The NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - Is It A Sin To Make A Vow？ Matthew 5_33-37

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00:00:27.500 All right, welcome back to another Monday Live. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:32.820 We're going to go ahead and dive right in. What I want to talk about today is oath-keeping, making vows, covenants,

00:00:39.700 basically the difficulty for New Testament Christians as we read the plain words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in verses,

00:00:48.280 This is Matthew chapter 5, verses 33 through 37.

00:00:52.540 And it appears as though Jesus explicitly tells us that we cannot make a vow at all.

00:00:59.260 At all. No vows, no oaths being made for New Testament Christians today. 0.99

00:01:04.240 It was something that was permissible under the Old Covenant and the Old Testament with Israel, 1.00

00:01:08.800 but something that New Testament Christians cannot do. 0.99

00:01:11.100 Now, the problem is, what about putting your hand on a Bible and swearing, going under oath in a legal court? 0.96

00:01:18.980 What about certain business dealings and contracts that are essentially making oaths?

00:01:23.960 It is to make an oath, to give your word, is a contract, a loose form of a covenant, so to speak. 0.53

00:01:30.000 What about Christians that serve in the military, that go under oath in certain military positions? 0.72

00:01:36.520 So, can a Christian not be on a jury? 0.95

00:01:39.440 Can they not testify in a legal court? Can they not be in the military? Can they not conduct 0.99

00:01:45.980 certain business contracts and certain business agreements? What is a Christian to do if Jesus 0.99

00:01:52.500 plainly says that we cannot make any oath or swear or vow at all? So let's go ahead and start by

00:01:58.980 looking at the text, right? But that's the dilemma. I want to frame it up. Can Christians make promises?

00:02:04.080 Can we make oaths today, even as New Testament Christians, in light of what seemed to be the

00:02:08.740 very plain words of Jesus. Here we go. Matthew chapter 5, verse 33 through 37, the Bible says

00:02:13.960 this. Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely,

00:02:20.620 but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all,

00:02:28.380 either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool,

00:02:33.320 or by jerusalem for it is the city of the great king and do not take an oath by your head for

00:02:40.300 you cannot make one hair white or black let what you say be simply yes or no anything more than

00:02:47.600 this comes from evil all right so that's kind of what we're dealing with now i want to compare and

00:02:55.060 contrast that with uh the 1689 so i'm going to read a little bit the first three paragraphs of

00:03:01.620 the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. This would be chapter 23 of oath. I believe it's of

00:03:09.860 vows and oath or oath keeping is the name of the chapter. So this is the 1689 London Baptist

00:03:16.500 Confession of Faith, which says that you can. So these are New Testament. This is the Reformed

00:03:21.180 tradition. The Westminster says pretty much exactly the same thing. So within the Reformed

00:03:25.620 tradition new testament christians having the words of jesus in matthew 5 33 through 37 right

00:03:31.700 in front of their face they have still determined that you can make a vow both on the presbyterian

00:03:36.560 side of the aisle or on the reformed baptist side of the aisle i'm going to be reading from

00:03:40.420 the 1689 this is what they say and then we're going to try to square it with the plain words

00:03:44.540 of jesus in matthew chapter 5 paragraph 1 chapter 23 the 1689 a lawful oath is a part of religious

00:03:52.860 worship wherein the person swearing in truth righteousness and judgment solemnly calls god

00:03:59.660 to witness what he swears and to judge him according to the truth or falseness thereof

00:04:06.260 paragraph two the name of god only is that by which men ought to swear and therein it is to

00:04:14.160 be used with all holy fear and other thing is sinful and to be abhorred any other thing is

00:04:22.260 sinful, and to be abhorred. Yet, as in a matter of wait and moment for confirmation of truth and

00:04:29.380 ending all strife, an oath is warranted by the word of God, so a lawful oath being imposed by

00:04:36.300 lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken. Lastly, paragraph 3 of the 1689 chapter 23.

