Deuteronomy chapter 24. When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled. For that is abomination before the Lord. And thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business, but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken. No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man's life to pledge. If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then that thief shall die, and thou shalt put evil away from among you. Take heed in the plague of leprosy that thou observe diligently to do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you. As I commanded them, so ye shall observe to do. Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam by the way after that ye were come forth out of Egypt. When thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring it out, the pledge, abroad unto thee. And if a man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge. In any case, thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee, and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire. Neither shall the sun go down upon it, for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it, lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee. The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the father. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment to pledge. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing. When thou cuttest down thine harvest in the field, and hast for God a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands. When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When thou gatherst the grapes of the vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterwards. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt. Therefore I command thee to do this thing. Father, we do thank you for your holy word, and I just pray you'd give us wisdom and understanding in your word and that you would show us how it should affect our lives today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Deuteronomy 24, Moses is still instructing the children of Israel before they go into the land, and he's expounding upon the laws that God gave them at Mount Sinai. He gave them the Ten Commandments and the laws, and Moses is trying to put practical application to it. He said, here's how you apply this law. Here in Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, he says, when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it came to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. So we'll see what Jesus had to say about this in a minute, but it's talking about he finds Some uncleanness he finds, like we talked about earlier, that she wasn't innocent, she wasn't a virgin when he married her, whatever, but he says when he does, if he decides to put her away, he has to give her a letter of divorcement. This isn't condoning divorce. We know God says God hates the putting away, but he knows these people are going to do it. He says if you're going to do it, you don't just chunk her out on the front porch. You have to give her a letter of divorcement for her own protection. It says, and when she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. Now, he's not condoning remarriage after divorce either, but he's saying whatever reason, whether she's committed adultery or whatever, or as they got worse and worse and more corrupt, they say that she burned the toast, so he got tired of her, whatever, his fault. But he has given her this letter of divorcement that says she's not his wife anymore, so a woman could legally get remarried. Not promoting divorce and remarriage, but because of the situation. Otherwise, she would probably be out there starving to death. She didn't have a way to provide for herself and so forth. He's giving this so that she can find her a new provider. Jesus was asked about it. In Matthew 19, verse 6 says, And again, Jesus is speaking against divorce. He says, Wherefore they are no more twain, talking about a married couple, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Okay, so he's making a clear statement. You shouldn't be getting divorced. Okay, Jesus is not in favor of divorce. So verse 7, they said unto him, why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement to put her away? He said, wait a minute. Moses said you could divorce your wife. You're saying you can't. You're contradicting Moses. Verse 8, He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. What Jesus said, yes, Moses did put a law in there, which of course God told him, but at the time of the Mosaic Law, there was a provision for divorce. That's correct, but that's not the way God designed it. That's not what God intended. It's because of your sin and your hardness of heart, He knows it's going to happen, So he put a procedure in to help make it a little bit better. Okay. But, but he says from the beginning, it was not. So it says God created man and woman's, you know, man, leave his father and mother and be joined his wife and have to put us under. Well, that's what he said. He just got through saying that that's the way it was designed by God. Yes, Moses allowed it, but it's just because of the hardness of your hearts and the sin in the world. Verse 3, And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled. For that is abomination before the Lord, and that shall not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." God