Leviticus chapter 27. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the person shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. And thy estimation shall be of the male, from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. And if it be from five years old, even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. And if it be from a month old, even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. And if it be from sixty years old and above, if it be a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. But if he be poor than thy estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him according to his ability that thou shalt the priest value him. And if it be a beast, whereof men bring an offering unto the Lord, All that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy. He shall not alter it nor change it, a good for a bad or a bad for a good. And if he shall at all change beast for beast, then in the exchange thereof shall be holy. And if it be any unclean beast, of which they did not offer a sacrifice unto the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest. And the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad. As thou valuest it, who art the priest, so shall it be. But if he will it all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereof unto the estimation. And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad, as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. And if he that sanctifieth it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his. And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof, and Homer of Barlesey shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. And if he sanctify his field from the year of Jubilee according to thy estimation, it shall stand. But if he sanctify his field after the Jubilee, Then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of Jubilee, and it shall be abated from thy estimation. And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him. And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. But the field, when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord, as a field devoted. The possession thereof shall be the priest's. And if a man sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession, then the priest shall recommend to him the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of jubilee. And he shall give thine estimation in that day as a holy thing unto the Lord. In the year of Jubilee, the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong. And all thy estimations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 20 gera shall be the shekel. Only the firstling of the beast, which should be the Lord's firstling, No man shall sanctify it, whether it be ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. And if it be of an unclean beast, then he shall redeem it according to thy estimation, and shall add a fifth part of it thereto. Or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thy estimation. Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted which shall be devoted of men shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death. And all the tithe of the land, whether it be the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy under the Lord. And if a man will of all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd or of the field, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it. And if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed. These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this opportunity to study it. We just pray that Your Holy Spirit would guide our understanding, that we might understand it and apply it properly. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright. As I said, we're fine for the last chapter of the book of Leviticus. But don't worry, we've got numbers right after that. We've got more to go. But we've seen a lot, and it's sort of wrapped up in the last chapter in 27. Everything kind of wrapped it up. But at the very end here, this last chapter, it's still the same formula. God speaks to Moses. Moses says he's out for the people. But this is all regarding their vows. We've got the offerings. That's been all said. What you offer each day. What you do for sin offerings and for heave offerings and all that sort of thing. But this is about special offerings. And you kind of needed everything else before to understand how this works. So God put it at the end. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow. This isn't any regular offering. This isn't the Day of Atonement. This isn't a sin offering. This isn't any of the specified offerings. This is a voluntary offering. He makes a vow. And we know that happens. People a lot of times say, we see examples in Scripture. you know, examples from life, and, oh Lord, if you will just do this, and I vow, do that. We've got to be careful with that, because you don't manipulate God by promising Him things. But if you do do it, stick with it. In Numbers 30, verse 2, If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. So if we do, it's completely voluntary. You don't ever have to say, God, If you do this, I vow I'll do this. Okay, that's up to you. But if you do it, you better stick to it. We tend to do these things under times of stress. It's kind of foxhole prayers and things like that. But we have Hannah. Hannah said, Lord, if you'll give me a son, I will give him back unto you. Well, she did have a son. His name was Samuel. And what did she do? As soon as he was weaned and able to care for himself, she brought him back and gave him to the Lord's work. He was there to be a helper to Eli in the sanctuary. So she vowed a vow, she kept the vow. So we need to be careful with our vows, but if we do make one, we sure need to keep it. It said, when a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. So this is a little odd. He's talking about, in this first part, if we vow a vow about a person. So if we vow a vow about ourselves and say, Lord, I will give myself to you for your service, whatever. If you say, Lord, I will give this child unto you for your service, or whatever we vow. If the object of the vow concerns a person, then that person is assigned a value. Doesn't mean that you can put a value on human life, but it is for this process that you assign a value because there's redemption available. You can redeem things by paying 20% over, but you've got to know what it's worth to know what the 20% is and so forth. So God is putting a value, sort of like the value you would put on a slave. What's the value of their labor, basically? And thy estimation shall be of the male. Okay, here's the main thing. A male, 20 years old to 60 years old. That's prime working age, right? 