Cultural Hot Potatoes

Okay, grab a Bible, something to write with if you want to open up to Exodus chapter 21.

That's where we'll be focusing our study today. Let's pray and we will get started. Lord God, help us to grow in the knowledge of your dear

Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to remain firm in the confession of His blessed Word. Give us the love to be of one mind, to serve one another in Christ.

Then we will not be afraid of that which is disagreeable, nor the rage of the arsonist Satan, whose torch is almost extinguished.

Dear Father, guard us so that His craftiness may not take the place of our pure faith.

Grant that our cross and sufferings may lead to a blessed and sure hope of the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, for whom we wait daily.

Amen. So we wrapped up our look at the

Ten Commandments. And that was all part of, let's just say the last months, many, many, many months have been really digging in deep into the

Ten Commandments as we've been working our way through the book of Exodus. We're now going to, kind of like the

Red River is now kind of swollen and ready to move upstream, we're ready to head it the same way and begin to actually work through the rest of Exodus.

A little bit of a note here is in the chapters that immediately follow Exodus 20, where we receive the

Ten Commandments, in the chapters that follow, the immediate ones, we're going to get a lot of law.

And we're going to note, we're going to start to see then not just moral law, but we're also going to begin to see civil law.

And I know on its face this sounds about as fun as studying the

United States legal code. And if you ever are suffering from insomnia, pulling out something like that on the

Internet and just starting reading legalese will put you right to sleep, I promise. I was at a Gideon meeting this weekend and one of the fellows who spoke who gave his personal testimony of how he started to say,

I started reading out and came from a really tough background. So I started reading the book from the beginning. Genesis was kind of interesting, had a lot of good stuff.

Exodus, had a lot of adventure in Exodus. Then I got to a little bit of this and I was like, throw the book away. Yeah, throw the book away.

I know the feeling. So here's what we will always try to keep in mind, is that when we look at God's law,

I think it's important for us to understand that much of this reflects His character, and none of these laws would be necessary if it were not for our sin.

When Jesus was tested by a lawyer in Matthew 22, you know it's always a good story when there's an attorney involved, right?

When He was tested by an attorney as to what is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus' answer was that the first and greatest commandment is to love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And the second, He said, is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

And then He said, on these two, all of the law hangs. So the idea then is that as we look through these law passages, it'll be fascinating to see

God's justice in play. You're going to note that God oftentimes will take the side of those whom we in our sin who would exploit, and that tells us something of His great character.

But it's also important for us to recognize that in one way or another, these laws reflect the different ways in which we fail to love

God and love neighbor. And so as Christians, we recognize that God's law condemns us, and it always does, but this is not the only thing that it does.

It also informs us then as to what a good work is. And it's oh so fascinating when you really consider the magnitude of what's going on here, and also having to wrestle with the fact that some of the things that we're going to be covering in the book of Exodus are going to be dealing with issues that are still cultural hot potatoes today.

And I'll explain that, especially the issue of slavery. So we'll take a look at that. So with that, let's dive into Exodus 21.

And remember when the Ten Commandments were given, the people stood far off, and they were totally afraid by God because that's what

God's law does to us. Chapter 21, verse 1. Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.

And this is going to be civil law, so these are going to be the civil laws of the ancient theocracy of Israel. When you buy a

Hebrew slave, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh he shall go free for nothing.

Isn't that interesting? Huh. And now we have the thorny question.

We as Christians, what are we to make of this? Have any of you ever heard a liberal theologian or somebody who's come under the sway of a liberal theologian say, you

Christians, you think you have it right. You think you know everything.

You think that Jesus rose bodily from the grave and that homosexuality is a sin and you're just holier than thou and all this kind of stuff.

Don't you recognize that's just arrogance because there were people who were true believers in Jesus Christ, at least they claim to be, and they fought for the side of the

Confederate States of America in order to preserve that evil institution of slavery and who's defending slavery today, huh?

