Matthew 5:33-37 "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Introduction
When I was a kid I had a buddy who I hung out with all the time, and like other best friends we developed some of our own unique ways of communicating. We invented a few of our own words, and we both knew what the other one meant by certain things, and we even established some standards for truth. We were often kidding each other or teasing or joking or flat out lying, but once in a while you really need to know for sure if the other person is telling the truth, or you really want the other person to know for sure that you are telling the truth, and when that happened we would say, “I promise to God this is true.” I lied a lot when I was a kid, but never once did I ever lie when I had promised something to God. I didn’t do it often, but when I did it was something I took very seriously.
I was a great little Pharisee. I did not know it at that time, but that is exactly the same system that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had developed. And Jesus condemns that practice in today’s text.
Context
We are studying through the Sermon on the Mount and throughout this section I have been telling you that Jesus is interpreting the Old Testament Law. But it occurred to me this week that what Jesus is focusing on here is not mostly interpretation, but application. He is showing them the correct way to put the Law into practice. (And that is a great lesson for those of us who are teachers. When you teach the Bible do not ever become a walking commentary that just dumps information on people. Jesus told people what the Scriptures meant and then He showed them how it was to be put into practice.)
And so Jesus says, “You want to know how to obey the 6th commandment (about murder)? Do not get angry, and do not call people fools, and reconcile broken relationships immediately. What to know how to apply the seventh commandment (about adultery)? Do not look in order to lust, and do not divorce your spouse.” And now He is going to tell us how to obey two more – the ninth and the third commandments (do not give false testimony and do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain).
Importance
33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.'
A number of you were very eager the past several weeks to get all your questions about divorce and remarriage answered. And I doubt very many people looked ahead in the Sermon on the Mount and said, “I’ve GOT to make sure I come today, because I need to get all my questions answered about oaths. Oaths probably do not make it on the top ten most important issue list in most people’s minds. And so maybe the first thing we need Jesus to teach us here is about how important this subject really is. Of all the things Jesus could have addressed, He talks about oaths. For Jesus it is right up there with murder and adultery. It is funny - divorce and remarriage is such a complex topic with so many variables and we have so many questions, and Jesus gives it two verses – 34 words. Then He speaks about oaths and goes on for 82 words. And in the book of James, when he is approaching the end of the book, out of nowhere he quotes Jesus’ words here.
James 5:12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear--not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned.
This is a subject that is of great importance.
The problem
And like most of the things Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount this passage has created difficulty for interpreters because it sounds like Jesus is contradicting the OT. The Pharisees’ teaching - 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord' - that is pretty much exactly what the OT teaches about oaths. But Jesus says, “No, that is the wrong approach. The correct approach is do not swear at all.” In a formal sense it looks like Jesus just flat out contradicts passages like Dt.10:20.
Deuteronomy 10:20 swear your oaths in his name.
The Old Testament Standard
Definition of Swearing
So what are we to make of all that? Let’s begin with the definition of swearing. When you see the word swear in the Bible do not confuse that with the way we normally use that word. It is not talking about profanity or obscenity. It is talking about swearing an oath. Profanity and obscenity are both sin, but it is not the sin Jesus is talking about here.
Oaths and Vows
The issue here is oaths and vows. (The word Jesus uses for swearing covers both oaths and vows.) The purpose of an oath is to call God as a witness to the truthfulness of what is being said. It is spelled out in longhand in the phrase they often used in David’s time: “May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely if what I am saying is not true.” When someone says, “I swear to God,” or they place their hand on a Bible and say, “I swear to tell the whole truth…so help me God,” or they stand up at their wedding and “vow before God and these witnesses to have and to hold, etc.” – in each case they are basically calling upon God to punish them if they are lying.
Truthfulness and faithfulness
If it is about truthfulness (“I swear I’m telling the truth”) – that is an oath. If it is about faithfulness in the future (“I vow that I will do this”) – that’s a vow. Oaths are about the present or past, vows are about the future. Oaths have to do with truthfulness; vows have to do with faithfulness.
And when you invoke God on a vow you actually owe that thing to God. In fact in v.33 when it says keep the oaths you have made, the word translated keep is literally “repay.” An oath is something you must “pay” to God.
