I'm sorry, Leviticus 19. We're going to pick up exactly where we left off on Sunday night. On Sunday night I started preaching through Leviticus 19 verse by verse and we get all the way down to verse 19 and we're going to pick up exactly where we left off so I can finish that sermon. In Leviticus 19 we had talked about where it reads, you shall keep my statutes, thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with the diverse kind, thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed, neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. The part of that that we focus on more on Sunday night was about all the hybrids and the genetically modified foods and all the tampering with plantsr and animals that's going on and how obviously that's not something that God ever intended us to do.
Now, before I get into the rest of the sermon because I want to focus now on the latter part of verse 19 about the garment mingled of linen and woolen coming upon you, I want to say this is just about the book of Leviticus in general. The book of Leviticus is a book that is rarely probably being preached on a Sunday morning in Baptist Churches across America. Part of the reason for that is because a lot of people have this idea that because we're not under the old covenant, because we're not living in the Old Testament that we don't need these scriptures or that preaching these scriptures doesn't make any sense but the Bible is real clear that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
Now, we know that obviously many things have changed under the New Testament. God specifically tells us what those things are in Colossians chapter 2, in Hebrews chapter 9 and in other places. He specifically lays out okay, here is what has changed. We no longer do the animal sacrifices. We no longer have a Levitical priesthood. We no longer observe the Sabbaths and the Holy Days. We don't do the new moons anymore. We don't do that stuff. He lists off specific things that have changed but does that mean that just everything is changed? Of course not. There are many things in the Old Testament that are still applicable today even though some things have been specifically changed or repealed in the New Testament.
You say, "Well nothing is changed." The Bible says for the priesthood being changed there is made of necessity a change also of the law. We don't want to throw out the whole thing. Much of it has not changed and here's the thing. Even the things that have changed we can still learn from them. They have symbolic meanings because everything that specifically has been changed such as the meats, the drinks, the sacrifices, the offerings, the Bible says that all of those things were a shadow of things to come. Meaning that they had symbolic meaning. If we know that that means that anything that's been changed we should still learn from the symbolic meaning that it had and anything that has not been changed we should live by and understand that it's for our benefit and for our good and for our morality.
Obviously verse 19 could not be possibly any more applicable in a day where people are mixing all kinds of animals and plants, so everything that God told them not to do. The end of verse 19 it says, "Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. This is a verse that's often mocked when people want to criticize the book of Leviticus or mock God's law. They'll say, "Oh you know, you're wearing a cotton and polyester blend shirt. You're violating God's word." They will make fun of God's word when in reality all of God's judgments and all of God's statutes concerning everything are always right. Always.
Now I want to first of all point out that this scripture does not say that you cannot wear any type of a mixture of any type of materials. Is that really what it says? No. What it says here is it says that a garment mingled of linen and woolen shall not come upon you. It mentions those two specific things. Now, there's a similar scripture in Deuteronomy 22:11. You don't have to turn there but in Deuteronomy 22:11 it says, "Thou shall not wear a garment of divers sorts as of woolen and linen together." Again, it specifically spells out the type of mixing that he doesn't want to go on, of woolen and linen.
Let me explain to you the symbolic meaning here and why God did not want them to mix woolen and linen. Here's the situation. Woolen is something that is an animal based material, okay. Woolen comes from what animal? Sheep or lambs whereas linen is a plant based fabric and linen is made specifically from flax. Now if you remember the virtuous woman and the Bible talks all about the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31. The thing that it emphasizes about that virtuous woman what do they think, is that she's a hard worker. It just lists how she gets up early and she works hard. She eateth not the bread of idleness and when it's talking about how she's such a hard working woman one of the things that specifically brings up it says, "She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands." It says, "She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff." She would make fabric out of both flax and wool.
Now, you may not know a lot about spinning wool or spinning flax because today we live in a day where it's much cheaper just to buy clothes or just to buy fabric than to actually spin your own fabric which is very hard work. If you look at the two, wool and linen, the linen fabric is known for being very difficult to make and being lots and lots of hard work. Let me show you what God is trying to teach here. Go back to Genesis chapter 3, Genesis chapter number 3. He said, "I don't want you to wear a garment of linen and woolen together." The linen is a plant based fabric from flax. Very hard work, very difficult to make. The woolen is something that's coming from the sheep or the lamb.
In Genesis chapter 3, this is where Adam and Eve have sinned against God. If you remember when they sinned against God they had the knowledge of good and evil and they realize that they are naked and they go to hide themselves. Look what the Bible says in verse 7, "And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." Now look, this is a plant based garment that they are using to cover their nakedness. Look what it's replaced with in verse 21, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." That is an animal based covering, okay.
Look at Genesis chapter 4. In Genesis chapter 4 we have the story about Cain and Abel and they both make an offering unto the Lord. The Bible says in verse 2, "And she again bare his brother Abel and Abel was a keeper of the sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground, and in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord and Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of the flock and the fat thereof and the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering but then to Cain and to his offering he had not respect and Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell."
Now, one of the things that's being represented in this story about Cain and Abel is that by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Abel offered the blood of the Lamb. He brought the firstlings of the flock. You see, our sins are forgiven as we are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, by the blood of the Lamb. John the Baptist looked at Jesus Christ and said, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." The Bible says he has washed us from our sins in his own blood. The Bible also teaches that he has basically clothed us in a robe of righteousness and that our sins are covered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Now that's what God showing us in Genesis 3 when he made them an animal skin covering for their sin. He gave them a covering that involves killing an animal and giving them that skin as a covering. In Genesis 4, the difference between Abel's offering and Cain's offering is the difference between sacrificing a lamb and the fruit of the ground that Cain had worked hard to produce. See, Cain brought of his works. He gave his best but it wasn't good enough. God wanted the lamb. He wanted that sacrifice.
Now go to Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter number 4. You see, all throughout the Bible animal sacrifices and especially lambs are a picture of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. What is it that people are trusting in when they're not trusting in Jesus to save them? What are they trusting in? Their own works, right? They trust in works not in the sacrifice of Christ. That's what Cain symbolizes. The one who's trying to do it on his own works. What he did, what he produced.
