Commit with Caution

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

We don’t tend to take our promises very seriously as people to one another, and definitely we don’t tend to take our promises or our vows to God very seriously, and that has great consequences. The theme, as I’ve said, of verses 4 through 7 is the making of vows. What is a vow? A vow is a solemn or serious promise, typically to God, where a person commits to do something. They commit to either give something or to do something, to do something with their time, to do something with their resources. Again, a vow, especially in the Old Testament, is this promise to God, this commitment or vow to God dedicating themselves or their resources to God’s service.

Perhaps one of the most special or well-known vows you could make in the Old Testament was the Nazarite vow, described in Numbers 6. This was a vow of separation, where for this particular period of time, you were not to have any kind of product from the vine, no grapes, no grape juice, no wine, nothing was to get into you that was a product of a vine, no razor was to be used on the head. Of course we know that one of the people who took this vow was who? Samson. And of course the whole issue then with him having his hair cut was that it was a breaking of his Nazarite vow. It wasn’t that there was magical powers in the lovely locks flowing from his head, It was that because of the vow, God very much so blessed and rewarded Samson in his fighting, in his battling, in his work.

And the breaking of the vow, the cutting of his hair, saw obviously great consequences in Samson’s life. In Numbers 21, verse 2, you might see a vow made in connection with a blessing or a hopeful blessing in battle. before a conflict or a fight might make this vow to God where they promised to do this if God would do this. That was a typical place to make a vow. It was often you would make a promise to God. You would promise to make certain sacrifices, literal sacrifices, or promise to devote even your firstborn. Hannah was an example of that who promised a vow to God to give up her firstborn if God would just give her a child. So all kinds of vows are found throughout the Old Testament. Perhaps the most famous vow in the Old Testament comes from the man named Jephthah. And you remember that Jephthah made a vow to the Lord that if the Lord gave him victory, that the first thing that came to him when he returned home, He would sacrifice to the Lord.

And what was the first thing that came to him when he returned home? His daughter. That was not what he was expecting. He apparently was thinking that the first thing that would come to him would have been some animal. I assume he figured it would be some kind of animal. Something other than his daughter that would come to him. We don’t actually get a final explanation on the fulfillment of his vow. She does ask for some time off to go to the mountains and mourn the fact that she would not be getting married. She would not have any children. And we don’t really hear whether then he does go ahead and kill her or whether he just separates her and so she’s never married.

It seems likely that that is what happens.

Not that he actually offers her as a sacrifice where he then kills her, that would actually break some other very clear laws in the Old Testament. Just devoting her to a life of singleness and celibacy doesn’t break any laws though it was definitely unnecessary and definitely not something that probably she appreciated a whole lot, at least initially. But that in fact functions as a perfect example of a rash, a quick, a thoughtless promise to God that ended up costing Jephthah and his daughter pretty significantly. And in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verses 4-7, Solomon as well is encouraging us not to be rash or thoughtless in the promises and the vows that we make to God. And who of us has not done that at some point in time? Who of us has not made some kind of promise to God, maybe in the hearing of other people, maybe we’ve communicated that with our parents or with our small groups or whoever might be, maybe it was just something that was between us and the Lord, but almost everybody, I’m guessing at some point, has made some kind of vow or promise based on something we were

going to do for God, something that we were going to sacrifice to Him either with time or talents or our resources, whatever it might be, almost all of us have made some kind of vow or promise to God. In times of desperation, in times where the situation looked really bleak and we more than anything else clearly understood that God was the only one who was going to be able to help us. So we make this promise to God. God, if you will help me in this situation I will do such and such.” That is a vow. That is a promise that we make to God. In times of desperation we make potentially thoughtless promises. And not only in times of desperation, but when we want to show off, we make great promises to God as well. That That is probably the least amount of work you have to do to impress other people is just say you’re going to do something for God and then not have to do it.

That is the most low cost way to make other people think you must be super spiritual, you must be super amazing and have this just terrific love for God. just talk about all the great things you’re going to do for God. And then whether you do them or not, hey, well, you know, at least I had good intentions. At least that’s what I thought or wanted at some point. Isn’t that better? Isn’t making these promises to do things, to make these sacrifices, to give up my time, whatever it is, isn’t that at least better than not making any kind of promise at all? At least it shows I’m thinking about God and I’m wanting to please Him, well, Solomon tells us just the opposite.

