Yes or No

[0:00] Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, you are the God of truth.! Heavenly Father, you are the God of truth.

[0:10] ! That we might be transformed to be more Christ-like in our truth-telling and in our bearing witness to the truth of the gospel.

[0:48] So, Lord, now meet with us and give us the humility that we need and the faith that we need to hear your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

[1:00] If you are able, please stand for the reading of God's word to honor God who has spoken to us in his word. Matthew 5, 33-37.

[1:15] 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. 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.

[1:36] And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no.

[1:47] Anything more than this comes from evil. This is God's holy and authoritative word. Please be seated. Just to remind you, we've been on a three-week hiatus from the book of Matthew, but we are returning to the series, and we are in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the largest block, or the first block, of Jesus' five major bodies of teaching in the book of Matthew.

[2:09] And this passage comes on the heels of Jesus' teaching about murder, and adultery, and divorce. And after talking about such heavy topics, the topic of breaking an oath or swearing falsely may seem, or in short, to summarize it, lying, might seem somewhat trivial to many of us.

[2:31] After all, don't we all take it for granted that whoever tells you that he never lies is lying? But this is no trivial topic.

[2:44] Revelation 21.8 tells us that as for all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. It is a matter of life and death, what we talk about.

[3:02] It's a matter of heaven and hell. Well, God takes lying very seriously because he describes himself as the God of truth in Isaiah 65.16. He says the sum of his word is truth in Psalm 119.160.

[3:17] He says he never lies in Titus 1.2. In contrast, John 8.55 calls the devil a liar and a father of lies.

[3:28] So people who lie are acting like the devil and not like God. They are betraying their true paternity. That they belong not to God the Father, but to the father of lies.

[3:45] That alone is enough reason to pay utmost attention to this passage. But there are still more reasons why Jesus' teaching on this subject matter is so important. A few weeks ago, when we were talking about verses 27 to 32, we addressed how pervasive adultery and divorce are in our world and in our society.

[4:04] And how they are eroding the foundation of our society by breaking and destroying marriages. And breaking families apart. That's all true.

[4:17] And that's still a very pervasive sin. But I would argue that breaking oaths and swearing falsely is an even more pervasive sin. Because if you think about it, every single instance of adultery, every single instance of divorce is an instance of oath-breaking.

[4:36] Because a man and a woman enter into the covenant of marriage by making vows to one another. In the name of God, I shone, take you, Hannah, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.

[5:04] This is my solemn vow. If everyone kept their marriage vows, there would be no adultery. There would be no divorce.

[5:17] I have a friend who is in the middle of pursuing a wife who is in ongoing adultery. And even though it is well past the point where most men would have abandoned the project altogether, he continues to pray for his wife and pursue reconciliation.

[5:42] Why? He often repeats the same words. I made a vow. I made a vow.

[5:55] It's not a coincidence that this passage comes immediately after the passage about divorce. But breaking oaths and swearing falsely goes far beyond marriage vows.

[6:08] How many witnesses have gone to court and have said with their right hand up in the air, I do solemnly swear that the testimony I shall give is the truth, to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

[6:24] Only afterward to perjure themselves and bear false witness against their neighbors so that the innocent are punished and the wicked are freed. How many healthcare professionals have taken the Hippocratic oath, swearing that they will do no harm, and yet have over-prescribed opioids, performed unnecessary procedures for profit?

[6:48] How many of them have played God in taking life and not merely saving life? How many of them have abused sedated patients who are entrusted to their care, as some of our own members have experienced?

[7:01] How many politicians and public servants, after taking an oath to uphold the Constitution and faithfully execute their duties, invoking the name of God, saying, so help me God, have violated those very commitments and been impeached or have been forced to resign?

[7:23] How many journalists have signed on to the journalist's creeds, affirming that the public journal is a public trust, and that they are trustees for the public and agree to pursue accuracy and fairness in all their work, only to spread willingly or unknowingly or unknowingly false or misleading information to the public?