20 to 60. That's the years if they could fight, years they could be a priest. Obviously, that's the main adult productive years. If it's a man that's 20 to 60, even that estimation shall be 50 shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary. They even had a specified coinage. You know, now we have weights and measures and coins. Of course, our money, It's all related to itself. It's not anchored to anything in particular anymore. We now have floating currency because you can't say this bill, and used to, I mean my grandfather showed me some $20 that were silver certificates. And it said you could take this and trade it for so much silver at a fixed rate. That's gone. So money isn't tied in, but it's tied to itself. But here it says there's 50 shekels and there's a standard sanctuary shekel. You can't just say, well my shekel's this big and your shekel's this big, whatever. There's a standard weight, it's a shekel. And the sanctuary apparently kept that standard weight. But a man in his prime working years was estimated the value of that vow. Because when you vowed, you basically gave them to the Lord's service. In other words, this person might go and work for the priest, work for the Levite. Say, OK, I vowed myself. Here I am. And they say, OK, we want you to help us haul wood, and we want you to do this and do that. Well, a man 20 to 60 is going to be the prime strength to be able to do that kind of thing. So he's valued at a high value of 50 shekels of silver. I notice that that's higher than what Judas valued Jesus at. He valued him at just the price of a slave at 30 shekels. If it'd be a female, then by estimation, it shall be 30 shekels. Okay, so there you go. The Bible's prayed that just women aren't worth as much as men. No. What you're doing is you're buying manual labor. And I hate to tell you this, but men are stronger than women. As much as our society tries to deny that fact, it's just an obvious fact. Nothing wrong with that, that's just the way it is. Women are certainly better at having babies and caring for babies and doing lots of things that are just as valuable, but when you're selling somebody for manual labor, a big strong man, 20 to 60, is worth more than a woman in that ranch, or more than a child, or more than an old man, or all these things. So they're just setting values based on their labor. And if it be from five years old, even under 20, so now you've got a child, or as a young child at five, or maybe an almost grown man at 20, thy estimation shall be 20 shekels, and for the female, 10 shekels. And if it be from a month old, even under five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male, five shekels of silver, and for the female, thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. So if you made a vow about a child, Lord, I'm dedicating this child to you. Well, that child is worth five or three shekels according to that. That's the valuation. Not that the money was changing hands, but that's the valuation in case of redemption and so forth. And if it be from 60 years old and above, just at 60 and up, male shall be 15 shekels, female 10. So it's true, we can't do as much work at 60 and above as we could at 20 to 60. That's just the way it goes. Less valuable than that and less time to do it. Not as strong. But if he be poorer than my estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest And the priest shall value him according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him. So let's say you've got this guy. He's a 40-year-old male. 50 shekels of silver is what he's valued at. So then it'd have to be to redeem him. He would have to be another 20% on top of that, which is 60 shekels of silver. That's what it would take. But the guy's hardworking, healthy, but he's poor as a church mouse. And he says, I made this vow. I'd like to redeem it, but that's far more than I can afford. Well, the priest looks at his finances and says, you're right. You don't have that kind of money. So I'm going to lower your valuation to 20 shekels, because that's what you can afford. So now he has the opportunity to be able to redeem himself just as someone with more money at 50 could redeem himself. He puts an estimation based on what he can afford to pay. Now, that's about people. Of course, people, it's kind of confusing, but we'll talk about it more in a minute. Now let's talk about if it's a beast that you made a vow. You said, oh Lord, I'm just so blessed that my ox had two good healthy calves. I'm going to dedicate one of them to you. Okay. Then now it's a beast instead of a person. Where if men bring an offering, and Lord, it has to be something that's clean, that can be an offering. goat, a lamb, a calf, that sort of thing. All that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy. So you didn't have to give your ox-calf to the Lord. But if you made a vow and said, Lord, I'm giving this to you, then it's His. It's God's. It's set apart now. Psalm 50, verse 14 says, Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most