Lawful Oaths & Vows (Numbers Chapter 30)

Okay, let's turn to Numbers chapter 30. Numbers chapter 30, and I think

Lord willing next week, my plan is to finish up the book. So we'll cover chapters 31 through 36 next

Wednesday, probably, at least that's the plan, but let's pray and then we'll listen to Numbers chapter 30.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for all that you do, for your provision and care for each one here.

And Lord, we pray for those who are not able to join us. We pray for those who are traveling, pray for Steve who's not feeling well.

And Lord, if there's any other urgent needs, you know them. So we simply ask that you would work it all out to your honor and glory and for the good of those who love you.

And we pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Numbers chapter 30.

Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel. This is the thing which the

Lord 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 has bound herself and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand and every agreement with 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 agreements 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 vows 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 whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or 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 has 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 in her father's house.

Okay, so the subject matter is oaths and vows. How many of you have made a vow before God?

Well, anyone who's been married, you've made a vow, right? Who has made other than marriage vows?

If you would like to share briefly, has anyone made a vow before God and what have they done?

Anybody? Even if you've failed to keep the vow? If you want to admit that, that's okay.

Well, I've been divorced twice too, so. Yeah. So I guess, but this one was,

I don't know if any of you remember Bill Gothard, Basic Youth Conflicts conferences that we went to as a

Bible study group, and he urged people to vow to the Lord that they would read his word every day.

Yeah, and you didn't quite. Yeah, and he also wanted us to memorize

Romans six and I didn't do that either. Right. Okay, so making vows is actually a very, very serious thing.

To make a vow to God or before God, we know what Jesus said about this, right?

That you shouldn't do it. Jesus seemed to say you shouldn't do it because he knew that people would take vows, maybe well -meaning at first, but you know how that goes.

It's sort of like a new year's resolution and eventually people don't fulfill it.

So it's just the overall subject of honesty, vows, oaths. That's what we're going to be talking about tonight.

So how important is it for a believer to keep his or her word? Yeah, that's very important.

So this week in Numbers chapter 30, we're looking at these subjects and really the overall subject of honesty because we live in a day and age, you know this, where we are surrounded by lies.

We're surrounded by people who don't tell the truth. They have no intention of telling the truth or twisting the truth.

That's always been the case, but I think we've reached a whole other level now.

So speaking the truth and keeping your word, I would say is more important now than ever.

Of course, you have a commandment, right? One of the 10 commandments, which number is it?

That says, thou shall not bear false witness. It's number eight. And then the third commandment says, you shall not take the name of the

Lord thy God in vain. So if you take a vow to God using his name and then you don't do it, guess what?

You're really guilty of those two things. So look at Numbers 30 verses one and two.

Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel saying, this is the thing which the

Lord 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. Now, the word oath is found,

I think, around 54 times in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament era, so from the book of Acts onward, it's only found eight times.

And one of those times is James 5 .12, where he says, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath.

So you could make the argument that in the Old Testament, it was very common. They were in fact commanded to take oaths before God, but in the

New Testament, there at least seems like there's a different attitude. Has anyone picked up on that or noticed that?

Okay, yes. Psalm 76 11 is the one that I generally think of that says, make vows to the

Lord and keep them. So in a way that, whereas your failure to keep your vows would tend to, oh boy,

I'm not gonna do that again. Yeah, if there's one thing that's for sure, if you make a vow to God, you definitely need to keep it.

But is there a circumstance where you might not want to keep it? All right,

Matthew Henry says this about Numbers 30 verses one and two. He says, no man can be bound by his own promise to do what he is already by the divine precept forbidden to do.

In other matters, the command is that he shall not break his word.

Now he's speaking in this old English, but basically what he's saying is God's law ranks supreme.

Now in areas where there's liberty, if we take a vow, we need to keep it, but we can't make a vow that would contradict what

God says. So if God says, don't do this, well, I made a vow to do it.

I need to keep my vow and go against God's commandment. So does this bring to mind any

Old Testament story? I'll give you a little hint from the book of Judges.

