Martyn Lawrence - Paradox of Liberty - Class 3 - You Are Not Your Own

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   All right, our first speaker this morning is Brother Martin Lawrence from the Cleck Keaton UK Ecclesia. The theme for Brother Martin’s classes this week is Paradox of Liberty. Today’s class is entitled You Are Not Your Own. For the Martin, the narrative of liberty, brothers and sisters, is just rolling on. We’ve seen those early principles about how God’s guardrails are, are therefore our benefit.

2. 0:26

   But it’s based on a on a freedom, on a liberty that he gives his creation that is broad and wide and generous. And we added two more principles. To that list. Yesterday morning #1 or #6 is it is on that list that service to no one is not an option. And the final one that freedom is, is doing what you were called to do. And we made that surprising, I think, revelation that there at the the end of the book of Genesis, it’s not that the Israelites are working and the Egyptians are free, but it’s the other way around.

3. 0:58

   And suddenly when the new Pharaoh turns up with his revised immigration policy, everything turns on its head. And that’s begin. That kick starts the process that that moves us into the actual Exodus itself. This is our, this is our agenda for the day. If you can make out the numbers on the slides, we’re in #3 of course. And we’re thinking this morning about what it looks like. When the nation of Israel have been formed or are being formed, and how exactly things will work in that way. We finished, if you remember yesterday, brothers and sisters, right at the end of the morning with a mention of Paul’s words in Second Corinthians.

4. 1:34

   Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And of all the New Testament writers, it seems that Paul is. The one who captures this idea of the exodus more than anybody else. Israel, he says, are under hard bondage in Egypt. They have escaped on Passover night. They have been baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea as dawn has broken, the Egyptians have been swept away. God has led his people on eagle’s wings and brought them under himself at Mount Sinai.

5. 2:06

   And then when they come to the mountain and the laws begin to be given, the very first law of 600 plus laws in the Torah is about a slave who doesn’t want to go free.

6. 2:20

   So how does that work and what are we to make of that based on everything that we’ve done in the first two sessions? How on earth does it make sense that when we finally get them, as it were, liberated, we seem as if things are not quite what they should be? Exodus chapter 21, please.

7. 2:35

   We are going to spend our morning session. In an intriguing chapter, Exodus chapter 21, and just for context, just to make sure we’re all on the same pace they have, they have come out of Egypt. Chapter 19 is when they’ve come to Mount Sinai. There has been Thunder and fire and lightning and smoke. The 10 commandments are given in Exodus chapter 20 and then chapters 21 and 22 and 23 are the. First tranche of laws that God gives to his new nation and if they ever look confusing try to anchor them back in the 10 commandments all of chapters 21 and two and three are LinkedIn some way to the 10 commandments.

8. 3:20

   So if we’re reading something that looks a bit odd, looks a little bit tricky to understand, that’s because everything is coming from chapter 20. And, and interestingly, when we come to the end of those those those laws and we drop into chapter 24 very briefly, there is a mention in verse 7 of Exodus 24 of the book of the Covenant, which.

9. 3:40

   Well, there are various different views on what that might be. But, but, but my, my, my, my idea is that it’s, it’s the chapters from 21 to 23. That’s the section that Moses is reading out to the people and they are being given these, these early commandments. Now here’s the interesting thing. You and I often overlook the fact that Israel had never been a nation before. How do you?

10. 4:04

    Form a nation from scratch, I would say, well, you get a Declaration of Independence, but you know, we’re not going to go back there a couple of days. But 70 people went into Egypt and there they multiplied. And suddenly we’ve got to build a nation and a society from nothing. And there is nobody in their midst, probably other than Moses, who can organize a society and the way of life.

11. 4:26

    There is no legal framework. There is no employment system. There’s no financial arrangements. There’s no institutional memory. There’s no well, what do we do last time so it will steer us this time. And you and I know these events so well that we almost forget what it’s like to see a nation being formed from nothing.

12. 4:48

    And as Israel have been living under total injustice, God by his mercy is going to teach them how to live. He’s going to teach them what justice looks like. How do we avoid falling into the very same traps? That the Egyptians fall into, that started this whole problem in the 1st place. And if you’re in chapter 21, you just cast your eye down it. There’s a whole bunch of clauses there which we’ll get into in a moment, but lots of them start with if. Or when or when it comes to pass or if it happens to be. And I just want to make sure that we understand that this is not a utopia which is being described. God is not describing perfection in these chapters. There is almost an expectation that stuff will go wrong because people are people and therefore these laws are being laid down for the hardness of their hearts to catch the phrase that the Lord uses in the New Testament, God is is looking ahead and in his grace, limiting the consequences of what might go wrong.

13. 5:46

    And I just made that point before we get into this chapter because I think it’s quite important. These are not ideals for humanity. These laws are are going to work as a net to protect the vulnerable. And to to. Care for the oppressed against human sin. Why does that matter? Well, because you know what it was like in Egypt. And that will be the the refrain that comes time after time after time.

