Just like God keeping his Covenant Promise, I will never leave or forsake you, Hebrews 13:5, God requires his children to faithfully keep their vows.
Leviticus 27:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘When a man consecrates a person to Yahweh in a vow, according to your valuation, 3 your valuation of a male from twenty years old to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 4 If she is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If the person is from five years old to twenty years old, then your valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6 If the person is from a month old to five years old, then your valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 If the person is from sixty years old and upward; if he is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 8 But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be set before the priest, and the priest shall assign a value to him. The priest shall assign a value according to his ability to pay.
9 “‘If it is an animal of which men offer an offering to Yahweh, all that any man gives of such to Yahweh becomes holy. 10 He shall not alter it, nor exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good. If he shall at all exchange animal for animal, then both it and that for which it is exchanged shall be holy. 11 If it is any unclean animal, of which they do not offer as an offering to Yahweh, then he shall set the animal before the priest; 12 and the priest shall evaluate it, whether it is good or bad. As the priest evaluates it, so it shall be. 13 But if he will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of it to its valuation.
14 “‘When a man dedicates his house to be holy to Yahweh, then the priest shall evaluate it, whether it is good or bad. As the priest evaluates it, so it shall stand. 15 If he who dedicates it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall be his.
16 “‘If a man dedicates to Yahweh part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. The sowing of a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he dedicates his field from the Year of Jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. 18 But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the money according to the years that remain to the Year of Jubilee; and an abatement shall be made from your valuation. 19 If he who dedicated the field will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall remain his. 20 If he will not redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more; 21 but the field, when it goes out in the Jubilee, shall be holy to Yahweh, as a devoted field. It shall be owned by the priests.
22 “‘If he dedicates a field to Yahweh which he has bought, which is not of the field of his possession, 23 then the priest shall reckon to him the worth of your valuation up to the Year of Jubilee; and he shall give your valuation on that day, as a holy thing to Yahweh. 24 In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land belongs. 25 All your valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs to the shekel.
26 “‘However the firstborn among animals, which belongs to Yahweh as a firstborn, no man may dedicate, whether an ox or a sheep. It is Yahweh’s. 27 If it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back according to your valuation, and shall add to it the fifth part of it; or if it isn’t redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.
28 “‘Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man devotes to Yahweh of all that he has, whether of man or animal, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Everything that is permanently devoted is most holy to Yahweh.
29 “‘No one devoted to destruction, who shall be devoted from among men, shall be ransomed. He shall surely be put to death.
30 “‘All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is Yahweh’s. It is holy to Yahweh. 31 If a man redeems anything of his tithe, he shall add a fifth part to it. 32 All the tithe of the herds or the flocks, whatever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to Yahweh. 33 He shall not examine whether it is good or bad, neither shall he exchange it. If he exchanges it at all, then both it and that for which it is exchanged shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed.’”
God gave our first parents life. Even after we rebelled against our Creator, as detailed in the sacrifices of Leviticus and in the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, God rescued us from death and again offered us life. We owe all we are and all we have in gratitude to our God and Savior. And yet we are still a selfish, self-centered, and stingy people.
Listen to God’s warning,
If it is an animal of which men offer an offering to Yahweh, all that any man gives of such to Yahweh becomes holy. 10 He shall not alter it, nor exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good. If he shall at all exchange animal for animal, then both it and that for which it is exchanged shall be holy. 11 If it is any unclean animal, of which they do not offer as an offering to Yahweh, then he shall set the animal before the priest; 12 and the priest shall evaluate it, whether it is good or bad.
Do you offer God your best or do you keep the best for yourself and pass off your scraps to him as if they were an acceptable offering?
God warns his people against bringing unclean or defective animals to sacrifice.
“A son honors his father and a slave his master. If I am a father where is the honor due me? If I am a master where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.
“It is you priests who show contempt for my name. But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ By offering defiled food on my altar.”
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?”
“By saying the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice… when you offer diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? … Shut the temple doors so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty… “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it but then sacrifices a blemished animal before the Lord.”… “If you do not listen and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, I will curse your blessings… I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices…” Malachi 1:6-2:3
Do you come to church out of obligation or to sincerely offer God your worship?
