Well, as we look at verse 12 today and as we hear the context, you might be surprised by some of the wording that we just heard. We just heard in verse 12, but above all, brothers, we almost see a very clear emphasis, an escalation. attention being placed on this verse. It's almost concluding the section that we've been talking about, which has really been about being patient through trials. Knowing that Christ is coming back, we should be aware of His coming back, and we should be patient. We should be ready. We should be looking for His coming, living a godly life, strengthening our hearts. We should not be grumbling. We should not be moaning and impatient, but we should be actively working towards glorifying God until He comes back. always knowing that there's more spiritual growth for us to have until he does. And then he ends his time after pointing to some examples. Look at Job, he was a good example of steadfastness. Then he says in verse 12, but above all, my brothers, do not swear. Kind of an interesting above all, wouldn't you say? But above all, do not swear. either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation." We have to admit that the topic of swearing and taking oaths and vows, they're all connected It seems to be a topic in our modern times that is not necessarily well understood or maybe even well practiced. This may be one of those areas of a bit of ignorance. Maybe we have a light or just surface understanding of these verses. That's often the case with Scripture, but this is one of those things that really we should pause for a second. Why would James end his section on enduring through suffering and being faithful until Christ comes back? Why would he end with this emphasis of, hey, above all, make sure, as you're living faithfully, you must not swear. You must not swear. Well, today we're going to take this week, this sermon, to talk about this topic of oaths. If James is going to put it at the end and put it for emphasis, then we should really perk up our ears. What is going on here? Why is this so important? So our question for today is going to be, what are we to learn about taking oaths? What are we to learn about taking oaths? Just one verse, but there's so much involved in this. We'll have three points. If you're helped by it, you can write notes. And the first point for your notes is this. What are we to learn about taking notes? We are to not swear by any created thing, but always speak truthfully. We are to not swear by any created thing, but always speak truthfully. Now, so far, this probably isn't ground shaking. But it's important to know what we really are talking about here. There's a command, but above all, my brothers, do not swear. In fact, I think these are often misunderstood verses. Yes, he is telling us not to swear, but notice that he qualifies what not to swear by. He says, either by heaven, which is a created thing, by the way, you know heaven didn't always exist, created the heavens and the earth, right? Or by the earth, so the spiritual realm and the physical realm, or by any other oath, anything else that's in creation, heaven, earth, everything in between, that's all of creation, isn't it? Don't swear by anything created. or any other oath, but simply let your yes be yes and your no be no." If you're with us during our midweek, this idea came up during our midweek Bible study, because Paul talks about, in 2 Corinthians, how he was being accused of lying and not being a man of integrity, because he changed his plans about visiting the Corinthians And they were saying, see, he didn't really mean it, he was lying to us, he's not trustworthy, he's not a good apostle, we shouldn't follow him, see, because he said he was going to come visit us and he didn't visit us. He didn't visit us after all. And what he's going to do is he's saying, was my yes, no, and was my no, yes? He says yes, yes, and no, no. We actually need to understand what's going on here. When it says, let your yes be yes and your no, no, this should sound familiar. James is just quoting Jesus here. He's quoting Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, but this idea of yes, yes, and no, no is that a person, if they wanted to put extra weight behind what they were saying, they would say, yes, and they would double it and say, yes, no, yes, yes, I really mean it. Yes, yes, it's like a way of intensifying that, no, I'm serious about what I'm talking about. It's like swearing. No, I swear, it's true what I'm saying. It's an exclamation intensification. And so they're saying, hey, you should be, this section, you should be a person whose one yes is good enough. You don't need to say, yes, yes. You don't need to intensify because you're a person who's trustworthy, because whatever you say is spoken in truth. But back in the day, they would say, yes, yes, or no, no, that's not the case. In fact, this isn't that weird. Even Jesus would say, verily, verily, I say unto you, truly, truly, I say unto you. What does that do? It adds intensification. That doesn't mean Jesus is doing anything wrong here. He's just saying, listen up, this is very important. Well, what was going on? Back in the day, there was a whole bunch of quote-unquote swearing going on. The Jewish people in particular were known for taking oaths in a way that was kind of working around the system of how they would tell the truth and how they would tell lies. Let me read a quote here from Curtis Vaughn. He says, the standards had sunk so low. He says, they have no reference whatsoever to a courtroom procedure. These words, when it says, do not swear, this is not saying you can't swear at all. Absolutely. It's saying you can't swear by anything created. And so it's not talking about a courtroom procedure. The prohibition is against the