Matthew 5:33-37
"Honesty in the Kingdom of Heaven"
How many really honest people do you know? How many people do you know, that when they tell you they are going to do something, you are sure that it is going to get done? How many people do you know that when they are speaking to you, you are confident they are telling you the truth? My guess is that not too many names come to your mind. Maybe a better question would be, if I asked those who knew you the same questions, would your name immediately come to their minds.
Our passage this morning is about honesty. God desires honesty in man. The Lord is an honest God; his word is always dependable. God created man in his image. One of the ways man was to reflect God's image was to walk in honesty with his fellow man. In our passage we read from Proverbs 6, there are seven things the Lord hates; two of them have to do with lying.
Satan was the first liar. Satan appeared in the Garden to deceive Adam and Eve. He deceived Eve by convincing her that God did not have her best interests at heart; that God lied about the reason he forbade Adam and Eve to eat that fruit. Adam and Eve believed Satan's lie; as a result they become liars like the devil. When God appeared and asked Adam and Eve about the fruit, both of them lied to God.
All mankind fell in that Garden. In Rom 3:13 God describes all people as liars. From God's perspective no man born in sin can truly be trusted. God hates lying so much that liars will be judged eternally in hell.
Yet God loved man so much that he decided to do something about our sinful condition. God promised Adam and Eve that one day he would send a Savior to free man from hell's punishment and bring man to heaven.
God told the truth. 2000 years ago the Savior was born in Israel. Some 30 years later Jesus died on a cross and rose again to redeem his people. Men may be liars, but God does not lie. The entire Old Testament can be summed up in this way - God promised a deliverer, and he told the truth. He sent his Son just as he promised.
God redeemed a people for himself that would reflect his honesty. In vv. 33-37 of Matthew 5, Jesus explains the importance of honesty in his kingdom. As has been his custom in the sermon, Jesus contrasts the laws for honesty in the old kingdom of Israel with the laws for honesty in the kingdom of heaven; the kingdom you are a member of right now. In v. 33 the Lord reminds you of the laws concerning honesty in Israel. You have heard it said to those of old, "you shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn."
To guarantee honesty in Israel, God put the ancient Israelites under a system of oaths and vows. The Israelite swore an oath to guarantee that what he said was true. He swore an oath when he wanted to guarantee he would follow through with something he had promised.
The reason the Israelites needed to be placed under a system of oaths was because they were not a very honest people. These oaths forced them to be honest. The reason oaths forced honesty was because an oath was always accompanied with a curse. An Israelite would say, I swear in the Lord's name to do so and so, and if I do not perform this vow, may the Lord bring his curse upon me. God warned the Israelites not to make their vows lightly, because God would bring a curse upon them for lying in God's name.
In Numbers 5 we have a great example of how these oaths were used to force honesty. If a man became suspicious that his wife was committing adultery, and she denied it, he would take her to the priest.
The priest would take a cup and mix some holy water with some dirt in the cup. He would then hold the cup up and pronounce an oath over the accused woman. The priest would say, if you have been unfaithful to your husband, when you drink this cup the water will make you sick. By drinking this cup she took an oath upon herself. The threat of the curse for lying under oath would force the guilty woman to come clean and confess her adultery. The innocent woman would not be afraid to drink the water.
We use oaths the same way in our legal system. The witness takes the stand, raises his right hand, and takes an oath to tell the truth. He may have been lying about the crime all this time, but something is different now; now he is under an oath. Now if you are lying you will be punished. The oath is necessary because people lie; liars need oaths to force them to tell the truth.
You see the problem with this whole OT system of oaths. If you were a truly honest person, would you need to take oaths all the time? If I trusted you, would I need to make you swear to God before I believed you? The problem with the oaths was that if the Israelites were honest people they would not need oaths. They would tell the truth because they wanted to tell the truth, not because they feared the consequences if they lied.
In v. 34 Jesus shocks the Jews by doing away with the entire OT system of oaths. You have heard it said, "Do not swear falsely, but perform your oaths to the Lord," but I say to you, do not take an oath at all. Jesus does away with the whole OT system of oath taking. Now that Christ has come, you do not need to take oaths anymore.
Why the change? Why do you not need to take oaths anymore? Because Jesus came to redeem you and make you honest from your hearts. He filled you with his Spirit to make you reflect God's character. Christians are not honest out of fear of punishment. Christians are honest because they have a heart led by the Holy Spirit. You do not need to take oaths to force you to be honest. You desire to be honest because you desire to glorify God.
