Exodus 20, they’re synonyms, but in Exodus 20, the word basically means “lie”—a lying testimony. So, don’t lie when you give testimony. But here in Deuteronomy 5, the particular word has more the connotation of empty or vain—not having any substance to it. And so it gives us a little bit of different application, but they’re both talking about the context of witnessing and our requirement to witness in court.

We talked about Leviticus 19:12 in our last sermon. Verse 11 talked about not stealing or dealing falsely. In verse 12 it says, “You shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of the Lord your God.” And what we talked about was that this verse 12 is properly understood in reference to the ninth word—to swear falsely, to take testimony, you know, some kind of legal proceeding falsely. And this says that it’s actually a profanation of the name of God, because swearing is in the name of God.

So the kids’ coloring picture today, you know, you’ve got your hand on the Bible, you’re swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, which, by the way, also sort of connects up with these two different versions. You’re swearing to tell the truth—which means the whole truth. In other words, you don’t want an empty witness. You want to speak fully to what you know. And nothing but the truth. You don’t want to lie. So it prohibits lying in court, but it also, as we’ll see in just a couple of minutes, has application for prohibiting not testifying in court. It wants you to testify when you’re required.

Well, in any event, this violation of this is an abomination. It is a profanation of the name of the Lord your God.

Now, in Deuteronomy 19:16-21, this false witness idea is addressed. A false witness rises. We’ve talked about this several months ago in Deuteronomy 19. We’re told that if a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests, and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry. And indeed, if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. So the particular penalty for perjury is what you’re attempting to get done to the person you’re lying in testimony about.

So this prohibits perjury. Proverbs 19:5 says, “A false witness will not go unpunished. He who speaks lies will not escape.” And 25:18, “A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow.” We’ll talk about the personal applications that Proverbs makes in a lot of cases. But understand that the basis in the Ten Words for those things about not gossiping and slandering—one of the bases for that is this verse that really talks primarily about perjury.

So it’s about perjury. It’s prohibiting perjury.

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Secondly, as I’ve been saying, implicit in the word change from Exodus 20 to Deuteronomy 5 is the idea that you’re supposed to testify when you can testify. So the second thing I want to say today is that there is a requirement of witness implicit in this word and almost explicitly by the change of the word “false” from Exodus 20. You’re lying about something. Deuteronomy 5: you’re not saying something. So the implication there is that you’re supposed to actually witness if you can.

Something in what we’re trying to talk about here is, how do we live in a community? And we’re trying to say, how should our civil laws be framed? And in fact, this is why much of our civil laws are framed the way they are. They’re deteriorating now, but they came from a biblical basis, and these are the laws that form that basis for the laws of perjury, witness, et cetera.

Now this also tells us how we’re to operate in community. Okay. So this tells us whether or not the civil magistrate is going to do his thing properly in terms of witness. We can, in our lives personally and in the life of our church, operate this way. We don’t wait. We’re the eschatological community living in the present. We live life the way it’s supposed to be. And the way it’s supposed to be is in conjunction with an understanding of these Ten Words and living out in relationship to them. Okay.

So there’s this requirement of witness. In Psalms rather, 50, verse 18, we read, “When you saw a thief, you consented with him and had been a partaker with adulterers.” And what it’s saying is, “You saw a thief, you didn’t do anything about it. You consented with him by your silence.” And that’s bad is what Psalm 50 is saying.

Micah chapter 6:8, a very common verse—most of us probably have it memorized: “He has shown you, oh man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God.” We’re supposed to do justice. Doing justice means testifying, being a witness of things that we see, in first application, in criminal court, in the courtroom.

Proverbs 29, verses 24-27, are even more explicit in this. Verse 24: “Whoever is a partner with a thief hates his own life. He swears to tell the truth but reveals nothing.” So again, the idea is you’re supposed to reveal things. You can’t have an empty swearing, empty witness in court. You’ve got to speak. You’ve got to tell the truth, the whole truth. Don’t lie. Nothing but the truth.

Verse 25: “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved. Many seek the ruler’s favor, but justice for men comes from the Lord. An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous. He who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.”