14. 6:09

    And that, I think, is why slavery or servanthood, as we’ll see it’s better translated in a minute, is the first thing that’s regulated. Don’t treat people like you were treated in Egypt, which I suppose is why I’ve said 21, but actually 22 And verse 21 is quite important, isn’t it? Chapter 22, verse 21. You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him because you were strangers in Egypt.

15. 6:34

    In other words, there’s the. Anchor there’s the point that make sure you don’t miss it. This is what God is trying to help us to understand. He’s asking his people to be trained in wisdom, and one part of biblical wisdom is being able to understand that sometimes God’s Word does not always apply in a very specific situation, or maybe I need to say that slightly differently. Sometimes we can’t find the exact words to deal with our circumstances and that God has been laying down principles that we need to exercise our wisdom to understand. And that’s what a lot of chapter 21 is about. Genesis has set the scene already here. We have already seen people working for somebody else throughout the book of Genesis.

16. 7:15

    They’ve worked as herdsmen and domestic servants. We’ve seen that certain people can inherit. You remember Eliezer of Damascus was going to inherit from Abraham if he’d not had children. There’s an interesting marker laid down that that servants can go free. Servants in the book of Genesis are trusted, that they’re allowed to travel with valuables and weapons. Their weapons were not handed out on plantations in the South, but in Genesis there they are.

17. 7:45

    They’re entitled to make marriage negotiations, and there is no approved selling of people, which when we come into Exodus 21, is quite important. Now, Abraham in chapter 17 of Genesis does acquire people in exchange for money, which might make you feel a little uncomfortable, but would make you a pretty good case that living in Abraham’s household was a good place to be and that you were not likely to find yourself oppressed there, and that you would be taught good things about God when you were there.

18. 8:14

    So although he does acquire people for money, I think there is a good, a good precedent for what’s happening there. Now it’s Wednesday. So as I say, we’re halfway through the week. We’re in that middle of the week dip where nobody’s quite sure what their name is or where they live. And, and we’re going to do a Hebrew lesson. Oh, we’re not really, we’re going to learn one Hebrew word and it’s only got 4 letters long. It’s only got 4 letters.

19. 8:38

    So we should be able to just about keep track of it. It’s the Hebrew word evid. And it means somebody who works for somebody else. Hebrew would evid. I’m going to come across it a whole series of times. If you have well, if you have an older translation, the chances are that your your title for Exodus 21 if you have one.

20. 8:58

    Talks about laws for servants. If you have a modern version, I probably, let’s let’s say 1 published after about 1960. It probably says laws about slavery, but just put your hand up. If you’ve got one that’s published before 1960, let’s. Let’s work out what’s in the room. They’ll be shy. There are no cameras. Not many, anyway.

21. 9:20

    Most of us. What about after 1960? OK, so we’ve got both. That’s useful. It just helps me work out what we’re actually likely to have here. OK. That Hebrew word evid is translated as the English word slave or slavery only once in the AV Interestingly, it’s translated 130 times as slave or slavery in the New International Version. Can you see this?

22. 9:42

    Yes, you can. 47 times in the New American Standards. 166 times in the New Revised Standard. Only once in the American Standard version of 19 O1. Three times in the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917 edition. 135 times in the 1985 edition. In other words, depending on the translation you’ve got, you might see the word servanthood a lot, or you might see the word slave a lot. And that’s going to have an interesting impact on what we do now.

23. 10:08

    You know, interesting perhaps to see those bubbles on the screen. If I just group them together it makes a bit more sense the versions published earlier on. And this is not in praise of old versions, but just want to make the point because it’s an important one. If you have an older version, you will very rarely come across an English word translated as slave in the Old Testament. Everett is almost inevitably translated as servanthood. If you’ve got a version published after about 1960, maybe just before, there are 10s dozens if not hundreds of occasions where the Hebrew word evad is translated as the English word slave or slavery.

24. 10:50

    And that’s not just true in English. If you were to take the German Luther Bible of 1912, there are no occurrences where the Hebrew word evad is translated as the German word sklave or sklavin. Same true for the Spanish Rhino Valera version of 19/09. There are four places, and only four where the Hebrew word ebbed is translated as the Spanish word esclavo or esclava. Apologies for my pronunciation for those who are better at Spanish than me.

25. 11:18

    But if you move forward in time, the Revised Luther Bible of 1984 has got 70 places where the Hebrew word ebbed is translated as the equivalent of slave or slavery. And the Elbafelda version of 1993, which is not a great translation, has got 161 places where the Hebrew word avid is translated as slave. Same pattern in the Spanish as well. The updated reign of Alera version of 1960s got 25 places and the 1995 editions got 65 occurrences. Same pattern occurs in French, same in Dutch, same in Finnish, same in Afrikaans.

26. 12:01

    The only one that I’ve come across that is different is the Russian Bible. I have a theory as to why that might be, but we are not going down that robot hole in this session, so we’ll have a conversation about it afterwards. So why am I telling you that? Why does that matter other than pretty pictures on the screen?

