Deuteronomy 25:5-10 Bible Study | Episode 937

May 13, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 25:5-10 Bible Study | Episode #937

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 Deuteronomy, chapter 25, verses 5 through 10. It is one of those passages that is when you read it, you really don't understand what's going on.

When you first pass through it,

you really don't have any idea. Oftentimes new people to reading the Bible find these passages very strange and they don't really know what's going on. And that's because there is a deeper meaning in this.

And the deeper meaning is God is laying down the law on which Jesus is going to redeem Israel. And that's about as simple as I can say it to you.

And that law dealt with a figure in the Old Testament called the Goel.

And the Goel is a person who performs two functions for his family or his kinsmen, those who are kin to him.

And the first one is the avenger of blood. And we've seen that in Deuteronomy and we talked about it. The person who, when someone murders a family member goes out and medes out retribution,

they get retributive justice for that.

They kill their brothers or their family members murderer, and they avenge his blood. The second aspect of it is the go well. As the go well is the.

Is the kinsman Redeemer. And so just like he is the avenger of his kinsman's blood, he redeems his kinsman. And redemption is, is. Is to redeem that. That back into the family, back the way it should be.

And,

and so the kinsman Redeemer is providing for the his brother who is dead.

And I want you to think about it. Dead in his trespasses or dead in his sin.

Because death is from sin. Through one man came death, Adam, and then through another, Christ Jesus came life. And so we know that the kinsman redeemer provides for his brother.

This Passage is the passage that makes that happen. It's got a little neat twist to it also, which makes it really, really important as you, as you think through it.

It' one of those passages that I want you to log into the back of your mind. Because when you're studying through scripture,

it's one of those passages that has great meaning for the future. It says if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, so he is a brother, he dies, he has no children.

The widow of the dead man, meaning he's old enough to get married, he's old enough to be married.

He is his own man.

He's outside of the house.

He's available for God's blessing and for his cursings. Okay?

And he's a dead man shall not be married to a stranger. The widow of the dead man. I'm sorry, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family.

Meaning the widow doesn't go out and marry someone else. Her husband's brother shall go into her to take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

And so what's supposed to happen in order for this woman to stay connected to the land, to the promises of God, and that's the key here,

to be able to have God's best, to be able to be a part of the family. Her brother goes in, her brother in law goes into her and he gives her a son.

That's what basically this means. He gives her son, and it shall be the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother. Now he can continue to have her as his wife and they can continue have other children,

but the firstborn son is going to be considered his brother's son and get his brother's inheritance. So there's going to be a redemption of his brother's name. And that redemption of his brother's name is going to pass on to this firstborn child so that his name is not blotted out of Israel.

But if the man does not take, does not want to take his brother's wife,

then let his brother's wife go up to the gate of the elders and say,

my husband's brother refuses to raise up a man,

raise up a name to his brother in Israel. He will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.

So what, what she says is, she goes to the elder and says, he is not worthy. He will not redeem his brother's name. He. He will. He. He won't do what he's.

What is necessary for me to have a son and for his brother to have a son and for his brother's name to continue.

It says, then the elders of the city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her,

then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, so shall it be done to this man who will not build up his brother's house, and his name shall be called in Israel the house of him who had his sandal removed.

Which seems so really, really strange. It seems so really, really kind of weird and strange that this would happen.

But the sandal passing of a sandal is in a covenant contract, in a contract between two people in Israel.

It's the collateral. It's really a collateral like when you sign a contract and when you sign a loan and it's a signature loan, meaning that they're loaning you the money based of, based off of your good name and your credit history.

So it's kind of like your good faith and credit. They're, they're signing that based off of their trusting you to,

to, to give them back their money. Then you sign it off your good name. When you hand somebody your sandal, then that's your good name. And if you hit somebody with your sandal or you, you, you take your sandal off and throw it at them, which we, we kind of understood during the second,

first and second Gulf War and the way people acted towards Saddam Hussein. And then also there was someone who took a sandal and threw it at President Bush.

