In his sermon 'Laws of Protection for times of conflict and Vulnerability,' Scott Brown explores the laws from Deuteronomy 25, emphasizing their role as expressions of God's character and love. Brown discusses various laws, including the limitation of punishment to 40 blows, the Leverite marriage, and laws concerning weights and measures, as reflections of divine justice and mercy during times of conflict and vulnerability. These laws are designed to protect individuals in precarious situations, safeguard family lineage, and ensure fairness in society. By examining these laws, Brown highlights their moral, ceremonial, and civil implications, urging believers to acknowledge and align themselves with God's wisdom and justice. He also connects these ancient laws to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, illustrating their ongoing relevance and the need for a conscience formed by God's word. Through this exploration, Brown encourages a deeper understanding of God's laws, showing how they define justice and love, and calling for a commitment to live according to these divine principles.

Deuteronomy 25, I'm going to start in verse 1. 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. Then 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. You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies, and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And that shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to 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.

Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and 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 brother's house. And his name shall be called in Israel the house of him who had his sandal removed. If two men fight together and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand, and your eyes shall not pity her. You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light.

You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a perfect and just way, a perfect and just measure, that your days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. For all who do such things, and all who 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 and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around and the land which the Lord your God has given you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, you shall not forget.

O Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. Lord, we Thank you for what you teach us, Lord, from doing rightly, Lord, to for your love of children, for your love of justice. Dear Lord, please open our hearts and our minds. Let us hear your word. We ask that you use Scott to speak boldly what we all need to hear.

In his name, Amen. These laws that were just read are all laws of love. They're all laws that explain something of the character of God. And they are like what Paul said to the Galatians in Galatians 5 verse 14 where he said, for the law, all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And so here as we find ourselves in Deuteronomy chapter 25, we find ourselves again in an exposition of everything that has to do love.

Even no matter how strange they might seem to us, they are laws of love and we'll try to impact those as best we can here this morning. The apostle Paul said that the law was holy, just, and good. And of course all of these laws fall into that same category. Paul said that the law was profitable for all things when he was writing to Timothy. And so when we come to these laws here, I just want us to begin by acknowledging the goodness and the beauty of all of the laws of God, how they're so helpful for us to soothe our fevered brains, to blow out cobwebs and wrong ideas that have wrapped us up, maybe for all our lives.

So here the Lord comes again with laws to help us understand even better about his character, his intentions. The Apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesians about the kind intentions of his will. And all of these laws carry that very same thing. At the same time, I just want to acknowledge that These are some of the more difficult laws in the Book of Deuteronomy, at least for me. And I've really had difficulty understanding a number of aspects of them.

Thankfully, there are so many things that are so clear in these laws that we can understand, but then there are fuzzy edges for me. And I've been so grateful for our men on Tuesday mornings as we've come together to discuss these things. And then even last night our elders had a late night conference call. They received a call in desperation, brothers, I'm banging my head against this text, and I need help. Let's walk.

Let's talk through some of the issues that are there. And honestly, I was so grateful for that time last night and received help. And I was so thankful for it. So these, these laws here are laws of protection for times of conflict and of times of vulnerability. Now if you think, think about your own life, how many times have there been in your own life where you've had times of conflict and times of vulnerability?

Where someone could have done something to you, but they didn't? Where somehow there was a protection from heaven and God was so merciful and kind to you. All of these laws breathe this heart of God. And so they are laws that speak of all these things. For example, in verses 1 through 4, There is a man under punishment.

He's lying there. And those who are punishing him are restricted to 40 blows. They have to stop at a certain point. They can't just, they just can't live by their own sensibility about things. Maybe someone reminded me of that sign that you read.

The floggings will continue until morale approves. That's not what Christians do. They don't just flog until morale approves. They do what is right. They regulate themselves accordingly.

Here, the regulation is to limit the punishment to 40 blows. Notice the man is laying down on the ground. He's completely vulnerable. So it's really a law. This law of beating a man is really a law of kindness so that he isn't beaten into insensibility.