Holy. When you make God a promise, you better keep it. He shall not alter it nor change it. Remember the story about the farmer that came in all excited and told his wives, said, honey, the cow had two calves. I'm just so excited. God just blessed us that I'm going to give one of them to the Lord. She said, okay, well, which is ours and which is the Lord's? He said, it doesn't matter. We'll figure it out later when it's old enough to take it in and sacrifice. But then he came in one night and said, honey, the Lord's calf died. He made his mind up then. No, you don't change it. You make it up, and if that was the Lord's calf, fine, that's the Lord's calf. But if that was yours, then you still give the Lord the good calf. You don't change it. If it turns out bad, you don't change it. When you set it apart and say, this is God's, then that one's God's, period. You don't swap it, for good reason or bad. And if he shall at all change beast for beast, but if he does swap it out, then it and the exchange shall be holy. So if you say, well, I changed my mind. I really want to keep this one and I'm going to give him that one. Okay, just give him both because they both belong to God now. Ecclesiastes 5.4 says, when thou vows to vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. So there in Ecclesiastes, Solomon tells us, that the person who doesn't pay his vows to God is a fool. You know, we're pretty much afraid to not pay our debt to the IRS, whether we agree with it, like it or not, because we're afraid of what they might do to us. Well, yeah, you've got a chance of getting audited, you've got a chance of getting fined, you've got a chance of getting jailed, but I'm still more afraid of God than I am of the IRS. There's not many things I can say that about, but God should be feared more so he should be more diligent to keep your vows to God than even to the IRS. And if it be any unclean beast. So if you made a vow, but it's not something that they can sacrifice in the temple, okay? It's a pig. Well, they're not going to have a pig in Israel, but it's some unclean animals, a camel, okay? donkey, of which they do not offer a sacrifice to the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest." So it's like, well, I vowed my donkey, but I can't offer him for a sacrifice because he's an unclean animal. So you take the donkey to the priest, and the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad. As to that value, who art the priest, so shall it be. So the priest says, okay, that looks like a good, strong donkey. He's pretty well, I think he's worth 10 shekels of silver. That's what that donkey you vowed is worth. But if ye will it all redeem it, then ye shall add a fifth part thereof unto thy estimation." So he says, but I'm going to need this donkey. My other donkey died and I need this donkey to do work and whatever. Well, that's fine. He's worth ten shekels. Add a fifth to it. You can have him back. You give the offering to God, the money, instead of the donkey. That's perfectly fine. He has to redeem it one way or another. He says you've got to redeem it because you can't sacrifice it, you can sell it. He could also sell it if he wanted to and give that as the money. And when a man shall sanctify his house. So we've had people, animals, now objects. To be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad, the priest shall estimate it and so it shall stand. Again, a house. Okay, a person, they just broke it into age groups and that sets the value. But a house, you know, it could be a little wooden lean-to or it could be a mansion. He says, let the priest look at it and say what it's worth. This is what you vowed to give to God, then the priest will tell you the value of it. And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his. If he says, well, I changed my mind, I want to keep the house, perfectly fine. You take the evaluation of it, what it's worth, add a fifth or 20% to it, give that as an offering, you can keep your house. And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof. And Homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver." So he said the land is worth the crops you plant on it. How much seed does it take to plant this piece of land? That gives an idea of what the yield is going to be. That's what it's worth. So if it's enough land to plant one Homer worth of barley, then that's 50 shekels of silver. So now you've got an estimate. If it's only worth a half, you can half that. If it's worth ten times that, ten times, it gives you a value. If he sanctified his field from the year of Jubilee, according to thy estimation, it shall stand." So if this is Jubilee and he values, he vows his field to give it to God, he says, okay, fine, he gave it to God. This Jubilee, it now belongs to God or to the priest. But if he sanctified his field after the Jubilee, you know, if it's 10 years into the Jubilee of the 50, Then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of Jubilee, and it shall be abated from my estimation." Just to clear us, if this is a $1,000 piece of land and it's the year of Jubilee, it's $1,000. If you're halfway through, if you're 25 years in, it's worth $500. Because the land always goes back in Jubilee, so that's its value. And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money to the estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him." So he can redeem it back, same thing. And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. So if he doesn't redeem it, it stays. He's given it to God, that stays. Or, if he sells it to somebody else, well at the end of the Jubilee it doesn't come back to him, it goes to the priest. But the field, when it goeth out in the Jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord, as a field devoted, the possession thereof shall be the priest. Okay, so you can give part of your land, but it