Deuteronomy 24:5-8 Bible Study | Episode 933

May 7, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 24:5-8 Bible Study | Episode #933

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in the Deuteronomy chapter 24. We're dealing verses five through eight. And like normal, this is one of those passages where.

This is one of those passages where God just gives a whole lot of, you know, really common sense instruction. This common sense law. It's. It's. It's law. It's. It's Deuteronomy.

It's the Deuteronomic code. It. It is called the law. But. But these things make a lot of sense, and some of them actually will. Most of them speak to our society in a very particular way in the times we live in.

And in many ways, they challenge me in some of the things that I grew up with. And, you know, as time goes on, as we get older, we. We oftentimes hear about things and we go, that's crazy.

You know, we're like the old man on the porch, you know, get out of my yard. You know, we. That's. That's kind of how we are when we're older, I realize that I feel it inside of me.

My reaction to certain things is, is. Is oftentimes can be somewhat harsh. But. But the truth is, when I think about them and I consider them, I go, well, why did I think that way?

Why did I believe that way? Well, oftentimes it's just a cultural thing that I grew up with,

and it was how, you know, this is how I was raised. And, and that might be good. And as I considered, I might go, you know, well, that. That worked.

That was really. That was really something of value. And sometimes I think about it and I go, well, you know,

my. My thoughts on that just have to do with my history with my traditions, and, And I can't really come up with a good reason why that should be that way rather than be changed.

In fact, maybe the Change is better. And actually, reading through some of these laws, I realized that some of my traditions and some of the things that I've thought in my mind about how things ought to be may not be exactly right.

In fact, they may be directly wrong. They might not even be good. How I see the world,

well, is out of whack. It's out of. It's not. It's not in the right direction. And so as I'm reading this, let's just think about it. Let's open our minds up and go, okay,

does this fit in how I see the world? Does this fit how I see things?

It says, when a man's taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business.

He shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he's taken. Now,

that means that he's not going to really work or ever go to war in the first year.

Well, that,

that. That don't seem right. I think men ought to work. I mean, we ought to get up and work and work and work and work, right? That's the tradition we grew up with.

I mean, that's who we are. But now that if I step back and look at this, God's saying, all right, man's going to take a new wife. Well, what's the most important relationships in the world?

What's the most important institution that God made it? Made? Well, it's the family. And if the family is. Is the most important,

who's the person who is less likely to invest in that institution at the level of the other one? Well, it's the husband. Why? Well, because he's not naturally inclined toward the family.

I mean, I just be honest with you. In fact, the Bible says a man shall leave his father and mother. Why? Because. Because he's not naturally inclined to his family.

He's going to. He's going to cling to his. His wife. He's going to grab hold of his wife. And,

and, and we know that men, you know, men don't understand, don't innately. They don't have instinctual ideas about certain things in the family. And so what God. God's saying is, I need to teach men how to be family men.

I need to teach them how to do that. And so, you know, we're not going to send him off to war. We're not going to separate him. We're not going to send him to business.

We don't let him be free at home for a year and bring happiness to his wife that he's taken. And what does that happiness be? Well, you know, we have connotations that we bring to this, but I actually think it does have to do with.

With having a family, have, Bringing. Having. Having a baby, having babies. And, you know, God's heavily into that. He's big into having godly children, children that are raised by godly parents who, who pass on the hope and the life that God has given us to the world.

And so it's important that we have those things, and they are real important. And you go, well, how does this speak to our modern culture? Well, recently there's, you know, we've always had maternity leave.

And it used to be only two weeks. Two weeks, really? And now it's gone to 4 and 6 12. And I think that's great for maternity leave. But then we've added something that just kind of rubs me a little raw as the old man on the porch.

We got paternity leave, meaning men taking off to. To. To build a relationship with their babies.

What are you talking about? They got to go to work. They can't be having feelings.

Well, that's.

As I consider that. That ain't right.

That's not right.

I want fathers to build relationships with their children.

And those first few months and those first few years are very important.

Child's personality and the child's life is set really in those first three, four years of their life. And so a father having a really close relationship with his children when they're young, he'll have the biggest impact on those children.

And so maybe we should have some paternity leave.

Maybe we should have fathers building that real emotional connection, that physical connection with that child, holding that child, hugging that child, talking to that child, that child hearing that father's voice might be real, real important the first few weeks for first month or so.

And you know what? We probably ought to do that. And now that I think about it as, as I get up off the porch and go out there into the world and go, okay, is what it.

Where does this come from as far as God's perspective? I realize, you know, God's kind of gets me on this.