27. 12:16

    Well, again, if we just group that stuff together and draw a line down the middle, we get an interesting idea. Because all of the versions published prior to, let’s say, the end of World War One, almost inevitably translate the Hebrew word avid as the English word servant. When we get to after 1950, that word is almost inevitably being translated as servant, as slave or slavery.

28. 12:45

    Now, what happens between about 1920 and about 1950 or 1960? There are a whole bunch of social changes that are going on in our world. You’ve got the end of European empires. You’ve got decolonization. You’ve got the decline of the class system, particularly in the UK, and you’ve got the rise of the civil rights movement over here. And those social changes are being reflected in the words that are being used to translate our scriptures. In other words, by the 1970s in particular and afterwards we are seeing servant and we are thinking slave because our word servant has shifted and now the word servant just means non slave.

29. 13:29

    If you are really hard up for sleep and you look in a 19th century Hebrew dictionary you will see that the first definition of the Hebrew word evad is servant and only the second or the third is slave. If you look in a modern Hebrew dictionary, the first definition of evad is slave and only the second or the third is servanthood.

30. 13:52

    Everything has completely flipped upside down and the ABS only got 1. And actually it’s not really one because it’s in Jeremiah 2. And it doesn’t even translate the word Evert. It just fills a gap where the English needs a noun to make sense, but it influences the way that we read. And I’m not suggesting that you should check your newer version out and get an older version just for this, But I just want to make sure that what we’re reading is conditioned in some way by what we’ve got around us.

31. 14:18

    Because you and I, brothers and sisters, use the word slave as opposite for free. But Scripture doesn’t do that. But if you are reading a version on the the right hand side of that screen, the chances are that you are coming to Exodus 21 with this particular image, consciously or unconsciously somewhere in your mind. And Exodus 21 is not giving us that picture. It’s almost impossible to read that if you are consistently reading the word slavery and particularly some of the things going on in Exodus 21 without thinking of Greek or Roman or North Atlantic shuttle slave systems. And Exodus 21 is not that.

32. 14:58

    It’s describing voluntary contractual employment with an end date. And we will see what that means as we get into the text in just a minute. Just it’s not describing easy work. If you’ve cast your eye down Exodus 21 already, you will, you will know this. It’s not describing easy work, but it’s not quote the slave system.

33. 15:18

    End Quote, as we sometimes think that it might be right. That was a very long preamble. Exodus 21 and, and, and here we are. These are the judgements which you will set before them. If you buy a Hebrew servant 6 years he will serve, and in the seventh he will go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife or her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself.

34. 15:55

    If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free. Then his master will bring him to the judges, and bring him to the door of the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he will serve him forever.

35. 16:12

    What you notice here? Which we did not see when we were in exit at the early Exodus chapters yesterday. Is the freedom to opt in or opt out? This is 1. Remember we said that was one of the fundamental problems that they had when new Pharaoh turned up with his different immigration policy yesterday.

36. 16:27

    That was the lack of opt out. You were unable to be freed from that hard bondage which was in Egypt, exactly the same in Greece, exactly the same in Rome, exactly the same on the southern plantations. Opt out did not exist, same as it is in some of the modern concentration camps in other parts of the world today. And it again, just pushes us into an area of some some some deeper doctrinal thinking, doesn’t it? That without agency, free will does not exist. But this is this is a situation where opt out is there those early verses in chapter 21.

37. 16:59

    It’s time limited to serve and you can go out free in year 7 verses 3 and 4. If you came in by yourself, well then your family stay behind until year 7 until the release. So they would own a maximum of six years of employment. Now what are these verses saying and what are they not saying?

38. 17:22

    They are not sanctioning separation of families, they are saying. That or they’re not saying it, but they’re implying it, that the man who goes out free in verses 1-2 and three can stay locally if he chooses and and still be with his wife and his children. It’s not as if he gets to clear off.

39. 17:40

    And leave them behind. It simply means he is no longer under the employment of those early verses, time limited indentured service with an opt out and an end date. And if you choose to stay through your free will, through your decision, your willingness to, to, to serve that master, then he will honor your decision and, and, and you will stay with him. What’s the scenario that’s being painted there? Because we struggle to get back into it from from this distance. I think it’s a subsistence economy. There is no economic surplus, so how are you going to feed your family?

40. 18:16

    Where you pledge your future work to an employer in return for a meal today. What happens if in the future somebody falls into poverty? What happens if the crops fail? What happens if the animals die? What happens if they get sick long term and cannot? Work well, then they can contract with an employer and they can receive housing and food and clothing and protection, which we’ll come to in just a second and pay in return for the work that they are going to do. Remember that example from Genesis 47 yesterday? When the Egyptians do this year by year, first it’s corn for cash and then it’s corn for animals, and then it’s corn for themselves.

41. 18:57

    And the same principles are running through here. God is providing a safety net to prevent certain people from becoming destitute. But I say again, it’s voluntary contractual employment with an end date, not suggesting. It’s straightforward or simple or easy, but that’s the process that we are going through. I just want to make the point as well. I think it’s important that we understand that God is not reducing people to property.

