Psalm 15:4 turns to other matters: In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the LORD; he who swears to his own hurt and does not change. The theme of this verse centers on honor. The final line of verse 4 switches subjects to the keeping of promises or oaths, a matter of personal honor: He who swears to his own hurt and does not change. The first verb here, swears, is &347;&257;ba (Strong's 7650), to bind oneself by an oath. It indicates a strong affirmation of a promise. Generally, this qualifying behavior concerns keeping one's word. It does not mean honoring just official oaths made in solemn rituals but in principle applies to any kind of promise, pledge, vow, agreement, or contract, formal or informal. Your word should be your bond, as the old saw goes. If we say that we will do something or make a commitment to an activity, we must do it otherwise, our promise becomes a lie, a false witness (Exodus 20:16). We should consider our promise or oath to be inviolable, even if fulfilling it causes us pain or harm of some sort. We are to be as faithful to our word as God is, and He says His every word accomplishes what He sent it to do (Isaiah 55:11). Could we trust God if He promised something and then reneged on it? Not at all. We could have no faith that He will act as He has said. We know, however, that God does not lie (Numbers 23:19; Psalm 89:34; 110:4; Hebrews 6:18; see II Timothy 2:13), so our trust in Him rests securely on His unaltering truthfulness. So it should be for us. No matter what it may cost us, we must fulfill our promises. We cannot be like the double-minded man of James 1:8, who is unstable in all his ways. We cannot give our word and then change our mind just because it may disadvantage us. We must conduct ourselves as Jesus advises in Matthew 5:33-34, 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. . . . But let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. The blameless person keeps his formal oaths to a minimum (baptism, wedding vows), abides by the terms of all contracts and agreements, fulfills his promises, and keeps his word, even if he loses money, wastes his time, looks like a fool, is terribly inconvenienced, misses an opportunity, must do additional work, or suffers a personal setback of any kind. This qualification separates the truly upright from the pretenders.

Keeping our word is of the highest importance to Him, and in fact, it is a criterion for entering into His Kingdom. Psalm 15:1 asks the question, Who may dwell in Your holy hill? The psalm then answers this question with a list of qualifications of those God will accept into His Family: those who walk uprightly, work righteousness, speak the truth, do not backbite, do no evil to their neighbor, and so forth. One quality near the end of the list is most appropriate to keeping our word: He who swears to his own hurt and does not change (verse 4). God cuts through all of our justifications with this easily understood qualification: If we want to be in His Kingdom, we must keep our word even if it hurts! Jeremiah 35 records the story of a family who faithfully kept its word to its founder, Jonadab the son of Rechab, for over two centuries. God uses their fine example of faithfulness to their forefather's wishes to confront the Jews for their lack of faithfulness to their spiritual Father. God tells Jeremiah to bring the Rechabites into one of the chambers of the Temple, and there he was to offer them wine to drink. When he did so, the Rechabites responded: We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, 'You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons, forever' (verse 6). God contrasts their example to His own people's falseness: David asks what it would take to correct the situation, offering silver and gold, but the Gibeonites demand the deaths of seven members of Saul's family line. 'We will hang them before the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, who the LORD chose.' And the king said, 'I will give them' (verse 6). Because Saul, as the leader of Israel, broke this 400-year-old promise, seven members of his family died. God takes promises seriously! Most of us experience two wonderful occasions where we make long-term vows: marriage and baptism. The marriage vow is the most important promise we will ever make to another human being. From time to time, it is good to review what we promised before God in our marriage covenant. As the groom, a man agrees in covenant with his bride and God to take her as his lawfully wedded wife until his or her death. His responsibilities include loving her, cherishing her, honoring her, and providing for her. Similarly, a woman promises to be bound to the groom as her lawfully wedded husband until death parts them. Like her husband, she has additional, God-ordained responsibilities: to submit herself to him and respect him. Christian marriage is a laboratory for learning how to live in harmony with another person. From how we treat our mates, God can see how we will do in our relationship with His Son, our Bridegroom (see Luke 16:10). Likewise, how we keep our vows to our mates will show Him how faithful we will be to Him. Overall, life's