Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too
much because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect
yesterday's portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are
going to change all of that. Let's experience God's words
today and receive the power we need to live healthy,
vibrant lives. Welcome to Your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, Good morning. It is Sunday. It's
August twenty four, twenty twenty five. Hello, my name is
El David Harris. I am your host, and this is
your Daily Portion where we give you God's word every
single day, and today is no exception. We are continuing
in our Lesson study series through the Book of Exodus,
and our caption for today is the Code of the Covenant,
The Code of the Covenant. Before we get into that,
I'd like to just say welcome to you and ask
you to go over to your Daily Portion dot com.
Please join our online community. And what I almost said yesterday,
but it was Sabbath, I shouldn't have said, is go
ahead and pick up your Daily Portion Life Application Guide.
Click the link and buy it. That's what I'm saying,
or download it at your Daily Portion dot com. This
is one of the ways that we continue to build
faith and fellowship. Let's go ahead and pray, and then
we will get underway. Father, Thank you, thank you for
this day and for giving us a code of conduct,
the Code of the Covenant, so that we can we
can see how this word, the ten words who gave
us at Sinai, can need to be spread into our
entire lives, even into the details of how we think,
in what we do, how we relate to people. In
Jesus name, I pray, naymen and amn again. The code,
the Code of the Covenant, and so the lesson writer.
The lesson writer used patriarchs and pop prophets, page three
hundred and ten. I'll read just a couple of things
here from that from that book, and it reads the
minds of the people blinded and debased by slavery and heathenism.
So you have to get the picture. The people of
God were so oppressed and so bound. All they knew
was their master's oppression, their master's whip, their master's false gods.
That's what they knew they were. Okay, So the minds
of the people, blinded by and debased by slavery and
heathenism were not prepared to appreciate fully the far reaching
of the far reaching principles of God's ten precepts, that
the obligations of the ten Comes might be more fully
understood and enforced. Additional precepts were given illustrating and applying
the principles of the ten Commandments. Okay, and so I'm
just gonna pause right here and then and then we're
gonna break this down a little bit. Okay, So you
have the ten Commandments. These guys are locked up and
enslaved and bound to all kinds of wickedness and even
heathen God's food that is not healthful toward them. And
who knows what other demoralizing things happened during that time.
And so what God needed to do was identify a
way so that you could see more how to play
this out in life. And so these laws they provided equity. Yeah,
they provided equity. I know that's a dirty word in
some people's countries right now. Equity he he he showed
us through those laws equity protection, human dignity, especially for
the vulnerable, equity protection and human dignity, especially for the vulnerable.
The goal wasn't just like punishment or retribution for evil doing.
That wasn't the goal. I understand that when people see laws,
they are looking at in their own minds, because the
judge that rises up in unhealthy minds and gets entertained
there in our minds, they're seeing a way to be
penalized or punitive, like God being the angry God that
they portrayed in these in these terrible things in the past,
like a way where he's a tyrant and he's looking
lightning bolts, like people are looking for lightning bolts to
hit them if they God forbid do something that is
contrary to God's will. That's not really what it was.
It was. It was restorative, just compassion, the moral order
in the people of God's society. Okay, so let's break
this code down a little bit here. The code of
the Covenant. Number one, slavery. It wasn't permanent. Freedom was
granted after six years. So the slavery that you would
see in the people of God's lives back then is
not the one that you would see in the transatlantic
slave trade. I don't have time to deal with that,
but anyway it was. Freedom was to be granted after
six years verse two of Exodus chapter twenty one. Voluntary
extension was allowed with a legal ritual. You'll find the
verses we're looking at Exodus chapter twenty one Versus one
through eleven. And then there were protections for women, especially
in polygamous relationships or situations. Too much to cover. It's
too much to cover as the world turns. It's too
much to cover. But just go to the text and
pray over it and study. We can't do it all here.
And then there was a moral principle. God's people were
once slaves in Egypt. Now they must not abuse others.
Remember when you were slaved, I delivered you. You remember
how bad it was. Don't do that. And then comes
this idea of homicide and how God is like, no,
do not do that, do not murder. Premeditated murder was
punishable by death. That's the way that he wrote it.
Unintentional killing. There was a provision of asylum. God differentiates
intent and accident, introducing early concepts of degrees of guilt.
So sometimes people are trying to figure out like, where
do the nations get their way of codifying the different
levels or measures or degrees of these things as they
are doing sentencing or whatever it is during a trial.
After a trial, well a lot of it is coming
straight out of the scriptures. If it's done well, and
then comes bodily injuries, restitution based justice in what way
the offender pays or restores the loss. God gave guidelines
for all of this slave protections. Harming a slave triggered
a release, so that transatlantic style where all of that
wickedness happened. If this were according to the code of
Covenant and conduct, the moment there there were harmed, they
were supposed to be released, then comes proportional consequences I
for an eye, not revenge, but legal parity. So if
you're in a self defense situation, let me just use
that as an example. If someone is coming to you
with a certain kind of force, then the com mensor
it force needs to be used. Don't go overboard. It's
not I for a whole arm, it's not I for
a whole body. Right, and retribution was completely out of
the question. So if somebody's coming into your home, as
an example, and they are coming with violence. Then if
you have to match that force with force, you deal
with that. They're leaving your premises, they're almost out of there.
You don't chase them down, and then you fear where
I'm going, Like, you don't go to somebody's house six
weeks later or a month later or twenty minutes later
to go find the culprit, drag them out and do
anything to them, because that is vengeance, that's retribution. It
is not I for an eye. And then comes animal
control laws. Owners are held accountable for their animals that
injure others. That came straight out of the Bible. I
know it's a lot, it's a lot. It's a lot,
but it's truth, okay, And so basically let's apply it.
Because I have so much more in my notes, we
won't use tia. We are called to live with integrity,
that's the bottom line, and justice and compassion. Even in
these complex situations that some of you got a headache
listening to me talk about this morning, we should and
must advocate for systems that reflect God's justice protecting the vulnerable,
and then leadership, parenting, and even employment should reflect the
character of God's law in fairness, mercy and love. God
gave us codes of covenant, codes of conduct for every
situation principally that matters, and all we need to do
is go into the scriptures, pray over it, and apply
it by God's grace, having submitted to him peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,