Matthew chapter 5. Now, the Lord
just dealt with the subject of divorce. Everything is in context. And that little article by Wycliffe in our bulletin, read
that carefully. It's very, very, very informative,
very needful. about reading the Word of God
and reading it in context. The Lord just dealt with the
subject of divorce. That's when men and women stand
before others and make a vow, an oath. And the man stands up
and says, Do you take before God, before men and others? And they make their vows. Well,
look at what our Lord says here in verses 33-37, again, you've
heard that it's been said by them of old time, thou shalt
not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath. I say unto you, swear not at
all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth,
for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, where it is the
city of the great king, neither shalt thou swear by thy head,
because thou canst not make one hair white or black. Let your
communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, or whatsoever is more than
these cometh of evil." Oaths, swearing, cursing, what we think
of swearing and cursing, mostly, you know, four-letter words and
evil talk. The Lord is talking about using
His name in any way. Things of heaven, eternal things,
using them. This is a serious matter. It
comes of an evil heart. It can reveal the state of the
heart. We're going to see this. Out
of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And if there's
no fear of God in the heart, then this thing will just be
spouting off anything, won't it? Fearlessness. The Lord said things like this.
He said, A man shall be held accountable for every idle word. That's how serious it is. He
said, By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words
condemned. Our words needn't be few then,
don't they? And they better be right. And they better be true. Now, in this day, in the very
last of the last days, this is more needful than ever, what
our Lord is saying here. Because the less of God's Word
that is known, that is preached, that is used, the more man's
thoughts, opinions, and words, and the more free people are
to say anything they want to. The most serious abuse of using
holy things is the use the profanation, the taking of God's name in vain. Exodus 20. And you know, this
modern generation, the religious people anyway, would like to
see the Ten Commandments put everywhere. It wouldn't make
any difference would it? Our Lord said, the law is
written on the hearts. How men use God's name today tells me there's no fear of God
before their eyes. In Exodus 20, you know this,
but here's what it says in verse 7, Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain. That means to use his
name in any way that is not glorifying and honoring to him. David said this on behalf of
his people. He said, Unite our hearts to
fear thy name. Those that really know the Lord
will not use that holy name. They certainly don't ever use
it lightly or carelessly. They're afraid to take it upon
their mouths. They don't use the Lord's name
in vain. And any use of that name which is above every name
is taking it in vain. Any use other than for His honor
and glory and awe and respect and fear and reverence is taking
His name in vain. And the Lord said He will not
hold them guiltless. Don't use the Lord's name in
vain. And you know, people in the South for years, Lordy, Lord
have mercy on them. That's not just ignorance. That's
error. That's bad, bad. And I'm so thankful
that I don't hear that from your mouths, but you hear it a lot,
don't you? Now, he's talking about using God's name, invoking
God's name to make something appear to be true. Swearing, forswearing thyself.
Look at it. Thou shalt not forswear thyself. Do you swear? And in our court
system today, I've never been called into court to as a witness
that this is what you do. If any of you have done this,
I haven't done it. I'm not sure what I would do
now in light of what this Lord is saying here, but here's what
they do. They bring a Bible out and what hypocrisy that is. They put it in front of everybody
who could care less about this book. So, see, their swearing
means nothing. It means nothing. But before
men, it seems to make it solemn, seems to make it so. You're swearing
under penalty of perjury, and you've got your hand on the Bible.
But do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help me God? I don't know where that came
from. I don't know where that came from. But the Lord is telling
us here, that's evil. Didn't it? And I don't know what
I would do. I just don't know what I would do. It might be
a good testimony to say, hold on, Your Honor. Your Honor, I just can't do that. Because Christ said not to. I don't know. I don't know what
I'd do. I hope I would say something
like that. But here's what I'm going to do, Lord, Your Honor. I'm going to tell the truth.
I'm going to tell you what I saw. But, you know, it means nothing.
It means nothing what men's swearing and using God's name or swearing
thyself and so forth. However, look with me at, well,
let's see, I wrote down several of them. Look at Psalm 63. In the Old Testament, the Lord
did tell His people, His people, swear, that is, use His name,
Psalm 63, to validate what they were doing
and to tell whose name they were doing what they were doing and
saying what they were saying. Because back then, the name Jehovah
was so few using the name Jehovah. When you said Jehovah, oh, you're
a Jew. And it bore reproach and all. But look at Psalm 63, 11.