So all those Christians were wrong, so how do you know you're not wrong about your belief that Jesus bled and died for your sins and that he rose from the grave, huh?

Ever heard this argument? This is a popular one and it's a toxic one.

And what it requires us to do is to first of all recognize that yeah, there are people who are believers who have believed and defended some pretty terrible things, just straight up awful.

You look at the history of the Crusades, there's some guilt there on the part of people who profess

Christ. This is just most certainly true. And I have no problem saying that there were people who were in church every

Sunday in southern states during the Civil War, praying for the defeat of the

Union Army and for the preservation of slavery. This is no doubt true. So what do we do with a text like this where it says when you buy a

Hebrew slave, is God condoning slavery?

Not exactly. Let me put it this way. When somebody is financially destitute in our nation today, let's say a fellow has made some really bad business decisions, his business has gone bust and he cannot put food on the table for his wife and his children.

Who generally helps that fellow? The government.

The government does. We have welfare. There was no welfare in the ancient world.

So what happens when a person makes some bad business decisions, stretches himself out financially, and the whole thing goes up in smoke?

What do you do in a situation like that? What could be done? Answer, in the ancient world, slavery was a way for people to continue to meet their physical needs, but in order to do so, they put themselves into slavery to pay off debts or things like this.

So it was actually part of the safety net, if you would, of the ancient world. Now it's important to note this.

As we read through this passage, we're going to see that a particular kind of slavery is absolutely condemned in the strongest words by God.

This is the kind the U .S. had. And let's talk about the slavery that the U .S. had. There were tribes in Africa who were fighting with each other, and there were people from one tribe who were taking hostage people of other tribes, capturing them, shackling them, throwing them onto slave ships, and then if they survived the passage to anywhere in the

United States or parts of the British Commonwealth, they were sold on the slave block as slaves.

That is not the slavery that we're talking about here. That slavery is explicitly condemned by Scripture.

In fact, this very chapter not only condemns it, you'll see in just a few minutes that that kind of slavery is threatened with capital punishment.

Those who participate in it on all levels are threatened with capital punishment by God. This is why

Scripture forbids enslavers. But if you have a person who they're down and out, and the only asset they have is their own body, they have the right in the ancient world to sell themselves into slavery.

And if you are an Israelite, and he is a fellow Israelite, that slavery does not continue to the end of his life without his input.

And if he puts himself into slavery and you purchase him, you have six years, and after six years, he's a free man for nothing.

Zero dollars. Important to note. So keep that in mind.

And listen to this. If he comes in single, he shall go out single. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.

If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out alone.

But if the slave plainly says, notice who's in the driver's seat, I love my master,

I love my wife, I love my children. I will not go out free.

Then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost, talking about the tabernacle, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, pierce his ear, and he shall be his slave forever.

Who's making the decision? The slave is. So have you guys ever met men who have pierced ears?

Just ask them, who's your master? That's what that means, right?

So you'll note then who's in charge. And notice that God puts very specific limits on it.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.

If she does not please her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed.

So in this particular case, it's a slightly different set of rules for females than males, and in a male -driven patriarchal society where women cannot own property, then the idea then being is that a girl sold into slavery, it's a good living, and if she is not treated well by her master, she's allowed to go free, period.

So no abuse of slaves is permitted, period. And in this particular case, the idea here is that if she's not pleasing to the one who purchased her, then he has to let her go.

And he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has broken faith with her. Now, if he designates her for his son, so a fellow purchases a girl as a slave, she's doing the housework and doing other things that slaves do, and he says, you know what?

She would really make a good mate for my son. And so the idea then is that he arranges then for his son to marry the slave girl.

What do you do in a situation like that? Because one has standing and the other doesn't. Answer, God is going to require that that slave be treated with all of the privileges of somebody who is no longer a slave.

That marriage is a way of freeing her, for real. So, in that situation, if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter.

If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.

