Deuteronomy chapter 24. We've
come to verse 6 in our study. Deuteronomy chapter 24 and in
verse 6. Deuteronomy 24 and look in verse
6. We'll start here in verse 6.
No man shall take the neither or upper millstone to pledge,
for he taketh a man's life to pledge." The upper and lower
millstone. We read so much in the scriptures
about these millstones. This was their means of processing
their grain. They had an upper stone that
was different sizes depending on if it was a commercial grinder
or one they had at home and then it turned. Someone had to turn
it by hand. They usually had a rod of some
kind in there and it lowered up and down and the bottom stone,
the lower stone could be huge and they would put their grain
on that bottom stone and let this top stone down and grind
it. It would grind their meal. That's
the way they used back in those days to grind their meal and
when you see this word here Nether, that was the bottom stone. It
could be huge. They would bury these things,
sometimes 10 or 12 foot in the ground, and leave them sticking
up so high. And they fixed them that way
so they wouldn't move when they let that top stone down on them
to grind them. You remember Samson? Remember
Samson when they put out his eyes and put him in prison? That's
what he was doing. He was grinding there in the
mill. Usually slaves did that work. It was a very menial work
and women, most of the women did it. The Lord said there would
be two women grinding at the mill. Remember that? One taken
and one left. My dad told me often about these,
they called them gristmills I think back then. The Bible speaks so
much about these because I think the reason because the history
of the world You know, we just got rid of these mills, these
grinding mills, just not that many years ago. My dad often
told me that when he was a boy, they took their corn then to
those old grinders, and they put them down on the rock and
set the top stone on it, and they would grind it. If you ever go to Tennessee,
you'll go down 127, just north of Jamestown, where Alvin C.
York lives, and there's a huge gristmill. there upon that river. I've went in there different
times, and they've still got the old millstones there and
the things that they grind with. It's amazing to see all that
stuff. But you know, we just got away
from that in the early, what, 19th century, 20th century, even
the 20th century. We just got away from these.
So probably the Bible speaks so much of this because it's
in the history of this world. They've just got away from these
things. And in the old times, And especially in the Jewish
days, bread was a staple. Everybody ate bread all the time. And they had these little portable
grinding mills that almost everybody had in their house because they
ground their meal daily. So everybody had a mill, a little
grinding wheel, two little grinding wheels. And that's why the Holy
Spirit said here that they were not to pawn these millstones. They had pawn shops back then
like they have today and they weren't allowed to pawn these
millstones because he said that's their life, that's their living.
And you can just see some sorry fella trying to pawn his millstone
for maybe a some drink of some kind. You wonder sometimes, and
we used to see this and probably still see it some, but you wonder
sometimes, the Lord forbid them to do it back then because He
said that's the life. That's the husband's life. That's
the wife and the children's life. Don't pawn these gristmills.
That's what they eat so much of. I wonder if some of these
fellows that owns these nightclubs and these beer joints and so
on, that have these fellows, that come through on a work day
when they've got their check and they stop there and they
spend it all on booze and gambling and go home to their wives that
have nothing, the kids that are half naked and hungry. I wonder
if that bartender realizes, you're going to give account to God
for that. What ain't my fault? It ain't my fault. It's his fault. That's like these fellows may
have said. Well, it ain't my fault. No, God said don't you
pawn that. That's the life of your family.
And I think those who stop like that and won't provide for their
families, they'll be held guilty, but those who provided the means
for them to do that, they'll be held guilty too, won't they?
It's very interesting in the Scripture, you see the Holy Spirit
use this grain, the whole process of grain from the time that it
is put in the ground to its growing up until the harvest. The Holy
Spirit uses this through the Scriptures. And it is very interesting
if you want to do a study on that sometime, but let's just
dwell on that just for a minute. You remember in Matthew Chapter
13, and you can read this in the 13th chapter of Matthew,
it deals with this whole process of sowing, watching the wheat
grow, and the wheat harvest, bringing it to harvest. In Matthew
chapter 13, remember where he said the sower went out to sow?
