Man, Deuteronomy chapter number 15, the Bible reads in verse number 1,
At the end of every seven years, thou shalt make a release.
And this is the manner of the release.
Every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbor shall release it.
He shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother, because it is called the Lord's
release.
So this is saying that every seven years, debts were to be forgiven in the nation of
Israel.
Anybody borrows money, incurs a debt of any kind, every seven years, all of those debts
just get reset, they get rebooted, and they're forgiven, and people don't have to pay back
the money.
This sounds really foreign to us in the United States of America.
You're sitting there thinking, man, how is this even going to work?
People just borrow money and they don't pay it back, how's this going to work?
One of the things that we have to realize is that we live today in a debt-based economy
that's not really a normal economic system as people have had throughout history, because
throughout history you didn't have all this credit and debt.
I mean, just look, all you have to do is just go to that calculator where it shows you the
national debt today, the national debt clock, and it'll show you, here's the national debt,
and then this is how much personal debt people have in the United States, this is how much
college debt they have, this is how much credit card debt they have, and it's just these astronomical
numbers of just trillions and trillions of dollars.
So it's like there's more debt than there is money.
It's not like everybody in America, all 340 million or so people in America, could all
just get on like a Dave Ramsey kick and just like pay off all their debts, it's just like,
wow, America's just totally debt-free now and everybody paid off all their debts.
Like it's literally designed in America to where there's all this debt.
And part of the reason for this is what's called fractional reserve lending, and I'm
not trying to give some big lecture about finances, I just want to give you a few thoughts
to help us understand why God is right here.
And if we look at this and we think it's wrong, well, actually we're the ones that are wrong
and that God's right because the law of the Lord is perfect.
And so I'm just giving you a few thoughts is that here's the thing, the bank doesn't
just loan out money that they have, they're allowed to loan out money that they don't
have.
Wouldn't it be cool to be able to loan out a bunch of money that you don't actually have
and then charge people interest?
That's called being a bank in America in 2023, right?
So fractional reserve lending means that they only have to have a fraction of what they're
loaning out.
And so there's all this money that's being created out of thin air, this fictitious money
that doesn't really exist.
It's not really backed by gold or anything.
And so you got the federal reserve just printing dollars that aren't really backed by anything.
And then you've got people loaning out dollars that they don't even have, right?
And so this didn't exist throughout history is my point.
And so people borrowing money throughout history wasn't as prevalent as it is now where virtually
every single person in this room has debt right now.
Like either they have a house payment or a car, even people that are well off, even people
that are wealthy or middle class or just doing well, working class people virtually all have
debt.
Now.
I'm sure some of you are all paid off.
Good for you.
God bless you.
But most of us at least have a house payment is probably a car payment, credit card payments,
whatever.
I mean, it's just how it is right now in America.
And in many ways, trying to go through life without incurring any debt in America in 2023
is pretty much impossible because if you were to try to just save up for your first house
by the time you've saved up for it, it has tripled in price and it's just, you're never
going to catch it.
You're never going to get there.
And so you end up having to buy a house on credit and that there you go.
Now you're in debt for the next 30 years.
And that's just the nature of the beast.
Very few people in America have no debt, right?
The vast majority of people are in debt, even if they're prosperous.
And so what the Bible is talking about here is people borrowing money because they need
money, not because, oh, that's the only way to get a house.
That's the only way to get a vehicle.
So the Bible here is talking about people borrowing money.
They're hard up.
They borrow money.
They need the money.
And then eventually, if they're stuck in a cycle of debt, eventually they just get forgiven
every seven years.
And so this keeps people from just being perpetually in debt.
Now, would this work in our society?
Here's the thing.
It would not work in our society, but not because there's anything wrong with the law,
but because there's something wrong with our financial system.
The banking system is a scam and that's why this wouldn't work.
So this could work.
It should work.
It'd be great, but you know, don't try this in 2023 America, it just wouldn't work.
But again, not because there's a problem with the law, but because of fractional reserve,
banking, the federal reserve system, and all these things.
And we don't need to go into all the technical reasons of why that is.
I think anybody can just realize, hey, wait a minute, we're in a debt-based economy and
forgiving the debts every seven years when we have 30-year mortgages just doesn't compute.
But again, that's because back then they didn't have 30-year mortgages on their house.
And so it says it's the Lord's release.
So God wants the debts to be forgiven every seven years.
That pleases God.
Obviously, everything in the Bible is ultimately pointing us toward Jesus Christ.
And so forgiveness, the debt being forgiven is a picture of Christ because when we believe
on Jesus, we have a sin debt that is forgiven.
And so this idea of forgiveness is also pointing us toward that.
Now it says in verse number three, of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again, but that which
is thine with thy brother, thine hand shall release.
So he says, look, you forgive the Israelites their debts every seven years, but foreigners,
you don't have to forgive the foreign debt every seven years.
Now the way the Jews would typically interpret these kind of scriptures is turning it into
a Jew versus Gentile thing, an us against them thing, which doesn't make any sense.
And it's not what God intended here.
God's talking about, hey, there's the nation of Israel, God's people, the nation, and then
you might have foreign people coming in and doing business with them.
A foreign businessman or a foreign party comes in, does business with them.
They don't have to worry about forgiving that guy's debt.