And then the second law, beginning in verse 5, ending in verse 10, is a situation where a woman whose husband dies and she's vulnerable and God provides a way to bring her a husband. It's a law of kindness. She's in a position of vulnerability. We may not understand everything about levered marriage and things like that, but what we do know is that God is so gracious to establish ways that bring blessing to his people when they're completely cast upon the motives of other people or the situation they find themselves in. God is merciful.

And then in verses 11 and 12 we come across two men who are in a fight. And one of those men is protected from a certain kind of experience and abuse that would be harmful. And then in verses 13 through 16, there's a law that protects the buyer from vulnerability of wrong weights and measures, by getting ripped off out there in the marketplace. What is there? Is there help from heaven to keep you from getting ripped off?

Well, God gives laws to men in order to do that, and we'll talk about that. And then finally in the last section, verses 17-19, here we find a nation who does not fear God, and because their lack of fear of God has no problem attacking the weak and vulnerable in the back of the children of Israel moving through the Amalekites, and God judges them for that. So these laws that are here, they're not abstractions, they're real-life situations, And they're examples of God's understanding of how things ought to be in the world. And they always define what justice looks like. They always define what love looks like.

And here the Spirit of God uses these laws to inscribe them upon our hearts, to teach us to know what is true and just and worthy. He uses these laws to form our conscience, so that our conscience is not ruled by our own sensibilities, our own family backgrounds which often deform our consciences. And we end up being people like those people who will flog the captives until morale improves. And we become people with wrong values, a whole wrong roadmap of life. And because we've not saturated our minds in the law of God and the love of God.

And so by meditating on these words, like we read in Joshua 1-8, we find ourselves knowing and being able to carry out the good laws of God. And so this whole matter of the law of God is so important for us to understand, because we live in such an antinomian age that hates the law of God, people don't want to be governed, people think that any restrictions are somehow bad for them, actually God says they're good. So we live in a world where we're massively confused about the way things really ought to be in the world. And I think perhaps there are many reasons that Jesus said what he did about the law. But perhaps this is one reason, because mankind is so fallen.

We're so lost. Our road maps are so off that he would have to say, for do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. He said, I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you that till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of these the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." And so the Lord Jesus is careful to explain the importance and the perpetuity of the law. The law is applicable in that it forms our conscience. It is helpful because it corrects our fevered thinking And it's also perpetual in that it does not pass away. The Lord Jesus upholds it. So here, as we move into the text, we covered sort of lightly this first law in verses one through four last week, and we'll just sort of remind it of it again, where there's a dispute between men.

They come to court. One is found guilty. And it's determined that one should be flogged. And people say flogging, that sounds so terrible. But really, it is an act of love.

You want to lock a man up like an animal for a year? What would you rather have? 40 lashes and get on with life and repent? Or to be locked up with a bunch of other criminals and sodomites and all kinds of other people that will destroy you and all kinds of things like that. Prisons are not for compassion.

A prison is not a compassionate application of any law of God. But scripture has something different. Punishment that's quick, you don't hang out on death row all your life. You get it done. And this is the way that God has it for people.

And when it comes to punishment, you may want to whack someone upside the head or, you know, throw them in the slammer, but God has something far, far better for mankind. And, of course, you know, while prisons are not a biblical form of punishment, It is a blessing when people are visited in prison. Perhaps, perhaps why that is such an important thing to the Lord because prisons are so wrong. He and in his love he calls people to go visit people in these prisons that are actually unbiblical. And then we then we find this next law beginning in verse 5 In the protection of a widow here again.

We see another example of the great mercies of God here's a situation where where brother dies and he has no son and then the widow has to figure out what she is going to do. And this situation is called Leverett marriage and it's only defined explicitly here in scripture and the term lever it comes from the Latin word laver which means husband's brother or you know or brother-in-law And the law here presents an exception to the norm, a law that helps to deal with a difficult situation. And The word brothers here does not require them to be blood brothers, but even cousins, the words used in various places, that doesn't require this to be a blood brother. And I'm assuming that the second brother here is single. It seems to imply that.

But what happens is that as we read the text, that In verse 5, we read that these two brothers are dwelling together, one of them dies and has no son. And then the text says, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. A very strange statement. What, She can't get married outside the family. Well, that's explicitly what Moses is saying here.

And then we learn that it's the brother's duty to take her as his wife. And it says in verse 5, and to perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. So this word duty comes up twice in this text. So there's this principle of duty to take care of a widow. And then in verse 6, and it shall be that the firstborn son, which she bears, will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel.

So the child that they have carries on the name of the dead brother, not even the brother who took her as his wife. But then in verse 7 is where the conflict comes. Here's where the problem is. The brother is unwilling, and he does not want to take his brother's wife. You can imagine there are different reasons why he might not want to take his brother's wife.

She may be an unsavory person and he might say, wow I don't want to marry anybody like that. And so he refuses, and then there's this instruction. The instruction is to the woman, to the widow, his brother's wife to go up 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. So the woman goes to the elders and says, hey, you see what's happening here?

I'm left all alone, and my brother's brother won't take me. And then in verse 8, the elders of the city respond to the request. And the elders of the city, they shall call him and speak to him. So the next step is that the brother gets called in before the elders. And if he stands firm and says, I don't want to take her, then his brother's wife shows up.

She's invited back. And there, picture the scene. They're the elders and the widow. And now something is going to happen. And then she does three things.

She removes his sandal from his foot, and then spits in his face, and then answers and says, 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 had his sandal removed." Now, I don't think anyone in the world can read that and think, this is so strange. You know, what is the sandal, the spitting in the face? I don't get this. And this would be an appropriate response, I think.

But we have to acknowledge that God has given us scripture. Every word of God is pure and these words here are also pure. So we have to begin to recognize our stupidity, our lack of wisdom, our lack of understanding of Scripture, and our lack of grasp of the heart of God, when things so disassemble us like this. Now, I want to give you five situations in Scripture where this same matter is on the table to help us understand what this is all about. And the first is that lever of marriage is assumed in Genesis 38.

You're familiar with the story, Judah's eldest son, Ur, dies and Judah instructs his other son, Onan, to marry Ur's wife, Tamar. But Onan does something wrong. He does something that he should not do. And Genesis 38 records it. And he would not play the role of the husband and the text says in verses 8 through 10 and Onan knew that the seed should not be his.

And it came to pass when he went to his brother's wife that he spilled it on the ground. So his sin was he spilled the seed on the ground, but what was wrong with it is that the thing displeased the Lord, because he would not help his brother's wife. And he was not acknowledging certain other godly principles. And it was a very big deal to God. God's sense of justice is way different than ours.

In this kind of situation, who would have thought the judgment would have been so harsh like this? But it was. But, own in sin was that he did not care to promote his brother's name and so the punishment was extremely harsh and you know was was the punishment too harsh and if you answer yes to that then you have to believe that God is a monster. And so you have to grapple with yourself rather than with God on this matter when you read something that is so disturbing and so contrary to your own thinking. So that's one text in which this situation is implied.

Here's another in the book of Ruth. The second picture is here where Boaz marries Ruth in a leverant marriage kind of situation. It's interesting that their son is never counted as the issue of Ruth's late husband. So it's different. It ends up being applied differently here in the book of Ruth.

Ruth did not go in and demand a marriage from the first in line, although she certainly tried to put herself in the position of it, right? So what happens in Ruth chapter 4, in verse 1, we find that Boaz contacts the nearest relative in order to see if he would receive Ruth as his wife. And so verses 1 and 2 speak of this situation where Boaz goes up to the gate and he gets this close relative to come by and sits him down. And then he takes ten men, ten witnesses of the city to acknowledge the situation and this scene, similar to the taking of the sandals, spitting in the face. The elders of the city are there.

So it looks like the same kind of thing that's happening in Deuteronomy chapter 25. And then Boaz explains the situation to this close relative, beginning at the end of verse three, he explains the situation and then he says you have an opportunity to redeem this woman. And then he clarifies that this redemption includes taking Ruth. And Boaz says in verse 5, on the day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance." That's a really important statement, I think, in understanding the heart of God in this whole matter. In order to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance, God places a high value on inheritance.

We don't in our culture, but God does in the cultures that he desires to establish that inheritance matters. And then this close relative responds, we don't know his name, verse 6, he says, I cannot redeem it, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, or I cannot redeem it. So the closest relative says, no, I can't do it. And then verse 7, the sandal comes off.

There's no record of the spitting in the face but the sandal does come off who knows what would actually happen we're not told everything about this about all the events here but at least we know that it is said in verse 7, now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm anything one man took off his sandal and gave it to another And this was a confirmation in Israel. So this thing about the sandal was to confirm a deal, to make sure that everybody agreed, here's what just happened. In the case here, there are 10 men that are there to confirm, yes, this happened. And in the case in Deuteronomy chapter 25, the elders of the city are there and they watch the removal of the sandal, the spitting of the face, and the declaration of the judgment. So it's a wild story, isn't it?

It's just an amazing thing. So here Ruth now becomes his wife. The witnesses affirm their role and the significance of the action. Now look at with me verses 11 and 12. And all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses.

The Lord make the woman who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who built the house of Israel. And may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem May your house be like the house of Piraeus from Tamar boarded Judah because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman and and So we learned something about why this was all important. It was about offspring. Somehow offspring is part of the subject matter here. And if you jump up to verse 10, we read, moreover Ruth and Moabitess, the widow of Malon, I have acquired as my wife.

And look at the language here, because you learn something about what this was all about. Look very carefully. He says, I have acquired as my wife, why? To perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance. That the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate.

You are witnesses of this day." So this was all about inheritance. God was valuing procreation, inheritance, passing down a name from one generation to the next. This is something good in the eyes of God. This is something He desires. He delights in it.

In our culture, we don't delight in it at all. We don't really care about it that much. But God has different thoughts about it. And so Then we learn in verse 14 that there's even more to learn. Then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative, and may his name be famous in Israel." So this is also in order to provide the close relative to a woman who had no husband.

This was an act of mercy toward a widow. So God was trying to supply something to her that she did not have. And then in verses 15 to 21, I think we learn some things about this that even take us further, but affirm everything that we've learned so far. Verse 15, and may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age." So this law was to nourish women to take care of them in their old age. Which is probably why the Apostle Paul said, I urge the younger widows to get married and have children.

Because widows get older. If you know a widow who's young, urge her to get married so that there's someone in her old age to take care of you. That's the principle. God desires that, that there's something important about that. And then verse 15, just continuing, For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.

Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, classic grandmother situation, and became a nurse to him. Also the neighbor women gave him a name saying, This is a son born to Naomi and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now this is the genealogy of Pires. Pires begot Hezron, Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Aminadab, Aminadab begot Neshan, Neshan begot Salmon, Salmon begot Boaz, Boaz begot Obed, Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David.

And now we're taking fast into the Gospel. The reason for this, I believe, somehow is related to the Gospel. We can talk about this later. There is so much to talk about here. It will be impossible to go down every trail.

But I think we need to understand there's something greater than just lever at marriage here. Something more important, something grander, in the same way that Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees, something greater than the temple is here when he was speaking about the Sabbath he was talking about heaven here I believe a very similar thing is happening where this whole matter of lever at marriage means something greater than it seems to be right on the surface to us and and and and how how would we learn it By continuing to learn from the Lord, to continue to study scripture and to learn from him. We learn that our inheritance is not dependent on physical heritage, but it's in heaven. Because this genealogy is a heavenly genealogy that ends up taking us for all eternity in the presence of God because of this Son who is born through this line. Now, another situation, a third situation, seems to acknowledge this practice was in play in the time of Jesus.

In Luke chapter 20, the Sadducees questioned Jesus about this law. Remember it's the word Jesus was being inquired about these seven brothers. You know one brother dies he gets his brother's wife. The other one dies, it happens seven times. The Sadducees are quizzing and they say, OK, whose wife is she in heaven?

And Jesus says, you've completely missed the point, that they are not given in marriage, and there is no marriage in heaven. So there's something greater here. Even Jesus is talking about this whole thing and he relates it to a heavenly matter that exists for all eternity. And then the fourth passage of Scripture is in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul is explaining to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 39, he explains what widows should do. Now, we've just learned from the law what widows should do.