He sowed his wheat. He sowed his wheat and some of
the wheat fell in the wayside. Remember that? And the fowls
of the air came. He said Satan came and he snatched
away this grain that was sown in the heart where it wouldn't
produce any fruit. And then some seed was sown on
stony ground. It had no earth. So it sprang
up, but because it had no earth, it wielded and bore no fruit.
And then some were sown among the thorns, and the thorns came
up and choked it. And only one of those seeds,
one out of four, landed in the good ground and brought forth
fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. So we're
told in the Scriptures about that, and the Lord likened that
to the Word of God being sown in our hearts. I wonder sometimes
if it's even one quarter that hears the Word that really hears
it, and it begets life in their hearts. But then he goes on in
that very same chapter in verse 24 through 30 of Matthew 13,
and he tells about watching the blade, watching the grain as
it grows up. And he says it like this, the
kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed seed in his field.
But while men slept, the enemy came and he sowed tares in among
the wheat. And you couldn't tell the difference
until it sprang up and began to grow and there was no fruit
on the stem of the tare. And they said, what's happened? What's wrong? And they went and
asked the Lord. They said, ìDidnít you sow good
seed in your field?î And He said, ìYes.î And they said, ìWhy are
those tares in there?î He said, ìAn enemy has did this.î They
said, ìHereís what weíre going to do. Weíre going to pluck up
the tares, and weíre going to get them out of your wheat.î
He said, ìIf you do that, youíll pluck up the grain with it.î
Remember that? The wheat. ìLet both grow together to the
harvest. And then at the time of the harvest,
Iíll send my reapers, and then they will divide the tares from
the They'll throw the wheat and bring the wheat into the garners,
into the barns, and they'll burn up the tares. And then in the last portion
of that chapter, he explains the harvest. So we've got it
planted, we're watching it grow. And now we've got the harvest.
And really, He explains the parable to them. They said, Explain to
us this parable. He said, Well, here it is. The
sower that sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. That's Jesus
Christ. If there's any seed that gets
in a man's heart, He puts it there. The preacher can't put
it there. The teacher can't put it there.
You can't read it in there. He has to put it there. He that
sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. Here is where the Word is going
to the men's hearts in this world. The children of the kingdom are
the believers. They're the believers. They're
the ones that He begets and gives them a good hope in Himself.
And the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy
that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the
world. The reapers are the angels. And the Lord shall send His angels. He'll gather the tares out of
His kingdom, bundle them up, and burn them in fire, but the
wheat he will take into his garden, into the barn. And then he went
ahead to explain that, that he had sent his angels at the last
day and gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them
which do iniquity and burn them. That is dreadful to think about,
isn't it? But the wheat he would gather into the kingdom of heaven. about this was speaking of the
Lord Jesus and he picked up on this too about this and he said,
whose fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly purge his
floor and gather his wheat unto the garners but he will burn
the chaff with unquenchable fire. He lets us in. Back then they
knew this process of winnowing. They call it winnowing. It's the way I pronounce that
word. But here's the way they did it.
They went out in the fields, and they cut the wheat down,
and they cut the tares down with it. They brought it all back
into the floor. They threw it on what they called
the floor. Sometimes it was literally a wood floor, and sometimes just
packed dirt. They threw it all there. And then they had these
huge sticks. They would beat the grain out
of that, and it would fall down on the floor. And they would
remove the stems and the tares and throw them over to one side.
And there it laid all of that seed on the floor. They had shovels. This is why sometimes they'd
get up on a windy hill, they'd take that shovel and they'd throw
that grain up in the air. It'd come back down and it'd
blow the chaff off. And the chaff would blow over
there with the rest of the refuge and they would burn it. And there
you would have your grain. Remember Boaz when he was down
in the threshing floor and Ruth went down there and laid with
him? That's what he was doing. He was wintering wheat. And John
picked up on that. And he said, He shall thoroughly
purge His floor. He'll do all the separating.