He's a foreigner.
He's coming.
And what he's doing with this is like, well, you know, we're going to just rip everybody
off that's not a Jew because we only have to deal fairly and rightly with fellow Jews.
Now here's the thing.
Jews that are in captivity, that are in the diaspora, right?
They see themselves as being like an Israel within that, but they're not.
Israel's not a thing anymore.
God destroyed it in the first century AD.
And so they think of themselves as being in captivity.
So some rich Jew in New York is in captivity.
Rich Hollywood Jews sees themselves as being in captivity.
But if you actually study the Bible about the captivity, when the Jews were actually
in captivity, is that they're told, for example, in Jeremiah, I think it's chapter 27 or 28,
somewhere around that neighborhood, they're told to seek the peace of the country that
they're sojourning in.
And if they seek the peace of that country, then they're going to have peace.
So the Bible says, hey, sell it to a foreigner.
That doesn't mean when you're a foreigner in another country, screw the locals.
That's not what it's saying.
You're supposed to be a blessing and seek the peace of the country where you're sojourning.
And this goes for anybody.
If I'm living in Mexico, if I'm living in Germany, if I'm living in Timbuktu, I'm supposed
to be a good ambassador for Christ.
And I'm supposed to be good unto the locals and not be like, well, you know, it's us against
them and, you know, I'm American.
And so I'm going to, it's like, well, no, well, you're a guest here.
You're in their country, right?
So you should treat them with respect and so forth.
Not like, oh, it's us against them.
This verse does not say us against them, Jew versus Gentile in the diaspora.
That's not what the context is.
The context is talking about the nation, the local people versus like foreign business
ventures and foreign people coming in and borrowing money.
That's different than the people who live there locally borrowing money versus some
traveling merchant borrowing money.
It's not like some traveling merchant comes through and he owes you money and it's like,
oh, a year of release.
That's not what the law is intended for.
But do you see how this could be abused and taught as, well, you know, it's Jew against
Gentile and the Gentiles are cattle and we're God.
You know, that's basically how the Jews have abused a lot of this stuff.
But anyway, I don't want to spend too much time on that, but that's what he's saying
there in verse three.
Obviously, a foreign merchant, this doesn't apply to a visitor or somebody who's just
coming through, but the people who live there, your brethren, the children of Israel.
And by the way, when it says brethren, that's not just talking about blood or ethnicity.
Okay.
Because even in the Old Testament, anybody could join the nation of Israel from another
nation.
They could get circumcised, keep the past over, red, yellow, black and white, they could
join the nation of Israel.
And let me emphasize white because a lot of white people joined, which is why Jews are
basically white people, okay?
They're not descended, you know, primarily from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
They're primarily descended from Ashkenaz and that's why they're called Ashkenazi Jews.
Okay.
And so they are predominantly white people because white people converted to Judaism
over the last 2,000 years in small numbers, but nevertheless, it adds up.
And so there we are.
So he says, every seven years, you have this forgiving of debts, you have this release.
Well, it says in verse number four, save, in other words, save, we would say in our
modern vernacular, except, right?
Sort of like, you know, 30 days had September, April, June and November, save February has,
you know, so that means like except February, right?
Has 28 and whatever.
I hope I didn't screw up that poem.
I don't know if anybody was even paying attention to that part.
But anyway, except when there shall be no poor among you.
So he's saying, look, the releasing of debts every seven years is to protect poor people
from going into debt slavery.
That's the intention of this law.
We don't want poor people to just get stuck in a cycle of debt where they're just always
in debt.
At least every seven years this way, they have a chance to start fresh and all their
debts are forgiven and wiped out.
So he's saying, theoretically, if there are no poor people among you, you won't need this
law.
This law can go away at that point because you do this except when there shall be no
poor among you.
And then he says this, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord
thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it only if thou carefully hearken
unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all these commandments which I command
thee this day.
So are they guaranteed to get blessed in the promised land?
Nope.
Only.
They're only going to get blessed if they keep these commandments.
And only if they keep these commandments then the poor would actually cease from the land.
There would be no poor among them.
He says, you know, you only need the year of release when there's poor people.
Except when there's no poor people, you don't need it in that case.
Because look, the Lord's going to greatly bless you in the land.
And so theoretically, if you guys were to keep all these laws, you won't even have poor
people because you're going to be so blessed, there's going to be such abundance that people
are going to be doing great.
Now is that actually going to happen?
Well jump down if you would because he actually answers this for you.
Verse 11 of chapter 15 says, for the poor shall never cease out of the land.
The poor shall never cease out of the land.
Therefore I command thee saying, thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother to thy
poor and to thy needy in thy land.
So he's basically saying, hey, you won't need this year of release when there's no poor
people.
And why would there be no poor people?
Because God's just blessing you so much, you're obeying the word of God and God's blessing
you.
But he's basically saying, that's not going to happen.
It just isn't.
Now of course, Jesus Christ quotes this.
Because in the New Testament, Jesus Christ says, the poor you have with you always.
And he's actually referring back to Deuteronomy 15, the poor shall never cease from the land.
The poor you have with you always, but me you have not with you always, right?
So Jesus was there for a short time.
And of course, there was that woman who used up that expensive ointment on anointing Christ.
And Judas Iscariot jumped in and said, hey, why wasn't this ointment sold?