flippant use of God's name to guarantee the truth of one's statement. You can't just say, I swear to God, I swear, I really do. No, you can't do that. Don't swear to God, which we're going to see is the only way to swear, unless you actually really mean it. There's certain ways in which you can swear and there's certain ways in which you can't. We're now getting the negative. We're not to be swearing using God's name or anything that is created. Flippantly, among the Jews of the first century, ordinary standards of truthfulness had sunk so low that a statement was thought to be without value unless it was supported by an oath. It's almost like people wouldn't believe you unless you took an oath because people were so used to hearing lies all the time that people's words didn't mean anything. I don't know if you know somebody like that. I hope you're not one of those people. But maybe you know that there are certain people whom you live with, maybe in your family, maybe coworkers, maybe friends, who they have just been known to tell lies, to exaggerate, to leave stuff out, to the point where people don't trust what they say anymore. Well, this was just so prevalent that people needed extra assurances, and so people would say, you better, do you swear? Will you take an oath? Will you say God is your witness? This is what's going on. Robertson, who's another commentator, writes that the Jews had learned how to split hairs on the subject of profanity. What the Jews learned how to do was they learned how to take oaths in a way that was trying to uphold God's law. Now, something we need to be aware of, if you swear, and if you say, well, like with certainty, no, I swear, I swear God, and you invoke God's name, If you don't do that rightly, you're actually blaspheming. This is actually the third commandment, right? You shall not take God's name in vain, right? You should not take God's name in vain. Well, when you invoke God's name, the holy, reverent, awesome name of God, and you do it just to say, no, I'm serious, I'll be home at a certain time. Or no, I'm serious, there were two pigs in that pen. When you're just using his name flippantly, Casually, for your own purposes, as opposed to understanding just how important God's name is, you're taking His name as vain, you're profaning His name. It's a serious offense to God, and the Jews knew that, and yet they were a part of a lying culture, and so they wanted to play the game of swearing without being accused of blasphemy, and so what did they end up doing? They created this system of swearing that was, in their mind, okay, because they weren't exactly using God's name that way. In fact, let me just go to the scriptures where Jesus is speaking. where James is quoting from Jesus, Matthew chapter 5, verses 34 through 37. These will sound very familiar because this is what James is referring to. Jesus says, again, you have heard that it was said, meaning you've heard that these wrong teachers are saying this. He's going to correct often the Pharisees' wrong teaching. those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn." You can't just swear falsely, you got to do what you say. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil." Jesus is talking about this very same dynamic. You should be a person who is a truth teller, and you should be a person who is trustworthy, And instead of playing the game of, no, I'm serious, no, I'm serious, and then being tempted and even crossing the line and using God's name in vain, we should just say, yes, my word is my bond. No, I'm not joking. and that should light. We should be the type of people and character to where our yeses are yes and our no. We are truth tellers and we're promise keepers, right? That's what it means. We're not game players who try to make people understand us or make people believe us, but really we're gonna do something different. We're not sly and deceitful. In fact, this is really called out explicitly in Matthew 23 when Jesus is condemning the Pharisees at this point. Chapter 5, he's teaching the crowds and the disciples. Chapter 23, he's specifically railing against the leaders who were playing these games and teaching others to play the same. Verse 16 of chapter 23 says, "'Woe to you, blind guides! who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath." See these games that we're playing here? And he goes, you blind fools, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? Verse 18, and you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. Meaning, oh, I could swear by that, and I didn't really mean it, because I just swore by the altar. They're playing these games. And he says, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. You blind men, for which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Verse 20, so whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. Going back to verse 37 of Matthew 5 is what he means. Let what you say simply be yes or no, anything more than this comes from evil. Jesus is correcting the evil use of false speech, of false swearing, and really it gets down to a character issue of deception. This is what, when James is talking about, hey, above all, Don't be a hypocritical, deceitful person who just is in there maybe because they're experiencing trials. Maybe in your pain or fear, resort to start being a person of bad character. No, guard your character, guard your mouth, guard your speech, and guard the name of God. It actually makes sense that he would say above all, because he's talking about one of the Ten Commandments here. He's talking about the moral law of God. He's talking about commandment number three. And so let me just ask you, as we seek to understand this rightly, is your speech, is your speech today, and is your speech characterized by being