Now let us prayerfully turn to St. Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 5, and our text for today
comprises verses 37 to, sorry, 33 to 37.
Matthew chapter 5, verses 33 to 37.
Again you have heard that it was said
to the people long ago, do not break
your oath, but keep the oaths you have
made to the Lord.
But I tell you, do not swear at
all, either by heaven, for it is God's
throne, or by earth, for it is his
footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the
city of the great King.
And do not swear by your head, for
you cannot make even one hair, white or
black.
Simply let your yes be yes, and your
no, no.
Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
These words bring us to the fourth of
six illustrations of the morality, the ethics of
the kingdom of heaven.
The ethics of the kingdom of heaven given
by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
The righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees
and the teachers of the law, to quote
from verse 20, must not only be expressed
in terms of abstention from outright murder, which
is fairly obvious, but subjects of the kingdom
of our Lord must not have in their
hearts the kind of hate that generates, or
genders murder.
Verses 21 to 26.
We must not only abstain from the overt
act of adultery, subjects of the kingdom of
our Lord Jesus must abstain from looking to
lust.
Verses 27, verses 21 to 26.
And then again, our abstinence from the, from
the act of adultery, ourselves being involved in
the act of adultery, is not adequate.
We must be very careful, lest by divorcing
our spouses for a reason that is totally
undiblical, we involve them in adultery.
That is the thrust of the passage that
we were considering last Lord's Day morning, or
the two weeks ago.
Now today we come to the matter of
oaths.
In this realm it is essential for the
subject of our Lord's rule and kingdom to
do more than simply honor valid vows or
oaths.
His subjects must also cultivate an honesty and
an integrity that in the long run will
not require anything more than a simple yes,
and a simple no, because we are known
as men and women of our words.
That is the standard our Lord set for
his people.
And insofar as we claim to be the
people of Messiah, that remains the standard for
us today.
It may be hard, it may be very
challenging, but here it is.
And we dare not take away from it,
nor add to it.
Now let's look at this passage.
The first thing that we must look at,
of course, is the situation envisaged, the background
to it all.
There is a background that we must spend
a moment to consider, in order to see
things in context, and to understand them the
better.
Now that first verse, verse 33, actually brings
up the whole situation, if I put the
emphasis in the right place.
Again you have heard that it was said
to the people long ago, do not break
your oath, but keep the oaths you have
made to the Lord.
Now you will notice I am putting the
emphasis on the oaths you have made to
the Lord.
And I'm doing so because I believe that
is the punch of the statement.
And I trust we shall all be able
to see that in a moment.
In the Old Testament scriptures, oaths were very
commonly employed.
Sometimes they were implicit in a statement.
Not always, but sometimes they were.
As for example when God entered into covenant
with Noah, and with his fellow men and
women following upon the flood.
And indeed with the whole of creation as
it were.
We read in Genesis chapter 9, God said
to Noah and to his sons with him,
I now establish my covenant with you and
with your descendants after you.
And with every living creature that was with
you.
The birds, the livestock, and all the wild
animals.
All those that came out of the ark
with you.
Every living creature on earth God is entering
into covenant with them.
I establish my covenant with you.
And here it is.
Never again will all life be cut off
by the waters of a flood.
Never again will there be a flood to
destroy the earth.
Now there is no explicit oath there.
But there is an implicit oath undergirding the
covenant of the Lord.
At other times of course oaths are very
explicitly and unambiguously made.
Abram told the king of Sodom, you remember
on the occasion when Abram had been instrumental
under God's blessing of saving the king of
Sodom.
As well as his nephew Lot.
Saving them from a confederacy of five kings
that had made war on them.
And robbed Sodom of its treasures.
Well Abram was successful in recapturing Lot and
liberating the king of Sodom.
And the king of Sodom wanted to endow
him with one thing or another.
But you remember Abram's words.
He said that he had gone on oath
to the Lord God most high, creator of
heaven and earth.
