To find your seat, and as you find your seat, let me invite
you to open to the Book of Numbers, chapter 30.
We've been going to the Book of Numbers for several months now,
and then we are getting close to the end.
We've made a chapter 30 this morning and we're going to be in
the entire chapter. It's just kind of a shorter
chapter. Verse 6, verses 1 to 16, title
of the song this morning. Is this being committed to our
word? And so normally I would read the
text up front, but since we're going through the whole chapter,
I'll read it as I go through it in the exposition.
So let me open this in a word of prayer, and then we will jump
into the sermon this morning. Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we, we are so grateful to gather with
familiar faces and new faces. What a privilege it is to see
our brothers and sisters in the faith and to see guests and
visitors. Lord, we are encouraged by this
gathering. So Lord, I pray now as we look
at your word and as we seek to be exhorted and built up in the
faith through your word. God, please send your Holy
Spirit to to stir our affections, stir our minds, God,
to engage us in all of our faculties and capacities, Lord,
that we would grow and leave this place changed by the power
of your word and by the power of the gospel, the power of Jesus
Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
So God, please come and do all these works of grace through
your Spirit. Lord, I pray in Jesus name,
Amen. Remember when we were kids we
would say things like cross my heart and hope to die.
You'll ever say that? Or I swear on my mother's grave.
Or if I am lying, may lightning strike me.
Or I pinky swear. You all have got a pinky swear.
I promise you that's the truth. I swear on the Bible, or if I'm
lying, I'm dying. These phrases may seem harmless,
but they actually reveal a greater problem in our culture
today. And that is a problem with our
Word. As Christians, God has called us
to be committed to our Word, that what proceeds out of our
mouth that we do what we say. That's what the sermon is about
this morning, being committed to our word this morning.
We're going to look at the text. I'm going to start with the next
position of the text. I'll go through it kind of
section by section, kind of explain it, exposit it, help us
understand it, and then at the end I'll give us, I believe it
is eight points of application. So let's start in verses 1 and
2. Numbers 30, Moses spoke to the
heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying this is
what the Lord has commanded. If a man vows A vow to the Lord,
or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall
not break his word. He shall do according to all
that proceeds out of his mouth. Numbers 30 deals.
This whole chapter deals with what we call vows and oaths.
I want to take those individually.
Let's look at vows first. Now we may be wondering, what is
a vow, right? We've all heard of wedding vows,
but what are vows in the Bible? We looked at vows back in
October of last year when we discussed the Nazarite vow in
Numbers 6. Just as a brief refresher, vows
are essentially a formal promise or a formal commitment made to
God. Usually it is to either do
something or to abstain from something.
That's usually what it is. Some examples of vows in the
Bible include Jacob's vow to God made in Genesis 28.
Hannah made a vow regarding her son Samuel to give him to the
Lord. If you remember, Jephta in the
book of Judges made a foolish vow that cost his daughter's
life. Vows are mentioned some 11 times
in the book of Psalms. Paul even made a vow in the book
of Acts and in the book of Numbers.
We have seen vows in chapters 6 and chapters 21.
And so why is there now a chapter about this?
Well, I think Numbers 30 is going to deal with the very
specific context of vows. The context is women and vows.
This is kind of one of those like case laws where we're going
to deal with a very specific case of how is Israel to deal
with this situation of women making vows.
But before Moses addresses this context, he's going to talk
about men and vows and just the first 2 verses.
And I want to point out two aspects about vows from these
first 2 verses. Here they are #1 vows were
voluntary. They're voluntary.
Notice in verse one, this is what the Lord has commanded.
But right after that, it's followed up with the word if.
This is what the Lord has commanded if, which means that
God doesn't command people to make vows.
There is no command that thou shalt make vows.
He says if though. If you do make a vow, then you
are commanded to do something. So vows are voluntary, but if
you make them, then you're commanded to do something.
Which leaves the number two. Once a vow was made, it is
binding. Once someone made a vow, look
what he says in verse 2. He shall not break his word.
He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
Now this rule also applies to oaths.
