A Deception Epidemic

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Alright, if you would, open up your Bibles and turn with me to James chapter 5 and verse 12.
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The title of tonight's message is A Deception Epidemic.
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A Deception Epidemic.
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Years ago there was a movie that was produced.
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I imagine some of you may have seen it.
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It was entitled Liar, Liar.
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It was a film based on a boy named Max, whose dad was a talented but very deceptive lawyer.
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On his birthday, the son, tired of hearing his dad lie all the time, made a wish that his father not be able to tell a lie for one whole day.
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And so in that movie reality, the magic of the wish came true and the son's father was unable to lie for a whole day.
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And it was humorous because he was already such a liar, his whole job, it seemed, was to lie.
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But there were times when people would say, well how do I look today? And he'd say, ugly.
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It would just come out in random bits of truth.
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And finally, there's a certain point in the film where he gets down in his son's face and they're talking and he said, Listen Max, sometimes adults have to lie.
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I just remember that quote from the movie.
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And it's interesting that that feeling, which was conveyed by the character, is not far off from the way that many people, including many Christians, feel about the subject of lying.
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Many people don't have a problem lying at all.
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Lying sort of is second nature.
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It's just part of how they do life.
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Pamela Meyer, who is the author of the book Lie Spotting, she's a professional lie detector.
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She's one of these people that reads faces, reads mannerisms and things.
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And in her book Lie Spotting, she gives some interesting statistics about people's willingness to lie.
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This is what she says in her research.
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She said last year, 997 billion dollars was lost in corporate fraud.
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997 billion dollars was lost in corporate fraud.
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And on any given day, studies show that you may be lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times.
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Granted, many of those are what people identify as little white lies.
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They're lies that don't seem to have much significance.
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But in another study, it showed that strangers lie three times within the first ten minutes of meeting one another.
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Within the first ten minutes of meeting someone that you've never met before, there's a good chance that somebody's going to lie up to three times.
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Whether it's talking about maybe a little bit of exaggeration about your resume, maybe it's a little bit of hiding of some of your past, maybe it's a little bit of whatever.
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It's a part of the natural order of how people do life.
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People lie more to strangers than they do to 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 to protect themselves.
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And the average married couple lies to one another in one out of every ten interactions, according to her book.
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And all the married couples go, mm-hmm.
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Lying is complex.
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It is woven into our daily lives, and we are deeply ambivalent about the truth.
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That's a quote from her book.
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We are deeply ambivalent about the truth.
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Babies will fake a cry and then stop to see if you're coming.
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Then they'll go back to crying if you're not.
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One-year-olds learn to hide things.
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This happened this week.
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It's amazing that I'm preaching this message.
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Two or three mornings ago, J.J.
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sleeps in his crib, but early in the morning if he gets crying, Jennifer will go in and nurse him.
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Sometimes she'll bring him back to the bed and lay him down beside me.
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So, you know, around 730 in the morning, I wake up, and I've got the baby beside me.
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Jennifer had to take Ashley to a little class that she goes to, so it was just me and J.J.
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laying in bed.
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Well, I pull out my phone, and I'm checking my e-mails, getting ready for the day, trying to figure out, you know, what all I need to be dealing with.
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And J.J.
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is nine months old.
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He took my phone away from me.
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He just reached up and took it, and that was fine.
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You know, I've got one arm like this and one arm like this, and he just reached up to take the phone, and he's trying to make it work, but it's not working because he doesn't know how to hit the button.
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So I reached to take it back from him, and I'll remember this forever.
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He took the phone, and he looked at me.
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He lifted up the blanket, and he put it under the blanket.
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It disappeared! Nine months old, he put it under the blanket and covered it up.
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Well, she goes on in the book.
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She says, two-year-olds learn to bluff.
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Five-year-olds learn to lie outright.
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Nine-year-olds are masters of covering things up.
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College students lie to their mothers in one out of every five interactions, and by the time we enter the workforce, we enter the world which is cluttered with spam, fake digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class pansy schemers, and it is, as she calls it, a deception epidemic.
