Psalm 15. Who will holy God accept? Who will holy God receive to
dwell with Him in His holy presence, in His holy heaven, in His holy
Mount Zion? David asked that question here
in Psalm 15. Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Now, is there anybody under the
sound of my voice that's interested in the answer to that question?
Are you interested in the answer to that question? God is holy. And He will only receive those
who are holy and righteous. And you and I standing here Each
of us, we all have to stand before holy God very soon. And each
of us have an eternity to spend somewhere. Either in the bliss
of heaven, in the communion with God, or in the terrors of the
just judgment of God in hell under the wrath and fury of God. So it would behoove us to know
what is the answer to this question. Who will holy God receive? Well, God Himself gives the answer.
And I want you to listen now. Will you just listen to this?
Pay close attention. Follow along with me in your
Bible and listen to what God says. Verse 2. He that walketh
uprightly, that means perfect heart, pure heart, perfect heart.
He that worketh righteousness, never breaking God's law, perfectly
righteous, thought, word and deed, always, continually. And speaketh the truth in his
heart, all men are grass, flesh is grass, God reigns, salvation
is entirely of the Lord. Speaks truth continually, always,
no lie, no deception. He that backbiteth not with his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach
against his neighbor. That neighbor who treats you
so badly. That neighbor who you can't even
take your eyes off of him without them stealing from you. That
neighbor. You do nothing. You backbite
him not. You don't work any evil toward
him. You don't take up any reproach against him. Perfectly. in whose
eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoreth them that fear
the Lord." Give no honor, no esteem. Bow not to the man who
hates God and who works wickedness, a vile man who hates the gospel
of God, but give honor to that man who is poor, who has nothing
in him, who doesn't appear to be anybody who is a nothing and
a nobody, but he fears the Lord. You honor him. Honor him. He
that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not, he that putteth
not out his money to usury, he won't take advantage of a poor
man, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He won't take a
bribe against those who are right and just and innocent. Now he
that doeth these things shall never be moved. Now if we summarize the answer
that God gave right here, this would be the summary of it. The
man who will dwell with God for all eternity in his holy presence
is he who loves the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with
all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind
and thy neighbor as thyself. As we've seen here, the first
three things are toward God, walking uprightly, working righteousness,
speaking truth in His heart. These are all in the heart toward
God. And the last things are toward our neighbor. What we
have before us here in this psalm is the law of God. That's what
this is. This is the law of God. In other
words, the man God will receive is the man who is perfectly holy
in heart, pure in his nature, and righteous in all his thoughts,
words, and deeds according to the righteousness of the law.
No sin in him whatsoever. He's as righteous and holy as
God is righteous and holy. That's who God will receive.
A perfect man. That's who he'll receive. Now
that first representative man, Adam, he disobeyed God. And when he disobeyed God, he
broke all these things that are spoken of here in this text.
He broke the whole law of God. He broke everything that's spoken
here toward God, and He broke all the law of God toward His
neighbor, towards man, because they'd all be born of Him. So
what He did affected all of them. He did it. He might as well have
been doing it to them. He did. He did it to them. By
His one transgression, that's what He did. And because His
death passed upon all of us, that is, we were born of His
corrupt seed, Romans 5.12 says, for that all have sinned. So
there's not any of us, no one of us born of Adam, no child
of God, no child of Adam who has ever, ever done these things. Not ever. Not ever. No, not one. Now that's so. That's the truth. But doesn't
God say here in this Psalm that for God to receive us, we must
do these things? Yes, that's what He says. For
Him to receive us, we must do these things. And we must do
these things perfectly, without any sin whatsoever. Who then
can be saved? That's the question. Who then
can be saved? The only one that has done all
of these things perfectly is the last Adam. He's the only
other man that ever walked this earth who was also a representative
man. First Adam broke all these things
when he transgressed. The last Adam, Christ Jesus,
the Son of God, God's own Son, the God-man, He's the one who's
done all these things perfectly. Christ represented His people.
those chosen of God, just like Adam represented his people.
