James chapter 5 if you will James chapter 5 and going to be looking at one verse tonight verse 12 and here in James chapter 5 and verse 12 We see that James has just, of course, written this letter to these ones that are scattered abroad, the brethren, if you will, the saved folks, and he's been teaching them about patience in the last few verses, and we talked about that last week, how's your patience, and then we get down to verse 12, and though he's talked about patience, and he talked about it in verse seven, he talked about it in verse eight, he talked about the effects of that in verse nine, and also in verse 10 and 11. And then here in in verse 12, we read this in James chapter 5 and verse 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. I believe this is the 27th message, either 26th or 27th message out of the book of James. And the reality is this, James is a very practical book, and it's a book that has done a great work in my heart. The Lord's done a great work through that book in my heart, hopefully yours as well. But we're coming down toward the end of this. But as we look at verse 12, and it says, my brethren swear not, we look at that and we say, well, What kind of people were they? That they were a swearing people. Well, you look at this passage and you see that all through this book of James, he's been talking about many different things, especially the tongue there in chapter three, but all of those things are sin. The sin of the tongue that we were talking about there in chapter three, that's just as much a sin as having a lack of patience and lashing out because of our lack of patience and it's just as much of a sin as what we read here in verse 12 as well and he's teaching them my brethren swear not Let's go to Lord in prayer, and then we'll get into the message here this evening. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight, and Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you would speak to our hearts, and that each and every one of us would draw closer to you through this message, and that you would open our eyes and just show us some things tonight that we need to learn. And we ask all these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. As we go through this message tonight, hopefully it's something that all of us, we're not going around swearing, amen. But the reality is this, there is always a chance that sin is going to creep up on us, and especially if we're not Living our life the way we're supposed to be living if we're allowing ourselves to be influenced by things that that we should not be influenced by there are some things that that may happen and and some things that may come out of our lips and and I was with a man one time and and as we were together I can remember this man had been saved for a long time and and in the in the middle of the of the work that we were doing, a curse word came out of his mouth and he turned and he looked at me and he said, I don't know where that came from. He said, I haven't used that word in forever. He said, I've been saved for this many years and I've asked the Lord to help me to clean my mouth up. And he said, and before I was cursing and all of those things, he said, you gotta forgive me, I don't know where that came from. Well, sometimes we have scars from our past. Sometimes those things come back and those things will show themselves. But can I help us here tonight? And we'll deal with this here in just a little while. When those things happen, whether it's a swearing or whatever it may be, when those things happen, it is not right to laugh about those things. It is always right to confess those things. And say, Lord, I'm sorry. And ask the Lord to forgive us of those things. Last week we asked the probing question, how is your patience? The Lord worked in my heart and in the area of patience throughout this week, and hopefully that message was a blessing to you. But notice as we just read, this verse is not speaking of patience. It doesn't mention the word, but it can be directly attributed to a lack of patience in our lives, can it not? This verse deals with the sin of swearing. Of course, this is making an oath that, and we'll talk about that here in just a moment, but then also the sin of swearing and profanity as well can be dealt with in this verse. And we're going to dive into this verse tonight and ask the Lord to help us to be on guard of this and of our own mouth, but also for him to help us to lovingly steer others away from this sin as well. As we go through this message, it's going to be a little bit of a different style message, if you will, just because of what we're dealing with here. But it's my prayer that the Lord would help us to see that all sin is sin. And just as the little white lie is just as much a lie as what we would consider a large lie, a small, what we would say, curse word or slang word or something like that is just as much a sin as what we would consider the large curse words as well. So with that said, I want to preach to you a message that is entitled this, so eloquently entitled, Watch Your Mouth. Watch your mouth. It's my hope and desire tonight that this will be a good reminder for every one of us to watch what we say and how we say it. In a recent book, Levi Lusko, he wrote that it takes cooperation of 72 different muscles to produce speech. On average, 16,000 words come out of your mouth every single day. That adds up to 860.3 million words in the average American lifetime. That's a lot of words. But then he asked this question, with all of that being said, what do all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sentences say about your life and the condition of your heart? You may say, well, I thought we dealt with the tongue back in chapter three. We did. Pastor James had to bring it back around and talk about this. And the Lord knew exactly what we need and when we need it. And we're gonna deal with this again tonight. So notice, first of all, notice this question, what is the tongue? swearing. What is swearing? As we read this verse here, we know that it is found in the book of James, which is written to these scattered believers. These were people who knew