Numbers 30

Hey, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We're at numbers chapter 30 Concerning vows. Let's go ahead and have some coffee. We'll pray only get into God's Word Let's pray Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. And Father, we pray that as we read your word this morning, that you would help us. Lord, we need your spirit to teach us that we could understand it. And we need your spirit to soften our hearts that we would receive it and it would be applied to our lives. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we're at Numbers chapter 30. Here we go. Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which Jehovah has commanded.
If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. or if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she had bound herself and her father holds his peace then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement which she has bound herself shall stand.
But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand, and the Lord will release her, because her father overruled her. if indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows, or by a rash utterance from her lips, by which she bound herself, and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreement shall be bound herself, and the agreement by which she bound herself shall stand.
But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow, which she took, and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lord will release her. Also, any vow of a widow, or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her. If she vowed in her husband's house or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, and her husband heard it and made no response to her and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vow or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and the Lord will release her. Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void.
Now if her husband makes no response whatsoever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows and all the agreements that bind her. He confirms them because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. But if he does make them void after he heard them, then he shall bear her guilt. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter in her youth. and in her father's house.
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three normal questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So, A, what is this about? This is all about oaths, right? Now, this is going to be a little bit controversial, maybe a little bit spicy. That's OK.
But it starts with the with the husband, with the father, and then moves to the wife and then to the daughter and then to the wife and then to the widows of the divorced woman. And then back, you know, what happens if there's a woman who husband. Was still alive and she makes these vows and incurs guilt, he bears a guilt. The point is that the husband or the man in the home in the Hebrew mindset, this is how the Lord commands it, is that there is a head of the home and the husband is the head of that home.
I know that flies in the face of today's feminism, that flies in the face of today's egalitarianism, as people want to hold the sexes of absolute equality. And I think the Bible clearly shows that there is a categorical quality right there there's uh in their ontology in their being in their person both made male and female in the image of god made with the imago de and they are both of equal value in their worth and yet as the family functions in the economy of the household the husband is the one who is the final check The husband's the one with the final checkmark, right? He's the one who, as the very last verse said, or second to last verse said, but if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he, if he does not make them void, no, if he does make them void after he heard them, he shall bear her guilt. Right?
The point is, is that it's not just a tyrannical husband or a tyrannical father. but that you gotta let your yes be yes and your no be no is what Jesus told. In the Hebrew family, in the Hebrew household, the man needed to speak and what he spoke needed to be good. If he made a vow or he made an agreement, he had to follow through with that vow or agreement.
Why? Because you made vows in the presence of or to God. And so this would deteriorate so much by the time of Jesus' day, that people were so afraid of making these vows or oaths, that instead of making them to God, I promise to God that I'm going to come and do this business transaction. Instead they would say, oh, I'm going to promise upon the altar of God instead, or I'll promise upon the throne of God instead.
And so Jesus is like, guys, knock it off. You're not keeping your oaths, you're violating the ninth commandment. It'd be better if you just didn't take any oaths. Just come into agreements and don't take a vow or an oath about it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything further than that is sin. If you're not actually going to do what you say, you're breaking the ninth commandment, and so just don't even do it.
And so this is what was going on in this passage. And so notice that the women are actually given authority, right? The husband and the man in the house, right? They have certain authority. And then that doesn't mean that the women can't have contractual obligations for the whole household either, right? They can go and they can make purchases and make agreements and take vows.
And if the husband doesn't say anything, Or if the husband is so, well I'll just say, if he's so stupid that he doesn't even talk to his wife, or if he doesn't actually know what's going on in his house, if he's so unloving towards his wife that he doesn't even communicate with her well, then if she makes the house, they stand. Period. If he didn't hear about it and didn't do anything about it, it's his fault and he's going to bear that guilt. If his daughter, he's got a young daughter at home, she's a teenager or whatever, and she starts making vows and promises and notice she has that type of ability too and he doesn't do anything about it, The vow of the agreement stands. It has to happen. Both men and women, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And if you're a widow or a divorcee, you have your own authority as well.
You're able to enter into contractual agreements and make vows even in the name of God or agreements where you would take an oath before God. And you had to fulfill those contractual agreements. But the whole point here is that it was a society that was being built around a covenant God who had made oaths, vows to his people, and he was going to make them good. He was going to fulfill on his promises. And so his people were likewise supposed to fulfill their promises, supposed to be covenant keeping type people. And so that's what's going on here is that it is a system, a society, a culture that the Lord is intending to build of people who keep the ninth commandment because they behave like him.
So what's the best verse to summarize all of this? Well, I think in my Bible, I would underline verse two. If a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. That's what I would, that's what I would underline in my Bible. That's what I do have underlined in my Bible. Well, I seek calling. What are we called to do? Pardon me.
Well, I think we get to still keep this ninth commandment right now We're I'm not saying we need to reinstitute exactly these these types of laws I'm not sure that we actually need to I do think that there's a Kind of a dissolving of this idea of the father or the husband as the head of the home, right? As, as our society has moved further and further and further away from kind of biblical patterns and principles. I do think there's wisdom to that. I do think that men ought to be able to protect and shield their family from poor decisions.
Instead of, Nope, it's your fault. That's your guilt. Instead of a dad being able to say, you know, go to the bank and say, Hey, I know that she said this, she doesn't have the money to pay that. She's not going to be able to keep that agreement and that's going to ruin her life. I know that she wants to take on that $75,000 of student loan debt, but I'm telling you, she's trying to get a degree in, you know, underwater basket weaving. It's not going to work. She's not never going to be able to pay this off. It's going to ruin her financially. I got it. I got to nullify this.
I think that there's a place there might be a good case or a place for that. But the point being, right, we can't change how society is anymore necessarily, because that's where legislation and stuff is, but my point is, no matter what, whether you're a man or a woman, is your yes yes and your no no. When you make an agreement, do you live up to it? Do you do the things that God has called you to do? Right. I think that's a moral, general equity principle we can pull out of this. I think spiritually, something like I pointed out before, it's a great comfort. This is based on God's command.
Because he's the one who's yes is yes and no is no. And so when he's made promises to you, promises like he will never leave you or forsake you, promises like he will not leave things undone, but will finish the work he began in you under the day of completion. Promises like all things work together for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purposes But when we when we hear Covenant promises things that God has bound him to himself to by an oath We know that he's good we know that he's going to keep his agreement and we can have a Foundation of sure foundation under our feet to have hope and peace in our lives.
We know this is true and because He didn't even spare His own Son. He kept His Word even at the cost of Jesus Christ. That's how serious God keeps His commandments, keeps His promises, keeps His covenants. Let's pray. Father, we thank You that You are a covenant-keeping God, so much so that You even sent us Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us. Lord, we thank You for the great work of salvation you have given us. And Lord, we pray that your spirit would let us be people of truth, that we would be people who would keep our agreements, that when we take vows unto you, that we would keep those vows. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you take comfort and peace knowing that your God loves you and always keeps his promises. I'll see you next time. Bye.