Our Word is Our Bond

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Alright, good day gentlemen.
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How y'all doing? Alright, take out your Bibles, turn to James chapter 5.
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I said 1, it's 5.
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Chapter 5, verse 12.
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Now, for those of you who have been here, you know that we've been in the book of James.
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We've been going verse by verse through the text.
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And we have, at times, taken 4, 5, 6 verses.
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Sometimes a whole paragraph.
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And then there are times where we just look at one passage.
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Now ordinarily, if we stop to look at only one passage, it's because that particular passage deals with something that's very important, or that particular passage stands out among the rest.
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But today's passage is a little different.
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The reason why we're taking this passage alone is because it seems to be somewhat disconnected from what came before and what came after.
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It's almost as if James just sort of inserts this point into this text.
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And I want to show, it does have a relationship to what comes before and what comes after.
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But it does seem to be what we would call an aside.
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An aside is simply an extra thought that's not directly related to what's being said, but it's an additional thought that's sort of beside what's being said.
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You know, you'll be talking sometimes, and you'll be telling a story, and you'll say, oh yeah, and also this.
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You know, in the midst of your story, you stop and say, oh, and then there's this.
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You know, I'm talking about going this last week, I went over to Fort Walton Beach, and I taught a seminar to a group of students.
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And while I was there, I ate at a nice restaurant.
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Oh yeah, and the restaurant was a Chinese restaurant.
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You know, that would be an aside.
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That really doesn't pertain to the story, but it does give you more information, you see.
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And that's sort of what we have here, is James is going to give us a piece of information, a command, if you will, in the passage that sort of stands alone.
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You guys study the Proverbs here, right? Yes.
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You have to do that as part of the program, right? You understand that a lot of times the Proverbs sort of stand alone.
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That this Proverb doesn't necessarily have to go with the one above it.
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Sometimes they do.
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Sometimes it's a long set of information.
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Sometimes you've just got a passage that's sort of there.
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Well, James has been called the Proverbs of the New Testament, because it's a piece of wisdom literature.
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There's different types of literature in the New Testament.
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You have what's called historical narrative.
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That's your Gospels.
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That's your Book of Acts.
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You have what's called didactic literature.
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That's your epistles of Paul and Peter and Hebrews.
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And you have apocalyptic literature.
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That's the Book of Revelation, talking about the apocalypse.
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But then there's literature that's called wisdom literature.
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When you look in the Old Testament, Psalms is poetic, but Proverbs is wisdom literature.
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Still a form of poetry, but it's a wisdom poetry.
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Well, James is the Proverbs of the New Testament.
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And so it makes sense that he would include these little nuggets of truth that really stand by themselves.
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And like I said, even though there is a connection, and I think the connection that we're going to see later shows you how it does fit in with everything that he said, but ultimately this particular passage can stand alone.
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And another thing we're going to see about it is it's actually a recitation of something Jesus said.
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It's almost a direct quote from something that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.
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So that's another connection that this has to other places in Scripture.
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Not only is it a proverbial truth, but it's a proverbial truth that's mirroring or echoing something that Jesus himself said.
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Alright, so that's just sort of an introduction to the text itself.
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Let's talk about the subject matter of the text.
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The subject matter of the text today is the matter of honesty.
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Or more specifically, it's the subject matter of deception.
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A few months ago I was here and I asked if...
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I said something about...
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I said lying is against the law.
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And one of the men here, I don't remember if he's still here, but he said, that's not against the law.
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Lying is not against the law.
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And I said, well, first of all, it's against God's law.
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I think he meant...
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I think what he thought I was talking about is like the law of Jacksonville or the law of Ulee or whatever, the state law or the county ordinance.
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But when I say that lying is against the law, I'm referring to the law of God.
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If we can distill the law of God down to two commandments, what are they? Love your neighbors yourself.
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Is lying loving your neighbor? No.
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So right there, it's breaking God's law.
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But if we take the two commandments and we expand it out to the ten commandments, what is the ninth commandment? Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
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What does it mean to bear false witness? It's a legal term.
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What does it mean? It means to lie.
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It means to say something about someone that's not true or to say something about a situation that's not true.
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If you're brought into a court of law and the judge says, okay, I want you to testify to what you saw and you testify to something that's untrue, then you have bore false witness.
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You're the witness and you're false.
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You understand? And by the way, that is a law.
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What's it called when you get on the stand? Perjury.
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That's right.
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And that's why I had to explain to the guy who's sitting right here.
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He said, lying's not against the law.
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I said, well, one, it is against God's law.
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I said, but two, it's also against man's law.
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If you perjure yourself in court, you will go to jail.
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That is a law.
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In fact, lying is such an important law.
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Lying is such a damnable offense that in the book of Revelation, chapter 21, verse 8, you know what it says about liars? It says all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
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Revelation 21, 8.
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There used to be a ditty, a little song.
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And I don't know who came up with it, but it's a little morbid.
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But it's Revelation, Revelation 21, 8.
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21, 8.
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Liars go to hell.
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Liars go to hell.
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Burn, burn, burn.
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And it's sort of morbid.
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But that was a...
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You'll never forget it now.
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And now that it's set to a song.
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Revelation 21, 8.
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Liars go to hell.
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All liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
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When I go out and witness to people, when I'm out, we have a booth that our church goes out and we set up a booth and we talk to people and we hand out Gospel tracts.
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And I often ask people, do you consider yourself to be a good person? And that's the...
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If you've ever heard of Ray Comfort in the ministry Way of the Master, that's often how he'll start a conversation.
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He'll say, do you consider yourself to be a good person? And the person says, yes, I'm a good person.
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And he says, do you mind if I ask you some questions to see if that's true? Sure, you can ask away.
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And he says, have you ever told a lie? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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Ray Comfort had such influence on how to share the Gospel.
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And Ray is a wonderful man.
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And I really love his ministry.
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But when he...
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Go ahead.
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Yeah, they had a show called Way of the Master.
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And he says, have you ever told a lie? And they say, yeah.
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He says, what do you call people who tell lies? Liars.
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So what you're telling me is you're a good person but you're also a liar.
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And then he'll go on to ask other questions.
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Do you ever look with lust? Yes.
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What do you call somebody who looks with lust? The Bible calls you an adulterer at heart.
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Have you ever stolen anything? Yeah.
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What do you call somebody who steals things? A thief.
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So you're a lying thief and an adulterer at heart.
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Are you still a good person? You know, you kind of go down the line.
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Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to do what the law is supposed to do.
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The law condemns and drives us to the cross.
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The Bible says the law is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ.
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It's the tutor that forces us to the cross.
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It drives us there.
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So we talk about lying.
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Lying is a sin that is worthy of hell.
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In fact, if that's all you'd ever done was be a liar.
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And it's not.
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In fact, I could walk through all Ten Commandments and show how you've broken all.
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If not by the letter, you've broken it by the Spirit.
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Jesus said if you ever hate anybody, you've murdered them.
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If you ever look with lust, you've committed adultery.
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You walk through the Ten Commandments, you find out you've broken all Ten Commandments, you are a sinner.
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In fact, James says even if you'd only broken one law, you'd still be a law breaker because he who breaks the law in one place breaks the whole law.
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What was that? Yeah, and we omit things, so we break the law in two ways.
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So lying is a sin and it's a serious sin.
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And so in this passage, James is dealing with a sin that is serious and that we need to consider and yet in our modern age, it is an issue that most people do not consider very important.
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Honestly, think about how many people lie all the time and have no care for their deception.
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Their whole life is a lie.
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You know it's said that the average person lies ten times within the first few minutes of meeting a new person.
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Whether it's exaggerating about their education, exaggerating about their wealth, exaggerating about their prowess, exaggerating about their athletic ability, exaggerating something.
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The average person lies about ten times within the first few minutes of meeting a new person.
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Usually in the form of exaggeration.
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Pamela Meyer is an author.
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She wrote the book Lie Spotting.
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She's a professional deception expert.
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She's like a human lie detector.
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And she said this.
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She said last year, $997 billion was lost in corporate fraud.
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That's just a hair under a trillion dollars.
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On any given day, studies show that you may be lied to anywhere from ten to two hundred times.
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Granted many of those are quote unquote white lies.
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But in another study, it showed that strangers lie three times within the first ten minutes.
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I'm sorry, it wasn't ten times.
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It was three times within the first ten minutes of meeting each other.
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People lie more to strangers than they do co-workers.
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Extroverts lie more than introverts.
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Men lie eight times more about themselves than they do about other people.
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And women lie more to protect other people than they do about themselves.
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And the average married couple lies to one another in one out of every ten interactions.
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Lying is complex.
