Matthew 5:33-37

again to go to Matthew's Gospel as we're making our way through this blessed

book.

We're still in the fifth chapter,

and we're still in the section of what is known as a Sermon on the Mount.

All of Matthew 5 and 6 and 7 is one section of Scripture, and it's the Lord's

Sermon to his disciples there on the Mount of Beatitudes and mostly followers,

but the religious leaders were gathered there as well listening to him. And today

our text we pick up in verse 33. And Jesus said, and you have heard that it

was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform

your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven,

for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem,

for it is the city of the great king, nor shall you swear by your head, because

you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your yes be yes, and your no be

no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one. Let us pray. Oh Father

God help us this morning Lord. Lord we hear from the King about life in his

kingdom. Lord lead us to grace to make this a reality in our lives. Oh bless God

Lord we pray for your Holy Spirit and the aid and help of your spirit. Lord would

you grant that this morning. Speak, give eyes and open hearts to behold the beauty

and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And it's in his name we

pray. Amen. I don't think it comes to a surprise to anyone to hear today that we

live in an age of deception and dishonesty. I mean if we think about it,

deception it's ubiquitous. I mean you see it in ads and you see it online. There

are products that always over promise what they can actually do. This is the

advertiser's secret, right? I mean if you just use this cream and you can

erase years from your face it's not happening. This year for Christmas my

kids have asked for a particular teddy bear it's called Thready Bear and I have

told them as they're sitting right here laughing because they are asking this

for Christmas and they really believe that Thready Bear will come to life as

advertised. Don't worry I've already let them down they just don't believe me

they believe the advertisers. So they think a bear is going to come to life. We

also hear if you will just take this pill you can lose weight without having

to diet or exercise. If you've ever traveled and you've got a brochure one

thing for sure brochures over promise what the resort will actually look and

be like. And then of course we all are familiar with high-pressure sales pitches.

You hide high pressure high-pressured salesmen using flattery to make us make

a rash decision. I don't know if you've ever sat through a timeshare presentation

or not but this is what they do. But also we see it in the political world. We're

coming out of an election cycle and we've grown accustomed to this we've

grown numb to it. Candidates on either side constantly going to over promise

what they will do. On day one here's what I will do. On day one I promise to do.

That's not going to happen not everything that they said is going to

happen. And it used to be that a man's word and the handshake were all that was

needed for a man who was expected to fulfill his word. But think about today

no one just uses a handshake. We have contracts that we have to have notarized

in the presence of witnesses also signed usually in the presence of lawyers if we

are going to have any type of business. But why why do we need all those things?

Because people and companies are going to try to find some loophole to get out

from under their contractual obligation. But I wonder about the people of God.

When people hear your name what comes to their mind? Are you an honest person who

consistently speaks the truth? Are you a person who consistently follows through

on your commitments and promises? Or on the other hand are you known as someone

who exaggerates or embellishes to make stories appear better than they are? Let

me ask you this. Have you ever told someone I will pray for you and then

don't do it? We often do that don't we? I mean that's one of the most probably

common forms of lying in the church. Oh we'll pray for you but do you do you

pray for that person? What about this do you tell others hey I'm leaving the

house in 15 I'll be leaving the house right now and yet you know you're not

going to leave for at least another 15 minutes? See today as we come to our text

in Matthew 5 as a central premise Jesus puts forth truthfulness and integrity. As

I said a moment ago this is the Sermon on the Mount and we have our Lord who

is the King and he's sharing with his disciples what life in his kingdom looks

like and he wants them to know something. Life in the kingdom of God is radically

different from life in the kingdom of man. If we look at the kingdom of God we

find integrity, honesty, purity both internal and external. It's not just that

you're simply abiding by a set of ethics but there's an internal purity as well

that leads you to do so. In the sermon the Lord is also exposing the hypocrisy

of the religious leaders. So really the sermon is twofold it's an exhortation to

his disciples. He's informing them and exhorting them of what life as a follower

of Christ looks like but at the same time it serves as a rebuke to the

religious elite of his day. You might say well how is he rebuking the religious

elite? Well in Matthew 5 he will give six examples of what these leaders have done,

how they've taken the law of God and they perverted it, they've twisted it to

their own benefit. I mean that's what their masters at. They take the law, they

mishandle it, they reduce the standards of the law to things that they felt more

manageable and that they could keep until, until Christ the divine Son who is

the great lawgiver, he came on the scene and he gave the true interpretation

which exposed these men, these leading religious officials as hypocrites.

Suffice it to say they were not happy with our Lord. For example we looked a

few weeks ago in the Sixth Commandment. There the Lord showed it was not simply

murder that was forbidden by the Sixth Commandment, not simply homicide, the

anger in the heart also breaks the Sixth Commandment. Then a few weeks ago we also

looked at the Seventh Commandment, the act of adultery. It wasn't just simply

the physical act of adultery that broke the Seventh Commandment. The Lord said

lust that lie in the heart of man is also a violation of God's commandment.

But these religious leaders, keep in mind they were very sly. They had designed an

elaborate system that allowed them to technically, and I put those words in

quotes, keep the law but that also allowed them to do what they wanted to

do. Now the leading religious officials were Pharisees and Sadducees. The

Pharisees were the purity gatekeepers. They were the one who fastidiously kept

the law. They would never dream of committing adultery. So how are they going

to get around this commandment when they wanted another woman? Well they developed

a system where they could willfully divorce their wife and then marry

another so technically they're not committing adultery. They divorced and

remarried and Jesus said you hypocrites, you are committing adultery through the

divorce and subsequent remarriage. Do you see what they've done? They're taking

God's law and distorted it to justify their own lust. But our Lord's not

finished. Today once again he's going to show the hypocrisy of these corrupt

leaders and their perversion in God's law because once again you find them

developing an elaborate system this time dealing with oaths and vows. They said

some oaths, some vows are binding, yeah others well they're permissible to break

and a law had to be fulfilled if if it was a public vow and it invoked God's

name the name of Yahweh or Jehovah. However if the vow was made in the

course of everyday conversation, private speech, and it didn't reference the

divine name but maybe reference heaven or earth or Jerusalem, well now

technically you're not using God's name so it's not really binding. It was

considered to be less significant and since it's less significant it did not

demand the person to be so conscientious about keeping that particular vow. So do

you see what they're doing? These false shepherds had allowed a loophole where

they could lie or exaggerate in their conversation but it would lend them an

air of credibility because they would swear or take an oath. Now again how they

do that? Because if it was a public vow well you had to keep it but these

private vows that did not invoke God's name well they're not held to account.

Kent Hughes in his commentary speaks of this. The Mishnah, by the way that's the

oral tradition of the rabbis. They devote a one whole section I'll just call

oaths to an elaborate discussion of when oaths are binding and when they're not.

The swearing of oaths had degenerated into a system of rules as to when you

could lie and when you could not. There was an ongoing epidemic of frivolous

swearing. There was an inevitable trivialization of everyday language and

integrity. It became commonplace practice to convince another that you're telling

the truth while lying by bringing some person or imminent object into reference.

Let me give you an example of the hypocrisy and this literally happens

found in the Mishnah. One rabbi said if you swear by Jerusalem you are not bound

to keep that oath but if you swear while facing Jerusalem now you were bound to

keep that oath and that's what they were doing. They had all this religious

this sophisticated system to allow them to get out from what the law said. It's

similar to what children do when they're convincing you they're telling the

truth while fingers crossed. So technically I don't have to tell the

truth because my fingers are crossed. Our Lord comes and he says this is absolute

hypocrisy and he's going to warn against this. Look at verse 33. This is our first

verse. You have heard that it said to those of old do not swear falsely but you

shall perform your oaths to the Lord. Well that's correct that's a correct

saying you have heard the law required the law of Moses required not only that

you would not swear falsely but once you did make an oath you had to keep it.