If you notice, he says that if you swear an oath to bind
himself by a pledge. So if a man made a vow or took
an oath, it was binding. This which then raises the
second category of, well, what is an oath, right?
There's a vow and there's an oath.
What is an oath? Oaths are essentially their form
of a contract. You know, we have contracts
today. They didn't they didn't have ink
and paper the way that we do or PDFs, you know, like they didn't
have that. How what was their contract was
their word. They made an oath with their
word. And when they made an oath, it
was binding. It was binding in ever since the
word. Now oaths are scattered all
throughout the Old Testament. Abraham and Abimelech made an
oath. Abraham and Eliezer made an
oath. Isaac and Abimelech remember the
spies in Rahab made an oath. They made an oath not to kill
her as long as she hung the scarlet cord out of her window.
Joshua made an oath, said that anybody rebuilt Jericho, they
would be killed. The Israelites made an oath in
Judges 21. David and Shemai made an oath.
The Israelites in 2nd Corinthians 15 made an oath, and
even in Ezra 10 and Nehemiah 13 they made an oath to put away
their foreign wives. So oaths are all throughout the
Old Testament, and that's men and vows.
Now we get to women and vows. Let's look at verses 3 to 5.
If a woman vows A vow to the Lord, and binds herself by a
pledge while within her father's house in her youth, and her
father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has
bound herself, and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall
stand, and every pledge by what she has bound herself shall
stand. But if her father opposes her on
the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by what
she has bound herself shall stand, and the Lord will forgive
her because her father opposed her.
So This next section deals with a very specific context of women
and vows. Now you may be wondering, why do
men get 2 verses and women get 14 verses, right?
You know, it's the discrepancy there.
Why? Why is there so much attention
given to women and vows? Well, I think it's very simple.
Keep in mind that daughters living at home were under their
father's authority, right? I mean, it's still even true
today in a lot of context, right?
If you, if you're a daughter living at home, you're under
your father's authority and wives were under their husband's
authority, then I would argue that's still true today as well.
So fathers had authority over their daughters and husbands
have authority over their wives. But then that might create some
issues. Why?
Because women were allowed to make vows just like men.
Women could make whatever vow they wanted, but that's going to
create some issues. And so this chapter is written
to address those issues, right? And so God is going to get 4
different contexts. 4 different contexts are addressed here.
We're going to break them down one at a time.
The first context that we just read is if a woman is within her
father's house as a youth. As a youth now, most women were
married between the ages of 14 and 18.
Almost all women, if they got married, would have gotten
married between the ages of 14 and 18 in those days.
So this is specifically referring to a woman who was
unmarried and she's still living under her father's authority at
home. If such a woman made a vow to
the Lord, and thereby she binded herself as by a pledge, if her
father hears about the vow, meaning he knows it exists.
So one day she makes a vow, he gets word of it, he knows it
exists. If he says nothing to her,
meaning he doesn't seek to change it, he just keeps his
silent. He just keeps his peace at that
moment. At that moment, the next day,
the vow becomes binding. She must fulfill the vow,
whatever it is she vowed. However, if her father opposes
her, meaning he opposes the vow when he hears about it and he
says Oh no, no, no, you're not doing that if he does it on the
day that he hears about it. So the father can't
procrastinate about this. It's not like, you know, he
hears about it and then like 2 years later he's like, oh by the
way, you're not doing that. Vow doesn't work that way.
It has to be on the day that he hears about it.
At that moment, the vow becomes null and void.
Now you may be wondering like, well, what's an example?
Let me give you 2 hypothetical examples, Just two hypothetical
examples. Suppose a father on his
daughter's 12th birthday decided to give her her own lamb, right?
He has this beautiful little lamb.
It's her 12th birthday and he wants to give this lamb to his
daughter and he gives it to her. It's hers.
That's, that's her birthday present, right?
And she actually made a vow after she got it to offer it up
to the Lord rather than keep it as a pet and raise it and love
it and care for it. She's like, I want to vow this
to the Lord on the day that her dad hears about this vow.
If he says nothing to her, then the vow is binding and she has
to offer that lamb to the Lord. She's required to at that
moment. That's one example.