Does anyone know what I'm thinking of? Well, I was thinking

Jephthah, but we'll get into that in a moment. What did Samson do? Did he take a vow that contradicted

God's law? Just bow to everyone. Yeah, okay. Yeah, there's a lot of people that are reckless with their words.

And that's one of the things Jesus doesn't want his followers to do, to be reckless or flippant in making promises.

So the New Testament titles this section, or excuse me, the New King James Version titles this section,

Laws Concerning Vows. So if a man makes a vow, he has to keep it. But if you keep reading and you heard as we were following along, if a woman made a vow, her husband or father could overrule it.

Now, I realize that's gonna make the feminists angry, but do you know why that is?

So if a young woman living in her father's house made a vow, her father could overrule it. Why is that?

She's under his authority. Right, right. So she's under his authority, he has headship, therefore he could overrule that vow.

And I'm sure that was probably a good thing once in a while. But if he heard the vow and didn't say anything or do anything, then that vow stood.

Okay, now going back to what Matthew Henry said, if there are vows that violate

God's law, obviously, those are not things you should follow through with.

So I remembered or thought of the story of Jephthah in the book of Judges.

Do you remember what Jephthah did? Who knows the story? He gave his daughter to the

Lord. Right, yep. So Jephthah, who is a judge, he made this, what

I'm gonna call a ridiculous vow to God, that if the

Lord allowed him to win the battle, when he got home, the first thing that came out of his door, of his house, he would offer that as a burnt offering to God.

So guess what? He won the battle, he goes home, and his daughter is the first one out the front door.

If Jephthah offered his own daughter as a burnt sacrifice, that would have to be one of the most disturbing stories in all of the

Bible. It's really unimaginable that anyone would do that, nevermind a judge, which is why

I tend to take the position that he didn't actually sacrifice her, rather the sacrifice, the offer, because if you remember the story, she laments about her virginity, and the story ends with that she knew that he fulfilled the vow, but she knew no man.

So it seems as though he didn't actually kill her, thank God. Some people disagree with that, but the offer was that she would not have children, and that she would probably live her life in service to God somehow.

But the point is, the Lord abhorred, God hated the idea of human sacrifice.

So even though Jephthah took that vow, it would have been far worse to actually follow through with it than it would be for him to break it, right?

Does that make sense? So there are people who make vows, they're rash, unwise, ridiculous.

In a situation like that, there would be a time where you wouldn't want to keep your vow. All right, let's turn to Matthew chapter five.

So the Old Testament's very clear, Marcus alluded to this, there's several verses where it seems like there are commands,

Deuteronomy 10, 20, I think is one of them, where the

Israelites were told to take vows to God. But in the New Testament, we see something maybe a little different.

Now, just one quick comment on this, the term oath and vow, are they the same thing?

To me, when I was reading this, it seems as though the Bible uses the terms interchangeably.

There probably is a difference, but I don't see one in the scripture. But I did look up modern definitions and here's the difference today.

A vow, it says, is merely a personal promise, whereas an oath is a promise made before some institutional authority.

Either way, remember that numbers, this is the Old Covenant, Israel is a nation. These are the laws of the nation.

Not everything in the Old Covenant is carried over into the New Covenant. So just because we're reading it here in numbers does not necessarily mean, hey, this is the way you have to do it today, okay?

So as New Testament Christians, where do we look for clarity? Yeah, but in particular, if Jesus comments on something, we would look to his words.

Matthew 5, look at verses 33 through 37. Jesus says, again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the

Lord. Now, is that what Jesus is saying? No, he's quoting, that's what you've heard, right?

But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king, nor shall you swear by your own head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.

But let your yes be yes, and your no, no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

So what's the impression you get from that statement? It sounds on the surface that Jesus is saying, back then, they say, yeah, take vows, but I say, don't.

Is that what it sounds like? Yeah. Right. Okay, so let me ask this question.