doesn't come back to you in the Jubilee, it belongs permanently to the priest. You say, I've vowed this land to God, I want it to be used for whatever purposes. You've given it to build a church on, you've given it to raise crops, to earn money, to help support the priest. You can do that. Someone could say, well, I don't have a lot of money to give, but I'd like support. I can give my land. You can do that. And if a man sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession, so he bought this field from somebody else, okay, it's not his inheritance, but he bought a neighbor's field, and then if he wants to give it to the Lord, he can, then the priest shall reckon unto him the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of Jubilee, and it shall give thine estimation in that day as a holy thing unto the Lord." So it's worth this much. So he can give that amount of money. Or, in the year of Jubilee, the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong. Because remember, the land that you bought didn't belong to you permanently. It just belonged to you until the next year of Jubilee. So all he can do is give them the worth of that land until it goes back, but when the jubilee hits, it goes back to the original owner. He can't tell the original owner, well, sorry, I gave your field away. I can't get it back to you, no. It goes back in jubilee, just like the Lord said. And all thy estimation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary. Twenty geras shall be the shekel. So, there's a standard measure. That's important. That's how you do trade. That's how you do money, everything else. We've got standards and measures for everything. You know, we have a National Bureau of Standards that says, you know, a foot is this long and a yard is this long and this and that. And they have, you know, a standard there physically in the Standards Bureau. Now, that's changing. We're starting to change things because of technology into wavelengths of light and this and that for precise measures. So we're kind of moving away from a physical standard there, but they still use them. So he gave a monetary standard, which is important because God wants fair weights and measures. He established this, and that's right. He says you can't just cut a little short. Have you ever noticed a quarter? Bumpy on the outside? That's rough around there? Well, it doesn't really matter these days, but it used to matter because when coins were really made out of silver, people could scrape their coins down a little. You just take all your coins that pass through your hands and you just kind of scrape off a little bit of silver. Now that quarter is not really a quarter, it's a 22 and a half cent or whatever. Well, they put those ridges on there so you could tell if someone had shaved it down. You could tell that they had cut some off. We do it fancy ways now. We do, you know, all the money that goes through Las Vegas, they keep their house percentage, but it's the same way on the stock market. You know, I remember when this happened, but I didn't know why. Do you remember stock market used to be in eighths? A stock price would be $22.78 or something like that. It was in eighths. Then they changed it to sixteenths. And then they went to digits. So now it's down to the penny. Well, the reason they did that, I thought it was just because of computers or something. No, the reason they did that is these big stock traders were making money on those margins. Because at an eighth, what is that? Twelve and a half cents? They could make that twelve and a half cents on every share that they traded. Because that's as close as you can get it to its value. And so these big trading houses were making money off of that. These little margins and things like that. They still do it now, even when it's down to the penny. If there's a slight gap between New York and Chicago and this and that, they've got computers that'll whip that and buy it and turn around and sell it and make a penny apiece. But when you're trading millions of shares at a time, it's sure money. So there's still some coin shaving going on out there in our world. It's just a little different. But God set it up, and He said, this is what a shekel's worth. Let's set up a standardized set. And it stayed the same. Now, here's the vows and the offerings. He said, okay, when you vow something, you can vow anything you want. Your house, your land, your animals, yourself. And here's the values of it, and how we're going to handle that. You can pay that value, or you can pay it by giving the animal itself. But there's an exception because there is the law of the firstborn. Remember the firstborn. Ever since the first Passover in Egypt, when God killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians, but the Israelites, he spared all the firstborn because they had the blood over the door. So God said, okay, the firstborn that you would have lost belonged to me. They're mine. So therefore, the firstborn of everything is always dedicated to God. Whether it's a child, an animal, whatever, the first goes to God. So he says, only the firstlings of the beast, which should be the Lord's. Now they're the Lord's. Now God didn't take all the firstlings because he said, I will take the Levites to be the firstborns for me, for the people. But for the animals, he said, that firstling goes to God. The very first calf that's born to that cow, the first lamb that's born to that sheep, and so on. He said, no man shall sanctify it or make it as a vow, whether it be ox or sheep. It's the Lord's already. So if you think you're getting slick, going to come out on this one, well, OK, I'm going to make this vow. God, if you make my crops come in good this year, I'll give you that first calf for my new cow. God said, uh-uh, mine. You can't give me what's already mine. It belongs to me. Because it does. Because