Watch Your Words
Notes
Transcript
12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.
As we make our way to the end of the book of James, James has a few more practical things to highlight for us. In our verse for today, verse 12, he is emphasizing a reality that he thinks is crucial for us to get and apply to our lives. Now, at the outset, there are some disagreements over this text. Some people in history have used this text as a Biblical reason to forbid taking oaths in courts or pledging allegiance to the US flag. While I’m sure that’d be an interesting topic to debate, that’s not what James is trying to teach us from this specific text today.
Instead, James wants us to leave this passage with an understanding that hardships will tempt us to take matters into our own hands, but true faith will rest in God’s grace. That kind of rest, James teaches us, will influence how we talk and how we pray.
As you read this verse, it might sound a little familiar to you. And if it does, that’s because it’s almost identical to the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus says, ““Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”
So, James isn’t introducing a new idea here. Instead, he’s reminding us of what Jesus taught way back in the Gospels. To help us understand how this is to apply to our lives, we need to figure out what the problem was that Jesus was facing. According to one commentator, at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees would regularly make oaths to assure you that they would do what they said they would do. The issue, however, was that they ranked their oaths in their minds. So, they might swear that they’ll do something to you, and you might trust them, but down the road they’re going to find a loophole to get out of it by saying they made a more important oath somewhere else. The result of this kind of manipulation was that the words of these Pharisees were essentially worthless.
Understanding this reality, Jesus makes His position very clear by telling them to knock it off. The godly person is supposed to say what they mean and mean what they say. If they say, “Yes, I’ll do that.” Then they mean they’ll do it and you won’t need some special vow to be assured that they’ll come through. Basically, a Christian’s word should mean something.
Picking up on this lesson, James is going to push this a little further. You see, James is dealing with the temptations of hardship throughout his letter. Two things he’s taught us lately are that hardships will test your patience and will push you to be argumentative with others. The last, and perhaps most significant warning that James wants you to know about hardships is that they will test your faith.
Remember, last week we saw that in our hardships, if we endure, we will find that God is compassionate and merciful just like Job in verse 11. Well, one thing James wants us to recognize is that there is also a possibility that when hardships come, you might be tempted to think that maybe God isn’t as loving and merciful as He said He is. So, if God isn’t loving and merciful in His nature, then you, going through a hard time are going to want to figure out how you can win that kind of favor to get you out of your stressful situation.
With all this said, the first thing we learn here is that Hard Times Will Test Your Faith. They’ll test your patience by causing you to think the Lord will never deliver you, they’ll test your patience with others by making you more argumentative and stressing you out, and they’ll test your perspective on who the Lord really is by thinking you can bargain with God. This leads us to our main point for today, which is that hard times can reveal unbelief in disguise.
What are they dealing with? Hardships. And what were we just to remember? That God is loving and merciful. So, if James is now concerned with our oaths, there are two ways we might see unbelief revealed in us.
The first is that we might be tempted to make oaths to God. And here’s the problem with that. Have you ever prayed, “Lord, if you do this for me, I promise I’ll do this or that?” While there might be a case for saying you’re simply saying you’re going to honor the Lord for His faithfulness, the danger here is that you might also be falling into the thought that God, the all wise, all powerful Creator, is going to be manipulated by your bargaining with Him. If that’s us, then we’re guilty of trusting that our works can earn better things with God than His grace provides. So, are you guilty of this? If so, take some time to think through the core issue here. Are we saying that we don’t trust God’s wisdom and that we can manage His power better than He can? Are we saying that we don’t trust His goodness and need to manipulate Him to get what we need? Are we saying we don’t trust His love and need to earn His attention through some sort of contract or bargain?
Another issue is that when we face hardships, we might be tempted to make promises to people we won’t keep in times of hardship. The danger with this is that we are looking for any escape from the discomfort we’re facing and may find ourselves willing to compromise our integrity to get out of it. As people who claim to speak the Gospel of truth, we have to recognize that if we develop a testimony as liars, the world won’t have much of a reason to trust our message.
So, what do we do? Here’s three things from our text:
Find yourself grounded in your identity. Notice that James calls you “brethren.” Whenever hardships come, and you’re tempted to doubt the compassion of God, it’s important for us to remember that we aren’t alone. We’re not forsaken, and God’s not mad at you. Instead, you are His children. So, find your footing placed on the reality that I belong to God as His own.
Familiarize yourself with knowing that everything belongs to God. James tells you not to swear by the earth or Heaven. That statement recalls the teaching of Jesus on this subject that we referred to earlier. There, He says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.”
In essence, what Jesus and James want us to know is that the only thing you’ve got, and the only thing you can control is your word. Which takes us to our last thing:
Remember that you aren’t always responsible for your situation, but you are responsible for your speech. In Matthew 12:36, Jesus says, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.”
