Deuteronomy 15:12-18

Great Principles Applied

Deu 15:12-18

It appears, then, that even bondage does not destroy brotherhood. Observe how the permanent and the temporary are joined in this verse. The brother continues for ever. It is not brotherhood but slavery that ceases. When the man goes out he goes out a brother: his old yesterday of bondage is a cloud blown away; but the fraternal instinct and the fraternal responsibility can only end with life. Yet how wonderfully accidents or temporary circumstances modify all things and create somewhat curious and often difficult relations between man and man! Why should one brother be master and another brother be bondman? The question cannot be answered abstractly or argumentatively. We must recognise facts as they are. Of all the most obvious facts which appeal to our attention there is none more obvious than that one man is set over another, that one man is destined, for a period at least, to be the servant of another. Were we creating a society upon a philosophical basis we might try to create some other kind of structure; but we are not called to the creation of society but to its interpretation. We are servants one of another. The Queen is the subject of her kingdom. No man can be a true king who is not first a subject. There is a greater king than any merely nominal monarch who represents an individuality: a kinghood of humanity, the royalty of right, the princeliness of strength helping weakness and being the guarantee of weakness against unjust and overwhelming oppression. Let the situation be accepted. To chafe under the yoke is to destroy some of our best faculties and to render progress simply impossible. Good is to be obtained from servitude. We learn to rule by learning to serve; we learn to be good men by being good little children. There is a period of bondage in every life. Even those who are apparently born to great masterliness and even royalty have to stoop and serve and accept discipline and find their way to any throne worth occupying through a process of labour and self-denial.

"And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty" ( Deu 15:13 ).

Duty on the one side does not end with service on the other. We ought to be careful how we apply this word duty to our life. Duty is in some respects a cold word, and quite measurable: it begins at a certain chime of the clock, and ends with a certain other and nameable chime; it lives within the day; it does not carry its work home with it, or dream about it, or discover the poetry and religiousness of service; it is in some respects duty mere duty, very severe duty, performed to the last jot and tittle; but still it is only a hireling's service. The Lord would add love to duty; he would add beauty to strength. The value of the gift is at the point where it begins to run over. What we give is to be given after the fashion of a vessel filled, filled to the brim, pressed down, running over; with somewhat of the poetry of wastefulness about it wastefulness, that is, as interpreted by dull and worldly eyes, but quite celestial poetry and music after the fashion of the Cross of Christ, when viewed by him who is the Giver of every good and every perfect gift. We cannot do our duty to a good servant; there must be more than duty; there must be remembrance, thoughtfulness, gratitude, downright, frank affection: for the work has been well done: no hireling fingers have touched it, but a devoted heart has thought about it, dreamed about it, planned it in a hundred different ways, and loving attention has been given to every detail. Let no man leave your life empty-handed. You may give him at least a flower, a smile, a grip with meaning in it, a look charged with the radiance of gratitude. Do not regard life as a temporary arrangement, and all social relations but so many mechanical puttings together for transient and vanishing ends; life should be a religious solidity, a complete unity, so that whether one member suffer all the members shall suffer with it, or whether one member rejoice all the members shall share its gladness. Towards this happy consolidation of social relations and rights all things under Christian inspiration are tending; whilst they are tending in this direction there will be misunderstanding, jarring, somewhat of bitterness of criticism, it may be, and a good deal of exasperation and reproach: yet all the while the central line is moving towards understanding, sympathy, confidence, liberality. All good work should be well rewarded, and all human connections should be so conducted that it costs the heart grief to give them up. Men have been so brought into unity of mind and feeling in a short Atlantic trip that the good-bye spoken the last day on the ship has quite made strong men quiver with tender emotion. The breaking-up of the ship's company seemed to have in it the breaking-up of all things; men go on their different ways: they see one another no more; they remember the days and the nights, and the talks upon the dreary waste of water, and one touch of the hand dissolves the company. How sad to part in ill-feeling, with misunderstanding and bitterness of heart! and how sadder still only with a solemn and noble pathos to part in real friendship, genuine love, mutual, unquestioning trust and confidence! The parting will come; we can so arrange our relations now that when the parting comes its sorrow shall be sweet, its sadness shall be but a cloud for a moment veiling a celestial light.

