Let's turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy, chapter 24, and read one of the most controversial Scriptures in the Bible, the only Scripture in the law regulating divorce, and something that was mentioned at the time of Jesus Christ.

"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 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 to be his wife, then the 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."

Now we're making our way through the Bible, but this is such an important passage that we want to take sufficient time on it because of its misunderstanding. I remember at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and we got together and had the dinner, and they talked about how they met and their marriage. And I looked at both of them and I thought, "You've been hanging out with each other for 50 years. That's a long time. Half of a century you've been hanging out together, you've been married to each other." And I told them, I said, "One of the greatest gifts you have ever given to me is that you stayed married for 50 years, the stability that it created in my life to see two people devoted to one another through thick and thin."

And sometimes it got pretty thin with us boys around. We definitely tested their commitment to anything, but they stuck it out. They hung in there. And what a testimony of love. And, Lord willing, we'll be able to have that same kind of testimony. Deuteronomy 24 is about marriage, but principally about divorce. And it's caused a lot of anxiety in different commentators' interpretations. But it's something that Jesus refers to, because it's something that the Pharisees and the Sadducees refer to when they once confronted Jesus about this very issue. Now, we live in a day and age, as you know, when wedding vows are not seen with the same amount of gravity and weight that they once were.

Although couples will stand up at the altar and they will say, "I commit myself to you as long we both shall live," often what they mean is, "as long as we both shall love. As long as I love you and as long as you love me, great, we'll stay together, but if something happens---and let's make a prenuptial agreement right now. Let's set ourselves up for failure, right now. Let's create a back door in this relationship, right now. If something happens, we can always get out of it. There's always divorce. If you get ugly or if I get ugly or if we change our ways of thinking, then we'll just split up." And I've talked to couples who come up with the weirdest ideas about how marriage is permanent, except in their case.

And I wonder where they get their authority for it---maybe 1 Fleshalonians. [laughter] In our century divorce has risen 700 percent. Think of that, that's astronomical---not 20 percent, 30 percent---700 percent. That's one divorce for every 1.8 marriages nowadays. It's for this very reason that when people come to us and say, "We love each other. Will you marry us?" I say, "Under the condition that you'll go through our premarital classes that we can watch your relationship, there is an accountability structure." "Well, why? That's legalism." No, it's common sense. And I think it's spiritual responsibility that the pastors of any church would want to care for the flock enough to make sure that they're going to stay married as much as we possibly can.

Now, there was a poll taken, a Gallup poll talked to different teenagers about their parents who had divorced, and, interestingly, 71 percent said their parents didn't try hard enough in the marriage. This is what the kids observed, they watched some of the things that went on in the home: 71 percent said mom and dad didn't try hard enough to keep the marriage together; 23 percent said their parents did try hard enough to save the marriage; and of course with all teenagers, 6 percent had no opinion. Listen to this quote, and I can't pronounce his name, I just included it for you: "Seventy-five percent of divorced people remarry, and 60 percent of them already have children. If this current trend continues, stepfamilies could outnumber traditional families by the year 2000."

That's not a knock, that's simply an observation, simply the trends that are going around today. (We have to fix this video, it's not working, you guys. There we go, it's working the second time.) So, quite a problem with divorce. In fact, in Nevada there's even a judge who is deciding to give group divorces. In fact, he claims that he can divorce 15 couples in 10 minutes. And now he's working on divorce by written affidavit; that is, mail-order divorce. And he's boasting, advertising this: "Just write in and I'll make sure that you are off the hook."

One of the best-selling books that came out of California was the book How to Do Your Own Divorce, complete with documentation, things to fill out, where to send it, how to get it done on your own. If there is confusion as to marriage, divorce, the confusion is not because God hasn't made himself crystal clear on the subject, the confusion comes by the sin of man that is confused and clouded the issue. Now, having read what we just read, let's turn in our New Testaments just a moment to two passages. Matthew, chapter 5, first of all. This is the Sermon on the Mount. Verse 31, "Furthermore it has been said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' "

He's quoting the law. He's referring to Deuteronomy. If you're going to divorce your wife, this is what the law says: " 'Let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery." Now go to Matthew, chapter 19, and we'll see the confrontation over this very issue and their reference to Deuteronomy, chapter 24. "Now it came to pass," Matthew 19:1, "when Jesus had finished these sayings, that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And the great multitude followed him, and he healed them there.

The Pharisees also came to him, testing him, and saying to him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?' And he answered them and said to them, 'Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning "made them male and female," and he said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, the two shall become one flesh"? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.' They said to him, 'Why then' "---now listen to this---" 'Why then did Moses command, command, to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?'