Is Jesus contradicting the Old Testament? Is Jesus contradicting

Moses? No. The automatic response should be, well, no.

I mean, Jesus isn't gonna contradict the Old Testament. So sort of have a little problem here, maybe, right?

You can see the tension. Here's one of the ways we would resolve this. Notice what

Jesus says. He says, you have heard that it was said to those of old.

Sometimes Jesus would say, it is written. When he says, it is written, what's he doing?

Right, he's quoting the Old Testament scripture. When he says that you have heard that it was said, that's more of a reference to either

Jewish tradition or this is what people commonly say, or this is what people commonly think.

So Jesus is not contradicting Moses here. What had happened is people had wrong thoughts and wrong ideas about what it meant or how to take an oath.

So the difference, basically, it's the difference saying, it is written versus people have said in time past.

It's the difference between me quoting the Apostle Paul and quoting Matthew Henry, right?

Quoting the Apostle Paul is authoritative. Quoting the Bible is authoritative.

Quoting Matthew Henry isn't. So it is written is authoritative saying, well, you've heard that it was said to those of old is not authoritative.

Okay, so you're with me, you're following along? Okay, so when Jesus says, you shall not swear falsely, today, when people hear that word swear, they think of cursing or using vulgar language.

That's not what Jesus is saying, obviously. He's talking about a promise because that's what an oath or a vow is, right?

You're promising something that I, you've heard people say, I swear to God that I will do that.

What do you think about that? For many, many years as a police officer, I was sworn in before I gave any testimony and I did wonder about it.

Now I do notice that they don't ask or demand that people swear, but they want you to affirm that you will tell the truth.

Yeah, yeah. But when I, you know, you solemnly swear the testimony, you'll give it the man of the hour and hearings shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So help you God at the end. So I just took it as a prayer. Right, yeah, and there will be some

Christians who will not do that. If they're dragged into court and they're told, asked to swear to God, they won't do it.

So if you're at all confused, you're not really sure what the right thing to do is, that's okay, we're gonna get to the clarity at the end.

But there are Christians who disagree on this. So in the

Old Testament, because these are laws, taking an oath and not fulfilling it, taking an oath before God, the best way

I can compare it to something today would be like us committing perjury, because there's a legal consequence.

Mostly when people swear or take an oath, take a vow today, I thought of three main ways people do it.

Marcus mentioned one, but people do it in marriage vows, right, that's probably the most common thing that you would think of.

And then 50 % of the time, even though people would swear to God, till death do us part, they don't keep the vow.

Then there are politicians who vow to uphold the Constitution, no comment, okay?

And then the courtroom setting where I don't know if anyone does that anymore, but they're told to place their hand on the

Bible and solemnly swear, and that's what used to happen anyways, but there's still some swearing in when you go to court.

Yes? I don't have it written down, but the way that I've come to have peace about being divorced,

I mean, I didn't want the divorces. My vows were to love, honor, and cherish, and I do.

I'm not quite, you know, there's probably more in there. What?

Yeah, well, if the other person doesn't keep the vow and the legal process carries, I'm not saying that it's necessarily both people's fault, but that is a way people take oaths and vows.

Okay, so in the Old Testament, it's common. You see again and again, people taking an oath.

What about the New Testament? What Jesus seems to be saying is your yes should be good enough.

So if you say you're gonna do something, a Christian's word should be enough.

So let's go through some of the viewpoints on this, and you know, if you have something to share, just let me know, but again, not all

Christians agree with this or agree on the subject. There are

Christians, primarily Anabaptists, who refuse to swear oaths at all.

Who knows who the Anabaptists are? Yeah, okay, these would be the

Mennonites and the Amish. So I got this article. I'm just gonna read a little snippet of it.

So the Anabaptist Mennonite News Network writes this. They say, many

Anabaptists refuse to swear oaths. Oaths were very important in the 16th century

Europe. That's where they originated from. Encouraging truth -telling in court and loyalty to the state.

