Deuteronomy 21

When you hear the term, human rights, what do you think of? Human rights. Typically, when you and I hear that term, we think about a very hot topic for international relations. Many times we'll hear about this country or that country as a very poor record in human rights. We'll hear that we as Americans don't want to do business with that country because of their record in human rights.

What is it? Is it something new? Is it some newfangled definition that we just decided we were going to hang on bad behavior by individuals or groups or nations? One definition of human rights is that human rights are equal in inalienable rights of any person inherent due to the sole reason that he or she is human.

Now again, this is something the United Nations put out. When did it put this out? It put this out under the heading, under the chair of a committee that was formed back in 1948. And the person who chaired the committee was Eleanor Roosevelt.

They drafted a document that defined and universally granted the basic rights to all human beings. I'll just say here in parentheses, on paper. On paper. They were determining the equal and inalienable rights of every human being. The Declaration known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or UDHR, was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948. Now, I guess I can read all of these to you. I might read some of them to you. I don't know if we need to read them all. You can go online and check it out for yourself.

They've got 30 articles that they say are inherent human rights. As I read some of these to you, you'll find that these are some rights that we as Americans feel we have. I don't know the people of the world feel I have. Article 1, the right to equality.

Article 2, freedom from discrimination. Article 3, the right to security of person. Article 4, freedom from slavery. Article 5, freedom from inhumane treatment. Again, you don't need to scribble all these down because I'm trying to make a point in the process of laying groundwork for the sermon here today. The right to a fair public hearing. The right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. That's not something that's universal among the nations. Freedom from interference. The right to free movement. The right to a nationality. The right to a marriage. The right to own property. Well, there have been fairly large power blocks in our past where people weren't allowed to own property. Freedom of speech. Of course, one that sticks out in my mind. The right to social security. I think that's a particularly American right there. The right to rest. And so if some of you fall asleep on the Sabbath, I'll just say, well, they're practicing their human rights today. They are practicing their right to rest. And they're doing what God says. They're going to keep the Sabbath and they're going to get their rest in here. That's what mankind says, our human rights. What does God say? What does God say, brethren? You know, if you're standing at the water cooler and somebody begins a hot discussion about international relations, and people start talking about human rights, where do we come from? Where does... we hopefully come from where God's coming from. Where do we come from? Well, today I want to return to an old friend of ours for our visitors. Once a month I try to have, instead of a sermon, more of a Bible study. Today is that day. We're going to go back to the book of Deuteronomy. We've been picking our way through the book of Deuteronomy for some time now. If you want to turn over to Deuteronomy 21, put a marker there. We're actually going to go someplace else to begin with, but we will be in Deuteronomy 21 predominantly today. The book of Deuteronomy was written as a series of three sermons. Moses gave these sermons to prepare the second generation of Israelites after they came out of Egypt to enter, conquer, and possess the Promised Land. They are spiritual purposes for the book. The reason I'm doing this is I selected this particular book to try to use once a month. Spiritual purposes, first and foremost, Deuteronomy was written to teach God's people how to live victorious lives. You and I want to be successful Christians. We want to know how do we do it? How do we live successfully as a believer in Satan's world? How do we do that? Secondly, Deuteronomy is written to stir God's people to rededicate their lives to God, to renew their commitment to obey God. Of course, we discuss this every year at Passover time, don't we? Every year at Passover time, we come together, we're memorializing the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and each Passover, we rededicate ourselves, we renew our covenant with the great God.

I've made mention in the past, today as well, that these three sermons cover basically the whole of the book. We've already gone through the first sermon that Moses gave, that's the first five chapters of Deuteronomy. We're now starting to conclude going toward the end of the second sermon Moses gave. That second sermon is what God expects of Israel. But before we go, we talked about going to the sermon, I should say, not go home. No one has said amen yet.

