Scott Brown's sermon, 'When Fathers and Daughters Disagree,' delves into the biblical context of Numbers 30, emphasizing the role of a father's headship within the family, particularly concerning his daughter's vows and decisions. The sermon explains that in ancient Israel, a father's authority could override his daughter's vows if he deemed them unwise, highlighting the importance of a father's guidance in his daughter's life. Brown encourages fathers to communicate their roles as heads of households early to prepare daughters for potential disagreements. He stresses that this authority is rooted in love and aligns with biblical commandments, such as the Fifth Commandment and Ephesians 6:1-4, which call for honoring parents and upholding righteousness. The sermon warns fathers of the consequences of passivity, urging them to be active participants in their children's lives to prevent unwise decisions and uphold biblical values. By doing so, fathers fulfill their God-given role to guide, protect, and nurture their families in love and righteousness.

Okay, open your Bibles to the book of numbers. The book of numbers. The book of numbers, find chapter 30. Numbers 30. This is a case study of headship in a household and a problem between a father and a daughter.

A disagreement between a father and a daughter. A very specific disagreement in a category. So verse 3, or if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement, catch this, while in her father's house in her youth." So that's what this is about. It's about a daughter in her father's house in her youth. And her father hears her vow and agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand.

But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will release her because her father overruled her." Wow. A father overruling his daughter. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you give us wisdom to understand how to apply all these things for both fathers and daughters.

Amen. So this is a common scene in home life particularly when daughters get older. Not so common when daughters are younger but fathers do face moments even when their daughters are younger when they have to stand in the way of their daughters desires. Now, of course, you do that with your boys as well. You know, fathers also stand in the way of their sons desires from time to time.

It's a necessity. If you're not standing in the way of your son's desires or your daughter's desires, it may be that you're not being a good father. Because actually God created fathers to do that for young people who lack wisdom. So Numbers 30 explains the situation of what should happen when a man is not pleased with a decision, in this case of his wife and his daughter, because he addresses both. Well, we won't deal with the wife.

But in this passage, a husband also has moments where he stands in the way of his wife's desires. So, but this is a daughter that we wanna focus in on. And what this passage does is it troubleshoots that problem. Now you're a young daughter and you might think, well, I don't think my daddy would ever stand in the way of any desire that I have. Well, guess what?

When you get older, he might stand in the way of some of those as you grow older and so I Want I want to say this to the daughters you need to anticipate this situation Be ready for it. You know don't Don't be blindsided if there's something really big you want to do and your dad doesn't want you to do it. Mark it. It might happen. Prepare yourself before it happens.

That's what numbers 30 is really helpful for. And the big question really for you heads of households, are you really the heads of your households? And have you properly communicated to your daughters what that looks like? And you really need to do that from the time they're little so that they're ready. So that it's not like all of a sudden a father becomes the head of his household when there's something that he doesn't like happening.

So for you daughters, mark this. Have you acknowledged God's headship in your life through your Father? Have you acknowledged it? Have you accepted it? Have you made peace with the fact that God put your father as the head of your life until you get married?

So you have this illustration of a home where a daughter makes some kind of vow. She makes some kind of a decision in her youth and the deed in this passage the deed was done there was something she wanted to do she made a promise in this case it's She made a promise to get married to somebody. She said, I love you too. Came home and told her dad. Her dad said, I don't think so.

But it could be anything. Maybe you agreed with your girlfriends that you were going to go do something and you come home and tell your dad and he says, I don't think so. I don't want you to do that. That's not the best decision for you right now. So anticipate that kind of a situation.

But even though she gave her word in the matter she actually vowed that she would do it okay it's just very serious the father has the authority to evaluate that decision and even reverse the decision even if she made a vow to do it in other words there's a higher authority in the room and it's called a father now the assumption here and I don't want daughters to be offended by this, but just to embrace it, and that is that every daughter's desires might not be good for them. Every daughter's desires might not be good for them. Your kids might want to do things that are dumb. And you're there to keep them from dumb. And God gives the father to a daughter to help that daughter make wise decisions.

