When You Make A Foolish Vow - Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Are you a person of integrity? Can people count on you to do what you say you're going to do? Failing to keep promises marks any of us as deficient in character? God says it is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Today, a look at the importance of keeping our word. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today you'll take us to Joshua chapter 9, where we'll meet a people called the Gibeonites. Dave, when I think of the Gibeonites, I'm reminded of the fact that when I was in Israel many years ago, some of us actually went to Gibeon where the sun stood still. But also we were reminded of the fact that Joshua made a foolish vow with the Gibeonites and he kept his vow. The Bible says in the 15th chapter of the Psalms, blessed is he who swears to his own hurt and does not change. That's why this series of messages making the best of a bad decision is so critical. Let me ask you a question.

Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. You can call us at 1-888-218-9337 or you can go to rtwoffer.com because messages like the one that you are about to listen to is going around the world all because of investments of people who believe in this ministry getting the gospel to many countries.

I begin today with a true story. A woman called me and said that she and her boyfriend were intimate and because they felt guilty they decided that they would say their marriage vows privately. They went through a very solemn ceremony in his house, sealed the deal, but sometime later the man wanted out of the relationship. He argued that they were not really legally married because after all marriage is more than privately saying your vows just between the two of you even if God is brought in as a witness. So I called him and talked to him about the situation and he said well yes certainly it happened but he said I was basically seduced into this. He said that she carried her wedding dress in the car and afterwards she talked me into it and I helped her into the dress.

We were married and then I helped her out of the dress he said and then he said furthermore this isn't really marriage you know marriage involves more than this so I'm going to walk in this relationship. Well today's topic is living with a foolish vow living with a foolish vow and rather than this being a sermon it's more like a fireside chat on the whole business of vows and unlike most of my sermons the introduction is going to be half of my message as we clarify some issues regarding vows. To begin with a vow is not like a promise. All promises have implied conditions. For example, if I were to say to you I'm going to go out for lunch I'll meet you at a certain restaurant and in the process of going to the restaurant if I've discovered that I have an accident and need to deal with the police you wouldn't come to me later and say well you know Pastor Lutzer doesn't really keep his promises. We understand that there are there are conditions I'll have lunch with you if I don't wake up sick if I'm not in an accident etc etc.

Conditions are implied. When we take our promises our faith promises that we exercise in church for the Christian Life Center for example and with God's help decide how much we can give and contribute to the work we know that even behind that there are some implied conditions. One day a woman came to me and said Pastor Lutzer and she was in distress. She was a young woman and very sensitive to God and she said I made a certain promise that I was going to give x number of dollars a month and the money isn't there I've had some unexpected tragedies and she said I just can't do it. I smiled and I said Lady go in peace without any guilt because we understand that even that promise has some implied conditions even if they're not stated. Now if the situation would have been different if she'd have had the money but said you know I was going through a catalog and I saw this trip to Europe that I've always wanted to take and so I can't give what I committed because because after all you know I I just have changed my mind. Then we have an integrity issue and that integrity issue is very serious because she made a promise that she could fulfill but because of inconvenience decided not to. There's a passage of scripture that reads thusly in Ecclesiastes chapter five when you vow a vow to God do not delay paying it for he has no pleasure in fools pay what you vow it is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay let your mouth not lead you into sin and do not say before the messenger well it was a mistake and my promise has become inconvenient I'm adding that interpretation why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the works of your hands in other words you say something and then God is upset because he takes no pleasure in fools for when dreams increase and words grow many there is vanity that means that don't make a promise or a vow hastily but God is the one that you must fear you say yeah but the promise that I made wasn't really a vow this has to do with vows I understand that but Jesus you remember said this let your yes be yes and your no be no what he said was don't always think that you have to make a vow because there were some people you know who are actually using the whole concept of vows to get around integrity you know they make a vow but their fingers were crossed or they'd make a vow and they'd have some implied conditions and Jesus says if you're a person of integrity you're going to keep your word some time ago there was a woman who asked Rebecca and me whether or not we'd lend her money we'd given her money in the past and now she wanted more and she was going to borrow it from us and she said I am willing to sign a piece of paper that I'll give it back to you and I said to Rebecca tell her this we don't want a piece of paper what good is a piece of paper if you are a person of character you'll return the money character is much more important than that piece of paper turns out that she took up the challenge and she actually did return the money you know that I would much rather and wouldn't you rather deal with a person of character than have someone who doesn't have character even if he swears on a on a stack of bibles that he's going to do something it means absolutely nothing to a person who doesn't have character now our promises are important our yes should be yes and our no should be