Corvallis Community Church
8-10-25
  • Come People of the Risen King
  • My Hope Is In The Lord
  • Grace

  • Matthew 5:33-37

    “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” You’ve heard that one? The origin of that saying is unknown—though part of it is found in print as early as the 19th century. In 1920, a Kansas newspaper ask about the “stick a needle” part wondering if anyone knew how that part developed. For me, I’m sure I learned it on the playground at school. Its interesting how at such young ages, kids know the value of taking an extreme oath like this so that everyone knows that you’re 100% truthful—but also it is a sad commentary on human nature b/c there are other times when there’s a chance that we’re being less than honest.
    Kansans must have a little problem with the truth. Years ago, the Kansas Senate chaplain offered this prayer in opening the session:
    Sermon on the Mount—The Message of the Kingdom Chapter 15: Radical Truthfulness

    Omniscient Father:

    Help us to know who is telling the truth. One side tells us one thing, and the other just the opposite.

    And if neither side is telling the truth, we would like to know that, too.

    And if each side is telling half the truth, give us the wisdom to put the right halves together.

    In Jesus’ name, Amen.

    Thruout history, is has been said that the best men have always recognized the need for telling the truth.
    Cicero (Roman orator) “Nothing is sweeter than the light of the truth”
    Daniel Webster “There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often, nothing so strange.”
    Humanity faces a tension: The need for truth and the difficulty of attaining it. The reason for this is that by nature, all men are liars. (Jn 8:44).
    Psalm 116:11 NASB95
    11 I said in my alarm, “All men are liars.”
    Now, compare that with what the nature of God:
    Titus 1:2 NASB95
    2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,
    Numbers 23:19 NASB95
    19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
    The implication is that man is both a liar and needs repentance. The need for truth is illustrated in our courts of law. Witnesses are required to swear and oath (or affirm) that what they say is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Justice depends on truth—but we know that often, even an oath, is not a preventative against lying. The believer, however, the citizen of the kingdom of heaven is a lover of truth and a lover of truth-telling. We are heralds of the truth, promoters of the truth, defenders of the truth—and what the world should see in our character is that we love to tell the truth.
    Psalm 51:6 NASB95
    6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
    This is what Jesus is addressing in the next illustration in SM of why it is impossible for anyone to live up to the standard of the perfect rightouesness that God requires—b/c by nature, our hearts are fallen, sinful—filled with deceit (Jer 17:9). But the Xn has been transformed and instead of sharing the nature of the devil (our former father) we share the nature of our heavenly Father—the God of truth.
    Psalm 31:5 NASB95
    5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.
    Isaiah speaks of the time when God purges evil from His creation and the destiny of the believer he writes:
    Isaiah 65:16 NASB95
    16 “Because he who is blessed in the earth Will be blessed by the God of truth; And he who swears in the earth Will swear by the God of truth; Because the former troubles are forgotten, And because they are hidden from My sight!
    The previous illustrations of this principle—murder, adultery, divorce/remarriage—have underscored the problem to be a heart issue. The scribes and Pharisees were really only concerned with the letter of the Law—so “just don’t commit the deed, and you won’t be guilty.” Jesus says we’re all guilty b/c these sins originate in the heart—so too are the issues of truth.