The king shall rejoice in God. Everyone that sweareth by him
shall glory. The mouth of them that speak
lies shall be stopped. Now, that was the Old Testament.
Now, this is the New. And now we're in the very last
of the last days, and our Lord is dealing with this, I believe. But now the name of God is used
in a wholesale manner. Now the name of Jehovah, you've
got people going to your door claiming to be Jehovah's Witnesses.
And the use of Jesus' name and so on and so forth is so widespread. Now here's what the Lord is saying
in verse 34. Swear not at all. Swear not at
all if you're truthful. You need not invoke heaven, you
need not invoke some oath, take some oath. Swear? Not at all. Don't swear by heaven. And this is not funny, really,
but where do these things come from that we say, well, my stars? Well, heaven's to Betsy. Honestly,
where do these things come from? Subtle blasphemy. Verse 35, not by earth, don't
swear by earth, we'll land safe. Stop and think about it. We'll
land safe, we'll land the Goshen. That's his footstool. Verse 35,
neither by Jerusalem, it's the city of the great king, not the
Lord. dealing with his disciples primarily. That's who he's talking to. The
Pharisees had them fooled and had everybody else fooled. And
they used the law and misused the law. They altered it on every
hand to suit their whims, and they would take oaths and so
forth. And they, to appear to be God-fearing men, they wouldn't
use God's name. believe the third commandment
and they wouldn't use God's name. But they would swear by heaven
or earth or Jerusalem. They really would. To give some
kind of credence to what they were saying. To give some kind
of credibility to what they were saying. But our Lord says, don't swear
at all. If you're honest, you don't need
to. Not by your head. Well, this
is it. Well, upon my word. It's amazing, isn't it, how things
have crept into our vocabulary. Don't make a vain oath that we're
not capable of keeping. And David said, all men are liars.
I said in my haste, all men are liars. He said in verse 37, let
your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay. Whatsoever more than these cometh
of evil." Are you telling the truth? I swear I am. I swear
to God I am. Boy, if a man says that, he's
probably lying. Just say yes. Our Lord, now He is the truth.
How would He say things? Barely, barely. I say unto you. I say unto you, verily, yes,
yes. And like we began in the context of the Lord talking about
marriage and divorce, and this is why I remember my father saying
years ago, I don't know why preachers, how preachers, when preachers
ever got in the business of marrying people. You don't see it in the
Scripture. It's not commanded. It's not
told us to do that. Because what you're doing is standing up before
God and men, and people are taking oaths before God, and you're
a part of it. I do remember you saying this.
You say a lot of things you might deny now. But I'm listening to
the old tapes. But he said, Oftentimes, I want
to stand there and two people, and sometimes you're forced to
marry people that you don't want to marry, a believer and unbeliever,
two unbelievers. I personally have tried to make
it a habit of not doing that at all, but marrying people from
this church, their children. He said this, he said, they stand
before me and they're going to make all these oaths. And he
wants to stop and say, no, you don't mean a word of that. How
long is this going to last? Say I didn't. Say I didn't. But now the marriage vows, and
I don't know where those came from either, but the marriage
vows taken between two believers, that's very serious. And it can
be a wonderful thing. It can be a wonderful thing. the marriage of Cody and Wynna's
son, Austin, with Sarah. And I was greatly blessed by
it. The Lord blessed Brother Todd to preach the truth, preach
the gospel. And that's what we endeavor to
do when there's two believers standing there making these vows. Some of you stood here, and it
was a great blessing. And I'd look into your faces,
And I was talking about Christ and what this meant, you know,
Christ and His church. You were entering into this marriage
very solemnly, very seriously. And God helping you, you really
meant it. Oh, I do. I take this woman to
be my lawfully, in the eyes of God, my wedded wife. I do. By
His grace, I will stay with her. But by His grace. But nevertheless,
