As you guys know, we're in the last chapter of the book of Leviticus, chapter 27. I'm not going to ask you how many of you actually studied 27 before you came, because I don't want to be overly encouraged. But if you did read it, if you did study it, you probably came kind of confused.

Maybe one of the first questions that you asked was, "Why does the book of Leviticus end with this?" And those of you who make absolutely no expression, I'm assuming it's because you don't know. So if you did read it, you probably was thinking, "Wow, that's a really strange way to finish the book of Leviticus." There is a purpose behind that, and again, and hopefully through our study that we'll be able to glean from that.

Some of you guys know, I just came back from Hawaii. I know I don't have a tan because I'm already dark as it is, but I had to attend a wedding this weekend and I just came back yesterday. And the whole time I was there in Hawaii, I was thinking, "How do Christians stay sober here?" Because the whole environment is vacation, and it's just relaxed, and the whole theme is just take it easy, Shakabra, mahalo, and then even their formal attire is kind of like it's casual.

And I was just thinking to myself, "How do people stay spiritually sober and live with a sense of urgency and pray with desperation when all your environment constantly tells you to just relax?" But then I was also thinking, "That's not just true in Hawaii. If we allow our environment to dictate our spiritual condition, it is no safer here than it is in Hawaii.

It is no safer in LA or anywhere else we live because if you're dependent upon anything external to determine how focused you are spiritually, you will always be spiritual infants being tossed here and fro depending upon what comes into town and who you meet with and what happens to be the environment that you live in.

You and I happen to live in Orange County where we are relaxed. We may not be as extreme as Hawaii, but everything around us basically tells us everything is good. There is nothing desperate. And I got an email from India, from one of our Indian pastors, because they heard about the fire.

And, you know, obviously it's a huge news across, and they emailed me, worried about me, worried about us. "Hey, are you guys okay in the fire?" You know, I said, "Hey, worry about yourself. We're doing fine. You know, everything is okay." It's obviously there are people who are being deeply affected by what's happening.

But for us in Orange County, you know, we're doing okay. The reason I want to share this is because the fight that you guys are, you and I are in to stay sober on a day-to-day basis, that is not something that you do once a year when you go to retreats or when you go to, you know, when you go to like Mission Field or when you have special events.

If that is not your daily fight to keep sober, you will lose. You will live lukewarm life, just kind of being tossed back and forth, and you wait until somebody gets up on the pulpit or maybe your small group leader to say, "Hey, get back on track." But as soon as that person is no longer in your life, you start to drift.

And I've seen that so many times over and over again throughout the years, where people are great as long as they're with certain people in certain environment. But as soon as they are separated from that environment, they just start drifting out. Next thing you know, a year, two years, five years down the line, these same people who are passionate for God are no longer walking with God.

And every single one of us is susceptible to that. So the reason why, again, I share this is why a careful study of the Word of God is so important because it stimulates our mind, it stimulates our heart, and reminds us of the spiritual reality that you and I are living in, right?

You and I are here because we believe, we have faith, that there is more to this life than what you eat and drink, right? The job that you have, the getting married and having kids, and then eventually getting old and die, we believe that there's much more to life than that.

And that's why you come to church. That's why you come to Bible study. And so in the context of studying the Scriptures, we have to ask ourselves, are we living, being spiritually sober, being reminded of the spiritual reality, or is this just something that happens every once in a while because you come to church, right?

And so, again, I want to remind you and encourage you that if you, even in just this week, if you saw your heart and your mind tripped on to something and you're just kind of coasting along, that use the opportunity that we have together, right? Consider how to spur one another on toward love and good deeds, especially as you see the day drawing near, as the days are getting colder and that the love for God is, at least around us, is getting colder, that we do not fall into that same temptation, okay?

So let me pray for us and we'll jump in. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for the fellowship of the brothers and sisters. Lord, as we live in this world and knowing, Father God, that we are not of this world, how easily we forget from day to day, Father God, that our destiny is in a different place.

Help us not to envy this world that is under your condemnation. Help us to have mercy, compassion for them, that we would live sober lives, Lord God, to shine the light that you've given us, that for their sake, help us, Lord God, to really live worthy of the gospel.

We thank you, Father, and we ask that you would bless this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right. So the Bible study that we're having in chapter 27, Leviticus, as you guys know, began with the instruction of how sinful people can approach a holy God through the sacrifices, right?