Do you gratefully serve God and his people with your time and treasure?
Do you tithe your first fruits, Proverbs 3:9-10 or do you toss God a few leftovers?
Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:15-16
You also, as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5
You are a priest of the living God, honor him as he deserves!
Have you given your word? God requires that we honor our promises. Have you been baptized promising fidelity to Christ? Do you tithe giving back to God a small portion of the blessings that he has showered on you? Have you taken marriage vows promising fidelity to your spouse? Are you a pastor, elder, or deacon in Christ’s Church pledged in ordination to proclaim without compromise the whole counsel of God? Do you declare the praises of God who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light? Have you entered into business agreements? God requires you to honor your promises. As Jesus taught, Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’. Matthew 5:37
In order to reflect God’s faithfulness, God demands that his people be faithful to do all that they vow or promise and be careful that their vows and promises are appropriate. (Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the Lord, Baker)
Leviticus 27:34 These are the commandments which Yahweh commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
As God commanded Moses in Leviticus and as Peter taught the New Covenant Church, God’s people are to
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:13-16
We are to be obedient — holy. Many today would dismiss Peter’s command as legalistic.
There are many pastors today who, for fear of being branded legalists, give their congregations no ethical teaching. How far we have strayed from the apostles! Legalism is the misguided attempt to earn our salvation by obedience to the law…To teach the standards of moral conduct which adorn the gospels is not legalism but plain apostolic Christianity. (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans)
Legalists are those who insist that salvation is earned by keeping the Law. They pride themselves in their supposed obedience and look down on others. Luke 18:10-14. And to keep up appearances, because no one can perfectly keep God’s Law, they look for loopholes to avoid ways around God’s Law or substitute their own man-made rules in place of God’s Laws. Luke 11:46
But as Leviticus has taught us, salvation is by God’s grace not our merit. Salvation cannot be merited by our keeping of the Law. In fact, the Law exposes our sin. Salvation is a gift. Although Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, merited salvation, like the spotless lamb in Genesis and the lamb in Leviticus, he was offered in our place.
Christianity seems at the first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. What God cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind or quality – the kind of creatures He intended us to be, creatures related to Himself in a certain way… If you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another.
And as long as a man is thinking of God as an examiner who has set him a sort of paper to do, or as the opposite party in a sort of bargain – as long as he is thinking of claims and counter-claims between himself and God – he is not yet in the right relation to Him. He is misunderstanding what he is and what God is. And he cannot get into the right relation until he has discovered the fact of [his] bankruptcy. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Harper).
We are to be alert because Lucifer, the same fallen angel that tempted our first parents to deny their created nature and to rebel against God, is constantly tempting us to conform to our evil desires, desires which lead us away from the true source of life, desires which lead only to death. Instead, as those who have been purchased by Christ, Galatians 3:13, we can only find true freedom and forgiveness in the confession of our sins and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in living lives of true freedom, wholly dedicated to God’s service.
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
From beginning to end, the Bible is an amazing story unfolding the history of mankind and the parallel history of God’s provision. Despite their rebellion God promised Adam and Eve that a Redeemer would come to rescue their descendants. God promised Abraham that all of the nations of the world would be blessed through this Redeemer. And as we have read here in Leviticus, at Mt. Sinai God revealed to Moses various sacrifices, ceremonial washings, and external regulations, as pictures foreshadowing the coming of the Redeemer.
We have traversed the tabernacle courts, inquiring into its meats and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation, Hebrews 9:10. Searching into their meaning, we have found these carnal ordinances, these ceremonies that consisted in the use of earthy and material things, are all fragrant with Gospel truth. And we plainly see why the Lord should have imposed them, enjoined them, and made it incumbent on Israel to observe them. He saw in each of them some picture or foreshadowing of the coming Redeemer… The doctrines of the New [Covenant] are expressed in the drapery of the Old [Covenant]. (Andrew Bonar, Leviticus, The Banner of Truth Trust)
The revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past but now revealed… so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith. Romans 16:25-26
When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to Redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Galatians 4:4-5