That he would not accept the least gift
from the monarch's hand.
He says I will not have the king
of Sodom say that he made Abram rich.
I am depending upon the Lord he says.
Who enabled me to deliver you for all
my needs.
I'm not taking anything from your pagan hands.
I don't need it.
I have the Lord God of heaven and
earth upon whom I can depend.
And he went on oath.
Abram again also made the treaty with Abimelech.
Genesis 21.
And we read the place was called Beersheba.
Because the two men swore an oath there.
You see they cemented their agreement with an
oath.
The terms of the oath exactly we do
not know.
But we may understand that it was calling
God to witness.
That if they did not keep their oath
they were answerable as it were in some
sense or other to their God and their
maker.
As we proceed through the inspired records we
read of Abram requiring an oath from his
servant before he sent him away to find
a wife for Isaac.
And then Jacob, Joseph the princes of the
congregation and the whole of the children of
Israel and a myriad others are involved in
one way or another in the making or
the accepting of an oath.
So it continues.
One contemporary writer puts it like this.
He says the Hebrews sensing the presence of
God took joy in making an oath before
God.
And they found peace and comfort in his
holy vows.
And he found that is the Hebrew found
peace and comfort in his holy vows taken
in the name of God.
In this way he expressed his faith and
his loyalty.
Had not God himself accompanied his words with
an oath.
Genesis 22 16 to 18.
Psalm 110 4.
Even guaranteeing the veracity of his declarations and
the irrevocability of his promises.
So the Hebrew would come at this stage
in history the early stages of the Old
Testament to see that there was there was
a delight in making his oath to the
Lord and assuring the Lord you give me
the strength and I will perform.
Then came the misuse the gross misuse and
abuse of oaths.
Which had reached a climax in the days
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the days when Jesus uttered these words
people were making oaths and swearing by all
sorts of things.
They were swearing by heaven they were swearing
by earth they were swearing by Jerusalem and
even by their own heads blessed them.
And our Lord really at one or two
places makes fun of them and calls them
fools.
That they were so thoughtless about it all.
What is even more to be deplored however
is the fact that the more often they
involved themselves in oaths of this kind.
The more senseless the whole thing became.
Especially when it turned out that 99.9
% of them did not keep their oaths.
So that in the process of time you
have a people who are making oaths in
almost every major statement and promising to do
something in the name of the Lord.
But they never meant it.
Or promising to do something by Jerusalem or
by the heavens or by the earth.
But they never kept them.
So the call addressed to the ancients in
verse is referred to in verse 33 again.
The words of our Lord.
You have heard he says to his disciples
his followers that it was said to the
people long ago do not break your oath
but keep the oaths you have made to
the Lord.
Now you say why do we put the
emphasis there?
Well in the process of time there had
emerged the belief that if you make your
vow to the Lord directly or you involve
the name of God personally in your vow.
Well you must keep that vow.
But you may make a hundred thousand other
vows and really they're not important at all.
Now it's very significant that that verse 33
does not refer to a particular statement in
the Old Testament.
But it's a summary of what the Old
Testament said.
The Old Testament did stress that we should,
that those alive at the time and those
of us who are heirs of that same
word of God today should keep our oaths
we have made to the Lord.
In so far as it goes that is
very accurate, very true, very necessary.
Let me quote to you three scriptures.
Leviticus 19 12 says this.
Do not swear falsely by my name and
so profane the name of the Lord.
God is telling them look don't make an
oath that involves me unless you mean what
you say.
In numbers 30 and verse 2 we read
something similar not quite but something similar.
When a man makes a vow to the
Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself
by a pledge he must not break his
word but must do everything he said.
In Deuteronomy 23 and verse 21 if you
make a vow to the Lord your God
do not be slow to pay it for
the Lord your God will certainly demand it
of you and you will be guilty of
sin.
Now I would like you to notice the
stress in those three statements.
Do not swear falsely in the first.
The emphasis is as we've indicated that a
man must must must show some integrity.
