Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: “No Falling Words”

Sermon text for today is James 5:12, and my new title for this sermon is “No Falling Words.” James 5:12—please stand.

“But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, lest you fall into judgment.”

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your word. Bless it, Father, to our youth. Bless us, Lord God, by your Holy Spirit to understand the text, to be transformed by it. Help us, Father, to desire for your Spirit to bring and minister the Lord Jesus Christ to us so that we may be effective image bearers in this world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

What is truth? That’s a statement that Pilate made to our Savior when Jesus referenced that his mission was to bring truth and that he was of his Father. And when Jesus raises the topic of truth, Pilate’s response is, “What is truth?”

Now, this isn’t some deep metaphysical question by Pilate. He wasn’t asking for a philosophical discourse on it. He wasn’t lamenting his own lack of ability to think through what truth was. And I think we can see that because what he does next in the text is immediately go out and play “let’s make a deal” with the Jewish people. He immediately goes out after saying that to our Savior and says, “Well, I find no fault in him, but we’ve got this deal going on and you can either have Jesus or Barabbas released, blah blah.”

So his interest was not justice. Pilate’s interest was not truth. Pilate’s interest was political compromise. In other words, the question “What is truth?” is sort of like Tina Turner’s song, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” What’s truth got to do with this? This is a political issue. I’m handling it as a political governor.

Here we are, you know, over 2,000 years later, and times look about the same. Our president could make the same statement: “What’s truth? Who cares about that?” Many leaders do the same thing. Putin—just go through the text of your media today in the last week or two. If you just start looking for it in the papers, you’ll see lie after lie after lie after lie to justify political compromises.

Now, we must not be like that. We are of a different Father than the father of lies. For us, “What is truth?” is a real and significant question whose answer may not be quite as obvious as we might think it is.

Today’s text can be a game changer. It looks simple and it looks kind of irrelevant, right? Because how many vows did you take this last week? It sort of looks like, “Well, that was written for a different time. I’m in a different place and it’s okay. Yes, yes. No, no.” But believe me, this text can be a game changer in your life. And for some of you in this congregation, it’s already been that. This text comes to your mind throughout your life on a regular basis: “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”

But for others of us, people growing up here, children—this verse can be a game changer and should be a significant aspect of who we are and what we’re doing.

It’s interesting, right? Because it seems like kind of a throwaway sort of verse for us. But he says “above all else”—he draws our attention to it. I’m not just telling you it can be a game changer. James seems to be placing a great deal of stress on this particular issue.

So when we come to this text, we come to an important text.

Now, before we get into what we’re going to talk about—and we’re going to talk about the nature of these vows and then what truth is—the reason why truth isn’t necessarily such an easily determined thing is there’s a difference between truth and accuracy. Between truth and accuracy. You can say something accurately, but that’s not what the Bible means by truth.

The Bible means something a little bit different. And one way to think about this is to connect this verse up with what we read earlier and what I’ve preached about earlier in James 4:12, which was not to slander your brother. Slander doesn’t mean to make up things about him. It’s a different word. Slander means to use accurate statements, but to use them for the purpose of demeaning that person or to make accurate statements about that person to other people when your desire is not to redeem them. Your desire is not to help them. Your desire is to diminish them. Your desire is not to bring them into further aspects of community, but your desire is to push them away from yourself, community, your friends. That’s what it means.

Tim Keller says that if we look at James 4:12 and here in James 5:12, we have a comprehensive, complete instruction on godly communication. And this one says, “Tell the truth,” and the earlier one says, “Don’t use the truth. Don’t use accurate details to diminish or hurt other people.” Okay? If you put those together, what do you have? You have what Paul tells us in Ephesians—that we’re to speak the truth in love.

And so when we say “truth” in the scriptures, it doesn’t just mean accuracy. It means speaking the truth, using accuracy in an effort to redeem, enhance, glorify, and build up other people.

Now, you know, that doesn’t mean we don’t confront people. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It means we actually do have an obligation to speak to one another if we’re going to build each other up. The last verse of this entire epistle of James has to do with just that—using truthful speech to recover one another from sins. So that’s what he’s going to talk about. And it’s a difficult thing to do. Much easier to speak the kind of truth that’s just vague platitudes and make everybody like us. Isn’t that great?

But here, what we have in this text is something more demanding than that. More demanding, more comprehensive, actually, all the way through. I mean, this looks easy enough, but it really isn’t. We know if it was easy, if it was just like falling off a log, there’d be no need to put it here, and there’d really be no need for the emphasis that James puts on it—really at both ends of the instruction.

Okay, so he talks about vows and then he talks about truthfulness—”Yes, yes. No, no.” And the bookends are: first of all, a call to pay attention—”above all else.” And the last bookend is saying, “lest you fall into condemnation.” So he puts a great deal of importance on what’s at the center of this text, and we should as well.

