Dennis Tuuri

Amen. We turn to the perfect law of liberty, the law of God found in the scriptures today. Our sermon text is found in Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 15 through 24:7. Now, this is, I think, that portion of Moses’ sermon in Deuteronomy that correlates to the eighth word, “And thou shalt not steal.” And so that’ll be the text. In your handouts today on the outlines, the first two pages have actually the way that I’ll talk about this text, the verses, clustered in that particular way.

The last page of your handout should be a seven-part structure of this text connected to the seven days of creation. Now, we’re not actually going to deal with that in detail. But I thought we could pause and break this up into those seven sections. We won’t have time to deal with that structure. But notice that it begins and ends with talking about stealing life. So the sermon today is called “Stealing Freedom”—stealing liberty.

This is what is prohibited in the eighth word according to this section of Moses’ sermon. And so people running away from people that have enslaved them and then not enslaving the fellow Israelite either at the other end. So those match up. Those last two case laws—there are 10 specific case laws given here. Numbers 9 and 10 are connected together because, while it’s not evident in the text, kidnapping means stealing the life, the nephesh, the soul of a man.

And that Hebrew word is in that verse and it’s also in the previous verse. If you take the upper millstone in pledge, then this also relates to the man’s nephesh, soul or life. So the last two sections connect up. And what we see then is, you know, a couple of case laws in the second section and in the matching sixth section that have to do with improper sexual relations and then marriage. And then moving into the center, two sets of case laws dealing with benevolence and at the very heart the requirement to exercise our speech carefully in terms of vows to God and to fulfill those vows.

All right. So let’s stand and read Deuteronomy 23. I’ll read it. You listen. Verse 15 through 24:7. You can either follow along in your own Bible, the handout, and I’d suggest the back page if you use the handout—not the coloring sheet, but the third page—or just listen.

“You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you. He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses, within one of your gates, where it seems best to him. You shall not oppress him. There shall be no ritual harlot”—and the text literally be read “holy one”—”of the daughters of Israel, or a perverted one”—”holy one”—”of the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering. For both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God. You shall not charge interest to your brother—interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest.

To a foreigner, you may charge interest, but to your brother, you shall not charge interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess. When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you.

That which has gone forth from your lips, you shall keep and perform. For you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container. When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.

When a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife. If the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. Or if the latter husband dies, who took her as his wife, then her former husband, who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled. For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business. He shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken.

No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge, for he takes one’s life, one’s living in pledge. If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and mistreats him or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die, and you shall put away the evil from among you.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this section of Moses’ sermon on freedom and liberty and the way we’re to use our liberty correctly before you to guard it and protect it. We acknowledge that we live in a country where our liberties have been greatly reduced. And we pray, Father, for deliverance. We look to you and to your word then today to help us to live as people bringing the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ to our homes, to this community of RCC, to our neighborhoods that we might be a piece of humanity flourishing by living in accord with your Holy Spirit in our midst.

Bless us, Lord God, with an understanding of these texts to that end. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. Well, we’re to live as people of hope before the world. And that probably is going to become increasingly important as we move in the particular path that our country has chosen to move in at this stage in its development. Nobody knows what’ll happen tomorrow. Maybe there’s no impact from the S&P downgrading, but we know that the stock market in Tel Aviv this morning was halted for a period of time. And I didn’t hear the final result, but it was fluctuating between 4 and 12% down. And we’ll see what happens tomorrow. But whatever happens, we as Christians are a people called to hope and we’re called to live out our lives not in fearfulness of what might happen, but to look at what God is doing in the context of what’s happening in our midst and live in the midst of people of fear and concern as people of hope and vision and promise.

Now, to do that, we have to have our lives conform more and more to God’s word. And that’s what we’re going to try to do today is to again look at this eighth word, “Thou shalt not steal.” And we talked about it—you know, this is the sixth sermon, I guess it is now. But may the Lord God grant us that we would be a people who are blessed as we head into whatever waters we head into tomorrow.