So the first five chapters basically lays out, if you want God to be in your midst, this is what you need to do, right? And obviously, ultimately points to the fulfillment of Christ's sacrifice in us. If we're going to restore the relationship that was broken with God, unless we're covered by the blood of Christ, he cannot dwell among us, right?

God and sin cannot be in the same place. So there has to be something done about the sin. And so that's what the tabernacle was for. Tabernacle was a place where animals were sacrificed to cover the sins of mankind, right? And that's how it starts. And so all of Leviticus are specific instructions of how to approach God, how sinful people can approach God and how he can stay in their midst.

Chapter 27 ends with instruction how sinful people can maintain their relationship with the holy God, right? Through these vows that they have made and the ones that they could not keep. And basically he's outlining how to redeem vows that they could not keep. Now for chapter 27 to make any sense, you have to understand what the vows meant.

Because today when we say vows, we naturally just think promises, right? I promise to do something. But in our culture, promises are just words, right? You never go into business based upon somebody's promise. I promise that 50% of a promise I'm going to give to you, right? I promise that if you allow me to use the car, I'll bring it back safe and then if I damage it, I promise I'll give it to you.

That's not enough, right? Where we live, you have to get into a contract and then you have to spell out what the promise is and then these are the consequences and you have to give a deposit and if you break this promise that you have a third party that's going to make sure that this happens, right?

And so until then, we don't feel safe. So when the Old Testament, especially in Leviticus, when it talks about oath, we have to understand it as beyond just how you and I use promises, right? In the oral tradition, a vow was just as binding as a signed contract in our day, right?

So he's not just talking about somebody who just kind of said, "Hey, I promise I'm going to do this," and it has much heavier weight and maybe equivalent to us signing a formal contract, maybe a covenant between a husband and wife and then they signed a contract, they filed it into the city and then they become legal, right?

And so that's what a vow was in the oral tradition. It was a commitment that they made and they took that very, very seriously. In fact, Deuteronomy 23, 21 to 23, it says, "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it for it would be sin in you and the Lord your God will surely require it." It's not just somebody saying, "Hey, that guy made a promise and he's not faithful," right?

And that's what we would say. He says, "No, it's sin. If you made a vow, you made a promise and you don't fulfill it, it was considered sin. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be a sin to you," right? So much of what chapter 27 is talking about is voluntary vows that he makes.

And we'll talk about in what context these vows were made. "You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised." So in other words, to take the vow seriously. Don't flippantly say in your mouth that, "God, I'm going to do this," or, "I'm going to dedicate this," because once you have done that, it's binding.

It's not like us just kind of flipping, say, "Hey, I'll do this. If you do this for me, I'll be there," and then you break that promise. It's like, "Oh, you know, I'll do it next time for sure," right? You say, "Oh, that guy's not faithful." Old Testament says, "If you make that promise, if you made that vow and you break it, it's sin," right?

And there were consequences for that. So don't say things rashly, right? And that's the context in which chapter 27 is written. This is for making a vow. When someone wanted to demonstrate his love for the Lord out of gratitude, and this is directly linked to what we saw in chapter 26, right?

And what was chapter 26? God's promises of blessing in obedience and God's promise of curse in disobedience, right? So chapter 26 may bring God's judgment upon them because they didn't obey, and as a result of that, maybe they pled with God, or maybe they were obedient and God allowed the rain to come and they had abundance of crops.

And as a result of that, a response to what God has done, they're giving an offering of thanksgiving, right? And so in that context, you say, "God, I thank you so much for what you did. I'm going to dedicate myself to you for the next year," or, "I'm going to give my first-born child to you for your service." So a vow would have been made in that context of an abundance of gratitude in response to what God has done.

Oftentimes, and this is probably the most common vows that people make, prayers to be answered. And we see examples of that, of Jacob in Genesis 28, where he pleads with God and he vows that if God blesses him, that he was going to do this and that. Remember Jephthah in Judges 11, that if God gives him victory, that he was going to dedicate his daughter.

Hannah, praise to God, if you give me a son, I'll dedicate him to you. Jonah, if you protect us from this disaster, that I'm going to repent and go back and do what you tell me to do. So the most common vow was made was kind of a negotiating with God.

"God, I will do this if you do this for me," right? That's probably the most common vow that we see. And oftentimes, again, even today, people may pray that, "Lord, if you just let me get into this school, I will serve you. If you let me get this job, I'm going to use this money to honor you.

