Good evening, everybody. It's
good to see you. I'm going to invite you to follow
along tonight in the book of Numbers, chapter 30. The title of my message is The Unbroken
Vow. And what we're going to look
at tonight, and I think Maybe you're like me, maybe not. But
there are times when I read through some of these Old Testament passages
and it can appear to us on the surface to be a little repetitious
with the laws and the customs and the things that are said.
And sometimes, admittedly, I glaze over and I don't look at it close
and I caught myself and I said, no, I said, you got to slow down.
Cause it's like, yeah, I feel like I'm trying to get through
something to get to something else. I know. And what we'll
find here is that Christ is throughout all of these texts. We don't
see him often and many things that you read often and you may
read through it and you don't see anything, but there's another
time you do. And the Lord turns the lights
on. He shows you where Christ is in the scripture. So this
will be an Old Testament message tonight to see where Christ is
in this scripture. So I would just read the first
two verses to kind of open it up. It says, and Moses spoke
unto the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel,
saying, this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. If a
man vow a vow, unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his
soul with a bond, he shall not break his word, and he shall
do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." Now there's
a day, which I sadly say is often not today, that a person's word
meant something. That he took value and pride
in keeping their word. we hear today the phrase, live
your truth. I think that's a phrase we hear
in our society today. And it's a sad one because it's
placating to a weak and a reprobate conscience that is trying to
change the truth because it may be inconvenient to how I feel,
I think, or what I do. And then I'll take that and then
call something else that is convenient for me, the truth. This is the
world that we live in and we hear a lot of this. But what
we do know is that there is a truth. And there is a truth, and then
there's everything else. There can only be one truth,
and apart from that truth, partial truths, even mostly true but
not quite all the way, all those things are something else which
is not the truth. We can know the truth. We have
God's word. We know that God's word is true.
And I don't want to be found on the wrong side of what God
calls the truth. when I have to stand before him.
Because ultimately, it really doesn't matter what I think.
It doesn't matter what you think. It matters by the judgments that
we will have out of this book. Because ultimately, if my final
exam's gonna come out of this book, I better crack it open
once in a while. I better know what it says. And
that is what I'm hoping we can do tonight, is see Christ in
these scriptures. This passage that we'll read,
there's a few more verses to take it further, It's the severity
and the absolute requirements that God requires out of a vow. And I want you to look to, before
we dig a little further, I'm going to show you two other places
where a vow is spoken about. If you'll flip over a few pages
to Deuteronomy chapter 23. Deuteronomy chapter 23, and we'll
read here in verse 21. It seems to kind of reference
the same thing, but it goes a little further. It says, when thou shalt
vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it. For the Lord thy God will surely
require of thee, and it would be sin in thee. But if thou short
forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee. That which is gone
out of thy lips, thou shalt keep and perform, even a freewill
offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God,
which has promised with thy mouth." So you see here, it takes it
even a step further. more so even than performing
everything that comes out of your lips you're gonna do. He
even goes on to say that you have to keep it and perform it. So not only is your word you're
gonna be held to, but you gotta follow through on it. Look over
at the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter five. In verses four and five here,
He says, when thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it,
for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldst
not vow than that thou shouldst vow and not pay. So you can go
back to Numbers chapter 30 here. But what he's saying here is
it's better that you don't even vow at all. then to put something
out there, to put your name behind it, you are vowing unto the Lord
God that you're gonna do something, then for you to not follow through.