straightforward and trustworthy? As we talk about swearing and taking oaths and understanding, this really is a character issue. Are you a person who speaks straightforwardly, you're not playing games, and what you say is trustworthy? Because that's actually what we're being taught to be. Above all, Brothers and sisters, we are to be the type of holy people of Christ that what we do and what we say can never be accused of being deceitful, never be accused of being selfish, no, and can never be accused of profaning God's name. It's a very important thing. Now, when we think of swearing, oftentimes we think of just cussing, right? Cuss words, and people, oh, people swear words. And it's true that there, isn't it interesting, in every culture, like just, like with very little or few exceptions, every culture, when they talk about swearing, it almost always includes some sort of profanity against God, or it includes the name of God. Isn't it amazing how many non-Christians just call on the name of God all the time? They're constantly blaspheming, but only in times of what? Anger, rage, fear, seriousness. It's like, it's amazing how when something even gets, maybe a person gets scared, what might come out? Blasphemy comes out. Oh! Oh! I actually think that that's a form of evidence saying that every single person knows that there is a God, because when they are under duress, they call on Him. even without thinking about it. It just falls out of their lips. Now, it's true, maybe their parents or people, their loved ones around them used to do that, so maybe they could have learned that behavior. But some people don't have to learn that behavior. In fact, they take the swearing and taking God's name, they take it to the next level, right? Well, the question and the topic before us today that James wants us to focus on is, hey, are we the type of people, the type of believers and Christians that really understand what it means to be a follower of Christ? If we're truly followers of Christ, we trust and obey in Him, and that includes, it'll affect our speech, it'll affect our carefulness In always telling the truth, not seeking to deceive, this doesn't mean we have to spill our guts and share things that are inappropriate for people. This doesn't mean we lose all discretion because we're truth-tellers. But what it does mean is that we are intentionally making sure that we are not trying to deceive anyone. We are straightforward, not playing games, and we're trustworthy. Is that true of you? I'm guessing for many of you that's mostly true. Some of you maybe it's less true and God is bringing conviction and encouragement to you now. I would say lean into repenting against those habits, those often bad habits of speech and even thoughts that turn into speech that are not honoring to the Lord. Is your speech straightforward and trustworthy? Well, we're going to get into our second point now. The first point is what are we to learn about oaths? The first is that we are to not swear by anything that is created. Our second point is going to be the logical inference, the logical necessity of the first point. The first one is we are not to swear by anything created, right? What's the opposite of that? Therefore, we must swear only by the name of God. We are not to swear by anything created, but always have our speech be truthful. But there is such thing as good and right and true swearing and taking of oaths, and it must only be done by the name of God. In fact, this is pretty important for us to know. There is good and right swearing. There have been some Christian traditions who have taken the words of Jesus and the words of James absolutely, and they have made it a sin to take an oath or to swear in any way. I'm thinking of some of the Mennonite traditions who are saying, no, Jesus said it was wrong to swear, therefore we cannot enter the military. because you would have to take an oath, or we cannot be a doctor because we'd have to take an oath, or we cannot do certain professions because we'd have to take an oath or we'd have to swear. And that's a misunderstanding of the biblical text. Yes, it seems to say that on the surface. But if you've been around, there are many things that the surface reading will actually get you into trouble because there's so much more to it. You need to use the whole Scripture to understand all of the Scripture. And so what we're going to see here is that there are actually good examples of godly people making swearing and oaths and invoking the name of God in a good and right way. In fact, this is where I'm going to lean on our tradition here. The 1689 Baptist Confession has written a whole chapter on this. It's on lawful oaths and vows. And there's a difference between an oath and a vow. An oath is something that you make as a truthful promise and commitment, invoking God horizontally. You're dealing with people and you swear to God as dealing with people, it's horizontal. But a vow is making an oath or a promise to God, saying, I vow to God now. So there's a God word, vow, and there's a human word, oath. And both are important, they're both in the scriptures. In fact, let me read the first paragraph of the 1689 Confession in this chapter 23, because it talks about this. A lawful oath is a part of religious worship. Let me just stop there. Did you know that we have oaths as a part of our worship as Christians? When you become a Christian, do you know that you commit before God as your witness to follow Him the rest of your life? Just think about your conversion. When you repent and you profess faith, you're not saying that privately. You're not saying, well, I'm going to do this, but nobody's going to know about this, and it's okay if I break this oath, like basically this promise that I'm going to commit