Now, here in the New Testament, we find actually something different, Something that really overthrows what Moses says. A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes. So here Paul says, when a widow can marry anyone she wishes. She's not bound to her brother's brother.

But he says, only in the Lord. So she can only marry a believer. So there are restrictions to it. So this is what a widow can do. In verse 40, but she is happier if she remains as she is according to my judgment.

And I think I also have the Spirit of God. Then the fifth text is 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 14, where the Apostle Paul says that widows should get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach. Now nowhere does Paul imply that she should build up her brother's house or anything like that. So those are five texts, okay? So, you know, go to Scripture, find out what Scripture says, and see how these things can be brought together.

And I just want to acknowledge, these are difficult matters for me. I, you know, I am way over my head. I wasn't going to say, you know, this is over my pay grade, but I really didn't want to acknowledge something that would be shameful for me to acknowledge. But here what we find is that this is a very difficult situation. Now Let's ask one of the important questions.

Is it moral, ceremonial, or civil law? Now, this was the conversation that we as elders had on the phone last night. What kind of a law is this? And so we determined that we would say it's ceremonial law. And that what we have here is a picture of the gospel.

Christ fulfills it in his whole work of marriage in the marriage supper of the Lamb. But what does it reveal about the heart of God? Because every law reveals something about the nature of God, the heart of God, the justice of God. What is this law about? And let me just give you a number of moral implications of this law that teaches about God.

Number one, it's a law that protects women. And it provides a home and a family for a widow. Marriage is provision and protection of women up until the time when they're very old, so that they would be nourished and cherished even into their old age and taken care of. God does this and he issues a law to help it along. It's also a law of kindness for a dead husband without a son and the purpose of this law is to preserve his name so that his lineage would not be blotted out.

And God shows favor toward the perpetuity of families and family lines, the importance of family lines. Thirdly, it's a law that exalts marriage and childbearing. It's a pro-family, it's a pro-child law. And it really breathes the whole principle of fertility that we see in Scripture. You know, how bad is it, how bad is it when people do not care about having children?

Well, you know, at least half of the people in this country just desire their name to be lost. So they abort their children. And we abort them by the millions because we don't really care about what comes from our body. We care about way too many other things. And so there's this principle of fertility that is here.

You know, we have to have her historical perspective about this matter. We live in an age which really despises any of these things, And so we find all kinds of reasons to participate in it. You know, right now, today, the Pew Research Organization just recently came out with a study saying that childness is up everywhere. And what they say is that nearly one in five American women ends her childbearing years without ever having born a child. In 1970, it was one in ten.

Now it's one in five. I mean, these are mega shift social changes that are going on. And among all women ages 40 through 44, the proportion that has never given birth has grown by 80% since 1976. There were 1.9 million childless women ages 40 to 44 in 2008 compared to a half a million in 1976. I mean, hey, the world is changing in this whole matter.

The world is throwing away all Bible doctrine on childbearing and fertility and lineage and going off into the next generation. And this, of course, is happening in greater levels among educated women, because they have jobs and they're delaying having children and there are a number of statistics about this whole matter as well in this Pew research. This is happening all over the world. It's not just happening here. It's a, well let's just call it a pandemic, a philosophical pandemic that's gripped the world.

And honestly, the nations of the world are struggling with their economies because there's no one coming up to take care of the older generation. And there's no one to crank the economy and to buy goods and services that make economies healthy. This demographic winter, if some have called it, is a devastating thing. But in this law is a principle of fertility. There's also a principle of family names.

And God looks with disfavor on rejecting this important matter. It's a principle of inheritance. And it exposes a sin when someone cares nothing about the family name, so much so that a man would reject, he would reject his brother's widow. It's also a principle of love. You are your brother's keeper.

You should look out for your brother. You know, your brother may marry a bad woman and you might have to marry her. Well, I don't believe that you're requiring, that this law of Moses requires that you have to marry your brother's wife. But if your brother's going to marry someone, if you think she's a witch, you probably ought to absolutely tell him and help him not to marry such a woman. I mean, you should do that.

