“Sex & Marriage (Deuteronomy 22:13-25:12 (excerpts))", Will DuVal | 5/24/26
Deuteronomy 22:13-25:12 (excerpts) | 5/24/26 | Will DuVal
Quick PSA before we get started: we’re gonna be dealing with some very sensitive subjects this morning (sex, rape…), so Parents: if you’re not sure your kids are ready for it just yet; totally understand. I’m sure Ms. Holly would love to have them down in the kids wing. 🙂
But Polly & I met with a couple just last week for some premarital counseling - they’re YOUNG; she’s only 21! - so I asked them one of the questions I ask EVERY couple: “Why do you want to get MARRIED?” It’s a question that deserves an answer, whether you’re approaching marriage from a SECULAR worldview - “You’re so YOUNG! Why not ‘sow your wild oats’ as long as you can?” or “Why get married at ALL?!” Who needs the legal formality? As long as we know how we feel about each other, isn’t that all that matters (plus, less red tape later if our feelings CHANGE)?” - but even viewed from a BIBLICAL perspective, the apostle Paul claims in 1 Corinthians 7 that it’s actually BETTER to remain SINGLE and wholly devoted to the LORD and to MINISTRY, than to be married. So, “Why do you wanna be married?”
And they gave me a great response: “Well, Paul ALSO says in that SAME passage that “it is better to marry than to burn with passion,” (v9) and risk committing sexual immorality. Also, related, we’d like to have KIDS. Also, COMPANIONSHIP; “God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18). And also, SANCTIFICATION; God uses marriage to GROW us, tremendously, over time.
Like I said, GREAT answer; they got FOUR out of FIVE stars. But they forgot the FIFTH, and arguably the most profound of the BIBLICAL reasons to get married, the one that EVERY couple I ask leaves out: that marriage is a unique and living reflection of the glory of the GOSPEL. Marriage offers us a daily opportunity to bear WITNESS to the loving, covenant relationship that Jesus Christ has entered into with HIS Bride, the CHURCH. Here’s Paul again, this time in Ephesians 5: “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, [he’s quoting Genesis 2 there…] and the two shall become one flesh.” [Then Paul adds:] 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to [it POINTS to] Christ and the church.” (31-32). Marriage is a PICTURE of the gospel.
And as our surrounding society continues its degradation and DE-valuing of both sex and marriage, I would argue that holding to and practicing a healthy, biblical view of both sex & marriage increasingly becomes one of if not THE most POWERFUL counter-cultural, distinctly Christian witness we have to offer the world: a BETTER way, than the world’s “cheap sex” and “better I guess than the alternative: dying alone” view of marriage. We espouse and expose the GRAVITY and the SANCTITY of sex… as well as the BEAUTY and the JOY of marriage.
Christians are often charged with upholding an “outdated and repressive (or even O-ppressive)” sexual and marital ethic. Much of which is grounded in a 2,000 year old NEW Testament, but SOME of which goes back an ADDITIONAL 1,500 years to the OLD Testament! And it is to THAT “ethic” that we turn our attention this morning, as we turn to the book of Deuteronomy, chs 22-25. We’ve been studying our way through this wonderful book for almost 5 months now, and in particular, through this extensive middle section of LAWS. To recap: chs 1 thru 4 called us to “Remember God’s PAST provision”, chs 5 thru 29 call us to “RESPOND to God’s PRESENT precepts”, and chs 30 to 34 will invite us to “RELY on God’s future PROMISES”. So we’re nearing the end of the precepts, and as we do, it’s ESPECIALLY important to remember this morning in particular, with THESE precepts about sex & marriage, what I’ve reminded you of OFTEN now: that ALL of these precepts are now “obsolete” (Heb 8:13); they’ve been “fulfilled” by and in Christ and are therefore no longer binding on us today; we’re not “UNDER the Law”. And YET, underlying EACH of these precepts if a timeless principle that points us to God’s PRIORITIES, as they pertain to sex & marriage. That’s what we’re MOST concerned with here: not so much the particularities of the precepts - although we DO need, as always, to first appreciate the precepts in their own historical context, so we can not only make sense of what God is commanding, by see it as GOOD; some of these commands, I have to warn you - at face value - do NOT seem “good”; in fact, we may be REPULSED by them. But once we understand them in their appropriate context, I hope you’ll see their value.
But SPEAKING of “value”, more than ANYTHING, we want to look BENEATH the precepts for those PRINCIPLES that reveal to us what GOD values.
THREE THINGS, we’re gonna see here, that God values.