[7:45] It's no wonder that in 2018, the Edelman Trust Barometer reported a record-breaking 37-point drop in public trust across all U.S. institutions. According to 2024 reports, 60% of people in the U.S.

[8:00] worry that journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations. 60%. 70% of them worry that government leaders are doing the same.

[8:16] Public trust has eroded so much that we now have dedicated fact-checkers, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Snopes, Reuters, FactCheck. But because these fact-checkers also tend to be biased and share misleading information, now we have fact-checkers of fact-checkers.

[8:39] Like Media Bias slash Fact Check, International Fact-Checking Network, AllSides.com, which I am sure does not include all sides. Yeah.

[8:51] In such an age, Jesus teaches us to be set apart from the world. He tells us to be simple truth-tellers who need no oaths.

[9:06] I'm going to talk about this important passage in three parts. First, keep your oath. Second, take no oath. And then third, remember God's oath.

[9:17] First, Jesus addresses the Old Testament command to keep the vows one makes to God in verse 33. 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.

[9:33] Many Old Testament passages deal with this subject of swearing by God's name. It's connected to the third of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. It says, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

[9:51] Jesus is here addressing two related issues. First is making a vow to God. Second is swearing an oath. We see the distinction of those two things, a vow and an oath, in Numbers chapter 30 verse 2.

[10:06] It says, If a man vows a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

[10:20] When you make a vow, you make a solemn promise to God saying that you will perform a certain action. When you take an oath, you're making a solemn promise or a statement to someone else, to another person, while invoking the name of God and to undergird your statement, to basically boost and bolster your statement.

[10:43] I vow to give half of my possessions to you, oh God. That's a vow. You're promising to God something that you will do. When your professor is questioning the authenticity of your paper, and then you say, I swear to God that I wrote this paper and not ChatGPT.

[11:02] And if that's not true, then I can fail all my classes. That's swearing an oath, invoking the name of God to prove the veracity of a statement that you are making.

[11:15] So technically, these two things are distinct, swearing an oath and making a vow. However, Jesus is addressing both of those things because they're intimately related and at the heart of it, they're the same. The Old Testament repeatedly taught that one must pay what one vowed.

[11:32] It says, it is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay, Ecclesiastes 5, 4 to 6. In fact, Deuteronomy 23, 21 to 23 says, that the Lord your God will surely require the vow of you and you will be guilty of sin.

[11:50] Why does God take oaths so seriously? Isaiah 65, 16 specifically commands us only to swear by the name of God, by the God of truth because his name, he's the unchanging God, he's the eternal God, he's the God who is truth itself and therefore his name is the only one that can really undergird an oath.

[12:15] So Leviticus 19, 12 says, you shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. To take an oath in God's name and to not keep it is to declare by your actions that God is a liar.

[12:36] To make an oath and to not keep it is to declare by your actions that God does not keep his promises, that God's name, that his reputation is now marred by that sin.

[12:47] And that's why the Old Testament saints took swearing and keeping their vows so seriously. Psalm 15, 4, I've mentioned this in Ecclesiastes, describes the person who walks blamelessly before God as one who swears to his own hurt and does not change.

[13:07] Meaning that this person, a godly person, a righteous person would rather suffer personal loss than break his word. not keep his word.

[13:19] How many people like that do you know in this day and age? More often people break their promises and say, oh, I'm sorry. My circumstances changed.

[13:33] And by those statements, we betray the reality that our words are only as good as our uncontrollable, ever-changing circumstances. But God delights in the person who swears to his own hurt and does not change.

[13:51] And for that reason, it's also a grave mistake and a sin to swear and to take an oath rashly in a circumstance where you should not be taking an oath.

[14:03] The Bible includes several cautionary tales for us, perhaps most notoriously in Judges 11, 30 to 39. Jephthah, a judge, an Israeli judge, makes a vow to the Lord saying, if you help me defeat the Ammonites, you know, when I return home to celebrate, whatever comes out the door of my house first, I will offer to you as a burnt offering.