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It's what we live in.
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Think about our church website.
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What was it just two weeks ago? We had to take the whole website down.
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Hundreds of hours, and that's not an exaggeration, had gone into putting that website together between myself, Mike, and a few others who had really put a lot of hours into putting it together.
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Had to take the whole thing down because someone had gone in, corrupted it, added things that were wrong, and we didn't want people to see on our church website, so we had to delete everything.
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It's the world we live in.
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It's the world we live in.
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And those who believe in evolution, macroevolution, the idea that we came from apes, and that the apes came from a lower life form all the way back down to the single cell, believe that deception is actually good.
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Deception is beneficial to our species.
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It's a result of the evolutionary process.
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It's survival of the fittest.
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And the fittest are those who do what it takes to succeed.
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Deception aids in dominating others, becoming the leader of the pack.
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Thus, deceitfulness is understood by the world to be just part of doing business.
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That's how you succeed.
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Think about it.
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When you hear about a politician who's lied to people, are you shocked anymore? Not at all.
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When you hear about a corporation defrauding its investors, are you scandalized anymore? It's every day.
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When you hear about a pastor fleecing his flock and using the funds to finance lavish lifestyles, are you amazed anymore? You're sad still, but are you amazed? No.
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Outright deception has become so commonplace that it no longer has the capacity to surprise us.
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And that's a problem.
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One author said that we live in a post-truth society.
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People don't care about the truth anymore.
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The seeking of the truth is not a priority.
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And the willingness to speak the truth is certainly not something to be considered.
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But what does the Bible have to say regarding the truth? Well, for the Christian and the Christian ethic, truth is paramount.
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For the believer, truth is part of who we are.
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We call our Savior the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
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And if we are not people of the truth, then we are not followers of our Savior who Himself is the truth.
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Well, this evening we're going to continue our study of James, and we're coming to a point where he focuses on our responsibility to be faithful to the truth.
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And I've had a long introduction, so I'm sorry that it took so long to get to the actual reading of the text.
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But this was just to set up the idea of what James is dealing with here because in verse 12, we're only going to look at one verse.
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He says, But above all...
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Oh, yes, please, Dale, would you pass those out for me? Thank you.
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I apologize.
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I do have a handout.
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James tells us in this text, and you'll all get one.
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Hopefully most of you have your Bibles out.
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He says, But above all, my brothers, do not swear...
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Now, let me stop right there and just say this.
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He's not talking about ugly talking.
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When I was a kid, if somebody said one of those four-letter ugly words, somebody would say, Hey, don't swear.
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But we understand that that's a different type of swearing.
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Swear words, it's a euphemistic in our culture of a word that is a dirty word.
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But that's not what James is talking about here.
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The term swear means to take an oath.
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So if you want to replace the phrase, he says, Do not take an oath, 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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Alright, well that's where we're...
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That's all we're doing tonight.
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One verse.
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Sometimes we do four or five verses.
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Sometimes we just do one verse.
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This verse stands by itself as enough for us to deal with for one night.
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For sure.
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Last time we studied, last week, we noted that the context of James chapter 5 and this part that we're in actually begins back in chapter 4.
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And I don't remember how many of you remember that.
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But if you go back to chapter 4 just with your eyes, glance over at chapter 4 and look at verse 6.
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He says, He gives more grace, therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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That one verse, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, sets the context which continues on through chapter 5.
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Because James is addressing our need for humility.
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He talks about our humility and how we speak to one another at the end of chapter 4.
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He talks about our humility and how we understand God's sovereignty over our lives at the end of chapter 4 when he says, Don't say you're going to go here or there or do this or that, but say if the Lord wills you're going to go here or there or do this or that.
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It's about humility.
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Don't be prideful and say I'm going to do anything without God.
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Then at the beginning of chapter 5, he talks about humility and how we understand the subject of riches.
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Then he talks about humility and how we express our patience.
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So this is all about humility, thus the call to humility extends to our text today.
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I think that that continues, the context continues to verse 12.