You should stand up, play the man, and say, no, no, no. This is a bad woman, because they do exist. And We don't know why this man would not marry this woman, but they do exist. And you are your brother's keeper. There's a principle here, a principle of marriage, and I'm not sure what to do with this.

You may marry out of duty, out of your responsibility to be fruitful and multiply and carry on your family name. Honestly, I don't know how far to take that, but I know that We live in an emotion-obsessed world regarding marriage, and men would hardly ever be willing to marry without their first concern being their emotions. Their duty is something that they would set aside. But men have duty in marriage that are far, far beyond emotions. So this is this first law, second law, on the protection of a widow.

God has mercy on widows. All of God's laws are laws of love. And I believe this law breathes the heart of God toward His love for widows. And even we go to great lengths and ask great things of men in order to protect them. Imagine that.

God asks great things of men in order to stay with their women, to nourish them, cherish them, and then to be like Christ and even die for them. It's the living for them that's the hardest part, it's probably not the dying. But let's acknowledge that God asks, God asks for duty in men, not just emotion. Maybe some of your marriages, you men, you're just ruled by your emotions and there's no duty to your wife. You just don't feel a certain way so you don't care for her in a way that she ought to be because you're just an emotional, you know, panty-waist man who's just been run by this feminist world that we live in.

And so there is no duty in our marriages. We're only run by our emotions. And so here, this is a principle of duty that we find here in this passage. And here, the next, we have a, we learn of the protection of a man in a fight in verses 11 and 12. And what a wife should not do when her husband is in a fight.

So the scene is two men are fighting together and then a wife draws near to rescue her husband And as the King James has it, he puts out her hand to his secrets. And then there's this dramatic punishment. In verse 12, her hand is cut off. Now, So what kind of law is this? Again, it's another very difficult and strange law.

No one can read this law without wondering what in the world it means for them today. The scene here is a real life scene. If two men are in a fight and a woman is there, she wants to come to the rescue of her husband, right? That would be something that you would expect. And she gets involved, and she actually does something wrong by extending her hand to his private parts.

Now, there are six things I want you to know about this law. Are you ready? Number one, It is a law to preserve a man's manhood. It forbids taking a man's ability to have children, if that would be the result of this. The text doesn't demand, though, honestly, that there's any damage.

It just doesn't demand it. But perhaps it implies it. But robbing one of his manhood is unlawful. The law protects a man's ability to have children. It's the law of love in that sense.

Secondly, it's a law of warfare that restricts certain kinds of activity, certain kinds of combat. There are rules of warfare in scripture. And when a woman in a fit of emotion steps in and does something that she should not do, and then hopes to claim that because the heat of emotion was an excuse, would actually find God contrary to her in that. Because she did what, she did the natural thing, but she didn't do the right thing. And we all might say, you know, all's fair in love and war.

Well, that's not true here. All is not fair in love and war as far as scripture is concerned. You know, many of you know that with my own daughters, I've instructed them what to do if attacked. And what I've instructed them to do is to issue blood curdling screams to kick, bite, hopefully not bite, scratch, throw things, crash things, be very aggressive like that. And so the question on Tuesday morning was, well, does that mean that she can't kick?

And I don't think this restricts kicking at all. It only restricts one thing. OK, let's be very explicit with the text. She can't extend her hand to do that, but can she shoot him? Yes.

Can she bonk him on the head with a chair? Yes, she should. Should she throw something sharp and heavy at him? Yes, she should. So, the Bible only restricts one thing in this matter of warfare and so isn't this a fascinating passage of Scripture?

You know what, let me just stop for a moment. You know we have this new group of interns that just arrived today, you know, and you know the last group of interns that came, their first day, it was church discipline Sunday. Now it's, I don't know what this is. It's how to train your daughter how to fight Sunday. How's that?

Drink it in, brothers. Here it is. There's certain things that women should not do. And there's certain things that women should do. And in combat, this is one thing that a woman should not do.

We know from Deuteronomy 22.5 that a woman should not put on clothing that pertains to a man, and A man should not put on clothing that a woman would wear, because that's an abomination of the Lord. Well, this too is an abomination of sorts. It's of that same kind of category. There's certain things that men and women are allowed to do. And so this is a law of warfare that restricts certain kind of combat.

