Deuteronomy 24:17-22 Bible Study | Episode 935

May 9, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 24:17-22  Bible Study | Episode #935

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.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

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 Deuteronomy, chapter 24. Deuteronomy, chapter 24. And, and we're dealing with. Really, it's three paragraphs. It's really a neat.

Well, it's actually two paragraphs, but. But I guess it's three now that I look at it. Three paragraphs. One of the paragraphs, just a sentence, but the first one deals with.

With just a law. Just, just, just the way things should be. It's just, it is, it is just a natural law, the way, the way the system ought to work.

Now you would go, well, nobody does that. That was the first, the first sentence is something that was a problem, really, really was a problem in that. In that we were attributing humanity was attributing to fathers and children the sin of their.

Well, their father or child. And so it was wrong.

It was weird. The next two paragra deal with how to deal with people who are weak. And it reminds me of my father's favorite song, Blessed Psalm. Blessed is he who has regard for the weak.

And it goes through a deep, detailed dive into who the weak are and the weak really are. Anybody who is less in some way than you at the time. And so the first,

the first,

I guess sentence says, fathers shall not be put to death for their children,

nor shall children be put to death for their fathers.

A person shall be put to death for his own sin. Now that makes perfect sense to us today. But back then it would have been a huge change in the way people saw things.

You would not see things that way back then. They would have said, we're going to wipe everybody out in that family because that person and did that. In fact, we see that happening with, with the, the sons of Abraham.

I mean,

the sons of Israel. They, they kill a bunch of. Well, they kill a bunch of People in a village because their sister was what she was violated by the, by a few men in that village.

And so they go in and kill everybody. They wipe the whole town out. And God holds it against Reuben for sure.

And so the idea of retribution being given to the whole family for the sin of one person was pretty common back then. It's not today. And the reason it's not today is because Deuteronomy 24:16 says not to be that way.

And so our whole Western cultural, our whole Western legal system is built off the Scriptures. And that's just one of those things that is just common. The Jewish people did not live by that retribution for the whole family principle.

After this,

it became a part of, you know, Roman and Greek culture because of, because of the Bible, because of Christ, because of the word of God.

And it's not a problem anymore. Now the next two verses are really, really hallmarks of what it is to be a believer in practice and what it is to be a person of, of righteousness and justice.

A person who does what is in the best interest of those who are weak. And I said,

my father's favorite psalm is Blessed is he who has regard for the weak.

And so we need a definition of the weak. And it's not our modern culture's definition of the oppressed.

It is the idea that there are always going to be people weaker than you in some area. They may not be as smart as you, they may not be as wealthy as you.

They may not be as old as you. They may not be as, as attractive as you are. They may not be, they may not have the background or the insight.

They may not have the education that you do. They may, they may be in some ways weaker than you in something. They may not have a ski. They may not have a skill set that you do.

Some, somebody that doesn' have an ability to do something that you're really, really good at. And if, if they are weaker in that area, the Bible says blessed is he who has regard for them.

Meaning you don't put yourself above them. You don't place yourself in a, in a more important position them just because they're weaker than you for that. In fact, you're supposed to regard them.

You're, you're supposed to consider that, that they have,

that they have an issue in that area or they're just not as, as, as high up in that category as you are. And if you have regard for them, which is, goes back to that whole idea of self awareness, how you, how you affect Others, if you have regard for those who are lesser than you,

well, you're going to, you're going to. You're going to be a person of righteousness as far as God's concerned. You're going to be a person that,

that God is going to pour into because you pour into others. It says in verse 17, you shall not pervert justice due to the stranger, the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment as a pledge.

What he's saying is, don't take advantage of people who find themselves in a weaker position, the stranger, meaning somebody that's not from Israel. So I'm not going to pervert justice just because they're a stranger.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to treat them different than I would treat anybody else. I or the fatherless. I meaning, you know, those who have been orphaned, those who do not have a father, don't treat them less because they're not in a high high, because they societally likely are in a lesser position because,

you know, they're, they're fatherless. They don't. They don't have a father to help promote them in the world, nor take a widow's garment as pledged. Now, don't take, don't take clothes from a widow who needs them to stay warm.

You're just not going to do that. You're not going to take advantage of people who have no methodology by which to take care of themselves. Don't take advantage of it.

But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there. Therefore, I command you to do this thing, meaning don't take advantage of them, don't have regard for them.

And New Testament teaches us that true religion.

If you're going to be religious, by the way, we're not into being religious. We're into the relationship we have with Christ. But if you're going to say what religion is, it's.

It's not the pomp and circumstance of worship. It's not, it's not. Doesn't have anything to do with promoting yourself as someone who is holy or righteous. True religion is take care of the widow and the orphan.

That's true religion. If you're going to be religious, if you're going to say I'm going to be religious, will you take care of those who are weak, who were the widow, the orphan?

He says, when you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, meaning you forget, you leave some behind you shall not go back and get shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, for the widow.

For the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again, meaning once you've done your harvesting, you don't go back and pick the last little ones.

It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. What he's saying is it's going to be for those people are weak.

In Deuteronomy, they're identified as the people that are not from there. The people who do not have parents, especially a father. And for those widows who have lost their spouse, you don't do that to them.

You leave in the field something for them to glean. And that's really one of the. That's the setting of the Book of Ruth, is the field of Boaz,

where they're leaving food in the field. Once they pass and harvest what they harvest, they can't go back and double harvest. They leave it in the field. And that's where Ruth is found by Boaz to be faithful, to be a woman who is taking care of her mother.

Both of them being widows,

Ruth being a stranger.

And God uses Boaz as a picture of Jesus, and he redeems her back. And so this passage has great significance,

not only for how we should treat other people, but it has great biblical significance. It says, when you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the bowels again.

It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterwards, meaning you don't go back over it.

It shall be for the stranger, the followers, and for the widow. And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. That's the whole point is, is you're supposed to remember what happened to you, who you were in the past, how you.

How you. How you were less and not as strong, weak and not, Not. Not someone of. Of great, great importance that you were. That you were a slave in Egypt, but God has delivered you from that slavery.

You're no longer bound to the world. You're no longer bound to sin. But you've been delivered, and you need to act like it. And that's what he's saying here. Act like you are who you are.

And if you act like you are who you are, you're honoring God because you're honoring the one who made you who you are. And so as we study through this,

it really is a fun passage. You know, oftentimes I hear people say Deuteronomy is. It's just so boring. Well, it's really not boring if you really start thinking about it.

It's character building.

First of all, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna attribute the ills of a person to their children or to their parents. I'm gonna hold them accountable, accountable for who they are.

And I'm gonna let their parents or their children live their life and, and go their way and make their own way. And then finally I'm gonna. I'm gonna take care of those who are weaker than me and those who.

Who have less than me in some way. And if they have less than me I'm going to be someone who has regard for them.

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.