Look what it says in Romans Chapter 4. It talks about a covering for sin. The Bible says in verse number 5, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto him God imputeth righteousness without works saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are what? Covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."
Go to Matthew 22. All throughout the Bible clothing is a symbol of salvation. Those who are saved are given a white robe. Those who are saved are given a new garment, a covering for their sin. We are covered by the lamb, by Jesus Christ sacrifice. Now in Matthew 22 there is a parable that has to do with salvation and it says in verse 2, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son." I'm not going to read the whole parable for sake of time but look at verse 11, it says, "And when the king came in to see the guests he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment and he saith unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment and he was speechless. Then said the king to the servant, bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called but few are chosen."
Now when we look at this scripture we see that having the wrong clothing was something that got this guy ejected. He was not allowed to be at that wedding. He was not allowed to be in the kingdom of heaven because he did not have the right clothing which is symbolic for the wrong clothing that Adam and Eve had when they made it themselves. The wrong covering or offering or atonement that Cain offered when he offered of the fruits and vegetables and the same wrong covering or wrong wedding garment that people today are offering when they offer a salvation that's taught through works. See, linen garments or something that's made from a plant-based garment represents something that's your hard work, your work but it's not the lamb.
Now look, our works good. Should we do works as Christians? Of course they are. The Bible says for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God have before ordained that we should walk in them. The Bible is teaching that God created us with special works that he ordained, that we would walk in, that we would do those things. Nothing wrong with works and we definitely know there's nothing wrong with grace. It's by grace that we're saved but let me tell you something, don't mix the two. That's what's being taught in Leviticus 19.
People want to throw this out and lose this great teaching. In the NIV, they just completely change the verse to just say, "Don't wear a mixed fabric." In that scripture, in Leviticus 19. They took out the word linen, they took out the word wool. They're missing the whole point. The point is that when it comes to salvation we don't want to ever mix grace and works. Go to Romans again, I just want to show you one more verse that just shows you can't mix the two. Because a lot of people say, "Well, we're saved by grace but you also have to do the works." Well, you're saved by faith but you also have to work for it.
Look at Romans 11. It says in verse 6, "And if by grace then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then is it no more grace. Otherwise work is no more work." See look, it's got to be either all one or all the other and that's what God is teaching with the linen in the woolen. The linen is a good garment. He didn't say don't make linen garments. He didn't say don't make a woolen garment. He said, "Don't mix the two." See, the priests they wouldn't wear a linen garment. Why? Because they're doing the work. When Jesus Christ was our high priest he was doing the work of our salvation. That's what the linen represents, the work. You know what the woolen represents? The grace. You see it's about receiving the atonement from the sacrifice. That's what the woolen represents.
You see how there's a lot in these passages. We don't want to throw these out. We don't want to say the book of Leviticus is not profitable when it teaches valuable doctrine. Let's go back to Leviticus 19. We saw first of all in verse 19 a great application about all the GMOs and all the garbage that we're being fed and then we also see another application about salvation.
When it comes to our robe of righteousness it better not be a robe of righteousness that's part grace and part works. It better be all grace, it better be all faith, it better be all because you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that you're safe, that you're not trusting in your works and trying to mix the two. They can't mix. Don't mix them. That's what God is teaching.
In verse 20, we get into some other laws here because chapter 19 he's just kind of going through a lot of commandments. It almost seems random. He goes just from one commandment to another. It's almost like, "Okay, here's everything that we missed, let's just get it all out of the way." In Deuteronomy 22 he goes through some of it in the same order, so there's got to be a reason why he chose to do this.
Look at verse 20, it says, "And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her she shall be scourged, they shall not be put to death because she was not free and he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation even a ram for a trespass offering, and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him."
Now, this law right here is dealing with the subject of fornication. We know that in the New Testament one of the sins that the Bible rails on the most is fornication. I mean over and over again. Jesus, the Apostles, almost every book of the New Testament is preaching against the sin of fornication. Fornication is when people go to bed together before they're married. People are having that physical relationship that should be reserved for marriage, they're having that outside of marriage. That's called fornication. It's a major sin in the Bible. It's something that God tells us in the New Testament over and over again not to commit that sin. We're dealing with a particular type of fornication in this passage.
Now let me first of all point out, this is not dealing with a person who is married because the Bible specifically says here in verse 20, "She is betrothed to an husband." Because the Bible is real clear just right across the page in Leviticus 20 verse 10, the Bible says, "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
The Bible is real clear that anyone who commits adultery should be killed. It's a very major sin and when we take that vow to our wife or our husband saying till death do us part, to have and to hold from this day forward, to keep us only under them, that's a very serious thing when people ... Don't call it an affair, call it adultery. Because these euphemisms to try to make it sound milder they give people the idea that it's a lesser sin when God is saying put them to death. I mean, that's a pretty serious punishment.
Now, in the law here in Leviticus, you have to understand that we have to differentiate between law as far as what's enforced by the government or enforced by society and law as far as what's right and wrong. These are two different things. Because for example if every sin were made illegal by the government we'd all get arrested every day because we're all sinners. You can't just make sin illegal because there's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth.
Now we're going to be in jail all the time or punished all the time. In the Old Testament there are certain laws with certain punishments that man is supposed to carry out. That's the criminal code of the children of Israel that they had back then. In that criminal code for example, if one person steals from another they have to pay back four fold or they have to pay back five fold. That's part of the criminal code.
If a person commits adultery with another man's wife, they're going to be put to death. That's part of the criminal code. I mean that's a punishment that's carried out. For example though there's no law in the Old Testament criminal code that teaches that drinking alcohol should be against the law but there are plenty of places that teach that drinking alcohol is a sin. Drinking alcohol is a sin and God warns us about alcohol.