And the proceeds could have been given to the poor.
He didn't really care about the poor.
He was skimming off the top.
And so he wanted that ointment to be sold.
And then he'd make sure it gets to the poor.
But he was skimmed a little bit off the top for himself in the process.
Sort of like the government, you know, takes care of poor people, but a little bit gets
lost in the translation, right?
When they give money to poor people, it doesn't all make it to the poor people.
A lot of it ends up lining their own pockets.
And so Jesus quotes this as, you know, the poor you have with you always, me you have
not with you always.
And so he's saying, look, I'm here for a matter of days, right, because he was approaching
his death, burial, and resurrection.
And so there was absolutely nothing wrong with this woman honoring him in that way,
worshipping the Lord with her substance, with her expensive ointment.
It was really the best thing she could have done with it.
You know, so the bleeding hearts just want all money to go to the poor all the time.
And we all need to just give all our money to the poor.
But the thing about that is that even if we did that, there will always be poor people
because of sin.
You know, even if everybody were super generous.
And look, obviously we as Christians should be generous.
And helping poor people is a great thing to do.
And when we help poor people, we shouldn't make a big deal out of it because the Bible
says that we should not let our right hand know what our left hand does.
We should give our alms unto the poor in secret so that God can reward us openly.
And so it's obviously a great thing to do to give to the poor.
But what you have to understand is that if everyone just gave all their money to the
poor, there'd still be poor people.
Because people would just keep making themselves poor by just refusing to work or getting on
drugs or doing these different things.
In the situation where there was abundance, prosperity, and generosity, then at least
the only poor people would be poor through their own fault.
But today, obviously, in this world, there are many people who do work hard and struggle
and they're poor.
Not through any fault of their own, but they're just poor because they're living in places
where there aren't a lot of opportunities or they've fallen on hard times for whatever
reason.
And so those are the kind of people who want to help out and bless.
We don't necessarily want to just give money to some drug addict who's standing on a street
corner because he's refusing to work and refusing to get off drugs.
Because the Bible says if a man will not work, neither should he eat.
So people who refuse to work are not worthy of eating.
But there are a lot of legitimately poor people who want to help those people out as much
as we can.
But like, for example, I saw somebody posted something like, oh, well, this much money
comes into churches every year and then there's this many homeless people.
Something's wrong.
Except that in America, we're living in a land of prosperity and virtually all homeless
people are homeless by choice, 99%, maybe even 100%.
But it's 99.9 with a line over it.
You know what I mean?
Like, back to math class, right?
It's 99.99 dot, dot, dot percent, okay?
Because there's one homeless person right now in America that's legitimately homeless.
Maybe two.
Okay.
And their husband and wife.
All right.
No, I'm just kidding.
Let's help them out.
Let's pass the plate real quick.
So the point is that there are always going to be poor people because there's always going
to be sin, right?
People aren't keeping the commandments.
People aren't following God's law.
People are stingy on the one side.
Other people are refusing to work or strung out on drugs.
There are all kinds of problems due to sin.
Now someday, we are going to have peace on earth and we're going to have prosperity across
the board and it's going to be when Christ returns and is ruling and reigning.
But until then, there's going to be warfare and there's going to be poverty and you can
never totally eradicate these things.
Again, we always want to help out the individual who legitimately needs help where we can.
But thinking that we're going to end poverty, end warfare, end crime, it's just not going
to happen because Christ is going to have to return to fix those things.
We can still make our part of the world better but ultimately, it's going to have to be the
second coming of Christ that fixes things.
That's an important part of what we believe.
And so he says, only if you carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God to observe
to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.
Look at verse 6.
For the Lord thy God blesseth thee as he promised thee and thou shalt lend unto many nations
but thou shalt not borrow and thou shalt reign over many nations but they shall not reign
over thee.
And again, when the Bible says here, thou shalt not borrow, some people would take this
as a commandment to never borrow money and that is not what this means.
This is simply the future tense.
God's blessing you and so therefore, you're going to end up lending people money because
you have abundance.
You're not going to end up borrowing money because you have a lack because God's blessing
you financially.
You don't need to borrow.
You end up lending.
This is not a commandment like thou shalt not borrow.
This is just the future tense.
Now sometimes the future tense is used for commands like you will not kill, thou shalt
not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery.
But sometimes the future tense is just well, the future tense.
It's just telling you what is going to happen.
And so he's just making a statement of fact here.
It's descriptive, not prescriptive.
And so it is not a sin to borrow money.
Some people will teach and I'm sure, you know, if Dave Ramsey were here, you know,
he would not be saying amen right now.
But he's wrong.
Okay.
If he says that, I don't know if Dave Ramsey says that, but I've heard he doesn't say that.
Does he say it's wrong to borrow money that it's a sin?
Yes.
No, I'm getting a mixed answer.
Okay.
So let's just move on from that point.
What?
So he's okay with you having a mortgage.
Okay.
I've heard Bible teachers, I have heard.
So let's let Dave Ramsey off the hook for a minute here.
But I've heard Bible teachers and preachers literally get up and say it is a sin to borrow
money and they're just flat out wrong.
You know, all throughout the Bible, there are all kinds of scriptures about borrowing
money and God is getting upset at the people who are doing predatory lending, who are charging
a bunch of interest and charging usury and ripping people off.