And what we'll see, and I think what we know, is that my ability,
even in my best attempts to keep my word, I'm gonna always fall
short. The circumstances behind me trying
to come through, even tonight, Mark texted me, say, service
is at seven, we're gonna meet at 6.30, and I said, I'll see
you a little later, see you soon. And as soon as I hit that, I'm
thinking. I'm going to get caught in traffic somewhere. Something's
going to happen that my best intentions, I have ordered my
day around being here tonight at this time. Everything in my
day of the preparation of my message to getting a shower and
getting dressed on time, thinking, okay, I got to leave at this
time. All of these things were ordered around me wanting to
be here at this time. It is my intention, but I really
have no power to bring that to pass. If something, if I were
to get in a car wreck or stuck in traffic, whatever it might
be, I wouldn't be able to be, I couldn't fully fulfill my vow. So I might have the best of intentions,
but I cannot fully keep my bow. So, but what this is going into
is when we're bowing a bow unto the Lord, this is Jehovah God. There is a commitment. There
is an expectation. well beyond my good intentions,
my intentions to be here. He requires nothing less than
the vow, and it can't be laid either. Well, I got stuck in
traffic, I was here at 7.15. No, you're supposed to be here
at seven. So I can't be laid in it either. So the degree and
the hardness in which the Old Testament law is put forward
here in this vow is seen. In verse two of our text here,
he says, when you swear an oath, you're binding your soul with
a bond and you shall not break your word and shall do according
to all that proceeds out of your mouth. We shall not break our
word. In Ecclesiastes, it says it's
better that you not vow the vow at all than to not pay it. In
Deuteronomy, he's saying the Lord will require it and it will
be sin unto you if you don't perform the vow and keep it in
the manner in which you promised it. So in this world, I hear
even my kids say this, well, I did my best. And so therefore
that's supposed to be good enough. Well, that doesn't work for me
in an earthly level. And it certainly does not work
for God. Sadly, this is most people's
hope is, well, I might not know it all, but I guess I hope it'll
be all right in the end. It'll be good enough. That's
not what's in this book. And so I better make sure that
what God says the truth is and what God expects is what I know
that I'm gonna have to do and be delivered for. So that's what
this is saying. So there are three different
types of vows that we're gonna look at here. The first is when
a man vows a vow. The second is when a young woman
who is a child, it says, in her father's house vows a vow. And the third is when a wife
vows a vow. So there are three different
types here that we're going to see in the text. And if all we
get from this is the cold, unbending truth of the law, we've missed
it. because that's not what this
is about. The law was given to expose our weakness. It's not
to tell us what to do or how well we should keep a vow and
how serious you should be. You can't keep it. There's nothing
that you can do in this manner to satisfy a holy God in the
manner that he expects. Christ said regarding the Old
Testament scriptures, they are they which testify of me. And so when we look at these
texts and just see nothing more than the form and motion of the
law, we've missed it. My desire tonight, as our brother
said, is to show you Christ in the scriptures. Where is he?
Show me him in the scriptures. So I wanna look though, of these
three examples, the number two and the number three first. So
the child and the wife. So let's read about those real
quick and then we'll jump back in. So picking up in verse 3
regarding vowing a vow. If a woman also vows a vow unto
the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's
house in her youth, and her father hears her vow, and her bond where
she has bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at
her, He doesn't say anything. And then all her vows shall stand. And every bond where she bound
her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her
in the day that he hears, he doesn't allow her to vow it,
not of any of her vows or of her bonds where she's bound her
soul shall stand. And the Lord shall forgive her
because her father disallowed it. and going on. And if she had had a husband,
so this is speaking of the wife now, when she vowed or uttered
anything that came out of her lips wherein she bound her soul
and her husband hears it, and he holds his peace at her in
the day that he heard it, then her vows shall stand. And her
bonds that she bound her soul with shall stand. But if her
husband disallowed her on the day that he heard it, Then he
shall make the vow which she vowed and that which she uttered
with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul of none effect,
and the Lord shall forgive her. So what I hope we can see is
Christ in this text. And you consider this in these
two examples of where the father hears his daughter bind her soul
to something, makes a vow that he knows she can't keep. And
if he holds his tongue and says nothing, then she is bound forever
to it. And she will be held accountable
for everything it says here that must be done. But, and in the
case of the child and in the father, the child and in the
wife, if the husband or the father speaks up and says, I'm not going
to allow you to vow that vow. I'm not going to allow you to
bind your soul. In this, you can't keep that
vow, then it says it's disallowed. It means that the vow is no good
and that the Lord will not hold the person that vowed that vow
as a requirement to their soul. And you consider those of us,
I mean, that are parents in the room, what wouldn't you do to
protect your child? You consider this father who's
hearing his child vow this vow. What wouldn't you do? We plan,
we fret, we teach, we guide, we do all these things for the
care of our child. It seems that that's all we're
doing. And those of us that have children, it consumes us in having
a child. You're always concerned with
what are they doing? Did they do this? You're very concerned
with their well-being. Husbands, what wouldn't you do
for your wife? You're called to love, to protect
and to honor her. And you consider this, I mean,
I just got married last summer, almost a year at the end of the
month. We made a vow before the Lord
in marriage. And that's something that I take
seriously and I will do my very best to honor my vows in my marriage. I'm still a man and my ability
to honor it in the way the Lord sees is not going to ever come
in a way where he can accept it. In marriage, the two shall
become one. Loving your wife, the book of
Ephesians said, is loving yourself. This is truly being united and
being one. God called the duty, our duty
as husbands to watch out for her. And that's what is going
on here in this text with the husband and with the father.
