turn in your Bibles to Matthew. Chapter 5, we're continuing our study in the sermon on the mount. In particular today, we come to the section on Christ teaching on oaths. Jesus in this portion of the sermon is countering statement after statement, the false beliefs and the false teaching of the Pharisees, which believe it or not, continue deeply to be present in us today. So let's stand for the reading of God's Holy Word. Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 33, Jesus speaks. Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take a note at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. This is the word of the Lord. It was January 21st, 1985, and I had just been arrested. That gets your attention. True. Outside my house, two squad cars, two officers driving those cars, my dad hollering for me. Mark, come to the door. I went to the door, the officers called me out, one of them spoke to me and said, are you Mark Allen Davis? I said, yes or I am? He said, I will tell you right now, you are under arrest. The next officer began to speak. You have the right to remain silent. He went through it all. He then put handcuffs on me behind my back and escorted me into the police car. As my neighbors watched, as word began to spread, what had he done? What had I done? Cops drove me to the police station, interrogating me the whole way, certainly didn't sound like a feel like guilty or innocent until proving guilty. Questions like why'd you do it? I didn't even know what I was being arrested for. Soon they told me I was being arrested for pointing a loaded weapon at a passerby, someone in another car. A woman had said that I had pointed a gun. They asked where the gun was. I said I have no gun. Where did you put it? I had no gun to put anywhere. They didn't believe me. After hours of interrogation, I'm 18 by the way, I'm an adult. My parents come, they let me go, but I was booked and a date was set. A little over a month later, a different statement was being read to me and this was someone swearing me in. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. There before a judge in a jury, am I attorney representing me? I said I do. Knowing that soon there would be another one who was going to make the same oath. One of us was lying and it was going to be determined by this jury whether it was me or her. Well, you'll be encouraged to know that it was me who told the truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. The story is she saw me point at her car and I did and I pointed this way. I did. I don't know why. Perhaps as a teenager, I was lazy and felt like it took more energy to pull my hands apart and point with one than to lift both and point with two. But I did point this way. For whatever reason, she assumed it was a gun. I guess you could make that mistake. But let me ask you this question. If someone pointed a gun at you, would you pull your car up next to them, give them an inappropriate gesture with your fingers and then speed away? That was true as well. I told that in court. Of course she wouldn't. You would drive the other direction. But for whatever reason, she hated me. She had it in for me. And there before a court, I had to make an oath. As a Christian, should I have made an oath? What is it that Jesus is teaching here about oaths really? The core of this text is the issue of truth. And the reason Jesus is speaking is because the Pharisees like they always did, missed the point about which Jesus was truly seeking to make known. What the Old Testament law was seeking to make known. The statement that Jesus makes in verse 33, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you've sworn is actually not a Bible verse. It is a summary of collection of Bible verses that the Pharisees began to use. Such verses as this, in Exodus 20, the Tin Commandments, Moses said, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. In Leviticus 19, you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God. In Numbers 30, when a man vows a vow to the Lord, he shall not break his word, and from Deuteronomy 23, when you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack to pay it. So the Pharisees had taken these well-known words from Moses, God's word, God's law, and they had focused in on what they believed was the most significant parts of this, and like they always did, they missed it. Instead, they looked for ways to create more rules, more formulas so that they wouldn't actually be guilty of sins. And so what they did is they became focused on a superficial reading of these commandments. What the commandments are about truly is prohibiting false swearing or perjury, that is, making a vow and then breaking it. Well, what the Pharisees focused on was not perjury but profanity. The Pharisees went on to believe that what's really at stake here is making God's name, or taking God's name in vain, not the issue of perjury breaking a vow. And so what they did is the Pharisees went on to say, you can make vows, but if you don't make the vows in the name of God and you break them, it's no big deal. It's like me making a promise to a classmate on the playground. And though I said, cross my heart, hope did I stick a needle in my eye, 15 minutes later when I break the promise, all I have to say is my fingers were crossed. I didn't really mean it. You see the Pharisees had created these formulas and missed the point of the Old Testament teaching. And so Jesus is here to blow it up. Jesus is saying truth matters. You make a vow, you're to keep the vow. Whether it's in my name or not in my name, how does he do it? It's interesting, look again at the text. In verse 34, Jesus says this beautiful thing. I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king, and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black. Simply let your yes or your no, no. Anything more than this comes from evil. You see what Jesus is saying? You can't swear by anything and it not be of me. If you swear by heaven, that's my throne. If you swear by earth as my