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Among currency, there circulates real money and counterfeit money. As you might imagine, there has been extensive study to determine how one can tell the difference between real money and fake. Here are a few ways.
Those criminals who take part in the practice of counterfeiting sometimes take a real bill with a low amount. So what they do is they take a $5 bill that has Abraham Lincoln on the front, and they make it so that it's a $100 bill with Benjamin Franklin.
And you tell that it is fake because if you hold it up to the light, you can actually see Abraham Lincoln through Benjamin Franklin. There are also other ways to spot counterfeit money. Counterfeit money tends to have regular paper.
It's regular printing paper, while real money is made of cotton. Real money has raised letters, while fake money has flat letters. Clerks at stores probably know this quite well, and they are trained to be able to spot real money from fake money.
This world is not only full of real and fake bills, but also real and fake people. No one wants to be known as a fake, so those who are fakes try to make themselves look genuine. They try to make themselves look honest, one whose words and actions are trustworthy.
You can tell a phony person from a real person by getting to know people over a period of time. When you first meet someone, you don't know whether or not the one who stands before you is authentic or phony.
But over time, the genuineness and the trustworthiness of a person is shown. Some people are what we might call flaky. You cannot trust their word, and this becomes evident as you get to know them. Trustworthy people show their trustworthiness by building an honest track record.
When this person says something, you believe it to be true, and when a promise is made, you expect them to keep this promise. Trustworthy people prove themselves over the long haul. We know people like that, and we also know, sadly, the other side.
As we continue our sermon series through Matthew this morning, after a three-month layoff, we are going to see Jesus tell us how important it is to have a trustworthy mouth. To be his followers, we must be trustworthy.
So at this time, I encourage you to turn with me in a Bible to Matthew 5. We're in the Sermon on the Mount, and we will be looking at verses 33 -37. If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it is on page 963.
This sermon is titled, Men and Women of Our Word. What we're going to do is we're going to begin by reading this text together. Here are the words of our Lord Jesus as he speaks to this crowd, as he preaches this sermon.
He said, Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. Here's our big idea. Please God by having a trustworthy mouth. So very simply, please God by having a trustworthy mouth.
We're going to see two ways how in this text, and I will share those as we go through the sermon here. When we were last in Matthew three months ago, we looked at Matthew 5, verses 31 and 32. In these two verses, Jesus addressed the issue of divorce and remarriage.
Our big idea was that God designed marriage to be a union between one man and one woman till death. In other words, Jesus showed this high standard for marriage by stressing how in almost all circumstances, there should be no divorce and each spouse should be committed to the other over the long haul.
What we saw in this text is that Jesus included an exception clause in verse 32. What he said is that in almost every circumstance, if you divorce and remarry, you commit adultery. But there is one exception where one is permitted to divorce and remarry, and that is if their spouse commits adultery.
This opens up the opportunity for the covenant to be broken and for remarriage to take place for the innocent party. We also looked at another passage in the New Testament that seems to permit divorce and remarriage.
And by the way, as I say this, it doesn't mean automatically one would pursue divorce and remarriage. It just means that biblically speaking, you would have permission to. In lots of cases, it's good to stick with your spouse if they commit adultery.
The other circumstance where the Bible would permit divorce and remarriage appears to be from 1 Corinthians 7, verses 12 -16, where Paul says, if your unbelieving spouse leaves you, let her go. The implication is that the innocent believing spouse would be given the opportunity to remarry.
This was a very difficult topic, and we almost forget about it because it was three months ago when we talked about it. But these were the difficult questions we tackled in that sermon back in March. And if you'd like to, you can go listen to that sermon.
It's on our webpage. Now today, we are going to look at a related topic as Jesus addressed the crowd overlooking the Sea of Galilee. And this is the issue of oaths, as we already read a few minutes ago.
In a marriage covenant, you are making a promise before God to commit to your spouse for life. So it seems natural that the next teaching that Jesus would do in this sermon would be about oaths. Because when you enter a marriage covenant, what are you doing?
You're swearing an oath to your spouse to be faithful, to be united to the spouse till death. You are making a promise that you are saying, I am going to keep. So the sermon today is all about promise keeping.
So let's dig into this text, verses 33 -37. As I mentioned, we are going to see two ways how we are to please God by having a trustworthy mouth. The first way how is by refusing to be a person known for swearing falsely.
Refusing to be a person known for swearing falsely. We'll see this in verses 33 -36. Jesus begins this passage, once again, as he has throughout the Sermon on the Mount, by saying, you have heard that it was said to those of old.