In both the child and the bride, you can see there's a relationship
with God in this. As God the father and Christ
being the husband. So in the father and child relationship,
we see and we are told in the scriptures that there's two kinds
of children in this world. They're the children of God and
they're the children of the devil. There's nothing in between. You're
either a child of God or you are a child of the devil. It doesn't matter how I feel
about that. That's how God sees it. That's how it is. And if
you go through the book of 1st John 3, he goes on to say, those
who believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, these are
the children of God. So we can know them. It's not
some mystery to us as to who they are. Those who believe on
the name of the son of God. Pray for your children. You know,
we heard this, there's a new grandson in your all's family,
and I've got many children in my home, and we pray for our
children. We don't, as parents, always
know what the Lord will do for them, but we have the intent
to ask the Lord to save them. to use his gospel and to touch
their hearts. It made me consider, even though
it's not the story of a child, because we don't know when it's
gonna happen or if it'll happen, but John Newton, when he was
an older man, he was an old preacher back in the 1700s, and he had
three friends. His wife had long died, his kids
had moved on, and he only had three friends, really, in his
life, and these three men. And it was his heart's desire
in so many ways that they would come to know the Lord. And one
of his friends that he would speak to often, he eventually
confessed Christ. And it thrilled his soul, but
yet he still bore this weight. These are my two other friends
who don't know the Lord. The story goes that when he was,
you know, in his last days dying, that he would still spend his
time preaching to them in the intent that they would know the
Lord. And one of these two, the other of these two men, he confessed
Christ and as, you know, in John Newton's last days. And he confessed
to his two friends that, you know, confessed the Lord that
one of the great laments of his heart was that his other friend,
the third friend, never confessed Christ, and he went to his grave,
dying, not knowing and believing his friend was lost. But yet,
that same year, after John Newton died, his third friend came to
know the Lord. We don't know when we pray for
our children, we want for them, we want to see this in their
lives, For them, but it's also for us, we wanna see that, we
want that comfort. We don't know what the Lord will
do, but all we can do is ask and to pray for him to do for
them. And that's this care that we're seeing for this father
looking after his child in this. If you turn over here, I'll just
read it to you, Hebrews 2, 13. The Lord is speaking here regarding
the elect that we're giving to him. He says, behold, I and the
children which God hath given me. So there was a group of believers,
children that were given to Christ at some point in before time
was they were given to Christ. So they had personality before
God. God, the father loved his children
so much that he gave them to his son. And what is amazing
to me and you know you hear that and we know that. But the idea
that as a child of God you have a name. You're not just a you
know a group of people where you look over a bunch of people
you don't know their names. He knows each of their names
just as he knows the number of the stars that are in the heaven.
He knows all of their names. And so many ways don't feel worthy
to even approach him, but yet he knew my name enough to say
I'm gonna give him. to Christ so that he would come
again unto me. And that was the call to Christ
to save. And there was an exact number,
and that number will never change. That's the beauty of the salvation
that he accomplished through his son, is that not one was
lost. He entrusted them to his son.
And you consider this in like, I think as, Believers, the older
we get, in many ways, I feel like I'm getting more sinful.
