Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Deuteronomy 22:9-14

Sermon text today is in Deuteronomy 22:9-14. Topic is adulteration. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Actually, we’re reading through verse 14, but the text that we’ll speak on is through verse 12. But this puts it in context.

“You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts such as wool and linen mixed together. You shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself. If any man takes a wife and goes into her and detests her and charges her with shameful conduct and brings a bad name on her and says, ‘I took this woman and when I came to her, I found she was not a virgin.’ And the text goes on to describe the implications of that.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you, Lord God, for your text. We thank you for tying these proverbs at the beginning of this section of Moses’ sermon on adultery to then concerns about faithfulness in the marriage covenant. Bless us now as we consider these proverbs. Help us to understand them to be transformed by them and to give you thanks for them. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. This is the first section of Moses’ sermon on adultery.

On your second page of your handout, there is the entire section of Deuteronomy that I think deals specifically with the seventh word. And most commentators agree with this particular delineation. I want to talk about these proverbs. They’re kind of different. I guess we could call them laws or proverbs. They are laws of course given in a particular setting, but they’re proverbial, which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

I think that what they’re teaching us generally is to avoid adulteration. Adulteration is mixing something improper or impure to a particular substance and thus adulterating it. Our coins used to—when you’d flip them and hit your thumb thumbnail on them, they would ring—many of them because they were one metal with one resonance. Now there’s base metals added in and they don’t resonate anymore when you have these layers, for instance, of our pennies. So our currency has been adulterated.

Now that doesn’t mean there it’s bad. I mean sometimes we deliberately put two things together. Many things in this room are created by two things coming together. It’s just an adulteration of the original compound. So the adulteration could be good or bad. But here of course what’s being demonstrated is the improper alteration of things in a particular setting of time and Moses is using this to then begin to open up a discussion of the seventh commandment in a broader sense.

So that’s what’s going on. It behooves us then to remember what we learned last week from the commandment itself and the particular stresses and emphases that I brought to it. I was a little concerned last week after the sermon. I asked somebody, “What’s your takeaway?” And you know, they said they actually wanted to hear more about a takeaway for the opposite sex. And I was like, well, that’s kind of not the deal.

The big takeaway from last week in talking about adultery, there were a couple of them. One was to recognize that the deterioration of the family as a power center with control over property and children, which is a godly construct of the society, is being deteriorated and the state is exercising more and more control over property and children. Property would include economics etc.

And one of the ways this is happening—I mentioned three societal factors and they’re things we can do something about. The first societal factor is the predominant discussion and visual imagery of sexuality in various explicit forms. This has an effect of adulterating Christian marriage. It breaks down people’s correct perspective of sexuality which is always to be engaged in intimately—that is in the context of marriage. And so when sex predominates in a culture, sexual displays and emphases, then the family is weakened as a result of that.

And what do we have since the sexual revolution of the 60s? We have fewer and fewer marriages, more and more living together, and marriages where things are breaking down. So that’s one major factor. And so we can try to clean that up in the context of our environment. We can try to do something about that.

The second major factor, societal factor is law. Adultery is no longer a criminal action and punished by courts. It isn’t even considered in divorce actions for the most part. We have no fault divorce. Again, we can do something about that. We can try to institute long-term civil penalties for adultery. But we can in ecclesiastical court, we can certainly do something about that quite easily.

If every marriage entered into had a marriage covenant that said if the other spouse committed adultery and divorce ensued, they would lose all property of the marriage, that would change that around. And so at least in the context of our church, we can do that and many of us have done that in the last 25 years through marriage covenants to implement fault divorce as it were in the context of the church, which frequently can be actually—or at least it can be held up by the civil courts.

Now you say well that’s pretty, you know, that’s pretty bad. If a person commits adultery they lose all the property of the marriage. But remember in the Bible they’re supposed to lose their lives. You know, if we wanted to try to get as close to that as possible, we’d have the adulterous person kicked out of the house without even clothes on. Well, you’re buried or at least the way you die. And that would bring shame upon adultery as well.

And shame is supposed to be supposed to occur in the context of shame—is not a bad thing. Unbiblical shame is. But shame for sin is a good thing. And we can reinstitute that in the context of ecclesiastical courts and marriage covenants.

And then third, the other way the state becomes more and more dominant as a power culture through the declension of the family is a change in seeing relationships from covenantal relationships involving law—not just law, but covenantal relationships—to just emotional relationships. It’s all about personal feelings.

And this of course means that no marriage based on personal feelings can last that long. May last on paper, but if that’s what the heart of the relationship is, that’s not good. The Bible says we’re covenant. Adultery is the violation of a covenant, the marriage covenant. And so it’s distinguished from fornication for instance.

And so covenants are to be seen as the underlying relationship. And here we can do a lot of things in our homes. We can, you know, understand that our relationship to our spouses are ones of covenant relationship. And if you don’t feel it anymore, well, still do what’s right. Obey the context of the marriage covenant. Review your marriage covenant. What did you promise there in that covenant? And try to understand that’s the basis for your relationship, not emotions and feelings.

Those things will happen. But you know fact—and the fact is God has made you into a one flesh relationship which means one community. That’s a fact. And that fact pulls along emotions. And when we get emotions as the primary thing, we get all out of whack. We can do something about each one of those things in our homes this week.

And then I also said the takeaway last week was response. This was the big takeaway. Adultery, and this is what I think today’s text is about—adulteration. There can be physical adultery, but there can also be emotional adultery. The text of scripture tells us that adulteries come forth from the heart. You have a special covenantal relationship involving friendship, closeness, intimacy—not just sexually, but in terms of relationship—with your spouse.

And when you enter into a like relationship with that with someone else, a coworker or whatever it is, this is emotional adultery. And when you do that, you lessen response to your spouse as you give that kind of response more and more to others. Eventually, that’s going to probably result in physical adultery as well.

So, when response is given as a basic right or obligation of marriage and the case laws of the Old Testament, yes, it means sexual activity, but it also means response—words spoken back and forth in relationship. And so, we can begin then to say, “Oh, okay. So, it’s improper for me to adulterate that response, that intimate friendship with my spouse by having someone else meet those needs.”

See, that’s what happens in the workplace today. And it’s just devastating to the family and as a result leads to statism. Don’t blame Obama, you know, blame your wandering eyes or your wandering heart or your wandering relationships outside of the covenant relationship of the family.

So, these are the important things to remember. And one of the things, of course, with response is sexuality. And I’m telling you, if you have a family, if you have a relationship with your spouse that doesn’t engage—the Bible says you’re supposed to engage in regular sexual relationships. And if you don’t, I believe that’s sin. And I believe it’s sin that specifically Paul says opens up an opportunity for the devil, for your spouse. Evaluate that. How are you doing? Talk about it because that’s what this commandment, I think, drives us to.

In terms of what we’re doing today, the sermon that Moses begins with here—this section of the sermon on the seventh word—begins with these strange proverbs, strange to us, strange laws. And so we ask ourselves, well, are mules okay? That we’ll look at the parallel text to this in Leviticus 19:19.

And you’re not you’re not just supposed to not plow together, which is sexual imagery, but you’re not supposed to interbreed species of animal, you know. So, if you take a horse and a donkey, you end up with a mule. And Leviticus 19 says you’re not supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to breed mules. Now, in the Bible, godly people ride on mules. Mules aren’t bad. There’s something else going on. It’s a proverbial relationship.

They weren’t supposed to breed mules. That was certainly true. But there’s something else going on. Mules, you know, that’s not really the point. Priest garments. We’ll see as we get to the tassels and the discussion of clothing that part of these proverbs has to do with Israel being a particular priestly people.

GMOs, genetically manipulated organisms—are they okay or not? Maybe some people say, “Well, these laws are to provide simplicity of the created order, and so GMOs are an example of how we’re violating Leviticus 19:19 or Deuteronomy 9-12.” Well, I don’t think so. I don’t think these proverbs teach that. And I don’t think we’re restricted from producing mules or genetic manipulated organisms. Now, may or may not be a wise thing to do. That’s a whole different question.

Innovation. Some people say, “Well, if you got these garments mixed together of wool and linen, the problem is studies show you get tired, get more tired than if you just had one pure garment on yourself.” You know, I don’t think that’s in this text at all. This text is a text about adultery and adulteration of things. It’s not about those kind of concerns.

So, you know, as we look at these texts, we have to sort of understand them, see if they’re applicable to us and in what way they’re applicable to us. Right? All the Bible’s applicable. How are they applicable to us? And then we have to sort of figure out what it means to us. You know, is it okay to have a vineyard where you got other crops planted alongside the grape vines? Is that okay today or not? Is that a good thing to do or not? You have to kind of try to figure that out.

So, that’s what we’re going to try to do. We’re going to try to take something very simple and look at it in a complicated way. Simple proverbs, right? are things that in a little picture try to depict something. One of the problems we have is we’re not used to thinking in terms of these pictures and imagery. And it helps us to then see how the Bible interprets these particular proverbs overall.

And the first point I want to make—and this is why we began to read into the last the next section of Moses sermon here on sexuality—is the relationship of these three proverbs or three laws maybe four laws. We could say the castle is related to the garment. But these four laws or proverbs are related directly. They’re in the context of sexuality here in this section of Deuteronomy.

So it clearly goes right on to talk about sexuality. In fact, some commentators think that the three basic proverbs are then reflected chiastically in the three sections of the balance of Moses sermon on the seventh word. So your second page on your outline or handout is this arrangement that may cause thing to relate one to the other.

So we start by talking about what’s going on in a vineyard and as we get to the end of Moses sermon—his sermon on this on the seventh word—we talk about what’s going on in the war camp. So the war camp is kind of like a vineyard. So God’s people, whatever they’re doing, they’re like a vineyard even if they’re in a war camp.

And so the implications of that, you know, the inner breeding together or plowing together of ox and ass is reflected down in certain prohibition from the ecclesiastical community of people that are outside or have sinned in particular ways. They can’t be part of the community. So, it’s keeping separate certain kinds of people, certain tribes of people in the immediate context of Israel. In the same way, you’re supposed to keep ox and ass separate.

So, the sexual discussion in the rest of this section of Deuteronomy ties these proverbs and maybe in some very specific interesting ways to meditate upon to the balance of the sermon. Now, we’ll deal with the balance of the sermon for the next three or four weeks, but today we want to talk specifically about the beginning. Moses starts with an illustration. In fact, he starts with three or four illustrations before he actually gets into the didactic teaching of his sermon on this.

And so, we want to think about that a little bit. Now, there’s a parallel text. If you could turn to Leviticus 19, and I know we’ve talked about Leviticus 19 a lot, but open your Bibles, turn to Leviticus 19.

And you know, we’ve we’ve gone to Leviticus 19 because it’s a summary statement of 70 commands that reflect the ten commandments as well. And remember, we sort of said the heart of Leviticus 19 is verse 18, love your neighbor as yourself. And remember, we talked about that in relationship to the sixth commandment, don’t kill. It talks in that section of Leviticus in the verses leading up to verse 18 that you’re not to take a stand against your neighbor’s life. You’re to love your neighbor as yourself.

And so in Leviticus 19 and verse 18 ends that section: don’t take vengeance. Remember that’s real pertinent to the sixth commandment, cities of refuge, etc. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Now what we said is in Leviticus 19, the designations of “I am the Lord” or “I am the Lord your God.” These are section markers. So we’ve got a section marker now at the end of 18 and at the of 19 we have a major section marker. You shall keep my statutes.

So Leviticus 19 is broken up into two halves: 1 to 18, be holy, and now keep my statutes. And the emphasis in this section, the second section of Leviticus 19 seems more corporate. The “you” is plural. We’re talking about statutes now. You don’t know if somebody’s loving their neighbor or not in their heart, right? You can’t see that.

But you can see what happens in the next section. Verse 19 goes on to say, Don’t let your livestock breed with another kind. You can see that’s going on in your neighbor’s house or not or neighbor’s barn or not where the produce of his livestock will be known. So Leviticus 19 is a new section and this is parallel this particular verse to our text today.

“You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind.” So in Deuteronomy it specifies ox and ass. We’ll talk about why here all interbreeding of animals is prohibited. Now you know, we think about this as prohibiting something that’s odd. Why would you interbreed livestock? But in actuality, if you’ve got, you know, horses and donkeys, unless you take pains, they’re going to interbreed. You’re going to end up with some mules.

If you’ve got crops that you mix together, there may be cross-pollination that happens. So, the requirements of Deuteronomy 9 through 22:12 make the people of God in this particular time in history take special pains to avoid what would be natural. So don’t think about it as trying to maintain a natural state because actually these commandments are contrary in nature—things do tend to end up interbreeding within species for instance.

So there’s there’s energy required to build fences make sure you know have sections between your crops so you don’t get them cross-pollinating, etc. But in any event, “you shall not let your livestock breed with another kind.” And so breeding here is with the animals as opposed to plowing together. But as I said, I think that’s sexual imagery, although it means you shouldn’t plow together as well. And we’ll look at that in a couple of minutes.

“You shall not sow your field with mixed seed.” So in Leviticus or Deuteronomy 22, if you got a vineyard, don’t add more seeds to that of a different type. So vineyard, and but here it’s more general. The livestock is general. Don’t sow your field with mixed seeds.

“Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you.” So this is also parallel, right? The three things that are talked about in Deuteronomy 22 are mentioned here as well in a little different order, but it’s a parallel text quite obviously.

Now I point this out because if you go on to look at verse 20, what does it talk about? “Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed to a man as a concubine.” And it goes on and describes the situation. So immediately after the discussion of the parallel text, we have a series of laws about sexuality. It would have to do with the seventh word or seventh commandment. Don’t commit adultery. And it’s interesting because then if you look down at verse 23—well, first look at verse 25.

It ends with “I am the Lord your God.” Remember that’s a marker. So 19 to 25 are a unit. They’re marked off as a unit by the statement, “I am the Lord your God.” And 19 to 25 begins with the discussion of inner mixtures, adulteration. And it ends with verse 22 about planting all kinds of trees for food. “You shall count the fruit as uncircumcised.” Very odd term. And so for a while that fruit is to be seen as uncircumcised.

Again, that has reference, you know, to circumcision, which affects the organs of reproduction and in the middle of that it’s talking about sexual sin. So he both in Deuteronomy it goes on to talk about sexual sin. In Leviticus it absolutely is tied by the marker at the end to the sexual sin commandments found at the middle of that section in Leviticus.

So you know what I’m pointing out here is that these are illustrations, commandments, laws or proverbs in Deuteronomy 22:9-12 that are definitely linked to sexual sin, sexual purity, both in Deuteronomy, but also in the parallel text in Leviticus. That’s a strong testimony that I hope puts you at ease with dealing with these things as somehow metaphors and analogies of how we’re to apply the seventh commandment.

Now, one other thing I want to talk about, and this is mostly review, but this is important for us. How do we decide if these commandments are for us or not? How do we know if it doesn’t prohibit GMOs? How do we know what shirt do you have on today? Did anybody here have a shirt where you got both linen and wool mixed together in the fabric or two kinds of fabric? Any two kinds?

It’s kind of difficult for us today because a lot of us have wool and man-made fabrics mixed together. Was that okay or not okay? You know, if you have linen and wool together, is that a sin that you can’t the church in that kind of shirt? We need to know how to figure out if these are for us or not.

You can’t just say, “Well, I don’t like them, so let’s not make them relevant.” That’s one problem. The other problem would be, well, if it doesn’t say in the New Testament that we can wear these things now, we got to still be prohibited from wearing them. That also, I think, is another simplistic but wrong way to deal with continuity and discontinuity issues.

One way to deal with continuity and discontinuity, is it applicable or not? has to do with creation mandates. Right? So, we said that one of the reasons why the Sabbath—the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day—is in our church covenant is because that is a creation ordinance. It predates Mosaic legislation. So, if things are tied to the creation itself, right, then that is important for us.

But this—these commandments on the face of it are not tied to a creation mandate of some sort. Another thing you want to investigate here is the Mosaic covenant and separation. These are laws clearly that deal with separation of things. Wool and linen and garments. Ox and ass in terms of plowing the ox with ox and the ass with ass. Separation of a vineyard and other seed crops. So it has to do with separation.

And the Mosaic code was set up to enforce separation in several directions. First of all, it enforced segregation of tribes. Okay. Should tribes always be separate? Well, no. The tribes were kept separate under the Mosaic legislation involving property for the specific purpose of maintaining a tribal lineage until the coming of Messiah. When Judah is blessed at the end of Genesis, it says that a ruler Judah will rule until Shiloh comes. Shiloh will come from the line and tribe of Judah. It’ll be the lion of Judah. And at that point, the Juda—the line of Judah is now irrelevant.

The tribes are kept separate until Shiloh comes to rule all people. Okay? Shiloh is Jesus. And so the separation laws in Mosaic legislation have to be seen in terms of separation of tribes relative to seed. And specifically in our text today, this has to do with seed. It says that explicitly in the very first proverb about not sowing different sorts of seeds together.

In Galatians 3:16, we read, “Not to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made. He does not say unto seeds as of many, but as one, and to your seed, who is Christ.” So the separation of lines of seed, we could say, was enforced artificially—we could say—in the Mosaic legislation to prepare us for the coming of the one who would get rid of those distinctions who would break down the separation.

Additionally, Jew and Gentile are kept separate in Mosaic legislation. And again, this is to affect this until the coming of the one who would, in the words of Paul to Ephesians, break down the middle wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. There is no more Jew or Gentile. Paul writes to the Galatian—the text we just quoted about the seed. So when the seed comes, when Jesus comes, the tribal separation stuff is out of joint now. And the separation of Jew and Gentiles that’s maintained gets out of joint as well.

So to whatever degree, for instance, the clothing and the tassels have to do with a priestly nation kept separate from the gentile nations and I believe that was exactly one of the main points of it. To that effect, these laws are now out of joint for us. Or better they’re fulfilled at the coming of Christ.

And so Christ comes to affect the removal of separation and unity now between the different tribes but beyond that between Jew and Gentile. And so when when statutes are read that are explicitly given in Mosaic legislation to the children of Israel only, okay, then those statutes are put out of joint. They’re fulfilled in different ways. Now that Jesus has come, there’s a truth to them, right? All law reflects the character of God.

And the truth, I think, is avoid adulteration. That truth maintains. But the specific way that truth is ministered to and acted out in our lives changes because we’re not a separate priestly nation as the Israelites were that had god-fearing Gentiles in their context. Okay? There’s one body now.

And so because of that coming together of one body, the law is dealing with separation of priests from non-priests, priestly nation from non-priestly nation, this tribe from that tribe. All of those things are changed and put and fulfilled rather in the coming of Shiloh who will unite the tribes ultimately and who will unite Jew and Gentile as well in him coming on.

Now, you know, as an example of this, we read of special clothing in our text today and we know that the priests had special clothing. The it we’ll say in a couple of minutes that the tassels represented Israel as a priestly nation. They were a special clothing. Priests looked different than other people. But in the New Testament, what’s our clothing? What’s the clothing that we’re told about in the New Testament after the coming of Jesus?

How are we supposed to dress? Well, it says in Gal—in Galatians, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There’s neither Jew nor Greek. So, the clothing separation of Jew and Greek established by the very text we’re looking at today and others is put out of sync. And now there is no longer that separation. We’re all clothed in Christ. Okay.

So, that’s an example of how to look at some of these laws and decide, well, are we not supposed to be having where our tassels? How come Pastor Tuuri didn’t tell us to wear tassels today? Well, that’s why it wasn’t a creation mandate. It had to do with laws of separation till the coming of Shiloh, the seed came.

And it has to do with the artificial separation, we could say, or the keeping Jew and Gentiles separate, reminding the world that true unity will only happen through Messiah. Okay? When Jesus comes, the great rupture in humanity—really, which really was Adam and Eve, right? That great rupture will be brought back together. And in fact in Galatians it says there’s neither Jew nor Greek nor male nor female. Maybe that’s a reference back to the garden and the separation, you know, that happened—the animosity that happens between Adam and Eve after the fall—that unity now comes to humanity. Jesus said in Matthew 21:43 “I say to you the kingdom of God will be taken from you the Jews and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”

So there’s this change that happens. The kingdom is taken away from the Jews as a separate people given to a new nation. And that’s us. It’s the church. The church that no longer has those issues of separation established properly by God in preparing the world for Messiah.

Third, the Bible says when there’s a change of priesthood, there’s a change of law. That’s in the book of Hebrews. It says specifically in Hebrews 7:12, “For the priesthood being changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law.” And in verse 11, it says, “If perfection were through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be called according to the order of Aaron.

Jesus is not a Levitical priest. He is a priest of the order of Melchizedek. He wasn’t from the priestly tribe. He was from the kingly tribe Judah we just talked about. And so there’s a change of priesthood. And to the extent that these laws are linked to the priesthood of the Levitical tribe and the priesthood of the nation of Israel, now there’s a change of priesthood and whenever there’s a change of priesthood, there’s a change of law.

Now the same thing happened earlier in the other direction. The patriarchs, you know, had worship in a particular way and then God established a priestly nation, the Levites. And when that priestly nation was established, new laws were given. Okay? So, the one unchanging character of God is reflected in differing kinds of laws for particular situations.

And so the change of priesthood from Levitical to Melchizedek through the coming of Christ the seed means also that laws that are specifically oriented to the priesthood aspect of Israel and the Levitical tribe, these laws are fulfilled by Christ and there’s a change now in their application.

All right. Well, good enough. Now, let’s talk about the specifically the four laws and try to understand what they are. Verse 9, “You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds.” And the plural form used there is a doubling. It’s not many kinds, but like with a second sort of seed, “lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.”

Actually, the word literally means holy, and well, what that means is if anything is holy, it’s dedicated to God, right? And if it’s dedicated to God means you can’t use it. It’s lost its usability to you. So that’s why the translation says, you know, it’s defiled when actually literally it means holy, but it means you can’t use it.

What this says is that this adulteration of the vineyard produces a crop that is useless for its purposes. Now the vineyard—these are proverbs, like right, you read the proverbs where it uses agricultural animal things to teach about life. And I think these are proverbs like—the vineyard in the scriptures is Israel was the vineyard. And this is given to us over and over again in the scriptures. I’ve given you some references there.

But over and over again, Israel is identified as God’s vineyard. And so to take God’s vineyard and adulterate the progression of God’s vineyard through sexual relations outside of the vineyard produces bad results. So this is talking about the adulteration of Israel through intermarriage with non-Israel.

And there’s a story that we can think of in relationship to this Judah, right? Jacob’s a fruitful vine. He has 12 kids, at least one daughter. And one of those kids is Judah. And Judah marries Bathshua, the daughter of Shua, who was a Canaanite. And it’s an interesting story in Genesis 38. I give you one example of how interesting it is. They does this in Chezib and that word means false. So the very name of the town where all this is going out identifies Judah as false. He’s being false to God. He’s intermarrying. He’s taking the vineyard of Israel and mixing it with a non-Israelite, a Canaanite woman.

And by the way, this girl’s dad is his best friend, an Adullamite as well. It doesn’t indicate they’re converts. And so it seems like we have a non-converted Canaanite here that is that Judah blends into the vineyard of God.

And by the way, right after this story is Genesis 39, which talks about Joseph not falling into the beginning of Joseph’s story where he doesn’t fall into sexual idolatry with Potiphar’s wife. He resists that kind of adulteration. Judah gives into that kind of adulteration.

What happens? The story of Judah is then that he gets three kids out of this: Onan and the third son Shelah and he marries to Tamar. Onan is wicked and God kills him. Onan is supposed to fulfill the levirate responsibility which had to do again with this tribal thing etc. Onan doesn’t do it, God kills him.

So the two fruits of Judah’s mixing seed with the vineyard—the crop of that is killed by God. It’s destroyed. You see? So, there’s a literal—there’s a literal happening here, a story that’s reflected proverbially in command structure in what God commands the people that tells them reminds of the story of when you mix vineyard Israel with nonvineyard Canaanite, bad things happen. The crop becomes horrible.

So, that’s I think what’s being alluded to here is that I mentioned that in Deuteronomy 25 when we get to the 10th word the law of the levirate will be described in Deuteronomy and that kind of is a match the 10th word to the seventh word further evidence of this indication of what I’m mentioning now.

It’s interesting because two sets of mixed seed well two sets of kids result from this story. The first is Onan and then he refuses, of course, to give his third son to Tamar, afraid that he’s going to die, too. And so Tamar then tricks him.

And it’s interesting because Judah is going to get wool and Tamar puts on the prostitute’s linen, no doubt. You got wool and linen getting together. And you got other kinds of things happening here. It’s a very interesting story in its details.

But the end result of that is that Tamar becomes pregnant by her father-in-law. She’s simply trying to fulfill the obligations that God said Judah had for his sons to have children. He’s being a wicked no good person. His intermarriage with his marriage with the Canaanite woman is reflected and now he’s a guy that goes and have sex with prostitutes as well. Well, she’s not a prostitute.

And when it’s told Judah that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, is pregnant, he says she should be burned to death. And so then she sends back the proof that no, it was him. And he repents. It says, “She’s more righteous than I.” He repents.

And then the text goes on specifically to say that he doesn’t enter into sexual relationships with her anymore. He does really repent in his statement, in his realization what happened, and in his actions.

And then Tamar has these twins, Perez and Zarah. And it’s interesting because again, it’s too long a story and I’ve already taken too much time on it, but Perez, of course, becomes—his line is the line in which David is found in which Messiah comes.

So Judah to Messiah involves Perez and you could see these twins there Perez and Zerah perhaps as replacements to Onan after repentance has occurred and so blessing in the context even of sexual sin.

I would use that to remind you today that if these sermons on sexual sin and failure of proper response and in emotional adultery cause conviction in your life—hey, look what Judah did. Look how bad his sexual sin was. And yet when repentance happens, there’s great blessing. There’s Perez and there’s the line that will ultimately culminate in David and our savior himself.

So, you know, take hope. Don’t respond to conviction of the Holy Spirit in terms of these matters, you know, with self-sorrow and self-pity and, you know, you know, unreasonable fear. Repent. Make your repentance sure. Speak words like Judah did. Take actions like Judah did. And the Lord God says great blessings can come forth in the context of that.

Okay, so that’s the first law. Our savior alludes to this, I think, in Matthew 13 verse 24. It says another parable he put forth to them saying the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

So our savior says there’s this application between good seed and bad seed. So while it’s really not bad seed in Deuteronomy 22:9 that’s what’s being talked about. The vineyard is Israel. It’s a warning against intermarriage and it’s a warning against adulteration of the seed, specifically the tribal distinctions in the time in which it was given.

So, it’s a warning against adulteration. And what it says is that adulteration produces a seed, a crop, it’s no good. And so, if you’re engaged in literal adultery, you know, repent because there’s no good that’s going to come out of that.

If you’re engaged in emotional adultery by having a relationship—you’re not, you know, when God messes up your relationship with your spouse in his providence using your sin frequently, sinlessly. You know what you’re tempted to do is go and get somebody else to fulfill that need. That’s no different than sexually having problems with your wife and going and having sex with somebody else.

It’s the same thing when you have problems with your wife in terms of relationship or your husband and you go to somebody else for that kind of emotional satisfaction that really should be coming from your husband. The end result of that is no good. The end result of that is a bad thing. The end result of that will be stuff that’ll blow up in your face.

So, be warned by that. Our Savior says it’s the enemy, the evil one. It’s a tear. That kind of thing. It’s the anti-wheat going on in your life. And our Savior says to be careful, be wary, be warned about that.

Okay, next one. Verse 10. “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” Again, the Bible in Deuteronomy 33, Numbers 22, and other places refers to Israel as an ox and an ass. So, remember that in Leviticus it’s any two kinds of animals. You can’t mix them together. Here it says ox and ass. Why?

Well, an ox is the symbol of Israel. And the Canaanites, their god was an ass. And so I think that behind the imagery here again is this unequally yoked between Israel and a Canaanite. So again, we could reminded of Judah and is marrying an ass woman, right? I mean, not that she was a bad person, but she was outside of Israel, right?

But there’s another story. And that’s Genesis 34. What happens, right? Dina goes out and visits with the men of the place they’re in, the Shechemites, has sex with Hamor. And Hamor wants to marry her. Hamor means ass. Literally, that’s his name. Means he’s an ass. And it doesn’t mean he’s stupid. It means he’s a Canaanite. His their god was an ass god.

So, you know, we’ve got this threatened thing going on—an ox and an ass have now had sex together and there’s a desire for marriage to bring this threat to the vineyard to the ox to full bore. Now, in the providence of God, you know, two of Jacob’s sons sin by killing—telling them you got to be circumcised. They circumcise themselves. They kill all the Shechemites. We know the story.

What’s interesting about this story is in Genesis 49:6 we read, “Let not my soul enter into their council. Talking about these two sons, let not my honor be united to their assembly. In their anger, they slew a man. Actually, more than a man—Hamor and a bunch of Shechemites. And in their self-will, they hamstrung an ox.”

See, they hamstrung Israel by their conduct. They damaged Israel’s reputation by the kind of ungodly thing they did using this covenant sign of circumcision to murder men.

Okay. Okay. So that hamstrings the church. Emotional fornication or adultery and literal adultery has a devastating effect upon the church upon Christians in general. Christians reputation suffers when Christian legislators go back to Washington DC and have affairs with their interns. It hamstrings the ox.

Okay. So what’s being talked about here is not entering into relationships outside of the one God has given you in the context of Christian marriage and certainly not by being unequally yoked.

