Clough Manhood Series Lesson 17

The Man’s Relationship to the Law – Exodus-Deuteronomy

…in the area of manhood in the Scriptures, and this is the second of our lessons on law and the Christian believer, the Christian male believer particularly. And to review what we have covered so far, we have said that the law, the whole concept of law in Scripture, is that law is a personal contract. You’ve got get away from this idea that Law is just some sort of impersonal code, sort of like E=MC₂ and it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, whether you’re a person, a stone, a plant or an animal, E=MC₂. Law, however, when we speak of it in Scripture is not impersonal, it’s personal; it’s a contract. God has entered into contract with the human race, or at least with parts of the human race. So whatever your idea of law is it always, in your mind, ought to be contractual, that picture of law. That’s the idea of biblical covenant.

Then we said that law has as its function one of the two means of subduing the earth. It’s one of the two means of sanctification. The two means always are, in every dispensation, law and grace. Law is simply the revelation of the will of God; grace is the empowerment to carry out the state will of God. And so law becomes crucial; without law we can’t subdue. We have to have law in order to subdue. Adam and Eve were given commands; the commands were laws. The commands told Adam and Eve the norms and standards for working in the Garden. So wherever we find Scripture we find the concept of law.

Another thing about we have learned is that law is what gives content to the word l-o-v-e. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul,” and so on. What does that mean? Now God did not use a situation ethic, He didn’t just say “love Me” and I’ll just take whatever feeling happens to come alone; “love Me” is defined by 613 specifics, you do this, you don’t do this, you do this, you don’t do this, you do this and you don’t do that, and if you do that then you love Me. Jesus repeated the same idea in the New Testament in John 14 when He said, “If you love Me, then you’ll keep My commandments.” So it is the law that gives content to love.

Another thing on the same line; we talk a lot about the lordship of Christ but it’s vacuous talk until you fill up the content of the word with law. The lordship of Christ means Christ is lord over something, it means He has claims over something. What claims? The contractual claims the Lord has made with His servants.

Okay, the other thing that we want to cover with the law is that it is the means of building confidence. The person who knows law is basically the confident person because he knows what is right and what is wrong. He isn’t threatened by somebody, because the most he can be, the worst that can happen is that you can be wrong, and we have a God who is gracious and He forgives so we confess our sins and move on. That’s the worst thing that can happen. In other words, if we make law really law, that is the Word of God is law and a standard, then we have established our confidence. This is how the scientist can use physical laws and he confidently predicts. So we ought to use God’s laws for life as a whole.

We also said last time that the illustration, the great illustration of John Cotton’s work in New England in 1641, we read you part of John Cotton’s laws, we showed you what the model was, how he would design the civil and criminal code from the Scriptures, and it was precisely that design that led to the antagonism, even to this day of people against the Church. Why are people so hostile to Puritans. Don’t take this garbage about it was the Puritans because they excluded other Christians. Yes, that was a hang-up the Puritans had, that was a prejudice, but that’s not the real reason; people today don’t even know what the issue was so that can’t be the real reason why they hate the Puritans. The real reason that people hate the Puritans is because they had the audacity to ground their law on the Word of God; that’s what antagonizes people. To think that God has spoken in the area of economics, so therefore why not do something about it; you can obey them or ignore it, one or the other. And John Cotton, when he designed the criminal and civil law codes for the New England Massachusetts Bay Colony, what he did was simply design these law codes on the basis of God’s Word. God had spoken so John Cotton wrote it down.

Tonight we’re going to go through sections of the book of Deuteronomy, this is the last of our introduction to the law, we’re going to go through sections of the book of Deuteronomy that have to do with the terms of the Covenant. Now when God, or when you enter into any kind of a contract a pretty smart thing to do is to find out the terms of the contract and so we’re concentrating tonight on knowing the terms of God’s contract. There’s some question in history whether Adam really knew the terms of God’s contract; either that or his wife did not understand because when Eve makes her famous reply to Satan in the Garden, that God told us don’t eat of the tree and don’t touch it, either Eve misunderstood what Adam told her or Adam really did not himself understand clearly the terms of God’s contract with Him. So we go back to a very fundamental point about knowing the terms of God’s contract. And in these passages in the book of Deuteronomy, passages some of which we’re very familiar with, others we are not very familiar with, these all point to the male’s responsibility to be the leader in learning the terms of the contract. Wherever we go in the Law we always will find the male as the one responsible to know the terms. This is why circumcision occurred; circumcision means that the male is the one who carries the Law, he’s the one who’s the custodian of the law in the home.