[14:25] Man, I don't know what the guy was thinking. What was he expecting, I wonder, to come out of his house to greet him? I hope he had a dog. You know, I'm sorry if you love dogs because what happened is much, much worse.

[14:40] Out comes his daughter, his only daughter, his only child, a virgin maiden. And this guy, he's the judge of Israel, being the proud man that he is and being a bad father that he is, actually sacrifices her.

[15:01] If you break the oath, you break the third commandment. If you keep the oath, you break the sixth commandment. He should have never put himself in that situation.

[15:15] In Joshua 9, the Israelites bind themselves with an oath not to go war against the Gibeonites, not knowing that Gibeonites are actually a neighboring nation in the land of Canaan that God has commanded them to drive out of Canaan.

[15:36] So now, if they keep the oath that they made, they sin, break the commandment of God. If they break the oath, they also sin. And break the commandment of God.

[15:49] A lose-lose situation that they should have never been in if they had not made a rash vow. 1 Samuel 14, 24-30, King Saul is leading the Israelites in charge against the Philistines.

[16:03] And his son, Jonathan, leads the charge and wins the dim, the lone bright spot in their long war. It was Jonathan's victory over these Philistines. But Saul, in his overzealousness and foolishness, makes a vow saying, anyone who eats anything before I avenge myself on my enemies shall die.

[16:25] And they are surrounded by the spoils from their enemy that they could feast upon and to strengthen themselves and to go on to war. Honey is dripping out of trees and they're just, everybody's just staring and not eating.

[16:36] And they are faint and they are unable to win a great victory because of that rash vow. And not only that, Jonathan is unaware that his dad has made such a vow and then he takes some honey and eats it so that Saul nearly kills him until it says in 1 Samuel 14, 45, that the people of Israel ransomed Jonathan with their own oath saying, as the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground for he has worked with God this day.

[17:09] It was an oath that Saul should have never taken. All that to say, Old Testament takes taking oaths very seriously and it does not prohibit oath taking but it does demand oath keeping once it's taken.

[17:25] Why then does Jesus command us in the following verses not to take an oath at all? That's my second point. Take no oath. Jesus once again contrasts his own teaching from that of the traditional Jewish understanding of God's word.

[17:43] In verses 33 to 34, 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. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all.

[17:59] Jesus is again positioning himself as the divine law giver because after all, who can give such a definitive, authoritative take on the law of God overturning millennia of legal precedents and theological tradition.

[18:17] Remember in chapter 5, verse 17 to 20, Jesus gave a definitive judgment of the Old Testament law. He said, I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

[18:33] And then, as we've been in, as we've been seeing in the following six passages after that, Jesus gives a series of six contrasts. You have heard that it was said to the people of old but I say to you, contrasts, six illustrations to show the inadequate righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes and to show the true righteousness that God demands that exceeds that of the Pharisees and the scribes.

[18:58] But this still raises the question, doesn't God actually command his people to take an oath in the Old Testament?

[19:10] He does. In Exodus 20 to 11, in Numbers 5, 19 to 22, he commands his people to take oaths in certain situations.

[19:22] So then, isn't Jesus contradicting and abolishing the law of God? I don't think that is the case. The situation is similar to the preceding passage about divorce in verses 31 and 32.

[19:35] God did make a provision in the scriptures for divorce in the Old Testament but as Jesus teaches later on in Matthew 19, verse 8, this was a concession to the people's hardness of heart.

[19:48] It was not God's original idea for people to divorce. God's standard, his ideal, is that a man and a woman marry and they're married for life until death do them part.

[19:59] Divorce is only a temporary provision for a broken and fallen world. It's intended to mitigate human evil, to constrain human evil, not to establish the divine standard.

[20:14] In our country, disclosing classified information is illegal if you work for the federal government. however, at the same time, there is the Whistleblower Protection Act which allows federal government employees to disclose classified information as long as it is intended to expose government corruption.