And He'll bring the grain. He'll say to His wheat, Come,
you blessed of my Father. Come into my Father's house,
to my barn, to His garden. And He'll say to those on His
left hand, Depart from me, you cursed. So there's a distinction
in the wheat and the chaff, isn't there? And the wheat and the
turf. David said it like this, the righteous are like the tree
planted by the rivers of water that brings forth their fruit
in their season. But he said the ungodly are not
like that. They are like the chaff, like
the chaff which the wind driveth away. He speaks a lot too about
the millstone. The millstone in the Scriptures,
they use it to represent many things. Job used it to represent
the hard heart. He said of Leviathan, some kind
of a beast, he said his heart is as hard as the nether stone. Hard as that old bottom stone
that they used to use to grind their meal. Hard. Wanda and Gail
sang that song though about the Lord breaking the heart, don't
they? Boy, the hearts of stone will have to crumble with just
one touch of the Master's hand. I don't care how hard the heart
is. He can break it, can't he? He said, My word is a hammer. Why did He liken that to a hammer?
Because this hammer, this gospel, can break the hardest heart in
this world. It can do it. It broke yours,
didn't it? It can break the hardest heart
in the world. Even the heart of a nether stone, the Lord's
stone. It's sometimes used for judgment. Whosoever offends one
of these little ones that believe in Me, It were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck and cast into
the sea." Boy, that went home to their hearts, didn't it? Because
they saw those stones every day. And they thought, man, a millstone
hanged about my neck? Who could recover from that?
And the Lord used this to describe the judgment that was coming
upon the harlot church, Babylon the harlot church. Listen to
what He says in Revelation 18, verse 21. A mighty angel took
up a millstone and cast it out into the sea and said, Thus with
violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall
be no more." Whoever that harlot church is, he is going to destroy
it. It is going to be like a big
millstone sinking down into the bottom of the sea that will never
come up again. She's going down never to rise
under the judgment of our Lord and Savior. If you want to ever
do a study on that, it's very interesting to study about the
process of how they went through this and Isaiah speaks so much
about it. But let's go on to the next verse. Look in verse
7. If a man be found stealing any of his brethren, of the children
of Israel, and making merchandise of him, or selling him, Then
that thief shall die, and thou shalt put evil away from among
you." Kidnapping persons and using them for merchandise, using
them for slaves for their own service and selling them. Now
I've said this before when we rethink like this. This makes me know that if you
lived in Old Testament times, you wanted to be a Jew. I'm telling
you, it's the only nationality to be among is the Jews. Because
this stuff here was going on in all the other nations. They
were hating each other. They were stealing each other,
kidnapping one another, enslaving one another, selling one another,
but not Israel. Not when they walked according
to God's rule and God's Word. That was the place to be. What
advantage then has the Jew, Paul said? Well, they had a lot of
advantages, didn't they? Many advantages. And one of the
advantages is they had God's Word to guide them, to keep them
from these ungodly things of kidnapping one another and enslaving
one another and selling one another. I tell you, if I lived in the
Old Testament, I'd want to be a Jew. And you know something? I'm looking
at some Jews. What advantages does a Jew have
today? We've got those poor Jews over there in Palestine, and
I feel sorry for them. I don't know what. I don't really
know. I'm not able to enter in what's
going to happen to them, if anything. I don't know. But I know this
much. If the Lord ever saves them,
He'll save them the same way He saves us, by the Gospel. But
who is a Jew today? A Jew is not one that's outwardly,
but a Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is of the heart,
and not in the flesh, whose praise is not of men, but of God." They
had the Word back in the Old Testament. The Jew today, he's
born of the Word. He's born of the Spirit of God.
He has the Spirit to lead him, the Word to rule him and guide
him. And you know something about the Jews today, the true Israel
of God? They won't put you in bondage.