I'll give you another one. Suppose a daughter when she is
12. She's like, I don't like my
parents marriage. I vowed to remain single all my
life. I'm never getting married.
I make a vow right now and her dad hears about it.
Her dad says you can't remain single all your life, you got to
get married. At that moment the vow becomes
null and void. Maybe he is allowed to oppose
this and it becomes null and void.
Now if the father made the vow null and void, how do we rectify
that? With the fact that God said vows
must be fulfilled, right? The texture said vows, How do we
rectify that? Look at the last statement in
verse 5. If her father opposes her on the
day that he hears of it, no vows of hers, no pledge by what she
has bound herself, shall stand, and the Lord will forgive her
because her father opposed her, meaning the Lord will forgive
her. God will not hold this
unfulfilled vow against the daughter.
He won't consider it as her not fulfilling her vow because her
dad opposed it. Now, in case you're wondering,
as a side note, well, what about sons who lived under the
parental authority, right? What if our 12 year old son is
he's, isn't he under his dad's authority?
What if he made a vow? Why doesn't the text address
that? Or what about unmarried older
women? What if you were 25 and you're
unmarried and you live on your own, or your dad dies and now
you? What about that?
I don't know the Bible. The Bible doesn't say so.
We can ask God that in heaven. Verses 6 to 8.
If she marries a husband while under her vows, or any
thoughtless utterance of her lips, by what she has bound
herself, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on
the day that he hears, then her vow shall stand, and her pledges
by which she has bound herself shall stand.
But if on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he
opposes her, then he makes void her vow.
That was honor and the thoughtless utterance of her
lips by which she has bound herself, and the Lord will
forgive her. So now this deals with the
second context. Remember, the first context is a
daughter living at home under her father's authority while
being unmarried. The second context is if a woman
takes a vow prior to being married.
So she takes this vow, and then she gets married after that, but
before she can fulfill the vow. So she makes the vow, gets
married, but hasn't fulfilled the vow yet, Right.
And so on that day that her husband learns about it.
So let's say she gets married and two weeks into their
marriage tells her husband, oh by the way, I made a vow when I
was 12 years old or 15 years old on that day that he hears about
it. The same principle applies.
If the husband says nothing on that day, then her vow is
binding. If he just keeps his silence,
the vow is binding. But if on the day that he hears
about it, if her husband opposes her, then the husband makes the
vow null and void. Now one might wonder, why would
a husband oppose his wife's vow? Why would he do that?
And the text gives us a clue for some of the cases.
Look at how Moses describes some of these vows.
Look at verse 6. If she marries a husband while
while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her
lips, look down in verse 8. But if on the day her husband
comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void or vow.
That was honor and the thoughtless utterance of her
lips. And what does that mean?
This Hebrew word? It only occurs twice in the Old
Testament, both times here it means a rash promise, an
imprudent oath, word spoken in a foolish or undisciplined manner.
You say, well, what would be an example of this?
Here's what this maybe would be an example again, hypothetical.
Let's say that a woman made a vow when she was 14 years old to
give 50% of her future finances to the Lord, 50%.
And then she gets married and the husband hears about this
vow. Well, he may not want to give
50% of their finances to the Lord so he could make the vow
null and void, right? In other words, he, he, he's not
bound to that because simply because she made the vow before
they were married. Notice just with the daughter,
you said, well, what about unfulfilling the vow just with
the daughter? The Lord will forgive the wife.
Now our modern ears are probably asking the question, Why can the
husband make the wife's vow no and void, but the wife can't
make the husband's vow no and void.
Maybe Jephthah's wife was asking the same question.
One can argue that's because they're a patriarchal society
and that's just their culture. We might, you know, if you go to
UW, that's what they'll argue. It's because they're patriarchal
and that's just their culture, right?
But that's not the argument that the Apostle Paul takes.
That's not the argument Paul takes.
Just as a father has authority over his daughters, so do
husbands have authority over their wives.
Paul writes in First Corinthians 11/3 and Ephesians 523.
The head of a wife is her husband.
Now I understand that that may offend our egalitarian ears, but
that is what Scripture teaches us.