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Because he says, But above all, above all what? Above all the things I've been saying, there's one thing that sort of stands out above everything else, and it's this, it's the issue of truthfulness.
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A prideful man is a man who is willing to play fast and loose with the truth.
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A prideful man is willing to lie for his own ends and his own gain.
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But a humble man understands the value of his word.
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Remember when your word meant something? Remember when the culture understood the word as a what? Bond.
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There used to be a phrase, My word is my bond.
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That's right.
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It didn't require a signature.
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It just required a handshake.
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And that was it.
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And I was as good as my word.
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Well, it seems as though those times have passed.
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At least in the minds of many.
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Now at this point I want to point something out.
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There is a connection here, and it's so obvious, I'm sure many of you probably already picked it up.
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There's a connection here between what James is saying and what Jesus says in Matthew 5.
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In Matthew 5 we have the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is talking.
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And in Matthew 5, Jesus says this, verse 33, He says, Again you have heard it said of those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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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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Let what you say simply be yes or no.
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Anything more than this comes from evil.
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Alright, so there's Jesus.
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Jesus has said this.
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You know, more than two decades before James' writing, Jesus has said those words.
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So, James is not pulling this out of thin air.
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I mean, obviously this whole thing is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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The whole book is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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But James is quoting Christ at this point.
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He says, Above all, do not take an oath, but let your yes be yes, and let your no be no.
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Now, there's a lot here.
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And time will not allow me to deal with every single thing I want to deal with.
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But I do need to make a point.
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Because Jesus tells us not to take oaths.
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James tells us not to take oaths.
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But I imagine some of you have been to court.
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Hopefully on the right side of the law.
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But I imagine some of you have been to court before.
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What do they ask you to do in court? Swear an oath, right? Used to be they'd have you put your hand on the Bible.
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I don't know if they still do that anymore.
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It's been a while since I've been down there.
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But they used to have you put your hand on the Bible.
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And what did you have to say? I swear, solemnly swear, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
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That was the oath that we were expected to take in a court of law.
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And if you lied while under oath, a law was broken that was specifically for that type of lying.
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It was called what? Perjury.
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That law...
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Now if you lied to somebody and you weren't under oath, that's a whole different story.
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But if you were under oath and you lied, that was a big deal.
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Now I want to make mention of this because some people believe that if you go into a courtroom and you take that oath that you're sinning.
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Because Jesus said don't take oaths.
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James tells us not to take an oath.
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And you guys know the Quakers, right? The Anabaptists, right? You have groups.
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Anabaptists, the Quakers, they're not the same groups.
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I'm just saying groups like that, the Amish.
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They believe that they cannot take those oaths because they would be sinning.
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As a result, they're unwilling to participate in any activity where an oath is stated.
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They won't pledge allegiance to the flag.
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They won't take an oath in a court of law.
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And it's easy to understand why they would take a very basic reading of this passage and say that.
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I mean if you just took it at face value, you take it simple, it says not to take oaths.
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I'm not going to take any oaths, right? Okay.
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But here's the thing.
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The Bible, as is always, has to be understood in the greater context of the whole of Scripture and not just one verse or two verses.
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Even if those two verses, Matthew 5 and James 5, even if those two verses say the exact same thing, and they do because James is essentially quoting Jesus, even if they say the exact same thing, we have to understand that there is a greater context here of Scripture that plays a part in how we understand what James and what Jesus were both saying.
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Because when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we find this out.
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If all oaths are condemned, and hear me clearly, if all oaths are condemned, then we have to take an issue with Paul, we have to take an issue with Christ, we have to take an issue with God Himself.
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I'll show you, if you don't mind.
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In Galatians 1, verse 20, Paul makes this statement.
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It's very simple.
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He says, In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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Now that doesn't sound much like an oath, but that is oath language.
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He's making the statement, In what I'm writing, I'm writing to you under the truth.
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I'm writing to you as the truth, and I do not lie.
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You say, well, that's kind of not really clear.
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Well, there's another one that's more clear.
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2 Corinthians 1 and 23.