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It's woven into our daily lives.
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Babies fake a cry and then they stop to see who's paying attention.
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This actually happened to me the other day.
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My son, three years old, he's crying on the floor and my wife is not giving him any attention.
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And he stops and he looks and he says, and his name's JJ, he says, Mommy, JJ is crying.
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And he went right back to crying.
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And we just got to chuckle because this is his opportunity to, he's trying to get that attention.
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Mommy, JJ is crying.
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Okay.
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One-year-olds learn, one-year-olds learn concealment.
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Two-year-olds learn how to bluff.
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Five-year-olds lie outright.
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They manipulate via flattery.
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Nine-year-olds master the cover-up.
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College students lie to their mothers in one out of every five interactions.
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And by the time we enter the workforce, we enter a world full of spam, fake digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class Ponzi schemers, and we live in a world of a deception epidemic.
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How many of you guys remember the movie Liar, Liar? Liar, Liar was a movie.
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Yeah, it is a funny movie.
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It's about a lawyer and a little boy, yeah, Jim Carrey, little boy makes a wish and the wish was my dad can't tell a lie so for 24 hours he couldn't tell a lie and he's freaking out because he's a lawyer and he tells his son.
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There's a point in the movie that's really sort of a complex part of the movie.
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He gets down to his son and he holds him to him close and he says, you have to understand, Max, sometimes adults have to lie.
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That's the way we feel.
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We feel like we have to lie.
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We have to be deceptive.
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We have to just to survive.
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We have to be liars.
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One author said we live in a post-truth society.
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People don't expect the truth anymore.
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Think about it.
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When a politician lies, does anybody care anymore? They expect it, right? He's on the campaign trail.
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He's just going to be lying.
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When we hear a corporation defrauding its investors, are we scandalized anymore? No, it's par for the course, right? Enron, all those things.
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When we hear about pastors who are fleecing their flocks for money and taking that money and spending it on wild extravagance.
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Benny Hinn spending hotels, $20,000 a night hotels.
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$20,000 a night.
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Why don't he wave his magic jacket at the hotel? He might.
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Yeah, that's how he gets in.
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He gets free ice cream for that.
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But the point is, deception is so commonplace.
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Lying is such a norm for us that we don't really understand the sinfulness of it.
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We don't understand the desperation of it.
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We don't understand how sinful it truly is.
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So that's what we're going to look at today.
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That's the heart of James' appeal here.
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James is focusing on the fact that Christians, if you are a Christian, and I don't assume that everyone is, but if you are a Christian, your first and primary fidelity is to the truth.
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Your first responsibility is to the truth.
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Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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Remember what He said to Pilate? I've come here to testify to the truth and Pilate said, Truth? What is truth? Right? The idea was, there's no such thing as truth.
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Jesus said, yes it is.
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It's standing right in front of you.
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Truth is right here.
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So as a Christian, if we are to be faithful to Christ, we have to be faithful to the truth.
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Alright.
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So that being said, we know that we've been looking at the book of James.
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This is our verse for today.
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I'm going to write some on it.
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I'm going to draw some lines up here because I want to show you a few things.
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But just keep this in mind.
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Back in chapter 4, verse 6, James says this, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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And so far, He's talked about humility and how we speak to one another.
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He's talked about humility and how we understand God's sovereignty.
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He's talked about humility and how we understand riches and wealth.
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And He's talked about humility and how we experience patience.
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That's bringing us to where we are now.
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Today, the call to humility is a call to humility over our pride of being fast and loose with the truth.
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You know what causes you to lie? Pride.
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Well, yeah, sinfulness, but it's pride.
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For whatever reason, at that moment, you think one, you can get away with it, and two, you're worth it.
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You're worth whatever the lie is.
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That that's more important than whatever the truth is.
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Alright, so let's talk about this verse.
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It says, But 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.
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This is the passage.
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Can we just pray for a minute? I forgot to pray when I started.
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Father, as I seek to explain this passage, I pray that You'll keep me from error.
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For Lord, You are the one who is the God of all truth, and I want to be faithful to Your truth as I teach and preach.
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And Lord, that You would be glorified in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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Sorry about that.
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I should have done that earlier.
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Alright, so we're going to look at this verse.
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We're going to break it down.
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This is how, if I were studying to prepare to preach this text, I'm going to show you just sort of the method, what you look for.
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The first thing you look for is you look for the words that connect words to other words.
