If you'd like to turn over to
Numbers chapter 30. Numbers the 30th chapter. And when you get there, just
pick up in verse one, we'll read the first two verses. Numbers 30 verse one. Numbers 30 verse 1, it says,
And Moses spake 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, make note of
that, he shall not break his word, he shall do according to
all that proceedeth out of his mouth. Now, if there's a human
character trait or, well, trait in general, that I admire, I
have great respect for, it's this, it's someone who keeps
their word. So if you are a person who you say you are going to
do something, and then you habitually and you continually follow up
with that, you do what you say you're going to do, you have
my respect. Something I want to enforce in
myself and enforce with my kids, not just in the big things, but
also in the small things. Be faithful in the small things.
The big things kind of take care of themselves. And if you do
that, you'll probably be a blessing to the people around you. Be
a blessing to your boss. You'll be a blessing to your
peers. You'll be a blessing to the people below you. Keep your word. That's
very, very important. But what is being said here in
Numbers chapter 30, this is much deeper. This is much more serious. It's very, very serious. This
isn't talking about a man just making a promise to another man.
It's about a man making a promise to God. Effectively saying, Lord, I will
do this. And notice the seriousness of
it. It says, if you do this, if you make a promise, if you
vow a vow unto the Lord, this is the seriousness, you bind
your soul with a bond. which means you are now captive,
you are chained, you are bound to this vow, which means if you
don't do it, if you don't come up with the goods, if you don't
fulfill your vow unto the Lord, there are consequences, very
dire consequences. Now here's my first question
when I read this. It was this. Should anybody, any man, under
any circumstance, make a promise unto the Lord, unto God. And this is a legitimate question
because there are all kinds of examples in the Old Testament
of men doing that. Genesis 28, Jacob vowed a vow
unto the Lord at Bethel. Judges 11, you remember Jephthah.
And this will tell us something about how serious this thing
of vows is. Jephthah vowed a vow. He said,
Lord, he goes, if you give me victory over the children of
Ammon, When I come back in peace, the first thing that walks through
those doors to greet me and to congratulate me, I'll offer it
up as a burnt offering. You remember what walked through
the doors? His only daughter. And you know what he did? He
paid his vows. He offered her up. Hannah, 1
Samuel chapter one, she's barren, she's in distress. She wants
a child more than anything in this world. Lord, if you give
me a child, you give me a son, I will lend him back to you.
I will give him back to your service. Well, give her a son,
Samuel. And as soon as that child was
weaned, very small, she takes him to Eli and says, here he
is. He will serve the Lord. There is a link. a very, very
close link between this thing of vowing avowal and sacrifice.
It costs you something, right? So, under any circumstance, should
a man make a promise unto God? Thankfully, our Lord actually
clears this up in no uncertain terms. Turn to Matthew chapter
5 real quick. Matthew chapter 5, look at verse
33. Verse 33, this is our Lord speaking.
He says, again, you have heard that it's been said of them of
old time, thou shall not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto
Lord. Now, the Lord says, you know
what the law says. You've heard people talk about this law before.
It's exactly what's being talked about in Numbers chapter 30.
Don't forswear yourself, which means if you make a promise to
the Lord, you better follow through with it. You better do whatever
it is you said to do. Now, here's the thing he says.
Look at verse 34. He says, but I say unto you,
swear not at all. You see, that law, that's old
covenant. That's law. I'm the new covenant. And here's what I say. I say
you swear not at all. Go on reading. But I say unto
you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it's God's throne,
nor by earth, for it's his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it
is the city of the great king. He says, you don't swear. He
goes, and you don't offer what I have as your collateral. If
you think about that, when a man swears by something, he says,
I swear by this, I swear by that. He's offering it as collateral.
Well, if I don't do it, you get this. The Lord says, those are
my things. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. The heavens and everything that
there is, it's all his. Don't offer any of it as collateral.
Don't swear at all unto the Lord. And he gets to the heart of the
issue, the reason why, in verse 36. He says, neither shalt thou
swear by thy head, by your own person. Here's the reason, because
thou canst not make one hair white or black. You know what
he's saying? He said, don't make a promise
unto God, and it's for this reason. You don't even have the power
to take one of your hairs and make it a different color. You
don't have the ability to keep one hair from turning white or
gray or black or any other color. You don't have any power. You're
not sovereign. You're not God. He's sovereign. He is the source
of all power. He is omnipotent. Therefore,
when He vows a vow unto God Himself, He keeps His promise because
of who He is and because of the power of who He is, because of
His sovereignty, because of His power. Anytime a man a mutable
man makes a promise unto God, he fails because he does not
have the power to ensure that what he promised comes about.