00:04:44.680 whoever takes an oath warranted by the word of god ought duly to consider the weightiness of so

00:04:52.780 solemn an act and therein to avouch nothing but what he knows to be truth for that by rash

00:05:01.220 false and vain oaths the lord is provoked and for them this land mourns okay to break that down

00:05:10.840 essentially what the authors of the 1689 are saying is that both should be sparse they should

00:05:17.360 be sparing few and far between we don't rashly take an oath if we do take an oath one of the

00:05:21.780 big things that they're saying in these three paragraphs is that the only thing lawful for a

00:05:26.100 christian to swear by would be the name of god alone and to do so with fear and trembling to do

00:05:31.480 so in a holy reverent manner now take that back to matthew chapter 5 verse 33 through 37 what is it

00:05:38.860 that Jesus is explicitly condemning? Well, in the first instance, what he's condemning is swearing

00:05:44.520 by other things other than the Lord himself. He starts off again, verse 33, and he says,

00:05:50.660 and it seems to be, don't take an oath at all. Again, you have heard that it was said to those

00:05:55.220 of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform, keep the oath that you have sworn to

00:06:00.960 the Lord. But I say, do not take an oath at all. That's what he says. Do not take an oath at all.

00:06:05.420 but then he immediately right there's a comma there he immediately in the very same breath says

00:06:10.780 either by heaven why because that's the same as swearing by god the heaven is god's throne so

00:06:18.360 don't swear by heaven for it is the throne of god or by the earth because that too is connected to

00:06:23.840 god it is his footstool or by jerusalem for it is the city of the great king and king there is

00:06:30.960 capitalized speaking not of david but speaking ultimately of jesus christ himself um and speaking

00:06:37.040 of god and do not take an oath by your head for your head even that was made by god and controlled

00:06:44.260 by god under the banner of his sovereignty you cannot make one hair white or black but rather

00:06:49.500 let what you say let let what you say be simply yes or no anything more than that comes from

00:06:56.680 evil. So the first thing that Jesus is condemning and the first sense is this, the Pharisees and 0.52

00:07:03.100 Sadducees and religious rulers of his day, what they were across the board, whether it was divorce

00:07:09.140 or whether it's oath-taking, at every single level, what they're doing is like the IRS,

00:07:16.640 okay? Any tyrannical position of authority, what they try to do is they try to extrapolate,

00:07:23.120 take something that's simple a few commandments that are actually given by god and draw them out

00:07:28.620 to be a million commandments i've quoted him several times in this vein but gk chesterton

00:07:33.800 he said if man will not have 10 commandments he will have 10 000 commandments right so you look

00:07:38.300 at like the irs you know tax code and you know it's it's thousands of pages it's ridiculous no 1.00

00:07:44.420 it's it's exasperating overwhelming nobody could keep it and that's what the pharisees did the

00:07:49.840 Pharisees added to the law of God, the Ten Commandments and the Decalogue and the Mosaic

00:07:55.040 law as a whole, Levitical law and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. But then they took that 0.99

00:08:00.140 and they extrapolated it out to where when it comes to divorce, they would start saying, well,

00:08:05.500 you can send your wife away for pretty much any reason at all, as long as you give her a certificate

00:08:11.040 of divorce. Essentially, she could just burn the toast and you would be justified in sending your 0.57

00:08:16.760 wife away. Now why are the Pharisees and Sadducees, these religious rulers doing this? The reason why

00:08:22.880 they're doing this is because they're adulterers, right? They want to commit adultery, but they don't 0.99

00:08:27.080 want to be indicted as adulterers. So what do you do if you're no longer, you know, enjoying the

00:08:32.540 wife of your youth and you have an adulterous heart and you want to commit adultery with

00:08:37.460 another woman, but you want to keep your fidelity card? Well, what you do is you divorce your first 0.55

00:08:41.840 wife first for no reason at all and you say that well technically i gave her that certificate of

00:08:47.500 divorce that moses said and so it's above board it's it's justified in the sight of god and i'm

00:08:51.980 not committing adultery i am now you know legally married to my second wife you know and all this

00:08:56.980 is justified by the law of god even though you you got meticulous and and you you complicated

00:09:04.220 the law of god to mean something that it never really was supposed to mean and so that's what

