And if it be any unclean beast, of which they do not offer a sacrifice unto the LORD, then he shall present the beast before the priest:
Chapter 27 is in regards to the law pertaining to vows. I remember several years ago, I heard Brother Don Green preach and he said this, “You’re never gonna get anywhere with God without making some vows.”
Best I could tell, Israelites were allowed to dedicate either themselves, their children, their beasts, their house, part of their fields to the LORD. Whatever was vowed would be dedicated to some sort of service to the tabernacle. These vows would given a monetary value by the priest. What happened was he who vowed it would also redeem it for a certain price. Apparently, according to a lot of popular commentaries, there seemed to be a purpose in all this value estimating; that it prevented people from making frivolous, boastful vows. In other words, it forced them to put their money where their mouth was. You couldn’t vow everything you had because you’d go broke.
So you had to really mean it. The vow was performed and eventually redeemed, sometimes redeemed right away. This is the picture I get though from this: Say a man vows himself, and he was between 20 and 50 so his price was 50 shekels. Say he can’t perform his vow. Seems to me that to make it good, he has to be redeemed. What if he doesn’t have the money to redeem himself? Now what? So let me ask you this: What if we had to pay some amount of money, if we chose to not perform our vows?
What if, for example, we go through this whole baby dedication ritual some people do where you present the baby before the Lord and dedicate him to the Lord and vow to raise that child up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord. What happens when you don’t? What if the church would start sending out bills of redemption for every child that was dedicated and isn’t in church? Or how about sending out redemption bills to all those men and women that passed to the front and then passed through the back door and never came back again. I’m just kidding.
I want to say this: We’re just a beast before the priest. The Israelites were allowed to offer any beast, clean or unclean. The unclean ones were brought before the priest. And he was to determine how much worth they were worth based on how much they can do. The priest would put a redemption price on that beast. Look, you might not be much. You might have some blemish, or something wrong with you. You might not see yourself fit to serve the Lord. You might think that God will never use you. You know if animals could talk, maybe some unclean beast in the back of someone’s field might say, “I ain’t never gonna be sacrificed upon the brazen altar. What an honor it would be for my flesh to go up in the fire a sweet savor unto God! But I’m unclean. I’ll never enter the tabernacle.”
But then one day, his master tied a rope around his neck and walked him to the tabernacle. It all happened real fast so he didn’t understand really what was going on, but time seemed to stop when he found himself before the high priest. He never thought in his wildest dreams that this beast would be before the priest. And the high priest looked down upon him, pet his head, and rubbed his fur, and considered, “What can this beast do? What can this beast accomplish? What can I use you for? How much are you worth to me?” And the beast wonders, “How? How could I ever be considered?”
Somebody vowed a vow. I’ll tell you where vows will get you? Under the careful consideration of our high priest, Jesus Christ. He is made an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. (Heb 6:20) He is made high priest after the power of an endless life. (Heb 7:16) Can I say this: Don’t give up. Perform your vows before your God. He cares about these things. He cares for you.
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