In his sermon, 'The Lord Redeemed You,' Jonathan Sides explores the theme of redemption through the lens of Deuteronomy 15:12-23, discussing the biblical laws on slavery and their implications. He emphasizes two key points: God's desire for His people to be free and the importance of recognizing God as the source of true freedom. Sides addresses the historical and modern controversies surrounding slavery in scripture, contrasting the Old Testament's framework, which allowed for slavery under specific conditions, with contemporary views. He explains that Hebrew slavery was intended as an act of charity and rehabilitation, not economic exploitation. The sermon draws parallels between the Exodus and the release of Hebrew slaves, highlighting the spiritual significance of freedom as a reflection of God's redemptive work through Christ. Sides urges believers to affirm scripture, understand the deeper meaning of biblical laws on slavery, and apply these lessons to show compassion and mercy in their lives.

If you'll turn in your Bible to Deuteronomy 15, chapter 12 through 23 is the passage I'll be reading. If your brother a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed. You shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord has blessed you with, you shall give to Him.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore, I command you this thing today. And if it happens that he says to you, I will not go away from you, because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, then you shall take an all and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant for ever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you, for he has been worth a double-hired servant in serving you six years, then the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.

All the firstborn males that come from your herd and your flock you shall sanctify to the LORD your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. You and your household shall eat it before the Lord your God, year by year, in the place which the Lord chooses. But If there is a defect in it, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. You may eat it within your gates.

The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it as if it were a gazelle or a deer. Only you shall not eat its blood, you shall pour it on the ground like water. Lord we thank you for your word. We pray your blessing upon us today as we hear your word. I pray that you would teach us.

I pray that you would speak boldly through Jonathan. Thank you for the preparation that he has done to come to preach today. And I pray that you would bless this time of preaching now. In Jesus' name, amen. If you look at your notes, you'll see that I titled this message, The Lord Your God Redeems You.

And the reason I've done that is the heart of this message is twofold. First of all, we see that the heart of God is that his people would be free. And secondly, we see that God wants his people to remember that he is the source of all true freedom. Last time the elders asked me to preach here, they let me preach on Deuteronomy 8, which is a passage full of sweetness and light. And this time they let me preach on slavery.

And we have to recognize that when we approach this text, that this text is the center of many controversies. Perhaps you've been in a discussion with somebody, an apologetical discussion. Perhaps you've read these books by these recent atheists, by Hitchens and Dawkins and Harris, and you realize that these people use one very common argument. When you try and point to scripture and say, here's what the Lord says, They look back at you and they shake their finger and they say, but don't you know? Don't you know that scripture supports slavery?

And our response to this is typically to mumble a little, to shuffle our feet, or to say something like, well, that was for then, but really we've outgrown that. At which point they have us in a bind, because they look back and they say, well, if those laws were just for then, then why should we listen to any other laws? But the reason that we have that debate is because there was a debate that occurred approximately 160, 170 years ago in our country. There were 18th and 19th century debates over the legitimacy of slavery. What happens in the United States was northern abolitionists started to defend the proposition that slavery is everywhere and always a moral evil.

And when they're confronted with the fact that there are texts like Deuteronomy 15-12 in the scriptures that affirm slavery, they say, yes, yes, yes, but slavery is something like divorce or polygamy. It is something that is far from the heart of God but that he tolerated for a time. Southern preachers responded to this and they said, but You can look in the scriptures and you cannot find anywhere where it says that slavery is far from the heart of God. But then they had to go back home and they had to defend the practice. They had to look at their parishioners and say, you all who have slaves are very frequently not keeping them in accordance to what scripture says about slaves.

We have many presumptions that we get from this cultural heritage. We assume things about slavery because a picture we have, when we think of a slave and when we think of a slave owner, we cannot help but think of cotton pickers on plantations. We cannot help but think of poor, uneducated blacks and domineering, greedy white men. Whether or not that picture is accurate, whether or not that's the way things actually were, that is the picture that we have. And what we need to do is we need to look at Scripture for our pictures.

And Scripture does have many things to say about slavery, and so today we're going to examine many of those things. And in doing that, recognize that you have a picture of slavery that may not match up with what scripture says about slavery. We need to do this in order that we are not embarrassed by any part of scripture. Whenever we see something in scripture, we should be able to say immediately, yes, God, we believe that and we practice that. We should not ever come to scripture when confronted by an unbeliever and have to shuffle our feet.

So here's what the strategy is today. Deuteronomy 15 is a special passage. It has some specific things to say about slavery, But it's part of Deuteronomy. It's part of the second giving of the law. Moses is speaking to an audience who would have understood the background to what he says here in Deuteronomy 15.

So we're going to take some time, and we're going to look at what the rest of the Old Testament law has to say about keeping slaves, so that we can understand what's special and important about Deuteronomy 15. On your notes in the fine print, I have given you a list of pretty much all of the laws pertaining to the keeping of slaves, and I've divided it into two rather artificial categories. All the laws of God are equally important in that we must be striving to keep all the laws of God. But there are some passages that speak more broadly and generally and pointedly to issues of slavery and then there are laws that are talking about specific issues, specific cases. So I've broken them up into two passages.

You'll find in the major sections, I've given you some passages where it talks about slaves keeping the Sabbath. I've also given you, there's a couple passages including our passage today from Deuteronomy 15 that talks specifically about Hebrews keeping Hebrew slaves. There are passages about keeping slaves because they are thieves. There are passages, Leviticus 25 is a general passage that talks about all sorts of types of slavery. When you get into the secondary passage, there are passages about circumcised slaves eating the Passover.

There are passages forbidding kidnapping. There are passages about what to do when your slave is injured. There are passages about fornicating with a betrothed slave. There are passages about servants eating the festal title and the offerings, passages about marrying female captives, and passages about runaway slaves and how to deal with them. And instead of reading all of these passages, what I'm going to do is I'm sorting the laws under the various headings and categories so we can get some idea of exactly what it meant for a Hebrew to keep slaves.