Now we’ll first turn to Deuteronomy 6; here is one way… these are all practical ways that apply today for the man to assume spiritual leadership, things that he ought to be doing for himself and for others. In Deuteronomy 6:1-2, [“Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land to which you go to possess it.”] Verse 2, the purpose of it is “That you might fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and His commandments,” and the word “keep” here is the word shamar, which means to watch over, to guard and to protect. And you’ll notice what he guards and protects; he doesn’t guard and protect the simple command “love Me.” He guards and protects the multiple statutes and commandments. These are the complicated terms of the Mosaic Law. So it’s not just generalization; they are the detailed terms of the contract and we are to keep “all” of those terms, notice, “all,” the diverse terms, watch over them, care for them, know them.

“…which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life,” several things to notice about that. Notice, all males, nothing about daughters here, it’s all sons. And notice something else, that besides showing that the son is the transmitter in the home, the other thing is that it’s three generations and this suggests that each man has a chance to cover three generations. It says your son, you, one generation, so in your generation you are to fight for the Scriptures, teaching your son, and living long enough to teach his son, to see that your son passes on to his son the terms of the Scriptures. So this is a ministry all the way up into the grandfather level. The grandfather has a mandate here to do all that he can to see that his grandson learns the Scriptures. It is a three generation contract.

When Mrs. Schaeffer was giving her talk at the recent conference, one of the things she said that really struck, she had several good observations and one is she used the word, I’d never thought of using the word but it really communicates, and that is that the family is a relay for the truth, thinking of a relay race, where somebody hands over the baton to the next runner, and she pointed out that where you go on earth and find cultures without the Word of God, if you just stop and think of it a moment, the heathen question, what about those who don’t have the Scripture, you know, if you think about that for a minute what that is, is a result that some family somewhere did not pass on the Word, because if you’ve got an area of heathenism, didn’t they descend from Noah? Didn’t Noah know the Word? Well, obviously if Noah knew the Word and he passed it on to his sons, and his sons knew the Word, and you’ve got people out here descending from them, somewhere along the line the family broke down. And what you’ve got, instead of being an embarrassment for Christianity, is an affirmation of the rebelliousness of man, particularly the rebelliousness of man in the home. He refuses to use the home as a relay point, to relay the Scriptures into the next generation and that’s why you have heathenism. So let’s get it in perspective.

And so it goes on, and you’re familiar with the famous Deuteronomy 6:4-5, this is called the Shama‘ by Jewish people because in verse 4 the word “Hear” in the imperative is Shama‘, it means to hear, therefore, O Israel and observe. “Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD alone,” that’s the way we would literally translate it. [5] “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God,” there’s your great commandment, but notice that’s only one, that’s only a summation, “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” That summarizes the content, the loyalty issue, and we can say that it’s the Lord alone there because of the various way the words are used. [6] “And these words, which I command thee, let them,” it’s not just a simple future tense, “shall be in your heart,” but it’s more of a nuance of capacity, invitation, “let them be in your heart.” That’s a Hebrew idiom for memory, “let them be in your heart.” You must know the terms of God’s contract; there’s just simply no substitute for this.

Deuteronomy 6:7, “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, you will talk in terms of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.” That’s all the activities of home. Again, it does not mean Bible stories all the time, it just means “diligently unto thy children,” and “talk in terms of them,” that means whatever the topic of conversation may be at whatever hour of the day, at whatever geographical location, it ought to be within the divine viewpoint framework. That’s what it means. So it doesn’t mean that you have to quote Bible verses all day long. It does mean that the framework and the doctrines of Scripture ought to be used.

Deuteronomy 6:8, “And you shall bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.” This is again idiom, word pictures, for memory. [9] “And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Mrs. Schaeffer illustrated one of these learning Scripture where she had that and a few other things in the bathroom, and she said when you come out you want to accomplish something worthwhile. So there are ways of doing this. And the idea is to use the home as the main vehicle for teaching the Word.

Now let’s get some practical suggestions on how this might transpire. One way which we’ve set up here and it is by no means ought to be the only thing, and we will put more emphasis on this in the future, is the family training program of working not only the lessons with the children, for the lessons that are written to take home and do really aren’t part of the program. The whole point of the program is that without those lessons parents theoretically ought to be able to teach the same thing they learned in their class, on a lower level of course, to their children. All the lessons… it originally began, the reason why we mimeographed those things up was because some parents said show me how to do it. So we got dependent on the lessons, but be careful, don’t become hung up about those lessons. Those are only one means of doing it. You are free to do anything you want to, throw the lessons out, I don’t care, the point is that they are just one means among many that you can use. So you’ve got the family training program and the men ought to be doing this; and some of you couples where your child is getting up to where now you want to start working with them, it’s the husband, basically, that ought to do this. It doesn’t mean he has to be the one that administers it in practice in the home, but he ought to see that it’s done.

