Laws for Family Life Part 1 is the title of our message, taken from Deuteronomy 22 verse 1 to 7. Lost and found, verse 1 to 3. Damaged property, verse 4. Appearance of sex identity, verse 5. And the family unit in animal nature, verse 6 to 7. O. T. Spence observed well He says, this section in Deuteronomy 22 verse 1 to 30 use 14 separate areas of family life in which regulation was given for the unselfish general well-being of the families of Israel. Matthew Henry says, the laws of this chapter is for the preservation of charity and good neighbour ship. The first thought in verse 1 to 3, lost and found. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox, his sheep, go astray and hide thyself and hide thyself from them, thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thy own house, and it shall be with thee again until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again. In like manner shalt thou do with his heirs, so shalt thou do with his raiment, and with all lost things of thy brothers, which he hath lost and thou hast found, shalt thou likewise do likewise. Thou mayest not hide So I remember there was one day in the underground car park, I left the hood, the back of the car, the door opened and left and went home. And I was told, a neighbour came and told the children that, your car is left unattended, open. Oh thank God, quickly went down and closed up everything. Thank God for good neighbours. Here we see the law being taught by our Lord. Be a good Samaritan is what we have previously studied in Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 7 to 15 in our text that we have studied earlier. I shall read to you. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanted. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand, and thy eye be evil against thy brother. And thou givest him not, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee, thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him. Because that for this thing, the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou putest thy hand unto." So you see, there's a bearing there to what we do to our neighbour and our own well-being. You can't correlate it But the Lord correlated it for us, so that we can see and understand something a little bit more than what we could understand by our mere actions of piety towards the people around us. For the poor sees not never cease out of the land. Therefore I command thee saying thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, to thy needy in thy land. And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, serve thee six days, then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress, of that wherewith the Lord hath blessed thee. Thou shalt give unto him, and shalt remember that thou wast a born man in the land of Egypt, and the Lord hath redeemed thee. Therefore I command thee this thing today." Of course, if we have not anything by us, it's not required for us to, for this, but here the Lord has blessed His people with sufficient, more than sufficient. Our text is a follow on of Deuteronomy 15 verse 7 to 15. The laws of the Pentateuch suggest that God seeks service, obedience and witness through economic life. Israel's uniqueness in the ancient world is seen in its laws which unite the worship of God with regulation of interpersonal relationships. God is intensely interested in the poor, and it is the responsibility of the people of God to imitate His concern. So we have some of our elderly folks who would say, this is for the poor. This is something that we have prepared. Please give it. The Old Testament Scriptures speak of a principle which might be called the law of the bystander. Failure to render aid where it was possible to do so, was a serious offence. This is our text in Deuteronomy 22, verses 1 to 4. So Proverbs 24, verses 10 to 12, I shall just read to you. If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain, if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart considereth it, consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works?" So there's a deeper, deeper law that is just beyond what we can see in our three-dimensional world. We interact with an eternal being in which the physical laws are implemented according to His holy will. So failure to render where it was possible to do so was a serious offence. Biblical law does not allow us to pass by the poor on the other side. Jesus says, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Wherever a person found a lost animal or garment, he was responsible to return it to the proper owner without delay. If the owner was not found, then the property was to be kept in the house of the finder until word went out announcing the article lost by the owner. Here there is a two-fold stipulation that is made to the finder. Number one, the article must be restored. Number two, the finder could not hide himself from the situation to avoid the restoration. This is not only an insight into the neighborly spirit that an Israelite must have, but it also indicates the natural tendency of the human heart to hide or to avoid responsibility to that neighbor. So why did God give the law? because naturally in our fallen estate, without being renewed, we will not do what we ought to do. And so our Lord Himself explained this law in Luke's Gospel chapter 10 and verse 25 to 37. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answered, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right. This too And thou shalt live, but he willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. He went to him and bound up his wounds and pouring in oil and wine, set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him and on the morrow when he departed He took out two pens and gave them to the host and said, take care of him. Whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three thinkers thou was a neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves. And he said, he that showed mercy on him. Then Jesus said unto him, go and do likewise. So the teaching of our Lord is quite clear. The laws of God, we may not fully understand and adhere and know, but our Lord came Himself to show us. So J. C. Rowell, he observed well this text when he said, in this passage, the clear knowledge of duty to God and men, which the Jews in our Lord's time possessed. We read that the lawyer said in reply to our Lord's question, thou shalt love the Lord your God with all thy heart. and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself." That was well spoken. A clearer description of daily practical duty could not be given by the most thoroughly instructed Christian in the present day. Let not this be forgotten. He says, the words of the lawyer was very instructive in two points of view. They throw a strong light on two subjects about which many mistakes abound. For one thing, they show us how great are the privileges of religious knowledge which the Jews enjoyed under the Old Testament compared to the hidden world. It's indeed true, isn't it? God gives us His good laws. This nation, which possessed such principles of duty as those now before us, was immeasurably in advance of Greece and Rome. For another thing, the lawyer's words show us how much clear head knowledge of a person may possess, while his heart is full of wickedness. So you see, the contrast which our Lord was trying to point out, which Ryle rightly tells us, here is a man who talks of loving God with all his heart, and loving his neighbour as himself, while he actually tempting Christ and trying to do him harm, and anxious to justify himself and make himself out a charitable man. Let us ever beware of this kind of religion. clear knowledge of the head, when accompanied by determined impenitence of heart, is the most dangerous state of soul. If ye know these things, Jesus says, happy are ye if ye do them." Let us not forget in leaving this passage to apply the high standard of duty which it contains to our own hearts and to prove our own selves. Do we love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind? Do we love our neighbour as ourselves? Where is the person that could say with perfect truth, I do? Where is the man that ought not to lay his hand on his mouth when he hears these questions? Verily, we are all guilty in this matter. The best of us, however holy, we may be come far short of perfection. So our Lord does rebuke us, isn't it? The best of us, however holy we may be, come short of perfection. Passages like this should teach us our need of Christ's blood and righteousness. To Him we must go. If we could ever stand with boldness at the bar of God, From Him we must seek grace, and that the love of God and men may become ruling principles of our lives. In Him we must abide, that we may not forget our principles, and that we may show the world that by them we desire to live." Martin Lloyd-Jones once said that we live in a world of specialists, and we forget the the parable of the Good Samaritan. In order to understand the drift of this parable, we must carefully remember the occasion on which it was spoken. It was spoken in reply to the question of a certain lawyer who asked, who is my neighbour? Our Lord Jesus Christ answers that question by telling the story we have just read and winds up the narrative by an appeal to the lawyer's conscience. Let these things not be forgotten. The object of the parable is to show the nature of true charity and brotherly love. To lose sight of this object and discover deep allegories in the parable is to trifle with scripture and deprive our souls of most valuable lessons. So we are taught here in this parable how rare and uncommon is true brotherly love. This is a lesson which stands out prominently on the face of the narrative before our eyes. Our Lord Jesus tells us of a traveler who fell among thieves and left naked, wounded, half dead on the road. And he then tells of a priest and of a Levite, who one after the other came travelling that way and saw the poor man wounded, but gave him no help. Both were men who were from religious office and profession, ought to have been ready and willing to do good to one in distress, but both, in succession, were too selfish and too unfeeling to offer the slightest assistance. they doubtless reasoned with themselves, that they knew nothing of the wounded traveller, that he had perhaps got into trouble by his own misconduct, that they had no time to stop to help him and that they had enough to do to mind their own business without troubling themselves with strangers. As the result was that one after