In the sermon titled 'Regulation in Marriage,' Scott Brown explores Deuteronomy 21:10-14, focusing on the treatment of women captured during wartime as outlined in the passage. Brown emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader context of Deuteronomy and the didactic nature of the scripture. He explains how the passage serves to regulate potential abuses by men in wartime situations, ensuring the humane and respectful treatment of captured women and preserving the sanctity of marriage. The sermon highlights the 'hermeneutics of skepticism,' cautioning against interpreting scripture with a biased or negative mindset. Brown encourages approaching the text with humility and aligning it with the broader teachings of the Bible, using scripture to interpret scripture. He draws parallels between the cultural transformation of the captured woman and spiritual conversion, emphasizing the importance of God's regulations in guiding moral behavior. The sermon concludes by urging men to examine their lives for areas unregulated by God's commandments and recognizing the transformative power of God's love.

We're in Deuteronomy 21. We'll be reading verses 10 through 14. When you go out to war against your enemies and your Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, And you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her and would take her for your wife. Then you shall bring her home to your house. She shall shave her head and trim her nails, she shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month.

After that you may go into her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free. But you certainly shall not sell her for money. You shall not treat her brutally because you have humbled her. May the Lord's word grow richly in each one of our hearts.

We praise you Lord for this admonition. In Jesus name, Amen. Please be seated. How many of you in this room have ever heard an exposition on this very text? Could you raise your hands?

Only the people in our church, pretty much. I'd like to begin by setting this text and frame it in terms of its context. I want to talk about where it sits in Deuteronomy because that's important. What category of scripture this is, what is the message, what's the target audience and how do we interpret it, and then I want to move into an exposition of the text and then and then finally I want to speak of how we might apply it. Now the wider context of this passage in Deuteronomy 21, of course, is in the midst of Moses' second speech in the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy is composed of three speeches of Moses. The first speech goes from chapters one through four. The second speech goes from chapters five through 26. It begins with a summary of that speech in 10 commandments. So the 10 commandments are given in chapter 5 and then each one of the commandments are systematically explained by giving various examples of those commandments to help you understand what those commandments mean.

And so when we when we get to and then there's a third speech in Deuteronomy that begins in chapter 27 and then there's a conclusion after that. But in when we get to to this text, Moses is doing exposition on the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder. And he's giving various descriptions of how you think about murder and in terms of wartime and all kinds of different different categories. The second thing I want us to recognize is this is a particular category of Scripture. It's not poetry, it's not history, It's not historical narrative.

This is didactic scripture. And it gives specific counsel for a very specific kind of situation. Thirdly, we have to ask ourselves what is the basic message? What's sort of the ethos of this passage? And what is its purpose?

As you read through it, does it seem to perform some kind of a function? And it's really meant to regulate abuses in wartime and to provide for the spiritual rescue of women out of paganism and to legislate for sin that will inevitably destroy marriage in certain situations. And so Moses is giving laws to regulate various abuses of men in wartime. You know what happens in wartime. Social conventions go to the wind and men do whatever they want to do because it seems they seem to think that they are a law to themselves and they lose their bearings, they smash their moral compass often in wartime.

This is a passage that regulates the behaviors of men in wartime. And so the law here in Deuteronomy 21 really ensures the beneficial treatment of women by giving them safety from abuse after being taken captive in wartime. And so there's a process of assimilation, and the law provides for this process of where a woman becomes part of the people of God. It pictures a woman who lived in paganism. Now she's in the household of faith.

And it's there that she becomes a new woman. Everything changes for the better for her. And her treatment is very carefully regulated, which just tells us again something that we are told many, many times in scripture, the way that God regulates the treatment of women, how He so carefully defines the way that women should be treated. Ephesians 5 is one of the classic passages of scripture that we've been in this entire weekend that just regulates the treatment of women. And he issues very specific commands regarding the treatment of women.

And there are three explicit commands here in this text. I just want us to see them before we begin to work through them. In verse 14, you must not sell. In verse 14, you must not treat her like a slave. You must not treat her like an object and use her.

And so God here in this passage of scripture is restraining the passions of men in the treatment of women to deal with them properly. And he also in this passage preserves the sanctity of marriage, limits the husband's authority, and constrains his behavior. Which is what he does in many other places of scripture. It's very consistent with other passages of scripture. So the marriage relationship is strictly regulated here.

And even in time of war, the way that you treat women is not suspended. And, and it's, you know, this is not this is not a passage of scripture where, you know, You go to war, you see a beautiful woman, you say, see, woman, meet Tarzan, Eugene, come to my house, I shave you, I throw you out of my house. That's not what this passage is about at all. When you just read it on the surface of that, really considering a number of other things that we'll get to in a minute, you can so easily misunderstand the text. The other question we want to ask is, who's the target audience?

Well, the target audience is men. Moses is speaking to men who might be tempted to do the wrong thing. What men do has enormous leverage in a culture. And men often have wrong motives. Men often have wrong thinking about the way that they should treat women because of the way that they were brought up, because of various lusts that they have cultivated in their lives, because of all kinds of things they may think wrongly about the way that they ought to operate.

They may think that they're the center of the universe. They may think that they have unbridled authority and that they are a law unto themselves. And so There are these commands toward men. We live in a world of socially acceptable bad behavior that allows men to do the wrong things. And this situation here is a situation of war.

And you can think about this passage and take the principle that there are certain kinds of situations where men behave wrongly. This is one kind of situation. That's what Moses is doing with the law. He gives all kinds of different examples to help you think, you know, from many sides of an issue. Because the law is alive.

The law is not wooden. It's living and active and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And the law is spiritual, and so it penetrates to every possible situation in life. This isn't the only kind of situation, but the principles that are here allow us to deal with all kinds of other situations. So and then I'd like to speak about how we interpret this.

And this is really the whole subject of hermeneutics. And I'm going to bring up a new category of hermeneutics here this morning called the hermeneutics of skepticism. And this is assuming the worst of the passage. You can read this passage and think the worst of it, and lay upon it all kinds of bad motives, and I'm just going to call them wicked interpretations of things that seem confusing on the surface. And so there's a way of reacting to the word of God that is nothing but from our flesh, from the devil.

And it's a hermeneutic of skepticism. By seeing that God has said something, being offended by it, and somehow blaming scripture or God as to be some kind of a monster. That's the hermeneutics of skepticism. And this hermeneutic of skepticism shows itself up in many different ways. One way that it comes up is we assume that this is the Old Testament, it's not for me.

Somehow as if God did not write the Old Testament. Or maybe we think, well, that was the Old Testament God, he's the mean God, and that doesn't work anymore today. Jesus is the sweet God. This is the hermeneutics of skepticism. But Deuteronomy 21 is one such text that is thought of as strange, it's unworkable, and it's abusive.

Many people consider it that way. And so if we read the text, it matters how we approach it. Do we approach the text with skepticism or with adoration? And what we just have to recognize is this is the Word of God. If you think that there is something in a text that's unfair, Here is another hermeneutical principle.

You are the one that's unfair, not God. If you think that something is wrong in the text, in fact, you are wrong And God is right. But the hermeneutics of skepticism sees it in a completely different way. Now, when you read the text and you're skeptical of it, There are probably one of two things in play. One is that you're just plain wrong.

Your brain is wired wrong. The synapses of your brain have been so crossed up by the world that you can't even think straight, which means like God. And so because our thinking is so wrong, we think God is wrong. Or it may be that you just don't know the scriptures. And this happens to people who have not prepared themselves properly to interpret scripture.

They don't know how to interpret scripture. They're not equipped to see how a given statement or a narrative fits in to the rest of scriptures because scripture is meant to interpret scripture. But there's another way to interpret scripture, and that is just to assume that every word of God is pure, and that if it offends you, then it's because of your sinful nature and your wrong thinking. And so here's how I would just suggest that we approach this text as well as every other text of scripture we ever read. The first is this, always assume the best.

When David said in Psalm 119 verse 14, I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. We should think of every text as pure gold. Refine seven times, assuming the best in it and able to rejoice in it. Secondly, approach it with humility and thankfulness. Psalm 1, 1959, David says, I thought about my ways and turned my heat to your testimonies.

You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. Every single word of God is pure. And it is applicable. Now we may struggle to apply it, we may struggle to understand it, but to be skeptical of it is a great sin against Almighty God.

When that happens to us, we should recognize that this has been placed before us to repent before the Lord for the way that we think about him. The other thing that we must do is interpret scripture with scripture. If something seems difficult or incomprehensible to us, then we need to search the scriptures to be good Bereans, to find out how this might be connected with other kinds of situations or other principles that are in Scripture. And this is how we ought to approach Deuteronomy 21. If we don't, then we're lost with sort of our own private interpretation that comes from our own personal emotional reaction from the text.

Often these emotional reactions are just driven by our lack of knowledge of God and lack of love for God. So when we read this text, what should we assume? And This is really important. We should assume that this does not contradict any other law regarding immorality. It cannot contradict any other law regarding sexuality or equal yoking or the preservation of love and marriage.

This text does not contradict any other text in Scripture about love or marriage. It cannot contradict. It must be harmonized together. The skeptic says it can't be harmonized. I throw it over the wall.

The true believer says, oh, Lord, your law is very, very deep. How do I bring together the whole counsel of God to understand it? You also must assume that whatever is said here is consistent with nourishing and cherishing and living with your wife in an understanding way. Unless, of course, you're saying this is not the Word of God and you take it and throw it in the trash can. You really only have two alternatives.

You either harmonize this or you throw it away. And the final principle here is that the clear passages explain and clarify the unclear passages. So if this passage seems unclear to you, then find other passages that are perfectly clear and rest your whole weight on those. So in this, this is a text about captives of war. Does this passage teach something new about anything else?

But are there other clearer passages? Now, there are also various principles of interpreting Old Testament law. I'm going to go really fast. I'm going to give you nine principles for interpreting Old Testament law, because that's not really the subject here. But because this is such an easily misunderstood text, I want to just sort of recalibrate and remind ourselves about the hermeneutical principles that exist for interpreting Old Testament law.

Number one, what exactly is condemned and what is required? Number two, what is the sanction or the punishment for breaking it? Number three, who is given the responsibility to enforce it? Is it the family, the church, the state, or the individual? That really matters in interpreting Old Testament law.

Number four, in what ways is this law moral law or ceremonial law or judicial law? Because we know the whole ceremonial law has been abrogated, having been fulfilled in Christ. And then number five, how is Christ foreshadowed in this commandment? How is Christ foreshadowed in this commandment? Well, I'll just give you my view.

Christ is foreshadowed in the statement, He is the Savior of the body. Because Christ is foreshadowed everywhere in the Old Testament. The entire Old Testament is to present a type of the anti-type, the type of Christ. And so you have to ask yourself how is this foreshad, How is Christ foreshadowed? Number seven, how does the application change in the New Testament, if at all?

Number eight, how is the love of God and love toward our neighbor shown in this commandment. Because every single law is a law of love. That's another thing you always have to assume about an Old Testament text. It's always a law of love. You might not think it's love.

And the reason you don't think it's love is because you don't know what love is. And then number nine, finally, what happens when this law is ignored or embraced? Those are just questions that you should always ask when you're dealing with an Old Testament law. Now let's move into the exposition. After that, I'm sorry it was such a lengthy trying to set this in its context.

And As I work through this passage, we're going to talk about the situation, the man who is attracted, the woman who is transformed, and really sort of a disappointing contingency that is anticipated. So first of all, the situation. The situation is very clearly declared in verse 10, and that is that God delivers a woman. So God speaks of behavior in times of war. When you go out to war, so you're out to war, and the next few words are so critical.

And the Lord, your God, delivers them into your hand. And you take them captive. But But what we learn here is that it was God that delivered them. This was an act of Almighty God. It was God that delivered this woman into the hands of this man.

It was an act of divine Providence. Do you see how it's so easy to think the worst of the text when actually the text tells us that this is something of divine will? So God delivered them. And then now God has given these women and now and God has put on a man's doorstep something that he needs to manage. It was an act of God.

And now he has something to deal with. The scriptures say a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. And for what do you have that you did not receive? I believe this is one of the principles because of this statement here that it was the Lord God who delivered them into their hands. And So there is a soldier who has rescued a woman and she had been entrapped in her pagan culture.

And you think about the many ways that men find their wives by divine providence. Now, you, you, I don't want to be disrespectful here at all. You may have found your wife in a bar or a church, but it was divine providence that governed that. Not to justify every way that we operated before we were married. But if you either believe in divine providence or you don't, it's one or the other.

And here, this woman was delivered into the hands of this man, and she was rescued. And now, what kind of war are we referring to? I think it's most logical to say that this was not war with the Canaanites, because when Joshua went to conquer the land, they were to destroy everyone. So I don't believe that this was a war with the Canaanites. I believe this is a kind of situation where there are competing nations and the people of God go out to war and there are captives brought back.

That's what I think it is. There are probably different ways to look at that. But if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 20 verse 10, you learn that God gave very specific commands about how to go to war. He said when you when you go near a city Deuteronomy 2010 to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace. So there's this methodology to proclaim an offer of peace.

If it's rejected, then there's complete annihilation. In fact, he says in verse 14, but the women, the little ones, the livestock and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself and you shall eat the enemy's plunder which the Lord your God gives you and you shall go into all the cities which are very far from you." Now, so whether this was a captive from the war with the Canaanites or otherwise, that's a matter of debate. But what I want to establish here is the situation, and the situation is where God Almighty delivers a woman in a war. And then secondly, verse 11, we see something very interesting. A man is attracted.

And you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her and would take her for your wife. So on the surface this seems very strange. Is this just a selfish man totally driven by the eye gate? Is he just looking around for the next beautiful woman? Is that what we're talking about here?

And is it a man who only cares about beauty? And so it brings up the whole subject of attractiveness. And my perspective is that there's just an acknowledgement of something that's natural. I mean, how many of you married your wives because you thought they were attractive? I mean, I don't think I've ever met a man that didn't think his wife was attractive.

Well, it's a natural condition. Not that we're driven by attractiveness, not that a pretty face is what governs how marriage should be engaged. Absolutely not. We know that's ridiculous. But this is mentioned.

And but does this somehow now, you know, provide a pattern for men to now just go find a woman who's attractive. And that's the criteria. You know, takes her home and, you know, he thinks she looks fantastic. Is that what the scripture is saying? Are somehow all other things said about marriage thrown away, about equal yoking, about purity, about everything else that marriage is all about?

No. No, it doesn't abrogate everything else in the Bible that said about marriage. But it just assumes that the woman was attractive and she was agreeable to coming. And then the third thing we see is that the woman is transformed in verses 12 and 13. So look at verses 12 and 13.

And she shall shave her head, number one, and then trim her nails and then she will put off the clothes of her captivity and remain in his house and mourn her father and mother for a month. There are five things that happened to this woman. But she's obviously, she's making a complete break from her previous culture. Now notice who does these things. She does them.

These things are done voluntarily by herself. These are not done to her. She does them to herself. So she has, she's active in this process. And she's the one that's initiating all these things that are going on.

And so there's a change of status that's taking place here. She's not a captive, she's not a slave anymore, And now she's going to be dressing like the other Hebrew women. Her whole life has been transformed from the inside out. You know, here's this man who thought she was attractive and now she's shaved her head. So there's this period where she doesn't look all that attractive anymore.

It's very different. And then there are these situations brought into the home, you shall bring her home to your house. So here a man has responsibility to take care of this captive woman. That's what men are supposed to do with women. Men are supposed to protect women.

