Yea or Nah?

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Ascension Presbyterian Church - Longwood, Florida Rev. Christopher Brenyo "Yea or Nah?" James 5:12 April 7th, 2024

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Please turn in your Bibles to the book of James and chapter 5 we are within a couple of weeks of completing our study in James and The tentative plan is to start in 1st
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John next time next book This is
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God's holy and infallible word James chapter 5
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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
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And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the 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 he does not resist you
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Therefore be patient brethren until the coming of the Lord See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth waiting patiently
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For it until it receives the early and latter rain 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 you have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end
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Intended by the 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 BS and your no no lest you fall into judgment
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And the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his word, please pray with me now Oh Lord we
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Tremble the presence of your truth,
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I Pray Holy Spirit that you would bring appropriate
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Conviction upon us. 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
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Amen, please be seated The title of the message is yay or nay and I have two outline points for you the first would be simply a definition of terms and The second would be let your yes
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BS and your no no very simple outline to consider today yay, or nay you are a people of Unclean lips 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
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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 the text today in James chapter 5
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Is a prohibition against frivolous and vain swearing Important idea maybe today.
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I'm not going to go into this, but this is heavily related to the third commandment 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 What is swearing look at verse 12?
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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.
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What is cursing? And you may have cursed someone on the ride into church today
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We might 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 that is a
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Hard -hearted thing to do to someone to to damn them to speak in that way to them to curse them but in that definition of swearing we have
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The concept of the oath and I want you to pay close attention to this. This is going to shape and help us understand the text an oath is a solemn affirmation or declaration made
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With an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. I want you to listen carefully
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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 The culture is a culture of lies and we have through syncretism even in some ways unknowingly
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Adopted the posture In the proclamation of lies we are
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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 when you're a little child
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And I've had nine little children Every one of them at some point in their life makes the test of the lie 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 if 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 now
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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 Do we really?
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When we say yes, do we mean? Yes when we say no, do we really mean?
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No well the oath is between two parties a
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Vow is something different. I'm giving this so that you have a fuller picture of swearing cursing oath vow, etc to vow
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Is to give consecrate or dedicate to God by a solemn promise a vow is made
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Before God now there can be witnesses But the vow is between the party and God the oath is between the two parties
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Invoking the name of God in the situation. 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
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We're not making just a promise to our spouse 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 one other definition before we get into it more fully is the idea of equivocation and I was very struck by this that we live in an age of equivocation
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What does that mean? 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 Really enjoyed
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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 and And one of the things that's coming out in this doctrine of Scripture that is has been hinted at and it's very important in this
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Particular text is we believe in what is known as the perspicuity of Scripture And that is the essential clarity of Scripture We also believe in the analogy of faith that the
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Scripture interprets Scripture and so we have to get in the sense of where does this idea from James come from and How is it applied?
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How is it worked out? In real life. 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 it says you shall not steal
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Nor deal falsely nor lie to one another verse 12 and You shall not swear by my name falsely
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Nor shall you profane the name of your God I am the
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Lord Leviticus 19 and in fact, we are called upon to take oaths in the name of God We are called upon on occasion to swear
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But only by his name and we're to do this with some measure of trepidation if we believe these things are true if we're making an oath or a
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Declaration we are making an appeal to God who sees and knows all things for the truth of it 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
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To the back. This would be the
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Trinity hymnal the red one Some people take
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James 5 to mean that there can be no Oaths taken and that is not the teaching of James 5
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There are lawful oaths and vows and this would be on page 861 I'm gonna quickly go through some of this a
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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 asserted 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 section 2 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 it all by any other thing is sinful and to be appalled
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This is what James is talking about in James chapter 5 You know something about the history of the
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Jewish people. We're gonna get a little sampling of that in just a moment They were people who were a swearing people they swore by the gold of the temple and the altar of the temple and the temple and Jerusalem and things like that and all of it in some way was a
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Mechanism for them to curry favor to add weightiness to their argument
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But also to have an escape Because they didn't invoke the name of God 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 and boy we better do it right if we do it
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Says in the last half of section 2 yet as in manners of weight and moment an
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Oath is warranted by the Word of God under the New Testament as well as under the old
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So a lawful oath being imposed by lawful authority in such manners ought to be taken again the weightiness the language section 3
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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
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Declaration and also inviting his correction and judgment to proceed with caution
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Section 4 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
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Although to a man's own hurt 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 that people's home value begin to be slashed in some cases half of what it was and This became the justification for people abandoning their homes
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Because they signed up for the mortgage when the house is worth. Let's say 400 ,000 their house is only worth 200 ,000 today
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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
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It's it's solid until it's to my own detriment then I have to leave
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We are living in an age and we ourselves have been influenced We are a people of of weak and shallow commitment to the truth
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To one another in our section. It says a vow is of like nature with a promissory oath
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The second half of verse 4 section 4
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I should point this out in our apologetic defense against the Muhammadians the
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Muslims They are encouraged to lie to infidels we are
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Commanded to honor our oath even to infidels Our religion our truth is superior to that nonsense
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Our God is a holy God. He's not a lying God like their God We have to hold this even if it's made to heretics or infidels infidels
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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 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 7 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
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Whereof he hath no promise or ability of God in which respects popish monastical vows of perpetual single life profess 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 think we
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Need to be more careful with our words Let's go back to the New Testament I'm going to take you to What I believe is the foundation of this argument
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From James. It's found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 We'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
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But shall perform your oaths to the Lord But I say to you do not swear at all neither by heaven
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For it is God's throne Nor by the earth for it is his footstool
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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
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But let your yes be yes, and your no no For whatever is more than these is from the evil one the very language of Leviticus 19
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Somewhat of an expansion and enlargement of that idea here in Matthew 5 the language duplicated in James chapter 5 now
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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 5 and James 5.