to God. No, that is a public profession of faith by which you are making A vow to God and an oath to others. A profession of faith is an oath and a vow. Same thing with a baptism. A baptism is, as God is my witness before you people, I believe in Jesus and I want to follow Him in Christian baptism today. That's an oath. And that's a vow. Same thing with church membership. We have covenant oaths to one another where we say, I solemnly swear, because God is my witness, to uphold the covenant and belief and doctrines of this church. I do this, I'm calling on God. This is what we do as Christians, we take oaths. This is a part of our regular worship. So we shouldn't be worried about this, or I should say this differently, we shouldn't be seeking to not take oaths, we should just understand what they are and making sure we're doing them rightly. So a lawful oath is a part of religious worship wherein a person in Hearing the truth, wearing in truth righteousness and judgment, solemnly calls God to witness what he swears and to judge him according to the truth or the falseness thereof. I swear to God that this is true. That's what we're doing. There's a right way to swear to God. In fact, we can only swear to God. The next paragraph says that, paragraph two says, the name of God only. is that which by men ought to swear, and therein is to be used with holy fear and reverence. Therefore to swear vainly or rashly by the glorious and dreadful name, or to swear at all by any other thing, is sinful and to be abhorred. Yet it is as a matter of wait and moment for confirmation of truth, and the ending of strife, an oath is warranted by the word of God, so a lawful oath is being imposed by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken. There are times in which you ought to, you actually should take an oath. And it says it here, when there is a matter of wait and moment to confirm the truth. I mean, think about it, in a court of law, This is a very serious thing. Somebody's life is on the line. There's some sentencing or consequences that could take place and you need witnesses. And guess what? We need truthful witnesses. And if there aren't truthful witnesses, you could affect somebody else's life negatively. You could cover for them or you could lie about them. positively or negatively. No, no, no, this is a very serious matter. You ought to say, no, I'm serious. God is my witness. He sees and knows that what I'm saying is true. So it's actually the seriousness of it. Actually, we ought to take oaths in those situations. But we need to be careful that we're doing it right. It's warranted. And there are such thing as lawful authority, meaning not just anybody can tell you to take an oath. It's true that a judge can tell you to take an oath, because the judge is calling for some sort of help. It's true that a pastor can call you to take an oath, because a pastor has been placed by God above in ruling the church, and the elders of the church can call their members to take membership oaths, because they're a lawful authority by which God has called them to do that. Right? But it ought to be taken carefully and only in the name of God. Think about it. There is no other created thing that could possibly determine the truth. Like, just think about it. God is the one who actually knows the truth, right? So when we swear to God, he's the final court. He sees it all, he knows it all, and he could confirm something and say, yep, that's true, because there's nobody above God. But what do you do when you go, oh, by Jerusalem, or by the temple, or by these other things, or by your own head? I mean, Jerusalem, temple, your own head, those things aren't gonna call you to account. Like, I swear on my mother's grave. Your mother's grave is not gonna tell the difference between right and wrong and truth. It's kind of crazy. You're saying something that sounds serious, but it's actually absurd, right? I swear, I swear to whatever. Pinky swear, right, when you're a kid. No, don't do that, just tell the truth, right? Kids, tell the truth, don't swear. Adults, tell the truth, don't swear. But let's just see here that this is, you know, the negative command of not to swear is, again, only against, you know, by invoking created things. The positive is we must swear rightly only in the name of God, and let me show you a few examples in the Old Testament. Psalm 76, starting in verse 11, it talks about making vows. It says, make your vow to the Lord, your God, and perform them. Let all around him bring gifts to him who is to be feared, who cuts off the spirit of princes, and who is to be feared by the kings of the earth." It's a command. Make your vow to the Lord and do what you say you're going to do. It's not don't make any vows, don't make any oaths. It's when you make it, do it right. Do it unto the Lord correctly. Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 2, God is speaking here in the prophecy through Jeremiah, and He's speaking to Israel, and He says, "'If you return, O Israel,' declares the Lord, "'to Me you should return. "'If you remove your detestable things from My presence "'and do not waver.'" That's what they're supposed to do, they're supposed to repent from their false worship. "'And if you swear, as the Lord lives, "'in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,' "'meaning you swear rightly, Notice the positive outcome. Then nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him they shall glory. It's actually if you swear rightly, people are blessed. That's what he's saying in Jeremiah chapter four. And here's one that's a little bit funny. I hope you see if it's funny, but we'll see. In Nehemiah chapter 13, look at how serious. Nehemiah was really upset because Israel was all not following the Lord as they