Where do they get that? Well number 30. If a man makes a vow to the Lord or

swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement he shall not break his word

and he should do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

Verse 23. Now that's an oath to the Lord though right? That which has gone from

your lips you shall keep and perform for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your

God what you've promised with your mouth. Now let me just say it's not wrong then

to make a vow it's not wrong to swear an oath or even an oath in God's name but

once you did it you were bound to it. It was finalized. You had to fulfill it. Now

so the law of Moses allowed for this but the Lord the one who gave the law he's

going to take us beyond just a letter and reveal the true intention. Now first

of all Jesus never does say that oaths or vows are inherently evil. He doesn't

say it. His point is they should be unnecessary. Not that they're evil they

should be unnecessary for the people of God. Why? As children of the kingdom I

think we should be so solid that there be no need to add some other affirmation

that we are telling the truth. You're simply supposed to tell the truth at all

times and you don't have to swear by something that you're doing it. Now the

law of Moses did restrict those as well. They were really reserved for serious

important matters but that changed through time. The people started using an

oath or a vow for trivial and mundane matters. They used them in everyday

speech. It was very commonplace at the time of Jesus. Even the religious leaders

participated in this and they were also trivializing the law of God. But Jesus

has had enough and he shows her hypocrisy and verses 34 through 36 and he

tells you don't swear at all and he tells you what not to swear by. So here's

again I want to make sure we understand this. If you swear by God or you swear a

reference to his name they said you have to fulfill that. But if you swore by

heaven or earth, your own head or Jerusalem, well that's not a solemn as

the divine name so there's really no penalty if you would break that vow. Now

keep in mind how ridiculous this sounds. You have devout, supposedly pious Jews.

They had respect for the divine name. They didn't even like to write it. That's

how we got Jehovah and Yahweh. But so if you would invoke that name, the divine

name, the covenant-keeping name of Yahweh or Jehovah is the sovereign one, that has

to be kept. If you did not keep that vow then you were considered to have taken

God's name in vain. That's a violation of the third commandment. So they didn't

want to do that. So what do they do? They begin to use surrogates. They begin to use

substitutes. No longer am I swearing by God. I swear by Jerusalem. I swear by

heaven. I swear by the hair on my head. I know that would not do well for me. I

understand. I'll get the joke for you today. So this is what's happening. They

believed the further the oath was removed from the name of God, then the

less binding and the less danger was involved if they broke it. This is crazy.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he said this, they had so construed the meaning and so turned

and phrased it in a legal form that they allowed themselves ample scope to do

many things that were utterly contradictory to the spirit of the law.

Yet they felt they were free because they had not actually broken the letter.

To commit perjury, lying under oath of God, was to them a very serious and solemn

matter. A terrible sin and they denounced it. You could however take all kinds of

oaths and do all sorts of things, but as long as you never committed perjury, well

then you were innocent before the law. You were not guilty. The Lord says you've

got to be kidding me here. He said even if you don't swear by God, but you

swear by heaven, you still have to keep that oath. Why? Because when you swear by

heaven, you're still calling God the witness. How? Heaven belongs to God. You

swear by earth, you're still calling God the witness. How? The earth belongs to God.

To swear by Jerusalem, is to still calling God the witness. How? Jerusalem

belongs to God. You swear by your own head with the hairs on your head, you're

still calling God to witness. Why? You belong to God by right of creation. Psalm

Psalms 24:1

24 verse 1, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all

those who dwell therein. Anything you swear by, think of anything that you

swear by, belongs to God, thereby you are calling God to witness in the vow you

are making. And that's a true statement. But the Pharisees are rife with

hypocrisy and it justly angered our Lord. I mean what were the religious leaders?

What was their duty? They were shepherds. They were to be leading people to God and

yet he said you were making them twice the sons of hell. You're taking them away

from God. In Matthew 23, these same people, the Lord is pronouncing a woe upon.