footstool. If you swear by the city of Jerusalem, it's the city of the great king. If you swear by your head, yes, it's your head and that it's nobody else's head, but I made the head. I control the head. I know which hair is white, which hair is black or which hair is white, which hair is black. There's nothing we can swear by that's outside of God. So Jesus says let your yes be yes and your no, be no, repeated later in the Epistle James. So what does this mean? That we should never take oaths? Well that's not really the heart of this message. You see there are times in which oaths matter. In fact Jesus himself took an oath near the end of Matthew before the high priest called upon to swear who he was and he did. He says, I am who you say I am paraphrased. Well Jesus teaches us. The teaching here is that honesty keeping your vow, your yes is to be yes, your no is to be no. It's what's central in this passage. The reason we need oaths according to John Stott is that because oaths really are a pathetic confession of our own dishonesty. There are a pathetic confession that we're prone to be dishonest. And Hunter put it this way, oaths arise simply because men are so often liars. It's true, isn't it? The real issue here in this passage is truthfulness. At a young age we lie. Is it because we learn it from seeing others lie? If you have children, you know that's not true. It's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. Why isn't we lie? I'm going to give you three reasons. The first is this. We lie because we're enslaved to the father of lies. If someone says to you, I love children because they're so innocent. Ask them, do you have any? Do you know one? Do you remember their early 80s when Bill Cosby had that hit? Bill Cosby himself. He speaks of an 18-month-old child and people would say, I love children, they tell the truth. No, they don't. He says a child can be told not to take the cookie from the cookie jar. And as soon as you leave the room, an 18-month-old begins to build a sophisticated ladder that gets them on the cabinet, that gets them into the pantry. And because they don't realize that sound actually travels and you hear the cookies rattling, the parent enters back into the room. And when the parent comes into the room, they see the 18-month-old child with his hand in the cookie jar. And when the parent asks the child, what are you doing? The child says, I'm getting a cookie for you. That's what children do. And they do so and it sounds terrible, but it's true because they're enslaved to the father of lies. Until we are rescued by Christ, we're enslaved to the father of lies. That leads to the next two reasons why we lie. First is this, as those enslaved to the father of lies, we lie first of all to protect ourselves. A child tells a parent a lie because he or she believes that they will receive consequences, discipline from the parent. And if they can convince the parent that what they're doing is not what they're doing and the parent believes the lie, they're protected. They won't receive the discipline, whatever it is. They know that at an early age because they're enslaved to the father of lies. As we continue to grow in our life, and indeed, even until Christ returns for us or calls us home, we are tempted to lie to protect ourselves. We lie to protect ourselves from government penalties that might come because we filed our taxes late. We lie to our spouses about things that we might see on a computer. We lie to protect ourselves from the rejection of a relationship or we might lie to protect ourselves from a poor evaluation that would keep us from getting a promotion at work. We lie to protect ourselves. It's in us deep. It's a natural instinct from the enemy. But we don't lie just to protect ourselves. We also lie to protect others. Perhaps a partner in your firm has done something and wants you to lie on their behalf. Maybe they're a superior to you and they let you know that if you will tell this lie, if you will fudge the truth a little bit, I will remember you later. And if you won't, I'm not sure what will happen to you. And so there, we lie to protect another and perhaps protect ourselves at the same time. We lie sometimes as parents to protect our children. Maybe our children are falling behind in school and it's due to disobedience or laziness. But we don't want the teacher to think it's a poor reflection on us. So we make up some other excuse. In the school where my children attend, tomorrow starts a reading rally. And I know because parents have told me not thinking it's that serious that lies are told. Minutes that children are reading are sometimes exaggerated. I know in the first year my child was there participating with the privilege of listening to books on tape. That was wonderful. You could drive for hours as somebody else read to your child. Ah, the good old days. But then the books on tape were outlawed. I know if parents still do that simply saying that's the only choice we have. It's a lie. And yet the children see their parents make notes and turn them in. It's a lie. But why do they do it? To protect their child. Because if their child is in a group that only receives a bronze medal and not gold, they're kind of in a lower class. I'm thankful for my second child. When they went from gold, silver and bronze and added platinum, I was so thankful when Maddie looked at platinum and said, really, it doesn't look that different from bronze. She was telling the truth. Under achiever, woo! We lie. Don't we? To protect ourselves. We lie to protect others. But it's not just protection that leads us to lie. It's also promotion. We lie to promote ourselves. We lie to promote ourselves because we believe deeply that if someone knew the real truth, if the story wasn't embellished, if there wasn't some level of exaggeration, then would people really be impressed? Would people really like me? And so we fudge on the details sometimes. It can be silly like men going fishing and talking about their catch. But we can move beyond that to