Another thing that can be done is take special subjects. Here’s some things I’ve found useful with my children. The other day one of my boys had an assignment from the school to do a report on molecules and atoms. All right, this is an opportunity to start very early, when they’re starting to learn the concepts, of tying it with Scripture. So where are some resources, something he can read that he can understand. First of all, he’s got to have content to the thing, and you know, you can read the Encyclopedia Britannica and look up “atom” and then you get all sorts of quantum theory and everything else in the article which is not quite what sends a fifth grader to a good report. So where can we get something. Well, fortunately, going to the church library we discover that we’ve got a book in there called Physical Science for Christian Schools. Now it’s written for Jr. High level, and a kid in fifth and sixth grade can get that book out of the church library, open it up, look up the index where atoms and molecules are, read the chapter on it; there’s one chapter on molecules, there’s another chapter on atoms. I had him read both chapters and then I said after you get through reading this let’s sit down and we’ll talk about it. And so he read the two chapters and then we sat down and we talked about it. And I said why do we know there are such things as molecules. And this is not the way it’s taught at school.

It’s very interesting; all they do in school is they define a molecule and the define an atom and go on to the next subject, but they never raise the question, how do we know they’re really there? What proof do we have with them? So in this book there’s some experiments that any child can do to molecular diffusion, you can take some vegetable dye and put it in cold dye, vegetable dye in hot water, and sit there and watch how the dye in the cold water just clumps together and the dye in the hot water spreads. Now what’s going on here? What makes this dye spread in the hot water? Well, this can be explained in terms of molecular theory, molecules are moving faster and so they spread further. Or, you can take a microscope and take some India ink and chalk dust, and blow the chalk dust on top of the India ink, look down the microscope and you’ll see the pieces of chalk bouncing around the top of the ink. Well, what’s hitting these pieces of chalk, what’s making these pieces of chalk move all by themselves? Well, it’s the molecules in the ink that are moving, that are impacting against it. So there are reasons, historically, why people came to believe in molecules.

So first of all, doing that with your child gives him a much better education; it forces you to think through the problem. If you feel like there’s a gap in your education growing up, just fill them up with your kids. If you think there’s an area you like to study, you never took it in school, you were dreaming when you went through the course, use this as an opportunity now, this is a second chance, a second time around to go through, and every time your kid, if you have four kids that means four times you can to through the course. So this is opportunity to grow, and always take advantage of it.

And then later on we can come out and we can start making applications. You get a book like that physical science book and they’ve got the spiritual applications already there; you don’t have to sit there and think now how am I going to link this together because it’s all linked. That’s why we want good Christian literature, and that’s why the battle that’s going on to write good quality textbooks. Here’s the significance of why we’re putting hundreds of dollars in that church library to get the books and then we get them and nobody looks at them. But we’re trying to get them so when these opportunities come up we go in there, we say ah, here’s an application of atoms and molecules spiritually. First of all, we’re dealing with something in atoms, no one has ever seen an atom, the book points this out. And the book points out that isn’t this interesting that modern science is fundamentally grounded on the atomic concept; this is how we explain chemical reaction, it’s how, going down the nuclear area we explain various phenomena, and it all depends on this idea of the atom.

Now isn’t it interesting that nobody’s really, really has seen it for what it is. Now if that’s the case, and someone up says I can’t believe in God because I can’t see Him, now you’ve put your child in a position, oh really, then you don’t believe in atoms either, using that same criteria. So this is a good discussion. So you can use these discussions to get into all sorts of things and you perform an invaluable service to your child because he never learns the Bible like most Christian kids have learned the Bible; that is learn it, the Bible is a hot topic between 11:00 and 12:00 o’clock every Sunday. And from 12:00 Sunday until 11:00 o’clock the next Sunday we keep the Bible closed, or we have a little diddly devotion once in a while during the week, but apart from that we don’t get serious about the Scriptures. God hasn’t spoken in the area of physics, for example. And it’s an excellent time to go through that famous passage in Colossians 1:17-19 where Paul points out that Jesus Christ is the sustaining power of the universe. Now what is that saying in the area of molecules and atoms? What is Christ’s relationship to atoms and molecules? That’s a good question, and a young Christian student ought to be taught to ask those questions.

And so, as we worked on it, we discussed it, then he had to write the report. Well then I discovered that nobody had taught him yet in school how to write a report. So then I sat down and said okay, we’ll have an English lesson now on how to write reports, so we’ll write all the parts out on a piece of paper, here’s a 3x5 card, 3x5 card, 3x5 card, now we’ll organize the cards for an outline, and now we’ll start writing, introduction, body and conclusion; simple. Did anybody ever teach you this? Nah. But they assigned a report. Okay. So now we’ve learned two things, we’ve learned about atoms and molecules in physics and we’ve learned about writing. And incidentally, that can be tied in; you start thinking about a report, introduction, body and conclusion, did you ever notice the Scriptures are read and organized that way? So we turn to John. I said do you notice how John opens the Gospel of John, he has an introduction, doesn’t he. Do you notice the body of it? And you notice how John concludes his Gospel. So immediately he begins to see that there’s a structure to how you write, and the Scriptures reflect that structure on how you write. So you can do this if you just keep thinking of these areas, and this is the proper way of carrying out this command in verse 7. You can probably think of ten thousand other things, and I’m sure many of you do different kinds of things, but those are the things. Be creative and do those things.

