Our word matters Matt 5:33-37

Introduction

We live in a day and age were our words don’t have much weight any more. Here Jesus is going to tell the multitudes that we shouldn’t have to make an oath, but we should be the most trustworthy people out there.

Do people need to sign a bunch of paper work to believe you or do they take you at your word?

Don’t make a vow you don’t intend to keep vs. 33

Here Jesus doesn’t just focus on a single commandment as he did in his two previous points, but instead lumps several verses together:

Exodus 20:7 “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.”

Leviticus 19:12 “12 And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.”

Numbers 30:2 “2 If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”

Deuteronomy 23:21 “21 When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in thee.”

Again notice that the Rabbis had got flippant in their teaching of oaths, they had changed this from prohibiting the making of a false vow and sealing it with the Lords name to prohibiting the use of the Lords name in vain only.

One commentary put it this way “But the clever Pharisees got to work on these awkward prohibitions and tried to restrict them. They shifted people’s attention away from the vow itself and the need to keep it to the formula used in making it. They argued that what the law was really prohibiting was not taking the name of the Lord in vain, but taking the name of the Lord in vain. ‘False swearing’, they concluded, meant profanity (a profane use of the divine name), not perjury (a dishonest pledging of one’s word). So they developed elaborate rules for the taking of vows. They listed which formulae were permissible, and they added that only those formulae which included the divine name made the vow binding. One need not be so particular, they said, about keeping vows in which the divine name had not been used.”

We must be careful that we don’t try to make the bible fit our lives but rather we fit our lives to the Bible!

Jesus explains what He means vs. 34-36

Jesus here is condemning flippant oaths.

The Old Testament permitted people to take an oath by God’s name if an oath was necessary.

Making an oath in God’s name made it a binding oath.

The reason Jesus had to bring this up is because the Pharisees taught that the oaths made in God’s name were binding and therefore had to be performed, while other oaths were not binding.

Phillips wrote this “As a result people found themselves obliged to confirm the most trivial promises by invoking Jehovah’s name. To avoid this they invented all kinds of oaths to add weight to their statements and promises without putting themselves in danger of being held guilty if they broke their word.”

Jesus tells them not to swear by heaven, because it is God’s throne.

Jesus tells them not to swear by the earth, because it is Gods foot stool

Jesus tells them not to swear by Jerusalem either, because it is God’s city.

Jesus expands on this in Matthew 23:16–22 “16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! 17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. 19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? 20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.”

Then Jesus tells us not to swear by our own head, because we can’t even turn our hair black or white.

How many of you remember when a handshake was good enough?

When we bought our house last year we didn’t make a hand shake deal, we killed at least three trees with the amount of paper work we had to sign.

It also has to do with the way that we talk. William Barclay said this “life cannot be divided into compartments in some of which God is involved and in others of which they are not involved: there cannot be one kind of language in the Church and another kind of language in the shipyard or the factory or the office; there cannot be one kind of conduct in the church and another kind of conduct in the business world . The fact is that God does not to be involved in certain aspects of our lives and kept out of others. God hears the words that not only spoken in his name but every word we speak.

Say Yes mean Yes, Say No mean No vs. 37

The Lord Jesus is saying that we are to be the kind of persons who don’t have to take an oath.

As a child of God we should be trustworthy no matter the circumstance

I was reading the J. Vernon McGee commentary and he wrote this statement “When a man says to me “I’d swear on a stack of Bibles a mile high”, that is the fellow I do not believe because I think the lie he’s telling is a mile high.

If you mean yes say yes, and if you mean no, say no. Don’t muddy the water

Proverbs 6:16–17 KJV 1900

These six things doth the Lord hate: Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood,

Jeremiah 9:3 KJV 1900

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: But they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they know not me, saith the Lord.

Conclusion

As Christians we should be trust worthy in our speech and our actions, if we say we are going to do something, do it.