And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing without payment for money.

So notice how God is trying to quickly set things up in such a way that there are boundaries, there are limits, and if there are abuses in that relationship, especially abuses on the part of the master, then the slave is out.

No questions, they're out. They do not get to be abused, mistreated, treated in an inhumane way, and if they are, they're free.

That's pretty cool. You think about all the stories that we heard of what happened in the South.

Slaves were mistreated terribly if they were really following biblical commands. Any slave master who abused his slave should have had his slave stripped from him and then set free.

That's not what happened. So, historically, do we really know that the Jewish people lived by these rules?

Offhand, I can't think of an example in the Bible where it shows this. Because human nature is going to lead them to do the wrong thing.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Human nature, because it's all about idolatry.

And yet the commands are so clear. They are explicit. And this is what is expected.

Well, and the other people around the masters, though, would be watching each other. Because this is civil law, right?

So the government there, it's not like it's just up to the master, you know, hey, make sure you don't abuse your slaves, but everybody else is watching too, including the government.

Now, in this particular case, in the theocracy of ancient Israel before there was a king, it was up to the fathers of each of the communities to make sure that these were followed.

It was up to the fathers, the heads of the household, to make sure that this was happening. So if their neighbor was abusing their slaves, it was absolutely the responsibility of the fathers of that community to say to the fellow who's abusing his slaves, your slaves get to go free, you're breaking

God's law. Straight up. In a perfect world. Yeah, in a perfect world.

Well, a perfect world wouldn't have this, but in a broken world, this is the best that we could hope.

Now, whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. That's murder. But if he did not lie in wait for him, and you're going to note that Scripture makes a distinction between premeditated murder as opposed to involuntary manslaughter.

There's a big difference. And that's an important distinction because not all killing is murder. Now, when somebody is killed accidentally or intentionally, let's just say the family of the person who died oftentimes has very strong emotional reactions and may, in their anger and mourning, blame somebody falsely.

God recognizes this case. So if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand,

I will appoint for you a place for which he may flee. This is a sanctuary city. Not like the sanctuary cities in California.

I just want to make that clear. This is about somebody who had not intended to kill somebody, but they could flee there so that justice could not be exacted on them without due recourse and without the proper procedure.

If a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

So premeditated murder, that's capital crime. Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Children who are abusive to their parents physically, death penalty. Whoever steals a man, and here's the text

I was referring to just a few minutes ago. Listen to this. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

Consider the implications. This indicts everybody in the slave trade from the supplier to the buyer.

So there's a trade set up. They are kidnapping people, and they are stealing them and putting them into slavery.

The enslaver, death penalty. The person who purchased the slave, death penalty.

The whole industry is indicted. And I would have you consider this, that in our day slavery still exists.

And I hate to say it, it still exists in our country. It just has taken on a different form, and it's pervasive throughout the world.

When we talk about human trafficking, that is what we're talking about. This is a form of slavery.

They are stealing women, putting them in bondage, literally forcing them to be raped day after day after day.

And if this were enforced properly, all the way along the line, the people who would be indicted are the enslavers, the pimps

I guess is what they call them, to the people who are the johns, all the people purchasing.

Everybody involved in that whole slave trade would be put to death according to this. The only people who would not be put to death are those who were enslaved.

So this still exists to our day. And it's important for us to recognize the severity with which

God looks at this sin. This is a capital crime.

This isn't 15 years in prison with possibility of parole after two.

This is, you stand before Jesus, your ultimate judge, and he's going to condemn you to hell.

That's how big this is. So our legal system with Judeo -Christian principles has failed us because these guys should be put to death.

Yeah. Pretty harsh. Yeah. And I want you to consider part of the issue that we're, one of the reasons

I think we're suffering the way we are with some weird things and manifestations in our own society is

I think the government has lost its way in the sense that it is tasked by God with punishing evil.

And people who commit heinous crimes, even if they're given the death penalty, they have a better chance of dying in prison than actually facing an execution.