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Paul says this, I call God to witness against me.
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It was to spare you that I refrain from coming again to Corinth.
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What's he saying? He's saying, I'm telling you the truth, and I call God as my witness.
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Why would he say, I call God as my witness? He's expressing the truthfulness of what he's saying.
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Why would you call someone as your witness? Yeah, to say, I'm telling you the truth.
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Well, what was the oath about? It was about expressing the truthfulness of what you're saying.
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In one sense, he says, In what I'm writing to you, I do not lie.
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In another sense, he says, I call God as my witness.
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So Paul already is making a statement that there are times where I'm going to call on this authority of this statement.
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Philippians 1.8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you with all the affection of Jesus Christ.
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Again, he's calling God as his witness.
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Martin Lloyd-Jones, in regard to these passages, say this.
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He said, Jesus did not denounce the taking of an oath, but he seemed to him to be perfectly legitimate.
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If you remember, when Jesus was before the Sanhedrin, he was under oath.
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And he didn't say, stop.
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This is not right.
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He took it and did it.
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But the most convincing to me is God Himself.
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This is the one that really just kind of firms everything up for me.
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Hebrews 6.16-18 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 unchanging character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
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What did the writer of Hebrews say? God took an oath.
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And the oath was what? By Himself.
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Because who else could God make an oath to? There's nobody greater than Him.
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So when He had nothing else to swear by, He swore by what? Himself.
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And yet God swore.
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He took an oath.
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Now you say, now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
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Jesus tells us not to take oath.
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James tells us not to take oath.
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We see examples of Paul doing what I would say are oath language.
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We see Jesus being under oath before the Sanhedrin.
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That's not a problem.
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And now we see God has put Himself under oath before people.
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Why the mixed message? Well, there's not a mixed message.
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Because the Bible and Jesus and James are not condemning all oaths outright.
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They are condemning a type of oath that was very common in the first century.
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And I want to read to you from Matthew 5 and show you.
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So go to Matthew 5 and I'll demonstrate this to you.
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In Matthew 5, verse 33, Jesus is speaking.
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He says, again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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Now, here's the thing, Jesus says, you've heard this said of those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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Here's the thing, that's not a quote from the Old Testament.
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That is not a direct quote from the Old Testament.
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That is a quote of teaching that was going on at the time.
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But it's not a direct quote.
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There are quotes in the Old Testament about oaths, but that's not one of them.
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Jesus is dealing with a type of oath which was intended to deceive.
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He was dealing with a type of oath that was intended to deceive.
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Alright, you say now, what are you talking about? Hold your place in Matthew 5 and go over to Matthew 23.
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I know I'm having you do Bible bingo tonight, but do it with me.
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I promise it will be worth it in the end.
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Matthew 23, verse 16.
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Woe to you blind guides! Jesus is talking to the Pharisees.
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He says, woe to you blind guides! You 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 or 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 on the altar that makes the gift sacred 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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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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Here's the point.
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Jesus is saying this.
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There were rules in the Old Testament.
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It's really weird.
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I'm sorry.
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There were rules at this time in history where the Pharisees would say, if you made an oath on this thing, it was binding.
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And if you made an oath on this thing, it wasn't.
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The best way to give you an example, have you ever in your life said you were going to do something and when you didn't do it, somebody called you out on it and you said, but I had my fingers crossed? You ever say that? I mean, you were five once, right? We all were one time.
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And what did you say? You said, well, you promised.
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Yeah, but I never intended to fulfill that promise.
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I had my fingers crossed.
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Right? Well, you think that's new? That's nothing new.
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Jesus said that there was a time when people would say, you know what, I'm going to swear by the temple.
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And if I swear by the temple, that's nothing.
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It doesn't mean anything.
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So I'll tell somebody, I'll swear by the temple.
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And everybody's like, ooh, he's swearing by the temple, but it's not binding.
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Now, if I swear by the gold of the temple, that's binding.
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How many of you have heard somebody say, I swear on my mother's grave? You ever heard somebody say that? What does that mean? If she's not dead, it means you swear by her life.
