Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 21 Remember, we live under a New Covenant today.
Good morning, everyone. This morning, we are in Deuteronomy chapter 21. We are discussing the time in history when Israelites were in the desert about to enter the Promised Land and God is giving them a reminder of the law before they enter the Promised Land. This is a different season of history, a different dispensation when the people are learning and are under the Mosaic Covenant, which is the law of God that he gave to Moses and now that they're being reminded of in Deuteronomy. We now today live in a new covenant. We live in a different season of history after the death and resurrection of Jesus and now when we look at things such as this, we learn them because they're the foundation of the Bible, but not everything applies as it did then today because we're under a new agreement, a new covenant with God today. So with that backdrop, let's go ahead and take in Deuteronomy 21. If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land, which the Lord your God gives you to possess and it is not known who has struck him and recall that God has developed a system of justice in the Old Testament that was very significant. He did not want to see people breaking the law. He did not want to see crime. He did not want to see murder and he made the punishment very severe if a crime or a murder was committed. It was like life for life and that way there wouldn't be. He's trying to prohibit there from being crime and murder in the country that he's developing with Israel. So in this case, they find someone dead, but they can't determine who did it. So then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. It shall be that the city, which is nearest to the slain man, that is the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke and the elders of the city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. Then the priests of the sons of Levi shall come near for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to bless in the name of the Lord and every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them. All the elders of the city, which is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley and they shall answer and say our hands did not shed this blood nor did our eyes see it. So he wants the leaders of the city to attest to the fact that they don't know who did it and go through this ceremonial thing to have the I feel like they have to make an effort in order to ceremonially make up for the death of this man and if they did know let's say they did know who did it they're they're coming before God and they're making a sacrifice and going through this ceremony claiming they don't know it. So I think God's wanting them to make sure this is indeed an innocent I shouldn't say innocent murder, but an unknown murder an unknown mystery and this is how they're to deal with it if they did know about it then they are supposed to report what they knew But this was also a way of them moving on ceremonially before God with what happened. So they shall answer and say our hands did not shed this blood nor did our eyes see it forgive your people Israel because likely there was a murderer that took place whom you have redeemed O Lord and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel and the blood guiltiness shall be forgiven them so you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord and this was a way because they couldn't take out justice on the one who did it this was a way for them to be made right by God again and to move forward in Right in the eyes of the Lord All right moving on verse 10 when you go out to battle against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them in your hands And you take and take them away captive and see among the captives a beautiful woman and have a desire for her and you would take her as your wife for yourself then you shall bring her home to your house and She shall shave her head and trim her nails she shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and she shall remain in your house and mourn with mourn her father and mother a full month and After that you may go into her and be her husband and she shall be your wife It shall be if you are not pleased with her then you shall let her go Whatever wherever she wishes, but you shall certainly not sell her for money You shall not mistreat her because you have humbled her so in cities where they weren't going to Destroy the city because there were cities that were not part of the land that God was giving them to take over Sometimes they encountered other cities that would come up for war with them and they did not have to destroy those cities and Sometimes they might meet a woman who is beautiful and someone was single and didn't have a wife and He'd be like boy. I would like to take her as a wife and They did not want God did not want them to have the woman bring in any Uncleanness or any of her false gods or anything with her that could bring corrupt worship into the camp so they would take anything from her that would be of that false worship of her past and give her 30 days to mourn and If it worked out well, then she'd be his wife if not she would Be not mistreated, but allowed to to go free Again here. We are in a completely different season of history now we are and we have another law we have laws made by man and you know we don't go and Take over cities and and this is so this is just something from the past that did occur back then and We are learning of it and what God allowed and not did not allow But it's not something that he's permitting for us to do today or not living under this agreement anymore Now this is a very interesting one - chapter 21 here is kind of challenging, but anyways, it verse 15. It says if a man has two wives now in The commentary that I'm reading here. It is saying that you know let's say you were married once and then you were divorced and you were married again or You were married once and your wife died and now you married again They're saying that it's not permitting two wives the Bible is clear especially in our covenant today You're supposed to be the husband of one wife a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife doesn't say wives so There were times in the Old Testament that people had more than one wife, but it's not something that God is endorsing