SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/13/2020 9:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Perspective of Divine Truth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
5:34-37
Message of the verses: “34 “But I say to
you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 “nor by
the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the
great King. 36 “Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one
hair white or black. 37 "But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’
For whatever is more than
these is from the evil one.”
I
promised a quotation from William Barclay:
“Here is a great eternal truth.
Life cannot be divided into compartments in some of which God is involved
and in others of which he is not involved; there cannot be one kind of language
in the Church and another kind of language in the shipyard or the factory or
the office; there cannot be one kind of conduct in the Church and another kind
of conduct in the business world. The
fact is that God does not need to be invited into certain departments of life,
and kept out of others. He is
everywhere, all through life and in every activity of life. He hears not only the words which are spoken
in his name; he hears all words; and there cannot be any such thing as a form
of words which evades bringing God into any transaction. We will regard all promises as sacred if we
remember that all promises are made in the presence of God” (The Gospel of Matthew, 2 vols. [rev.ed.;
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], 1:160).
When
we think of truth it has no degrees of shades as a half truth is a whole life,
and a white lie is really black. God has
never had any standard lower than what is absolute truthfulness. Jesus will later on say to everyone that in
order to get into the kingdom of heaven that they must be holy as the Lord God
is holy, and that holiness is completer perfection. Psalm 51 tells us in verse six “Behold, You desire truth in the
innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” One of the things that God hates and I
suppose the most true Christians is “a lying tongue” as seen in Proverbs
6:16-17 as “lying lips are an
abomination to the Lord found in Proverbs 12:22. Let us look at Psalm 119:163 “I hate and
despise falsehood, But I love Your law.”
We see here that what I wrote earlier about true believers hating lies
so does the Psalmist. Psalm 58:3-4 “3 The
wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth. 4 They
have venom like the venom of a serpent; Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear.” Next we look at Jeremiah as he wept over
Israel because of what he wrote in 9:3 “"They bend their tongue like
their bow; Lies and not
truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they
do not know Me," declares the LORD.”
The following verse from this paragraph is found in the book of the
Revelation and in the last chapter, 21:8 “8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’” Notice that all liars are put into the same category
as some other very terrible sinful people, and this goes to show us exactly
what God thinks of liars.
God
wants nothing to do with anything except absolute truth as this is His standard
and sincerity in everything. We can’t
play games with the truth like the Pharisees did because it gave them an out to
be able to tell lies as Jesus says in verse 37 “"But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’
and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For
whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” John MacArthur writes “Statement’ ( logos, the basic meaning of which is
simply ‘word.’ Every normal word in the
course of daily speech should be a truthful word, unadorned and unqualified in
regard to its truthfulness. A person’s
words, message, or speech (as logos is used in Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 2:1; 4:19; and
Titus 2:8) should be as good as his bond and as good as his oath or vow. ‘But above all, my brethren,’ James counsels,
‘do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but lit
your yes be yes, and your no, no; so that you may not fall under judgment’
(James 5:12).”
The
Sermon on the Mount is about God’s Kingdom and His kingdom is a holy kingdom,
and so the people of His kingdom are to be a holy people, and if there is
anything that we should learn from this entire section it is that we, as true
believers are to be holy. I know that we
are not ever going to be perfect, and so when we sin we are to do as 1 John 1:9
tells us to do so that we can continue to right with the Lord. God’s righteousness should be our
righteousness and anything less than His righteousness, including anything less
than absolute truth, is unacceptable to God.
Thank God He has provided for us His Son, who is our Savior and
Lord. MacArthur concludes “So our Lord
shatters the fragile glass of their hypocritical oaths, which they used to
cover lies.”
9/13/2020 10:00 AM
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