Nazarites

6The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When either men or women make a special vow, the vow of a nazirite,* to separate themselves to the LORD, 3they shall separate themselves from wine and strong drink; they shall drink no wine vinegar or other vinegar, and shall not drink any grape juice or eat grapes, fresh or dried. 4All their days as nazirites* they shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape-vine, not even the seeds or the skins.
5 All the days of their nazirite vow no razor shall come upon the head; until the time is completed for which they separate themselves to the LORD, they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long.
6 All the days that they separate themselves to the LORD they shall not go near a corpse. 7Even if their father or mother, brother or sister, should die, they may not defile themselves; because their consecration to God is upon the head. 8All their days as nazirites* they are holy to the LORD.




My Sermon today is going to be more of a history lesson than anything else. I was supposed to teach a class on the subject of the Nazirites back in April but it didn’t come together so Beverly asked me if I could preach on the subject instead, which is what I am going to do.

Todays Passage was from the book of Numbers. Numbers is the fourth book of the Bible and continues the laws of Moses from Leviticus. You don’t hear a lot of sermons based on Numbers.

The versus Jodi read and the rest of the chapter, talks about a very special vow that a Jewish man or women could take called the Nazarite vow.

The Nazarite vow was a very special vow that men or women could take and in doing so they were devoting themselves to God. Or as the reading states, separating themselves to the Lord.

They could take on the vow for as long as they wanted, but the minimum time was 30 days. During that time they could not drink any strong drink or wine. They were even to avoid grapes in any form or grape juice or even eat or touch grapes.

They were not go near a dead body which included a family member who may have passed away.

They couldn’t cut their hair. This is very significant. Long hair was not the fashion in Israel, in fact, long hair was a sign of submission to another person. Men had short hair and women were to keep their hair long to show they were submissive to their husbands. So the long hair on a man would tell people they he had taken the Nazarite vow and were completely submissive to God.

They were to be an example to all others to devote themselves to God. In fact, the town of Nazareth where Jesus lived, is named for a type of tree that had branches that hung down like a willows and resembled the long hair of the Nazarite.

After the vow was completed the individual would go to the “tent of meeting” They would make several animal offerings to the Priest who would offer them up to God. They would cut their hair and burn it. Then would eat a special meal, made from one of the animal sacrifices. The whole ritual is mapped out in Numbers chapter 6 versus 13-21 if your interested.

Once they were done with there vow they can again drink wine and be near a corpse if necessary and go back to their lives hopefully a little different.

As I said before, the minimum time for the vow was 30 days, but it could be much longer. In fact, it could be for life.

There are three examples of Nazarites for life in the Bible. Sampson, who, when his hair was cut, lost all of his strength. This is because is strength came from his vow to God and when his hair was cut it ended the vow.

Samuel, who was the last of the Judges of Israel and John the Baptist.
Sampson and John are always presented as having long hair.

And then, of course, there is the ultimate Nazarite, Jesus.
Jesus also had long hair to show his devotion to God and while other Nazarites were not allowed near the dead nor to drink wine, Jesus showed himself to be the master of both.

Remember his first miracle was the changing of water into wine at the wedding of Cana. Later, in his ministry Jesus raises Lazareth from the dead.

Jesus showed what it meant to be totally devoted to God.

So what does all this mean to us?

In the same way the Nazarites were examples to the people of Israel, Jesus, through his teachings has taught us what we need to do to be devoted to God.

In the same way the Nazarites showed what it meant to be devoted to God, We need to be examples of what it means to be Christian.

We don’t have to grow our hair long or avoid wakes and funerals or even give up wine but through Jesus Christ we can be little Nazarites. We can have a personal relationship with God and show others what it means to be good Christians.

What does it mean to be devoted to God. What does it mean to be submissive to God the way the Nazarites were. Well, first we have to admit to God and ourselves that we are nothing without him. How can we do that.

Most people, are like teenagers in there relationship with God. We think we know everything we need to know to get by. We can’t admit that we need our parents to live, we think we can do it all on our own, but when we need or want something, that’s when we turn to God and we act as if we deserve it. We sometimes, forget to thank God for what he gives us and what he does for us. We argue with God when we don’t get our own way.

We need to be more like a five year old. Think about what it was like to be 5 years old. For those of you with young children it shouldn’t be hard. In fact I still know some adults that act like they’re five.

A five year old has a personality. They know a little of the world around them. Their house, school, the playground etc. They know what they like and what they don’t like and it’s very hard to convince them otherwise. “Try the spinach, you’ll like it. No it’s yucky.
And though they may not realize the difference, they depend completely on their parents for food, shelter and clothing and especially love.

Five year olds are always looking to their parents for love and affection, but unlike most parents and I was guilty of this as well, God never says, Not now I’m on the phone or I’m watching the game.

We need to realize that we are like that five year old when it comes to God. We need to realize how much we need him in our life, that, even though we sometimes feel very independent and we can take care of our selves, the way young children sometimes do, we are lost without him.

So become like a little Nazarite, become 5 again and work to become devoted to God.

And let me end by saying the biggest reason we should be devotd to God is because He is devoted to us.


The LORD bless you and keep you;
25the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
26the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.