God gives a father to help a daughter make wiser decisions than she would have made on her own with her other girlfriends or even the person that she wants to marry. You get how serious this is? Imagine you're falling in love with someone. Your heart has already been, you know, given away in your own heart and your dad says, no, stop that, we're going in another direction. This is hard, it's hard to stand in the way of that kind of freight train.

You know, Angels fear to tread to stand in front of a freight train like that. But that's actually the decision that he's speaking of. All of this is really summarized in the fifth commandment. The fifth commandment is honor your father and mother That it may be well with you that it may be well with you And it pictures also the New Testament equivalent of the fifth commandment in Ephesians 6 1 through 4 Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord and this also mirrors the role of a husband with his wife for the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church." So you have these dual commands that are in play. In Numbers 30, Moses is explaining these commands, he's explaining these laws, and he's giving an application. In Numbers and Deuteronomy, there are dozens of applications of the Ten Commandments. If you preach through Deuteronomy like I did several years ago, what you'll find is Moses is working through the Ten Commandments and giving dozens of illustrations of how it applies. And he works, I believe, systematically through the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy in particular so we also have to recognize the heart of these laws every law of God is a law of love Every law of God is a law of love.

Every law of God is a law of love. Even the law of headship, even the law of authority of a father over a daughter. It was the apostle Paul who told the church in Galatia that every law of God is a law of love. He said this in Galatians, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the key to interpreting numbers 30 is that every law of God is a law of love.

So when your father stands in your way, you have to recognize it's a law of love that he's applying. Jesus said to keep God's commandments is to abide in his love. He said if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation obeyed his father he was abiding in his father's love by keeping his commandments and it's the same way with the father and a daughter now let me just back up for one second on this Moses is instructing the leaders of the houses of Israel. So that's in verse 1 in Numbers 30. Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel saying, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded.

Moses wanted the heads of all the tribes to understand this law. And he wanted the heads of the tribes to filter it down through the other heads of households in that tribe. This was a you know from from a father to son from father to son from father to son all throughout the tribes of Israel. If You can see the way that this is rolling out here. And so Moses gives these men a normative rule, and he makes sure that the fathers and the tribes understand their roles with their wives and their daughters.

And the case here is, in case a daughter has made a promise by making a vow, even a vow to marry. So, Moses also in this passage, he's emphasizing the importance and the seriousness of these kinds of commitments. And even in such a serious matter where a girl has made a promise, Even a promise to marry a man, he is registering the fact that that girl might have made a rash vow. She might have spoken too soon. She did speak too soon, because she didn't consult her father previously.

And so you have these words, if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house her father can overthrow it even a vow something as serious as a vow you know the Bible says you should keep your vows so this is a there's a general rule concerning vows here in Ecclesiastes 5 4 through 6 you know we're told to keep our promises and do the things that we said we were going to do. It's very important. Okay, so here's the logic of the text. Vows are very serious in the sight of God, and they should not be taken lightly by men. Second, a father's authority authorizes him to reverse even a vow.

This just gives you a sense of the structure of culture that God has designed. And when you destroy that culture, you've really, if you destroy that principle, you've destroyed a culture. So you have a single woman's vow. Now, underlying all of this is a proposition, and that is that daughters need authority. Daughters and their youth need their father's direction.

They need their father's yes and they need their father's no. And they need it clear. And frankly, let me say it a different way. Daughters need someone who is authorized to say no. Has someone ever asked you to do something and you said let me ask my father?

When actually you wanted your father to say no. This is the kind of backup that a daughter has. So you have this fortification standing in the back of a daughter called a father. If someone is trying to compel her to do something and trying to compel her to make a commitment, she has a backup authority beyond herself. So that's really, really critical.

Here's another important thing to recognize. It's really clear from the text that the daughter's decision is not the final decision. However, He shouldn't keep his daughter on hold. He needs to speak. He needs to make himself plain.