If you allow this to happen, I'm going to do this." And so you would make a vow, a promise that you're going to do that. And you probably heard testimonies of people who came into ministry that way. And the person that came to mind for me was Dawson Trotman.

Some of you guys may know who he is. He's the founder of Navigators Ministry. And he made a vow like that because he got... I forgot what the context was, but he was desperate and he prayed to God that, "If you save me from this, I will serve you." And then God surely delivers him.

And then as a result of that, he gave his life to serve God. And then he started this ministry called the Navigators, right? And so that was the second, most common context in which a vow was made. Another vow is a Nazirite vow. And this was a vow that, if you remember, Samson made when he was young.

It was to completely be detached from any kind of alcohol, right? And then he lived with certain boundaries as a way of dedicating, asking for the Lord's favor upon his life as a result of that. So he made a Nazirite vow. And this was a dedication of his whole life to be used by God in a certain way.

And obviously, God uses him at the end. I mean, he was a shady guy, but God... I have a feeling that he broke that Nazirite vow over and over again, right? But at least that was a vow of the Nazirites. So that's the context. These three reasons are not comprehensive, but these are the most common reasons why an Old Testament Jew would have entered into a certain kind of vow.

And it is in this vow, he says, if you have made this vow, that vow is binding. You don't say it, right? Under a covenant relationship with this holy God, you don't come to God flippantly and say, "God, if you do this, I'm going to do this." And then three months later, say, "Ah, you know how I am." Right?

It's like, "You know me." Right? That's not going to work. Right? So, the whole thing about the book of Leviticus is recognizing who he is. The very first offering that was given to God, they didn't follow his instruction, and as a result of that, what happens? Capital punishment. They die.

And what is the lesson that was taught to the nation of Israel? God is holy, holy, holy. You cannot just approach him any way you want. Right? And so in chapter 27, even in the promises that we make God, you don't flippantly make promises to God and not fulfill it.

God takes that seriously because he's a holy God. Right? And so he says, "When you have made these vows," right? The purpose of this chapter is to give a person who made a rash vow or a difficult vow. That's how it is used. Right? In the first few verses.

Someone who made a rash or a difficult vow that he is not able to fulfill, right? Or maybe it is difficult for him to fulfill. God gave him an opportunity to redeem that vow. He wasn't just going to say, "Okay, forget it. That was rash." He says, "No, you need to rectify that." And that's what this whole chapter is about.

Someone who's made a difficult vow who cannot fulfill it, and God's giving them an opportunity to redeem that. Right? So that's what chapter 27 is about. So again, if you don't understand the context of this, it's like, "Wow, he's actually saying that guy's worth $30, this guy's worth $50, that guy's worth $25." I mean, you talk about being offensive.

If you don't understand the context, right? You can see some modern feminist reading this and you thought women shouldn't teach publicly was offensive. Right? Some of you guys give me blank looks like you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Right? But for those of you who did read it and studied it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Okay? Chapter 1 through 24 is in reference to the voluntary vow. These are vows that were not required, that they made some rash vow or a difficult vow, and God gives them an opportunity to redeem it. So the laws on vowing people as holy to the Lord. Holy to the Lord.

What does it mean to be holy to the Lord? To be set apart. That you've taken a common object and you set it apart. So what set them apart? The vow. They didn't physically do it, but the moment you made that vow, that person became set apart. It was as good as it was God's.

Right? So it wasn't like, "Oh, he went through this ritual and then he went through the temple and he was offered up, put up special clothes, and then he was separated." He said, "The moment you made that vow, it was set apart for God. That belonged to God. He may not have physically gone there, but that belongs to God." So somebody who makes this vow in verses 1-3, God allows one who made the difficult vows to redeem what he had vowed monetarily.

And that's where the pricing comes from. He says you have to use the sanctuary shekels. The weight of the sanctuary shekels. In other words, obviously the way that they counted money, it wasn't like today where it's just print and then the government makes sure that it's genuine. And as long as it's genuine, it's worth $5, $10, $20.

At that time, you can easily fool people by using false weights. Right? So the way that oftentimes in the Bible, we're talking about dishonest weights, that instead of five pounds, you would use four pounds or eight pounds, and then you can cheat somebody out of a pound or two by using false weights.

But in order to make sure that that doesn't happen, he says that the price needs to be weighed by the weights that was held at the tabernacle. In other words, it's consistent. Right? Just to give you an idea of what a shekel is, a shekel is equivalent to a month's income for a worker.