I used last week a term in my sermon, the Hatfields and the McCoys, and apparently some of the young people don’t know who they are and probably didn’t take the time to look it up in Wikipedia this week. And I used it because this is an example that R.J. Rushdoony uses in his *Institutes of Biblical Law*. I mentioned Rushdoony because his words that he said many years ago—he thought the economic problems we’re going through now would have happened 20 or 30 years ago. And he said that in a time like this, or in a time of any kind of judgment whether it’s economic catastrophe or natural disasters or whatever it is, but particularly in a time when the nation is kind of being shaken at its core, a nation like ours where freedom has been diminished—he says that a godly people will prepare for freedom. A godly people will prepare for freedom.

The state is becoming increasingly incapable of providing the sorts of safety nets that our culture and many of us—all of us to some degree or another—can produce. So godly people prepare for freedom. Today’s text is all about the stealing of freedom. We’ll get to that in just a minute.

One other thing—oh, so I should clarify the Hatfields and McCoys. These were two families, kind of mountain people, sort of families in the late 19th century that began a feud and went back and forth. A number of people were killed. So it’s been part of the English language in America to talk about Hatfields and McCoys as kind of a vendetta or feud between two warring peoples. And I used it last week because the center of the next section of Deuteronomy that we looked at talked about the responsibility lying with the person that sins. And with the Hatfields and McCoys, you know, one of the Hatfields married a McCoy or vice versa and there was an affront or whatever it was. And so the whole family was held responsible rather than just the individual. And so the two families were holding each other responsible as families, not the individuals being held responsible. And as a result, there was a blood feud that ensued.

So in our day and age, this is what tends to happen. The rich people are all bad or the poor people are all bad. And you get this kind of tribal feuding going on. And that’s what the illustration was about last week.

There were also several things on the list of practical to-do items from last week’s outline on social justice, part two. And I wanted to mention just a couple of these that were not understandable apparently. Number four: tithe, tracking the benevolence portion. A portion of your tithe according to Deuteronomy 14 and other texts is to be used for benevolent purposes to help the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger in the land, the poor. And so whether you keep a small portion of your tithe at home in a jar or in a box on the wall so your kids can see it, or if you give your whole tithe to RCC, you should recognize that a portion of it is to be used for benevolent actions.

And so it’s good to ask elders and deacons here, “What’s going on with that benevolence money?” And you know, we don’t spend it out real quickly because we’re using it for what we think are really important needs that come up. And it’s not a bad thing in a time of more prosperity than not to prepare for whatever we might be going through by accumulation of resources. But track the use of your benevolent portion of your tithe.

Accumulate wealth by diligence. You can’t help poor people if you don’t have any money. And so, you know, we’re supposed to accumulate wealth. Try to get more and more stewardship over property. Number six: when necessary, accept charity charitably. You know, it’s harder to receive charity than it is to give it. I think that’s almost universally true in Christian circles. It’s harder to admit a need than it is to help a need.

I had a conversation just yesterday with someone who didn’t want to bother another member of the church. And I said, “Bother members of the church! You know, they jump at opportunities to be self-sacrificial and help other people. Don’t y’all feel that way? Don’t you love it when you can do something good for somebody?” So, if you need help or assistance, you know, accept charity charitably, in a loving way yourself.

We have to have that kind of living in our community for this stuff to actually work out in practical ways.

Fight politically the killing of the golden goose. So you know, free market is what produces prosperity and free financial transactions pretty much unhindered by government. And what’s happened in our culture increasingly is the golden goose is being killed through regulations, taxation, uncertainty, new entitlement programs. And so we—there’s, you know, the economy isn’t growing and one of the biggest reasons is that politically we need to be involved to help protect free market or private market transactions because that’s the basis for wealth and that’s the way to help everybody. That’s the way to help everybody.

Let’s see, I might have read it later, but I’ll read it now. I’ve talked about in the Circle of Protection the last couple of weeks and how this group of the Sojourners and other liberals—including, however, the head of the NEA—met with President Obama two weeks ago. And I wanted to bring your attention to another group called CASE. And this is their letter, CASE’s letter. And this is a different set of pastors, right? So this has signers like Michael Ferris, Marvin Alaski, other leaders, Christian leaders. And let me just read you a portion of this in terms of this being involved politically to avoid the killing of the golden goose.

