Title Lessons on Oaths (Matthew 5:33-37)
Contents
Seol 1108 A lesson on oaths 11.2.20 (7th week of Epiphany)
Matthew 5:33-37
Today's sermon is a lesson about oaths.
The Jews taught that they must keep an oath by the name of God, even if it is against them.
However, people cleverly avoided this.
Instead of God, he swears by heaven and by earth. Sometimes he said he would swear by Jerusalem, and sometimes he risked his own life.
And they argued that the oath was not binding because it was not made in the name of God. So society became more chaotic. It became difficult to distinguish which was the real oath, and the abuse of it became more common.
So Jesus taught us some lessons.
I. Jesus taught us not to blaspheme God through deceit.
A deceit is a word that deceives and deceives. That is, he was told not to blaspheme God with deceitful and deceitful words.
In Joshua 9 of the Old Testament, there is a historical story that shows how thoroughly an oath must be kept.
When the Israelites began to conquer the land of Canaan, the Gibeonites came to Joshua pretending to be from a very distant place.
They said to Joshua, that they came from a distant country, and they wanted to make peace. To convince them to believe their words, they put on their tattered clothes, brought torn skins with water bowls, and showed them dry, moldy bread. When he left the road, his clothes were new, and his skins were new, but as they came from a long way, they were worn out. So I decided to make peace with them, and I swore that I would not kill them in the name of the Lord as they wished.
But later I found out that they had cheated. The resentful leaders and people insisted that they be destroyed, but Joshua said that, though wrong, it was an oath in the name of the Lord and could not be broken.
So the people of Israel lived with the Gibeonites. Instead, he gave them a co-worker.
Numbers 30:2 says, “If a person has made a vow to the Lord or has made a decision and has made an oath, he shall not break it; he shall do all that he has spoken.
1. So people began to swear by omitting the name of God.
They said, “You must not take God’s name in vain,” in order to make others believe, so you cannot swear in God’s name. Instead, they swear by the greatest things next to God. that was said to be
But the Lord rebuked it for being deceitful.
He said he was deceived by deceitful words.
Since he was told not to swear in the name of God, it was a deceit to make them believe that the name of God was omitted.
2. After making an oath by heaven and earth and by Jerusalem, he later said that he was not obligated to keep an oath because it was not made in the name of God. The Lord rebuked it as deceit, that is, deceitful words.
So the Lord said, "Not by heaven, for it is the throne of God; neither by earth, for it is God's footstool; nor by Jerusalem, which is the city of the great King." He emphasized that even though the name of God was not included, everything was related to God.
Therefore, to say that they did not make an oath in the name of God was a cunning deception.
Even now, people use swindle to satisfy their own greed.
Some tyrants demand only obedience with the words of 1 Peter 2:13, “Submit all the institutions established for men for the sake of the Lord.”
Some people deceive themselves for their own profit, saying that they are “words found in the Bible,” while others interpret the business world according to their own taste, saying that they are “words that are not in the Bible.”
Ⅱ.Jesus taught people not to pledge themselves.
That's what verse 36 says, "Don't do it with your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black."
They sometimes swore by themselves.
“I swear by my life”
“I’m going to build a chapter on my fingers”
He also swore, “Even if no one else knows, I will definitely protect it at all costs.”
But Jesus forbade this.
1. The reason Jesus forbade was because of human incompetence.
Even if you try, you don't have the strength to do it.
People make loud noises, but it is impossible to have the ability to suddenly make things that have not worked well so far.
People don't know the future. It is expected, but people do not have the ability to make it happen.
2. The reason Jesus forbade it because it was just a deception.
“This time, for sure. I will risk my life.” However, it is a deception to avoid the position somehow.
First of all, it is saying that we should avoid it.
3. The reason Jesus forbade is because the master of man is God.
Just as you can't provide someone else's property as collateral, it can't be because God is the owner.
Some people protect their wealth because they can't sell what they inherited from their ancestors, while others committed suicide to avoid cutting their topcoats because they couldn't cut the hair they inherited from their parents during the flowering period.
But the master of man is God. Therefore, you must not do anything that God does not allow.
Ⅲ. Jesus taught people to be people of trust who do not need oaths
Jesus said, “I tell you, do not swear at all.”
Then he said, “But say what you say is right, right, and no, and whatever goes on from this is from evil.
Why do you need an oath?
Because it is fundamentally unreliable.
Among the Jews, those belonging to the Essenes did not swear. Instead, they lived a life that did not require oaths.
Quakers don't swear.
They have the same binding force as other people's oaths by saying “really or truly.
What must we do to be a person who doesn't need an oath as the Lord said?
1. You must be a person who keeps your fountain.
If you don't follow the rules, you will eventually lose your credibility. If you lose your credit, you will have something to swear by.
2. Be an honest person.
If you are not honest, you lose credibility. When you lose trust, you take an irrevocable oath or oath to make you believe. Therefore, lying and cheating should be avoided.
3. Be a hardworking person.
If you don't become a diligent person, that person will eventually lose credibility.
People like this say that people don't cheat, money cheats people. But other people will ask such a person to take an oath.
Lessons learned and application
We must, as Jesus said, “not to be anything more than right or wrong.”
1. It means that we must be clear whether we are right or not. So we need to make sure that what we say or do is right or wrong so that no one else asks us for anything else.
2. It means that what we say is right or not has to be correct.
This is because even if you clearly say what is right or not, it is not okay to say what is not right and not to say what is right is not. Therefore, we must say that we do not know if it is not accurate.
3. It means not to go beyond the range of right or wrong.
To say more than that is pride. The Lord said that if we go beyond the scope of right or wrong, it becomes evil. Therefore, we must humbly obey the word of the Lord.