This is one problem that fathers often engage in, is that they're not clear. And they're not clear enough early enough. They're afraid to say something early, and so then it gets a little bit late, and the train has left the station, and it makes the decision far, far harder to reverse. But This passage makes it clear that she's dependent on her father for major decisions and activities in her life, but he needs to act expeditiously. He shouldn't be delaying her too long.

I think this is a principle that he when he talks about on the day that he hears it. Now there's another matter here and that is you have a it's a picture of a father and a daughter who are communicating when he hears what she says he's obligated to respond in an orderly and a decisive way. He cannot ignore her. This is just a marker for passive and negligent fathers. You cannot be passive.

Passivity is one of the greatest dangers in your family. At the same time, you have a father's respect toward his daughter. He has a responsibility to treat her with respect and honor and to answer her question. And he's not allowed to leave her hanging, but needs to be decisive. So in the clearest terms, Numbers 30 establishes a number of really important principles.

I wanted to say this today because I really wanted daughters to be put on notice that this might happen to you. Maybe it's already happened to you. Your father said no to something you really wanted. God put your father in the way of an unwise decision. I don't know if that's ever happened to you in a big way, but I want you to expect it to happen, and be ready for it, and don't let it blindside you.

Okay, here's some principles. It puts everyone on notice, this isn't the first principle. It puts everyone on notice that the buck stops with the head of the household. It puts everyone on notice that the buck stops at the head of the household and that should be part of your family culture. The second is it assumes that fathers and daughters are talking together about their lives and about their desires.

Girls, If you have desires and things you want to do, it's better to talk about them early, rather than waiting around for them to get hardened and solidified in your soul. Talk freely about the future. Talk freely about the things that you want to do. Clear them out. Don't wait and spring them at the last moment where there's really no time to really deal with it.

But this is a picture of fathers and daughters communicating about really important matters in their lives. The third thing, it prevents the fragmentation of the family where everybody is off just running and doing whatever they want. It actually establishes a core principle of headship. And out of that headship flows the family life. And we live in a world where families just do their own thing.

Every kid just does what's right in his own eyes. And I want to look you fathers in the eyeballs and say, do not live that way. You are the head of the household. You are the one who's deploying all the energies of your household. You are responsible.

You are the head. And it's not like you need to become the head. You are the head. You're either a bad head or you're a good head. And it's very important that you as a father are not just letting your children do whatever they want to do.

You got that? A lot of your children want to do foolish things and waste their time and do things that don't actually build your household. But you have a responsibility to take dominion with all of your children together as a unified force in the world. And every family is different and they take dominion in different ways. But God has actually appointed every man with his own gifts, his own vision, his own callings to rally his family around those gifts and callings and to keep the family together along those things.

I have a friend, one of the elements is family vision is called, they called rooted. They're rooted together in a common vision for their family. Here's another principle. It stops lack of wisdom and even sin from running in a family. One child is allowed to do something that's unprofitable and the other children might run in the same direction.

It stops lack of wisdom from flowing through a family. And men, you have a responsibility to stop foolishness from flowing in your family from one generation to the next. I've been around long enough to see how damaging It is when fathers don't do that and they let their kids and they had to do anything they want And it's wrong and it's really harmful And then the next principle it calls men to be willing to uphold biblical righteousness In his household it calls men to be willing to uphold biblical righteousness in his household. It calls men to be willing to uphold biblical righteousness. And then finally, The husband and the father are responsible.

They bear the weight of the guilt of a wrong decision. If you read this, there are these terrifying words, He shall bear her guilt. He, the father that didn't say anything, the father that didn't stand in the way of foolishness, the father that let his family do whatever they wanted to do, the father that capitulated out of his weakness, just letting his kids do whatever they want to do. Moses says, he shall bear her guilt. That's the most terrifying statement in the entire text of Deuteronomy chapter 30.

So, you have a father who's obligated to listen, and a daughter who's obligated to obey, because the head of the household is a real thing. Okay, let's pray and then we can have some discussion. Father your words are words of life, all of them are words of love. We praise you Lord for giving them to us. And now pray Lord that you would give us help in our discussion.

Amen.