He says, "If you drink alcohol thine eyes shall behold strange women, thy mouth shall utter perverse things." He commands us look not on the wine when it is red, when it moveth itself aright, when it giveth his color in the cup. Moving itself aright referring to the carbonation that takes place when fermentation happens because of the the bacteria or yeast, in the case of wine it's yeast will off gas carbon dioxide as it ferments, as that process takes place.
He's telling us not to look on the fermented beverage and he warns us about what it will lead to in our lives of us saying things that are wrong and and thinking wicked thoughts. Nowhere does the Bible teach that alcohol should be a criminal offense. You see how there's a difference between those two things? There are things that are sin and then there are things that are crimes and not all sins are crimes. What the Bible is teaching here is specifically about a woman who is betrothed to an husband.
What does that mean? That means that basically the promise has been made, this would be similar to our engagement. You get engaged, you promise that you're going to marry each other and and maybe you exchange an engagement ring and basically you set a date, you begin to plan the wedding and so you're spoken for but the act of marriage has not sealed the deal or consummated it. You haven't actually said the vows and consummated the marriage physically. That's where this woman is at. She's betrothed to an husband but she's not yet married. If she were married it would be adultery open shot, put to death.
When it comes to fornication the laws are a little bit different. Go to Exodus 22, keep your finger in Leviticus 19 and go to Exodus 22. Now it's funny because sometimes when you preach through scriptures like this a lot of people will look at the Bible and say, "Well I don't agree with that." Wait a minute, who do you think is smarter? You or God? Let me tell you something, if your philosophy doesn't jive with the Bible's philosophy which one should we adjust? Should we adjust our Bible so that it matches you? No, maybe you need to adjust your thinking and get a more biblical point of view and let the word of God teach you what you should think about things instead of deciding what you think about things and then looking at the Bible and saying, "Well this doesn't make any sense." No, you don't make sense. The Bible always makes perfect sense.
Now some of these things we might struggle to understand just because we're living in a different world but let me tell you something, the same principles apply. Even though we're maybe living in a world that has a different culture for example, we don't do a lot of farming, do we? I don't know almost anything about farming. I don't know almost anything about raising cattle because I've just been a city dweller my entire life, so I know very little about those things. Someone is all looking at a passage that has to do with agriculture or husbandry or caring for flocks and I look at these things and I'll say, "You know, I don't understand this. This doesn't make sense to me" but it's just because of my ignorance in that area.
Well guess what, there are other areas that you might be ignorant in or that I might be ignorant in. We need to realize that God is always right. Even if we're not living under the old covenant, even though we're not living in Old Testament Israel where the criminal code of the Bible is the law of the land, even though we're not living in that time we could still look at these and learn principles by which God thinks and understands what is right and what is wrong and let God teach us what is right and what is wrong.
Look at Exodus chapter 22 verse 16. The Bible says, "If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed." Remember in Leviticus 19 we were talking about a betrothed woman, here it says a woman that is not betrothed, and lie with her, so these people are committing fornication, aren't they? He shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. When we look at that scripture in Exodus 22 does that represent the law in America today? Is this the law that we have enforced in 2013 America? No, but does that mean that we should just say this verse cross it out, it's not applicable, we don't need it. Is profitable for doctrine and instruction and righteousness.
You know what this tells me is that this should tell every young man that you should not go to bed with someone that you're not willing to get married to. First of all you need to wait till after marriage or it's fornication or God will punish you even if you are intent on getting married, you still will be punished for fornicating. This guy has to pay a fine for doing it under the criminal code on the nation of Israel.
Let me tell you something, if you did commit the act of fornicating with a girl, you should be willing to marry that girl. That's what the Bible teaches. Now you shouldn't make that mistake in the first place, you shouldn't commit that sin in the first place. You should be virgin on your wedding day. That's what the Bible demands of a Christian as far as righteous living.
We can see that principle right there and then we can see the principle also of her father refusing to give her unto him and him just paying a fine for having what's the word, defiled her. We see that law is pretty clear there in Exodus 22. Now, go to Deuteronomy 22, I'm trying to hurry through this as fast as I can. In Deuteronomy 22 we see some similar teaching, so far we saw that people who commit adultery God said to put them to death in the Old Testament. Secondly we saw that if a man fornicates with a woman that's a virgin and basically he takes away her virginity then he's obligated to marry that girl according to the law and he has to pay money too. He has to pay a fine also.
Look at Deuteronomy 22 verse 22. It says, "If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman and the woman, so shalt thou put away evil from Israel." That's again a verse about adultery. Verse 23, "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband and a man find her in the city and lie with her then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city and ye shall stone them with stones that they die. The damsel because she cried not, being in the city and the man because he hath humbled his neighbor's wife so thou shalt put away evil from among you."
Now what do we see there? We see here that if a man fornicates with a woman that's not betrothed the next to this he has to pay a fine, marry the girl. Here we see that if a man fornicates with the woman who is betrothed they're both put to death. Did you see that? If fornication takes place between a man and a woman who is engaged or betrothed or already promised to another man, may be more serious than our engagement because it's betrothal, so it's more of a promontory thing, it's more of a vow or a promise that's already been made. If that's broken they're put to death. It's treated almost as if they've committed adultery. Did you see that?
Let's keep reading. It says in verse 25, "But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field and the man force her," see this is different situation isn't it? This isn't a consensual act like we saw on verses 23 and 24 but rather this is a forcible act. It says, "But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field of them and force her and lie with her then the man only that lay with her shall die but unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing. There is in the damsel no sin worthy of death for as when a man riseth against his neighbor and slayeth him even so is this matter for he found her in the field and the betrothed damsel cried and there was none to save her."
Now look, this is an important scripture. This should be shown to victims of abuse. Because a lot of victims of this type of abuse will often be ashamed or afraid to say anything and that's how a lot of the perpetrators of these type of actions get away with it for so long because the victims are afraid to say this. Oftentimes the victim can have feelings of guilt or the victim can feel bad about it even though it was something that was done against their will and it can actually cause a lot of problems in that person going forward for many years to come.