no I'm told today that our generation finds it very difficult to commit and I say to you with sadness that even among the leadership of moody church at times say you know the ushers the parkers the sunday school workers and a hundred other volunteers that we need and we need a lot more than we have sometimes it's troubling when people agree to something and then they don't follow through and maybe they don't even let people know that they're not going to follow through that's very deeply troubling it does come down to an integrity issue having said that I'm sure that there are some people in the congregation you say well pastor luther there are some things you said you do that I haven't and I have to confess this is a good time I'm in the confessional booth now for a minute there are people who say would you call so and so would you write this letter would you do that and when I say yes I really mean it and I say to myself I want to do that and if I don't do it immediately it gets pushed to the back burner and then it's forgotten about so if at times I've made promises to you I haven't kept I want to use this opportunity to ask your forgiveness because I prefer and desire that my yes would be yes and my no be no the whole issue today of commitment some of us know a man who had an organization where he took money from Christians put it in at a certain rate of interest and then he lent it out at a higher rate of interest and this organization was was I think probably legal and and the scheme should have worked he was a man of integrity but what he did is he actually lent the money to Christians at a handshake because he only dealt with born-again Christians and so he gave this guy this guy says you know I need twenty five thousand dollars for this here's a handshake pay it back in certain terms oh yeah yeah yeah you know what the whole thing went down because I think about only 12 percent of the money came back to him people said well you know we borrowed twenty five thousand dollars and we were going to begin this video store and and it tanked and so we don't have the money to pay you back and I say tough have you mortgaged your house have you sold your car why should that man bear the burden of your lack of integrity and not you if you borrowed it and you said you're going to pay it even though this is referring to oaths or vows a promise like that is very serious when you make a vow do not delay paying it because God does not have pleasure in fools the Bible says and we need in this country and in our churches today a revival of integrity I mean I couldn't believe that about 12 percent of the Christians paid it back and the other said well you know I don't have the money well tough get it you owe it all right I said this was a fireside chat it's becoming a little bit more serious as we go along and I think that's all right thank you for that encouragement all right now very quickly very quickly four characteristics of vows first of all they're voluntary secondly they can be either conditional or unconditional sometimes vows are conditional God says if you walk in my way I will bless you there's an if implied and sometimes we enter into vows like that too we say I'm going to do this I'm going to give you this money if you give me your car in return there's kind of a you have to do this and if you do that I'll do that so they can be also unconditional here you might not be so readily able to clap marriage is an unconditional vow folks when you stand at the marriage altar yeah I'll give you a chance to in just a minute okay when you stand at the marriage altar you're not saying I promise to be faithful to you if you if you fulfill your part of the bargain and are always kind to me are always loving or you do this or or I'm going to marry you as long as and I'll be with you as long as you're as beautiful as you are on your wedding day it's not that folks it's till death do us part very serious we as a staff have a responsibility to talk people out of marriage and we try to do that from time to time I could tell you some very interesting stories one very quickly I said to this man marrying this very beautiful woman I said now if if you're in an accident on your honeymoon and she ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life are you willing to take care of her he thought about that for a few days and called the wedding off he said I know this is serious but I didn't know it was that serious yeah marriage is that serious it's an unconditional vow God is brought in as a witness when we make vows when it says thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain it is really talking about vows and it's talking about court and it's talking about bringing God into witness oh it has other oh it has other implications swearing and all but but that's its primary meaning and that's why in marriage you know we we bring others to to the event yes it is before God but God can't be seen but your friends can be today I'm talking to some people who probably are living together without the benefit of marriage because they're saying very piously what's a piece of paper anyway well I'm going to tell you what a piece of paper is my wife and I bought a house years ago we've sold that house now we're in a condo but every time we've made a move like that we've dealt with people of integrity why didn't we just shake a hand say okay we'll give you so much these are the terms of the deal why do we need attorneys why do we need to sign anything what's a piece of paper is that the way you do business that's not the way we did business they had an attorney we had an attorney we signed documents for a half an hour why because the next day if we traveled down the street and saw a house that we like better than the one that we bought life is tough we're stuck with the one that we bought and that's why you get married with a piece of paper all right you find somebody you wish you had married a week later life is tough you back out of this there are witnesses we saw it and we heard it you'd better keep your promise finally number four in vows both both partners are expected to follow through should you ever break a solemn vow the answer is absolutely yes yes yes whenever you make a vow to do evil break it the old testament there's an example of jeptha just read it this past week studied it in detail a couple of weeks ago read an article about it i'm absolutely convinced judges chapter 11 that jeptha sacrificed his daughter