So what we’re going to do is, first of all, we’re going to talk about that first phrase. Why does he say “above all else”? It doesn’t seem like it really fits in the context. And yet, it has to, because he’s making a statement that ties it to context, helping us to see it’s not just a one-off in the middle of a series of dislocated injunctions.

No. So we’re going to look at that. And then we’ll look at what he says about vows, and there’ll be kind of three parts to that. We’ll say that first of all, this is not a prohibition against all vows. Secondly, it’s not primarily an insistence on using God’s name rather than other things. Okay? And third, he’ll talk about the inconsequential nature of vows to who we are.

So, first of all, we’ll talk about “above all else”—why that’s there. Then we’ll talk about vows, and we’ll say that it’s not a prohibition against all vows, it’s not primarily telling us to take vows in the name of God, but really what it’s saying is that vows are inconsequential to us. And then from that, we’ll talk about the importance of truth-telling. And then finally, we’ll conclude with the final bookend—the condemnation passage and the warning.

So that’s where we’re going: the importance of it, the vow section in three areas, the truth-speaking section, and then finally the statement about condemnation.

Okay, so to begin with, then—the first part of the verse: “Above all else.” Why is this here? What does it mean?

Well, we know one thing: it means it’s significant and important, right? So “above all else”—now this word can mean it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the most important part of the epistle. I mean, it can mean that, but it seems like what he’s doing is moving to a summation of the epistle. Okay, so it seems like what he’s doing is saying, “This is tied to the rest, but it also sort of sums it all up.”

But whatever nuance we put to the “above all else,” clearly he’s doing two things with this. One: he’s telling us this is important. One way or the other, it’s important. Whether it’s a summation, whether it’s to show that he’s reaching the summation and he starts it by talking again about speech, or whether he’s saying this is the most important thing to do—whatever it is, he’s telling us this is important.

And then secondly, he’s connecting up this verse with what’s preceded it, right? So when you say “above all else,” it means you’re talking about a sequence of things. And so he connects this up to what’s gone before.

So how does it connect up with what’s gone before, right?

Now, and so commentators have talked about this, and we’re not quite sure necessarily, but here are some ways it probably does fit. And what’s gone before is specifically the call to endurance and patience in the face of persecution. Remember, the whole epistle is about suffering with hope. How do you bring about the righteousness that we hunger and thirst for, the justice, God’s order in the world when we’re in a diminished capacity and actually we’re being persecuted? That’s kind of the purpose of the whole thing.

And so as our globe spins more and more into greater and greater persecution of Christians, it seems to me that this epistle is an exceedingly important one and will be for probably ten, twenty years at least until all of this passes. But for now, it’s important. And so it’s all about suffering.

Well, what’s suffering got to do with vows? Well, there’s a couple of things. One: when you’re really struggling, it’s easy to not be controlled with your speech and to blurt out vows, to blurt out oaths—what we would think of as cussing or swearing. But what cussing and swearing is, sort of like a dumbed down, watered down version of what an oath or swearing actually is in the scriptures. And that’s to call on God or to call on image bearers of God—the heavens, the earth, the altar, the gold on the altar, whatever it is—to call on those things when we’re in trouble in kind of an angry, sort of impatient way.

So number one: it’s a warning to us to be careful with our speech in the midst of struggles and trials and tribulations, right? He’s already told us, “Be slow to speak,” and inordinate speech, blurting out speech, can enter into swearing.

Another probable connection, though, is that the people that were persecuting them—we know that those people would use vows routinely. In the book of Acts, for instance, we find out that more than forty men, opponents of the gospel and of the gospel’s messengers, had put themselves under a vow to not eat or drink until they killed Paul. An ironic vow, you know, because its very fulfillment would be righteousness-bringing because it would bring about their death.

But this is what they did. And so, you know, it’s a funny thing, but when you’ve got opponents, it’s easy to focus on your enemies so much that you start to become just like them, right? So maybe you’re not going to be like them in terms of persecuting people, but maybe you’re going to end up with their kind of speech in your mouth and you’re going to start using vows against them.

So these are some of the connections to what’s gone before. And so the text tells us that. But as I said, I think the primary purpose of the “above all else” section here is to remind us, or to point out to us rather, and to indicate to us that this is an important part of the text, not just a throwaway section.

All right, number two. Let’s talk now about the vows, then. It’s important. What does it mean?

Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean what you might think it means on the face of it, which is—a lot of people. Calvin struggled with the Anabaptists at the time of the Reformation using this text and our Savior’s Sermon on the Mount to say we should never enter into vows. Okay? “Can’t be taken. It’s unlawful for a Christian to take a vow.” Well, and to understand it more fully—is that right or is that wrong?

We’ve got to look at Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount, verses 33-37. And this is our Savior’s statement. And remember, I think that the book of James is written quite early and there’s lots of connections between James and the Gospel of Matthew. And there’s a whole sequence of things that refer back to specifically the Sermon on the Mount.

We just sang about the persecution of the prophets and we just heard a sermon about that the previous Sunday. That’s another link between the epistle of James and the Sermon on the Mount. Here’s another one.