[20:39] Two seemingly contradictory laws exist. One says you cannot disclose classified information, one says you can and should disclose classified information. why do those laws exist?

[20:50] Not because it's good or it's right that you should be leaking classified information, but because it's taking into account the fact that humans are fallen and some officials are corrupted and so there needs to be some provision to account for that reality.

[21:07] Similarly, oaths were instituted by God to contain and minimize the damage done by human failure and lies. humans are deceptive and untrustworthy so often that it was necessary to create the oath system to ensure that in certain very dire grave circumstances people tell the truth.

[21:36] Vows and oaths therefore are concessions to the hardness of the human art not commands or the ideals that capture God's ultimate standard. So Jesus is here bringing us back to God's original ultimate standard in verses 34 to 37.

[21:54] 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 and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black.

[22:10] Let what you say be simply yes or no anything more than this comes from evil. Because the Jews of Jesus' day took rightly took oaths very seriously they were hesitant to invoke God's name directly when they were making vows.

[22:28] However they wrongly believed that by taking oaths by sacred things that are not quite as sacred as the name of God they could get themselves off the hook without consequence from oaths that they have made.

[22:47] I swear by heaven itself that this snake oil that I'm selling to you will heal you of all your diseases because it was blessed by the priest.

[23:03] Some faithful well-meaning layperson buys the snake oil applies it and it does nothing. and he comes back to the religious leader and says you swore by God's name that this thing works and then he says oh no you see I did not swear by God's name.

[23:32] Actually if you might recall accurately I swore by heaven which is not the same thing as swearing by God's name. Same difference.

[23:46] No, no, no you see I'm the teacher of the law and there's a very big difference. Heaven is part of God's creation. God is the creator. Have you ever heard of the creator creature distinction?

[23:59] No, no, no, no, no. That's heresy that's blasphemy. Get out of here you have no case to make against me. Jesus gives an example of this kind of specious rationalization by the religious leaders in Matthew 23 16 to 17.

[24:19] He says woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple it is nothing but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple he is bound by his oath.

[24:32] You blind fools for which is greater the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred. It's really no different from the social swearing that people engage in nowadays.

[24:46] If you go hang out at the playground where the kids are playing you can overhear things like this. I swear that I have that super rare Pokemon card.

[24:58] I swear I can do a cartwheel. I'm just not going to do it right now. because I'm injured. And then when they're exposed to be a fraud they say I bet you didn't know that I had my fingers crossed in the back.

[25:17] It doesn't really work. It's not binding. That's essentially what these religious leaders were doing. The Jews were swearing by heaven by Jerusalem and by their own head thinking that they could break these oaths with indemnity while still using them to manipulate people into believing them and trusting them and doing what they want them to do.

[25:44] And Jesus tells them no heaven is the throne of God. And if you swear by heaven you swear by heaven and the God who sits on his throne. if you swear by the earth it is God's footstool as it says in Isaiah and you swear by the footstool and the one who rests his foot on it.

[26:06] If you swear by Jerusalem it is the city of the great king the Lord's anointed and you swear by the great city and the king the anointed and the Lord in whose name he was anointed.

[26:17] in fact don't even swear by your head. You know people think with my own head at least I have responsibility for this I can swear by my own head and Jesus says no you cannot even make one strand of hair white or black.

[26:38] Dyeing doesn't count. Yes. You think you're responsible for your own head no you are not. God is responsible for your life. God is responsible for your head.

[26:50] God is the one who has every hair on your head numbered and when you swear by your own head you swear by your head and the God who makes it and sustains it. In other words don't think that you could wiggle your way out of the promises you make and the oaths you make.

[27:10] Keep every oath you make. Better yet as Jesus says in verse 37 let what you say be simply yes or no anything more than this comes from evil.

[27:25] Vows and oaths like I said earlier are concessions to the hardness of the human heart. If we if all of humanity practiced transparency and simple honesty in all of our speech and dealings then vows and oaths would immediately become obsolete.

