 I want to speak to you today on a very interesting thought toward the offering and in Psalm 76 verse 11 says the following. Make vows to the Lord your God and pay them. Let all who are around Him bring presence to Him who ought to be feared. I want to speak about vows to God. First of all many people are afraid of word vow because they confuse the word vow with an oath. Oath and a vow are two different things. An oath is a declaration of the truth. In making an oath the person appears to God to witness to the truth of a particular affirmation He is making. An oath can also be invoked in guarantee of the promise a person makes. And we see that the Bible is very, it warns us about oaths, especially people would used to, you know, oath is like swearing when people begin to swear under mother or under child or under somebody who passed away and the scripture tells us to stay away from that. That is not wise for us to make oaths. You know, we see presidents and some people who get elected into some official offices they take oaths but a vow is different. A vow on the other hand is a solemn pledge or a promise to God to commit oneself to enact a service or a condition of life. In the Bible we see many guys who made vows to God. For example, one of them is Jacob made a vow and God prospered him. One time Jacob had nothing going on for him and Jacob said this, if you bless me then I will tithe. For example, many times when you come to service like this and we have an opportunity to give and you say, well, Vlad, I don't work. I don't have a job. You can make a vow that once you do get a job you will begin to tithe. And Jacob did that. Jacob wasn't trying to bribe God. Jacob wasn't trying to manipulate God and say, God, you have to do it and I'll give you this. Jacob was making a vow to God. If you bless me, I will give 10%. We see also Hannah made a vow when she couldn't have children and she says, God, if you give me children, actually if you give me a child, I will give the child back to you. And God gave her the child. She gave the child back to God and then God gave her more children after that. Many times when you have a certain problem that you prayed for so long, that you fasted, that you gave and everything, one of the things that God can be moved by and this is not something we manipulate God. Again, I'm saying moved by is when you make a promise. Now the dangerous part is when you don't keep that promise. That's when you can really mess it up. And so if you don't intend to keep that promise, don't make the promise. We're not talking about that when you're speeding through the highway and the sheriff is standing there and you're like, oh God, I'll never do that. I'll never watch TV. I'll never go to a movie theater. I will give 90% of my income. Just don't let the police officer pull me over. Anybody pray those prayers? I did that once. And then the next day, you know, I remember repenting and I was like, God, I did not mean anything I said the last night. And God was like, I wouldn't have that cup pull you over anyway. Why did you make all these promises you're not planning to keep? We're not talking about making promises you're not planning to keep. But when you sincerely, in the depth of your heart, what you're saying, you're gonna do it. We also see a judge in the Bible where he made a vow. He says, if God gives me victory, he says that what's going to happen is that I will give whatever comes out first from my house to the Lord. This was not the best vow because he couldn't predict what will come out of the house. Don't make vows like that. Whatever comes out out of my house, first I'll sacrifice it to God. What if your cat comes out? You know, what if your child comes out? He was expecting a donkey to come out when he comes in and his daughter comes out. And so there's a huge controversy on what actually happened to her. But the point being is that we have to make vows of things that are measurable and the things that you actually know what you're going to give, not just guessing whatever, because that will never work out. And we see also other people in the Bible, if you can just keep putting other Samson, he broke the vow and he suffered hardship. Apostle Paul, he fulfilled a vow. We know that in Book of Acts. And so marriage is a vow. There's a lot of vows. The first time that I came across, the principle of making vows to God was when I struggled with headaches and chronic insecurity. And I prayed for the healing of that thing, I think with everything that, with every ounce of my being. And anytime Benihin, Benihin was very popular during those days. He did that thing on the TV, just two of his hands. And so my TV, a little black and white TV, a little box was greased because I placed my hands so many times on that TV, just for healing of my headaches and for the healing of the insecurities. And so I've done a lot of things. And there was one particular moment that I remember, it wasn't a particular day, but it was a moment of my life where I sincerely gave promise to God, God, if you take care of two things, get rid of my migrant headaches, which I had every summer, almost every single day. And you take care of this loss of esteem. I give you a promise that I will give the rest of my life to you. What I meant by that is that I will dedicate my life to a full-time ministry, whether I get paid or not. And so two years later passed by and I recognized that I do not have those chronic insecurities. That they have recognized that is when we had 9-11 memorial at the track, at the track outside over there. And I was asked to do a verse from revelations in front of 3,500 people. And so I got up to share the verse and the next day everybody in school hailed me as a pastor. Everybody started calling me