We're not going to go home yet. That was the one time the pastor stood in front of his congregation and he said, I just didn't know what to prepare, so don't send this week. You'll be good, and we'll see you next week. We're not going to do that today. Let's turn over to Romans 13. We'll find out what God says is very succinct. Mankind has 30 articles that he wrote that were put together there at the UN talking about human rights. What God says is very succinct.

God doesn't need all the verb as human beings do. God knows how to get right to the heart of the matter. Let's take a look at God's definition of human rights. I'm going to quote two different passages here. Romans 13, verse 8, and 10. Romans 13, verse 8, where it says, O no one anything except to love one another. This is what we owe our fellow man. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

And in verse 10, love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. So here we see God's definition of human rights, how we should practice human rights. It's a matter of love as defined by God's law. It's a matter that we don't harm our neighbor as defined by God's law. Now, those are two different verses.

God is even more succinct than that. We're going to go now to one verse, one sentence, that is what some people would call the summit of human behavior. The summit of what we would call human rights. One verse. Let's turn to that verse in the book of Matthew, Matthew 7 and verse 12. Matthew 7, 12. You know this verse as the golden rule. Matthew 7, 12. Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. That is one simply worded statement in one sentence, but very, very meaty, very complex in terms of all the principles that are there.

The golden rule, being that one sentence, shows love can be stated in a simple sentence. It's amazing. It demands true law, God's law. It demands justice. Its wording is not negative. It's positive. It tells man what he must be doing. But it's more than just not doing wrong. It's more than not just doing right.

It's that we should be searching and seeking and looking for ways to love our fellow man. There's a difference between not just trying to do wrong, but we need to be searching and seeking, being diligent along those lines. That being the case, let me outline Deuteronomy 21. Then we'll take this step by step. There are five different portions of the chapter we want to look at today.

The first four sections teach us a valuable lesson about human rights. You know, Brethren, I'll just say before we get into the outline, there are some chapters in the Bible where there's all sorts of things happening that are eye-popping. Deuteronomy 21, there is no Red Sea parting. The sun is not going backwards. Leopards are not being healed. Five thousand are not being fed. But there's a reason that God has this chapter here for us.

And this kind of chapter is a kind that if we're not careful, we can read over in three minutes, not many verses, twenty-three verses, we can read over very quickly and not see the principles that are there. Most of us in this room have been a part of God's Church for decades. We want strong meat. We want to really dig our teeth into the meat of the Word. Well, this is one of those chapters where we can do that if we want to. Or we can just simply glance through it, you know, a glancing blow through the chapter and keep on moving on and not see all that is there for us.

So let me give you the five area breakdowns. Verses 1-9.

There's a law here that governs unsolved murder. A law that governs unsolved murder. But the lesson here that God wants us to learn is the sanctity of life.

The sanctity of life. We're talking about human rights. Human life is, in God's mind, sacred. And, brethren, just think about what we've got taking place in the world right now. Right now, what's big in the world, you've got what's happening with Russia and Crimea, Russia and Ukraine. We have the ongoing, long ongoing civil war in Syria. And now we see where that's spilling out now into Iran.

And if you take a look at a map and see where the jihadists are having their bases and their strength of operations in Syria and bring that over into Iran.

There are a lot of analysts in this country who fear that a jihadist state is in the process of being formed.

Just recently, the jihadists took the city of Iran, which we spent 4,500 American lives were spent killed in Iran. Much of our treasure was spent in Iran.

We pulled out. And, of course, now the jihadists are moving in. The jihadists just recently, I think it was last week, took over their second largest city of Mosul.

Now, to you and I, that means nothing. But, brethren, Mosul is twice the size of the city of Detroit and population. Twice the size of the city of Detroit and population. It's no small town. They moved down the road and they took a decree of Saddam Hussein's hometown. Now, who are these people in Iran that are doing all this damage? They are such bad guys that the Taliban step aside from them. The Taliban fear these people. They would have no problem walking into a place like this. And if they didn't like you, you're a woman. They would string people up at goalposts in various places in town. Very bad people. They're only 40 miles from the outskirts of Baghdad. Iran may well fall, or we may have divided Iran. So, we're seeing that in Syria, it was 140,000 people who have been killed now in that civil war. Life is cheap. But that's not how God views it. God views life as being very sacred. So, that's what we see in verses 1-9. Verses 10-14, a law that protects female war prisoners.