Now let me stop here and say that there are a few groups throughout church history that have interpreted this passage to mean that Jesus is forbidding taking any kind of an oath. In this thinking a Christian could never join the military, or take the stand as a witness in court, all involving taking oaths.
But Jesus is not concerned with our taking oaths in the civil sphere. Jesus is doing away with the Mosaic system he had set up in Israel; the system that restrained their lying. The point is; Christ came and accomplished your salvation; he placed his Spirit in you. You do not need binding oaths in order to guarantee your honesty.
As a Christian you should never have to say, "I swear to God," to convince someone that you are telling the truth. One of the fruits of the Spirit is faithfulness, which includes being a person whose word is dependable.
In vv. 34- 36 the Lord gives four examples of the types of oaths the Israelites took which are now unnecessary. The Israelites had become very savvy when it came to taking oaths. They knew that when they made an oath in God's name they were required to keep it, or else God's curse would be upon them. And yet they didn't want to be bound by their word.
So the Israelites came up with degrees of oaths, where certain oaths were not as binding as others. They would say, if you make on oath invoking God's name, then that oath is binding. But if you do not use God's name, but swear by something else, like the temple, or heaven, then if you break your word you are okay. Very convenient, don't you think?
The problem was that God did not recognize those loopholes. Jesus says, do not make an oath to heaven, for it is the throne of God. When you swore by heaven, you swore by the place where God lived, so in essence you were swearing to God.
The same is true when they swore by the earth. The earth is God's footstool. When you swore by the earth you were swearing in God's presence. You were still responsible to fulfill that vow.
Some Israelite's would say, I swear by the city Jerusalem that I will do so and so. Now on the one hand Jerusalem was God's holy city, so to swear by Jerusalem sounded very serious. Yet Jerusalem was not God, so if you were lying you would be okay because you didn't use God's name.
But Jesus says, do not swear by Jerusalem either, because it is the city of the great king. When you swore by the city of Jerusalem you swore by the king of that city.
The Lord's forth example was the vow some Jews made invoking themselves as the guarantor of the vow. I swear by my own power that I will fulfill my promise.
In almost every detective show, the detective who sympathizes with the victim looks her in the eye and says, "I promise you, I will find who did this to you." That detective cannot make that promise. How does he know he will catch the bad guy?
Jesus says, stop making those vows you have no power to keep. You do not even have the power to make one of your hairs change color, yet you go around promising all kinds of things you cannot control.
Christ set aside all of these vows the Israelites were making. Jesus came to create a people of integrity who do not need vows to keep them honest.
What then is our ethic for honesty in the kingdom of heaven? V. 37 - Let what you say simply be yes or no; anything beyond that is from the evil one. Let your word be true. If you say you will do something, do it. Anything beyond a simple yes or no is from the evil one.
A radical change occurred with the coming of Christ. The system of oaths came from Mt Sinai to regulate a dishonest people. But now that Christ has come, that system becomes unnecessary. The work of Christ on the cross is so life-changing that if you still need oaths to keep you honest, you are of the devil.
Can you imagine a Christian who only tells the truth when he knows he will be punished if he lies? Can you imagine a citizen of heaven needing constant threats simply to tell the truth? God forbid! Our Lord takes honesty very seriously. God is an honest God. His people glorify him as they speak the truth, and as they are dependable.
Children are great at reminding you of the importance of keeping your word. If I ever write a book on raising kids I am going to entitle it, "But Dad, You Said." I tell my kids they will be allowed to do something, and a week later they ask me about it. Of course, by then I forgot what I said, but before I can say anything I hear those famous words, "But Dad, you said." I know that if I want to be a good example I must keep my word.
Husbands and wives, when you tell your spouse you will do something, but then forget and don't do it; that is a serious sin. Christians should be the most dependable people in the world. We should not make promises we cannot keep. And people should have a trust in us that what we are telling them is the truth.
Now, we all sin in this area. No one but Christ was ever perfectly honest. When you fall, confess it to God; ask him to make you an honest and dependable Christian. If you lie to someone, or told them you would do something but did not do it, go and apologize to that person. Remember, Jesus did not save you because you were honest; he saved you to make you honest, and he is patiently molding you unto that end.
Though even the best of people will disappoint you, God never will. God never lies. He is always dependable. That can be hard to believe if you have had people lie to you all your life, but God never lies. When he tells you he accepts your prayers, he means it. Wen he says that in Christ you are forgiven, he means it. When he tells you there is a heaven waiting for you after you die, he means it. God never lies. Therefore, be like your Savior. Be honest and dependable. Amen