And the FIRST - I’m gonna go ahead and GIVE it to you, and THEN we’ll read the passage of Scripture that supports it - these 3 ½ chapters of Deuteronomy, even more than previous ones we’ve studied, they jump from topic to topic… one law is about what to do with your excrement, and the next is about what to do with an run-away SLAVE; they just jump all OVER the place! - but I tried to pull out all the precepts concerning SEX and MARRIAGE for this morning, and then Pastor Thad will cover all the REST next Sunday. So we’ll read each of the three sections separately; I think it’s gonna HELP you follow along that way.
But here’s the FIRST thing we learn about what God values:
#1- The Lord values SEXUAL PURITY. (22:13-30)
Now let’s READ it together; I invite you to STAND with me, as you’re able… Deuteronomy ch22, beginning in v13; hear the word of the Lord:
“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her 14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ 15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; 17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip[b] him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels[c] of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin[d] of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. 20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
22 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23 “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
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25 “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, 27 because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.
28 “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
30 [e] “A man shall not take his father's wife, so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness.” This is the word of God…
SEVEN laws here, all centered around the VALUE God places on His people’s SEXUAL PURITY.
Vv13-21 and 23-24 addresses premarital sex, v22 addresses ADULTERY, vv25-29 address RAPE, and v30 addresses INCEST.
Those of us who are inclined to love and trust the Bible will likely welcome about HALF these laws; if you’re NOT a big fan of the Bible, you may hate ALL SEVEN of them; but I’m gonna make the QUICK case for why they’re ALL profitable. Let’s go from easiest to hardest.
Starting with INCEST; v30: “A man shall not take his father's wife”, his STEP-mom; that would “uncover his father's nakedness.” What happens in the bedroom between a married couple is sacrosanct and PRIVATE; you don’t bring OTHER people into that bedroom… ESPECIALLY not FAMILY!
But not JUST family; NO ONE crashes the party. That’s v22 and God’s prohibition against ADULTERY now. Now, some might take issue with God’s prescription of the DEATH penalty here - “both of them shall DIE” - but that’s just because they don’t take sexual purity NEARLY as seriously as GOD does. But most of us are good with the principle: no ADULTERY. Which really covers vv23-24 as well: a man lying with a “betrothed virgin” in the CITY; if she didn’t “cry for help” she must’ve been INTO it, which makes it a case of not just “premarital sex”, but it says here “he violated his neighbor’s WIFE”. In GOD’s eyes, this “betrothed”, soon-to-be-wed couple was already as good as married. Betrothal in that day was a formal, legal process. So if you’re ENGAGED this morning, wondering, “Does that mean we can go ahead and have SEX?”, the answer is NO; engagement today is very different than betrothal back then.
Now we come to the DIFFICULT ones. We like the FIRST half of vv13-21: a cruel husband who falsely ACCUSES his wife of impropriety - premarital sex - if her parents can produce the “evidence of her virginity”, the “cloak” from their wedding night, with the blood from her broken hymen, then that husband would be punished… SEVERELY; “the elders shall… whip[a] him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels[b] of silver”; that’s a STIFF penalty, equal to roughly 8 YEARS worth of work for common laborer! But GOOD; serves him RIGHT!
But what about the SECOND half: “But if the thing is true, and evidence of virginity was not found… 21 then they shall bring out the young woman… and the men of her city shall stone her to death”. That’s TOUGHT.
First of all, where’s the test of HIS virginity! God DID and still DOES expect men to abstain from sex until marriage as well, however, in His wisdom, God didn’t design the male body with the same kind of evidentiary PROOF of virginity.
You say, “Well what if she already broke her hymen horseback riding? Or it didn’t break even with penetrative sex? Not uncommon.”
Well, it WAS more uncommon back then, at the younger age that women typically got married. But beyond that, I think we have to infer that ALL of these laws had exceptions. Like the betrothed virgin in the city - what if she didn’t scream cuz he was holding a KNIFE to her throat? That’s why God ordained JUDGES to preside over these cases, and required that EVERYTHING be established by two or three WITNESSES.
But we can’t let that detract TOO much from the GRAVITY of God’s LAW here: “stone her to death… because she has done an outrageous thing by whoring in her father's house.” The Lord values SEXUAL PURITY. He really REALLY does.
But that leaves the TOUGHEST law for last: “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and [RAPES] her… then he shall give to her father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her.” She’s stuck with her RAPIST?!
Commentator Daniel Block (Deuteronomy, p526) suggests a modal (rather than imperative) translation - “he MAY pay 50 shekels and marry her” - leaving the decision up to girl’s father as to whether to accept the payment or not.