And I want to be careful how I say this, but it makes me wonder if we shouldn't be having a debate along these lines.

For particular crimes, terrorism, mass shootings, and I would even throw into it human trafficking, that we create an express lane.

Because when you go to the grocery store, if you have a lot of groceries, you go in one place. If you only have a few, you get to go into the faster line.

Certain crimes I think we need to expedite. And there needs to be a proper due process and expedite it.

And at the end of it, if it's truly a capital crime, I think we might want to consider televising the execution.

I know that sounds grim. I know that sounds grim, but I'm going to tell you part of the problem that people are talking about is that there actually seems to be a psychological motivation for some of the crimes that are taking place.

These people are actually in some way thinking that they're attaining immortality or that they will have their 15 minutes of fame and they're getting their jollies off by committing the crimes that they're committing.

But the one thing I know about criminals like that, ultimately every single one of them, they are cowards. And the only person they really care about is themselves.

So let's disincentivize it. So not only will you not get fame, you'll get infamy. And you're going to be executed without being able to tell anybody any words publicly so that we can all see it.

As grim and terrible and medieval as that sounds, historically that's actually been quite useful in deterring crime.

And historically many innocent people have been executed as well. Yeah, this is true.

I want to say that the Innocent Project is somewhere over 3 ,500 or so people they have been able to set free.

Yeah, I understand that. I'm not saying the system is perfect, but the current system is failing as a deterrent.

It's truly failing as a deterrent. And I didn't say for all capital crimes.

I'm just saying for a select particular type. Yeah. In my opinion, it seems like a lot of the crimes are done by people who are mentally handicapped.

Sometimes. Well, the thing is our legal system recognizes that.

If somebody who truly has a mental illness commits a crime, that's part of their defense.

And we do not execute people who have a mental illness. That's always been the case.

Yeah. Well, the deterioration of the family and the stepping away from the church and the families and the importance of also has a part in the deterioration of the system here.

And it has been worn down for as long as I can remember, at times before that.

But my mother told me one thing one time. She says, the people, our opponents, will win this battle without firing a shot.

And she was talking about the liberal, socialistic, communistic people. And they are winning this war.

Yeah, at the moment. They are. And they've gotten into our school systems. And they have been indoctrinating our kids in the public school systems.

And, you know, it's hard to beat on this because we as Christians, a lot of times, we're humble.

We won't speak up against some stuff because we sometimes respect the people that can have their word, you know, out.

Well, then they shunk you down and you get tired of it and you go home and you bury your head in the sand. So, you know, we can start at the traditional system or should we start at home in the family?

You have to always start at home in the family and church. Now, I want you to fill in the blank for this sentence.

You actually know what the blank is. The blank is mightier than the sword. The pen. So here's the thing.

Is that we recognize that words have power. And all that is necessary for evil to thrive are for those who know what good is to remain silent.

We, whether we want to recognize it or not, have always been at war with the forces of darkness.

You understand what you call a soldier who refuses to fire his weapon in a battle.

You know what you call that fellow? A coward or a corpse. Or both.

So here's the idea. Is that because human beings, and we know this because scripture says it so clearly in Romans 2, we actually have the law of God written on our hearts.

We do. We know good and evil. People describe it. Who are unbelievers, they talk about their conscience getting the best of them.

And where does that conscience come from? That's something put into them by God. Now, here's the fun part. We actually are in the right.

Those people are saying twisted words to end up, rather than punishing evildoers, they protect those who break the law.

I'm sorry, but when you boil it all down, let's talk about sanctuary cities for a second.

Or sanctuary counties. What is that? We have voted as a community that when somebody is in our country illegally, they have jumped the fence rather than gone the proper way to come into our country in order to work.

That in our county, they will be protected and they will not be arrested.

Really? What is that? That's not the punishing of evil.

That's the punishing of good. That is the protecting of evil.

