All right, Matthew chapter five,
the title of our lesson this morning is the true meaning of
thou shalt not swear. I remember this portion of what
we call the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord is teaching us what
true righteousness is. True righteousness is not our
best efforts to keep the law. True righteousness is God's best.
What Christ did in keeping the law. Well, if God didn't give
us the law so we could keep it and earn a righteousness, Why
did God give the law? Well, this is what the Lord's
explaining here. God gave the law to drive us to Christ, to
show us we can't keep the law, so we must trust Christ's obedience
to the law, not ours. And Lord's teaching us this lesson
by giving us the true meaning of the law and explaining to
us the true meaning of several different commandments of the
law. The first example the Lord used was thou shalt not kill.
The second was thou shalt not commit adultery. And the third
one he uses here this morning we'll look at is, thou shalt
not swear. Verse 33, he says again, you have heard that it's
been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself,
but thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. Now this commandment
has to do with the third commandment of the 10 commandments. Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Now taking
the Lord's name in vain is using his name in any way. other than
in reference and worship, is to use his name lightly, is to
use his name as a figure of speech, as an expletive. Taking the Lord's
name in vain is such a serious thing that the name of the Lord
reveals who he is. To take his name in vain shows
a lack of reference and respect for the Lord. Now look in Leviticus
chapter 19. Taking the Lord's name in vain
also includes vain thoughts about God. And it includes using the
name of God in an oath. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 12. And you should not swear by my
name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. I am the Lord. So using the name
of God lightly in an oath, that's taking the Lord's name in vain.
Now I want to tell you what the true meaning of this commandment
is. Thou shall not swear by the name of the Lord or thou shall
not take the name of the Lord by God in vain. The true meaning
of this commandment is this. Trust Christ for all of your
salvation. Trust Christ to be your righteousness
and don't trust your works at all. The true meaning of this
commandment is to trust God's covenant and God's promise and
not our works, not our, not our promises. Now let's look at these
verses back in our text, Matthew chapter five, and see if that's
not so. In verse 34, the Lord goes on. He says, but I say unto
you, swear not at all, neither by heaven for it is God's throne. I don't swear by heaven. Your
people want to swear by something that they think is greater than
them. And the Lord says, don't swear by heaven because that
shows such disrespect to the Lord. Heaven is God's throne. Heaven is God's dwelling place,
where God rules on high. And creatures of the dust, like
you and me, don't have any right to swear by God's place of sovereignty,
by his throne. If we do swear by heaven, all
that shows is how little we know about the God who's sovereign.
He goes on, verse 35, he says, nor by earth, for it is his footstool,
neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Now don't swear by the earth,
Because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to God. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. The earth is the Lord's footstool. It belongs to him. So don't you
swear an oath to it? And he says, don't swear by Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is a picture of God's church. Jerusalem, the city,
Jerusalem fold was the city where God dwelt with his people. That's
where God's throne was. That's where the tabernacle,
that's where the temple was. That's where the mercy seat was.
God's throne is in this city. God dwelt with his people in
that city. That was the place God would
meet with men. Well, God's church today is the place where God
sits in throne. This is the place where God dwells
with his people. Now, don't swear an oath by the
church. It's God's dwelling place. It
doesn't belong to you. It belongs to him. So in short,
here's what the Lord's saying. Don't swear an oath by something
that doesn't belong to you. I mean, doesn't that just make
sense? You know, I couldn't swear an oath to you by Dan's house.