the other, they both passed by on the other side. We have this striking description, an exact picture of what is continually going on in the world. Selfishness is the leading characteristic of the great majority of mankind. That cheap charity which costs nothing, more than a trifling subscription or contribution, is common enough. But that self-sacrificing kindness of heart, which cares not what trouble is entailed, so long as good can be done, is a grace which is rarely met with. Isn't it so true? There are still thousands in trouble who can find no friend or helper, and there are still hundreds of priests and Levites who see them but pass by on the other side. Let us beware of expecting much from the kindness of men. If we do, we shall certainly be disappointed. So on the one hand, we see the need to do something good, to prick our conscience. But on the other hand, we are also told the nature of man, so that we will not be surprised living in a fallen world. Let us beware of expecting kindness from the kindness of men. If we do, we will certainly be disappointed. The longer we live, the more clearly we shall see few people care for others except from interested motives, and that unselfish, pure brotherly love is as scarce as diamonds and rubies. How thankful we ought to be that the Lord Jesus Christ is not like men. His kindness and love are unfailing. He never disappoints any of his friends. happy are they who have learned to say, my soul wait thou only upon God, my expectation is from Him. Psalm 62 verse 5. We are taught secondly in this parable, who they are to whom we should show kindness and whom we are to love as neighbors. We are told that the only one who helped the wounded traveler of whom we are reading was a certain Samaritan. The one was of a nation who had no dealings with the Jews. He might have excused himself by saying that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was through the Jewish territory. He might have excused himself by saying that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was through the Jewish territory and the cases of distress ought to be cared for by the Jews. But he does nothing of the sort. He sees a man stripped of his raiment and lying half dead. He asks no questions, but at once he had compassion on him. He makes no difficulties. But at once gives aid, and the Lord says to us, go and do likewise." Now if these words mean anything, a Christian ought to be ready to show kindness and brotherly love to everyone that is in need. Our kindness must not merely extend to our families and friends and relations. We must love all men and be kind to all. whenever occasion requires, we must beware of an excessive strictness in scrutinising the past lives of those who need our aid. Are they in real trouble? Are they in real distress? Do they really need help? Then, according to the teaching of this parable, we ought to be ready to assist them. We should regard the whole world as our parish and the whole race of mankind as our neighbours. We should seek to be the friend of everyone who is oppressed, or neglected, or afflicted, or sick, or in prison, or poor, or orphaned, or hidden, or slave, or idiot, or starving, or lying. We should exhibit such worldwide friendship, no doubt. wisely, discreetly and with good sense. But of such friendship we never need to be ashamed. The ungodly may sneer at it as extravagance and fanaticism, but we need not mind that. To be friendly to all men in this way is to show something of the mind that was in Christ. We are taught lastly in this parable, after what manner and to what extent we are to show kindness and to love others, we are told that the Samaritan's compassion towards the wounded traveller was not confined to feelings and passive impressions. He took much trouble to give him help. He acted as well as felt. He spared no pains or expense in befriending him. Strangers as the man was, he went to him, bound up his wounds, set him on his own breast, brought him to his inn, took care of him. Nor was this all. On the morrow he gave the host of the inn money, saying, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. And our Lord says to each of us, Go and do likewise. The lesson of this part of the parable is plain and unmistakable. The kindness of a Christian towards others should not be in word and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth. His love should be a practical love, a love which entails on him self-sacrifice and self-denial, both in money and time and trouble. His charity should be seen not merely in his taking, talking, But in his acting, not merely in his profession, but in his practice, he should think it no misspent time to work as hard in doing good to those who need help, as others work in trying to get money. He should not be ashamed to toil as much to make the misery of this world rather smaller as those who toil, who hunt or shoot all day long. He should have a ready ear from every tale of sorrow and a ready hand to help everyone in affliction, so long as he has the power. Such brotherly love the world may not understand. The returns of gratitude which such love meets with may be few and small. But to show such brotherly love is to walk in the steps of Christ and to reduce the practice, to practice the parable of the