“Every Christian is called to make known to others the unsearchable riches of Christ; therefore he should seek for perfection in speech. He should present the word of God in a way that will commend it to the hearers. God does not design that His human channels shall be uncouth. It is not His will that man shall belittle or degrade the heavenly current that flows through him to the world.”2

Some of us, like Moses over 3,000 years ago, have already started bringing out our collection of excuses. We open them up to God and expect Him to submit to us. We don’t believe our family and friends and neighbors will listen to us. But we expect God to listen to us, and we expect Him to ignore our responsibility to communicate well to others. We believe we cannot say much about what is holy, but we are experts in sharing all sorts of unholy stories. We believe that we cannot say much about God, but we are experts in talking about ourselves. God is too wise for our excuses. After all, the man with the loudest excuses in the Bible wrote the biggest portion of that book! Moses offered the boldest excuses about being unable to communicate. Yet he communicated to us almost one fourth of the entire Bible. God loves us, but He hates our excuses. Let us be wary of offering our excuses to God.

But the certainty that God wants us to communicate does not mean that talking or writing comes easy to every one of us. In 1880, George King wanted to be a Seventh-day Adventist minister. He wanted to preach to hundreds of people. But to James White, this 33-year-old man was too poor of a speaker to be a minister. When George got up to preach his first sermon to a few people gathered in Richard Godsmark’s living room, George became the slave of his own nervousness. He sounded terribly confused and confusing. When this King finished, he fled from the room. No one had the heart to tell him that he should never preach. But no one wanted to hear another sermon out of him either. So, Hulda Godsmark suggested that he should go visit the neighbors. It was clear to her that Brother King was not called to preach from a pulpit. He could not hold the attention of a crowd. But maybe he could go to the homes of the people and preach to them around their firesides. George could give away tracts and talk the truth to people where they were.

George King earned 62 cents for his first week. (That would be the equivalent of $50 in 2014 monetary value.) By the next week, he was selling all of the literature he could carry. He made a comfortable living, and he started the Seventh-day Adventist colporteur work. George King was not suitable for public speaking when he started out. But God used him to bless many people by his quiet, personal conversations about the truth he loved. George King is evidence that God can use anyone to communicate if that person will ask God for help.

We do not all excel at communicating through the same method, but God will help each one of us excel at communication. God loves variety. He loves variety in our communication. Some can communicate meaningfully to large crowds. Others are better at talking around the dinner table. Still others can communicate best through music, or art. Let us each learn to identify where we are best at communicating and do it to honor God. The ninth commandment promises us that God will assist us in honest communication.

“As the will of man cooperates with the will of God, it becomes omnipotent. Whatever is to be done at His command may be accomplished in His strength.”3

Let your music be honest and noble. Let your artistic expression be honest and benevolent. Let your poetry and your prose be honest and eloquent. Whatever your facial expression, or your body language, or your tongue, or your computer typing, or your clothes, or your sense of style communicates, let it be honest and let it glorify God.

God loves to hear us communicate. He is so happy when we talk to each other that He has written down what we say. “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name” (Malachi 3:16). God loves those that “speak” “the truth in their heart” (Psalm 15:2). God loves them so much that He will take those that speak the truth from their heart to live with Him (verse 1).

God hates dishonest communication. “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren” (Proverbs 6:16–19). Those that do not tell the truth will never live with Him. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:7, 8).

To be honest is to state what is truthful when it is convenient and when it is not. Honesty does not mean we should be careless or thoughtless in how we tell the truth. It does not mean we must tell all we know. Many times silence is the wisest and most honest course. Honesty means we must tell what must be told as kindly and honestly as God helps us to accomplish.

“False speaking in any matter, every attempt or purpose to deceive our neighbor, is here included [in the ninth commandment]. An intention to deceive is what constitutes falsehood. By a glance of the eye, a motion of the hand, an expression of the countenance, a falsehood may be told as effectually as by words. All intentional overstatement, every hint or insinuation calculated to convey an erroneous or exaggerated impression, even the statement of facts in such a manner as to mislead, is falsehood. This precept forbids every effort to injure our neighbor’s reputation by misrepresentation or evil surmising, by slander or tale bearing. Even the intentional suppression of truth, by which injury may result to others, is a violation of the ninth commandment.”4

But there is a deeper point to this commandment. We communicate what we have in our heart. Out of us comes a revelation of who we are. “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matthew 7:17, 18). “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh’ (Luke 6:45). “That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man” (Mark 7:20).

Honesty is the result of God changing our heart. It is the result of studying the life of God until we become honest like He is honest. God gives us the power to never misrepresent another human being. Let us submit to God and keep His commandment out of a heart filled with love for our neighbors on this little ball in space: Do not bear false witness.

The tenth commandment forbids covetousness: do not desire what others are or have or do. By forbidding or criminalizing any desire for what other humans have, the commandment demands us to do our best in our own circumstances and to be content with what we are able to be and do. This is not a passive contentment. We are to “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24). Appreciating what others have achieved may be wonderful stimulation to achieve more ourselves. But let us never desire someone else’s hard work to replace our own contribution to this world.

We all too often make excuses also for our discontentment. We look at circumstances and feel like life controls us. We complain about the weather, and about each other, and about almost anything else we can find to talk about. The final commandment requires us to be active contributors and not active complainers.

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). “His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:26–30). “And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him” (Luke 19:20–26).

“The physical, mental, and moral powers are the endowments of God and are to be appreciated and cultivated. We are here on probation, in training for the higher life. All heaven is waiting to cooperate with those who will be subordinate to the ways and will of God. God gives grace, and He expects all to use it. He supplies the power if the human mind feels any need or any disposition to receive. He never asks us to do anything without supplying the grace and power to do that very thing. All His biddings are enablings.”5

Solomon looked at all that had happened or could have happened and concluded that personal accomplishment was one of the good things that God gave us. He puts rejoicing together with doing; attitude with action. These together meet the demands of the tenth commandment.

“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:11–13).

Accomplishment with contentment: that is what means to never covet our fellow human’s house, spouse, employees, or machines (or animals). And this is again possible, by the grace of God. He is the Source of the spirit of service and the spirit of contentment. “The tenth commandment strikes at the very root of all sins, prohibiting the selfish desire, from which springs the sinful act. He who in obedience to God’s law refrains from indulging even a sinful desire for that which belongs to another will not be guilty of an act of wrong toward his fellow creatures.”6

May God help us to live as a blessing to our neighbors by our honest communication and our contented, unselfish, and hardworking lives.