42. 19:20

    And in fact, the laws about about serving, about servanthood sit separately in the Law of Moses from the laws about property, as if we are to take the hint that people are not property because they’re being treated separately. The law is humanizing people by by limiting unnecessary suffering and managing the vengeance that is inevitably going to come when stuff goes wrong.

43. 19:44

    And we will see a little bit of that in just a moment. Which is why if you’re in chapter 21, just glance down to verse 16. You are not allowed to traffic people. He that steals a man and sells him, or if he’d be found in his hand, he will surely be put to death. Human trafficking is a capital crime. The apostle Paul will pick that up later in his letters. And but he talks about things that are contrary to sound doctrine and and that slightly awkward phrase, men’s Steelers is one of the things which he lists. And he’s talking about this.

44. 20:18

    He’s saying people who traffic others will will meet the consequences. And Paul had had direct experience of that when he went to Philippi. And but he met the slave girl, the one with the spirit of Python, when he could make a snake talk, which is an interesting picture in itself. So he knew exactly what it was like to come into contact with somebody who was like that.

45. 20:39

    Exodus 21 is saying you cannot exploit those in service for money. And it just throws some light on what Pharaoh was thinking, wasn’t it? Doesn’t it rather when when when you think back to the the dialogues that Pharaoh has with with Moses and and with Aaron earlier on, you remember after? Is it the 7th or the 8th plague when Pharaoh grants Moses and Aaron permission to leave?

46. 21:00

    But he wants to know who’s going, and he encourages the men to go out and and the women and the children and the animals to stay behind. And Moses and Aaron say, no, if we’re going, we’re all going together. And it’s an anticipation of these verses. Here this idea that that keeping families together is absolutely fundamental and and these verses, as I say, just provide a little bit of background for that.

47. 21:24

    So if the servant says he loves his master, his wife and his children and will not go out free, then he is bored through his ear is bored through with an awl. And he commits to serve his master forever. Only place incidentally, where external marking is allowed, right? You could do it in Egypt, you could brand your servant and you would do it in Babylon because.

48. 21:44

    They’d wear a tablet around their necks or around their ankles. Certainly did it in later centuries as well. But this is the only place in Scripture where external marking is, as it were sanctified. And there are more significant echoes there which which you may well be aware of and which we will return to later in the week. So verses one to six in Exodus 21, it tells us about unmarried men.

49. 22:09

    If he comes in by himself, it tells us about married men and it tells us about married women, unmarried men, married men, married women. What about unmarried women? What about those who who in that society certainly are the most vulnerable, the most, as it were, in need of some kind of a protection? We’ll come down to verse 7.

50. 22:36

    If a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, that’s going to make a stand up. The teens are getting this in an hour’s time. This is the verse. That’s going to make them run around in circles, I think. If a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, he shall not go out as the men’s servants do. If she please, not her Master who’s betrothed him to herself, then he shall let her be redeemed to sell her to a strange nation.

51. 22:56

    He shall have no power because he’s dealt deceitfully with her. And if he’s betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If you take another wife, her food and her clothing and her duty of marriage, he shall not diminish. And if he doesn’t do these three unto her, then she goes out free without money.

52. 23:15

    Why can’t she go out like the man in verse 2? Doesn’t this therefore reduce women to property? So the the Internet echo will ask, you will know because it’s for her protection that the man who is her employer in verse 7 can’t transfer her service to another nation. He can’t treat her as a servant if she becomes his daughter-in-law, and he can’t treat her as second class if she remarries. And only after those 3 clauses are exhausted does she get to go out free.

53. 23:50

    And I just wonder whether there is a picture there of the ecclesial bride, there is something bigger happening under the surface in those verses that we might want to get hold of as well. So what are these laws doing? They are, they are protecting the vulnerable. They are safeguarding unmarried women that the most at risk in a society like this. Verse 22 has got that as well.

54. 24:12

    And we’ll come there in just a moment. It’s ensuring that those at the bottom of the social structure are not mistreated, and it’s teaching wisdom to those in power, which I think in our day and age we could do with a bit more of personally, but there we are. But it’s teaching it there as well.

55. 24:31

    Have a look at the social circumstances which God paints for His people here. If you were a servant under the law of Moses, you’ve got holidays, or at least you’ve got days of rest. You’ve got food. There were a whole series of legal protections and redresses that you could fall back upon, and you had sexual protection.

56. 24:58

    Those did not exist in Rome. Those did not exist in the New World slave systems. By contrast, the Law of Moses did not allow you to be kidnapped. It did not allow you to be chained up, it did not allow torture, and it did not allow physical abuse. And Rome and the New World allowed all of those.

57. 25:12

    This is a radical way of looking at things. This is God’s way of protecting his people. Come down to verse 21. If a man smites his servants or his maid with a rod, and he’d die under his hand, he will surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished for he is his money.

58. 25:41

    It’s another one of those phrases that just makes us sit a little uncomfortably in our chairs, isn’t it? Because it, it makes us feel like people are being treated as cash, makes us feel that that the the employer can beat his slave because he owns him. Well, is that what that’s saying? No, no it isn’t.

