(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So, Exodus chapter 21, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of the criminal code for the children of Israel, the actual civil laws that they're going to have and follow. And in Exodus 21, he talks a lot about dealing with servants and indentured servitude. He talks about the men servants, the main servants. He talks about also animals hurting people and that those animals need to be put down and so forth. And the first thing that we need to understand before we dig into this chapter, because this is one of the more difficult chapters in the book of Exodus. The first thing that we need to understand going in to this is the difference between that which is legal versus that which is right and the difference between that which is illegal and that which is sin. A lot of people just think that these are the same thing, but it's pretty easy to shoot that idea down because if all sin were illegal, we would all go to jail every day because we're all sinners. So you can't just make all sin illegal. So just because something is legal does not mean that it's right. And just because something is legal or something is illegal doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong in today's world because God's not making the laws. Obviously, when God's making the laws of something's illegal, don't do it, right? So we need to understand that differentiation here because the Bible here allows for some things that are definitely sinful and it makes them legal, but that doesn't mean that they're right. So you don't want to walk away and say, oh, well, God said here that we can do this. No, this is like a civil or criminal code here telling you how to deal with disputes between people, what's legal, what's not legal. And it involves a system of indentured servitude, which is something that's totally foreign to us because in the United States, indentured servitude is totally illegal. And a lot of people call this slavery. And if you want, you could call it slavery. But the Bible doesn't use the word slave, it uses the word servant. And when you say the word slavery, it could draw up different connotations than what we're talking about here. Like for example, when people hear slavery, they just think of black people being shipped over from Africa and being put into slavery. And so you don't necessarily want to bring that baggage into this since this is thousands of years before that, okay? So this is something different that's being talked about here than what we think of when we hear the word slavery. Now, why does God allow for this? Because some people would look at this passage and say, well, why is God allowing for this kind of bondage or servitude at all? I mean, why not just make a rule that no one can have a servant? You know, no one can own anyone else or have an indentured servant as their property. Why not just do away with this completely? But the problem with that is that our starting point should be that the law of the Lord is perfect. Amen. That God is right. So we have to start with that assumption going in, okay? And yes, that is an assumption. Every philosophical system has certain basal assumptions or presuppositions going in to their reasoning. Well, guess what? We start with the fact that the Bible is God's word. That is our presupposition that God exists and that the Bible is God's word. I'm not here to prove to you tonight that God exists or prove to you that the Bible is God's word. That's something that we believe going in, okay? And God's word is so powerful. You say, how do we know the Bible is God's word? Because God's spirit has borne witness in our hearts to the truth of his word. It's through the Holy Spirit that we believe that the Bible is God's word and that God is the creator and so forth. So we're not here to try to convince some atheist or something. We're here to look at Exodus 21 and see what God's teaching us and we're going into it already believing that God's right. Like before God even opened his mouth. Before I even read this as a child, I already went into it knowing whatever I read is going to be right. And if I read something in Exodus that disagrees with me, I'm going to get on God's program. When God says jump, I'm going to ask how high on the way up because he's God and I'm just the creature here. He's the creator, okay? So that's how I approach the Bible. The Bible's the boss, okay? Not me. So when we go into this, we understand that God's system is right. Now today, we have a flawed system, okay? It's not God that's wrong, it's us that's wrong. And the reason why is because God is making allowance for people to get in situations where they have no money, they have no way to support themselves, they have no way to take care of themselves or maybe they have no willingness to go out and do something and work. So we have all these just homeless vagrants everywhere that are just refusing to work, refusing to do anything. And then all of that, you have people who just completely get messed up financially, they get into all kinds of debt. And how do we resolve these things today? Well, today, we have a government that taxes us and takes just huge amounts of our money away. So I go out and work hard and I'm punished by the government taking 30% of my money or as Kanye complained, 60% of his money or whatever. So the point is, we have a government that just taxes us and then just redistributes that money to poor people