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Exodus 20:16 | “The Ninth Commandment” | December 28, 2025

December 29, 2025·48 min·4 clips

How did a hero who saved lives at the 1996 Olympics become falsely accused and raided by the FBI?

1. This is a December 28, 2025 sermon from Christ Church Carpinteria on Exodus 20:16, the Ninth Commandment: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.' 2. The preacher is the pastor of Christ Church Carpinteria; no name is given in the transcript. 3. The sermon's central thesis is that the truth is not relative, and that this reality underlies both the prohibition against lying and the positive demand to speak truth. 4. The preacher opens by noting the familiar schoolyard rhyme 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me' and immediately argues it is false: words cause real harm. 5. The Richard Jewell case—a security guard who found a pipe bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics and saved lives—is used to demonstrate how false public accusation can ruin an innocent person before a trial takes place. 6. The preacher observes that the Ninth Commandment is specifically framed around courtroom false witness because perjury is the extreme case where a human life hangs on testimony, making it the most egregious form of lying. 7. The sermon presents three components: one foundational truth (the truth is not relative), one prohibition (you shall not lie), and one positive demand (you shall tell the truth). 8. The preacher addresses postmodernism, relativism, and religious pluralism by arguing that Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Mormonism make competing truth claims about Jesus Christ that cannot all simultaneously be true. 9. He describes sitting in a college philosophy class where a professor argued for brain-in-a-vat skepticism, and eventually deciding the position is simply wrong because God has spoken and his record is the Bible. 10. The first lie in the Bible is identified as the devil's question to Eve in Genesis—'Did God really say?'—described as a deceptive question rather than an outright lie, and the preacher treats this as a continuing pattern. 11. The Heidelberg Catechism question on the Ninth Commandment is quoted: God's will includes never giving false testimony, not twisting words, avoiding gossip and slander, and refusing to join in condemning anyone rashly. 12. Five diagnostic questions for gossip are presented: Would the person being discussed be happy for others to know this? What good will come from sharing it? Am I sharing this to feel closer to my listener? Will it lead others to an overly negative view of the person? The Puritan definition of 'whispering' is introduced—speaking things you would lower your voice for if the wrong person walked in. 13. A 17th-century pastoral anecdote is recounted: a woman convicted of slander was told to walk across town plucking a chicken, then instructed to retrieve every feather she had dropped—an illustration that slander, once spoken, cannot be fully undone. 14. The preacher quotes Thomas Watson: 'He that raises a slander carries the devil in his tongue. And he that receives it carries the devil in his ear.' 15. Other violations of the commandment include flattery (saying to someone's face what you would not say behind their back), rash judgment, embellishing stories, and hurtful sarcasm. 16. The positive demand of the commandment is framed through 1 Corinthians 13—love 'rejoices with the truth'—and the Heidelberg Catechism's instruction to defend and advance a neighbor's honor and reputation. 17. Jesus is presented as the definitive embodiment of truth because he called himself 'the way, the truth, and the life' in John 14:6, never deceived anyone, and knows the full truth about every person yet acts only in their interest. 18. The sermon closes with a quotation from John Calvin urging fair interpretation of others' words and deeds, and with a reading from the church's covenant: members promise to renounce bitterness, gossip, and slander. 19. Christians who wrestle with honesty in relational conflict, church communication, or personal habits of gossip will find the sermon directly applicable. 20. Listeners outside a Reformed or evangelical Christian framework will find the sermon assumes biblical authority throughout and may find the cultural critique of relativism confrontational.

As heard by us

A measured sermon on truth, speech, and neighbor-love.

The sermon treats the Ninth Commandment as more than a warning about outright lies. It moves into reputation, suspicion, gossip, and the stories people tell about one another, beginning with childhood rhymes and a Richard Jewell illustration before settling into catechism…

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Why you'd press play

When your words need a hard reset, this sermon starts at the Ninth Commandment.

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