often are not. And one of the issues in which they were being rebellious is that they were marrying off, they were marrying to foreign women instead of staying married to Jews. You were not allowed to marry outside the faith. But they were doing that, and that's why they needed a time of reformation. That's one of the many things they needed to reform. But look at Nehemiah, what he was doing. Look at what he says in chapter 13, 25. He confronted the sin. And he said, and I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Notice, they were marrying foreign people instead of people who believed in God, and they were becoming idolaters because of it, and he's saying, you better swear that you're not going to do that again. You see how it's actually a positive thing here. It's a good thing. That's Old Testament, a few examples there. And then there's, look at Paul. All I gotta do is go to Paul. Can I say that Paul swears a lot? Wait, that sounds weird, Pastor. No, he does. He biblically swears a lot. It's all over. But he does it rightly. He does it appropriately. Let me show you in Galatians chapter one. Very corrective letter, but he says, but I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, verse 20, what does he say? In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. What did he just do? He invoked the name of God. I swear I'm not lying. So that's an appropriate thing. He swore before God that he was not, what he was saying. Also in Philippians 1.8, he says, for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. I'm so serious, I swear to God, I yearn for you. I love you, I pray for you, I swear. He's serious about his intense love for them. You see that there? And then in the Corinthians, we're going through 2 Corinthians now, here's a few examples. He does this a few times, why? Because he's under attack. And when he's under attack, he needs to guard his good name, and when he guards his good name, he swears, what I'm saying is true, because they don't believe him. Well, chapter 1, verse 23 says, but I call God to witness against me. It was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. We're going to go over that verse this week. That's the beginning verse of our section this week. And then in chapter 11, verse 31, for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. You see, I'm just showing you examples, because people don't understand this. Swearing is not inherently bad. We just need to swear by the right thing, by God, and for the right purpose, in the right way, and therefore, that pleases God. Just a few more things on this section. On paragraph 4 of chapter 23 in the Confession, it says, When you take an oath, you're not to be playing word games, right? You're supposed to believe it with a true and full conscience. You should not take an oath if what you're saying is you don't have full confidence in what you're saying. If that's the case, don't swear. Because if you're swearing and you don't have full confidence in what you're swearing, it is a very serious offense before God. We're going to talk about that in the next section. But if you know something to be true, and you're there to confirm the truth, and you're called on to swear, or it's appropriate thing to swear, then swear with full knowledge and full clarity. No mental reservation. And then the last paragraph of the chapter says, a vow, talking about vows now to God, a vow which is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone, is to be made and performed with all religious care and faithfulness. But notice, there's some inappropriate or not allowable vows, says, but popish, monastical vows of perpetual single life, when I vow to stay single, or professed poverty, I vow to be poor, and regular obedience are so far from being degrees of higher perfection that they are superstitious and sinful snares in which no Christian may entangle themselves. There are such things as false and inappropriate vows, where you say, I vow before God, I'm gonna stay single forever. Well, what if God has a different plan for you? That may be your desire, that may be your intention, and yes, it's true that there may be singleness that God has for you when Jesus says somebody makes themselves a eunuch for the kingdom of God, but even then, God can and does override people's plans. Maybe they were single for a period of time, but maybe they shouldn't stay single because God is doing some providential work in their life to bring about. And then the vow of poverty. It's not inherently godly to be poor. It's not inherently godly to be rich. In fact, there's a lot of warnings about, be careful of the ensnarements of So there's lots of warnings about that, but that doesn't mean you run to poverty and think therefore it's more godly. No, that might be something that is not stewarding God's life well. It's not, and really what they're hitting at here is the Roman Catholic vows that are really just superstitious. They think they're earning more merit with God. They think that this will help them. But really it's just external religion that is kind of the ideas of men. This is not something that we're ever commanded to do. There's no examples of this in the scripture anywhere. And so that's not there. So let me then ask you the question. Now that we're talking about swearing, my guess is you don't think about swearing all that much unless, But will you take your swearing seriously? You probably don't realize that you have more opportunity to swear rightly than you think. You shouldn't be doing it all the time unless it's appropriate. It's better not to swear. But will you take this topic of swearing seriously? Because apparently, Jesus and James and Paul and Peter, I mean, we see examples of all of them, understanding this swearing and needing to do