A lesson here is respect for women. And unfortunately, ladies, in any armed conflict over the eons of time, when there is an armed conflict, women always get the worst of it. Women always get the worst of it. But God says, well, you know, you're going to go to war. We'll talk about why God says what he says here. But God says, if you're going to do this, if you're going to go against my will, I don't want you to have an army to begin with.

Secondly, I don't want you to go to war. I can do this for you. But if you're going to do it, I'm going to give you some ground rules to live by. And you don't mistreat women.

Verses 15-17 is the third section. A law protecting the inheritance right of the firstborn. But there's something more here than that. It's a law dealing, a lesson dealing with justice. It's a lesson dealing with not being partial, being fair. God wants us to be just and impartial. Verses 18-21 is perhaps the section that most of us would raise our eyebrows. Because God says, if you've got a bad kid who won't be turned, you take him out and you stone him.

Now, that doesn't go according to our sensibilities in this country. And of course, we understand that God was working in a different way back then, and he's working with people now.

Back in those days, he had some people who call it a physical dispensation. Today, it's a spiritual dispensation. But you know, brethren, the bottom line is still this. As children of God, you and me, if you and I do not follow God, if we rebellious children who refuse to repent and correct our ways, then our Father God will march us into a lake of fire. So, you know, it's a striking lesson on child-rearing there in verses 18-21. And verses 22 and 23, the last two verses, is a picture of Jesus Christ on the stake.

I think it's interesting that the chapter concludes that way with a picture of Jesus Christ on the stake. Okay, let's go over to chapter 21 now of Deuteronomy. Let's get into the chapter. We're going to spend most of our time in this chapter. We'll do a few verses here and there, but mostly he'll be here in chapter 21. Chapter 21, verse 1, If anyone has found slain, lying in the field in the land, which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities.

Now remember, the lesson learned here, this is the law governing unsolved murder. The lesson here is the sanctity of life. There's not somebody here laying in a ditch, a human being. He's been murdered. Now, the implication here in verse 1 and verse 2 is that they're going to find out what city is the closest to where this man is found dead. And then the elders of that city, the leaders of that city, need to make diligent inquiry and see if they can solve the crime.

And if they can't solve the crime, then there's a cleansing ritual we'll get into here in just a couple of moments. But God says, I don't want him just to be buried in a potter's field. Every life is sacred. Every life has meaning. This man was murdered. We want you to do diligence and try to find out who did that, and if you can't. And I want you to think about the way God is talking here. God is holding the whole community responsible.

Not that he's saying you're all guilty, because God understands that's not the case, and God knew who killed the man. But, you know, brethren, in our society today, most of us in this room, I'm sure, if not all of us in this room, are just so sick and tired of political correctness. People want to say, well, you know, this person did this, but he was probably dropped as a baby and this and that and the other. And let him kill all these people, but let him go free, or just treat him with kid gloves. Well, as we're going to see here, when we talk about stoning children later on in the chapter, God's no easy pushover.

But Satan wants to work his magic on us. You know, we can be so fed up with political correctness, but there is some truth to the fact that we are a community. That human beings are a community, and God views us that way. We're going to see a scripture that talks about that a little bit later. God views us as one flesh, one blood. I don't care what color we are. I don't care what part of the world we come from. God views us as one human family.

And so here, they go to the city, and the whole city is on the hook. Now, am I saying that God doesn't want us to have individual responsibility? Of course. It's not individual responsibility or community responsibility. It's both. It's both.

So here in verse 3, now we move down, verses... Let me read verses 3 through 8, because here you've got this cleansing ritual that will take place. And there's a need for cleansing. An individual, a life, has been taken.