And he doesn't ever blame the person who's borrowing money and say like, you know, well,
you know, they're sinning by borrowing the money.
That's just not – if you actually read the whole Bible and get the context, you'll see
that frequently God's people end up borrowing money for whatever reason and they're not
sinning by doing that.
The people that are charging them interest and ripping them off are the ones that are
sinning.
So it's not a sin to borrow money.
But that being said, it can often be unwise to borrow money, right?
And so if you just go out and rack up your credit cards, there's no year of release every
seven years, okay?
And so you're going to end up wasting a ton of money paying interest and paying fees and
you just end up wasting money.
And I believe that our governor has made check cashing places illegal in the state of Arizona.
Amen.
And some places should be illegal.
It's a scam, it's predatory lending, and in God's law, charging that kind of interest
is illegal.
So it's also wicked.
And so that's good.
But, you know, don't ever use those kind of businesses.
Obviously, they're illegal here.
But I'm saying don't rack up your credit cards.
Here's a rule of thumb.
You know, if you're racking up your credit card to go out to eat at a restaurant, you
know, it's like you're going to eat that food and it's going out the draft.
And you have nothing to show for it.
At least when you borrow money to buy a house, you have the house.
So it's backed by something.
You know, yeah, you owe money but you have a house that's worth the same amount you owe
so it's kind of a wash.
Or you know, you finance a car, well, at least you have the car.
And hopefully the car is worth as much as you owe on it.
And so these things kind of tend to balance themselves out.
The thing about credit card debt is that there's nothing to show for it.
You don't have a car.
You don't have a house.
It's just you just have this debt.
It's called unsecured debt.
And you want to avoid that at all costs, right?
That's a last resort.
You want to stay away from that because you end up just throwing away so much money on
interest and fees and so forth.
And then student debt, you know, you've got your poetry degree over here and then you've
got the $80,000 debt.
You know, and it's just, I don't know.
Maybe it's worth it.
Just kidding.
It's not.
You know, and here's the thing.
You know, there are so many ways to make a living without going to college.
And so if you have to borrow money to go to college, like, you better do some real soul
searching about whether you actually think that you're going to make enough money to
justify putting all that money into that education.
You know, because, and here's the thing, you know, a lot of people don't go to college
and then are making way more money than people even go to college.
So if it's just about making money for you, you know, and you're borrowing money to go
to college, well, wow, you know, that's a bad idea.
Yeah.
You know, I remember when I was a young man just fresh out of high school and I was going
to junior college, you know, I was paying my own way.
I was working a job, going to junior college.
Then when I went to Bible college and I had to pay Bible college tuition, you know, private
school tuition and I worked and I went to school at the same time and I paid my way.
I didn't go into debt to do it, you know, and, and, and there are usually ways to do
it without going into debt anyway, if that's the route that you want to go.
But like I said, I've tried to encourage my sons just to go into lines of work where they
can just make more money from the jump and not have to worry about it.
But anyway, um, debt, right?
It's just, it's a huge part of our lives in America because we're living in a debt based
economy.
You kind of have to play the game today in America.
Yeah.
You could just be off the grid and, and no credit cards and whatever, but you know, as
soon as you touch a federal reserve note, as soon as a federal reserve note touches
your fingers, you're playing the game anyway.
And so you might as well play to win.
And if that means buying a house at the right time when the market's good, buying a house,
30 year mortgage, you know what, sometimes that can be a great financial decision.
You know, I just bought a house about three years ago and since I bought it, it's pretty
much gone up in value.
It's worth about 150% of what I bought it for.
So praise God for that.
My first house I bought at the exact wrong time and then my second house I bought the
exact right time.
But the point is that was that a, was that a foolish move for me to get a 30 year loan
on this house that's now worth like a couple hundred grand more than it was worth when
I bought it?
I mean, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.
So again, don't buy into this thing of just never going to debt for any reason because
that means never own a home for any reason.
De facto.
I mean just, just realistically that's basically telling people never own a home and then you're
just paying rent every month and you're not, you're not getting anything for your money
in the long run.
And so usually if you can, it's a better financial decision to buy a house and unfortunately
in America that typically means mortgage and you know, I've given that advice to people
before like, Hey man, you should buy a house right now.
Like the prices are good.
Not saying necessarily right now cause I don't know if it's a good time to buy or not right
now.
I don't know.
But like in the past when the price were really low, I've taken aside like staff members of
our church and people have been like, Hey man, you need to buy a house.
Like this is the time, you know, don't be renting.
And then they bought the house and then they were like, yeah, that was a great decision
because now it's gone up by 200 grand or something.
And so anyway, just giving you a little bit of financial things to think about there.
Let's move on to verse number seven.
It says, if there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates
in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou should not harden thine heart nor
shut thine hand from thy poor brother, right?
So if somebody is poor and they're struggling and they really legitimately need help, not
just some drug addict on the corner who refuses to work, but if someone's legitimately poor
and they're asking for help, he's saying, you know, don't say no to them.
You know, Jesus taught the same thing.
Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou
away, right?
So God says that in general we should be open handed, generous, both to give and to borrow
and to loan when it's needed.
Verse eight, but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and this is a command kind
of thou shalt, thou shalt open thy mouth or excuse me, open thine hand wide unto him and
shall surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanted.
Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart saying, I don't know, the seventh
year is getting pretty close, right?
The seventh year, the year of release is at hand, and then I be evil against thy poor
brother and thou giveth him naught and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be sinned
unto thee.
Here's what he's saying.
The whole point of this law is to help out poor people so that they don't get into perpetual
debt.
What he doesn't want this to be is a thing where in the sixth year nobody's given out
loans to anyone and poor people just can't get what they need, they just can't get food,
they can't get clothing, they can't get shelter, they can't borrow any money because they're
just up the creek and say nobody's, you know, all the banks are closed because it's year
six.
So God's saying that in order for this to work, people have to be understanding and
generous and treat every year the same even if the seventh year is at hand.
Now do you really think that this system was ever put into practice and that people
ever did this in real life?
And what you have to understand, I would say no.
I would say this never happened.
At any point in the history of the nation of Israel, even when they were at their most
godly, most spiritual, I mean you pick the era, pick the judge, pick the biblical judge,
pick the king of Judah, you know, pick the king of Israel, I don't think that this stuff
ever happened.
But that does not prevent it from being God's word and from being a righteous judgment and
I believe that part of the reason why Christ is going to come back in the millennium is
because the government shall be upon his shoulder and we will actually get to see what a real
legitimate government looks like and what a real biblical economic system would look
like because it really never happened.
Now remember we've been taught, of course I've been preaching a lot about Galatians
on Sunday so we've kind of got Galatians on the mind.
Hopefully all of us kind of have Galatians in our mind and we understand that, you know,
part of the law's purpose is to shut us up all under sin, you know, so that basically
we could all be justified by faith.
It's to show us our sinfulness, right?
That was part of the reason why the law was that schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ because
it revealed just the total futility of thinking that mankind can be righteous and get the
sin out of his life and actually follow God and live right.
You know, the law is such a far cry from what actually happened when we read the history
of the children of Israel and we don't ever want to lose sight of that.
We don't want to read this and think like, oh, that's how they did things in Israel.
That's cool.
That's really cool that they did things like that in Israel because I don't even think
that a single year of Jubilee ever happened because you can read the entire Old Testament.
You know what you'll never read about?
The year of Jubilee ever happening.
And then when you do have people who come along and say, because the year of Jubilee
is much more radical than this seven year release, the year of Jubilee is the big one
every 50 years.
And let me just quickly explain to you the difference between the seven year release
and the year of Jubilee.
Seven year release is I borrowed money, now it's forgiven.
The year of Jubilee is you buy land, you buy property from people and after 50 years, when
the year of Jubilee happens, it goes back to the original owners, the original families
that owned it.
The land in the city, so your condominiums and your houses in the city, they don't go
out in the year of Jubilee.
But as far as the land and the countryside, the family farm is going to stay in the family.
Even if you sell the family farm, eventually it goes back to the family.
Again, no record in scripture of that ever happening.
There are some records in scripture of people trying out this year of release.
We do see that.
We see that taking place and it's talked about in books like Jeremiah and in fact we just
looked at one of those scriptures on Sunday, I don't know if you remember, but we looked
at one of those scriptures when we talked about Genesis 15, going through the parts
of the severed animals.
And so in the book of Jeremiah, in books like Nehemiah, there are times when people try
to proclaim liberty and try to have these releases and then the prophet of God is always
rebuking them for not following through, not doing it.
Like they said they were going to do it, they read Deuteronomy, they got excited, like alright
let's do it.
But there was never a follow through.
It seems like they're always just getting rebuked for failing to do it.
And so that's a thing to keep in mind when we're studying the law.
And again, I like to talk about this a lot because I think it's so important when we
understand scripture.
Understanding the relationship of the law to the New Testament and understanding our
personal relationship in 2023 as New Testament Christians with the law.
Why are we reading the book of Deuteronomy tonight?
Why am I preaching through Deuteronomy?
Why does the law even pertain to me at all because I'm not under the law, I'm under grace.
And then when you preach these things, some people will accuse you of trying to bring
us back under the law because you're preaching Deuteronomy.
But what we need to understand is that the purpose for preaching through the law is to
understand what is right and wrong.
The law in many ways defines right and wrong.
This is right and wrong from God's perspective.
This is how God sees economics.
No matter what chapter we're in in Deuteronomy, it's how God sees that topic.
And so we can learn what is right and wrong from studying the law of God.
Not that we're under the law, not that we're trying to regress back to the Old Testament
or something, but we understand that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and God's ways
are not our ways.
And if we look at the way America does things and then we look at the way God did things
back then, we could say, okay, God's way is superior.
And there are things that we can learn from it and we should look to the law of God as
a model, as a standard when it comes to things like government or morality.
Now that doesn't mean that we look to God's law for spiritual advice about how to live
spiritually because obviously we're in the New Testament so we're not going to get circumcised
and abstained from pork to somehow reach another level spiritually.
It's not going to work, right?
That's actually going backward and that's what we've been learning about in Galatians.
But in the book of Deuteronomy here, we see this very wise system but it's only going
to work.
Notice this about the law here.
The release every seven years is only going to work for kind, generous, good people because
otherwise what's going to happen?
He's already predicting what's going to happen.