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So the first word is but, which is a what? It's a conjunction, but it's also an adversative conjunction, which means it's, like if I say to you, if I say, brother, you're handsome, but.
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You don't want to hear what comes next, right? Or if I say, you're a really good father, but.
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You know, you don't want to know what's coming after, because it's always going to be the opposite.
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And I'm just teasing you.
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But you understand.
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Huh? It's like saying, that being said.
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Yeah, exactly.
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That being said.
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So there is a but here.
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Yes, sir.
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I said now.
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Yeah, and that's what I was going to say.
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The adversative is in the ESV.
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I think more likely the word should be now, because I don't think this is directly connected to what came before.
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I think it's connected to the larger thought of humility, which we started back in chapter four, verse six.
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But I don't think that this is necessarily an adversative to what came before.
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So we can say the word now.
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That's what translation is that, brother? The Holman Christian.
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Yep, that's fine.
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He says now or but above all.
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Meaning this is something that's very important.
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This is paramount.
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This is something that we all need to consider.
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Why do we all need to consider this? Because it's something that deals with all of us.
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What did I already talk about? Deception is something that lands at everyone's doorstep.
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Right? Let me ask you a question.
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And be honest.
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You ain't got to answer me.
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How many relationships in your life have been absolutely destroyed because you weren't honest with the person? Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean.
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Yeah.
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Right? You go back.
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I can go back to all the relationships in my life that are no longer relationships.
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And I can say at some point there was deception either on my side or on the other side.
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Either they weren't being honest with me or I wasn't being honest with them.
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There is something that happened that had to do with deception.
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And I can see where I was wrong.
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Right? So I think that's why we have the above all here.
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He's saying above all.
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This is something that needs to be considered.
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This needs to be understood.
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This is paramount because it's going to deal with all of us.
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But then he throws in this tag.
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He says my brothers.
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Adelphos in the Greek.
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This word is a word of family.
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We are family.
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You're my brothers.
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Above all my brothers.
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He's referring to the people in a relationship with him.
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Remember how we talked a few weeks ago about when he talked about the rich? I said in that particular instance he's looking at the people outside of the church and he's saying don't envy them.
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Remember we said he's not necessarily talking about rich people in the church.
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He's talking about the rich people that are out.
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And he says the rich are going to suffer.
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They're going to be punished.
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They're going to be condemned.
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Not because they're rich, but because they're misusing their riches.
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But this call is not outside the church.
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This is inside the church.
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When he says my brothers, he's talking to Christians.
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He's talking to believers.
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If you're a Christian, he's talking to you.
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This isn't a condemnation of Bill Clinton.
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This isn't a condemnation of Donald Trump.
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This isn't a condemnation of any politician or pastor.
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This is a call to you.
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If you are a Christian, if you are our brother, this is for you.
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That's the point.
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Because even in the church we have a problem with this particular thing.
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The problem with honesty.
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We have a problem with deception.
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Even in the church.
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So above all, priority, my brothers, family, do not, this is imperative, it's a command, it's not a suggestion, do not swear.
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This is the do not.
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Do not swear.
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Now, in modern vernacular, if I say don't swear, what do you think I'm talking about? Cursing.
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You don't want to use any of those four letter little words that are intended, you know, George Carlin words.
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You don't want to use those ugly words.
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Like worker.
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Yeah, four letter words.
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But you understand, we have, this is where understanding the original language and understanding the context that James is using is very important.
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Because somebody might take this verse and try to, you say a bad word, you know, you say a four letter word, and somebody might say, well, James says do not swear.
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And nothing to do with the way he's talking about.
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Now, we could talk about those four letter words.
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We could talk about ugly talk.
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That's actually addressed in other scripture.
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You know, let your speech be wholesome.
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You know, we talk about that in other places, but that's not what James is talking about here.
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When he says do not swear, the swear here is in the form of making a statement of an oath.
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In fact, we can go ahead and connect these two words.
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This is the connection point.
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The word swearing here is the idea of taking an oath.
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Okay? Do not take an oath.
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Well, what is an oath? It's a promise.
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In legal terms, it's a vow.
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What's that? Yeah, but it's, you ever had your kid, and maybe you don't have kids, I don't know, I assume you do, but somebody will say, will you do this for me? And you say yes.
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Do you promise? Do you put yourself under oath? Right? That's the idea of putting yourself under an oath, putting yourself under a promise, putting yourself under a statement of obligation.