They weren't allowed to do it in this day and were not allowed
to do it in this day. They won't use your soul for
merchandise. They just won't do it. The only
one they'll put you in bondage to is the Lord Jesus Christ,
just to love Him and serve Him better, a slave to Christ. Peter tells us in 2 Peter chapter
2 about those men who used other men as merchandise. You can read this over in 2 Peter
2 beginning around verse 3. He said there were false apostles. Listen to what he said about
them. He called them false apostles, false prophets, bringing in damnable
heresies. And he said, Through covetousness
shall they with fiend words make merchandise of you. make merchandise. God forbid to make merchandise
of men, didn't He? And here these false apostles
are making merchandise of men's souls through covetousness. These false preachers today, I don't know what all motivates
them, but it has something to do with covetousness. There's
not a false preacher that is not motivated by covetousness. I don't know if it's covetous
of the praise of men He wants the glory of man. He wants man's
money. He wants an easy lifestyle. But
they're motivated by covetousness. They, through covetousness, with
fenced word. That word fenced, it means molded. It means to mold, make up, unscriptural words. Unscriptural
phrases, unscriptural concepts to deceive people by, to enslave
people by. And we've all heard it, haven't
we? You know, I preached two or three weeks ago on the three
musts. One of them was you must be born again, if some of you
remember that. Being born again, not of corruptible seed but of
the incorruptible. Why would anybody take that word
and not use it? Not use that phrase, but substitute
something else in its place. Make up a word. Make up a phrase
like this. Instead of saying you must be
born again, you must decide for Christ. You must decide for Christ. You must make a decision for
Christ. I'm telling you, being born again
is critical, isn't it? That's essential. and to take
that away and finge a word, mold a word, make up a word to take
its place. Decide for Christ. Listen to
this. Whatever verdict a man may reach in his own mind about
Christ and sin and heaven and hell, there must be something
wrought in his soul that the Bible calls being born again. And that takes place not from
within him in what he does or any decision that he makes, but
that's something that takes place from somebody outside of him,
the Spirit of God, born from above. And deciding for Christ,
listen, for a preacher to tell a man to decide for Christ is
the new birth That man is making merchandise
out of your soul. Now he is. This bothers me. I'm sorry, it bothers me. I heard
a man the other day, listening to him, talking to this man,
getting him to repeat a prayer. And nothing was wrong with the
prayer, but when he repeated the prayer after him, now you're
burned again. Listen, that's making merchandise
of a man's soul. If God forbid it in the New Testament,
in the Old Testament, to make merchandise out of men's bodies
and threaten them with death if they did it, how much more
will He threaten those who make merchandise out of men's souls?
Man has to be born again, and deciding for Christ is not the
new birth. Repeating the sinner's prayer
is not the new birth. The new birth comes from heaven.
It's wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit. And it's just
that. It's a new birth. It's being
born again. You say, Bruce, would men make
merchandise out of men's souls? Would they stoop so low to do
that? Well, the Lord Jesus said they
made merchandise out of the Father's house, didn't He? He sure did. And He turned it
into a den of thieves. And for a man to deceive a man
in this critical place of the new birth is enslaving a man's
soul, it's kidnapping his soul and selling his soul to the devil.
And God forbid it then and He'll forbid it now. Peter said, Their
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not. Amazing grace. He was mixed up
in the slave trade for years. He bought slaves in Africa that
had been kidnapped. He knew they had been kidnapped
and sold them himself. When the Lord saved him, he never
did get over that. He died regretting buying men
and selling them. He was the one, him and Meriwether,
got the law passed there in England. a stopping slave trade. They
got that done. He was responsible for that.
That's a serious business, ain't it? But when it gets into the
soul, making merchandise out of men's souls, it's really serious
then. Look in verse 8 and 9 of our
text. Take heed in the plague of leprosy
that thou observe diligently and do according to all that
the priests, the Levites, shall teach you as I commanded them,
so you shall observe to do. Remember what the Lord thy God
did unto Miriam, Moses' sister, by the way, after that you were
come forth out of Egypt. Take heed in the plague of leprosy."
And one of the reasons they were to take heed in the plague of
leprosy because God sent it. God sent it. Now I can't explain
all of that. I can't explain how God does
all these things. I just can't. But if you read
Leviticus chapter 14 and verse 34, it says plainly, when I sin,
leprosy. Sometimes it was sent to men's
bodies. It was sent to clothes, the bed linen, the kitchen linen,
all of that. It was sent into houses. And
they were to take heed when they thought they had leprosy. And
one of the reasons that they would take heed, because they
knew that God had sent it, either sent it for correction or He
sent it for judgment. And the reason they were to take
heed, because when you had leprosy, when you had a spot of leprosy,
and you thought you had a spot of leprosy, when you thought
it was in your clothes or in your bed coverings or whatever,
or when it was in your house, you went to the priest. You didn't
go to the doctor. There was no cure for this. You
went to the priest, and the beginning of the process could be very
inconvenient. If you had a little white spot
on you, the priest would shut you up for seven days. If you
brought some clothes you thought leprosy was in your clothes,
he'd tuck your clothes and he'd put it away for seven days. If
they come to your house and you thought it was in your house,
you had to get a crew of men in and scrape the entire house. and take all of the powder and
take it outside and burn it. That was inconvenient, wasn't
it? And I imagine the temptation
would arise to find a little white spot on you and to cut
it out. I've got to get rid of this.