And you can sit there and say, they just are trying to supply food for their family and things like this.

Everybody should supply food for their family and work and do these things. But there's a right way and a wrong way to enter our nation.

And there are laws in place for reasons. And so rather than enforce the law, people are breaking it, and the people who are breaking it are in the government.

Something's really off. And as crazy as it sounds, just reminding the government and saying,

I am a citizen here and you, government of the United States or government of California or government of North Dakota, are tasked with the job, by God, of punishing evildoers, not punishing those who are doing well.

So the same government who is protecting illegal aliens is punishing

Christians for refusing to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Everything's upside down, backwards and inside out.

And if you speak out, you know what's going to happen? People are going to unfriend you on Facebook.

They're going to come onto your Facebook wall and accuse you of being a closed -minded, bigoted, racist, hater, homophobe, name all the litany of the stuff.

Guilty as charged. So the fundamental issue, going back even deeper, is the lack of a church to teach what...

Like you were just teaching here from the first 15 verses. I mean, what you just explained about slavery,

I had never heard the cultural setting before. So when you understand that, then this starts to make more sense.

But society hasn't heard that because the church hasn't been giving us enough depth. And so liberalism flourishes because you can't just take this passage and throw it right in your face and say, you know, look, the

Bible endorses slavery. Yeah. But if somebody came to you and said, look, the

Bible endorses slavery, you can say, ah, let's talk about that. Does it really? It doesn't, because we just read a passage that says anybody found guilty of stealing a human being or purchasing a human being has been stolen.

That's the whole industry itself. That's a capital crime. In fact, all of the slavery of the

South, according to God's law, was a capital crime. Is it any wonder they lost the war?

God was judging them. And not take it as it was intended or interpreted originally.

Like Don says, throw it back in your face. And at that time, I just put my head down and say, well, think what you want.

You know, I know what I'm writing. And my fight is over with. And it shouldn't be.

Now, I'm going to point something out. We're only breaking the surface of this chapter. Has what

God's Word said and revealed actually added some clarity to your mind about things and how the world and our government should operate?

Yeah. Don actually made a point, and that is that many churches are no longer teaching

God's Word with this type of depth. And because of that, there are whole generations of Christians who are ignorant of these things.

And now that you know what God reveals here, would this make a difference then in the conversations that you have with others?

Yeah, hopefully it would. But the pastors and the people getting pumped out of these seminaries now have all got liberal arts degrees that are getting pumped out of these liberal institutions and then sent on to seminary.

And their minds are all being made up that they're not going to rock the boat. Yeah. And I'll be blunt.

Part of our problem is that there's a whole group of people who have fallen under the sway of this bigger, broader, just for lack of a better term, we'll call it social justice.

The problem with social justice is ultimately it's not anchored in God's justice. It's anchored in a form of justice that reasons according to the current way in which human beings think.

For me, right? And so you're going to note in God's justice, everybody has rights.

And I need to say this regarding racism. The last time I checked, there's only one race, the human race.

Period. So if we're going to talk about other races, we better be talking about aliens like space people.

Okay? Because that would be a different race. But when we're talking about human beings, the amount of melatonin you have on your skin doesn't make you a different race.

Therefore, God has called us to love everybody, each other. There in Christ, there is neither

Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female. We're all...

We all have equal standing with God. But at the moment, who's setting the agenda?

People who are not grounded in real justice and an understanding of God's law in its true sense.

And their ideology, which is based on human philosophy, has taken over and ruled the day.

Specifically social Marxism. Right. And where's the church in the midst of all of this?

The church is entertaining itself to death right now. I would say, we don't have time for entertainment.

We don't gather for me to do a 15 -minute stand -up comedy routine and make you guys feel good about yourselves.

That's not what we gather to do. We gather as Christ's sheep to feast on His Word, to feast on His body and blood, to hear the forgiveness of sins and dig into the

Word of God. I've got a... There's like 66 books in this thing. And we're on to book...

