Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

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and sisters in Christ, grace and peace be unto you from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand and hear God call you to worship through his word.
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Blessed are you, Lord God of Israel, our Father forever and ever.
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Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, and the glory, the victory, and the majesty.
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For all that is in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom,
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O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you reign over all.
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In your hand is power and might. In your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
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Now therefore, our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name.
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Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
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You made the heavens and earth by your great power and outstretched arm.
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Your invisible attributes, your eternal power, and divine nature are clearly seen through what you have made.
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The heavens declare your glory. We praise you for your providence.
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You are the governor and sustainer of all things. In you all things hold together.
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In you we live and move and have our being. You give to all life and breath and all things.
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You work all things after the counsel of your own will. You have numbered even the hairs upon our heads.
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Not even a sparrow falls from a tree apart from your will. We praise you, our
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God, for these your great works of creation and providence. But above all, we praise you for redemption.
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There is no other God beside you, no other savior, no other rock to whom the ends of the earth may turn and be saved.
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We rejoice that you so love the world that you gave your only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the savior of the world and gave your spirit to abide with us and in us and teach us all things.
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May we have fellowship with you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray in Christ's name.
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Amen. Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin.
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Let us join together in confessing our sins. Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, too deep to undo.
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Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.
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Set us free from paths that we cannot change. Open to us a future in which we can be changed.
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Grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
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Amen. Please stand and receive these words of comfort and our assurance of pardon.
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I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will remember your sins and I will not remember your sins.
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My brothers and sisters in Christ, though our sins were as scarlet, they have been made white as snow.
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Let us rejoice for our sins are forgiven in Christ. Amen. Let us now take up the hymnal and turn to hymn number 34.
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The God of Abraham prays. Hymn 34. Please take up the insert and look for our psalm of the week.
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Psalm 66, O all you peoples, bless our God. Psalm 66.
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We'll be singing the tune as DJ walked us through before the service to what we used to our psalm of the month 110, but we'll be singing
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Psalm 66. O all you peoples, bless our God. Please remain standing and open your
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Bibles to our weekly reading from Revelation chapter 20.
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Revelation chapter 20. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
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He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
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And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.
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But after these things he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was committed to them.
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Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.
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And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.
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This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection.
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Over such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.
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Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth,
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Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.
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They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
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The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast, lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
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Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them.
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And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God and books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books.
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The sea gave up the dead who were in it and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them and they were judged each one according to his works.
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Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
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This is the word of the Lord. Let us continue our worship by proclaiming our ancient
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Christian faith and confessing it by the singing of the Apostles' Creed. Please take up the
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Trinity Hymnal once more and open to hymn 642, Be Thou My Vision, hymn 642.
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Please now make preparations for the prayers of the people. And seeing the multitudes
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Jesus went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him.
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Then he opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.
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Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
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God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.
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Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.
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For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Finding ourselves in agreement with all these things we join our voices together and say amen.
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Please stand and take up the insert again for our new psalm of the month.
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Psalm 17 although it says 34 in the upper left hand corner.
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Lord I am thine but thou wilt prove. We covered this in the prayer meeting and just before the service for other any words of encouragement or instruction.
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Psalm 17. Amen. Please turn in your bibles to the book of James in chapter five.
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We are within a couple of weeks of completing our study in James and the tentative plan is to start in first john next time next book.
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This is God's holy and infallible word. James chapter five.
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Come now you rich weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you.
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Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten.
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Your gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
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You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud cry out and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the
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Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury.
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You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned you have murdered the just.
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He does not resist you. Therefore be patient brethren until the coming of the
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Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.
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You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the
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Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another brethren lest you be condemned.
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Behold the judge is standing at the door. My brethren take the prophets who spoke in the name of the
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Lord as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed to endure.
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You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the
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Lord that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. But above all my brethren do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath.
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But let your yes be yes and your no no lest you fall into judgment.
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May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his word. Please pray with me now. Oh Lord we tremble in the presence of your truth.
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I pray Holy Spirit that you would bring appropriate conviction upon us.
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I pray that we would be comforted by the one who is truth.
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And as a result we would be a people of truth. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated.
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Title of the message is yea or nay. And I have two outline points for you.
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The first would be simply a definition of terms. And the second would be let your yes be yes and your no no.
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Very simple outline to consider today. Yea or nay.
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You are a people of unclean lips. You are a people who don't always tell the truth.