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Let's look again at Verse 34 it says, but I say to you do not swear at all
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Well, that would have been an apparent contradiction if we just left it there Leviticus 19 says there's a way that we can swear
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So there must be more information that we need and Jesus is giving us the way in which the people
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This is reflected in James's argument. This is how they were swearing They were swearing by heaven
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Close to God in proximity not the name of God, but swearing by heaven For it's
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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
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Selfishly for your own benefit. I used to try to watch true crime shows with my wife don't do as frequently as used to And I like true stories.
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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
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Because they're trying to bolster their case they don't say yes or no They say I swear on my mother's grave heard one
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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
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Or I didn't do a pinky promise It's it's foolishness to us
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But we're a people who use this swearing in this oath -taking to benefit ourselves
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We're not content with we know that it's not believable for us. It's to say yes. Yes, and no no because Oftentimes we're entering into these discussions not with great sincerity if this is true for you, please
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Repent of this great evil I'm going to give you a couple.
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I'm not gonna have you turn there I'm gonna give you a couple of Old Testament examples. I'm gonna try to do this really quickly I'm gonna 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 give to make oaths and vows
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From Deuteronomy chapter 6 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 and There's an issue of idolatry and false worship in connection with the making of false oaths
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Deuteronomy chapter 10 Begin reading in verse 16 therefore circumcised 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
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God mighty and awesome who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe 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 But has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen 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 in Psalm 63
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Who you make an oath to and whose name you make an oath? The name you invoke is like prayer the name that you worship
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The last verse of Psalm 63 says that the
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King shall rejoice in God Everyone who swears by him shall glory
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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
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Sermon on the Mount of Jesus and there is no oaths or there is no vows in the New Covenant 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 Verse 62 and the high priest arose and said to him.
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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
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I put you under oath by the Living God Tell us if you are the
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Christ the Son of God Jesus said to him it is as you said
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That's very exhilarating to me there. He's being humble.
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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 he swore under oath
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Without going there. I'm gonna 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 1 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
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Son and without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers Paul says
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I Didn't just receive your prayer requests 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 2nd
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Corinthians in chapter 1 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
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For your joy for by faith you stand also does this in Galatians 1
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Philippians 1 Let's go back to our text and James This may be one of the more convicting messages for the church
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I don't know if it's you individually, but I think about the spirit of our age This sermon this topic doesn't seem like a big deal
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But I think it's very much that the spirit of our age to not speak the truth 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
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To the honor and glory of God the people in Jesus and James's day
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One commentator has said this people are fearfully profane everybody curses and swears when 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 in their use of the names and attributes of God when
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Peter therefore began to curse and swear on That dismal night of temptation
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We are not to suppose that it was something foreign to his former habits And in fact when you look at that what's surprising in that interaction is no one rebukes him
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For the coarseness of his language when he's basically denying knowing Christ He merely
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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
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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
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Should not be so the question we have to ask is how do we become
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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
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Here ought to be well, the first thing
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I like to offer by way of Application in this principle is
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I understand Isaiah is saying I'm a man of unclean lips after having to meditate upon this text
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Because in the world's eyes I couldn't be called a liar, but I see some imprecision in my language
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I want to be a man of greater precision with my words You are most certainly a people of unclean lips
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But you have a
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Savior who is himself the incarnation of truth walk in his truth
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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
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And we bring it out into the light that the light of Christ might shine on it that we might repent
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And our love with him is so secure and so pure and so perfect We need not fear going into the light you and I need to conduct ourselves with a faith filled moral integrity
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So that you would not even be tempted to lie Because the lie exists in order to cover your sin, right?
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You and I need to be so divested of self -interest that we're willing to suffer some harm
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For the glory of God and the preservation of truth I implore you do not frivolously invoke the name of God by oath only make an oath lawfully a
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Christian going into the court of law raising his right hand and putting his hand on the Bible Solemnly swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing, but the truth is not hard It should be the character of our lives
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We can take that oath The magistrate the president the the particularly the federal government has
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Taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and they've not done it
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They've burned it. They need to be held accountable to maintain their oath Mark, and I have been called to preach the gospel if we preach any other gospel
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It would be a violation of our oaths and vows throw us out of the church
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Kick us out string us up. We preach anything but Christ in him crucified
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Need to be an oath and vow keeping Culture and church 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 What can be forfeited with a word?
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Today brethren, I urge you with all that is in me to flee duplicity if there be any duplicity and 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 we need to love integrity
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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 give us favor
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Lord show us the the wretchedness of that Lord if we
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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
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Whatever we do Lord, whatever we put our hand to a 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 we rejoice today that you are the way the truth
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And the life You are the light of the world
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And when your light shines on poor sinners like us, not only do we see sin, but we see salvation we see forgiveness and we see
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Sanctification we see newness of life Oh Lord help us to walk in faith that we would no longer conceal our guilt or our lies with that We would walk in your truth
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We ask all of this in the name above all names the