Don't make a promise if you don't mean
it.
Don't enter into a vow unless you really
and honestly mean to keep it.
In the second the stress is that is
in Numbers chapter 30 Numbers chapter 30 and
verse 2 the stress falls on this.
He must not break his word which comes
to the same thing.
If you make a promise if you make
a vow then you must not break it
and the same again in Deuteronomy 23 and
verse 21.
Do not be slow to pay it.
Now by the time our Lord Jesus Christ
came this is this is almost startling did
not the same kind of thing happen in
our own day and age.
But the Jews had completely changed the meaning
of those texts and they came to put
the emphasis not where it falls in the
language in the Hebrew and in the English
and in any other language that truly represents
the the original documents.
They came to put the emphasis somewhere else
and this is where they put it.
Do not swear falsely by my name.
And what they were saying you see was
this doesn't matter if you swear falsely in
some other way as long as you don't
involve the divine name.
Or you may promise you may go on
oath but if you don't involve the divine
name that it's not serious.
Then again the same goes as far as
the second passage is concerned.
This is how they understood it.
When a man makes a vow to the
Lord he must not break his word.
Because he's made it to the Lord he's
involved the Lord.
But if he makes a promise to somebody
else well now that's not important.
As if you see the Lord was separated
from the rest of the world and the
rest of life and the society.
And again the same in the third passage.
If you do, if you make a vow
to the Lord your God do not be
slow to pay.
Now verse 33 is to be understood against
the background of that kind of development in
the thinking of the Pharisees and of the
scribes.
You have heard that it was said to
the ancient people do not break your oaths
but keep the oaths you have made to
the Lord.
That's the situation.
Now there was tremendous confusion that emerged out
of that.
Two things I need to mention.
I've already hinted at them and so I
don't need to stay with them.
One there emerged a multiplicity of oath making
which was utterly meaningless.
Utterly meaningless because people did not keep their
oaths.
They swore, they used either the name of
God directly or indirectly or swore by their
own heads, swore by their own hands, swore
by their own family, swore by this that
or the other.
But it came to nothing.
It was all a cloak to pretend that
they were honest when they were not.
They had no intention of keeping the oaths
they were making.
Now alongside of this then, coincidentally with this,
there emerged a sliding scale of evaluating oaths.
Did you ever hear of such a thing?
A sliding scale.
Some were important, some were less important, some
were not important at all.
If you swore directly to the Lord or
involved the name of God, you must keep
it.
There were some others that may have approximated
that in certain circumstances, but the lesser vows
that you used in everyday language, they were
not important at all.
Now such was the situation to which Jesus
addressed himself in these words.
The subjects of his rule, he says, must
follow his standard.
You've heard this said to the ancients.
That's not what I'm going to say to
you.
I have something quite different to say to
you, my people, subjects of my rule, and
of my kingdom.
Now the second thing I want to notice
therefore is the correction of the chaos that
had ensued.
The first thing that Jesus does in order
to correct this, is to tell his disciples
that all oath taking involves God.
Whether you swear directly to God or not,
whether you make use of his name or
not, all swearing, all taking of oaths involves
God.
It could not be otherwise.
Listen to our Lord.
I tell you, he says, do not swear
at all.
Why not?
Well, let's listen to him.
Do not swear at all either by heaven,
because it is God's throne, or by the
earth, because it is God's footstool, or by
Jerusalem, because it is the city of the
great King.
And do not swear by your own head,
for you cannot make one hair white or
black.
God is the Lord of your head, and
he determines whether your hair should be black
or white at a given time.
He's the Lord exercising lordship, even on the
very hairs of your head, however many, however
few you may have.
God is Lord, and he's involved imminently in
the whole of life, says our Lord, and
whatever you swear by, you're involved in God.
He's Lord of the whole creation, of the
whole cosmos, of all of life.
I quote from William Hendrickson, whom I think
is very good at this point.