Because it's not that I am, I'm just more aware of it. I can
see it more than I could before. And so the more I see myself,
the more I know salvation has to be of grace. Because if it
has anything to do with me, or me getting better, that's not
happening. And so when I look at myself,
that's really all I see. And so there's no indifference
in giving us to Christ saying, you know, well, I know what you've
done and you know what you've done. Now, you know, Christ,
you have to go do what you have to do to save them. There's no
indifference here. This is the greatest act of love
that he could have done. He wanted to do this. It moved
him to give this people to his son. So there's nothing greater
that he could have done or could have given unto us than his son
into the care and the trust of his son to redeem us to bring
them home all of them. And you consider this in God
the father giving a people he destroyed some of the greatest
nations in this world all for their sakes. They were nobody. They were hated by everyone around
them, and yet a group of enslaved people caused a king to come
to his knees. And the Lord did that for him
in order to bring them out. They had no worth in terms of
people of this world. And when you look out at the
people of God at this world that you meet and that you know, we
really aren't going to be anyone of significance in the world.
But yet we know, and seeing this, it gives us comfort that God
considers the insignificant. And that's who we are, and that
he would even cause kings to come to their knees for their
sakes. They as slaves subdued a kingdom. And so if we consider now also
the husband with his bride. The bride of Christ. This is
the trophy of his grace, his bride. This is his crown jewel
that he is redeemed out of darkness and sin and redeemed and washed
her from all her stained garments. She is one with the bridegroom. That's what I was kind of referring
to earlier with the picture of marriage. We're made one. He
gives a couple illustrations of the vine and the branches.
When I look at the, as I was studying my notes today, I was
looking out my back deck and see, you know, a big tree in
my yard and I think, you know, I don't look at the leaves on
the tree. I don't look at the, even the most insignificant little
stubby branch on it that doesn't have a leaf on it. It's still
part of the tree. When we are united to Christ,
even the most insignificant of us are still part of the body
of Christ. And He is the head, we are the
body. And so we look at our finger,
we look at our toe, no, that's part of who you are. And so we
are united to Christ, they're all one. Christ here is the husband,
and he loves and he protects his bride. And as we read here,
in both the father and in the husband, when given the opportunity
to protect that which they loved, in vowing a vow that, you know,
is bound, bind your soul. He disannulled it. He disallowed
it and said, nope, that is not going to happen. And so if it
were possible, as I was considering this, like, you know, what are
the spiritual implications of this? If it were possible, if
I'm honest with myself, I would find a way to be put into position
to sell my own soul. to get something in this world.
The maxims of this world, whether it's power or riches or vanity,
there's something that every person has a price. And if you
don't think you do and you look at somebody else who's going
through something saying, why are they doing that? You just
haven't had your day. And realize that. And this is
the danger that all of us are in at any given time. Everyone
has a price. Everyone has a weakness. I hope
someone's looking out for me. Because if he's not, if the Lord
is not looking out for me, I will go away. I will leave him. I will find something else to
draw me away. And I fear this weakness in me
so much. I know that I will be a servant,
and am a servant, even in my present state, to this body of
corrupt flesh. And even as I was considering
the darkness of this and my weakness, I also know that I'm a child
of God. And there's this battle that
goes on in the child of God between the battles of my reprobate flesh
and the battle of the new man. And in considering this as a
child of God, I'm not just anyone. I'm a child of God. You're a
child of God. I'm not an afterthought. I'm
not somebody that just gets in because. He knows my name. He is ordered. He knows your
name and he's ordered everything in your life around calling you
and to salvation. He's ordered everyone in your
life. in every event around that. That is truly amazing. I'm a
child of the king. I'm not just anyone. We don't
really understand that in this world today because we don't
really have true kings. But you think in the terms of
in their day, absolute power. There was no one who could stop
the word of a king. They had absolute power, absolute
authority, and it was executed immediately. Imagine being a
child in their house. Not anyone who can do anything
to you. You're a child of the king. And
I'm in my father's house. There's not just, again, just
somebody born into the house. This is someone who loves me.