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Right? But if she's already dead, who cares if you swear by her grave? It doesn't matter, right? She's already gone.
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What's going to happen? You see, that's the kind of foolishness that had made its way into the life of the people at that time.
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You see, the Pharisees were very good at finding ways to be very bad.
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Yes, sir.
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And you are correct.
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He said they're like politicians.
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They're very good at finding ways to be very bad.
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And one of the ways that they would do that, they had these ways of being deceptive.
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And that's why when you go back to Matthew 5, I said hold your place in Matthew 5.
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Go back where He says in verse 33, He says, You have heard it said, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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Okay, here's the issue Jesus is dealing with.
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People would swear to do things, and they would swear to the Lord, I'm going to do thus and so.
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And then in verse 34, He says, But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it's 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, because you can't make your hair white or black.
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You see, again, there were ways that people could take oaths that were considered binding and not binding.
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Brian Swirly said this, According to the teaching of the ancient rabbis, swearing by heaven and earth meant to swear by the hosts of the heavens and the earth.
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And the Jewish writer Philo says it refers to the sun, the stars, and the whole earth.
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And since the Jews regarded these things as part of the created realm, and not God Himself, they did not look at such promises as being binding oaths.
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Violating such an oath was not considered wrong.
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If I said I'm swearing by heaven, well, that's just part of creation.
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Who cares? If I say I'm swearing by the stars of heaven, that's just part of the creation.
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What does it matter? If I say I'm swearing by the earth itself, it's just part of creation.
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I'm not swearing on God.
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I'm swearing on creation.
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And what's the binding there? It doesn't bind at all.
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Well, to Jesus and to James, they have a very succinct answer to all this nonsense.
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They say, no, don't do that.
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Simply let your yes be yes and your no be no.
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So, don't get caught up in this deception epidemic that's going on.
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You see, the deception epidemic is not new.
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It's been going on ever since the world was created.
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What was the first deception? The Garden of Eden and Satan himself.
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He is called the father of lies.
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Why? Because the very first lie ever told is if you eat that fruit, you will be like God.
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Right? And she believed it.
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And that deception has rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled.
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The Christian ethic is simple.
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I'll write it down.
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Always tell the truth.
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Always tell the truth.
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That's the simple ethic.
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It's not so much that oaths are forbidden.
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Oaths are unnecessary.
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That's the point.
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It's not that taking an oath is a sin.
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Taking an oath is not necessary.
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Because for a Christian, yes is yes and no is no.
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And if you live your life in such a way that every time you say you're going to do something, you've got to add the words, I promise.
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Why is that? Because when you don't say I promise, does that mean you don't have any intention in doing it at all? Why do we even have to say those words? Now we do sometimes, and I know kids like to hear, you know, a kid will ask you for something, and they'll say, Mommy, are we going to go for ice cream after church? Sorry.
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Not to throw that.
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Mommy, are we going to go get, you know, whatever after church? And you'll say, yes, honey, we're going to do that.
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Do you promise? Say, I don't have to promise.
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No, I'm not necessarily going to chastise my child.
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But I may take it as a learning experience.
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Because if Daddy says yes, he doesn't have to promise because his yes means yes.
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Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Up until now.
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Again, truth is the hallmark of biblical Christianity.
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We're to be people of the truth.
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We're followers of He who is called the truth.
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Our Savior is the way, the truth, and the life.
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And we're founded on and reliant upon a commitment to the truth.
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Lying and being a liar is the antithesis of what a Christian is supposed to be.
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In fact, how many of you know what Revelation...
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Don't look it up.
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How many of you know right away what Revelation 21.8 says? Liars go to hell.
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Isn't that amazing? Because, you know, we often think about hell.
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And we think, man, somebody like Hitler.
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Or we think of somebody who's killed a bunch of people.
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Ted Bundy type person.
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And we think, yeah, that's the type of person that busts hell wide open.
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But when the Bible describes the person who's worthy of hell, it says all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
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Which is meant for Satan and his angels.
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That's right.