And, you know, if this is not true, well, you can have Dan's
house. I'm swearing an oath by Dan's house. I can't do that. It doesn't
belong to me. Well, swearing by heaven, swearing
by the earth, swearing by the church, even though those things
are without question greater than us, doesn't belong to me. It's wrong and it's irreverent
of us to swear by something that belongs to God. That's not sanctifying
the Lord thy God in your heart. Now, verse 36. Neither shalt
thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair
white or black. Don't swear by something you're
not in control of. The color of your hair. I mean,
I know today we've got chemicals, we can color it, but we're not
in control of the color of our hair. We can't control if our
hair turns white, or it stays dark. Can't do it. Jan and I
were with our daughter Holly the other day, and we just met,
and we were standing out in the parking lot talking for a few
minutes before we went our separate ways. The sun was shining, and
I was looking at the beautiful face of my baby girl, just, oh,
how much I love that kid. And you know what I saw? Gray
hairs. She's not 30 years old, and she's
got gray hairs coming in. You can't control it. Can't be
done. or don't swear by something you're
not in control of. That's just foolish. That's a
good way to lose it. In verse 37, the Lord says, but let your
communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than
these cometh of evil. Now, just tell the truth. Just tell it. Do what you're
going to do, what you said that you do. Let your yes mean yes,
and your no mean no. Do that so you don't have to
swear an oath that you're telling the truth. Just do what you said
you'd do. Earn that reputation. I use Dan
as an example again. If Dan Morgan tells me he's going
to do something, that's the end up to me. I believe him. He doesn't have to swear an oath
to me. His word is gold to me. If he says it, I believe it. Let your yes be yes and your
no be no. Look at James chapter 5. Now think about this. If you've
got to swear an oath, if you say something, and then you've
got to swear an oath to say, now, I really mean this, this
is really true. What does that mean about everything
else you say? I mean, does that mean you're lying all the rest
of the time? Look what James says here, James 5 verse 12.
This must be important. Let your yea be yea and your
nay be nay. Because look what James says, James 5 verse 12.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven,
neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your
yea be yea and your nay be nay, lest you fall into condemnation. Now, this does not mean that
we shouldn't swear or we shouldn't promise to do certain things.
You know, in a court of law, you know, you put your hand on
the Bible, whichever hand it is, you put your right hand,
I don't remember which way it is, I've never had to do it. But
anyway, you put your hand on the Bible and you swear to tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me. So
help me, God. Well, now, if you're any of us
are called to testify in a court of law, now you do that. You
promise to tell the truth. If I'm sitting on the jury and
somebody refuses to swear, I'm telling the truth. I'm not going
to believe a word they say. Look at Hebrews chapter six. Hebrews chapter six for men barely swear by the greater
and an oath for confirmation is to them and end of all strife.
If you swear to tell the truth on a matter that's important,
that's the end of all strife. We're supposed to believe you.
Now I say that, but if you read these, these next verses, What
the writer of the Hebrews is saying there in context, and
this applies to our lesson this morning, is God swore an oath. He swore by himself that he will
save his people from their sin. That's the oath we're to trust.
That's the one we're to believe. But we'll come back to that in
just a minute. The other example I thought about
this about swearing an oath to God. When a young couple gets
married, they take a vow, don't they? They take a vow before
God. They take a vow before those who are gathered there to love
and honor and cherish one another till death do us part. Well now,
I wouldn't marry somebody if they wouldn't take those vows
with me. I'm glad Janet took those vows with me. I swore,
I promised, I'll love you. And she promised the same thing.
I sure am glad. And I wouldn't marry somebody
that wouldn't take those vows with me. How could you trust
them? Could you? So the Lord's not
telling us that you're never to vow a vow, you're never to
sign a contract to promise to pay a debt or something. If that's
what He's teaching, none of us could have a car or a house or
get a college education or anything. You've got to sign contracts
that you'll pay back debts and so forth. That's not what the
Lord's teaching. And really, if the Lord, all
He's teaching here is now you tell the truth, you let your
word be your bond. If that's all the Lord is teaching
here, Well, there's no blessing here. If that's all he's teaching. Because all of us are natural
born liars. We've got a nature that does
not love and does not honor the Lord. So what is the Lord really
teaching here? What is the blessing, the spiritual
blessing here? Well, the Savior is teaching
us something about the heart of true religion. He's teaching
us something about true gospel preaching. Now, remember the
context. You can't just take these these
verses out and use it as a lesson not to tell the truth. What's
the context that the Lord is using here as he's teaching,
as he's preaching? He's talking about righteousness.