So it appears that he's saying we're gonna get into the children here. We're gonna get into you know the firstborn son received special benefit from the father when he passed away and what if you had a firstborn son of one wife and you're divorced and now You have another firstborn son of a second wife. I guess it's not firstborn, but it's firstborn in that marriage God's saying what needs to be done in order to honor the firstborn because there could be some confusion there So let's take a look at this if a man has two wives the one loved and the other unloved and both the loved and the unloved have Born him sons the firstborn son belongs to the if the firstborn sons belongs to the unloved or say previous wife Then it shall be in the day. He wills What he has to his sons? He cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved. Who is the firstborn? So basically you have you can't choose between your wives Pastor current which one's your firstborn? He's gonna say in a moment the firstborn of the first wife is your firstborn child But he who but he shall acknowledge the firstborn the son of the unloved by giving him a double portion of all that he has For he is the beginning of his strength to him belongs the right of the firstborn so obviously, you know, you would say the Second wife or the wife that you're with now is the loved one and the other one is unloved You know, you're I mean you can love all people But you're not supposed to have that kind of love relationship with your previous wife But still because the firstborn child came from that marriage The the firstborn rights belong to that child That's what's being said here. If any man who has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother and When they chastise him he will not listen to them Then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of the city at the gateway of his hometown They say shall say to the elders of the city this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us He is a glutton and a drunkard Then all the men of his city shall still in the death so you shall remove the evil From your midst and all Israel will hear of it and fear. I think that's the important line in that paragraph that All of Israel will hear of it and fear, you know, I don't know of time and biblical history that this happened so God is trying to establish a system where people are not you know Disobeying their parents. They're not running around rough shot and imagine if you were raising your kid and said listen You know if you disobey us and people know of it And if you start acting like a drunkard in a in a center just running around doing crazy stuff And you won't even listen to us. Do you realize that you could be stoned? The city could stone you for that now. What's that gonna do that fear that could come upon someone? They're gonna say, you know what? I better listen and I better obey so God had a stricter measure of punishment in the Old Testament in order to prevent people from going astray in order for them to honor Not only the laws in the land not only to honor God, but also honor their father and their mother Just to give you an understanding that, you know We're not under this dispensation today is take a look at the story of the prodigal son right from Luke 15 The son wants his share of the estate and he goes off and lives in you know in really filthy living prostitutes feeds the pigs and then he comes to his senses and Decides to come home and and confess to his father father. I've sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, but what did the product? What did the father do the father welcomed him back home? They had a celebration they put a ring on his finger and he was welcome back home So that's the teaching that the revelation of God Jesus Christ gave In the New Testament. So again, we live under a different dispensation now So but God was doing this then setting it up so that people he wanted up here and holy community You want them to multiply a reflection of who he is instead of having a bunch of disobedient drunkard children and people not following God in the Old Testament verse 22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he has put the death and you hang him on a tree His corpse shall not hang all night on the tree But you should surely bury him the same day for he who is hanged is a curse of God So you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance That's kind of interesting So if someone was hung on a tree, they're supposed to be taken down before sunset recall and Judaism Old testament Judaism in particular their new day happened at sunset not at midnight like our days So a new day was at sunset. So when they hung someone on a tree, they were supposed to get them down off that cross before sunset Now in Jesus's day, they did the same thing they took those two thieves They broke their legs made him die quicker and they pierced Jesus in the side and they did it before sunset now in that particular case It was also a Friday good Friday and you might recall so at sunset on good Friday It was gonna be a Sabbath Saturday and then they wouldn't really want to deal with the bodies They weren't gonna work that day. So they got the bodies off the cross dead before sunset on Friday night leading into Saturday. So this verse did have some bearing on having Jesus come dead off that cross on Good Friday Yeah, I think that you know what what I take from this and it's it's it's really hard to You know to take all this in and not be there in the context and not not only that but not see what would have happened if God's ways were followed what if God's ways in regards to Punishment in regards to murder in regards to crime. What if his strict policies and harsh treatments of people who did things that were wrong? What if that led to a country that? Rarely did wrong. What if people lived more rightly by God because they had a proper fear of Doing what was wrong and I guess we'll never know But I have I have a feeling and I think what we should do is trust God that I think it probably would have Worked out a lot better than what we think because people would not have wanted to entertain crimes So trust God even when you don't understand because I think sometimes he knows better than we How about that sometimes huh? Well, thanks for taking this and we'll see you at the next chapter. God bless you all [BLANK_AUDIO]