Now you listen, I don't want you to ever get tired of hearing
this because we don't know this like we ought to know it. And
we don't enter into this like we ought to enter into it. We
won't until we come into God's presence and glory. But I want
you to get this. There is only two men that ever
walked this earth who are representative federal heads as Adam and as
Christ. Everybody else is a sinner. We're
a sinner by conception. In our nature, we're unholy,
we're defiled. That's what holiness has to do
with your nature, what you are in within. And we come forth,
therefore, and we sin. Righteousness has to do with
what we do. We're sinners. We're unholy by
nature, and therefore we're unrighteous in all our thoughts, words, and
deeds. So none of us can say we did these things, but yet
we've got to do them. We've got to be perfect. We've
got to be holy and righteous. But when Christ represented this
last Adam, who represented His people, when He did these things,
His people actually did these things. We did these things. We did these things in Him, our
representative. And not only that, but truly
the way He did these things, When He was just walking about
being Himself as He walked this earth, He did these things, but
where He truly did all of the things that are talked about
here is when He went to the cross. And when He took the sin of His
people, our sins for not doing these things, for not being this
and not doing these things, He took those sins and was made
the sin of His people. And when He did that, He was
walking uprightly in His heart, He was working righteousness
for His people. He was speaking the truth for
His people. He was doing good to His neighbor. He was doing these things when
He did that. And so by that, He put away,
He satisfied justice for His people and He put away all our
sin forever. I mean forever, past, present,
and future, all of it. So those called by God the Holy
Spirit and given faith to believe on Him have done these things
perfectly through Christ our representative, our head. We've
done them perfectly. Now indeed, those who are born
of the Spirit of God, because we have His Spirit within us
and because we've been made partakers of the divine nature, We delight
in the law of God, and we want to do all of these things, and
we want to do these things perfectly. But we don't pretend, and we
don't put on a show, and we don't act like or speak as if we've
ever done these things. When we speak of doing these
things, the way most men think that they've done these things
is, is they've done pretty good at it. But God doesn't regard
pretty good at having done these things. He only regards you have
done them or you haven't done them. It's just black and white.
There's no gray area. Either you've done them perfectly
or you haven't done them at all. Either you are perfectly holy
or you're not holy. Either you've been perfectly
righteous or you're not righteous at all. But our hope is this,
we don't pretend we've done these things, our hope is this, Christ
has walked honorably before God, He has magnified and honored
God's law, He has put away our sin, and we are complete in Him
and accepted of God through faith in Him. That's our hope. That
is our hope. The purpose of God in giving
us these things then, to show us these things, It's two-fold,
really, the purpose of God in giving us these things that are
said here in Psalm 15 and in giving us the whole law. Two-fold.
It's to show us our sin. And it's to show us how wonderful
and glorious and perfect Christ our Savior is. Because that's
what we see in them. We see we don't do these things,
but we see how perfectly Christ did these things. So tonight,
our focus is going to be the next thing that we have listed
here. And when we look at this next thing, we're going to see
how we fail in this, and we're going to see how perfectly Christ
has done this for His people. He's the fulfillment of this.
Now here's the next thing. Verse 4. God says, the man that
God will receive is he that will keep his word even when it means
his own hurt. Verse 4. The second thing there
in verse 4. He says, he that sweareth to
his own hurt and changeth not. Now this word swear, to swear,
it means to take a solemn oath, a solemn vow before God to do
such and such a thing. You with me? To take an oath,
to take a vow is to swear you're going to do such and such a thing
before God. I'll give you an example. Whenever
you go into a court of law and you stand, you're going to be
sworn in. so that you testify, you bear
witness in a court of law, you raise your hand to God and you
swear before God that you will tell the whole truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God, that's what you
say. That's taking an oath, that is
swearing. That's an oath. Our text says,
the man who shall dwell with God in His holy hill is he that
sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. That is, even though
he's entered into an oath, even though he's made a vow, even
though he's sworn. And it means that it's going
to cause him hurt. in some way. He doesn't go back
on His Word. He doesn't change. He keeps His
Word, even though it means He's going to be hurt because of this
thing that He vowed to do. Are you with me? You got that?