Blood has to be shed. A tomen has to be made for the community. Verse 3, and it shall be that the elders of the city, nearest to the slain man, will take a heifer, which has not worked, which has not pulled with a yoke. You know, something that's fresh and new. The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with flowing water. And there's a specific reason for that. We'll get to that in a moment. Which neither is plowed nor sown, you know, it's a virginal sort of piece of land. And they shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. Some translations say, behead the heifer. Then the priest, the son of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the Lord. By their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled.

So this is a religious ritual, and you have the leaders of the religious community coming in to officiate. All the elders of the city near us, this lady man, shall wash their hands over the heifer, whose neck has been broken into the valley. Then they shall answer and say, our hands have not shed this blood, nor has our eyes seen it. Provide atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of your people Israel.

And the atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood.

So here you have this cleansing ritual taking place. And, brethren, the reason it's taking place is because, again, God views human life as being sacred.

That's why the United Church of God teaches that we don't go to war. We don't have a right to take somebody else's life.

People say, oh yeah, but what if these nations do this now? Well, if we are a nation of faith, if we are truly one nation under God, we've got examples in the Scriptures, we've got the example of Jehoshaphat. A million-man army came to Jerusalem, to Judah. He said, I don't have enough troops, I don't know what I'm going to do.

He went to God, he prayed, the answer came. And what did Jehoshaphat do? He sent his armies out to meet the enemy, his little army, against this great horde. But what did he do? He put singers in front of the army. He had the singers singing praises to God. And what happened? The enemy started killing each other. There wasn't a single Israelite or a person from Judah who shot an arrow through a spear, pulled out a sword. God did it all.

And if we've got faith as a nation, God can do it all for us. But we don't have faith as a nation, so we rely upon our own strength, we rely upon our own army. But God didn't want that. God doesn't want us to take life. People say, well, you know, we're living in such a bad, bad society today. Mr. D, I just really feel a need to keep a gun under my pillow. And my advice to people like that is, well, I'll tell you what, God doesn't test you and have somebody enter your house where you need to use that gun. You know, you live by the sword, you're going to die by the sword.

I'd rather live by faith. You know, God gave us each a brain. You know, we can watch where we go, watch where we live, and so on and so forth. We can make sure our house is secure. And then we rely upon God to do the rest. But anyhow, here we see where this heifer is sacrificed because blood had to be shed. Somebody had been murdered. One of God's Ten Commandments had been broken.

Consequently, God viewed the community as being guilty. Now, that's not the way we normally think, but this is the way God is thinking. This is why God had the elders of the city come out and do this. Now, in verse 4, you see there is this running water that is there. The running water. That stream probably symbolizes that the defilement of the land is being washed away.

God specifically says you've got to find a piece of land where it's got this flowing water. Of course, flowing water would also represent God's Holy Spirit. God's Holy Spirit is going to work with the people, work with the situation. Verse 5, you see where the ministers are called in to deal with the situation. Verse 6, you see where they wash their hands. Where else do we see that in the Scriptures? Was there somebody else who washed their hands of a certain activity? Somebody by the name of Pontius Pilate, right?

In the ancient world, this was symbolic. A lot of people in the ancient world would do this to show innocence. And here these people are saying, look, somebody obviously murdered that guy, but it may not have been anybody in our city, but we do have to do what God says, and God says there needs to be some blood spilled here because of the sin.

It was done here. And then at the end, verses 8 and verse 9 there, we see where God says, they say, answer our prayer. Allow us to be clean, cleanse us from the sin, the sin that's been committed in our area. So, brethren, what we have here is a lesson on the sanctity of life. If you would, turn over to Acts 17. Keep a mark over there in chapter 21. Turn over to Acts 17, and let's read verse 26. Acts 17, verse 26. And he is made from one blood every nation of men.