He fails every single time. The only one who can vow a vow
unto God and keep his vow assuredly every single time is God himself. Now, leave you with this last
thing right here. There is a consequence if you
don't keep your word. This is what James says in James
5.12, it says, "'But above all things, my brethren, swear not,
neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other
oath, but let your yea be yea and your nay be nay, lest you
fall into condemnation.'" There's the consequence. You make a promise
unto God, you fail to pay your vow, condemnation. There is a
consequence associated with this. Here's my question. What if I
have What if I made a promise unto
God? I find out I can't pay my vow. I can't come up with the
goods. I can't do what I said I would
do, because the consequence is condemnation. Is there any hope
for me? Is there any redemption for me?
Thank the Lord there is. Go back to your text, Numbers
chapter 30. Look at verse 3. Numbers 30 verse 3, it says,
if a woman also vow, vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by
a bond being in her father's house in her youth, and her father
hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and
her father shall hold his peace in her, then all her vows shall
stand. and every bond wherewith she
hath bound her soul shall stand, but if her father disallow her
in the day that he heareth, not any of her vows or of her bonds
wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand, and the Lord
shall forgive her because her father disallowed her." Here's
redemption. Redemption according to a particular
relationship. A daughter in her father's house, she makes a foolish
vow. She promises unto God something
she can't come up with, and her father hears that. He has to
make a decision. If he holds his peace, her vow
is established. She is now on the hook to do
everything she said she would do. But if her father hears this,
and he chooses to intervene for her, He can disallow it. He said, that's a bad vow. She
can't come up with the goods. I disallow that vow. I void that
vow. And you know what? If her father
stands up for her and he voids that vow, that means she's forgiven. Completely and utterly scot-free.
She is no longer bound to that vow in any way, shape, or form.
She is free. It is no more. And you know what? That relationship
extends on to another one. Look at verse six. And if she
had awed husband when she vowed, or uttered aught, which means
she spoke foolishly, rashly, out of her lips, wherewith she
bound her soul, and her husband heard it, and held his peace
at her in the day that he heard it, then her vows shall stand,
and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand. But if
her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard it, Then
he shall make her 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." Another relationship. First we
had the daughter to the father, the daughter living in her father's
house. Now we have the wife to the husband. The husband could
stand up and do the exact same thing. Bad vow. She can't come
up with the goods. I void that vow. There's a catch. There's a caveat. Look at verse
15. But if he, the man, the husband,
the father, shall any ways make them void after he had heard
them, then he shall bear her iniquity. Here's the catch. If the father chooses to intervene,
if the husband chooses to intervene, and he says bad vow, I disallow
that. I avoid that. He has to do everything
she vowed to do. He's got to make it good. And
here's the other thing. There's still punishment to be
meted out. She still vowed a bad vow. She still couldn't come
up with the goods. There's still condemnation to
be meted out. Her iniquity, her guilt rests
upon him, the husband, the father, and it has to be poured out,
that condemnation, onto him, her representative. Now, we can
almost, after hearing that, just say amen. That's the gospel,
right? How clear of a gospel picture
is this right here? The entire world, all of humanity,
we all vowed a vow unto God that we could not keep. We broke our
vow, we broke our vows. But for the elect, God's chosen
people, the children of God, the wife of the Lord Jesus Christ. He stood up and he said, bad
vow. Bad vow. But everything they vowed, I'll
do. I'll keep the promise. I'm gonna do it. That condemnation,
that guilt, it rests on me. I do it for them. And you know
what? That bond to that vow, we're free of it. Absolutely
free because our husband, our father, he took care of it. That's
the teaching here. That's the picture. Like I said
before, all of humanity, every man ever born, they broke a vow
unto God. Now, the heart of this thing
of a vow, the idea is covenant, right? Covenant. In covenant,
what happens? You enter into a covenant with
someone else, it's a pact. I'm going to come in, here's
what I want from you, right? You're going to do this, I'm
going to do that. We both have responsibilities in this thing
of a covenant, right? It's a vow. I'm coming in, I'm
saying, I promise to hold up my end. Well, if you go all the
way back to the Garden of Eden, right? In Genesis chapter two,
Adam, that one man in which all humanity was stored up in. When
we speak of Adam, please understand, I'm speaking about me and I'm
speaking about you. He is collective humanity. Adam
was put in the garden and he entered into a covenant with
God. It sounded like this. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die." Here's the covenant. Adam, you
want to continue in this state of blessedness, this uprightness,
this purity, this state right here? It's very simple. Don't
eat of that one tree. I vow, Lord. I promise I won't
do it. What do you do? What did we do? We broke our vow. We ate of the
tree. Plunged the entire human race
into absolute darkness, dead in trespasses and sins. Not only did we break our vow,
the first one, you know what that means? That means for all
the days after that, we break our vows. We can't keep the law.
