Don’t Make A Vow - Jephthah

Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the LORD whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

Judges 11:30-31

As a wealthy businessman lay dying, his pastor visited him in his hospital room to speak of God’s healing power. “Pastor,” he wheezed, “if God heals me, I’ll give the church a million dollars.”

Several months later, the pastor visited the now miraculously recovered businessman in his office. After exchanging pleasantries, the pastor uneasily broached the subject of the businessman’s vow.

“You know,” the pastor said, “when you were dying in the hospital, you promised to give the church a million dollars if God healed you. We haven’t received it yet.”

The tycoon felt shocked. “Did I say that?” he asked. “I guess that shows how sick I really was!”

Jephthah—a skilled, courageous warrior who valiantly delivered the nation of Israel from the tyranny of the Ammonites—once made a vow that he had no business making. He gets high marks for following through on his word, but he utterly fails for the kind of word he uttered.

Jephthah promised God that he would make an altar sacrifice of whatever came out of his home to greet him following his victory. No doubt he thought a sheep or a goat would wander out of the door. As it turned out, his daughter was the first to leave the house to greet him.

Though we don’t know for sure whether Jephthah sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering (the text seems to suggest that she was forced to live as a virgin apart from her family for the rest of her life), his foolish vow certainly caused him trouble.

The Bible contains hundreds of God’s conditional promises of blessing. Jephthah went terribly wrong when he tried to set his conditions for blessing rather than approaching God in faith to ask him what offering he wanted.

Have you ever felt that you needed to offer God something to receive his promised blessings? God is passionately interested in blessing you with one condition: Go to him and ask in faith. You can’t buy what God already wants to give you!