And I've sorted these into four different categories. First, we're going to look at the laws about Hebrews keeping heathen slaves, Hebrews keeping slaves from foreigners around them. After that, we're going to look at the laws about Hebrews keeping Hebrew slaves. After that, we're going to look at the laws about the foreigner among you who has a Hebrew slave. And then we're going to look at a series of laws that apply across all three of these cases.

So first of all, the laws about Hebrews owning Heathen slaves, foreign slaves. Most of these references come from Leviticus 25. First of all, Hebrews made by foreign slaves from foreigners living among them. These would have been Canaanites that, for some reason, were not driven out of the land. They might have made a covenant.

Israel may just have been lax and disobedient and not obeying the laws to drive the Canaanites out. Or They may just have not multiplied enough yet that they needed to drive these Canaanites out. So you could buy Canaanites from among these people. You could buy Hebrew slaves from the nations around them, Leviticus 25, 46. Foreign slaves bought with money were to be circumcised.

And for this one we actually have to go to Genesis 17 13. This is not something that's said in the law, this is something that's said in the covenants with Abraham. And when Abraham is given the covenant of circumcision. He's told that every male in his household, even the slaves, were to be circumcised. This has a very important implication.

The fact that you're circumcising the slaves means that they are part of the household. And the implications as far as eating the feasts are important. We note, number four, that circumcised foreign slaves were to eat the Passover, Exodus 1244. Back to Leviticus 2545, slaves born to foreign slaves were to remain slaves. Number six, you may put foreign slaves in your will as an inheritance for your children, Leviticus 2546.

Number seven, additionally, slaves could sometimes be taken as captives in war. For example, numbers 31-35 in Deuteronomy 2014. There were times when the Hebrews were told to go lay siege against the city and wipe everybody out, heap everything up, and turn it into one giant offering to the Lord. There were other times they were told they could take captives. They could take certain people as captives.

And so this is one case where you could take slaves. There's a special case for these captives. Number eight, if a captive woman was taken as a wife, she must be treated as a free woman. She cannot be sold as a slave, even if after you take her and after the period of her mourning is over, you decide that you do not want her as a wife. You had humiliated her and you had to let her go.

Deuteronomy 21, 10 to 14. Number nine, no foreign peoples, slave or otherwise, were to be oppressed if they lived among the Hebrews, Exodus 23.9. So there are some more general laws we'll look at, but here's a summary of the law specific to Hebrews keeping foreign slaves. The Hebrews were clearly allowed to keep foreign slaves, but by no means to treat them harshly or to exclude them from family life. The fact that the slaves were to be circumcised, were to eat at the Passover and other feasts, and were to be part of the household indicates that holding foreign slaves is probably an evangelistic enterprise as well as for economic gain.

So when you brought a slave into your house, and you circumcised him, and you fed him the feast, you were telling him the history of Israel. You were trying to make him a Hebrew. And if he did not want to become a Hebrew, you treated him as a slave, and you put him in your will, and you passed him off to your children to keep trying. Let's move on to the passages that are pertinent, especially for Deuteronomy 15. What about Hebrews keeping Hebrew slaves?

And the laws are very different for Hebrews keeping Hebrew slaves than for Hebrews keeping foreign slaves. And we should note that in every case of a Hebrew, keeping a Hebrew slave can be reduced ultimately to one cause, and that cause is debt. Now that debt can happen several different ways. Specifically, it can happen three ways. One, from Leviticus 25, verse 35 and 47, that debt you could keep a slave because of debt of his own or fear of debt by impoverishment.

The second reason that debt would drive somebody into slavery was if that person was a thief. The Old Testament law requires for thieves, depending on the circumstances of their theft, depending on what they stole and how they were found out, they had to make restitution and they had to make it immediately. If that thief was not able to make restitution for his crimes, he was sold into slavery. And the third reason, and this one's going to rub us a little bit the wrong way, from Exodus 21, verse 7, is somebody could be sold into slavery by his or her parents, because his parents had debt and need the money. This is the case you see when Elijah comes to the widow whose two sons are about to be taken by the creditors because she has bills.

And so Elijah tells her to start filling the jars with oil. That's the kind of case that this is talking about. We need to be very careful, though, and note that it's not always the case that debt is the result of an individual's personal responsibility. First of all, of course, it could be divine acts of God that cause somebody to fall into debt. God could send hailstorms, and he could wipe out one's crops and one's resources, and one might have such a debt, therefore, in the slavery through no fault of one's own.

Of course, it could be the case that one has gotten into debt slavery because of personal irresponsibility. You could look at the prodigal son who wanted to go back into his father's house as a slave. It would be better than slopping the pigs. And of course, one could also go into debt slavery because of what I will call corporate or familial sins. As an example of this, look at what happens when God sent the nations of Israel and the nation of Judah into slavery.

They were wicked people. God sent the nations into slavery because of great corporate wickedness. But righteous people were taken there. We know the story of Daniel. Daniel was a righteous man who was taken into slavery through no fault of his own.

We as parents should take note of this and be careful, especially in financial matters, that we're not putting our children in this kind of position, where through no fault of their own, They get into some kind of debt slavery. So how are you supposed to treat these Hebrew slaves that you take into your house? Well, Vegas 25 is very clear. It even uses the language that says, you are to treat them as brothers. You are not to lord over them.

Secondly, and this is one of the most striking differences between Hebrew slavery and heathen slavery, is the slavery contract always started out as temporary. We see from our passage here in Deuteronomy 15 and from Exodus 21 that the slave was to be released in the seventh year after his slavery began. Or, masters were to release those slaves in the year of Jubilee. In the year of Jubilee, everybody got released, even if they had not served their full six years and gotten to their year of release. Leviticus 25 also explicitly says, you are not supposed to own these slaves for profit.

You are not supposed to bring them into your house and lend him money at interest. You're not supposed to sell him your food at profit. He's supposed to live in your house. He's supposed to live beside you as a member of your family and not for profit. Hebrew slaves were not to be owned by Hebrews for money-making purposes.