You're going to have this evil thought, well, there's seven years at hand so banks closed.
We're not loading any money.
Even the founders of the United States of America said that this government will only
work for a religious moral people and it's totally insufficient to govern any other kind
of people.
I don't know whose quote that is but I don't know, is it James Madison?
Is it Thomas Jefferson?
Is it Ben Franklin?
Who knows?
I don't know.
But somebody, one of those guys, somebody who's on money, somebody who's on a bill or
at least a coin said that and if you Google it, it'll pop right up and then you'll know
who said it.
But the point is that even the founders of our country realized, hey, wait a minute,
this is only going to work for a moral and religious people because we're giving people
so much freedom.
I mean think about it, what if I were a school teacher and I have just all these kids that
are just total monsters, well then I'm going to have to have some strict rules and I have
to run a pretty tight ship, right?
Bad kids get sent off to military school or something because they need all that structure,
right?
Whereas if I had a bunch of kids who are showing up and they're eager to learn and they are
curious about the material and they want to be there, well then guess what?
We could be pretty relaxed about the atmosphere.
We don't have to be like 10, 10, you know.
We could actually give a lot of freedom and so America is designed to be a place where
people have a lot of freedom but with freedom comes responsibility and it's expected that
we're going to be good, moral, religious people and then it's going to work.
And our country frankly has worked for a few hundred years.
Things have worked.
Now if we continue to degenerate morally, things are going to stop working and then
things are going to have to keep getting stricter and stricter and we're going to have to have
more and more laws and more and more restraint.
And so this law is only going to work for good people who love their brother and they
love the poor and they love people enough to loan to them and be generous and not to
just use this law as an excuse to just withhold poor people from poor people what they need.
So it says, you know, don't have that evil thought.
There's always going to be poor people.
Verse 11, thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy
in thy land.
Verse 12, I got to hurry up for sake of time here but if thy brother and Hebrew man or
Hebrew woman be sold unto thee and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt
let him go free from thee.
So again, he doesn't want people to be enslaved for life, okay.
Now does the Bible condone slavery because you'll have atheists come along, the Bible
condones slavery.
The answer is yes, the Bible does condone slavery but it's not what we're thinking of
as slavery, of just kidnapping Africans and, you know, half of them die on the boat ride
over and beating them and making them just perpetual slaves for generations.
You know, we look back to some of the things that have gone on in North America and in
the Caribbean and obviously a lot of those things are morally reprehensible to us and
so when we think of slavery, that's what comes to mind.
I mean when I as an American in 2023 hear slavery, right, I'm thinking of black slaves
in the Caribbean and the United States a few hundred years ago.
That's what I'm thinking about and obviously there are a lot of abuses and a lot of wrong
things there.
So when we say the Bible condones slavery, you know, these people right here that we're
talking about that are for six years a servant, you know, you could call that slavery or it's
definitely some kind of bondage, there's some kind of a bond servant, they are obviously
not having freedom for that six years so you could call that whatever you want.
I like the fact that our King James Bible abstains from using the word slave and that
he uses the word servant because I feel like it's a really bad idea to translate all these
instances of servant in the Old and New Testament as slave because again in our language it
draws up the wrong connotation, it draws up the wrong, so that you know in modern Bible
versions sometimes you'll have the Apostle Paul saying I'm Jesus Christ's slave.
That's not the relationship that we have with Christ, what we would think of as slavery.
Now what is our relationship with Christ?
Obviously we're not our own, we're bought with a price, so you could technically say
that that's slavery, right, but Jesus Christ says we're his friends, we're his friends
and we have all this liberty so to sit there and call us slaves in our language that's
the wrong word to express what's going on, you know.
That's why the word servant is a good word because when we use the word servant it's
a neutral word, right.
When we hear servant that could be a bond servant, that could be a servant that's being
treated well, it could be someone who's being treated bad, but obviously what does it mean
to be a servant?
The servant has to obey.
Hey, we have to obey Christ, servants have to obey their masters, but we don't have all
this baggage of the word slave, slavery, you know.
So the Bible abstains from using the word slave except in just very rare circumstances
like in Revelation when it's talking about, you know, Babylon is trafficking in slaves
or something, you know.
Okay, that's an appropriate word there, but when it comes to what we see hundreds of times
in the Bible, it's translated servant in the King James Bible which is a better word because
it's neutral because guess what, there are a lot of servants in the Bible who are being
treated well and then there are servants that are being treated poorly whereas we tend
to have a very negative association with the word slavery in our modern language.
The word servant is better because it's more neutral, okay.
Now here we have a person being sold into bondage, sold to their brother, being owned
by their brother for a six-year period and God's putting the limit on that saying, you
know, you don't own this guy for life.
Six years and then he goes free.
Now why would this ever take place?
Well, what if somebody racked up a debt that they could not pay if they ended up causing
damage or owing money that they could never pay, then they might have to become an indentured
servant in order to work off the tab.
And the illustration that I always use for this because most people are familiar with
this illustration even though I don't know if it's even real, everybody gets this.
You know, you go to the restaurant, oh, I don't have my wallet and then you're sent
to the back to wash dishes.
Has anybody ever been sent to the back to wash dishes because you couldn't pay for your
food at a restaurant?
I don't think, I don't know if this has ever happened in the history of America, okay.
