They say, I say - Part 3 Less is Better! Sunday, November 15, 2015 All scriptures taken from the English Standard Version unless otherwise indicated

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Jocelyn Magdalene Powers
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1 They say, I say - Part 3 Less is Better! Sunday, November 15, 2015 All scriptures taken from the English Standard Version unless otherwise indicated Intro: One of the things that I have always liked about smaller town living is that we tend to be a couple of generations or so behind the trends in the big cities and especially the morality trends, or rather lack of morality trends. And because of this trend, there are a few folks still around and we can still say of them and I want you to finish the sentence, Their Word is their bond. Let s read together. Matthew 5:33-37 Big idea: This week s thesis is very straight to the point and it is this, Christians are supposed to tell the truth all of the time because the Spirit of truth dwells within them. This is week three of our series and we have already learned that Jesus is helping out our friends the Pharisees understand, not only the Law itself, but also the spirit of things that are behind the Law. Now to the average hearer on the Mount that day, they would have understood the Law to have possibly meant the Ten Commandments, or the Torah, perhaps the Law and the Prophets, but they also understood something about an oral law, things that were being codified about the Law but were in many cases missing the point altogether (The Mishnah and Talmud). Jesus is now preaching that people would find eternal life, entry into the kingdom and He is pointing to a spiritual elephant in the room - the Pharisees were an impediment to righteous living, not the example that they believed themselves to be. Remember Jesus warning? Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20) Thus far in the series, we have dealt with anger paving the way for murder, and lust leading to adultery and now today, we are going to look at truth telling and the taking or rather making of oaths. I. Do not take an oath at all In order to understand this sentence, we look to the original Greek once again that says, Do not take an oath at all (Matthew 5:34) Once again the people had heard some things said and it is time for Jesus to make things right. And once again, Jesus is going to make things right, But I say 1

2 1. Some Old Testament theology Let s lay a bit of an Old Testament foundation. It was common among ancient people to do a lot of oath making. We begin with a warning from the Ten Commandments. 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. (Exodus 20:7) To paraphrase this means, if you are making an oath and you bring God s name into the oath then you better keep it. And here it is put a little more plainly from Leviticus 19:12. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. And here is one more: 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. (Numbers 30:2) So far, it may not seem like anything is wrong here but the reality is that the Jewish people had developed a system for making oaths, some that they intended to keep and other promises designed in such a way that they could be broken. 2. Some other ancient wisdom And it is a funny thing that Jesus would need to be reminding the Jewish people that they needed to tell the truth all the time. Here is a quote from Barclay: The Jewish teachers had always insisted on the paramount obligation of telling the truth. The world stands fast on three things, on justice, on truth and on peace. There are four persons that are shut out from the presence of God, the scoffer, the hypocrite, the liar, and the retailer of slander Remember last week when I spoke of the Shammai and Hillel schools, the Shammai school, the conservative one theologically, went as far as reminding the people that they shouldn t even fudge the truth to save hurt feelings. If a bride was not all that pretty, no one was to say, What a beautiful bride! If it came time for a baby dedication and the poor little thing was on the homely side, well we have never had anything but beautiful babies dedicated in the church. So here is a modern day example for the men, you know, the time when your wife says, Do I look fat in this dress? 3. The heart of the matter For the new kingdom people, the new nation that would exceed Israel s standard of righteousness, Jesus wanted a fresh start, a reset and He was correcting two issues. i. Frivolous swearing Now, none of this lesson is about swearing that we understand to be cursing using God s name - that is a separate issue! 2

3 Using the Lord s name in a cursing way is still a really horrible and blasphemous thing and we should never do that and even to the extent that OMG should never accompany a text! It seems that people were starting to swear oaths about things they didn t need to. They were adding things to straightforward speech by saying, "By my life, by my head " and then obviously invoking God s name. You hear this once in a while nowadays, I swear to God! ii. Evasive swearing The second problem, and the one that I have alluded to and the most important perhaps, is the evasive swearing, the system of binding and non-binding oaths that had developed. If the name of God was invoked, then the oath would be binding, and if someone left out the name, there would be a way off the hook so to speak. If God was brought into things as a partner and by His name, very serious, if His name was not invoked, not so serious. II. God is in all speech Here is what Jesus wanted to convey, God is witness to all speech and partner in every transaction and especially through us as His New Testament agents on earth! Jesus quotes, in part, Isaiah 66:1. If they were swearing by heaven, well, that was God s throne, and by the earth, simply God s footstool and by Jerusalem, Jerusalem is God s city so in essence, God is in it all whether His name used or not. Over in chapter 23 we find Jesus again addressing the same issue. 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. 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. (Matthew 23:16-22) It also seems clear that they were not to swear by their own head as a substitute as no hair color could be changed! III. When less is better We all have known people that we wish said less, we would love to tell them, less is better and that is exactly what Jesus is saying here. Let what you say be simply Yes or No ; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37) In the original Greek, and the KJV gets this one right, it is simply, Yes, yes or no, no. And we are to speak this way to keep evil out of all things. We understand that Satan is a liar and the father of all lies. We are being asked here not to participate in a system where we acknowledge that much of what people in the world are going to say to us is going to be tainted, we have to sift through in order to figure out what is truth and what is false. 3

