The
Rhythm of a Sanctified Life
Deuteronomy 14: 1 to 15: 23
The Great Covenant
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Max
A Forsythe
Introduction:
The seven sections of our text today seem at first hearing to be
imprecise in their relationship to each other.
Funerals, eating, tithing, debts, generosity, servants and sacrificial
livestock are outlined in these two chapters before us.
Raymond Brown sees a unity here in the means by which we honor the Lord. Christopher J.H. Wright believes “the
fourth commandment (Sabbath) underlies this section with its emphasis on the
‘holy rhythms’ of Israel’s life, and on care for the poor.”
A popular proverb of the last
century observed, “You are what you eat”.
How too true has the general population adopted the corporate sponsored
fast food diet that truly sticks to your ribs, and everywhere else!
While there are many reasons for the weighting of America – one reason
was a change in the rhythms of daily living.
When I first started working in 1963, most of the local eating-places
only served meals for two-hour periods, morning, noon and evening!
Once the grocery began staggering our hours, it was not always convenient
to walk a few blocks and find ready made food- you would either be too early or
too late! There were also precious
few ready to eat items in the grocery store as well.
Hard to imagine today when you can have almost any item for your palate
24/7.
The local banks operated
differently too. My first car loan
was entirely different than my second, thanks to some revisions to the banking
laws by liberal politicians. I was
actually penalized for paying off a loan early and the interest rates structure
had changed dramatically. Dad
explained that the old state usury laws had been changed.
The really staggering changes
came in the late seventies – when the wholesome fabric of the Christian
Sabbath was dismantled in our country. It
was under the Carter administration that the old blue laws were declared
out-of-date, out-of-touch and unconstitutional.
No longer did the local gas stations have to take turns being open for
two or three hours at mid-day on the Lord’s Day.
Neither did the tractors,
combines and other heavy equipment need a day of rest like the family
workhorses. Dad and Grandpa always
believed that those horses which were worked seven days a week wit nary a day
off wore out before the crops were harvested.
And so their animals received the stated day of rest, which was common
throughout the American heartland.
Usually – only Friday and
Saturday nights were reserved for entertainment.
When television first went on the air, the broadcasts were limited first
to the afternoon and then into the early hours of the evening.
Nine or ten O’clock and off the air they went.
One last item, the best loved doctors, who still visited in homes, often
had a billing policy. Every patient
was allowed to reduce their bill by ten per cent – if they found it too
costly. But, at the bottom of the bill – the good doctor would
advise them that the ten per cent “extra” would allow him to give his
services to the most needy. Very
few of the working customers would ever think once about short-changing the
poor!
Quaint – you may think of a
society that took that short list of peculiarities to heart and more so even!
The source for those American cultural mandates, customs and arrangements
was of course the revealed word of our Lord and God.
Time was, when the customary ordering of life’s rhythms were a
reflection of the Great Covenant embodied in and through the national, state and
local laws as well as the customary habits of most of the citizens.
Old
Covenant Milieu: To
the people about to embark upon nation building – Moses sets forth these
derived customs, which would establish a covenantal rhythm to all of life.
When I worked in a public institution, I always noted that Monday was a
difficult time because a majority of the population had no clue to what a
Sabbath’s rest was, let alone what it could do for your working abilities.
In the spirit of an earlier American experience – let us consider the
divine symphony of necessary biblical rhythms that could and would bless any
nation that would make them their own day by day and year in and year out.
In the history of our
congregation, there have been less than half a dozen funerals where we have been
able to organize and set forth a biblical witness.
On three of those occasions, the funeral director came up to me
afterwards and observed that what had transpired was not the usual pity party
that he had become so accustomed to tend. One
director was even amazed that there had even been joyous singing for the beloved
saint who had been called home.
By contrast, look at the local
customs in Palestine noted by Moses in the beginning verses of chapter fourteen.
The children of Israel were not to act like the lewd pagans who viewed
the loss of life to be an extreme tragedy!
One year where I worked, we had several young people killed in an
accident and the prevailing song and thoughts about the tragedy of youth cut off
too soon – was focused on a worldly ditty that explained in the Oriental
fashion that their constant memory was a talisman to be feted as often as
possible.
In our second section this
morning, a clear distinction is made between clean and unclean meats.
The item in the last verse, I would almost be tempted to translate as
road-kill! The prohibition of course could relate to the fact that the blood had
not been drained from the body. We
once had a deer, that was bagged by our Mustang and we had to throw the whole
thing out because I didn’t immediately throw the carcass over the hood and
bleed it! Of course, these dietary
laws in this section are superceded in the New Covenant of Christ.