or worse, to people that are just lazy and don't work, just refuse to work. So they just milk the system and they get all the food stamps and the welfare and all the different programs that they're involved in. So what happens is we've just created this whole class of people who just doesn't work. They've just never worked. They just are lazy and just milking the system. Now, you may love that. You may think, well, it's great. In fact, I wish we could be more like Denmark and Sweden and you know. But sorry, that's not a fair system where some people do all the heavy lifting and then you just have all these people that are just a drain on society. So in the Bible times, if you don't have any money, you have to work off your debt. If you rack up some debt that you can't pay, you don't just go bankrupt. You have to go work off that debt. And the best illustration I could use for this is like, let's say, you know, you're at the restaurant and oh, my wallet's gone. And then there's the old back in the scullery doing dishes. I don't know if that has ever happened in real life, but it was a lot of TV shows and movies that happened. But I don't know if it ever, has that ever actually happened to somebody where you had to go wash dishes? Yeah, I didn't think so. But it's a common theme, right? People can't pay their bills. So they're sent in the back to go wash dishes for a couple hours and then they tell them, all right, you've worked off your bill, you've done enough, whatever. That's the concept. You have a debt that you can't pay, you basically have to work it off. You're basically sold into a temporary condition of servitude where that person owns you, you know, and you have to do work for them. Now, what God is doing here in Exodus chapter 21 is he's trying to protect those servants in many ways because he's saying, hey, you know, if you knock their tooth out, they go free. If you damage their eye, they get to go free. You know, he's saying you can't just beat these people to a pulp or something, you know, just because they're your servant, you have to treat them with a certain level of humanity and so forth. But this is how you would deal with people who refuse to work, don't work, don't have any money to pay debts that they've racked up, fall on hard times, whatever, is that they have to go be somebody's servant. You know, they have no means to take care of themselves and you say, well, I don't like it. Well, I like it because it's God's word and the Bible is always right about everything. So anyway, let's, let's jump into this. Like I said, it's a difficult passage, but Exodus 21 verse one, now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. So what the Bible is doing here, it's putting a limit that the longest you can put someone into servitude as a Hebrew, your fellow Israelite can only be put into this condition of servitude for a maximum of six years. And after six years, no matter what, he goes free after six years. In the seventh he goes out free for nothing, meaning no one has to pay to redeem him out of servitude. He just goes out free for nothing. And then also later the Bible talks about how when you send him out, you have to put money in his pocket. You know, you can't just release him after six years with the shirt on his back. You're supposed to liberally furnish him with food and provisions and money so that he can get started on a new life on his own as a free man. So the Bible says in verse three, if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. And this is the part that is the difficult part here. If his master had given him a wife and she had borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him under the judges. He shall also bring him to the door or under the doorpost and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall serve him forever. And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the men servants do. So this is a little bit complicated, so let me explain this to you the best that I can. What the Bible is saying here is that if a woman is sold into this condition of servitude, she doesn't automatically get released after six years as the men do. The men, after six years, they go free no matter what. The women have to be bought out of that condition. They have to be redeemed, is what the Bible calls it. So over and over again, the Bible has this concept of redemption where if someone is put into servitude, then someone can buy them out of it or pay them out of it. And it's a picture of Jesus Christ, of course, redeeming us where we're doomed and we're in bondage to sin and then Christ with his blood pays for our redemption to get us out of that condition and gives us freedom. So what the Bible is saying here is that let's say a guy who's a servant wants to marry his fellow female servant, right? So he's a servant on whatever, the ranch or whatever, and there's another woman there that's also a servant and he wants to marry her. So he goes to the master and says, hey, you know, I want to marry her. Well then basically here's the situation, okay? This guy paid money to have her working for him. So the idea is that in order for him to marry her, he's really got two options. If he marries her, at the end of his term, he can't just say, all right, I'm leaving and then take her with him. He would have to pay for her redemption or what he can choose to do is just remain as a servant perpetually and say, you know what, I love her and I married her and we have