There's much more that could be said on that.
I could be the whole sermon on that, which the text is not
about that. I want to make the point though,
that this is in the Old Testament.
But this idea of a father having authority over his children and
a husband having authority of his wife, that has not changed.
That is still binding today in our culture, in our Christian
culture. Look at verse 9.
But any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, anything by
which she has bound herself shall stand against her.
This is the third context. This third context is if a woman
is either a widow, so her husband has died or a divorced
woman so her husband has left her right.
So if if there if Oma was married, her husband died or her
husband left her. This is becomes a different
context. Usually in their culture, what
would happen if in either of those two situations, the woman
would do one of two things. She would either return to her
father's home and if he were still alive and live with him,
or if he wasn't still alive, she would go to her son's home,
right? I mean, you even see this with
Mary, right? This is what Jesus on the cross,
why he tells Mary and trust Mary to John because he's not going
to be there. So she would either go to her
Father's home or to her son's home and she would live with
them. Now this question though, then
the question becomes at that point, can the Father or the Son
void her vows? And the answer is no.
The text says that she is now treated as the man in verse 2,
meaning that all of her vows remain binding.
Nobody can void them. Nobody can make them null and
void. So for a widow woman or a
divorced woman, every vow that she has is binding at this
point. That's the third context.
Look at verse 11:50. And if she vowed in her
husband's house, or bound herself by a pledge with an
oath, and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her, and
did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every
pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand.
But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he
hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips
concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself
shall not stand. Her husband has made them void,
and the Lord will forgive her. Now this is the fourth and final
context. This is a wife who makes a vow
or makes a pledge after being married.
So remember the second context was she made it before she's
married? This is a wife who makes a vow
or pledge after she is married. The same principle applies which
whether she made the vow before or after, same exact principles.
I won't rehash that. So what would be an example of
this, of why a husband would or wouldn't do this?
Let me give an example where her husband didn't void his wife's
vow. Let me give an example.
Remember Hannah, she was barren and had prayed for years to have
a child. One day she made a vow.
She said, Lord, if you will give me a child, if you will give me
a son, I will offer him to the Lord.
She would devote him to the Lord, meaning he would like.
He doesn't live at home anymore. He stays there until he's weaned
and then he goes and lives in the temple.
She he's devoted to the Lord. Now, the text doesn't say this,
but we are to assume that El Cana, Hannah's wife, Hannah's
husband, Sorry, El Cana was OK with it.
We are to assume he was OK with this because Hannah's given a
child and she does in fact devote him to the Lord.
But think of it like this. Suppose El Cana wasn't OK with
this. Suppose he said, this is my son
too. I don't want to give him up the
temple. Like what if after Ezra was
born, Lauren told me she's like, well, actually made a vow that
Ezra is going to go live and be a, a, a monk, a Christian monk.
We have to give him to the, the monastery or the whatever they,
those things are called. And I'm like, no, no, he's my
son too, right? So he could have made it null
and void, but he chose not to. He chose to let her vow play out
and it now became binding. Now she has to devote him to the
Lord. That's the 4th context.
Look at verses 13 to 16. Any vow and any binding oath to
afflict herself, her husband may establish or her husband may
make void. But if her husband says nothing
to her from the day today the establishes all her vows or all
the pledges that are upon her, he has established them because
he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them.
But if he makes them null and void after he's heard of them,
then he shall bear her iniquity. These are the statues that the
Lord commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father
and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father's
house. Now these verses deal with a
specific example in marriage. So not a different context, a
specific example. If a wife took a vow or a
binding oath to afflict herself. Now what does that mean to
afflict herself? We actually looked at that word
last week. If you remember, on Yom Kippur,
the Israelites on one day out of the year, on Yom Kippur, were
all commanded to afflict themselves.
Now in, as I mentioned last week, in that context, I think
it means to fast. I think it means to fast that
you would take a, you would you were commanded to fast on Yom
Kippur. What does it mean in this
context? Because you kind of wonder,
like, why would a husband oppose his wife's fasting, right?
That makes, I mean that affect him at all.