And of course, of course, Paul picks up this imagery in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. “Do not be unequally yoked together. Well, that’s a direct reference back to what we’re just talked about, this particular law. Paul picks up the imagery from it. And he tells us exactly how to apply it. We don’t apply it by not actually hooking up an ox as plow. Apparently, that’s still done in the Middle East. It’s routine. It’s not unusual. I thought it must be, but apparently not.

No, that’s not the application. The application is the kind of relationships, tight covenantal relationships we have. He says, don’t be on equal yoke with unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Of what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

Now, this is important. This is why children in this church we stress so hard not marrying unbelievers. It’s not just because we like believers and don’t like unbelievers, but we’re saying this is this is what the law of God tells. This is how we apply this. It’s an adulteration of Christianity when a Christian young person marries a non-Christian.

Now, it isn’t just referring to marriage, though. I believe that when people enter into partnerships and to tight arrangements, remember it was Judah’s friendship with the Canaanite that led to his marriage of the Canaanites daughter. Whenever we enter into tight relationships with unbelievers, it’s a danger to us.

Now, we ought to have friends that are unbelievers and be witnessing to them and praying for them, etc. But I’m talking about unequally yoked, really tying yourself together by covenant with an unbeliever. Paul tells us why it’s bad. He talks about righteousness and lawlessness. Okay? So, I mean, how are you going to structure a covenant with unbelievers who really don’t have a perception of law?

He Christianity has a sense of righteousness keeping covenant oaths. And outside of Christianity, people violate oaths all the time. Don’t think that if you marry an unbeliever, they’re going to obey the marriage covenant. They may well not. Don’t think if you have a partnership with an unbeliever that they’re going to think twice about breaking the covenant. Typically, they won’t.

That’s what the text tells us.

Light with darkness, our knowledge of what we have, right? Our knowledge of marriage, our knowledge of how to raise kids, our knowledge of how to run a business. It’s informed by the light of God. But for the unbeliever, he’s in darkness. He can’t understand things correctly. His mind, he doesn’t have the mind of Christ. He’s not using the scriptures and the Holy Spirit to interpret his world.

Now, that’s who he is. And it’s our job to try to bring him into the light. But the point is in terms of being yoked together in covenant with such people, you see, in marriage or in tight other covenants, business partnerships, whatever it is, there’s real danger there because the way you look at your business or your marriage is going to be completely different from somebody who’s in darkness rather than light.

Your consecration and lawkeeping of the of the business or the marriage or whatever it is will be different because you’re a Christian or at least it should be. And so there’s danger there to being unequally yoked.

Christ with Belial—Christ is the Lord. Belial is the lord of useless men. Your sense of you know who is Lord and who’s ultimately going to govern us in our marriage or our business is completely different than an unbeliever. And when you do these kind of things, you’re unequally yoked and you’re adulterating marriage, the business, whatever it is.

And the first proverb tells us when you adulterate things, the produce won’t be good. It’ll be bad. Remember those two kids being killed by God and Onan. That’s the sort of produce from adulteration of our full commitment to Jesus Christ.

Okay. So unequally yoked is that proverb.

The third proverb, “You shall not wear a garment of different sorts such as or of garment of different sorts such as wool and linen mixed together.”

Garment here is really an Egyptian probably borrowed word into Hebrew. It’s only used here in Leviticus here and in Leviticus 19:19. So it doesn’t really mean garment. It’s probably more a particular kind of fabric of mixed sorts together.

And in as it turns out, Ezekiel says that the priests when they went into the holy place had to take off the wool part of their garments or the garments that they wore that might be partly wool and they had to worship only in linen in the context of the holy of holies. The implication of that is that priestly garments actually did have a combination of wool and linen.

And in fact the next commandment to wear a tassel is almost a in reverse of what this proverb says, because the tassels were made with one part of it being wool. So I think what’s going on here again is priestly clothing. But ultimately this again has marriage imagery to it.

In the Bible when somebody marries somebody else in the book of Ruth for instance Boaz puts his wing—the edge of his garment over Ruth and that’s an imagery of marriage. It’s the same imagery that God uses in Ezekiel 16. He finds Israel, he makes her beautiful, and he lays his garment over her. It’s an imagery of marriage. Okay?

And so to lay a garment over someone, both a man lays his garment over the woman, and the woman symbolically lays her garment over the man. They cover each other. And so this garment idea is related to marriage. And so that’s why Moses puts it in here on this part of his sermon on adulteration and adultery.

And so there’s these garments here and these garments again are is a reminder to us that marriage should be in the context of the faith. And so additionally, there’s these implications that what’s being talked about here is the priestly nation and you can’t put on the garment of a high priest if you’re only a normal priest.

Now, the fact that you’re a normal priest is demonstrated in the next law where you put on the tassel.

So in verse 12 we read, “You shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.”

So, tassels, the law of the tassels is given in Numbers 15:37-41. And what we read there is that says speak to the children of Israel directed to Israel, not to the god-fearers with them. And some of these commands are given to both. But here it’s the children of Israel, the priestly nation, make tassels on their garments, put a blue thread on the tassels of the on the corners, and you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, that you may remember and do all my commandments.