Here’s what we read in Matthew 5:33-37:

“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all. Neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it’s the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your yes be yes, and your no be no. For whatever is more than this is from the evil one.”

So essentially, James is paraphrasing—saying the same thing in a little bit more shortened fashion.

And so what’s going on here? What does our Savior say, and what is James repeating from what our Savior says?

Well, as I said, some people have taken this to say we should never take a vow. So if you go to court and they want to put you under a vow or an oath to swear the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God—some sects of Christianity say you can’t do that because Jesus says you can’t do it.

Now I don’t think that’s possible to have that interpretation of this text. And here’s the reason why: the reason why is that, first of all, the law of God actually makes use of vows. So it would be odd if what’s being described here was somehow a bad thing generally, that all vows were from the evil one, because that vow came from God himself in the law. In Exodus 22, it says, “In a dispute over property, put them both under a vow and try to find out then you’ll find out better who did what—was it stolen, damaged, lost, etc.”

So number one: the law of God commends vows to it. And number two: Jesus was put under a vow by his inquisitors during his trial sequence, and he answered under vow. So Jesus took a vow. Number three: Paul took vows as well.

Let me read some of these texts. Okay, so Paul would swear by God to be telling the truth to people, which is taking a vow.

Here’s my examples. Matthew 26—Jesus is being questioned. The high priest tells Jesus, “I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God.”

Now, Jesus has just been sworn. Okay? He’s in the courtroom. He’s been put under oath. So if he answers, he’s acknowledging that he’s under oath. And that’s just what he does. He doesn’t keep quiet. We know at other points in the trial sequence he does—when it’s the proper thing to do—but here it wasn’t the proper thing to do. Jesus answers. He says, “As you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

The point is Jesus testified under oath.

Now, this is the nature of God. God actually makes vows himself. In Hebrews 6, we read that when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. So our very salvation, as it were, is secured by a vow and oath that God swears in his own name. So God is a vow-taking God. So it’d be passing strange if now we have a commandment that it’s unlawful and bad to take vows because that’s what Jesus did, reflecting the nature of God himself.

And as I said, in Exodus 22:11, we’re actually given case law that at least at that time in covenant history, vows were a part of the legal process deliberately.

So, moreover, the Apostle Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 1:23. He says, “I call God as witness against my soul that to spare you, I came no more to Corinth.” So he’s going to tell him something, and it’s really important they believe him, and he says, “I, you know, call God to be my witness.” He swore an oath. He did what the text here is saying. You know, you don’t need to do that, but he did it anyway.

Galatians 1:20—”Concerning the things which I write to you, indeed before God, he says, I do not lie.” So what Jesus and what James are saying in the Gospel of Matthew and here in this text cannot be that all vows are bad, that you should never take a vow, that you’re under prohibition from taking a vow. It may seem like that superficially, but clearly the Bible agrees with itself, and it’s not saying that.

So it’s not wrong necessarily when you go to court. They probably don’t do this anymore, but when they used to put a Bible in front of you, you put your hand on the Bible and take an oath. And it’s not wrong that our country puts a Bible there and the president swears an oath to uphold the Constitution by putting his hand on the Bible and swearing by the word of God. By the way, that Bible, as I understand it, used to be open to Deuteronomy 28—to the blessings and cursing section.

But you know, now the Bible’s a closed book to our presidents, and the truth and the admonition to truth that’s found in the Bible is no longer relevant in political matters—just like with Pilate. So it is in our day and age where in politics these things are irrelevant.

So okay, number one: it’s important. Number two: it doesn’t say it’s always wrong to take a vow. You can do it. Number three: I think we have to think a little bit about why Jesus and James both talk about taking vows in the name of something other than the name of God—so swearing by heaven, swearing by earth, swearing by other created things.

And I’m not sure what to do with this, to tell you the truth. I hate to be that way, but you know, I’m preaching a sermon on speaking the truth. “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” And so I should always—when I don’t really think I understand something fully—divulge that to you. I mean, I’m going to talk about it a little bit, but I’m telling you, I’m not quite sure how to understand this.

I mean, some people say, “Well, the big deal is that, you know, it’s kind of ridiculous to say you’re going to swear by heaven or by earth instead of by God in a way to sort of protect yourself against using the name of God, because these things are image bearers of God again, right? They represent God. The created order is, you know, God is present in it.” And so it’s kind of ridiculous that way.

On the other hand, I do think that there is—my view is that there’s criticism of vows that are taken in something other than the name of God himself. Now, I could be wrong about that. Let me give you a little bit of textual support for that in the epistle of James.

If you have your Bibles open, then you look at verse 10. If you don’t have them open, just listen to me. So this is two verses before.

“My brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience.”

Okay, so that’s in verse 10. And then here in verse 12, he says, “Do not swear by heaven or by earth or any other created thing.” “Any other thing” is a better translation than the word “oath.” But don’t swear by those things.