This is a good scripture to show somebody like that and say, look, this is like, this is compared to at the end of verse 26 when a man riseth against his neighbor and slayeth him even so is this matter. Basically it's saying, "Look you're a victim here. It's not your fault. You have not sinned. You should not feel guilty about something because this was something that was done to you and it's not something that you had any say about."
Let's keep reading. It says in verse 28, "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin which is not betrothed and lay hold on her and lie with her and they be found then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver and she shall be his wife because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." That's the exact parallel with what we saw in Exodus 22, the man who fornicates with the woman who's not betrothed. He has to pay the fifty shekels and marry the girl. Does everybody understand that?
Now let's go to Leviticus 19 with all that in mind. This is a difficult passage and that's why I want to make sure I lay all the foundation here and that we understand how God thinks about these things and how the law was back then in Old Testament Israel. Now that we understand all these different things in regard to men fornicating with women that are either betrothed or not betrothed, look what it says in verse 20 of Leviticus 19. It says, "And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid."
What is a bondmaid? This is someone who is in bondage. Meaning that they are a servant and that they do not have freedom. They are basically the property of someone else. It says right here, "Whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid betrothed to an husband and not at all redeemed nor freedom given her", so three different ways it is said in this verse this woman has no freedom. It's says like she's a bondmaid, she's not redeemed and has no freedom given to her. Three different ways he's telling us. This woman is not in the driver's seat here.
It says, "Whosoever lieth carnally with this woman, it says she shall be scourged." Scourged means whipped, beaten. It says, "They shall not be put to death because she was not free." Because normally if a man lies with a woman who is betrothed they're both put to death. In this case it says no she's not going to be put to death, she's going to receive a much more minor punishment of just being scourged. What would you rather have happen to you? Scourging or death? Obviously scourging is much more minor of a punishment.
Then look, the punishment for the man is also reduced. Instead of being killed the Bible says in verse 21 he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for trespass offering and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him."
Basically the man's punishment is he has to take a ram out of his flock, he has to take of his livestock and he has to take, he has to travel down to the house of God, he's got to make that trip, he's got to give up some of his livestock, so he's losing financially and just the humiliation of going down there with his trespass offering and doing all that. He's getting punished but much more minor than being killed. She's being punished but much more minor than being killed, just to be scourged. The question is, why are they getting a more minor punishment when he lay with a damsel that was betrothed? Why is he being punished less?
Well, I studied this and I looked at it and what I came up with and what I understood was that if a woman is free, she's not a bondmaid, she's not somebody's servant or somebody's property, somebody's money as the Bible calls it. If she is actually a free woman and she enters into this engagement of her own free will, that is something different than her physically being forced into something that she didn't really sign onto. She's being betrothed, somebody else is calling the shots, somebody else is making that decision.
Now, contrary to popular belief the Bible does not teach and never taught and this was not a custom amongst the children of Israel that we can see in arranged marriages. It's not something that we see in the Bible. Now, we see that a lot of the heathen doing that but when you study the Bible you'll see that women had free will about who they married. You can go through the scripture and see that that's true. For example God makes it clear at the end of the Book of Numbers I believe it's chapter 35 with the daughters of Zelophehad. He tells the daughters of Zelophehad that they may marry whomsoever they will only in the Lord. They are to marry one that's, I'm sorry it says only of the tribe of their fathers.
Then in the New Testament in 1st Corinthians 7:39 it talks about that a woman whose husband has died can be married to whomsoever she will only in the Lord. All throughout the Bible you'll see women making choices about who they marry. You'll see them being given a decision and making choices. I do not believe that arranged marriages are scriptural. I don't think the Bible has ever taught that. I don't think that's something that God's people are participating in.
I do see where a father has veto power over the wrong guy that wants to be with his daughter and he just can utterly refuse but that doesn't mean he's choosing who she marries. There's a big difference between choosing and just having veto power over a really bad guy or just somebody that's not saved or somebody that's you know. Somebody that you'd just beat the living snot out of them because they want to date your daughter. It's what I plan on doing with any guy who wants to date my daughter that's not acceptable to me, but anyway to my three daughters.
Two different things. It doesn't mean, but I don't want to pick who my daughters marry, I don't want to pick who my sons marry. There are people who believe in that and I'm not one of them. I think that we should allow people to make their own choices only within the parameters of marrying someone in the Lord, marrying someone of the right tribe. We're not talking about physically, we're talking about spiritually.
What we see here is a woman who is betrothed to a man that she didn't choose because she's a bondmaid, she has no freedom, she's not redeemed at all and she's basically just, okay, you're going to marry this guy. Basically when she fornicates with someone else she's breaking that agreement but the difference is that she's not breaking an agreement that she made. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Now, is it sin for her to fornicate period? Of course. That's why she's getting a beating. That's why she's getting scourged. Is it sin for this man to commit fornication period? Of course. In this case it's even a criminal offense because he is basically committing fornication with someone who is betrothed to someone else. Therefore he is punished as well, financially he's punished. The woman here receives a scourging as a punishment. What can we learn from this?
You say, "What in the world? Why are you preaching this on Sunday morning, are you out of your mind?" No, I'm preaching the word of God. Welcome to church. Welcome to a Bible believing church where you learn the Bible and we believe all scriptures parable and we preach all of it and we're not trying to hide from it and sugarcoat it. You know what I mean? This is what the Bible says. This is my favorite book, the Bible. Let me preach it to you.
What this says here, what this is teaching here, we can learn a lot of things from this scripture. Number one we can learn that if you say till death do us part of your own volition, that's a very, very serious matter when you're making a vow. Look, I bet you that every single person in here who's married was not in some arrangement. Was anybody here in a part of an arranged marriage? No, of course not. Is anybody here a bondmaid and you were just kind of sold off to the man that you're married to? No, you weren't. Again, like I said, some of these things are hard for us to understand because we don't live in a culture that's not even legal today to have a bond servant or a bondmaid. We don't live in that culture.