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Right? You ever been to court? What's it mean to be under oath? It means you got to be truthful, right? You are, they say the term is sworn in.
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Right? Used to they had to put your hand on the Bible.
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I don't know if they do that anymore.
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Do they still do it? Okay.
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It's been a while.
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I haven't been to court in a while, but you know, you put your hand out, and you say I swear.
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Right there, the word, right? I swear to do what? That's right.
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I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
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It's interesting how that's worded, because that expresses several ways which lies can come.
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Because I can tell the truth, but not the whole truth.
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And I can tell the truth and add a little something to it.
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That is what the devil does.
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Right? What did he say to Eve? On the day that you eat of it, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Asking did God really say that? Right? He's causing her to question and saying you're going to be like God and all of those things.
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It's deception, right? So the swearing in ceremony, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, not leaving anything else, and nothing but the truth, not adding anything to it.
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Right? So we take this oath in a courtroom to tell the truth, and once we're under the oath, we can then be charged with perjury if we violate the oath.
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And yet we have a passage in Scripture that says don't take an oath.
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And this has led to certain groups, the particular ones being the Amish, Jehovah Witnesses, and there are some others that aren't so...
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I would say Jehovah Witnesses is heretical, but within mainline Christianity, if you go back in history, there's the Waldensians, there's the Polyseans, there's several groups that sort of have died out.
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There's the Moravians.
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They still exist.
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And these are all groups that were sort of either prior to the Reformation or during the Reformation, they existed.
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Some of the Mennonites, you've heard of the Mennonites, the followers of Menno Simons, and then you had the Anabaptists who were led by Conrad Grebel and several others who came out of this wingman movement in Switzerland.
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So a lot of these groups said, you know what? We can't make an oath.
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If you bring us into court, we can't do that because of passages like this.
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And many of them won't serve in the military.
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Like on June 11th, my son is going into the Air Force.
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I'm losing my boy.
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He's going off to the Air Force.
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And he already had to watch him do it.
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He had to stand in a group and he had to put his hand to the sky and he says, you know, I promise, I forget exactly what he said, but to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
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He already did that.
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So he's already committed to it.
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The only thing now he's got to do is get on the plane and go to San Antonio and do his basic training.
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We're excited.
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We're proud.
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And I don't think he sinned by doing that.
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And I'm going to explain why in a moment.
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But that's a key though is there are people who would say any and all every oath at all is sin.
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And certainly that would coincide with what James is saying here if we don't understand the context of what he's saying.
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Remember, context is key.
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And by context, I don't mean context in his writing because what we said is what came before this doesn't really relate to this.
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What I mean, the cultural context of this particular situation.
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Because here is the cultural context that is happening in the first century.
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There was an understanding that if you took an oath, it was not binding if you said it in a certain way.
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For instance, if you said, I promise by God, you were bound to that.
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But if you said, I promise by heaven, you weren't bound to that.
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It was a trick.
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Yeah, it was a language trick.
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In fact, if you think I'm just making this up, I'll show you where it is.
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Open your Bibles and go with me to Matthew 23.
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Matthew 23, verse 16.
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Jesus addresses this specific thing.
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People who took oaths who had no intention of filling them.
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Keep that in mind.
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They're taking, they're swearing to something that they have no intention of doing.
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You understand? You ever done that? You ever swore? You ever had a...
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Maybe when you were a teenager you had a girl that you liked.
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I swear, honey, I'll love you forever.
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Right? You have no intention of loving her forever.
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Right? But you're going to say it so that she'll go out with you or whatever.
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Right? You say things you have no intention of fulfilling.
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That's not right.
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I'm not advocating that.
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I'm just saying it is.
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23, verse 16.
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Let's read it together.
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It says, Woe to you, blind guides, who say, If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing.
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But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.
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You blind fools! For which is greater the gold of the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing.
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But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.
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You blind men! For which is greater the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
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And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.
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And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
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You say, What in the world is he talking about? There was a trick.
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And the trick was this.
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I could swear by the temple and I don't have to fulfill that.
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But if I swear by the gold of the temple, I'm really bound.
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I could swear by the altar and that doesn't mean anything.
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But if I swore by the gift on the altar, that meant something.
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This was a way, and it's a sad reality, this was a way that certain people in Jesus' time were using to fabricate business transactions.