Deuteronomy 23:21 If you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the Lord your God will certainly demand it of you.
And whether or not you will pay it is an issue not so much of honesty, but of faithfulness.
And the OT has quite a bit to say about vows and oaths. Lv.5 talks about what to do if a person makes a vow thoughtlessly – just blurts it out without thinking. In various legal contexts God commanded that the priest put the witness under oath. In Nm.30 there is an entire chapter regulating vows – when a vow is binding and when a person can be released from it.
A mark of loyalty to God
So swearing an oath or vow was not forbidden in the OT. In fact, one of the measures of loyalty to God was whether or not you swore oaths in His name. Whoever you swear by – that is who you fear. You swear by the one you are most afraid to lie to. You swear by the person you most fear being disappointed in you. And so if you swear by a false god that means you fear that god – and that is idolatry.
Joshua 23:7 Do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. 8 but you are to hold fast to the LORD your God.
Swearing is in the same list with invoking, serving, and bowing down. Those are all forms of worship. So one of the ways to worship the true God is to swear your oaths by Him.
Deuteronomy 10:20 Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and swear your oaths in his name.
Sometimes when the OT wants to refer to the godly in general it will say, “Those who swear by God’s name.” So God not only regulated oaths, He required the swearing of oaths. In fact, God Himself even swore oaths. In Ex.13:11 and numerous other passages God swore an oath that He would bring His people into the Promised Land. Then in Nm.32 God swore an oath that the sinful generation of Moses’ time would never enter His rest.
The Pharisees’ application
So what was wrong with the Pharisees’ approach to oaths? Their statement matches exactly what the OT teaches. The problem was they got the letter of the law right but missed the spirit of the law. They missed the whole purpose. The purpose of the OT laws about oaths was to ensure honesty and faithfulness. In a word - integrity.
Legalized dishonesty
But the purpose of the Pharisees’ system was the opposite of integrity. It was a system designed to accommodate dishonesty. If you want to get the point Jesus has in mind just underline the phrase to the Lord in v.33.
33 you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.'
The Pharisees said, “You have to keep you word if your vow really was to the Lord, but if it was not technically to the Lord then all bets are off.” And so they ended up developing an extremely detailed set of laws about oaths that was essentially a system of legalized dishonesty. It all got written down in the Mishnah, which is made up of 63 books. And there is one whole book just on oaths and another one on vows – chapter after chapter all about which ones are technically “to the Lord” and binding and which ones are not. Jesus gives us a little sample of that in Mt.23.
Matthew 23:16 You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' … 18 You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.'
Why do you suppose they did that? Why have vow formulas that are not binding? They did it for the same reason children today do it. In the world of little kids, if you make a promise but you have your fingers crossed, it is not binding. And we do the exact same thing as adults, except instead of promises and finger crossing we have our system of contracts. If someone makes you a promise, commits to something, shakes your hand, and signs a contract that seems to require that he follow through – if he does all that but hidden in the contract is some fine print legalese that lets him off the hook, then in our culture he is not bound to follow through on what he promised. There are lawyers whose entire job is to write deception contracts like that – that make it sounds like something is being promised but really it is not. For us it is contracts, for them it was various vow formulas, for children it is crossing your fingers, but in each case the purpose is the same - to create a way to deceive people into believing what you say when it is not true. So the purpose of their system of vows was deception.
Swearing is for liars
There is a place for formal oaths, but in normal, daily conversation swearing is for liars. It is what liars have to do to be believed. Generally speaking the more someone has to assure you that he is telling the truth the more of a liar he probably is. When everyone knows your word is as good as gold, you do not have to make oaths to get people to believe you. But when when someone is telling you something and every two minutes they are saying, “I swear, no kidding, serious – I’m telling the truth – I swear to God this is no lie…” – people that have to do that are people who cannot be believed when they just give a simple yes or no.
So can you see how their way of keeping that commandment was inadequate? The purpose of God’s law on vows was honesty and faithfulness. And their goal in the way they kept that law was to accommodate dishonesty and unfaithfulness. That is not just inadequate – it is the exact opposite of the purpose of the law.