It is fools who thoughtlessly make these promises and these commitments to God, either because they’re in times of desperation and they’re not really serious about fulfilling their end of the bargain, or because they’re just trying to show themselves off and impress other people. In an example of this last part, this last one where you’re trying to impress other people, I think is Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, who talked a really big game about how much they were giving to God, how much they were devoting, they sold some property, and they certainly didn’t have to give any of the money to God, to the church. And even if they would have just said that they were going to give part instead of saying they were going to give all and then hiding that they only gave apart, what was the point of saying they were going to give it all? Well, certainly to impress the other people.

And so this commitment, this promise that they make was actually a lie. And what was the consequences for them. God actually took their lives. And in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, 4 through 7, where we’re encouraged to commit with caution, it may not be that God takes our actual lives, but it may be that He resolves Himself to set out and destroy what it is that we’re trying to do. Well, there are two parts. Two authoritative admonitions that Solomon gives us when it comes to making vows. Number one, keep your promise without delay. Keep your promise without delay in verses 4 and 5. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow, then that you should vow and not pay. Four subparts to this particular admonition. Keep your promise without delay. First of all is the admonition itself. The very first part of verse 4. When you vow to God, when you make a promise, when you commit that you are going to do something to God, whether that again is in the privacy

of your room, the privacy of your own personal prayers to Him, or whether other people know about it and hear you describe these great things that you’re going to do when you vow about to God, do not delay in paying it. Do not put it off. Do not procrastinate. Don’t wait for the better time. Typically those are just rationalizations or reasons are procrastinating to then not end up paying at all. And so, the delay here is not just because, you know, you didn’t have the resources to do it at the moment. It’s likely because you’re trying to put it off till tomorrow so that maybe you can put it off altogether and never have to do it.

Don’t delay. In this respect, Solomon is actually giving us the same kind of instruction and admonition that we find through the rest of the Old Testament on vows. In fact, look at Deuteronomy 23. Verse 21, If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it. For the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. If you make a promise and a commitment and you don’t do it, that’s not just okay let’s forget about it, that is actually sinful. Verse 22, But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips.

For you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. That’s a pretty simple thing. Don’t make a promise you are unwilling to fulfill. Because if you make a promise specifically to God and don’t fulfill that, then you have actually sinned. Whereas you didn’t need to make a commitment necessarily, if you do make that commitment, you delay in paying, God will require it. Because again, he takes those things very seriously. Look at Proverbs chapter 20. Proverbs chapter 20 verse 25. It is a snare to say rashly. Remember last week we said things that are rash are things that are quick and thoughtless.

It is a snare to say rashly. It is holy and to reflect only after making vowels. So you set your brain aside for whatever reason, and you make this quick promise, and you say, ooh, this is great, I’m gonna do this.” And then later on, you start thinking about it, wait, what was that I just said? What did I promise to do? It’s like the third-person out-of-body experience where you are looking back on that situation. Huh. I did say that, didn’t I? I did promise that I was gonna do that. And in this sense, Ecclesiastes, chapter 5, fits in then with the rest of the Old Testament on the seriousness that God takes the making of vows. And after the admonition, he gives the explanation in the second part of verse four, when you vow of God, do not delay paying it for he has no pleasure in fools. It is the work of a fool to talk big and to try to either impress God or impress other people with these great promises and commitments. It’s the mark of a fool to talk without thinking.

We saw that in verses 1-3 as well. And to make these big promises without being ready to do what we said. God has no pleasure. He takes no delight in fools who live this kind of life. And you know what? While I think the verse is clearly saying that God is the one, God is the subject here who has no delight in your big promises without your fulfilling those promises, nobody likes that. It makes me cringe. And I hear people who potentially have been displaying themselves as fools, either in talking big in their worship, talking big in their prayers, and even then talking big in their commitments and their promises, to hear them make these great claims of all that they’re going to do for God and know, based on the pattern of their life, that they just don’t take that seriously.

It makes me cringe. It’s like a universal kind of principle that when fools open their mouths, it hurts. And God has no pleasure in it. I think other people have no pleasure in it either though. Again, I think the verse is specifically explaining that one of the reasons we should not delay in paying it is because it doesn’t please God. And so the third element is reiteration. You see the admonition, the explanation, and the reiteration, so pay what you vow. Just in case we didn’t get the message, pay what you vow. You make a promise, fulfill it. You make a commitment, do it. Especially in this context when it relates to your relationship with God.

