Deuteronomy 23

 

1 He that is wounded in the stones, or has his private member cut off, is not to enter into the congregation of the LORD. 2 A bastard is not to enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation he is not to enter into the congregation of the LORD. 3 An Ammonite or Moabite is not to enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation they are not to enter into the congregation of the LORD forever: 4 Because they did not meet you with bread and water in the way, when you came out of Egypt; and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

 

  • God’s people are His witness.
  • He is whole as well as holy.
  • God brings all who will into the most elite group of people in the universe—His.
  • Remember this law displays for us God’s absolute holiness.
  • Christ fulfilled the whole law. Whosoever will may come!Jephthah was a bastard, one of Israel’s Judges 11.
  • Psalm 1:5 Therefore the ungodly will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
  • Hebrews 12:8 But if you are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.
  • Mark 15:38 And the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.

 

God turns cursing to blessing because He loves us

 

5 Nevertheless the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; but the LORD you God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you. 6 You are not seek their well-being or their good/prosperity all your days forever. 7 Do not abhor an Edomite; for he is your brother: do not abhor an Egyptian; because you were a foreigner in his land. 8 The children that are begotten of them may enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation. 9 When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. 10 If any man among you is not clean because of uncleanness that happens to him by night, he is to go out of the camp, he will not come in the camp: 11 But when evening comes, he is to wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he may come into the camp again. 12 You are to have a place also outside the camp, where you will go: 13 and have a spade on your weapon; and when you relieve yourself, you will dig with it, and will turn back and cover what comes from you: 14 For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you, and to give up your enemies before you; therefore your camp is to be holy so that he see no unclean thing in you, and turn away from you.

 

  • God requires cleanliness.
  • Notice that war and weapons were assumed.
  • God allowed Israel both offensive and defensive war.
  • Evil takes just a few scriptures and misuses them to take away protection from man so that evil can easily overcome and enslave mankind unto itself.
  • Evil is real and seeks to kill the righteous.

 

15 Do not deliver to his master the servant who has escaped from his master to you: 16 He may dwell with you, among you, in the place which he chooses in one of your gates, where he likes best: do not oppress him. 17 There is to be no whore/sodomitess of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. 18 Do not bring the wages of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD your God for any vow: for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.

 

  • God walks among us.
  • He protects and harbors runaway slaves.
  • The price of a dog is the wages of a male prostitute.
  • God considers whoring and sodomy abominations.
  • Such things are intensely disgusting to God. He has provided good things to meet man’s needs.
  • Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

 

19 Do not lend with interest to your brother; interest of money, interest of food, or interest on any thing that is loaned charging interest: 20 You may lend with interest to a foreigner; but you will not lend to your brother charging interest: that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you set your hand to in the land where you go to possess it. 21 When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, do not delay to pay it: for the LORD your God will certainly require it of you; and it would be sin in you. 22 But if you refrain from vowing, it will not be sin in you. 23 Keep and do what goes out of your lips; a freewill offering, as you have vowed to the LORD your God, which you have promised with your mouth.

 

  • Ecclesiastes 5:5 Better is it that you not vow, than to vow and not pay.

 

24 When you come to your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes your fill at your own pleasure; but do not put any in your sack. 25 When you come into the standing grain of your neighbor, then you may pluck the ears with your hand; but do not cut any your neighbor’s standing grain with a sickle.

 

  • God sponsors kindness and generosity, not thievery.
  • Luke 6:1 And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

 

                                         Deuteronomy 24

 

1 When a man has taken a wife, and married her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness/matter of nakedness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2 And when she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. 3 And if the latter husband hates her, and writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife; 4 Her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and you are not to cause the land to sin, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.

 

  • If a relationship didn’t work the first time, why repeat it?
  • God is wiser than we are. We should listen to Him…always!
  • An arrogant person chooses his mate from lust to fulfill the ego. So others will look at her and say wow!
  • What God designed satisfies. We need to be certain that we do not make a god of sex, romance, or a ‘fulfilling personal relationship.’

