The Perishable Lie and the Permanent Word: Text: Proverbs 21:28
Introduction: The War on Reality
We live in an age that has declared war on words. Not just certain words, mind you, but the very concept that words can correspond to reality. Our generation is awash in falsehoods, not just the old-fashioned, straightforward lie, but a deeper, more corrosive kind of untruth. We are told that a man can be a woman if he says he is, that a baby is not a baby if it is unwanted, and that truth itself is a tool of oppression. This is not just a moral confusion; it is a metaphysical rebellion. It is an attempt to uncreate the world by uncreating the Word.
The secular progressive project is built entirely on a foundation of lies. It must lie about biology, about history, about economics, and most fundamentally, about God. And because it is built on lies, it is a perishable enterprise. It has no future. It is a witness to falsehood, and as our text tells us, a false witness will perish. This is not a threat; it is a law of the universe, as fixed and certain as gravity. A structure built on a lie cannot stand, because the lie is at war with the very grain of the cosmos that God has spoken into being.
In this short proverb, the Holy Spirit gives us a sharp, two-edged sword. On the one side, we have the destiny of the lie, which is oblivion. On the other, we have the destiny of the man who listens to the truth, which is permanence. This is a foundational contrast that governs all of human life, from the courtroom to the pulpit, from the family dinner table to the halls of government. Are you a speaker of falsehood, or are you a listener to the truth? Your answer to that question determines your destiny.
The Text
A false witness will perish,
But the man who listens will speak forever.
(Proverbs 21:28 LSB)
The Self-Destruction of the Lie
Let us first take up the false witness.
"A false witness will perish..." (Proverbs 21:28a)
The Bible has nothing good to say about the false witness. The ninth commandment explicitly forbids it: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16). A false witness is a liar, but he is a liar of a particularly destructive kind. His lies are not trivial; they are aimed at the destruction of another's reputation, property, or life. Under the Mosaic law, the penalty for bearing false witness was severe: you were to receive the very punishment you sought to inflict on your brother (Deuteronomy 19:18-19). If you lied to get a man executed, you were to be executed. This is the principle of lex talionis, and it reveals God's profound hatred for this sin.
Why is it so serious? Because a false witness attacks the very fabric of justice and society. Justice depends on truth. When the truth is polluted at its source, in the mouths of witnesses, then justice becomes impossible. A society that tolerates false witness is a society that is committing suicide. It is sawing off the branch it is sitting on. But the proverb goes deeper. It does not just say that the false witness will be punished; it says he will "perish." This is not just about legal consequences. This is an ontological statement. The liar is destroying himself.
A lie has no substance. It is a parasite on the truth. For a lie to even work, it has to pretend to be the truth. It has to borrow the credibility of truth-telling in order to do its dirty work. But it has no life in itself. It is a negation, a void. And the man who builds his life on lies, who makes his tongue an instrument of falsehood, is weaving his own shroud. He is becoming as empty and perishable as the lies he tells. His reputation will perish, because no one will trust him. His relationships will perish, because they are built on deceit. And ultimately, unless he repents, his soul will perish, because he is aligning himself with the father of lies, the devil himself, who was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth (John 8:44).
We see this writ large in our own culture. Every institution that has given itself over to the foundational lies of our age is perishing. They are rotting from the inside out. They are losing credibility, losing support, and losing their purpose. They are becoming hollowed-out shells, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The false witness will perish. It is happening before our very eyes.
The Enduring Man
In stark contrast, we have the man who listens.
"But the man who listens will speak forever." (Proverbs 21:28b)
This is a fascinating and profound statement. Notice the contrast. The opposite of a false witness is not simply a "true witness." The opposite is "the man who listens." Why? Because true speech is downstream from true hearing. You cannot be a faithful witness to the truth if you have not first been a faithful listener to the truth.
This cuts right to the heart of our relationship with God. We do not generate truth. We do not invent reality. We are creatures. Our first and most fundamental duty is to listen. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Christian life begins with hearing the word of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). Before we can ever speak a true word about God, man, sin, or salvation, we must first sit silently and listen to what God has spoken in His Word.
The false witness is full of himself. He speaks from his own wicked heart, inventing realities to suit his own purposes. The man who listens, however, has emptied himself. He is not the source; he is a conduit. He receives the truth before he relays it. His testimony is trustworthy precisely because it is not his own. He is simply reporting what he has heard from a reliable source. This is the model for all faithful preaching, all faithful evangelism, all faithful counsel. We are not called to be creative; we are called to be faithful. We are witnesses, not authors.
And what is the destiny of this man? He "will speak forever." Other translations say his word "endures" or he "speaks constantly." The idea is one of permanence and stability. Because he is trafficking in the truth, and because truth is eternal, his words take on the quality of that which he handles. The truth does not perish. The Word of the Lord endures forever. And the one who aligns his life and his lips with that Word partakes in its permanence.
The false witness speaks, and his words evaporate into the nothingness from which they came. The man who listens speaks, and his words build something solid, something lasting. His testimony stands up under cross-examination. His counsel proves true over time. His legacy endures because it was built not on the shifting sands of his own opinions, but on the bedrock of God's revealed reality.
The Ultimate Witness
This proverb, like all of Scripture, ultimately points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate fulfillment of this text. He is the "faithful and true witness" (Revelation 3:14). And why was His witness so faithful? Because He was the perfect listener.
Jesus said, "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak" (John 12:49). And again, "the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me" (John 14:24). Jesus is the eternal Son who was eternally attentive to the voice of His Father. His entire ministry was an act of perfect listening and, consequently, perfect speaking.
And what happened? The false witnesses rose up against Him. They came to the high priest and the whole council, seeking testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward (Matthew 26:59-60). The entire trial of Christ was a festival of perjury. The world of the lie arrayed itself against the world of the Truth. And for a moment, it seemed that the lie had won. They crucified the True Witness. The false witnesses seemed to have triumphed.
But their victory was short-lived. Their lies perished with the darkness of that Friday afternoon. Because the man who listens, the Son who obeyed, speaks forever. On the third day, He spoke again, this time from the other side of the grave. And His word, the gospel, has not stopped speaking since. It has outlasted empires, philosophies, and every conceivable form of opposition. It endures. It speaks forever.
When we, by faith, are united to Christ, we are brought into this same pattern. We are called out of the perishing world of falsehood and into the enduring kingdom of truth. Our calling is to stop listening to the cacophony of lies from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and to tune our ears to the voice of our Shepherd. We must become men and women who listen. We must steep ourselves in the Scriptures, submitting our minds, our wills, and our tongues to the truth of God's Word.
And as we do, our speech will begin to take on an eternal weight. When we comfort a grieving brother with a promise from Scripture, we are speaking a word that will last forever. When we teach our children the catechism, we are building with eternal materials. When we bear witness to the gospel, we are speaking the one message that will never perish. The false witnesses of our age will have their moment. Their lies will have their speed. But the truth has endurance. And the man who listens to that truth will speak forever.