So, let me pass on the observation of Dr Brown: “This
section introduces us to the food laws which governed the daily life of the
Israelites … We may be puzzled or intrigued by dietary restrictions of this
kind though they do testify to the fact that spiritual principles were as
important in people’s homes as when they met for public worship. They did not believe in compartmentalized religion – some
things being sacred and the rest secular. Obedience
to God was as necessary for family life as it was for the worshipping
congregation.”
I can remember being much
healthier when well over half of our family food was generated at our family
farms. I am almost persuaded that
the carefully cooled, non-pasteurized six per-cent milk contained bacteria that
made butterfat a really healthy commodity.
We also knew the freezer beef by name, and the chickens never had much of
a chance to suffer freezer burn! Apples,
tomatoes, strawberries as well as assorted vegetables were put up for the
winter. And our homemade catsup
didn’t have sugar added like the corporate variety either!
In addition, when you processed your meat yourself – we were much more
aware of the life-blood that was spilt in the process.
, a concept that is foreign too much of the population today.
The third and fifth sections here
are principles dear to the heart of our God and King. By the means of the tithe, not only the spiritual leaders,
but also the poor could be provided for. John
Calvin is said to have observed that half of the income of the church should go
to the relief of the poor and downtrodden.
If our culture had not been trained for seventy years or more to tax and
spend for the benefit of every entitled group of voters, it would be more
possible to reinstate this biblical principle.
As it is, few of the poor were allowed to find their way out of poverty
until the government realized a few years ago – that there truly was a limit
to how long society could afford to provide cradle to grave benefits.
We can be thankful for that small improvement – but there remains so
much more that could and should be done if we were more serious about these
principles revealed through Moses.
Over the years – we have been
able to take several families off the streets and help them get re-established
so that they could support themselves. Today
– in a full employment economy there seems to be less real poverty – except
for the professionally homeless who can only be persuaded to go to work when
threatened with vagrancy laws. I
was very impressed that our own armed forces not only dropped bombs in
Afghanistan but also a million or more food packets.
This is more than their own government is willing to do.
And the funding of these charities in the west is not one where a tithe
and a half is drawn off to fund the very terrorists who terrorize their own
people.
Section four contains banking
regulations, as we might understand them. This
section is also related to sections five and six as Dr Brown notes:
“Three classes are here singled out for
special mention – the debtors, the poor and the servants.”
We might also note – that the
poor in antiquity usually did not become so by irresponsible spending.
During the American depression of the twenties and thirties – the poor
in the country had food enough to keep body and soul together and very many
families took in their relatives who had gone broke in the cities.
We have to remember, that in the context of a local economy the ongoing
weather conditions and the “accidents” allowed by providence could almost
ruin a family. During the years
that we gardened seriously, there were one or two years where complete crop
failure happened. Had there not
been the national economy at hand, regions of America could easily have fallen
into very hard times. During one
particular drought in the last few decades – it was estimated that fully
one-third of the food in storage was consumed.
Several years more of that and even the resources we put by could run
down to a serious shortage. As it
is, every so often the price of Orange juice, coffee or some other commodity
spikes out of control. But,
everything else remains available.
The debt cancellation in our text
deserves a careful consideration. Dr
Brown reports that there are several possibilities here. “Some suggest that in
[the seventh year] the cancellation of debt was
total and complete. … Others believe that debtors were only released from
responsibility to pay in that particular year, thus giving them more time to pay
off the creditor without him constantly breathing down their necks or
threatening to take their children into slavery.
Four reasons are given why creditors are to be generous to their fellow
Israelites – they must remember God’s kindness, obey God’s word, trust
God’s promise, and love God’s people.”
I can well remember when Bush the
Elder, worked diligently to lower the common interest rates from 11% and 14% to
more reasonable 7% to 9% a decade ago. That
political decision came at the end of a long run of increasing indebtedness and
rising interest rates and a stagnating economy. It was a real relief for my finances personally and as we
have observed, Bush the Younger seems cut from the same block.
My banker has been working overtime to rewrite loans at rates unheard of
for fifty years. Can anyone say “Year of the Jubilee”? I have certainly profited by from that ancient biblical
principle which appears to be a more practical rather than a spiritual principle
in our time. But I do remember
reading one conservative economist who observed that the long-term economic
cycle did seem to indicate that the Lord, more than any politician or economist
is in control of every business cycle.
We come now to section six, which
deals with the bondservants. This
form of “slavery” is not that which was practiced by the Romans, Greeks and
other nationalities down to the present. In
fact, when the first seven slaves were unloaded in Jamestown, Virginia – they
were treated the same as European immigrants who had agreed to serve seven years
for passage across the Atlantic. And
those seven were set free from their obligations at the end of the specified
period. The biblical principle in
this passage here is that in tough times, the most destitute may find a means of
survival – without engaging permanent servitude.