    1. The Instruction

    “again, you have heard…”
    The concern of the Lord was not what the OT taught…but how the scribes and Pharisees interpreted the OT and how they were teaching the Jews in the time of Christ. This is what the people were “hearing that the ancients were told.”
    What we have in Matthew is not an exact quotation of the Law…but a summary:
    Exodus 20:7 NASB95
    7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
    Exodus 20:16 NASB95
    16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
    Leviticus 19:12 NASB95
    12 ‘You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.
    Numbers 30:2 NASB95
    2 “If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
    Deuteronomy 23:21 NASB95
    21 “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord your God will surely require it of you.
    Psalm 76:11 NASB95
    11 Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them; Let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him who is to be feared.
    The emphasis in the Law is on the false swearing and duty to perform the oaths that you do take. Now, what the Law was teaching is that the taking of oaths should be restricted to the most serious matters.
    Leviticus 5:4–6 NASB95
    4 ‘Or if a person swears thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, in whatever matter a man may speak thoughtlessly with an oath, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty in one of these. 5 ‘So it shall be when he becomes guilty in one of these, that he shall confess that in which he has sinned. 6 ‘He shall also bring his guilt offering to the Lord for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin.
    The writer of Hebrews gives a description of an oath when encouraging believers that God’s word will never fail, falter—His promises endure.
    Hebrews 6:16 NASB95
    16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.
    The use of the oath was and continues to be a common practice b/c humans are by nature—unreliable.  We live in a fallen world, and yet the truth is recognized as the only thing which can settle a dispute.  And without making any judgments against or condemning oaths—just a matter of fact that sinners need a mechanism to motivate telling the truth.
    Oaths or vows—were encouraged in the OT:
    Deuteronomy 10:20 NASB95
    20 “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name.
    Even encouraged to make oaths in God’s name.
    The ancient Egyptians knew that to call on God as a witness to what one is saying is the highest affirmation that they are speaking truth.  If you call on God, you’re asking Him to be the witness to what you are saying, and also asking Him to hold you accountable for what you have said. 
    Abraham made an oath to Melchizedek (Gen 14:22-24); to Abimelech (Gen 21:23-24); His servant Eliezer did when looking for a wife for Isaac (Gen 24:1-4,10). David swore by the Lord (Ps 132:2). Jeremiah said that doing so would even be a sign of God’s grace:
    Jeremiah 12:16–17 NASB95
    16 “Then if they will really learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, ‘As the Lord lives,’ even as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the midst of My people. 17 “But if they will not listen, then I will uproot that nation, uproot and destroy it,” declares the Lord.
    Even God has sworn (the point of Heb 6) so that the truth of His promise is assured. Gen 22:16-17
    Psalm 89:3 NASB95
    3 “I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant,
    Psalm 110:4 NASB95
    4 The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”
    Jeremiah 11:5 NASB95
    5 in order to confirm the oath which I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day.” ’ ” Then I said, “Amen, O Lord.”
    Zacharias spoke of:
    Luke 1:73 NASB95
    73 The oath which He swore to Abraham our father,
    God allows for the swearing of oaths b/c human nature is sinful and we need truth and men are liars.
    Once a vow had been made it was not to be broken under any circumstance. We know of several oaths that were made sincerely but very foolishly—and b/c of the seriousness of the oath—they were stuck:
    Joshua 9:15 NASB95
    15 Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.
    These were the Gibeonites—and Saul’s violation of this treaty would lead to famine.
    Jephthah:
    Judges 11:30–31 NASB95
    30 Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”
    Remember who came out?
    Saul’s vow left the army weak and famished:
    1 Samuel 14:24 NASB95
    24 Now the men of Israel were hard-pressed on that day, for Saul had put the people under oath, saying, “Cursed be the man who eats food before evening, and until I have avenged myself on my enemies.” So none of the people tasted food.
    Herod—occasion of JTB’s beheading:
    Matthew 14:7 NASB95
    7 so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.
    You cannot break your oath. The kingdom citizen:
    Psalm 15:4 NASB95
    He swears to his own hurt and does not change;
    Coming back to what Jesus was opposing—not the swearing of oaths…but the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees who were more concerned with the letter than spirit of the Law.
    Leviticus 19:12 NASB95
    12 ‘You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.
    Can’t swear falsely by God’s name—but any other name would be acceptable or if they didn’t include God’s name at all. So they came up with a couple of tactics to get around what the OT was warning against.
    Frivolous Swearing
    This was taking an oath when one wasn’t necessary. So the Mishnah (collection of oral tradition) set forth an entire section on how to do this: “By your life,” “by my beard,” “may I never see the comfort of Israel if … So they found that they could promise anything as long as it wasn’t in the Lord’s name.
    Evasive Swearing
    They used this tactic when they were afraid to swear by the Lord b/c they wanted to avoid telling the truth or to give the appearance of truth-telling but hiding their real motives.
    Matthew 23:16–22 NASB95
    16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ 17 “You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 “And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ 19 “You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? 20 “Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. 21 “And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. 22 “And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.

    2. The Correction

    Mt 5:34-36
    Make no oath at all—Jesus is condemning their tactics—not the genuine use of an oath (there are many who maintain an absolute prohibition; Quakers (George Fox), Anabaptists, ktl. The flippant, hypocritical even profane oath that was used in every day conversation is what Jesus is addressing here. It was so common that truth was was being ignored and falsehood was being exemplified in everyday speech.
    Later, Paul would state his own oaths:
    2 Corinthians 1:23 NASB95
    23 But I call God as witness to my soul, that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth.
    Philippians 1:8 NASB95
    8 For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
    1 Thessalonians 2:5 NASB95
    5 For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—
    Be very careful of the vows you make—and the objects by which you swear. Jesus explains the reason—God stands behind everything.
    Romans 11:36 NASB95
    36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
    The entire creation belongs to the Lord.
    Psalm 89:11 NASB95
    11 The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and all it contains, You have founded them.
    You cannot swear by something in God’s creation without ultimately referring to Him. To swear by heaven—God’s throne; earth—God’s footstool (showing the subjection of everything to God’s sovereignty)…even Jerusalem is the city of the great King (quote from Ps 48:2). Even swearing by your head is wrong since you have no authority over your life (hairs white or black).
    Too often we tend to compartmentalize our lives—secular and sacred…and we tend to have different lives in each.
    Barclay:
    The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 A Word Is a Pledge (Matthew 5:33–7)

    Here is a great eternal truth. Life cannot be divided into compartments in some of which God is involved and in others of which he is 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 standard of conduct in the church and another kind of standard in the business world. The fact is that God does not need to be invited into certain departments of life and kept out of others. He is everywhere, all through life and every activity of life

    To correct the religious leadership in His day, Jesus exposes the falsehood that envelopes every human heart and brings a timeless application to believers today.