And then a couple of verses down in this text, in verse 14, we read, “So is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

Okay, now these are the only two occurrences of the phrase “the name of the Lord.” They’re in verse 10, they’re in verse 14. And right between those two, in verse 12, we’re having a discussion of making oaths in the name of heaven or the name of earth or in the name of something other than the Lord. And that’s specifically the same thing Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount.

So it seems like maybe the emphasis—and I kind of lean this way, but I think maybe the emphasis is, you know, not just what we’ll say about truth-speaking, but I think a sub-purpose (not the primary purpose, but one of the purposes) of the text is to talk about the error of swearing by things other than the name of God. You know, we’re going to be exhorted to truth-speaking in the next section of this verse. And when we do that, we speak the truth in the name of the Lord.

These are the only two occurrences of “the name of the Lord,” as I just said. So it seems like there’s got to be some kind of connection between the bracketing of “in the name of heaven” and “the name of the earth,” and “the name of the Lord.” You could say that’s trying to link them together and give us an awareness that it doesn’t do any good to kind of tone the vow down by saying, “I’m going to swear by earth,” because really the whole thing is still in the name of the Lord.

But I think the emphasis is on not taking vows in something other than the name of the Lord, or at least acknowledging that when you do take a vow in some other way—by the earth or by heaven or other created things—you really still are ultimately invoking the God who is represented by that created order.

Now, I hope that wasn’t confusing, but it’s interesting to think about, and we’re given this for a particular reason in the text, and I’ve pointed you to a possible reason. But in any event, the major teaching is not too unclear and too obscure, and it doesn’t really flow with what’s going on.

The purpose, the main purpose is, I think, to say—and this is the last of three points about vows that I’m going to make here—that vows are superfluous to Christians. Vows are superfluous to us. Vows are something we don’t need.

Okay, and I think that’s the purpose of what Jesus says, and that’s the purpose of what James says. You know, you go to court, yeah, it’s okay to take a vow. Paul took vows, Jesus took vows, etc. So vows aren’t necessarily evil or bad. But for us, the primary purpose of this verse is to tell us that you shouldn’t need a vow to be put on notice that you’re speaking the truth and you have an obligation to speak truth and perform what you’ve said. You shouldn’t need that.

Why do men take vows? Why do most vows take place?

John MacArthur in his commentary on this text starts off by saying this: “Fallen men are basically inveterate liars. Children lie to their parents. Parents lie to their children. Husbands lie to their wives. Wives lie to their husbands. People lie to their employers, who in turn lie to them and often to the public. Politicians lie to get elected and continue to lie once they are in office. People lie to the government, perhaps most notably on their income tax forms. Educators lie. Scientists lie. Members of the media lie. Our society is built on a framework of lies, leading one to wonder whether our social structure would survive if everyone were forced to speak the truth for even one day. Would it continue?”

MacArthur says probably not. In fact, they made a movie about it, right? “Liar, Liar.” John Carrey was forced to tell the truth for a day. Well, imagine that. And you know, it’s so funny because we act so shocked when we see people lie. “Obama lied about the healthcare law to get it passed. Oh, incredible!” You know, people lie about us, right, to other people, and we act so shocked. But this is the nature of the fallen world. MacArthur’s right.

And because lying is so prevalent, men have to figure out a way. Everybody knows everybody’s lying. So we’ve got to figure out a way to make them know, “I’m not lying this time.” And so people make up vows and oaths. “Well, I’m really serious about this truth.” Maybe depending on how important I find it at the time, or how important I find it to be later on.

But what we’ve got here, then, is the main teaching, I think, on the relationship of vows to who we are. Yes and no is that vows are to be inconsequential to us. Or a better way to say that is that our speech is to be more consequential than what we think it is.

You know, so if you think of—you know, ordinary speech here, and people lie and whatever, and then when they really want to tell the truth, they take a vow. He’s not saying, “Don’t do this, bring it down here, right?” He’s saying, “Take this, your ordinary speech, your yeses and your nos, and give it the significance of taking a vow before Almighty God so that everything you do is at a vow level.”

That’s the intent of this verse. It’s not to reduce the significance and importance of speaking truth. It’s to raise it up. Okay? It’s to say that, you know, you’re in the presence of God at all times, not just when you come into a formal arrangement, right? And you’re always in—whatever you say, yes, yes or no, no—you’re swearing on a stack of Bibles. That’s what it’s saying.

It’s saying that vows are inconsequential, but another way to say it is our speech is incredibly consequential. Above all things, speak the truth. That’s essentially what this verse is about. And understand that speaking the truth has the value and significance of what you would think of something that you would pledge your life on—that you would say, “May my children burn in hell if this is not the truth to you.” That should be the relationship, the significance, the kind of emphasis we place on our ordinary speech. That’s what the text is saying.