Start with Adam and Eve, right? All this in this room, we can trace our lineage back to Adam and Eve. We are one family. Different nationalities, different colors, but one people, as God sees them. We want to see things the way God sees things. Yes, we've got our differences, and God wants us to enjoy our differences. And not, you know, discriminate because of differences, but to enjoy differences. But a person here, part of the family of God, had been murdered, and so that sacrifice had to be made.

Okay, so that's the first section, verses 1-9. Let's take a look now at the second section. This is verses 10-14. This is the law protecting female war prisoners. A law protecting female war prisoners. And this is a lesson on the respect for women. As I may mention at the outset, brethren, when you think about warfare back in these days, and even warfare in our lifetimes, women always get the worst of them.

Men go out to battle, and they die horrendous deaths. But poor, innocent women, when you read accounts in World War II, what the Japanese did in China and other places in the Orient, when the Germans went into Russia, and then when you read about what the Russians came back into Germany, what the poor women had to withstand, back in those days, once you won a battle in your spoils, where you go to, it happened during the Civil War.

And I'm sure that our people, in World War I and World War II, we were just as probably guilty as anybody about the way we disrespected women. So let's just read this section and see where God is taking us here, verses 10-14.

And it's true here for a number of things we're discussing. We discussed in the first nine verses. God never wanted them to have a standing army. God didn't want them to go to war. But God said, you know, because you're going to do this, out of the hardness of your heart, because you're going to do this, I better give you some guidelines, I better give you some rules, otherwise everything is just going to be chaotic. The same thing is true for marriage. You know, Jesus Christ said, you know, from the beginning, God says, let there be, you know, one man, one woman, and so forth there in Genesis. He said, He reiterated that in the Gospels. But because of the hardness of their heart, God said, well, you know, if you're going to do this, if you're going to go to war, and you're going to take people, then you better live according to certain laws. An Israelite soldier was not allowed to just do whatever he wanted to do with a female captive. That was just simply not allowed.

Verse 11. When you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her and would take her for your what?

Not just to conquer her, but you take her for a wife. These are the terms God is looking at. You do this properly. You don't just take her as some sort of a trophy. She is a wife. You look at her along those lines. You have that kind of respect for you. You're looking at a future wife. Verse 12 and 13. Then you shall bring her home to your house.

You don't just do things in the battlefield. You shall shave her head, trim her nails, put off the clothes of her captivity. Now implied in this brethren, what else do we know about Israel? Israel is told, men and women of Israel told, you don't go marry the outsiders. When you marry the outsiders, they will eventually have you worshipping the wrong gods.

So you don't do that. Is God making a conflicting statement here? Is it okay in warfare to go and marry this anybody? Because it's a good looking gal? No. Notice the language here. Verse 12. You shall bring her to your house. Well, what's happening in your house? Well, hopefully your house serves God. She shall shave her head and trim her nails. These are signs of humility. She's coming into a house of an Israelite who worships the true God. She is to humble herself. She is to trim her nails. She is to take off the clothes of her captivity. We've gotten in the New Testament scriptures the discussion about how we are to put on righteousness, how we are to put on humility, putting on the new man. These are terms. The implication here in verse 12 and 13 is, here's a woman who has decided, that she's going to live by the laws of the great God. She's not going to be just some pagan heathen woman married to an Israelite soldier. No, she's going to accept the God of Israel. That is the strong implication here from verses 12 and 13. She's going to mourn her father and her mother a full month. In other words, a soldier, let's have a cooling off period here. You want to be thinking about what you're about to do. She's mourning her father and mother. She's not just mourning her parents. She's walking away from a way of life. Christ said, blessed are those who mourn. We mourn, we see our sin and what we need to come out of. So she's doing the same thing. She says, well, I need to follow the God of Israel.

She says, after that, then you may be bound. You may be a husband to her. Notice the context of marriage. Now, verse 14, not every marriage works out. Not everybody would be perfect in doing what God wants here. Maybe she just thought she had to give lip service to being under the God of Israel. Maybe she wasn't really. The marriage doesn't work out. But notice even then, the soldier is not just a pitcher out into the street. He's a treat the woman with respect. You're not going to sell her. She is a human being that you're not going to sell her. You're not going to treat her brutally, either physically or with your mouth, with your commentary, or emotionally, or any of those kinds of ways, because you've taken her as a wife. You let her go. You treat her properly.