That's a highly disgraceful thing because it means that you're, you're a law breaker and you're a covenant breaker. You're a person who's not worthy to, to live up to covenants, not worthy to live up to contracts.

It's a shameful thing to happen to you because you have a duty of redemption. Now, what does this mean for the New Testament? Well, the Book of Ruth is about this.

It's about the kinsman Redeemer, the one who redeems for Ruth.

Boaz, redeems for Ruth her husband's name and her husband's land, which ties her back to the land which is a beautiful picture of the church tying, tying,

being tied back to God, being brought back to God. Because she was a Gentile. She was. She was. She had no place in Israel, but she was married in and her brother didn't.

Her husband didn't provide her any children so God. So, so she couldn't be tied to God's promises. And Boaz took her. And if you read the story,

he takes the sandal. When the elders of Israel ask him if he's willing, he takes the sandal and he does the duty of the kinsman redeemer.

On the other side of things, as you look at it, it's a picture of Christ both as Boaz role. But if you think about what Christ does, Christ, we're his brothers, we're his kin and he redeems us.

He redeems us back to him because he is one of us. He is as we are.

He became a man,

the Son of man and the Son of God so that we might be redeemed back to God so that we might be tied back to the promises of God. Now,

the extra little nuanced section of this, the little part of this passage that,

well,

that you kind of miss out on is when Jesus goes up to John the Baptist and says he wants John to baptize him.

And John says,

I'm not worthy to untie your shoe.

Which means I'm not worthy to in any way fulfill any contractual obligation with you.

I am so unworthy.

I can't redeem anyone like you're going to redeem them. Because remember moments before that he'd said, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. What he's saying is to Jesus,

I don't see how I can fulfill a role of baptizing you when I'm not even worthy to enter into any kind of. We're not equals here. There's no way for me to meet the role of a kinsman redeemer, avenger of blood.

There's no way for me to enter into a contract with you in the sense of I can't make the covenant. You have to make the covenant. I can't do it.

I'm not. I'm not worthy of that covenant.

You're going to have to give it to me. You don't have to redeem me. I'm not. I'm not redeemable on my own.

And so when John says that, what he's pointing to is, he's pointing to this passage, he's pointing to the book of Ruth. He's saying to Jesus, you're the kinsman redeemer.

You're the avenger of blood. And that's what the book of the Revelation is about, is about Jesus functioning as the go. Well, primarily as the avenger of blood in judging the world, but secondarily as his role as the kinsman Redeemer, which he's already fulfilled on the cross and through the resurrection.

And so when we think about Jesus as the kinsman Redeemer, and we think about John, what a great statement John made by saying,

I'm not worthy to untie your shoe.

I'm not capable of in any way being a part of this contractual process that you're going to fulfill for everyone, for all human beings, for every son of man there is every child of humanity.

You are going to redeem them all. And I'm unworthy to even be a part of it.

And Jesus said, he didn't. He didn't say he wasn't.

He didn't say, no, John, you're fine.

He said, we do this to fulfill all righteousness. Meaning. And remember, righteousness comes by faith. And faith is hearing God, believing God and acting upon what God's doing. And so Jesus is saying, God has told me to do this.

I've heard him, I trust him and I act upon it. And so my faith makes me righteous.

Now,

Jesus had a righteousness of his own that was. Was not necessary.

But Jesus as the kinsman Redeemer, fulfilled his role as fulfilling the righteousness of us. Which means he lived a sinless life, which means he walked by faith with the Father, which means he was the first, the second Adam.

He was the fulfillment of God's promises that there would be a man to come,

the son of the seed of woman, and he would destroy the work of the enemy and he would bring about the redemption of the world. And that's what this passage is about.

It's laying the framework for those understandings which would ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. What a good Bible study for Friday morning.

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.