00:09:09.500 Jesus ultimately is addressing here. He's saying, you've heard it was said of old, you know, that

00:09:16.060 do not swear falsely, but keep the oath that you make. And Jesus, he says, but I tell you,

00:09:23.360 do not make an oath at all. Jesus says that, that's true. But then immediately the way that he,

00:09:28.780 when he gives the descriptor of what that looks like, he says, don't swear by heaven or by earth

00:09:34.320 or by Jerusalem or by your own head. Elsewhere, the scripture talks about how Jesus indicts the

00:09:41.020 religious rules of his day because they would say, they would say, well, if anyone swears by the

00:09:46.560 temple, he is not bound by his oath. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, then he is bound

00:09:52.480 by his oath. Or if anybody swears by the altar in the temple, he's not bound by his oath. But if

00:09:58.760 anybody swears by the sacrifice laid upon the altar, then he is bound by his oath. So essentially

00:10:04.760 what the religious rulers of Jesus' day were doing is this. They were acting like six-year-old 0.57

00:10:10.760 children and making a promise with their fingers crossed behind their back. And then when somebody

00:10:18.580 actually tries to hold them to keeping their word, they say, well, I didn't promise. I'm not bound by

00:10:25.860 my word because yes, I did make a promise, but you didn't see, you didn't notice, but behind my back,

00:10:32.100 I had my fingers crossed. That's what they were doing. This is what Jesus is indicting. He's

00:10:37.440 indicting not any and every form of oath at all, but what he's indicting is guys who are getting

00:10:44.100 so technical with the law of God, which ultimately is just saying, don't swear falsely, keep your

00:10:50.840 word if you swear it is permissible to swear but if you swear you should swear by god alone not by

00:10:57.880 any man-made thing not the earth nor nor uh heaven nor the the temple nor the the altar or jerusalem

00:11:05.560 because all these things ultimately track back to god you should use his name and do not use his

00:11:10.800 name in vain do it with fear and trembling and reverence and all so only swearing by invoking

00:11:16.400 the name of God, that's the only proper thing to swear by, is by God himself. And when you do

00:11:22.940 make an oath, it is lawful to make an oath, but you must keep your word. Do not swear falsely,

00:11:28.420 but keep your word. And Jesus, again, is indicting, swearing by all these other things. And here's

00:11:33.620 the real issue. Guys who were swearing by other things because they didn't, they were trying to

00:11:40.100 leave a back door open for themselves to get out of keeping their word. That's why they were swearing

00:11:45.720 by other things besides swearing by Yahweh alone. The reason why they wanted to swear by Jerusalem 0.92

00:11:51.200 or swear by heaven or by earth or by their head or by, you know, the altar or swear by the temple

00:11:57.720 is because they weren't men of their words. They were liars and hypocrites. And this is what Jesus 1.00

00:12:02.500 says to the religious rulers of his day again and again and again. Notice that the biggest thing 0.80

00:12:08.020 that Jesus indicts the religious rulers of his day for is not so much for being legalist.

00:12:13.060 there's a truth to that but it's not that he says you guys uh care too much for the law and and 0.98

00:12:21.060 you're legalistic no the biggest thing that he says is you're hypocrites not legalist but hypocrites 0.97

00:12:28.940 you preach but do not actually do it yourself you you put place heavy burdens on men but you will 0.98

00:12:36.520 not lift these burdens yourself with even one finger so so you're saying well this is the law

00:12:42.400 of God, to tithe down to, you know, to a tenth of your mint and dill and spices, but you yourself

00:12:47.880 have neglected the weightier matters of the law, to mercy and love and justice. Or when it comes

00:12:54.600 to swearing, you say, oh, well, you have to keep your vow, but then you don't keep your vow. And

00:12:59.760 you get out of keeping your vow while still keeping your religious ruler card on a technicality to

00:13:05.960 say, well, I swore by the altar, but not the sacrifice on the altar. I swore by the temple,

00:13:10.460 but not the gold in the temple. And so Jesus is saying, no, no, no more of this.