it's a serious thing, isn't it? Seriously, and for you young
people, this is very needful, isn't it? Do not enter into this
state of marriage. Don't even think about it. It's
such a serious matter before God. And don't be hasty to do
it, and don't be hasty to utter anything before our God. Now, here's something. much deeper
than I think the Lord is teaching us here. In this day, in the
last of the last days, so little of God's Word is being used,
the Lord came to magnify the Word and make it honorable. God hath magnified His Word even
above His name. And in a day when God's Word
is so So little use, so set aside. Look at Mark 7. This really struck
me the first time I read this. And where it is in Mark 7 stuck
with me. Because the Lord said it four times in Mark 7. Look at it. He said it four times
for emphasis. Now this is what's going on,
then and now. In verse 7, Mark 7, verse 7,
in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men. Verse 8, laying aside the commandment
of God to hold the tradition of men. Verse 9, you reject the
commandment of God to keep your own tradition. Verse 13, make
the Word of God of no effect through your tradition. And it's worse now than ever. That's the rule now. It's not
the exception. In a day when so little of God's
Word is used, when men have turned away their ears from the truth,
they've turned to fables and they believe everything but the
Word of God. Christ came to magnify the law,
the Word, and make it honorable. Make it honorable. And in a day
when men and women just cast it aside, or they've twisted
it, they've corrupted it, they've abused it, they've translated
it away, they're just doing anything they want to with it, so there's
a total disregard for God's Word. Nobody even knows what God's
Word is saying anymore. There are so many perversions
of it. Do they? They don't even know. Here's what the Bible says. Well,
they may be holding in their lap something that doesn't even
resemble the Word of God. It's been so corrupted. The Lord came to magnify the
Law, magnify the Law, to blow it up, to show us what it said
and make it honorable. The more God's Word is magnified,
the more error will be exposed. You'll see the error of what's
going on. The more God's Word is preached, The more error you'll see, you'll
see, the more error, the less God's Word is used and preached
and heard, the more error will be magnified and more error will
be blatant and bold and men can get away with anything. They
can say anything. Right? This is what the Word
says. I know what my Bible says. God
said, man stand up, God said. Nobody has a Bible in their lap.
So they can't disprove Him. The more truth is proclaimed,
the less error there will be. The more the law is magnified
and made honorable, the less man's works and ways and thoughts
and everything will be honorable. The more the law is honorable.
I'll never forget this verse when I first read it. Isaiah
23. This is wonderful. Isaiah 23. Look at this. This is Isaiah
23, verse 9. Look at this. I'll never forget
this when I first read it to this day. Isaiah 23, 9. I said, the more the law is magnified
and made honorable, the less honor man will take to himself. Verse 9, Isaiah 23, 9, The Lord
of hosts hath purposed it to stain the pride of all glory,
any glory, bring it down, to bring into contempt all the honorable
of the earth. Everybody's honor but God. You see, the law, God's Word,
the more it's magnified, the more it's preached, the more
God will be honored and glorified. The less man will be. The more
God is honored and glorified, the more pride will be a base. And listen to this verse of Scripture. That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. Abomination. Abomination. And so the opposite
is true, isn't it? Whatever is abominable to man
is highly esteemed to God. What's that? The truth. The gospel. Men hate it. Hate it. Hate it. God loves it. God loves it. The more men use God's name in
vain, the more they prove that they're evil. The more men use God's name,
The more they prove that they're evil. This is true in just about
everything. The more you have to just try to prove yourself, the
more guilty you appear to be. The Lord didn't defend Himself.
He spoke the truth. Every word that came out of His
mouth was the truth. And all sorts of witnesses were
brought against him. False witnesses. And finally,
he just says he committed himself to him that judged in Russia.
