LET YOUR YES BE YES

INTRODUCTION

Matthew 5:33–37 NLT

33 “You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.’ 34 But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne. 35 And do not say, ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King. 36 Do not even say, ‘By my head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black. 37 Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.

Never in my lifetime has truth been less valued in American culture. Like all things moral, I don’t look to the sinner, I examine the saints. The source of integrity in the earth is the people of God, or it should be.

The Antonym, that is, the opposite, of Integrity is “dishonesty”

Truth is incredibly important, and it is integrity that preserves it.

“People of the Lie: The Hope for healing Human Evil” ~ M. Scott Peck

M. Scott Peck wrote a book called “People of the Lie.” In it, he says “Children lie naturally. He further says “people are constantly asking him, “Why is there so much evil in the world?” This is a ridiculous question. Physicists know that in the physical world things tend to go to more and more random disorder. The second law of thermodynamics: things break down. The same thing is true in the moral world. He goes on to state that the tendency to lie is absolutely natural in a child. If not checked it leads you into deeper and deeper evil. Let me give you a quote. “That children generally lie and steal and cheat [and want to make reality what they want it to be] is routinely observable. The fact that sometimes they grow up to become truly honest adults is what seems the more remarkable.”

There is another reaction that the evil frequently engender in us: confusion. Describing an encounter with an evil person, one woman wrote, it was “as if I’d suddenly lost my ability to think.” Once again, this’ reaction is quite appropriate. Lies confuse. The evil are “the people of the lie,” deceiving others as they also build layer upon layer of self-deception. If confused in response to a patient, the therapist must wonder if this is not the result of her or his own ignorance. But it also behooves the therapist to question: “Could the patient be doing something to confuse me?”

The subject is as complex as it is important. It is not the purpose of this book, however, to give a balanced view of the whole topic, so we will proceed immediately to that particular pathologic variant that Erich Fromm called “malignant narcissism.” Malignant narcissism is characterized by an unsubmitted will. All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or love or some other ideal. They do what God wants them to do rather than what they would desire. “Thy will, not mine, be done,” the God-submitted person says. They believe in what is true rather than what they would like to be true.

JESUS ON TRUTH

Matthew 5:33 NLT

33 “You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.’

“heard that our ancestors were told”

not

“it is written”

Jesus is dealing with the traditions of men.

Mark 7:13 AMP

13 Thus you are nullifying and making void and of no effect [the authority of] the Word of God through your tradition, which you [in turn] hand on. And many things of this kind you are doing.

Mark 7:13 TPT

13 Do you really think God will honor your traditions passed down to others, making up these rules that nullify God’s Word? And you’re doing many other things like that.”

Matthew 5:34–35 NLT

34 But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne. 35 And do not say, ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King.

God created all things, inhabits all things, all things subsist through Him. There is nothing He doesn’t own, nowhere He is not present.

Matthew 5:36 NLT

36 Do not even say, ‘By my head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black.

Don’t promise as though by your own willpower and goodness you will keep your word. If your word was that good, why would need to add something to it?

Matthew 5:37 NLT

37 Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.

Truth matters, integrity matters.

Observed promises create and maintain cultures and societies.

If I were to follow you around with a camera, would your words or behaviors change? If so, why?

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, 1989-2011 Let Your Yes Be Yes

G.K. Chesterton says a promise is an appointment you make with yourself

After World War II there was a shift in philosophical circles to try and deal with evil.

Hannah Arendt, a born to a German Jewish family in America, was one of the most influencial political theorists of the 20th century. She said the following in her book “The Human Condition:”

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility — of being unable to undo what one has done though one did not, and could not, have known what he was doing — is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. The two faculties belong together in so far as one of them, forgiving, serves to undo the deeds of the past… and the other, binding oneself through promises, serves to set up in the ocean of uncertainty, which the future is by definition, islands of security without which not even continuity, let alone durability of any kind, would be possible in the relationships between [us]. ~ Hannah Arendt

John 13:35 TPT

35 For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers.”