Responding Wisely When Falsely Accused, Part 1

Bill Meyer: Has anyone ever said something about you that simply wasn't true? Something unfair, unjust, maybe even cruel? And no matter how hard you tried to set the record straight, the words kept spreading like a slow poison you couldn't stop. If you've ever been falsely accused, you know there's a particular kind of pain that cuts deeper than almost anything else life throws at you. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll takes us deep into the book of Job, where a suffering man faced vicious accusations but responded with grace.
Pastor Chuck Swindoll: There's no more treacherous enemy in the church than the tongue. The tongue. What we say often cuts far deeper than any sword, any knife. Scripture sometimes presents the tongue as a sword that thrusts its way into others' lives and brings hurt. We're not surprised to read that in the list of the Ten Commandments, one of them includes, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." When God led Solomon to write the Proverbs, he included the seven things that he hates, among them, a false witness that speaks lies. I can't speak for you. I can speak for a few whom I know, but for most of you, I have no idea what you are living with as it relates to someone else's tongue. But if you have been spoken against unfairly, unjustly, if you have been falsely accused, you understand real pain. Often you find yourself at a loss to know how to defend yourself. You try, but frequently false witnesses aren't there to listen. They're just busy talking and spreading the venom, which has a way of poisoning not only a few people but can even poison a church. I heard a terrific story that I'll never forget. There was this young pastor who went to a church that had been split apart in so many ways, but especially by a loose tongue that had been allowed, and the church had pretty well reduced to just a bare survival. This young man arrived and decided to open his Bible and just preach truth. He did that. Slowly but surely, the church began to grow, and before long it was in a growth spurt, and finally, it was bulging at the seams. They went to multiple services and it was obvious that they needed to build. Well, the new worship center was going to cost a million dollars. They didn't have a lot of money, though they certainly needed the building. It so happened that in this church were two brothers, and they were real rascals. They were just sorry individuals. The problem is they were rich. One of them died. The surviving brother came to the pastor in his study one day and he said, "Here, I have something for you. It's a million-dollar check to pay for the new building. But when you preach my brother's funeral, all I ask you to do is to tell people that he was a saint. That's all I'm asking you to do." The pastor thought for a moment and said, "Okay." He took the check and deposited it. Don't forget that's part of the story. The funeral came in about four or five days, and the pastor stood up. The coffin was here, and the pastor began to address the subject of the man who had died. He said, "This man was a reprobate. He was unfaithful to his family. He was dishonest in his business. He was not a man that you could trust. He was part of the reason that this church could not get off the ground for a number of years. But compared to his brother, he was a saint." There are several ways to tell the truth, and he chose that way. I was surprised to find how often false accusations appear through the Scriptures. When you study the Bible, as many of us do, you often don't track certain subjects through it. It's always enlightening when you do. I found, for example, that a man as pure as Joseph, who had learned a new language and earned his way in Potiphar's house to a place of real responsibility as the man over all of Potiphar's belongings, Joseph, at the height of his career, was falsely accused of rape by Potiphar's wife and wound up in jail. How unfair. Moses, who was faithful even at the age of 80 to obey God's call and to take the call from the burning bush back to Egypt and deliver the people from bondage, and in the middle of the wilderness, the people he had delivered turned on him and falsely accused him of bringing them into the wilderness to die. How unfair. David, after killing the giant and truly showing himself a man of courage and integrity, is falsely accused of trying to dethrone Saul by Saul himself. David is on the run for a dozen or more years, falsely accused of something that was not at all true. Nehemiah, who builds the wall around broken Jerusalem, and God uses him to incite the people to work, and after the wall is almost finished, the word is spread around by his enemies that really Nehemiah has an ulterior motive. He's building the wall so that he can get behind the wall and become the new king of the Jews. Something that was not true at all. How unfair for that to be said of Nehemiah. Peter and John were accused of preaching of a false Christ, and it was a false accusation and they were beaten for it. Paul was accused of being a phony convert. The apostles wouldn't even let him in their circle because they were