WATCH YOUR WORDS!

Ecclesiastes 5:6 - The Message Bible (MSG) simply says,

"Don’t let your mouth make a total sinner of you.

When called to account, you won’t get by with

    “Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?"

This means that it would be better for us to keep quiet and not utter anything rash or foolish before God. The words of our mouth can either mar us or make us.

 If you are contemplating marriage and church membership, make sure you understand what you are committing to. There are many Christians today who are experiencing God’s judgment in their lives because of their refusal to follow through with their commitments to Him. 

Deuteronomy 23:21-23

"When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. "However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. "You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised.

That judgment may not come in the form of physical ailments and death, though it certainly can. It may instead come by means of God destroying the work of our hands. That is, God may take our goals and aspirations and efforts to succeed and just turn those things into dust. Or He may allow us to prosper but make us miserable in our prosperity.

I Samuel 1 narrates the story of Hanna, the wife of Elkanah. She was barren, but with every fiber of her being, she desired a child. Though Elkanah treated her with love and kindness, his other wife, Peninnah, who had children, became Hanna's adversary, provoking her until she was miserable. Wisely, Hanna took her situation and desire to God. She vowed that if He gave her a son, she would give him to God for His service.

And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head." (I Samuel 1:10-11)

In verses 19-20, God hears Hanna and gives her desire to her:

And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. So it came to pass in the process of time that Hanna conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, "Because I have asked for him from the LORD."

God had fulfilled His part of the agreement, and now it was Hanna's responsibility to keep her promise. Notice how completely she holds up her end of the bargain:

Now when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, one ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD in Shiloh. And the child was young. Then they slaughtered a bull, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, "O my lord, as your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed; and the LORD has granted me my petition which I asked of Him: Therefore I also have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the LORD." So they worshipped the LORD there. (verses 24-28)

Hanna's example shows how a proper vow works. She intelligently thought it through, made it solemnly and humbly, and kept it completely. God not only respected her vow and fulfilled it, but He also greatly used the product, Samuel the prophet! Notice, too, how the process caused Hanna to thank and glorify God and built humble and righteous character in her (II Samuel 2:1-10).


We, Christians nowadays in our frustrations and challenges make vows to the Lord for example, at baptism, the Lord's Supper, in front of the church congregation vow in the presence of Jesus Christ, "the angel of the covenant" (Mal 3:1), and of ministering angels as witnesses (1Co 11:10; 1Ti 5:21) etc. making such vows upon fleshly or carnal, and not upon spiritual and religious motives. Peradventure you had in any way done this, have a rethink and redeem as necessary.