[27:46] That is God's ultimate standard. This is why I think Jesus' teaching here applies far widely to all forms of deception and manipulation because why do we swear falsely?

[28:01] Why do we make promises and vows and then break them? Why do we exaggerate and embellish our stories? Why do we flatter people and say things we don't really mean to gain their confidence and trust and favor?

[28:15] Why do we betray people who have entrusted to us their confidence and secrets? Why do we tell half-truths or half-truth told as a whole truth is a whole lie?

[28:31] We do it all to gain a selfish advantage. To get people to believe us. to get people to like us and not them.

[28:43] To get people to do what we want them to do. And all of this God says is evil in his eyes. Instead be simple truth tellers who need no oath to verify his or her speech.

[29:02] Let what you say be simply yes or no. this raises two questions that require some qualification. First question is there ever a situation where it is okay not to be fully factual?

[29:19] Second is there ever a situation where it is okay to take an oath say in the courtroom? First is there ever a situation where it is okay not to be fully factual?

[29:32] I think the Bible demands that we answer yes to that question. Because there are numerous examples in scripture of godly saints being commended for misleading speech. The Hebrew midwives in Exodus chapter 1 misled Pharaoh.

[29:49] The Pharaoh commands them to kill every Jewish son that is born. And they're like oh no no no we can't why aren't you guys killing them? And they're like oh no no these Jewish women are so vigorous they give birth before we can get there to do anything about it.

[30:03] you know and it says that God blessed them for that and gave them their own families because they feared God.

[30:17] Rahab the prostitute shelters and hides the Israeli spies in Jericho and deceives the king of Jericho about their whereabouts in Joshua chapter 2 verses 1 to 7. you might wonder well God doesn't command that does he?

[30:32] Was that still the wrong thing to do? No because it says in Hebrews 11 31 it commands her for that very act and calls her a woman of faith. There are contexts During the conquest of Canaan when God orders an ambush which is a form of military deception jail deceives the Canaanite general Sisera in judges God develops a cover story for prophet Samuel to tell King Saul because he knows that King Saul is going to try to kill him if he knows that Samuel is going to anoint David as king to replace him.

[31:07] David uses deception on a number of occasions to protect himself from enemies who are trying to kill him. God himself speaks of deceiving false prophets in Ezekiel 14 verse 9 he says he sends a lying spirit so that false prophets prophets side lies in 1 Kings 22 19 to 23 and finally in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 11 God says that he sends the wicked who refuse to love the truth and so be saved a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false so evidently obeying God's commandment not to lie is not merely about being factually accurate in this regard God clearly deals with the wicked differently than he deals with the righteous and sometimes he wants the righteous people to mislead the unrighteous to thwart their evil but isn't that a double standard how is that okay this is not a double standard because

[32:14] God is the standard of truth God is the Lord God declares I the Lord speak the truth I declare what is right God says God is the ultimate standard and arbiter of truth he is the ultimate source and the measure of truth because he is the creator and the Lord of this universe we do not measure God according to the abstract truth no God is the truth by which we measure all other claims to truth this is why Bible declares over and over again that all of God's word is truth and all of God's deeds are in accordance with the truth of who he is so God's concern with lying is not merely about making sure that we say what is factually accurate but making sure that we live and speak and do everything in accordance with God who is the truth so it says in 1

[33:18] John 1 verse 6 if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth this is why in some situations even truth telling can be sinful 1 Samuel 22 7 to 10 Doeg the Edomite sees David being provided for in the temple by the priest and later when King Saul is interrogating his servants nobody speaks to betray David except for Doeg the Edomite he tells the king the whole truth so that he can find out where David is and pursue him and that is not portrayed as a godly thing it is sin it is portrayed in that part of scripture as a wicked thing why because he was going against the God of truth he's going against the will of God so what is of the essence here is not merely accurate factual reporting but what is it that is in your heart for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks out of the heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false witness slander what matters what