59. 25:58

    We’re going to look at the context to understand why it’s not. But again, it’s a verse that just needs a little bit of unpeeling so that we can understand what’s going on. Just go back to verse 19, verse 18. Verse 18 and 19 says that if there’s a fight. And the one who who comes off worst can still walk. If he rise again and walks on his staff, well, then you have to pay him for the loss of his time. You have to cover his wages.

60. 26:22

    You have to make sure there is some kind of balance and ensure that he’s healed. But that’s between equals, IE if, if, whether Tom and I, whether Frank and I rather have something to do and one of us comes off worse and it’ll probably be me then then he gets to pay my wages until I’m better. But that’s between equals.

61. 26:41

    What about an unequal relationship? What about something where somebody who is more vulnerable is mistreated? What about a master and a servant instead? Well, again, look on the other side of those tricky verses. Come down to verse 26. If a man smite the eye of his servant or the eye of his maid that it that it perishes, then he should let him go free for his eyes sake. And if he knocks out his manservant’s tooth or his maidservant’s tooth, he should let him go free for his tooth’s sake.

62. 27:10

    So if there’s a fight between equals, you balance out the wages and make sure somebody’s not disadvantaged. If there is a fight and there is a physical damage, well then you actually get to go free because of the loss of your limb or your tooth. It’s pretty unpleasant. I’m not advocating this over in the lunch.

63. 27:24

    Queue. But we’re remember, this is not the utopia that we wanted it to be. This is God managing the hardness of people’s hearts and laying down some kind of redress in case something goes wrong. And these therefore are the boundaries for that tricky verse in verse 21 where we’re talking about is this man his money?

64. 27:43

    Because if knocking out a tooth means that you get to go free, then verses 20 and 21 are clearly not giving employers license to abuse their servants. What the law is doing, brothers and sisters, is not, is not advocating beating. It’s ensuring liability when a case comes before the judges. If due to the hardness of your hearts, if due to your sin, if due to the fact that you are mortal and this is a fallen world and freedom has changed from what God originally set it up to be, well then God will create a legal framework to ensure fairness. God will ensure that those who are disadvantaged are made right as best as is possible in this life. Doesn’t mean that your your limb or your eye or your tooth gets magically returned.

65. 28:32

    There is not a mystical healing process here, but but you are made right in some other way and the. Spirit of the law is picked up by the Lord, who of course realizes that this is about humanizing people by limiting unnecessary suffering, by limiting unnecessary vengeance because these verses down here, of course.

66. 28:52

    In. In verses well 24 and 25, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and a hand for a hand. This is the first time we come across. This I think. And the law will, will, will capture this, won’t he? And we, we look at these verses and we sometimes get told that, well, this means that if you knock somebody’s tooth out, you get to knock somebody else’s tooth out by comparison, because that’s the trade off, right?

67. 29:15

    Or if somebody takes your eye, then you get to go and take theirs because that’s what the law is sanctioning. Only it isn’t. That’s not what the law is suggesting at all. What the law is saying is that punishment should be exactly proportional and no more than you suffered yourself. There is a proportion here.

68. 29:37

    It’s not identical retribution. It’s proportional justice. You may go as far as that if you have to, but you may go no further, which is why in the Sermon on the Mount, when the Lord Jesus picks this up and begins to open up what the spirits of the law really seems to mean, he says, well, I say to you, you should turn the other cheek.

69. 30:03

    And he was not saying, brothers and sisters, well, you used to be able to claim body parts, but now you have to love each other. He is saying the law offered a proportional response because of the hardness of your hearts, and now you have to limit yourself even further. Now you have to manage your own relationships with each other in a way that doesn’t have a specific legal framework but has the perfect law of liberty,

70. 30:30

    which is harder, much harder. Come over to Deuteronomy chapter 15. We haven’t exhausted Exodus 21, but I’m just conscious of time again. Deuteronomy 21 is is a chapter of liberty. It’s a chapter of release. If you just. Cast your eye across it. You’ll keep seeing phrases like letting go or opening up or releasing.

71. 30:59

    It’s an anti legalism chapter. Almost nothing in this chapter is quantified. It’s it’s one of those chapters that the Pharisees must have absolutely hated. There’s there’s where’s the verse? I’m, I’m thinking of this idea of having an open handed giving I, I losing my verse doesn’t matter anyway, somewhere in verse 9 I think, isn’t it? No, it doesn’t matter.

72. 31:18

    We’ll find it in just a moment. But the Pharisees have got this process, haven’t they, where everything is is controlled. How much do I have to give Lord? I want to make sure that I give the right amount, Lord. And, and the law says, well, if your brother needs it, then you open your hand up and you open it wide and you give it and you can hear the ring of the Pharisees voice in your ear saying, well, how much do I have to open my hand, Lord? What does an open hand look like? How many fingers do I get to fall back on it, Lord, Because I just want to manage what I’m giving Lord. And maybe you think that when the bag goes round on Sundays, or maybe you think that when you’re tired and it’s just hard to give a little bit more to the ecclesia. But but the Lord is saying this is an open handed process. I sometimes think, you know, that we misunderstand the problem that Jesus had with the Pharisees. It was not that they were not religious, they were religious, but they were lazy because freedom is really hard. Freedom is is difficult because you have to do lots of grown up thinking.