You make a promise to Him. You commit to do something. delay it, don’t put it off, but pay it, and then we get the comparison, the fourth part of this element. It is better, verse 5, that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Solomon encourages us to think about it and to be ready to consider whether we’re actually going to fulfill what we’ve said, and if we are not actually serious about it, then just don’t say it in the first place. Why is this, by the way? Why is it that it’s better to not make a vow than to make it and not fulfill it? Why is that? I mean, like I said in the introduction, isn’t it better to at least have some good intentions? Isn’t it better to at least talk about wanting to please God or do something for Him? You You know, I think it betrays two things.

One is a total lack of credibility. That’s one of the reasons this is so awful because you make these promises and especially if other people know that you’ve made these promises, you lose credibility when you make the commitment and then you don’t follow through. lose credibility, it’s an issue of your reputation to God as well as then among other people, but not only do you lose credibility, I think it is ultimately a disrespect to God Himself. It suggests that you can make a promise to your own creator and that he either doesn’t care enough about what you said, or he doesn’t have the ability to do anything about, you’re not fulfilling what you said.

So you lose credibility with other people, and it’s very disrespectful to God Himself. It basically treats Him like He’s on our level.

Sometimes we take stock or we try to really think about the consequences, maybe have a promise to somebody else, you know, what’s the worst that they can do to us? I mean, so maybe we upset them, maybe they’re unhappy with us for a little while, depending on the degree of what we committed to, and depending on how much they were counting on us to do that depends on how much the conflict in the relationship takes place. But, I mean, ultimately, somebody else can’t really do anything to get us. I mean, especially if we have thick skin or we didn’t really like him in the first place, then that’s not really going to impact us. But when we make promises and commitments to God, not that he is counting on those like he’s depending on us to fulfill our part of the bargain because he really needs us to do his work for him, that’s not what his issue is. His issue is that that is totally disrespectful and not only that, he can do something about it which we’ll see in one of the verses coming up.

God is not like, and making promises to God is not like, making commitments to somebody else. And when you make a vow to God, pay without delay. The second admonition comes in verses 6 and 7. We should not only keep our promises without delay, Secondly, keep your promise without excuse. Or without excuses. Verses 6 and 7. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but God is the one you must fear. The admonition part. Again, there’s four sub-elements to keeping our promise without excuses.

The admonition comes in verse 6, Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Here we have not just delay and procrastinating in fulfilling our vows. Here we have excuses and evasion. Now we’re totally just trying to get out of it by making excuses and coming up with reasons that we can’t do what we said. People’s mouths can drag them into sin in the sense that they talk before they think, in the sense that they talk big and their game is little. They make huge commitments, and yet, their actual ability to follow through is very teeny. And so their mouths run ahead of them.

I think that their mouths are writing checks their bodies can’t cash. Their mouths are writing checks that their bodies can’t cash. Just as they were rash in verses 1 through 3 with their big talking worship, so in verses 6 and 7, they’re rash in their big talking promises. Apparently, during Solomon’s time, one of the things that was typical was for you to go to the temple and make a promise or a vow. Seems like even oftentimes that might have connected with the actual giving of money. And so this messenger here that he’s talking about, who is that, seems like this is kind of a religious bill collector. And so, not the priest.

Could have been the priest, but Solomon very clearly could have used the word for priest. This is a different word, this word, messenger. Seems like maybe you would, during your typical time of worship, you’d be down at the temple and you’d make this promise that you were gonna do this certain thing or you were gonna give a certain amount. And so, maybe some time goes by. You haven’t done your deal. And so, this messenger on behalf of the priest comes to collect or to get what you said that you were going to do. And so, the situation here is where this messenger shows up. He’s making his rounds. He comes to your house and you have something to give him.

It’s your lame excuse. That’s what you have to offer. And you know what the problem is not that this frustrates the messenger or irritates the priest. The problem is that this angers God. I mean other people know about it. You lose credibility with them, but more so the issue is your heart before God. The vow maker calls it a mistake. Oh, you know, I didn’t realize at the moment that I was going to be busy. Or I didn’t realize that, you know, let’s put it into our circumstances that my mom and dad really wanted me to play Nintendo for a little bit. So I just don’t, I don’t have time to do what I said I was going to do.