 

5 When a man has taken a new wife, he is not to go out to war, or be charged with any business: but be free at home one year, and cheer up his wife which he has taken. 6 No man is to take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he takes a man’s life to pledge. 7 If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and makes merchandise of him, or sells him; then that thief is to die; you are to put evil away from among you. 8 Beware in the plague of leprosy, that you observe diligently, and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, teach you: as I commanded them, observe to do. 9 Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam by the way, after you came out of Egypt.

 

  • God punishes kidnapping by death thus ridding his people of evil because kidnapping is an evil act inspired by evil.
  • God covered Miriam with leprosy because she revolted against the authority God had given Moses.
  • Numbers 12:10 the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked on Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.

 

10 When you lend your brother any thing, do not go into his house to get his pledge. 11 Stand outside, and the man to whom you lend will bring the pledge outside to you. 12 And if the man is poor, do not sleep with his pledge: 13 In any case you are to deliver to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his own garment, and bless you: and it will be righteousness to you before the LORD your God. 14 Do not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he is of your brothers, or of your foreigners that are in your land within your gates: 15 At his day you will give him his wages, do not let the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it: lest he cry against you to the LORD, and it be sin to you. 16 The fathers are not to be put to death for the children, neither are the children to be put to death for the fathers: every man is to be put to death for his own sin. 17 Do not pervert the judgment of the foreigner, or of the fatherless; or take a widow’s clothing as pledge: 18 But remember that you were a slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from there: therefore I command you to do this thing.

 

  • God holds each one accountable for his own sin.
  • 1Peter 1:18 you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your empty way of life received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

 

19 When you cut down your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, do not go again to get it: it will be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat your olive tree, do not go over the boughs again: it will be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean it afterward: it will be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow. 22 And you will remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt: therefore I command you to do this thing.

 

  • God requires and blesses generosity.

 

                                         Deuteronomy 25

 

God requires that we settle disputes justly

 

1 If there is a dispute between men, and they come to judgment, for the judges to judge them; then they are to justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

2 And if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge will cause him to lie down, and be beaten before his face, a certain number according to his fault. 3 He may give him forty lashes and no more: so that he not go above and beat him more than this many lashes, and then your brother seem vile to you.

 

  • Proverbs 20:30 tells us that whipping a man will get the evil out of him.
  • We scorn this today, and our world is full of evil.
  • How much better (for non-capital offenses) to beat someone and then let them get back to their life than to imprison them with other felons where they can learn more evil.
  • Proverbs 20:30 The blueness of a wound cleanses away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.

 

4 Do not muzzle the ox when he is threshing. 5 If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies, and has no child, the wife of the dead one is not to marry outside, to a stranger: her husband’s brother will go in to her, and take her to him as a wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the firstborn that she bears will succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name not be put out of Israel. 7 And if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate to the elders and say, My husband’s brother refuses to raise up to his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother. 8 Then the elders of his city will call him and speak to him: and if he stands to it and says, I do not desire to take her; 9 Then his brother’s wife is to come to him in the presence of the elders, and take his shoe off his foot, and spit in his face, and answer and say, This is what is done to that man that will not build up his brother’s house. 10 And his name will be called in Israel, The house of him that has his shoe loosed.

 

  • In Genesis 38, Er died. His brother Onan pretended to be raising up seed for his brother, but spilled his seed on the ground and God took his life for it.
  • God provided an heir for a widow through the dead man’s brother.
  • A brother disgraced the dead person when he refused to provide for his brother’s widow and an heir for his brother.

 

11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draws near to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that strikes him, and puts forth her hand, and takes him by the genitals, 12 Then you are to cut off her hand, your eye is not to pity her. 13 Do not have in your bag differing weights, a great and a small. 14 Do not have in your house differing measures, a great and a small. 15 But have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, so that your days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD your God gives you. 16 For all that do such things, all those that do un-righteously, are an abomination to the LORD your God.