[34:45] God's after is your heart where's your heart in your truth telling one can say something that is 100% factually accurate yet be false to the truth because of his evil intent you can be 100% factually accurate about what you tell your friend about another friend and yet be 100% in the wrong because of your evil intent William Blake writes in his poem Auguries of Innocence a truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent so here are the heart searching questions that you ought to be asking yourself that we all ought to ask ourselves when you're trying to figure out am I justified in this scenario to not tell the whole truth ask yourself does your motivation stem from the fear of

[35:47] God or the fear of man if you're doing it not to please God but to please men you're doing the wrong thing Proverbs 8 13 teaches us that the cure for perverted speech which God hates is the fear of the Lord humility here's another question we can ask ourselves does it stem from the love of God and the love of neighbor I think it's important to keep those two things hand in hand because sometimes I think we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we're actually trying to love our neighbor when really it goes against God's standard revealed in his word and we're doing it out of fear of man fear of God and the love of neighbor love of God and the love of neighbor is that at the root of what you're trying to do or is it coming out of the hatred of your neighbor a classic example of this dilemma is found in Corrie

[36:47] Ten Boom's autobiography Hiding Place beautiful biography I encourage you all to read it Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsy Ten Boom were sisters members of a Dutch Christian family that boldly sheltered Jewish refugees during the Holocaust when they were fleeing from Nazi Germany and when the German Gestapo came to their house and asked are you sheltering any Jews Corrie Ten Boom would just lie and say no we're not sheltering any Jews because she thought that that was okay to do I think Corrie Ten Boom is right in that situation Betsy Ten Boom however was a very principled and sincere woman Corrie was too but Betsy had the conviction and made a resolution many years ago that she would never tell a lie when the Corrie wasn't home Betsy was the one who was answering the question are you sheltering any Jews in your house she said yes sir we are they're hiding underneath the table

[37:51] I don't think she's being legalistic in this situation because I think she was utterly sincere she was mistaken but she was utterly sincere and I don't want to condemn her because I don't know how many of us would have the courage to shelter Jews in a situation like that first of and how many of us out of that group would have the courage not only to shelter the Jews but have the guts to tell them yes I'm hiding the Jews knowing that they're going to send you to the extermination camp next so I'm not condemning her and I think God knew her sincerity because I think God honors her by delivering them from that pickle because that German soldier is just flabbergasted Like what?

[38:44] He thinks oh you're pulling my leg! He thinks she's being sarcastic! He's like you're making a mockery of me! So he says he thinks!

[38:56] He'll be humiliated and made a fool of if he searches underneath the table which had the trap door underneath where the chamber that they were hiding so he searches the entire house but not there because that would be too embarrassing to do so they survive sometimes when you make a mistake if you are sincere I think God still delivers you and helps you all that to say there are situations where it is okay not to be 100% factually accurate but whether it's okay for you to do that or not depends on where your heart is before God second is there ever a situation where it is okay to take an oath let's say in the courtroom I believe the biblical answer to that question also is yes on several occasions in his letters the apostle Paul takes an oath and puts the recipients of his letter under oath does this in

[40:00] Romans 9 1 2 Corinthians 123 Galatians 120 1 Thessalonians 5 27 not only that in Revelation 10 5 to 7 a mighty angel of God raises his right hand to heaven and swears by him who lives forever and ever and created heaven and the earth namely by God an angel does that even more decisively Jesus himself is placed under oath by the high priest Caiaphas in Matthew 26 verses 63 64 the priest says to Jesus I adjure you by the living God that's an oath formula tell us if you are the Christ the son of God and in that situation Jesus doesn't say oh no no no that's bad you should not be doing that I cannot take an oath up to that point Jesus was completely silent he would not answer their false accusations But after being put under oath by God's name Jesus finally answers the high priest and he says you have said so but

[41:00] I tell you from now on you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of God right hand of power and coming on the cloud of heaven so Jesus takes an oath this is why I think that Quakers and Mennonites and Amish and brethren who are Christian brothers and sisters!