Anabaptists often rejected these, citing Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5 and arguing that they should always be truthful, not just under oath, nor would they swear loyalty to any secular authority.

So their response would be, I'm not taking this vow. I always tell the truth. I refuse to do it.

And this is why Mennonites and Amish do not get involved in politics. They would not join the police or the military.

Not only are they pacifists, which is another issue, but all of those things would require them to take an oath to the state, and they refuse to do that.

I think most of us are familiar with, say, the Jehovah's Witnesses, which we would not consider as part of Christianity, but what did they refuse to do?

They don't pledge allegiance to the flag, right? So there are people who have issues of swearing some sort of oath or allegiance to the state.

We typically don't hold to that position. Most evangelicals don't, but as time goes on,

I kind of am a little sympathetic to some of that. But again, people disagree.

So groups like the Anabaptists take that viewpoint. Now I'd like to read from the London Baptist Confession of Faith, not because I think it's authoritative, but because it does kind of display another viewpoint.

So this is chapter 23 of Lawful Oaths and Vows. Just your input right now.

Who's leaning on the side of, I don't think we should take any oaths or vows. Okay, so one or two hands.

Does that include marriage vows? I was thinking about it.

I don't have an answer, but I'm trying to remember in the Bible, obviously people got married in the

Bible. Did they take vows? Nothing's coming to mind of them actually taking vows before God.

I don't know. Let me know if something comes to mind. I don't remember that happening. That doesn't prove anything one way or another.

Who says taking vows is fine and I've done it and I'll probably do it again. Okay, so I'm not seeing many hands.

I guess we're unsure. Okay, this is why we need this study, so we know.

All right, this is chapter 23, London Baptist Confession. It gives a definition.

A lawful oath, they say, is an element of religious worship in which a person swearing in truth, righteousness and judgment, solemnly calls

God to witness what is sworn and to judge the one swearing according to the truth or falsity of it.

So that's their definition of an oath. And it provides this reference.

This is from Exodus 20, verse seven. You shall not take the name of the

Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

So again, if you make a vow that I, Lord, I swear to you that I will read my

Bible every day. Chances are you're gonna miss a day. That's taking the

Lord's name in vain. But Deuteronomy 10, 20 does say, you shall fear the

Lord your God, you shall serve him and to him you shall hold fast and take oaths in his name.

So the Bible does say, you shall take oaths in his name. I would just say at this point, if you do, you need to be really certain you can keep it.

All right, the next section from the London Baptist Confession, it says, people should swear by the name of God alone and only with the utmost holy fear and reverence.

Therefore to swear an empty or ill -advised oath by that glorious and awe -inspiring name or to swear at all by anything else is sinful and to be abhorred.

You can see back in 1689, they took this very seriously.

I'm not sure modern evangelicals take it quite as serious, but this is

God's name, right? So I think we should. Here's another statement.

They say, yet in weighty and significant matters, an oath is authorized by the word of God to confirm truth and end all conflict.

So a lawful oath should be taken when it is required by legitimate authority in such circumstances.

And they quote Paul in 2 Corinthians 1 .23, where he says, moreover,

I call God as witness against my soul, that to spare you, I came no more to Corinth.

So Paul to the Corinthians, he sort of makes this vow before God. God can bear witness to this, that this is true.

So the argument is Paul did it in the New Testament. Yes. I wonder what the difference is between a pledge.

I was thinking of immigrants at which want to become citizens who have to swear their vows.

Or even when you place your hand on your heart, you say, I pledge allegiance. Isn't that similar?

Yeah, I mean, so you have to look at who are you making the vow to?

Are you pledging your allegiance to the state or are you calling, invoking the name of God, Lord, I'm promising you that I will do this?

Well, pledging allegiance then is just promising to a colorful piece of cloth. Right.

I mean, when kids pledge allegiance to the flag in elementary school, I don't know how much they understand or take it seriously.

It's just something that you're taught to do. But again, Christians taking vows before God, it's serious business, right?