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You're a people who equivocate. You're a people who have been influenced by the culture of lies that exists in this world.
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We have to acknowledge that the church even her sanctified state has room for growth and improvement on being truth tellers.
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The text today in James chapter five is a prohibition against frivolous and vain swearing.
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Important idea maybe today I'm not going to go into this but this is heavily related to the third commandment.
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And if you wanted to read the larger catechism on the duties and obligations in connection to the third commandment that would be a good use of your time this
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Sabbath afternoon. Sinful people want the benefits of the swearing without its consequences.
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They wish to curry the favor of men to get what they want by invoking the name of God.
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What is swearing?
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Look at verse 12. Swearing is to affirm an oath uttering a declaration with a an appeal to God for the truth of it.
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So when we swear we are affirming some oath that we are making.
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We're making some declaration and what we do is we appeal to God for the truth of it.
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I swear we might say. That brings into question what is cursing?
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And you may have cursed someone on the ride into church today. We have to be very cautious with our words and our thoughts because we could be in grave danger.
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To curse someone is to imprecate evil on them, to doom them to vexation or misery.
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That is a hard hearted thing to do to someone to damn them, to speak in that way to them, to curse them.
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But in that definition of swearing we have the concept of the oath and I want you to pay close attention to this.
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This is going to shape and help us understand the text. An oath is a solemn affirmation or declaration made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed.
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I want you to listen carefully. The appeal to God in an oath implies that the person imprecates his vengeance and renounces his favor if the declaration is false or if the declaration is a promise, the person invokes the vengeance of God if he should fulfill to fulfill it.
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Got to be very careful with our words. James, maybe more than any other subject, has called us to tame our tongues.
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We are a people who take rash oaths. We curse people and praise
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God with the same lips. This ought not to be so.
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The culture is a culture of lies and we have, through syncretism, even in some ways unknowingly adopted the posture and the proclamation of lies.
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We are equivocators. We are people who give half -truths. We do things for our own benefit.
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We do not speak the truth to our own detriment. Certainly, hopefully we're making progress in those things, but we have to be honest.
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When you're a little child and I've had nine little children, every one of them at some point in their life makes the test of the lie.
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They're about to get into trouble and they float the prospect of a lie and sometimes it works and this gives them some evidence that maybe this could be a strategy that I could use in my life when
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I'm in trouble or something's not going my way. I can give a little lie and that sets a course for very bad things for particularly the people of God.
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Now, I have no doubts that you are a people of truth like no other, but you have to be circumspect about this.
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Are we really truth tellers in every sense? When we say yes, do we mean yes?
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When we say no, do we really mean no? Well, the oath is between two parties.
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A vow is something different. I'm giving this so that you have a picture of swearing, cursing, oath, vow, etc.
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To vow is to give, consecrate, or dedicate to God by a solemn promise.
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A vow is made before God. Now there can be witnesses, but the vow is between the party and God.
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The oath is between the two parties invoking the name of God in the situation.
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It's a very important distinction. When we take vows of marriage, of church membership, of ordination, whatever it may be, when we take those vows, we're not making just a promise to our spouse.
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We're making a promise to God. And the very act of the vow is us making this declaration and promise directly to God, whereas oaths are made between parties.
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One other definition, before we get into it more fully, is the idea of equivocation.
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And I was very struck by this, that we live in an age of equivocation. What does that mean?
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It is an ambiguity of speech, the use of words or expressions that are susceptible of a double signification.
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Hypocrites are often guilty of equivocation, and by this means lose the confidence of their fellow men.
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Equivocation is incompatible with the Christian character and profession.
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I really enjoyed Mark's Sunday School lesson this morning. You guys should have come. If you weren't there, it would have been a blessing to you to be there.
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And one of the things that's coming out in this doctrine of Scripture that has been hinted at, and it's very important in this particular text, is we believe in what is known as the perspicuity of Scripture, and that is the essential clarity of Scripture.
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We also believe in the analogy of faith, that the Scripture interprets
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Scripture. And so we have to get to the sense of where does this idea from James come from, and how is it applied, how is it worked out in real life?
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So the first place I'd like you to go is to the book of Leviticus, really quickly, in chapter 19.
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We'll begin reading in verse 11. Leviticus 19, 11.
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It says, You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.
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Verse 12. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your
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God. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19.