So that's a law that God has in terms of marriage. Turn to Hebrews 13 for a moment. Hebrews 13.

Hebrews 13, verse 4.

Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled. The fornicator is an adulterer's God will judge. That's Hebrews 13, verse 4. Marriage is honorable. So here in a more physical type of society that Israel had, they didn't have God's Holy Spirit. They had God's law.

But God wanted them to realize marriage is honorable. Marriage must be protected at all costs. It's essential for the makeup of the family, for the makeup of society, to make sure that we've got strong, vibrant marriages. And that's why God is doing this. Let's move on to the next section, verses 15 through 17. Here we see a law that protects the inheritance of the firstborn. And as I said, it's a lesson in justice. It's a lesson in showing that we're not partial. Let's just read the section. It's only 3, verses 15, 16, and 17. Verse 15, if a man has two wives, again, it's never was God's intent for this to happen.

What's the result when we have more than one mate? If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved? Now that's human nature. Right? You're going to like one thing more than another. You really don't love them equally. And that's part of the issue here.

If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they've born him children, both the loved and the unloved, if the firstborn son is of her, who is unloved, and here we see where there could be a problem. Human nature, the guy would normally want to say, well, you know, I don't really like her as much. So I'd like her son as much. I really like this woman over here better, this wife here better, and I want to treat her son better.

And the guy says, uh-uh, you don't do that. There shall be on a day that he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved. The true firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has.

For he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his. So God is saying here, look, uh, you've got to be fair. You've got to do things right. If we're going to have a society that's going to work, then we have to have justice in the land. We've got to have people who, by their very nature, will want to do right and not defraud. And, Breton, there's a lesson here for us, too. I made mention over in Ann Arbor today that over the years, I've dealt with a number of families. And we can have some really impartial families. And we can have some people who are very biased in working with children in the church.

What we're talking about, little ones or teenagers or what have you. There's basically two types of parents I've run into in my 35 years of being in the ministry. You've got one set of parents where you go to them and say, well, you know, Johnny or Janie, we've been having some problems with them. Oh, Mr. D, well, what's the issue? Let's get down to it.

And you enjoy the fact that you can talk with people and they'll be there for you and so forth. Then you've got the other set of parents. You've got a problem with my son? No, you don't. My son doesn't have problems. You've got a problem with my daughter?

One of you guys are lying. It's not my daughter. God wants us to take a look at the reality of the situation and to be just and to not show partiality. I don't know how you grew up. I don't know how I grew up.

I grew up in an old world, my father being born in Italy. It was well known that if I did something in school, and back in the days when I went to school, all the teachers had battles. They don't do that anymore. Even the little teachers who were just little gals, they might have had something like a ping pong thing, ping pong pong. They'd call you up to the front, they'd say, Bend over and you get a smack. Now, I remember the phys ed teachers, now they were a different breed of person. These guys, I remember back when I was in high school, I'd go on a whole year without any swats.

That really irked my football coach. He was a big guy. He didn't have some little ping pong battle. He had something that was two-handed. It was long, it was square, well, square, it was rectangular. He drilled holes in that thing. I remember one time, he said, You know, De Alessandro, he didn't pronounce the name right.

De Alessandro said, We've not given you a swap this year, have we? I said, No, sir. He said, Well, that's going to change right now. I thought, Well, I've not done anything. I've just been sitting here. He said, Just the general principles. I'm sure you've done something. You've probably covered it up, or you were so good that you couldn't tell what you were doing. You come up here right now, you bend over and you touch your toes.

