I want to share this true story that someone shared with me years ago.

A pastor at a church had been preaching on a series on family life.One afternoon a member of the church who had been doing some cleaning came out the church doors walking to her car. She heard someone screaming in a distance, so she quickly looked around with anticipation, with horror on her face she saw her pastor beating his wife in front of the church parsonage. Anger like a building wave grew inside her. She could not believe what she had seen and just had to tell another member of the terrible event that she had witnessed. A few weeks went by as the Sunday services slowly decreased in size as rumors rapidly grew from one member to the next. The pastor was unaware of what was going on with his congregation as he watched the decline of attendance each Sunday morning. Six weeks had past since the incident, when the board members approched the pastor and told him they were taking a vote to replace him. The pastor was in disbelieve and shock. “What have I done that is deserving of being dismissed like this?” One of the Deacon’s then explained to him that a church member had seen him beating his screaming wife outside the house six weeks ago and how the pastor was being a hippocrete, a wife abuser and the church did not need someone like that leading the congregation.The pastor, with a smile on his face in all humbleness said, “On that day, my wife had been cleaning the front of the house, she accidently knocked her broom against a bee’s nest. She yelled a horrifing scream and I came out to find her being stung by the bees. Wanting to protect her, I was swatting the bees that were on her neck and arms. The board members silently studderd as their mouths slowly fell opened by embarrassment and imediately started to applogize for the misunderstanding.

This true story goes on, but I am going to stop right there. The point that I what to share with you is this; What you sometimes see, is not what it always looks like to be.

Making accusations based on what you think you saw and not getting the facts is call, false witness. It is one of the ten commandments found in Exodus 20. In modern day terms, we call it gossip.

There is a reason why God gave Moses the ten commandments. The commandments are our guidelines for everyday life. They set the morale standards of what is right and what is wrong. We as God’s children always need to be careful about gossiping or spreading news before we know all the facts. One little gossip can hurt an individual or individual’s so bad, we could turn them forever away from God. As Jesus said, “take the plank out of your own eye, before removing the splittner from your neighbors eye”. (my pharaphrase) It is not our place to judge others, we are instructed to love others with Christ’s love as God has shown us when He gave up His son to die on the cross so many years ago.

At some point in all of our lives, we have been hurt by someone who only told half truth’s or gossiped about us. When we speak about others, we need to be careful that the words coming from our mouths are true and at all cost’s avoid gossip.