the first one always goes to God already. So you said you can't use that. You can give the second one as an extra if you want to, but the first one already belongs to God. You already sacrificed it as it is. Same way with our tithe. Our tithe, that's the first fruit. God says the first tithe, the tenth, of everything that we get, all of our increase, whether it's increase in our field, or increase in our bank account, or increase in what comes in our paycheck, the first tenth of it belongs to Him. You can't say, well, look God, I'm giving you this offering. God says, no, that already belongs to me. If you want to give me something above that, feel free. You're not required to, but if you want to, to show your love or appreciation or whatever, go ahead. But you can't count that first tenth as anything but it already belongs to God. Because how does God feel about it? Well, Malachi, what does he say? You have robbed me. You have not been bringing your tithe into my storehouse. In other words, it already belongs to God. If you don't give it to him, you're stealing from God. If you do give it to him, you're just giving him back what's already his. Which, as a New Testament believer, we realize that everything we have is really his in the first place, isn't it? He just asked that first 10%, but we give him whatever he wants. It's his to begin with. One preacher was telling that one time he kind of shocked, he got up in the pulpit and said, well, I have an announcement to make. He said, we've had a robbery from the church treasury. He said, there have been hundreds and thousands of dollars stolen from the Lord's offering and it's in your wallet. He was talking about the tithes that we haven't paid. that we should have paid. He was talking about that. Maybe that was a little extreme, but he made the point. But that's what God says. He says, the first born of all your animals is already mine, so you can't set that as a special vow. You already owe them. It's the Lord's. And if it be of an unclean beast, then he shall redeem it according to thy estimation, and shall add a fifth part thereto. Or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thy estimation. The first born of the cow, the calf, goes to the priest. If you really want to redeem it, you can add 20% and buy it back. Otherwise, it's just an offering, a sacrifice, and it goes to feed the priest, and that's great. If it's a donkey, well, you can't sacrifice that, so either you buy it back for 20% extra, or you just let the priest sell it for what it was worth. If it's worth 20 shekels, then he sells it for 20 shekels, and the money goes to the offering, because you can't sacrifice an unclean beast. Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord." So, in other words, if you promised it to God, it's God's. Don't take it back. It belongs to Him. Now, legitimately, you can buy it back for the 20% extra, but, you know, pay your vows. Solomon said, it's better to not vow than to vow and not pay. None devoted which shall be devoted of men shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death. Now, wait a minute. What is this? We got human sacrifice? No. That's not it. We've been through Leviticus. Okay, you've read all Leviticus now. Is there any human sacrifice in there anywhere? No. It's not in there. So what if these men that had to be put to death. Well, what about when God sent Saul out to destroy the Amalekites and he brought back the king? Has God got angry about that? Yes, because he was under orders to destroy the Amalekites completely. So, all the Amalekites should have been put to death, but he didn't. He preserved the king and preserved cheap and various other things where you disobey. So if it's set for death for some reason, if this person is under death penalty according to the law to be stoned, then they need to be stoned. You can't pay a redemption and get out. So if you get a biblical death penalty, you can't pay 20% more and get off the hook. No. If you're set for death according to the law, then death it is. And all the tithe of the land, whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It's holy under the Lord. As we said before, the first fruits, it's God's. You can't decide, you can't say, well, what am I going to do with it? I'm going to keep it, invest it in this, and then I'll make more money next year, and so my tithe will be even bigger next year. Every time I hear somebody say, oh, well, I'm going to go off and do this thing, and I'm just praying the Lord will really bless it, because think how big my tithe is going to be. from this thing, I don't think they're thinking about the tie, they're thinking about the 90% they're going to keep. And if a man would all redeem out of his ties, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. So you can't just, it's kind of like your IRA. If you want to take it out before 57 and a half, you're going to pay the government a 10% penalty. Because they set it aside. When they set it up there, they said, well, this money is yours, sort of. That's kind of what the government is, right? It's sort of your money. I mean, you get your statement from your bank and IRA, and you look at that and say, oh, that looks like a nice number. But if you touch it, the government's going to say, well, it's really ours. We'll let you have 90% of it, less taxes, of course. And so it's not all yours like you think. Well, the tithe is God's. It's His. And if you decide you want that particular thing back, Then you pay 20% extra. God says for that, I'll let you have it back. But you're still offering that 20% extra to redeem it because it belongs to God. It's not yours. And that reminds us, and I guess I'll say something on the good side. I don't want to say anything bad about the government all the time. That interest penalty sure reduces the temptation to go mess with your IRA, doesn't it? Because, boy, you think, oh, man, this car is getting old and I'd like to have a new car, but I really can't afford it. But, you know, all that money sitting in that IRA, if I go take that out, well, if there was no penalty, a lot of us would do it, wouldn't we? We'd say, well, that's my present need. I'll worry about retirement later. And we'd take that money out. When we go to take that money out, And they say, OK, you can take it, but you're going to have to pay taxes on it. And here's your penalties. And you look, and you're only getting half of it back. Then you think, I'll just leave it there. Just leave it there. And I think that's what God does. He says, if you want to take that tithe back, it belongs to me. But I'll sell it to you for 20% interest. 