You know what? I actually think it may mean
something else because the word that's usually the Hebrew word
is a very broad term. The net Bible has a note here.
The case here may be that the woman would take a religious vow
on such an occasion to humble herself, to mortify her flesh,
to abstain from certain things, perhaps even sexual relations
within marriage. I think that's what this is
referring to, that if a wife took a vow after she was married
and said I take a vow to abstain from sexual relations for the
next year, the husband has a choice.
He can establish it or he can make it void again.
The way that he establishes it is by saying nothing.
The way that he makes it void is by opposing it on the day that
he hears about it. And God adds A clarification to
this at the very end. Look at verse 15.
In verse 15 he says, but if he makes them null and void after
he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity.
What does that mean? If for whatever reason he
doesn't oppose it on the day that he hears about it, Right,
He hears about it, but he doesn't oppose it.
Why? Maybe he's passive.
Maybe he procrastinates, Maybe he's indecisive, I don't know.
And then a week goes by and then he's like, no, you're not doing
this. This vow is now Nolan void.
He can still do that, but God says the husband will bear his
her iniquity. In other words, he will pay the
penalty for making her break her vows.
He will be guilty before the Lord, not her.
He will bear that, that iniquity.
She will not be held responsible for it.
And that stops our expedition of the text, application of the
text. Like it's like, let's have a
pastor. What you got for us.
How do you get application from this chapter?
I had eight. I did have 10.
I whittled it down to 8. I have eight points of
application #1 God takes vows seriously.
God takes vows seriously. Now we all know that God takes
marriage vows seriously. I hope that goes without saying.
God takes marriage vows seriously.
Jesus says what? Therefore, God has joined
together. Let no man separate.
Matthew 19/6. Paul writes in the 1st
Corinthians 7 that a wife should not separate from her husband
and a husband must not divorce his wife.
And God even says in Malachi 217 that God hates divorce.
But it's not just marriage vows that God takes seriously.
It's all vows. Let me point to us to a few
scripture verses that testify to this reality.
Deuteronomy 2321 The Lord says, if you make a vow to the Lord
your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your
God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of
sin. Or Ecclesiastes 5 four to five,
pay what you vow. It is better that you should not
vow than you should vow and not pay.
Or Proverbs 2025 It is a trap for a man to dedicate something
rashly and only later to consider his vows Or one more
Malachi 114 who has a male in his flock, vows it and yet
sacrifices to the Lord. What is blemished.
Now from these passages that I just read to you, I want to give
you 3 principles about vows. A Don't be quick to make vows,
but once made, be quick to fulfill them.
Don't be quick to make vows, but once you do make them, be quick
to fulfill them. Just as the Bible exhorts us to
be slow to speak, we should also be slow to make vows because
they are a serious matter. That's true for marriage vows.
That's true for all vows, because once we make them, they
are binding, and once we make them, we are to be quick at
fulfilling them. B.
It is better to not vow than to vow and break it.
I'll give a very practical, very simple example of this.
It's better not to marry than to marry the wrong person and get a
divorce. You're better off being single.
C God considers the breaking of a vow as sin.
If we make a vow and we break it, God actually considers it to
be sin. So often in our language today,
we hear things like, I was just playing, I didn't mean it, I was
only joking, right? Don't we, that kind of our
common vernacular these days, we say something.
I'm just kidding. God takes our vows as binding
and the breaking of them as sin #2 I want to exhort you to
consider making vows to God. You may have been wondering
maybe maybe some of you been sending this whole time of like
what, what man, what, what does any of this have to do with me?
Here's here's something has to do with you consider making vows
to God. Let me ask you a question.
Are New Year's resolutions more known for people making them or
breaking them? They're more known them, aren't
they? It's it's kind of ironic that
the for something to be known for breaking it rather than
making it, but that's what it is.
It, it seems kind of pointless to make.
I don't make New Year's resolutions and many of you
probably don't either. Why?
Because you're like, well, I'm just going to break it.
What's the point of making it if I'm just going to break it?
We want to be careful that we don't have the same mentality
with vows. When you read this about how
seriously God takes vows 1, you may think, well, then I just
won't make them. And if these things are binding
and if it's sin if I break them, I just won't make them.