You understand that? Now such a one that does that,
he's perfectly faithful. He's somebody that fulfills his
word exactly. He's somebody who does all the
obligations that he's promised to do. He can be trusted. Whether
it means harm to him or loss to him or hurt to him, he will
do what he has promised he will do. He's one that can be counted
on. He's one you can trust because
he's honest, he's upright, he's faithful, he's just in all his
dealings with people. You know who that one is? That
one is Christ Jesus the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. He changes not. He is the one
that can be trusted. He's the one. Look at Deuteronomy
5. We're not the one. You and I are not the one that
can be trusted to do these things. Look at Deuteronomy 5. Now as
you're turning there, let me give you some things on this. When Moses delivered the commandments
of God at Mount Sinai to the children of Israel, the Lord
entered into a covenant of works with the children of Israel like
He had done with Adam in the garden. He entered into a covenant
of works with them. Now in the covenant of works,
a covenant of works, God says, if you will keep My commandments,
then I will bless you." It's an if-then agreement. It's an
if-then agreement. It's between God and men. It was between God and Adam.
And when He made it at Mount Sinai, it was between God and
the children of Israel. He said, if you do this, then
I will bless you. Now when God made that covenant
with them, they were sinners already. They were already sinners. They didn't become sinners by
breaking that covenant. They were sinners already. So
there was absolutely no way they were going to keep that covenant.
And God didn't expect them to. God knew what these people were.
He knew what was in their heart. He knew they weren't going to
keep that covenant. So why did God give it? Why did God give
the law then? He gave the law to reveal sin
to those that God would save among the children of Israel.
That true elect remnant among them. He gave the law to show
them their sin. And He gave the law to show the
glory of Christ. To show the glory of Christ.
Because by the law, God shows His people. This is what He shows
us. By the covenant of works, He shows us we don't want to
try to come to God in a covenant of works. The covenant of works
means we have to do the law. We have to keep it. We have works
we have to do in order to receive the blessings from God. We want
to come to God in what is called the everlasting covenant of grace. Because the everlasting covenant
of grace leaves nothing in my hand or your hand to do. God
does it all. And so He shows us by giving
the law, we don't want to come to God in a covenant of works.
Let me tell you something now. There's a lot of folks in this
world who think they want to come to God based on their works. You don't want to come to God
based on your works. We don't want to come to God
based on our works. We want to come to God resting,
not in our righteousness which is of the law, but in that righteousness
which is of God, that righteousness which Christ Jesus Himself is,
which He's worked out for His people. That's the covenant we
want to come in, the covenant of grace. Now, He gave it to
show us sin. We know what things soever the
law saith. It saith to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. No man can be justified by the
works of the law, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."
That's why He gave this. That's why He gave this covenant
of works. But watch this now. Notice. When God gave His commandments,
they asked for a mediator to go between them and God. Verse
26, Deuteronomy 5, 26. for who is there of all flesh
that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of
the midst of the fire as we have and lived? Go thou near, they
said this to Moses, go thou near and hear all that the Lord our
God shall say and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our
God shall speak unto thee. But notice this, they only wanted
a mediator who would go to God and find out what they were to
do and then come back and tell them what they were to do. They
only wanted a mediator to speak to God for them and then come
and tell them what He said for them to do. But they said of
themselves, we will do it. Look at verse 27 at the end.
And we will hear it and do it. You know what they did? Isn't
this what most people want? Most people want a Savior. They
don't want a Savior. They want Christ, a Christ, a
Jesus, a mediator who will merely tell them what God has told them
to do. be an example for them, to show
them a good example of how to do it, and then stand out of
the way and let them do it. That's what most men want. That's
what most vain men foolishly want. But that's not who our
mediator is. That's not who he is. But this
is what I want you to see. When they said we will do it,
you know what they did? They entered into a They made
an oath to God. They made a vow to God. They
entered into a covenant with God and said, we will do these
things. We will do what you've told us
to do. They swore, they vowed, they made an oath that they would
do what God commanded. Now concerning their need of
a mediator, this is what God said in verse 28, And the Lord
heard the voice of your words when you spake unto me. And the
Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this
people which they have spoken unto thee. They have well said
all that they have spoken. He said as far as needing a mediator,
they well spoke. But concerning their oath, and
concerning their promising that they themselves would keep the
law, verse 29 he says, Oh that there were such a heart in them.
that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always,
that it might be well with them and with their children forever."