Christ as their personal savior, but yet they were human beings just like you and I. Just because someone's name is recorded in the Bible doesn't mean that they were some super spiritual person. No, what you're going to find is that God exposed their sin many times in the Bible. Aren't you glad that the that the Bible is complete. We have the completed Word of God and the sin that happens in our life is not written in a book for all man to see here on earth. Well the ones in the Bible, I think of David and Abraham and Lot and Noah and ones like that, they had their sin that they committed and it was written on these pages for us to learn from. Well, this is just as much for us to learn from tonight as well. These people, they were human beings and James warned them. Remember back in James chapter one, he warned them that they would go through trials, they would go through persecutions and things that would try their patience. All of us have been through things that try our patience. we all know people who try our patience amen we all do but all of us go through trials and difficulties but we see here swear not notice there in verse 12 but above all things my brethren swear not we see There are two kinds of swearing in the scriptures and even in our society today. And I want to take these apart and look at these tonight. Notice, first of all, we see formal swearing. Formal swearing. This is the swearing when we call upon the name of God to attest and to affirm the truth of what is being said. This is not when we take God's name in vain. That's not what we're talking about in this formal swearing. What we're talking about here is this, like when a person would stand before the court and they would place their hand on the Bible and raise their other hand in the air and say, I will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. It's not a sin to do that. That's formal swearing. Look at Hebrews chapter six, if you will. Hebrews chapter six and verse 16. Hebrews six and verse 16. Notice this passage here. Look at verse 13, and then we'll jump down to verse 16. Hebrews 6, verse 13 says, for when God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater, notice, he swore by himself. And then verse 16, for men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. This is not saying that when you stand before a courtroom, you shouldn't say those words that we just mentioned there. Hebrews 6, 16, it talks about the promise of God and how man can swear by, if you will, and be assured of the fact of God's faithfulness to His Word. I can guarantee you that if God says it in His Word, that's going to happen. You may say, how do you know that? Because God's Word is true. And what God says is going to come to pass. And the Bible says, let God be true and every man a liar. Look at Deuteronomy 6 in verse 13, if you will. Deuteronomy chapter six and verse 13. Deuteronomy chapter six and verse 13. It's talking about Israel serving the Lord and it says, thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name. You say, well, wait a second, this says you shall swear by his name, but over here it says, but above all things, my brethren, swear not. Well, obviously, there's a contradiction in God's word. No, there's no contradiction in God's word. This is talking about swearing by God's name, knowing that this is what God said he was going to do. Therefore, you can stake your claim that that is what's going to come to pass. cannot lie. His laws and his judgments are based on that fact that he cannot lie. And therefore, by what God's Word says, it can be sworn by His name. Not for petty things, but by God's Word. The first and acceptable type of swearing is attesting to what God has clearly said in His Word in a formal situation, if you will. I can stand here before you and say with certainty, based on the Word of God, and His Word is true, that He is the only way to heaven. If you repent of your sins and trust Christ as your Savior, He will save you. I can say that. We could swear that by the name of God. Why? Because it's written in his word. It's not something that we just hope is going to happen. It's not just something that we think may happen. No, the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's based on God himself, based on the word of God. But then there's a second kind of swearing. Not just formal swearing but informal swearing. This is when we're using the name of God or some other kind of profanity in an attempt to strengthen or to verify a statement that has nothing to do with God or when we use that in a statement in which an oath is not required. This is widely known today as cursing, or if you're from down south, it's cussing, amen. That's what they say down there. But just because the name of God isn't mentioned, doesn't mean you're not cursing. Some people will allow words to fly out of their mouth and those just words that should not come out of their mouth and they'll, some were raised where they won't take the name of the Lord God in vain, but they'll say all of these other things. Can I help us here tonight? It's the same thing, the exact same thing. We all know the common curse words today. You'll hear them out while you're out doing shopping or whatever it may be. We were out the other day, yesterday morning, and we were giving out vacation Bible school door hangers, and we were walking up and hanging them on doors and things, and there was a place just a few doors down from where we were, and And there was a lady standing out front and she was talking on the phone. And I can say with a certainty, she was using some profane language to say the least. It was happening there. Those things happened. We live in a sin-cursed world. But the reality is this, we as believers should never allow a curse word or anything close to it to leave our mouth. But you know, it should also bother us to hear someone else curse. It should. Shouldn't be comfortable with that. I can remember when we were growing up and of course, I've told the story before about having foster children in and like into our home. And oftentimes they'd come from different backgrounds and all, and I can remember when they would come