Other areas that come up, you can take a crisis that happens during the day; you know, every good home has at least three or four disasters a week, so pick one of them and think of it in terms of the Scriptures. And see if you can look at some promises; everybody blew it, so mom and daddy blew it, everybody blew it, let’s go back, plow that ground over and start fresh. What should we have done. So there’s a simple technique of reflection on disasters in the home. You can say what happened, just think, what happened, what went wrong? What should we have done? Well, you can’t ask that second question “what should we have done” without doing what? Turning to the Scriptures. So you develop the habit of oh yea, let’s turn to the Scriptures, what do they have to say about this. Now what we can do about it to correct the problem so it doesn’t happen again. So there are these numerous situations that happen and everybody can do something in this area.

Deuteronomy 6:7 is one way the male, who’s given this responsibility, can himself know the terms of God’s contract and he can do something about it in his own home. Other suggestions for reading, family reading, are the Narnia Chronicles; we have read three of those last summer in the reading program for parents and children, and this summer we’re going to finish the Narnia Chronicles; we’ll finish the last four. I find children grab hold of these like crazy; they remember the illustrations, you can use the Narnia Chronicles and the illustrations, I was talking to one person who uses witnessing with adults, always borrows from C. S. Lewis’ rich, rich illustrations. We have one of our sons who is a carbon copy, I think of Prince Corin in The Horse and His Boy, now he was the guy that was always out knocking the block off and so he’s got the nickname around home, oh, here’s Prince Corin. Well, again it fits the content of what Lewis is saying into the situation. So there’s a lot of fun with those things. Other things you might be interested in in your home, there’s a newspaper put out by the Bible Science Association, it’s Five Minutes with the Bible and Science. Now I wouldn’t use that as a steady diet, but that’s good to read once in a while in the home. It has some good… some of it is not good quality so I don’t recommend it completely but some of it is good quality and again it’s just reading the Scriptures and linking it with some area of science.

Okay, that’s one area, Deuteronomy 6:7. Notice that if the man does this, watch the benefits in terms of knowing God’s term. First of all, you can’t teach if you don’t know, and the strange thing is, when you equip yourself to teach someone, all of a sudden you not only had better but know but you do know, you know better. And like I pointed out with my boy, it’s been an education already, just getting the other one up to the fifth grade because I’ve had to go through areas that I just glossed over, and I’m catching up and able to fill in the gaps in these areas. And so the guy can improve his own situation, just selfishly can improve his own situation this way.

Secondly, the children learn the Word of God, and they learn it in context with what they’re learning elsewhere and that’s the advantage, so later on we don’t open the Scriptures and it’s a strange new document totally separated from over here, but they’ve learned there’s no separation, they just weave it in and out. And then they can have opportunities later on of witnessing and so on. They certainly have opportunities in classroom discussion to sow all sorts of interesting ideas.

Okay, Deuteronomy 6:7 is one way. Let’s look at another way, another thing that we find men doing with the Law; the men are using the Law actively in home situations. Now in Deuteronomy 12; Deuteronomy 12 is a chapter that deals with the national cultists, that is, the national center of worship of the nation Israel. God prohibited worship just from anywhere, notice verse 1, “These are the statutes and judgments,” there you go again, terms of the covenant, “which you shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers gives thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.” All right, notice the “statutes and judgments.” They were right there with the terms of the contract.

All right, what do you find the men doing? Well, first of all, they come, they build their place, and notice it says, verse 3, “You shall overthrow their altars, break their pillars,” that’s talking about their places of worship. Verse 5, “But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there,” that’s a revelation of His Son, “unto his habitation shall ye seek,” that’s the temple, “and to there you shall come.” Okay, it’s talking now about a worship situation, and we think, before we get too pious about the worship situation, notice verse 6 and 7, “And to there ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks. [7] And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that y e put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the LORD thy God has blessed thee.” Now you notice in verse 6 and 7 two elements of worship in the Scriptures. There’s enjoyment; the Jews enjoyed their God; it wasn’t all solemn. They laughed, they enjoyed, they considered it like a party.