He says, there were even those who swore
by their heads, meaning, may I lose my
head, hence may I lose my life, if
what I am telling you is not the
truth, or if I do not fulfill my
promise.
Jesus points out, says Hendrickson, that nobody is
able to change the intrinsic color of his
hair.
It is God, and he alone who determines
all things.
He's involved in the whole of life, and
you cannot swear by anything without involving God.
That's the first thing Jesus does.
Later on, according to the Gospel of Matthew,
he chides the folly of people who do
this kind of thing.
In Matthew chapter 23, verses 16 to 22,
Jesus spoke thus to the Pharisees and the
scribes, who were the leaders in all this.
Woe to you blind guides, he says.
You say, if anyone swears by the temple,
it means nothing.
But if anyone swears by the gold of
the temple, he is bound by his oath.
You blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
You also say, if anyone swears by the
altar, it means nothing.
But if anyone swears by the gift on
it, he is bound by his oath.
You blind men, which is greater, the gift,
or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears
by it, and by everything on it.
And he who swears by the temple, swears
by it, and by the one who dwells
in it.
And he who swears by heaven, swears by
God's throne, and by the one who sits
on it.
And again, it comes to the same thing.
Whatever oath you take, you involve God.
There is no such a thing as an
oath that does not involve Almighty God.
All swearing involves Him.
Now, the subjects of God's kingdom, then, and
of Christ's rule, need no oath.
That's what Jesus said.
Simply let your yes be yes, and your
no, no.
Anything beyond this, says Jesus, comes from the
evil one.
Now, what have we got here?
First thing is this.
Frivolity of speech is condemned.
To say what you do not mean, is
everywhere condemned in Scripture.
It is everywhere, and at all times, wrong
and reprehensible.
If we do not mean what we say,
we should not appear to give our statements
the aura of an oath, implying that we
are doing it in the sight of God,
and therefore we are calling God to witness
to what is ostensibly truth, when as a
matter of fact, it's a cover-up for
a lie.
Of course, we may have found some better
way of shielding our real intentions in the
20th century.
I think that one of the saddest things,
one of the saddest of all phenomena in
our 20th century society, and even in the
churches, is that of evasive speech.
Rather than utter a downright lie, we just
evade the questions that are asked, and we
beat around the bush.
So what we do, is to mislead without
actually telling a lie, and there are some
who are absolutely champions of this.
Some folk exaggerate, others deal in understatements, all
of which are meant to mislead in the
same way as the Jews took their oaths,
with the end in view of misleading.
One has known some people who rarely answered
the question clearly, and honestly, and unambiguously.
And it brings the judgment of God upon
us, when we do that.
They're always equivocating, evading a frank statement.
They're so contrary to what the Apostle John
requires, when he says that we should walk
in the light, as God is in the
light, and then we have fellowship with one
another, and with God the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Beware of men and women who are always
equivocating, always qualifying, or modifying, or making statements
which actually make meaningless what they've said before.
Don't fall into that trap, my friend.
It's a very difficult groove to get out
of.
Someone was acknowledging to me, not all that
long ago, that he had got into this
groove, and he found it very difficult to
get out of it.
You can get into a habit, and it's
like a grave, and the more you try
to climb out of it, the more terrifying
is the result.
And of course, such people become known as
shifty, deceptive, double-minded people.
The successors of the casuists that history has
subtracted and evidently condemned, some of them in
the Church of Jesus Christ.
You know your history.
Frivolity of speech is condemned.
Integrity in speech is required.
Simply let your yes be yes.
Let your no be no, and be a
man or a woman of your word.
Now this is nothing other than the outworking,
of course, of the whole Spirit, inculcated by
the Beatitudes.
And I think it's necessary to say that
at this stage.
Our Lord is not introducing something into his
Sermon on the Mount that was not in
context.
You see, if you and I are seriously
going through the experience that is gendered by
an honest acceptance of the Beatitudes and their
significance, then take for example the stress on
purity of heart.