it rightly. I mean, James says, above all, brothers, I want, pay attention to what I'm going to say is when he's saying above all, like, listen up, what I'm saying is true right now, listen. Don't be a person who is swearing flippantly, who is appealing to created things. No, no, no, are you a person of upright truthfulness and character? And when you do take oaths, if you're a member here, do you take your membership oath seriously? Or is it one of those things where it's like, yeah, you know, I said I would be at every, that I'd regularly be at the meetings of the church. But, you know, sometimes I want a break. Sometimes I'm just kind of too tired. Not understanding that you made an oath. Not understanding, I made an oath that I would pray for people. Are you praying for the members of the church? You're praying for the gospel to win? Or is that just something, yeah, you know, I'm not in the mood this month. If we make these things—by the way, we should make those types of oaths. We should make oaths before the Lord saying, I will follow the Lord with my whole life. That is a good, godly oath. That's called the oath of conversion, and the oath of baptism, and the oath of church membership. Those are good, godly oaths. Will you take them? Some people aren't taking them. They need to take them. And then those who have taken them, are you taking them seriously? Because that's an important part of our life that I think just in our day and age, it's true for us too. People don't take this seriously. They want the freedom to not be held to their words. So I'd rather just not make commitments. You know, those sorts of things. No, no, no, we're supposed to make commitments, godly commitments in a godly way. And guess what? God is honored when we do that. And he's dishonored when we don't. So, what are we to learn about oaths? We are not to take oaths, we're not to swear by any created thing, but we're to be truthful in our speech, right? And what else are we to learn? Well, we are to take oaths, but only in the name of God and only for godly purposes, only lawful oaths. So then let's look at our last point as we look at the ending of our verse today. What else are we to learn about oaths? It's this, that we must not swear vainly or flippantly, as this brings serious offense from God. This offends God when we swear vainly or flippantly. Let me read the last part. It says, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. James is talking to Christians about their speech, and he's saying, if you don't have a life that is honoring, truthful, trustworthy, if your words don't mean what they, if you don't mean the words that you say, if you're playing games, if you're taking God's name in vain, That brings condemnation. That's the whole point that he's telling his people as well as the people of his day. You're not taking God's name seriously enough. You're not taking your speech seriously enough. God hears all, God sees all, God judges all. Remember, every careless word you'll have to give an account for, Jesus says. Right? So interesting. Above all, brothers, Don't be judged by God because you're swearing falsely or not swearing rightly. There's condemnation for that. Let me read the paragraph that we skipped over, because it talks about this clearly in the Confession. Chapter 23, paragraph 3 now, it says, You're only going to say exactly what you know to be the truth, because it's so important what you're doing. For that by rash, false, or vain oaths the Lord is provoked, and for them this land mourns." Interesting. When people don't keep their word, or they exaggerate their word, or they swear by God's name, it affects the community. By this, the land mourns. It's similar wording that's used in the Old Testament that talks about the blood guiltiness. Do you remember hearing about in the Old Testament when there was a murder that took place? Actually, it wouldn't be a murder. It was an involuntary manslaughter. Do you remember? in the Old Testament, somebody throws an axe or the head comes off, accidentally kills someone, right? If you know what it says in the Old Testament law, what are you supposed to do? That person needs to run to the nearest city of refuge, because guess what? There's been blood spilt on the land, and some brother or family member is going to want to take revenge, And so what they need to do is go run to a place where they can get a fair trial. Because they're thinking that the home base is not going to be a fair trial. So go to a city of refuge so that you could get a trial to see if it was as bad as people think. Otherwise, they're just going to kill you. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. People are just going to say, oh, you took my brother. I'm taking your life. So it's actually protecting the involuntary manslaughter. But what does it say? It says, for blood has been spilt on the land, which I cannot have blood guiltiness on my land. There was this idea that God was giving them the land, and anytime they sinned, it polluted the land. So it's the same idea. Anytime you lie or swear falsely, you're actually polluting the land and everybody gets affected by that sin. It's not just a private sin. It's a community sin. And people's lies will find them out. Is that not true? People will be found out about how truthful they are. In fact, unfortunately, maybe many of you heard about the falling of a recent pastor that took place that was devastating to many people. His sins found him out. Truth wins, right? Truth wins, so we must be people of the truth, not of deceit. So again, going back to Exodus chapter 20 is the third command. When James says, there shall be condemnation for swearing falsely or not swearing appropriately, this goes back to what God himself said. Exodus 20 verse 7, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. What does he say? For, why? For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Isn't that kind of, shouldn't that make you kind of shudder a little bit when God is saying, I'm not gonna let this one go. This is a very serious offense. No, you can't take my name in vain. And yet we just hear Jesus Christ and God being thrown around in movies, television. How many of us, I mean, truth be told, how many of you wince when you hear it happening? I would say keep that up. Keep up the yuck factor of false swearing. We should train our kids and the people around us not to be okay with other people's terrible speech. It's not okay. God hates it. So obviously we shouldn't do it ourselves, of course, but we shouldn't condone that others do it too. In fact, I appreciate, brother, if I could put you on blast a little bit. Brother Jacob, he's in his workplace. There have been other people who have been swearing, using the name of God in vain, blaspheming, and he has said something. Hey, I'm a Christian, that's offensive, could you not do that, please? And guess what? It's helped. We should not condone us doing it or anybody else doing it. It's very serious. There's condemnation. Think about it. This is actually, this is one of those sins, like all sins, but this is one of those sins that condemns you to hell. We don't think of this sin as being that big of a deal. Just go, ah, I was a little loose with this. Yeah, it was just being intense. It was actually appropriate for the moment. Was it? No, there's condemnation that comes with this. We should not. So there's a very serious warning to Christians, to everyone, not to take the Lord's name in vain, not to swear falsely, because God takes this serious. Well, the question is, is this so serious that it's an unforgivable sin, an unpardonable sin? Praise Jesus Christ that this is not an unpardonable sin. This is something that can and will be forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. By faith in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins, this can be forgiven. So whether it's you here Christian who's hearing my voice or the non-Christians around, they do not have to be on their way to hell because of their speech and because of their blasphemy of the Lord. If they believe in Christ, if you believe in Christ, you place your faith in Him and not your own works. We talked about that today. Are you resting on your own works or are you resting on the works of another? we're resting on the works of Christ, and because of His works we can be forgiven from this. And so I just want to, as we come to a conclusion here in the next few minutes, I want to just encourage us that actually oaths and vows are very important, and it's really because of an oath that God takes that we are able to have the salvation of Jesus Christ. Did you know that? Oaths and vows are actually good, especially when God makes them. In fact, they can't be inherently sin if God makes an oath. We know that God makes oaths. I mean, look at Hebrews chapter six, verse 13 and 14. The writer says, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself. He goes, I swear by myself, there's no one higher. And what does he say? Surely I will bless you and multiply you. He's talking about the promise to Abraham that he would use Abraham and his seed to bless the world. Let me read it in Genesis 22, Abrahamic covenant. Starting in verse 15, it says, I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. We're going to talk about this in covenant theology in weeks out when we talk about the Abrahamic covenant. But God makes an oath to Abraham that he would bless him, and he would bless him through his seed. In fact, Paul interprets this verse for us in Galatians 3.16. It says, now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say offsprings, the Jews. It's not talking about the Jews. It says referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. Paul is interpreting what's going on in Genesis chapter 22 to say that blessing that God promised he would give to you, Abraham, was Christ. And so it's because of God's oath, God's swearing by Himself that we can have eternal life. Oaths are a good thing when they're done right. And so do we know that? Do we seek to do them right? Do we seek to cherish the promise that God makes for us? So be encouraged today, brothers and sisters. If you're in Christ, God swore by no one other than himself to say, I've given you Christ and he will be your blessing forever. And if you're in Christ, you cannot lose Christ. If you're in Christ and you need to repent of your sin, good news, confess your sin and he will forgive you of your sin. And if you're not in Christ, throw yourself at his feet, ask for forgiveness, he will not push you away. If you have not asked, if you've not given your life to Christ fully, Christ calls to you and says, come to me, I will forgive you. And it's a promise that cannot be broken. So take him today. Would you bow with me? Lord Jesus, thank you for these verses talking about swearing and oaths. I know we don't often talk about this in detail, but Lord, I thank you for the opportunity that through the preaching and teaching of your word through James, we got this opportunity, Lord, to learn more about it. Lord, we thank you for your Your obedience in God the Father, Your oath that You made to and for us, Lord, through the person of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that He would be high and lifted up, that we would be low and thankful. And Lord, that even what we are going to experience later today in the Lord's Supper, Lord, that we would experience the goodness of Your promises that are fulfilled. And so we thank You for Christ, and it's in His name we pray. Amen. Amen.