So keep that in mind. And this is just an average. Some rich people made more than that, poor people made less than that. But on the average, an average worker's income, a month's income, was one shekel. So based on that, this is the redemption value of somebody who makes this vow, and in order to redeem them monetarily.

And here's the chart. So if you're between one month to five years, and you happen to be a male, it's five shekels, meaning five months worth of work. If you happen to be a female, it was three months. Hold your anger for the time being, okay? We'll explain in a little bit.

If you happen to be five to 20 years old, your value as a male is 20 shekels. If you're a female, it's half that, 10 shekels. If you're between the age of 20 and 60, you have the most value. If you're a male, you're 50 shekels, which is equivalent to, what, about four, a little bit over four years, right?

Four years of salary. So imagine just average income of somebody, right, in Orange County, right? $400,000 or $100,000 or $50,000 or whatever your income level may be, it was four years of that, would have been equivalent to one human being, right? So an average income, somewhere around $300,000 to $400,000, right?

If you happen to be a male between the age of 20 and 60. If you happen to be a female, it would have been about three, 30, so less than three years of income, okay? If you're 60 and over, if you're a male, it would have been 15, or if you're a female, 10 shekels.

Now, when you read that, again, if you don't understand the context and what he's doing here, it just sounds like God's valuing people, that God looks at certain people and says, "You're more valued because you're a male between the age of 20 and 60. You're less valued because you're a female," right?

In fact, the valuation, what he's doing here in chapter 27 is very, very practical because it's not based upon the intrinsic value of the individual. We know all throughout scripture, God speaks against that, right? In the kingdom of God, there is no male or female, and we know consistently all throughout the Old Testament, New Testament, that God loves men, women, especially those who are orphans and widows, who are helpless, right?

What he's doing here is very practical. The value of the ages and gender was directly related to the ability to labor in the fields, how much they are able to produce by their labor. So if you're an infant between the age of one and five, you have to invest many years of taking care of that child before he's able to produce anything.

So it was strictly business, monetarily. So if a male dedicated himself at the age of 20, saying that, "I belong to the Lord," that male is able to go out to the field and do hard labor and is able to produce a certain amount of income because it's strictly based upon a physical labor, right?

There's no intelligence, there's no education, like none of that is involved. It's just strictly you go out to the field and how many cows can you direct, like how big of jars can you bring back home, how much water can you pull and bring back home. So it was all strictly based upon how much you can produce through physical labor, right?

Because it was directly linked to the vow that that person made. So if that person is, that if he kept his vow, was able to produce this much, he's valued that much, that much must be compensated. You understand? So he's not necessarily saying intrinsically male have more value and women don't have as much value.

He's talking about financially what they're able to produce, right? If a person was too poor to pay the shekels, the priest would assess what he is able to afford and pay that amount. So again, think about if God was just being a chauvinist and saying like, "Male are much more valued to me than females," why does he even care about the poor, right?

It's inconsistent with his nature. He is talking about financially. You made a $80,000 commitment, so you need to compensate $80,000 worth. So that was all. He's giving opportunity for them to redeem a vow that they made that for whatever the reason they could not keep, so this is what you do, this is how much you have to pay.

The second section, within that section, if you, that was all valuation for humans versus 9-13, these are vows that they made for the animals that they gave, right? If the animal's vows were ceremonially clean, it is not allowed to be exchanged with another animal that is unclean because it wouldn't be the same amount.

Does that make sense? So this prevented someone from regretting the vows they've made and giving God what is bad for what is good. So the clean animal would have been worth a lot more than the unclean animal, right? So he's talking financially. So you can't make a vow and say, "You know what?

I'm going to give you a year," and then after your emotions die down, he's like, "Maybe a year is too much. I'll give you three months." So you can't renegotiate. The moment you make the vow, it's binding. It's the Lord's, even though you didn't give it to him yet.

So he says, "Therefore, if you renege on that, you're stealing from God." That's the point of all of this. So no cheap substitute. So once a vow is made, it is complete. There's no stage one, there's no stage two, there's no stage three. Once the vow is made, it's the Lord's, right?

So same thing with us as Christians. There are no level one Christian, level two Christian, level three Christian. There are no people who are of greater value to our Heavenly Father because you're doing more things for God or maybe you have a position in the church. There's every single child of God is equally valued to the Father.