What? Right? But it's really fascinating.

So many people... I'll come back to your initial point. The guy wanted to throw the book against the wall, the

Bible against the wall. We can get into Leviticus and all this kind of stuff. But it's that very part that we think is the least important that is probably the most important at this time.

God's law is glorious. And it reveals so much of His nature. And it shows us what

God would expect of a government. You want to talk about real justice?

Don't give me your theories, your ideas, and your ideologies. Let's come back to this book and really get an idea of what kind of justice

God would expect from us, from our government, who is tasked with the job of punishing evildoers. That's their job.

So, whoever steals a man and sells him, anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.

Capital crime. Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Interesting. When men quarrel, and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and the man does not die, but takes to his bed.

This is the days before hospitals. So, who were the nurses in the ancient world? Wives and daughters and mothers.

So, he's taken to his bed. He's injured. So, then if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff,

I know about that. They're called canes. He who struck him shall be clear. Only he shall pay for the loss of his time.

So, two guys get into a scuffle. Guys get into scuffles. This is because there's testosterone.

They get into scuffles. You said this about me. No, I didn't say that about you. How dare you say that about me? And they get into a fight.

And the women are saying, Stop it. Use your brains, please. Use your brains. Knock this off. No, they're not going to use their brains, so they're going to come to fisticuffs.

And one guy knocks the other guy down, and he goes out like a light.

And it turns out his injuries were pretty severe. He has a concussion, and he's out of work for six weeks.

Legitimately. Six weeks out of work. All right, fine. God says, okay.

So you, who hit him, you have to pay his salary for six weeks.

Not unemployment insurance. Not the state of North Dakota. Not the federal government. The fellow who knocked him out of the work.

He has to pay for it. But when you think about it, it allows rich men to go beat up poor men all they want.

It's not going to hurt them financially to pay up poor men for it. Now, I'll be blunt, okay? Now, I understand how you're thinking here, but let me help you.

Rich men. Do they work hard with their hands? Do they have muscles?

No. Rich men are scrawny and puny, and they are the ones calling the shots.

And if they were to get into fights with the guys who are working out in the field, that wouldn't go well for them.

Okay, I can take six people into that. Yeah? Take off on this side, though.

You got two guys that get in a fight. One guy's bigger than the other. So the winner usually gets charged with assault.

Yes. Yeah, the winner will be charged with assault. That's a different story altogether.

In this particular case, the police haven't been called, and it's just a matter of what's the aftermath. You were knocked out of work for six weeks.

You knocked him down. You pay for that. I'm just curious. You know, these are the words of God, correct?

But this wouldn't be necessarily what Jesus would be preaching as far as...

I mean, there's no repentance for any of these. Like, well,

I'm sorry I put this guy into slavery. I was wrong. I repent.

He can go free. Uh -huh. Here it's just like, you're dead. There is no... Okay, so, yes.

Explain why... Okay, great question. Why is there this distinction? Answer, because now we're into civil law.

Civil law is not about what you believe. It's about what you do. Okay, when it comes to the church, it's about what you believe that can be forgiven.

The government is not tasked with the job of forgiving you. The government's tasked with the job of punishing you.

So you can be sorry, and God can forgive you, but the government's still going to exact from you a punishment for the bad behavior, for the crime that you've committed.

Notice I said crime, not sin. So right now, in this case, we're dealing with crimes, and the crimes are...

You can see the hook back into the moral law. If you're keeping the moral law, you're not going to commit these crimes.

But now, because of a failure to love your neighbor, you've committed a crime against that person.

Now civil law, it's got to weigh these things out regardless of belief in God.

And so, when we talk about how God has ordered society, we look at the two institutions.

The church, tasked with the job of making disciples, baptizing, teaching, forgiving sins, and the government, tasked with the job of punishing crimes.