00:13:16.680 No more of this. Don't swear by heaven. Don't swear by earth. Don't swear by Jerusalem. Don't

00:13:21.400 swear by your head. It's not the gold that makes the temple holy, but the temple is what makes

00:13:28.640 the gold holy. It's not the altar that is holy, but the sacrifice upon the altar that makes it

00:13:33.360 holy. And all these things, whether it be the altar or the sacrifice or the temple or the gold

00:13:38.640 in the temple, or Jerusalem, or heaven, or earth, or your own head, which you cannot alter one hair

00:13:44.580 to make it black or white, all these things ultimately track back to God. If you swear at

00:13:49.620 all by anything, it should be to swear by God in heaven alone, and you are bound by your oath.

00:13:56.060 There are no cheat codes. There's no crossing your fingers behind your back. There's no

00:14:00.820 technicality, no backdoor to seemingly make an oath when you know that you're actually not going

00:14:09.140 to keep it, to intentionally lie, be deceitful, and then say that somehow your lie doesn't count

00:14:15.540 and you're not actually bound by your oath because you had your fingers crossed behind your back.

00:14:21.060 That's what Jesus is indicting. That's what he's getting against. And that's what both the

00:14:26.460 Westminster in the 1689 explicitly say is that there is such a thing for New Testament Christians

00:14:31.880 to make lawful oaths to this day. But the only thing that is permissible to swear by is by God

00:14:39.220 himself. And of course, we cannot swear falsely. We must keep our oath. We are bound to our word.

00:14:45.440 All that being said, I want to add a couple more things. Luther and Calvin on this issue,

00:14:50.820 essentially it boils down to this. They held a similar position. It boils down to this. They

00:14:55.120 said that in private, Christians shouldn't really make oaths at all. They shouldn't. Privately, as

00:15:01.420 Christians deal with fellow believers in their marriages and with their children and their homes

00:15:05.900 and in their churches, there should be no need for swearing, no need for making oaths, but rather

00:15:11.720 they should be able to do exactly what Jesus says, let their yes be yes and their no be no, because

00:15:16.480 we should be able to take a Christian at their word, that we would be promise keepers, that we

00:15:22.220 would be those who keep our word. However, they would say, so they bifurcated and said,

00:15:26.840 it is lawful to take an oath, but to only swear by God, invoking the name of God and not some

00:15:31.780 other lesser authority, but to swear invoking the name of God, but it's only lawful to do so

00:15:37.380 as a Christian, not privately among other Christians, but publicly when unbelievers

00:15:42.440 are involved. So they would say it's legal or it's lawful in the sight of God and scripturally 0.77

00:15:49.520 to make an oath when unbelievers are involved in the public square, in society at large, 1.00

00:15:57.000 whether it be legally in a court of law where there are unbelievers, you know, who are involved 0.98

00:16:01.880 in that court or in the military or in certain business dealings that involve trade and contracts

00:16:08.320 with other unbelievers. And so in these instances, and what Luther and Calvin essentially said was

00:16:14.040 this. They said the reason why that's permissible is because unbelievers do not have the understanding

00:16:20.860 of Christians that we do of ourselves that God has bound us to integrity and honesty in all of

00:16:29.420 our dealings. And so unbelievers or foreigners or strangers, they don't have that view of us

00:16:36.780 because they don't know our God and they don't know us. They don't have a certain view that could 0.99

00:16:42.500 recognize that Christians are people of integrity, are word-keeping, oath-keeping people. And so for 0.96

00:16:51.660 them, we may need to make a contract, make a promise, make an oath in order for them to be

00:16:59.660 able to take us at our word. But even if we do that, we can't swear by whatever they would want

00:17:04.340 us to swear by. We would have to swear by the only true authority in all the universe, which is

00:17:08.900 invoking the name of God himself. A couple more things I want to add to this. One of the reasons

00:17:12.900 why we know that it is permissible, and I would agree with Luther and Calvin in this public 0.96

00:17:18.020 context, especially with unbelievers, to undergo oaths, even as New Testament Christians, one of

00:17:23.520 the reasons we know that this is permissible is because Paul does it, the apostle, Jesus actually