And so I might ought to change my mind.

And I think I have while I've sat here.

No man shall take the lower of the upper millstone and pledge, for he takes one's living in pledge, meaning he takes one's very livelihood in pledge. The upper millstone millstones were used to crush wheat.

They were grind wheat and fly all the, all the things that are necessary to process the food that.

That people needed to live. You know, the food they grew, they needed to process it so that they could eat it and live well. Millstones were used for that. The upper millstone would have dealt with.

With the weed up in the. Up at the top of the hill. The lower millstones would have dealt with the heavier vegetables and things like that in the lower area.

If they need to crush anything, if they need to use that to grind stuff. He said you don't take a millstone as a pledge, even though it was a very valuable part of a farm, even though it's really maybe one of the most valuable parts of a farm back then.

You don't take a millstone and pledge. Why? Because, you know, that's the person's livelihood. Don't take their livelihood as pledge. If he's. If he's, you know, you go, well, what's a modern equivalent?

Well, if you've got a guy who's a plumber or carpenter, you don't take his tools as pledge. You don't take his truck as a pledge. What do you take? Well, other things that he has a value, but don't take that.

Why? Because if I take his tools, he can't do his job.

That's. That's not. That's not something I need to do. As far as his life is concerned. I don't need to take those things as pledge. If a man's found kidnapping any of his brethren of his children of Israel and mistreats or sells him,

then that kidnapper shall die and you shall put away the evil from among you. Well, I mean, this is the easy one. The other two. The other two. The first one was a little bit difficult to kind of come off the porch and figure it out.

Second one, okay, makes sense. You know, maybe I've done that before. Maybe I've. Maybe I've taken something as a pledge, meaning that it's collateral and alone. And maybe I shouldn't have done that.

I hadn't done it personally, but maybe somebody out there has and they need to realize. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. This one is just straightforward. If anybody kidnaps somebody and mistreats them and.

And sells them or does something like that, kill them,

I'm good with that. I don't. I can stay on my porch and be very happy with that.

We can't have that going on in our society. Destroys society. Can't have it. Very good with it. Makes sense, doesn't it? Some things are. Some things are really Straightforward. And God says, do this.

And you go, yeah, we need to do that something. You go, hmm,

does that really. Does that really mean that for me? And then as you think about it, it changes you. And that's what I love about God's word. It confirms the things that God's already placed in my heart, and it changes the things that God.

God really needs to change. Verse 8. Take heed in an outbreak of a lep. Of leprosy that you carefully observe and do according to all that the priest, the Levite shall teach you, just as I commanded them so you shall be careful to do.

Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt. And he's reminding them about Miriam. God gave Miriam leprosy because her and Aaron were murmuring against Moses because he took a kushite wife, he took a black wife, and they were murmuring against that.

And he says, remember that? And what he's saying is, take heed in an outbreak, do what you need to do to make sure you cut off the outbreak. And that's pretty relevant for today.

I think that's real relevant for today. And in fact, when. When. When Covid broke out, you know, we were asked to. To not meet in a building for a few weeks or a month.

I can't remember. It may have been two months, but. But I think it was really more like four or five weeks. Governor Ivey asked us to do it, and that's what we did.

We met outside. We. We put people, separated people. It was a. It was a prudent thing to do. It was a prudent thing to do. And,

and, you know, if it had been done better in some places,

like New York, maybe some elderly people wouldn't have died. But they, they, they. These things,

they're. They're pretty common sense. Now, some of the other stuff that went along with it. No, no, not at all.

And some of the things that we now know to be true were not right. But,

you know, in an outbreak, you got to be prudent and you got to do some separating and you got to fix that. And we did probably half good and half bad, if you want to be just real honest about it.

Not political, just real honest about it. We did some really good stuff, and we did some really stupid stuff because we got all up into our politics,

and we probably shouldn't have done some of those. Those things, and we probably should have done some of the things we did well, better.

But, you know, in an outbreak, it's important to do the right thing. And so that seems reasonable too, doesn't it? And when I read this, when I read this God saying it, it's almost like he's, he's kind of coming into our time and telling us the same thing.

Have things really changed in 3500 years all that much? Well, not really. You know,

fathers need to be fathers of children.

Don't take anything from a person that's going to really destroy their life because they owe you money.

Kill the kidnappers and you know, if we have an outbreak,

probably ought to do some separate, you know,

probably ought to make sure that we don't pass it along to everybody.

Makes, makes really good sense.

As you.

Go today, I pray that the Lord.

Will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.