"He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.' " Notice it's the second reference to "the beginning": one is verse 4, and now verse 8. He goes back to the beginning of creation. " 'From the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.' His disciples said to him, 'If such is the case of a man with his with wife, it's better not to marry.' " We'll discuss that in just a moment. They bring up the issue of divorcing your wife for "any reason." "Why did Moses give this command?"

Jesus said, "Let's go back to the beginning when God first made man and woman and he established the marriage relationship." To understand marriage and to understand divorce, we have to get God's perspective from the beginning, God's intention. You might say, God's divine blueprint for marriage. It's found in Genesis. The blueprint is this: "God made them male and female. God brought them together and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, the two become one flesh." Jesus says, "What God has joined together, let not man but the asunder or tear apart or dissolve." That's God's origin intention for marriage. Marriage is divine. Divorce has a human origin, not a divine origin.

Now, God does permit it, but it is a divine concession to a condition of mankind---to a sinful condition of mankind. And so Jesus takes them back to the beginning. He reminds them in the beginning God's intention was one flesh. What did he say? "They're no longer two but one." And that's what God said, they will cleave together or, literally, be welded or glued together. The idea is permanence, permanence. And the illustration I often use at a wedding is this: when you take and glue or "cleave" two pieces of paper together, and you let the glue dry, you essentially have one unit. Now you can say, "No, you don't. You've got two pieces of paper. They're individual. They have their own personalities."

Okay, then you try to separate those two pieces of paper once you've glued them. "I can do it." But can you do it without damage, or will you somehow lose the original integrity of those two documents? Oh, yes, you will. Oh, you could separate them, but they'll never be the same, because now they've become one. And that's what we must understand with marriage. And before we even uncover Deuteronomy 24, that's God's intention in the beginning, they become one flesh. Therefore, to divorce your spouse because you don't get along, it's like cutting off your leg because you have a splinter in it. Because, essentially, you become one unit, one flesh, that's God's intention from the beginning.

Now, needless to say, this question comes with a lot of background. The culture is a culture that has a Greek background, a Roman background, and a Jewish background. The Greek language was spoken around the world at the time of Jesus. The Roman government had taken over the world militarily. But the Jews ruled in Israel, and they were the children of the interpreters of the Talmud and the Targums and the law. The Greeks had a low view of marriage, the Romans had a low view of marriage, and the Jews had an interesting view of marriage. The Greeks sort of expected a man to divorce his wife.

In fact, the Greeks said, some of the great Greek philosophers said that a woman, a wife, should live in seclusion, she's not to really be seen or have part in a man's life. Some of the Greek philosophers---get this, gals---said every man ought to have three women in his life: a wife to bear his legitimate children, a concubine to keep him company and keep the home, and the mistress to give him sexual pleasure. So needless to say, marriage was at an all-time low among the Greeks, and divorce was at an all-time high. Then there were the Romans. And did you know in the first 500 years of the Roman Empire there were no recorded divorces? That's pretty amazing, 500 years of history, to look into it and find no record of a divorce.

But then Rome became opulent, Rome became decadent, Rome became materialistic, self-serving. And then divorce became so rampant that they used to even number people's years by the number of divorces they had. One on record was a man who divorced his wife 28 times. Then we come to the Jews, and we have a question here that gives insight into some of their thinking. Verse 3, "The Pharisees came to him, testing him, saying to him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?' " What are they talking about, "any reason"? They're talking about Deuteronomy 24.

Let me read that part to you again: "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, and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of the house," the word "uncleanness" was uncertain to the rabbi interpreters. What does it mean, "uncleanness"? "If a man looks upon his wife and finds some uncleanness or indecency about her"---what does that mean? Well, you had two schools of thought. Now, listen and you tell me what is the most popular, especially among Jewish men. Rabbi Shammai, one of the great writers of Judaism, said, "Uncleanness was narrow in its interpretation and it must mean unchastely, sexual immorality."

Then Rabbi Hillel came along and said, "No. Uncleanness must be broadened to mean any kind of indecency, any reason, any reason that he would look upon his wife and think, 'She's not worthy to be my wife.' " Like what things? Well, Hillel said, "If she spins around in public, if she is a brawling woman"---brawling meaning the neighbors can hear her next door---"if she speaks poorly about his parents, if she ruins his food when she's trying to cook it for him---all of these," said Rabbi Hillel, "are cases of uncleanness and divorce is permissible." You say, "Man, that's no-fault divorce, basically."