Good Samaritan. And now let us leave the parable with grave thoughts and deep searchings of heart. How few Christians seem to remember that such a parable was ever written. What an enormous amount of stinginess and meanness and ill nature and suspicion there is to be seen in the Church. And that even among people who repeat the creed and go to the Lord's table, How seldom we see a man who is really kind and feeling and generous and liberal and good-natured except to himself and his children. Yet, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke the parable of the Good Samaritan and meant it to be remembered. What are we ourselves? Let us not forget to put that question to our hearts." So it's a soul-searching parable to the people of God. What are we doing each in our own station to prove that this mighty parable is one of the rules of our daily life? What are we doing for the heathen at home and abroad? What are we doing to those who are troubled in mind, body or estate? There are many such in this world. There are always some near our own doors. What are we doing for them? Anything or nothing at all? May God help us to answer these questions. The world would be a happier world if there was more practical Christianity. damaged property, verse 4. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way and hide thyself from them. Thou shalt surely help him lift them up again. In the event of an animal that had fallen into some circumstance that could harm or did harm, the Israelite became the helper of the animal. All property was not only respected, being from the Lord, but it was treated helpfully, being managed by a neighbour. So if you live in such a community, you realise that, wow, life is quite pleasant, isn't it? There are people around who loves us and who comes to us to help us. That's a wonderful community that we live in and that's something that the Lord wants us to see. Then, we see in verse 5, a different thought, appearance of sex identity. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." Although the Bible speaks in one sense that the outward appearance of a person is not the final index, and yet there is another sense in which the outward appearance is an index of the character of the person. So 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 22, abstain from all appearance of evil. By the way, we are going to study 1 and 2 Thessalonians during the camp from the 11th to the 14th of June. Pray that the Lord will to help us in our study. Undoubtedly, the presence of sin in others and the pretense of sin in the environment influences men to look on the outward appearance and judge by this appearance. But besides this, God is of such a nature, and godliness is of such a nature, that outward appearance is directly affected by the condition of man's heart. So Isaiah says in Isaiah 3 verse 9, the show of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom. They hide it not. Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. So you know the outward is often a reflection of the inward. Spence well observed, he says, we live in a time of the mini dress and the hippie hair. He's talking about the 60s, but what is happening now is a result of what happened then. As we see here, we live in the time of the mini dress and the hippie hair as effects from philosophies of impropriety and immodesty. There are hot pens. Whatever do they have on their minds by the adoption of this name, does it have something to do with immorality, tight jeans, shorts, unbuttoned shirts to the navel? A London designer, Mary Quint, is the mother of the mini skirt. She started on November the 13th, 1967. She says this, mini clothes are symbolic of those who want to seduce a man. Here lies the philosophy of the beginning of modern dress. Paul Harvey, in his column, wrote, girls started creeping upward in 1964. Simultaneously, crimes against women began a dramatic increase. FBI files show the rate of forcible rape shot upward in 1964. And each year ever since, in England, the rape rate, those five Recent years increased 90%. In the United States, 68%. It increased more than any other violent crimes. San Francisco's rate is up more than 200% in a year. Mr Harvey continues, yet many women cannot imagine that it could ever be improper, even dangerous to follow fashion. These years, between 1964 and 1967, were the early years in the advancement of the mini dress to the mini skirt. And there have been another 10% increase ever since then. The Bible gives the best description, which we ever hope to find in our time of a virtuous woman in Proverbs 31. I shall not endeavor to read to you, but I place it there in a note so that we can take time to consider what we are speaking about. The San Francisco Chronicle. presented the announcement of a ban on long hair for men spreading overseas. Five nations, he wrote, issued edicts requiring trim hair styles, including agencies in the Philippines, Ceylon, and Thailand during the past month for men. In several other Asian nations, where once the hippie was welcome, hard-timed by immigration and custom officials before being admitted. The cutback from long locks started in Singapore. It's recorded for us here, where the ban is rigidly enforced. There are bubbles at airport immigration areas, A male