You saved yourself, Pastor, that the Word of God says that it's
better not to make it than to make it and break it.
So the safe play is just don't make them right.
In other words, is there any benefit to making a vow?
Is there any upside? There's certainly risk.
Is the upside? Yes.
Vows can serve as a powerful
means of accountability and renewed commitment to the Lord.
When you make a vow, it can be a powerful means of accountability
in your life and a powerful means of renewed commitment to
the Lord. Let me give you a few examples.
Suppose someone is overweight or drinks or smokes, and they
develop a medical condition that is threatening their life.
They are in the hospital bed and they're not sure if they're
going to live or die. They could make a vow to God
right then, right there as they lie in the hospital bed.
God, if you will preserve my life.
I vow to go on a diet and lose 50 lbs.
Or I vow to stop drinking. I will never drink again.
I vow to stop smoking. I will never smoke again.
You could make that vow. Or suppose someone is secretly
addicted to pornography and one day they're caught.
They're found out. They're not sure what the
consequences are going to be. They're scared.
What's this going to mean? They could make a vow right
then, right there. God, I vow I will never look at
pornography again. I'll give you one more.
Suppose you have a wife and three kids who are financially
dependent on you and you get laid off from your job.
You need a job. You've got 5 mouths to feed.
You have to have a job, but the job market is frozen.
You, you just, you can't seem to find a job.
You could make a vow right then right there.
God, if you will give me a job, I vow to give 10% of our
finances every year for the rest of my life.
You could do that. See, vows can serve as a
powerful means of accountability and a powerful means of renewed
commitment to the Lord. And if you make this vow, you
have to keep it. Now again you might say, well if
I break it, then don't ever get married.
There is an accountability there where you know that you vowed
this to the Lord, and I would be willing to venture that your
odds of keeping that increase dramatically if you don't make
the vow #3 be not rash with your mouth.
Be not rash with your mouth. There's an interesting phrase in
verses 6:00 and 8:00, and the phrase is this thoughtless
utterance of her lips. You know, I was thinking about
this phrase, thoughtless utterance of her lips.
How many times do we speak and what is said out of our mouth is
a thoughtless utterance of our lips.
I think the broader implication of this principle in this
chapter is this words matter. Words matter.
How many times are we warned and exhorted in the Scriptures about
our words? Ecclesiastes 52 Be not rash with
your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before
God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
Therefore let your words be few. Or James one night let every
person be here, and slow to speak.
Oh, Proverbs 1728, Even a fool who keeps silent is considered
wise. You ever put your car and drive
and then you hit the gas and your car doesn't go anywhere?
You're like, what? Go?
Why is my car going away? And then all of a sudden you
realize your emergency brake is on.
Like, oh you see, our spiritual minds are to function like an
emergency brake. Before I engage this, I need to
engage this #4 Let your yes and your no be enough.
Let your yes and your no be enough.
One of the questions that this chapter raises is the issue of
taking oaths, right? The chapter deals with vows, but
it also deals with pledges and oaths.
In 10 of the verses you either see the term pledge or oath,
which then raises the question, is it OK if we take an oath?
Is it OK if we swear on something?
This is a tricky question which will is beyond the scope of the
sermon, but we certainly see oaths all throughout the Old
Testament. We even see oaths and a few
places in the New Testament. We do see them in the New
Testament, but the overall guiding principle on this topic
has to be the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Where Jesus says in Matthew and the Sermon on Mount Matthew
53337 you have heard that it was said of those of old, You shall
not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you
have sworn, which is exactly what he's referring to here.
But I say to you, do not take an oath at all.
Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anything more than this comes from the evil 1.
I like what Leon Morse, who's a commentator, writes about this.
He writes. The conclusion of the matter is
that it is never necessary for Christ's people to swear an oath
before they utter the truth. Their words should always be so
reliable that nothing more than a statement is needed from them.
God is in all of life and every statement is made before Him.
All right, now I'm leaving off the court.
I know something like what about in court, right?
That's talk to me later about that.