Okay. Okay. The next section, whoever takes an oath authorized by the word of God should consider with due gravity the seriousness of such a weighty act and to affirm nothing in it except what one knows to be true.

For the Lord is provoked by ill -advised, false and empty oaths. And because of them, this land mourns.

So basically the land of Israel was punished because people were breaking their oaths to God left and right.

And God was judging them for it. Number five, an oath is to be expressed in the plain and ordinary meaning of the words without any ambiguity or mental reservation.

I don't know, what's that getting at? That you can sort of phrase it in such a way to maybe wiggle out of it later?

I don't know. Number six, this is the final statement. A vow must not be made to any creature, but to God alone.

Vows should be made and performed with the most conscientious care and faithfulness. However, Roman Catholic monastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty and obedience to monastic rules are by no means steps to higher perfection.

Instead, they are superstitious and sinful snares in which Christians may not entangle themselves.

So tell us how you really feel about monastic vows.

But you know that when people, a nun or a monk would enter into a monastery, I mean, they have to pledge before God that they are gonna remain celibate their whole life and take this vow of poverty and everything else.

The Baptist said, this is superstitious and wrong. And they list a whole bunch of verses to back those things up.

All right, any comments so far? I promise I'm gonna try to bring clarity at the end, okay?

So, but one thing that is clear is that throughout history, Christians have taken the subject seriously.

That comes across. One group seems to say, no, not at all. Another group seems to say, yes, but be very, very careful about it.

And I just wanna read what Pastor John MacArthur says about this statement in Matthew 5.

Let me just read Matthew 5 again. Jesus said, again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the

Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is

God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great

King, nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your yes be yes, and your no, no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

So here's what John MacArthur says, okay? He said, this should not be taken as a universal condemnation of oaths in all circumstances.

God himself confirmed a promise with an oath. So God has taken an oath.

You remember what God swore by? Himself, right. Hebrews 6, 13 through 18.

Christ himself spoke under oath in Matthew 26, 63.

I think it was Pilate that put him under oath, and then Jesus responded. The law prescribed oaths in certain circumstances,

Numbers chapter 30, that's what we're basing all this on. What Christ is forbidding here in Matthew 5 is not the don't take oaths at all.

No, Christ is forbidding the flippant, profane, or careless use of oaths in everyday speech.

In that culture, such oaths were often employed for deceiving purposes, to make the person being victimized believe the truth was being told.

So the Jews would swear by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or their own heads, and not by God, because they had no intentions of keeping their promises.

But I didn't technically swear by God, I swore by Jerusalem so they could sort of deceive people.

So that's what Jesus is speaking against. Jesus is not contradicting anything in the

Old Testament, saying no vows at all. He's addressing the common problem of the day.

I think we can understand this because people do still do this, right? When you were a little kid, what did a little kid say?

Or they used to say this, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Who remembers that?

Or even adults will swear, I swear by my dead loved one's grave.

You've heard people say that? Right, yeah, they'll say it, yeah.

Yep. So why do people do that? Because someone will hear that and say, oh man, they would never say something like that and not mean it.

Oh yes, they would, and that's the whole purpose of it. And matter of fact, if somebody says something like that,

I swear on my whoever's grave. Can't believe a word they're saying. Yeah, I would be inclined to think, okay, that guy's definitely not telling the truth.

So people use this to deceive people. I think that's what Jesus is speaking about.

In my opinion, Jesus is not saying, don't ever take an oath.

However, if you do take an oath before God, what? Do it.

Yeah, you need to be very careful entering into that. And if you do it, absolutely keep it.

So in conclusion, I'd just like to close with these words from James chapter five, verse 12, where James, the half -brother of Jesus, responds with something very similar, probably something he heard from his half -brother.

James says, but above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no, no, lest you fall into judgment.

So I can understand where someone would read that and say, I just cannot in good conscience take any oath.

I think we need to respect that. So this is kind of a complicated subject,

I think. But follow your conscience. Look at what Jesus said. And again, if you make an oath, definitely keep it.