He said, Lord, I'll repent. Vengeance is mine. I'll vindicate
my people. You don't have to do it. Just
suffer yourself to be depraved. The truth will come out. It will
all be known, the Lord said. So the more words we use, the
more guilty we appear. And boy, if that's not so in
preaching, I often, anymore, am going to
deal with a passage of Scripture. Early on in preaching, I thought
I had a lot of answers anyway. But now I want to hear what men
that I esteem highly have to say about it. And I'll go listen
to them. And I was looking for someone
who preached on, I forget what it was, maybe it was Genesis
5. I couldn't find anybody, so I
just chose one of these fellas. And I didn't have him on five
minutes until I knew, this man's not a gun. What he was saying
was true, and I agree with it. But how he was saying it. It
was careless. It was flippant. It was familiar. He sounded like he knew everything. And to the average person, he
did. But I turned him on and said, I can't handle that. I
can't handle that. I didn't hear any fear in his
voice. I didn't hear any humility in him at all. You know what
I'm talking about, don't you? This fellow's got all the answers,
doesn't he? You know, the Scripture says
things like this, God is in heaven and you're upon the earth. Let
your words be few. Let your words be few. Our Lord
was a man of few words, wasn't he? The Scripture says things like
this, even the foolish were thought to be wise if he holdeth his
feet. God is in heaven. Let your words
be few. What did he call words? Sacrifice
of fools. Fool is known by a multitude
of words, and a multitude of words are wanteth not sin. The
less fear, the more words. The more fear, the less words. The more fear, the less words,
the more careful you'll be. The more fear, the more careful
you'll be. The more fear, the less you will
talk about holy things. The more fear of God, the less
you will talk about anything that has to do with God, heaven,
eternity. Now you tell me what is the rule
among people today? They're making fun of God. It's
a joke. Don't ever joke about, don't
ever speak, say anything about anything in the Bible. Don't
ever use the word of God as a, you know, a joke or a byword. Don't do it. Don't do it. This proves men to have no fear,
you see. This is how you know God's people.
They're fearful. Fear of the Lord. But we don't
use holy things. We don't make light of holy things. We don't use these things. I just got a mail. I get all sorts of stuff in the
mail. And the title of it was Jews for Jesus. Well, I immediately threw it
in the trash can. Anybody that uses the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ as a catchy phrase doesn't know Jesus Christ. I'm not splitting hairs here.
I'm not splitting hairs here. And this too, here's something
the Lord is teaching us. Matthew 5, verse 37. He says,
Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. Whatever is more
than these cometh of evil. And you turn with me to 2 Corinthians
1, and I'll close with this. 2 Corinthians 1. Go over there.
2 Corinthians chapter 1. You remember
when they came to... Here's the point. The more truthful a person is,
the plainer their speech will be. The plainer to it. You remember when they came to
John the Baptist and they were asking him about himself, they
wanted him to say something about himself, you know, his credentials
and where he came from. And they said, Are you Elijah? And that goes well with the next
message. He said, I am not. I am not. These false prophets today, they're
kind of They'd kind of like for people to think that their life
was... They're not going to deny that.
Somebody came up to them. You're a great man. If he was a great man, he'd say,
I am not. I am not. I remember, I think
it was George Whitfield one time, somebody said to him after he
preached, after he preached, the woman meant well, but some
people say the wrong thing. She said to him, Brother Whitfield,
you've never been finer than you were today. He said, I know,
dear lady, the devil just told me that. That's what he's going to do
is tell you how great you are. God doesn't tell you that. The
Lord commended John before men. We're going to see Simon Peter.
The Lord kept him in his place. But they asked John, they said,
Are you that prophet? They said, Are you that prophet
then? John said, No. Go on. No is about as plain as you can
get it. No means no in every language. Everybody in every language understands
no. Are you that prophet? No. No. We'll look at 2 Corinthians 1. I love this. Verse 19, he says,
The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by
us, by me, Silas, Timothy, was not yea and nay, yes and no, Who is he? It's very plain. When you hear a man preach the
truth, when you hear a believer confess the truth or talk to
you, you're going to find out real quick and in plain and few
words what they believe. No hymn hauling around about
it. It's not yes and no, but it's yea. And all the promises,
verse 20, are yea, And in Him, amen, unto the glory
of God by us. Verse 18, our word is true. Our word toward you was not yes
and no. Yes and no. Do you believe that God elected a people before the
foundation of the world? Yes. For you're telling me that you
believe only the elect will be saved. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Are you telling me that Christ
didn't die for every single person? Yes. That's what I'm saying. Don't argue with fools. Yes. And what we often say is,
I didn't say that. God said it. Let God be true. Every man a liar. Yes. Yeah, amen. Is salvation of the
Lord? Yes, it is, 100%. But in this day, now more than
ever, there are so many wordy people, talkative people. Now
more than ever, our words needn't be few. We don't invoke the name
of God said this. Oh, no. If they speak to the
law and to the testimony, Isaiah 20. If they speak not according
to this Word, there's no light in them. Don't listen to them. The Lord told me the other day,
hold on. And forswear not thyself. Let your words be few. And if
you have something to say, say it plainly. Say it plainly. Here's something the Lord is
telling us too. Be so truthful that you can take your Word. You don't have to. Yeah. Yeah. OK.