I invite you this afternoon to take your Bibles and open them with me to Deuteronomy Chapter 24, Deuteronomy Chapter 24, page 229 of our church Bibles. And we will read together from verse 5 down through to the end of the chapter, verse 22. Deuteronomy 24 beginning at verse five. Give your attention now to God's holy word. When a man has taken a new wife he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business. He shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken. No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge for he takes one's living in pledge. If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren of the children of Israel and mistreats him or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die, and you shall put away the evil from among you. Take heed in an outbreak of leprosy that you carefully observe and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you, just as I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt When you lend your brother anything you shall not go into his house to get his pledge You shall stand outside and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you And if the man is poor you shall not keep his pledge overnight. I You shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down that he may sleep in his own garments and bless you and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God. You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. Each day you shall give him his wages and not let the sun go down on it. For he is poor and has set his heart on it. Lest he cry out against you to the Lord and it be sin to you. Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers. A person shall be put to death for his own sin. You shall not pervert justice, do the stranger or the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment as a pledge. But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. Therefore, I command you to do this thing. When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes in your vineyard you shall not glean it afterward. It shall be for the stranger the fatherless and the widow and you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I command you to do this thing. Amen. So far the reading of God's holy word in our midst and may he bless it as it's been read among us again. Let us now confess our faith with the words of the Apostles' Creed. These are words that the church has been confessing for hundreds, over a thousand years, and it is, in one way we might say, the basics of Christianity. These are the things that we absolutely must believe and agree on if we are to consider ourselves Christian or a Christian church. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe a holy Catholic Church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. So after the topic of this morning's sermon, when we looked at hell and, in a little way, also at God's judgment upon our sin, I thought this afternoon I'd bring a completely different topic, a lighter topic in many ways, although still, of course, from the Word of God. And this is the text, Deuteronomy 24 and verse 5. Let us read it again together. says when a man has taken a new wife he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business. He shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken. Isn't that a great text. That's a wonderful text. I think this is a verse that every father should give to his son on his wedding day. So I've titled this sermon A Happy Honeymoon. Let's look first at the historical context and then at the biblical meaning and then at a modern or a modern biblical application. So the context, the meaning, and then the application. First, the context. Let's set this law, which it is. It's a law given to Israel. Let's set this law in its historical context and in the chapter. Well, the book of Deuteronomy was written by Moses. So this verse was written by Moses. So that means a couple of things. One, Deuteronomy was written By moses from the lord of course for the israelites as they were about to enter into the promised land Right and and and live there of course and these instructions were given to them For how they were to live once they inherited this land. Specifically, though, this is how they were to live in this promised land after having been delivered from slavery in Egypt. Now, God's rescue of his people from Egypt was a great act of salvation in and of itself. But more than that, it was a metaphorical picture of salvation. for eternal life. And the laws, therefore, given after Egypt to Israel, which includes this one, chapter 24, verse 5, these laws which governed life in the promised land were metaphorical, ultimately, of how to live as a people who had been saved by God. In other words, this is what a Christian's life is to look like. When you get to Deuteronomy, and you read through Deuteronomy, this is the way to live the Christian life, which includes our text, making your wives happy. Now, another way to translate the word happy here can be this, to bring gladness to your wife, to bring her gladness or happiness. Now, in ancient Israel, every able-bodied man was expected to fight when Israel went to war. Now, we don't have exact details on this, but we can read snippets here and there in the Old Testament. Messengers would go out to the various cities when there was a call to battle, and they would call all the young men and the able-bodied men to come and gather at a certain place for war. And with few exceptions, all would come. One of the few exceptions being this here in our text. Now war in these days especially was a national endeavor. It was far more personal than our wars today for our country in the West at least. Every home contributed to the benefit of not only your own peace but also your neighbor's peace. and your village's peace. So not showing up was a big deal. Not showing up meant your neighbors had to pick up the slack for you in a time and day when everyone was expected to do their part. So this law then here for them, for Israel in this day was a big deal, a bigger deal for them than we might think as we quickly read over this verse. It was an exception to the rule. And not just an exception to the rule, but an exception to the community rule, which, if you know, community rules are far more sacred than regular rules. Now, there were a couple other exceptions to this rule, this rule where everyone went to war, which we can read about a few chapters earlier in Deuteronomy, chapter 20. But there's only a couple exceptions. And after all, exceptions only go on to show us this, that it wasn't the norm. Exceptions highlight this, that everyone else was expected to be there. And this was war we're talking about. This wasn't coming to help a group of people clean the church, for example. I mean, then if someone doesn't show up when they're supposed to show up, the others just have a few more minutes of cleaning each to do, perhaps, or something like that. In war, you wanted as many friends, good guys by your side as possible. And so this only, again, highlights how big a deal this law was for the Israelites. So this is what the historical context shows us. Now, on to our second point, the biblical meaning. And the context leads us into this biblical meaning because this was certainly a big deal, a significant law, at least practically how it worked itself out in the life of Israel during these important times. Because it was such a big deal like that, it tells us this biblically. that marriage was important to God. It was important enough for God to make an exception to a very important rule. Now we should know that marriage is important to God. He created after all the idea of marriage in Genesis Chapter 2 when when he brought Eve to Adam and he gave Adam his wife. It was also, you should know, in Genesis, the lack of marriage. That when God looked at an otherwise perfect world, pre-sin, pre-fall, that caused Him to say, not good. And so He made marriage. He created it. So marriage is important to God. And we know this. But here our text just gives us another practical picture and a reminder of how important it is to him. To God, the life of someone who's being saved is not only a life that's supposed to be lived in service to Him, which it is, of course, first and foremost, but it's also the life of a Christian. The life of someone who's saved is also to be a life of service to each other, to one another, and especially in marriage. But think of it. In giving this law in this way, God was telling these Israelites this. Making your wife happy was more important than fighting for your friend's life. At least for the first year of your marriage. A new marriage, he was teaching them, was to take precedence over war. It was to take precedence over watching out that a sword doesn't chop your friend's head off. And that, you would think, would be pretty important. So this just shows us how important marriage is. And really, we ought to say it like this. This shows us how important marriage is to God. Because this is the law that He saw fit to give. It also shows us this, biblically. It shows us God's care and God's desire for our happiness. For our happiness. And not only happiness in the life to come, but also for our happiness in this life. Yes, the rest of scripture shows and other parts of scripture shows us that that God is concerned ultimately also with our salvation and our holiness and sometimes he allows trials and Sadnesses to come into our life in order to accomplish both our salvation and our holiness But that doesn't mean that he doesn't also desire our happiness he does In fact, by giving this law, he goes out of the way to bring about happiness in a marriage, in a home. As John Calvin puts it, he says that God should permit a bride to enjoy herself with her husband, affords no trifling proof of his indulgence to us. And then a few words later he adds this, he said, God spontaneously allows them to enjoy themselves. That's what this law is for. Now, we should also know this, shouldn't we? That God does desire our happiness. He thinks marriage is important, but he also desires our happiness. He thinks our happiness is important. Do you know what Moses wrote? In his final words to Israel, in just nine chapters from the chapter that we read here, in chapter 24, nine chapters later, his conclusion to the first five books of the Bible, Deuteronomy 33, verse 29, he says this. He says, Happy are you, O Israel, happy are you, O Israel, who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, In other words, Moses comes to the end of his book, of all the words he's written, and his conclusion is, you are a happy people. Because you're saved by the Lord. And of course we know salvation is also not just being saved to heaven, it's a relationship with God. And his conclusion is, you're a happy people for it. God even commands us to be happy. I could pick A whole number of verses, but here's just one. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 16. Here's a command. Rejoice always. Rejoice always. And he might have been the one to have spoken more about hell than any other person in Scripture combined, the Lord Jesus. But the most famous part of his most famous sermon, the Beatitudes, is really his pronouncement of happiness upon us. All the blessed are phrases could just as properly be translated as happiness to, happiness to the meek, happiness to the merciful, happiness to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now again, I'm not denying the other part. We looked at a little bit of it this morning, and we could go on about the subject of sin, and how sin brings unhappiness, and sin brings sorrow, and that's the reality in this life. And sometimes God allows trials to come to either wake us up, cause us to fall before Him, or cause us to return to Him, or a number of reasons. They're all part of this life. A big part of this life, sadness and sorrow. But, if you read the Bible honestly, you have to come to the same conclusion that Moses came to at the end of writing these first five books that he wrote. It's as if he ends by saying this at the end of Deuteronomy. He's saying to the people, I know what this is all about now. Having written all these words down, this is what it's all about. That the life of following God is the happiest life. Happy are you, O Israel, who is like you, a people saved by the Lord. So a life of following after God is the happiest life. Yes, there are