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And in fact, we are called upon to take oaths in the name of God. We are called upon on occasion to swear, but only by his name.
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And we are to do this with some measure of trepidation, if we believe these things are true.
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If we're making an oath or a declaration, we are making an appeal to God who sees and knows all things for the truth of it.
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To swear falsely is a grave offense, a violation of the third commandment, a profaning of the name of your
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God. Not a good testimony for those who are Christians who are called by his name.
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Christians can't be contra truth when they are united to the truth.
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Make sense? I'd like you to turn in your hymnals quickly to the back.
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This would be the Trinity hymnal, the red one. Some people take
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James five to mean that there can be no oaths taken, and that is not the teaching of James five.
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There are lawful oaths and vows, and this would be on page 861. I'm going to quickly go through some of this.
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A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calleth
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God to witness what he asserteth or promiseth and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he sweareth.
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This should give you some pause because you make some very bold declarations in our liturgy that better be reflective of your heart.
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You could be speaking lies about God in the worship of God following our liturgy.
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Section two. The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear, and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence.
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Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name or to swear at all by any other thing is sinful and to be abhorred.
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This is what James is talking about in James chapter five. You know something about the history of the
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Jewish people. We're going to get a little sampling of that in just a moment. They were people who were a swearing people.
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They swore by the gold of the temple and the altar of the temple and the temple and Jerusalem and things like that.
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And all of it in some way was a mechanism for them to curry favor, to add weightiness to their argument, but also to have an escape because they didn't invoke the name of God.
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And in the confession and the witness of scripture, the perspicuity of scripture teaches us that we can only swear in the name of God.
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And boy, we better do it right if we do it. Says in the last half of section two, yet as in manners of weight and moment, an oath is warranted by the word of God under the
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New Testament as well as under the old. So a lawful oath being imposed by lawful authority in such manners ought to be taken.
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Again, the weightiness, the language, section three, whoever taketh an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act.
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If you're taking an oath, you're calling God to the veracity, the truthfulness of your declaration and also inviting his correction and judgment should proceed with caution.
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Section four, an oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words without equivocation or mental reservation.
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It cannot oblige to sin, but in anything not sinful being taken, it binds to performance, although to a man's own hurt.
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In 2008, there was a great housing crisis in our country.
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It was felt very strongly here in Central Florida. And what happened is essentially overnight because of defaults that people's home value began to be slashed, in some cases half of what it was.
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And this became the justification for people abandoning their homes because they signed up for the mortgage when the house is worth, let's say, 400 ,000.
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Their house is only worth 200 ,000 today. They just left. They didn't stay committed because it was to their detriment.
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And that's really what everything has become for us. Marriage is only stayed in until it comes to our detriment.
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And I have to leave. My relationship to my brothers and sisters in Christ in the church, it's it's solid until it's to my own detriment, then
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I have to leave. We are living in an age and we ourselves have been influenced.
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We are a people of weak and shallow commitment to the truth, to one another.
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In our section, it says a vow is of like nature with a promissory oath. The second half of section four,
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I should point this out in our apologetic defense against the Mohammedans, the
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Muslims. They are encouraged to lie to infidels. We are commanded to honor our oath even to infidels.
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Our religion, our truth is superior to that nonsense. Our God is a holy
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God. He's not a lying God like their God. We have to hold this even if it's made to heretics or infidels.
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Infidels. These oaths and vows are not to be made to any creature, but to God alone, and that it may be accepted is to be made voluntarily out of faith and conscience of duty and way of thankfulness for the mercy received or for the obtaining of what we want.
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Whereby we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties or to other things so far, so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto.
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No man, it says in section seven, may vow to do anything forbidden in the word of God or what would be hinder any duty therein commanded or which is not in his own power and for the performance whereof he hath no promise or ability of God.
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In which respects, popish monastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty and regular obedience are so far from being degrees of higher perfection that they are superstitious and sinful snares in which no
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Christian may entangle himself. I think we need to be more careful with our words.
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Let's go back to the New Testament. I want to take you to what
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I believe is the foundation of this argument from James.
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It's found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. I'll begin reading in verse 33.
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Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the
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Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven for it is
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God's throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king, nor shall you swear by your head because you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your yes be yes and your no, no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
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The very language of Leviticus 19, somewhat of an expansion and enlargement of that idea here in Matthew five, the language duplicated in James chapter five.
