Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell. Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Did you know that God made mankind to flourish? Deuteronomy 23 through 24 provides protections for human flourishing. These are laws that protect the people from pagan influence and the spread of disease.
These are laws that protect the family and those vulnerable to oppression. God cares about human flourishing. eventually providing the means for our spiritual flourishing through His Son Jesus. Listen as Pastor Rich shares this message titled, Your camp must be holy. calling us to protect and champion that which contributes to human flourishing.
This is part two of a message first preached on September 22nd, 2024. This is the gospel. According to his mercy, he what? Saved us by the washing of regeneration. and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
That's the God we serve.
So there's the gospel in that.
Alright, the next section we're going to look at here is the next protection: the protection from oppression. And there are numerous of them here. First of all, protection from oppression for the poor. for the poor. And one of the first things that is mentioned is a foreign oppressed slave.
If a foreign oppressed slave comes and runs away and you find this slave, you are to give that slave shelter. and don't send them back. It's in 23 verses 15 and 16. In ancient cultures, slaves were considered property and they were. grossly abused.
And God said, that is not okay. It's not okay.
So there's also another kind of poor and oppressed here: those who must borrow to survive. Look with me in chapter 24. Look at verse 6. No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge. Mill, that's how people grind flour.
Flour is how they make bread. Bread is how they survive.
Okay, so if you take that, you're taking away their means of making food for themselves. See, so don't do that. You need to care for the individual. Look at 24, verse 7. This was read this morning.
If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, Then that thief shall die. It's pretty clear, isn't it? It's a good verse. Did you know that was in the scriptures? There it is.
All right. Verse 10. That's pretty clear. Verse 10. When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge.
Okay, protecting privacy. These are all very important. There's no room for oppression here. Verses 14 and 15. You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy.
Verse 15, give him his wages on the same day. This is all part of the law of God. There's no room for oppression. Among God's people, right? Shouldn't be happening.
Verse 16, the The criminal is the one who takes the punishment for his crime, not anyone else in his family. Verse 17: You shall not pervert justice due to the sojourner. That's pretty clear in itself. You shall not pervert justice for the sojourner. God cares not only for his people, but also those who are visiting among his people.
Okay, so we need to remember all this is part of the law of God, and He offers this as protection for His people, protection from oppression. The next one that we're going to look at is protection from oppression in the form of inappropriate income, chapter 23 verses 17 to 18. And this is cult prostitution. God says this cannot be a part of the people of God. This is an abominable form of worship.
It should not, it should not take place among the people of God. It in itself is a form of oppression and it is an abomination to God. And God says the wages of such acts are not acceptable as an offering. And that's what he makes clear.
So, inappropriate income. Secondly, thirdly, I should say, charging interest.
Now, there can be some oppression there, can't there? Have you looked at your credit card bill lately? Do you have any idea what's being true? If you have revolving debt, how do you have any idea what... rate of interest you're paying.
I looked at mine. I haven't paid a dime of interest on mine. I only use it for three specific things. Andrea and I do. I haven't paid a dime of interest.
They're losing money on me. Just saying. It's like twenty, twenty-eight percent, something like that. And that's legal. All right.
And he says here in the law, he says. You know, if your brother comes to you. And each needs to borrow something. The reason why he's doing that is because he's in a hard situation.
So give him a hand up. Not a hand out, give him a hand up. Let him borrow money. And he will pay it back to you, but don't charge him interest.
Okay. That's what he's talking about. Because you're giving him an opportunity to start afresh. Foreigners, on the other hand, you can do, you can do, you can engage foreign merchants. with borrowing and things like that if they want to borrow from you and you can charge them interest.
But not your poor brother. who needs the help and a fresh start in life. Did you know all this was in the law of God? God cares. God cares for those who are in need.
The next the next uh Point we're going to look at here is keeping commitments, chapter 23, verses 21 to 23.
So when you make vows. Do people make vows today? There's another word for it. It's called commitment. A vow is saying, I will do this and I will not break it.
There's a fresh kind of commitment today that people have. They're committed to something until they like something else better. You know what that is? That is not commitment.