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They were giving false handshakes.
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Have you ever heard somebody say, I do business by a handshake? Meaning if I shake your hand and you shake my hand, we're bound to what we're going to do? Well, they had the handshake and then the crossed fingers.
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If I say I'm going to do it and I swear by the temple, that's nothing.
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It doesn't mean anything.
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Because the temple isn't anything.
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But if I swear by the gold, that gold means something.
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If I swear by the altar, that doesn't mean anything.
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But if I swear by that gift on the altar, now I'm bound.
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Now do we see the cultural context that James is dealing with? Since you're in Matthew, turn over very quickly to Matthew 5.
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Because I told you earlier, James is pretty much quoting Jesus in Matthew.
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Matthew 5.34, he says, Jesus is speaking here in verse 34.
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But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
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And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
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So what's Jesus saying? Don't take any oaths that you're trying to get out of.
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Because that was the trick.
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These people were taking oaths that they were intending not to keep.
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Now some people would say yes, but He still says don't take any oaths.
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And they'll put a little focus on that word.
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Because we see what He means when He says either by heaven or by earth.
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This is how the trick worked.
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They would swear by something that didn't matter.
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You ever heard somebody say, I swear on my mama's grave? What does that mean? It means if I lie, I swear my mama will die.
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Right? That's what it means.
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Right? What if your mama's already dead? Doesn't matter.
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Huh? What do you say brother? Go ahead.
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I don't want to say it.
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But you understand what I mean though.
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If your mama's alive and you say I swear on my mama's grave, what you're saying is let my mama die if I'm lying.
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I guess if she's already buried, what you're saying I would be almost saying let her go to hell.
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Yeah, you could say that.
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Yeah, it could be.
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What I'm saying is ultimately if she's already dead, what does it matter? Because we can't send her to hell.
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We can't really affect her.
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So the only way it really matters is if she's still alive.
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And that's sort of the way this works.
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Go ahead.
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Yes, yes.
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It's a meaningless promise.
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It's a promise without any meat.
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It's a promise that's not intended to be fulfilled.
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It's ultimately a person who's living a deceptive life.
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The businessman who only puts three quarters of gas in a gallon and charges you for the gallon.
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The businessman who holds back your change rather than giving you what you deserve.
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The businessman who doesn't pay you your full wage but rather gives you only a portion of what you...
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Remember James talked about that.
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We talked about that already.
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The businessman who's a false businessman who's not paying the laborer his due wages, right? Yeah, he's not...
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Yeah, making you work 45 hours but only paying you for 40.
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And so here you have.
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This is a problem.
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The problem is the epidemic of deception.
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Jesus has dealt with it in Matthew 5.
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He dealt with it again in Matthew 23.
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We see it again in James chapter 5.
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And what is the answer to the problem? If the problem is false oaths.
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People using the oath as a way to deceive and get away with not having to fulfill their obligations.
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James and Jesus together say to the Christian, just don't have any oaths.
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Don't do it at all.
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Because here's the answer.
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Remember what we talked about? The adversative.
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But instead of this, do this.
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Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
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My friends, if I tell you I'm going to do something, I shouldn't have to say I promise.
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If I tell you I'm going to do something, you just shouldn't need a handshake from me.
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That's right.
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And again, that's why I'm my daughter.
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Daddy, are you going to do X for me? And I say yes.
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And she says, do you promise? I don't need to promise.
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I've already said it.
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If I said I'm going to do it, the only thing that would keep me from doing it is outside of my control.
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If I die, or if some catastrophe happens, if I say I'm going to bring home something for you and a catastrophe happens and I can't, that's not in my control.
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But as far as it is to me, if I say yes, it's yes.
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I don't need to add the words I swear.
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I don't need to add the words under oath.
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In fact, a Christian is always under oath.
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You're always sworn in.
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Because a Christian is always bound to the truth.
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You don't just get under oath when you put your hand on the Bible.
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Your body, your life is lived in that Bible.
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Your life is lived through that Word.
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You don't have to put your hand on it and say I swear.
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You already are there.
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Now, I don't think it's wrong for you to do that if that's what the court needs.
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In fact, there are some times in Scripture where we see oaths being made.
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The Apostle Paul made some oaths.
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I have them written down here just if you want.
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Let me see.
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I have to look at my notes because I have just some examples.
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Yeah.
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Galatians 1.20 In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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He's making the statement this is not a lie.