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Now, I want to point out something to you because the Quakers and other people don't believe you can take any kind of oath.
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And they do it largely from this teaching in Matthew five and James five. Let's look again at verse 34.
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It says, but I say to you, do not swear at all. Well, that would be an apparent contradiction if we just left it there.
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Leviticus 19 says there's a way that we can swear. So there must be more information that we need.
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Jesus is giving us the way in which the people is reflected in James's argument.
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This is how they were swearing. They were swearing by heaven close to God in proximity, not the name of God, but swearing by heaven.
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For it's God's throne, Jesus says you can't swear by any other name but God's name and all of this swearing on heaven and earth and Jerusalem and the great king, your head.
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All of this is from the evil one because you have departed from the scriptural norm and you have used it in a frivolous way, selfishly for your own benefit.
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I used to try to watch true crime shows with my wife. Don't do it as frequently as you used to.
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And I like true stories. I try to solve the case and all these things. And I'm always amazed at how often the suspect says,
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I swear on my mother's grave. The implication being if if I'm not telling the truth, my mother should be struck dead.
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If I hear someone say that, I almost immediately believe they're lying because they're trying to bolster their case.
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They don't say yes or no. They say, I swear on my mother's grave. Heard one pastor say in the schoolyard when kids are little, they make promises to one another, but they get out of them by saying my fingers were crossed or I didn't do a pinky promise.
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It's foolishness to us. But we're a people who use this swearing and this oath taking to benefit ourselves.
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We're not content with, we know that it's not believable for us to say yes, yes, and no, no, because oftentimes we're entering into these discussions not with great sincerity.
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If this is true for you, please repent of this great evil.
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I'm going to give you a couple, I'm not going to have you turn there. I'm going to give you a couple of Old Testament examples. I'm going to try to do this really quickly.
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I'm going to give you a couple of New Testament, and one is very surprising if you're not familiar with it or remember it, of oaths being given in scripture or the command to make oaths and vows.
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From Deuteronomy chapter six, you shall fear the
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Lord your God and serve him and shall take oaths in his name.
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It's connected with idolatry. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you for the
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Lord your God is a jealous God among you. The invocation of the name of God is the only proper way, and it better be done in sincerity and truth.
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There's an issue of idolatry and false worship in connection with the making of false oaths.
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Deuteronomy chapter 10, reading in verse 16, therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff necked no longer.
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For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.
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He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.
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Therefore love the stranger for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the
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Lord your God, you shall serve him and to him you shall hold fast and take oaths in his name.
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He is your praise and he is your God has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.
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Your fathers went down to Egypt with 70 persons and now the
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Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven and multitude who would have thought that oaths are so strongly tied to worship and false worship and idolatry.
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One more from the book of Psalms, Psalm 63, who you make an oath to and whose name you make an oath.
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The name you invoke is like prayer, the name that you worship. The last verse of Psalm 63 says that the king shall rejoice in God.
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Everyone who swears by him shall glory, but the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.
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There could be someone who would say falsely that this is an argument that is now may be done away with now because of the sermon on the mount of Jesus and there is no oaths or there is no vows in the new covenant.
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And I'll take exception to that if you want to turn to Matthew chapter 26 with me.
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Jesus himself under oath says this,
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Matthew 26, I'll begin reading in verse 62. He's just being accused of saying,
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I have am able to destroy the temple of God and build it up in three days for 62.
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And the high priest arose and said to him, do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you?
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But Jesus kept silent. Now, if we stop there, we can say that Jesus didn't get engaged in this business of oaths.
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And the high priest answered him and said to him, I put you under oath by the living
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God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God.
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Jesus said to him, it is as you said. That's very exhilarating to me there.
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He's being humble. He's being meek. He's being quiet. He's put under oath by the high priest, probably
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Caiaphas. Tell us if you are the Christ. And Jesus says, I am.
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I say to you hereafter, you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
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This is what gets you crucified. Being a truth teller.
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Be an oath keeper. Jesus made an oath.
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He swore under oath. Without going there,
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I'm just point out a couple more to you. Paul does this a number of times.
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First, I'm going to relay to you is from Romans chapter one. He says,
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I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
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He says, for God is my witness. He's telling them that he's he's saying
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God can verify the truthfulness of my claim. I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son.
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Without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers. Paul says,
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I didn't just receive your prayer request and say I would pray for you. I actually prayed for you.