If you read further down the text you’ll see in Deuteronomy 12:11-12 the same idea, “Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there; there shall you bring all that I command you,” and he goes through the same list again, then verse 12, “And ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons, your daughters, your menservants, your maidservants, and the Levite who is within your gates, forasmuch as eh has no part nor inheritance with you. [13] Take heed to thyself” and so on, “in the place you do this,” etc. etc. etc. So what would that be analogous to? That’s getting together socially with other believers. Getting together socially with other believers, and it’s not the kind of social gathering that would be characterizing the non-Christian situation, it’d be the Christian situation. It doesn’t mean you sit there and quote verses at each other, but it means that that which is binding in the social relationship, the enjoyment, is Christian. Somebody has a problem and they kind of laugh at it or somebody comes along and they repeat what happened this week, or what happened last week, and it’s that kind of situation; it’s a rejoicing but it’s all within the framework of Scripture. So you find men here leading in simple social life. That’s clear.

And this is something that I say shows whether a congregation is a warm or a cold one. Yet we have people still in this town that measure a congregation by whether you have a glad-hand committee in the foyer. And if you don’t, and if you don’t get hold of your phone number and call you eight times in the next six days then you’re a cold church. That’s a façade. The real warmth of the church comes about with the spontaneous social relationships that develop. The real warm fellowship goes on in people’s homes. And that’s just where it is, that’s where the body functions. And so this is evidence here; the body was functioning, the believers in that day were commanded to get together and function around the temple. Well, we don’t have a literal temple and this surely isn’t the temple, so the temple is wherever believers are in their body, and so we have that concept.

So Deuteronomy 12 shows the second area where the males take leadership; the first one was in the home, in getting everyone acquainted with the terms, using various tools and devices. The second area is leading in the area of getting together with other believers. And you’ll notice something else, that it says “your menservants and your maidservants,” these were slaves who were not necessarily Jews. And that means, it would be the equivalent socially as letting some non-Christians in on it. The social relationship, if its genuine, ought not to embarrass a non-Christian. You ought to think of that, if a non-Christian… he may not understand and be terribly confused by certain things, yet at the same time he ought not to be embarrassed or threatened by it. And if it’s fakey it will tend to threaten the non-Christian in the bad sense of the word.

But if on the other hand people are there, relaxed, having a good time and they can move from the area of politics over here to some other discussion, over to the Lord, to salvation, and back again over here, and nobody puts the brakes on and changes clothes and starts in another direction but it’s just one smooth transition, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what they did here. It’s the ability to flow from one thing to the next, with no conscious barriers whatever; it just flows, it’s just really catches the attention of a person who has never seen this, including, I might add, unfortunately, some other Bible-believing Christian.

These people rejoiced; now to see the rejoicing over the law, because if you get in the New Testament remember you’re looking at Paul’s knocking the Law but he’s knocking the Pharisees. Turn to Psalm 19, here is why the people could get together socially and enjoy the Word. See, the Pharisees hadn’t made it burdensome, not yet, anyway, in history. Psalm 19:8, “The statutes,” and again these are the terms of God’s contract, “are right, they rejoice the heart;” now just look at that one, that’s easy to read over quickly, you know, it’s just an easy kind of thing to slide over, but look at that, “rejoice in the heart,” that’s what gives energy to the heart. What is it? “…the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. [9] The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever,” verse 10, “More to be desired are they than gold, [yea than fine gold], sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. [11] By them thy servant is warned; and in keeping of them there is great reward.” So there’s the delight of the Old Testament saint in the Law; don’t let anyone ever say that the Law was onus, and burdensome in the Old Testament; that’s what the Pharisaical interpretation was but not the original Old Testament position. If you want to take some time and see another eulogy to the Law, Psalm 119; it’s just filled with praise after praise after praise after praise.

Frankly stated, all this is saying is these people enjoyed the Word of God so much that they wanted to share it socially, and that was their motive for getting together socially. Not a contrived situation, let’s ram, cram and jam this non-Christian around and then we’ll put him at a table and sit the Christian here, the Christian here, the Christian here, we’ll get him kind of surrounded and then you start witnessing to him and I’ll pray. Now that’s not how you set it up. This is far more spontaneous than that. It’s just... you enjoy the Scriptures and then that leads to the situation. It’s not a set up.

Let’s look at some other things in Deuteronomy. Turn to Deuteronomy 17:18; again we’re looking at the Christian man primarily. We’ve looked at the home, the social life, now we’re looking at the king in the context but we’ll apply it in a different way. The king was always under the Law; “And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out that which is before the priests, the Levites, [20] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words,” and notice the word, plural, “words,” that’s the term for the contract again. [20] “That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment,” etc. etc. etc.

Okay, that’s often used to say well, that means daily devotions. Yeah, it does, but in the context of Deuteronomy 17 what in particular is it talking about to a man. Well, what in particular it’s talking about to a man is his job. Isn’t this a king? And the whole point is, what’s the king going to use on a daily basis to sustain him in his area of his job? It’s not primarily talking about how the king is working with his wife, or working with his children here. In the context it’s how he’s working with the throne, carrying on his job ruling the nation. And he can’t rule the nation unless there’s a copy of the Bible in front of him and he’s studying that copy of the Bible daily.