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Are you wanting to ask a question, brother? Okay.
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2 Corinthians 1.23 But I call God to witness against me.
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That's a way of saying I'm telling the truth.
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Jesus would say all the time, Verily, verily, I say to thee, What is that? I'm telling the truth.
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Brother, it's Galatians 1.20 2 Corinthians 1.23 Philippians 1.8 Paul says, For God is my witness.
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Right? That's a way of saying I'm telling you the truth.
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And I want you to hear this one.
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This is from Hebrews 6.
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For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.
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So 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.
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God took an oath.
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According to Hebrews 6, God took an oath, and He swore by who? Himself.
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Right? Because there's nothing greater.
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So, oaths by themselves are not sinful because God can't sin.
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Oaths by themselves are not sinful because Paul took an oath and others took oaths.
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What is sinful is this form of oath taking which is intending to be deceptive.
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I showed you that in Matthew 23.
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I showed you that in Matthew 5.
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I'm showing you here.
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The intention is deception.
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So how do we alleviate ourselves from any of that? Just don't do it.
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Just don't do it.
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Now, if you're going to the military, you have to take an oath to be in the military.
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That's not a sin.
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If you go into court and the court requires you to take an oath, but understand this, you were under oath before you got there.
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My son was under oath before he ever lifted his hand.
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He's under oath from the moment he comes to Jesus Christ.
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He's under oath to the truth.
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From the moment he becomes a Christian, from the moment you become a Christian, you are that point forward under oath.
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And every time you lie, you are in perjury in the court of the living God.
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Yes, sir.
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He was first.
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Go ahead.
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So, if you're getting taken advantage of by your employer, you're working, but you have to have that job to support your family.
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You have to have that job to support your family.
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Yet, being a Christian man, what a very strong Christian could do is say, you know what? I'm going to walk away from that.
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I'm going to get another job.
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But yet, you need that job to support your family.
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It also says that we need to submit to our taskmasters.
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So, because he's being dishonest, does that make him no longer our taskmaster? That's a lot in one question, so I want to be as simple as I can.
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Number one, we are to stand for truth and justice as opportunities avail us.
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So, like when men and women marched for equality during the Civil Rights Movement, I don't think that was wrong.
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I think that was a right thing because they were standing for what was true and what was righteous and what was good.
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And yet, someone would say, well, they were standing up against the authority.
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Yes, they were, but they were standing for what was right.
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But you have to take a step back and say, if you need this money for your family, is that more important than taking a stand and possibly losing your job? So, sometimes you have to weigh what's the more important.
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Because your most precious responsibility is providing for your family.
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The Bible says a man who does not provide for his own, especially those in his own household, is worse than an unbeliever.
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So, if we're not providing for those in our home, yeah, we're getting treated poorly at work.
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What do we do? We look for another job, but we don't leave this job.
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That's what my daddy always said.
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This isn't necessarily biblical.
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My daddy always said, you don't leave one job until you've got another one.
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You don't become unemployed.
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You go look for a job on your day off.
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You go look for a job when you have time.
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You get on the internet, send out the resume.
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But you've got a responsibility.
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Your first responsibility is taking care of your family.
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If you're being mistreated, find a place where you won't be.
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Pray to God that maybe...
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And pray for your employer.
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You know, the Bible says pray for our enemies.
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Pray for him.
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God, show him that he's being sinful.
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Show him the danger because that man is bringing judgment on himself.
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You go back to the book of Amos in the Old Testament.
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You go back and you read about the danger of the Israelites who were mistreating their servants and what judgment that God had in store for them.
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And that's what's in store for that man.
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You pray for that man, that God would open his heart to the truth, that he would see the need for repentance.
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Maybe call him to repentance.
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Maybe sit down with him and say, do you understand that I'm being mistreated here, that I'm being treated unfairly? And he may get angry with you.
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He may get upset with you.
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And he probably would.
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That's an opportunity though that you're taking him truth and love and praying that God would open his heart.
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You don't know what the consequences are going to be.
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But that's why I say it's difficult for me to just say this is what you should do every time.
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I say first and primary in that situation taking care of your family would be first.
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Even if you're being mistreated, you've got to take care of your family.
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Okay, good.
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Brother, you had a question too? I just want to say it's basically using an oath to cover up a lie.
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That's right.
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So how do we avoid doing that? Just don't do the oath.
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Don't make that our lifestyle.