The text is saying that God exhorts us to truth-telling. And not just truth-telling, because remember that truth-telling—or it is truth-telling, but it’s not just accuracy—but it’s truth. And I think that the clear implication is the performance of our duties that we swear to or that we speak our “amens” to.

Okay, so I think the primary purpose of this text is to exhort us to truth-speaking and to exhort us to the performance of the things that we say we will do. Whether it’s, “Yeah, honey, I’ll pick that up on the way home,” or “Yeah, kids, we’ll go out for ice cream tonight,” or whatever it is. You see, it’s important to speak the truth, and when you say those things—when you say those things—to perform the truth. To perform the truth.

Now, it’s interesting, don’t you think? I think it’s very interesting that this is the big deal as he moves toward the end of the epistle. Now, we know that speech has been significant throughout it, right? And I’ve already mentioned the idea of speaking the truth in love. We can connect this verse up with back to Ephesians 4 (and not James 4) and not slandering or demeaning other people. So we’ve mentioned that, but you know, there’s been a whole bunch of statements as we’ve gone through this about our speech.

And the last verse of this epistle will be about our speech again—how we go and help correct one another and move each other toward redemption and further sanctification, loving each other, speaking the truth in love. So speech is important. But it’s interesting here that he says, “Above all else, speak the truth.”

And you know, if you think about it—and we’re going to talk a little bit about it now—it sort of makes sense. In fact, it makes a lot of sense that this is it. This is what I mean: “This can be a game changer for you.”

If you are prone to not be careful with your speech, to speak too quickly, make too quick commitments, or to misstate the truth for whatever purposes—this sermon today, this moment in your life—this can be a game changer, a life changer for you. If you commit yourself (when you come to this offering today, or if you don’t come up and you sit in your seat), if you commit yourself to speak the truth and to perform what your word has said you are going to do—no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to you—if you put that kind of emphasis on your speech and your performance of your speech, I’m telling you, for some of you, your life will never be the same. You’ll move into tremendous blessing, freedom, loss of guilt, etc.

Because that’s what this text is about. And it is that significant.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that means a lot of things, right? But I mean, it’s in direct response when he says that—one of his disciples says, “We don’t know the way where you’re going. We don’t know the way. What’s our way?” The Christian faith is sometimes referred to as “the way.” It’s how we walk. It’s what we do, our way. And Jesus says he’s the way. He’s the truth and he’s the life.

Now, I think that we could think of that as a simple reminder of how this thing works. “Who are you as Christians? You’re image bearers of God, of Jesus. You walk in his way. Jesus is the truth. And Jesus always spoke truth and Jesus always did what he said he was going to do.” That’s the truth part of it. That’s who you’re supposed to be.

I mean, that’s at the heart of it. That’s it. If you ask somebody, “You know, what am I supposed to be as a Christian?” You’re supposed to be a disciple of Christ, trusting in him and imaging him in your life. And that life is a way. And that way is one of truth. And that truth issues forth into life.

When we speak truth—not just accuracy, but truth—we’re enhancing life. Okay? When we perform our word, when we’re truthful, when we have integrity, right? When we’re people of our word, our word is our bond. That is life-giving to a relationship, to a culture, to a church, to a work relationship, etc.

And the opposite is true as well. If our way is falsehood and not always speaking the truth, and our way is not being dependable—”Yeah, I’ll do this; six months later: Did you do it? No, I guess I didn’t get to it. Well, you said you’d do it.”—if our way is that, that’s not life-giving. That’s death-producing. Okay? That ends up breaking down relationships, breaking down the cohesiveness and the effectiveness of a family, of a marriage relationship, of a work relationship, of your relationship at church and in your community.

To be—any—to be a life-giving member of the body of Christ in those areas means you have to have at the center, between way and life, truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

No falling words. What do I mean by that?

Well, this is a phrase. There’s a commentary I read once on Hebrews, and the name of the commentary is “No Falling Words,” because, you know, Joshua says, “Not a word that God said to us failed.” He reminds the people of this at the end of the book: “Not a word failed.”

And the word for “fail” there in the Hebrew means literally “fall to the ground.” So, you know, your word goes into space, and if it fails, it means it just falls to the ground, right? But God’s word—it’s never falling to the ground. It always accomplishes its purpose. It is truth, and it is truth that performs what’s been spoken by God. And because of that, God never issues a falling word—that just goes out there and crashes and burns.

Well, that’s what we’re supposed to be like as God’s image bearers. No falling words. God’s word is sure, right? God’s word is sure. And as image bearers of God, as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ, as little Messiahs, little Christians—Christians—that’s what we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be people who—it’s pretty simple—who, you know, say what we mean, mean what we say, and we perform what we say we’re going to do. Not rocket science.

Just like we said last week, the key to blessedness—blessedness—is not having a church of ten thousand people. It’s not having the family that ends up on the cover of the homeschool magazine, right? It’s not doing or making ten million dollars at whatever work and business you created. You know, the way to blessedness according to the text from last week is to endure. Just keep doing the right thing.

And here, the way to effectiveness, the way to bring life, the way to avoid condemnation is pretty simple. It is really not hard to do. Well, it can be hard to do. There are reasons why we don’t speak the truth, right? It would be good for you to think about that.

When was your last—I won’t say lie. That’s too strong. Your last failure to tell all the truth. Your last attempt to tell your parents or your boss or somebody else at church, your wife, your husband—part of the truth, the part that will get you out of the line of questioning in a way that will make it so you don’t have to reveal the truth.

Think about it. When was the last time you told a partial truth? When was the last time you used equivocation in your speech? What’s equivocation? Equivocation means you’ve got a word, the word can have several different meanings. You use it with equivocation so that people aren’t necessarily sure what you’re saying by it, or you’re using the word in with a completely different meaning.

That’s what Satan did, of course, right? “In the day you eat from it, you shall not surely die.” He used a word, but he used it in an equivocal way. He put a different definition to it. What he said was accurate. You know, if by “death” we mean “in the day you eat that, you’re going to fall over with no pulse,” he was accurate, but he wasn’t speaking the truth because death is broken relationship with God, effects, blah blah—all the distinctions.

But the point is Satan speaks with equivocation. That’s how he did it. That’s why God comes to know what happened with that speech in the garden, right? And Adam and Eve ended up doing the same sorts of things. When God comes to them, they use equivocation. They tell accurate details: “Yes, it was indeed the woman that you gave to me, Adam.”

But look, confess your sin.

I remember being back when Howard L. was in Chicago, and Pastor Van Overloop—I heard a sermon by him. I don’t know why it is that when I go to hear other people’s sermons, I remember them all. I can’t remember any of mine. I remember a few of them. Anyway, so Overloop says—he was—I don’t remember what the sermon was about, but I remember what he said in it. And I’ve used it with my kids after that. They’ll tell you this is true. He said, “You know, he talks to his kids, and you ask him, ‘Well, did you do this?’ Well, they kind of equivocate. They start, you know, humming and hawing and stuff, and he will tell him, ‘Don’t make me be a Philadelphia lawyer, right? Don’t make me put you on the stand and have to use all the ways to fold, you know, to fold in.’”

When God exhorts us to be truth speakers, he doesn’t mean, “If you’ve got a Philadelphia lawyer, you’ll eventually get to the truth through their cross-examination.” Right, children? That’s not speaking the truth.

If your parent has to cross-examine you with all kinds of ways—you’re used to this, right? Parents, you know what this is like. You ask your child something, and you’ve got to ask them ten questions to get the answer that you knew ten questions before. And they did too. They just didn’t want to confess it, right? They didn’t want to speak the truth.

So, you know, what we do is what we’re told to do here: is to speak the truth without this kind of equivocation. We don’t see any difference between oath-taking and our common speech. There’s no levels of truthfulness for the Christian, right?

You realize that you’re always in the presence of God whenever you speak. So you’re actually in that heavenly throne room. You could say the cross-examination is going on. God’s listening to you, children. He knows if you’re speaking the truth or not. He tells you to speak the truth because if you don’t, condemnation, judgment, bad stuff happens to you.

God’s watching. He’s always watching. And he’s always listening to whether we’re speaking the truth or we’re not speaking the truth.

So for us, oaths are irrelevant because our whole life essentially is to be seen. All of our words and performance of it are related to the really like we did all of it on oath to God. So there’s no levels of integrity here. We are to do this in strict performance of what God has required us to do.

Now, why is it so hard, and why is it so important?

Well, it’s so hard because our nature, as I read from the MacArthur quote, is to lie, lie, lie, lie. Why is that?

Well, in John 8:44, Jesus says, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning. Does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of lies. He speaks of his own resources.”

In other words, the devil speaks of his character. The devil, in his fallen state, is a liar. That’s what he is. And us—when we fell, we took on a different father. That’s what Jesus is saying. Our problem is that our father, in our fallen state, is the devil, the father of lies. And he doesn’t look like such a bad father. He just perpetrates. He tells half-truths. He positions certain elements of the truth, right? He uses equivocation. Not usually some outright bald-faced lie, but he twists the truth so that’s our father.

It’s our nature now. His resources, his character is to lie. And as fallen people, our character is to lie as well. So that’s why it’s so hard to break the habit.

Boys and girls, if you struggle with lies, it’s common to man. There’s nothing more common to fallen man than not speaking the truth in a way that builds people up. Even using accuracy to tear people down is not speaking the truth.

Okay, so, you know, it’s easy to do because the devil is a murderer and a liar. He uses portions of the truth, but he uses them to harm, not to redeem, not to build up, not to edify (another word the Bible uses about that).

Now, it’s an interesting quote because that really has a lot to do with what James has said throughout the entire epistle. He’s made reference to the devil several times here. And the devil is the one who is the father of lies and murder. And that’s what we just read about earlier in this chapter—is that the end result of our lives is murder, either murder of people’s character or it can lead to actual murder itself.