Now, to make things worse, Rabbi Akiba who comes later on says, "Actually, if another woman comes into his life that he thinks is prettier than his wife, that is a case of uncleanness. He can divorce his wife and marry her." Well, my goodness! You know, the sky's the limit, because eventually the flower is going to fade, and, you know, she's not going to be as pretty to her husband, so he can divorce her. But then what if later on that woman doesn't have the same appeal in his eyes and he finds somebody else? There is endless possibilities as to this. That is why they asked the question with the background of Deuteronomy 24, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife just for any reason?" And so Jesus says, "From the beginning---let me take you back---this is God's intention for marriage."

And then the rest of it he interprets Matthew 24. He gives the proper interpretation of it. With that in mind, we'll get back to this in a minute, I want you to go back to Deuteronomy 24. Let's uncover the text itself. Verse 1, "When a man takes a wife and marries her," so they're married, "and it happens that she find no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and writes her a certificate of divorce, and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of the house, when she had 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 the house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife," this is the second husband.

"Then the former," or first husband, "who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled," key word, "for that is an abomination before the Lord, you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance." Deuteronomy 24 is not requiring, it is not commanding, it's not even suggesting a divorce. He's saying if it happens that he divorces his wife, then he's not to do this---he's not to marry her again. If he divorces her, and she becomes somebody else's wife, it's over. So you have to think twice before you even divorce your wife. He is forbidding remarriage and unlawful divorce, which would result in adultery, defilement.

Now, that is exactly what Jesus reiterates and presses home in Matthew, chapter 19. Then it talks about a "certificate of divorce" in verse 1. Just because a husband writes a certificate of divorce to his wife does not justify it. The issue is not the divorce, the issue here is not the certificate of divorce, the issue is forbidding a divorced wife to remarry her former husband once she has remarried a second time. Okay, as to the text, "When a man takes a wife, marries her, and it happens she find no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her," the word "uncleanness" literally means the nakedness or the uncovering of an issue, something he has uncovered about her.

The Talmud interprets this as something obnoxious, some indecency. Yes, Rabbi Shammai said it probably refers to sexual immorality. Yes, Rabbi Hillel says it might mean anything. What it is, is not the issue. Whatever it is, it probably is not sexual immorality. It's not adultery. You say, "Why isn't it?" Because what was the punishment for adultery? Was it divorce? It was stoning to death. That's part of the law. So if it's some sexual immorality, Moses wouldn't have said, "Listen, if you find that, just get rid of her." No. The way you get rid of her, according to the law, was stoning her to death, or him to death, if he did it, not just a one-way street here. So, again, what it is, is not the issue; once it's done, once he gets rid of her, that is the issue that is at stake.

Now, whatever it is that causes this husband to divorce his wife is not warranted, because once he lets her go it says that she is defiled. Notice that in verse 4. "Then the former husband who divorces her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled." Why is she defiled? Because he has put her away unlawfully. He has divorced his wife unlawfully and she has married another. And because of the first husband's divorcing her, which was unscriptural, and her subsequent remarriage, has caused her to commit adultery. She has become defiled by the second marriage because her husband divorced her unlawfully for whatever reason he has set her out by a certificate of divorce.

Now why is this even mentioned? Because some guy is going to come along and think thoughts like this: "Okay, listen, I married Jane, but I'm not into her anymore. I want to get rid of her. So I'm going to divorce her because I got this chick over here who I think is really great. And if that doesn't work out, no problem. If I always have feelings for Jane in the future, I can take her back. I can persuade her to leave her second husband, or if her second husband dies, I'll remarry her." God says, "No. You better think twice when you're thinking of this whole issue of severing a relationship, because if you let her go by writing her a certificate of divorce, and you send her out, you can't marry her again. She has already become defiled by your sin.

"You are spreading adultery through the camp of Israel. For you to marry her back is an abomination." It is a warning against that kind of an activity. In other words, he is saying, "Your divorcing your wife unscripturally will create adultery, will create defilement, and eventually will defile the land." So as you look this over, you see it's not a command to divorce, it's a regulation once the guy says, "I'm going to divorce my wife." That's what it's all about, to regulate, to put a stop to unlawful divorce. It's not a command. They said, "Why did Moses command?" Jesus is saying, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted . . . but from the beginning it was not so."

Now let's go back to Matthew 19. Let's get the Old and the New Testament combined view of divorce. By the way, by the time of the New Testament, by the time Jesus was around, the Jewish Targums, the Jewish Targums, some of the rabbis' comments on the law had taken Deuteronomy 24 to be a commandment, that Moses commanded men to divorce their wife for any reason. It was wrong, it was unscriptural, but there was the command and that's the background that they have. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?" He answered, "Haven't you read---don't you guys read the Book? Let's go back to the beginning, God 'made them male and female,' he said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, the two shall become one flesh.'