See, God knew their heart. He knew they couldn't do this.
Now our text says, God will receive a man who sweareth to his own
hurt and changeth not. That's what He says He'll do.
Now you and I, no sinner, can of our flesh, of our will, of
our power, We can't enter into an oath with God and keep a covenant
with God. We can't do it. Here's what we'll
do. When the children of Israel entered into the land that God
delivered them into, He said this in Deuteronomy 6.14, He
said, You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the
people which are round about you, for the Lord thy God is
a jealous God among you, lest the anger of the Lord thy God
be kindled against thee and destroy thee from all the face of the
earth." Well, they go in there in the midst of that land, and
when it came to their business dealings, when it came to war
time, and it meant their own hurt if they didn't have these
men in agreement with them and helping them and on their side.
Then they changed. They went back on their word
that they made to God and they worshipped the gods of these
people to get along with them. Well, the Lord said they were
to enter into no covenants with the people of that land. Well,
they get in there, and they get into that land, and when it meant
suffering, it meant their hurt, whether it be for personal gain
or loss of personal gain, they went back on their oath, they
went back on their word, and they joined in covenants with
those people in that land. The Lord told them when they
went in there, they weren't to marry with any unbelievers in
that land, because He said, they will turn you and your sons and
your daughters from Me to worship their gods. But they got in that
land unit when it meant their own hurt in turning from the
lusts of their flesh and denying themselves the lusts of their
flesh, they went back on their oath, they married their sons
and their daughters, and they returned to their gods. These
are just a few examples, but what I'm trying to show you,
brethren, is you and I, and every sinner that's born of Adam, left
to ourselves, we will not keep an oath to God. Or men will do
the same thing that they did when it comes to our hurt. When it comes to our hurt, we
will change. We have no ability to do it.
And the heart of the flesh is so deceitful, brethren, is that
we will even do so believing in our vain hearts that we are
keeping our oath and honoring the law. We'll do it imagining
and pretending we are keeping our oath and honoring the law.
The heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? Our hearts deceive us. Our hearts
deceive us. We don't have to worry about
our hearts deceiving others. It's us and our own natural hearts
deceive. I want to show you now who it
is that kept the oath. Who it is that kept His covenant
even when it meant His own hurt. Before the foundation of the
world, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's own Son, entered into a
covenant with God the Father. God the Father promised Him some
things, and He promised God the Father some things. And He promised,
Christ promised to come to this earth to be born in the likeness
of all those the Father gave unto Him because it was a man
that sinned. It had to be a man that kept
the law. It was a man that sinned. It had to be a man that put away
the sin. And so He would come in the likeness of His people
and for sin, condemn sin in the flesh. He agreed to do this before
the foundation of the world. And it meant His own hurt. It
meant that He would come to where we are and He would be despised
and rejected of men. It meant His own hurt of living
amongst sinners who were nothing whatsoever like Him. And yet
when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son
and He came forth made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. Even though it was to His own
hurt, He kept His oath. Well, Christ promised to be the
spotless Lamb of God, and He walked this earth even when it
was to His own hurt, because no man had ever lived like Christ
lived. By nature, we don't like to be
around somebody holy. By nature, we don't like to be
around somebody that's more righteous than we are. We just don't like
it. And it meant his own hurt because he lived like no other
man had ever lived perfectly, righteously, and it made men
hate him all the more. That was to his own hurt. It
was to his own hurt. It meant his own hurt of bearing
the backbiting and the evil working and the taking of a reproach
of all his neighbors and everybody he came in contact with. And
yet, though it meant his own hurt, he didn't go back. He didn't
change his oath. He walked spotlessly before God
all the days that he walked this earth. He promised before the
foundation of the world that He would go to the cross and
He would bear in His own body all the sins of all the elect
of God from all the ages of time. That He would do that. Because
this is the thing, now listen, you've got to get this, He had
to do this in order for God to be just. He had to bear the sin
of his people for God to be just to punish him and the room of
his people. A man cannot be made sin by imputation. You can't
make a man sin by charging him with sin. God says, I forbid
that. If you'll read His Word, God forbids it. God made him
sin. And then God charged him with
that sin. And He had to do it in order for God to be just,
to forgive us His elect of our sin. God's law had to be honored
and magnified. It had to be, He will by no means
clear the guilty. And so, in order for God to be
just, to show this mercy to His people, that had to be done.
