SPEAKER_00 0:03

Listener, have you heard the term atonement before? What was the day of atonement and what does it mean to receive atonement for sin? Reverend Daniel shares from the book of Deuteronomy today.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

On the 9th of July, which is about two weeks ago, I spoke on protecting innocent life and how Deuteronomy 19 actually covers the second half of the Ten Commandments, which includes not committing the following: uh, not murdering, committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting. So, what I'm going to share today, Deuteronomy 21, is a long chapter, uh, but we are going to look at just snippets of it, is to continue the connection with the sixth commandment, the prohibition of murder. So, in some way it is related. What I'm sharing today will be related. So, it's building on what was shared two weeks ago. So, for Israel, one was delivered from death by the interposing of something between one's sin and God. That's how uh Israel for Israel's sin is being covered or atoned for. God saw that something that was interposed as a sacrifice given to God and it covers and atone for sin. So Israel's most sacred day was the day of atonement. This is recorded in Leviticus 16. On that day, a gold is used as the something interposed between one's sin and God. The gold is offered and killed as for a sin offering, and its blood is sprinkled over the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. This is done to cover or to atone for one's sin. So we always hear the word atonement or atone uh thrown around sometimes. So basically it's a it's a big word, but what to what atonement or to atone means in simple words is to cover. That means when I atone for something, there must be something used to cover over sin. So that that is the basic idea of what it means to atone or to cover sin. So the sprinkle blood of the goat in the Old Testament, especially on the day of atonement in Leviticus 16, acts to cover the sin or to atone for the sin. And Leviticus 17, 11 informs us that for it is the blood, it is the blood when God sees the blood sprinkled on the most holy place, the uh the holy of holies, where the mercy sits, where the presence of God is. When he sees the blood being sprinkled there every year, once a year, it recognizes that the blood of the goat makes atonement for by the by the life, by the death of the goat. Why am I sharing with you all this is because uh Deuteronomy 21, verses 1 to 6, as our sister may read for us, actually speaks of the similar idea. It tells us if the land, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and somehow when you are there, you see a man being slain, maybe on the roadside, lying in the open country, you just see a dead person on the road, and it's not known who killed the person, who murdered the person, then what to do, right? Yeah, so in in that case, uh there's quite detailed instructions, I won't go through that, but what happens is the elders and the judges will come, they will measure the distance where the man died to the surrounding cities, and the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall make a sacrifice of atonement. So, what uh the elder of the city will do is they have to take a heifer. So the ESV records a heifer. Do we know what is a heifer? Okay, a heifer is it's not a chicken. I thought it was a chicken until I found out uh that it's not a chicken, right? It is actually a female cow, right? A female cow that have not yet given birth, right? So it's a it's uh in some way it's a virgin female cow. Yeah, so so this is what they are to do. They are to take a heifer. I'm reading from verse 3 of Deuteronomy 21, and the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not put in a yoke, and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. So, in other words, when you break the neck of the poor cow in the valley, that is a form of atonement. When God sees the blood and the sacrifice of the poor heifer, the city uh is atoned for. The bloodshed that was uh shed, the people's sins, uh in some way being forgiven, right? So the land will not be polluted by sin. So, of course, we don't have that understanding now, but in the time of the Old Testament, any form of bloodshed uh will make the whole land impure and guilty of sin, right? Of course, we don't think about that in in modern terms, we we don't associate sin that way, but in Israel's time that was how they understand. Whenever there's bloodshed, there's trouble because you need to deal with you know who committed the murder and how do you deal, how do you make atonement so that you know the bloodshed won't affect the whole land and cause everyone in the land to be impure. So we move on to the the third slide. A very important theme repeated uh many times in the book of Deuteronomy, is the land, the land and the land. And the land is the arena where God has given for life. The land is a land flowing with milk and honey, it's a land that ought to bring forth life. So defilement of the land through murder, through death, is a perversion of God's life sustaining purposes. So Israel should not incur guilt for the shedding of blood. And in various case situations, it may not be intentional, but somehow, like we read earlier, someone just uh got killed and just uh lay in the open