Which already we see this is a very striking difference from what our conception of a slave is. We think of slaves as economic resources. They are not intended that way here. You're to treat him like a hired servant, Leviticus 25.40. That is, you're supposed to treat him like he's an employee of yours.

So if he brings you profit, that's great, but that's not why he's there. There's a special case, another one of these cases that might rub us the wrong way. Exodus 21, I'm sorry, yes, Exodus 21, 7 to 11. A father could sell his daughter as a wife. He could sell her as a wife's slave.

Now, before we get the hairs on the back of our necks standing up, we should look at the details of this, because they're very important. Presumably, this is a case where the father of the girl needed money, and instead of endowing the girl with the bride price as her dowry, he would have kept it for himself. Or presumably, this is the kind of case where a father sold his daughter for the bride price before she was of marriageable age, so she would go and live in somebody else's house, and that man would raise her either as a wife for himself or as a wife for his son. If that man did not decide to marry her or to marry the girl off to his son, that girl was to be either redeemed by a blood relative or she was to be, quote, treated as a daughter. She was not to be resold.

It's explicitly forbidden. And she is also not to be turned into a menial slave. You cannot decide, oh, I don't want to marry you. Now all of a sudden, you're going to be my housekeeper. You had to treat her like a daughter.

If the master did take her as a wife and decided he wanted another wife, he was not allowed to reduce any of the marital rights, the food, or the clothing of this girl he bought as a slave. If he did any of these things, she was granted essentially an immediate divorce and let free as a free woman. We should also note that taking a slave entailed risk for a master. Leviticus 25.35, the master has to provide for all of the needs of a slave. Also note from Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15 that the option of staying past the seventh year is entirely up to the slave.

We said that this started out, this Hebrew slavery starts out as temporary, but we'll see from when we look more closely at Deuteronomy 15, that the slave has the option of staying if he likes it there. And when you look at the text you realize the master has no say in this matter. If the slave finds this to be a pleasant place and wants to stay, he can stay. So when you take a slave on in the first place, realize you're running the risk of him staying forever. Now, the text says forever.

There is some debate whether or not forever means forever till he dies, or whether or not it means till the year of Jubilee? I don't know how to answer that but regardless if the slave decides to stay past the seventh year he could be in your house for a very long time. So what's the summary of this? Well we'll summarize what we can before we get to Deuteronomy 15. The most important thing to point out is that God has made a distinction between his children and those who are not his children, between the Hebrew and the non-believer.

The non-Hebrew slave is kept for evangelism and for profit. The Hebrew slave, under temporary servitude, is enslaved as an act of charity. We'll discuss this further when we look at Deuteronomy 15. Moving on to the third case about strangers and sojourners, those who live in the land but are not Hebrews, owning Hebrew slaves. First of all, note that the law of God, the scriptures in the Old Testament, make no laws about ways that non-Hebrews are supposed to treat their non-Hebrew slaves, with the possible exception, the probable exception of the fact that any sojourner in the land with the nation of Israel had to keep the Sabbath.

Where they are a slave or free, they had to keep the Sabbath. So sojourners in the land who had heathen slaves, you could abuse them six days of the week, but you could not make them work on the Sabbath. They had the Sabbath. What does it say about a sojourner in the land keeping a Hebrew slave? Hebrew slaves may be sold to foreign masters, but they could be redeemed at any time during their servitude by a blood relative.

It says a close relative. It lists a whole bunch of people. Pretty much anybody who's your relative could come and purchase you back. Leviticus 25, 48 to 49. There's a historical note we might consider on this.

During the Crusades, it was very common for crusading armies and for Islamic armies to capture the cities that they laid siege and take everybody as slaves and sell them into slavery. And Jewish slaves were particularly valuable, because it was assumed that you could take a Jewish slave and you could find any Jews anywhere, and they would be willing to pay a ransom. And this goes all the way back to the law of God in the Old Testament. Jewish slaves were just considered to be more valuable by everybody because you could just take them and you could get money right away, because their people were willing to pay to get them back. Such slaves could also redeem themselves from the same passage, Leviticus 25, 48 to 49.

Now the implications of those are pretty strong, and they also strike against our conceptions of slavery. They imply that a slave could own property, that a slave could operate a business in his free time, that he could make money, that he could try and get profit. And this also applies to both of the other cases that we've looked at. There's a note you could look at for an example of this. Ziva in 2 Samuel 9, Ziva was a servant of Mephibosheth.

He was a slave of Mephibosheth. And he himself had 15 slaves. So here you have a case of a slave having slaves. Leviticus 25.50. If nobody redeems the Hebrew, he's supposed to be released in the year of Jubilee.

There was no permanent sale of Hebrew slaves to non-Hebrew masters. They were either redeemed or they were released in the year of Jubilee. Number five, foreign masters had to obey the law of Israel and that they had to treat Hebrew slaves kindly as hired servants, Leviticus 25.53. The text of Leviticus 25 seems to imply that Hebrews could only be sold as slaves to foreigners who lived in the land of Israel. They could not be sold to foreigners and taken elsewhere.

Seems to be the message of Leviticus 25. So a Hebrew had to stay in the land one way or the other. So how can we summarize these laws, these laws specific to non-Hebrews owning Hebrew slaves? Well, we don't have to guess. Leviticus 25.55 explains it for us.

It says that the Hebrews not to be lorded over by non-Hebrew for quote, and this is the Lord speaking, it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." What God is saying is here is that when He took Israel out of Egypt, it was an act of redemption. He bought them. They are His servants.

And so they are not to be servants to any other pagan nation. You're not to sell your Hebrew brethren to pagans. Then there's some general rules we should consider when we look at the way slaves were kept in the land of Israel. Deuteronomy 5, 14, you know this one. We memorized it.

This is from the middle of the commandments to keep the Sabbath. And we see there that all the slaves are supposed to keep the Sabbath. Your slaves rested. All slaves in the land kept the Sabbath. The entire land kept the Sabbath.

You could not make your slave do the work on the Sabbath, just that you could say, oh, Lord, my hands are clean. I haven't done the work. You had to provide rest for those in your household. Number two, all slaves could eat the festival tithe, Deuteronomy 12, 12 and 18. All slaves could eat the Passover.

Pretty much, if a slave was circumcised and was a member of a Hebrew household or was a Hebrew himself, he was allowed to participate in any religious festival for which a regular Hebrew was qualified for. Being a slave did not exclude you from the religious life of Israel. Exodus 21 20, killing a slave is a capital crime. Exodus 21 26 and 27, If a slave was permanently injured because of harsh treatments, and this text gives two examples, if you knock out a tooth or you knock out an eye and blind him, he is immediately released. Here's an odd one.

Here's one you didn't see coming, Deuteronomy 23.15. Runaway slaves were free to live unharassed. If a slave left a master, he was free to pick any city that he wanted. You were supposed to let him live freely in that city. You were not supposed to take him back to his master.

You were not supposed to harass him. Now clearly, if a slave has committed a crime, if he's stolen from his master on his way out the door, then that crime has to be dealt with. But running away is not considered a crime here. Number six, kidnapping. And you have to love the way that the King James calls this.

It says man stealing. Man stealing for slavery or possessing of kidnapped men is a capital offense. If you kidnap people for purposes of putting them into slavery, you were executed. You see that in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 24-7. And then one last comment.

And this one I'm actually drawing from the New Testament because it's a New Testament explanation of an Old Testament practice. In Galatians 4, 1 through 7, Paul is commenting on the relationship between sons and slaves in a household. He's using it metaphorically to mean something, but what he says in the literal sense is important to understand the way that the slaves were raised in Old Testament Israel. And Paul says that really the only difference between the slave and the son as they're growing up is that the son gets an inheritance. So as you're raising slaves and sons in a house, the sons get the inheritance and the slaves don't get anything.

And the implications of this are great for both our understanding of sons and our understanding of slaves. First of all, sons are to learn to be hard workers. And so to those of you who are sons and who are still living in your father's house, realize that this is the picture that Scripture gives. When your father makes you work hard, he is doing what a father ought to do. He is not abusing you.

But he's doing this in order to make you a free man. He's doing this because one day you will get an inheritance. At the same time, slaves are supposed to be treated with the kindness that you would show to the fruit of your own body. Proverbs plays on this relationship. It talks about this a couple of times.

Proverbs 12 verse 17. A wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among brothers. So the life of slaves in Israel was such that if you were a good slave, you might actually get part of the inheritance. You were enough of a member of the household that that was an option. Proverbs 29, 21.

He who pampers his servant from childhood will have him as a son in the end. So this gives us a picture. It's a little window into the way that slaves were supposed to be treated, or a potential way that one might treat slaves. So here's a summary of what the Old Testament has to say about slavery. And again, we've just barely touched on these things.

There's more that we could say about nearly all of these laws. The implications are far beyond what we can do with just a survey. But here's a summary. The Old Testament law clearly allows for slavery to be a part of daily life. If there were no sin that resulted in debt, there would be no Hebrew slavery.

But because of such sin, God provides a means by which His people can provide for those among them. Alright, recognizing that we have prejudices, recognizing that we have a back story that we come to this text with, we should note already some of the distinctions between the Old Testament picture of slavery and what we think of slavery, either from 18th and 19th century colonialism in America or from even 1st century Greek and Roman slavery. Here are some of the implications. First of all, by outlawing kidnapping, The slave trade is essentially outlawed. You would not have had slave markets like we see in the picture books about America.

Now, there would have been times when one had to sell slaves possibly on the open market because they were thieves. One might have sold captives, but these would have been relatively rare occurrences. They would not have been the normal part of life. You would not have people employed in going out and catching people to make them into slaves. Also notice the slavery here is not based on some premise of racial supremacy.

The Old Testament is full of cases where God looks at the people of Israel and says I did not pick you because you were a mighty people. Israel doesn't get to enslave other people because they're somehow all fine and dandy, and everybody else is inferior. Rather, the slavery exists because, on the one hand, of an unwillingness of a conquered people to submit to God, or the unwillingness of a believing people to be industrious with their labor. Number three, sexual abuse, either by prostitution or by crime, is outlawed. And this is unique to Israel in all the ancient world.

A master had no sexual access to his slaves except that he first married them. And such a slave had all the rights of a free woman. She had the rights of divorce. All of their sexual advantages are criminal. Number four, slavery was intended to alleviate poverty.

I'll say that one again, slavery was intended to alleviate poverty. We have a picture of slavery such that a culture that has slaves is scarred, A culture that has slaves is somehow barbarian and less than civilized. But if you put this text from Deuteronomy 15 in the context of the sermons from the last couple of weeks, You get pretty much the entire picture of God's welfare system. First of all, we're told in Deuteronomy 14 that the Thais were to care for the widows and the orphans. The widows and the orphans were to be satisfied by the Thais.

Secondly, you can note from the first part of Deuteronomy 15 that you were to give interest-free loans to Hebrews who were hard up, to able-bodied workers, people who could do it and just needed resources. And these interest-free loans did not come from a civil government far away. They came from the people who lived within the same cities as they did. You, who lived in the cities with the poor, were supposed to provide them with these interest-free loans when they came and asked you for it. And from this passage, we see that there is an even more extreme case.

We see there's a case of somebody who just doesn't know how to work and make money and put food on the table or doesn't have the resources to do that. So what happens? He becomes a slave. In a sense, he becomes an apprentice and moves into your house so you can teach him how he can get bread. If you add to these three things the laws about gleaning, the laws about not cutting the corners of your fields so the poor can glean, and if you add the laws about the release of property in the year of Jubilee, you have pretty much the comprehensive picture of how God cares for the poor.

And in this comprehensive picture of how God cares for the poor, how God shows compassion, how God shows his sovereignty to the poor through secondary means, one of those elements is slavery. Slavery also served as part of the judicial system. It's interesting to note, slavery is still legal in the United States. For one purpose, one purpose only, If you look at the 13th Amendment, the one that outlaws slavery, it makes one exception, and it makes an exception for penal servitude. One could be a slave because of crimes they committed.

But if you look, The details are even more specific in the Old Testament law from these laws we study. First, note that nowhere in the Old Testament are provisions made for prisons, except perhaps to hold an accused criminal during the trial and investigation of his case. Secondly, the idea that a thief has a debt to society that must be paid by long-term incarceration is completely and totally foreign to the law of God. Rather, thieves are expected to provide immediate restitution for their crimes. The thief who could not pay became a slave.

God's plan for teaching thieves to steal no more was not that they should be locked away for many, many years. It was rather that they should learn to work hard. This is reflected in the New Testament, Ephesians 4.28, let him whose soul steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give to him who has need. Now, it's not clear that Ephesians 4.28 is talking about slaves, but it is in the same spirit of the Old Testament law of enslaving somebody because he's a thief who can't pay. The point is that he should learn to labor, so he might have excess to give to those who have need.

While we're on that note, let's move to the next point on your outline. We should ask what the New Testament has to say about slavery. Many of these laws we've been looking at in Deuteronomy, we recognize that the New Testament changes the way that we should approach them because they are ceremonial, because they are somehow fulfilled in Christ. Does the New Testament say anything that should change our attitudes about slavery? There's some background we should note, that by the time the New Testament is being written, the rulers are not Hebrews anymore, but they're pagans.

And the general civil codes for keeping slaves allowed for much harsher treatment than the Old Testament codes do. For example, there's absolutely no way that one could conceive of a Hebrew culture properly obeying the law of God that had slaves fighting in the Coliseum as gladiators. This was not something that was even on the radar of a faithful Hebrew and slaves. We should also note that there is a difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament laws. The Old Testament laws are almost entirely addressing masters.

By the time you get to the New Testament and discussions of slavery, in Paul's letters and Peter's letters, most of the discussion is dressed at slaves. So there's that shift. Now, We should revisit this argument. The Northern Abolitionists said that though slavery is clearly allowed in the Old Testament, as an institution it should be treated like polygamy or divorce. Such things that God clearly is displeased with, but allows because of hardness of heart.

Therefore, they say keeping slaves is always and everywhere a moral evil, albeit one that God tolerated for a time and at which we should outgrow. The problem with this argument, and I'll make the case as we look at some texts, is that while the New Testament clearly allows that divorce is permitted because of hardness of heart and that a husband is to keep to one wife, the New Testament writers never make such statements about the immoral status of slavery. It's just not there in the text. Now let's look at some representations. We're going to look at four passages.

The first one we will look at, and with all four of these passages, there is much more that we could say. There's much more to expose it from each one of these. Each one of these is a sermon in and of itself. We're just trying to see what is the general attitude of the New Testament to slavery. First Corinthians 7, 20 to 24.

Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can be made free, rather use it. For he whose calls in the Lord while a slave is the Lord's freedman.

Likewise, he was called while free, as Christ's slave. You were bought with the price, do not become slaves of men, rather and let each one remain in the state in which he was called." So what's Paul saying here? First of all he says, if you're a slave and you can become free, become free. Freedom is a good thing. Freedom in scripture is clearly better than slavery.

But at the same time, He says, if you're called as a slave, think nothing of it. You are freed in Christ. What is human slavery to you? This is what Paul's saying here. We'll look at Galatians 3, verse 28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. Just like nationality and gender, one's status as a slave or as a freedman had no bearing on one's status with Christ, had no bearing on the ability of one to have faith in Christ, it had no bearing on God's favor towards you.

Ephesians 6, verses 5 to 29. Bond servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, and sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with high services, men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is slave or free. And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven. There is no partiality with them. We're told, we can see at least two principles out of this.

First of all, slaves are to be obedient to their masters as if working for their masters was working for Christ. And secondly, masters are told in turn they are to be kind to their servants, recognizing that they have a master in heaven. The implication being that that master has been kind to them. And one last passage, and there are many more we could look at. There are many other passages that talk about this metaphorically, but we'll stick to one more.

1 Timothy 6, verses 1 and 2. Let us, many bond-servants, as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them, because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things." This passage addresses specifically the case of a Christian master and a Christian slave. A slave is to treat his master with all honor, and this phrase, treating with all honor, consists of a few verses after Paul said that people are supposed to treat their elders is worthy of a double honor.

Elders are worthy of a double honor, masters are worthy of honor. Masters are not censured for having slaves. Likewise, the Christian slaves are not to despise a Christian master. Rather, he is to serve him because the master is, quote, beloved. And finally, keeping the commandments is essential in order that the doctrine of God be not blasphemed.

These are strong words. So what does the New Testament not say about slavery? What is never said in the New Testament about slavery? The New Testament never argues for general abolition. Christ himself had numerous encounters with slaveholders and slaves and never once advocated for a general abolition.

Paul had many dealings with slaves and slaveholders. He does tell slaves that they should seek to gain freedom, but he never advocates for general abolition. Nowhere in the New Testament is slaveholding called a sin, although harsh treatment of slaves is sinful. And in one case, Paul even returns a Christian slave, Anissimus, to a Christian master, Philemon. And in the letter that he sends to Philemon, he offers to pay for any damages caused by the slave.

If slave holding is the great moral evil that our culture would have it to be, this would have been the perfect opportunity for Paul to tell us. He's writing a personal pastoral letter to his friend about his friend's slave, who's also his friend. This is where he could have said, friend Philemon, you're committing a moral wrong. You need to let this onissimus go. But he doesn't.