See, you have to understand that God is writing the Bible here with the realities of life in mind. For example God never condoned of having two wives. He always taught that a man would be joined to his wife and they two would be one flesh but he still has laws about if you do have two wives these are the legalities. What? Because it was just a reality. Even today there are people all over the world that have multiple wives.
It doesn't mean it's right but God still wants to protect people that are in those situations. In a perfect world would anybody be in bondage? No, obviously in heaven there's nobody is going to be in bondage to anybody. In heaven we're all going to be free. Obviously when Jesus reigns and rules it's going to be a perfect world and everything is going to be according to his laws and everything is going to be a much better situation.
What we should look at the Bible as when it has all these rules about bond servants and bondmaids or slaves, what we should think about is that God is trying to protect them often. You could just not say anything about it and then he wouldn't have given all this fodder to atheists who say the Bible teaches slavery, the Bible teaches ... He puts this stuff here to basically protect the rights of servants because he has rights and they're saying, "Your Hebrew servant, you can only have them work for you for six years then you have to let them go free. Then you have to give them a bunch of money and give them a certain amount of your flock so that they can start a good new life now and be free and work toward free."
All these different laws and I don't have time this morning to go into every nuance of God's laws on bond servants but I'll tell you this, God is right and you're wrong if you don't like this stuff. I mean, that's all I know and the rest we'll talk about another time. Anyway we see this ... One of the things we can learn about is just how serious it is to break a vow that you made. If you're married today that is until death and it's for better for worse. Don't sit there and say, "Oh, you don't understand, we just don't love each other or we're just not compatible or he got angry at me and hit me with the pillow in the head and it really hurt and then she threw a real hot dog at me and it almost hit me."
Look, it's till death, make the best of it. Learn to love each other as Christ loved the church and learn the joy of being married lifelong and don't break that vow. When you break that vow it's a very sick ... Committing adultery is one of the worst sins in the Bible. We were just out soul winning and wasn't that you brother Remeraz I was with? We were out soul winning and we asked this lady, he asked her he said, "What do you think is the worst sin that anybody can commit?" She said committing adultery. That's what ... I'm not saying that's the worst sin but that's what she thought of it as. It is a very serious sin. It is very high up on the list.
Keep your vows and don't even commit adultery in your heart by looking on a woman to lust after her. Be content with your wife. Be content with your husband, keep that vow. Where we can also see too from this story is just that fornication is a sin. Fornication is a sin. That's an application that we can make today. Then we can also see God's use of corporal punishment to punish wrongdoing through the scourging. Now we can apply this to ourselves as Christians because the Bible says in Hebrews 12, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."
Now I've often heard people say this and you might have never heard this before. I've heard people say this, "When it comes to disciplining your children" they said, "the Bible only tells you to discipline your son, it never tells you to discipline your daughter." Have you ever heard of that one before? Somebody would think everything, won't they? They'll say, you know it always, because the Bible says chasten thy son. Well there so, beat him with the rod. It's all male pronouns. It says like thou shalt withhold not correction from the child for thy beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shall beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.
Then when you get in the New Testament it says, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." It also goes on to talk about how we should discipline our children and chasten and scourge our children and that basically God does the same thing with us and he's our Heavenly Father and so on and so forth in Hebrews chapter 12 about discipline. Because the Bible uses male pronouns, people will sometimes say, "Oh that's only for sons not daughters" which is kind of silly. Or like in John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Well, that applies to ladies too, right? They could be daughters of God.
Often the male pronoun is used when you're referring to both. Like for example in Spanish, if you're referring to nine women and one man as a group you use the male pronoun because whenever there's a mixed group use a male and that's how the Bible speaks. Look, this right here should show you that what's good for the goose is good for the gander because God does not limit corporal punishment to males only. Corporal punishment can be used on females as well as we see in this passage.
Now our government doesn't use corporal punishment today to punish criminals, do they? There are other places in the world where corporal punishment is used. Our government is so much more humane. They're so much more loving than God that basically what they do is they lock people in cages for decades and ruin their lives, lock them up with. Basically if a woman commits a crime now they're basically going to put her in a cage with some bold dyke lesbian or something or put her in an orange jumpsuit and she's going to pick up trash by the side of the road chained to a bunch of manly look and whatever.
I'm just saying you can sit there and say it's not humane to scourge somebody but you know what, if I committed a crime I'd much rather be scourged than to be put in prison for years and years. The Bible never teaches to put anyone in prison for any reason. Never is taught in scripture. Find it for me, show me. There's no prison in the Bible. We have the highest prison population in America today of the entire world because nobody cares what this book says. Because nobody is preaching out of Leviticus or Deuteronomy, nobody wants to know what God thinks about things. They just want to say, "Well just keep religion, just keep religion, just compartmentalize over here on Sunday morning. Let's just compartment."
When it comes to the government America is better. Forget the Bible. Yeah, that's why everything is illegal. That's why the government wants to regulate every area of your life. That's why the government has got people locked up who have not committed any thing that the Bible considers a crime. Whether it's drinking, whether it's drugs, those are sinful things don't get me wrong but they're not crimes. It shouldn't be criminals. People who often commit a small crime they go to prison and they become much worse. Children go to juvenile hall and become much worse because prison is just a bad idea.
Plus, we the taxpayers have to pay for these prisons and feed them and build the prisons and all the guards and we're making license plates. Well you know what, it doesn't pay for itself. It never has and it never will. Even in Soviet Russia with all the slave labor camps, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago proves that they lost money and that they never benefited financially from slave labor. It's just bad. It's just a drain on the economy. It's just making people worse. It's inhumane to lock people up in solitary confinement. It drives them insane. It makes them lose their mind literally. I say that the scourging is very humane. I don't find anything offensive about this verse whatsoever. It's God's word.
Let's keep going, I got to hurry up. I just want to blow through a couple of more points this morning. You say, "What are you trying to teach us this morning?" Well, one of these I'm trying to teach you is that even in the book that is criticized the most for being irrelevant, there's a lot of relevancy to today, isn't there? Lot of things we can apply. We can apply some from the GMO to the fornication, to the adultery, to the corporal punishment. I mean this is good stuff.