most serious promise is the one we make at baptism, when we solemnly promise to give our lives unconditionally to God. We give our word to work to change from what we are and become what God is, to take on His very nature. We vow to give ourselves wholeheartedly to keeping His laws and doing good, which express our love toward Him and our fellow man. He expects us to keep this promise in spite of all the problems in society, in the church, or within ourselves. He will help, motivate, and strengthen us in doing all these things, but He expects us to do our best at keeping our word. The apostle Paul puts this in very stark terms: When we gave our lives to Christ, we became bondslaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18), and our vow at baptism binds us to see God's work in us to the finish. Matthew 21:28-32 contains the story of two sons, one who said he would not do the work his father asked of him, yet did, and another who promised to work, but did not. The father is God. The first son, who flatly refuses to work in the vineyard, represents the weak, foolish and base of this world (see I Corinthians 1:26-27). The second son, who promises to work

Let us look at a psalm that talks about the principle that is involved here. David asked the question, Who can abide in Your tabernacle, God? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? Who is going to be in Your Kingdom? And then, he begins to describe the character of these people. And it says in verse 4: in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the Lord; he who swears to his own hurt and does not change. This is important because of what God is looking for. He is looking for people of integrity, people who are going to make sacrifices in order to keep their word; people whose wallet is less important than the honor of their word. These kind of people will be thoughtful, they will be careful; they are going to think things through as best as they possibly can before they enter into an agreement. And what these people will do for a community, by their very actions the way they conduct things will promote stability. It is going to be solid, because they are somebody who can be depended upon. These are not people who are going to be jamming the courts with all kinds of mean-spirited, needless litigation, because they will go to the person who they made a deal with, and if it cannot be resolved, more likely than not, they will take it on the chin. Jesus spoke about this too. It was part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is pretty important. The story behind this is that there in Jesus' day, the Jews were advising clever and ingenious ways of slipping out of keeping their word. They would enter into an agreement, and then say, I didn't really mean that. You see, when I swore, I had my fingers crossed behind my back. That might seem a bit silly, but that is kind of like what they were doing. Jesus' advice here is telling the Christian that every word is uttered before God. So, in order to avoid the proclivity of human nature to back out when things do not go as planned, Jesus is saying, in effect, Think things through; do not swear at all; let your word be your bond. Not too long ago, maybe July 4, Evelyn and I watched the movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of George M. Cohan. He had an association with a man whose name was Sam Harris. This was a long, profitable association. They made a great deal of money together. I am sure they had their hard times as well, but there came a time when they felt it necessary to dissolve their partnership. And it comes out in the movie that they never had any other agreement other than a handshake. They both kept their word. I am sure that is why it was so successful. And when the time came to part ways, they did so without any animosity, or anger; they just went their ways. It was a good example of the way things could be done if there are people of integrity involved. Living with such an approach to life has produced quite a number of notable personalities in the Bible. Richard recently wrote an article about Jephthah and his daughter. Did he keep his word? Did he swear to his own hurt? Now there was a young lady with character! She did not go to her dad and say, Well, I didn't enter into this! But, she went along with her father's vow to God. He kept his word, and she went along with it quite the example! Like a female Isaac! Isaac did not commit himself to go to Mount Moriah to have his throat cut. But, he submitted to his father anyway. Do you see the kind of mind that these people had? How about Daniel? He apparently committed himself to praying in such a place where he could be seen. And, even though his life was on the line, that if somebody prayed to some other god that did not stop Daniel from following through with what he was going to do. He is listed there among the three most righteous men who ever lived Noah, Daniel, and Job. He kept his word. There is an interesting example I want us to look at. It is found in II Samuel 15. In many cases, many people have never heard of this man, Ittai the Gittite. Here, David was fleeing for his life, because of Absalom's rebell