“Dear President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Boehner. Recently, in the midst of the debt ceiling crisis, a group calling themselves the Circle of Protection led by Jim Wallis of the activist group Sojourners met with you and your staff to claim that biblical mandates preclude limits to federal programs for low-income people. The circle included representatives of the National Association of Evangelicals—NAE, I should have said earlier—Bread for the World, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Wallis and the Circle of Protection do not speak for all Christians. However laudable their intentions, the consequence of their action is to provide a religious impropriety for big government and sanctify federal welfare programs that are often ineffective, even counterproductive.”

This is what we talked about last week. If we don’t use biblical means to affect these things, even though the intentions may be good, we’re going to end up hurting the very people we’re trying to help. “Contrary to their founding statement, we do not need to protect programs for the poor. We need to protect the poor themselves. We don’t need to protect programs for the poor. We need to protect the poor themselves.” Excellent line.

“Indeed, sometimes we need to protect them from the very programs that ostensibly serve the poor, but actually demean the poor, undermine their family structure, and trap them in poverty, dependency, and despair for generations. Such programs are unwise, uncompassionate, and unjust. Let no one be deceived. The Budget Control Act may resolve the immediate cash flow crisis, but the long-term crisis of government insolvency remains. As we found out Friday at 5:15 when S&P said, ‘Your long-term problem is still there, guys.’ Okay. The act does not touch the mountain of debt we are preparing to pass on to our families.”

Now, we’re talking today about freedom. And when we get to the text, you know, the prohibition against stealing includes a prohibition against stealing liberty or freedom, kidnapping specifically. And maybe even that’s the primary purpose of the law in its original application. And the significance of what we’re doing in debting the next generation is tremendous. And the Bible tells us that the borrower is servant to the lender. One plus one equals two. What we’re doing is in violation of the eighth word. We are enslaving our children and their children to a debt situation that they will not be able to easily take care of. And this is what these religious leaders are talking about.

“In fact, the purpose of the act is to permit our leaders to make that larger by raising the debt ceiling. This debt will only impoverish even more Americans. So we ask that you meet with us—Christians for a sustainable economy. We believe the poor of this generation and generations to come are best served by policies that promote economic freedom and growth, that encourage productivity and creativity in every able person and that wisely steward our common resources for generations to come.”

That’s the golden goose I talk about on your practical list here—to protect that goose through political action.

“All Americans, especially the poor, are best served by sustainable economic policies for a free and flourishing society. When creativity and entrepreneurship are rewarded, the yield is an increase of productivity and generosity. Compassion and charity for the least of these is an essential expression of our faith flowing from a heart inclined toward God. And just as the love of God frees us to a more abundant life, so our charity must go beyond mere material provision to meet the deeper needs of the poor.

To suggest that Matthew 25, where this phrase ‘the least of these’ comes from, or any commandment concerning Christian charity can be met through wealth redistribution is to obscure these truths. We encourage you to consider the whole counsel of scripture which urges not only compassion and provision for the poor but also the perils of debt and the importance of wise stewardship.”

To the question “What would Jesus cut?”—which is what the Circle of Protection asked—”we add the question: ‘Whom would Jesus indebt?’ Not ‘What would Jesus cut?’ but ‘Whom would Jesus indebt?’

“The Good Samaritan did not use a government credit card. The government plays an important role and communities do need the support of social safety nets for those in need. A Christian approach to the budget crisis considers the interests of the poor. All of us suffer when our nation exchanges wisdom, prudence, liberty, and faithful stewardship for the chronic unemployment of a stagnant economy and the enslaving power of debt.”

So the Lord brings us to the text today about enslavement and how God wants freedom. And that’s the context.

Fight politically against, in other words, the killing of the golden goose. Fight educationally the killing of the golden goose. Understand these biblical truths we’re talking about and be able to articulate them to your fellow citizens at the lunch table or wherever it might be across the back fence.

Remember and do the three gifts. I explained that last week: glory, knowledge, and life. We’re not bombastic in our communication. We give honor and weight—glory—as we bring truth to a situation which results in rejoicing and life together.

Make known to the deacons gleaning opportunities at your home or work. If you’ve got gleanable resources—a yard that needs mowing or whatever it might be—if you’ve got tasks around your work that you could give as a gleanable resource to somebody out of work, tell the deacons about it. They’ll make a list of these things and then match up people with the abilities with those that have needs.