Then in verse 22, look at the end of verse 22, talking about the man, it talks about him offering a ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done and the sin which he hath done should be forgiven him. This symbolizes the forgiveness that we have through the blood and atonement of Jesus Christ. Nothing could be more relevant than that.
Now I'm just going to pass over verses 23 through 25 just for sake of time. Those verses have to do with agriculture. I don't really know much about trees and fruit trees, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. Look at verse 26. The Bible says, "Ye shall not eat anything with blood neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times." Now what are these things that God is telling us not to do? Well, eating blood is probably something that we're not tempted to do. It says not using enchantment. What's enchantment? Witchcraft, sorcery, casting of spells.
Look, we can look at that and say, "Well who does that?" Yet children today are being taught and brainwashed with this through Harry Potter and things of that nature. Those are the number one most popular books today amongst elementary school kids. Are books that are books that teach, glorify witchcraft, glorify sorcery and casting of spells. I said this to somebody and they said, "Well, at least these kids are reading. At least they're not watching TV. At least they're getting smarter because they're reading." No, no, it matters what you're reading. When you're reading books about sorcery and witchcraft ...
By the way in the book of Acts they piled up all these books on witchcraft, sorcery and they burned them all. That's in the book of Acts. That's in the New Testament. We can see this still applies, doesn't it? Enchantments, observing times. What's observing times? That your horoscope. That's your astrology observing times. Horoscopes are tied in with witchcraft, with enchantment, with eating blood. These are things that go together in the same verse because they're all things that are satanic in nature.
It says in the next verse, "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord." These scriptures have to do with things that you do them to modify or mutilate your appearance. He talks about rounding the corners of your head or marring the corners of your beard. Now what is that saying about your beard? Now, honestly I am not one that teaches that you have to have a beard.
Now, for me to teach that you have to have a beard as a man is silly because there are a lot of people in this world who can't even grow a beard. There are millions and millions of men who God created without the ability to grow full beard. Then some people can grow partial beards. Some guy ... I've seen guys that had a goatee, not a full beard but just a goatee and literally they didn't shave it that way. That's just what grew. Who's ever known somebody like that? Like it grew but it looked like, it looked so right. It looked like they had done on purpose but they're just like, "No, this is just what grows." Some men they grow like a goatee, some men grow full beard, some men are just naturally clean shaven.
There are people out there who teach that it's wrong to have a beard. I don't know where they're getting that from because a lot of men in the Bible had beards. The Bible talks a lot about having a beard in the Bible and so these preachers. There are churches, there are independent Baptist churches where you're not allowed to preach if you have a beard. No facial hair.
When I went to Hyles-Anderson College we were required to shave every day at Hyles-Anderson. Man I'm glad I don't go there anymore. Anyway, I just mainly have a beard because shaving is so much work. You know what I mean? Anyway and I have a beard for other reasons but the thing is I don't think it matters whether you're clean shaven or have a beard. The Bible does not command you to have a beard anywhere nor does it command you not to have a beard.
What is he saying here when he talks about marring the corners of your beard. Marring something is to like take a chunk out of something. I don't know, to be honest with you I don't really know exactly what style he was targeting with this but there were some people who were doing with their beard and with their hair that he didn't like that he did not want the children of Israel to do and he is like, "Hey, don't do it." Now, I've seen some hairstyles that I could probably guess that God's probably not that keen on. You could say, "Well God doesn't care about that" but what's this verse about?
You see somebody with a Mohawk. They're probably in violation of this perhaps, sorry to say, you know what I mean? People that are carving their name in the back of their head I'd say they violated this scripture. Again, I don't want to get too technical with it but what's this saying? It's saying that God does care about the way that we look. Specifically in the next verse he tells us not to make any cuttings in our flesh for the dead nor to print any marks. Now, what does it mean to print marks on your body?
Congregation:
Tattoos.
Pastor:
Tattoos. Now look, I know there are people who have tattoos and I'm not mad at you or criticizing you because guess what, they don't come off. That's the thing about tattoos, they're permanent. I used to think that you could get tattoos removed but talk to somebody who tried it because you see billboards tattoo removal. Talk to somebody who actually tried to get that tattoo off and let me tell you something it's an extremely painful difficult process. You have to go in for like twenty painful treatments and you still can't get the thing off. It's still never. It just gets a little lighter, a little lighter every time.
Look, you better think about that kids before you go get a tattoo. You better think about that is this something I want when I'm 65 years old? Am I still going to want this tattoo? You know what, I'm not against that, I'm not trying to be hard on those who have tattoos because you know what, people make mistakes and you move on and you live your life and you can't change it. Let me say this though, I'm sure that even the people with tattoos appreciate me warning the young people not to do that because they obviously probably regret tattoos. Tattoos are not something that God thinks are cool. People say, "Oh, that's all [inaudible 00:51:22]."
Look, why would God now that Jesus died on the cross be like now tattoos are cool. Where? Show me that in the New Testament. I know I said not to do it back then, I know I compared it to cutting yourself and mutilating yourself in other ways but now that Jesus has shed his blood for our sins, you know what, let's open up a tattoo parlor right next to church because tattoos are of God in the New Testament. You see, it doesn't make any sense folks. Tattoos are a sin. I said it. Did you hear me? It's a sin to get a tattoo.
Now if you already have a tattoo you're not continually living in sin obviously. It's just there and there's nothing you can do but don't get any more tattoos. That's how you obey this verse. Young people you need to not just be stupid and then go, "Oh, I'm eighteen now, let's get a tattoo." No, and quit having stupid hairdos and stupid beards and stupid. Just look like a normal person. Look like the way God made you to look and don't try to look like a freak is what he's saying. Cutting yourself, mutilate yourself. There's a lot of weird things that people are doing to their bodies now and I don't think that God is pleased with that based on the principle. Because look, there's the letter of the law and then there's the spirit of the law.