So once again we see that it is possible to get the wording of Scripture exactly right and still be dead wrong in your application. Their system said, “Do not break your oaths, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord” and Jesus said – “That is dead wrong.” There is nothing wrong with the wording – but when you use that wording to accommodate dishonesty and unfaithfulness, that is not obedience to the spirit of the law, which means it is not obedience at all – even if you are keeping the letter of the law.
Jesus’ Application
No oaths!
And so you can see it is not going to do any good for Jesus to try to fine-tune their approach. It did not need fine-tuning; it needed a wrecking ball. And that is exactly what it gets in v.34.
33 Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all
That is designed to get your attention. Once again Jesus makes an extreme statement that is not intended to be taken in an absolute sense. It is designed to make you think. Jesus wants us to stop and think carefully about what He means. If we just mindlessly take this as an absolute law with no exceptions we are going to run into all kinds of contradictions and we will miss the point altogether. And we will run into problems with the rest of Scripture. Not only did God command oaths in the OT, but we see oaths being made all through the New Testament as well.
Oaths in the NT
Paul swore oaths under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 1:20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
Romans 1:9 God … is my witness
Philippians 1:8 God can testify how I long for all of you
The great angel in Revelation 10 swore an oath:
Revelation 10:5 Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. 6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens …
Even Jesus testified under oath. They asked Him questions, He refused to answer them and remained silent, and finally they placed Him under oath and then He answered.
Matthew 26:63 But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." 64 "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.
And as we saw before, God the Father has sworn oaths
Hebrews 6:13 When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." … 16 Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
So how do we reconcile all that with Jesus’ words? Once again, if we reduce Jesus’ general principle down to a rigid rule applied in every circumstance in an absolute way, we miss His point.
Jesus is not speaking here about appropriate oaths and vows. There is a place for those in certain formal contexts. What Jesus is condemning here is the improper use, which is when you use vows in everyday, routine speech as a part of a system of deceit.
All oaths invoke God’s name
By Heaven
And you can tell by the examples Jesus gives that that is the kind of thing He has in mind. He spells out four specific examples of different oaths.
34 … Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne…
The Mishnah said oaths by heaven were not binding. That was one of their trick oaths. You swear by heaven to get someone to believe you, then when it comes time to follow through on your word you say, “Technically I never did invoke God in my oath, so I am not bound by it.”
And so Jesus points out to them that heaven is God’s throne – the place of God’s exaltation. It is the headquarters of His sovereign rule. Heaven is God’s dwelling place, and that makes it holy and sacred. The only greatness heaven has is it is connection to God, and so swearing by heaven really is swearing to God.
By earth
35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool
Jesus is referring here to Isa.66:1.
Isaiah 66:1 This is what the Lord says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
When an ancient king would sit on his throne – the throne was always somewhat elevated, and so there was a place for the feet. (Obviously – you do not want the king’s feet dangling.)
It seems to me the idea of a footstool points to lowliness. In James 2 James condemns favoritism in the way we treat people at church.
James 2:3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor under my footstool, " 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
The footstool is a place of lowliness and subordination. And that is what the earth is – the lowly place where God rests His feet.
Again, according to the Mishnah swearing by the earth was not binding. If you are being a little dishonest, and you are a little nervous about swearing to God that you are telling the truth and calling God as your witness, so you pick something really, really lowly and earthly to swear by (and nothing is more lowly or more earthly than the earth) – then you feel safe. You have not sworn to God. You have not called Him as your witness. You just swore by the earth.
And Jesus says, “You are right – the earth is nothing but a footstool. However, it is God’s footstool.” Is the place that comes in contact with the bottoms of God’s feet special or not so special?
Psalm 99:5 Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.
The footstool of God is the place where we come to worship. He is holy – too holy for us to approach His throne in heaven. Our place is at His feet. And that is an awesome, blessed place. God is so great, so mighty, so holy, so magnificent, so majestic, so awesome that if you so much as approach the place that is near the edge of the corner of the box that is in contact with the bottom of His feet, you should collapse on the ground on your face in reverent, trembling worship.
Have you ever felt frustrated because of your inability to give God the honor He is due? No matter how much honor I give Him, it is a million miles short of what he deserves. Well one way to express that is to worship at His feet. My highest and greatest song of praise is at best worthy to be offered to one of His toenails. I cannot exalt Him any higher than He is, but I can bow myself to a lower place in my worship to show how transcendently worthy He is.
