The Sermon on the Mount, Part 7

‘You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD. Lev. 19:12, NASB

“If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Num. 30:2, NASB

21 “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. 22 “However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. 23 “You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised. Deut. 23:21-23, NASB

For a short period of time in the late 1980s I worked in a PC/Computer store in sales. I am not a sales person, but most if not all of the other fellows I worked with were. Instead, I simply told people what the computers could do or what they could not do and tried to match them up with what the people needed. I was usually in the top two or three in sales, never number one there, but I was always number one in customer satisfaction. In fact, the only time I ever saw those customers again was if something broke or they wanted an upgrade or they brought a friend or relative in to buy a computer. However, something changed when I sold a truckload of computers to a local school. Then I did it again. Then our sales manager forced me to move to outside sales and out of the showroom. I hated it. Suddenly I began dealing with agents from companies whose whole way of doing business was based on mistrust. In fact, I had one who went out of his way to put legal pressure on us to fill contracts, et cetera. I asked the guy why he did that since I always did what I said I would do. He told me that he did that with everyone he did business with because that was how he ensured that he always got things done. I told him I didn’t want his business and gave the account to another guy in our group. That was the beginning of the end of my time in marketing. Even though God provided for my family and me during that time through it, I hated it except in those early days when I was helping those people one-on-one and they were overjoyed to get it. When it became ugly I came to hate my job and God was gracious to move me back into what I really liked doing at that time, which was writing database applications. View article →