00:17:29.000 does it himself, and God does it. So we know God in the Old Testament with Abraham and on multiple

00:17:35.260 other instances, God invokes an oath by swearing upon himself. With Genesis 14 and 15, God having

00:17:44.980 no one greater to swear by, made an oath with Abraham and swore by himself. So God underwent

00:17:52.060 an oath. Jesus undergoes an oath. Let me find that verse. I've got it written down here, but I believe

00:17:57.980 it is. Here it is. Matthew chapter 26, verses 63 and 64 says this, but Jesus remained silent. This

00:18:05.760 is when he's being tried in the Jewish court of that day, the Sanhedrin. And the high priest said

00:18:11.060 to him, I adjure you by the living God. So the high priest is binding Jesus, calling him into

00:18:18.140 making an oath by invoking the name of God. I adjure you. I call God as witness. Tell us if

00:18:26.340 you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus doesn't say, well, I'm sorry, I can't swear.

00:18:31.560 I can't undergo an oath. Now, the same Jesus who earlier in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the

00:18:36.320 Mount said, do not swear at all or make an oath at all. He chooses voluntarily and enters into

00:18:42.980 an oath. He makes an oath. The high priest adjures him by the living God. And Jesus now says,

00:18:48.100 you have said so. But I tell you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand

00:18:53.180 of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. So the high priest calls Jesus to make an oath

00:18:59.920 adjuring the name of God, the living God, and Jesus undergoes that oath by answering him and

00:19:06.260 says, you have said so. He says, are you the Christ? And I want you to say it to God, with

00:19:12.240 God as your witness, that you are the Christ, the Messiah, and Jesus under oath. Now, he's under

00:19:20.120 oath in the Sanhedrin. This is not just religious rulers, but it is a legal court for Jerusalem,

00:19:25.240 for the Jews in that day. And Jesus, under oath in a public court, now says, well, it's a kangaroo

00:19:33.040 court, but it's a gotcha court just trying to bring up false charges. But Jesus still undergoes

00:19:40.540 this oath and says, yes, I am the Christ. You have said so, meaning the very thing you just said,

00:19:45.740 that is the truth. You've said I'm the Christ, and I am. So, Jesus undergoes oaths. So, God makes

00:19:51.160 oaths. Jesus undergoes oaths. Last one would be the Apostle Paul. He does it at least three times.

00:19:56.000 I'll give one example. This is Romans 1, verse 9. He says, for God is my witness. So, he's,

00:20:02.060 I swear by God. I swear in the name of God, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son,

00:20:09.460 that without ceasing, I mention you. What he's doing is he's writing to the Romans and this is

00:20:15.960 back to the Calvin Luther kind of thing. Now he's writing to the church at Rome. So this would be

00:20:20.580 fellow believers, but these would be foreigners. Paul is a Jew. These are Gentiles. It's a place 0.99

00:20:26.360 where he doesn't necessarily, there's a lot of strangers there who don't have deep, intimate,

00:20:31.240 personal relationship with the apostle Paul. It's a place that he intends to visit. He says that in

00:20:36.280 his letter to the Romans, I hope to come and see you. But this is a people that are strangers to

00:20:41.420 him. They don't really know him. They don't have close relationship. So what Paul's doing is

00:20:45.840 precisely what Luther and Calvin, what they both agree that's permissible for Christians to do

00:20:50.320 is Paul is appealing. He's making an oath to people who don't know him so that they might

00:20:56.760 believe his testimony, that what he's about to say is in fact true. He's saying, I know you're

00:21:02.280 not going to take my word for it. I can't just let my yes be yes and my no be no in this instance

00:21:07.060 with you because you don't know me. I don't have those kind of credentials with you. I don't have

00:21:13.580 that kind of track record with you to where my yes, where you would trust me that my yes is always

00:21:18.760 yes and my no is always no. And so I'm willing to undergo an oath. I call God as my witness for God

00:21:25.480 is my witness. And what is it that he's going to now testify? That I care for you. That God is my

00:21:31.800 witness, whom I serve with my spirit and the gospel of his son, that without ceasing, I mention