You that have been here very long know that one of my pet peeves is taking verses out of context, and particularly in the Proverbs. We look at these as isolated nuggets. Verse 24 says you’ve got to speak in court. There’s a requirement of witness. Verse 25 tells us that we don’t do it because we have a fear of man. And God tells us to correct the fear of man. We’re supposed to trust in the Lord and speak truth, witness. Don’t be afraid. Verse 26 says justice for man comes from the Lord. So this is all set in the context of justice. And then it says an unjust man is an abomination to the Lord. It says the same thing that Leviticus does—that a failure to testify completely and truthfully isn’t just perjury. It’s an abomination to the Lord. It stems from an improper reference to who you should be fearing—man or God. And it exhibits a lack of trust in God. And very importantly, as we’ll talk about this in a couple of minutes, it results in injustice.

You’re unjust, is what this particular proverb says. Turn in your Bibles to this verse. I know I just talked about it, but I want you to see it. Proverbs 29:24-27. In terms of personal application today, this is probably the most important one: the requirement of witness—to snitch. Proverbs 29, beginning at verse 24.

And if I was, you know, doing it, I’d mark this little section here—ninth commandment stuff. “Whoever is a partner with a thief hates his own life.” So if you don’t tell the truth, if you don’t witness to what people are doing wrong, you actually are hating your own life, right? “All them that hate me love death.” So you know, you’re going to hate your own life. You’re not really helping yourself. “He swears to tell the truth. Reveals nothing.” So there he doesn’t keep the requirement of witness. Why? “Because the fear of man brings a snare.” And we correct that by trusting in the Lord. We’ll be safe. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be safe.

In verse 26: “Many seek the ruler’s favor, but justice comes from the Lord.” So now this—what you do in this matter—is related to justice. And then when you create injustice by not testifying, then you’re an abomination to the righteous, as opposed to those who are an abomination to the wicked. There’s an eschatology to witnessing, which we’ll talk about in just a couple of minutes.

One last verse on this requirement of witness is Leviticus 5:1. If a person—Leviticus 5:1, if you’re taking notes—”If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter, if he does not tell it, he bears guilt.” So again, the requirement of witness in Leviticus 5:1.

So very importantly, witnesses are under strict requirement in the scriptures to testify. All right? And there are various—this is a quote from a particular Supreme Court case. I think it was a court case about American law and it says this: “It is a general rule of law and necessity of public justice that every person is compellable to bear testimony in the administration of the laws by the duly constituted courts of the country.” Okay.

Every person—what this acknowledges is that each of you are an agent of justice, are supposed to be an agent of justice in testifying and witnessing. And the state can compel you. They can issue you a subpoena, then you’ve got to come to court. And so you know that’s the reason—because of these biblical laws that you can’t have an empty witness when you go to that courtroom. They can tell you, “Better testify, or we’re going to throw you in jail.” Okay?

So we’re all agents of justice because of this biblical requirement to testify. And as I said, Psalm 50 basically says, if you don’t testify, you’re an accessory to the crime. You didn’t help plan it. You didn’t help pull it off. But you didn’t tell. And because of that, you’re an accessory to the crime. According to Psalm 50:18, you’re part of what the thief did. You consented to it by silence, by your silence in its commission.

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Now, as I said, we’ll talk in later weeks about the implications of the ninth word to our personal speech, to telling the truth, et cetera. This is really more focused on the basics of what being a witness according to the scriptures are. But here I do want to again make this point: we have a requirement to follow Matthew 18. You see somebody doing something, you don’t go snitch on them without talking to that person. Having said that, if you see somebody doing something wrong—you know, seriously wrong—you have an obligation to be a witness to them, that this is in violation of God’s word, you really shouldn’t do it.

Now, you don’t want to be a jerk when you do that, and you talk to them about it, but you want to talk to them. And if they won’t hear you, in Matthew 18, you have an obligation to testify, to witness, to get other people involved—corroborating, corroborating witnesses, right? Matthew 18. That’s what it’s about. And in the Bible, it takes two or three people to confirm a matter—two or three witnesses, I should say. Corroboration. But you don’t even get to corroboration if you fail the specific application of Deuteronomy 5:20 as opposed to Exodus 20. Exodus 20: don’t lie in court. Deuteronomy 5: don’t fail to talk in court and thus be a false witness. You don’t even get to corroboration if you don’t snitch.

So, you know, depending on your definition of snitch, I want to exhort particularly you younger people. You’re growing up in a culture that thinks this is just wrong, because the culture is moving further away from Jesus and it’s moving further away from the requirement to witness. But you’re an agent of justice, and you know what? You’re helping the other person by talking to them about problems. You’re not hurting them. And you’re helping them if they’re rebellious to bring another person along and say, “What’s going on?” And if they still won’t hear you, to go tell a court—church court. Or in the case of a criminal matter, you know, you’re required to witness, to testify. Okay?