    3. The Application

    Taking oaths is an illustration of our own fallenness and propensity toward falsehood. While God accommodates for our fallenness, and He Himself has sworn oaths—He does so not b/c He is under the influence of falsehood, but b/c we are and we know too well what happens in the wake of dishonesty. For this reason—
    Hebrews 6:17 NASB95
    17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
    How do we know God’s promises will come to pass? He swears an oath by Himself—so His promises will fail when He ceases to be God. Hebrews gives us the encouraging application of that:
    Hebrews 6:18–20 NASB95
    18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
    God is trustworthy, faithful, truthful—and for those who are born again/citizens of the kingdom of heaven…we are called to a life of radical truthfulness. The world around us is deceitful to its very core. Lies and deception rule the world. Falsehood is all around you—so Jesus says
    Matthew 5:37 NASB95
    37 “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.
    God’s absolute, unchanging standard is truth and sincerity in everything. “Your statement” refers to everything that you say. If you say yes—let it be. If you say no—let that be. Truth should govern your speech in every word spoken.
    James 5:12 NASB95
    12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.
    And its not just your words. I suspect there are many ways that we live in such a way so as to approve what is false. How big was the fish you caught the other day? Are stories of your childhood getting better with time? Exaggeration and embellishments are just 1 reason why it is hard to tell the truth. George Macdonald gives his own admission:
    Sermon on the Mount—The Message of the Kingdom The Radical Call to Truthfulness

    I always try—I think I do—to be truthful. All the same I tell a great many petty lies, e.g. things that mean one thing to myself though another to other people. But I do not think lightly of it. Where I am more often wrong is in tacitly pretending I hear things which I do not, especially jokes and good stories, the point of which I always miss; but, seeing every one laugh, I laugh too, for the sake of not looking a fool. My respect for the world’s opinion is my greatest stumbling block I fear.

    Jesus is calling us to a total life of radical truthfulness. Everything else He says is evil (or from the evil one). Why is that?
    John 8:44 NASB95
    44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
    A lying tongue is an abomination to God (Pro 6:16-17; 12:22). If God hates lying—so should His people.
    Psalm 119:163 NASB95
    163 I hate and despise falsehood, But I love Your law.
    The call to radical truthfulness is what Jesus is issuing. Barclay summarizes it well:
    The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 The End of Oaths (Matthew 5:33–7 Contd)

    What Jesus is saying is this—the truly good person will never need to take an oath; the truth of the sayings and the reality of the promises of that person need no such guarantee. But the fact that oaths are still sometimes necessary is the proof that people are not good and that this is not a good world.

    So, this saying of Jesus leaves two obligations upon us. It leaves upon us the obligation to make ourselves such that others will so see our transparent goodness that they will never ask an oath from us; and it leaves upon us the obligation to seek to make this world such a world that falsehood and infidelity will be so eliminated from it that the necessity for oaths will be abolished.

    Be a person who is known to honest, truthful, person of integrity. This is what will reflect the character of God and the kingdom to which you belong.

      • Psalm 116:11NASB95

      • Titus 1:2NASB95

      • Numbers 23:19NASB95

      • Psalm 31:5NASB95

      • Isaiah 65:16NASB95

      • Exodus 20:7NASB95

      • Exodus 20:16NASB95

      • Leviticus 19:12NASB95

      • Numbers 30:2NASB95

      • Deuteronomy 23:21NASB95

      • Psalm 76:11NASB95

      • Leviticus 5:4–6NASB95

      • Hebrews 6:16NASB95

      • Deuteronomy 10:20NASB95

      • Jeremiah 12:16–17NASB95

      • Psalm 89:3NASB95

      • Psalm 110:4NASB95

      • Jeremiah 11:5NASB95

      • Luke 1:73NASB95

      • Joshua 9:15NASB95

      • Judges 11:30–31NASB95

      • 1 Samuel 14:24NASB95

      • Matthew 14:7NASB95

      • Psalm 15:4NASB95

      • Leviticus 19:12NASB95

      • Matthew 23:16–22NASB95

      • 2 Corinthians 1:23NASB95

      • Philippians 1:8NASB95

      • 1 Thessalonians 2:5NASB95

      • Romans 11:36NASB95

      • Psalm 89:11NASB95

      • Hebrews 6:17NASB95

      • Hebrews 6:18–20NASB95

      • Matthew 5:37NASB95

      • James 5:12NASB95

      • John 8:44NASB95

      • Psalm 119:163NASB95

  • Blessed Be The Lord God Almighty
Corvallis Community Church
ccc@corvalliscommunitychurch.org
406-961-3443
http://www.corvalliscommunitychurch.org
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