What we have seen over the last three sermons in the Sermon on the Mount, is that Jesus has been correcting the faulty understanding of the Old Testament by the Jewish leaders. They were teaching people the wrong things, and Jesus is saying, I'm correcting that.
This is what the truth is. What is interesting is that in this passage, he does not correct them. But rather, he says, you have heard this, and it is true, since this is what the Old Testament says. In the second half of verse 33, he quotes what the Old Testament says.
He says, you shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. Jesus' quotation comes from three places in the Old Testament. Leviticus 19 .12, Numbers 30 .2, and Deuteronomy 23 .21 -23.
I'm going to read one of those to you. Leviticus 19 .12, which says, You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God, I am the Lord. So in other words, if you are going to swear an oath in the name of the Lord, you better fulfill that oath.
When you enter a marriage covenant, you are making an oath with your spouse, and more importantly, to God, that you are committed to this marriage till death. When you make this commitment to God, He expects you to keep it.
The Lord is very serious that we keep our word to Him and to others when we swear an oath. What we will see as we go through this sermon is that oaths are special circumstances. While keeping your word should be the regular pattern of your life that you do on a daily basis.
And we'll see that more in our second point. Now let's look at the next part of the passage here, where this first point really focuses. And that is verses 34 -36. As I've already mentioned, in the previous sections, Jesus has been correcting the faulty Old Testament understanding of the Jewish leaders.
In this section, Jesus is not correcting them, but rather correcting a big problem in the Jewish community. The problem He is correcting is that people were abusing the use of oaths for their own benefit.
And this is going to sound very familiar to the world that we live in. Now let me read verses 34 -36 again. Jesus says, And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
So Jesus makes a clear statement that these Jews listening to Him on this mount, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, they should not take oaths at all. Now I'm going to qualify that here in a little bit by saying that yes, there are times for taking oaths, as I've already said.
But He's saying here, He's addressing the abuse. He's saying, just stop taking oaths. This seems contradictory. In verse 33, Jesus said that when you take an oath in the name of the Lord, you need to keep it.
And what He said agrees with what the Old Testament says about oaths and vows. Namely, it is permissible to do them, but you must take your promise seriously. We know that vows and oaths were endorsed by God because of the evidence I already presented to you from verse 33.
And here's some more. So oaths are good. Leviticus 27 is a chapter about vows that the Israelites could make, so therefore God is giving His endorsement there. In Numbers 5 and Numbers 30, God also gives His endorsement to making oaths and vows.
Now you may be wondering here, well what's the difference between an oath and a vow? A while back, I communicated with my Old Testament professor because I was interested in that question, and I didn't really understand what the difference was, but this is what he said.
He said, an oath is a solemn pledge between two or more parties, often sworn on the basis of something greater. Oaths are also sworn in the cutting of a covenant. On the other hand, a vow is usually a promise of some kind made to God.
It is usually attached to some promised outcome that the one vowing will perform if some condition is met by God. So there's a little bit of a difference between the two, but they're very similar. They are both promises with a few minor differences.
Now another reason we know that oaths and vows are good is because God made an oath in the Old Testament. When God promised Abraham that he would bless his offspring with a nation, land, and blessing, He did this through an oath.
And maybe you can remember this back when we looked at Genesis 15. It was a long time ago now. Hebrews 6 .17 says this about that event in Genesis. When God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath.
And what is interesting is that God swore by Himself, right? Because no one is greater than God. So God makes an oath and He says, I swear by Myself that I will do this. And the oath of God, when He made an oath, this was the sacrifice of the animals.
In ancient times, a covenant was often ratified through swearing the oath and placing sacrificed animals on both sides. And the person making the oath would walk through. And if you remember, God sent fire through these animals that were cut in half and through this path.
And God sent fire, of course, because God is spirit. He doesn't have physical appearance. God made these great promises to Abraham and his offspring and He added to that by making an oath to show that I am going to keep this.
This promise that I'm making to you is important. It's very serious. And so God makes this promise, the Abrahamic covenant, by making an oath. So what we can see is that Jesus is not going after taking oaths and vows.
This is a biblical practice throughout the Bible that God did and many people did and God gives His endorsement. What Jesus is going after in verses 34 through 36 is this. He's going after the flippant, careless taking of oaths that was common among the Jewish people of His time.
And by the way, is very common in our day. If we look at this too quickly, we can miss where these Jewish people used deception in their oaths that they were making to others. And before we look at where these Jews went wrong, let's ask the question.
Why do people swear to something important when making a promise to another person? The answer is obvious. One does this because he or she wants the other person to believe what they are saying. And so the person thinks if I swear by something, then that will make it more convincing and the other person will for sure believe me.