 

  • God hates unrighteousness and dishonesty.
  • He can bless with abundance (2 Chronicles 25:9, Deuteronomy 8:18)).
  • His people do not have to steal.
  • He commanded honest business dealings.
  • He promised long life for honest business dealings.
  • The genitals were the source of fruitfulness.
  • In Genesis God commanded man to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
  • The land God has for His people is the glory of all lands.
  • Ezekiel 20:6 In the day that I lifted up my hand to them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had saw for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands:
  • Deuteronomy 8:7 For the LORD your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; 8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;
  • Revelation 3:21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
  • Revelation 21:7 He that overcomes will inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

 

17 Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came out of Egypt;

18 How he met you by the way, and attacked the stragglers at your rear, even all that were weary behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore it will be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you are to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget it.

 

  • Amalek attacked Israel not long after they had passed through the Red Sea before they even got to Mt. Sinai (Exodus 17).
  • God told them to remember Amalek’s attack on them and blot them out. He gives rest from all our enemies.
  • Zechariah 2:8… for he that touches you touches the apple of his eye.
  • Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you that labor and are heavily loaded down, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest to your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 

                                         Deuteronomy 26

 

1 When you come in to the land that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, and possess it, and dwell in it; 2 Take the first of all the fruit of the earth, which you bring from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and put it in a basket, and go to the place that the LORD you God chooses to place his name. 3 Go to the priest that will be in those days and say to him, I profess this day to the LORD your God that I have come to the country that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us. 4 And the priest will take the basket out of your hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God. 5 And you are to speak and say before the LORD your God, My father was an Aramean ready to perish, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and there became a nation, great, mighty, and populous: 6 And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid on us hard bondage:

 

God hears our voice; He looks on our afflictions, labor, and oppression

 

7 And when we cried to the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, looked on our affliction, our labor, and our oppression: 8 And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, with great terribleness, with signs, and with wonders: 9 And he has brought us to this place, and has given us this land, a land that flows with milk and honey. 10 And now behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which you, O LORD, have given me. And you will set it before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God:

 

  • Egypt in scripture is a picture of the world in sin and evil.
  • It was far easier for God to bring Israel out of Egypt than to bring mankind out of sin.
  • Bringing us from sin cost us the human life of His Son.
  • Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
  • 1Peter 1:18 you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your empty way of life received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

 

11 And you are to rejoice in every good thing which the LORD your God has given to you, and to your house, you, the Levite, and the foreigner that is among you. 12 When you have made an end of tithing all the tithes of your increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within your gates, and be filled; 13 Then say before the LORD your God, I have brought away the dedicated things out of my house, and have given them to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandments that your have commanded me: I have not transgressed your commandments. I have not forgotten them: 14 I have not eaten of it in my mourning, nor have I taken away any of it for any unclean use, or given any of it for the dead: but I have listened to the voice of the LORD my God, and have done according to all that you have commanded me.

 

  • Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD; he will give you the desires of your heart.
  • Romans 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.
  • 1Corinthians 2:9 Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for them that love him.

 

Heaven is God’s holy dwelling place

 

15 Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel, and the land that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land that flows with milk and honey. 16 This day the LORD your God has commanded you to do these statutes and judgments: you are to keep and do them with all your heart, and with all your soul. 17 This day you have declared the LORD to be your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and to listen to his voice: 18 And the LORD has declared you this day to be his people, a treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you should keep all his commandments; 19 And to make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, in name, and in honor; and that you may be a holy people to the LORD your God, as he has spoken.

 

  • God has made us His special treasure.
  • He makes His people high above all the nations that he has made.
  • Notice also that God makes the nations.
  • All God’s promises that He gave others in scripture can be applied to all the lives of all people because God is impartial and wrote these things for us.
  • 1Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
  • Malachi 3:17 And they will be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.

 

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SUMMARY: Deuteronomy 23-26

 

  • The LORD turns cursing into blessing because He loves us
  • He walks in the midst of us
  • Cross dressing is an abomination to God
  • Remarrying a former spouse is forbidden for our blessing
  • He requires that we settle disputes justly
  • He gives rest
  • He hears our voice
  • He looks on our afflictions, labor and oppression
  • He wants to do us good in every area of our lives