in, oftentimes these curse words would just pour out of their mouth. It's just what they knew. It's what happened in their home, where they were before they came to our house. And I can remember as soon as that word would leave their mouth, my mom or my dad would immediately say, we don't talk that way in this house. We don't listen to that. We're not going to allow those things to come into our house. And the reality is this, it should bother us to hear those things. It used to bother us to hear someone curse. It used to bother us to hear someone take the name of the Lord in vain. It used to curl our spine to hear those words. But now we may notice it when someone curses as a whole, but it doesn't rile us up like it should. Why? Because we've gotten used to it. Children today cursing, children. This world is getting worse and worse. Parents are not training their children. Children today, even when they first start talking, something that all of us know is they repeat what they hear. It was curse words many times. Our homes used to be a haven of rest. Our homes used to be a reprieve from the world and its influences. We may hear cursing at work, but we knew that when we came home, we were sheltered from that. But now with phones and televisions and computers and worldly influences and all of those things everywhere, understand we are inundated with these things. Why doesn't it bother us like it used to? Because we accept it. But we shouldn't accept it. We shouldn't speak it. We should refuse to say curse words. We should speak out against these things. Because it's swearing. I can remember when we lived in Salisbury, Maryland, there was a young boy named Corey lived right down the road. His family was chicken farmers and he would come down, live down a long gravel road and he'd come to our house and we'd ride bikes and all those types of things together. And I can remember he came and something had happened and I was telling him about that or I said that we could do such and such, whatever it may have been. And he said, how do you know that we can do that? I said, because my mom said that we could. Now, I remember this to this day now, and I'm not proud of this, but I said, well, my mom said that we could, and what my mom says, well, my mom doesn't lie. Well, he was all for it. I said, you wanna go ask my mom? I was just a little boy. I said, you wanna go ask my mom? Corey said, oh, no, no, no. If Miss Kim said it, then I know it's true. Well, the sad part about it is I was lying about what mom had said. I can remember exactly where I could take you to the place today, exactly where I was standing, because the Lord smoked my heart about that. I remember it. But how many times do we go through life and As we read here, this swear not neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea and nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. How many times do we go through life and we are just going through life and just making plans and telling people we're going to do this and we're going to do that and this is going to happen and this is going to be here and all of those things. And we give no thought to what God's will may be. We're swearing on our own account, are we not? We're saying, well, based on what I know and what I can do, this is going to happen. The Bible says here, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by any other oath. And that leads us into number two tonight. Notice the condemnation of swearing. The condemnation of swearing here in verse 12. when it says, uh, swear, uh, not notice, uh, it's, it's, it says neither by heaven, neither, uh, by earth. Look at Matthew chapter five, if you will, Matthew chapter five and verse 33 through verse 37, Matthew chapter five, 33 through 37. It's the Lord and savior Jesus Christ speaking here. And he says this, again, Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." The Lord is addressing here the sin of swearing in this passage, and it's a simple truth. But the problem is, the simple truths are the ones that we have the hardest time obeying, are they not? You know, we can hear a passage in the scriptures and we can hear it preached and taught and over and over again throughout our lives. And yet we miss the truth so many times. The Lord was speaking here and these are my words, but he says, don't swear by yourself or by Jerusalem or anything else on this earth. Don't even swear by your hair because you don't have the power to do anything unless the Lord allows it. But we swear more often than not, and we need the Lord to help us with this. Now, as we read of this swearing here, of course, it goes a lot further than just a curse word, if you will. This is also making plans without taking into account what God's will is, as I mentioned a moment ago. But understand, when we go through life and we say, this is what I'm going to do, what we're doing is we're swearing on our own abilities. That's what the Bible says. The Lord says, don't swear on yourself. I remember Ms. June McMichael's statement. Anytime she would make plans, she would say, if the Lord wills. I appreciated that. And she said it many, many, many times. And she is no doubt in heaven. She's rejoicing with our Lord and praise the Lord for that. What a wonderful hope of heaven that is. But you know what that statement in and of itself, When someone is asking something, or someone is asking if you want to do something, or if you can, or whatever it may be, when you say, if the Lord wills, or Lord willing, or if God allows, or something like that, you know what you're automatically saying to them? You're saying this, God's in control. But if God allows me to do that, then I'll be there. If God gives me the life, until then, I'll do that. It's taking the eyes off of ourselves and it's placing it on God. The informal sinful swearing is all around us and is so common that we don't even recognize it. Can I ruin a little childhood nursery rhyme for us tonight? You know, if you study nursery rhymes, you're going, if you just, the nursery rhymes that we grew up with, if you would just write the words down to some of those, you'll wonder, what are we singing about anyway? Some of those are just that way. Well, we get so used to swearing. This is how simple it can be. Some of you are not going to like me after this when I ruin this one for you, amen. Now, when I get to your part, I want you to say it, because we all know it. You ready for this? Remember when the big, bad wolf, how many know the big, bad wolf? Yeah, exactly, we all know the big, bad wolf. Big, bad wolf walks up to the houses. Of course, there's brick, and there's straw, and there's wood, and all of those things, and the little piggies are there in the houses, and the big, bad wolf says, Come out here. He tells them, I'm gonna blow your house down. Isn't that what he says? So you ready for your part? Here we go, ready? He says, little pig, little pig, let me in. What's the pig say? Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. Now it may sound silly. But the Bible says you shouldn't swear by your hair. Isn't that true? Now I'm in no way saying that these little nursery rhymes that they are teaching some weird belief or anything like that. But what I'm saying is this, we get so comfortable with things. We don't even recognize it. I was studying for this message and I said, I'll never see this nursery around the same again, amen. It's just never going to ring in my mind the same way that it did before. Now that I've ruined that for us, we'll move on tonight, amen. But the reality is this, it shouldn't surprise us when what the Bible says is completely thrown out, especially in the things that this world teaches to our children, because this world doesn't want anything to do with God. This world doesn't want anything to do with God's word. This world is against God. It has no regard for the things of God or the word of God. And if we are not careful, we will oftentimes accept sin. And not just talking about this sin of swearing tonight, but many times we will accept sin simply because we've gotten used to it. It won't even ring a bell in our mind. Many believers will take the Lord's name in vain, and it won't even phase them. Many times we may not say the name of God, but we'll use a word that's close to it, and we feel as though we're justified in saying that, or we use some three-letter abbreviation, and we'll think it's okay. It's not okay. It's condemned by the word of God. It was condemned by God himself. It's wrong and it should have no place in the mouth of a believer. It should bother us to hear those things. Now we may be sitting here tonight and thinking, well, Those ones there in James chapter five and in verse 12, I mean, obviously if they were swearing, obviously if they were allowing these things to leave their lips, then obviously they had something wrong with them. They may not have even been saved because Christians don't talk like that. Well, can I take you to a passage in Matthew Matthew, if you will. Book of Matthew, chapter 26. I want you to look at verse 74. Matthew 26 and verse 74. Now this is speaking of Peter, disciple of Christ, one who no doubt loved the Lord. Of course, he had just said that he didn't know Christ. says that here in this verse. But there's not a doubt in my mind that Peter was a saved man. We look at Matthew chapter 26 verse 74 and the Bible says, Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. But notice here in verse 75, and Peter remembered the words, or the word of Jesus, which said unto him, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out and wept bitterly. Did the words come out? Yes, they did. Did people hear that? Yes, they did. And some of those people's minds, of course, Did he lose his testimony in some of their minds? I'm sure he did. But understand he wasn't happy about what he did and he went out and wept bitterly. This was a burly man, if you will. He was a fisherman. I want us to think about this man, Peter, a sailor. He was this fisherman and fishermen have never been known for their clean mouth. And many times people deal with things of the past. There are some maybe even here who grew up with certain phrases and words being used all the time. And some of those by those closest to us and others by us personally. And as we learned earlier in the book of James, the tongue is a small member. But it can control the whole ship, can it not? We're to bring it into subjection, the Bible says. Sometimes a curse word may slip out because of the past or some slang word. It may happen, but our response to it should be one of disgust. Should be. Lord, forgive me for saying that. I don't want to talk that way. I don't I don't want to take your your name in vain. Lord, help me. And if we're in the presence of someone, we need to apologize and ask them to forgive us for saying it. And can I help us here tonight? We should ask them for forgiveness for us saying that word, whether they're saved or not. Well, they're they're unsaved. They don't know the difference. They will, if you're living differently. If a curse word comes out and we say, we look at them and, would you please forgive me for saying that word? Well, it's something they say all the time. They're of this world. They're going to talk like this world. But you know what an impact it will have on their life if we were to turn to them and say, you know what, I apologize. I shouldn't have said that, or I shouldn't have said whatever it was in that way. Not only the word, but in the way that we say things as well. It'll have an impact. It will. The reason we should apologize whether they are believers or not is because it's wrong before an almighty God. It's not wrong because man doesn't like to hear it. It's wrong because it goes against God's word and we are all created in God's image. So first of all, we see What is swearing? And then secondly, we see the, the swearing condemned. And then lastly, I want us to see, uh, this, the swearing corrected there in, uh, verse 12 of our, uh, passage here this evening, it says this, but let your yay be yay. And your nay, nay, lest you fall into condemnation. Notice, lest you fall into condemnation, look over in the book of Romans, if you will, Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, going to look at a few verses in this passage. Romans chapter three, verse four, then