The same idea is continued in the fourteenth verse:

"Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress." ( Deu 15:14 )

He who has served well should be treated well. That must be the law in all our life. We must have done with all merely mechanical and hireling relations if ever we are to realise Christ's idea of society. There should be no orphan children; there should be no unattended sick; there should be no outcast city. It is worse than vain it reaches the highest point of profanity; it aggravates itself, indeed, into an appalling blasphemy that we should first cast out the city and then make a charity of attending to the city we have outcast. Something has to be done within all operating social arrangements that will prevent the catastrophe. Service has no right to end in poverty. After a man's day's work is done he should carry with him liberally out of the flock, and out of the floor, and out of the winepress; this he should do by right: the issue should not be a happy accident but a logical and just conclusion. The idea is of universal application. If any man be mean enough to serve as a man-pleaser and with a view to the ultimate bounty, he ought to be disappointed and disappointed he certainly will be. All such men will exist to the end of time; but we cannot arrange society upon a basis of suspicion and distrust Whoever has served well should have a quiet eventide, no wolf of hunger pursuing him, no dark cloud lying over the roof like a burden which the house can but ill bear. Preacher, merchant, thinker, writer, tradesman of every kind, master, servant the time of labour completed should go into green pastures, and walk by still waters, and have a quiet watching and waiting time, bread being given and water being made sure, and a "Well done, good and faithful servant," floating upon the whole life like a blessing from heaven. Many men render this impossible by their own misconduct Misconduct would ruin creation; a selfish and rebellious spirit would render heaven impossible, on earth or otherwhere. Why fix attention upon the exceptions unless it be with a view to reduce their number? Our love-duty remains the same. If we would be well served we must rule well. It seems as if we escaped with all our bounty: we allowed the good servant, of whatever name or degree, to go, and we gave nothing; the arrangement that had existed for years two, four, six, seven years was dissolved without a single gift out of the flock, or the floor, or the winepress; and we have reasoned that therefore we have saved so much. It is a fallacy. That is a selfishness that lives upon its own life-blood. Only generosity can be happy; only liberality puts the top-stone on justice. In forgetting the liberal donation we have laid up wrath against the day of wrath even for our own souls: we have shut out light from the south: we have wronged our own spirits.

"And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today" ( Deu 15:15 ).

Memory should be called in to the aid of duty. We must not forget the great general principles in looking at the momentary details. One man is master, we say; but only in a very narrow sense. The master now was himself once a slave. We were all slaves. If any man now is good, he must remember the mire out of which he was lifted, and the hole out of which he was digged. No man amongst us has come down from the untainted clouds, and is conferring a favour upon human society by mingling with it. The whitest robe is blackness compared with the snow of celestial righteousness. We are respectable as amongst ourselves and between ourselves, and in contrast with other nameable people; but boasting ourselves amongst ourselves we become foolish: the standard is not with us: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The great principle of this direction involves all life. Memory is to play a wonderful part in the education of the soul. When we see a prodigal, are we to gather our skirts about us and assume a relation of severe respectability to the poor sore-footed wanderer? Remember we are all prodigals. One man is seen more upon the road than another, and is more obviously departing from the Father's house; but movement is a very subtle action. Some men move in the night-time, ay, they move at flying pace! In the day they are at church: in the light they are demure: in society they are irreproachable; but no sooner does the cloud curtain out the sun no sooner does night come than they fly: their feet are swift in the way of destruction. Remember! When we hear of men getting wronged in this way or in that way in the city, at home, in all the various relations of life it suits our illicit and calculated piety to sigh over the ruin which we have perceived. It may be a hypocritical sigh. Remember! We need not go into words; reproach is useless. Let the soul look backward steadily, closely, fully, critically and in that retrospect there will be fire enough to light a hell. We are cursed through not looking back far enough. We now have "respectable" people in the Church the Church that ought to be the gathering-ground of prodigals, broken hearts, shattered lives, a place of tears! It has become a boasting-ground the paradise of a Pharisee. We have forgotten the Egypt of our own bondage and humiliation.