It'll deal with this.
Because you see, the reason why I want
to lead you astray is this, because my
heart is wrong.
The reason why I want not to tell
you all the truth is because my heart
is wrong.
The reason why I want to hide something
and live furtively is because my heart is
not right with God.
If my heart was pure, I have nothing
to hide.
Out of the heart, says Jesus, out of
the abundance of the heart, the overflow of
the heart, the mouth speaks.
And if the heart is full of duplicity,
well the speech will be likewise.
The speech is the child of the heart.
It's the fruit of the heart.
And my friend, if you are a liar,
don't blame your lips.
The trouble lies deeper.
The trouble is in the heart.
I don't know whether I ever told you
in the city where we began our ministry,
the city of Cardiff in South Wales, there
was one very large church which has seen
great revivals really.
And they had a very famous clock.
It always faced the preacher.
Some of you would like to have one
here.
Well, not whilst I'm here.
But there it was right in front of
him.
But the caretaker found real difficulty in keeping
this clock on time.
I don't know how the preacher found it,
but the caretaker found it very difficult.
It was always wrong.
And one day he thought, because people were,
you know, caretakers of a very difficult time,
they take the criticisms of everybody.
And this good man had had enough of
it.
But anyway, he wrote a piece of paper
and pasted it over the face of the
clock.
Don't blame my hands, the trouble lies deeper.
And I would say, don't blame your lips,
the trouble lies deeper.
The fact that we equivocate and lie and
cover up and have our own little water
gates, and then of the audacity to judge
other and other people in their water gates,
because our heart's not right with God.
Honesty must spring from a pure heart, and
it can only spring from there.
Integrity of heart is what is required.
You see, we should not lie one to
another, says Paul to the Colossians, chapter 3,
verse 9.
God does not lie.
Now, let me just bring this before you,
so that I don't dwell over much upon
it.
God is light.
And God, according to Paul, writing to Titus,
chapter 1 and verse 2, God does not
lie.
And according to a passage we've read this
morning, God cannot lie, from Hebrews 6.
Now, if you and I are lying, then
we are not in fellowship with God.
Now, that's bad enough.
But you see, in John 8, 44, Jesus
says something which is even worse than that.
Where do our lies come from then?
Where do they come from?
Well, he says, the devil is the father
of lies.
He's a liar from the beginning, and when
you are indulging in lies, you are in
fellowship with the father of lies.
You know, it's as serious as that.
Child of God, don't be tempted.
Keep in fellowship with your own father, and
your own Savior, and the Spirit who indwells
you, and you will not lie.
Lie not one to another.
Now, let me come to apply this very
briefly.
Some applications of the principle.
The historical setting, of course, has long passed.
We don't have the same situation.
We don't have the same background to address
ourselves to, as Jesus did here.
All right.
Nevertheless, the principle enunciated remains intact, and is
very much with us.
The general practice for us to follow, who
are subjects of the kingdom of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, is clear.
Simply let your yes be yes, and your
no, no.
Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
It's when we go beyond the plain truth,
that the devil comes in and makes additions,
and leads us astray.
Don't let him.
Keep your language crisp and clear, says Jesus.
Don't add too many words.
That's the entrance for the evil one.
Be honest, and keep it down to a
minimum.
Now, this remains clear and unambiguous, but it's
challenging, isn't it?
We who are members of our Lord's kingdom,
however, and subjects of his rule, should go
out of our way to cultivate honesty of
speech.
Now, this is important for everybody, whether you're
single, whether you're married.
But in this context, I would suggest to
you that it is doubly important for families,
where there are children, and where husband-wife
relationship needs to be developed in such a
manner, that the marriage can be God-honoring,
rather than lead in another direction.
That's the context in which we find it
here.
You cannot, my friend, you cannot develop a
wholesome, healthy marriage, where one of the partners
is dishonest in his words, or her words.
We've got to be truthful.
It's coming right down to brass tacks.