trials, but everybody in the world has trials. The Christian and the non-Christian, the believer and the non-believer, but the Christian who follows God has the happiest life. And therefore, therefore, a marriage, a Christian marriage, should be the happiest marriage. And so God commands the husband to make his wife happy. Bring happiness to your wife. You've taken make her glad. Now the chapter. the passes that we read has a lot to do with stealing and we're not going to get into the details after verse five at all really but you might have noticed as we read through it there's a lot of disjointed commands it seems anyway but a lot has to do with stealing someone's property or kidnapping which is if you think about it stealing someone's person And one commentator tied all of this together with our verse, verse five, on the husband not going to war. And he put it like this. He lumps it all into not stealing. You shall not steal. He says that if a new husband went to war and was killed, then it would be like the wife's property was stolen from her. Her new husband and her new marriage would be stolen. But it wasn't just war that this command speaks about. The full verse says this, back to 24 verse 5, So he shall not be charged also with any business. More literally it's. He shall not have any other duties placed upon him. So. No committees. No consistory. No town council. Nothing. Lay it aside. And that's something too Something significant here about this law practically speaking for the Israelites because think of this all the other men at the time of war would have gone off to war. And you can imagine a city of Israel in these days, a small city or a town, when war came and all the able-bodied men went to war, the town cleaned out of men and young men. It was left with the women, really. The women and that one newly married young man who's all alone with the women now at home. Right? So he stays home. Do you know what the people would be tempted to say when this young man stays home and all the other men are gone? I know. Let's make him mayor. Right? Let's put him on this committee. Let's put him on that committee. Let's make him do this. He can do that. He can run the town for us while the other men are gone. And God says here, no. Nothing. And you know that if God had not commanded this, this newly married man would have said yes to everything, because that's what we do. We answer obligations that others put upon us, and we often neglect the ones closest to us. Again, do you see this? No war, but nothing else either. Right? And this wasn't a suggestion. This is a law that God gives them. And it wasn't a minor law, practically speaking. It was substantial, significant, had great implications. Now, I've heard once or twice before somewhere some interpretations of this text that the new husband was suggested was to stay home so that he and his wife could have a child. And then later, if he did go to war and he was killed, at least he had a child at home that could live on and carry his name on. But that's not in this text. I mean, perhaps that's a side application. But it's not the reason God gives here for why he was to stay home. Don't change the meaning or the understanding, the central meaning of this text. Especially you husbands. This is what it says to you and me here. God couldn't be more clear. He was to be free of every duty and every responsibility and war so that he could bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken. This was a God-prescribed, God-ordained, year-long honeymoon. One commentator wrote, he said, In other words, he's saying to us that If the honeymoon goes well, that doesn't mean you're good to go, husbands. We have to work further, harder. Now, I don't think that the husband, this newly married young man, would have not worked at all during this year. I think he did work at his job. I think if an Israelite husband in these days didn't work and put food on the table for his wife, she wouldn't have been very happy at all. Right? And so, part of making her happy was supplying for her needs. But it was just the extras, the wars, the extra duties, they were taken away. In other words, everything he was doing, think about this, everything he was doing every day, all day long, including working, was devoted, was him devoting himself to his wife. Because even in working, his goal was to make her happy, to provide for her. So everything devoted to his wife stayed. Everything else was taken away. I mean, that puts the priority in his mind, doesn't it? I mean, no newly married husband could read this law in Israel and walk away and say, she's kind of important to me. No. He walks away and says, God wants her to be very important to me. And my marriage, too. Can you imagine for a moment the conversation that perhaps may have taken place over this, something like this. There's a young man named Joseph, perhaps, who was just married. And he has a friend who calls out to him and says, Hey, Joseph, I had some of my donkeys run away and we need to go find them. Go grab some clothes and a water bottle and let's go. We'll go for a couple nights. It'll be fun. Sorry, I've just been married. I can't go. But Joseph, that was nine months ago. How long are you going to be focused on your wife? Oh, well, for another three months at least. Three months, Joseph. Why? Because God wants me to bring gladness to her. Now stop here for a moment let's pause here and put all of this into the grand scheme of God's grace. Do you see God's grace here. God structured Israelite society around this. Practically speaking around the happiness of marriage. Now, that's not to say at all, of course, that single people weren't to be happy or God didn't care about their happiness. Not at all. Of course He did. That's what ultimately salvation is, for His glory and for our joy. But this here, this text, this is speaking to marriage. And God wants a happy marriage. But do you see the grace? Why is this grace? Because what do we deserve? We are sinners. We don't deserve his blessing or his desire for our happiness. We might even double it up because when the husband and the wife, the sinner one and sinner number two, they come together, we deserve, as it were, twice as much