Of course, you know, back in those days, this was a phys ed class, actually. The stuff we used to wear back in those days was so tight. And I bent over it, I mean, it was like I didn't have anything on. It was so tight. There's like 30 guys there. They're all in the bleachers. I'm standing in the middle of the floor, and he takes a good whack. And with a lot of the guys, they started crying. I didn't give him the ability to feel good by my cry.

I just sucked it up. But, man, that really hurt. That really hurt. I mean, you heard that smack probably three different classrooms down. But in my household, in my family, if the teacher called my house and said, Randy was acting up, then I had to deal with Dad. Was it not? No, not Randy. No, he wouldn't do anything. My dad was a real... Mom did most of the discipline in our household, not Dad. But when Dad got into it, the last time I remember Dad got into it with me, he said, I want you to go into that bedroom right there.

And, of course, my Dad was like 5'10", big barrel-chested guy, strong as an ox. A mechanic by trade. And I walked into the room, and he closes the door and locks it. I said, this is not a good sign. Then he pulls down the shade. Not a good sign. Of course, my Dad was not a church guy. And then he started taking the bed and throwing that thing around. It was just a single mattress. He's throwing this thing out. Oh, man, I'm going to be going to the resurrection very soon here.

He never touched me. He didn't need to. I realized if I was going to do something, I'd better never do something wrong in school. Because the teacher had given me slots, and I had to come home to Dad. Today's society, hell, you don't touch Junior. You don't touch Junior. We've got to have justice, brother. We've got to have justice. Which brings us now to perhaps one of the most shocking sections of this chapter.

Verse 18-21. Dealing with a rebellious child. And here we see, you know, God really... God's no pushover here. Verse 18. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who when they have chaste of him will not heed them.

So here we see a young man. And, brother, what we're looking at here, we're looking at some young person here who over the course of a long period, you know, we're not thinking about some young guy who was eating crackers in his bedroom and his mother was upset. We're talking about somebody who, because of the very nature of who they are, they could be viewed as a detriment to the family and maybe to society.

Here's somebody who might go run amuck. Here's somebody who might be a Manson. Here's somebody who might be a Jeffrey Dahmer. Here's somebody who might be one of these guys from Columbine. He had all the markings of somebody who was going to be destructive and hurt other people. And he's breaking the fifth commandment. What does Deuteronomy...I'll read Deuteronomy 27, verse 16 says, "...cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt, and all the people shall say, Amen." So your first safeguard here are parents who work long and diligently with this young man.

And they let him know if you don't straighten up, it might be the death penalty for you. Verse 19, "...then his father and his mother shall take hold of them, bring them out to the elders of the city..." Notice, they're bringing them out to the elders of the city. There's the community that's involved here as well. "...to the gate of the city, may it shall say to the elders of the city, the son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he's a glutton and a drunkard." His life is already falling apart.

He's drunk. Maybe he's violent. And of course, implied in these verses is the fact that you now have the second safeguard. The first safeguard is the parents working long and diligently. The second safeguard are the courts, the community. They're going to try to reform this kid. They're going to try to work with this kid. But if he won't be worked with, if he's going to be a mass murderer in the making, God has called us to peace. God wants us to have a society where we live peaceably with one another and so forth.

If that fails, if the family fails, if the community fails after a lengthy period of time, then we've got verse 21. Then all the men of the city, all the men, this is a community action, then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones.

So you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. Now, brethren, is God being extreme? This is God we're talking about. We're talking about a loving God. We're talking about a just God. But God also realizes there's a time where you simply have to take the bad apple and get it out of the barrel. Parents were beside themselves.

They did everything they could do. The community did everything they could do. The bottom line is, if we don't do something, this guy's going to be a part of a gang. This guy's going to be hurting a lot of people. I quoted to you several years ago.

It stays in my mind. A beautiful young girl won a beauty pageant in her hometown, and they wanted her right on this float. I forget if it was 4th of July or what it was, Memorial Day or something. So she's on this float. She's going down the street. Some kid jumps into the middle of the road and shoots her dead.

