Or if someone swears thoughtlessly with his lips to do anything good or evil--in whatever matter a man may rashly pronounce an oath--even if he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, he is guilty in the matter. Sermons
I. THAT THE FORMAL ASSOCIATION OF THE DIVINE BEING WITH ANY ACT LENDS TO IT AN INVIOLABLE SACREDNESS. That which is done before God, or with which his holy name is intentionally associated, must be regarded as peculiarly sacred: even if done impulsively and without due deliberation, an obligation is thereby incurred: "God's vows are upon us." II. THAT IT IS WISE ON ORDINARY OCCASIONS NOT TO INCUR SUCH MULTIPLIED RESPONSIBILITY. Better to use the yea, yea, or nay, nay; the simple affirmation or denial with the lesser obligation than to strengthen our utterance with an oath, and so run the risk of more serious sin in non-fulfillment. Calm, quiet, unimpassioned words are Best for daily use. Reserve oaths for large occasions. III. THAT SUCH RESPONSIBILITY AS WE DO INCUR WE MUST RELIGIOUSLY DISCHARGE. If we only affirm in our own name, but far more if we introduce the Divine name, we must see to it that we redeem our word. Negligence, on whatever grounds, though it be through sheer inadvertence - if "it he hid" from us - is culpable in the sight of God. Wherefore: 1. Study to avoid promising without a due sense of the bond that is entered into. 2. Take the earliest opportunity of redeeming your word, for good or evil. 3. Make an opportunity, if one does not soon offer. 4. Take necessary means of keeping the promise in remembrance; by natural, or (if necessary) by artificial means. We may infer - IV. THAT IF SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY ATTACHES TO A PROMISE WITH WHICH GOD'S NAME IS ASSOCIATED, SO DOES IT TO ONE IN CONNECTION WITH HIS CAUSE. If we cannot vow, before him, to do any humblest thing without incurring added liability, neither can we undertake to serve in the affairs of his kingdom without similar obligation. A promise made to take any post or fill any office in the Church of Christ should be regarded as exceptionally sacred and. binding; neglect by inadvertence is wrong, sinful. We are bound to keep before our mind and on our heart anything with which God's name and cause are immediately connected. - C.
He also shall be unclean. This avoidance of unclean animals and places is not without practical illustration in our own personal experience and action. To-day, for example, we avoid places that are known to be fever-stricken. We are alarmed lest we should bring ourselves within the influence of contagion. The strongest man might fear if he knew that a letter were put into his hand which had come from a house where fever was fatally raging. However heroic he might be in sentiment, and however inclined to boast of the solidity of his nervous system, it is not impossible that even the strongest man might shrink from taking the hand of a fever-stricken friend. All this is natural and all this is justifiable, and, in fact, any defiance of this would be unnatural and unjustifiable. Is there, then, no suggestion in all such rational caution that there may be moral danger from moral contagion? Can a body emit pestilence and a soul dwell in all evil and riot in all wantonness without giving out an effluvium fatal to moral vigour and to spiritual health? The suggestion is preposterous. They are the unwise and most reprehensible men who being afraid of a fever have no fear of a moral pestilence; who running away in mortal terror from influences leading towards small-pox, cholera, and other fatal diseases, rush into companionships, and actions, and servitudes which are positively steeped and saturated with moral pollution. That we are more affected by the one than by the other only shows that we are more body than soul. Literally, the text does not refer in all probability to a purely spiritual action, yet not the less is the suggestion justified by experience that even the soul considered in its most spiritual sense may touch things that are unclean and may be defiled by them. A poor thing indeed that the hand has kept itself away from pollution and defilement if the mind has opened wide all the points of access to the influence of evil. Sin may not only be in the hand, it may be roiled as a sweet morsel under the tongue. There may be a chamber of imagery in the heart, i man may be utterly without offence in any social acceptation of that term — actually a friend of magistrates and judges, and himself a high interpreter of the law of social morality and honour, and yet all the while may be hiding a very perdition in his heart. It is the characteristic mystery of the salvation of Jesus Christ that it does not come to remove stains upon the flesh or spots upon the garments, but to work out an utter and eternal cleansing in the secret places of the soul, so that the heart itself may in the event be without "spot or wrinkle or any such thing" — pure, holy, radiant, even dazzling with light, fit to be looked upon by the very eye of God.(J. Parker, D. D.) (J. Spencer.) (H. W. Beecher.) People Ephah, MosesPlaces TemanTopics Anyone, Anything, Becomes, Carelessly, Case, Clear, Clearly, Evil, Guilty, Hid, Hidden, Knoweth, Learns, Lips, Matter, Oath, Pronounce, Pronouncing, Rash, Rashly, Responsible, Says, Sort, Soul, Speak, Speaketh, Speaking, Swear, Sweareth, Swears, Takes, Talking, Though, Thoughtlessly, Unaware, Utter, Utters, Whatever, Whatsoever, Whether, WrongfullyOutline 1. He who sins in concealing his knowledge2. in touching an unclean thing 4. or in making an oath 6. His trespass offering, of the flock 7. of fowls 11. or of flour 14. The trespass offering in sacrilege 17. and in sins of ignorance Dictionary of Bible Themes Leviticus 5:4Library An Unalterable LawEVERYWHERE under the old figurative dispensation, blood was sure to greet your eyes. It was the one most prominent thing under the Jewish economy, scarcely a ceremony was observed without it. You could not enter into any part of the tabernacle, but you saw traces of the blood-sprinkling. Sometimes there were bowls of blood cast at the foot of the altar. The place looked so like a shambles, that to visit it must have been far from attractive to the natural taste, and to delight in it, a man had need … Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 60: 1914 List of Abbreviations Used in Reference to Rabbinic Writings Quoted in this Work. Sanctification. Entire Sanctification Christ a Complete Saviour: Second Stage of Jewish Trial. Jesus Condemned by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. The Earliest Christian Preaching Leviticus Links Leviticus 5:4 NIVLeviticus 5:4 NLT Leviticus 5:4 ESV Leviticus 5:4 NASB Leviticus 5:4 KJV Leviticus 5:4 Bible Apps Leviticus 5:4 Parallel Leviticus 5:4 Biblia Paralela Leviticus 5:4 Chinese Bible Leviticus 5:4 French Bible Leviticus 5:4 German Bible Leviticus 5:4 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |