Deuteronomy 23

Deuteronomy chapter 23. Well, as I've been doing the last few weeks, as we get into these chapters of Deuteronomy, I want to put up an outline of this chapter for you so you can look at it. Outline of chapter 23 • Those forbidden in the assembly: 1-8 • Holiness within the Camp: 9-14 • Mics. laws for daily living: 15-25 We're going to look in verses 1 through 8 about those who are forbidden from the assembly, and we're going to talk about the reasons behind it, and not just what Moses is saying but also why. And then we're going to deal with, in verses 9 through 14, holiness within the camp. He's going to be talking specifically about when the nation of Israel goes to war, and they encamp somewhere in the wilderness or wherever they may happen to be camping while they're setting up their plan of battle. God gave them specific rules and we'll talk about why. And then in verses 15 through the end of the chapter, there's just going to be a myriad of miscellaneous laws for daily living, and we're going to do our best to work through those and see what the Lord has for us on those. Now, starting off here in Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 1, we start off with something that seems like, why in the world, God, would you even say this? But it says in verse 1:

This is one of those really interesting verses in the Bible. You're not going to put this on the fridge, I know. That would be really dumb, wouldn't it? I suppose it's the most natural thing in the world for you and I to read a verse like this and to interpret it according to our modern understanding of life. But when we do that, we often make assumptions that cause us to miss the real meaning. And it sounds on the face of this like, if there's somebody who's had an accident or something, poor guy, he's not allowed in the assembly of the Lord. But there are a lot of verses—and this is one of them—but there are a lot of verses throughout the Old Testament, particularly Deuteronomy here, that require us to think beyond our strict American 21st century kind of interpretation of what we think it's saying in order to see what God is really saying. As embarrassing and inappropriate as this verse sounds at the outset, it dealt with a very real issue that these people had to deal with in the ancient world, and it had to do with eunuchs. We don't do this— we don't have these today, but this was common. A eunuch was a man who had been physically emasculated for the purpose of serving usually a king in certain matters. For example, any man whose job it was to care for maybe the king's harem would be made a eunuch so as not to pose a threat to the king's property. And eunuchs, as I've already said, were very common in the ancient world up through the time of Jesus. But just because they were popular— it was a popular thing to do— doesn't mean that God approved of it. He did not. Unfortunately, this creating of eunuchs was something that Israel borrowed— I'll even go as far as to say, imitated, as far as bringing something in from their neighbors. They brought this practice, at times, into their world. And yet, verses like this made it clear that God was not pleased with any mutilation of the body. And so, if an individual had been mutilated in this way, the Lord said they were not allowed into the assembly of the collective worshipers of Israel. But lest you think that was a raw deal for eunuchs, or that somehow God hated eunuchs, think again. Because many years from the time of this writing, the Lord would speak through the prophet Isaiah about eunuchs. Let me put this on the screen for you. It's from Isaiah chapter 56 and it goes like this: For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; (because, obviously, they couldn’t have sons and daughters) I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. You guys remember the story in the New Testament how during in the Book of Acts when God was moving powerfully to bring people to a saving knowledge of Christ, there's this interesting story that we read about Philip. It's in the 8th chapter of Acts. Let me put it also on the screen. It says that: And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship. And he (Philip) rose and went. (where the Lord was directing him) And there was an Ethiopian, (remember, Philip had been told to walk along a road, and we’re told that this man was) a eunuch, (and he was) a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who (in this case) was in charge of all her treasure. (I don't know why he had to be made a eunuch to be in charge of her treasury, but it tells us here:) He had come to Jerusalem to worship. I'm not giving you the whole story. Most of you, I'm pretty sure, know the story that, as it goes, Philip— the man was in a chariot— Philip ran alongside the man and heard him reading from the prophet Isaiah, asked him: Do you know what—do you understand what you're reading? And the man said: No, how can I, unless somebody explains it to me. And so, Philip got into the chariot with him, and explained to him the passage, which, by the way, happened to be talking very much about— prophetically of Jesus Christ coming and dying on the cross. And the man, as he listened to Philip preach the Gospel to him, finally said to Philip: Hey, there's a body of water over there. Do you see any reason why I can't be baptized? I want to accept this Jesus as my savior. They got down out of the chariot, Philip baptized him—you know the story. As soon as the man came up out of the water, Philip disappeared. How cool is that, right? I mean, Star Trek's got nothing on God, as far as transporting away. And the man—so here we have this eunuch who is saved on his journey. So again, I bring up these two particular passages, one from Isaiah and one from Acts, to show you that the eunuchs were not on God's hit list. God was making a statement to the nation of Israel about the mutilation of the flesh. God created us physically, physiologically, biologically to function – and it pleased him very much to give us that biological function. It was not for man to dictate to another individual: you can't function biologically the way you were intended to. And so, the Lord's making some pretty strong statements here related to that. Verse 2, it goes on saying:

Now we come to the second prohibition in terms of those not allowed into the assembly, and this regarded forbidden marriage, which could include a lot of things – everything from an incestuous relationship, which was forbidden, or it could include marriage to a pagan, which, of course, was forbidden. The point that God was getting across here to the Israelites was the seriousness of that kind of a thing. Those are violations of His Word. And you'll notice that he said even up to the tenth generation, which, by the way, is basically to say, never, or forever, if you will. They cannot enter the assembly because, again, they are part of this forbidden sort of a connection. The apostle Paul basically said the same thing, not about joining in worship, but saying essentially to believers, as we recently saw: Do not be unequally yoked. Do not be in a forbidden relationship. Don't do that. There are consequences that go along with that. And under the law, the consequence is that their children couldn't enter into the regular worship assembly of Israel. There was a very serious consequence that went along with that, and God was expressing the seriousness of that sort of a situation. He goes on with more prohibitions. Verse 3:

In fact, we dealt with this in the Book of Numbers. I'm sure you remember this story. And by the way, speaking of incest, that's where the Ammonites and the Moabites come from. Their whole culture was born out of incest. These individuals, Ammon and Moab, were sons who were born to Lot's daughters when they got their father drunk, and each slept with him. So, both of these cultures came out of incestuous beginnings, and now God is communicating that they are both under judgment, right? So, the Israelites are not to thwart that judgment. Look what he goes on to say in verse 5:

In other words, they're under judgment and you are not to seek their blessing or their prosperity. Wow, sounds pretty harsh, doesn't it? And yet, we see the mercy of God operating on a much later on through a young woman who was a Moabite named Ruth, who got not only blessed, but He also allowed this woman to be in the lineage of Messiah. A Moabite – someone who comes has their origins from incest, something that God found abhorrent and would not allow them as a people into the worshiping community of Israel. And yet, God's mercy poured out abundantly, embraces this woman named Ruth later on in such a way as to bring her, to bless her with incredible blessings to be in the Messiah's family line. You tell me the Old Testament doesn't have mercy in it, and I'll show you where it is. Verse 7:

So now, God makes mercy an exception for these people groups because they have a connection with Israel. First, the Edomites. The Edomites are the descendants of Esau, who, of course, is the twin brother of Jacob who's later renamed Israel. So, we know where that comes from. And Israel also had a connection with Egypt in the sense that they had lived among the Egyptian people for 400 years. Because of these connections, any who descended from these two people groups would be allowed into the assembly in the third generation. In verses 9 now through 14. This is where the Lord begins to speak through Moses about issues related to cleanliness when they would camp against their enemies. This is when the guys would go out camping. Okay? The women aren't there. That's why men always need instruction for keeping things clean when they're alone. You know that, right? Yeah, we admit that.

Now stop there for just a moment. Let me set this up for you a little bit so that it's going to come with a little bit more understanding. Remember something: God isn't just concerned about their cleanliness because He's a germaphobe or, He's a dirt-hater or something like that. You have to remember that God promised to go with the army of Israel when they went out on their battles. In other words, the presence of the Lord would go with them, and His presence would move among them, and He would fight their battles on their behalf. This was the arrangement. So, that's the thing you need to understand: God wanted to impress upon Israel regarding His holiness by demanding that they maintain purity and cleanliness within the camp. And the expressed reason for this is actually given at the end of this section of Scripture. So, I'm going to have you go down and look at verse 14 with me because that's going to help us understand the other verses. Verse 14 says:

What God is doing is He's laying out a principle here for the men of Israel when they go to war — and it's a very important principle for you and I to understand and to grasp. When the Israelites went to war, they were in a place where they were relying on the presence of the Lord, as we said, to win their battles. But if their lives were being lived in that camp in a way that was contrary to the holiness of God, they would only end up grieving the Spirit and limiting or hindering the work of God in their midst. Are you with me? That probably bears repeating, right? Because they're expecting God to work in their midst, and because He's holy, God said: Maintain purity; maintain holiness in the camp or I'm going to be hindered; I'm going to be grieved; you're going to grieve My Holy Spirit. Now, this actually has a very interesting corollary in the New Testament. And, you guys, I'm sure, remember that story that's given to us in Acts chapter 5, when we're introduced to a couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira, and the Spirit of God in the early church was moving powerfully among the people. I mean, miracles were happening, and it was just a powerful move of the Lord in the early church, and His holiness was being seen in their lives, and the people were walking in the holiness of the Lord in the way that they were living and treating one another. But along come Ananias and Sapphira, and you guys know the story. They concocted a scheme to lie about how much they got for a piece of property that they sold, so that they could say they got so much and they were giving it all. Aren't we holy, righteous people? But they actually were keeping some of it back, and this act on their part was so contrary to the heart and holiness of God, that you know what happened. These two scheming individuals ended up dropping dead as a result. So, do you understand the idea here of so grieving the Holy Spirit that His work among us is hindered and hampered? The Lord is basically saying: When I am among you, I want you to walk with Me in holiness. The New Testament idea here is what Paul says: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, right? Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. When you're praying for something, for God to move powerfully in your life, don't at the same time be blatantly disobeying His Word in another area so as to grieve Him in your life or to be engaged in some kind of passionate fleshly sort of an exercise and at the same time saying: God, I just need You to really help me in this area. And Paul would say: Wait a minute; your life isn't living up to what you're calling upon the Lord to do, and you're inviting His holiness. You're inviting His work right in your life but there's a disconnect. And that's what God is trying to communicate to the nation of Israel. That's what happens in the story of Ananias and Sapphira. There's a disconnect between the actions and what God is doing in their midst, and there's a judgment; there's a consequence that is pretty severe. So, the Lord, through Moses, in these verses, is giving some directives for the men who are, again, camping out during a time of war. Now go back up to verse 10 with me again. And it begins— and we deal with, again, some things that might seem a little kind of embarrassing, but:

And then the Lord even speaks of basic bathroom provisions. It's like, don't be like animals, right?

And you dig a hole and you cover it up and that's—keep it clean, right? There's not to be anything that's going to offend the holiness of God because of these sorts of things. And then, of course, what we read in verse 14 about how— God says, hey, the Lord is among you. The reminder here is twofold for the people of Israel. First, by observing these guidelines when they go out to encamp against their enemy, they're going to be constantly reminded of the Lord's holiness. It's just going to be because these things are being kept, there's this constant reminder: God's holy. But secondly, these commands are a reminder to you and I that even in our most private moments, God is observing our behavior. Even in the things that we don't talk about. Even the things that we would consider embarrassing. It's like, that's too personal to even talk about. These are pretty personal things, you've got to admit. The idea here, though, is that God can be offended related to His holiness when the Israelites are out there in their camp and going to war. And the point is that you and I can grieve the Holy Spirit even in those areas of privacy where some kind of sin is going on. It's important things to think about. Now in verses 15 through the end of the chapter, Moses is going to go through here a shotgun myriad of commands for everyday life. We'll take them in clumps here. The first two verses cover—He's saying:

And he's talking about when a foreigner, who's been in slavery, escapes to Israel to get away from the difficulty and the hardness of their life. And God says: When that happens, they are commanded to show compassion to such individuals by receiving them, not taking them back. Don't get it in your head— oh, I bet there's probably a reward for this guy. There's maybe some money to be made. In fact, the Lord said here through Moses: These people were to be free to live wherever they wanted in Israel. Wherever they want to go, let them go and live there. And God wanted His people to remember something related to how they treat slaves – and that is that they were once slaves themselves in the land of Egypt. In fact, God actually comes out and says that on other occasions about dealing with slaves: Remember that you were once slaves. He wanted them to remember that. Why? It elicits compassion. It brings compassion to our heart. I don't know how many of you are on our Facebook pages or on Calvary Mail, but I just published a blog post today that came in a question that had been sent me, and the author of that question said that it's hard to love unbelievers. I thought that was an incredibly honest thing to say. When you look at people in the world who are just totally in rebellion to God—I mean, they're just defiant and they get that mad look on their face, like, you Christians, the world would be better if we just wiped you out sort of a thing—it's really tough to love those people, and I would even go on to say it's impossible to do so without the help of the Lord. But I believe that one of the ways we begin that process is by remembering that we were once objects of God's wrath, too, and that's something that is repeated in the New Testament. Paul even—I won't take you there, but Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he gives this list of all these things that— these lifestyles. He says: Don't be deceived; the people who do this, they will not enter the kingdom of God. And then he says: that's what some of you were. Now, he's not doing that to make them feel bad or make them feel guilty, or fill them with regret. He's doing that to help them remember the place from which they came and how God, through His mercy, drew their hearts. Paul would even talk about himself in ways that might surprise us. He talks about, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle. I'm like an apostle that was born in an abnormal kind of a way. I was a blasphemer. I was hard-hearted. I was a wicked man, but God— right? Isn't that it? I mean, isn't that it for all of us, right? We were all objects of God's wrath, but God, right? Why am I saying that? Because it elicits compassion. When we look at the world, we don't see people, who are unsavable. We don't look at people who are less than we. We look at people who are just like us apart from Christ. And we know that if they will repent of their sin and turn to the Lord, they, too, can be saved. God loves them. And that's the other thing we have to remember. God so loved the people of the world that He gave His only Son. John reminds us: God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. And if God's Son wasn't sent here to condemn, what are we doing going around condemning people? Our attitude needs to be the same as His. I brought out in my blog post that when Jesus saw the crowds, He looked at them and He said— it says, He had compassion on them, and He saw them as sheep without a shepherd. He saw them as harassed and helpless. Do you see unbelievers as harassed and helpless? I usually don't. I often see them as the enemy. But that's my flesh. That's Paul's flesh seeing these people. I don't want to look with Paul's flesh. I want to look with God's eyes. I want to see them helpless and harassed, and without a shepherd, and lost. Lost as the day is long, and I want to reach out with compassion. That's hard when they're trying to hurt you, or they're trying to make life miserable for you, or something like that. But you know what? That's our lot in life. That's our calling. The Bible even says that in the same way that Jesus suffered, we are called to suffer. So, we're not supposed to look at these people with disdain. We're to look at them with the heart of the Savior who looked down from the cross and said: Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing. So, this is one of those interesting passages in Deuteronomy where God is saying: Hey, you see a slave. Just remember something – you were once slaves. You see somebody in slavery to sin or in slavery to their flesh or in slavery to the world. Just remember you were once there, too. And be compassionate. He goes on. Here's another element: verse 17. He says:

What is sad about this is that in pagan cultures, this was required. How would you like to have your kids required to be a cult prostitute for a period of time? You got to serve your time. God forbade that should ever happen among the Israelites. He says: Don't ever let that happen. That is not part of any requirement of worship in Israel. So don't even think about it. And along the same lines, look at verse 18:

You say, well, the wages of a dog? What in the world? Well, the NIV kind of makes this clear. Let me put this up on the screen for you. And you can see it here from Deuteronomy, same Deuteronomy 23:18: You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both. The thing you need to remember, too, and understand about a vow and the payment of a vow: the payment of a vow was an expression of gratitude for God's provision. And so, such an expression was never to be paid with money that had been obtained from the sinful practice of prostitution. Okay? In other words, doing something sinful so you can do something good is not right. And that's the lesson that's in this passage. Well, if I cheat on my taxes, I'll have more to give to the Lord. You see the problem? That's a problem because you're not supposed to cheat, including the government. To say I'm going to cheat the government so that I can give more money to the Lord, that's committing a wrong so that you can try to commit a right. And believe me, they don't cancel each other out. It's not right. Verse 19. Here's a command we've seen before:

Moving on. Verse 21:

Get it? Vows were voluntary. Any smart person would say, just don't do it. Just don't do it, right? But here's what God's saying: If you do, make sure you keep your word. And so, what the law is emphasizing here for the Israelites is a call upon their lives to be true to their word. If you say it, do it. Right? Don't be known as people who talk out of both sides of their mouth. Be known as people who speak what they're going to do. So, keep your verbal commitments. Again, vows were made freely, voluntarily. So, it's best just not to do them. Just don't make a promise that you might not be able to keep. Because if you do, God's going to hold you to your word. Verse 24:

Now, these laws that are given to us here at the end of the chapter are primarily for the traveler, and it was meant to take care of people who were sojourners moving around within the land. In the New Testament, we see Jesus doing this with His disciples. The Bible says, as they walked along, they were hungry. So, instead of going to the local McDonald's or whatever, they just walked through a field, right? And it says they plucked some heads of grain and they would just rub them in their hands to separate the grain from the husk, blow the husk away, pop it in their mouth. This was perfectly legal. This is what God is saying in Deuteronomy. If you have a field, if you're a farmer, and there's somebody just walking through the area, they are free to go into your field and eat some of the grain. However, the rule here is that they're not to carry away any more than they can eat. If they go into your field or into your vineyard, they can eat what they can eat – what they can literally hold in their stomach. And after that, they could not carry anything out because in that case, it would be stealing. Now, you’ve got to stop and think about this for a minute. First of all, it's an ingenious sort of a welfare system. When you think about it, it really is. Of course, it's limited to the seasons when things could be picked and eaten, which is seasonal. But of course, God had other things to help in cases beyond that, and it also required that a farmer be open to this sort of a thing as well—and obviously they were because even Jesus engaged in it with His disciples – this plucking of things to eat and so forth. And what's interesting about this is that what we see again— if we look at the context of what God is saying to Israel, we're seeing here, take care of your brother, take care of people. Now, I know that gets into a lot of difficulties, even in the New Testament. We find that they struggled with some of these things, taking care of people, and they had to come up with some rules along those lines with taking care of people. Because why? Well, there's always people who are going to take advantage of it. There's always people out there who are going to be out there with their hand out, and they don't really care about working. And so, Paul had to initiate a rule in the early churches saying: If a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat. That may sound like a really harsh rule, but it's not. In fact, it's a devastating thing for any culture to give a handout to a man without demanding something in return. And the reason it's devastating to a man is because God made men occupational. That's the way we were created. I understand there are guys who can't work. That's a different matter altogether. I mean, if someone is physically handicapped and cannot work, that's a different matter. But when you have an able-bodied man who just has his hand out and says, you guys are good people, and I hear there's food here, eventually, you're going to deteriorate what God intends to do, in that man's heart. Because when you have an able-bodied man who wants to work and he can't, he's a miserable man because men were created to work. They were created to serve. They're created— I mean, they're occupational nature. Ladies, that's why your husbands are so weird. Whenever they do something around the house and they fix things—we're fixers, right? Women hate it sometimes. Well, they love it sometimes and they hate it. Other times they hate it when we try to fix them. That's what they hate. But when we fix things, have you ever noticed? We guys will just crow all day long about something we fixed because we did it—and I'm especially that way because I'm not that good at fixing things; and so, when I stumble upon an answer to the lawnmower or something like that myself, I make sure Sue hears about it for the rest of the day. It just makes a man feel good about himself. It's a sense of self-worth that drives him onward. He says: I can do this. I can do this. And when a man goes out and does things with his hands or works hard and he comes home at the end of the day and says, I worked hard and I earned this money, it's a good thing. It's what God intended for the man. He created him that way as an occupational sort of an individual. You take that away from the man and you start giving him handouts, and you deteriorate the man ultimately. It's sad to see that deterioration. It's really—we've had people contact us who are looking for handouts and we'll try to work with them on finding a job. They often will just hang up on us when we mentioned any. I actually had somebody at one time say to me straight out: Why in the world should I risk life getting a job when I can get it free from the government? I had somebody actually say that to me in a moment of incredible honesty. I appreciated the honesty— I have to say that. I didn't necessarily appreciate the sentiment, but I knew also that he wasn't alone in that sort of a sentiment. But you know what? We did this to people by taking away that occupational sort of a thing that God works in men and by just handing out money. It just— I'm just telling you: It ruins guys. It ruins able-bodied men. I had a guy call this last week, and called the church office, left a message, and I happened to see the voicemail. All he wanted was to know if we knew of any job openings. Well, I had just posted some on Calvary Mail just this last week, so he's like, hey, I'm looking for a job; do you guys know of anything? I called him back. Guy was thrilled. He said, I'm so happy to hear from you. So, I said, okay, you got an email address? I'll forward these things to you. There's jobs that are open. There's things to be done. Thank you very much. I was delighted. I mean, do you know how fun that is to work with somebody like that? Anyway, but even in situations where people are traveling, God had a method that we see here at the end of this chapter for taking care of people and caring for people as they walk through the area. So, we're going to stop there.