20% over that, feel free. So you could make a pretty good living at that, couldn't you? In concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock, even if whatsoever passeth under the rod, okay, the herd passeth under the rod. I always think of cattle shoots. When I grew up in West Texas and rodeos and whatever, you always take the cows and you run them through a narrow chute. That way you can control them, where they go, you can count on them, you can do whatever. Well, even here in the Middle East, the sheep, if you wanted to count them, well, you have this whole flock of sheep. And I don't know about you, but I have trouble counting stuff that moves. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the train, counting the cars as it goes by, and they're coming one at a time. But if you've got a whole flock of sheep out in the field, you're standing where you can see them all, you start counting, but then they're moving around. You can't quite, did I count that one yet? I'm not sure. So what you do, is you put them up at the pen at night, you just put the rod over, and Sending that pen one at a time. One, two, you know, you say one. Okay, that's the Lord's. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One. Pull that one. Two, three, four, five. Every tenth one that goes under that rod, pull them out. That's the Lord's. And that'll be the new crop each year. You don't have to go through your flock every year pulling out the same ones. It's your increase, your new lambs that come through. You take one out every ten. That's the Lord. The tenth is holy under the Lord. He shall not search, whether it be good or bad, neither shall He change it. And if He changes it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed." God says a promise is a promise. He says, when you vow something, give me that one. You might have the best intentions of the world and say, Lord, that one doesn't look too good. Here, let me get you a better one. God says, nope. I want my tenth. When they come through the line, every time you cook one, every time you hit ten, pull out that first one, count ten more, pull out the first one, so on. Give me that one. Don't say, well, the third one back here looks a little better, because I think he knows that we're kind of tempted to say, well, that one, boy, that was my favorite one. I really don't want to give him that one. We might tell him to pull another. He said, whichever one it lands on, that's it. That's it. Pull that one. Good or bad? Pull that one. Give me that one. That's mine. And if you do decide to change it, then give me both. And if you want to, you say, boy, that first lamb I pulled out there, that's just a real runt. He just really does. I just don't want to give that to God. You can pull one and two. Give them both to God. Feel free. Give them both. Better it is that thou shouldest not vow, and thou shouldest vow and not pay. That's a serious thing and we don't do what they did in the Old Testament. We don't have the vows and the sacrifices and this and that. But we do sometimes try to bargain with God, don't we? We just say, oh Lord, if you'll just do this for me, I'll do that for you. And I would suggest you not do that. But I would absolutely suggest, and more than a suggestion, that if you do that, you better keep it. Now if you do something really foolish that you just can't keep, like you say, I'm going to give you the first thing that comes out of my house and your daughter walks out. Okay, there's been some foolish vows. Then do your best to redeem it. It may cost you. You have to pay extra, but you do it right. It's like On Wednesday night, we watched the owner of the boat company. They went bankrupt. But because of his Christian belief though, he said, Lord, if you'll allow me, I'm going to pay back every cent that we owe to our stockholders because their stock went to nothing. And over the years, God blessed their business and he paid every last cent back. Now, legally, he didn't have to do that. you know, our courts and everything else. He didn't have to. When you buy stock, you buy stock. Or if you were debtor, I don't know if these are all stockholders, but they were debtor, you know, they were the creditors that he owed money to. He paid every last dime back. It cost him. It sure did when he was struggling to rebuild that business and get it to go. But he paid the price and Lord blessed his business and they They took off and have been blessed ever since. So God gives us a way to redeem, but it cost us a little extra. So if we're foolish in our vows, keep it or redeem it. But it's very important to do what we promise God, because God always does what he promises us. And then he wraps up and says, these are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai. That's it. He's gone all the way, starting in Exodus. They've been at Mount Sinai and where God came out and stood on the mountain. And he came down in a cloud that I think had lightning and fire and was really frightening the people. But they stood all around the mountain at a distance, didn't allow anyone to get close. And God gave them the Ten Commandments. That