convinced that he was not genuinely born again. And then he was accused of causing a dissension among all the Jews around the whole world. How exaggerated can you get? Accused by Festus the governor of being insane because of his much learning. How false that accusation was. Few men ever who believed in the Lord Jesus were more brilliant than Paul. And then who could ever overlook Jesus, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and many false accusations. I don't know if you've stopped to think about it, but from his earliest years, he was accused of being of illegitimate birth. They had words for it then too. He was accused of being an evildoer, accused of being a drunkard because he spent time with sinners, accused of being demon-possessed and satanic in origin as he healed people, accused of breaking the Sabbath. In fact, he went to the cross falsely accused of being guilty of tyranny, of leading the people against the Roman ruler, Caesar. Not guilty of any of it. We're not surprised when he preaches his great Sermon on the Mount that he included words like this: "Blessed are you when people insult you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. For your reward in heaven is great." I don't know where you are, as I said earlier, but if you are being falsely accused, there's your promise. Your reward will be great. Your reward someday will be great. But let me add, your misery for now will be enormous. You will find that frequently you are unable to sufficiently defend yourself. A mind made up is a hard thing to persuade, and people who are false accusers are awfully persuasive. Before I go any further, let me just add here, be awfully careful about what you say of other people. Be awfully careful, especially if it's negative. I was reading one of my favorite authors this week, and he said that he has a friend who prays every day, "Lord, help me not add to anyone else's burdens." Isn't that a good prayer? Help me not make life harder for anyone else. Well, we shouldn't be surprised in the middle of our study on Job, and isn't this getting to be fun? Where we are in the middle of Job and we've come to false accusations. I mean, what else is there? The guy's lost everything. Home, ranch, cattle, the ability to earn a living, all ten children. He's sitting in the garbage dump of the land of Uz and he is with shaved head and losing his appetite, raging with a fever, covered with sores. Along come these three clowns that left for the purpose of comforting him. But a week after staring at him and not believing their eyes, they decided nobody who suffers like this can be anything but wicked. So every one of them has the same thesis. Sin leads to suffering. Suffering proves sinfulness. You are suffering a lot. It means you are one wicked man. You are one bad dude. If you weren't, you wouldn't be suffering like this. By the way, there are some people who still have that same idea. Maybe not that severe or brash, but they think that. They think everybody ought to be well, that it's God's will that everybody be well, that every sickness be healed. That's why they line up in healing lines. That's part of the reason that they follow people who claim to be healers. Because your sickness need not be. And I'm here to say that there are times sickness is so clearly sent from God and permitted by him, it almost takes my breath away. We are not all promised healing. Please do not live a disillusioned life thinking if you pray hard enough or if you give enough money or if you are sincere enough, then your loved one is going to get well. Your loved one will get well by the sovereign grace of God, or your loved one may die by the sovereign plan of God. Suffering does not mean sinfulness. Well, I wish Zophar were here to hear this message. He's the man we're having to endure for the 20th chapter here in the book of Job. He is not a happy camper, okay? This is in the dialogue section of the book, Act Two, Scene Three. Eliphaz has spoken, Bildad has spoken, then Zophar spoke. That's Act One. Scene One of Act Two, Eliphaz speaks and Bildad speaks, and now we're to Zophar again. It's kind of like a tag team match, three against one, and one is very sick. The longer he's with these three men, the sicker he gets. Zophar says, verse two, he is disquieted. Verse two, last word, he is agitated. Verse three, he is insulted. Now, I don't find anything that's disquieting, agitating, or insulting by what Job has said, except he disagrees with him. By the way, that is—I've got a lot of by the ways this morning, don't I? I'm going to put it another way. On the other hand, people who have a message to deliver but they don't want to learn are often disquieted, agitated, and insulted when you stand against them. They don't want to hear, they want to tell. They don't want to learn, they want to instruct and usually lecture. Zophar has three things he wants to say to Job, and he says them in an exaggerated manner. Number one, the wicked do not live long. Verses four to eleven. The wicked don't live long. Second, the pleasures of the wicked are temporal. The pleasures of wickedness are temporal, twelve to nineteen. And then the last, twenty to