square. It must be dealt with. We see that repeated both uh two weeks ago when I shared in Deuteronomy 19, verse uh 13 and verse chapter 21, verse 9. In Deuteronomy 19, verse 13, it says, But you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you. Again in Deuteronomy 21, verse 9, the chapter today, so you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your mists. So defilement caused by the shedding of blood must be dealt with through an atonement or covering over, a covering over the blood guilt. So the responsibility lies on Israel to make atonement for the blood that has been shed. So, in other words, if you are Israel of that day, you can't say, uh, you see someone die on the road, ah, not my business, I just go over. But the whole nation has to take responsibility for a death, for blood that has been shed, right? So they have to take action for that. And again, I'm just sharing us uh just a simple chart. Again, uh two weeks ago when I shared from Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 1, the situation is if anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally, uh the provision is there are three cities of refuge to go to. So that's the provision. But today we read in the first few verses of Deuteronomy 21. If someone is found slain and it's not known who killed him, there must be a provision. Like I shared with us earlier, a heifer or uh a female cow has to be used, is her neck has to be broken as an atoning sacrifice to remove blood guilt. So, Deuteronomy 21, verse 8 reads, it says, Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for. Let's continue uh quickly with the passage. Uh, it's a long passage, uh, but let's just go through and try to understand what are the some principles behind it. Uh Deuteronomy uh 21, verse 10 to 14 speaks of the context of war with one's enemies. So it tells us when you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive. And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, you and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her to your home, she shall shave a very strange practice. It tells us in verse 12, she shall shave her head and pair her nails, and she shall uh take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. So, what is what is that practice for? In fact, it was for the preservation of life, right? It was to give dignity to a captive woman in the times of war. Uh so in the context of war, the main concern of that is when you take a female captive, which is inevitable in times of war, even the female captive must be treated with dignity and life. In other words, you shouldn't abuse her, but you should give her time to mourn. And verse what we read about shaving the head, pairing her nails, uh, changing her clothes, remaining in the house, lamenting uh the father and mother is all are all uh signs and actions of uh mourning, right? Because now she's away from the family. So she must be given the space to mourn. And it tells us after that, verse 11, you may go into her and be a husband. So only after you allow her the time to mourn, the dignity of being a woman in captive, allow her time to mourn, to grieve. And then only after that time of mourning and grieving, then uh take her home. And you have the full rights uh and status to take her home to be your wife. Right? So, this again, the laws in Deuteronomy is meant to protect the life and the rights of the female captive in this situation, ensuring that she is treated with dignity as a person rather than an object of service, which happens in wartime. You know, whatever you loot you collect, uh it becomes like uh, yeah, I won't want to go further, but you know what I mean, right? It becomes your right, you know. But Deuteronomy says no. You know, we need to honor the dignity of the captive woman. And as we as we read on in Deuteronomy 21, verse 15 to 20 uh 21, it goes on to describe various family laws relating to inheritance. So again, the focus of that, the family laws regarding inheritance, again, is to protect life, right? It's to protect life. It says if a man has two wives, one loved, one unloved, you know, uh, you may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the unloved who is the firstborn. In other words, you must be fair, right? You must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, giving him a double portion of all that he has. So, again, the case of family inheritance, the firstborn of the unloved wife has a double portion, being the first fruits of a man's strength. This again, like what I say, protects life as it guards the interest of the woman in this case. I'm firstborn uh into the family, even though I'm unloved, but I will have full rights, full protection. Because uh during the time of Israel, you remember, or even the time of Jesus, you remember the persistent widow, destitute in the time of Jesus, because uh in the society of the day, a woman's status is very much linked to the man of the house or the husband, right? So without a husband, you have no identity and you're destitute. Of course, we can't say this now, right? Others I'll be stoned. We can't say this now in our context today, right? We talk about full rights, you know, women, rightly so, to be respected and dignified as uh fully capable and able to do what a man does, right? So it protects life, guards the