God’s Law: Living Set Apart

Well, good morning. Morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning, we're at Deuteronomy chapter 22, the first 12 verses. We're going to talk about the miscellaneous laws. Not to be confused with Mississippi laws, miscellaneous, all sorts of kind of odds and end type laws. So we're going to have some coffee. We'll pray. I'll get into God's word. Coffee.
Can't tempt you, huh? That's okay. That's okay. Someday you'll grow up and be wise. She just kicked me under the table. You're so mean. Hey, didn't you didn't you read? Hold on. Hold on. Yesterday, I talked or two a couple of days ago, I talked about excess 2115 where a child strikes their parent, they should be stoned. Okay, let's pray. God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for time that's been together. Thank you for your word. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us, that we would understand.
Lord, we pray that we would have wisdom in how to apply these things to our lives, and that we wouldn't do it with the spirit of legalism, but Lord, that we would know who you are, and we would walk in your ways. In Jesus's name, amen. All right, Deuteronomy chapter 22, there's 12 verses. Why don't you read verses one through seven, and I'll read eight through 12. Sound good? Okay, you're gonna fall asleep before you do it? One through seven, and I'll read eight through 12.
You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and hide yourself from them. You shall certainly bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. You shall do the same with his donkey and so shall you do with his garment. Any last thing of your brothers, which he has lost and you have found, you shall do likewise.
You must not hide yourself. OK, so let's go ahead and talk about that. What do you think that law was about? If you if you see a stray sheep or goat or anything, you don't just be like, If they've done something bad to you in the past, you don't just feel like. Yeah, right.
So there's kind of two things you might be tempted to do, right? Let's say it was Mr. McElhaney's cows. You could be tempted to take it. Yeah, you could be tempted to take it or leave it alone. If you take it, it would be stealing. If you leave it alone, what could happen to the animal? They could die, right? They get in trouble. And are either of those loving options towards your neighbor?
No. Right. So this is a very practical section. Good. What about verse four? Can you read verse four? Well, you should not see your brother's donkey or his ox fall down along the road and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help him lift them up again. OK, so what's this one talking about?
Yeah, right you stop and you help You stop and you try to help. This is one of those Difficulties you haven't seen me do this because I got little kids in the car and it's a little bit different But before I had kids in the car, you know what I would do. I I'd always have a toolbox in the trunk of the car and a jack, just in case when I was driving down the road, if I saw someone I could stop and help them. So mama asked me to be a little bit more careful with that because I would just pick up people and be like, yeah, let's go get some gas and go help them. She's like, Brian, you have three kids in the car now.
You don't know these people. They could hurt us. So now I'll still stop and ask sometimes. And sometimes they don't want to help. Now there's not even enough room in the car. Yeah, now there's not even enough room in the car, right? We just keep adding these kids, right? But the point is, you see somebody needing help, what's the loving thing to do? Help them. Help them, good. Want to do verse 5?
A woman will not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. Okay, what's that talking about? We shouldn't wear dresses in school. Yeah, right, so there's kind of general clothes that are expected for boys and general clothes that are expected for girls, right? And so don't mix up this separation between the sexes, right? Should daddy start wearing eyeliner and fingernail polish? Should I come to church in your mother's dress? Nah.
The world's going to tell you, oh, this is so outdated. This is so wrong. What do you think God would give us? Why would it say, for all who do so are an abomination to Jehovah your God? Why do you think that's an abomination? Because the Lord made them separate. Yeah, right. The Lord made them male and female. The Lord's the one who's done this. So just like it's an abomination to the Lord to not love your neighbor, but that was in the first four verses. So it is to not follow God's ways with who he made us to be. All right.
You want to read six and seven? If a bird nest happens to be along before you along the way in any tree or on the ground with young ones or on with young ones or eggs, the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs. You shall not take the mother with the young. You shall surely let the mother go and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you, that you may prolong your days. OK, so you're walking along the way. You see a nest. What do you see in the nest? Okay, what are you not allowed to do? You're not allowed to take the mom. Yeah right, you're not allowed to take the mom.
Why not? Because... Why would God say not to do that? Um... Could it hurt the population? Yeah. Right. And so this is one of the ways in which I think God shows us environmental stewardship. Are we allowed to do with animals and in the creation whatever we want? Is it ours? No, we've been entrusted with it. Right. God gave us the dominion mandate. He told us to make the garden beautiful, right, to cultivate it.
I think he's given us work to do and with the environment. We're not to just act like we can do whatever we want with it actually when people Don't pay attention to stuff like this That's why animals end up some sometimes. That's why some animals get hunted to extinction That's why if daddy wants to go hunting for let's say a deer.