4 Jesus wants His own out of the frivolous talk business and certainly He wants us to have nothing to do with escape clauses and contingency type speech. IV. But what about the contradictory evidence? 1. God has sworn by His own name And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:15-18) It is not that God cannot be trusted or is not trustworthy; it is that man at times is not trusting, not believing and needs to be reminded of God s faithfulness to us! 2. The Old Testament saints were told to swear in some circumstances You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. (Deuteronomy 10:20) 3. It appears that Jesus did too Under questioning from the High Priest, Jesus appears to be taking a form of oath. But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. 64 Jesus said to him, You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven. (Matthew 26:33) 4. It appears that Paul made a few as well He often chose the words, As God as my witness. (Romans 1:9, 2 Corinthians 1:23) So, this leaves us with a need to clear some things up! V. Practically speaking Let s now get to the application for the 21 st century. What does all of this mean for us? After all, we are not oath takers much anymore, we don t swear a whole lot of things or by a whole lot of things or people and there is some apparent subtly or contradiction here. 1. Be honourable in keeping your promises to God We must keep our promises to Him! A lot of people make promises to God when they are in trouble, Lord, if you get me out of this one I will serve you! If you get me out of financial trouble, I will tithe. If you have said that you will be His follower and keep His commands then just do that. 4

5 2. Be faithful in keeping your promises to others Central to the teaching of Jesus here is that no society, church, family, or marriage can function without trust. It is a great place to be when you know that when one of your political leaders says something that he or she always keeps their promises. I feel bad for the Americans! I will be watching the new government closely! And what of our church? I hope in the five years that I have been your pastor that no one can ever say that I have not kept my word about anything and that I have kept my promises about everything! As I was reflecting upon our staff this week, I was reminded that I work with a group of people that I trust implicitly. I know that everyone of those girls will keep their word! We don t always get along 100% because we are human beings, but we trust each other a whole lot. What an awesome marriage you are blessed with when you live with a husband or wife and you know that they are truth tellers about all things and all the time. One of my pastor friends was telling me that he is experiencing a rash of marriage breakdowns in his church. The answer is still in promise keeping as marriage vows are solemn vows, and increasingly New Testament Pharisees are trying to find all kinds of loopholes and they are using parapsychological lingo and Hillel/liberal type theology to justify themselves. 3. Be witnesses of and for truth because truthfulness is in you through the Spirit of God But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. (James 5:12) Lying should be a difficult thing for any Christian to do. The type of church that Jesus envisioned was one where its people would not have to swear or take oaths, it would be a community where the very lives of people would suggest that no oath would be needed. Christians are always to do what they say and say what they do. Our keeping our word and our promises are to be the hallmarks of who we are as Kingdom people and PPT people. We affirm the Kingdom has come as we tell the truth motivated by the Spirit of God. Everyone in this town should be able to say of us and of me, that Whatever has been promised will be done and whatever they say about something will be the truth. 4. May we take oaths? Now, here is a question that you should have been asking all along. The Anabaptists and Quakers have taken these verses and have developed a theology that prohibits in any form the making or taking of oaths. This might be going a bit too far and there might be a difference between making and taking. I am going to venture out and say, that when it comes to court or something like your military oaths, it would not be inappropriate to simply say yes to a question that will affirm your loyalty or tell the truth about something. 5

HOW TO SWEAR PROPERLY Matthew 5: Fill in the blank. A man is as good as his.

HOW TO SWEAR PROPERLY Matthew 5:33-37 Fill in the blank. A man is as good as his. When Jesus spoke about oaths or swearing, he was not speaking casually or trivially. The truth of the matter is, that as