It's simple, but it's terribly challenging.
You've got to be straight.
I've got to be straight.
We should so live under the shadow of
God's own throne, and in the awareness of
his pervading presence, that that presence of God
that we enjoy from day to day, should
have a compelling impact upon our lives.
Walking in fellowship with him, he'll not influence
us that way.
That much, then, is clear and unambiguous.
We should never need to have recourse to
oaths in order to cover up our evil
intentions and duplicity.
But now, some occasional exceptions to that otherwise
universal rule.
God went on oath.
God went on oath, for example, in order
to assure us sinners, who are so slow
to believe him and to trust him, in
order to assure us of the absolute dependability
of his promise.
He did that to Abram in the Old
Testament.
He has done that to us, who are
Abram's spiritual children in the New Testament.
But now you notice the difference.
The oaths that we have been countering and
arguing against, as we believe Jesus and the
whole of the Bible does, are oaths that
we make to cover up a lie, a
cloak for duplicity.
But God goes on oath in order to
assure his children and his people of his
honesty, of his good intention.
And the reason he does it is not
to lead us astray, but to assure us.
Indeed, the writer of the epistle to the
Hebrews puts it, to encourage us.
We won't be encouraged.
His word is not enough for us.
And so he goes beyond the mere word.
He goes on oath.
Let me read to you.
Hebrews 6, beginning with verse 16.
Men swear, says the writer, by someone greater
than themselves.
And the oath confirms what is said and
puts an end to all argument.
Now, because God wanted to make the unchanging
nature of his purpose very clear to the
heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it
with an oath.
God did this so that by two unchangeable
things in which it is impossible for God
to lie, we who have fled for refuge
to take hold of the hope offered to
us may be greatly encouraged.
Have you got the point?
You see, God wants you to know that
his promise of forgiveness is true.
God wants you to know, him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast
out.
God wants you to know that when he
forgives you, your sins are cast behind us
back into the depths of the sea.
And the sins he forgives, he forgets.
Your sins and iniquities will I remember no
more.
And there are men and women in our
congregation this morning that find it impossible to
believe God on that.
God says very well, he says, I'll go
on oath.
I'll swear to you, I mean what I
say, bring your sins to my son, bury
them under his blood, and I will, I
swear I will.
And God does that.
Not that he needs to, save only because
of his love for us.
He wants us to get the truth, you
see.
He wants us to see that he means
it, and he does it, he swears.
Jesus also allowed himself to be put on
oath in a court of law.
You remember the record?
I just refer to it.
In Matthew chapter 26, we read, he's before
the high priest, being arrested in the Garden
of Gethsemane.
And then the high priest stood up and
said to Jesus, are you not going to
answer?
Jesus was not answering the questions that were
put to him.
What is this testimony that these men are
bringing against you?
You remember they paid false witnesses to speak
against him.
But Jesus remained silent.
The high priest said to him, I charge
you under oath by the Living God, tell
us if you are the Christ, the Son
of God.
And under oath, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of
God, replied.
He wouldn't reply before.
He accepted the oath.
Yes, he says, it is as you say.
But I say to all of you, in
the future you will see the Son of
Man sitting at the right hand of the
Mighty One, and coming on the clouds of
heaven.
Under oath, he says, I will answer your
question, but I'll tell you more than you're
asking for.
I am He, and one day you will
know it, when it's too late.
Not only that my friends, but the Apostle
Paul likewise, in one or two places, involves
himself in an oath.
He does so again for the same reason
as God has gone on oath.
He does so in order to assure people
who are doubtful of him.
He does it, for example, in the epistle
to the Romans, when some were doubtful as
to his good intentions concerning his own nation,
the nation of the Jews, in the light
of the fact that he had said that
all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.
Surely he's downgrading the Jews.
Surely he's not got no concern for his
own people.
That's what they said.
When it comes to that great ninth chapter,
the Apostle speaks out.
He says, I speak the truth in Christ.