interests of the unloved firstborn wife, who would be destitute and without rights. So the laws in Deuteronomy sounds very technical. You read it, what is it saying? You know, I don't understand. But if you look deeper, actually, it's meant to protect life, it's meant to guard the interests of the vulnerable. In this case, uh, the woman, whether it's in captive, uh, as a female captive in war or as an unloved wife. Then we read on uh the miscellaneous laws. You know, now in in a family law concerning the rebellious son, we are told that if a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who not obey the voice of uh his father or mother, will not listen despite discipline, then uh he shall be brought to the elders of the city, and and they they would say, This, our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and drunken. Interestingly, this verse was said of Jesus, it's quoted from Deuteronomy. Remember when Jesus was uh fellowshipping with uh sinners, you know, he said, He is a glutton and drunken. Uh so they actually quote from the Old Testament and say, I actually identify Jesus in such a well, not a good light, you know, he's a rebellious son, in other words. Right? So in the time of Old Testament, it's quite a swift judgment, right? Uh all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. Verse 21, uh, and all Israel shall hear and fear. So, in the case, in this context, the rejection of parental authority is tantamount to a breach of God's covenant with Israel. Very strict laws, because you are gutted the purity of the nation. None of us will do that today, right? If our children disobey us, don't listen to us. We wouldn't do this, right? You won't bring her them before a community leader or bring them to church and say, this son, rebellious, stubborn, you know, not obey our voice. She's a glutton and drunken. You know, and then we stone, we don't do that now, right? But yeah, so a lot of things we can't draw direct parallels, but the principle is of holiness, right? Because uh in the time of Old Testament, I mean, we're talking about the commandments. So Deuteronomy 5.16 tells us honor your father and mother as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. So when you dishonor your parents, you actually will not live long in the land. Again, Deuteronomy, the concept of land, uh, purity of the land is very crucial. Right? So we move on. Uh then it goes on lastly, towards the end of Deuteronomy, to describe the law concerning criminals. Verse 22 of 20 and 23 of Deuteronomy 21 reads, If a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day. For a hangman is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. Again, the land, right? Someone who is hanged on a tree and committed a crime punishable by death brings great impurity to the land. So that's why uh only one day you're supposed to hang him, take him down and bury him. Because the more he's being hung up there on the tree, the more the land is being defiled. So, what am I trying to get at uh in the sharing today? Uh, if you look at uh the whole chapter in Deuteronomy 21, we see that the image of the land defiled by a dead body, verse 22-23, brings Deuteronomy, the whole chapter of Deuteronomy 21 to a full circle. Because if you recall, the opening image is that of a land defiled by the body of a murder victim, right? As I shared in the beginning, he's slain in the open country. And then it ends with a man hung on the cross, a dead body. So it brings kind of bookends uh the beginning and the end, the defilement caused by dead bodies. Whether you are just murdered and just uh placed on the open square or you are being hung on the tree. So, what is the significance of this in terms of uh application for our lives? I believe the significance of Deuteronomy 21 repeatedly being emphasized, the idea is there's a need to purge the guilt of innocent blood. Right? That's the heart of what he's trying to say. And deal with actual sins committed through some form of atonement, some form of covering over the sin. The heart of the matter is that sin and guilt have to be dealt with. This is a life or death matter. That's why the title of the sermon today is confrontation of life and death. It's a life or death matter, right? You know, uh whether you are you are being uh forgiven of the blood guilt or you are being judged. So sin and guilt would bring death, but some form of atonement, whether it's a heifer or some other sacrifice, will actually bring life. There's an age old story. I'm not sure whether you all have heard, maybe you have heard about the story of the peace child uh by uh Don Richardson. Yeah, I can't help but just share this story. Some of you may have heard it, but if you have not, basically in a nutshell is that in 1962, this couple missionaries, uh Don and Carol Richardson, risked their lives to share the gospel with the Saori people of New Guinea. So Peace Child, uh, I think you can get a copy of the book quite easily, uh, tells their unforgettable story of living among the head hunters and and uh cannibals who valued treachery through threatening victims with friendship before the slaughter. Right? So the Don Richardson, the missionary, was actually also a linguist, language translator. So he's saying, how do I bring the gospel to this group of people who not who