"So then they're no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." That's God's intended design of marriage from the beginning. Now having covered that, he now takes the truth of Deuteronomy 24 and presses it home or reiterates to them: "They said, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?' He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, from the beginning it was not so.' " So against the background of, "Yeah, I'm going to dump my wife for any reason," he says, "I take the opposite. I'm not requiring more than Moses. I'm certainly requiring more than you guys, but not more than Moses, not more than God."

Jesus is saying, "My stand is the opposite. I don't allow a divorce for any reason. I'm not into no-fault divorce." And then he says in verse 9, "I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery." So you had some of these religious leaders who are nonchalantly divorcing their wife for any reason: she spun around, or she was loud, she was brawling, he just didn't like her. He came up with a reason and they justified it by saying, "It was a command of Moses." And they would divorce their wife, feeling smug, "I didn't commit any wrong. I didn't commit any adultery."

Jesus is saying, "Not only did you commit adultery, you're spreading adultery all over the place by divorcing her unlawfully and then she's going to marry another and you have caused her to commit adultery as well." And what he is doing is simply bringing them back to the proper interpretation of Deuteronomy 24, because they had taken it so far out of its biblical context. What Jesus is saying is this, listen carefully: divorce always involves adultery, always, on every single occasion. Number one, if a spouse commits adultery, that is the lawful, biblical allowance for divorce. If one of you has a spouse that is committing adultery, that's the exception clause, you are allowed to divorce.

It's not the highest, reconciliation is the highest, but it is allowable. You've broken the oneness bond. Jesus understands that, God understands that, and that is the only allowance. So there is adultery. If, however, you say, "It's not adultery, but, you know, we don't get along. We're mutually incompatible," and you dump your wife or your husband, that also involves divorce. Because if you remarry for that reason of divorce or she remarries for that reason, anything short of sexual immorality, you are perpetuating adultery. Divorce always involves adultery. That's the point of Matthew 24, one of the points, and that is the point of Jesus here.

Now, with that in mind, the disciples being Jewish---with the background of no-fault divorce from Rabbi Hillel---say, "His disciples said to him, 'If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.' " They thought, "You know what? You know, we're thinking of this marriage idea and we thought, you know, one of these days we'd like to get hooked up, but if it's that permanent, and there can be problems in a relationship, it's better not to marry." Notice Jesus' interesting answer: "He said to them, 'All cannot accept this saying, but only those to who it has been given.' " Some were given that gift of remaining single and not marrying, being celibate.

" 'For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.' " Okay, with that in mind, I want to bring you back to this point: we know God hates divorce. That goes without saying. The Old Testament God says, "Thus saith the Lord, I hate divorce." But God does not hate divorced people. And I know we live in a society that's littered with broken relationships. And rather than saying, "God hates . . ." and coming down heavy, it's one thing to hold up the standard of being together for a lifetime, one man, one woman, for one life, that's God's ultimate standard---there are broken homes.

And sometimes spouses leave, and it leaves the other person bereft, in a sense, of a spouse. And sometimes it's not their fault. They want to hold a marriage together. They try to seek counseling and reconciliation. But I'm afraid that sometimes the church treats divorce as the unpardonable sin. Now I know people will get upset, "Are you trying to be easy on divorce?" Well, no, you just heard the biblical stance, I don't think so. But I'm saying, would you just pour in a little compassion, a little sugar into the mix? "But it's sin!" Precisely why it's forgivable. Didn't Jesus come to deal with that issue, to forgive people of sin?

Now that doesn't mean when a person commits sin and divorces his wife he can say, "Yeah, well, that's past, I'm just going to remarry." No. For a Christian there are different standards, 1 Corinthians 7. We've done a whole series on this and the tapes are available. But when you hear of somebody divorcing, rather than saying, "Back! Back!" how about saying, "Come here. I feel so sorry. I feel so bad. How can I help? How can I pray? How can I help you reconcile? How can I help counsel you through this? How can I support you?" Because people who are going through this feel already alienated and isolated, and we as the church need to be support and help and counsel and encouragers to those.

But that's the text, Deuteronomy, chapter 24. All right, let's move on from there. One of the reasons God says that this is the case, it says the end of verse 4, "And you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance." You will defile ultimately the whole land. "Now 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 for one year, and bring"---notice this, I love it---"and bring happiness so his wife whom he has taken." He takes a year off, not to clean out the garage, not just get his house in order, the purpose is to bring happiness to his wife, to let that relationship settle so that she feels confident in his love, secure in his love, loved by her husband.