unhappiness. And yet, God not only rescued the people from slavery in Egypt, a picture of salvation, So He gave them already abundant reason to be happy already in Him because of their salvation, single people and married people, young people and old people, male and female. He gave them abundant reason already to be happy in Him because of His great salvation, which is amazing grace. The day when we're changed from slave to free, from death to life, from sadness ultimately in our soul to happiness ultimately in our soul. He not only did that, but then... Now, wives here, think of this. God's grace not only gives to you the happiness of salvation, that great happiness, but then He said, That's not enough yet. I also want your husband to spend a whole year focusing on bringing you happiness. Not a week, not a month, a whole year. Isn't that overboard? It sure seems a little overboard. Wives, what have you done to receive this goodness from God? And you can think of the Israelite wives asking the same question. What if I received, one of them might have thought, to receive this show of kindness from God by Him giving this law to my husband for my happiness? I mean, not that it compares at all. And I know as a husband just how far we husbands fall short in bringing happiness to our wife. So this doesn't compare at all to the love and the happiness that God gives to you by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to be an atonement for you on the cross. This law, really, to husbands, it pales in comparison to the request he gave to Christ. But get this, after having rescued the Israelite, again, a picture of salvation, a picture of Christ coming to save, after that, After bringing that joy to you, He says, I'm not done yet. I want you to even be more happy. I want you to experience even more joy. And this here is for wives to see, of course, because the law speaks of grace to you. But really, every Christian, So much of our life is like this, isn't it? I mean, none of the physical blessings we have compared to what we have received in Christ. By Christ giving His life, Christ crucified. And in a way, if everything we had was taken away, but we still have Christ, we could suffer physically and we could still be content. We could still say, I am happy. Like the Apostle Paul says, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. And the joy of knowing Christ will carry any Christian through any trial. Because no other joy compares to the joy of knowing and of being known by Christ. And yet, God still gives us so many other joys. Doesn't he? He blesses us in so many extra ways. Yes, there is sin and the effects of sin. Sometimes he disciplines us, but he does bless us, doesn't he? Over and beyond, he brings happinesses into our lives. And really, our life should always be lived as if the hymn Amazing Grace is being sung in the background. We should be like, you know, our own version of a record player or a music box. Wherever we go, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We should live our life, our actions, our words should be those words, as it were, lived out in life to our neighbors and friends. And we should never move beyond that in many ways beyond the gospel of grace to a wretched sinner and yet in a way God does That is he goes beyond and he adds more joy, and he adds more blessings and more happiness is to us Isn't it wonderful and and yet we are still amazed at salvation and Rightly so, if we're saved. Grace for a wretch like me. And yet, He has more for us. Like our texts. Our text words. Husbands. He says, I want you to make your main focus for a year to bring gladness to your wife. So that's the biblical meaning. This text shows us the importance of marriage, the importance of marriage to God. It shows us God's love and care and desire for his people's happiness, and it shows us also God's amazing grace. So the historical context, the biblical meaning, and now the modern biblical application. And by this, I mean here's an Old Testament law in Deuteronomy. How does this apply to us today, a New Testament church? Well, this brings us to the second thing we can learn from this verse being part of Deuteronomy. It's part of the Old Testament law. That's what Deuteronomy is, part of the law. And we know, don't we, how to apply the Old Testament law in the New Testament church. That is, the moral part of the law stands, but the ceremonial part or the civic part, the outward part, Done away with right along with the temple and all the Old Testament sacrifices and ceremonies So this was written this law thousands of years ago in a time when we can learn from other places in the Old Testament that every spring Kings commonly marched out for war and And every Israelite was to be part of that army that marched in the spring. And so for the happiness of the newly married wife, and I might add, surely also for the happiness of the newly married husband, God needed to make this law. Today, however, most husbands aren't marching off to war every spring. Most of us, not at all, if any of us. So it's obvious there's outward elements of this law that don't fit for our community and life today. But this law does point us to Christ. It teaches us about Christ. Do you see where Christ is in this law if you stop to think for a moment? He ultimately put his bride, the church, ahead of everything else. He dropped everything else. He left heaven and he pursued with a singular focus the happiness of the one whom he loved. Which is why in Ephesians 5 the Apostle Paul gives Christ as the example when he's applying in that chapter the Old Testament rules and laws on marriage and the marriage relationship to the New Testament church. And he says this, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. He served her happiness and he sought for her happiness so much that it cost him his very life, which is different than the Old Testament husband, who I'm sure it cost him very little difficulty to focus on his new wife. Many new husbands don't need the encouragement. In fact, this law likely saved many a husband's life. But it cost Christ his life. Again, that's God's mercy in that the reality was much harsher for Christ than the symbolic. Right? He suffered the shame