see how serious it can become. We lie and exaggerate and promote ourselves with what we know and what we're doing and what we've done and sometimes even who we know. And it can be a subtle exaggeration. If I was in the company of people who were talking about famous people that they know, I could drop some names in doing so. I could imply that there's a closer relationship there than they would ever know. For example, I could say to you, I have had dessert with Bob Costas. Wonderful broadcaster. Very well known. And the truth is, I have had dessert with Bob Costas. But if they said, what'd y'all talk about? Oh, I would have to lie because you see when I was in St. Louis, where he's from, where he lived for many years as a poor seminary student. Having dinner with two other poor seminary students, Bob Costas and family and friends were right next to us at a table. It was fun to see. But we didn't talk. But they brought dessert to his table. He took one bite and then his family got up and left. Yeah. I did. I looked back at the table. I knew what was in my wallet. I knew that I was still hungry. And I said to my friends, do you want to be able to say you shared dessert with Bob Costas? A wonderful carrot cake minus one bite. It would be a lie. I would be seeking to promote something. I would be seeking to say me and Bob Costas are like this when a reality were like this and I'm out here. There is no relationship, but we lie. It's not always that silly though. First years in ministry, I had the privilege of working at a summer camp, a regional camp where a group of youth pastors got together. The key guy leading it was a very, became a major friend, our fourth year together, our planning event in December. He wasn't there. I asked where is he. He said, well he's no longer working for the church. I'd never heard that. What happened? And somebody quietly told me he had been caught in a lie. Listen to the lie. Working for that church is an intern. Very good at what he did. Incredible ministry that seemed to be blessed. In order to have the job, he had to have a college degree. And someone asked him, are you a college graduate promoting himself? He said yes. He got the job and everyone was pleased. But someone heard about it and it was interested in not to know the truth. Four years later. And they found out he never graduated from that college. He didn't have a degree. So he went to him and he said, did you lie about having a degree? And in order to protect himself, he said no. I did not lie. They sought the evidence and it was clear he lied again, protecting himself, promoting himself. But why? Because underneath it all, I want you to hear this, underneath it all, the reason we lie to protect ourselves, the reason we lie to protect others, the reasons we lie to promote ourselves is that underneath it all we lie because we believe a lie. We lie because we believe the father of lies who tempts us by saying it will be better off for you to tell a lie, keeping them from knowing the truth than it would be for you to tell the truth and experience the consequences of them knowing the truth. We lie because we believe a lie every time. It's that deep. And so how do we move beyond it? If you think you can hear this message and say, I want to be a man or a woman of integrity, therefore I will no longer lie, I will say yes and mean it. I will say no and mean it. Let me tell you, you will fail. Underneath somewhere deep, there will be a moment when you seek to promote by exaggerating or to protect by not revealing everything. The way in which we seek to be what Christ has called us to be is very simply this. You must trust in the one who knows the truth always. There's nothing Christ can learn. You can lie to teachers, to bosses, to children, to spouses. There's nothing Christ can learn. We must trust in the one who knows the truth. Secondly, we must trust in the one who tells the truth. God is not a man that he can lie, nor a son of man that he would change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Thirdly, not only do you need to trust in the one who knows the truth and the one who tells the truth, you must trust in the one who is the truth. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. It goes on to say no one comes to the Father except through me. The world doesn't want to hear that but it's a true or false statement. What Jesus said is either true that he and he alone is the way the truth and the life or its false. He's not and there are many ways.
Jesus said it. It's true. If you want to be a man or a woman, a child who says yes and it's yes and no and it's no, you cannot depend on your own strength and strong character. You must trust in the one who knows the truth, tells the truth and is the truth. For your salvation, for your salvation, which might mean right now but also every time you encounter the Father of lies who seeks to tell you, you will be better off lying, keeping the truth from being known. Then if you tell the truth and experience the consequences, who are you going to believe? The Father of lies are the way, the truth and the life. Father in heaven, what a gift that you gave us in sending your son. There might be right now with us Lord those who this very day have never professed faith in you. May Holy Spirit that moment happen now, where they embrace the truth for the first time, simply by praying, Lord Jesus, forgive me of my sins, let your righteousness cover me, that I might have life forever in you. And Lord I know in our midst there are people who have lied. Recently are perhaps a long time ago and the guilt of that weighs on them heavily. Lead them Lord to the truth, you and the promise that we have in you even as we say before the throne above. Thank you Christ, that you are the ultimate yes, you are the one who keeps your word, you are the one who knows all things and you are the one who is the truth. Save us we ask in Jesus name and take our lives and let them reflect the glory of who we are in Christ and whose name we pray. Amen.