They're supposed to provide for them their whole life long. Does this mean that it's okay for a man before he's married to go live with a girl? Is that what this text is saying? I mean, it only means you if you're a hermeneutical skeptic. And so this woman now has protection.

And she has freedom and dignity, and she's also, she's also in many ways governing herself in this transformation that's going about. She shaves her head and she trims her nails. This would take her out of the status of a slave and make her part of the family of God. In 1 Corinthians 11, six, We learned that if a woman won't be under headship, she might as well just shave her head. And so there's this switching of headship that's happening.

That's what I believe is happening here. It means there's something about the shaving. And I think it's a change of headship, that there's a transition. The gods of this world wore her head, and now she's coming to have a different head. And then she puts off her clothes and now she's not dressed like a pagan anymore.

We know from scripture that the Bible has something to say the way that you dress. That you wear the robes of righteousness. That your clothing is designed to communicate the glory of the gospel. Clothing was first given because of sin. Man sinned, he tried to clothe himself, it was wrong clothing.

When man tries to clothe himself using his own principles, his own fears, his own motivations, he always dresses wrong. But when he's redeemed, his clothing reflects the redemption. When men and women dress, they should dress to reflect the glory of redemption That's why clothing was given clothing was really was given in order to declare the provision of God for sinful mankind. So clothing should never elicit sin. It should always speak of the great covering, that you have been washed completely.

You've been made white as snow. Your sins are set as far as the east is from the west. And your clothing should reflect that. You should ask yourself how much of you should be clothed. Probably a lot should be clothed.

Because everything has been clothed by the robes of righteousness. So she's putting off her old clothes. She's not dressed like a pagan. And then she's mourning for her father and her mother. And he's now seeing her at her worst.

She's shaven, she is mourning. And she's mourning for an entire month. This state of mourning lasts for a long time. She's weeping, she is mourning the separation. And She doesn't look as beautiful as she was.

I believe this is a picture of conversion, where a person goes through a period of mourning for their sins. That's what repentance is. And, but the mourning doesn't last forever because there's joy. There are times of refreshing that come in after repentance. And so, after the purging of sin, the washing, there's mercy and cleanness.

The old is cut away, the new is put on. And she realizes she's far better off in Israel than she was in paganism. Because in paganism she wasn't treated right. The pagans never treat women right. Look at the pagan religions.

They never treat women right. You just do not see women treated like Ephesians 5 22 to 33 or like 1st Peter 3 or anywhere else in Scripture. So it really it really matters what society you live in. That's why it's for us to create Christian society. We're supposed to create Christian culture wherever we go and we have we have the privilege of creating Christian culture in the midst of pagan culture, right in the middle of the pagan city.

We don't have to move away. We can create it right where we are. And that's what's happening with this woman. This is really like Hosea, where God rescues Israel from a captive people. She goes into harlotry.

And God is faithful. And so she's transitioning from the old pagan way to the new way. And every single area of life is affected. From the top of her head to her nails, everything is completely transformed. I mean, I always find myself concerned with women who do not believe that God is meant to transform their clothing.

Either they're clueless, they have no idea what the Bible says about clothing, or they really are, they still wanna be in paganism. It's one of those two things. You know, this is a little bit like what we see in Leviticus chapter 14, where there's a process of the reintroduction of a leper in the society. The clothes are washed, the head is shaved. The leprosy is a symbol of sin.

It's a picture of impurity, and it's dealt with through a process. In the same way that this woman has dealt with, leprosy has dealt with in a very similar way. But it too is a picture of the gospel. And it's such a beautiful expression of the goodness of God's laws, how God rescues his people, how he cleans them up, he takes them through a process to care for them. And so this man is not to treat his wife like a slave.

She's not a thing. It's headship, it's loving headship, it's respectful headship. And then the next thing we see is that there's A disappointing contingency that's anticipated in verse 14. Now this is really interesting and also can be mind boggling without thinking it through carefully. So verse 14 says, and it shall be, If you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free.

So, you have no delight. So, what, if he just loses interest in her, he now throws her out in the street? Is that what this is talking about? Is this the way of God? Is this is this how the people of God operate?