The spirit of the law is what was God's intent when he gave this law. There's the letter of the law here, don't print any marks, don't round the corner of your head, don't mar the corner of your beard. Then you have to also understand what's the spirit of the law? What he want them to do. He doesn't want them to look like a weirdo or a freak or a pagan or a barbarian. If we go to cultures today where people are pagans or barbarians and they basically are worshipping Satan and they basically are in a drug culture and a non-christian culture, maybe they don't even wear proper clothing. They're going to do a lot of things to mutilate their bodies. God is saying don't learn the way of the heathen.
You'll see people making a lot of carvings in their body. Making your ears the size of a quarter with the gauging, putting a hook in your nose, putting chunks of metal in your back and on the back of your neck. These things are getting more and more common. It used to be kind of like across the street from the gentlemen's club, was the tattoo parlor next to a bar, now it's like in the mall. It's between Cinnabon and like Abercrombie. It's like a tattoo parlor in the mall or we'll put a metal rod in the back of your neck and in your back and you know, good night.
That is not Christian. That is pagan, that is barbarian. That's what God is warning about here when he says, "Thou shall not round the corners of your heads neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. You should not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord. Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore lest the land fall the whoredoms and the land become full of wickedness." Obviously who would do such a thing? The Bible's telling us not to.
It says in verse 30, "Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord. Regard not them that have familiar spirits neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them, I am the LORD your God." Now you say why is that verse about Sabbaths and reverencing the sanctuary tucked in between all this eating blood, cutting yourself, worshipping Satan, enchantments, wizard, sorcery, witchcraft? Well, because it's talking about basically sacrilege. A lot of people that are satanic they want to desecrate things that are holy. Desecrate a church or desecrate a Bible or you know what I mean? Just be in irreverent desecrating that which is Godly so people being irreverent toward the sanctuary of the holy place.
Look at verse 32, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy God, I am the Lord." Now hoary, H-O-A-R-Y means light in color like white. The Bible talks about the hoarfrost meaning white snowflakes of frost. The Bible here teaches that we should be respectful toward those that are elderly. Specifically it teaches that we should rise up before the hoary head. What does that mean? That means if you're sitting down and a man with gray hair walks in, the Bible says you need to stand up. Isn't that what that says? Rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy God, I am the Lord.
We need to treat our elders with respect. This etiquette or manners of standing up when an elderly person comes in, offering your seat to those that are elderly or just standing when they enter the room by way of respect, this is something that is Biblical, it's not just a tradition of America or England or anything else. This is a biblical principle of standing up. You should also stand up when a lady walks in the room. Just being respectful to people, honoring the wife as the weaker vessel, honoring the old man, being respectful toward people that are more vulnerable.
A lot of times older people they're not as strong as they used to and a lot of times people will persecute them or take advantage of them because they're old. The Bible's telling us to be respectful, honor them, treat them with dignity all the way to the end of their life, is what the Bible is teaching. All the old men said, Amen. No, I'm just kidding. We don't have so many old people in our church. We don't have that many older people in our church. It's a very young church. When we do man we're going to stand up when they walk in, all right?
Anyway, it says in verse number 33. This is the, look, isn't this stuff really relevant? What are people doing not reading this book? This is so relevant. Look at verse number 33, "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him." What is this talking about a stranger, a foreigner. Saying if a foreigner lives in your land don't vex him, don't persecute them, but the stranger that dwelleth with you shall not have all the same rights that you have. Is that what it says? Oh wait, I'm reading from the Neocon Republican version. Let me get my King James. It says right here, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you and thou shalt love him as thyself for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt, I'm Lord your God."
Obviously this is something that people have real strong feelings about politically. Ask me if I care. Now look, people out there will get these real strong opinions but they're not really Bible-based. One of those subjects is about people who are living here as foreigners or illegally here. Now again, this part is going to make people upset, make people mad but again I don't care, this is what the Bible says. I'm reading the Bible. People will make statements like this, let's not give them our rights. Have you heard that one? We don't want to give our rights away to these foreigners, to these illegal aliens. We shouldn't give them our rights.
Hold on a second. Where did we get our rights again? I thought that our rights were inalienable rights endowned on us by our creator. I thought I didn't give anybody rights and I didn't even know the government had power to give anybody any rights. You know what the government is good at doing, taking away your rights. They don't give rights, they only take them away. Let me tell you something, people who are here whether they crossed the imaginary line legally or illegally, if they're illegal immigrants or immigrant whatever, if they're a stranger dwelling in the land we should love them.
Where does it say hate them? Where does it say blame them? Where does it say persecute them? Where does it say get out of here. No, it says, love them as yourself and where does it say that they should have a different law for them as for us? It says here, it says elsewhere in Exodus you serve one law for the stranger as well as for him that is born in the land. Same law. We shouldn't just get caught up in a politically motivated thing that says, "Yeah, these illegals, they are not paying taxes, they're draining us blah blah." That's a lie.
Every illegal alien pays taxes. Every time they buy gas, every time they pay their rent, every time they pay their phone bill, every time they pay their electric bill, every time they buy food, every time they buy something at Walmart, they are paying taxes every step of the way. Because they're paying, oh the schools. They're paying for the schools through property tax because they still pay a house payment or rent. They're paying for the schools through the property tax. They're paying for the roads through the gas tax and all that stuff.
You know what it is, the government is destroying our economy. The government is destroying our way of life and they just want to blame somebody else. They want to get you mad at the Mexicans instead of getting mad at the government who is the real problem. Because you know what, it is not the Mexicans' fault that we're having problems today in America. Are you kidding? You know why they're coming here? Because we destroyed their country.
Because you know what we did? We, our government subsidizes corn in this country and our government pays farmers to grow corn, subsidize it artificially drives the price down on the genetically modified garbage corn that we sell. We make it so cheap that the farmers down in Mexico who are growing corn, they can't even compete anymore because American corn is being brought in that's undercutting the price and then now they can't farm down there. They can't make a living, so then what do they do? They just need to stay down there and just starve and live in poverty.