On the other hand—so that’s our previous father. Salvation means we’ve got a new father, right? We’ve been adopted by a new father, our Father in heaven. And that father—his nature, his resources—is to always speak the truth, to give us a very sure word which we never have to doubt. And not only that, but to perform that word consistently throughout history. No failing words. That’s our new Father.

Okay, so essentially, the Christian view of sanctification, our way, is following our new Father and not being tempted to go back and act like our old father. It’s a transition away from lies into speaking the truth and performing our word.

Ephesians, right? 4:25: “Therefore, putting away lying, you know, sanctification is put off, put on. Putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. Don’t act like your original father. Act like your newly—your father who now has adopted you in Jesus Christ.”

For it says, “Remember of one another.”

Colossians 3:9: “Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds, right?”

God has given us the Spirit, and it’s identified in John’s Gospel as the Spirit of truth. So the Spirit who is at work in us, bringing Christ (who is the way, the truth, and the life), causes us to walk in the truth.

So it’s essential, you know, it’s so hard because it’s a denial of our previous character. It’s so important because it’s absolutely kind of—it—in terms of the process of sanctification, it is who we are now in relationship to the Father. This is why it’s so important.

What does Psalm 15 say, right? Not just the speaking of truth, but the performance of truth is what God’s word is. Truth is the speaking of accuracy to affect life, and the performing of that very thing which does indeed affect life.

So Psalm 15—you know, it’s that entrance psalm. “Who gets to come to church? Who gets in the doors?”

“He who lies to his own,” or “He who tells—he who, excuse me, ‘he who vows to his own hurt, swears to his own hurt.’” Not only being truthful—that’s that’s another characteristic in Psalm 15—but performing the words that we say we’re going to perform.

Ephesians 4:15 says: “To speak the truth in love, but to a purpose, so you may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. And he says in that same connection that we won’t be, you know, tempted by weird doctrines and weird winds of other truths, right?”

So the—here’s here’s kind of the other significance of this verse. “Above all else, do this because it’s who you are in Christ.” But also, remember what James’s point is. James is trying to tell us that when it looks like we can’t do anything to affect the righteousness that we hunger and thirst for, he’s telling us how it’s going to work. He’s giving us armaments. He’s breaking out the AK-47s, the missile launchers, and you know, the tactical nukes, and he’s giving us that stuff to tell us how to win the war.

And truth-speaking and performing our word—this is a tactical nuke. It has that kind of significance, you know. It has that kind of significance, as Ephesians just said. First of all, because to be victorious, we’ve got to hang tough. We’ve got to hang with one another, right? The body of Jesus Christ.

What is—what does the opposition want? What was the purpose? Why were these people all scattered? Because Satan brought down the hammer in Jerusalem to make people scatter and break relationships in the context of the church.

So God wants us hanging together and building community. And speech has a tremendous capability to either enhance community and life or to tear it down. We talked about this earlier, you know. Speech is like the rudder. It’s what brings the ship of state—which is the church—to godly ports.

So telling the truth is significant because it means that we’ve really moved away from our old father to our new father. And secondly, telling the truth is important because it creates unity in the church. And third, telling the truth is important because it’s one of the main weapons that we have for affecting victory in the context of our world.

Now, what can we do about this? How do we do it?

Well, I would, you know, I’ve already sort of stressed the idea. I’ve talked about various forms of misstating the truth or using accuracy to harm. Let me just suggest that you think, as we conclude, about your performance of your words in addition to what you speak.

So, you know, committed to “let your yes be yes, your no be no,” which means speaking with truth, but it also means fulfilling what you said you’re going to do.

And I’ve already mentioned a few of these things, right? But in your family, you know, kids, if you tell your parents you’re going to do X, don’t make them nag you to do it. That’s satanic nature. Godly nature is you say you’re going to do something and you perform what you say you’re going to do. Or your parents tell you, “Well, you’re going to do something,” you say, “Okay.” And then you perform it. You perform your duty.

Parents, don’t blow off your minor speech that you make to your children. Remember, minor speech is placed in the significance of swearing an oath before God—”so help me God”—at the stack of Bibles. When you mention to your kids, “Yeah, we’ll go have ice cream tonight,” that’s you swearing on a stack of Bibles in the presence of God and the angels that you’re going to go have ice cream.

I think that’s what the text says. Now, if you don’t mean to say that, don’t say it. You tell them, “We might have ice cream tonight, right?” Make your speech mean something because otherwise your children grow up thinking speech—we might say things, might do to them, might not do to them. Speech is unimportant to them or becomes less than trustworthy. And what a denial of the God we serve. His word is always true and it is always dependable.

Now, I know we’re parents and we’re not the Creator of the universe, but that’s what we’re called to do. That’s who we’re called to image. When you fall short, repent to your children. Good opportunity for that, too, right? To show them how to repent.