Then you shall set her free, but you shall certainly not sell her for money. You shall not treat her brutally because you have humbled her. So there is no delight in her. Now, what does that mean? If there is some right and biblical reason, unless there is some right biblical reason, she is not to be separate from her, but to set her free.

This was really meant to restrict a man from just acting on lust. It's meant to deter rash decisions. And so if there is a good reason, a biblical reason, to put her out, to be separated from her, then she should be put out. And you have to let her go. But it limits what he can do.

There are certain things that he must do. Now, I want to suggest that this should be interpreted along with all the other things that God has said that we know to be true about divorce and remarriage. The Lord Jesus Christ in interpreting the law deals with the whole issue of divorce. And why or why not? It can happen.

So God has something to say. He regulates the dissolution of a marriage. And for us to just read it and say, well, he doesn't lie in here, so his emotions have now waned. He was in love, and now he's not in love. That's a wrong interpretation.

And so it's important to let scripture interpret scripture. And to not look at this as a standalone principle and then make massive ridiculous conclusions from it without consulting the corpus of Scripture regarding marriage and divorce. So you know it can't mean that Moses is saying that a man can bring a woman to his house, use her, if he falls out of love with her, then he can leave her. It cannot mean that. That's inconsistent with what God has commanded.

So the whole Bible tells us not to engage in fornication, but there must have been some other good reason. Now I want to give you five texts that will set, perhaps, qualify what this could possibly mean. For the first text is Malachi 2, verses 14 through 16. The whole context is dealing treacherously with one another, profaning the Lord's holy institution of marriage which he loves. And then he says in verse 15, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of your youth.

For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. For it covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord God of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously." So we have to ask Is this didactic text commanding men to deal this way with women? And would that be treachery? I think it would be treachery.

So whatever this man is doing, it's not treachery. It's something completely different. Second text, Matthew 19. In Matthew 19 we learn that the Pharisees had misinterpreted Moses on divorce. They maligned the meaning of Moses' words.

The Pharisees were promoting divorce for almost any reason. And while divorce was given as an accommodation for man's sin and the hardness of heart that can become so pernicious, The Lord Jesus qualifies the whole matter. So the Pharisees come to him in Matthew 19 verse 3 and they say, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason? For any reason. Like let's just say he didn't, his emotions fall or whatever.

She burns his food because the Pharisees were saying you can divorce your wife or things like that. And Jesus answers in verse 4 and he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? And he said, For this reason, the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate." so whatever is happening here does not contradict Matthew 19 verses 4 through 6 and then the Pharisees They seek another example in verse 7 and then they say well why then did Moses give a command?

To give a certificate of divorce and put her away and Jesus replies that divorce always involves sin And he says because because of Moses He said to them Moses because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery. And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. And then his disciples said to him, if this is the case, it's better not to marry.

So whatever is happening in Deuteronomy 21 has to be interpreted in light of Matthew 19. Here's a third text, Matthew 5, 31 and 32. This is a companion text of the one we just read. And then number four, to go back to Deuteronomy 24 and the bill of divorcement. When a man takes a wife and marries her, Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, When a man takes a wife and marries her, Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her.

Okay, so interesting. She's found no favor in his eyes and he has found some uncleanness in her. The lack of favor had to do with uncleanness. I believe it had to do with adultery. It wasn't that he just fell out of love with her, but there was adultery in the relationship.

And that's what Moses was speaking to about the certificate of divorce, that there was uncleanness. And so Jesus comments on that. And Jesus is doing exposition on Deuteronomy 24 in Matthew 5 and in Matthew 19. And because of such great hardness of heart, because of that. So what I want to suggest is when Moses says, and he no longer delights in her, that there's some reason, there's some biblical reason here that has caused him not to delight in her.