So is the earth a lowly place? Yes – it is nothing but a footstool. But it is God’s footstool, which makes it sacred and holy. And so swearing by the earth is the same as swearing to God.
Jerusalem
or toward Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.
If the earth is lowly then Jerusalem is really lowly. Do you know how many square miles Jerusalem was in Jesus’ day? Less than one – it was 1/3 of one square mile. If Jerusalem were laid out in a square, and this church were in the center of the square, if you walked 500 yards in any direction you would run into the wall. It was a tiny little city.
And not only that, but it was the headquarters of the most despised people group that has ever existed on planet earth. No ethnic people group, in the history of the world has ever been looked down upon and reviled and loathed as the Jews. So you might think if you really want to make sure your oath is non-binding you could swear by this little speck of ground that is the capital of the most hated people on the planet. Think again. Jesus quotes Ps.48.
Psalm 48:1 Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. 2 It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.
Jerusalem is the city of God, and that makes it holy. And so if you swear by Jerusalem you are swearing by God.
That is actually something that even the Pharisees did understand. In their system it was not binding if you swore by heaven or the earth, but it actually was binding if you swore toward Jerusalem. So Jesus throws in an example of one oath that they did regard as binding. Their system is irrelevant – Jesus makes all the vows the same. And He adds one more - Your head.
36 And do not swear by your head
Sometimes people swear by themselves. They do not even both appealing to God – they just say, “I swear on my life this is true.” But even that is essentially swearing by God because He is the one who is in charge of whether you live or die.
36 … for you cannot make even one hair white or black.
In that part of the world when you are young your hair would be black, and when you got old it would turn white. And you do not even have control over that. God decides when you turn grey. God decides when you will die. If it is God’s plan for you to die today then swearing on your life does not mean much, does it?
Hebrews 6:16 Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument.
It is silly to swear by yourself. You are the one whose credibility is on trial. If you call upon yourself as the final arbiter of whether you are being truthful, what is the point of swearing at all? It is pointless. And not only is it pointless, but there is a sense in which you are really swearing to God when you swear by your own head because He is the one who is in charge of what happens to your head.
And the implications of that are massive. It means if you swear by anything God is in charge of, you are swearing by God Himself. And God is in charge of everything – right down to a single hair on your head, which means every oath is equally binding. Whether you swear by God, or heaven, or the Temple or the gold in the Temple or by your mother’s grave, or by a peanut or a banana peel – it does not matter. God is in charge of all of it so it is all swearing by God.
All speech is under oath
So the bottom line is this - every word you ever say is under oath. Picture yourself in that awesome heavenly courtroom, Dan.7, in the high court of heaven with God seated as judge, the highest dignitaries of the spiritual realm seated on thrones, thousands of angels in attendance, and you are called before that great court to testify. But first you are placed under oath: “Do you swear by the living God, the Ancient of Days who is seated there on the throne that what you are saying is the truth?” That is the kind of standard you are bound to every single time you open your mouth.
“But what about idle chit chat? I ’m not really being serious – I’m just kind of running off at the mouth talking to my friends.”
Matthew 12:36 But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
It does not matter if you are in a formal setting or just making conversation with mindless chit chat – God will hold you to every word.
When you tell your kids, “Yeah, I’ll take you there this Saturday” – you said that under oath. It is a vow to God and the Lord will require it of you. When you are returning something to the store and they ask you a question that may determine whether you will be able to get your money back or not – you are under oath before God. Or when kid’s 12 and under are free, and they ask you about your 13 year old. Or when you fill out your taxes, or sell a car – every word that ever comes out of your mouth is on the record, under oath. Everything you ever say it is as if you began with “I swear to God this is true – may the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if what I am saying is not true.” Kids – your mom or dad asks you what happened – if you do not tell the truth you are lying to God. And mom and dad may never know, but you will have to face whatever punishment God gives you, and it will not be worth it. You would be way better off just to tell mom and dad the truth and get in whatever trouble you are going to get in. Because being in trouble with God is a lot, lot worse than any trouble you can ever get in with mom and dad, or a teacher at school.
If everyone is sitting around telling stories, and the last story was a really good one and everyone laughed, and you want them to laugh at your story or be impressed with what you are going to say, and so you make something up – or you exaggerate a little bit – you have just lied to God, and you are in trouble.