put limits. He knew there was going to be sin. That's why he had sacrifices, right? He knew the people were going to disobey, but he gave them away. Here he's limiting this. He's saying, let's don't let this get totally out of hand. Already there's a problem, there's been a divorce. That's not God's will, that's not what He wants. But it's happened. She's married another man and then either he died or they got divorced again. Well, now he can't take her back. Now, before she married somebody else? Sure he could take her back. They broke up, they can get back together. That was the point. We used to have laws like that in the United States. When someone would get a divorce, there would always be a waiting period, six months, a year, things like that. The reason for that was an opportunity to reconcile, rethink this, work this out, get back together. That was the point. Not done much these days. But here he says, she's already gone off, married another man, which Jesus says is adultery, therefore taking her back would be adultery. That's just not, he said, no, that is not appropriate. God does not consider that. So you've put her away, she's married another man, you can't take her back. Now verse 5, when a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business, political office or something like that, called by the king to serve public office, that sort of thing. But he shall be free at home one year. Now that doesn't mean he gets to goof off. Free at home means he gets to go plant his fields, he needs to work, get his house all fixed up, do all the things he needs to do. But he's there, he shall cheer up his wife, which ye have taken. So he gives them the newlywed year. And God says they don't have to go off to war, they need to be at home to get their family begun, established. Probably in that time, they could have their first child. So now if he goes off to war and dies, at least he has someone to inherit his land and property. No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man's life to pledge." Okay, now he's talking about somebody borrows money from you, for whatever purpose. He needs money to get seed to plant his crops this year. And so you say, okay, what will you give me in pledge? You go to the bank now, what do they ask for? Collateral. What do you have? You go borrow money on a house, well, the house title belongs to the bank. You borrow money on a car, guess who keeps the title? The bank does. That's your collateral. But he says, don't take the millstone. Well, the millstone was what he used to make a living, right? Let's say he borrowed the money to plant the crops, and he's not going to be able to pay you back until the crops come in, right? But if you took his millstone, say, okay, I'm going to keep your millstone, in other words, I took your business away from you. Now, how is the guy going to grind his grain to sell it or to provide for his family to pay you back? He can't. So what he's saying here is don't take away his means of making a living. Don't take away his ability to pay you back. That's what always gets me about debtor's prison, the way they used to do it. If you got in debt to someone, they could have you thrown in prison, which prison was different in those days. Prison, you had to pay for yourself. Sometimes they charged you money, you had to provide your own meals, all that kind of stuff. But once you were in debtor's prison, you weren't paying any debts back. So it doesn't make any sense to me to be putting people in prison for their debts. which I wonder with our legal system sometimes too, when someone has stolen, embezzled, you know, they're not a criminal that's dangerous to society, but they have stolen money, why not put them to work to let them pay it back? That seems to make more sense than to pay $40,000 a year to keep them in an air-conditioned jail cell with a TV watching soap operas. You know, it doesn't make sense to me. But he said, don't take his means of making a living away from him. That would be foolish, wouldn't it? You know, somebody borrows money for their business and they make, whatever they make, they make ice cream cones. Well, you take their ice cream cone machine for a collateral, they're not going to ever pay you back, are they? Because they're never going to make anything. So don't do that. Don't destroy their means of making a living. Let them do that. You can take something for pledged, but not the thing they need to make a living. If a man be found stealing any of his brethren, we would call that kidnapping. of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then the thief shall die, and thou shalt put evil away from among you." God elevates this one. This is a capital crime. What? Kidnapping. Well, look at all the problem we have. We have children being stolen. You have stolen and abused and killed. You have stolen and sold into prostitution, all that sort of thing. It used to be a lot less because kidnapping was a capital offense in America. especially if you took them across state lines because then it was a federal offense. And you got the death penalty for that sort of thing and it didn't happen very often. The first big case I remember hearing about was Lindbergh's baby. And they really cracked down on that because he stole his baby for ransom and they wound up killing him. Kidnapping is just not allowed. God doesn't