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I care about you and love you that way. God is my witness. In second
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Corinthians in chapter one as well, he says.
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Moreover, I call God as witness against my soul that to spare you,
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I came no more to Corinth. Not that we have dominion over your faith, but our fellow workers for your joy, for by faith you stand.
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Also does this in Galatians one, Philippians one. Let's go back to our text in James.
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This may be one of the more convicting messages for the church. I don't know if it's you individually, but I think about the spirit of our age.
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This sermon, this topic doesn't seem like a big deal, but I think it's very much the spirit of our age to not speak the truth.
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This hits very hard. Not only the people of God, but the culture in which we live.
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Colossians 4, 6 says, Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
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You need to be able to say yes or no in sincerity, with earnestness to the honor and glory of God.
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The people in Jesus and James's day, one in a passion.
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No people that I have ever known can compare with these orientals, referring to the
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Jewish people for their profaneness and their use of the names and attributes of God.
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When Peter therefore began to curse and swear on that dismal night of temptation, we are not to suppose that it was something foreign to his former habits.
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In fact, when you look at that, what's surprising in that interaction is no one rebukes him for the coarseness of his language when he's basically denying knowing
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Christ. He merely relapsed under high excitement into what a sailor and fisherman, as he had been accustomed to all his life.
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The people now use the very same sort of oaths that are mentioned and condemned by our
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Lord. You see, we don't want to suffer any consequences.
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We want to push the conflict to another time. We don't want to confront a conflict. We don't want the light to shine to expose us of our sin, so we equivocate.
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We invoke the name of God to cover our sin, to preserve our self -interest, and it should not be so.
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The question we have to ask is how do we become people who let their yes mean yes and their no mean no?
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It's the kind of person you and I and the little boys and girls here ought to be.
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Well, the first thing I'd like to offer by way of application in this principle is
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I understand Isaiah as saying I'm a man of unclean lips after having to meditate upon this text, because in the world's eyes,
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I couldn't be called a liar, but I see some imprecision in my language. I want to be a man of greater precision with my words.
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You are most certainly a people of unclean lips, but you have a savior who is himself the incarnation of truth.
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Walk in his truth. The light doesn't bother us, the people of God, because we're the people of the light.
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We know that we're not pulling something over on God. Our sin is exposed. The darkness of our hearts is revealed, and we bring it out into the light that the light of Christ might shine on it, that we might repent, and our love with him is so secure and so pure and so perfect.
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We need not fear going into the light. You and I need to conduct ourselves with a faith -filled moral integrity so that you would not even be tempted to lie, because the lie exists in order to cover your sin.
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You and I need to be so divested of self -interest that we're willing to suffer some harm for the glory of God and the preservation of truth.
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I implore you, do not frivolously invoke the name of God by oath.
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Only make an oath lawfully. A Christian going into the court of law, raising his right hand and putting his hand on the
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Bible, solemnly swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth is not hard.
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It should be the character of our lives. We can take that oath. The magistrate, the president, particularly the federal government has taken an oath to uphold the
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Constitution of the United States, and they've not done it. They've burned it. They need to be held accountable to maintain their oath.
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Mark and I have been called to preach the gospel. If we preach any other gospel, it would be a violation of our oaths and vows.
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Throw us out of the church. Kick us out. String us up. If we preach anything but Christ and Him crucified.
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You need to be an oath and vow keeping culture in church.
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Your family, your marriage needs to be a covenantal vow keeping and oath keeping marriage and family and home and church and society.
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Be known as a truth teller. You're going to be respected and useful to God in His service.
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Trust takes a long time to build, but can be forfeited with a word.
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Today, brethren, I urge you with all that is in me to flee duplicity.
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If there be any duplicity in you, flee from it. And the hard part of this is, is we have to believe that we have a
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Savior who loves us and will forgive us. And He is and He will.
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We need to love integrity. And this will also enable us to live a life of real gravitas and weightiness because our words will mean something in a culture of lies and death and the syncretism of the age.
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This is bled into the church. We are called to be men, women and children of truth. And life.
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Oh, Lord Jesus, shine your light on us. Expose our sin to us that we might repent and turn from it and walk in your truth.
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Brethren, our yes needs to be good enough. Our no needs to be good enough.
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And it's only possible if we are a people of great Christian virtue. That the weightiness of a simple word like yes or no will have that significance.