Of course servitude of any kind
is frowned upon in our day and age. It
is almost impossible to even employ regular household or farm workers in the
sense of hired hands of yesteryear. Time
was, when a farmer who had prospered enough to build a new house, could allow
someone to live in the old house in return for two or three days labor a week.
Older women could once take in homeless girls who for various reasons had
left kith and kin behind. The
arrangement was mutually helpful and many of the younger generation were helped
to get established from the kindness of such arrangements.
Families of course – in the
Hebrew economy were much more extended than our own.
The liberal media assertion that any group of people living under one
roof should be considered “family” is more of a biblical commodity than they
realize.
The last section in our passage
today considers the sacrificial system whereby the family benefits not only
materially but also spiritually in eating before the Lord.
In biblical times, the first-born animal was considered the tithe
offering, which should be dedicated to the Lord.
I can remember a project called Operation Heifer some decades ago,
whereby a young American dairy heifer was shipped to a remote country.
The person who received the animal had to agree to give the first-born
animal to another person. The young
animal of course would be sent out pregnant in order to multiply the gift that
was being given. In a same sense,
the livestock owners were reminded that the increase of their flocks and herds
came as a direct blessing from the Creator God.
And therefore – a Godly portion must be returned to the giver of life,
prosperity and salvation.
Of course, we could delve into
both of these two chapters and find biblical allusions, principles and
implications almost verse by verse. Five
to seven sermons on these sections could not begin to exhaust the meaning of
these revelations from the heart of God. In
the course of my readings I have pressed on, leaving treasured principles in
their bounty that a closer study of the biblical economy could prompt you all to
consider not only the rhythm of your life in our day, but the wholesale
wholesomeness of God’s principled ordering of society if we would relearn it
and be allowed by our courts and laws to re-establish again in our day and time.
New
Covenant Continuum: There are
several directions by which we may apply the Sabbath rhythm for life and the
dietary laws as well as the principled economics of our two chapters in
Deuteronomy today. But let me focus
on another idea that runs throughout the whole of Deuteronomy.
Vern Poythress summarizes it best: “[A]
general principle of separation from what is unclean
is still valid. For example, Paul
counsels us not to compromise with unbelief or commit ourselves to unnatural
alliances with unbelievers:”
“`Do
not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has
righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? …
As God has said; ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their
God, and they shall be My people. Therefore
Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, do not touch what is
unclean, and I will receive you.’” (2 Corinthians 6: 14, 16b-17)
Now, culturally we have become a
deprived people, almost all of the original America Christian institutions have
been invaded, looted and turned to a paganized secular abuse.
In short – in the last hundred and fifty years – the American
churches have been snookered! Secular humanistic atheists have used the inspired charity of
freedom of conscience and turned it against the very people who lived by a
Covenantal Creed given through the Judeao-Christian heritage of Western
Civilization.
Providentially, those who have
remained spiritually faithful to our Father God and His only Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ must leave behind all of those worldly institutions which have been
corrupted to secular use and work to re-establish a biblical spiritual
environment. The captivity of the
people of Israel is a better description of the reality of today’s
institutional churches, than any other scenario we can pretend is better than
the truth! But let us remember that
Joseph, but also Daniel, Esther and others were able to function amidst foreign
corruption much to the credit of the Father God.
So I am not talking about some form of emigration to a kinder less
corrupt political situation. After
all, the world is so much smaller that life as we know it and would wish it to
be is less practical almost everywhere but here in the West!
Contemporary
Application: What we as
a people have to do is first to apply the Covenant rhythm and principles to our
congregational and family lives. We
have already mentioned how our funerary obligations may stand out in comparison
to those of the world. Many within
our congregation have well learned the blessings of tithing, paying down our
debts and being generous with our time and resources.
I have become aware over the last
few years that if we were able to provide “kosher” foods for the Middle
Eastern immigrants to our area – we would have a wonderful opportunity to not
only meet people in need of Christ, but also to establish a “ministry” that
could easily pay its own way. A
by-product of such an economic institution would also allow us to encourage a
rural population to provide healthy non-corporate foods, but also enable us to
eat healthier as a group.
Should the economy continue to
decline (this is speculation of course and not something to be prayed for
because of the real misery that could break out)?
The very structures of the Western world could come under increasing
pressure and the viability of Christian families could be used as a foundation
for improving the lives of those neighbors invited to share our resources as
widely as the Lord may allow. Now,
we have to be careful in how we open and speak our hearts – because the media
is beginning to blame any who would take advantage of a decline in centralized
power, as co-terrorists with the enemy at the gates. But, the main and essential point is to remember that we are
a people apart from the world, a holy people saved by Christ to serve the Lord
day by day – however we are able and encouraged by Scripture.
So take these lessons to heart and pray how you may apply them to your
own life. Amen.
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