of the cross while we receive the joy in this picture. But you see Christ here in this law, don't you? He devoted himself entirely to the church. And so this Old Testament law of Deuteronomy 24 verse 5 is fulfilled in Christ. And yet the moral part of it still remains for us to follow today. There is still to be a happy honeymoon for every marriage or a seeking of one another's happiness. In other words, even though the elements may now be different than these ones, though you're free, I suppose, to take a whole year honeymoon if you have the way and the means, that would be wonderful. But we learn here, don't we, for today, the importance of our marriage. If God sees our marriages as important, then we must learn to see them in the exact same way. We must be devoted to one another. Set the marriage relationship as the priority relationship. If this law hadn't existed, every new married Israelite man would have been off to war every spring. But this law forced him and his wife to put their marriage first. Do we do that? Do we do that? Husbands here, do you put your marriage first? And is your wife's happiness your priority? Now, when I first preached this sermon in Chatham, that's all I said at that point, and my wife told me after, I should add something to the wives here. That this doesn't mean that wives are to take advantage of their husbands and make sinful and unreasonable requests to keep them happy all the time. And you can see where my wife is coming from her angle, that she sees this application for her. And that is true, ultimately, of course. This is written to Deuteronomy, to people who have been saved. So this is living as those who have been delivered by God. So a wife also is, this is to be living as a Christian wife. She's to make Christian requests of her husband. And yet, husbands, do you seek her happiness? There are many duties that we need to do, husbands, or that we're called to do. Many very important ones even. Though probably not as important as fighting by your neighbor's side and keeping him from being cut, which again is pretty important. But if that duty didn't take precedence over their marriages, what duty could you have come up with today that would take precedence over your marriage? I dare say you won't be able to find one. Husbands. Love your wives. No excuses. Love your wives. Work on it. Work to bring gladness into her life. Surely this Israelite husband didn't just sit in his husband chair every day for a whole year and say my presence here is enough for her. No. He would have worked on bringing her happiness. Happiness in a marriage If you talk to your grandparents, perhaps, or older members, you know happiness doesn't just happen on its own. Our hearts are sinful. We create division unwillingly, sometimes even thoughtlessly. Work. Husbands work. Think a law had to be made. God had to make it a law or husbands wouldn't have done it. Here's your New Testament law, husbands. Love your wives as Christ loved the church. And if you're going to bring her gladness, you need to know what makes her glad. So learn it. Work on it. Put time into it. And not only needs to have a mental priority, but also a physical priority. That is, you just can't say, well, I agree with this text that's in the Bible, so obviously there's something to it. You have to go and follow through with it. If there's something, husbands, that you and I need to change in our marriage relationship, may God give us the courage and the ability to change it. Care for her. Speak with her. Know her. Be her friend. Help her. If she needs, just one example, if she needs you to help out more around the house and you can't find the time because you have too much happening, then you're doing it wrong. Now, husbands, we won't be perfect. And this is also a word to the wives. Our love for you is not a perfect love because we are sinners and it shames us. It should shame us if we're godly, if we desire to be godly. It shames us that we don't love as we ought. And so wives, you need to be patient with us and pray for patience yourself and encourage our attempts. If you notice our attempts at trying to bring you happiness, encourage us. But husbands, because we don't love as we ought, we need to constantly run to Christ. We need to ask Him to give us His Spirit to enable us to love as we ought to love. You see how this text, we can say in a way buried in the middle of Deuteronomy chapter 24, relates to the whole of the gospel? I mean, in many ways you can say, well, this is just a practical sermon. It has nothing to do with the central cross of Christ. I mean, I listened with half an ear, but the, I mean, there's better things to preach on. Why preach on something like this? Well, this is like, this is like the gravity of the earth, right? Surely the, we know the cross of Christ is central Christ, a savior for sin, Christ who came to take our place. where we've rebelled against God, He was there. That's the central, but around the edges you have the love of God here in this text showing us. It's like gravity. It pulls us into Him, doesn't it? To the center. Because here we see our need for Christ. Husbands. Our need for Christ, and that brings us to the cross. And it brings us to the Spirit. But it also shows us again, it shows us the love of God, doesn't it? It's the outer rim, it's not the most important commandment in Scripture. But surely we're brought into the sphere of love and we think, God cares for my marriage so much that he wants me to be happy. What else does God care about in my life? You know, how much does God love me? And you see this, we're brought to the center to the heart where God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. But whoever believes in him should not perish. And so maybe it's not central to the gospel, this text, but it was important enough for God to make it a law. And it's certainly on the road to the center of the gospel, isn't it? The love, the grace, the tender mercy of God. Husbands, again, do we love our wives like that, like he loves us? I pray that it may be so for his glory and for our good. Let us pray. But first receive this blessing from the Lord as you go into this new week. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.