they should not have any other gods before him. They should not make any graven image. that they should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. They should honor their father and their mother. They shouldn't kill, shouldn't commit adultery, shouldn't bear false witness, shouldn't covet. Give them all these things. And he said, if you want me to be your God, here's my covenant with you. Here are the rules that I lay out. And if you will do this, I will be your God and go with you and take care of you. And they all said, Yes Lord, we accept that. They stood there, so they made a vow with God. Now they should have remembered you need to keep your vows because they didn't wait very long, did they? They didn't make it through the next 40 days before they broke their vows. And God punished them. Many of them died. You think, well, what? What kind of loving God is that? Well, what kind of God is He that if He gives you commandments and you vow to keep them and you disobey and He doesn't do anything? That's not much of a God either, is it? God can't just say, oh well, forget all that stuff I said in the Bible and all those commandments I gave and the day I said, the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die, the wages of sin is death, all that kind of stuff. Well, you know, okay, we're just letting everybody into heaven anyway. You sure wouldn't vote for him as a judge around here, would you? No. No, he is a holy God, and he keeps his vows. But he's also a loving God, and he corrects us. He corrects the people. Did he immediately destroy the entire people of Israel with fire? No, he didn't. Would have been justified, but he didn't do it. He didn't even kill Aaron, who made the thing. No. He punished them, they suffered, but he corrected them to teach them obedience. Bring them back, and he's done that over and over and over again. You've sure seen it in Israel. I know that most of Israel, most of the Jews are not believers today, but they're still around, aren't they? God has preserved them as a people. They're still an identifiable people, and there's an identifiable land, and he's given them, he's let them suffer much. But it's because He cares about them. He keeps them. There's going to be Jews, Israelites, to the end of the world. And it even says that they're going to turn back and recognize Jesus Christ as their Savior. God is continuing to correct them until they turn. We as His church, we feel like we've kind of gotten away with it. Because as His church, we've been disobedient to, haven't we? I mean, especially today when you look at things. You know, the big push is for homosexual marriage. There's a book that came out recently by a professing Christian who says that he views God's Word highly and he believes it's all true and it applies to his life. But he argues that homosexual marriage is perfectly compatible with the Scripture. Well, he had to do a lot of twisting to get there. But that's where we're going. And my prediction is the vast majority of churches within the next 10 years will approve of it, openly approve of it. Because that's where our society's gone. I mean, look at what happened with divorce. The church used to take a stand against divorce, but do you ever hear anything now? I mean, think about that one. That's not even close. You can hardly get any preacher to take a stand about homosexual marriage. They ask them and they just say, well, you know, that's not my thing. I don't talk about it. You know, they don't take a stand. We've turned away from God, even in the church, certainly in our country. And we feel like we got away with it because we don't feel like God has really reproved us. I think He has reproved us. I think He is reproving us. I think that's why we've got churches that are shrinking every year. There's less churches. I heard this week that the average congregation size of a church in America is 40 people. If they're counting Rick Warrens and some of those huge churches, then there's a bunch of little bitty churches to bring the average down to that. Our churches are struggling and small, and I think it's a reproof. I think God has been gracious to us. God is patient. God is slow to anger. He hasn't given us the kind of judgment that we deserve. But we don't need to think that God won't judge. Not just out of anger and meanness, but because He loves us. Because He said, those that are mine, I will reprove. He'll judge His church, I think, long before He'll judge this country. What's going on in the church, because we're His. Yes, the country shall be punished. Look at Israel over time. Yes, the nations Babylon got punished, Syria got punished, all those nations that invaded them and mistreated them got punished, but who got punished first? Israel. Now it says, my judgment begins at the house of the Lord. Because where he is, we belong to him. It's like when daddy gets home, he's going to take care of his kids first. It may have been the neighbor kid you were fighting with, but he's going to deal with you first. Then maybe later he'll go talk to the dad of the kid next door, but you're first. Guarantee it. Well, let's don't forget that the Lord cares enough about us. He will reprove us. And we don't seek Him and follow Him, but it's not something to be dreaded. It's not fun at the time, but it's because He loves us and wants to turn us back to His path. And I think that's where our prayers need to be, individually, as a church, individual churches, all the churches that are His. that we would turn back and seek the Lord instead of trying to find excuses for why we can do what we want to do instead of what He clearly says in His Word. If we stand for His Word, even though it's not popular, even though it doesn't draw big crowds, I think God will bless that. But if we're not willing to stand up for it, then I think we'll be under His judgment as well.