There's an evil heart that resides in us. We cannot do that which
is good. We cannot keep God's holy law. Therefore, every day
with every breath, with every thought, all we do is break our
vows over and over and over again. Now, I'll tell you what, I live
a lot with a lot of regret. And I think that just comes with
age. The longer you live, the more regret you are going to
live with. I bet there's not a man who has ever had any more
regret on the face of this earth than Adam. And you think about
it, he was upright, he was innocent. He had an experience you and
I didn't have. All we know is this sinful flesh. That's all
we know. He knew what it was like to be
without sin, to be upright, to be innocent. And then he saw
the other side after he disobeyed God and he fell. And how great
of a fall that was for him, for all of us. You ever been sick
and you thought about, I'm so sick, I just want to get back
to the way it was before. I just want to get healthy again, right?
That's how he lived out his days. And I bet it hit a fever pitch
when he saw Cain kill Abel. This is how bad, look at what
I've done. I've plunged my entire family, my entire race into this
sinful state. And here's what I find interesting.
This is very interesting. We got in this mess. We put ourselves
in this sinful mess because of why? Because we broke our vow. because we couldn't keep the
rule. We were upright, we were innocent, we had one rule. Now
in this depraved state, utterly evil, we now think we can regain
reconciliation with God through keeping the law. We couldn't
keep it when we were upright and innocent. Now we think we're
going to keep it when we're evil and wicked and sinful. It's ridiculous. It's foolish. Let me show you
what I'm talking about. Turn to Nehemiah chapter 9. The children of Israel at this
point are under Babylonish captivity, and they're very upset about
it. They want out. They want to no longer be conquered. They
want the Lord to deliver them from this. Look what they say
here in Nehemiah chapter 9, verse 36. It says, Behold, we are servants
this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers
to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we
are servants in it. And it yieldeth much increase
unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins.
Also they have dominion over our bodies and over our cattle
at their pleasure, and we are in great distress. Saying, Lord, we want out of
this. We're in this land of Canaan. It used to be our land, but now
the Babylonians control it. We don't even have control over
our own bodies. We want out. And they're gonna
go about trying to get this from the Lord. Look what they do,
verse 38. And because of all this, we make a sure covenant
and write it and our princes, Levites, and priests seal it
unto thee. They're gonna approach unto God
and they say, we're gonna make a covenant with you. We're gonna
vow a vow unto you. That's how we're gonna get ourselves
out of this. Well, let's see how they do. Go to chapter 10,
verse 29. Here's what their covenant looks
like. They claimed to the brethren, the nobles, and entered into
a curse. This covenant that they put forth
is a curse. And into an oath. What did they
swear? What did they vow? What did they
owe to do? To walk in God's law, which was
given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and do all
the commandments of the Lord our God and His judgments and
His statutes. I said, Lord, we want out. We
want out of this captivity. We want to no longer be conquered.
And I'll tell you what, here's the deal. If you'll do that,
if you'll deliver us from this captivity, we'll keep the law. All your laws, all your commandments
will do the law. And they dig a deep hole here.
They get real specific. They say, here's what we're going
to do. We won't intermarry, right? We won't give our sons or our
daughters to the other nations. We won't intermarry. And we'll
honor the Sabbath. There'll be absolutely no commerce
going on on the Sabbath. We'll pay tithes so that the
Levites can actually give themselves to the priestly duties, things
like that. And we're going to take care of the house of God.
We're going to make sure that this temple keeps on running the way
it's supposed to. Well, a couple chapters later Nehemiah leaves
for a while and he comes back and you know what he sees? A
bunch of kids running around and they don't speak Hebrew.
You want to know why? Because they intermarried. And
all of a sudden the Sabbath day comes and there is commerce going
on. All these merchants are coming from other places and they are
lining up at the gate because they know the Israelites are willing
to buy on the Sabbath. It's no problem for them. And
Nehemiah says, where are the priests? They said, well, they're
actually out in the field tilling the ground trying to grow some
food so they have something to eat because, well, we didn't
pay those tithes that we said we were going to pay. He said,
well, what about the temple? You said you were going to keep
that up. You kept the temple up, didn't you? They had actually
taken a chamber in the temple and given it as a room to one
of their enemies. I challenge you, go home, read
Nehemiah 10, then read Nehemiah 13. You'll find out they didn't
keep one thing they said they were going to do. covenant made with God initiated
by man that involves man having to hold up his end of the bargain,
keep his promise in some way for him to be saved, that's salvation
by works, and that's damnation, folks. Don't come that way. Look
to Christ. That's salvation. Look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Get away from that curse, that
law. Get away. Now, go back to your
text. I want to show you something. We said this, that all of humanity
made a vow unto the Lord, and we broke our vow, right? What
circumstances does that leave us in right now? Look at verse
13 of Numbers 30. It says, every vow and every
binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it,
or her husband may make it void. You see, we send away our rights.