"It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years" ( Deu 15:18 ).

Religious inspiration should be mightier than selfish instincts. Man must be conquered by God. That which is natural must be chastened out of the soul: "Ye must be born again." Does it not seem a hard thing for a servant to be taking away liberally out of the flock, and out of the floor, and out of the winepress? Does it not seem a hard thing that the servant should have both hands filled and should be blessed with a sense of fulness and prosperity? It all might have been saved. Such is the reasoning of the hard heart. Whatever you save as against righteousness, justice, and love has no lasting in it: there is a ghost among the money. God's judgment or blessing rests upon the whole flock, floor, and winepress. The money saved from the man who had a right to it shall be lost. Do not imagine that God has abandoned all the commercial relations of life and handed over marts and exchanges to the dominion of the devil. The Lord still reigneth, and all history, interpreted by a Christian spirit, ends in this: that whoever endeavours selfishly to upset the divine regulation is never really the richer for the money he has stolen. We dare not spend stolen money: we are quite sure if we lay it down on the counter that the man who looks at it will see written upon it "This money was stolen." We dare not unroll the sheaf of stolen notes: in the very crinkle of the paper there is an accusation. Honest money goes far, and brings sweetness with it and light and hope, and a blessing full of unction may be asked upon the little loaf bought by the honestly-earned penny. Whatever we have let it be honest money, and then the more we have the more everybody else will have, for we shall be but trustees and stewards, sowing with both hands and reaping with both hands night and day. This is God's law; this doctrine lies at the very root of divine legislation and social economy.

All this would be interesting in itself, and would be full of holy and happy impulse as mere matter of history Hebrew, or Greek, or Roman; but the matter does not end there. The legislator is seen in the legislation. You find the mind of God in the law of God. What does God ask? He only asks what he has first given. The fourteenth verse proves this:

"...of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him." ( Deu 15:14 )

We do not create property; we do not create gold. It pleases us to think ourselves creators and proprietors, and it delights our misguided spirits to constitute ourselves into boards of directors and managers and comptrollers: whereas we have nothing that we have not received; a Voice sounds from heaven, saying, The gold and the silver are mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills; all souls are mine. God opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. God only asks what he has first given; the Giver condescends to become the Suppliant. Reading such legislation, how easy it is for us to believe that "God is love"! It required a highly spiritual Christian to put that revelation into words: "God is love" but all such sayings go back over the whole field of history, and express in their conciseness what all the best men have been long thinking. One of the greatest of our departed statesmen defined a proverb as "the wisdom of many, and the wit of one." So with this sentence, "God is love"; it is the instinct of many; it is the experience of many; it is the utterance of one. The Old Testament is as full of love as the New Testament. The legislation of Moses culminates in the redemption of Christ.