73. 32:20

    Unless they veered further and further away from what the actual Law of Moses said. And as they layered their own teachings on top of it over the centuries, then it became so much more straightforward just to fall back on. Well, the laws said or the rabbi said or the custom said. Being legalistic is really easy because you know exactly how much to open your hand and you can fulfill it and take it off and achieve it. Freedom is a challenge to us for the precise reason that there are no quantifiable limits told some of people this week. My wife is a is a doctor and a couple of days a week she works in prisons with, with, with well sick criminals. That’s not the way that I should be describing it, but with people who are incarcerated, who are ill and she gets to talk to them when she’s there.

74. 33:10

    And most of them don’t know what they’re going to do when they’re released. Because when you’re behind bars, everything is managed for you. Your schedule is managed, your foods comes at a particular time. You know exactly where you’re going to live. And although it’s not exactly great, you know, your sleeping accommodation when you go free, you suddenly have to start thinking for yourself again. And lots of the prisoners who are about to get released are nervous about what happens because they don’t know exactly what they’ll do when they, when they come out. That’s that’s the exact challenge, brothers and sisters, that you and I have with freedom. What do we do when we’re free if somebody’s not telling us exactly how to behave?

75. 33:51

    Same for D mob soldiers when they come home from the front. Because when you’re in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force, people are telling you exactly what to do at particular times. And when you’re not, suddenly there is a latitude there that you’re not used to. I know Brother Steve was talking to us last night about some about the commands of the soldiers and how that comes through into everyday life and absolutely does. But there is a sense in which when I have to plot my own course, when I have to make my own decisions, when I’m no longer given a framework for it, but I but I actually have to, to exercise the perfect law of liberty, then things become a lot more difficult.

76. 34:27

    It’s the difference between the Lord going to the cross because the Father told him to and the Lord going to the cross because he loved his disciples. The Lord going to the cross because he said I love my master, my wife and my brothers, and I will not go out free. That’s how that stuff gets exercised in daily life. Deuteronomy 15.

77. 34:51

    We are there, aren’t we? And what this will do is fill in some details that are missing in Exodus 21, or at least that are now relevant for the second generation as they go to inherit the land that were less important for the first generation when they were going through the wilderness. And come to verse 12. And I’ve just seen the verse I was trying to get to with an open hand is in verse 11.

78. 35:17

    But we’ll we’ll come back to that maybe another time. Verse 12 of Deuteronomy 15 if your brother a Hebrew man. Or a Hebrew woman be sold to you. So that’s. That’s a build from Exodus 21. We didn’t get the detail of the woman in chapter 21 in Exodus. We’ve got it here. So we’ve opened things up.

79. 35:37

    Now. If you’re brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman be sold to you and served six years, then in the 7th year you should let him go free from you. When you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your floor, and out of your wine press, of that wherewith the Lord your God has blessed you.

80. 36:00

    You shall give to him, and you shall remember that you were a bond man in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Now, therefore, I command you this thing this day. There’s a little. Summary of some of the things which are going on in Deuteronomy 15. Why is it that he is to go out not empty? Verse 13.

81. 36:24

    Why is it that he is to be furnished liberally? From the flock and the floor and the wine press. Because surely if I’m an employer and I’ve got somebody who’s going free at the end of six years, it’s enough that I’ve lost my lost my laborer and I need to go out and find somebody else. Let alone the fact that I have to be happy about it and I have to give him things when he goes out as well, and thus impoverish myself so that he can become richer. Why should I have to do that, Lord? Or because what’s happening here in Deuteronomy 15 is that these people are being prepared for their own individual worship so that they don’t come before Almighty God with nothing. And those three things out of your flock, out of your floor, and out of your wine press, just picked up in the next chapter in 16 and verse 16, when the three males will come before the Lord three times in the year.

82. 37:19

    Sorry. When the men will come three times a year before the Lord in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the Feast of weeks and in the Feast of Tabernacles, so you were to furnish the servant who went out liberally from your flock, from your floor, from your winepress, and it anticipated the times when they would come before the Lord in those three feasts. In other words, godly freedom is explicitly about the freedom to worship the God in Israel.

83. 37:47

    It’s not just about you get to go free. So I no longer have you working for me. It’s specifically making sure that somebody who is released is able to be set up in such a way that they can then come before the Lord and worship. Let’s go back to that slide because I know people were writing things down.

84. 38:05

    So I’m just going to go back to those those earlier verses. You will remember that you were a bond man in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you again. Just helps us to shed a little bit of light on the Exodus process as well, doesn’t it? When after one of the other plagues, Pharaoh’s restriction for them going out of Egypt was that the Israelites could go out, but they had to leave their flocks and herds behind. And Moses says we’re not going to do that and insists that the flocks and the herds.