He's talking about how a sinner can be righteous before God.
Well, if our righteousness before God depends on us telling the
truth all the time, we're goners. We're goners. So that's not what
he's teaching. He's talking about how to be
made righteous. Isn't that the purpose of all
religion? Whatever, if it's true or false
religion, how is it I can be righteous before God? How is
it I can be accepted before God? Well, we cannot be made righteous
by man's religion that makes promises to God. All man made
religion makes promises to God. How many times have you heard
or have you even said this? out loud or in your heart, you're
just in a horrible mess. And you say, God, I'll never
miss another Sunday service if you'll just get me out of this.
I'll never miss another Sunday service. I've been doing wrong.
Lord, if you'll get me out of this mess, I promise I'll never
drink another drop of alcohol. Lord, if you'll just heal me
of this sickness, I promise you I'll never say another bad word
about my mean old neighbor. I just won't do it. Well, let
me tell you two things about that. Number one, God's not impressed
with our promises. Now he's not. He knows better
than we do we're not going to keep them. And that's the second
thing. We won't make, keep those promises.
I mean, you can make them all you want, but we won't keep them.
I mean, somebody can say, I'll never miss another Sunday service.
They might attend two in a row and that's the last you'll see
them for a while. That's not the thing. We won't keep our
word in any religion. that requires me to do anything
for God will result in my damnation. Any religion that has something
that is required of me to make it effectual will result in my
damnation because I can't do it and no son of Adam can. If
I've got to make a promise to God, if any part of the covenant
of salvation has to be upheld by me, That covenant is worthless. And that, by the way, would be
a covenant of works, wouldn't it? Not a covenant of grace.
The covenant of salvation is a covenant of grace. Salvation
by grace in Christ Jesus. But if it's dependent upon me,
it's a covenant of works, and that will result in my damnation.
So, the true meaning of thou shalt not swear, thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, is this. The true
meaning of it is trust Christ. for all of your salvation. Trust
Him to be your righteousness. Don't swear to do something because
you can't do it. Just trust Christ. Do nothing
and trust Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ swore an
oath to His Father. He swore an oath that He would
fulfill God's covenant of grace. And Paul in Ephesians tells us
this, the Father first trusted in Christ. The first one who
trusted in Christ was God the Father. When God the Son promised
him, swore an oath to him, I will fulfill the covenant of grace.
I will save all these people that you've given me. I'll save
them from their sin. I'll give them life, and I will
present every last one of them before your throne. I'll present
them to you faultless. When the day comes, I'll say,
Father, I and the children in which thou hast given me, they're
all here. And the Father trusted The Father
trusted Him to do it. Now, if the Father trusts Him
to do it, you reckon I can trust Him to do it? Well, I ought to
be able to, shouldn't I? And that's the meaning of the
commandment. And that is the meaning of every commandment
of the Lord. You remember when the Lord told
Jonah to go to Nineveh, preach, tell folks there about God's
destruction, that God's judgment is coming. You know why Jonah
didn't want to go there and preach in that Gentile nasty city? Because
he knew God would be merciful to those people. He knew if he
preached to them, he just knew God's character. God's going
to be merciful to those people. And Jonah was so cold hearted,
he didn't want to see God show mercy to those Gentiles. And
Jonah determined not to go. And God prepared a great fish
that came and swallowed Jonah up. And while Jonah was in the
belly of that fish, you know what he said? Jonah said, I'll
pay that that I vowed unto the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. Now, do you know why salvation
is of the Lord? It's not because Jonah said,
I'll pay that that I vowed. It's because the Lord Jesus Christ,
God's son said, I'll pay that that I vowed. Salvation is of
the Lord. Salvation is in him. The Lord
Jesus Christ vowed he would earn a righteousness for his people.
but coming to earth as a man and obeying the law, obeying
every commandment of God's law as a man. You know what? He paid that vow. He came and
he said, I must be about my father's business. I must be about this
business of redeeming my people, of establishing righteousness.