kids and I want to stay with her and so I'm just going to perpetually remain a servant here. I like working here, I'm happy here, I've got my wife, I've got my kids. And then what he would do is he would have his ear punched through with an awl. So this is the early gauging of ears in scripture. So he would get his ear somewhat gauged, okay? And this is a symbol that I am a permanent servant here. It's kind of hard to forget that, right? And this shows, look, I am permanently in servitude, not just temporarily, but I am going to stay with this family forever. He's just part of the household at that point and he's not looking for his freedom. Now first of all, before we kind of get into the morality of this, which obviously we already know going in is correct, let's talk about the beautiful symbolism here of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this pictures the Lord Jesus Christ because if you remember, Jesus in Philippians 2, it says that he, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. So Jesus Christ we know is equally deity with God the Father. And so he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a what? He took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. Now why did he do that? Why did he humble himself and become obedient even unto death of the cross? Why did he do that? He did that out of love for us, right? And of course the Bible pictures the church as the bride of Christ, okay? And so husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So that's what's being pictured here in Exodus chapter 21 is the love of Jesus Christ for the church where the Lord Jesus Christ basically puts himself into this bondage of corruption or sinful flesh. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, right? He came down to our level in order to save us. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So the picture of a man saying, you know what? I'm going to marry this woman who's in bondage and if that means that I have to remain in bondage forever in order to be with her and stay with her, that's what I'm going to do. So he's sacrificing his own freedom. He's sacrificing his own agenda out of his love for this woman. And that's exactly what Jesus did for us. He's sacrificing himself for us. So that's the picture of Jesus Christ because we should always find Jesus in all scriptures. See, a lot of people have this weird way of reading the Old Testament where they, oh, this has nothing to do with Jesus. And it seems like they're always just trying to argue against, don't try to put Jesus in that passage. He's already there in every passage. The Bible says to him, give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believe within him shall receive remission of sin. You know, well Nebuchadnezzar looking into the fiery furnace, the son of God, how would he know? Hello. The whole Bible is about Jesus, friend. So of course, Daniel chapter three is about Jesus because every chapter is about Jesus. Okay. So Christ is pictured throughout the Bible and here he's pictured as the Hebrew servant who gives up his rights, gives up his freedom in order to be married unto the maid servant. That's what Christ did. So here's the thing that's troubling about this though, you know, because I want to just confront this head on. What is troubling here? The thing that's troubling in this passage is the idea that a guy could be a servant and then marry his fellow maid servant. And then when his terms up, just be like, all right, see ya. You know, let's say he's had a kid or two with her in that time or whatever. And then he's just like, all right, bye. And he just, you know, he came in by himself. He goes out by himself. Who finds that a little bit troubling like, wait a minute. You know what? How does this, how is this compatible with the Bible's teaching on marriage? Doesn't it seem a little bit weird, but, but here's what we have to understand about this is that God's not saying it's right to do that. Really the honorable righteous man is either going to do one of two. He's either A, going to not marry his fellow maid servant if he's not willing to be with her till the bitter end. Or B, he's going to have a plan of, okay, well, here's where I'm going to get the financial resources to buy her out and then we can go both be free together. Or C, he's going to decide, hey, I'm willing to stay here and be in servitude. I like this place. I like this woman. This is going to be my life. You know, those are his three options as a righteous person. The person who would marry the woman and then take off at the end of the term is not a right to, that's a, that would be a sinful thing to do because when we get married, it's supposed to be until death. I mean, how many times the Bible tell us that at the beginning, from the very beginning, God made them male and female and in Genesis chapter two, at the very dawn of mankind, he says that a man leaves his father and mother and they too shall be one flesh. And the Bible says what God has joined together, let not man put asunder. So we don't want to misread this passage and think that God is condoning of someone who would just leave their wife. The Bible commands us not to leave our wife. The Bible commands wives not to leave their husband. This doesn't contradict that. This is just explaining the legalities of how this whole servitude system works. It's not saying, Hey, go ahead and abuse the system. And you know what? A lot of people look at this