I was just going to thank the Lord that we were done with this section, but I actually have three more points to give. So God, you know, It's a law of modesty, number three. It's a law of modesty. And God designs women a certain way. And a man's secrets, as the King James renders them, are designed to be used as a source of blessing and to damage them would be something that's argued against here perhaps.

And then number four, it's a law that illustrates an important principle of judgment. It's a law that illustrates an important principle of judgment. And here's the principle. The ends don't justify the means. The ends don't justify the means.

So Just because our interests are threatened and we're in a hot situation, we don't have the right to set aside the principles of God just because something happened that was bigger than we were at the moment. But there's this principle of the ends do not justify the means. And so for a wife, even the success of her husband at the end is not a justification for extending her hand to do something she shouldn't do. And then number five, it's a law that illustrates a principle of punishment. There's a principle of punishment here that is spoken, that is actually referred to many times in the book of Deuteronomy.

And that is that we can be in our own value system, immersed in it so much, we can be overcome with pity and punish too softly. And so Moses says to her, you shall not pity her, because her hand is being cut off. Don't pity her. And Matthew Henry says it like this, magistrates must not pretend to be more merciful than God. Magistrates must not pretend that they can be more merciful than God.

Because God has spoken about this punishment, and it should be delivered. But we often are overcome with pity. And it's a fascinating study to use to identify the source, or I mean the uses of this word in Deuteronomy and other places, because this is a problem of mankind. We have a wrong sense of pity. Our emotions are messed up.

Our conscience is skewed so that we won't do what God wants us to do because of what we would call pity. And so, you know, It's natural to say, well, this was done in a fit of passion. It wasn't premeditated, so that should give this woman an excuse for her behavior. But the answer really is no. There's something really wrong about this that we might not understand fully.

And I don't understand this fully, why the punishment would be so harsh. Every commentator, Calvin, they all say, this seems so harsh. Well, they're just saying what all of us would think as well. But God is just, you know, in that sense. And then it's an unusual law, number six, it's an unusual law that offends the justice system in men's hearts.

Now this is the only case of lawful mutilation anywhere in Scripture, except if you want to take, as has been pointed out, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But in this law, our sense of justice is severely violated. And Scripture shows our true colors by giving us laws that are contrary to our own sense of justice. Did you get that? God gives us scripture to offend us, to offend our own sense of justice so that we wouldn't be left to ourselves.

And Scripture shows us our true colors with laws like this. And so when something in Scripture offends us, we should recognize that either we don't understand it, and that's possible as well. But most likely, it's because it's showing us our sin, and we are self-righteous, and we would actually rather have our own will than the will of God. Because we are put off by God's laws. And when we are, we need to know that we are malfunctioning, that our thinking has drifted so far that we would actually be offended by God's laws of love.

So if we are offended, then it's a sign that we are offensive to God. And it shows us the greatness of the gulf that exists between us and God. It shows us that We are dead in our trespasses and sins, lest Christ would shine His light upon us. Romans chapter 3 says that we read this last night in our home, not in preparation for this morning, but as our normal reading. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.

There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no not one. Their throat is an open tomb with their tongues.

They have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. As that's the truth about us. And we learn from Galatians that the law was given so that every mouth should be stopped. And this law should stop our mouths and show us how far we are from our understanding of the justice and the mercy of God. So it is an unusual law that offends the justice system of man's heart and it shows us how far we are.

There's no room for any pride in this room for anything because we are all offended from one place to another in the Word of God because we are sinners and we need help from heaven. And so we have, So it's a law of righteousness. Now we come to the next law, the law of freedom and prosperity and honesty in business. It's a law to protect the buyer. But let me say we will take this on next week because these laws have taken far longer than I had hoped they would take.

And so, it now being 1145, I think what we'll do is we will continue to speak of them for a few minutes, move into our time of communion together, and we'll finish up the chapter next week. Does that make sense? And all God's people said, amen. Okay. So let's pray and then let's continue to discuss this.

Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us wisdom. We thank you for these laws of love that you've delivered to us, all of which are perfect, now that you would help us to learn more of your will and your ways. In Jesus name, Amen.