So, the last thing, the last little proverb that Moses gives us here by way of command before he talks about specific cases of sexual sin, the last thing he does is tell us he tells Israel, you’re a priestly nation, that priestly tassel has a reason. The reason is remembering all the commandments of God. And specifically he says to remember them to avoid harlotry is what Numbers 15 told the children of Israel.

So what is it for? The tassel is a reminder of generally keeping God’s commands and not being idolatrous. But it’s also a specific reminder of avoiding adulteration in sexual matters that you don’t play the harlot.

So I think the tassel here is a reminder of the dangers of adulteration, the blessings of not having adulterated relationships. And God says this tassel does that comprehensively for God’s people.

Now there’s an interesting story in the Jewish commentaries on the law—the Gomorrah. It says that a guy, a Jew, is going to have sex with a prostitute. And this tassel on the edge of his garment miraculously flies up and slaps him in the face. And he says, “Whoa. He tell I can’t, sorry, I can’t have sex with you.” He says, tells the girl. And the girl is so impressed by this that he’s so consistent to his faith that she converts then.

And I think the story says they go on to marry. Now, that’s an interesting story. Now the application is we want things around us. We want to have a mindset that we’re slapped in the face by reminders of God’s laws and warnings against adulteration specifically and marriage relationships specifically in all things of course but that reminds us not to enter into sin and when we do that God says blessings acrue to the world that’s what the point of the proverb or the example of the Jewish commentary There he is.

Now there were four tassels on the four corners of the garment. And the garment represents all the world. The four corners you see in the altar on the garments. The world has four corners. My head it has four corners. God’s world has four corners. And I think long-term the implication of this is that all the world will be consecrated to the obedience to God’s word and law.

When Jesus Christ comes, he’ll do away with priestly regulations on clothing, but to the end that all the world will see itself as tassel bound as it were, tassel reminded. You know, we may want to consider things in our lives, right? Some people do this. They’ll put up plaques on their walls, scripture verses, whatever it is. A lot of young women, you know, their dad give them a promise ring, right? And they look at the promise ring and remember, okay, I’m going to go through dad and mom. I’m not going to engage in sexual relationships outside of Christian marriage.

And it’s the same kind of thing. That’s what this tassel was. And so, the application is that if we understand the dangers of adulteration, okay, of mixing things together and the end result which is so bad and horrific, we’re going to want to remember that and ask God by his holy spirit now that the tassels really are a picture of the spirits to bring God’s word to us that the indwelling Holy Spirit would remind us of the need for commitment to purity and commitment to God.

So, you know, Calvin says these laws—they look complicated. They look kind of simple and minute. But the big picture is they’re intended to make us pure. They’re intended to avoid adulteration. Certainly in the context of sexuality, but in general in our lives, they’re intended to inspire us to a commitment to the vineyard, the church of Jesus Christ, right? to a commitment to honor him in all that we do.

So the application here is certainly renewed commitments to not having adulteration going on in our marriages. But beyond that, it’s a commitment to not have adulteration going on in our walk. Remember, we said last week that adultery and idolatry are connected.

Jesus said you can’t serve God and Mammon. You can’t mix up the ox and the ass. And sometimes we think that when we’re going after Mammon, that’s different than our religious life. That’s that’s being warned against in these texts, even commanded against. Mammon has a way of weakening our loyalty. A commitment to material prosperity has a way of weakening our loyalty and commitment to God. And God it is who actually gives us all these wonderful blessings of physical prosperity.

So you know this is the kind of idolatry and adultery that goes on that these texts are warning us against. Statism is a huge thing that we enter into. More and more Christians are having mixed loyalties to God and to the state. They’re serving not God and financial prosperity, but God in the idea of a centralized state who commands all kinds of things outside of the will of God and enslaves men to do particular things. That’s adulteration of our Christian walk.

And so these texts remind us, warn us against adulteration, against mixing the purity of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ with a commitment to follow other gods. Jesus said to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. To mix Christian doctrine with non-Christian doctrine is what he was warning us against.

Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will destroy. Let your conduct be without covetousness, content with such things as you have.” This is really a restatement of the commitment to pure in the context of our marriages and in the context of our lives as Christians.

God would have us respond to his word by a renewed commitment today to be pure, committed to him, to not have the leaven of whether it’s money, sex, statism, whatever it might be that would argue against our complete loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. God says don’t adulterate what you have. What you have is the power of God for the salvation of the whole world.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your love for us. We thank you for the way you communicate in these interesting proverbial laws that you give to us. Help us, Father, this week to remember them, to chew upon them, to reminded by them.

Help us to find ourselves committed to not adulterating our marriages through improper sexuality, sexual imagery. Help the young people here not to adulterate their coming marriages through improper participation and viewing of sexual things that will enter into that marriage good that’s to be kept undefiled.

Help us, Lord God, in all that we do and say not to be idolatrous or to mix service and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ with other motivations. In his name we ask it. Amen. Amen.