what happened is the heathen in those days were sacrificing their children so jeptha said to god if you if you give me a victory whatever comes out of my house i'll sacrifice well what in the world was he thinking it was a heathen practice he wins the war his daughter comes out of the house and he tears his clothes because of a stupid vow and he sacrifices her foolishness you say well you know he was really a man of integrity he kept his word i'm saying he was foolish that's a mild way to put it when he made the vow he was stupid to have made it when he fulfilled the vow he became evil he should have broken that vow you make a vow like that to do evil the best thing you can do is not to continue in the evil but to break it all vows to satan must be broken there are reasons why satan has no right to make a vow but if you make a vow to him those of you who are in the occult what he wants to do is to have you invest so much time and energy into that relationship that then he he begins to tell you if you leave this relationship you're going to be in for the hassle of your life and you might be but you need to break the vow anyway get christians who know how to fast and pray and seek god and come against the enemy and break that vow in the name of jesus the name that is above every name all right if you're in a if you're in a relationship like that the vow must be broken all same-sex marriage vows should be broken anything that scandalizes god you don't keep scandalizing god you confess the wrongness of the vow but what the bible does not do what it does not do is to give us the opportunity of getting out of a vow because of inconvenience or because of suffering or because of well you name it it doesn't give us that privilege who will ascend into the hill of the lord who will dwell in his holy temple lists people who meet certain conditions and among them is the man who swears to his own hurt but does not change psalm 15 verse 4 the person who says i shouldn't have made this decision it was a bad decision it has inconvenienced me but i'm going to stick with it because integrity matters to god the vow has been made i'm going to keep it you know that uh joshua nine now we're getting to the text joshua nine if you have your bibles if you'd find it there genesis exodus leviticus numbers deuteronomy joshua nine joshua makes a foolish vow joshua makes a foolish vow context of the story here's what happens god had said in the book of exodus do not make any vow with the heathen tribes of the land all right they must have known that that was one of the things that god had instructed joshua about so there's a tribe called the gibeonites and they think to themselves wow josh was wiping out all the different tribes and we're next what we're going to do is to pretend that we are not from the land we are going to say that we originated from a far country and we're going to come and lie about our origin and identity we're not going to tell him that we're just a hill or two over from where he is and we're going to trick him into making a treaty with us so what do they do they get some very old sandals they get moldy bread they have dusty clothes and they come to josh when they say hey look when we began this journey our bread was fresh when we began this journey our bread was fresh when we began this journey our sandals were clean and now of course we we have come from a very far land would you make a treaty with us not to kill us well that's the context of the story joshua chapter 9 they are speaking and they say in verse 11 so our elders and all the inhabitants of our country this is now the gibeonites who are talking they said to us take provisions in your hand for the journey and go meet them and say to them we are your servants come now make a covenant with us here's our bread it was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey on the day we set out to come to you but now behold it is dry and crummy crumbly these wineskins were new when we filled them and behold they have burst and these garments and sandals of ours are worn out from the very long journey please make a covenant with us verse 14 so the men took some of their provisions but did not ask counsel from the lord and joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live and the leaders of the congregation swore to them joshua can you imagine that joshua whom we honor for so many good reasons he does not ask the counsel of the lord is that you i'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who wrote even though i had a wife and two kids my life was all about me i'd been involved in betting on football and organized crime when i got saved within a week everyone knew that i was saved i started to work as a delivery driver and listening to christian radio your program helped me discern false teaching and grow as a new christian i've been preaching the gospel on the streets and in churches for 40 years i share your teaching wherever i go and am eternally grateful god is with us in bad decisions when we come to him and ask him to clean up our mess we here at the ministry of running to win are so deeply grateful for the blessing that this ministry is around the world but also it would not be possible were it not for people just like you who become what i like to call a part of the running to win family would you consider becoming an endurance partner that's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts of course you need info so i hope you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write this down go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com and when you're there you click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer you can call us right now at 1-888-218-9337 we are so deeply grateful as i've already mentioned for your participation in this ministry and i would ask you to prayerfully consider becoming an endurance partner go to rtwoffer.com when you're there you click on the endurance partner button or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 consider joining the running to win family well today is friday i encourage you this weekend go to a gospel preaching church you can write to us at running to win 1635 north lasalle boulevard chicago illinois 60614 next time on running to win more from the book of joshua on keeping reckless promises they never should have made don't miss our next program for pastor irwin lutzer this is dave mccallister running to win is sponsored by the moody church you