and they're horrified by the concept of indentured servitude or what they would call slavery. And a lot of people would say, Oh man, the horrors of, you know, the slave trade in the United States is, and look, let's face it, of course there were a lot of slaves that were horribly abused in the United States under the system of slavery in both the North and the South. There were horrible abuses that took place in the Caribbean and the United States, even in England itself. But here's what you have to understand though. There were also a lot of people who owned slaves that actually treated them really well, respected them, loved them, took care of them, taught them the Bible. And you know what? There are a lot of slaves that were freed after the civil war that just stayed on all through the year style because they were just happy with where they were because they were being treated well. And so you don't want to just paint with a broad brush that anybody who owned slaves is super wicked and you know, everybody who was an abolitionist was just a wonderful person. You know, it's not really necessarily that cut and dried because there were a lot of people who had these slaves working for them that actually loved them, treated them like members of the family and took care of them. So you don't want to just get all angry at every, you know, white person in the world or something, especially since this stuff happened hundreds of years ago. So the point is the indentured servitude system is not per se a bad system. In fact, it's a perfect system as the Bible lays it out. Now what was happening in the south in the United States was not according to scripture. Okay. It was a whole different situation and you had a lot of people that are just being bought and sold on the slave market. They're being kidnapped in Africa. But let's face it. A lot of the slaves that were brought over here was one African tribe selling another tribe into slavery. You know, so you can't just blame it all on white people. You know, actually pretty much all nationalities of people throughout history have had slaves and been slaves. You study ancient Greece and it's like you have one tribe of white people putting another tribe of white people into slavery. You know, it's not just white people who've owned slaves and black people who've been the slaves throughout history. You've got a lot of different colored people owning different colored people if you actually study a broader view of history. So anyway, what we see in scripture here is correct. It's legally correct, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we would want to just push this to its boundaries and say, oh, sweet, I can just marry this woman and then just walk out or whatever. Now, if, if a guy did that, it would be sinful and dishonorable and unrighteous, but the woman wouldn't be high and dry because she's still being fed and taken care of or kids are taken care of or whatever, but it still doesn't make it right for him, for him to ditch out on her. And you know, I bet a lot of people that have stood in judgment of this passage, you know, a lot of them are probably divorced themselves and then they're like, oh, can you believe the Bible? It's like, well, you've done the same thing if you've been divorced, you know, so that's life. God doesn't condone of divorce, but God actually makes allowance for divorce. Why? Because he knows people are going to do it. God has rules about servitude or if you want to call it slavery. Why? Because he knows it's going to exist. He knows people are going to do it. And you know, you say, well, it doesn't exist today in America. Well, here's the thing. First of all, we live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. There's still a lot of slavery going on in a lot of other parts of the world, even to this day, number one. But number two, yeah, we don't have slaves except you have these big corporations that bring over mass amounts of illegal aliens and they pretty much own those people and they pretty much control their lives, mistreat them. A lot of the illegal immigrants are put in factories with very dangerous conditions where they're in these meat packing plants, they're constantly getting hurt and even killed and they don't have any valid ID or anything. So the company pretty much owns them. They could pay them ridiculously low wages. So that is kind of a similar concept to slavery when you have companies bringing illegals up here. They don't know the language, so they can't really do their own thing and be free if they don't know the language and if they don't have any documents. And there are companies that abuse and take advantage of them. And then there are other illegal immigrants that come up here and they get a job where they're getting a fair shake and they're happy and they're sending money home and, you know, en vios de dinero a Mexico or whatever. So anyway, I'm just saying, you know, you don't want to just paint the current 2019 world with this rosy, you know, the paint it all rosy and beautiful, oh, we're so civilized now and everything's so great. They're so barbaric back then. Really? Because last time I checked, I think, you know, our country murdered like 3000 babies today through abortion. So much for me. Oh, but at least we don't have slavery. Well, okay, let's go to Northern Colorado to some of these meat packing plants and see a bunch of illegals are being mistreated and put in dangerous jobs and, and jobs