Not one of us, not man, woman, and child ever born on this earth,
we have no rights under God. It is completely up to Him whether
He will save or He will damn. We are in His hands and whatever
He does with us is right because of what we did. We didn't keep
our vow. We didn't honor our promise. Now consider our illustration.
Think about this for a moment. You have the daughter. She lives
in her father's house. She is alive because of her father. She eats his food. She is provided
for by him. He is a good father. She hates
him. She cannot stand her father.
She wants out of his house. She is rebellious. She is trying
to run away as often as she possibly can. And he has never done wrong
by her in any way, shape, or form. and she gets up and she
makes this silly vow. Lord, I promise to do this. And
her father hears it. He knows she can't come up with
the goods. She cannot make this vow. She cannot keep it. What
if he chooses not to intervene? What if he holds his peace and
establishes her vow and lets her do what she wants to do?
Is there anything wrong with that? Has a father done wrong by her
in any way, shape, or form? No, he is not. He just didn't
intervene. That is his right. Now consider
this. Same daughter, same father. She
hates him. She rebels against him. She makes
the foolish vow. The father hears it, and he says
no. No, disallowed. She can't come
up with the goods. I'll do it. Whatever it is she
promised, that's on me. The punishment that is reserved
for what she did, she has made this foolish vow. You pour that
out on me. Mind you, she hates her father.
She wants away from her father. She rebelled against her father.
But her father in love, love that was not returned, in mercy,
in grace, stands up and says, whatever it is she vowed, it's
on me. The punishment is on me. The guilt is on me. How gracious,
how wonderful. Folks, that's what we call the
election of grace. And notice this election. God
chose a people before the foundations of the world. He gave them to
the Lord Jesus Christ that he might be the surety and stand
up for them and put away their sins and honor the law on their
behalf. This election, this is not a
random choice, not in any way, shape or form. It has everything
to do with a relationship. the father to the daughter, the
husband to the wife. Who did the father choose? He
chose his children. This is an eternal relationship.
There's only two kinds of people in this world. You've got the
children of God and you've got the children of the devil. Those
are eternal relationships. He chose his children. He chose
his child, Jesus Christ, and he got everybody connected with
him. Now, think about this for a second. This is just a worldly
example. After this, Lord willing, I'm going to leave this place,
right? I'm going to get in a van. I'm going to drive away. And I'm
going to bring some people with me. I'm going to bring some kids,
right? When I go through these holes,
am I just going to grab random kids and throw them in the van
and then drive them back to my house? No, I'm not. Those are my children
right there. In a little while, Tuck's going
to be about 200 meters out in that field over there. That's
what he does every single time. I'm going to have to go to him
where he's at and grab him and put him in that van. Why am I
going to do that? Because he's my child. I'm going
to put him in that van and I'm going to take him home. My wife
is sitting right there. I'm not going to look for any
other woman. I'm going to my wife and I'm going to put her in that
van and we're going to go back home because that's my family.
Think about that for a second, folks. If your hope is all in
Christ, that He stood up for you, that He kept your vows for
you, that He paid the debt. Please understand this. God is
your Father. God is your Father. The very hairs of your head are
numbered. He knows what they are. Absolutely.
The reason we have the idea, the concept of good fathers in
this life because it gives us some understanding of what God
the Father really is to us. To lead, to guide, to raise,
to provide for, to give unto, to correct, to teach, to love,
unto all these things that a good father does to a child. God the
Father is that to us in Christ. And I appreciate this scripture
so much. Listen to this, this is Matthew
7-11 it says, "'If you then being evil.'" Now I'll stop you right
there. The Lord is speaking to His people,
to His elect when He says that, being evil. If you cannot answer
to that name you can stop listening because you are not one of them.