He paid that vow. Now you trust Him to be all your
righteousness without anything you add to it. Without any obedience
to the law on your part at all, you trust Christ to be all your
righteousness. And then God's Son vowed that
He would put away the sin of His people. God chose a people
and He gave those people to His Son. And they're a vile, sinful
people. And the Son of God vowed, I'll
put away all that sin. by the sacrifice of myself. I'll
become a man so I have a body. I have blood to be broken and
to be shed, to be sacrificed for the sin of my people. I'll
shed my perfect blood. I'll be made a curse for them.
I'll be made sin for them and I'll put their sin away. Thank
God He paid that back. We'd have no hope of the forgiveness
of sin unless God's Son paid that back. He paid that back. He sacrificed Himself and everyone
for whom He died is white as snow. His blood has washed them
white as snow. Now you trust Him. Trust Him
to be all your salvation. Trust Him to be all the forgiveness
of your sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only man who ever lived who paid his vow to God. The only one. Now you trust Him. You trust
Him and you trust Him alone. Don't trust Him plus your vow
to make salvation effectual for you. Just trust Him. Just trust
Christ. Just rest in Him because all
of salvation is in Him. And that faith should be reflected
in what we believe and the way we worship and the way we walk
through this earth. And that faith should be reflected
in our preaching. And by that, I mean this, that
if our faith is in Christ alone, then we'll preach Christ alone. Look and hear our text, Matthew
five, look what the Lord says, but let your communication, your
preaching be yay, yay, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these
cometh of evil. Now look over second Corinthians
chapter one. I'm confident the apostle here,
is quoting the Lord. The Lord had taught him this,
and this is what he is talking about in second Corinthians one,
beginning in verse 16 or verse 15. And in this confidence, I was
minded to come unto you before that you might have a second
benefit and to pass by you into Macedonia and to come again out
of Macedonia unto you and of you to be brought on my way towards
Judea. Now, when I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? Paul intended to do this, but
he ended up not being able to do it. Did I use lightness when
I intended to do this? Are those things that I purpose?
Do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should
be yea, yea, and nay, nay? But as God is true, our word
towards you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who is preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the
promises of God in him are yea, and in him, amen, unto the glory
of God by us. Now, what is it that Paul means
by his preaching yea and nay? Our preaching was not yea and
nay. Well, what is yea and nay preaching? What's this? It's to preach Salvation is by
grace. Salvation is by God's grace.
But you have to keep some part of the law, whatever somebody's
favorite part of the law is. That's what they use to fill
in the blank. But you've got to observe the Sabbath. You've
got to tithe. You've got to whatever, you know.
That's yes and no preaching. Yes, salvation is by grace, but
no, it's really not. There's some works involved in
it too. That's yay and nay preaching. Yay and nay preaching is to say,
oh yes, Christ's blood put away all the sin of his people, all
the sin of all men, but you have to do something to make it effectual
for you. That's yay and nay. That's saying yay, Christ's blood
is enough, but no, it's really not. You've got to do something
to make it effectual. That's yay and nay preaching.
Yay and nay preaching is this, to say yes, salvation is according
to God's will. It's according to God's election
of a people, but you still have to decide to accept Jesus and
let Him into your heart or you won't be saved. Oh yes, salvation
is by God's election, but what God did is He looked down through
the telescope of time and saw who would choose Him, and so
then He chose them. That is yea and nay preaching.
That is to say that salvation is all of God's will, but no,
really it's not. It's also part of your will.
That's yay and nay preaching, is to say, yes, salvation is
by grace, but you've got to have some works added in there too.