Make known to the deacons if you have money for poor loans. That’s another major way of helping people is to give loans at no interest, which we’ve sung about today.

Have an open heart and hands for single moms. The Bible singles out widows and the fatherless.

Be a lunch buddy or a mentor parent. The public school system in Oregon City, they want Christians to go have lunch with kids who have messed up family lives and no friends. Just to sit there, have lunch with them. Be a lunch buddy. Get to know them. And when they ask you—they don’t want you coming in there and immediately give them the four spiritual laws. But when the child starts a conversation with you, you can sure talk about what’s motivated your love for that person. And the same thing with mentor parents. Oregon City Public Schools, the director of it, told the Christian churches here a couple of years ago, “One of the best things you could do to help the public schools is: we’ll give you names of parents who are really not good at being parents, who don’t know how to get them out the door with clothes that’ll keep them warm in the winter. And you got great parents in your churches.” He told us, “Your parents can be mentors to parents that we’ll give you the names of. The public school system, right? And you help them be better parents and we’ll be really happy about that.”

That’s something you can do right away to help an impoverished family—impoverished because of all kinds of things going on in their lives.

Start a discussion group on helping the poor. Jonathan Shaw, my son-in-law, has an idea. Him and Joanna, they’ve looked up another state and have an example of people who have done something to maybe put together a store where poor people could work, and they got some ideas. So let’s get discussion groups going. I’m telling you, it’s very relevant today to be talking about this stuff.

And then finally, be part of the party in 2035. In the last 24 years or so, the rate of the number of people who are in extreme poverty have been cut in half—from 52 to 26%. And there are people who are convinced, and the reasoning is sound, that it can be completely eliminated—extreme poverty, life-threatening poverty in the world—in another 26 years. And the question is going to be: “Where will we be if you’re alive at that time and the announcement comes? We’ve ended extreme poverty. We keep people from dying from hunger. Will we have been a part of that action or not?”

So that’s explaining some of those to-dos and suggestions from last week’s sermon.

And now, let’s get to that perfect law of liberty in the eighth commandment. Now, the eighth commandment doesn’t have an object of what is being stolen, right? “And you shall not steal.” Steal what? You know, we think of stealing immediately in terms of property, but that’s not what it says. And so you have to fill in an object of the theft, okay?

And so everything else that’s going on up to now in the Ten Commandments is personal. “Honor your parents,” right? “Don’t kill your fellow man. Don’t commit adultery with a person.” And it would be a little odd if the only next thing is all about property. Now, it shows us the significance of property, but there’s good reason to think that this commandment actually is talking about stealing people.

So, first of all, there’s the way the commandment is given to us. And then secondly, there’s what we just read—Moses’ sermon on this section of the ten commandments. That portion culminated in a commandment not to steal people, not to kidnap the life. And it doesn’t actually spell it out for you there, but that’s what it says: not to kidnap the life of a man. And that section begins with a requirement not to return back to a master a slave.

So no object placement in a set of commandments that are personal. And then Moses’ sermon focuses at the beginning and end on personal actions of theft and release. So I think that we can say that this commandment is primarily—and it’s good. We’ve talked about property restitution, helping the poor, defending property in terms of those that espouse a non-biblical social justice. Those are good things. But the commandment specifically has reference to stealing man’s liberty specifically—you’re kidnapping a person. You’re stealing his life because you’re enslaving him and stealing his liberty. And so this commandment properly understood has to do with that.

And this has become more and more well-known in Christian circles and commentaries will talk about this. Another way to rephrase it would be to put it this way: “Thou shalt not steal another man’s freedom by forcibly enslaving his person or his property.”

We don’t want to move away totally from the idea of theft of property, but it has primary reference to human liberty, to freedom as such.

Another law that goes along with the law that concludes this section in terms of kidnapping is found in Exodus 21:16. “He who kidnaps a man and sells him or if he is found in his hand shall surely be put to death.” Violation of the strictest interpretation of the eighth word is death. Kidnapping a man—both in Deuteronomy in our text we read today and in Exodus—has the punishment of death put upon it.

Now this is because God is a God of freedom and God has created man with freedom and the purpose of salvation is to bring release, freedom, right? And so the Bible really stresses the importance of men and women being free.