This is my father. He considers everything about
me. As I was saying, we plan, we
fret, we worry, we try to do all these things. He has the
ability to accomplish these things. This is not just an earthly father.
This is my heavenly father. And so he does all these things
for me and he's greater than all. And who shall pluck me out
of his hand? There's nobody going to be able
to do it. You consider all the unseen spiritual wickedness that's
in this world, that probably is here in this room, that has
every ability to turn me inside out. Much as Satan said he desired
to have Peter, he wanted to get Peter. But remember this, and
also Job as well, he said, have you been considering my servant
Job? He knew he was. But yet, in all those things,
he couldn't touch him. Even the very Satan himself could
not touch him without permission. Permission to touch one of God's
children. And permission and how far you can go. So these
things are frightening, but really they can't touch us apart from
the Lord permitting it. So the father in this, he disallows
the vow when his child makes a vow that would hurt them. So
sell my soul? No, that's been disallowed. You
can't do that. And one of the beautiful things
about not being able to do that is it's not mine to sell because
Christ redeemed my soul. So he owns it. I can't sell it. So even if I tried, it's no different
than me going to the house that, as we were driving in here on
the right and selling it to somebody else. Well, I don't own that
house. So even if I tried to sell it, we, in an earthly sense,
we have insurance and lawyers that look at, does this person
actually own it? Because if you don't, you can't sell it. So
those of you that are children of God that believe and trust
his name, you can't even sell your own soul. So if it's possible
in many ways for me to mess it up, I will. I can't do this. This is why the children of God
can never fall away because we don't even own or possess the
ability to because we're held and united to the body of Christ.
The bride here. How many brides you would leave
your husband, your love grows cold. You start to look at the
love within me. How many times am I distracted
at something really stupid in this world that like I'm caught
and I find myself in bed and think, I haven't even prayed
today. I flew from New York back to
Lexington. I didn't even ask the Lord to
protect me and get me there because I was worried about something
stupid at work or mad about something that happened. How many times,
my love is so cold to him. When I look at my love to him,
it's ugly, it's gotten old, and there's nothing redeeming in
me. I've broken the law when I look at myself, and I'm an
enemy of God. I'm an enemy before Him, outside
of Christ. But my Savior and my husband,
he disallows it. He says that the sin and iniquity,
your cold love, all these things, I'm disallowing. Your vow with
these things of the world that you would sell yourself to, I
disallow it. It has no claim here. It's Christ
that died. Your sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. So my pact that we've made with
death, as the scripture says, it's disallowed. There is no
pact that I can make to put myself in jeopardy of falling out of
Christ. Because I and all the other children of God have been
washed white in the blood of Christ. And this is the heritage
of the children and the bride. Sin and death, that which we
all face death in this room because of sin. And outside of Christ,
death has a claim on you. If you are not in Christ, death
has a claim on your soul. If you're in Christ, sin and
death are under his feet because he's conquered sin and death.
Death has no claim on your soul because you're in Christ. He
disallowed it. And I want you to get a hold
of this one more time. He will not allow it. And you
consider that everything that would separate us, that we think
would separate us, he walks right through it to get to his people.
All because of one reason. He disallows all these things
because of one reason, and it's the first vow that I mentioned
here. So let's read that one again,
of the man that made the vow. In verse two, if a man vows a
vow unto the Lord or swears an oath to bind his soul with a
bond, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to
all that proceeds out of his mouth. The child and the bride,
as we read about, they can have their vows disallowed. They can
have their vows taken away, but not the man. If he vowed it,
he must do it, and he must perform every bit of it to the every
extent that God finds acceptable. His oath and his vow are binding,
and it's done in two ways. First, the vow that Christ made
was before time began. As I mentioned earlier, the children
of God, the elect, were given to Christ. He vowed to be their
surety. He vowed to say, you'll require
it of my hand. Their safety is required of me
and of my soul, and that I will take that on and not one of them
will be lost. He took on that vow to bring
all of them home safely. So that's the first set element. Look at John chapter 17. We're
gonna end in this portion, which is the second half of his vow. And there's kind of three parts
to his vow here. And in verse 21, it says, speaking
of the children that God gave him, and he's praying to the
Father. And we'll just start in verse
20. Neither a play for these alone, but for them, which shall
believe on me through their word, that they may be one. As thou,
Father, art in me, and I am in them, that they may be one in
us. that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me, and that the glory which you gave me I've
given them. that even they may be one even
as we are one. So he vows here to make his people
one. He vows to give them his glory. So this is his vow to his father.