So there’s this requirement of witness that’s implied by this text and stated explicitly in other texts.

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And then there is a relationship of witness to punishment. This is something we really don’t think of much. We have these odd verses: Deuteronomy 17:6 and 7. Odd verses. They seem weird to us. “Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses—corroboration. He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you.”

Very interesting text. It says that witness is connected to punishment or execution. It says the witness—in particular cases, at least at a particular time in covenant history—they actually participate. That hand is not just the hand of the executioner, the one that would be part of the execution. It’s the hand of the witness. And so the witness in the Bible is connected to the punishment of the person that’s found guilty. After corroborating witnesses, those witnesses are the first to throw the stone. So, you know, get the principle. Don’t get hung up on the imagery. And the principle is there’s this connection between witness and execution of people that are found guilty by the court.

This happens actually in Acts 7:58, talking about Stephen. They cast him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So, see, it’s connecting their witnessing—the witnesses—with those that would be part of, under the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. Make that clear. It’s not personal revenge. It’s not that at all. The witnesses are not necessarily the people that have been damaged. They’re the ones who affirm the guilt of the person. It’s their testimony that has found him guilty, and they have to then participate in the execution, at least in this time in history.

And notice also in this verse that when this works—when people witness fully and in a truthful way, and there’s corroboration, and in the case of a capital crime—the end result is putting the evil away from you. Putting the evil away. The result, as I point out in number four, the result of this ninth word is justice. Justice.

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And if you think about these all these rules—too many rules—all these rules about witness, and there are more—what they do is they prevent the sort of physical brute force culture that many non-Christian cultures actually engage in, where torture chambers are the primary mechanism of discovering who’s guilty. In the Bible, you can’t compel a guy to testify against himself. That’s why our Constitution does the same thing. It’s based on biblical law. It’s based upon these verses. And these verses say you need corroboration. Even if you confess to a crime, that’s not good enough. There needs to be some corroborating line of witness or testimony. And so there’s corroboration. There are penalties for false witnesses. There’s a whole bunch—too many rules.

But if you don’t have those rules, and all you’ve got is the most powerful guy with the biggest gun—who’s the state—and he wants to try whoever he wants to try, and he wants to find out what happened, he’s going to torture you to find it out frequently. So God’s law produces a system of criminal justice that gives value and dignity to human life and brings justice to the land, as opposed to the injustice of compelling testimony through torture as our culture increasingly does.

Now, you know, big topic. But just recognize, for instance, one of the implications of this: as we move further away from Christ and from his laws of witness in courts, what will we move closer toward? Either letting people go scot-free, or on the other hand, people who want to torture people to get confessions. That’s where we’re headed. Warfare. And in the middle of that is us with the word of God, with all these rules. And those rules produce a climate of true justice. So it’s a wonderful thing.

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Number five: As I said, this justice involves putting away evil—to put the evil away from you rather. Now what does it mean, evil? Well clearly, when you execute a guy and you put the evil away from you, what it’s saying is the evil is the guy. Okay? The evil is that part of that guy that’s doing bad things.

What we’ve ended up with in evangelicalism is some kind of abstraction of evil. We think of evil as something that’s sort of in the ethos, rather than being personal. We, you know, love the sinner and hate the sin. We love the sinner and hate his evil. We make evil into something kind of disembodied and apart from the person. But in the Bible, there’s a very personal connection.

When we read the Lord’s Prayer, part of God’s will being done on earth is what? “Deliver us from evil.” That’s what we say. But the New King James Version correctly translates that section of the Lord’s Prayer in verse 13 by saying, “Deliver us from the evil one.” That’s what the word specifically means—from the evil person, from the evil entity. And you know, we can talk about who that is. Is it Satan? Well, yeah. But it’s a little more close to home, I think, for most of us.

I, several years ago, I saw Jarvis Cocker sing a song on the Jules Holland show, and I’d been waiting for years to quote it. And this is my opportunity, so I’m going to do it. We’re coming up to 9/11, and he had this song about 9/11. And you know, as preparation for the next couple of weeks—and I won’t be here the next two weeks. I’ll be in Church of the King in Sacramento at their family camp. Carlo will be preaching here on the anniversary of 9/11, the tenth anniversary.

But you know, remember how it affected you if you were alive then. A lot of us got our lives straight for a while, straighter than they were. His song begins like this: “They want our way of life. Well, they can take mine anytime they like, because God knows I know I’m not living right. I’m wrong. I know I’m so wrong.”