value treachery as a high value in their society? Um, how do I bring? Since making peace requires goodwill on both sides, all of us know, right? In mediation, in peacemaking, no matter what we do, if A and B want to sit down and agree to talk about matters, we cannot never resolve a dispute. And every mediator or lawyer will tell you, until and unless both parties are willing to take one step forward and sit down and settle it, the matter will not be solved, right? So, in the same way, peace requires a goodwill on both sides. But among the Sawi, there's a problem because there is a term, a concept in their in their uh folk literature, which is called the uh Tuvi Asonai. They call it the Tuwi Asonai man. Uh so basically, tuwi asonai means uh it means literally to fatten a pig with friendship for slaughter. It means literally to fatten a pig with friendship for slaughter. So, what they do in the culture of the day is they a warrior would befriend another person unknowingly, uh with friendship. That means uh I'm your friend, I do no, you will know, I'm good to you, do all kinds of things. You you never know that one day I'll be I'll be butchered by you, right? So so uh so the whole intention is to kill and butcher at a later time, right? So that was, of course, the head hunting culture of that time. The longer and more convincing the friendship, the more price the kill. So culturally, that is what they value, right? And I will spare you the details. The book itself is very explicit, but some of the details is it's not nice to share over the pupit. But if you can read, it's very gross how they actually. Commit the act of Tui Asonai, you know, where they brutalize and they actually skin the person and they enjoy it as a form of victory. So the the missionary uh Don Richardson is saying, how do I bring peace in such a context? Uh where violence breeds a chain reaction to killing that lasts for generations. So each side perfectly knows the other side's capacity for using friendship as a means of treachery. So how do they make peace? So in in the culture of the day, what happens that there was a story about two tribes, right? Hanum and Kamor. So what happens is one day, right, they they he was observing the Sawi people, they they they they began to participate in a ritual called sprinkling cool water on each other. So cool water in Saui is an idiom for peace, meaning that these two tribes uh decided that they want to make peace with each other. So the whole story kind of describes how uh one of the leaders of the Hanum tribe, you know, had to take the son uh to offer to the other tribe, right, as a peace child. Right? So, of course, with some resistance from the mother, you know, no, how can you take our son to offer? Right? So the so to cut the long story short, the tribe leader from Hanum eventually took the son, his firstborn son, and offered it to the tribe of um of Cayo. Right? So he offered the son, and to the surprise of uh Don Richardson, the other tribe leader, actually also took the son to offer to the tribe of Haman as a as a peace, as a peace child. So in their in their in the in their folk story, and which is a reality at that time, uh, the peace child became a stepping stone. So as long as the child stayed in the other tribe and grew up there and lived, there's their peace between the two tribes. So basically they exchanged children in some way. So the child would stay and grow and be part of the other tribe. Right? So this became a kind of what uh mystiologists call a redemptive analogy, to as a bridge to share the gospel of good news, you know, where, you know, in such a culture of treachery, you know, where friendship is known to be a way to kill. Yet in their folk story, there is also uh a sense of peace possible through the offering of a peace child. So there are some similarities uh to the story of the peace child in our in our gospel today. We all know that Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins, to make peace between us and God. But the very difference, in fact, for us as Christians is much more deeper than the story of the peace child, because the peace child offered was a young, uh, harmless baby uh and offered to make peace. But we see the way Jesus was brutalized, the the amount of suffering that he bore on the cross was tremendous, much more worse than just offering peace by offering a baby. Because of the way Jesus chose to die for us. So it's much deeper. The love of God is much deeper than the story of the peace child. Galatians 3 13 tells us that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Because it says, Curse is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So using the language of Deuteronomy, Christ became a curse for us. For a hangman is cursed by God. The purpose of hanging a person on a tree is an act of public shaming. It's a deliberate act of shaming a criminal who is cursed. And we know that his body has to be removed to prevent further defilement of the land. So Jesus became a curse and sin for us. He died a shameful criminal's death and was a sign of defilement for the land due to his being hanged on a tree. Yet by Jesus' death, he made atonement for us, covered our sin, so that sin can be dealt with decisively once for all. And as I said uh two weeks ago, sometimes we move too fast from the