Keep on reading. He says, I'm in them and they're
in me and that they may be perfect and in one that the world may
know that thou has sent me and has loved them as thou has loved
me. So his love, he's vowing to them
it's gonna be equal. And read on, Father, I will that
they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou
lovest me before the foundation of the world. So he vows to his
people to give them his glory, to give them his love, and to
be one and to be with him where he is. It's not, we're not an
afterthought. We're not this group of rebel
people that he just, he saved, he knows that he made us clean
before the father, but really we're at different levels. He's
saying, no, I want them with me. I want them to share in the
glory that you've given me to be made one. So the greatest
vow here required the greatest price. And that was his life. In us being made one, united
to this sinful people, what he's asking right here is that in
terms of in time, this is the point in which Christ was made
to be sin. Because the only way sin existed
in him, because we know that he had no sin and committed no
sin, I was in him. You were in him as children of
God when we were put into the body of Christ. This was him
being made sin by his father and he was cut off from his father
at this time. So his death on the cross was
evidence of sin being there, but it was my sins and it was
the sins of all God's elect. That we might be made, it's the
only way that we'd be able to share in the glory that he spoke
of here, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the only way that we can
share in this righteousness of God is being put in him. In Jonah
chapter two, where Jonah is in the belly of the whale, this
is the, you know, in many ways the prophetic picture of Christ
having gone into the grave where he's swallowed by the fish. He's
been brought low in death and in darkness. He's in the belly
of the beast. Jonah says in the belly of the
beast that I will sacrifice unto thee, speaking to God with the
voice of thanksgiving, I will pay. that which I vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. His vow was his payment with
his life. And in death, he paid for that
sin. He paid for the sins of all his
people. And when he said salvation of
the Lord, he was vomited up and put out on dry ground. And that
is the ascension of Christ. And at that point, there is no
more sin. How can I know if I'm one for whom he vowed this vow
that we read about? You know, his name is associated
with his vow. His name means Savior. for they
shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. His vow is associated with his
name intrinsically. That's the first we hear of it
in the New Testament. How can I know? Now, you have to ask
that of yourself, and that's only something you and God know.
But what I can know is this, is his vow to his father enough
for you? Is it as good as done? That's
what we hear today, but that's not good enough here. It's finished.
You see, when the centurion, you remember him where he had
a sick servant and he wanted the Lord to come healing and
the Lord said, okay, I'll come healing. He said, no, Lord, I'm
not worthy for you to come into my house. Speak the word only
and my servant will be healed. The Lord said, I've not found
so great faith in all of Israel. He said, be it as you've asked
for it. And he was healed that very hour. Do I believe that
when Christ said it is finished, that that was truly finished
in the same way the centurion wanted him to speak the word
and to speak only the word? When your name is called before
your creator and his promise to vow and to save his people
by his hand, by his work, by his blood, is that enough? Is
that all you have? Well, you say, that's all I got. I've got nothing else. And somebody
might look at you and say, is that really all? There's nothing
else you have to do, a way you have to live, a way you have
to act or not do this, not do that. No, that's all I've got.
And if that's no good, then this word's no good because that's
all it has to say is that we do have. Then you, my friend,
if you have that, you have of the Lord's hand double for all
your sins. Your iniquity is pardoned and
you are a child of the king whom nothing can touch. You are the
beloved bride of him who has been given power over all things. I'm the bride of he who has power
over everything and everyone who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect. Death, sin, hell, none of these
things. He has disallowed it through
his loving and watchful eye. And we will spend eternity thanking
him for keeping his vow. I'll leave you there.