I think that was a proper reaction—is to apprize our own ways of life. Are we living as Christians or not? Well, anyway, that’s a whole other application of this song. But what I really want to get to is the next few lines that he writes. He says, “So like the Roman Empire fell away, let me tell you, we’re going the same way. Ah, behold the decline and fall. All hold hands with our backs to the wall. It’s the end. Why don’t you admit it? It’s the same from Auschwitz to Ipswitch.”

The name of the song is “From Auschwitz to Ipswitch.” And here’s the line: “Evil comes. Oh, I shouldn’t sing it. I know not from where, but if you take a look inside yourself, maybe you’ll find some in there.”

Well, that’s right. Evil is personal, and it has to do with our fallen natures. And so evil is not some kind of disembodied deal going on. Evil is found in personal actions. And much evil is found in us. When we pray, “Deliver us from the evil one,” we’re really praying that the Lord would, in part, what we’re praying is that the Lord would sanctify us by driving evil out from us as well.

And so part of what our task is, as we look at this ninth word, is to see that the goal is the driving out of evil through bearing of true testimony, including true testimony against ourselves.

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And now I’m going to talk about the book of Daniel a little bit. And I think I have time to do this. I’ve said—and I haven’t done a very good job of this—that as you teach the Ten Commandments to your kids, for instance, or to yourself, a really nice way to do it is to just review the book of Daniel.

Daniel is a new Joseph serving a new Pharaoh, but he’s also a new Moses. He sends back these ten sections found in twelve chapters, but ten sections really—ten stories. And these stories track the Ten Commandments. And what he’s doing is showing how you live in reference to the Ten Commandments while you’re in exile. And he’s calling the nation of Israel that he’d sent these things back to, to live according to them.

So one way to review the Ten Words is this. And we would expect to find then in Daniel 9 something about the ninth word. And we will, and we’ll get there in just a minute.

Remember that Daniel starts—oh, he’s going to do the whole book of Daniel. We’ll do it real quick. In chapter 1, it’s all about “the God.” The first commandment is not “don’t have any other gods.” It’s “don’t have any other gods before me.” God is just a word for a power thing, right? Judges are referred to as gods. So the thing is, yeah, you have other authorities. Don’t fall in the ditch of having no other authorities, because I work through those authorities, God says. But none of them have primacy over me.

So Daniel chapter 1—he avoids the two ditches. So important for us as we live in a kind of a non-Christian empire now, more and more. One ditch would be to have no other gods, no other authorities, and just to tell Nebuchadnezzar to stick it. He doesn’t fall in that ditch. He serves the empire. He serves there. The other ditch, though, is to accommodate and serve in a way that compromises his testimony.

And Daniel 1 is all about “the God.” That’s the phrase that’s used in Daniel 1. “Who is the God?” And Daniel is saying, “The God is Yahweh, the God I serve, and I’m not going to eat your stuff.” He chose a particular test. We don’t have to know why that test. But he chose it to demonstrate to Nebuchadnezzar and to himself and to all of us that read this for centuries and millennia to come that the first commandment’s application is to have no gods before God in the culture in which we serve. Serve where God has placed you, but serve in a way that people know you have a prior commitment. You’ll do nothing against the God. He’s the one that’s over us. He’s the ultimate authority.

Chapter 2: The second commandment’s about mediation between heaven and earth. And you’re not supposed to have, you know, ways to worship idols and icons by which to mediate between God and you. Daniel 2 is all about this mediation. Nebuchadnezzar has this dream of this great big statue, and it’s not a statue of worship. It’s not third commandment stuff. It’s second commandment. It’s about proper mediation. Because what Daniel is being shown is a series of empires that God will mediate authority for his people and protection through. And then the last is what should be worshiped: the altar stone, the stone cut without hands—the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is the mediator who has set up these other empires as it prepares the world for the coming of Messiah.

So Daniel 2: that big statue and Jesus the altar stone.

Daniel chapter 3: another statue. But now Nebuchadnezzar wants Daniel to worship it—everybody to worship it. And the third word is about not having an empty witness in the world. So when we’re in this culture, we don’t want to have no semblance of a Christian witness. We want to have a fully empowered Christian witness wherever we go. And Daniel does this by praying, not to the statue—refusing to do that—and instead obeying or disobeying rather the unlawful commandment of an unlawful king. He bears a full witness to God, and God protects him and keeps him safe.