I'm talking about like if I'm talking to Tim and Tim says,
Hey, you borrowed my car the other day.
There's a there's a mark on it. Did you hit something?
He's like, well, I didn't hit something.
I did it. I swear.
What Jesus is saying is that our word as Christians.
Should be enough. You know how on Amazon they have
something called verified reviews, right?
Why do they have that? Because credibility issues.
How do you know this review wasn't paid for?
That wasn't solicited, right? We have credibility issues.
As Christians, we shouldn't feel the need to boost our
credibility. The truth of our words should be
enough. That's what Jesus is saying.
Five. God has called us to be men and
women of commitment. God has called us to be men and
women of commitment. A vow is basically a commitment.
If you ask, like give me a synonym of a vow.
Commitment. That's what a vow is.
It's a commitment. It's a commitment either to do
something or not do something. Now it is no secret that
commitment is an issue in our culture today, is it not?
We've all experienced it, maybe even being guilty of it.
We've all heard the term fear of commitment, right?
Go go to the local talk to any like group of women talking
young women, you know that manners, they have fear of
commitment, right? I wonder if the term is better.
Aversion to commitment, fear, kind of, you know, I think
aversion to commitment. Many people delay getting
married because they are averse to commitment.
Not everybody, but some people, they delay getting married
because they are averse to commitment.
Even after getting married, many married couples don't want to
have kids because they are averse to commitment because
once you have this child, you're committed.
Some people may not buy property or take a risk in business
because they are a verse to commitment.
Many Christians will attend church but will never become a
member of their church because they are a verse to commitment.
How many times are we invited to something and the options are
yes, no, or maybe, and we put maybe because we need to keep
our options open because of because maybe a better
opportunity will come along. As Christians, one of the
primary ways that we can be a man or a woman of commitment is
to be a man or woman of our word, which means we do what we
say. We don't want to be the person
who says, hey, I'll be there and then don't show up.
We don't want to be somebody who says, yes, I'll take to do it.
God has called us to be men and women of commitment.
We do what we say. 6 The Lord is willing to forgive our foolish
mistakes. The Lord is willing to forgive
our foolish mistakes. Three times in this chapter the
same statement is made and the Lord will forgive her.
Now this comes in the context of a daughter or a wife not
fulfilling her vow, either because her vow, her father
opposed it or because her husband opposed it.
Sometimes vows are made impulsively or foolishly.
Now, I don't want to suggest this is always the case, that
like were there times that a husband or a father opposed it
because they were in sin? Yes, of course I'm sure that's
the case. I don't want to suggest that
every time they oppose this because the full the vow was
foolish, that I don't think that's the case, but sometimes
that is the case. Gordon Wenham writes this Facing
death. Even hardened atheists are known
to pray. Throughout human history, when
men have found themselves in dire straits, they have prayed
for deliverance and made vows to God, promising to do something
for God if he rescued them. Vows are made in the heat of the
moment. In retrospect, when the crisis
is over, they may well seem foolish and unnecessary, and the
person who made the vow may be tempted to forget it or only
fulfill it partially. This seems to be at least one of
the reasons, not every but one of the reasons, why a father
might oppose his daughter's vow or why a husband might oppose
his wife's vow. One, I mean, one of the
questions we have in the book of Judges is this, did Jephta have
to sacrifice his daughter? Remember, Remember, Jephta, he
was going into the battle and he said, Lord, if you give us the
victory, I'll sacrifice to you whatever comes out of my door
first. He wins the victory.
And when he comes home, as he's returning home, his daughter
walks out the door first. I preached the entire sermon
answering this single question. Did Jephta have to sacrifice his
daughter? And in that sermon, I argue that
you could argue yes and no. I think you can make both
arguments. I still don't know which is
true. And, and, and the part of the no
argument part of the no argument that no he didn't is that he
could have chose not to. And yes, he would have had to
pay a hefty price, but not the price of his daughter.
The Lord would have forgiven him.
But you could also make the argument no based on verses one
and two. He absolutely had to do it.
It was binding. He had to sacrifice her.
I think you can make the argument both ways.
I don't know what's true, but here's what I do know.