00:21:37.820 you. I mention you in what instance? In his prayers. And so what he's trying to do is he's

00:21:42.760 trying to win over the Roman church to the fact that he's not just trying to assert or domineer

00:21:48.900 his authority over them as an apostle, but that he genuinely has affection, holy affection and love

00:21:55.020 for them. And so he's saying, believe me when I say I love you. I'm not just trying to control

00:22:00.460 you, but I love you. And if you don't believe me by just simply saying it and letting my yes be yes

00:22:05.900 and my no be no, well, I call God as my witness. And Paul right there as a Jew, he's trusting that 0.51

00:22:13.320 these Roman Christians would know that he would not falsely swear by the name of God, because

00:22:18.600 that's a very serious thing. So final, you know, conclusion is it is permissible for New Testament

00:22:25.700 Christians today to swear or to undergo an oath, to make a covenant. But the only thing that they 1.00

00:22:34.000 can swear by would be God, the name of God. They should do so with fear and trepidation,

00:22:40.420 with reverence, never falsely swearing, knowing that they're bound by their oath. And any oath

00:22:47.960 making or swearing should be few and far between for Christians and really reserved for the public 0.99

00:22:53.740 sphere where we're engaging in business or in courts or in the military with unbelievers who

00:23:00.640 don't give us the benefit of the doubt, but in our private dealings with our churches and with 0.90

00:23:06.060 fellow Christians, and especially with our own families, our wife and children, we shouldn't

00:23:10.880 have to swear. We should be able to simply let our yes be yes and our no be no. And the last

00:23:16.560 application that I'll give you as it pertains to family and parenting for Christian fathers and

00:23:21.700 mothers is this. If your children, if you're a father or a mother and your children are regularly

00:23:26.840 asking you, do you promise, Dad? You promise? They ask you, hey, Dad, can we do this or can we do

00:23:32.380 that? And you say yes. And that doesn't settle it. They immediately follow up. Your children say,

00:23:37.760 promise, Dad? You promise? You promise? And I know this might hurt a little bit, but you need to hear

00:23:43.320 it. What your children are essentially saying is, Dad, you're not a man of your word and we don't

00:23:49.580 trust you. We need you to swear. We need you to make an oath. We need you to promise us and bind

00:23:59.860 yourself because your simple answer of yes doesn't always mean yes. You've taught us as your own

00:24:08.480 children, you've taught us by your own speech and your own actions as our father or as our mother

00:24:13.320 that your yes doesn't always mean yes, we can't take you at your word. Your no doesn't always

00:24:19.440 mean no, we can't take you at your word. And so we need to pull out of you an oath, a promise,

00:24:28.100 a swearing for us to actually be able to trust you because you're wishy-washy when it comes

00:24:34.420 to your word. So when Jesus condemns oath-taking, he's condemning making false oaths, crossing your

00:24:42.460 fingers behind your back, by swearing by other things other than the Lord, so that you can

00:24:46.380 let yourself out of the contract, let yourself out of the promise that you've made, and not

00:24:51.760 actually be faithful. However, it is permissible to make an oath in other contexts, public contexts,

00:24:59.460 especially with unbelievers that don't necessarily trust us. Saying I'm a Christian man doesn't mean

00:25:05.080 anything for them, but in our private dealings with fellow believers, and especially as fathers

00:25:11.940 and mothers in our own families, in our marriage, and with our children, we should be known as being

00:25:18.940 consistent, faithful, integrous, that when we say yes, it means yes. And when we say no, it means no

00:25:26.740 to where those who are close to us, fellow church members, friends, and certainly family, and our

00:25:32.120 own children, our own spouses, they're not sitting there trying to force us to make a promise

00:25:37.900 because they have been taught and trained by our own duplicity that our word can't really be

00:25:44.980 trusted. Woe to the father, woe to the mother whose children have to get them to promise

00:25:51.380 because their yes doesn't always mean yes and their no doesn't always mean no. And that is me 0.50

00:25:57.540 preaching to you and that is me preaching to myself. That's a convicting pastoral application

00:26:03.760 with oath keeping as it applies to parenting and marriage that is relevant for all of us,

00:26:09.800 myself included. That convicts me. Man, when I tell my kids yes, it better mean yes. When I tell

00:26:16.120 them no, it better mean no. I don't want my kids growing up saying, you promised dad, you promised

00:26:21.800 dad, because every time they do that, that's a subtle indictment from my own children that would

00:26:27.740 be saying, can't trust dad, got to get him to promise, can't trust dad. And that's not the

00:26:33.760 kind of father or the kind of mother or the kind of husband or kind of wife that we want to be.

00:26:38.160 So that's what I've got for you today. Let me go ahead and give you another announcement for

00:26:43.580 a conference coming up. For those of you who are new to our channel, we'd love to have you come

00:26:47.560 out. It's going to be March 1st, 2nd and 3rd of 2024. It's about eight months away, give or take

00:26:53.700 at this point. That's a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Title of the

00:26:58.620 conference, it's Blueprints for Christendom 2.0. Subtitle of the conference is Seven Doctrines for

00:27:04.740 Ruling the World. Some people have been offended and bothered by the subtitle. We don't rule the

00:27:09.860 world. Some people say, well, you don't rule the world, Joel. Satan does. Well, I beg to differ.

00:27:15.640 Satan was the prince of this era. He was the ruler of this world, ruler of this age. But

00:27:20.620 here's the neat trick. Jesus came and he has bound the strong man and he has taken that dominion back.

00:27:27.460 God is the ruler of the world. God gave stewardship and dominion to Adam in the garden to be a viceroy

00:27:33.800 under God. God's still ultimate authority, but Adam and his wife as a helpmate to have dominion

00:27:40.000 over the earth, that all the fish of the sea and birds of the air and beast of the field and all

00:27:45.980 the plants and vegetation. They were called to steward the creation, to have dominion, be fruitful,

00:27:53.280 multiply, and exercise dominion over the created cosmos. That is to rule. The Christian mandate

00:27:59.100 is not that we don't rule, but to rule righteously. Now, Adam forfeited that rulership to Satan by

00:28:06.040 sinning. Adam was the federal head appointed by God over the earthly cosmos. He gave that rule

00:28:12.560 over to Satan. So when Satan tempted Jesus in his incarnation, his earthly ministry in the

00:28:18.240 wilderness, and he takes Jesus up to a high hillside and shows Jesus all the kingdoms of

00:28:24.320 this world and says, I'll give them all to you if you only bow down and worship me. Satan is actually

00:28:29.640 not making a false offer. Satan is offering to Jesus kingdoms that he actually has authority

00:28:36.160 over. Why? Because God in the ultimate sense has authority over everything, but God gave dominion

00:28:41.700 and stewardship to Adam. Adam forfeited that stewardship and gave it to Satan when he sinned.

00:28:48.140 And then Satan, still having that dominion from Adam all the way to the time of Christ,

00:28:53.000 is now tempting Christ and saying, hey, Jesus, I'll give you dominion. What Adam lost and handed

00:28:58.820 to me, I'll give it back to you. All you have to do is commit idolatry and bow down and worship me.

00:29:04.900 Now, Jesus, notice, he resists that temptation. He doesn't bow down. But Jesus is not saying,

00:29:10.280 oh, I don't want the kingdoms of the world. I'm content with the 17th dimension and heaven,

00:29:15.340 and I don't care for politics, and I don't care for human kingdoms, and I don't care for the

00:29:19.800 earthly cosmos or any of these things. I'm a pietist, and this doesn't matter at all. I'm

00:29:24.660 just going to preach the gospel. That's not his answer. Instead, what Jesus says is, no,

00:29:30.700 I'm not going to bow down to you. He resists the temptation to commit the sin of idolatry,

00:29:35.640 but he never says, I don't care for the kingdoms of this world. Essentially, implicitly, what I

00:29:42.100 believe Jesus is saying is he's not saying, no, I don't want the kingdoms. He's saying, no, I don't

00:29:46.320 want idolatry. I don't want to worship you. And furthermore, implicitly, Jesus is saying, I don't

00:29:52.020 need you, Satan, to give me the kingdoms of the world. I'll take them. And he did. He took them

00:29:58.180 by his sinless life, his substitutionary death on the cross, his bodily resurrection from the grave

00:30:05.000 on the third day in his glorious ascension to the right hand of God the Father, and right before he

00:30:10.640 ascends, he tells his disciples, all authority, not just in heaven, but also on earth, has now

00:30:16.520 been given to me. Therefore, go and plunder the house. Jesus says, how do you plunder the house?