I told you at the beginning that Jesus is teaching here about both the ninth commandment and the third commandment. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. When we lie under oath to God it strikes directly at the honor of God and throws contempt upon his name and authority.
Let your yes be yes
37 Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Josephus said of the people in the Qumran community that “any word of theirs has more force than an oath.” That is what people should be saying about us. Wouldn’t it be something to have a reputation that if you give a simple yes or no that is more reliable than any contract?
When my kids were little one rule we had in our house was no promises. Their friends would come over and want them to promise something (“Do you pinky promise?”) and we told them – “You aren’t allowed to promise anything. Your yes should mean yes and your no, no so that everything you say already is a promise. And it was good – because they would hold each other to that standard. They used to always say, “A word is a word.” If someone tried to go back on their word they would remind them, “You said yes – yes means yes.” I think that is what Jesus is doing with these Pharisees. Is there a place for vows and oaths, sure – but you are not ready to use them if you are not even to the point of your yes always meaning yes. So for those people in that whole system of dishonesty Jesus says, “For you – no swearing at all.”
Proper use of oaths
So what is the proper use of an oath? Oaths have a place in formal settings. These examples Jesus gives are not formal law court type oaths. Obviously they would not put people under oath in a law court using an oath that was not even considered binding. These are oaths that people would use rashly in everyday speech. Like today when people say, “I swear to God – I promise, I swear on my mother’s grave…” That is the sort of thing that is being forbidden here. All of life is lived under oath already. Everything I say is already under oath and binding before God. So swearing to the truth of something has no place in everyday speech.
The legitimate purpose of an oath is for those times when I especially need to be reminded that I am under oath. I am always under oath, but there are certain times that are so solemn and so important that it is good to have a formal reminder that I am bound before God to my word. There is value to that. When you go to court they do not just say, “Hey don’t forget – no lying.” They go through the formal process of having you stand up, place your hand on a Bible, raise your other hand, and make a formal oath. They do that because in this particular context it is especially important that you not forget that you are under oath. When you make formal vows at your wedding – that is a good thing. That is a good time to be reminded of the fact that God is going to require you to follow through on your commitment.
Another time when a vow or an oath is good is when someone else needs to be reminded that you are under oath. I made formal vows at my wedding not just to remind me of how solemn my vows are, but to let Tracy know how serious I am about those vows. That is why God swore under oath. It was not that He needed to be reminded of anything. He wanted us to be reminded of how serious He was about what He was saying.
So oaths and vows do have their place. But once you get to the point where you start to feel like a little bit of dishonesty is OK if you did not swear to God – then you have fallen into the Pharisees’ error and you need to drop the use of oaths altogether until you can learn to be honest in your everyday speech.
Anything beyond this
anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
What is speech that is “beyond” yes or no? It is speech that adds words to obscure truth. More words – less truth. You give a big, circuitous pile of words that bury the truth in the fine print. Or, it may be speech that requires added words to be truthful (if you just say “yes” that is not as reliable as if you swear to it). Some people add words for the sake of dishonesty and other people require added words in order to be honest – either way it is from the devil. He is the father of all dishonesty.
John 8:44 He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Any word that ever comes out of your mouth that is not completely honest in every way is satanic.
“What about lying to spare someone’s feelings?” Lying to spare someone’s feelings is still lying. It is not a loving thing to do. There are ways to tell the truth without being hurtful. Be as gentle and kind as possible, but do not lie. If I make a fool out of myself every time I play my trumpet, but people want to spare my feelings so they tell me it sounds great – those people are harming me. Because of them I am unaware of reality, and I am going to keep making a fool of myself without knowing it. That is not loving.
What about other exceptions – like hiding Jews from Nazis? I covered that in some detail in the sermon on 1 Sam.16 titled “The Anointing of David.” And also in part 2 of the Christian Ethics class titled “Truthtelling.” If you are hiding Jews from Nazis you can come talk to me after the sermon. But other than that, let’s let our yes be yes and our no, no.
Conclusion: How do you overcome lying?