Still, this is a TOUGH law for us to stomach. But I think a LOT of that is due to just how far REMOVED we are from ancient Israelite society. Put yourself in this poor girls’ SHOES: what OPTIONS do you really HAVE at this point? Would you prefer that God had prescribed the death penalty for your rapist? With likely no other men willing to marry you now… doomed to be alone and childless the rest of your life?
Sadly, this law is yet another example of God’s gracious ACCOMMODATION to the reality of our SIN. God HATES rape. And this law simultaneously punishes the violator while protecting the violated woman: God says to HIM, “Oh No; you do NOT get to steal the milk without buying the cow!” And God says to HER: “I will NOT leave you alone and childless; I’m commanding HIM to provide for you.”
But with every ONE of these laws, God is acknowledging and addressing our propensity to PERVERT His beautiful DESIGN for sex, to be enjoyed exclusively within the context of MARRIAGE. God created sex, and no one knows BETTER how to maximize both our pleasure and our protection with sex, than GOD. That’s what ALL of these laws - and the ENTIRE “sexual ethic” of the Bible - is ultimately all about: promoting pleasure and protection within sex. How do we DO it? Short answer: MARRIAGE. If you wanna have GREAT sex, get MARRIED, and pursue “two-become-one”-ness EMOTIONALLY with your spouse, SPIRITUAL oneness - to divorce sex from that is to ROB it of its GLORY.
#2 now - The Lord values PHYSICAL PROPRIETY. (23:1-2, 9-14, 17-18; 25:11-12)
Propriety means “appropriateness”. And all EIGHT of these laws now, in this second section of text, concern matters of PHYSICAL - BODILY - propriety. And even more specifically: they’re really about PRIVATE PART propriety.
Beginning in ch23, v1 (but we’re REALLY jumping around this time):
23:1 “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.
2 “No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord… [skip down to v9 now…]
“When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.
10 “If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp. He shall not come inside the camp, 11 but when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water, and as the sun sets, he may come inside the camp.
12 “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. 13 And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. 14 Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. [skipping down to v17…]
17 “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute. 18 You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog[h] into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God... [and finally, ch25, v11…]
11 “When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, 12 then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.” This is the word of God…
As I said: EIGHT - frankly, pretty bizarre - laws, but all of them address matters of physical propriety. Let’s take them in order this time, and first seek to understand God’s rationale.
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” First of all, what’s the “assembly of the Lord”? Is that Israel’s corporate worship? Or their society in general? Or something ELSE? Commentator David Guzik suggests the BEST explanation for “assembly of the Lord” is “The broad group of civil leaders and officials in Israel” (Enduring Word Commentary). The term will be used later in ch31 to refer to “all the elders of your tribes, and your officers” (v28). Also, Leviticus 21 (vv16-23) states that PRIESTS were forbidden from “serving at the altar” if they were eunuchs, but that restriction would be irrelevant if eunuchs were forbidden from Israel’s worship or society in general. The POINT seems to be that LEADERS ARE MEN. And God disallows any blurring of the lines about that. Also, MOST of the men in this category had been intentionally “emasculated” in connection with PAGAN rituals.
Which brings us to v2: “No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord.” Most commentators think this refers to “those born of mixed marriages between the people of Israel and their pagan neighbors” (Guzik). At the end of the book of Nehemiah, he writes, “I saw that the Jews had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.” And their CHILDREN didn’t know Hebrew, they were drifting from the worship of Yahweh… So Nehemiah says, “ I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons… Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? ...Thus,” Nehemiah concludes, “I cleansed them from everything foreign”. God puts up boundaries to prevent us from drifting away from Him. Even in the New Testament: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14).
That’s the same idea in v9 now: “When you are encamped against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.” God knew this might be a stronger temptation for Israel especially on the eve of battle: they’d be more DESPERATE to try and win God’s favor, and they’d be EXPOSED to their enemies’ WICKED ways of attempting to do so. Israel’s camp might overlook the Canaanite camp - “Look, they’re making CHILD SACRIFICES to THEIR gods; shouldn’t we be doing MORE to get YAHWEH on OUR side?”. Don’t DO it!
V10: ““If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp.” It wasn’t SINFUL, any more than a woman being on her PERIOD. Yet in BOTH cases, of bodily discharge, ESPECIALLY a SEXUAL discharge like this, a man was rendered “unclean”. Because sex is HOLY. In the same way that the tabernacle utensils of Exodus 27 - the pots & pans and shovels & basins - they couldn’t be used for ANYTHING else OTHER than worship purposes, they’d been CONSECRATED to the Lord, so too are our sexual members to be consecrated - “set apart” - for marital sex. For a man to “spill his seed” like this, even unintentionally, is to take something sacred - semen is the seed of LIFE! - and misuse it. So the man had to be ritually cleansed. (cf Lev 15:16-18.)