85. 38:34

    Have to go out with them, just like the women and the children had to go out with them because they were going to go and make sacrifices in the wilderness. And Pharaoh is, if you like, undercutting what God will later do for his people. He doesn’t want to give the Israelites the biblical rights that are going to be given to servants.

86. 38:51

    And they have to do it willingly when they come out, because you will remember that you are a bond man in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. Pharaoh, time after time is so unwilling to let his people go. The Israelites are to understand that this is a new.

87. 39:07

    World. Not a utopia, but a new world and that things are being set up for them in such a way that they should worship Almighty God in spirit and in truth. Exodus gets associated with a lack of freedom to worship, whereas the land what the wilderness journey and then the land when they come in is about setting themselves up with enough to be able to come before God for worship every time an Israelite encounters a needy. Brother or sister, they have a choice. We’re back to this same idea again. Every time you see somebody who needs something, you have a choice.

88. 39:39

    You get to make a decision. Are you going to enact an Exodus or are you going to be a mini pharaoh? You get to choose when you see somebody and you’re thinking about opening up your hand and how, why do I have to do it, Lord? And is there a quantity, Lord? And I don’t want to do it all, Lord, you get to choose mini Exodus or mini Pharaoh. That’s the comparison which is being set up. And the law is trying to embed the idea that the father sees every transaction and every exchange that we might make. And we can give without thought of return, because the Father himself gives without thought of return. And that’s why the Sermon on the Mount opens up so many of these ideas and talks about open handed giving and no legalistic limits and turning the other cheek and making sure you go the extra mile rather than just the specific mile that the law commanded you.

89. 40:30

    Because it’s trying to embed in your heart and mine this idea of something bigger than just the legal commandments that are there. And I just wonder whether in, well, certainly my discipleship and, and maybe it’s yours as well, and you can just kind of listen in to the challenges that I have that that we just lean towards the bare minimum, like, like the Pharisee in his prayer. I thank you, Lord, that I’m not like him. Thank you, Lord, that I didn’t commit adultery today. I thank you, Lord, that I didn’t steal anything from anybody today.

90. 41:03

    I thank you, Lord, that I didn’t do that today. And I didn’t do this today. And doesn’t matter about all the things I did, I could have done. But I thank you, Lord, that I’ve ticked off these things over here and I didn’t actually commit those crimes. We are not very good. I am not very good at seeing an opportunity for an open handed moment when I’m just grudgingly counting out the coins in my mind and making sure I don’t give more than I feel that I should. We are much better at checking boxes and contriving to give the least that we can.

91. 41:30

    Think of all those issues in the Sermon on the Mount Brothers and sisters, that the law works his way through murder, adultery, anger, theft, things that that the legal framework in this country and in mind have got absolutely nailed down to multiple sub, sub sub. Clauses and we still get it wrong. What the Sermon on the Mountain is doing is is trying to teach us principles.

92. 41:52

    Being angry doesn’t equate to murder. It’s hyperbole. But in the gospel, Jesus is saying where do you think murder starts? Well, it starts with anger. When? When I didn’t get something and you did. And, and then I, I feel contemptuous towards you and it makes me act. It’s the same. It’s the same with adultery, which is rooted in contempt.

93. 42:13

    You don’t cheat on a spouse that you hold in high regard. You cheat on a spouse that you secretly have contempt for and therefore undermines your other feelings towards her. That’s what the Lord is trying to get to with this. It’s the same with theft. It’s the same with bearing false witness. It’s easier if you have low regard for somebody because you can mistreat them.

94. 42:32

    You don’t care as much. That’s how slave societies happen, because you other somebody else, you dehumanize them. It’s the Tower of Babel principle. We’re going to build this tower up with the slaves. We’re going to go in and be safe from another flood, but they will stay on the outside. We hold them in lower regards. And the Lord is said, the law has said. And the Lord then echoes all of these ideas and says there is something bigger.

95. 42:56

    Our discipleship is more than just this. Once you’ve dehumanized somebody, it’s much easier to treat them as nothing. And if we can hold each other higher in our hearts, if we can esteem each other better than ourselves, then we are less likely, I do want to underline, less likely to fall prey to some of these temptations which in turn lead us into very dark places.

96. 43:22

    I will not use this opportunity to build myself up at the expense of somebody else. I will not choose to be offended when it was really obvious that that person just made a slip of the tongue and I’ve decided and said to give them the benefit of the doubt. I will not explode in anger, but I will take a deep breath and give that person a second opportunity to hear the whole story.

97. 43:43

    I will not take that second look of lust, but I will make a covenant with my eyes. Discipleship is really hard. Freedom is really difficult. That’s why these whole studies are not about let’s get into the law and work out specifically what the commandments are. It’s about realizing that as we move from milk to meat, as the Hebrew writer said, we are beginning to learn what discipleship really means.

98. 44:13

    Which is why James does talk, as I have alluded a couple of times, to the perfect law of liberty. Come to Chapter 23. We’ve just got a couple more minutes to think about another principle here.