After all, one of the reasons they were to go out to battle was to keep the nation at peace so they could have vineyards, families, homes, and live peacefully in the new land God was giving them. And, you know, being at war, being a brand-new husband would certainly distract him. He'd want to be home. So God says, "Let him stay home for a year." "No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge. For he takes one's living in pledge." Now a millstone is what people would grind the newly harvested grain with. And because grain was ground every single day, depending on the need of the family. You didn't go down to the store and buy grain already ground, you would grind it when you needed it.

For you to take somebody's millstone, upper or lower millstone in a pledge, would deprive them from what they need on a daily basis to make and to prepare the food. He says, "You take one's living in a 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 person from among you." To sell into slavery is the implication. Who did this? Joseph's bros did it. Joseph's brothers put him in a pit and sold him into slavery as the Midianite army came through on their way to Egypt. And slavery, unfortunately, even continued as a blot on our own nation up through the eighteenth century.

"Take heed," verse 8, "in an outbreak of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you; just as I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt." Struck her down with leprosy. Leprosy was sort of the general term, the umbrella term of many different skin diseases. And because when a person got a skin disease you were uncertain about what it was, it had to be examined. You would isolate a person for seven days. The priest would check him after seven days and then he would take note as to how the skin or the lesion or the hair looks.

Then he'd isolate him for another seven days, examine him again. If there was no eruption of sore, no white hair, no boil beneath the skin---all of those things. The law says if it happened, he had to be isolated again. If it cleared up, you'd let him go free. If he was diagnosed with an ongoing disease of leprosy, there were severe consequences. Leprosy or Hansen's disease was derived from a microbacterium, Mycobacterium leprae is the scientific title for it. If you're diagnosed with that, basically you were ostracized from Jewish society. You're diagnosed, you're separated from your wife, you're separated from your family, you're separated from the synagogue.

You have to walk downwind of people. If you see people coming, you have to cover your face, tear your clothes, and cry out, "Unclean!" You couldn't go to church or synagogue. There was a special little booth or room called the mehitzah/mechitza in the synagogue if you were a leper, and you were quarantined there. You could only listen from afar, but you really couldn't participate in the worship service. So imagine the desolation that a person would feel when he's diagnosed. It had to be done, however. Unfortunately, just to show you the cruelty of human nature, not to put down groups of Jewish people who came on later on, but some of the rabbis had some pretty degrading things to say.

One rabbi, and it's written down in the Jewish literature, the Talmud, "When I see a leper," he said, "I throw stones at him, lest he come near me and I get defiled." Contrast that with Jesus who walked up to a leper and put out his hand and touched the leper. Instead of throwing stones to drive the leper away, Jesus walked right up and touched the man. That's unlawful. That's illegal. It's against the Mosaic law to touch somebody with leprosy. You say, "Well, then Jesus broke the law?" No, because whenever he touched people, they got healed." So he didn't break the law, foom! instant healing.

Another rabbi said, "I wouldn't even buy an egg that was purchased---I would not even eat an egg that was purchased on a street where a leper had once walked." All of these things that keep people ostracized. And so it was a grave kind of a disease. "When you lend," verse 10, "your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you. And if the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight. You shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his own garment and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God."

Now, what is he speaking of? The pledge, he's speaking of the outer garment, the cloak. Somebody who is poor had no collateral, and so he would say, "Here, here's my pledge. It's my cloak. I'll pay you back what I owe you." Okay, let's say you take the guy's cloak. If you take his cloak, come sunset you better give it back to him, because his outer garment is also the covering that he sleeps with. It keeps him warm at night. It shelters the cold. And so you'd have to give his pledge back. The next day you'd take it again, until he pays you back. But it's your way of giving deference to the poor, not having the same kind of demands.

In verse 14, "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it; lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and it be sin against you." Don't oppress the foreigner. Don't oppress one who is poor, who is needy. It says, "The father shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person has been put to death for his own sin. You shall not pervert justice due the stranger or the fatherless, or take a widow's garment as a pledge." You can't even take a widow's outer cloak at all.

"You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing." How do you treat foreigners? What do you think? What goes through your mind and your heart when foreigners come into our country? "They shouldn't be here. We've got enough of them. They're creating a problem." Well, maybe that's true, and certainly there should be regulatory laws, but once here, treating them in our borders was a different issue according to God's economy. If they're in your borders, you treat them well. You show them love. Why? You were once a foreigner in Egypt. You know what? All of us are foreigners.