Afterwards, the police asked, well, why did you do that? And they said, well, he said, well, I just wanted to have a rep with my gang. I just wanted to have a reputation. See, it's that kind of kid that had he been dealt with properly, wouldn't have had that poor, dead young girl. Now, again, we don't do this today. This is the way God told Israel to deal with at a different time.

But the principle is to say, we have to deal with the issues, and not just say, well, you know, Johnny, he had a hard upbringing and just kind of let him go? To hurt how many of us here in this room? Well, God doesn't want that. But also, brethren, there's a spiritual lesson for us. And the lesson for us is we can be just like this kid. If, as God the Father and Jesus Christ, or as the church works with us, if we're rebellious, and our rebellion can be a passive rebellion, where we really don't, we go to church on Saturday, but we really don't keep the Sabbath.

We go to the Holy Days, but we really don't keep the Holy Days, but we should.

We write out a check, but it's just sending money to some place, and our heart's not in it. If we're like this young person here, spiritually speaking, then God Himself, our unconditional, loving God, will march us into the lake of fire. So God is saying something very important to us here.

And that is that rebellion has to be dealt with.

God already has one Satan running around the universe. He doesn't need more. Satan's running around the universe. And God will deal with you or with me, if you and I will not repent of what we've been doing that is wrong.

Now, a positive about this whole setting here. This young man, let's say he's stoned. His life is over here.

But God will resurrect him. God will put him in the world tomorrow, in an atmosphere where perhaps you are the one, as a spirit being, who will work with this young man. He'll show him the error of his way. He will have a whole lifetime, a whole opportunity to learn how to properly live before God and his fellow man.

So God is simply removing this young man at this point because he was heading into the direction where he could have been another Hitler, another Stalin, another Idi Amin. We don't need that. But God says, I will work with him later on. We'll put him on hold for the time being.

Okay, the last section is verses 22 and 23.

It's interesting here when you see the whole of this chapter that the way the chapter ends points to Jesus Christ. It points to his sacrifice.

Verse 22, If a man is committed to sin and is deserving of death, now of course we understand Christ did not sin, but our sins were placed on Christ, therefore he had to die, therefore in that sense he was deserving of death because our sins were on him.

If a man has committed his sin, deserving of death, and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, notice very carefully, brethren, Israel did not practice hanging.

The individual was stoned to death. Then he was strung up on a tree. He put him to death and then it says, and you hang him on a tree.

Verse 23, His body shall not remain overnight on a tree, just as Christ did not remain overnight, Joseph the barom athea came to collect Christ's body.

But you shall surely bury him that day. Christ was buried that day just before sundown on that day. He was murdered. He was crucified.

You shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance, for he who was hanged as a curse of God.

God wanted very much for the individual who was hanging there to be an object lesson. The object lesson is the lesson of justice once again.

But if you leave that body overnight and other days, then the body begins to decay and then people start thinking about the decay and not the act of justice.

God wanted people to focus on the act of justice.

The same thing is true for what Jesus Christ did for us. Focus on the act of justice, the act of reconciliation, the fact that Jesus Christ is our Savior.

Let's turn to Galatians 3. Last scripture we'll look at today. Galatians 3 and verse 13.

Galatians 3.13.

It says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.

God's law is no curse, but there is a curse that's the death penalty for breaking the law of God.

When we sin, we are under a death penalty. That's the curse.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Christ died on our behalf. For it is written, everyone is cursed.

Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. That's quoting Deuteronomy 21 here, the section we just read.

So Jesus Christ, brethren, is our ultimate picture of salvation through what He has done for us.

So again, brethren, Deuteronomy 21 is not one of those chapters where there's a lot of miraculous things taking place.

But it is a chapter that teaches us valuable lessons that you and I need to be thinking about and making it part of our daily walk with God.

God is a strong believer in human rights. We are to be strong believers in human rights.

And the greatest right, the greatest way we serve one another is by living by that golden rule, by owing man love and by not hurting man. And we do that by living by God's law. That is the essence of the story of Deuteronomy 21.