twenty-nine, God's judgment always falls hard on the wicked. There's only one problem with those three points: they're all wrong when you take them as Zophar says them. You see, understand the way Zophar is delivering his talk. He's coloring by the numbers, his numbers. Everything is a very clear distinction, everything is very simplistically stated, so that Zophar would add always to his comment. The wicked don't live long, and he says this in four through eleven. The pleasures of wickedness are temporary, twelve to nineteen. God's judgment always falls hard on the wicked, twenty to twenty-nine. That's not necessarily true, as Job is going to point out. But just a few minutes, let's work our way through this vomit. Look at verse four: "Do you know this from of old, from the establishment of man on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless is momentary?" Now, I want you to think, by the way, many women, I don't want you to just say because it's in there, I'm going to believe it. Job doesn't do that. This is Zophar's opinion. He's been waiting his turn to set Job straight. He sees Job as wicked and he is here to tell him that he's not going to live very long. In fact, he says verse seven, he perishes forever like his refuse. Those who have seen him will realize quickly he's gone. "Where is he?" they will ask. He flies away like a dream, they can't find him, like a vision in the night he is chased away. It's gone. That's the way it is sometimes at night. I said to Cynthia this morning, I dreamed all night and I cannot tell you what I dreamed. She said, "Isn't that good?" And I said, "It is. It is." The problem is you often remember your dreams and they are really wild. I mean, they'd make Picasso look like first grade. I mean, you've got ears on a nose and you've got people flying. So I dreamed all night and they're all gone, poof. And she's right, I'm glad I don't even remember them. They're wild. He's saying your life is like that. It's twisted up, it's strange, it's weird, and poof, you're gone. People can't find you because you're wicked. You're going to die soon. Verse eleven closes, it lies down with him in the dust. That youthful vigor is gone. Now, he's not talking about natural causes. He's talking about God's judgment. Because you've lived like you've lived, because you've kept the secrets from us, and because we all thought you were righteous, but you're so sick it's obvious that you're suffering, it's obvious that you're sinful, and you're going to die. Boy, that's a nice hospital visit, isn't it? You stand in there by a guy that's just miserable and you're there to say you're going to die sooner than you think. Look at verses twelve to nineteen. The pleasures of wickedness are very temporal. Evil is sweet in his mouth, he hides it under his tongue, though he desires it and will not let it go, holds it in his mouth. And then he uses the analogy of food and of eating. Food in his stomach is changed to the venom of cobras within him. He swallows riches but will vomit them up. God will expel them from his belly. He sucks the poison of cobras, the viper's tongue slays him. He cannot swallow this food, verse eighteen. Look at the accusation in verse nineteen. He is really meaning Job. He has oppressed and forsaken the poor, he has seized a house which he has not built. He decides to throw that in for extra measure. He's looking down his nose at Job because of his wealth. That must be one of the secrets you've kept. You've oppressed the poor and you've pushed people out of their houses and you've taken advantage of them. Your pleasures are over. Your wickedness has caught up with you. I mean, how severe a tongue is this? And God's judgment falls hard, twenty through twenty-nine. Twenty-six says complete darkness is held in reserve and unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume the survivor in his tent. Heavens will reveal his iniquity, the earth will rise up against him. Verse twenty-nine, this is the wicked man's portion. You could put Job's name there. That's who Zophar has in mind. This is your portion, Job, from God, even the heritage decreed to you by God. Well, these are the final words of Zophar. One of my commentators that I checked said this is the last time we hear from Zophar and we will not miss him. Well, that's a pretty good way to put it. Some people, the best thing they do is leave when they've made your life so miserable. They're gone and you go, "Good riddance." That's the way we feel about Zophar. All of this is not ancient history. This kind of stuff goes on. I don't have any one of you in mind. If I did, I'd talk to you personally rather than say it publicly. But some of you have awfully sharp tongues. You say things and you couch them in words that sound as nice as Zophar's. I mean, this is poetry. This is tough Hebrew, this Hebrew poetry of chapter 20. It sounds even religious at times. "Oh, we should pray for so-and-so," and then you dump this garbage that's not really founded. You don't know it to be true. But evil report is always more interesting than a good report. That's why the news is full of it. That's why the skies are always partly cloudy, not for the most part clear. They