We see this all the time in daily life. The problem is so often when this is done, the person making the oath is so often lying when this is done. So the person making the false oath swears on something important to make the promise seem legitimate.
So how did the Jews of the time of Christ falsely swear oaths? According to Jesus, these are the things that they swore by. They swore by heaven, for it is the throne of God. Or by the earth, for it is his footstool.
Or by Jerusalem, it is the great city of the king. But they did not stop there. They also swore by one's own head. Now this list that Jesus spoke about, who is absent from this list? Who's absent? Heaven, earth, one's own head, the city Jerusalem.
They're beating around the bush here. God is absent. You notice that? What these Jewish people thought is that if they swore on all these important things like God's throne or the earth, which belongs to God, or the great city where God's temple is, or their own head, which is a bold thing to swear by, they thought they were committing no sin.
As long as they didn't swear on God's name, they were good, since the law says that one cannot swear falsely on the Lord's name. So these Jewish people would tell a bold-faced lie to another in order to win the other party to believe what they said was true.
And they didn't have the guts to swear by the name of God. And so they swore by something else important, trying to deceive the person that they were talking to. It might have been a business deal. It might have been something to guard one's reputation.
It might have been to win one to your side. It might have been to protect one from being charged with a crime. It could be anything to make the other party believe that the truth was being spoken by the one who was swearing the oath.
Now let's think about this for a little bit. Do we see this in our time? And I've already mentioned, yes, we do. People swear on their mother's grave. They swear on their mother's Bible. They swear on their own life.
They swear on their family's life. They swear on their child's life. And boldest of all, people even swear to God. To do this falsely is, of course, sinful. Oftentimes, when people say this, they are not telling the truth.
They are trying to persuade another to think he or she would not swear on something so important and lie, right? People very loose with their mouth do this. Matthew 12, verse 36 says that we will be judged for every careless word that we have spoken.
This is common vernacular in everyday life. I swear on this. I swear on that. And almost always, the person is lying. It's usually a dead giveaway that the person is lying. Now this common practice among the Jewish people of Jesus' time was a little different than our day.
They were very careful not to swear to God. And oftentimes, you people say, I swear to God. People in our day are much more willing to do that. It is probably true that the speech in our culture, and sometimes even in the church, is more sinful than that of the first century Jews.
But what Jesus is saying is these people were sinning and incurring judgment on themselves, whether they used God's name or not. They were being deceptive and God considered it the same whether they swore on Him or something else.
So they were guilty of Leviticus 19 .12 no matter what. The Lord considered this sin as His name was profaned. What we already saw is that it is okay and good to take vows and oaths. And when we do this, we should be careful to fulfill them.
Marriage vows are one example. And we might make a promise to someone by giving someone something as a token that we will keep our word. When you purchase a house or buy a car, you sign a contract. And what you are saying is that over time, I am going to pay for the thing that I have bought.
And if you don't, what happens? There's consequences. Your home will be taken away. Your car will be taken away. A contract is binding on the one who owes the money for whatever the amount of the product purchased.
We also see oaths take place in the court of law. One puts his or her hand on the Bible and the person says, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Our presidents also do this as they are officially sworn into office.
And so are all governing authorities. And judging by the government that we live in, how many people do you think actually mean what they say when they put their hand on this Bible and swear to keep the truth?
It's pretty depressing when you think about it. Rare is the man or woman who actually means what they say and keeps their word. And a lot of people who put their hand on it, they don't even know what this book says.
And the judgment that you will incur upon yourself if you don't take seriously what you say, realizing that every deed is being written down and God is your judge, this we must take seriously. We also see something similar to a vow or an oath in the church.
When parents dedicate their children, they are making an oath to raise them in the Lord. And the congregation does as well. When you become a church member, you are making an oath to covenant with this church.
And what you are saying is, I am committing to the other people in this church to love them as the Lord would have me. This is a noble thing that God desires for His people to take part in. And by His grace, He will help you fulfill it to the best of your ability.
God believes in commitments, right? Otherwise, He wouldn't have the marriage covenant and all these other things that we see that have His endorsement. So we see oaths take place. And when people make these, they need to fulfill them to the best of their ability.
To do this pleases the Lord. To not take an oath seriously is sinful and dishonors Him. Your actions should follow what your mouth says. So please, God, by having a trustworthy mouth, the first way how is by refusing to be a person known for swearing falsely.
If you are a true speaker, a speaker of truth who keeps His promises or her promises, you will stand out in this world. The second way how we must please God by having a trustworthy mouth is by aiming to be known as a person of your word.