jump down to verse six, and then also verse 31. Here in Romans chapter three and verse four, The Bible says this, God forbid, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art judged. Look down at verse six, God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world? Then verse 31, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish. law notice it's all built on God it's all built on what God has done what this is reiterating here in our minds is this that we don't have power over anything we don't have power over the law we don't have power over what's going to happen we may make plans and we may think that that we've got everything under control but we don't have power over anything did you know you can't walk out to to your vehicle tonight and it is nothing in your power except for just turning the key that makes that thing start if it something broke under the hood guess what it's not gonna start we can't just say well it's not starting start and it starts we don't have power over anything we can't take our next breath without the Lord allowing us to we don't have the power to get out of bed in the morning But God does. It all rests in God's hand. What his will is will be done. Don't trust in yourself or in your own strength because it doesn't matter what man says or what man's abilities are. God's word is true and always will be true. And if a man swears against that, can I help us here? God's word will still be true. Man will stand against what God says, and they'll stand there and say, well, I don't have to believe that, and I don't wanna hear that, and all of those things, but the day will come when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Over in the book of Titus, chapter one and verse two, the Bible says this, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. God cannot lie. Over here in 1 Corinthians 4, in verse 8, notice the Bible says this, 1 Corinthians 4, 8, Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us, and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you." Understand, we see that the Apostle Paul did not swear on God's name that it would be so, but rather he said, I wish it was God's will for you to reign, because that would mean that we would all reign together. But it wasn't God's will, therefore that's not what happened. But God's will came to pass, why? Because God's will is true. So as we look at this verse here tonight, it's important for us, hopefully as a reminder, but then also for us to see tonight that we don't have power over anything. Don't swear by something that God's word hasn't said is going to happen. We can pray for it to happen and say, by God's word, and if it's God's will, this is going to happen. But don't swear on God's name if God hasn't said it. We don't have to understand it, but we must accept it. You see, God's will will never seem as the easiest way, but it will always be the right way. Don't go making plans that exclude God's will either in any part of life, whether it be a job or a family circumstance or whatever it may be. Don't make those plans without seeking God first. Don't go making those plans without going to God and saying, Lord, what is your will in this? Don't swear in God's name that earthly things are going to happen. But can I encourage us tonight? Just trust that his will is best. If the Lord wills, then that's what I'll do. Know that his will is going to come to pass. Have have a surety in that and trust in that. Live your life by that truth. I can remember when I was when I was a teenager. Not that many years ago, I'm not, as my great-grandfather would say, I'm not old, I'm just older than some, amen. My great-grandfather would say older than most. He was in his 90s when he passed away. But the reality is this, I can remember, I would make all kinds of plans for myself. Oh, I had all sorts of things I wanted to do. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to shoot for the stars, if you will, and say, well, this is something that I'd like to do and all of that. But can we keep every thought under subjection? Because you know what came to pass that I really wanted to do? Hardly anything. God had a different plan. God had a different will. Some of those things, I said, well, I'd really like to do this. And then I got older and I said, you know what? I really don't want to do that anymore. You know what one of those things were? Skydiving. I wanted to jump out of a plane. Why would anybody want to jump out of a perfectly running aircraft? I don't know. But I wanted to do that. I did. I don't want to do that anymore, amen? It's not something that I want to get up tomorrow and do, but the reality is this. I made all kinds of plans, but I left God out of them. A lot of people today, believers today that have gotten themselves into a mess. They know that they've trusted Christ as their personal savior. They know that they're on their way to heaven. But after they got saved, they got off track and they made all of these plans and all of these things that they wanted to do. And they left God's will out of it. What were they doing? They were swearing on themselves. This is what I want to do. This is what I will do. giving no leeway to what God's will was. He says, but above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. If you go about life making plans based on your abilities, you're going to fall flat on your face. Some of those things, they may come to pass, but there's gonna be an awful lot of them that you realize, you know what? I can't do that. Or, you know what? I shouldn't do that. Or, this isn't God's will for my life. Can we ask the Lord tonight to help us to guard our tongues, to watch our mouth, to not swear on things that we have nothing to do with, but to say, Lord, if this be your will, That's what I'm going to do. One thing that will always be God's will is tell others about the gospel, serve the Lord through the local New Testament church. That's God's will for all of us. Just serve the Lord. Allow him to redirect our plans and our lives and everything that we have going on. Don't swear by anything other than what God's word has said. Why? Because God can change it at any time.