where they can even get killed and they have no autonomy over their lives. Okay. So, you know, there's a lot to the world too, besides the U S there are 7.4 billion people in the world and 340 million of them live here. The vast majority of them live in a place that's worse. And you know what? You should thank God that you live in the United States because it's one of the nicest places to live in the whole world. If you actually travel around the world, you'll realize that it's, you know, you, cause you, you definitely know that our, our country's wicked, but just try traveling the world. And when you get back, you feel like, you know, you're just entering the promised land or, you know, we're back in God's country, you know, when we step on American. So I'm serious. I mean, some places that you go are pretty ungodly. And so we should appreciate what we have here in America. And as far as the prosperity, the freedom and so forth. So a lot of this is, and I'm, you know, this is foreign to us because it's so different from the world that we live in or the system that we have. But if you actually think it through, eventually you realize, you know what? It makes perfect sense. Even though on the surface, you might be like, Whoa, this is a little different. Once you get into it and flesh it out, you'll find that the Bible is actually right. Of course. And it's superior to our system. So the Bible says in verse number seven, if a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men servants do. If she please not her master with betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her unto a strange nation. He shall have no power seeing he had dealt deceitfully with her. And if he had betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. Now again, you see there's a selling your daughter value. Look, the Bible is not saying, Hey, sell your daughter. It's great. He's just giving the laws explaining how this works if and when it happens. Okay. See, the Bible teaches that we should be able to marry whoever we want, both male and female. And we can look at that in number chapter 36 or in first Corinthians chapter seven. The Bible says that women can marry whomsoever they will only in the Lord. I don't believe in parents picking the spouse of their children. I don't believe in that for one second. I don't believe in arranged marriages. Okay. Like they still do in India, right? Arranged marriages are huge. I don't believe in arranged marriages. I think that, you know, my children should marry whoever they want. Now I do think that the dad has veto power if his daughter is going to marry a rotten person. I do think that there's the concept in the Bible of the dad giving his daughter in marriage. But see, that veto power should not be abused. And here's how you would abuse your veto power, dads. You got a certain guy in mind for your daughter, so you just veto everyone else. You know, the veto power should be reserved for someone who is truly a rotten person, not just he's not my favorite or whatever. You know, there should be a real reason, not just, well, he's not exactly what I had in mind for my little precious or whatever. You know, the veto power would be reserved for someone who's truly a rotten person where you say, no way, I don't want my daughter. But in general, I want my daughters to pick who they want to marry. I want my sons to pick who they want to marry. You know, that's their bed that they're going to lay in, right? Let them make their bed and lay in it and let them choose for themselves because they're the one who's going to live with that decision for the rest of their life. And so they have the right to make that decision on their own. So I am strongly against arranged marriages. The Bible does not teach arranged marriage. But again, what we're talking about is a situation where people are so poor and destitute that they cannot care for their family, they cannot provide, and this adult daughter is another mouth to feed, and basically they have to just marry her off in order to keep going. Now, this is not a good situation. This is not advisable. This is not admirable. It's just something that happens, okay? And obviously there could be abuses of this and, you know, being given off to some idiot or some jerk or whatever, or this could actually be something that could be quite beautiful if it actually went okay. You know, it could really go either way. You know, I'm sure somebody's written a romance novel somewhere about some arranged marriage that worked out. I'm sure there are plenty of Bollywood movies like that, okay, about arranged marriages and we learn to love each other or whatever. I have a funny feeling that's probably a theme of a whole genre of Bollywood India movies, okay? Maybe I'm totally wrong about that. Anyway, I'm sure that there were times when these arranged marriages worked out great and other times when they were a nightmare or whatever, but guess what? This whole world is filled with nightmares and it's not God's fault, it's sin that brings the misery to the world. And the Bible tells us the dark places of this earth are full of the habitations of cruelty and there's all kinds of horrible, wicked things in this world because the world's a very sinful place. And that's why we have heaven to look forward to and thank God that, again, we live in one of the nicest places in the world, so we're sheltered from a lot of the horrors that go on in this world. So we have to understand