My forefathers were not born in this country. My forefathers were all born in Austria, on my mom's side and my dad's side. They immigrated over here. They immigrated to the Midwest and the North and then some of them migrated out to California. But I'm a foreigner. And, actually, all of us are foreigners in a spiritual sense, aren't we? "We're strangers and pilgrims" traveling through this land. This is God's planet. He created it. And so we have to be very careful how we treat the foreigners and how we show love. Remember, even Hebrews says, "Be careful how you entertain strangers." Why? Some have entertained---what?---ah, that foreigner that you're bad-mouthing could be an angel.

You say, "Well, it doesn't act like an angel." [laughter] Perhaps, but don't forget to entertain them. "When you reap your harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, don't go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you then in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again; it should be for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this thing."

Beautiful program that God instituted in the land of Israel. "Gleaning" it was called. You'd harvest the field. You would leave---once you went through the fields once, you never go back again to get what you left. In fact, often they would leave up to 25 percent. They'd go through it rather quickly. And here's the procedure: the men go through with a sickle in the grain and they cut the standing grain and they throw it on the ground; they cut more, throw it on the ground. The women then follow and they bind it into sheaves. And they take the sheaves over to the threshing floor where it's threshed by separating the wheat from the chaff.

The final phase is everybody clears out and the poor, the stranger, the widows, the fatherless, all come into the field and take whatever's left over. That was God's welfare program, and I love it. There's enough there so you can just take it if you can't afford it, just come in and get it. And what I love about it is God's welfare program demanded the dignity of a person to work. You can have it, but we're not going to just give it to you, you have to work. You have to go gather it. Not just hold up a sign that "Will Work for Food" in hopes that you'll read it and give me money so I don't have to really work for food. And I've told you on many occasions, and I still do it, I offer people with those signs jobs: "Come to the church, I'll hire you."

I've had one come. No---take that back. Since I said that so you last, I had another one come. I've had two in all of the years that I've offered people. "Hey, yeah, man, cool. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll do it." Never show up. God is saying, "Give it to them, but make them come and gather it. Let there be enough dignity left in the person that he feels like, 'I've done something. I had to cut it myself. I had to gather it myself and take it home and thresh it and work with it.' " Beautiful, beautiful program. "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this thing.

"If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows. Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight." Now the blows literally is stripes, and it means a leather whip. Now, that is simply a depiction of what the Romans came up with later on. And Jesus was beat with this according to the law.

Of course, the Romans sort of beefed up the whip. It wasn't just leather thongs by Jesus' time, but there was embedded in the leather bits of metal or lead, bits of Roman glass and stones sometimes. So that when the whip would go in or would strike the flesh, it would grab. And then the Roman soldier would pull and shred the flesh, lacerate the body, and sometimes get down into the visceral cavity. Many of the prisoners, when Rome would use the flagellum, never survived the beating. But according to Jewish law it was very different. It was simply a leather belt, rather than a rod, rather than something that would lacerate the flesh. It would certainly leave a welt.

Now, why is this here? Again, it's to regulate a punishment. In those days there were no prison systems. The ancient peoples, including Israel, had no place of incarceration. If a person committed a capital crime, what would happen? Death. If there were less than capital offenses, there was corporal punishment administered. And it had to be regulated because there would be a lot of corporal punishment administered because there would be a lot of crimes people would do that didn't deserve death. So to preserve, again, the dignity of the prisoner, you couldn't beat him until after he had been convicted of the crime.

When he was beaten, it had to be with a certain number of blows that were prescribed by the rabbis and the elders in the gate, depending on the crime. The punishment had to fit the crime. And thirdly, as we read here, the judge had to watch, so that there would be no indiscriminate beating, no unlimited beating. The judge would give the sentence, then he would have to watch the beating going on. And then verse 4, "You shall not muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain." This is just a humanitarian law, isn't it? I mean, can you imagine an ox doing a lot of work with food supplies, like grain, as he is stepping over it and causing the chaff to separate from the kernel of wheat, and he's doing that day in and day out and he's going to get hungry.

He's going to be looking at food, working with food, and to put a muzzle around his face so he can't eat would be cruel. He ought to be able to eat of it, he's doing the work. It was a simple humanitarian effort to take care of the animals. If they're going to be working for you with your food supplies, let them eat some of it. Now the Talmud stretched the meaning later on to include human workers who would work with grain and work with grapes and work with olives, that while they're working with the grapes or while they're working with the grain, if they're hungry, let them eat. Sometimes the grain, before it hardens, you can take the chaff and separate it from the wheat, it blows away.