1 Corinthians 7: “He who is called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise, he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men.”

We are supposed to positively resist enslavement by other men.

Galatians 5:1—”Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

We’re called upon to instruct our children in the fact that we are freemen, that we are to be free from bondage. That is a goal for us. It may not be a reality, as the Corinthians text pointed out—that some of the people you’re writing to were slaves—but that’s what God has called us to be.

Now, it’s not enough to stop there. It’s not talking about anarchic freedom. What is freedom for? Free to pursue the purposes for which God has made us. God made man to have relationship with him and to care for the created order. God redeems us in Christ to restore all things through restitution. That’s our purpose. So the freedom that we have is always in the context of the purpose that God has called us to.

Years ago I heard a marriage illustration and you know the idea is: you got this balloon and you got a string, right? And so if you cut the string the balloon is free and it starts going up and is destroyed by whatever it is up there that it finds or deflates. Freedom is found in attachment to something or someone and that attachment is the purpose for God in our lives. So we’re not talking about cutting the balloon and the string, but the string is to be the purpose for which God has created us in Christ. And that purpose is what we’re to use our freedom to do, right?

The Bible says, “Don’t use your freedom, you know, in a bad way. Use it for the purposes for which God has called you to.”

And so those purposes are set out in today’s text as well. And we’ll talk about those in just a couple of minutes.

A couple of other brief comments before we begin. Frequently, these kinds of laws are related and said to be common in Middle Eastern circles. “Well, these are just like all the other laws of the nations around him, right?” Well, actually, no. This first law we’re looking at, for instance, in the set of 10—that you can’t, you’re not supposed to send somebody back to his master—that is exactly the reverse in the codes of the Middle East, Hammurabi and others. The death penalty would come to you if you didn’t return the slave, okay? So it’s just opposite. Under Hammurabi, you had to return the slave to the master.

The last one, you shouldn’t be kidnapping people. And they say, “Well, Hammurabi also prohibited kidnapping.” But Hammurabi—this is in the second millennium BC, okay?—king of Babylon, Hammurabi law code. You know what he prohibited was the kidnapping of children. That’s the only kidnapping he prohibited. He also prohibited stealing from the king, which was him. And in Babylon, the people are seen as the property of the king. This is true, you know, for almost all non-biblical cultures. People don’t have freedom in and of themselves as in the scriptures. But a person is a creature, a possession of the state.

People forget that slavery in America came because African tribal leaders regarded their tribal members as their property. This was just how they did it. And they’d sell them to Arabs, to Muslims who would sell them to the colonial period. And it was wrong for Americans to do that. But you know, the whole thing—we tend to forget that in many cultures throughout history slavery is the condition of most people whether explicit or implicit.

And so really the biblical code is exactly the opposite of pagan law codes on these two critical matters of freedom.

We are in a period of time today. It’s worth considering some of the language in our law codes. You make $10,000 a year or let’s say you make $50,000 a year and you paid mortgage interest of $10,000. So you get a $10,000 exemption from your income that you don’t have to pay any taxes on. $10,000 is yours free and clear, but it’s given to you by way of exemption from the civil government, which is to say they make claims on every bit of it, okay?

And I’m not a radical conspiracy guy here. You know, that’s not me. But understand the situation we’re in. We’re in a situation—and all the discussions going on talk about this—there’s no limit to taxation on the part of the state. And when they don’t, you know, what do they call it now? A “spending cut.” You know, if they don’t tax you or whatever it is, they’ve mixed up the whole idea of taxation and spending. But they do that because in their minds, your labor is owned by the state. You’re part of the social contract. And they claim control over 100% of your income that you make.

Have you thought about that? Have you thought about that? No, we don’t think about it because like those slaves in Africa, that was how they grew up. That was the system. And we’re in this system and we don’t even consider the fact that what we have now is the state claiming—just like Hammurabi did—that we belong to it by claiming all of our productive wealth.

You know what do godly people do in a time of trouble? They prepare for freedom. Noah prepared for freedom. I suggest we do the same.

Well, let’s prepare by getting to know these laws a little bit, okay.