Listen with open ears to our Lord here this morning. But woe to you, scribes and

Pharisees, hypocrites. For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. This

next phrase is terrifying. For you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow

those who are entering to go in. You're excluded from the kingdom, you hypocrites.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you devour widows' houses and

for pretense you make long prayers. Oh, you will receive the greater condemnation.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel land and sea to

win one proselyte and when he has won you make him twice as much a son of hell as

yourselves. Woe to you blind guides who say whoever swears by the temple is

nothing but whoever swears by the gold of the temple he's obliged to perform

it. Fools and blind. For which is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies

the gold? And whoever swears by the altar, well that's nothing but whoever swears

by the gift that is on it he is obliged to perform it. You fools and blind. What's

greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? So you want to swear

by the altar? Well then when you do you swear by it and by all the things on it.

You swear by the temple, you swear by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever

swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it. Just stop

for just a moment. Could there be anything more terrifying and dreadful

than to have the Son of God pronounce a woe upon you? There's nothing. Anguish,

affliction, wretchedness, calamity, trouble, eternal destruction will be theirs at

the last judgment. It's a serious thing we're talking about. You feel the

righteous anger of our Lord because these corrupt leaders were leading his

people astray. They perverted the law of God who is all truthful to allow for

some form of lying. Yes the law did allow you to use an oath but it was done to

show the seriousness of what was taking place. It was never meant to justify

lying nor to get out of one's commitment. But again what about you? Do you ever

have to give an affirmation to certify that you're telling the truth? I promise,

and I promise you now, I promise on my mother's grave. People say things like

that to show that now I'm really speaking the truth which calls into

question every other time they have spoken. Friends if you and I have to

convince someone that we are telling the truth by promising or swearing by

something, our integrity has already been tarnished. It's gone. I loved what J.

Vernon McGee he said, when a man tells me I would swear on a stack of Bibles a

mile high, he said that is a fathom I do not believe because I think the lie he's

telling is a mile high. Absolutely true. And by the way, why if you swear on one

Bible versus a sack of Bibles? But this is what we do, right? The Pharisees had

taken the law of God and they reduced it like they did the sixth and seventh

command to perjury only, lying while invoking the name of God. And yet at the

same time they're missing the entire point which is designed to have

truthfulness at all times. What is the answer? Verse 37, you citizens of the

kingdom just say yes and no. For if you want to go beyond that it comes from the

evil one. Jesus is the one who gave the law and he corrected those religious

leaders. He said I tell you, I say to you don't swear at all. Now stop right there.

Some groups like Quakers and others have taken this at any oath or any value

is bad or evil. So they said you should never do it. Well no, we have to

interpret scripture by scripture. We see Abraham took an oath from a servant when

he went to find a wife for Isaac, right? Jacob took an oath from Joseph that his

bones would be leaving Egypt. Joseph took an oath from his relatives.

Jonathan asked for an oath from David. Jesus when he was asked by the high

priest who adjured him by the living God to answer if he was the Christ the Son

of God while under oath he answered. Paul in many of his letters calls God the

witness. Second Corinthians 1 23, listen to Paul. I call God as witness against my

soul that to spare you I came no more to Corinth. Paul swearing by God but he's

doing so because the Corinthians have doubted his integrity and sincerity and

he's trying to regain that. So it wasn't wrong for Paul to do that. In Hebrews we

read and it records that God himself took an oath when he could swear by no

greater he swore by himself. So friends it's not that if you ever take an oath

you're in violation of this passage. The oath can add a solemn authority that

nothing else can give. For example if you're married you took sacred vows.