And it's hard at first, but you put it in your mouth and you chew it a while, it's thick like gum. It's actually tasty, very tasty. And so you're out working in the field, take it. "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Jewish laws, by the way, were very nice. There were anticruelty laws for animals. In fact, even in the way animals were slaughtered for sacrifice was done in a very humanitarian way. Physiologists have remarked to this day about how kind---if that can be applied to slaughtering an animal---how kind Jewish law was. A professional had to do it. He had to use a very sharp blade. He had to be trained in it.

And he would cut deeply and quickly the main arteries, the main vessels of the neck, which would give an immediate insensitivity to the area, instant, without feeling it, basically, death. And it had to be done under those kinds of rigid circumstances. This is called the shehitah/shechita of the Jews, their way of slaughtering the animals. Now what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 9 is he lifts this law and applies it to the church. He says, " 'You shall not muzzle an ox which treads the grain,' " and he's saying, "Look, is God just concerned about oxen? No. But those in the ministry who work and serve in ministerial capacities should be able to reap then the material support of the congregation."

And that was his whole paragraph's main point in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, beginning in verse 9. Let's move on. "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not marry a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel. But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go to the gate of the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.'

"The elders of the city shall call him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and he says, 'I do not want to take her,' then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his father's house.' And his name shall be called in Israel, 'The house of him who has his sandal removed.' " This is the law of the levirate marriage. Levirate is the Latin term---levir is the Latin term for "husband's brother." So it's called levirate marriage. I'm glad that this law is not in effect today. I rejoice that I live in the new covenant. You can imagine the problems that this could create.

And I'm sure there would be lot of guys who would opt for the loogie in the face, [laughter] rather than raising up the seed to his brother. Why was the law instituted? To protect, number one, inheritance and family name. If there was no child to perpetuate the family name, which meant the tribe or the family within the tribe, which meant the land allotment, he would lose all the inheritance in the future. So to preserve the name, also to protect the gal. She had the land. She's now inherited the farm because her husband is dead. But she can't take care of it on her own. She needs help, she needs offspring, and she needs someone to pass it on to. And so that the inheritance is not lost, and the woman would get the shaft, this law was put into effect.

Now this is exactly what happens to Ruth, right? Ruth is a Moabitess. Elimelech leaves Bethlehem, goes across the Jordan River, across the Dead Sea to Moab with his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. "Sickly" and "pining" is what their names meant. You can tell they're unhealthy kids. They died young, by the way. But those two guys married two gals from Moab, Orpah and Ruth. The two husbands die, Orpah and Ruth's, and Naomi's husband Elimelech dies. So you got three gals on other side of the Jordan River, have no husbands. But they hear that the famine has lifted in Bethlehem. Knowing that there is this law put into place they migrate back.

Ruth is out gleaning in the field because Boaz says, "Don't restrain her from going out. She's poor, let her glean." He finds out that she is related and that he is a kinsman to Ruth by marriage. And that all of the inheritance will be lost by these gals unless he or somebody in the family takes up this position of the kinsman redeemer, the gaal/goél. There's only one problem. Boaz says, "There is a relative that is nearer to you than I am. He has the first right of refusal. He has the right of redemption." So, classic scene, Boaz plays his cards right. He loves Ruth. He wants to marry her. So this is what he does. He gets the guy who has the first position in line to redeem the land and brings him before all the elders of the city.

And he says, "In the presence of all these elders, I want to let you know that there is land from the family of Elimelech. It has been lost. These guys have gone over to the other side of the Jordan, they're dead, and the land is up for sale, up for redemption. You are in line to redeem that land. Will you take it?" He goes, "Yeah, I'll take it. I'll pay for it. I want the land." Boaz says, "Great. There's only one hitch. The land is tied to a woman named Ruth. You have to marry her and raise up seed and then you can have the land. It's all part of the law." And then the guy goes, "Uh, no. I can't do that. I'm already married. This is going to really create a problem at home if I tell my wife I found another wife. And though it's in the law, I'm not going to do it."

And so the elders take his sandal off and they spit, but it doesn't say they spit in his face. It was interpreted that this was to spit in front of his face. In other words, you spit on the ground, you take off his sandal. And so he went through the procedure, and Boaz marries Ruth. The land is restored, and the marriage is restored, and children, offspring are produced. So that's---it comes from this law, the law of levirate marriage. All right, now that you have this firmly fixed in mind, I want you to turn to Matthew, chapter 22. Because this is, again, an issue that is brought up in the life of Jesus over this very law. You're probably guessing where I'm going to have you turn: Matthew, chapter 22.