Two different things all together, and this is civil law. So, this is establishing the rules for society, civil law -wise, when the children of Israel come into the land.

So regardless of their belief, that doesn't matter. You can be forgiven by God, but in the eyes of the government, in the eyes of fathers, this is how this is going to go.

Does that help? Yeah. When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod, and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged.

If the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. When men strive together, and this is a fascinating text,

I want you to consider the implications here. Over again, people who are pro -abortion, do they believe that a fetus is a human being?

No. Based on what I have, no idea. How a fetus magically becomes a human being by traveling six inches doesn't make any sense to me.

Such is their ideology. Consider this next commandment in light of the abortion issue, and we're going to see that God clearly and unambiguously has made it clear that unborn human beings are human beings.

This law would make no sense otherwise. So when men strive together, which is what men do when they have testosterone running in their brain, and they hit a pregnant woman in the process, you can kind of see the picture, you guys are kind of fisticuffs, the women have gathered on the sides and they're playing, stop it, stop it, stop it, and they get into this scuffle, and a woman who is pregnant, watching the scuffle, accidentally inadvertently gets hit in the midst of all of this.

And there's, okay, so they hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, so it leads to her going into labor.

But there is no harm. The one who hit her shall surely be fine, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judge has determined.

But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stride for stride.

So, if during the scuffle, the pregnant woman is struck, she goes into labor, and the child dies, the one responsible dies.

Life for life. But that wouldn't be murder, that would be manslaughter, wouldn't it?

Yeah, in this particular case, it's not intentional, but because at this point an unborn life has died, and these men were not cautious to protect that life, they lose their life, regardless of the fact that it was an unintentional death.

So, is it because the child is totally innocent? Yeah, totally innocent.

Done nothing. Not even, you know, except for the car, there isn't even a visible participant in this case.

So you're going to note, here we have an instance of not first degree murder, but unintentional manslaughter, the person who's died is an infant, death penalty.

That's serious. Is there any doubt in your mind that God considers an unborn human being to be a human being?

I've never read that. None. It's painfully clear.

When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye.

If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.

It's a pretty expensive tooth. Right? So notice this reinforces this idea.

Those who are in the unenviable position of the only asset they have is their own life, of selling themselves, not being sold into, but selling themselves into slavery.

If they're mistreated, they lose an eye or a tooth, you're free. This just builds off of what we saw earlier in the chapter.

It sounds like God really cares about those people rather than doesn't care. Now this is a fun one because I don't know anybody, does anyone here own an ox?

And why would you not talk about your husband's name? Does anyone own an ox?

So when you own an ox or you own cattle or you own a very large animal, you're responsible for its behavior in this sense.

So when an ox gores a man or a woman to death, which has been known to happen, I know

Spanish people who flirt with that every year and wear red colors and run through the streets and they're running a bull, right?

Why would anyone do this? I do not know. So if that happens, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten.

Oh, bummer. But the owner of the ox shall not be liable. So, and this is assuming certain things, and you'll see this as the text develops.

So you've got an ox that's properly penned and something has happened and he's gotten out.

It's an accident and somebody gets killed. The sad part is you don't get to have the barbecue.

The ox dies and the carcass rots. It's like, ah. That's a punishment in and of itself to not be able to enjoy the meat from that asset.

That's part of the punishment. So what if they were provoking? Well, then that would be on them in that particular case.

But here's the thing. The ox has been accustomed to gore in the past. So you know you have an armory ox.

You know it's a problem and you're not able to work with the animal to work that out of it.

Or you, let's just say, you refuse to actually do what's necessary to work with the animal to get that out of it.

Now this creates a different level of problem. And its owner has been warned.

So you've got a neighbor who's got an armory ox and the neighbor is too busy playing Nintendo because that's the only play system that there is.

Insight joke in the Rosewood family. And rather than doing what he needs to do in order to keep that ox at bay and the people have warned him, get off the television, stop playing video games, this ox is a problem.