What do I have to get before I go hunting for a deer? I I have to get a license, right? I have to get my hunting license, but then I have to buy something. Do you know what I have to buy? A tag, right? So they estimate how many deer are in the area. And then they say, okay, how many deer can be harvested from this area? But we don't want to go too low because what could happen? You could destroy the deer population. And so there are people who are always trying to kind of be stewards and keep things under control. Good. All right, let's go ahead and keep on going.
First, when you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof and you may that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it. All right. So this is like if you build a house, you got to build a banister around the roof. Oh, man, that's the deacon sent here.
We don't have a banister around our roof. Why do you think it would say you have to have a parapet or a banister around the roof? What do you think they did on their roofs back then? People would climb up on the roof to either sleep where it's cooler or. Yeah, take baths, do their laundry, right? So it was actually a living space. Was it pitched like our roof? Our roof is a flat Yeah, our roof is pitched right has angles. Does anybody live up or do anything on our roof? No Yeah, they shouldn't right but do we have a back deck and what's around our back deck a Bannister these stairs going down from my office.
I There's a banister. Why do you think God says that they're supposed to be a banister? It gets hurt. Yeah. Right. You don't want somebody to fall and get hurt. Right. Would be that would that be loving to your neighbor? No, no, no. It would be negligent. OK, here we go. First nine. You should not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seeds, lest the the yield of that seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. Right. What do you think this is getting at? Actually, there's a few here. I'm going to read 9 through 12 together because they're all kind of tied together, right?
Verse 10, you shall not plow with an ox or a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together. You shall not or you shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself. Why do you think God would give, you know, odd laws like that? You can't wear cotton that has polyester in it. If you're going to wear clothes, you got to have tassels on the bottom of your clothes.
If you're going to plant a field, you can plant soy, but you better not plant, uh, you know, remember the, the pilgrims, how they, they planted the corn. And then they also had in the corn, they had, uh, what was at the bottom beans and pumpkins, right? Why would God say you're not supposed to do that?
Cause they're different? Yeah, because it is. Well, they're different. Right. But the point is that Israelites were supposed to be different. And so how they harvested or how they planted their fields and the clothes they wore and how they put their animals together. Right. They were supposed to show that they themselves were different. So this is one of the things we find in the law. Right.
We're reading through the law right now. We in the reformed world, we talk about three different types of laws. We have moral law, like the Ten Commandments. Do not steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery. You know those ones, right? Those are moral laws.
And then you have civil laws, stuff we just read, or sundry laws, miscellaneous. You got to build a banister around your roof. Yeah, right. That was for their society. But then there's also ceremonial laws. And those ceremonial laws were meant to point to something religiously for them. And so as we go through the law, we're trying to figure out, OK, Which of these are ceremonial? Which of these are moral? And which of these are miscellaneous? So we're wrestling through those three different types of laws. And this is one of the places we find that. Because we find general principles.
The Westminster Confession of Faith calls that general equity. You gotta love your neighbor, right? Jesus says, what sums up the two laws? What are the two greatest commandments? Good. You shall love the neighbor as yourself. That's the second greatest commandment. But the first greatest commandment is you shall love the Lord. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Right. And so when we look at it, we're trying to figure out, OK. How do we classify these? Because are you under the law in the same way the Israelites were? No. Who fulfilled all the ceremonial laws? I mean Jesus. Yeah, Jesus did. There's a reason why you're able wear cotton polyester when you go to the gym. Because that ceremonial law was meant to show outwardly that you were set apart. How do you show that you're set apart now? By having the Spirit of the Lord in you. Yeah. And then walking in accordance with that spirit. Right. So my question is.
Why do we read the law at all? Why are we even reading Deuteronomy? Doesn't this seem old hat then? Is it just history just to learn and forget later? Sometimes. It can convict you and. Help you. Yeah, right. Does this law? Is it if the law is used lawfully or what it's used for? It drives us to Jesus, doesn't it?
Because sometimes you perfectly look like you're different from the world. Sometimes you love your neighbor as yourself. You know, sometimes we mess this up, don't we? Sometimes they don't even want to be different. Yeah, sometimes we don't even want to be different. We just want to be like the rest of the world.
But it convicts us. And it shows us our need for Jesus. It also does instruct us how we can live. The general principles of it. But it shows us how good God is. That even though we fail at these things. Does he forsake us? No. Pretty good news, huh? I don't have a best verse for this. There's so many different things in here. Maybe you can underline all of them. What do you think? What are you going to walk away from here with main application or main thought about Christ? What do you think seek calling for you? What is what is it for you? Probably that. The Lord has. set us apart in the Spirit. Okay.
You ready to pray? Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this day. God, we pray that when we're convicted by the law, that it would lead us to Christ as a schoolmaster. Lord, we pray that you would please give us your Spirit, that we would not walk according to the sinful desires of our flesh, Lord, but we would walk before you in holiness. Lord, thank you for this time together. Please let us love you and follow you in Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And may you love your neighbor as yourself. I'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.