in order to declare that God is the one who does the justifying,
that He is the justifier, it had to be done. And it meant
His own hurt. It meant the hurt of being made
what He was not. He despised sin. He knew no sin. He's holy, spotless, undefiled,
separate from sinners. And He despised it. Sin's an
abomination to Christ. It meant the hurt of being that
despised thing He hated. It meant the hurt of of bearing
the bruises and wounds in his body, soul, and spirit from being
made sin for his people. It was because of sin that his
visage was so marred more than any man in his form, more than
the sons of men. Most of all, it meant the unimaginable
hurt of being forsaken of the God he loved. God is holy and He is just. Will
He just make me an exception when I come into His presence?
Will He just maybe look over some of my sin and receive me? Because after all, I've done
my best, I've tried, I've tried real hard to please God. Will
He receive me? No. If sin's found on you, He
will not receive you. And this is how we know that's
so. When he made him sin, his own
son, and sin was found on his own son, he would by no means
clear the guilty. He will not. He will not clear
at all. And so God, in justice, forsook
Him on that cross just like He would have forsaken us, brethren,
if Christ had not took our place and been faithful to keep His
oath to the Father, even though it meant His own hurt, and went
there and stood in our room instead. But He did. He did. Though it
meant His own hurt, Christ kept His oath. And God kept His oath. God the Father kept His oath
to God the Son. He raised Him from the dead like
He promised and gave Him all power in heaven and on earth
over all things. And right now He's ruling and
reigning in this earth, in heaven, in all deep places. He's God. And He's doing so not like He
did before. Before He did as God the Son. But now He does so as a man,
as the God-man, together. Our nature is in heaven as a
man, in the God-man, and He's the King of glory. He's ruling
everything for His people. He's the head of His church.
He's filling all and in all His people. And for those that He
bore this hurt, for those for whom He kept this oath and bore
this hurt, we're healed. We're made perfectly whole. We're
complete. Think of how complete it is.
If there's no charge that can be laid against you, If God has come and He's quickened
you and He's brought you to faith in Christ and He's made you a
new creature so that you're born of His incorruptible seed, the
seed of the last Adam, and His seed remains in you so that you
cannot sin. Not only that, but because He
put away your sin, no sin can be laid to your charge at all,
ever. That means, brethren, that's
complete. That's what it is to be complete.
We're complete in Christ. We've been made complete in Christ. It's sad sinners are being told
when they read a text like this in Psalm 15, and they're being
told, now you have to do all these things. This is all on
your shoulder that you have to do these things. And it's like
preachers don't want you to be comforted. God gave me the mandate
in Isaiah 40 and He said, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Tell
them their warfare is accomplished. That's what my mandate is from
God, to speak to His people. It's not to bring you in here
and to start speaking to you and say, now that's so, but now
except you do such and such and such that you can't be saved.
You know what that's doing? That's bringing you again into
bondage. That's bringing you back under the law and tangling
you up in the law and using it unlawfully. And all that'll do
is cause fear and torment because it'll turn your eyes from Christ
and it'll turn your eyes to you. And you'll be constantly struggling
to do those things that no man can do in his flesh. I want you
to seek Christ. I want you to rest in Christ.
I want you to be settled upon Christ and Him alone. I spent
the past five days with my grandmother Curtis. And I sat there and I
saw the utter worthlessness and the utter powerlessness and the
utter inability of our flesh. She was laying there in the bed,
90 years old. laying there in the bed, she
could barely take a breath. Fish out of water, that's how
she was breathing. She couldn't raise herself out
of the bed. She couldn't control her thoughts so as to speak coherently. She'd just start talking, rambling.
Her heart would jump up to 150 beats a minute, and then it dropped
down to 25 beats a minute. She couldn't control any of that.