[41:23] circumstance take an oath not even in court I think they're mistaken in the same way that even though in God's standard ideal we should never divorce 1 Corinthians 7 makes provision for divorce because what are you going to do when your unbelieving spouse insists on it and abandons you and separates from you and divorces you likewise here should we on our own accord make oath and take oath no I don't think that's what we should do but I do believe that there are circumstances in situations like when you're in court where you're solemnly adjured to tell the truth I do think it's okay and it's not sinful for us to be placed under oath that brings me to my final point remember God's oath God himself takes an oath when he enters into covenant!

[42:14] with his people not because he needs to he doesn't need to place himself under oath because God never lies we have no reason to distrust God at all and yet God still takes an oath to accommodate our sinfulness and unbelief because we're so mistrusting of people and of God even because we lie to each other all the time God places himself under oath in Psalm 110 verse 4 this is a prophecy concerning the Messiah the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek again he says of David in Psalm 89 and Psalm 132 I have made a covenant with my chosen one I have sworn to David my servant what did he promise to David again that his offspring the messianic king!

[43:07] would reign on from sacrificing his only son Isaac God says to him after supplying a ram as a substitute sacrifice by myself I have sworn declares the Lord because you have done this and have not withheld your son your only son I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as a sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the and who is the offspring through whom the enemies of God will be defeated and the nations of the earth will be blessed again the answer is Jesus Christ our Lord he's the one who fulfills every single one of the oaths that God take in entering into covenant with his people so he says in Hebrews 6 13 to 20 for when

[44:09] God made a promise to Abraham since he had no one greater by whom to swear he swore by himself saying surely I will bless you and multiply you and thus Abraham having patiently waited obtained the promise for people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation 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 by two unchangeable things God's purpose because he never lies he never changes his mind in that sense his ultimate will and an oath which is also an unchangeable thing by two unchangeable things

[45:13] God has made his promise to us so that we can know and be assured without a shadow of doubt that God keeps all of his promises to us have you sinned and lied to others I have have you taken an oath and have you broken it have you made a vow that you have not kept I made a marriage vow to love and cherish my wife for the rest of my life until death do us part have I always cherished her no

[46:16] I've taken her for granted sometimes! put in my life I made a promise to continually seek the gifts of the spirit that I might serve God's people not in the energy of the flesh but in the power of the Holy spirit to carry out the ministry without fear of man have I had fear of man yes I have have

[47:21] I been self suspicious of myself maybe not as often as I should and too often suspicious of others motives not for the lack of trying but I have broken vows I have made to God and here is the good news that God's promises to us does not depend on us keeping the end of our bargain but it depends entirely God keeping the end of his bargain that's why he says in 2nd Corinthians 1 20 for all the promises of

[48:24] God find their yes in Jesus that is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory we have lied we have broken our vows we have sworn falsely and yet God who never swears falsely God who never lies God whose word is truth whose words never fall to the ground has kept every last one of his promises to us in sending Jesus Christ as our Messiah to redeem us from our sins to pay the penalty for all of our perjury and lies on that cross so that we can be forgiven freed so that we can in

[49:28] Jesus who said in John 14 6 I am the way the truth and the life Jesus is the truth that saves us and it's only when we find ourselves in him the truth of God that we become increasingly like him the more Christ like you become the more truthful you will become so I hope you are encouraged by the promises of God that holds you and sustains you when your promises fail let's pray heavenly father thank you for being the

[50:41] God who keeps his promises thank you that even though we sin against you you have been faithful to send your only son Jesus to redeem us from our sins thank you for his life his death his resurrection which confirms to us that your word is true make us truth tellers God make us truth tellers who are so reliable and honest in all of our dealings in all of our speech that when we share with them the word of truth the gospel of our salvation that they would listen that they take our word seriously in

[52:09] Jesus name we pray amen amen voy