So what can we learn from this text about how to correct the problem of dishonesty in our lives? Dishonesty is a sin every one of us struggles with at one level or another. And how do you teach your kids to overcome it? Every kid is a born liar. You do not have to teach your kids to lie, do you? I do not know at exactly what age a kid is able to distinguish the concept of what is true and what is not true. But whatever age that happens, that is exactly the age when a kid starts lying. One of the most difficult tasks of parenting is driving that folly out of the heart of a child.
So how do you do it? I used to say teach them to love the truth. But I realized this week that is not the solution. The reason they are lying in the first place is because the truth is so unlovely. Loving the truth is not our motive for being honest. The truth is I sin against God regularly – I do not love that truth. It is true, but I do not love it – I hate it.
You will never overcome lying by trying to love the truth. You overcome lying by loving the person you are talking to. It is a cruel thing to lie, because whenever you lie to someone you are stealing a little piece of that person’s life. Life is interacting with reality, but when you lie to someone you are separating that person from reality.
And whatever time you spend divorced from reality is wasted time, right? Suppose everyone got together to play a practical joke on you. They told your boss to fire you, and everyone else at work to play along. (You are not really fired – it is just a prank.) But they don’t just do it for a few minutes – they string it out for a whole week. That whole time you believe you have been fired, and you are operating on the assumption that you are out of work. You spend all your time job hunting, praying about your job situation, etc. How are you going to feel at the end of the week when you find out it was all a practical joke? You are going to feel like you wasted a week of your life. Everything you did that week was a total waste, because it did not correspond to reality. It was like being insane – what was going on in your world did not match what was actually going on in reality, and so those people stole a week out of your life. Life involves interacting with reality, and so the time you spend divorced from reality is, in a sense, a loss of that portion of your life. When you lie to someone that is what you are doing.
Not only that, but telling someone the truth is an act of love, which means lying is the opposite of love. If you think you are lying to someone for their own good think again – you are hurting them – more and more with every lie.
Unfaithfulness is a terrible thing to live with.
Proverbs 25:19 Like a bad tooth or a lame foot is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble.
If someone had an abscessed tooth (in the ancient world – where there were no dentists), and it was your fault, would you feel bad? If someone had a broken foot and was lame for the rest of his life because of you, would you feel bad? It would be unloving to give someone a bad tooth or a lame foot, right? Well you are doing something just as bad whenever you are unfaithful and unreliable.
We count on one another so much in the course of life. Just think about how much you count on truthfulness. You buy a house, they tell you the price is a certain amount, and you believe them. You make all your decisions based on your faith in them telling the truth about that. They say, “Your monthly payments will be this much,” and you base your decisions on that being true. Your boss says, “Your salary is this much. Your day off is this day.” And you live your life on the assumption that it is all true. The gas pump says you owe $45, you assume you owe $45. The box says your computer has a dual core processor, you assume it does. The FDA tells us the food in the store Is not going to kill you, you go to the store and buy the stuff and eat it. You do not take it to the lab or do any tests – you just put it in your mouth and swallow it. There are all kinds of drugs in the pharmacy that will kill you or make you extremely sick, and your pharmacist hands you a drug you have never heard of before, and what do you do – you take it home and swallow it. You could not live life without constantly believing people all day long. That is how we live. And so when someone comes along and lies, or proves unfaithful – it is like when you are leaning on something and that thing gives way under your weight. One of the great sorrows of life is the fact that from time to time people prove untrustworthy.
So the way to overcome dishonesty is not to learn to love the truth – it is to learn to love the people you are talking to. And one of the people you are talking to every single time you open your mouth is God. Remember, everything you ever say is under oath before God. And this is where all our little rationalizations fall apart. Which one of those rationalizations are going to fly on Judgment Day before God? “Why did you lie?” Well, she was dishonest with me first, so she had it coming.” And God says, “When you lied you lied to Me. Did I have it coming?” Every time you find yourself saying, “Well, it is not technically a lie because…” just think about whether or not you would be saying that if you had raised your right hand before God and said, “I swear by God Himself that this is completely true.” Every time we lie or shade the truth we dishonor the name of the Lord God. And so the way to overcome lying is to increase your love for God.
There is no need to lie. If we follow God’s way He will take care of us. If we think we can get a better outcome by departing from God’s way to protect ourselves, we have lost our mind. Let’s let our yes mean yes and our no mean no because we love one another, and we love God, and we trust His way.
Benediction: 1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
