Well, it must not actually be hot if it's not showing on the camera. Well, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning, we're at Deuteronomy, Chapter 25, verses 5 through 10. It's a verse about marrying your dead brother's wife. Kind of an odd situation, huh? Was it too hot for your hands? Well, why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. You want any? No, my hands are full. OK, well, then you don't have to have any. All right. You want to pray or you want me to pray? You can because my hands are numb. OK, God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your word. It is a blessing to spend time together. It's a blessing to get to read your word. Lord, we pray that you would please help us, help us to understand God and whatever lesson there might be in here for us to apply to our lives. Please help us to know it in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. So Deuteronomy, chapter twenty five, verses five through ten. Okay, you ready? Up here. If brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as a wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. and it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel. But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gates to the elders and say, My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel. He will not perform the duty of my husband's brother. Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her, then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, so shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of him who had his sandal removed. Well, we got three questions to ask ourselves. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize? And C, what are we called to do? All right. So what is this about? Uh, I don't know. So, uh, if daddy died and I had a brother with my last name and, uh, mommy didn't have any kids, right? So there's, there's a mom or a wife, no kids. Her husband dies. Oh no. What's going to happen to her? Her husband's name. It's going to be forgotten. Gone. Is she going to have kids to care for her in her old age? Is she going to have a strong boy to watch out for her and do the yard work and care for the fields and help mend the house and anything like that? No, she's going to be a poor, old, lonely widow full of grief and sorrow. OK, let's get your hands out of your mouth. So. But if she. In this scenario, her husband's got a brother, what's he supposed to do? So he takes her into his house and he is able to have a baby with her. And then is the baby known by his name? No, it's like an honorary name for the dead guy, right? The dead husband. But does the lady have to do this? No, but she wants to be cared for she wants to have a name for her husband And and so she goes to her brother, but does the man have to do this? No What what would happen if she says I don't want to do that? Yeah, right. Yeah, because it showed that in that society, that was the way to try to care for this old widow, right? And so the elders would really ask him, are you sure? Because this is a shameful thing. Are you sure that you don't want to care for this widow and do this thing? So there was a certain amount of pressure to do this, right? Certain amount of shame. But You think that would be a like a easy thing to do? Did you know there's actually a story in the Bible about somebody who refuses to do this? Have you read the story of Ruth before? Do you remember daddy preaching through the book of Ruth? Nope. Was that one of the sermons you were sleeping through? Yeah, so Ruth is that story where Naomi is out with her husband her husband dies and then her sons die she goes back to the to Israel and Naomi has her daughter-in-law Ruth with her Ruth was married to one of her sons and Ruth goes and she works in a man named Boaz's field. Oh, yeah Yeah, and then Boaz, Ruth says, oh, mom, Boaz was really nice to me. She says, oh, he's near of blood. Maybe she's thinking about leave right marriage. And then Boaz says, well, actually, I'm not the closest. There's another guy first. Let me get together the elders. So he gets together all the elders and he says, hey, Boaz has a field or sorry, Naomi's husband had a field. And you could redeem the field. You can, you could show honor to the family. And the guy says, yeah, I'm interested. And he says, but there's also Ruth. And so you'd have to produce an offspring for Naomi. And guess what he says? Not going to do it. Can't do that. The guy who didn't want to redeem the field. Well, it wasn't Boaz. And so Boaz says, okay, I'll do it. And so he takes Ruth into his house and they have a baby. And Naomi is super happy because now. Her name she's cared for, Ruth is cared for and their their family's name lives on. Do you know who Boaz and Ruth's baby is? Obed. Do you know who Obed's son is? Judah. Jesse. Do you know who Jesse's son is? Judah. David. David, right? David has Solomon and Solomon has Judah. Well, no, no, they came from Judah that you're going the wrong way, but eventually they have Jesus. Jesus's line is tied with this whole idea. So Jesus is related to everybody? No, well through Adam, sure. But this whole section was about caring for the widow, trying to pass on the name, and things like that. In my Bible, I have- So what happened with Boaz when Jesus was born? Boaz was dead. He was his great-grandpa or his grandpa great-grandpa something like that. Okay in my Bible I have verse 7 Underlined as the best verse Seek calling what are we called to do? What do you think? We're called to do you think you? Not spit in somebody's face. Not spit in somebody's face, okay. Yeah, there's a great deal of shame when you spit in somebody's face, even today, right? Pretty rude. I think this might also show us, did Jesus care for the orphan and the widow? Yeah. Is there still a special place in the Lord's heart for people who are vulnerable in our society? Yeah. So we can care for people like the widow and for the orphan, for those who might need help and protection. I do think that this type of system could be abused. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's another story about Onen. And we can talk about that story another time in the book of Genesis. But yes, there's a story about a man abusing the system. And you know what happens when he abuses that that poor widow? God kills him. Yeah, he dies. That was one of Judah's sons. Yeah. And so, uh, God, God cares for the widow. And so we can too. What's your question? It's very, it's nice, but rude. They have somebody's sandal. Yeah. Could you imagine them walking around without a sandal? What would that do to their feet? Yeah. It hurts them. Especially Mr. Smith. Yeah. So it would hurt them, but they get thorns. Yeah. Would people be able to say, dude, what happened to your sandal? He would say. I don't know. The elders took it from me because I wouldn't redeem that man's family. I wouldn't save them from from. Poverty, so he's going to take off both of his sandals to go on a jump. Well, sure, he could try to hide his his shame and go on a jump house, but I don't think they had jump houses back then. So anyways, you ready to pray? Sure, but after I have to say Okay. Lord, we thank you that you have remembered us in your mercy. Lord, we are those who were vulnerable to sin, to death, and even to hell. Lord, we thank you that you sent your son born of the Virgin Mary And Lord, we thank you that you have shown us through the genealogies that Jesus is directly related towards this idea of redeeming the widow, caring for the name, Lord. And even from that root of David, Lord, you brought up the shoot of Jesse. You brought up Jesus, our Savior. Lord, we thank you for remembering us in your kindness. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Wow, I think you just blew out my ear and theirs. All right, bye.