In verse 23 there's a conversation that the Sadducees have. "The same day the Sadducees, who say there's no resurrection, came to him and asked him: 'Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now, there were with us seven brothers.' " Now listen to this farfetched example. " 'There were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also' "---also what? Also died. " 'And the third, even to the seventh.' " Brings up the law of marriage. Now, remember the Sadducees, they're the elite, aristocratic high priests. They control the temple in Jerusalem.

They don't believe in a resurrection. Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, believe in the five books of Moses, the written law of Moses, but not the oral law. They did not believe in spirits. They did not believe in resurrection. They were the liberals of their day. And what they're trying to do is take Deuteronomy 25 and show Jesus the absurdity of a resurrection by saying, "Now, there was a guy who had a wife, and he died and gave the wife to his brother, and his brother died---all seven of them died." Isn't that a goofy example? What was she doing to their coffee [laughter] that caused them all to die? Nevertheless, that's not the issue. [laughter] You know, their point is, "Okay, if they all die, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?"

Thinking, "Ooh, we got him. We got him. We're holding to the law, but showing there's no resurrection." " 'Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection' "---again, they don't believe in it, this is a setup---" 'whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her,' " the wife of every one of them. "Jesus answered and said to them 'You err or you are mistaken, you're wrong, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.' " You know, that must have hurt, because he said that to them publicly, this great elite group. Jesus is saying, "You guys are wrong, because you don't know your Bibles. Not only do you not know your Bibles, you don't know the power of God," referring to the power that God could raise a person from the dead.

"For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.' " In other words, marriage is beautiful, marriage is honorable, but marriage is only temporal. And in the new age of heaven in the kingdom, you're not going to need to perpetuate people by sexual union. It's a moot point. " 'But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He's not the God of the dead, but of the living.' When the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching." And so this is the law they referred to when they tried to trap Jesus, and he just sets them straight.

He knew eternity, he had come from eternity, and he tells them about what heaven is like. Back to chapter 25. We will be able to finish it tonight and go on next time. "If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her." Now, I am just going to leave this one alone, [laughter] and let it stand as it stands. I think it's pretty self-explanatory: two guys are fighting, stay out of it. [laughter] Surprising what you find in the Bible. [laughter] "You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light."

Makes sense, a salesmen, a guy who runs a business in the old city of Jerusalem may have a scale out there. And if you go to Jerusalem you'll see a guy with the scales and they have weights. You want to buy a pound of flour, he'll put a pound weight on it. But sometimes people have two different kinds of weights: one for buying and one for selling. It said a pound on it, one was light, one was heavy, depending if you wanted to get more and sell less, and so you'd have different weights. God says it's an abomination. Have the same kind of weights, not differing weights. You know, don't be duplicitous in your business dealings.

"You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a perfect and a just weight, a perfect and a just measure, that your days maybe lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you." Now that would certainly fall under the law of bearing false witness, wouldn't it, lying, being deceptive, by having different measures and weights? Live honestly, live openly. "For all who do such things, behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God. Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; he did not fear God.

"Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget." You may remember when the children of Israel, when Moses was leading them through Rephadim, that the Amalekites attacked the rear ranks, the stragglers, the old, the ones who were having trouble catching up because they were feeble. It was a cowardly act. And remember the children of Israel went to battle against the Amalekites and Moses was on a mountain overlooking it and Aaron and Hur propped up the hands of Moses.

And it says when Moses hands were up, the children of Israel prevailed. When the hands of Moses were let down because he was tired, that the Amalekites prevailed. And so Aaron and Hur, you know, just held his hands up. And as long as his hands were up, signifying he was trusting in the Lord and worshiping God, the children of Israel prevailed. Well, God says, "Don't forget what the Amalekites did, blot out their name from under heaven." And as we have seen already in the law, the Amalekites are a type of flesh, the old nature. And your old nature, like the Amalekites, cannot be reasoned with. You can't compromise with your flesh.

You can't say, "Well, I'm going to feed my spirit. Don't worry flesh, stay there. I'll save a little bit for you." You can't deal with it. You have to crucify the old man daily. You have to say no to it. You have to walk in the fear of the Lord, walk in holiness, and not give an occasion to the flesh. Now, we've already seen and discussed on many occasions the meaning of the Amalekites. So next time we're going to get into chapter 26, which finishes this dissertation of Moses, and then this other final dissertation of Moses is giving beginning in chapter 27.

For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.