The Lord is willing to forgive our foolish mistakes.
Don't ever think that like if you make a mistake, you're
locked into it and there's no turning back.
There's no one doing this right there.
I mean like there are couples who will be engaged and they
think like engagement has almost become like saying wedding vows.
Like once you're engaged, it's like man, we have to get married
now. No, you don't.
No you don't. You can break this off.
You have not said I do. The Lord is willing to forgive
our foolish mistakes. 7 Vows, oaths, and promises should never
be used for manipulation or deceptive purposes.
Vows, oaths, and promises should never be used for manipulation
or deceptive purposes. You say, well, how would you do
that? There are three examples in the
New Testament where a vow or an oath or a promise was used or
could be used for manipulation or deceptive purposes.
Let me give you those examples. The 1st is Mark 7 with Corbin, a
priest on this several a few years back.
Another word, the topic of Corbin is that let's say that a
person, let's say I owned a parcel of land and I devoted it
to the Lord. Now under Corbin rules, I get to
still retain use of that land and I can make a profit off of
it. So I could grow crops on it.
I grow grapes and I and I make wine.
I sell it out, right? And then when I die, it'll go to
the Lord, or maybe in other terms that go to the Lord,
right? I get to retain possession of
it. But then let's say that my
parents fell on hard times. Parents came to me and they
said, Hey, we can't work. We, we can't eat.
We, we, you know, can you help us out financially?
And I said I'd love to, but I can't.
I've offered this land as Corbin.
In other words, Corbin was used as a loophole to get out of
helping parents, of honoring your father and mother.
This is what Jesus is condemning the Pharisees for.
That's the first case. The second case is First
Corinthians 7, where Paul writes, do not deprive one
another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time,
that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come
together again. Paul is saying that a wife
cannot make a vow by herself to abstain from intimate relations
unless it is mutually agreed upon.
You can only abstain, right? Say, you know, if you say, well,
my New Year's resolute, you know, if Lauren came to me and
said, Matt, my New Year's resolution for 2026 is for this
whole year, no intimate relations.
You can't do that unless it's mutually agreed upon.
Paul's argument is there. It has to be mutually agreed
upon. Now, you could mutually agree
upon it. You could say for the next week,
the next month, whatever, we're not going to come together so
that we may devote ourselves to prayer, but it can't be used for
manipulation purposes. The third example is First
Timothy 4. There are church leaders that
Paul says who forbid marriage and require abstinence from
foods that God created be received with Thanksgiving.
Now, what's interesting is that there are entire branches of
Christianity that do just this, who require their leaders to
abstain from marriage, and yet Paul says right here not to do
that. Vows and oaths were always
intended to bring us closer to God, not further from one
another. Last point #8 Silence often
conveys agreement, possibly even approval.
Silence often conveys agreement, possibly even approval.
What did a father need to say to convey that he approved of his
daughter's vow? What did a husband need to say
to convey that he approved of his wife's vow?
Nothing. Nothing.
Four times in the text the Lord affirms that what makes the vow
binding is the father or husband saying nothing.
Now, I think what's interesting is that there is a broader, a
much broader spiritual implication here, and it is this
silence often conveys agreement, possibly even approval.
Let me give a facetious example. Facetious.
Suppose my wife comes in my office.
I'm busy right in the sermon, right?
She comes in, she says, hey, I'm heading out, I'm going to buy a
new car. And I say later, what is that?
What is she supposed to take that as tacit approval?
I didn't say anything. Of course, she would take that
as tacit approval. The same principle applies and
countless examples. In the Christian life.
Silence often conveys agreement, possibly even approval.
God has called us to speak up because words matter, especially
words of exhortation as we close.
At the very least, all of you in in Christ have made a vow.
Everyone in this room who was in Christ has made a vow.
I know that I did not baptize all of you, only a very small
few of you. But whenever I baptize someone,
I asked them a series of questions, and it always ends
with this question. Do you commit to follow Jesus
Christ all the days of your life?
All of you in Christ took this vow.
You made a commitment to follow Jesus all days of your life to
the day you die. I want to exhort you.
Keep your thou, let's pray.