Number one on your handout: Don’t give back the slave. What does this mean? This means that Israel was a slave magnet, right? All the slaves around it would want to go to Israel. They wanted to go to the light of freedom. America is supposed to be a shining, you know, light on top of a hill, right? That’s what Israel, that’s what God’s people are to be. We’ll let you go, free you from your slavery to other nations. We won’t send you back to the bad masters, right? So this is wonderful. This is what God’s word tells us is the beginning of consideration of the eighth word. Don’t steal somebody’s freedom because it’s for freedom that Jesus Christ came and brought man back to live in community for him.

This very first verse tells us the importance of freedom and not just our own personal freedom. We are to expand freedom in the world. We’re supposed to bring more people to freedom by being this freedom magnet, this light of God. “You want to come with us?”

Now, there’s laws to our culture, right? And Israel had laws. So it wasn’t like they could come and just do whatever they wanted. When they came, they recognized they had a new master now, a new country they were part of. And they had to live in context of those laws, which were laws that would give freedom to others as well. But they came. You see, they came.

And so we’re to expand freedom—the light of biblical freedom. Be as good as Esau. What does that mean? Esau. Wait a minute, Dennis. Well, you know, Jacob was sort of like this, right? He had this master, Laban, who made him work all these years and changed his wage. You know, he was a bad kind of pharaoh over him. And he finally gets away from Laban. He flees back to where he was supposed to be, where he’d come from. And when he gets back, who meets him? Well, Esau’s coming with some army men to come and greet us. And so what’s going to happen? Jacob’s all afraid. But what does Esau do? Esau embraces them. “They’ve fallen each other’s neck. So good to see you. Hey, you want some help from my men getting wherever you’re going to go?” “No, I can take care of it,” Jacob says. And Esau says, “Okay, go at peace. Live where you want to live.” Jacob lets—or Esau rather—lets Jacob escape slavery and come to freedom where he wants to be.

You know, look at this number one here. By the way, the center of this little section is freedom, right? So it says, “Don’t give back to the master the slave who has escaped from the master to you. He may dwell with you in your midst in the place which he chooses within one of your gates where it seems best to him. You shall not oppress him.” Little bit of a chiastic structure being laid out here, right? Don’t deliver him back. He can dwell in your midst in the place that he chooses in one of your towns wherever it pleases him to dwell. Don’t oppress him. So the center of this little first law here is his freedom.

Now the whole point of the law is freedom but it’s structured—remember, God sings these beautiful songs and it’s structured in this way—not bureaucratically, but it’s structured in a way to show us right at the center that what God is about is making men free. And if Jesus has made us free, we shall be free indeed.

Second law in here. Sorry, flipping through the notes. Number two on your handout: We’re still on page one here. “There shall be no ritual harlot”—”holy one”—”of the daughters of Israel or perverted one”—”holy one”—”of the sons of Israel.”

Now, I put those things in brackets because the word prostitute—actually the word for “holy” that’s normally translated as “holy” is part of what this word is. So it’s somebody who’s sort of consecrated to something other than the right consecration. And in fact, in terms of the male version of this, I know we—you know, a lot of people think this is homosexual prostitution. Not necessarily. So this may actually refer to pagan priests who are consecrated the same way that the Levitical priesthood was to God, to a different god. And so what he’s saying is that, you know, freedom in the land that you’re going to live in is found in right relationship to me.

Now, another way to look at these 10 case laws is in relationship to the ten commandments. And you remember the second commandment has to do with mediation between God and man. Don’t use idols. And so the second law here is about mediation. You can’t do these things in the land. Nor can you bring the hire from these things as a way to salve your conscience. And you’re serving really other gods and you go to church and then you pay your tithe off the earnings you made as a pagan priest—a Judas priest, I refer to him as a priest who really is betraying the people of God and God’s word, following another god actually and yet pretending to be a good guy or partaking in ritual prostitution.

These other forms are—again, the context is enslavement, right? And what do we know? We know that false priests enslave people to that particular god that they serve. And ritual prostitution, sexual sin has this degree of enslavement as well. So I think that we can say by way of application of this: don’t be an enslaver. Don’t be somebody that engages in these kind of actions and don’t be enslaved by sex or by Judas priests who serve something other than the God of the scriptures.