She couldn't control one bit of that. It was entirely out
of her control. And I sat there, and I watched
her. I held her hand, and I sat there by her bed, and I thought,
how deceitful. How wicked is our human heart,
our natural heart, to convince us that we ought to put confidence
in our flesh, put confidence in our will, put confidence in
our strength, put confidence in our ability? If there was
anything that you would have told my grandmother that she
must do or could do by her fleshly strength to give herself, to
save herself from physical death, in her condition, right there
in that bed, it would have been utterly impossible for her to
do it. And the same inability in her
to do anything physically to save herself from physical death
is the same inability in all men to do anything spiritually
to save ourselves. The very same. If you and I and
every other sinner, the things required in this 15th Psalm are
as utterly impossible for us to do spiritually in perfection
to save ourselves as it would be for that 90-year-old woman
to get up out of the bed and do something to save herself
physically. All flesh is grass. And all the goodliness thereof
is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass." I watched, I sat there and looked at a rose
in those five days that is withered down to where it was just nothing. Nothing. But when you hear God
speak, this is what He said. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the Word of our God shall stand forever. Christ is
the Word. Christ came and fulfilled all
the Word. Everything this book says, Christ
fulfilled it. And He's the fulfillment of it.
And when Christ the Word enters in, that incorruptible seed enters
into the heart, it makes us anew. And Christ the Word speaks the
truth in our heart. It makes us honest. to confess
that we are grass, we are sin, we are nothing. He is the fulfillment
and the glory and the honor that God's been speaking of from the
beginning and brings us to lay all our hope in Him. When He
brings us there, brethren, He makes with us an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things insure, and He says to us in
our hearts, Christ, who would not turn from His oath, even
when it meant His own hurt, has fulfilled all things necessary
for me to receive you, child, in justice and righteousness
and holiness, without offending or breaking my holy character
when I hold her, and I receive you to myself, and I'll never
let you go for all eternity. You're mine. Christ the word
and those born of the word shall endure forever. Forever. I trust my grandmother's
hope was Christ alone, just like she said it was. I trust that. I don't doubt her, I trust that. And if so, at 3.30 this afternoon,
she saw him. perfectly conformed to His image.
She closed her eyes in that body of death and opened them perfectly. Uninterrupted, never-ending,
perfect communion with God with absolutely no trace whatsoever
of the curse of sin ever again. Now can you say that's all your
hope? You're coming to that place. We're coming to that place. We're
going to sit there. We're going to watch this flesh.
If we live to an old age, we're going to watch this flesh wrinkle
and wrinkle and wrinkle and just wither down to nothing. Can you imagine somebody walking
into your room when you're like that, saying, if you will, just
get up! Just do something now! God will
receive you! Walk uprightly! Work righteousness! Just speak the truth! Love your
neighbor now and God will receive you. You'd say, that's cruelty. Not only is it absolute ignorance,
it's cruelty. God is a loving God and He came
for His people and He did everything for His people. And He kept the
oath. And He's made us righteous. That's
what He's done. Alright, now let's turn one last
place. Matthew 5. Matthew 5, and I'll
hurry here. Matthew 5, and look at verse
33. Now this is what Christ says to you and I, brethren, who believe
the Gospel. He says, now that you've been
born of the Spirit of God, don't swear at all. Don't make any
oaths. Don't make any vows to God or
to men. Don't do it. But simply be true
to your word. Look at verse 33. Again, you've
heard that it has been said by them of old. This is Christ speaking.
You've heard it said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear
thyself. That means you've heard them
say, don't commit perjury. But shall perform unto the Lord
thine oath. But I say, until you swear not
at all. Don't even do it. Don't even do it. Now, that doesn't
include times when you have to go and you have to be sworn in
in a court of law. Do that which is honorable. Christ
said, honor those in authority and power. It means in matters
between men, in matters between you and God, don't swear. Don't
enter into a vow, an oath. Look, He said, don't swear by
heaven, for it's God's throne, nor by the earth, for it's His
footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great
God. Can you imagine if I said, I promise you I'm gonna do such
and such. I swear by Art's house and everything
Art owns, I'm gonna do it. Why would I do that? I don't
have any right to do that. I don't own that house. I don't
own anything He has. Well, that's what God is saying
right there. That's what Christ is saying. You don't own anything.
So don't swear by heaven, don't swear by His throne, don't swear
by Jerusalem. That all belongs to God. We got
nothing to swear by. And then He says, verse 36, neither
shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou can't make one hair
white or black. That means swearing on your life.
The believer's life is Christ. We don't own that. That's His. He gave it to us. So we can't
swear by that either. And not only that, we don't have
power to make one hair white or black. So it don't do us any
good to say what we're going to do. You're swearing and saying,
I'm sure I'm going to do it. But here's what He said. Let
your communication be yes. If it's supposed to be yes, let
it be yes. If it's supposed to be no, let it be no. For whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil. If you say yes, if you've
got to answer yes, say yes. If you've got to answer no, say
no. And always include this, if it's the Lord's will. Because
you don't have power to make your yes be yes, and you don't
have power to make your no be no. It's if it's the Lord's will.
And then keep whatever the word is you said. And when He says,
and anything more than this is evil. If we have to be entered
into a contract and have to be held by a contract and all these
things, that's evil. That's basically saying nobody
can be trusted. And that's how the world operates
now. It's come to that. Nobody can be trusted. But the
believer's word ought to be as good as an oath. Why? What is our constraint? Christ
who kept His oath. Christ who kept his oath. Our
surety who swore to his own hurt but gloriously fulfilled his
suretyship engagements even unto death is our constraint to keep
our word. to do as we've said. Paul said
that to the Corinthians. Let me show you that. 2 Corinthians
1.17. This will be our last text. We're
going to end here. 2 Corinthians 1.17. I just want to show you this.
This is our constraint. Christ is our constraint, to
be honest. Verse 17, he said, he was talking
about, he said before, I was going to come see you at Korah.
I was planning to come see you. And he said, when I therefore,
verse 17, when I therefore was thus minded, I use likeness,
or the things that I purpose. Do I purpose according to the
flesh, that with me there should be yes, yes, and nay, nay? But
as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay." And
here's what he's saying. He's saying, I wasn't light about
it. I wasn't flipping about it. I didn't say, oh yeah, I'm going
to come see you. He said, I didn't say, yes, indeed,
for sure, I'll be there to see you. He's saying, I didn't do
that according to the... that would have been doing it
according to the flesh. He said, what he's saying is,
I said, yes, if it's the Lord's will, I'll come. I'll come see
you." He said, I didn't use likeness. He said, I said, if it's the
Lord's will to bring me there, then I'd have a desire to be
there, yes, I'll be there. And here's why he said he did
that. Verse 19, For because the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who
was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus,
was not yea and nay, but in Him was yes. He said, this is my
constraint because everything that I'm telling you in this
gospel that Christ has accomplished, it's not maybe. It's not, well,
if you'll do so much this and that. It is yes, Christ has done
it. He has accomplished it. For all
the promises of God in Him are yes and in Him amen unto the
glory of God by us. Do you see that? That's our constraint.
Here's the thing about it, brethren. Somebody wrote, said this, let
me quote it. Whatever we may lose, if the honor of remaining
true to our word is not lost, all other losses are bearable.
But if we lose the honor of being true to our word, then we've
lost everything. You know how important truth
is? If it wasn't for truth, we wouldn't have salvation. That's
why this, of all things, to be constrained about, this is our
greatest constraint, to be true, to speak truth. Because truth
saved us. He saved us. So, rest in Christ
who kept his surety ship engagement and know you're complete in him.
Don't turn again to your law keeping. Don't turn again to
your works to try to gain acceptance with God. Indeed, honor Him and
try to walk honorably before Him, but don't look to yourself
for acceptance. Christ kept His oath and we're
accepted in Him. Swear not at all. Let your yes
be yes. If it's the Lord's will, I'll
be there. No, if it's the Lord's will, I will not do that. Let
your yes be yes and your no, no, according to the Lord's will.
And remember, our constraint is Christ. All the promises of
God in Christ are yes and amen to the glory of God. Amen.