Verse 37. So vows and oaths are a part of life, but they are not the ordinary day-to-day experience. Jesus explains what ordinary life is like in verse 37. Let me read that again. He said, Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anything more than this comes from evil. The brother of Christ, James, later echoed what Jesus said in James 5 .12, and I read this earlier in the call to worship. What James said is this, Above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
Most of our lives, we do not make vows or take an oath, which are usually done for weightier matters, like marriage. It's appropriate to take an oath when we enter a marriage covenant. We should not flippantly swear on important things or most of all, swear on God's name.
But what we should do is be men and women of our word. Usually when someone swears on something, there is deception, as I mentioned, so beware. Usually one who swears frequently is not an honest person and therefore not a person of their word.
This person is usually a deceiver. To swear falsely does not come from God, but as this verse says in verse 37, it comes from the evil one. In some of your Bibles, you might have a footnote there and it says the evil one.
It probably says in your text, it comes from evil. Now it doesn't matter what it says because all evil comes from the evil one. So in other words, if you are not a true speaker, if your word is not trustworthy, you are following the example of the devil and not God.
Think about how frightening that is. John 8 .44 says that lying is the native tongue of Satan. He's referred to as the father of lies. Every word that comes out of his mouth can't be trusted. It is tragic when a human made in the image of God who was made for glory is like the devil in lying right and left and doesn't even care about it.
To be one who swears falsely is following the way of Satan. And what Jesus is saying in verse 37 is that we must be a person of our word. In most cases, there is no need to swear. To swear an oath, that is.
Your word should be enough. Your yes or your no. We must aim to be those who are trustworthy in our speech, where our actions follow what we must say. And it's interesting that we live in a day and age where politicians probably have maybe the worst reputation of being dishonest.
But historically, we had a president who had the nickname Honest Abe. He had a track record of honesty. When Abraham Lincoln was younger, he was a store clerk. And he earned the nickname Honest Abe because he gave the incorrect change to someone, and instead of saying no big deal, he ran down the person and gave them what they lost.
And so he earned the nickname Honest Abe. He was also a lawyer. And obviously lawyers don't always have the greatest reputation of honesty as well. And yet he was known as an honest lawyer and even an honest politician.
People could trust what he said. And it should be a surprise to us where Abraham's Lincoln integrity came from. Do you know what he did every day? He read his Bible every day. It should be no surprise that he was an honest man.
And politicians of our day can learn from Lincoln in this area and many others for that matter. And this is kind of a side note. Pretty much every great president we've had, they all have one thing in common.
They were Bible readers. And some of them I think were saved, but even if they weren't saved, they were greatly influenced by the Bible. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, to name a few.
Very influenced by the Bible. And all of us have known honest people in our lives. You can think of them. On the other hand, we also have known those who have a very hard time keeping their word. Brianne and I had a horrible experience several months back.
I almost forgot about this because it's been such a jam-packed several months. But we had someone who set us up with our health insurance. And we realized that the person made a mistake. And so Brianne reached out to this man.
And what happened was he said he was going to get on it that week. And so we're like, oh good, he's going to take care of it. A week goes by. We call him and ask him what the progress was. And if I remember right, he didn't answer.
He never returned our phone calls. We probably called him 50 times. And eventually I just gave up. And I think what happened is he made such a mess of the situation that he just gave up and didn't want to fix it.
Instead of saying, you know what? I made a problem here. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. And that would have been a really good insurance agent. But sadly, he gave up. And so we were left with a problem.
We had to figure out how to fix it. But if you went to his profile, it said that this guy has been such a good employee for this many years. And we're just like, well, that wasn't our experience at all.
And it's sad when you have to go through that. We want to be people whose word is reliable. We need to be those whose word is trustworthy. God is a truth teller. And He calls us to reflect Him in this.
When Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17, 17, He said, Your word is truth. Titus 1, 2 says that God cannot lie. When Jesus was talking to His disciples in John 16, 13, He told them, When the spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.
And this is true not only for the disciples, but also for each of us. When you come to faith in Christ, you are a man or woman of the truth. 1 John 2, 21 says that no lie is of the truth. So as a Christian, little by little, day by day, God is transforming you to be a truth teller.
So are you one who keeps your word? Do you have a reputation among those in your life as one whose word is trustworthy to the point where you would never have to resort to swearing falsely to get someone to believe you?
Think about how many small things people say. If someone owes you $5 and they say, I swear to you, I will pay you that $5 back. It's just a small thing. Just do it. Because you know the $5 isn't coming if they say that.