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It was created for them.
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It's sad to think that what is so natural in the human condition it seems is what is so devastating to our souls.
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And that lying is something that so many people do without the fear of God.
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It's just the way I talk.
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It's just the way I express myself.
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It's just the way I interact with people.
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Adults have to lie.
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Now I know anytime this conversation comes up, somebody's going to ask the question, well, pastor, do we always have to be brutally honest? And I know what you're talking about.
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Because again, somebody comes up, they're wearing an outfit that's not necessarily your cup of tea, but they're super proud of their outfit.
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And they spent whatever little bit of money they had on it.
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And they're just wanting you to compliment them on what they have worn.
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Now I know what you want me to say.
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Tell them like it is, right? But again, there is always where Paul says that we're supposed to speak to each other in love and to have grace.
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And what we say, we don't have to say, yeah, you look terrible.
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Brutal honesty is not, and that's really foolish.
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Because why would we want to be hurtful? But at the same time, how many people do you know, and maybe you deal with this yourself, how many people do you know that flatter others simply to build themselves up? Speaking all kinds of untruths simply to make themselves look better in that person's eyes.
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I hate to even mention this, as a minister, I'm very grateful when people are encouraged by my ministry.
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I'm always thankful if somebody comes and says, thank you for teaching me that.
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I didn't know that.
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God used you to help me understand this.
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I'm grateful for that, right? But there are times where it becomes flattery.
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And even if it's not meant to be, it can be flattery, and I worry about that.
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Because I'm like, are they just telling me that because they think that's what I want to hear? You know? Are they just telling me that because they...
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And maybe it's innocent, because they just want to make me feel good.
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You know? And that works.
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You know, we do that to not just ministers, but people, all kinds of people.
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And this is why I think we do have to be careful that our speech be honest.
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That our speech be seeking the truth always.
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And kind.
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And that's what I'm saying.
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I'm not telling you to go out and be unkind.
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And I will say this too.
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And this isn't in my notes.
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This is all free.
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This is a freebie.
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I hear people say, well, I was just telling the truth as an excuse for gossip.
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Because they'll be saying something about someone else.
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And you respond and say, well, why are you telling me this? Well, it's the truth.
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Well, sometimes it's not your truth to tell.
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Sometimes it's not your business to tell.
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That's right.
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Yeah, let's talk about that truth.
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Ultimately, what James and Jesus want us to understand is that Christian people, people who have the name of Jesus Christ are to be people of integrity.
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When we give our word, we do not have to attach any type of promissory note.
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Our word is the promissory note.
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Our word itself is the bond.
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Now, if we go before the government and the government wants us to make that oath to satisfy the law of the land, I don't think we're sinning by doing so.
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But I will look them in the face and say this is unnecessary.
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Because I'm always under oath to my God to tell you the truth.
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Years ago, there was a pharmacist who after making up prescriptions for the neighborhood in which he was located was discovered that he was doing so without a license.
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He was an unlicensed pharmacist.
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In fact, he'd never studied pharmacology at all.
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He simply, through a loophole, was able to start ordering medicine, open up a shop, and started disseminating medicine under the guise of a pharmacist.
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And there's an unknown amount of people before he was caught who suffered from his inexpert prescribing and filling of prescriptions.
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There's no way of knowing how many people were injured and possibly even killed by his behavior.
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But here's the irony.
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His sign, the sign above his pharmacy, read, The Drugstore You Can Patronize With Confidence Accuracy and Experience is our motto.
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The world is filled with deception.
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And as believers, may we always be people who are known for the truth.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for tonight, for the opportunity to again study Your Word.
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I pray that we've been faithful to it.
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I pray that we've been faithful to understand what Jesus meant.
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That we're not to need to take oaths because we have always abound to our integrity in You.
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We're bound to that integrity of being Christians.
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And thus we are always, in a sense, under oath to our Savior.
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We're always, in a sense, bound to the truth, to speak the truth with grace, to speak the truth with love, and to speak the truth without fear.
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We love You and we thank You and we praise You.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.