put intolerance on it. He says you need to get that evil out. If somebody is going to steal somebody and enslave them or sell them That's wrong. That's capitalism. That's like killing somebody. You've taken somebody's life. You've taken control of that. Well, if we'd have... I know back, and it was difficult back in our early, you know, our pre-Civil War country, and there were lots of debates on both sides, and people used the Bible on both sides of slavery. But, you know, God's pretty clear about it, if we'd have stood up for it. Because where did those slaves come from? They were kidnapped. Now, they may have initially been kidnapped by other African tribes. A lot of times, the stronger tribes would kidnap the other tribes, and then they sold them to the Arabs, and the Arabs sold them to the Dutch, and the Dutch sold them as slaves, and that's where a lot of them came from. But clearly, we should not have been a part of that. That's man-stealing. We call it kidnapping. It's not appropriate. God said it's evil, it's an abomination, and put that away from you. take heed in the plague of leprosy that you observe diligently to do according to all the priests the Levites shall teach you as I commanded them so you shall observe to do." Now leprosy, he didn't give the instructions here, he did, I think it was Leviticus 12. He talked about all the instructions and how they're to be separated, how the priests are to look at them and judge whether it's leprosy, all that sort of thing. Here he just says, be careful about it. The plague of leprosy can wipe you out. So you need to follow the instructions that God gave and he put that duty to the Levites, to the priests. They're the ones that are supposed to judge whether it's leprosy, make sure it's cleansed, all that sort of thing. He said, be careful that you do that. Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam by the way after that you were come forth out of Egypt. Okay, so What was that story? Well numbers 12? I've pasted the same verse twice here, but basically verse 1 Miriam and Aaron are came into Moses and they complained about the wife he'd married and they basically were saying why should you be in charge I'm your older brother and your older sister and you know we really should be in charge not little brother here and you know God is just using you and God didn't take it very kindly God said Moses is the one I've called he's the one that's in charge of his people and he showed his displeasure by putting leprosy on Miriam so here she was perfectly healthy one moment next moment she was a leper So then Aaron pleaded her case and said, Moses, please pray for her. Don't let her die as a leper. And Moses prayed for her, and God said, OK, I hear you. But she at least needs to keep the regulations I've given you. She needs to stay outside the camp for seven days until she can come back and be judged clean. He says, God did that. He did leprosy as a punishment. So he says, you need to pay attention to it, and you need to deal with it as God has said. When thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. So again, you've loaned money to your neighbor, and that doesn't mean you've got the right to go tromp in his house and take collateral from him. His house is his home. You leave it to him, let him go in his house and bring out whatever he's going to bring for his pledge, whatever that is. You don't have the right. That's kind of like in our Bill of Rights, no unreasonable search and seizure. You're supposed to have protection. Your home is your home. And even though it does say to borrow his servant to the lender, he said, respect his home. Don't go in and say, well, you owe me money, so I'm taking your bed and haul it out and whatever. He says, let him go and bring out his pledge. Respect his home. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge. So you've loaned, so it's a business transaction. You've loaned to old Joe down here, and you know, that's fine. He gives you such and such, and then when he pays you back, you give him back whatever he gave you, and that's all fine. But if the guy that borrowed money is really poor. He's desperate. He doesn't have anything except the shirt off his back. That's what he's got. He gives you that. He says, here, here's my cloak. Here's my outer garment, my coat. I'm going to give you that for plagues that I will pay you back. Well, you know he's poor. You know he's going to be cold tonight because you know that's all he has to sleep in was that coat that he gave you. So God says, don't keep it overnight. It says, in any case, thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment and bless thee. And it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. So he said, okay, Joe, you gave me your coat for a pledge that you're going to pay back. And I believe you're good hearted, but you know, sun's going down. It's going to be cold tonight. Here's your coat back. You give him his coat. He sleeps nice and warm and snug. And then in the morning he says, thank you, I appreciate it, here's my coat back. Because you care about him. You didn't need the coat, right? You have a coat. You're the one that loaned him the money. You already have a coat, a nice blanket and a feather bed. But all he's got is his cloak to wrap up in at night to keep the dew off and to stay warm. Give it back to him. Care about him more than you do the things. Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy. Okay, so we had a brother we loaned to that was poor, take care of his needs. But if you have a servant, someone that comes and works for you, but he's poor and needy, he's living hand to mouth, okay, that's it. Whether he be of thy brethren or a stranger, doesn't matter, Israelite or a stranger, that are in the land within thy gates. At his day, thou shalt give him his hire. Neither shall the sun go down upon it, for he is poor. and setting his heart upon it, lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." Sin unto me? What are you talking about? Well, a lot of times people are working because they need it right then. In our world, you're kind of in trouble if you're in that situation because if you go out and get a job, well, that's great. We talk about people needing jobs and something, found jobs, but you know, when you go out and get a job, you better be able to hold out about six weeks. because you missed the pay cycle and this and that, whatever. It's going to take a while for that paycheck comes in. Do they pay once a month? Do they pay every two weeks? Whatever. My job is every two weeks, but it's after the two weeks, and then it's a week after that before it comes in. So from the time you start, it's three weeks before you get a paycheck. I know Glenn and Lillian got their first job out of college. They went together and roomed together in a little town in West Texas. And the way it worked out starting with the school, I don't think they got paid for six weeks. It was six weeks. Well, OK, not a big deal. They're going to pay you. You're sure of it. But you've got to eat for that six weeks. You've got to pay your rent up front. You've got to pay your utilities up front to turn them on. So they ate a lot of bologna sandwiches for that first six weeks until that paycheck came in. They ate a few bologna sandwiches that six weeks. So when people are living hand to mouth, that's a big deal. making you wait six weeks, two weeks, whatever. The Bible says here, pay him before he goes home, if he needs it. He didn't say you have to pay everybody that way. You know, he got on the street and he said, well, I'll give you a check at the end of the month. He says, fine. But a guy that's in that situation, he desperately needed the job. He had zero when he came to you. He came and worked all day long. Now he wants to get something to eat and take it home to his family. Okay. Glenda's grandfather during the Depression, he was a baker. What he did is he would get up four in the morning, get up and make donuts and sandwiches and things. Then he'd go out and to the train and to the businessmen heading to work and sell them donuts for breakfast. That's fine. He'd sell them that. And then whatever money he got went to buy supper and ingredients for the next morning. Hand him out. If you didn't pay him for a week, he was in trouble. Nowadays, that would be harder to do. In those days, at least, you know, what money he got, he could take it, buy supplies for the next day, buy their supper and go on and live that way and they did fine. But that's what he says, care about. your brother, care about those you loan to, care about those you employ. Don't keep the money longer than you have to. Today in business school, and I've worked for a business for a lot of years, I even went through school and got an MBA. I don't know that I've benefited a lot from it, but they teach you how to make the most of your money. Okay? It's supposed to be a good thing. You drag it out as long as possible before you have to pay. Creditors often will ship you something and it's on terms, you know, net 30. You've got 30 days before this bill comes due. But they'll usually have a discount offer if you pay it early. It'll say net 10, 30. If you pay it within 10 days, we'll give you a discount on it. That to encourage you to pay it up, because businesses try to keep it as long as possible. Why? Because as long as you keep the money in your bank account, you're getting the interest. And so it's considered a good business practice. And I don't know if it's business to business. Well, you know, that's just the way it works. Everybody plays by those rules. But when you're dealing with individuals that have needs, I say just pay them then. Just pay them right then. I understand the float and all this kind of stuff, and I'm a little weird, but a lot of bills, I just pay them as soon as they come in. Now, I know I've got 20 days, I know I could get that money, I could get a little bit of my .001% interest on my bank account, you know. I just like to be paid off. Now, I don't do everything like that. I've got a lot of things that are auto-drafted, and they always draft it on the day it's due, and that's fine. That's the way they want to work. But don't put someone else in hardship by hanging on to that money. They're the ones. It's not going to kill you to pay them tonight, but he's going to go hungry if you don't. So care about these people. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin." Now that sounds a little strange to us, right? Because you put somebody on trial and you convict them of murder, you don't take him and all his kids to the gas chamber, do you? No, just him. Well, that's what we pray. And earlier times, that wasn't always true. A lot of times your whole family suffered for things like that. In the times of Amaziah, son of Josiah, when he became king of Judah, his father had been murdered. In 2 Kings 14 it says, And it came to pass, as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, he became king after they killed his father, that he slew his servants which had slain the king, his father. So he executed the men that had murdered the king. But, the children of the murderers he slew not, according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses." Guess where that's written? You just read it. It said, "...as the Lord commanded, saying, The father shall not be put to death for the children, and vice versa." So, that's what he did, and God honored him for that. He said that was right. He did good by not projecting that on the children, just on the ones that committed the sin. Verse 17, Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment to pledge. God said there are some things that are more important than money. So you need to be just with everybody. That's what it means when it says that God doesn't prefer people. He gives the same judgment no matter who it is. That's what our country is supposed to be established on. It's a country of law. So when he comes in and someone is accused of some crime, well, it goes before a jury, and the jury is supposed to decide what the facts really were. It doesn't matter who that person was, somebody you like or somebody you don't like, somebody powerful, rich, somebody poor, it doesn't matter. They should get justice. And that's why he says, be just, even to strangers in your land. Treat them with fairness and justice. He talks about strangers, he talks about orphans, the fatherless, and widows. God always takes care of the orphans and the widows, doesn't he? You always remember that when you're dealing with them, because if you don't treat them right, God's going to take up for them. So he says, treat the law right, whether it's to strangers or orphans, and if the widow borrows money, don't take a pledge. Say no. Here. Which may mean it's a gift. Well, that's fine. If she can pay it back, that's fine. If she doesn't, that's fine. Because if it's a widow that's a widow indeed, a widow that really has needs, then we need to provide for her needs, and that's right. But don't tell you, if she's so poor she needs to borrow money from you, then she probably can't spare her coat or something like that to be a pledge. Just let her keep it. She's an orphan. You know that God's going to care for her. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing." Why are you supposed to take care of widows and orphans and strangers? Because we were slaves in Egypt, huh? I don't get that. They don't have a good memory of Egypt, do they? And in Egypt, no, they're the ones that beat us. They're the ones that made us make bricks without straw. They enslaved us. They threw our children in the river, all that sort of thing. God didn't say because of that. He said, because I redeemed you from that. I used, God used Egypt, which was a trying time. But he turned them from 70 into millions, didn't he? He made a nation out of them. He demonstrated his power, and he redeemed them out of that slavery. So when they are being kind to a stranger, it's not because, oh, because Egypt was so good to me. It was, no, because God was so good to us as people, even though that's all we were as strangers in Bondman. He delivered us from that, and so we're honoring God because of what God did to us. That's why he commanded them. When thou cuttest down thy harvest in the field..." Okay, harvest time, so when you see the combines out there working through the fields. "...and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it. And it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, for the widow..." Again, God is caring for the one who's passing through, the orphans and the widows. "...that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands." Okay. There's a lot of churches around that teach If you're right with God, if you have faith, then you are going to be financially blessed. There's pastors out there buying multi-million dollar airplanes because they think God is blessing them so much. That's what they teach. Well, God didn't say that. He didn't say, pour your riches on you. He said He will bless the work of your hands if you use it to help the helpless. If you use your farm, your job, your whatever, to give to those in need. To give to the stranger, the orphan, the widows. Then God will bless the work of your hands. So, to bless the work of your hands. Nowadays, we go on efficiency, right? And I understand that. I mentioned the cotton and this and that. I thought, well, we're so inefficient. We're wasting so much cotton. It's blowing over the tops. And they got better at that. The cotton trailers hang in there and the cotton will blow off. Then later, you start to see tops. They put tarps over the top of the cottontail so much of it didn't blow out. Then they started compressing them in the field more so they didn't fall apart. Various things to not waste, and it's good not to be wasteful, but don't forget to leave something for those in need. Of course, the example that pops right to mind is Ruth and Boaz, isn't it? Ruth chapter 2 verse 15, And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not. And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them