He's silent on the matter. So here's the conclusion. Even under pagan rule, even where there is potentially harsh treatment of slaves, much harsher treatment than you find in the Old Testament, nothing is said in the New Testament that abrogates the Old Testament laws and permissions about slave holding. Therefore, slave holding within very strict bounds and for very specific purposes is permitted by scripture and is part of the economy that God has established for man on Earth. With that as the background, we can actually look at Deuteronomy 15.

And you'll note that Deuteronomy 15 stands out from the rest of these texts. It says little to nothing at all about how you get slaves. It says little to nothing at all about how you get slaves. It says little to nothing at all about how you keep slaves. It says little to nothing at all about how you treat slaves while they're in your house.

It says nothing at all about heathen slaves. So in a sense, we might say this passage is not really about slavery. Rather, it is about the how and the why of freeing Hebrew slaves. We'll look at those in two parts. First, the how.

How are you supposed to free slaves? What does this text say? Masters of free slaves in the seventh year after they begin serving you. Okay, this text comes right after we have looked at the year of release, where debts are released in the seventh year. Now the slaves are not necessarily released in the year of release.

They are under a different contract, but this is supposed to be analogous to that. This is supposed to be like that. So every seven years you release death, and with a slave, after seven years he goes free. Actually, at the beginning of the seventh year, he goes free. Secondly, masters are supposed to supply him liberally in the ways that he has benefited them and not send him away empty-handed.

There are many principles we can draw from this. First we should discuss that the Jewish scholars look at this and they calculate and they say, well, When the text here says that you are supposed to send them away, supplied literally from your flock, your thrushing floor, and your winepress, what they ask is, well, what was the minimum? What could you get away with? And they have two ways of calculating it. One way that they calculated was you could look in Exodus 21 and you can see if a slave is gored by an ox, his master is supposed to be paid 30 shekels.

That was the value of the slave. So they say 30 shekels is the minimum. Or they say The minimum is 30 shekels because that is the value of these things listed in Deuteronomy 15. Such calculations are very, very far from the spirit of this text. You see, This text is supposed to be something of a reenactment of the Exodus.

And do you remember what happened in the Exodus? Do you remember what happened after the 10th plague? Do you remember why the people of Israel had to eat their bread without letting it rise? That's why we eat unleavened bread as the Passover meal. It's because the Egyptians drove them out of the land.

After the angel of the Lord came through and smote all the firstborn, reaching even to Pharaoh's own household, the Egyptians wanted them gone. And they drove them out of the land. And on the way out, they're taking their jewelry off and saying, here, take my stuff. Take my gold. Take my silver.

Take grandma's silver service, too. Get out of here. The Egyptians were plundered. This is what scripture says. The Egyptians were plundered as they're giving all of their stuff to the Hebrews on the way out the door.

And when you let your slave go, as verse 15 tells us, You are supposed to be remembering that you were slaves in Egypt. And he is supposed to be having his own exodus out of the house that he was in while he was in bondage to you. And you were supposed to be supplying him liberally. Now, of course, we can say not all slaves will work equally. If you've had a slave who's like Joseph, if you've had a slave that you can trust with the rule of your entire household, you would supply him more liberally than you would with the lazy slave.

Scripture doesn't say you have to give the same to all of them. So if you have a slave that has brought you much profit, even when you are not seeking profit, you should allow him to reap the reward from that. He should go away supplied quite liberally. Notice that these things that you're sending a slave away with are supposed to be supplying him both for business and for home. You're helping him set up to start his new life in freedom.

The picture of sending out a liberally provided servant should cause us to consider how we could apply this. For example, there are many times when people go out from us. Do we liberally provide for our grown children? Do our employees leave with more understanding than they came in with? Do our guests leave our homes with a spiritual abundance and a material one if they need it?

From our church, when sons grow up, are they provided for? Are they ready to be freemen and to lead churches? Do we provide for missionaries with the education they need and material needs? Do we send them out liberally provided when they have been under our care? Notice also as you send the slave out, you're supposed to do it without hard-heartedness.

The purpose of the slavery was never that the master was to be the primary beneficiary, but rather the slave should be financially rehabilitated and learn responsibility. You are not supposed to send him out calculating, oh my I have lost a worker. That's not why he came to you in the first place. Well why are these things the case? First of all, we've often been speculating about the meaning of the laws here in Deuteronomy.

For example, what is the meaning of cloven hooves? Scripture doesn't tell us. We have to make guesses. And they can be good guesses. But Scripture is not silent here.

And the heart of this text is verse 15. Jude 15, 15. You shall Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today." What can we learn from this? All true freedom comes from the hand of God the father.

And we are supposed to imitate this as we proclaim liberty to the captives. We are supposed to love God the Father by showing love to those around us and proclaiming liberty to them in whatever ways possible. Second note, this language of remembering that you are a slave in Egypt, this language is borrowed from Deuteronomy 5.14. This language is borrowed from the discussion of Sabbath. And Deuteronomy 5 tells us that our slaves are supposed to be getting the Sabbath because we were slaves in the land of Egypt.

And likewise, you are to deal with your slaves the way that the Lord has dealt with you. The Lord brought Israel into the nation. They brought them into the land of Canaan, and gave them a permanent Sabbath. And they are to give permanent Sabbaths to their own slaves. The Lord bought the people of Israel.

They are not to be slaves to men. Do you remember Pastor Brown's sermon on rest back in the sermons on the Sabbath? Our Sabbath is a picture of the rest of the gospel and of the eternal rest that's awaiting us. In the same way, freeing a slave is a picture of the Gospel because that is what God has done for us. When Paul tells the slaves in 1 Corinthians 7 that they have been bought with a price, he means just exactly this, that they have been redeemed, they have been set free from the bondage of sin and death.

And though the Hebrews may not have known it, the event of freeing a slave pointed both backward to the mighty working of the hand of God in the Exodus from Egypt and forward to the work of Christ, the new Moses, the one who is greater than Moses, who frees us from the bondage of sin and death. What does it mean to call Christ our Redeemer? This term redeemer comes from these laws in the Old Testament about slaves. What does it mean to call him our redeemer, but that we were slaves in need of redemption? The passages are numerous.