But in your relationship—you know, marriage, right? You took vows. If you’re married here, you took a vow. Now, you didn’t need to take a vow, but God—you know, it seems so important to our particular culture, community, the pastors of your church, etc.—you enter into vows, you know, self-consciously, because we don’t want you thinking somehow that this thing is unimportant.

I’m doing a service in a couple of weeks, right? And I got the liturgy back from the couple, and it had this in the opening section, you know, “We’re gathered here together and marriage is a covenant, and there’s great blessings. And then it goes on to say, ‘And I must tell you there are curses attached to this as well for non-performance.’” It says some pretty tough stuff. I’m reading this, and I’m thinking, “Where did this come from?”

It says, “If you keep this covenant faithfully, God will bless you. And then it says, ‘If, however, one of you breaks this covenant, may the curse of scripture come upon the unfaithful—a cursing, a confusion, and a rebuke in all that you set your hand to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly.’”

I don’t normally hear that at weddings. Weddings are light, light, fun affairs, and it brings this heaviness to it. It goes on, and I thought, “Well, I like that, because, you know, marriage is now seen, and covenants are now seen as nothing to people. So I kind of like the idea of that.” But I wonder where they got that.

Well, they got it from me. I didn’t write it, but I sent them all the wedding liturgies, a file of them that I’ve kept. And when James and Ruth H. got married in this church on this stage, this was in their liturgy. Now, Peter Leithart and I co-officiated that service. So that means Peter Leithart included this in the wedding liturgy, so I’m way cool with it.

But look, couples, this is what you committed to. This is what you gave your word to do. And there are indeed blessings and cursings attached to your performance or non-performance. Take it seriously, okay?

At your job, take it seriously the things you commit to do. Don’t show up five minutes late. If there’s anything you can do to help it, if you tell people you’re going to be at church to meet them at this time or that time, that’s a small thing, but do what you say you’re going to do. It’s that simple. And yet it seems to be that hard for us.

Here at the church, right? If you take on a task here and you say you’re going to do X, do it. That’s all this text says. It’s that simple. But it’s that hard for us, right?

Now things come up, and you’ve got to, you know, ask people, “I was going to do this. I really can’t. You know, somebody died, whatever.” And you can get out of a commitment, but don’t just blow things off. You know, churches are notorious for that. Churches are absolutely known—as much as they’re known perhaps for being overly critical of people in the world, they’re even more known for being sloppy.

“Sloppy agape,” right? We’ll be talking about an article called “The Kindness That Kills the Church” in a couple of weeks when we finish this epistle. And that’s kind of the way it is. Everybody wants to love everybody else. “Let’s go. Can’t we all?” It’s Rodney King church. “Can’t we all just get along?” And so, you know, one of the worst things—pastors talk about—you know, sorry, but pastors talk about is that pastoring is like trying to herd cats. And it’s cats who aren’t being paid to be there or do stuff and don’t particularly want to be there necessarily.

You know, working with volunteers is different than working with people that are paid, right? I mean, if you’re paid to do something, there’s high expectations. You’ve got volunteers down here. But wait a minute, is that the way it should be? No, it should be that way for two reasons.

One: church is the foundation for the work and the family and the culture. If you’re going to do anything significantly and you know diligently, it should be your stuff in the church. Okay? I believe that. But number two: it should at least be like this because when you say you’re going to do something here, you really ought to do it. You ought to perform it.

Now, I know the end result of the sermon is going to be that nobody’s going to volunteer here for the next six months here. But you know, hopefully you understand what I’m getting at here and the significance of it.

As I said, God says in Joshua and in other places in scripture—Joshua says, “Not one word that God spoke fell to the ground.” May the Lord God—may you today, during the playing of the offertory hymn—if you come up, consecrate yourself this way. If you don’t do this, talk to your wife, your husband, talk to your kids. Make a commitment today on this Lord’s day, as the Lord comes to visit us, to be like him—not to be like the old father, the father of, you know, equivocation, the father of positioning the truth.

May we reflect the Father whose word is truth and who always performs his word, and as a result, not one word goes out of his mouth and goes just fallen to the ground. May the Lord God grant us to have tongues that issue forth the sort of speech that our Father issues forth—that brings life to the world, that brings encouragement to people’s hearts, that brings effective kingdom work in our homes, in our marriages, in our jobs, in the church.

It’s a simple truth today, but so significant.

Let’s pray.

Father, we want to be more consistent in telling the truth in a way that builds up and edifies, that brings life. We want to be more consistent in keeping our word. Bless us, Lord God. May the rest of our lives—these words “let your yes be yes and your no be no”—echo in our heads whenever we think about whether we should do something we’ve committed to do. And help us be wise about those commitments, too. Help us not to take our word lightly or to give our word lightly, but only after due consideration.

I thank you for the men and women in this church that so often do these very things—that consider obligations carefully—and we pray that you would help us, Father, to raise another generation in that same way. Bless us, Lord God, that we would be people whose yes is yes and no is no.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.