Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 23
Good morning, everyone. This morning, we are in chapter 23 of Deuteronomy. Let's get into it. No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. And that's what it means to be emasculated to literally cut off the man's penis and testicles. And, you know, what a bizarre thing to do that, hey? And that is how people sometimes want to be trans today is through cutting that off. And God is having none of that. That's an improper thing to do because he made you either male or female. And he's saying that if you do that, then you shall stay out of the assembly of the Lord. No one of illegitimate births shall enter the assembly of the Lord. None of his descendants, even in the 10th generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord. Now, that would be someone who's having kids inappropriately outside of marriage. And there was a penalty for that. Now, God is trying to, and we've seen this throughout the book of Deuteronomy, he's wanting them to go to the Promised Land and create a people that would be in his image and likeness, that would be sexually moral, that would be honorable to him. And he's creating significant penalties, whether it be for murder or for stealing or for sexual promiscuity or cutting off a male organ. He's setting a high standard in many areas so that people won't do what is inappropriate. And he many times makes it very significant, or you could say even harsh, so that they won't participate. Sometimes we today coddle or sin so much that then people entertain it, God was taking a different approach in Israel as they entered the Promised Land. Verse three, "No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord, none of their descendants, even to the 10th generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt. And because they hired against you, Belam, the son of Bior, you might remember we went over that quite a bit, from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Belam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days." Now, it seems as though that what God had established in the desert as they entered the Promised Land was pretty strict regarding the enemies of the Lord, in this case the Ammonites or the Moabites. However, when you get into the book of Isaiah, and one other example I'll give you late in a bit too, it seems as though God's stance had changed. Listen to what it says in Isaiah 56, so now this would have been, you know, like, gosh, how many years later would this have been, a solid 500 years later? Um, 56, Isaiah verse 3, "Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people, nor let the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." Now, the eunuch, that would be someone who had just their testicles cut off, but not their whole penis, by the way. For thus says the Lord, "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose what pleases me, and hold fast my covenant, to them I will give in my house, and within my walls and memorial, and a name better than the sons and the daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, which will not be cut out. Also, the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone who keeps from profaning my Sabbaths, and hold fast my covenant, even those I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." You might remember that came up in the New Testament. "The Lord your God who gathers the dispersed of Israel declares, yet others I will gather to them to those already gathered." So, you know, God, originally you might recall in Genesis chapter 12 when he called Abraham, and this is Abraham's family, we're talking about Israel. He said, "I'm going to bless you so that you can be a blessing to the nations." But there was a season in history that were in now where God was very concerned about them mixing with pagan people that had pagan gods, because in this season he's very concerned that if they go to the promised land and mix up with all the people that they're just going to take on foreign false God worship, which actually is the case, it was a legitimate concern. However, initially, you know, through Abraham, he wanted them to, he wants people to come to him, he wants people to follow him as Yahweh, and he later in the Bible, even in the old covenant, does allow people, if they want to worship him rightly, to worship alongside of them. So, there is that emphasis too. So, it's kind of, you know, kind of a similar situation in a sense that we have today, like we live in this world, but we don't want to become like the world. We want to follow Jesus and honor him rightly. And I would say it kind of holds true for us that today, if you're hanging out with people of the world and it's polluting you or making you fall from your faith and you're beginning to entertain sinful practices, then you need to withhold or with staying for a while, being around the people of the world because you're falling into sin. But really, what we should be able to do is be in this world and be man and women of Christ and be with people who need him and be a light to them and actually bring them to coming to know Jesus and worshiping him versus spending time with people of the world and end up taking on sinful practices. So, it's kind of similar in a way. But the other story that I wanted to tell you is that, remember Ruth? She was a molar bite and she ended up marrying a man from Israel, Boaz, and she ended up extending the family line where David was born through Ruth and Jesus actually came from that line through David, through Ruth, the molar bite. So, here molar bites are excluded, but yet God chose to do a miracle through a molar bite in Ruth. So, that's interesting as well, isn't it? All right, verse 7. You shall not detest and eat a mite, for he is your brother. You shall not detest in Egyptian because you were an alien in his land. The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. When you go out as an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing. And that kind of gives us an emphasis, like what I was talking about earlier, you know, don't take on the evil practices of the people around you. If there is any among you, any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, yeah, that would be like a man having a, what's that called? Where he would have an erection and sperm in the evening. I can't remember what it's called right now. Then he must go outside the camp. He may not re-enter the camp, but it shall be, when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water and at sundown, you may re-enter the camp. You know, there was lots of things like this in the Old Testament times where they were concerned that certain things would bring about possible disease and spreading among the people. And, you know, over history, that has been a concern where, you know, if someone is sick and they bring it into camp, you know, you could get everybody sick. So they were concerned about discharges like that, spreading in the camp. All right, verse 12, you shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there and you shall have a spade among your tools. And it shall be when you sit down, this is like to go number two outside. You shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, before your camp you must be holy and he must not see anything indecent among you or he will turn away from you. I mean, that just makes sense. You know, one time in my life, we, well, shouldn't say one time, but one time in particular, it took a bunch of youth on a camp on the Wisconsin River. And we camped on a big sandy island. Shouldn't say it was that big, but there was maybe 50 of us, 60 of us. I don't remember exactly that, that camp. We can nude and then stayed on this island. And, of course, there was not, you know, no bathroom. So, you know, that's what we had to do is dig a hole. And you definitely wanted to do that because imagine 50 people going to the bathroom after not too much time. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of uncleanness out there. So God's wanting them to make sure they bury it and, you know, keep things proper. You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. That's interesting. So this appears to be if a slave from another land, not Israel, but some other slave. And the idea might be that the slave was even mistreated and that's why it escaped. And they were not to return that slave if it was from a fauna. That's the way it appears. He shall live with you and your midst in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him and you shall not mistreat him. And, you know, slavery is something that we've talked about before. One of the things that you will see as it relates to slavery and even the position of women in biblical times and, you know, there's different times, right? You have your old covenant and then your new covenant, which, you know, can be many years apart. But slavery existed and women were not in culture, overall culture. I'm not even talking biblical were not given the same kind of authority, prominence, position as men. And you do see that in the Bible. But what you see is you see an elevation of any slavery that existed. God inherited a world of people that were doing that. And then he elevated it, meaning treat people right. Like, for instance, in that passage, we said that if you find a slave that's escaped from a different land. You shall not send him back to a place likely where he was mistreated him. And you shall not mistreat him. You shall treat him rightly. And again, God elevates these things, you know, in the Bible, you'll see that compared to culture, the treatment and elevation of women, you know, to cherish your wife. And you know, to love your, your wife, you're going to die for her as Christ did for the church. So God elevated what existed in culture to have much higher treatment of slaves and a much higher view of women than culture had around him. And I'm thankful, you know, that that has continued today and also as it relates to slavery, I mean, that we've banned it in our world today and I'm very thankful for that. But some people will try to knock God for these things when these things existed and then God elevated them. All right, let's continue. None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute. God does not want a world of sexual immorality and prostitution and any kind of pornaya, any kind of things like that. It's not right. It's not, it's not good. We live in a very sexually immoral culture. And God wants nothing of that in our culture. And I think we should have much stricter rules regarding pornography and things like that in our world today. I wish we were taking more of an emphasis. Excuse me against those things today. You should not bring the higher of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the Lord your God for any vote of offering for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God. So, you know, if someone's being a cult prostitute and getting paid don't even bring that money in to the house of the Lord because it's just tasteful. And that's how strong God felt about it. You shall not charge interest to your countrymen interest on money food or anything that may be loaned interest. You may charge interest to a foreigner but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest so that the Lord your God may bless you and all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess. And God wanted his family to be taken care of in Israel and that they would not borrow from one another I don't think they it doesn't appear that they actually stuck with this you know Israel disobeyed on a lot of things. And we have much different borrowing practices today, but in this particular case God is asking them within the family of God to not charge interest from one another and you know what trouble people get into and debt right and interest and credit cards and things of that nature. And God is trying to prevent that he had a better ideal. When you make a vow to the Lord your God you shall not delay to pay it for it would be a sin in you and the Lord your God will surely required of you. However, if you refrain from valuing it would not be a sin to you, you know in the Bible talks about that let your yes be yes and you're no be no one that you don't have to make vows they used to do things like say I promise you on you know we have I promise you on my mother's grave, you know, that's something that you can expression you might hear today, but people would make a commitment and then add something to it. And you didn't really need to do that and you didn't really need to make a vow to the Lord just honor him do what's right. And if you say you're going to do something follow through and do it but you don't need to put some kind of vow on everything you say. That's consistent both old the New Testament so you don't need to do that, you should be careful to perform what does what goes out from your lips just as you have voluntary vow to the Lord your God what you have promised now if you promise something, then honor it. You know, do what you say you're going to do when you enter your neighbors vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully satisfied but you shall not put any in your basket. If you enter your neighbor standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor standing grain. God had a very generous policy in that, you know, if you are someone who had assets like land and crops that you were supposed to leave the edges behind so that people could partake of it. And the poor could partake of it and you'll see that in other teachings in this, in this book of Deuteronomy, but that was not supposed to be taken advantage of like for instance you could, if you were just walking by you were able to take some to eat. But you're not supposed to bring a basket and like fill it up and start essentially stealing your neighbors crops and then maybe taking them home to store them or even taking them filling up a basket and then selling them for money. That's not what God wanted but he did want people to be generous and taking care of the basic needs of others. And again, that will come up again in this book. So, there you have it, some various laws, some sundry laws, various laws of God that we cover today in Deuteronomy chapter 23, until we see you again in 24. God bless you all.