2 Peter 2, verse 19. When they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome, by him he is brought into bondage. John 8.34. Jesus answered them most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits Sin is a slave of sin. Romans 6, beginning verse 15, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, that you are the one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God, we think that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart a form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." Galatians 5, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Look at this. When you see a slave released, when you look at this passage in Deuteronomy 15 and you see the slave going out, you should see the gospel.

This is what Christ has done for us. He has taken us. He has paid our price. He has redeemed us from bondage. And he has set us free.

He has set us free that we might be slaves to righteousness. God took very seriously this command to set the slaves free. The punishment for not doing so is nowhere outlined in the scripture, but God nevertheless did punish the people. There's a story in Jeremiah 34, beginning verse 8, about how Jeremiah comes and he tells the people that they have disobeyed his command, that they have not been setting the slaves free. So they let them go.

But then they all sneak back and they tell the slaves to come back. They kind of strong arm them. This is the mafia. They're coming and saying, come back and serve as slaves to us. And so Jeremiah tells them in no uncertain terms, Therefore, thus says the Lord, you have not obeyed me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every one to his neighbor.

Behold, I proclaim liberty to you, says the Lord, to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine. And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth." And it goes on like this to say things like, some of you will be carried off into captivity, some of you will have your bodies as meat for the birds of the air. And this is because they did not obey this command. This command is important because this command is a picture of the gospel. Is there any way that we do this culturally?

Is there any way that we fail to set free those we should set free? Well, I've already mentioned prisons, And there's probably one sense in which we could say that prisons fail to treat men as men and instead treat them as patients. They keep men captive who should be making restitution, who should be learning to work hard. Parents, do you realize that you're keeping your sons in your house? In order that you might make them free, in order that you might let them go, do not keep your sons captive when they are ready to be freed.

But what are we supposed to do, moving on? What are we supposed to do with this perpetual servant? Verses 16 and 17. What are we supposed to do with this slave who has his ear pierced to the door with an awl. What do these pierced ears to the door posts mean?

If liberty is so important, how are we supposed to interpret this passage about a slave who gives up liberty. First we should recognize in the New Testament passages I just read, illustrate this, there is no such thing as libertarian or absolute freedom. You will always be a slave to something. The person who chooses to stay with his master is likewise a picture of the Gospel. He's found a kind master and he's found a good house that he loves.

And this is what is like for us. Piercing the ear to the door as opposed to, say, some random block of wood or a road sign indicates attachment to a specific house. And this is the way our relationship ought to be towards our God. When we take on baptism, we are saying that we will serve our Lord and live in His house, the church, forever. We could say more about this pierced ear.

In scripture, there are only two examples of men wearing earrings. The first example, and interestingly not both of them involve idolatry, but the first example is Exodus 32.2. This is where Aaron is telling, the people have come to Aaron and say, hey, make a god for us. And so what Aaron says is, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters in order to fashion the golden calf. So this breaking off the earrings, if you read it in the NASB, it's tearing off.

These are not permanent earrings. These are not, I'm sorry, these are permanent earrings. These are not earrings that are there for mere ornamentation. They're probably indicating that these people who just came out of Egypt, out of the House of Pondage, were marked as slaves while they were in Egypt. And they actually had to literally break the earrings out of their ears.

The other case where men wear earrings is in Judges 8.24. And Gideon makes an idol out of the earrings from the spoils of Ishmaelite warriors. So the Ishmaelite warriors of Midian wore earrings as a sign of who they were. You remember who Ishmael was? Do you remember he is the son of the bondwoman?

So what's the moral of this story as far as earrings go? This pierced ear, these earrings, they are a sign of submission to human authority. Thus, it's entirely appropriate for girls and women in submission to their fathers and husbands to wear earrings. It's a sign of that. At the same time, should a man wear earrings?

The question one must ask is, are you a free man? If so, do not even pretend to submit against the local slavery. But the pierced ears might have another meaning. Scripture twice talks about circumcision of the ears. You could look in Jeremiah 6.10 and Acts 7.51.

And it frequently talks about stopped up ears, ears that do not hear. Thus the pierced ear may be a sign that the slave has had his ear permanently opened to the voice of his master. Compare this with Psalm 40 verse 6. It says, Sacrifice an offering you did not desire. By ears you have opened.

Burn offering and sin offering you did not require. If you look in the liner notes of your Bible, that word opens means dug out. Sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but dug out ears you did." Ears opened to the voice of the Lord. Look also at Proverbs 25-12. "'Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise rebuke to an obedient ear.' The obedient ear wears wise rebuke like a ring.

Thus the pierced ear of a slave is a sign of us of how we ought to relate to our Lord, with ears always open to hear his voice as we live perpetually in his house. Be this man. We've had many, many sermons in Deuteronomy right now, and you recognize that this is the theme of Deuteronomy over and over and over. Hear, O Israel. Hear the Lord's voice.

Heed His commandments. Be careful to do them. Diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. This is the theme of Deuteronomy, is open up your ears and listen to what God has to say. Be like the slave with his ears permanently opened.

Be like the slave with circumcised ears, ready to receive the word of God." Let's move on to this section about the sacrifice of the firstborn. How does this fit, you might say? Well there are many things you could say about the sacrifice of the firstborn. Mr. Horne said most of them two weeks ago when he preached on this passage in relationship to tithing.

He reminded us that the animal, the firstborn animal, is taken and given to the Levites and sacrificed. And then the Levites turn around and give it back to the people. And you eat it in Jerusalem at the feasts. Only the clean may eat of it, which is a sign of who may approach God, yet at the same time the Lord is merciful and he provides for the unclean by the defect of firstborns. Romans 11 and 16 tells us that if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy.

If the root is holy, so are the branches. Likewise, we note that Christ is the firstborn of all creation. He is the firstborn of the dead by His resurrection. Hebrews 12 gives us a picture of heaven, it shows us heaven, and heaven is pictured by the gathering in of the firstborn. And we are called the firstborn there.