Ask any parent who has multiple children, right? Every single one of them are precious to them. And in the same way, so are everyone else, right? So once we make the vow, it's the Lord's, right? God has purchased and redeemed us. All of us belong to God equally. In fact, in Malachi 1.14, one of the problems of the nation of Israel was they kept on doing this.

They would make a vow of one thing and then give him the cheaper version. "Curse is the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord, for I am a great king," says the Lord of Hosts, "and my name is feared among the nations." In other words, remember he says previously, he says, "Would you do this for another king?

But why would you do this to the Lord? Would you give cheap offerings and try to swindle him? But why do you keep doing this to the Lord?" Right? In other words, because I've been gracious to you, right? Instead of having greater honor and greater respect and greater reverence and greater fear for him, but because he's been gracious, you take advantage of him.

And that's why the judgment is coming, right? And that was one of the problems of the nation of Israel, because God's been gracious, they were taking advantage of him. And then finally God says, "It's enough." What king would tolerate what you are doing to me? If the vowed animal was ceremonially unclean, it is to be rejected as an offering, but could still be given to a tabernacle for the priest.

In other words, you can't give it to, you can't vow it for the purpose of sacrifice because it won't be accepted. But if you were to redeem it, you'd have to take that unclean animal and add a fifth. Remember the guilt offering? If you damage someone else's good or stole by accident, that you have to give that back and add a fifth.

So if somebody made a vow of an animal and you wanted to redeem it back, and I kept on thinking in what context would somebody offer up an animal and decide, "You know, I'm going to save this animal and give the worth of that animal plus a fifth." You'd have to be really attached to that sheep.

You know what I mean? You love that sheep. I don't know what context, but he says if you choose to do that for whatever the context is, then you'd have to add the fifth. There's no examples of that in the Bible. I can't think of a specific example or even an imaginary context where somebody would be willing to pay the extra fifth to redeem an animal that you were going to slaughter anyway.

Anyway, that was just kind of a side thinking. I just couldn't figure this out, but it's in here. If the one who vowed chose to redeem the animal, I already said that, add a fifth to the price in exchange for it. So add a fifth. You don't have to write all that.

Just say add a fifth. Laws on dedicating the house. If you made a vow, "Lord, if you answer my prayer, I'm going to give you this house," he said, "If the house that was dedicated was to be redeemed, the priest would need to value it and add a fifth." So the priest functioned as a realtor or a—what do you call it?

An assessor? Appraiser, yes. So he would function as an appraiser and appraise the property and then say it's worth $40,000, and then you would add another fifth to that. So again, maybe you grew up in that home. Maybe it has some sentimental value. Maybe there's something attached to this home.

Maybe your parents lived there for generations. Whatever the reason, if you made a difficult vow and you need to redeem it, he says, "You need to pay that plus a fifth." Laws on dedicating the land. And I'm just going to read that. Since priests did not have time to care for land dedicated as holy, the owners retained control of it until the year of Jubilee and made a living from it.

Ideally, they would redeem the land before the Jubilee, paying the price that held as of that day they had dedicated it and adding a fifth. So same principle. If you dedicated the land and if you wanted to redeem it, and then if you had—that's what would happen. If they failed to redeem it or if they leased it during the time, they forfeited it and it became priestly property.

And all of these things, you're probably not going to remember. All of this is once you've dedicated it, it's the Lord's. That's the running theme. These are just the details. So I'm going to just kind of go through it quickly. Chapter 25 to 34 is talking about non-voluntary offerings, non-redeemable people or objects.

These are things that if you've made a vow or that you cannot redeem it or you can't make a vow with this to begin with. And the reason mainly is because it already belongs to the Lord. First among the animals were not to be consecrated since it belonged to the Lord already, verse 26.

So you can't vow to the Lord, "Lord, I vow, I tithe to you." So you can't vow that. That's already a given because that was commanded. That's not a vow. "Lord, if you would just answer my prayers, I will obey you." No, I'm not going to answer your prayer and you're going to obey me because I told you to do that to begin with.

That's not something that you'd negotiate with because it's already the Lord's. You don't negotiate like, "If you just, you know, and then I'll obey you." No, you better obey me first. So basically that's what he's saying. You can't make these vows to God with what God already commanded you to do.

Think about how often as Christians we thought, "I will follow you if you just..." Meaning you already confessed it. You're not following him. He said, "If you abide in my words and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish it shall be done for you." Your very prayers begin with, "I'm not following you, but if you do me a favor, I'll follow you." You've already negated your prayers.