again that this is not the normal everyday, hey, this is how people get married. You just sell your daughter or something. This is a situation where we could, and again, how do I know this? Because I've studied the rest of the Bible. You got to get the whole Bible in context and you study the rest of the Bible and you see people getting into debt and they can't pay their debt and then they have to become a bondman and their children have to become bondmen and they have to sell their sons and daughters because they have no money. But they got in that situation, they racked up that debt. How do you pay that debt? How would we do it in America? Just go bankrupt. Rack up the credit cards and go bankrupt. Well, sorry, that didn't exist in the ancient world because that only works in a system where money is being printed out of thin air so it's not really worth anything anyway. In a real society with gold and silver and bronze, people aren't just going to be like, oh, you owe me 70,000 bucks, no problem. But when they made the $70,000 out of thin air, when the bank has $1,000 in the vault and can loan out 32,000, they're a little quicker to forgive the $70,000 debt because the fact that it doesn't even exist. It's all a debt-based fiat currency and I'm not going into a big thing on the Federal Reserve System and you can go read The Creature from Jekyll Island or something if you want to learn more about that. So again, our understanding of this passage is a little skewed because of the fact that we live in a society with a dramatically different financial system, a dramatically different culture. And you can sit there and say, well, ours is better. I could find some serious fault in our system all day long and there are a lot of things about the Bible system that are better. And at the end of the day, by faith, we have to trust that the Bible system is better. But instead of being troubled by the passage, walk away with the admiration of the Lord Jesus Christ becoming a servant for us and giving up his luxuries in heaven to come and die on the cross for us because that's really the main thing. And the piercing of the ear, that's symbolic of Jesus Christ being pierced in his hands and his feet and his side being pierced for us when he died on the cross. So let's keep going here. It says, if she please not her master, verse 8, who had patrolled her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her unto a strange nation. He shall have no power seeing he had dealt deceitfully with her. So here's what this is saying. So let's say this guy says, okay, I don't have any money. I'm at the end of my rope financially. And so he says to his daughter, sorry, honey, but we're going to have to marry you off to some guy who's willing to put up the money for the dowry because we need the money. It's not the talk you want dad to give you, but it happens. That's life for you. So what the Bible is saying is, so let's picture this, okay? So basically, the daughter is being given to this husband with the understanding that this guy is going to marry her, right? This is going to be his wife. So what the Bible is saying here is that if he pays the money, he pays the dowry, he gets the bride, but then he starts spending time with her and realizes like, I don't want to be married to this woman. She was beautiful and she seemed real charming, but now that I've gotten to know her a little bit, she's not what I thought or, you know, I don't like her at all. So if he ends up, he's betrothed to her, you know, but they're not fully married yet. They're not, they haven't fully consummated the marriage and gone through the whole thing, but it's like the agreement was struck. But then he changes his mind. He can't just turn around and sell her to someone else or even the worst thing, sell her to a foreign country, which is what Joseph's brethren did to him. Remember how they just like sold him into Egypt? You know, some caravan of Ishmaelites coming through, not like, oh, you know what? I was going to marry you, but you're kind of a pain in the neck and there happens to be a caravan of Ishmaelites, so I'm just going to go ahead and traffic you to another country. So it's saying like he can't sell her to a foreign country. He dealt deceitfully with her because he, the agreement was that he would be her husband. So what it says there is what he does in that situation, if he wants to back out of the agreement and not marry her, then he basically has to go to the dad and say, hey, I want my money back, which would be allowing her to be redeemed. He needs to just get a refund, okay? And if dad's not going to give him a refund, then he would need to basically pass her off to some other guy that's actually going to marry her in the country, but her being redeemed is the preferred course of action. Does everybody see that here in the scripture? I hope I'm helping you understand these concepts that are kind of foreign to our 2019 American mind here. But it says, you know, he can't sell her to a strange nation. He dealt deceitfully with her if, you know, she ends up not being pleasing in his sight. So look at verse nine, and if he had betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. So again, it's saying, look, if he buys her and betrothed her to his son, she should be treated like a member of the family, not as just the redheaded stepchild of the family, like, hey, we bought you, we own you or something. It's like, well, no, if he paid for