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May the Lord be pleased to make it so in us. Please pray with me.
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Oh, Lord, we bear your name and when we sin, we lie about you.
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Lord, we frivolously talk about your character and attributes.
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We want to utter promises and take oaths so people will give us favor.
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Lord, show us the the wretchedness of that. Oh, Lord, if we say we're going to do it, give us the ability and the grace to fulfill it.
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Oh, Lord, help us to be wise and discerning when to say, I don't know when
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I can complete that task. If it's true, help us to be just and honest in our dealings as as contractors, as teachers, whatever we do,
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Lord, whatever we put our hand to. Oh, Lord, help us to walk in this righteousness.
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Oh, Lord, help us to see that it's never cute for a little child to lie. It's never cute.
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Oh, Lord, help us to root out this sin in us. Oh, Lord, we've been instructed by the world and all around us.
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There is this culture of lies, and I pray that we would be the people of truth or Jesus.
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We rejoice today that you are the way, the truth. And the life you are, the light of the world, and when your light shines on poor sinners like us, not only do we see sin, but we see salvation.
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We see forgiveness and we see sanctification and we see newness of life.
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Oh, Lord, help us to walk in faith that we would no longer conceal our guilt or our lies, but that we would walk in your truth.
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We ask all of this in the name above all names, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's continue our worship with the presentation of tithes and offerings.
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Please stand and let's pray together. Oh, Lord, it's so wonderful to be in fellowship with you and your people.
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Thank you for the taking the chains off. Thank you for giving us that glorious liberty of the people of God to walk in the light.
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And Lord, we thank you that we can do this in our workplace, in our homes. We pray that you would make us great stewards of our work and our labor, that we might be productive.
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But also, Lord, that we would be able to give properly to you, to your church. We ask that these tithes and offerings will be used for the advance of your kingdom, through the bold proclamation of your gospel and for the making of disciples of the nations.
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And we ask this in Jesus' name. There is a weightiness and heaviness to the subject matter today, but there is also glory to be offered to our
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God who loves us and saves us and washes us. Let us give glory to God now in the singing of the
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Gloria Patri. Lift up your hearts.
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Let us give thanks to the Lord. It is right and a good and joyful thing that we should, at all times and in all places, give thanks to you,
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O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Everlasting God, because you sent your beloved
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Son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may, without shame or fear, rejoice to behold his appearing.
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Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we praise and magnify your glorious name, evermore praising you and singing.
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O Lord, in light of the pervasiveness of our guilt, your grace is magnified.
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We thank you for appealing to our senses, that you recognize that we are both body and soul.
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We thank you for giving us signs and seals that confer to us these great emblems and tokens of faith.
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And Lord, we thank you for the substance therein, that we have faith in Christ, and this reflects that.
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And I pray for your blessing upon this time. We thank you for this bread, which represents your body.
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We thank you for this wine, which is shed for the remission of our sins.
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O Lord, we thank you that you have united yourself to us and have made us one with you.
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And this, your supper, Holy Communion, is the beautiful picture of that.
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We pray now, O Lord, that these, your people who may be weighed down by sin, would be relieved of their burden because of your salvation and forgiveness.
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O Lord, we long for correction. We long for discipline that leads to repentance. But we also rejoice in the liberty you have given to us, the people of God.
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You have freed us to walk in newness of life. O Lord, help us to see that you have broken these chains, and we have a free communion with you and with one another, because of our
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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask all this in his name.
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Amen. Our Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
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We had blessed it, and broke it, and gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my body.
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Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, Therefore, we proclaim the faith.
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Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. In light of these things, let us approach the table with, in concert, a sobriety and a spirit of thanksgiving.
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We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful
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Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.
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We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same
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Lord who always shows mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear
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Son, Jesus Christ, and to drink of his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.
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Amen. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the peace.
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The gifts of God for you, O blessed ones, the people of God. Feasting at the
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Lord's table, let us now make this prayer of commitment together. Almighty and ever -living
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God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your
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Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of your
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Son and heirs of your eternal kingdom. Grant us this other benefit, that you will never allow us to forget these things, but having them written on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in the faith which is at work in every good deed.
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And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our
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Lord, to him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, in honor and glory, now and forever.
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Amen. Please stand. Let's give glory to our
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God. Praise God. Blessing of our
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God. Now may the God of peace, who brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well -pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.