never say that. It's always, "Oh, there's a cloud coming. It should be here by a month and a half from now. It's coming from the west. Bad hurricane out there." "Oh, really?" And we're on the edge of our seat, we're on tiptoes listening to bad news about somebody. You need to learn to say, "By the way, how do you know that? Who told you? What's your source? Prove that to me." Challenge the people who come at you with their forked and sharp tongues that start spreading stuff that doesn't sound right. You've got a good brain. You've got sense. Job doesn't just take this on the chin. He says, "Wait a minute. Hold on here, high pockets. I'm not going with you on this. This is not where we're going." I was reading this past week of a minister whose congregation refused to accept his message. True story. He wanted to lead the flock into the truth of the Scripture, he wanted to preach the Word, he wanted to stand for what was right. They didn't want to be led that way. It so happened that his choir, with so many of their habitual ungodly practices, brought things to a head, and the position became so unbearable for him, he invited the choir to resign. The choir not only resigned, I'm reading this, but persuaded the congregation to desist from taking part in the singing on the following Sunday. "Okay, everybody, we're not going to sing." So the result was that whatever singing was done had to be done alone by this minister while the other people stood around and enjoyed his embarrassment. The state of things continued for some time and the minister was greatly depressed and perplexed that the turn of events had taken. He was at wit's end when God spoke in an unusual way to him. One day he was sitting alone on a bench in a park and he saw a newspaper blow by, and he picked up a torn piece from the paper and it bore a message which was exactly what he needed to read. It read: "No man is ever fully accepted until he has first of all been utterly rejected." He took that to heart. He needed nothing more. He had been utterly rejected for Christ's sake, and his recognition of the fact was the beginning of a most fruitful ministry. Though utterly rejected by man, he had been fully accepted by God. And let me tell you, Job is listening to what my mother used to call a lot of palaver. Just a lot of lip-banging from Zophar. He's talking, but it's nonsense. It isn't true, even though he says it poetically and beautifully and even convincingly. Job doesn't take it on the chin. Now, some of those that I checked said no matter what, when false accusations are made, you just sit quietly and say nothing and God will defend you. Well, sometime I'm sure that's appropriate. Not always. I kind of believe in the American Revolution motto: "Trust in God but keep your powder dry." I think if your reputation is being ruined, if your company is going down a tube, if your church is being assaulted and it's because of false stuff being said, some things need to be said in answer to the falsehood.
Bill Meyer: There's a reason the story of Job has endured for thousands of years. His story is our story, and Chuck Swindoll helps us see ourselves in its pages. He titled his message "Responding Wisely When Falsely Accused." When false accusations come—and they will—the temptation is to either lash out in anger or go completely silent and hope it all just goes away. Job shows us there's a wiser path. Here at Insight for Living, we understand that you may come to this daily program carrying burdens that weigh you down. In fact, maybe you're the recipient of false accusations yourself. You're hurt, you're angry, and you can't seem to rise above it all. Well, all of us at Insight for Living care deeply about you. It's our prayer that today's message and this complete series on Job will provide a daily reassurance that God knows your story. We've produced a variety of creative resources to help you. First, Chuck wrote a full-length biography of Job. It's written like a page-turning novel. Second, the brand-new Searching the Scriptures Bible Study for Job is ready. This spiral-bound Bible study is designed to help you dig deeply and reflectively into the biblical account of Job. And third, all 22 of Chuck's full-length sermons are available on CD and MP3, or to stream or download for your convenience. You'll find all the details about this bundle of resources at insight.org/offer or call us at 800-772-8888. Finally, I'm excited to give you a heads-up on something special that's coming this fall. Behind the scenes, Chuck has been working on a personal memoir, and we'd like to send you a copy as soon as it comes out. The title is *Awakened by Grace*. So that you're the first to learn about its release, we invite you to sign up to receive a notification. Just go to insight.org/memoir. That's insight.org/memoir. Have you ever been falsely accused? I'm Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindoll explains how to respond wisely when someone turns against you Friday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, "Responding Wisely When Falsely Accused," was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited. For more information, please visit insight.org.