with hair below the collar or an unkempt beard or sideburns must submit to a trim. If he refuses, it's back onto the airplane which brought him to Singapore. Ceylon, Sri Lanka and the Philippines are clamming down on visitors in unconventional dress or with unusual hair length on the presumption that they may be a threat to law and order or a health menace. Puritan Singapore's campaign, he wrote, against men's long hair was started by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, because he believed such hair fashions symbolised a decadent Western culture. The most popular international influence that brought the hippie hair to America was undoubtedly the Beatles. They have mutated from hippie hair to drugs and to psychedelic colour, to producing films in the nude, and transcendental meditation of the ancient mystic religions. The philosophy behind these customs and fashions is deeper than the dress is short or hair is long. And the long and short of this matter is that they are deeply involved in an age that is permissive, immoral and pagan, and only seen to hear the preacher attacking a darling girl or a young boy about his or her outward appearance. There are friends and relatives who stand against these things and yet contradict themselves by sending their children to private schools because of the problems encountered in a public school without these biblical principles. They are, in reality, being hypocritical about their own principles and practices. parents want to put a psycho in jail if he attacks their darling girl in sexual rape, but do not want to do anything about the propriety of dress that could hinder the temptation of that psycho. The Bible speaks out against these issues and here in Deuteronomy, we see the wisdom of this statement. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither a man put on women's garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." This is not all that the Bible says about the subject, but the point here as part of the great subject is that no person should wear clothes in such a way as to change the identity of their God-given sex. The subject here is not so much modesty as it is that which is naturally proper. Modesty could easily be involved if this change of dress should provoke homosexuality or lesbianism as it were. But individual sex identity of every person is precious in the sight of the Lord and should be maintained in the sight of all men. So we can see that there has been A great change, isn't it, in the last 40, 50 years, even here in Singapore. Just last year, we have taken down the Law 377A to permit this unnatural behaviour. And it's a sad thing, in a leading school in Singapore, in a class, there were only two girls who spoke up against it. And all the rest of the classmates rammed on them, so much so that the two girls came home crying, because they do not believe that same-sex relationship is proper. What kind of world we are in today, And these are in the leading of the leading schools in Singapore. What is happening? Well, that decadent culture is indeed having its in roots into our society. And what are people doing? Those who have in positions of influence, Have they forgotten the simple truth of morality? What is going on? We must not allow the enemy to take over, although we see that they have already come in and taken over. But as a people of God, You cannot, with all good conscience, allow this to continue. So what must we do? Well, we pray for God's mercy. Pray for God's mercy. We are actually living in a time when women are getting more masculine and men are more effeminate or at least feminine. We must protect our own selves as well as others from being understood as being sexually perverted. This is the abomination of it all. For a man to turn to himself or to another man In these things, it's still a kind of adultery that adulterates his sex. All sexual uncleanness is part of the meaning of the word poniaire, which is in our own King James Version, the word fornication. Adultery. mockios is but one kind of fornication. There is only one sexual act that the Bible supports and that is the precious relationship between lawful husband and wife. The fourth thought. the family unit in animal nature. If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way of any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs or dam, and the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, and thou shalt not take the dam with the young, but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go and take the young to thee, that it may be well with thee that thou mayest prolong thy days." We see here the careful attention to the restoration of a bird's nest with its mother, that's the dam, and her young. The principle had already been given before in Leviticus 22 verse 28, which we have studied, but there in the deuteral view involves the Israelites to include sympathy and care for the nest and home as well. So this is where we would ask the Lord to help us to better understand what He has for us. in His laws and that we may, by His grace, do so. Let us pray. Father, we thank Thee for Thy Word. Strengthen us and grant us Thy joy and peace as we rest in Thee and do Thy holy will. Strengthen Thy people. I pray with thanksgiving in Jesus' name. Amen. Oh.