Marriage vows that's a solemn oath that you swear before God and gathered

witnesses. If you go to court you will take a public oath to tell the truth and

nothing but the truth so help you God with your hand on a Bible it adds to

the seriousness of what is taking place in the courtroom. But what is Jesus then

calling for? He's calling for an end of this in everyday speech. Just say yes

just say no. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Just tell the whole truth and

there's no need to invoke an oath or swear by anything. By the way this also

helps us and protects us from irreverently taking God's name in vain.

If you use oaths in everyday speech people will take God's name irreverently

even without knowing it. They're just speaking and there is just a film. Well

God knows. Well God knows. May God strike me dead or if I'm lying God help us. But

there's no thought of the God that they are invoking. The one true living God who

dwells in unapproachable light who does not take lightly that his name is used

in vain. We don't use the name of God flippantly nor irreverently. When we

gather there ought to be a holy reverence about us. This is worship of the one true

living triune God. Friends there ought to be a seriousness of sobriety about us. Once

again I quote Kent Hughes. Today there's an urgent truth shortage. There's a time

in the Western land where which was distinguished from other cultures by at

least a conventional outward sense of obligation to tell the truth. But now

there's a pervasive indifference to truth-telling and this is not only

infected day-to-day conversation but the most solemn pledges of life. Perjury

under solemn oath is epidemic. The sacred vows of marriage are broken almost as

often as repeated. God's name is invoked by blatant liars who purport to be

witnesses to the truth. The message that our Lord is communicating here is that

his kingdom is a kingdom of truth. It is a kingdom of light and he doesn't desire

simply truth externally but in the inner man. Friends I don't know how to say it

any differently. Citizens of heaven ought to be people of integrity who will only

speak the truth. J. Dwight Fennacost says let your character, your reputation for

honesty, your word be so obviously true and undefiled and without duplicity that

no man would think it necessary to put you under an oath because he he does not

suspect that you are deceiving him. Parents let me just say this. Do your

children have to make you promise? Are we're going to do something? Mom promise

me? We're going to do it. Promise me mom. If our children are having to

invoke that it's because somehow we've not been fully truthful with them. They

know just because mom or dad says yes doesn't mean it's going to take place.

Which is why we better be careful before we speak right? Don't make rash valves.

Don't say you're going to do it and then not do it. Again I quote Pentecost. He

said there's only one way to interpret yes. Yes does not mean no. There's only

one way you can interpret no. When you say yes it means yes. When you say no it

means no. The Lord demanded that one speech be so trustworthy that men would

not have to debate what was meant and interpret it. Interpret what was said.

They would know what was meant because he was an honest man. I think several

years ago and you know when our presidents debated the word is. What do

you mean by is? That's the type of loophole our Lord is downcing. See life

in God's kingdom is kingdom of honesty. But life in the kingdom of man in which

we don't hear on this earth have truths, white lies, exaggerations, embellishments

and all those come from Satan who is the father of lies. But you and I are

children of light not of the darkness and we should be known for our impeccable

honesty and integrity. More than that friends you bear the Imago Dei. You are

an image bearer of God and you're called to reflect the character of our Father

in heaven. There should be no need to invoke God's name or swear by something

to have any other person believe us. That shows the lack of character. That people

aren't going to believe you unless you swear. But let me make this a little

practical too. What about when you tell someone you'll do something? Are you

honest in your answer and do it? Do you fulfill your vows? Do you fulfill your

obligations? What if something better comes along? Do you then seek to wiggle

out of your prior commitment? Are you faithful to perform the duties you

volunteered for? What about your commitment to the nursery rotation or

to toddler church to teach Sunday school? Some of you with faith promise giving.

Are you faithful to give as he said you would if the Lord gave it to you? You

said that. See Psalm 15 I think it's so helpful as we start to close. The psalmist

asks, Lord who may abide in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy

hill? The answer, he who walks uprightly and works righteousness, speaks the truth

where? In his heart. He does not backbite with his tongue nor does evil to his

neighbor nor does he take up or approach against his friend. In whose eyes a vile

person is despised. But he honors those who fear the Lord. But look at the latter

part of verse 4. He who swears to his own hurt and does not change. What's that

mean? The man is going to keep his promise even if it hurts him. Even if it

costs him. This is life in the kingdom. By the way I think this has wonderful

wonderful implications for marriage and the divorce culture in which we live.