Chapter 4 is the fourth word—it’s about Sabbath enthronement. It’s about the end, reminding ourselves of God’s created work ending. In chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar says, “Well, I built this great empire. I’m mighty great. I’m really good.” So it’s about the completion of a world the way God completed the world and entered this day of rest. But Nebuchadnezzar thinks he is God. And so Sabbath enthronement comes through humiliation.

We come to church to be enthroned with the king at the table. But we come confessing our sins. And the emperor has to get to that point. The emperor needs a new groove. He needs a groove to be in submission to Yahweh. So the emperor has to become a llama for a period of time. That’s what happens to Nebuchadnezzar. Well, it wasn’t a llama, but he was like a llama. He grows hair, long nails. He’s in the grass, and the dew is falling on him and stuff. That’s what that imagery, I think, in that movie “The Emperor’s New Groove” is about. It’s a great depiction of the need for humility for earthly rulers.

And through that humiliation, we receive enthronement. And at the end of Daniel chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar is praising Yahweh, and he gets his kingdom back.

Daniel 5, right? The fifth commandment’s about parents and kids. Belshazar doesn’t honor his father. He’s called father Nebuchadnezzar—Nebuchadnezzar is long since dead. It’s not really his father, but he’s referred to his father in the book. It’s probably his grandfather. But anyway, the point is he doesn’t honor Nebuchadnezzar. He’s changed the whole thing, and he’s turned against Yahweh, the God that Nebuchadnezzar had come to worship and serve.

And so he’s the false son. Daniel’s name—Belshazar is almost the same as Belteshazzar. So who’s the true son? Daniel is. And Belshazar comes to his senses, finally listens, and submits to the queen mother and brings in Daniel. And as a result, he might well be saved, but it’s too late for the kingdom. But it’s about the fifth commandment—honoring parents and authorities that God gives us.

The sixth commandment’s about murder, and what happens in Daniel 6? They try to kill Daniel. And it’s eye for eye, tooth for tooth, fang for fang in Daniel chapter 6, right? They try to feed him to the lions, but they get fed to the lions. It’s a sixth commandment chapter in Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel chapter 7 is about the little horn who will, the Judaizers eventually being portrayed in it, who will cause spiritual adultery, idolatry and spiritual adultery for God’s people.

Daniel chapter 8 is about the same forces entrapping and oppressing God’s people through getting them to worship in the wrong direction. Daniel chapter 8 is about enslavement.

And Daniel chapter 9 then should be about false witness and true witness. And what we have in Daniel is we have a wonderful picture of true witness. Daniel chapter 9 is his great prayer. And as you read through that prayer, you see it is a picture of true witness. And when we pray, we are in essence giving witness to the world around us in the throne room of God. And Daniel’s witness is full. Daniel’s witness is true.

And that true witness is just like we’ve been talking about in terms of this evil and sin. He confesses the sins of his people and his sins. True witness says, “We need to put the evil away.” And he was proper for you to send us into captivity. He knew the time was up. And he didn’t just wait then for God to send him back. He begged God’s face for forgiveness. His witness was a witness of the character of God, the righteousness of God. God’s name’s sake being the most important thing. That’s what that prayer is about.

His witness was to his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people. But his witness also was to a merciful and gracious God that he now asked to cause them to go back to that land—not for their sake, but for the sake of vindicating the character of God.

Daniel 9 is this great picture that the ninth word results in an elimination of evil—either putting to death those who are not submissive to Jesus or causing them to come to repentance and new life. So justice involves the putting away of evil through a full, true, and complete witness of things that we know and things that God has called us to do.

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Now, in the book of Revelation, Jesus is referred to by this name: witness. This is the only commandment that I know of that has a title—a messianic title—in it. Witness. Revelation 1:5 and 6. When John is giving, saying who this is from, he says that it is from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. He’s the faithful witness.

Again, in Revelation 3:14, in the letter to the church of the Laodiceans, it says to that angel, “Write these things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” Jesus is the faithful and true witness. Jesus is the embodiment of what it means to fulfill the ninth word. He’s the faithful and true witness.

Now, a funny thing happened on the way to our day and age and the way we think about witness. The Old Testament word for witness is “ed.” There was an altar, a witness, in the end of the book of Joshua set up, for instance. And New Testament word is “martus” or “marturion,” from which we get our word “martyr.” It’s a perfectly good translation. It’s the right Greek word. Nothing wrong with the Greek word. But the interesting thing that happens is that word becomes then the basis for our word “martyr.”