I can't go through this inconvenience. I can't miss work. I've got to
cut this out. You found something in your clothes.
Man, this is my favorite coat. What am I going to do? If I go
and take it, they ain't going to give it back to me. So you
cut it out and throw another piece in it. In your house, you
cover it up. There was the temptation to do
that. Take heed, he said. Take heed. And what happened if they just
neglected it and let it go? Boy, that really led to trouble,
didn't it? Because this leprosy was a spreading thing. Take heed. What were they to do then? Well,
they were to do this. In verse 8 he said, Observe diligently
to do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach
you. Man, the only recourse they had
was to go to these priests, these Levites. Only these Levites,
these priests, these Levites, only they knew what to do. Only they knew what to do. You
had to go to them and receive instructions from them. Isn't it amazing? God has always
worked this way. He's always raised one man up
to teach other people. He's always had a group of preachers,
pastors that he's raised up to other people, sat under them
and learned from them. And the only true recourse the
children of Israel had, any man or woman had, when they thought
they had leprosy was to go search out a Levite and say, what does
God tell me to do? You give me instruction. What does God tell me to do? And you know it's still that
way today, isn't it? It's still that way today. If any man is
ever saved, if any man is ever established in the faith, you
know something? He's going to sit under a preacher.
He's going to hear from a preacher. He's going to sit under a preacher.
He's going to be still. He's going to be quiet and listen
to God speaking to him through another man. That's the only
recourse they have. And here's what Hebrews chapter
13 and verse 7 says about that. Chapter 13 verse 17, Obey them
that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves. For they
watch for your souls, as they who must give account, that they
may do it with cheerfulness, with joy, and not with grief. For listen, that's unprofitable
to you." Well, how did these Levites know what to do? How
did they know so much about leprosy? Well, he says here in our text,
as I commanded them. God taught them, didn't He? It
wasn't. They didn't treat people. They
didn't speak to people and act out of their own hearts. It wasn't
their opinion. It wasn't that somebody come
and said, I think I've got the leprosy. And he said, man, I
know you. I've been living by you. And he said, I can't afford to
miss work. You know me. You know me. Your family and my family have
been friends. Well, I think I'll let you go. It looks like it
could be leprosy. And I'm really supposed to shut
you up. But I'm going, no, he didn't do that, did he? Boy,
that didn't happen. Why? Because this Levite was
taught of God. This priest was taught of God. And I bet you when somebody come
to them with a white spot on his arm, he began to tremble.
Because he said, here's what God tells me to do. And boy,
that's what he did. That's what he did. And that's
the way we measure preachers and pastors today, isn't it?
We sit under them and we submit to them. as long as they preach
to us the Word of God, as long as God's teaching them from His
Word. But we'll not hear them and we'll not listen to them
and follow them any farther than they follow Christ. If they leave
Christ, we leave them. If they leave the Word, we leave
them. But boy, I tell you, it's a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous
thing to have a gospel preacher, a pastor that preaches the gospel,
and refused to go there and sit and listen. These Jews would
have been foolish, to say the least, to think that God was
going to bless them and them not listening to these Levites
and obeying what they told them to do. It would have been foolish,
wouldn't it? It would have been presumptuous to think, well, I'm not going
up there. I'm not going up there. I just
ain't going to submit to what they tell me to do. Well, don't
expect God's blessing. Things are going to get worse
and things are going to get worse because those are God's men.