her, it's his daughter-in-law, he needs to treat her like family, not treat her like property, okay? And then it says in verse 10, if he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish, and if he do not these three unto her, then she shall go out free without money. So what is this saying? This is basically saying that if a man marries a second wife, he still has to maintain the first wife. So he has to make sure that she still gets the same food and clothing and intimacy when she was the only wife and that those things don't diminish and she just gets put on the back burner. If so, then she basically is free to come out. And again, you say, is the Bible condoning polygamy? Absolutely not. The Bible is teaching monogamy from start to finish, Genesis chapter 2 all the way into the New Testament where he says, and look, there's even a commandment about the kings of Israel not to have multiple wives. And the Bible is telling us over and over again that it's one man, one woman for life. But the Bible is recognizing the reality of polygamy. Polygamy already existed and would continue to exist. And so there are laws regarding polygamy, but nowhere is the Bible morally condoning of polygamy. Polygamy is morally wrong. Even though Jacob did it, even though David did it, other men in the Bible did it, it is morally wrong. The Bible makes that clear. And even to be a pastor or a deacon, the Bible says the husband of one wife. Now polygamy exists today in the Islamic world, and polygamy exists amongst the fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, and Northern Arizona is a major polygamy capital, yeah, north of the Grand Canyon. So there's this natural divide of the Grand Canyon, but on the other side of the Grand Canyon, there's a community of fundamentalists, polygamous Mormons. And let me tell you something, polygamy is super wicked, and let me explain to you why. And people who try to say, well, I think that polygamy is okay, and they try to twist what the Bible says to make polygamy okay, here's why it's ridiculous. Here's just an easy way to shoot this down. Did you know that half of babies are boys and the other half are girls? So how's polygamy going to work? You know, two girls for every boy, so it doesn't work that way unless you're in Surf City with Jan and Dean, it's not going to work that way. Nobody knows what I'm talking about. But anyway, who knows what I'm talking about? Oh, everybody, all right, never mind. So anyway, here's the thing. There's the same amount of men as there are women in this world. So how's polygamy going to work? Can somebody explain that to me? It doesn't make any sense. That's why when you have these polygamous cultures, what do they always end up doing? What do they always end up doing? Being younger and younger, why? Because there aren't enough women to go around because it's stupid and makes no sense to have polygamy when there's the same number of men and women. It doesn't work. Where are you going to get the extra, you know, if every Islamic man wants to max out at four wives, how's that going to work? When there aren't four times as many women as men. So you end up just having all these teenage brides and these younger and younger. These bunch of Mormons north of the Grand Canyon are a bunch of pedophiles and perverts is what they are, incestuous, pedophile, pervert, wicked people. It's amazing that our government even allows that community to exist because that should be considered child abuse, what goes on up there. I mean, it's insane. But anyway, that's a whole other story. So don't ever be deceived by this wickedness of polygamy because here's the thing. We are supposed to be content with one wife. Desiring more than that is contrary to the order that God has made one man, one woman, and there aren't going to be enough women to go around and then that's where you have this ridiculous thing of these younger and younger wives and everything like that and it just makes no sense. So anyway, the Bible is not condoning of polygamy. The Bible is giving laws regarding polygamy because it already existed. It was going to continue to exist and so he basically is just trying to protect people that are within that situation. I got to hurry up here. I'm running out of time and there's some stuff I wanted to get to. Verse 12, he that smiteth a man so that he die shall surely be put to death. But if a man lie not in wait but God deliver him into his hand, then I will appoint thee a place where he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him with guile, then shalt thou take him from mine altar that he may die. So what the Bible is talking about here is the difference between first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter and there's a lot clearer teaching on this when we get to the book of Deuteronomy. It explains this in great detail. The only kind of murder that is punishable by death in the Bible is first degree murder which the Bible defines as that which is premeditated. And even our system today has this distinction between premeditated murder and the crime of passion that just, you know, you just lose your temper and kill someone. Now it's still wicked but the only time that someone would get the death penalty under God's system is a premeditated murder. We do believe in the death penalty for murder, amen. This is reiterated in the New Testament and also but look at verse 15, it says he that smiteth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death. So