If you don't do something, somebody's going to die. And what does the owner do? Call of duty.

I've got more important things to do right now. Ambassador? Yes sir. A lot of our laws today are based on that.

As far as open range laws in the state of North Dakota for one. Also your negligent laws that are in the courts today.

If you knowingly knew that somebody was not qualified for doing a certain task but you were letting him do that anyway, you are just as liable as he was when it comes to punishment.

My point is, a lot of our laws are based on how this is, whether it's moral law or otherwise.

When it comes to negligence regarding animals and things like this, there doesn't seem to be any major problem in our legal code.

It's regarding other issues, particularly related to sex and gender for whatever reason.

But when it comes to stuff that's common sense like this, there's not a lot of people out there arguing against negligence laws.

Isn't that fascinating? So this is an example of a negligence law. So it's been accustomed to glory in the past its owner has been warned, has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death.

And if a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him.

If it abhors a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to the same rule. If the ox abhors a slave or a male or female, the owner shall give their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned.

Fascinating that that's the price. That was the price of the animal. That's the price of price.

Interesting. The entire chapter is deterrence.

It's not the commandments, you shall not. It is if you do this, there will be punishment.

It's interesting that it's different from the commandments. Right. The commandments say thou shalt not, and then there's deterrence in here in the legal system, but everything's hooked back to the moral law.

But there is a sense in which this is expecting a particular way for people to behave, and if they don't and fall short in certain ways, there are real consequences.

Real consequences. So there's no way for somebody to be lazy and be a proper participant in society.

There's no way for somebody to be self -centered and selfish and still participate in society because everyone would see that person now as a threat to their own life, and that person would be a threat to themselves.

Just in proper understanding of God's law, you can start to sit there and go, that fellow over there, that behavior of his, he thinks it only is hurting him, uh -huh, it's going to hurt everybody else too.

So you notice there's, yeah. Can you go back to verse 20 when you first look at it, it looks kind of unfair.

Verse 20. It's okay to hit your slave. 21, I should say, actually.

But if the slave survives a day or two, he's not going to be advantaged to the slave as his money. Yeah, in this particular case, um, this is assuming in this particular case that the slave was being disciplined but not abused.

Because the other law said in the chapter rule out abuse. So, yeah, corporal punishment, even for people who are adults, was still a thing in the ancient world.

So, all right, negligence laws.

When a man opens a pit, and this is the day before they had orange caution cones and yellow flags and things like that.

Or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restoration.

He shall give money to his owner, and the dead beast shall be his. So, guys working on, you know, maybe, working on some kind of water channel or something like that opens up a pit, and along comes an ox, falls into it and dies.

Congratulations. That's a good way to catch an ox. That's the easiest way to catch them in the wild.

But the ox is yours, and you've got to pay for it. So, in that particular case. It doesn't work on South Washington, though.

Some of the potholes are big enough for us. Aren't taxes supposed to fix that? Now, when one man's ox butts another so that it dies,

I guess that happens, then they shall sell the live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also, and they shall share.

Or if it's known that the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall repay ox for ox, and the dead beast shall be his.

Hmm. Now, this isn't the most exciting portion of Scripture. But isn't it fascinating just kind of working through God's law?

You're now kind of like making connections. Okay, well this is why certain things are happening in our society and why certain things are breaking down.

And you get a real sense of God's justice, and you get a real sense that God literally has set things up as the best -case scenario as this could be in a fallen world.

He truly has set it up so that people are not abused, taken advantage of, and really harmed by their neighbor in many various different ways.

All of these kind of reflect, again, a failure to love your neighbor as yourself. So when you open up a pit, you've got to consider your neighbor may not know that you've opened up that pit and, you know, take the proper precautions and things like that.

Always love your neighbor even when you're working out in the field. All right? We will leave it there.

Next week, we will get into Chapter 22 and, you know, continue this process of working through the law and see where it goes for us.