And in the first and second century, tremendous persecution of Christians and the witness of Christians led to their martyrdom. And so the idea was what happened then—not based upon what the scriptures teach, but based upon the facts that happened—witness became associated in the Christian church with martyrdom, with dying for your faith. And that’s why today, still, people think that you know, the best kind of political action is taking a bullet in the chest for Jesus—dying, not winning. They’re not into the present thing: make the other guy die. Because they have this improper sense of what this ninth commandment is about—this idea of bearing full witness. They think is about martyrdom.

But clearly, Jesus Christ has died and been raised up, and he is the faithful and true witness. And what is he doing in the book of Revelation? He is witnessing against the church of Laodicea. And then he’s telling them that as witness, he will cast the first stone. That unless they repent from their sins, he will bring that execution that produces justice and the putting away of evil. That’s what Jesus is doing. He’s bringing these truths into what he’s doing in the book of Revelation. And the entire book is headed by Jesus as the witness.

And what is he doing? He’s bringing a witness against the apostate church at Jerusalem—the Judizers. And he’s telling them things. He then says that as the faithful and true witness, he will begin the execution of them. His hand has the rock in it, and he will begin to prosecute warfare against his enemies—those who refuse to repent of their evil. Their evil will be destroyed by his power.

Now, that is a much different take on Jesus than the idea that he’s a perpetual suffering martyr. He’s not. He is not a perpetual victim. Witness, in Revelation, shows him to be perpetual victor. He’s not the persecuted one. He’s the prosecutor of justice. That’s what witness is. That’s what we’ve seen in these verses. And this messianic title—that this is Jesus—means that the ninth word has an eschatology to it.

It means that Messiah, the true witness, will come and will testify against men in their sinfulness. And if they don’t repent and get rid of the evil that way, he will then be the first to throw the stone and begin the execution of his enemies—of those that he has testified against. And thus, the world will be purged of evil. “Deliver us from the evil ones. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

And God gives us a savior whose very name relates back to the ninth word and all these things we’ve said about witness in the Bible. And as a reminder to us, as I said, you know, he’s not a victim perpetually. He is the victor. He’s not the persecuted one. He’s the prosecutor.

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Now, who are we? We’re in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our identity, who we are, is tied to an understanding of our head. We’re the body. And so what we say here about Jesus has tremendous significance for the way we think of ourselves in this world. And the importance then of witnessing to Jesus, witnessing to the truth of men’s sinfulness, becomes much more significant to us. It’s part of the means whereby the faithful and true witness carries out his will on earth as it is in heaven.

So there’s a goodness to all these rules. All these rules picture us who the Lord Jesus Christ is. It produces a society and a culture of justice rather than torture. And it produces eschatologically a world that more and more has, outside of it, evil. The removal of evil comes through the proper application of the ninth word.

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There’s a movie, “A Man for All Seasons,” another movie I love. And there’s this great scene in it. You know, Thomas Moore—is he the guy? Yeah, Sir Thomas More—he’s got a son-in-law who’s kind of a brash young guy like some of the guys in here, some of you brash young men. And he’s, you know, he’s upset at Sir Thomas More for wanting to keep the law in reference to the ones that were persecuting Sir Thomas More.

And he says, “Oh, you know, you want to give them the benefit of the law. Here’s the dialogue from the movie. So now you give the devil the benefit of law because these guys are working for the devil, and you’re going to give the devil the benefit of law.”

Roper says (his son-in-law), “Yes. What would you do? Can a great road be carved through the law to get after the devil?”

Roper says, “Yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that. Too many laws, too many rules. I’d cut them all down to get to the devil.”

And Thomas More says, “Oh. And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper? The laws all being flat, this country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes. I give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.”

The law to us is not a hindrance to justice. It is the way through the difficult world we live in to show us how to have a culture that is one of human flourishing, justice, and where evil is done away with. Too many rules? No. God gives us wonderful designations of what his law is to us. And he calls on us to embrace that law. It’s the representation of the character of the Lord we serve—the faithful and true witness.

Do you love him? If you love him, he said, “Keep my word.”

Let’s pray.

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Lord God, we thank you for your law. We thank you for its great fulfillment in the faithful and true witness, our savior. We love him, Father, and we thank you for bringing justice to this world through him. Bless us as his representatives. Help us not shrink back from giving full witness to him and to his messianic reign, and to one another, as we see each other doing things wrong.

Bless us, Lord God, that we also would be faithful and true witnesses. May we give the amen to our savior. Let it be. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.