99. 44:25

    As this cumulative process of making right choices. Leads us towards godliness, just as it tried to lead the Israelites towards godliness. It didn’t make them perfect, it didn’t fix things, it didn’t. It never will this side of the Kingdom. Deuteronomy 23 is the law about runaways. Verse 15 of of Deuteronomy chapter 23. You shall not deliver to his master the servant who has escaped from his master to you.

100. 44:48

     He shall dwell with you, even among you, in the place which He shall choose in one of your gates where it likes him best. You shall not approve, You shall not oppress him. That’s an interesting 1, isn’t it? I mean, again, she puts Philemon in the whole other light as well, so if he’s gone and you find him.

101. 45:09

     He lives with you not just like, you know, in the shed at the bottom of the garden, but he lives among you in the place that he gets to choose, in the place that he likes best, which takes. Our hospitality to another level, I think, doesn’t it? You will not oppress him there.

102. 45:29

     Just compare other legal situations here. Sorry, that’s the summary of what we just looked at. Let him live with you, in the middle of you, where he chooses, in one of your towns, where it suits him best. Just compare that with other ancient world laws. Code of Hammurabi. If anyone finds a runaway male or male or female slave in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves will pay him two shekels of silver. Somebody runs away, take them back and you get cash. Think about the South Carolina Act of 1740, of which there are multiple other examples in other states. Any slave out of the house or plantation where the slave lives shall refuse to submit or undergo the examination of any white person.

103. 46:16

     That any such white person shall pursue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slaves, you probably don’t want to think too much about what that meant. And if any such slave shall assault or strike any such white person, such slave shall be lawfully killed. Law of Moses does not say any of those things. The kind of circumstances that our world across the centuries has built up to deal with people in this situation is completely and utterly alien from what the things of God are there the American South there was a £1000 fine and a six month prison return if you didn’t return a fugitive and the consequences for the slave were too gruesome to comprehend. Exodus Deuteronomy 23 verses 15 and 16 says if there is a runaway slave, he gets to come and hang out with you. He gets to come and hang out with you in your family as part of your house.

104. 47:06

     You get to give him dinner and you get to give him somewhere to sleep. He gets to be where he chooses best. If God’s people had implemented Deuteronomy 23, they would have been the only safe haven for runaway servants or slaves in the world at that time. It was absolutely revolutionary. Now there are differences in how Israelite servants and Gentile servants were treated in the law. Hebrew servants were freed every seven years. Foreign servants were not given that particular kind of protection, but they would have had other benefits if they had come to work for, for Hebrew.

105. 47:43

     There would have been the rest on the Sabbath. There would have been the gleaning laws that we’ve alluded to with, with the book of Ruth already this week. There would have been protection from physical harm, as we’ve seen in Exodus chapter 21, and they would have had access to the gospel. So there are differences and we haven’t had a chance to go through those.

106. 48:04

     But but the very fact that they had become part of the camp of Israel meant that they were better off than they would have been on the outside. Some people accuse the Old Testament and say that it’s just about bloodshed and violence. Some people say there is no gospel in the Old Testament.

107. 48:23

     If that’s not gospel, I don’t know what is. These are these are laws in the service of grace and in the service of love, and they are motivated by the memory of God’s redemption of his people from Egypt. God in the Exodus has broken into history and revealed himself in great acts of salvation and mercy.

108. 48:44

     And it points, brothers and sisters for. Us unrelentingly, uncompromisingly, to the fact that we are not to build our own Kingdom. Here on earth that the things that we have been given are temporary, that knowledge of salvation moves the boundaries of our thinking, makes us do things in particular ways. It’s why it’s why Mary sings of herself as a handmaiden when Gabriel tells her that she will bear the Messiah.

109. 49:11

     It’s why Simeon, when he sees the baby Jesus in the in the temple at 8 days old, says, now let your servant depart in peace. Because he recognized these kind of principles, and because the Exodus is the founding story of Israel as a people, and because generosity towards servants and foreigners lay at the very heart of it, it therefore becomes unavoidable that it should become part of our lives as well. Because you are in Egypt, you must let this man go free. You must supply him liberally.

110. 49:42

     You must not deprive him of justice. Your, your freedom, your liberty underwrites the command to be just and generous towards those less fortunate than you. It helps us to understand Philemon, where reconciliation was more important than than freedom. Helps us to understand Matthew 18, where that wicked servant is freed from debt and then goes out and throws somebody else into prison because he doesn’t get it.

111. 50:11

     These laws are not teaching that. That’s why the later cycles of invasion and captivity are so profound, because they are about God’s response to Israel’s stubbornness, their inability to see all of these different things. Now we will look tomorrow morning, God willing, at that a broader application. Of the slave who loves his mother or the servant who loves his master. But but these laws are reminders of the consequences of sin and the opportunities for serving others. And and they tell us that our response, my brothers and sisters, to the Creator of the universe, the one who who counts the stars and makes oceans from raindrops, is to gladly and thankfully and willingly declare to the world what a transformed life looks like, what grace can do in the heart of sinners.