Those are God's men. Well, I don't care. I tell you,
there's people that way, aren't there? I just don't care. I don't
care. God won't bless you. Nobody's
above God's authority. Nobody's above God's ordinance.
not even Mariam, Moses' sister. Boy, she got herself into trouble,
didn't she? Her and her brother Aaron came
to Moses one day and they said, God has spoke to us as well as
you. You think you're the only one that God speaks to. He speaks
to us too. And boy, God smote her with leprosy.
She turned as white as snow. He said, Don't you cross my pastor. Don't you cross my prophet. I
called him. And boy, Aaron began to pray. Oh, have mercy upon us, he said.
Have mercy. We've sinned. We've acted foolishly.
Oh, forgive us. Cry unto God for us. I tell you,
there ain't but one remedy. Ain't but one remedy. If the
Lord has sent judgment to a man's conscience, if He's corrected
a man, there's but one remedy to take. And it's not rebellion.
It's not rejecting and getting mad at the poor pastor. It's
humbling yourself before the Lord. That's what David did,
wasn't it? That's what Hezekiah did. That's
what Peter did. And that's the only route any
of us can take is just humble ourselves before the Lord. Listen to this. Israel was not
to think that God would bless them. except as they submitted
to the instructions of these Levites, as they received instruction
from the Lord their God. I mean, Larry knows a man. This
is how serious this is. He is an older gentleman now.
Larry has known him longer than I have, but I have known him
long enough. And everywhere he goes, He won't submit to the
pastor. I've talked to one pastor where
he used to go and caused the pastor all kinds of trouble.
This division all the time, division, will not submit. And now he's
got pretty old. And now he seems to be just going
out of his head, don't he, Larry? talking about things now and
trying to teach people stuff now in his home that's just completely
contrary to the Word of God. His son called Larry and he said,
it's sick what he's telling people. Let me tell you this. I don't
know if I should or not, Larry, but maybe it won't get out of
here, but he said one of the things he was teaching people,
no man ever found Christ by seeking Him. Have you ever heard such
a thing? I thought of a half a dozen scriptures
when I heard that. Seek ye the Lord while He may
be found. Call upon Him while He is near. When you seek Me
with all your heart, you shall find Me. Let us go and seek the
Lord." And now that man, he has been so divisive. He will not
submit to the preacher. He knows it all. And buddy, I
tell you now, he has been just like these Levites saying, you
come to me and you set here. I will give you instructions
from God. No, thank you. I know as much as you do. There's
a lot of pastors. There's a lot of people. There's
some of you here tonight that probably knows more than I do.
But who's the preacher? Who's the pastor? Who says and
listens to who? That's not bragging. That's just
God's way, isn't it? I go down to Lexington, Kentucky,
and there's doctors. professors in that congregation
there at Todd Rhodes Baptist Church. And they sat and listened
to this uneducated two-before-heel belly preaching to them. That's
the way it is. And if a man won't submit to
that, then he's a presumptuous fool. And don't let him think
that God's going to bless him. Probably right the opposite.
God's going to let him go and deceive himself and get into
all kinds of silly heresies. Here is what Jude said. He said,
The apostles warned us of the last times, men walking after
their own ungodly lusts, whatever all that includes. And this is
what he said about it. These be they who separate themselves
sensually. This word separate here means
two things. One, it means to cause division.
These be they who cause division. They are divisive. Everywhere
they go, division, divisiveness follows them. Separation, divisiveness. And it means literally to separate.
They cause divisions and then they separate. That's what that
fellow Minn-Larry did. That's what he does everywhere
he went. Divisiveness, separating God's little flock. And here's
what Jude said, they separate themselves, they're sensual,
they're worldly, having not the Spirit. And that's the problem. If they had the Spirit, what
would they do? They'd sit and shut up. They'd sit and listen. They'd be thankful for the Word
that was preached to them. They'd pray for the preacher.
And they'd submit themselves, wouldn't they? Remember Mariam. Boy, nobody's
above God's counsel. Nobody's above His authority.
Nobody's above His ordinance. Nobody. Nobody. And we best all
submit to it, haven't we? Well, God bless you. I hope that
was a help to you. We'll start there, the Lord's
will, in verse 9 or verse 10 next week. Brother Wayne, would
you dismiss?