And speaking of bodily discharges, vv12-14 now: “You shall have a SPECIAL PLACE designated, OUTSIDE the camp, as an OUTHOUSE. And bring a SHOVEL so you can bury your poop.” Why? “Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp… so it must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.”
Let’s personalize and SPIRITUALIZE this one: where is God’s “camp” TODAY? Our HEARTS! “Do you not know that… God's Spirit dwells WITHIN you? …God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor 3:16-17) How might this warning, to keep our camp “HOLY”, so that God might not “see anything indecent among us and TURN AWAY from us”... how might it change what we WATCH, what we LISTEN to, the conversations we have?
V17 - no “cult prostitution” - we could have lumped in with the “sexual purity” laws. But v18 fits better in this SECOND section, of more general purity commands: “You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog [or “MALE prostitute”; that’s a euphemism] into the house of the Lord your God”. v17 is about OUR purity, as God’s people, but v18 is about respecting GOD’S purity, the holiness of his HOUSE.
Lastly, we skip ahead to ch25 again, v11, for my FAVORITE law, personally, in probably the whole OT: ““When two men are fighting and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband… if she puts out her hand and seizes [his opponent] by the private parts, 12 then you shall cut off her hand.” I just wanna know how often this was HAPPENING in ancient Israel, that they needed a LAW against it?! Was this a common fighting strategy? “Alright honey, I’m going in. But you be ready; if I say, “UNCLE”, and lift up his TUNIC, you know what to DO…”
Various explanations for why this was so taboo include concern for the man’s future fertility (if she crushed his testicles), concern for her own HUSBAND’S honor and reputation, if his WIFE had to step in and fight for him. But I think the SIMPLEST explanation takes us back to our section header: it’s a matter of PHYSICAL PROPRIETY, appropriateness. Things have their PLACES. And another man’s GENITALS is no PLACE for your wife’s HAND.
*The “assembly of the LORD” is no place for eunuchs or pagans.
*There’s no place in God’s camp for WICKEDNESS or UNCLEANNESS…
*No place in God’s HOUSE for dirty money…
*Sex has its place (MARRIAGE)...
*Semen has its place…
*Excrement has its place…
So if we wanted to PERSONALIZE and SPIRITUALIZE this principle in a more GENERAL sense, now, and apply it to our OWN lives, I might ask you: where is YOUR place? “Everything has its place”; what’s YOURS? Where do you BELONG?
God answers the question for us in His word, by assuring us: “You belong to ME!” “You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” God created sex for marriage; He created US for HIMSELF, for his GLORY; that’s why we’re HERE. May we GLORIFY Him, in all of life.
Lastly, #3- The Lord values MARITAL PROMISE. (24:1-5; 25:5-10)
Marriage IS ITSELF a promise, you make to each other. But it also HOLDS the promise, we see here, of THREE BLESSINGS; God designed marriage for the promise of ONENESS (24:1-4), of HAPPINESS (24:5), and of SECURITY (kids; 25:5-10).
Let’s read it; just TWO passages this time; starting in Ch24, v1:
24, v1- “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, 2 and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, 3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. (v5…)
5 “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife[i] whom he has taken…
Ch25, v5:
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.’ 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ 9 then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.’ 10 And the name of his house[k] shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’ This is the word of God…
I’m gonna try to be BRIEF and keep it pretty HIGH LEVEL here, and let you ask follow-up questions for our “After the Sermon” podcast tomorrow. But here’s the upshot: 3 beautiful BLESSINGS marriage promises us, which are being threatened here, hence the need for the regulations.
The first is ONENESS. “God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for[f] him… and [the TWO] shall become one flesh.” (Gen 2:18,24). God hates divorce because it SEVERS that oneness. Indeed, David Guzik points out “The Hebrew word translated ‘divorce’ [here in Deuteronomy 24] has as its root the idea of “a hewing off, a cutting apart” – it is the amputation of that which is intended to be one.” That’s why God says in Malachi 2, “I HATE divorce!” “Did he not make them one, with a portion of His SPIRIT in their union?[f] …let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,[j] says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers[k] his garment with violence” (vv15-16).