But it's something that is very popular in stories.
Now maybe it happens all the time and we're all just, you know, we all just pay the bill,
right.
We all just bring our wallet and we always, you know, and I'm always paranoid about this.
I'm always like checking for my wallet before I order because I'm scared of not having it
or whatever.
So the point is, now you just like pay with your watch or something, you know, pull out
your smartphone and just send them the money.
But the point is that if you think about that concept, that's the slavery that we see happening
in a lot of cases in the Bible like I go to the restaurant, I can't pay the bill so I'm
a slave for two hours.
I'm in the back washing dishes forced to work to pay my bill.
That's the idea here, okay.
And so you could say like, oh, you know, the people in the Bible, they're so barbaric.
The Bible's condoning slavery.
But yet we have things in our society that are also abusive and barbaric that we think
are fine.
And so it's easy for us to act like, oh, our society is so much better.
The Bible is so barbaric.
You know what?
No, the Bible's right and you're wrong because, you know, we have this thing in America today
where when people steal, we lock them in a cage.
For years.
People do drugs or sell drugs, they get locked in a cage for years.
And you know, the Bible never has anyone locked in a cage for any reason.
The Bible, God's law doesn't send people to prison for any reason.
There's no prison in God's law.
No jail, no prison.
So you could sit there and say, well, you know, slavery's horrible.
Well, I think prison's horrible.
And I think that, you know, some of these people that are refusing to work in our society,
you know, enslaving them short term would probably be good for them.
They'd probably be a lot happier.
And then they would become productive members of society.
You know, making them a servant.
And then after six years, here's the thing, you'd be a servant for a maximum of six years.
And then God says in this passage, we're kind of running out of time, but in this passage,
He says that when you send them out after six years, you don't send them out empty.
Look at verse 13, when thou sendest them out free from thee, thou shalt not let them
go away empty, thou shalt furnish them liberally out of thy flock and out of thy floor and
out of thy winepress, of that wherewith the Lord thy God has blessed thee, thou shalt
give unto him.
So when you let the, you don't just send him out with the shirt on his back.
He worked for you for six years.
Not only has he paid off his debt and we're square now, but also, you know what, let's
send him off with some wealth.
Let's finish him liberally out of your flock.
Hey, here's some sheep, here's some goats, here's some wine, here's some oil, here's
some cash.
Like, you're sending him out so that he can go now start a productive, successful life.
He gets a second chance.
He gets a second shot at things.
And by the way, a lot of the servants, they're just going to like the gig of being a servant.
Because they're just being taken care of.
They got work to do.
They got food.
And it's, again, it's not necessarily, you know, the abuses that we focus so much on.
Obviously, even in the American South, there were probably a lot of masters who treated
their slaves really well, and a lot of slaves who were really happy and enjoyed their situation.
But then there were also a lot of abuses.
There's going to be both, okay?
And so, we don't want to just assume that this is always an abusive relationship because
it doesn't have to be.
In fact, because of the fact that a lot of people would just be happy to continue serving
because they like their gig, it says that there are some people that just don't want
to leave.
And it says in verse 16, it shall be if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee,
verse 16, because he loveth thee in thine house, because he's well with thee.
He's just like, look, I like this family.
I like the work I'm doing.
I like the way I'm being treated.
I'm happy.
And so, I just want to stay.
I love this place.
Things are going good for me.
I don't know what's going to happen to me out there, but I know I've got a sweet gig
right here.
And so, I'm just going to stay here.
Then basically, it says, thou shalt take an all, this is like a screwdriver except it's
just a sharp point on the end, right?
Take an all and thrust it through his ear unto the door so he stands up against the
door and his ear gets pierced and this is a symbol of the fact that he's going to be
your servant for life.
He's just choosing to attach himself to the family as a servant for life.
And you can see how this could be an incentive for people to treat their servants well because
of the fact that, and I was doing it with the right ear, but that seems kind of faggoty,
so probably the left ear is what, let's just assume it was the left ear that they would
put the all through because you don't want to get that right ear pierced.
And by the way, man, don't get your left ear pierced either because then you're this close
to being a sodomite.
So anyway, piercing of the ear, this could be also an incentive for people to treat their
servants well because if you like the work that they're doing, you want to keep them
around, you're hoping that he'll submit to getting his ear all through and stay with
the family because it's just a mutually beneficial relationship.
Everybody's happy.
This can work out, obviously.
And so, oh, the Bible condones slavery.
And then this is the next thing people say, the Bible condones beating your slaves.
The Bible condones beating the slaves.
Stop and think for a second.
Let's say that somebody doesn't have the money to pay me back after they took my money or
damaged my property or stole from me because what if somebody stole from me and now they
have to pay back five fold and they don't have any money?
They're going to need to be sold so the payment can be made.
So I can get paid back.
So let's say somebody's a thief or a robber or whatever and this thief or robber gets
sold into this kind of bondage.
They get sold into this kind of servitude.
You can think of all kinds of scenarios how people could find themselves in this position.
Do you think that there could be a possibility that that person who's in that position just
kind of refuses to work or just does a really bad job on purpose?
Well that's when they need to get their butt kicked so that they actually go back to work.
Okay.
Think about it because like here's the thing.