My mom and dad, we push the blame off onto somebody else, or we push the blame off onto whatever else we think will work to get us out of the situation. And even the messenger here knows that this mistake is just an intentional trying to get out of what you already committed to. And it’s no good. And so that leads to the question, why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? The fact is, God does not take vow making lightly. It’s so interesting that God seems to take very personal offense to those who promise things to him or for him that then don’t follow through. He purposes to destroy the work they do. He sets his face and his hands against the work of their hands. And you know what? There is nothing that hinders God from destroying whatever you’re trying to accomplish. There is no amount of precautions you can take. There is no amount of protecting you can do of your work, of your desires that will hinder or somehow put an obstacle between to go between what you’re trying to accomplish and what God would want to do in destroying

what you’re trying to accomplish if you fail to take Him seriously and your promises to Him seriously. He has all the ability in the world to make your efforts as vain and as useless and as empty as you can possibly imagine. And like I said at the beginning, Maybe the reason why everything you touch turns to dirt. Maybe the reason is simply because God is trying to grow you and cause you to depend on Him. Maybe it’s because He just is letting you experience vanity of life under the sun. Maybe it’s because you are not being serious with what you have promised to Him already. Whether it’s because in a time of desperation you cried out to him, said you’d do something and now you’re going back on your promise.

Whether it’s because you’re trying to impress other people by telling them about all these great commitments you’ve made. Whatever the reason is, if you don’t take what you have said to God seriously, just because you don’t doesn’t mean he won’t. Even if the judgment from Him doesn’t come immediately, it will come ultimately. Look over at Ecclesiastes 12. Verse 14, God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. And certainly the making of vows applies to the everything. Even if you made it quietly, privately, nobody else knows about it. And maybe he doesn’t judge you with a snap the next day or the next week.

Ultimately, he will bring every deed into judgment, sooner or later. The kind of commitment God is looking for is found in Psalm 15. Take a quick look at that Psalm. A psalm that is describing the kind of person that sojourns in God’s tent and dwells on His holy hill. That’s how the psalm starts out. Who can have this kind of relationship with God? Who lives in this fellowship and intimacy with God? A number of things are discussed, but look at the end of verse 4. who swears to his own hurt and does not change.” You can read all of Psalm 15 describing the kind of person that pleases God, is the kind of person who you can trust their words and what they say they’re going to do.

When they make a commitment, even if it costs them something, maybe that they didn’t even initially think it was going to cost them to their own hurt, will do what they said. That applies to making vows even to God Himself. The explanation comes next at the beginning of verse 7, when dreams increase and words grow many there is vanity. The great danger here is that dreamers like to talk and talkers like to dream and they just, it’s like a snowball. They talk some more, they dream bigger, they dream bigger, talk more. That’s a dangerous place to be with your mouth wide open, especially with your mouth wide open before God making these commitments and these promises. And the motivation forth comes at the last part of verse 7, but God is the one you must fear. That really is the point of Ecclesiastes. It’s more than just vanity of vanity is all that’s the point of Ecclesiastes is, in the midst of the vanity, fear God.

Make sure that you have a right understanding of who He is, what He requires from us, because we’re not Him. And as we’ve looked at multiple times, He is sovereign. Chapter 3 clearly says He is in control of every event, every season, everything that happens, God is in control of not us. And when we are thoughtless in our worship, or careless in our commitments to Him, He takes that very seriously. Have you ever made a promise to God? Some questions maybe you can talk about in your small group time. Have you ever made a promise to God? What did you vow to do? And did you fulfill that vow? And if you did not, why?

What hindered you from doing that? And in particular, why is that so dangerous? In fact, I think this is a really good one to talk about. Why is it so easy to excuse ourselves from commitments we make to other people, let alone to God? Why is it so easy for us in a time of desperation to make some great promise and commitment that we’re going to do this or that for God? and then the next day to blow that off. Why is that easy for us? And more importantly, why is that so dangerous? We talked about that right from Ecclesiastes 5, 4-7. So maybe you even want to have your Bibles open to the verses we just talked about while you’re going through it, okay?

Father, we do want to take seriously the opportunities we have to worship You when we gather together corporately, as well as when we’re living our lives individually. And while we dare not talk big to get the focus on ourselves during times of worship, we also should not make big promises and commitments, either because we want other people to think that we’re great again focusing the attention on ourselves, or just because we’re desperate and we want the quick fix rather than the consistent dependence and relationship with you.

And even if we don’t take these things seriously, Solomon tells us that you do and keep each one of us from being rash and therefore incurring that judgment, that condemnation on ourselves because we’ve not been careful with what we’ve said. Certainly when it comes to these commitments and vows to you. It would be better that we just not vow at all than to make vows not fulfill it, help us not to delay, and certainly help us not to make excuses to pay what we promise. We pray this in the name of your Son. Amen.