It's not that he just didn't like her anymore. There has to be a biblical reason, as as Joe Moorcraft says, that will stand up on Judgment Day. And then the fifth text is 1st Corinthians 7 12 through 15 which shows us the situation with the believer married to an unbeliever, and when an unbelieving spouse will not live with the believer anymore. I just want to suggest that what is written in Deuteronomy 21 needs to be seen in the light of the corpus of scripture on this matter. So 1 Corinthians 7, beginning in verse 10, And after the married I command you, not I, but the Lord, A Wife is not to depart from her husband.

And then verse 11, she's not to get remarried, but even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. And then in verse 12, we read, But to the rest I say, not the Lord say, If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.

I'm not going to get into this whole discussion of sanctification, but it's not justification by faith and the sanctification that follows. But the whole idea is, is the unbeliever willing to live with the believer? I want to suggest that when this text says in Deuteronomy 21, he no longer delights in her that there was a lot more going on than just that. That that is code for other biblical reasons for the separation. In the same way that it was in Deuteronomy chapter 24, where she has no finds, no favor in his eyes, because she has found some uncleanness in her.

So I'm gonna assume the best of this text, that it's somehow correlated with these other things that are there. So the divorce here, or the putting out of the woman, assumes that God hates fornication, that God commands men to protect women and to provide for them. And it is a situation where a wife was not truly assimilated. It gives an opportunity to deal with both kinds of situations, where she is assimilated or where she isn't assimilated. She's brought into the house and her heart remains hard and she's not a daughter of Zion.

And so she cannot be his wife. It's like the parable of the sower, where the seeds are sown and some bear fruit and some do not. There are some who go in, but they go out. They go out because they were not of the Lord. But when she goes out, she has all the freedom and the dignity of any Israelite.

She still has the protections that are resident in that nation, even though she has put out the house. OK, so let's get to some applications here. First of all, it's so important that we read Scripture with humility and joy and godly inquisitiveness that assumes the best to seek the counsel of the Lord. If you're despising anything in Scripture, know that God is touching you in the realm of your idolatry or the lack of your understanding or an area of sanctification that's necessary. It could be ignorance and you need to find out more carefully what is pleasing to the Lord.

It could be because of your worldliness. You've so saturated yourself in worldly thinking. And the synapses of your brain are all crossed up. And your greatest need in the world is the renewing of your mind, not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed. The second thing that I think that we should recognize from this text is just men need to be regulated by God and His commandments.

And this is an opportunity just to ask men to consider whether anything is out of order in their lives. Are there areas of your life as a man that are unregulated by God at this time? That's a question you have to ask. God is regulating the behavior of men. He is restraining their authority and focusing it and making various commands in the exercise of his authority that God has given him.

You know, a man does not have ultimate authority. Remember creation? God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of man. No man is unregulated.

And so this should be a time of just soul searching. Oh Lord, what in my life is unregulated by you now? Would you shine your light into my soul and help me see areas that I've been blind to or hard to? Maybe this is the time, even right here in this room, where God is going to open your eyes to something that you've been blind to. And that sweet little woman next to you has seen it for many years, and she's hopefully been praying for you about it.

All men are in that condition. I'm in that condition. My wife, praise for me. I need prayer. I need the Lord to help me to have strength to do the things that I ought to do that are unregulated by God.

So, may need to be regulated by God and His commandments, and let's don't miss the opportunity here this morning. Every law can be traced to the glory of Jesus Christ somehow. Every law is a law of love. Christ fulfilled every single law. And One of the wonderful things about this passage here is that it shows how a husband is the savior of the body.

But it also makes it clear that there are some who will not be saved. And I believe that's the heart of this text. Isn't it interesting how when God speaks to us, he speaks to us in a really multifaceted way, but there's always the heart of the matter. And here the heart of the matter is the rescuing power of God to come and shave your head and cut your nails and give you new clothes and put you in a new kingdom and give you a new head and bring you into his happy kingdom for all eternity and that's what this text is all about. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, that you would help us to apply these things that we have seen today. Lord, we see your love, we see the orderliness of your kingdom, how you have so beautifully regulated everything in life for your own glory I thank you that you save the body. Amen.