God already said he's not going to answer you, right? So he's saying these are not things that you can negotiate with because they already belong to the Lord. If it is an unclean animal, it can be redeemed after adding fifth to the agreed value. Anything devoted for destruction. The technical term is ban or korban.

Korban was the name that was used in the Old Testament to describe an object, a person, a city, a tribe, whatever it was that God declared to be under the judgment of God. So you can't declare something and say, "I'm going to offer it up to you because it's already under God's judgment." All the tithes of the land cannot be redeemed since it is already the Lord's.

But if you were tithing, let's say, you know, like a tenth of your crop, and for whatever the reason, you wanted to keep the crop but you still wanted to give the tenth, whatever it is that you had vowed, you have to give the amount for that and add a fifth.

Because a tenth was already the Lord's. So he gave an option to be able to switch that out monetarily. Those are all the technical, right? These are all the technical stuff. Remember, when we study the book of Leviticus, you have to ask the question, "Why is this here? What does this have to do with Christ?

How does this point to Christ?" Because everything from chapter 1 to chapter 27 ultimately kind of give a platform for the crucifixion of Christ and what he did, the shedding of blood, the clean and unclean, God's righteous judgment, and then his grace, all of it, everything that we know of the gospel is founded upon what God did through the book of Leviticus.

So what does this fulfill? What does this teach? Let me go over a few verses, just to kind of give you a background of what we see in the New Testament related to these vows. In Matthew 23, 16, Jesus says, "Woe to you, blind guys, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.'" So he's basically calling them out because they were making vows like they were doing in the Old Testament, but they valued the gold over the temple.

In other words, that reveals their heart, what they thought about God versus what they thought about money. So if you vowed the gold, no one wants to, you know, like, "Oh, that's valuable." But the temple doesn't have that kind of value. The temple, in God's eyes, has much more value than the gold that it's made out of.

So he rebukes them that already, even in the way that you vow, it reveals what you value. James 5, 12, it says, "But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but you are yes, be yes, and no, be no, so that you may not fall under judgment." So in other words, like, if you have to constantly say, "I swear," right, because it's a common practice for you to say things that you don't mean.

You make promises, appointments, and you break it like that. It means nothing. So after a while, your words don't mean anything. And you're frustrated that people don't take you serious because your words don't mean anything, right? You say things flippantly, you do it, you don't do it, and you break it, and you say one thing, and then you do another, and he says, "Don't make that a promise.

Let your yes be yes, be no, be no." In other words, think before you speak, before you make promises, before you make appointments, before you enter into any kind of agreement, right? Make sure that you count the cost, right? Think about how many people, like, again, the way that the gospel is preached, you know, it's just like, "Hey, everybody, give Jesus a try.

What have you got to lose? Just calm down. We'll give you a free book. We'll give you some counseling." Then why not? You know, the worst case scenario, you gain some friends, you know, and you hang out with your age people. You can do things together. That's the worst case scenario.

Best case scenario, you get to go to heaven. Why not? So sometimes the way that the gospel is preached, it kind of takes away any kind of cost involved. So people enter into this covenant relationship with God flippantly. So because they entered it flippantly, what happens? They exit flippantly, right?

When things get hard, when, you know, people disappoint you or the church doesn't act the way that you think they ought to act, and it's like, "Okay, I'm gone." And part of the reason why there's so many people backsliding is because the way that they came into the kingdom to begin with, right?

It wasn't serious to begin with. So he's saying, "Let your yes be yes and no be no." Like when you say you believe, make sure you mean that, right? Don't say you have faith. Don't say that flippantly. Make sure you believe that because saying that you believe comes with consequences.

You can't say that you believe the building is burning down and then just sit there and do nothing and then get offended if somebody says, "Maybe you don't believe and that's why you're not running." How dare you question me? Who wouldn't question you? Everybody is questioning you. It's just that some people choose to say it.

Other people are thinking it. They're just not telling you, right? So let your yes be yes, no be no. If you're going to say you have faith, make sure you actually have faith because many people will enter into the kingdom professing to know God, but they don't have faith in God, right?

So it's a warning against taking flippant vows. In Matthew, Jesus goes even further and says, "And again, you have heard in the ancient that you shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord. But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.

Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black, but let your statement be yes, yes, no, no. Anything beyond these is of evil." How many of you had conversations with somebody that may have read this or studied this or looked at this and said, "Therefore, God doesn't want us to get into any kind of contract," because that's a form of a vow, right?

I've had somebody ask me about that because where is the most common place where people take vows? Car dealership at a wedding, right? Every wedding that I've done, two people stand there and they make vows. I vow to do this, I vow today. Is that a compromise of this?

If you look in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 18, verse 18, and Acts chapter 21, verse 23, apostle Paul actually makes vows, okay? So you can explain that and say, "Oh, maybe he was in between, he didn't fully understand, he was a young Christian," but we see examples of people making vows.

I do not think that this is a prohibition against wedding vows. I do not think that this is a prohibition against entering into any kind of public contract, right? I don't think God got rid of any kind of contract. Christians are not allowed to enter any kind of vows or contract from this point on.

I don't think that's what he was saying. He was specifically arguing against a culture where they made rash vows for what purpose? For self-gain, for personal gain. So they were entering into contracts with no intention to fulfill it or making promises that they don't have the ability to fulfill, right?

Then even if they made the vow, they would keep breaking it over and over again. He says, "Don't even make vows because you don't understand who you are," right? So this is not a prohibition against entering into a vow or any kind of particular contract. He's talking about the condition of that person, condition of that generation that was using the vows flippantly for personal gain, right?

Now what does this have to do with what we're talking about? What does this teach us? Let me take four things that we should get out of this. One, it taught the nation of Israel to take vows seriously. That you don't come to God and make flippant promises. You don't enter into a covenant with God and then exit the covenant and then enter the covenant and then exit the covenant at your leisure, right?

That's why in a marriage vow it says, "What God has put together, let no man separate." You don't have the ability to do that, right? So in other words, take vows seriously because God takes it seriously. That's the first thing that it taught the nation of Israel. God didn't just forget about it and just kind of let it be.

There has to be. If you can't physically do it, there needs to be compensation for that, right? That's the first thing. Second thing is, and again, I don't have slides up here for that. Man is sinful and is unable to keep the oath that he makes. That's why it says difficult vows.

So chapter 27 already assumes that Israel was going to say things that they couldn't fulfill. So God is giving an opportunity to redeem that, right? You made a rash vow and say, "No, I'm going to give my life to serve the Lord," and then you can't do it and he said, "Okay, now you're going to have to compensate for that." So take it seriously, but there's an assumption that a sinful man oftentimes is not going to be able to fulfill his vows, right?

It doesn't mean that God's okay with it, but there's an assumption that the man does not have the ability to be faithful to all his vows, right? Third, only God is able to keep these vows, right? And that's why he demands that we take our vows seriously because God takes his vows seriously and what God says he does, right?

Fourthly, only God can redeem us from a broken vow. Now why is this here? Because he just told the nation of Israel in chapter 26 that if you enter this covenant with me and if you obey me, here's the blessing, but if you disobey me, here's all the curses.

Remember, the curses outnumber by double in Deuteronomy by four times? And he said, so basically, Israel's history is a constant breaking of their covenant with God. So by the time we get to the end of Malachi, they have curses upon curses, vows upon vows that they've broken in which they stand condemned under this weight, right?

And that's why Paul starts in Romans chapter 1, "He who is under the law will be judged by the law. He who is not under the law will be judged outside the law. But what's universal is all is judged." The nation of Israel was under the law to reveal to them the utter sinfulness of their sin, right?

So the whole point of Leviticus is how to have a relationship with this holy God. And it ends with an assumption that Israel is going to break this vow, right? This is what you ought to do. If you want to have a relationship with me, there has to be blood sacrifice.

You have to be consecrated. It needs to be sacred. You cannot approach God on your own terms. And that was the whole point. And then chapter 27 ends with, you're going to break these vows and God's going to give you an opportunity to be redeemed. You understand what chapter, Leviticus ends with chapter 27?

It ends with redemption despite the sin of man. Numbers 23, 19, it says, "God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good?" God says it and he's the only one who can fulfill it.

And then the fulfillment of that in 1 Peter 1, 18-19, what he says in Genesis chapter 3, that I will send the seed of the woman who's going to crush the head of the Satan. And then that's the line. That's the promise that he makes. And then he fulfills that vow in Christ.

Knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. What is that in reference to? Redemption, right? You couldn't redeem with silver or gold man's souls, right? With your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Only Christ can redeem us from broken vows, broken promises. And that's what ultimately Leviticus is ultimately about. How do we have a relationship with the Holy God? Only someone who has been declared holy in his presence can be in his presence. But the problem is we can't attain that holiness no matter how determined we are.

No matter how sincere we are. No matter how disciplined we are. No matter how educated we are. We cannot. And as a result of that, God gives us redemption. Not with silver or gold, but by his blood. So if you don't understand the context, you can be very offended by chapter 27, but if you understand the whole context of the book of Leviticus and the larger context of the redemptive history, I mean, Leviticus is a beautiful picture of Christ from beginning to the end, why we needed him.

And all of this, and the language that it uses, all of this is fulfilled in the New Testament. I don't know about you, but the more I read the Bible, there is no way a human being wrote this. It is not possible. There is nobody that could have been this smart.

And so if you're not meeting Christ in the scriptures, you're not meeting Christ. It's all testimonies of testimonies. Other people who met Christ telling you of what it was like. I just came back from Hawaii, it's just not the same me telling you the story. It's just not the same as you going there and seeing it yourself.

That's why if you do not prioritize your walk with God, and you think coming to church every once in a while somehow fulfills that, or hanging around with other Christians, you're sadly mistaken. There are tons of people who will walk into hell claiming to know Christ when they never really knew him.

So again, take vows seriously. If you're going to say you have faith, make sure it's genuine faith, not just check off. I went down like 20 years ago, I went down some altar call, and that kind of sealed the deal. Do you have genuine faith? Do you understand who you are before God?

We're sinful men who are not able to earn righteousness. Do you understand that God and only God can fulfill the promises that he's made? And that God and only God can redeem us from our own sins. And hopefully that message will seep in so deep that it transforms your, not just what you do, but what you love.

It utterly transforms your affection. That what makes you happy are the things of God. So the things that you look forward to, not the vacations, not your retirement, and all these things may be great, but they're superficial. But it actually begins to transform your very desires so that what God wants for you is the very thing that you desire.

And when those two things align, you have life abundant. And that's what he means. I came to give life and give this life abundantly. This is what God wants, but then we want this, and that's where the frustration comes from. But when we want what he desires for us, we have abundant life.

So the discussion questions for today. Every Christian has entered into a covenant with God to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. How would you assess your oath of following Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? How does God's grace redeem us from our difficult vows affect the way you live your life?

Do you take advantage of his grace? Where you say, "Well, God's going to forgive me, and he forgives me every time." So therefore, you don't see the weight of your sin. You don't see the weight of your compromise, your lukewarmness. You can be there year after year after year, but you just say, "Oh, God's gracious." Or does that grace cause you to be hungering and thirsting for righteousness, wanting him more?

Because depending on how you respond to his grace, maybe a revelation of if you're really in that grace or not. Third, how seriously, and this is very practical and faithful, do you think you are keeping the Berean members covenant? Some of you guys may have forgotten about that. We have a tenfold covenant.

That tenfold covenant is not unique to Berean, even though we use the name Berean. If you look at the tenfold covenant of our church, these are all things that the Bible commands the Christians to follow. Taking the church, prayer, lordship of Christ, financial stewardship, all that stuff is not unique to Berean.

We just decided to highlight it, put it as a covenant to make sure for the purpose of discipleship. So third question is, again, when we think about vows and living according to what we promise, are we being faithful to those vows? Take a picture of this, and then I'm going to put up the tenfold covenant so that you can have that as a reference to look at in your discussion time.

So quickly take a picture. If you have one of those flip phones, ask somebody. There's like a few people in our church who still have that, so if you don't, you can just ask somebody. Okay, I'm assuming you guys took it. Okay, and that's the tenfold covenant. So let me pray for us, and then I'll have you guys get into your small group.

Father, we thank you. We thank you for our brothers and sisters, where we can run this race together. I pray, Father God, that as you've implanted so much treasure, Lord God, in this book, we pray for wisdom. We pray for hearts, Lord God, that is softened. As you are the potter and we are the clay, we truly want to be molded according to what you desire.

I pray that you will bless our small group time, help us to be vulnerable and honest, that in our weakness, Lord, that we do not try to be somebody that we're not. Help us to seek each other, to lean on one another, to be gracious with one another, to speak the truth in love, that we will never be comfortable in our sins, but gracious with our faults.

So I pray for your blessing, especially for the leaders, Lord God, that you would help them to guide and lead the discussions well. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.