So why does God PERMIT divorce, then, here in Deuteronomy 24, at least in SOME cases - when a man finds “some indecency” in his wife… what “indecency”? What does THAT mean? And how about if SHE finds “indecency” in HIM? All great questions to ask for the podcast… - but Jesus answers the “WHY” for us, of God’s former allowance for divorce, in Matthew 19: ““And Pharisees tested Jesus by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning… said, ‘a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one... What God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?” [Is Moses “COMMANDING” divorce, in Deuteronomy 24? No!] 8 Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses ALLOWED you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. [God once again accommodates to the reality of our SIN-fulness] 9 But I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery”” (vv3-9). So Jesus subtly equates DIVORCE here with DEATH; remember THAT was the CONSEQUENCE - the DEATH penalty - for ADULTERY. That’s how seriously God takes this “two-become-one”-ness of marriage.
But why this rather SPECIFIC law about the wife not RETURNING to her FIRST husband? I wanna suggest God may have included this in his word to speak specifically to those of you who HAVE been divorced and remarried, to underscore the point that even IF your remarriage was SINFUL, God doesn’t want you to now leave the SECOND spouse to go back to the FIRST! “Two wrongs don’t make a right; two divorces are NOT better than ONE!” You oughta REPENT and GRIEVE that first divorce, but let it fuel an ever fiercer faithfulness in your SECOND marriage now.
Second, v5: “When a man is newly married”, he is EXEMPT from military service, public duty… “He shall be free at home for one year to be happy with his wife”, or (if you’re reading in the WBT, the “WIVES Bible Translation” 🙂): “He shall be free… to make happy his wife”. For ONE WHOLE YEAR! A God-sanctioned, year-long HONEYMOON, for the expressed purpose of marital BLISS. “Two are BETTER than one” (Ecc 4:9). God designed marriage for our HAPPINESS. Not PRIMARILY; primarily it’s for our HOLINESS… our sanctification… to sharpen us and make us both more like JESUS… and for our WITNESS, to BE that “profound mystery” that points people to the Jesus, and His covenant relationship with His CHURCH.
But if you’re not having a whole lotta FUN along the way, then you’re DOING it wrong. You’re not enjoying the FULLNESS of blessing that God intended for you, in marriage.
Third and Lastly, marriage promises us ONENESS, HAPPINESS, and SECURITY. That’s ch25 now, and this bizarre (to us, anyway) law of “levirate marriage”, in which God commands a deceased husband’s BROTHER to take his widowed sister-in-law in, marry her, and give her KIDS.
Why? For her PROTECTION, provision, and future SECURITY, specifically, through her children, who would then take CARE of her in her old age. But who would moreover, perpetuate the NAME of the deceased brother, their WOULD-be father. Otherwise, the man’s name and lineage would be “blotted out” forever.
Why might the husband’s BROTHER REFUSE to “perform this duty”? Maybe his sister-in-law is just a DUD. But more likely, he’s GREEDY. And he wants his brother’s INHERITANCE - his land allotment - to pass on to HIM instead. Hence, why he deserved to be SPIT upon and SANDAL-less… dishonored.
But marriage brings SECURITY, happiness, ONE-ness.
[[CONCLUSION]]: In closing, what does ANY of this have to do with the GOSPEL?! We’ve considered along the way how these principles come to bear on our lives PERSONALLY:
*God stills calls us to sexual purity. Heb 13:4- “Keep the marriage bed PURE”.
*God still calls us to PHYSICAL PROPRIETY. Everything has its appropriate PLACE. Our place is with THE LORD.
*And God still calls MANY of us, MOST of us, to MARRIAGE, that through it He might bless us with oneness, happiness, security.
But Jesus said in the NEW Testament that ALL the Scriptures point us to HIM. So where do we find the GOSPEL here?
1) Though we are spiritually ADULTERESS, in Christ, God redeems us, and takes us back to Himself (see Jer 3:1; Hos 2:16-25). We are GOMER; but the Lord is HOSEA, our faithful husband, despite our whoring.
2) And how does He DO it? How does God CAUSE us to “belong” - to have a PLACE - with Him? Through JESUS! “You are not your own, (you DO belong to the Lord; WHY??) for you were bought with a price.” We’ve been RANSOMED by the precious blood of JESUS, purchased as a people for God’s own possession.
3) And no amount of faithlessness on our part could EVER cause Jesus to divorce HIS Bride: “The saying is trustworthy… if we are faithless, he remains faithful” (2 Tim 2:11,13).
The only QUESTION is: are you MARRIED to Him? Have you been reconciled to the Creator and LOVER of your soul, through your Savior Jesus?
Let’s pray…