a minister and stuff. So I was a junior or senior in high school. And then I started to recognize that my grades were going up. I was doing very good in school. I started getting friends in school. Things were going good and better. And I started developing a plan for my future, which had nothing to do with the promise I made God. And I would come to church in a typical church service like this and I would always get plagued. Because in my mind, during worship and during the message for a while, I started to hear my own voice. God, if you take care of this and that, I will give you this. And like a broken tape. And I was like, God, I'm worshiping you. I'm giving you my life. I'm not planning to sin. But I knew what I promised to God. And I knew that at that moment, moment, I wasn't planning to fulfill that until I had it came back. And I started to be reflective, reflected of how I used to be. And I was like, you know what? No, I'll rather, because giving my life to God or being a full-time ministry to me was symbolic of like dying on the cross in China or something. It was always like terrifying. It was always sad. I heard stories that it's like, it's really bad and difficult. I didn't know that serving God is joyful. And so, and then when I made that decision, God started to churn my life around. And so, I would just encourage every one of you, if you are struggling today, make a vow to God. But do not make a vow in haste. Make a vow considering your heart condition. If you may be like Hannah, you're completely barren. Or maybe like Jacob, you're financially underwater. Make a vow to God. God, if you bless me, I will tithe. Well, when he blesses you and you stop going to church, God's gonna get you. He's gonna bless you and he's gonna bring you back. I have a story of a young man, Julio, if you could come up just quickly. What happened with Julio is that Julio moved from sunny side. Some of you know his story of how he came to our church. First time on Wednesday he came to our church. He didn't come to get saved. He came to fight some of our brothers. He had a girlfriend in town and has a girlfriend in town that was coming here. So he was thinking that she was coming to our church because the guys in our church just wanted to flirt or something. So I remember that day because she was in our house before the service and she's telling us, hey, he's coming into church and he's gonna like fight guys. So, not joking. I texted our brothers, those who just recently got saved. I said, brothers, I know that not everything has been fully sanctified in your life. Some of the unsanctified parts we might need it today. I met Julio when he came in that Wednesday humble. He wasn't trying to pick a fight. Holy Spirit, I think, dealt with him on the way here. And during the service, God touched him. He got saved a few weeks later and he experienced the presence of God and so he has his children here. So what he did is he decided to move to Trace cities. He had a place that he lived there that he owned that he was trying to sell for five months and couldn't sell it. And sometimes he would have offers and you know, right now the market is really hot. So I mean, he put anything in sales and so and he had a very decent price. People would throw him low ballers, just really, really low prices and still wouldn't even come through on those low offers until one day he came to church in the morning prayer and he said to God, if you give me, if I get an offer for that full price that I want, I will give you $2,000. What happened next? The next day I got an offer. And so in the next day, he gets an offer that's higher than any other offer he ever had and this offer, this person actually called him and says, take off the sign for the first sale. I'm bringing the money. And so they purchased it. Everything worked out and did you fulfill your vow? Yeah. What would you encourage Julio to people who are maybe in that position right now when they are maybe trying to sell something or buy something or they're kind of stuck in that situation? Just if you make a promise, just keep the promise and he'll come through. And one other thing, I give that $2,000 and I don't know how, you know, I just have my job. I don't do any side business or anything and I already have my $2,000 back in a race. Now, please, please understand this is not a I give, I get. This is a principle that if we ingenious of our heart honor God, God is faithful. Remember, God ain't broke. He doesn't have a sewer problem somewhere in heaven that he's collecting a fundraising. God is generous and you can never out give God. That's just you have to always live with that kind of a mindset. And when you make a vow to God to give something, remember, you're not making God better. You're opening a door for your own life to get impacted by God's favor and God's blessing. Amen. So make a vow to God or if you've made a vow before and you didn't keep it, I ask you that you repent because some of you, you actually might be having problems in your finances because you made promises to God in the depth of your heart, but you were only wanting to get out of the certain situation that you are in and you dig yourself into a hole where the Bible says God actually will not hold those people guiltless who with their mouth make promises they do not intend to keep. What would happen if God would keep his promises the way you keep yours? He wouldn't be trustworthy. We wouldn't even gather here today because his character would be destroyed. Same thing with you. When you make a promise that God, I will serve you. God, I will give this or God, I will bless this person. Keep that promise and God will keep his promises to your life to bless you in Jesus' name. Can somebody say amen? Thank you, Julio.