00:30:22.980 First, you must go in and bind the strong man, right? Woe to you, O earth, for the devil has

00:30:27.360 been cast down to you. The earth was Satan's house, and he was the strong man, but Jesus and

00:30:32.240 his earthly ministry through his life, death, and resurrection, and glorious ascension. He bound the

00:30:37.580 strong man, and he is now sending his disciples to go and plunder the earth through the furthering

00:30:44.520 of the Great Commission. And in the Great Commission, that's how we are exercising rule

00:30:49.260 and dominion. Adam had it. Adam forfeited to Satan. Jesus, the second Adam, the final Adam,

00:30:56.200 the better Adam, took it back from Satan and has given it back to us. So Blueprints for Christendom

00:31:01.580 2.0, the subtitle, which I don't apologize for. It's absolutely biblical and true. It's seven

00:31:07.560 doctrines for ruling the world. We're going to talk about seven different doctrines for how we

00:31:11.740 can righteously exercise dominion, rule, and stewardship as Christ ambassadors, as his

00:31:19.120 representatives, the new Adam over the earthly cosmos that he's placed us in. We do this through

00:31:25.000 the cultural mandate of being fruitful and multiplying. We also do this, of course, the tip

00:31:30.260 of the spear is through the Great Commission, making disciples of nations and baptizing them

00:31:35.540 into the name of the triune God and teaching them to obey all of Christ's commandments. It is a

00:31:40.760 perfectly biblical doctrine. So we're going to be talking about seven different theologies,

00:31:46.360 doctrines that all apply to this mandate to rule righteously, not just caring about a heaven,

00:31:53.660 which we do care about, the life to come and those things which are eternal, but also caring

00:31:58.540 about the earthly and temporal good of people here and now, and how to do that, how to live

00:32:05.160 out our Christian faith in every realm of life, not just in church on Sunday and not just privately

00:32:10.740 in our hearts or in our families, but all of Christ for all of life. So we've got Doug Wilson

00:32:15.860 coming to the conference, Brian Sauve, Eric Kahn, Joe Boot, myself. It's going to be a great time,

00:32:21.460 March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. We've got the early bird rate, but here's the big thing. Don't miss this,

00:32:26.340 The last thing, the early bird rate runs out at the end of this month, 1159 p.m. Eastern Time,

00:32:36.760 August 31st, it's done. August 31st, all the way to the end of the day, that's the last day to

00:32:43.420 register at the early bird rate. Okay, so go to rightresponseconference.com, not right response

00:32:50.360 Ministries, but rightresponseconference.com and make sure to register today so that you can get

00:32:57.520 in at an affordable rate and come and enjoy this conference with all of us. We're excited to meet

00:33:03.460 you there. Brian and even Ben Garrett is going to come from Refuge Church and they're going to be

00:33:08.240 doing a Haunted Cosmos themed panel with me on all things Unhinged. We'll probably talk about

00:33:14.340 the Nephilim and Watchers and how that relates even is relevant for even Christians, New Testament

00:33:20.260 Christians today. Me and Eric Kahn and Doug Wilson are going to talk about biblical patriarchy and

00:33:25.700 how to practically live that out, not being domineering, but also being confident and

00:33:30.680 courageous and lovingly leading our wives and children as Christian men in our households.

00:33:36.380 It's going to be a great time. I don't want you to miss it. So that's our episode for today.

00:33:41.840 One word from our sponsors. I don't want you to miss. We've got a couple new sponsors and

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The NXR Podcast - August 18, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - Is It A Sin To Make A Vow？ Matthew 5_33-37

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