That is yay and nay preaching. Yay and nay preaching will damn
the souls of anybody that believes it. Salvation is in Christ alone. It's in grace alone. It's by
faith alone without any of our works. But yay and yay preaching,
preaching that is yes, says salvation is all in Christ. Salvation is
all of God's favor to His people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yea,
preaching is saying that everything in Christ is yes. It's true. It's the amen. It's sure and
certain because it's in Him. And the Lord says concerning
this preaching, concerning this faith, concerning our righteousness,
let your yes be yes. and your no be no. If you made
a promise to God, tell you what you do, you keep it. If you promise
to believe God and trust Christ, then do it. Don't be a hypocrite. Remain steadfast in the faith. Let your yea be yea. I'll give you some examples from
scripture. Yea, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. You continue
depending upon the Lord just like that. Let your yea be yea.
Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
which had come into the world. I believe that. Now you continue
trusting him. Yea, Lord, thou knowest all things. You know I love you. Now you
keep loving him and you keep trusting him to love you. I mean,
when you look at that conversation between the Lord and Peter, you
know, the Peter wasn't hanging any hope of his salvation on
the fact that he loved the Lord, was it? No, he wasn't saying
that. He's saying, you know all things. You gave me this love. What I
hope, my hope is that he loves me. Now you keep trusting him
like that. Listen to the Apostle Paul. Yea,
doubtless. Now let your yea be yea. Yea,
doubtless. I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I've suffered the loss of all things. He's not talking
about material things there. He's talking about all those
things that he used to trust him for his salvation, his, his
perfect keeping of the law, his, his, all his pharisaical ways. Paul said, I've suffered the
loss of all those things. I laid them all aside. I count
them, but done. that I might win Christ and be
found in you, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law. No part of my righteousness is by me keeping the law, but
that righteousness, which is through the faith of Christ,
the faithfulness of Christ to do what he told his father he
would do and fulfill the covenant of grace, the righteousness,
which is of God by faith, not by my words, but by faith in
Christ, by union with Christ. Now, if you said yes to that,
then you continue believing all of your works are manure, that
they're no better than manure, needs to be shipped off somewhere
and gotten out of the way. So you trust Christ. Let God
be true and every man a liar. Let your yay be yay. But that
also brings me to some no's. Let your no be no too. I have no confidence in the flesh. Now let your no be no and don't
start thinking you can have some confidence in the flesh. Trust
Christ to be all your salvation from beginning to end and have
no confidence in the flesh. I know that in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. There's nothing good that comes
of me. Now, God's put something good
in me, but it's not of me. That's of the Spirit. But in
my flesh dwells no good thing that I'm not going to trust in
my flesh. Let your no be no. There is none righteous, no,
not one. Now, we say that, you know, we
think everybody out there. When we read that verse, you
know, we ought to think that there's none righteous, no, not one.
That starts with me. It starts with me. So I'm going
to keep depending on Christ. Let your yes be yes and your
no be no. And something else I believe
the Lord's touching on here is this, is be honest. Don't be
a religious hypocrite. God saves honest people. He does. He saves people who
honestly know themselves to be sinners. Now be honest before
God. No point trying to fool Him.
No point trying to be a hypocrite from Him. You can present a false
front to me and I'll believe it. You can't do that to God.
God looks on my heart. Well, be honest with God. Lord,
help me. I'm a sinner. I need forgiveness. I need life. Lord, help me. Be
honest with God. And if you'd be a help to one
another, be honest with one another. Don't pretend that you live on
some higher spiritual plane than you really do. If you live on
some higher spiritual plane than everybody else, you've got the
same struggles that everybody else has. Don't pretend to be
something that you're not. Be honest. When we're with one
another, let's be honest. All of my hope is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's all in Him. Then live looking
to Him. Live depending upon Him. Because
that's the true meaning of the commandment. Thou shalt not swear.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
The true meaning of the commandment is to trust Christ. Trust Him
to keep His covenant, to keep His promise to save His people
from their sin. Because He will. You know, I
told you Dan's word to me is as good as gold. Well, Dan might
tell me he's going to do something, and he can't. He gets sick, he
gets called out of town, you know, whatever. That won't happen
with our Savior. Nothing will stop Him from keeping
His word, from keeping His promise to His people. God bless you.