I am not lying.
My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit.
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in
my heart, for I could wish that I
myself were cursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my brothers, those of
my own race, the people of Israel.
And again, there was a misunderstanding about his
visit to the church at Corinth, or a
pending visit, and the Corinthians were saying, oh,
he's washing his hands of us now.
He's going elsewhere.
He doesn't care anymore for us.
You see, that was an important charge.
That was a terrifying charge against an apostle
of Jesus Christ.
Paul couldn't take it.
He went on oath.
I call God as my witness, he says,
that it was in order to spare you
that I did not return to Corinth.
We conclude from all this, therefore, that it
is not absolutely wrong to take an oath
when truth is at stake, and when known
veracity and truthfulness are not accepted by those
in question.
God, his Son, and his apostles would not
have gone on oath, or taken anything akin
to an oath, if it were always and
inherently wrong.
For this reason, we would respectfully differ from
the early Anabaptists, and from the later Quakers,
and the great George Fox, the Society of
Friends, who refused then, as they refuse today,
on any condition whatsoever, in peacetime or wartime,
in a court of law or anywhere else,
they will not take an oath.
We must respect them.
But for my part, I would have to
say that I cannot agree with them.
God would not have sworn, if it were
inherently wrong.
His Son would not have allowed himself to
be put under oath, if it were necessarily
and inherently wrong.
Nevertheless, the law for his people is this,
don't live by your curses.
Don't live by your oaths.
Let your yea be yea, and your nay,
nay, your yes, yes, your no, no.
In other words, cultivate an integrity of life,
that your word becomes your bond, and men
know who you are, and they don't need
to ask twice.
Finally, the overwhelming consideration at all times, then,
is that we should cultivate integrity of speech,
as we should cultivate a God-like character
in all things.
And God's glory should be our aim.
God must never be associated with any word
or promise of ours that is less than
strictly true.
To make an oath to cover our dishonesty,
like these people of old, is something terribly
reprehensible.
And lastly, if an oath is to be
justified at any time, and under any circumstances,
it is in order to reaffirm our intention
to be truthful, it is alongside of our
known integrity and honesty, not to cover it.
And thus, if needs be, in some circumstances
in life, we are found, even in our
oath-taking, to be in fellowship with the
Father and the Son.
Brothers and sisters, so much of this has
gone into history, but the very real heart
of the matter remains.
You and I are living in a society
that doesn't know what it is with any
measure of consistency to say the truth.
And it is beyond question.
All of us, from time to time, are
tempted to vacillate, to deny our Lord in
this.
Honesty is not the best policy.
It's the only policy for citizens of the
kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are no degrees of honesty.
One is either honest or dishonest.
The very life of an honest man is
his oath in the long run.
One's mere word should be as trustworthy as
a signed agreement, attested by legal witnesses.
May the Lord grant us such grace, such
enabling from his throne to overcome every temptation
wherever it may spring, to seek in this
as in other matters, first of all, the
kingdom and the glory of our great God
and Father, and to be prepared to discipline
ourselves, including our tongues, to the end, that
some may say of us what that dear
old chief in what is now called Zaire,
what used to be called Belgian Congo, said
of Christians of seven years standing, this man
cannot tell a lie.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, our first request of you
is to forgive us our sins.
Forgive us that we have not seen this
to be so important.
And because we have not seen it to
be so important, we have sometimes minimized the
consequences of a lack of integrity.
Because of that, our children too have taken
note, and other children besides our own.
And we have led others astray by our
folly, our weakness, our vacillation, our lack of
dedication to seek first your kingdom and your
glory.
Please forgive us.
So teach us that we may become different
from what we have been.
Send us out, we pray, from this morning's
worship as men and women, young men and
young maidens, concerned for your glory.
And even though this aspect of life may
cost us dearly at some stage, O Lord,
make us truthful and honest to the nth
degree for the glory of your name, through
Jesus Christ your Son.
Amen.