So the third way in which we see the male believer in the Old Testament economy operating in the Law, knowing its terms, is he’s daily reading it, reading it, reading it, reading it. We don’t read the Scriptures enough. It’s not enough to know the framework, you’ve to know where the framework comes from. It comes from the Scriptures. So daily reading the Scriptures. Okay, that’s the third thing that we see the male doing, and he’s doing it primarily because he’s a man and he has pressures on the job and he’s trying to figure out how the Word of God applies to his job. That’s why he’s doing it; he’s not doing it for points, little gold stars, you know, ten days in a row I read Scripture, that kind of a thing. It’s more in the sense that he’s got to make decisions on the job and he’s going to make them by one criterion or the other. That’s why I never could understand why men who have an “I don’t give a damn attitude toward the Scriptures,” never can understand that, because they’re using criteria all day to make their business decisions. I’d like to know just where these criteria is supposed to come from? The air? Where are you getting them from? How do you make your value judgments? You’re pulling on values from some place; where are you getting them from if you’re not getting them from Scripture.

A fourth thing that we see that male believers take the lead in; in Deuteronomy 31:9. Again what we’re doing tonight is not looking to define the role of the man, that starts next time. All we’re looking at is the man as he generally gets himself acquainted with the terms and he gets other people acquainted with the terms of God’s contract. We looked at this passage in another light a few evenings ago. In Deuteronomy 31:9, “And Moses wrote this law, and he delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant [of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel]. [10] “And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, [11] When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD….you shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.”

Now notice who’s gathered, that’s the point we want to look at tonight. [12] “Gather people together,” who? “Men, women, children,” fine, so far we’ve got definite Jews who are by race under the Law. But now look what happens, the list doesn’t stop with the word “children.” “…and the stranger within thy gates,” that’s the traveling businessman in the ancient world, that’s Gentile, “the stranger within thy gates, that they may her, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law.” Now what responsibility is that?

All right, the fourth thing you find male believers doing is you find them seeing that the Word of God is made public. It is one to one; patriotism in Scripture means letting the public in on the Word of God. Said another way, it’s just evangelism, translated into our day. And notice, it’s the men who are doing this. Who gathers the people together? The men. Who gathers the women and the children? The men. Who gathers the stranger? Well, that would be a businessman who’s doing business with a particular Hebrew man who may be a farmer; well how does this stranger know about it? Because he’s in business with the other guy, he says come here, we’re going to do this now. And so he shares the Scriptures with his fellow associates and other people. So the fourth thing we find the male believer doing in initiating is making sure the Word of God goes out into society. This is his lead and this is what men ought to be doing; this is what the evangelicals and men particularly in evangelicalism are not doing. One person said I know somebody and you couldn’t tell whether they’re a believer or not by the way they run their business. Well, that’s a heck of a testimony, that shows that the guy is not at all interested apparently in subduing his business with the Scriptures.

Okay, the fifth thing that we find the male believers doing, besides the family, working with his job, working socially, working in evangelism, is Deuteronomy 32. Now this is a passage of Scripture that I’m doing for two reasons. First of all, we’re doing it to show you how the Scriptures were made known, but we’re also doing it because this is a passage that is going to explain for many of you who have never had this explanation, of why the Old Testament is structured the way it is. This is the backbone of all the rest of the books, all the prophetic books.

Deuteronomy 32 is a song and the men were to take the lead in making sure that this music, the musical rendition of Scripture, was communicated to their families and their children. Notice what Deuteronomy 31 says toward the end. Deuteronomy 31:28, “Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them,” I’ll explain that in a moment. [29] “For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves….” [30] “And Moses spoke in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song,” so he put it in the form of music. Why music? Because it’s easier, so oftentimes, to memorize the music. So the men here were using music as an aid and a tool in learning the Scriptures. And the men were the ones who were doing it, they weren’t waiting for the women to do it. If those of you who see the Schaeffer seminary in this thing he’ll go in and if you read the book, you’ll see what the Reformation did in music and you’ll see some of the songbooks and so on, that this is not something that I just thought of, Moses just thought of an a few other people. This has gone on down through church history.

All right, the form itself, Deuteronomy 32. We say that the male ought to be concerned with terms of the contract. Why? Why is it necessary in terms to know terms of any contract. Because you’re afraid you’ll breach the contract, right? You’re afraid either you’re going to or someone else is going to. So your real concern about the terms is the problem of breaching those terms. And Deuteronomy 32 is a song of a law suit. This is confirmed now by studies in the ancient east in archeology, that the format of Deuteronomy 32 is identical to the format of Isaiah 1, identical to the format of Hosea 4, identical to the format of Micah 6 if you want particulars. All of these passages have the same outline and they are all saying the same thing and let me show you the outline of a lawsuit in the Scriptures, how it was done.