If I go to my job, if you go to your job and just don't work, what's going to happen to
you at your job?
You're not going to get beaten.
What's going to happen?
You're going to get fired.
How do you fire somebody that's your slave?
It's like people just haven't thought this through that obviously if you're going to
have slaves, you might have to whip them.
Otherwise, what if they're just like, okay, I'm your slave.
You own me.
Go do that.
No.
Go out and work.
No, it's too hot outside.
It's like, no, you're going to go out and work even if it's hot outside, okay?
We need this work done.
You're my slave.
Go work, okay?
It's just that simple.
In fact, the Bible actually talks more about whipping adults than whipping kids.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
But again, we'll save that for the Proverbs series.
Oh yeah, I already preached it.
And the Bible still says, the Bible says, hey, if you whip your slaves, God's trying
to protect them from abuse.
He says you're not allowed to injure them.
You're not allowed to knock out their tooth.
He says if you hit your slave and knock out their tooth, so if you were to just sock your
slave in the face and knock out a tooth, the Bible says you have to let them go free for
that.
You know, if you punch them in the face and damage their eye or something, you have to
let them go.
You know, if you hurt your slave and injure them permanently, then yeah, you have to let
them go.
We're just talking about a swift kick in the pants just to get you to go to work in the
morning.
You know, and hopefully that's not even going to be necessary in the first place.
And again, could this be abused?
Absolutely.
But you know what?
Our system in America today has all kinds of abuses going on as well.
There are all kinds of prisons abusing prisoners and there are all kinds of employers abusing
employees.
I mean, today we have companies that hire illegal immigrants and abuse them because
the illegal immigrants have no recourse and they abuse their immigrant workers.
So it's like, oh, we're so much better in America.
We don't have slavery.
Yeah, we just have a workforce of illegal immigrants that are getting paid less than
minimum wage and abused by their employers.
Like what's the difference, right?
You know, unfortunately, mankind is sinful and as long as mankind is sinful, people are
going to take advantage of other people.
And God's laws are not designed to encourage slavery or to encourage abuse.
God's laws are here to prevent abuse.
God's trying to make the servant's life better by His commandments and His laws.
He's trying to make things work out because slavery is just a thing that exists in this
world and always has and always will in some way, shape, or form.
And so God's just trying to protect the slaves and allow their lives to be better.
Doesn't mean that – I mean, look, the Bible says a whip for the horse, a bridle for the
ass, and a rod for the fool's back.
And so some of these people – some of these derelicts that refuse to work, you know, they
need to be beaten.
Now, I'm not saying that obviously, you know, we should go beat up homeless people or something.
Obviously, that would be a wicked thing to do.
But I'm saying that, you know, their parents probably failed to discipline them.
And they're out there just refusing to work.
And they're not happy.
You say, oh, you're being unloving toward homeless people.
Homeless people aren't happy, okay?
Get around some homeless people and let me – you know, you go to work on Monday morning
And aren't there a lot of people in the office at work on Monday morning like, hey, how you
doing?
Did you have a good weekend?
Hey, good to see you.
You know.
Right?
That's not how homeless people are.
They're not just like, hey, another day in paradise.
Let's go.
You know.
They're miserable.
Okay.
So, allowing them to live this self-destructive lifestyle and just sleaze around town is not
really helping them either.
You know?
And so, yeah, if these people were to be enslaved and whipped into shape, six years later, they'd
probably be happier, better people.
And probably a lot of them would just take all to the ear and say, hey, this is a better
way of life.
All right.
So hopefully you guys – you guys can all handle this kind of preaching.
Like your faithful word, Baptist Church, right?
Other people's heads might explode, but not you.
You're better than that.
You know?
You can handle – you can handle like the unfiltered – I don't have to like sugarcoat
anything, right?
I can just get up and just be like, beat them slaves.
All right.
Let's go.
Next point.
Everybody's just like, yup.
We get it.
Because you're smart enough to understand what I'm saying.
You know?
And if you're not, well, then quit being dumb, right?
Everybody here hopefully is smart enough to understand the wisdom of what God is saying
in his word.
And you know, I'm not saying anything other than things that are taught in the Bible.
You know, the Bible does teach these things in Exodus and Deuteronomy.
And those of you who read the Bible, you know, you've seen these things.
And then just very quickly, the last part of the sermon is just about how – the last
part of the chapter, I should say, verse 19 on, is about how you're to, you know, bring
the first things of your flock to the Lord, give those offerings to the Lord.
And if it's – if it's like diseased and crippled, you don't offer that to the Lord.
You don't offer the Lord that which is defective.
And so what's the moral of the story there?
Give the Lord your best, right?
Don't give him your leftovers, right?
Give him the first – give him the first day of the week.
Give him the most prime hours of the day with your thoughts and with your prayers and with
your Bible reading.
Give him your best.
Give him the best years of your life, right?
Give him your best.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Thank you so much for your word and we thank you for your righteous judgments, Lord.
Help us to learn from the book of Deuteronomy, Lord.
Thank you that we are not under the law, that we're under grace, Lord.
Thank you for the new covenant established upon better promises, Lord.
But help us to learn and be admonished by the Old Testament as well.
And help us to always be kind and generous and just in our dealings.
Help us to be generous and helpful to those who are less fortunate and be a blessing to
our fellow man.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.