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Don't make people have to expect you to say I promise for you to be telling the truth.
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Don't make people have to expect for you to give them an oath for you to follow through with your word.
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If you say you're going to do it, you're going to do it.
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Just so the other person doesn't trust you.
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That's right.
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Why do they trust you? Because maybe you weren't truthful in the past.
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That's right.
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When I say yes, it's yes.
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When I say no, it's no.
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Yes, sir.
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I have not been faithful.
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Well, here's the reality.
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And that's sort of why I'm going to draw to an end because we're getting close to the end here.
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Notice the last phrase here.
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When you say so, that means because of.
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Because of this, you want to let your yes be your yes and your no be your no because you may not fall into condemnation, to fall into judgment.
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Here's a situation you have.
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If you're a believer, if you are a believer, and yet you are known for being deceptive, where is your faith? Where is your faith? In fact, I would question if your faith is legitimate.
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You say, well, who are you to question that? Well, the Bible says you will know them by their...
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Fruits.
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Fruits.
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And if your fruit is stinky, you know, the Bible says a bad tree cannot bear good fruit and a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.
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If you're constantly bearing bad fruit, if you're constantly bearing the fruit of deception, if you're constantly bearing rotten, smelly fruit, then you have a rotten, smelly root.
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So if you're a believer and you're a deceptive person, I would say this, the Bible says make your calling and election sure.
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Ask yourself the question, am I really in Christ or have I lied about that too? Am I deceiving myself as to whether or not I'm in Christ? And on the other side, if you're not in Christ, maybe you're here, maybe you're new, maybe you haven't come to Christ, maybe something has kept you from Christ.
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I'm going to tell you this, when you stand before God, your lies will find you out.
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And they will be one of many things.
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The Bible says there's going to be a book that's going to be open.
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And that book's going to know everything about you.
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And every idle word you have ever spoken will be laid before you.
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Have you ever thought about the fact that if everything you've ever done was put on a projection screen and shown to your family? But I mean, if everything you've ever done was shown to your family, everything you've ever thought was shown to your family? Yes, but it's covered by the blood of Christ.
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Here's the way it worked.
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Jesus had a ledger, a book.
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In His book, there was a side that said sin and it was totally empty.
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And on the other side, it said righteousness and it was totally full.
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You have a book.
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In your book, on the side that says sin, it's totally full.
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And on the side that says righteousness, it's empty.
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Because the Bible says all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
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The best you can do is still glorified sin.
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So you have a book with no righteousness and all sin.
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Jesus has a book with no sin and all righteousness.
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And the Bible says He took His book and He put it in yours and He took your book and He died for it.
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That's what the cross is about.
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The Bible says that my sins were nailed to the cross.
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He took my sins in His body and bore the wrath that I deserved.
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So when my book is opened, if I am in Christ, when my book is opened, it's going to be Jesus Christ.
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I remember that man stood in my...
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He came to the church needing food.
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I took him back into the pantry.
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I gave him some food.
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And I was telling him about Christ and telling him about the fact that when I die, I only have Christ.
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I don't have any good...
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I can't say, you know what, I preach sermons.
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I read the Bible.
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I was good to my family.
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I supported...
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No, the only thing I can hold to is Jesus Christ.
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And this man said to me, he said, Pastor, you can't think that way.
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You've got to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
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I said, man, first of all, you came here looking for food because you ain't got nothing.
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You're talking about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
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Number one, the irony is dripping.
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But the second is I don't have any boots.
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I don't have any straps.
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All I have is Christ.
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I can't pull myself up by anything.
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My sin shows me how desperate I am and how much I need Christ.
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And the simplest sin, our lying tongue, is worthy of eternal hell.
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So what do we do? We lay it at the feet of Christ.
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We say, God, save me.
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God, change me.
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I don't want to be a liar.
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I want to be a man who loves the truth, not loves a lie.
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So God, change my heart.
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Make me a person who wants to see the truth exalted.
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Make me a man who wants to see the truth exemplified.
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Make me a man who loves Jesus not just as the way to heaven, but as the truth of God.
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I am the way and the truth and the life.
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No one comes to the Father except through me.
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May we all love the truth and hate the lie.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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And Lord, may we be enamored by it.
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May we be moved by it.
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May we have a desire to see others come to know the truth.
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May our lives exemplify the truth so that they may see Christ in us and hear Him on our lips.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.