There’s a privilege of access. God says you have access to me. But you know, it’s a privilege to bring an offering to me, and don’t bring to me an offering that comes as a result of doing work that’s not holy, that hasn’t been consecrated according to what God says you can and cannot do. So again here the emphasis at the middle is the place of God—the house of the Lord. And if we look carefully at the structure of those two laws together, that’s the center: the house of the Lord.

So as people come to freedom, they’re immediately put in the context—if we think of the movement of these verses—of worship and correct worship and incorrect worship. And so freedom is found in properly approaching the house of God.

Number four: “You shall not charge interest to one of your brothers.” So here’s a prohibition against interest. Right now, there wasn’t really much of a money economy. There weren’t that kind of investment loans like we think of today. Loans were given to people who had need, you know, and actually the story of Jacob and Esau is kind of like this too. Esau was going to give him some men to help him, and he was going to do it without interest, without getting paid for it, okay?

So but—when people come out of a pagan culture, let’s say a runaway slave, right? And he escapes Hammurabi and he comes to Israel. And now what’s he going to need? He’s going to need some help. He’s going to need, you know, he wasn’t—wouldn’t be like Jacob. Jacob had all those things that God had blessed him with, but he’s typically going to come with the clothes on his back and he’s going to need some help. So he comes. He’s told he has to worship God. That’s where true freedom is. Don’t be enslaved by sexual rituals or Judas priests.

And you know, when you come—you’re coming to a people who will loan the stranger money, who will loan people that are now part of the community of Israel money at no interest. Interest is typically paid upfront. Upfront—that’s what the word means. *Bite*. And it means to take your bite up front and what you give the guy, the vig happens first. So here, you know, you’re extending grace to people and this is another way of bringing them freedom. You don’t enslave people who are in difficult financial times, right? That’d be the opposite of what this law tells us to do.

We’re to give rest to the poor. This is the fourth case law, the fourth commandment—the Sabbath commandment. We give rest to the poor by not charging interest, by being, in other words, gracious extenders of life, not enslaving people through debt. But rather, to be as gracious as Esau, as I said, helping out the returning Jacob with his men. So life in community.

What this tells us is that—okay, you’ve come away from Hammurabi. You’ve come to worship God and not get enslaved by false gods. And you’re in the context now—not just of individual freedom between you and me—God says, “You’re between now there’s a covenant community that you’re part of. Freedom isn’t found in isolation. Freedom is found in community. People with resources have obligations to help the poor. People who are poor have obligations to let their needs be known to people that have means. And community thus is central to biblical freedom.”

Freedom is community. To destroy community is to violate the eighth word, is to take away the liberty, the life, the freedom of man. It is to steal freedom from man.

Next commandment or case law, chapter 24:1. Number seven and eight are kind of go together. They both talk about marriage. I wish I had more time to spend just on these, but this governs how divorces happen. And again, you know, people say all kinds of weird things about God’s word. “Only men could divorce women. Women couldn’t divorce men.” That’s not true. Case laws always use a particular case that has equity principles beyond that case. Jesus, when he’s talking about divorce, actually says when a man divorces a woman or when a woman divorces a man. And if he was out of sync with this law, they would have told him. They would have got on him. But he wasn’t. He was in sync with this law.

Another thing that happens is people say, “Well, divorce was easy then. He just had to find some uncleanness. But in the New Testament, Jesus says it’s got to be, you know, fornication or adultery before you can divorce.” But in actuality, the two words—the word used here is “some uncleanness is found.” And the word used by Jesus is something really kind of nasty and wicked and twisted. They’re the same word. Basically, that Hebrew term has the same kind of intensity and yet flexibility to the term as what Jesus used in the gospels. So Jesus is affirming this law, not setting it on its head.

And basically, I don’t understand the law. I mean, I understand what it says. You get married, you get divorced because you’ve done something bad if you’re the wife. You go get remarried, you get divorced from him, or he even dies, that husband, you can’t go back to the first husband. I don’t understand it. If that death thing wasn’t in there, I think I could, but I don’t have to understand it. If, you know, if this situation ever happens to anybody I’m counseling, I’m telling them, “Don’t get remarried back to that first person.” Now, you know, you could disagree with that, but I don’t understand what’s going on here, but this is something about the idea of marriage and the liberty to marry again having certain bounds or restrictions to it.