The first thing is the court procedure. We’ll see, God makes a covenant and when God enforces his covenant He does it with a lawsuit proceeding, it’s called a rib, r-i-b, but the “be” is pronounced like a “v” in Victor; a rib. And the rib proceeding starts with a court procedure. The court procedure has the following elements in it; it doesn’t always have these elements but all these elements occur in one or another place. The court procedure will have, and you can recognize it when you’re reading a passage of Scripture, a call for witnesses; that’s how you spot when you’re into that kind of a passage of Scripture. It will start, a call for witnesses.

Secondly, there will be an introduction of the case. Third, there will be judicial proof of God’s faithfulness and judicial proof of Israel’s unfaithfulness. All that is in the court procedure. Three things: call to witnesses, the introduction of the case, the judicial proof of the faithfulness of God versus the unfaithfulness of Israel.

Let’s watch this here in Deuteronomy 32. Verses 1-14 is the court procedure; verses 1-3 is the call for witnesses. Look at that, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.” Okay, so there’s the witnesses. Hold the place and go to Isaiah 1; don’t lose Deuteronomy 32, I want you to compare this. In Isaiah 1:2-4 form the court procedure, it’s the same format. We could also show this from Hosea 4, we could show it from Micah 6, but in Isaiah 1, look at verse 2, part a: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,” see that, there’s the call for witness. Flip back and look at Deuteronomy 32:1 again, “Give ear, O heavens … hear, O earth,” you see the continuity? You see why Moses and Isaiah are operating in the same framework; they’re not changing anything. They keep a rigid format in their writing and in their preaching.

Okay, the second element of a court procedure is introduction of the case. In Deuteronomy 32:4-6, there’s the introduction to the case. “The Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. [5] They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of His children, they are a perverse and wicked generation. [6] Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father who has bought thee? Has He not made thee, and established thee?” There’s the introduction of the issue between God and the people. Flip over to Isaiah 1:2, the last part. “the LORD has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. [3] The ox knows his owner, and the ass, his master’s crib, but Israel does not know; My people does not consider.” See the parallel; the parallel again, after the call to witnesses there’s an introduction of the case.

Now the third point in the court proceedings is a judicial proof of faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of Israel. In Deuteronomy 32, look at verses 7-14, here are the particulars. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee;” and by the way, all this was sung to music, can you imagine the tune that they must have used for this? I can’t. But they actually sang a lawsuit. “Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. [8] When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, [He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel].”

Verse 9, “For the LORD’s portion is His people; Jacob the lot of His inheritance. [10] He found them in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness; He led them about, He instructed them, He kept them as the apple of His eye. [11] As an eagle stirs up her nest,” see what all those words are? They’re powerful poetic ways that were matched with music to convey the solidarity of God’s faithfulness. God is faithful. “As an eagle stirs up her nest, and flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, and bears them on her wings, [12] So the LORD alone did lead him,” faithfulness. [13] He made him ride on the high places of the earth,” and so on and so on and so on. So there’s the faithfulness of Jehovah, in this case the unfaithfulness is sort of mentioned in the background but in this particular passage it’s mostly the faithfulness of God.

Flip back to Isaiah 1 and you’ll see that this blends with the witnesses a little bit here, Isaiah 1:2-3 again form this part, where he says, [3] “The ox knows his owner, the ass, his master’s crib,” that’s what that’s getting at. All it’s doing is defining the faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of the people. All right, that’s the first part of a rib, the court proceeding, and we studied three sub parts of that.

Now come back to Deuteronomy for the second step in a lawsuit which would be the formal accusation, the indictment. In Deuteronomy 32:15-18 the indictment is found; there’s the accusation. “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. Thou are grown fat, and you are grown thick, and you’re covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and he lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. [16] They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations [provoked they him to anger]. [17] They sacrificed to demons and not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods who came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.” There’s the accusation, idolatry.

Now go back over to Isaiah 1:5, from verse 5 thru verse 23 you’ve got his indictment, and his indictment is following specifics. You’ll notice there’s a specificness to this. “Why should you be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more;” God is despairing of discipline even, He says I’ve disciplined you and I’ve disciplined you and I’ve chastened you, it doesn’t do any good. [6] “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it…,” now the specifics. [7] “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire;” this is a natural disaster, it happened in Isaiah’s time, earthquakes and so on, “your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers, [8] And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. [9] Except the LORD of hosts had given us a very small remnant, we should have been like Sodom and Gomorrah. [10] Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; and give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. [11] To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?” There’s an indictment of their religious cultic worship; that was wrong.