cross, which is the death of Jesus, to resurrection, to a life or victory. I believe if only we would stop to consider the kind of death Jesus died, to see what kind of people he chose to identify with. Uh let me repeat, if only we stopped to consider the kind of death Jesus died, to see what kind of people he chose to identify with. Those who are cursed, those who have deep shame in their lives. In fact, Jesus became defilement, he became sin. 2 Corinthians 5 21 tells us Jesus became sin for us on our behalf. So Jesus took our place by becoming sin and being cursed on our behalf. So that through his death, he makes atonement, he covers our sin and brings us newness of life. Martin Luther, in one of his writings called the Heidelberg uh Disputation in 1518, spoke about the divine love, about God's divine love for us. So in this Heidelberg uh disputation in thesis number 28, he asserts this, and I quote, he says, The love of God does not find, but creates that which is pleasing to it. The love of God does not find, but creates that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it. In the explanation of this point, Luther argues against the view that God's love operates on the same level as human love, insisting rather that rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. So, in other words, our security as Christians today lies in the fact that the love of God is something He creates and bestows. The goodness that comes from God comes directly to us. So, based on this understanding that the love of God creates what is pleasing, and the love of God coming down for his own desire to love us, um, then he comes to this premise that sinners are attractive because they are love. That means all of us here today are attractive to God because we are love. Think about your worst enemy or the worst sin you have committed, the worst, the most uh shameful thing you have done in your life. God loves us because he creates that love in us. Right? Uh, we are attractive because we are love. I think this will in some way revolutionize our thinking, especially to those people we can't get along with. They are all loved by God. And they are love, they are attractive because they are loved by God. And all of us, regardless of where we are, our station in life, are loved by God. And good and Luther goes on to say, they are love. They are not loved because they are attractive. A lot of times when we think about love, uh, the most closest of love relationships, we talk about a family, husband and wife, and uh siblings and parents and children. How many of us love because they are attractive to us? You know, a lot of times that's the law of nature, right? That's why we are attracted to our spouse. And a lot of times we uh yeah, what caused conflict in our lives is because they have become less attractive to us, right? We argue with them. Why you why you change, why you stop loving me like you used to in the past. So they we tend to love people humanly. That's our default position. We love people because they are attractive, you know, and we only love people who are attractive to us. So the heart of the love of God is this sinners are attractive because they are love. And God loves us, and he loves us because he shows us the kind of love he chose to do, which is by being crucified on the cross, by bearing the deepest sin of our lives, by loving us, choosing to love us, despite uh the fact that we are unlovable and unattractive. So we have dignity as human beings because we are loved by God. And I think this is a is a really a revelation, I believe, that a profound thought of Luther that we need to mount over and and think through. And this love came in the most unexpected form by a death of crucifixion. You know, he Jesus died the worst kind of death, uh criminal's death. He literally, as I said earlier, became curse for us, he became sin for us. And that is the love of God. That is uh the love that creates, the love that comes down, a love that acts because of his nature to love us. So my invitation for us today is to come before God once again and to really receive Jesus as a full atonement for our sins. Because Deuteronomy 21 is really all about atonement or the covering of blood, guilt, and sin. And Jesus is the perfect atonement, a perfect covering for our sins. And the and the reason why he does that is because of his love for us, and his love for us is without conditions, because he wills to love us, he loves us because um he creates that love, he finds uh a way to love us through the cross. So I just want to invite us to just come before the Lord's presence once again, and uh part of Martin Luther's understanding is we need to come to God again and again to be washed of our sins. Because even as we are righteous in God's eyes, yet we are also a sinner at the same time. So we are constantly uh in need of coming before Him time and time again, because we still live in the flesh, yet we are called to come and return and re-experience the love of God because it's only the love of God that can liberate us from sin. It's only when we are fully convinced that the love of God reaches to the depths of our being, the deepest recesses of the sin in our lives, then we are able to fully and freely accept ourselves and those around us.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.