And then the accompanying law, number eight: “When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go to war, be charged with any business. He shall be free.” Here again, the whole emphasis in the text is freedom. And so here we have freedom at home for one year. So the idea is you still work, but you don’t teach Sunday school that year. You know, you don’t volunteer for anything. The state can’t draft you. You’re exempt because what God wants you to do explicitly—it said—is to cause your wife to cheer up, to rejoice in your marriage.

Now, she’s already happy. It doesn’t mean that she’s not happy with the marriage. And part of the connotation here seems to be related to pleasure and specifically to childbearing. Again, the life of Abraham. And when God comes to him and promises him that within a year—this is a year-long exemption—within a year, he’s going to have a son, Sarah overhears this and says, “Shall I take pleasure being as old as I am?” So it’s kind of related. So it seems like it’s the establishment of family. Usually, in that first year, there’ll be a child born, but it has broader connotations than that. It means to cause to rise, to brighten up, to be cheerful, be happy, to really rejoice in the establishment of that marriage.

And I, you know, there was a guy who used to give these—he’d give counsel to newlywed people. He says, “Well, marriage is sort of like taking a hot bath. After a while, it ain’t so hot.” You know, if you don’t work at a marriage that first year to really establish it, it can be kind of traumatic, particularly for the woman, because she’s left her family. A lot of marriages start with a lot of tears. And so men have this responsibility to use their freedom in terms of marriage to cheer their wives up, to take a year where that is the total focus. Man, you’re not trying for, you know, career advancement. You’re not teaching Sunday school. You’re not volunteering for workday here. None of that stuff. God wants you putting lots of energy into building the most important structure in the community, which is your family. Even if there’s war, they can’t draft you. That’s how important the establishment of marriage and homes are.

One other thing here: Plato apparently taught this law to Alexander the Great who applied it to his armies. This particular law. And there are good reasons to believe that Maimonides, who was a Jewish commentator in the Middle Ages, was right when he said the year exemption wasn’t just from official duty, but the charging word there seems to indicate taxation. So the idea was, “We should do this. Here’s a stimulus plan. Here’s a jobs plan. Let’s make everybody who gets married”—and by the way, it could be your second or third marriage, right? It doesn’t say newly married, first marriage. Everybody gets married, they get a year off from paying taxes. That’d be good.”

And in a way, that’s what our system does. You know, our system gives you an exemption, right, for number of dependents, wife, children, or husband and children if you’re the worker. And in a way, it’s kind of a little image of this.

Another thing, by the way: How this law is different than all other laws. Islamic law is completely opposite of this law. In Islamic law, in order to get remarried or get divorced from a guy, in order to come back and marry him again, you had to marry somebody else. So they had all these—they had beggar people that they would hire to marry the woman so that she could marry him, do a quick divorce, and then go back and marry her husband, because the only way she could remarry is if she married somebody else. Complete opposite of what these divorce statutes indicate.

So the importance is to use our freedom to build up our families now and to bring joy in the context of that portion of our lives.

And then finally, finally, the last couple of laws that have to do directly with stealing liberty. And these I’ve talked about a little bit already, but don’t remove freedom or life from men. We’re to live, work, and recreate. That’s what we’re using our freedom for. If you take away vocation, the grinding stone, the basic necessities or sustenance of life, right? And it’s also a symbol of work and vocation—to remove those things from somebody as you’re indebting him. This is just like kidnapping. And that’s what it’s immediately related to. And kidnapping is a death penalty offense.

We’re to be more life-giving than Joseph’s brothers. They’re the ones that sold him into slavery, right? Capital crime. Capital crime. And God says just the reverse. He tells us that freedom is exceedingly important because God has made us free so that we can enjoy life in the context of our communities and then beyond that we can fulfill his requirements to restore all things through the proper exercise of his law.

May the Lord God grant us the hope and beauty of knowing that if the flood comes tomorrow, we’ll be okay. And whenever it happens, godly men shall prepare for freedom.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for today. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the great importance of freedom and using that freedom for the king, the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us as we attempt to commit ourselves to that task. In his name we pray. Amen.