Selected Note

"And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today" ( Deu 15:15 ). The Israelites were frequently reminded, after their exode from Egypt, of the oppressions they endured in that "house of bondage" from which they had been delivered by the direct interposition of God. The design of these admonitions was to teach them justice and kindness towards their servants when they should become settled in Canaan (Deuteronomy 5:15 ; Deuteronomy 8:14 ; Deuteronomy 10:19 ; Deuteronomy 15:15 ; Deuteronomy 23:7 , etc.), as well as to impress them with gratitude towards their great Deliverer. The Egyptians had domestic servants, who may have been slaves (Exodus 9:14 , Exodus 9:20-21 ; Exo 11:5 ). But the Israelites were not dispersed among the families of Egypt they formed a special community. They had exclusive possession of the land of Goshen, "the best part of the land of Egypt." They lived in permanent dwellings, their own houses, and not in tents ( Exo 12:22 ). Each family seems to have had its own house (Exodus 12:4 ; comp. Act 7:20 ); and judging from the regulations about eating the passover, they could scarcely have been small ones (Exod, xii., etc.). They appear to have been well clothed ( Exo 12:11 ). They owned "flocks and herds, and very much cattle" (Exodus 12:4 , Exodus 12:6 , Exodus 12:32 , Exo 12:37-38 ). They had their own form of government; and although occupying a province of Egypt, and tributary to it, they preserved their tribes and family divisions, and their internal organisation throughout. The service required from the Israelites by their taskmasters seems to have been exacted from males only, and probably a portion only of the people were compelled to labour at any one time. As tributaries, they probably supplied levies of men, from which the wealthy appear to have been exempted (Exodus 3:16 ; Exodus 4:29 ; Exo 5:20 ). The poor were the oppressed; "and all the service, wherewith they made them serve, was with rigour" ( Exo 1:11-14 ). But Jehovah saw their "afflictions and heard their groanings," and delivered them, after having inflicted the most terrible plagues on their oppressors.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast set apart a time for worship, and a place for the sacrifice of praise. This is the day the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it; this is the place where the Lord's name is recorded: here he will be and show himself unto those who lift up towards him eyes of expectation. We bless thee for the holy time, for the holy place, and for the holy book, a time that is separate, a place that is made a sanctuary, a book that stands above all other books, alone in its completeness and authority. May we understand these appointments, and respond to all their meaning: may the time be as a jewel among the days; may the place sanctify our habitations; may the book inspire and direct our thought and feeling and action. Thus, may we be the better not the worse for our meeting together in thy name: may we feel the mystery of sympathy; may we enter into the joy of fellowship; may we have communion one with another and with our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus, united in thy love and worshipping at thine altar, we shall be prepared to endure the burden and the suffering of life, and to wait with expectancy and hope the day of thine appearing. We bless thee for the flowers in the wilderness, for water among the rocks, for a cooling breeze at noonday; for all the mercy and lovingkindness, so tender and abundant, which have followed us all the days of our life, and made it a time of sunshine and liberty. That we have not lived up to all this call of thine, enforced by providences so tender, and ennobled by a pathos so wondrous as the sacrifice of thy Son, is our bitterest complaint: we accuse ourselves; we know that we have come short in all things, and that we have offended against thee. But thy mercy is great to forgive as well as to provide; thy lovingkindness is a redemption as well as a providence; so we come to the Cross, owning our sickness of heart, our rebellion of will, our whole evil-mindedness, asking for the pardon of God. Comfort us according to our necessities; how many they are thou knowest, how bitter and sharp thou alone canst tell. Withhold not thy consolations: let thy solaces be more in number than our sufferings; then shall we magnify God in the house of our affliction. Regard our loved ones for whom it is our delight to pray. Some are not here: they are far away upon the sea, or beyond the sea, in strange lands, in difficult places; or they are in the chamber of sickness, or in the shadow of a great sorrow, counting their loss, and not able to find the gain which thou hast hidden amid its tears; the Lord look upon them, be tender and gracious unto them, comfort them with stimulus, that they may be stirred up to nobler service and not be allowed to sink under the burden of their grief. Make the old young; make the young glad with a double joy; and may business teach us that we are children of heaven and not of earth, of eternity and not of time, and that there are no good things to be found below which can satisfy the capacity of the soul.

The Lord hear us in these things: his attention shall be a. blessing; his condescending to listen shall be a help; and as for the reply the holy answer, the gracious response of Heaven will it be less than the Cross? Will it be more than the earth and time can receive? Will it be a surprise of benefaction? We know it will be worthy, of the name in which our prayer is prayed, and there we rest. Amen.