Okay. That is not commitment.
And the Lord says, in this community of my people, because I am a faithful God, if I say I'm going to do something, then I will do it. And you and I can count on that, and we know that because God is faithful. He will accomplish his purpose. He will fulfill his promises. And so he says, You as my people, I want you to be the same way.
If you say you're going to do something, I want you. to make sure you do it. Be a person who's dependable, who can be counted on. Because we serve a God. who is trustworthy.
Um Psalm 15. In Psalm 15, the psalmist writes, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent, and who shall dwell on your holy hill? He says, He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. And then in verse 4, he says, He who swears to his own hurt and does not change. That's powerful, folks.
You make a commitment and it ends up being challenging. And you stick to it. That's godliness. That's godliness. So God says Keep your commitments.
Keep your commitments. Excuse you, make them before me. And then protection from oppression through Compassion without fraud. The people of Israel had a particular system. If a man had an orchard or if he had a field of wheat, when he When he harvests that field or he harvests the orchard, they don't pick it all, they leave some intentionally.
Now, there was a system that was set up for that. And in 23, verses 24 and 25, he said, listen, you can go in and you can pick that grain, but hey, don't take advantage of this. I mean, don't abuse this system. All right. Don't abuse the system of compassion for the poor.
Or when you're traveling and you're going by a man's orchard, it's okay to pick an apple from the tree and eat it. But don't go in there with a bushel. Right? That's what he's talking about, right? It's an abuse of the system.
And then in chapter 24, verses 19 to 22, he talks about intentional leftovers for the poor. And we see an example of that in scripture in the book of Ruth. where Ruth comes from Moab with Naomi. And Naomi sends her out in the fields of Boaz. And they're harvesting and she is picking up some bundles and harvesting some stuff, some that was left over, that was intentionally not harvested.
And Boaz sees her and he says, Leave some extra bundles out there. And you know the rest of the story. Yeah. But that's the system that God had set among his people.
Next, in the beginning of chapter 24, verses 1 to 4.
Now that was protection against oppression. Protection against oppression.
Now, we're going to look at chapter 24, verses 1 to 4. This is protection for the divorced woman. Protection for the divorced woman. And it talks about a man finding an indecency in her. You know, the marriage, the protection, the sanctity of the marriage union is a big thing.
It was a big thing. Listen, for us, it is a big thing.
Okay. This is God's design. This is God's purpose. This is not something you mess with. We need to take this very seriously.
We need to champion this. But we know that there's all kinds of abuse that can happen. And particularly in the ancient systems, there was great potential for abuse.
So if a man found in some kind of indecent, we don't know exactly what is meant by that, okay? But it could be possibly a man finds in her indicators of promiscuity or prostitution, something like that, right? It allows for divorce in this case, right? And then she marries another. And then that man dies or divorces her.
The original husband can't take her back again.
Now you can see how that could be abused, don't you? And the Bible says it gives a protection here, it's protecting the woman from abuse. It's protecting this woman from abuse of being dehumanized by treated and treated like a commodity. This is in law of God. Because God cares.
We also see that he cares for the protection of the family. I love this verse. Look at chapter 24, look at verse 5. When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken.
Isn't that a beautiful verse? to be happy with his wife whom he has taken.
So he's free for a year from military or public, any other public service. I want you to notice something here: what it says and what it doesn't say. All right, it says to be happy with his wife whom he has taken. It does not say take one year to make her happy. You with me?
Okay, it's not your job to make someone else happy. Get a little preachy there, sorry. I always told my daughters, You bring a guy home. He's saying, say, he wants to marry me. I says, why do you want to marry him?
Well, he makes me happy. I says, I will throw up all over you. He does not make you happy. No one can have that responsibility. No one can carry that weight.
It's a no-good. Another sermon for a different time. All right. You know what I you know what I think's going on here? To be happy with the wife whom he has taken is a whole year.
You know what can happen in a year, right? Junior can come along. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace Mission.
Is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good. and your deepest satisfaction in him. the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.