Christian, I don't know how to say any more succinctly than this. You stood

before God and witnesses to take this spouse for better or worse and God

intends you intends for you to fill that vow. There's no wiggle room. You said you

would do it right? Keep it. That's integrity. Don't wiggle out of it.

Keith Hughes says when people know that you do not lie your testimony have more

effect than all the theology you could ram at them. What a difference a truth

will life makes. Children of the kingdom right? You wear his holy name in baptism.

When you were baptized the name of God was placed upon you right? When we

baptized we baptized you in the name of the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit.

You were baptized into that holy name. We saw in Ephesians 4 you have a calling to

walk worthy. There's a high calling to walk worthy of this noble calling that

you and I have received in Christ. You and I are to reflect his faithfulness

and you and I are to reflect his truthfulness.

Charles Simeon he said let all of every class and every degree remember this. If

you are Christ indeed you will remember him in whose lips there was no guile

found. Let truth be in your inward parts and let it ever be dear to your souls.

This last part was so instructive he's quoting scripture. For of every idle

word you will give account in the day of judgment.

Yea by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned.

It's a sobering thought for me as a man of many words. Every idle word God will

cost account for. So you say okay we're done so so what how what do we do

pastor? Well we just heard from the King, King Jesus and he's issued a high

calling to his kingdom of truthfulness. That means dear Christian you are to

keep your promise, you are to measure your word and you answer unequivocally

with either yes or no. You and I are to call to be people of such character and

integrity that no one's going to even think of asking you to confirm to

confirm that you're telling the truth by taking a vow or a promise. But alas as

much as we make progress and as much as we strive toward that lofty goal none of

us fully masters the tongue. James tells us the tongue is an unruly member in our

bodies. No man can tame it, no man can master it. So what's today? I hear the

lofty standards of Christ and I look at this impossible standard of purity that

he demands. Lord I can't do this. We hear it. We hear the word of the law in our

ears and we see our failure. What do we do? We moan that, we decry it. Why? Because

we fall short of the goal. So what do we do then? Do we just sit here as failures

and losers? Let us confess our sin. Confess it today. We'll do that before you

come to the table. Agree with God what it is and agree with God what it deserves.

The bloody death and shed blood of Christ is a reminder of this. And then

let us repent of it. Hate it, forsake it, not justifying it, not

excusing it. Then church in faith let us go to the one who gave the law and ask

him for forgiveness for having broken his law. So we confess it and we can ask

him to forgive us and then we go to Christ and we see the one who perfectly

kept the law of God and we ask him in faith would you clothe us with

your righteousness. Mine will suffice and Jesus does and then let us rest in the

promise of God that he has forgiven all our trespasses, all of our violations of

his holy law in Christ Jesus. That's what the table of the word does. You and I

come today limping, halting, weak, maimed and we see Christ and God has made

promises and you're going to take them today. You're going to take in these

promises of God as the forgiven people of his kingdom. What a great God we serve.

What a glorious God. But if you're here today and you have never bowed the knee

to King Jesus, you've never confessed your sin and repented of it, you have

never bowed your knee to him asking him to be your Savior, you have never

submitted to him in the waters of baptism. Today I remind you there is a

Savior, there is a fountain. All the cleansing is deep and it is forever. If

you will come to Christ, he will receive you. If you want to know more what it

means to follow the Lord Jesus Christ or what it means to be a son or daughter of

God after the service, I want you to immediately come to me and this is the

greatest thing that we get to do as pastors and ministers is point people to

the risen Christ. Let us prepare our hearts for the table as we then prayer

and the deacons if you'd come forward.

Father, I thank you this morning that Lord God we have a witness of your holy

desire and your calling upon us Lord so that we're not