If you then, being evil, that's his people, know how to give
good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father,
which is in heaven, give good things to them, but ask him." What do you want? Ask. God is your Father. He who controls
all things is your Father. For the temporal things of this
life, the things you want, yes. For spiritual things? for mercy,
and grace, and love, and faith, and the forgiveness of sins,
and to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be known of Him, and to
be an encouragement to your brethren. And how does Steve say it? To
be a kind and decent people. Ask. And he says, I won't deny
you any good thing. What a beautiful stopgap. If
I ask for something that's not good for me, he even takes care
of me there. He says, no. He says, you can't
have that. It's great to give stuff to your
kids and we all enjoy seeing them light up when we give them
something they really want. But every once in a while they
ask for something that's bad and we have to withhold it. Is it
because we don't love them? Is it because we want to see
them miserable and we want to see them disappointed? No, it's
because we love them. It's because the thing they're
asking for will hurt them and therefore we have to withhold
it from them. And we have the wisdom and they don't. And I
try to keep that in mind every time the Lord tells me no and
I start kicking rocks. It truly is only goodness and
mercy that follows us all the days of our life. We won't see
that to the other side, but that's the absolute truth. God is your
father, believer, and Christ is your husband. Listen to this. Ephesians 5.25, husbands love
your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself
for it. I love the illustration of marriage. It's for this reason. I'm going
to try to say this right. It illustrates the redemptive work
of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people, but it frames it
in the context of union with Christ, the only way it could
possibly make any sense. I hope I said that right, but
I'm going to try to explain it. So let me give you this illustration.
In our story, right, in Numbers chapter 30, five different types
of people are mentioned. We read about three of them,
but there's five total, right? There is the man. There is the
daughter, there is the wife, there is the widow, and there
is the divorced woman. Of those five, you know how many
could be redeemed? Four. There's only one that couldn't
be redeemed. You know who it was? The man. There was no redemption for the
man if the man vowed a vow unto the Lord. He had to come up with
the goods. There was no redemption for him. The buck had to stop somewhere. Well, I'll tell you what, it
stopped with the Lord Jesus Christ. He vowed a vow unto his father
before, before that old covenant of works, that covenant of grace,
it was before it. He vowed a vow unto his father,
said, Father, I take full responsibility for my bride. I take full responsibility
for your children. I will stand up for them. I will
bear the iniquity. I will work out the righteousness.
I will do these things." You see, the man had to honor his
vow, and you know what? He kept it. Remember, it's framed
in union with Christ. He came to this world. He lived
a perfect life. Brian said that this morning.
Thirty-three years. For every believer, that's what it's going
to say in that ledger book. Thirty-three years, righteous.
Why? because Jesus Christ lived a
righteous life 33 years and us in him. Well, I'll give you this
scripture in light of what our text says. This is Romans 3.31.
It says, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid,
yea, we establish the law. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come to this earth and say, well, I'm gonna save them and we're
just not gonna worry about that law. We're just gonna move him
over from law to grace, right, and we're just not gonna worry
about that law. Oh no, the law is highly applicable. He came
and he honored the law, he kept the law, but we kept it in him. Therefore, it's not that the
law is done, the law is put away, the law is established, it is
satisfied, it has absolutely nothing to say to God's people
because it could demand no more. It has been utterly kept, established. over with. Believer, you are
free from the law. That's eternal. It is done. I cannot stress that enough.
You cannot take that too far. You are not under the law. You
are under grace. You kept it in Christ. That's
real. And not only that, but remember
in our story, if the husband stood up and he said, I disallow,
not only did he have to do everything she vowed to do, he had to suffer
the punishment. The iniquity was on him, the
blame was on him, the condemnation came down upon him. Isaiah 53,
six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone
to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all. Speaking of the elect, God cannot be any more pleased
with his church with his children, with the bride of Christ, because
Christ has done everything that he required. That is the gospel. It is over. The law is satisfied
in every way, which way and form. It has been kept. The punishment
it demanded, it's already been meted out. We suffered in Christ.
It's over. It's done. And here's where we're
left. I'm going to leave you here.
Turn over to Psalm chapter 50. Psalm chapter 50, and look at
verse 14. This is the final thought here. Psalm 50, verse 14, it says,
offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most
High. Now, I would notice that directly
after that, there's a colon, which means that what's about
to be said after that, that explains what that means. and call upon me in the day of
trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou
shalt glorify me. Folks, this is the one vow by
his grace because of that new man that is given us in Christ
Jesus that we keep. You want to know if you're one
of these folks that he stood up for? They all do this. They call upon his
name. Lord, save me. Stand up for me. Make my vow
void. No one void. Keep it for me.
Put away my iniquity. Do everything that is necessary. It's the one vow that by His
grace we do in fact keep. We call on that name and we trust
that He is good to His word that He shall deliver us. He shall
because He promised to. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came to the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. I'll leave it there.