Now what they're doing is they want to come up here where they can actually make some money because their country is been messed up by both our government and their government. We're the ones who is causing them to come up here. Everybody is like, "We can't give all of this free stuff to illegals." Let's just stop giving free stuff to anybody. You know what I mean? Like what in the world and you hear people that are supposedly conservative and libertarian and they're going to tell you, "Yeah, let's not give any free stuff." No, let's just not give free stuff.
It shouldn't matter whether you're a stranger or born in the land. It shouldn't matter whether you're American or Mexican. You know what, the Bible says cruel and unusual punishment shall, not the Bible goodnight. What was it called, the Bill of Rights says, "The cool and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted unless you're not a citizen." Is that what it says? Unless you're a terrorist. We're all terrorists in their eyes. You know what I mean? What I'm trying to say is that we need to understand that the Bible might sometimes come into conflict with our personal opinion. Isn't that true? We might be one of this, "Yeah, you know these these foreigners, yeah these bunch of Mexicans."
Look, is that biblical to have that attitude? It's a wrong attitude and you know what if you have that attitude change it, change it. Again, I'm preaching the Bible. Show me your verse. Here's my verse. Now it's your turn. Show me your verse that says that these people should be treated poorly and not have the same rights that we have. The rights are given by the Creator. It's that simple. That's biblical and that's also the law of our land in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Let's quickly finish up. I'm out of time. It says in verse 35, "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment in meteyard, in weight or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah and a just hin shall ye have. I am the LORD your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments and do them, I am the Lord." Look, we started out the sermon talking about grace. Being saved by grace through faith. Then we're ending the sermon having talked about a lot of rules, a lot of do's and don'ts, a lot of commandments and judgments that we should follow.
You see look, we didn't say don't follow God's law. We just said don't mix law and grace. See when it comes to salvation it's all by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved but after you're saved we should do the works. Just don't try to mix it with salvation. Just don't try to claim that it's part of salvation. Do the works, keep the commandments. Jesus said, "If you love me keep my commandments." That's how we show him that we love him. It's not how we get into the family, it's not how we get born again but it's how we be a good son or a good daughter.
It says here that we should not do unrighteousness in judgment, meteyard, weight or measure. What is this talking about? Dishonest business practices. Now, there are a lot of people who do a lot of fraudulent things in this area on the day that we live in. First of all just you know we don't have time to even go into the fact that our money is fraudulent. The Federal Reserve notes are not real money. The reason that we don't use coins is not because coins are so heavy and impossible to carry around because they're not. Because a gold coin that's worth 1500 bucks is smaller than fifteen $100 bills. You know what I mean? That's not it at all.
It's that you can't manipulate coins as much because they are hard object. Pieces of paper you can do all kinds of squarely things. Even when you go to the grocery store there's so much fraud. You go to buy chicken breasts at the grocery store they take a syringe and inject them with salt water. Did you know that? They inject them with water to make them heavier. You bite into it and it burst like a water balloon. No, it doesn't, I'm just kidding. Anyway, they basically, they're adding all kinds of filler. You buy the Parmesan cheese. By the way I'm out of Parmesan. I ate all of it. It was great. Those that got me cheese. A few different people got me cheese for my birthday. It was great. I've been putting on just inordinate amounts of Parmesan on my food.
Anyway, you go to buy the Parmesan and it's, the one that's not made by Kraft but it's made to look like Kraft. It's like a dark green canister of Parmesan. It says on it, 100% Parmesan cheese but it's not. What they mean is that all the cheese that we used was Parmesan but if you look at the back there's basically cellulose, it's like flour. Literally because I remember my wife bought it one time we were like, "Yeah let's buy this on, it's cheaper." That's when we were first married. It's one of our newlywed mistakes. We put this stuff on the spaghetti and it was like what, this has no flavor, it tastes like flour. Just imagine sprinkling flour allover your spaghetti. Man, this doesn't taste right.
Then we looked at the can and it had all this filler, all this additive. Then I noticed after that brand came out then Kraft started putting like 100% Parmesan cheese, no fillers. Then I saw juice that said 100% concord grapes but then it's like 10% juice and you're like what? What they're saying is the grapes we use were concords 100% of them but it's a lot of water and sugar in the bottle. There's a lot of stuff like that. Ice cream that's pumped with air in it. Like they even have rules. My wife was telling me that only 50% of it can be air in ice cream. That's the legal limit.
Like for example if you, because ice cream is not really sold by weight it's sold by the gallon. If you get a gallon of a really good ice cream it will weigh like seven pounds but if you get a gallon of the cheapest ice cream it away like four and a half pounds because it's just two and a half pounds of additional air pumped into that stuff, making it nice and fluffy for you but then you bite down on it and there's just not much there. What I'm saying is there are a lot of people out there who are trying to make a buck by making the ethos small and the shekel great. Whether it's tampering with the money supply, making your money have less value or whether it's tampering with weights and measures.
God is saying that we as God's people should not engage in these kind of fraudulent business practices. If you sell something on Craigslist or Ebay or Amazon you should represent it as what it really is. You shouldn't sell a car and you know something's wrong with that and you lie about. God just say, "Look, just be honest, be above reproach." There's two ways to make money in this world. You can make it honestly by working hard and providing a real product or you can make it through fraud and a lot of people choose to make money through fraud. We as God's people are to be holy. We're to be different, we're to be a righteous peculiar people zealous of good works. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father we thank you so much for this passage of scripture Leviticus 19 Lord. Thank you for the things that we've learned from it. First of all thank you so much for salvation through Jesus Christ, through His blood, through his atonement that was pictured so beautifully through the woolen garment and that was also pictured so beautifully through the ram of atonement. Even that man who had committed fornication, he was able to get forgiveness through the blood in that passage, symbolic of the fact that we can be forgiven of all our sins just by one time trusting you as our Savior and and being washed in the blood. Thank you for salvation and Lord now that we're saved help us all to live by your commandments and not to think that we're smarter than you but help us to realize that you are always right about everything and that your word is always going to be right and that we are often wrong and in Jesus' name we.