We want to be those people where others consider what we say is something that will be done. Do our words matter? In my own life, I am committed to being a faithful husband, a faithful father, a faithful pastor, a faithful coach, and whatever else the Lord has called me to.
I desire to be the one who carries out what He speaks. Now as I say this, I will not always perfectly carry this out. Ask Brianna. I find myself saying, I have not done what I told someone I will do. Nor will you 100 of the time be a person of your word.
Thankfully, Jesus died for those times when we don't keep our word. 1 John 2 says that when we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. However, there is a big difference between one who strives to be a person of the word and is mostly reliable than the one who does not care and frequently resorts to lying.
As the Spirit works in your life, He is making you to be one who is mostly reliable. In this side of heaven, you will never achieve perfection, but we should be known, largely speaking, as trustworthy people.
And do you know what is so wonderful? Even though we do not always keep our word, we serve a God who does always keep His word. And if you belong to Jesus Christ, He has made many promises that He is going to keep.
We sang that song today. His promises shall last, and they will. The salvation that God has promised to all in this room who belong to Jesus Christ are sure. Earlier I read Hebrews 6 .17 about God's promises to Abraham and then guaranteed those promises with an oath.
Now I'm going to read the few verses that follow that. This is what the author of Hebrews wrote. He said, By two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
God cannot lie. And He always keeps His promises to His people. And this should greatly encourage each of us. And as I already mentioned, we should be those who reflect our God by striving to be those who are truth speakers more and more.
We need to be people of our word. People swear falsely to benefit themselves. And others are hurt in the process. But those who are true to their word trust God, even if at times it's inconvenient to be a truth teller.
That's the thing. Sometimes it's hard to tell the truth. Those who keep their word and trust that the Lord's blessing is on their life, that's the people we need to be. Because the Lord will show His favor to you.
He will take care of you as you speak the truth. I was reading something a while back about a Christian car salesman. And sadly, there are many good car salesmen out there, but a few of them have kind of ruined it for everyone.
There's this reputation of used car salesmen not telling the truth. And what this man said, he said, my goal is not to get people to buy a car to enrich myself, but I want to please the Lord. So this means always telling the truth and trusting that the Lord will always provide.
So that's a great approach to your work. We always must do what is right. Not taking shortcuts, thinking that we need to to survive or to do better or to make more money or whatever, but trusting that God will take care of us.
We should not use falsehood to advance ourselves. And those who frequently lie find themselves in trouble and you will always have to be looking over your shoulder fearing that you will be found out. What a miserable way to live.
But if you are a truth teller, one who keeps promises where your word is trustworthy, your sin will not place you in a troublesome situation and you will experience the blessing of being a man or woman of your word.
The Lord is pleased with this and he will take care of you no matter what. And to have a clear conscience is worth more than a million dollars. It's priceless to have a clear conscience. So in conclusion, please God by having a trustworthy mouth.
We have seen two ways how in our text this morning. The first way how is by refusing to be a person known for swearing falsely. And the second way is by aiming to be known as a person of your word. May God be glorified in our lives as we keep our word and may we experience the Lord's blessing upon our lives as we continue to grow in this important area.
Now next Sunday, I will not be here. It's the 4th of July weekend. And I hope for those of you who are here, I hope that you come to church because it's going to be a special treat. You're going to hear from someone else.
One of the pastors from Sunrise Baptist which is across the river. And it's always a blessing to hear from someone else because my voice I know can get probably wear on you after a while. So it's fresh to get a different perspective.
And then when I come back, you won't be sick of me anymore, right? So that's a good strategy. So two Sundays from today, Lord willing, we will look at how Jesus addresses the topic of retaliation in verses 38 through 42.
And we have so much to learn. And so I look forward to opening that with you. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Oh, Father in heaven, as I pray to you, Lord, I'm reminded of how wonderful you are and how much we need you, Lord, to live this out.
Lord, you always speak the truth. And you call us to speak the truth. And in our sinful nature, Lord, we don't. We are more than willing to lie to advance ourselves. But as we grow in you, as the Spirit is working in our life, more and more, Lord, we desire to be truth speakers.
And I pray, Lord, that Eureka Baptist Church will be full of people who have a trustworthy mouth. What a witness that is to this community. And what glory it brings to you. And so this is what I pray for, Lord.
And obviously, Lord, none of this would be possible if Christ didn't pay the penalty for our sins and deliver us from darkness and deliver us from the rule of the devil and deliver us to his kingdom where we can be citizens of heaven who are truth speakers.
And so, Lord, day by day, may we grow in this area. In this, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.