that she may glean them, and rebuke her not. So there was that principle. Her mother-in-law Naomi knew that, and she said, You have the right to go out here in Israel, and you can go out and glean from the fields. Well, back in Moab, you couldn't do that. They didn't have that God's law. They didn't let you do that. But here in Israel, she could go out and provide for what they needed by going through the fields because there's going to be something left. They intentionally leave the corners of the field. They go through it once, but they don't go back and get every little scrap. So that way, it was left for those in need to come get it, which I think is a great welfare program because you don't just sit at home and a check shows up. If you want to eat, you still are doing work. You get to keep your dignity. You don't say, well, I don't take charity. Well, good. Go out there and work. Go out and take it. Now, you don't have any property, so you don't have a place to grow your own crops, but you can go out there and harvest some of this other man's field. After he's gone through, you can pick up what he's left over. Of course, here, Boaz goes even beyond that. He said, by the way, let her go and drop one now and then. So she can pick it up, leave it there for her, and even if she goes over to the sheaves that you've all stacked up and takes out of that, let her do it, let her have it, because Boaz is showing the generosity and graciousness of God. When thou beatest thine olive tree, okay, harvest an olive tree, what do you do? You get you a stick and start banging it on, let those olives fall down, right? You bang that tree and the olives fall down and you catch them, pick them up. He said, but don't go over the boughs again. It's for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. He said, you know, you went over it and you got the bulk of the crop, great. Take it and go on. Don't go back. He said, I'm gonna get that last little one. I'm gonna get that one. I'm gonna get every little thing. There's not gonna be one single thing left on this tree when I get through. He said, no. leave them on there for those in need to come through and they can get the onesie-twosies to meet their own needs. You're harvesting a commercial crop, okay? You're taking the combine through there and getting the big bundles out there. That's good, but all the sticks that fall by the side, let them come through and take care of. When thou gathers thy grapes of thy vineyard, you'll pull the clusters of grapes off. Thou shalt not glean it afterwards and shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. You get a theme here? Does God care about the stranger, the fatherless, the widow? He does. He said, leave it there for them. You know, you've got the main crop. This little 10% left out there isn't going to hurt you. Let them go back and do the work to get the onesie-twosies. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, therefore I command thee to do this thing. He said, count your blessings. Here you are, if you've got a crop, you're blessed, aren't you? Because you were nothing but a slave in the land of Egypt. You didn't get anything for your labor. You just worked for them, and Pharaoh got pyramids, but you just were getting by just barely. But I cared about you and loved you and rescued you out of that. Now you have this wonderful abundant crop out here to rejoice in, and what I want you to do is with that, Leave some for those that are not as well off as you are. Leave it. And God says he will bless you for that. Well, nowadays it's a little different. Most of us aren't farmers. There's very few practicing farmers in the land this day. But we have sources of income, and so we should allocate some of that for those in need. Okay? We try to do that through the offerings to the church. We try to, we give, we bring, well, we bring food that we come up here and we take it to the homeless shelter for folks. We support missionaries that are out meeting needs. There are, you know, through the BMA, through other places, there's organizations like Samaritan's Purse and other places like that that are out going to places of crisis and places of need. It's good and right for us to support those things. My word of warning is, don't give to everybody that calls you. Because it's real easy to pick up a phone and say, I'm from the such and such for the children organization, or I'm from whatever. Well, a lot of those aren't. So know who you're giving to. If you give through the BMA, that gives some assurance because they've been, you know, There's people looking over those things and all, and you do that. If you want to give to something else, that's great, but know what you're giving to. Know where that money goes. I don't want to give Creflo Dollar a new jet airplane, okay? That's just not in my, I don't think God's going to honor me for that. I don't think that's what he wants to do. But when you're taking care of those in real need, God does honor that. And I think if we use our income for good things, he'll make sure we have the income we need. to do that. I don't say he promises you more money for what you give, but he will take care of you. He will do what you need. So we need to continue to honor these principles that we do take care of those in need, the stranger, the orphans and the widows.