It's us. When you look at this passage and it talks about the firstborn, you should be seeing yourself And you should be seeing heaven too. But we need to be asking ourselves. Remember, Deuteronomy is a series of sermons. We're in the middle of a sermon here.

And Moses has been giving us things. And he's told us how to care for widows and orphans and how to care for the poor. And he's told us how to care for the utterly poor, such that they're slaves, and he just changes subjects. All of a sudden, talk starts talking about the sacrifices of the firstborn. It's not very good organization, Moses.

Why are you doing that? Well, in order to understand this, we can look back at Exodus 13, where the law of the firstborn is given. This is one of the oldest laws given to the people of Israel as a nation. It comes right after the giving of the laws of the Passover. Exodus 13, verses 11 to 16, and it shall be, when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers and gives it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that open the womb.

That is, every firstborn that comes from an animal which you have, the male shall be the Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. So it shall be when your son asks you, in time to come saying, what is this? That you shall say to him, by the strength of hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

And it came to pass when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go that the Lord killed all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all males that open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. And it shall be as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes, for by strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt." Do you see this connection here between the sacrifice of the firstborn and slavery? The sacrifice of the firstborn is supposed to be a picture of the slavery that you as a nation of Israel were redeemed from. It's just like the Passover.

It's like the Shema. You can use this language from the Shema between your eyes, on your hand. This is a sign to you. It's a perpetual sign. As long as you're raising livestock and you're having firstborns, you should be seeing this sign of what the Lord did in Egypt.

You play this little liturgy game with your children. When your son asks you, after you've sheared your flock, Daddy, Daddy, why did we not shear that lamb? Why is that one still fluffy? When he says, Daddy, why are we not training this calf to plow? When he asks you, Daddy, why are we putting this calf in the back of the wagon?

Why are we taking the lambs with us to Jerusalem? When you get to Jerusalem and he says, Daddy, why are we sacrificing these ones? And then when you sit down for dinner with your sons, and by the way, with all your households, including your slaves. And he says, Daddy, why are we eating this lamb? Why did we not bring the other lambs?

Why are we eating this one here? You're supposed to tell them a story. You're supposed to tell them this story about the mighty working of the Lord in Egypt. You're supposed to tell them about how the Lord turned the sky dark, and He turned the waters to blood. And you're supposed to tell them about Moses' serpents, and you're supposed to tell them about skies full of bugs and houses full of frogs.

And you're supposed to tell them about how the Lord destroyed all of the crops of Egypt in many ways, how he put boils on the people, and that how All of these things did not soften Pharaoh's heart. And so the Lord did something even more severe. And he killed all the firstborn of the heathens. And he didn't even spare their animals. But that us, his chosen people, he redeemed.

See, if you're a Hebrew, this is the Gospel that you have. This is the Gospel that points forward to the Gospel that you don't know yet. But you know that the Lord has a mighty hand. And every time you have a firstborn animal that you don't work with, that you don't share, that you have to haul off to Jerusalem, that is a picture of the gospel for you. And we have our own first feast of the firstborn.

It's right there. We get it in a minute. Where we get to partake of the firstborn of all creation. And when your son asks you, when your son comes to you and says, Daddy, why do you do this? Why do you eat this little snack before lunch on Sundays?

What does it mean? Can I have some? You're supposed to tell your son a story. And you're supposed to tell your son a story about how one time you were enslaved in the land of sin, and by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, Christ your Savior came. And the sky turned dark and the earth shook and the veil tore and the earth could not hold him, and he became the firstborn of the dead.

And he saved me, that I might be part of that as well. You see, this is how the feast of the first fruit, feast of the firstborn, matches up with these passages in slavery. You were enslaved, and now you are not. You have been bought with a price. Flesh and blood of a firstborn was paid for you.

We have a few applications. First of all, when you think about the moral status of slavery, we should always start with the principle that God's ways are higher than our ways. Instead of being embarrassed by certain passages of scripture, we need to wholeheartedly affirm them. We need to be able to look at these passages in Scripture and when somebody says to us, don't you know the Bible allows for slavery, we're supposed to be able to reply, yes, what's your point? Because slavery was one of the ways that God charitably provided for his people.

Verse 18 of Deuteronomy 15 tells us that the Lord will bless us in all that we do as a result of freeing these slaves with soft hearts. This is the third time that we've seen this phrase. We saw this phrase at the end of Deuteronomy 14. We saw this phrase at the end of the passages in Deuteronomy 15 about caring for the poor. Faithful tithing, caring for the poor, releasing slaves, are all tied together by this line, the Lord will bless you in all that you do.

Obedience to the Lord has blessing entailed. If we take these last three sermons together, we should understand that the wealthy, prosperous man is supposed to be a picture of God. He is supposed to be like the God who deals wisely and bountifully with his people, with those that he has authority over. He's not supposed to be tight-fisted. Number four, and this one should cause us to tremble, we are a nation of debtors.

But instead of going to our brothers, this is what Peter Bradard was talking about last week. Instead of going to our brothers in a time of need, we've run to the state. While the state can give bailouts and stimulus packages and cash for clunkers, it will not be a kind master. It will not treat you like a brother, and it offers no year of release. Finally, going back to the heart of this message, remember that you were slaves and the Lord brought you out of Egypt.

This has many applications for us. Do you remember when you were not a believer? Do you remember when you were unconverted? Show mercy to those who were in that state, who are in that state now, who are like you. Do you remember when you were the struggling single guy?

Invite him over for dinner. Do you remember when you were newlyweds? Do you remember when you were out of a job? Take these kinds of things, take these situations, remember the kinds of things that God has shown mercy to you in, and reflect that, and show mercy to others around you. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you very much for the kindness and the mercy that you show us. We thank you that you show us this even in slavery. By slavery we might have a picture of the wickedness of our sin and of the power of the redemptive work of your Son who's drawn us out of that. In His name we pray, Amen.