[12] “When you come to appear before Me, who has required this at your hand, to tread My courts?” [13] Stop bringing this stuff, verse 14, “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates….” Verse 15, When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes [from you, yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood].” Verse 16, “Wash you, make you clean;” put evil away. Verse 17, specifics, “Learn to do well; seek judgment, relive the oppressed,” that’s a social commentary, “judge the fatherless, plead for the widow,” protect the orphans, and protect the woman who has no husband, take care of them, and you haven’t been taking care of people who are widows and orphans. This is a specific Isaiah is saying.

Isaiah 1:18 is a famous one many people quote but it’s in the context of the indictment. You see, God’s gracious, even while He’s indicting them. Verse 21, “the faithful city has become a whore! It was full of judgment, but now murderers.” Verse 22 is inflation, there’s a specific, they were tampering with the currency, “Thy silver has become dross, thy wine is mixed with water. [23] Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves,” that’s conspiracy, organized crime. “…every one loves gifts,” that’s bribery, accepting of bribes, “and follows after rewards; they judge not the fatherless,” so there’s the list of indictments.

Now the third part of a lawsuit is the sentence, the announcement of judgment. Turn back to Deuteronomy 32:19-26 are the sentence. Verse 19, “When the LORD saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and his daughters. [20] And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be…. [21] They have moved me to jealousy … they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people,” that’s the Gentiles, “I will provoke them to anger with a stupid nation,” literally, Gentiles. [22] “For a fire is kindled in My anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase,” that’s natural disaster. [23] “I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.” Again a natural disaster. [24] “They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat,” that’s drought, “and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them,” those are insects invading and destroying their crops. [25] “The sword without,” armed invasion, “and terror within,” complete mental distortion of the population, “shall destroy the young men and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. [26] I said I’d scatter them into corners, and I will make the remembrance of them to cease from among men.” There’s God’s indictment.

You go into Isaiah 1:24 and 31, you have God’s sentence. You see, always the sentence begins with a “therefore,” or some such thing. It’s not as arbitrary as you might think, I’m just pointing this out, some of you this is the first you’ve been through this and the force of this doesn’t strike you but if you study this enough you’d see what I’m talking about here. “Therefore, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, [the Mighty One of Israel, Ah], I will ease Me of mine adversaries…. [25] And I will turn my hand upon thee,” I will take care of your inflation, I’ll purge it away, I’ll ruin that funny money, “and I will take all tin. [26] And I will restore thy judges… and thy counselors,” and then he goes on that his judgment will be ultimately complete, [28] And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.” So there’s this lawsuit proceeding, and what God wanted in these lawsuits was the men to take responsibility for keeping the contract. And so all the men had to learn Deuteronomy 32, the song version of a lawsuit, and had to know that if they did not keep the terms of God’s law, God would call them into His court and administer His accusation and His judgment.

But God is a gracious God and as you’ll notice in these Isaiah verses, you see he’s ultimately saying, verse 27, see the mercy clause there, “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,” in other words, He’s not going to completely kiss them off. He’s going to judge them and they’re going to be sorry that He judges them but it’s ultimately for their eternal good.

Turning back to Deuteronomy 32:27 notice the same thing; “Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD has done this,” now what he’s saying here is that I would destroy them but I’m not going to because of My election, I’ve elected them to a purpose and so he goes on, all the way down to verse 43. Verse 43 says, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries,” and then He “will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.” You see, the ultimate final, final word of the indictment is a word of grace.

So the lawsuit was serious, it was a break and breach, a violated contract, the terms were violated but God said okay, I’ll bring you… I’ll haul you into court, I will sue you, that is, if you don’t repent, I’ll sue you and I’ll impose a strict sentence upon you, but the sentence is ultimately for your redemption. The men had to be confronted forcibly with the violation of God’s contract. So the last thing of the five things we’ve seen tonight on men and the terms of the law is that they had to memorize a lawsuit proceeding on the basis of a song.

So what are the five ways we see the men working in the Old Testament with the terms of the contract? We’ll see this again and again as we go through the Law because from now on we’re going to just deal with special areas of the Law pertinent to men. But you’ll notice, in the background you’ll always see these elements. First of all, you’ll always see the men working with their family in their home, or not working with their family in the home. A lot of what you’re going to read about the male and his job has to do with the reigning of the Word of God in his home. The second thing you’re going to see is the social enjoyment of the Scriptures, that men were to lead in social enjoyment of Scriptures. The third thing, Deuteronomy 17, the men are to work the Scriptures into their job. The fourth thing, Deuteronomy 31, is that men are to be engaged in propagating the Word of God outside of the home, outside of the believers. And Deuteronomy 32, the man ought to have in the back of his head the danger of violating the authority of Scripture, knowing that confession stands there and if that isn’t used Hebrews 12 stands there with judgment.

We’re all ready now to work next week with the role of the man under the Law. We’ve seen the contract nature, we’ve seen how when God approaches it He just doesn’t slam bang the man around but He holds him to a strict legal proceeding. God is fair; He lets us know where we stand and that’s good, it gives us confidence.