the Bible also teaches that if you were to, you know, walk up and punch your mom or your dad in the face or something, you'd be put to death for that under God's system and I think that that's a correct judgment. You have to have that boundary there in society where you don't attack and physically assault your parents, it's crossing a line. He that stealeth a man, verse 16, and selleth him or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. So again, if I were to kidnap someone and then sell them into slavery, that's the death penalty. So again, some of the things that went on with the slave trade in America in the 19th century would be worthy of death even if you're going and just kidnapping someone and selling them into slavery. Now if they bought somebody who was already slave and sold him, although morally repugnant, that wouldn't be a death penalty thing but kidnapping someone and selling them is the death penalty according to the Bible. Okay, and then it says this, verse 17, he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. So if you basically wished something horrible upon your parents and you verbalize that, may you die and go to hell or whatever, may you be sick and die or may you get in a horrible car accident or something, if you wished something like that, you curse them basically. If you curse your father or mother, you'll be put to death, the Bible says. And here's the thing, Jesus reiterates this in Matthew chapter 15. Lest you think, oh, this is the Old Testament. Even though this criminal code was for the Old Testament and this isn't enforced today, this should be the basis for our laws today. Whatever we read in Exodus should be the basis. Our lawmakers should look to the Bible for wisdom and build our laws on that. And Jesus reiterated this. He said that the Pharisees made the word of God of none effect through their tradition because he said that it was written that whosoever curseth his father or his mother, let him die to death. So Jesus reiterated this and he called them hypocrites for not believing in the laws of the Bible and not following the laws of the Bible. And so this is a correct law, of course. We didn't need Jesus to tell us that anyway, because we already have all the other scriptures telling us that the law is correct, but Jesus even reiterated this specific law in addition to just ratifying the entire law. Verse 18, if men strive together and one smite another with a stone or with his fist and he die not, but keepeth his bed. If he rise again and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit. Only he shall pay for the loss of his time and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed. So anyway, you beat someone up and they miss work, you have to pay them for their missed work. And again, we have that even today in our judicial system as well. If a man smite his servant or is made with a rod and he die under his hand, he should be surely punished, not withstanding if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished for he is his money. If men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shall give life for life. So the Bible is saying here that let's say somebody is roughhousing or fighting and they accidentally slam into a woman that is pregnant and she ends up miscarrying her baby. And if they cause her to lose the baby, then they will be surely punished for that, for doing that. But it says if any mischief follow, he shall be surely, excuse me, if any mischief follow verse 23, then thou shall give life for life. You know what that tells me is that the baby in his mother's womb is life. If you cause the woman's fruit to depart from her by accident, you get a severe punishment, you're not put to death because it was an accident. But if any mischief follow is basically showing malice or premeditation, then if it was done on purpose, then he says life goes for life. This is why every abortion doctor should be put to death. You know, because he is mischievously, maliciously premeditated in murdering a baby. So that's what I believe. And women who go get an abortion should be put to death as well. Now obviously that's not the law of the land. And so that wouldn't be like retroactive or something like, all right, let's round up every woman who's ever had an abortion. You can't make that retroactive because it wasn't the law at the time, they didn't know that. But I'll bet you if you made it the death penalty for performing abortions or receiving abortions, I think a lot less women would get an abortion. What do you think? You think 3000 women a day would be like, all right, let's go risk our lives getting an abortion. And then all the thousands of abortion doctors would be like, sure, I'll risk being put to death by giving, no, it wouldn't be happening. We live in a bizarre society where there are literally businesses set up where you can go and have your baby murdered. It's a sick world that we live in. And if you condone of abortion, you are either wicked or insane or both. I mean, it doesn't make any sense from a scientific view or a medical view, moral, ethically. There's no way to look, there's no way to justify it. It's murder. And the Bible here says life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. Amen. One of my, one of my, you know, we're just watching the new Deported film. I don't want to spoil too much in the Deported film, but you know, one of the good parts was at the end of the movie, seeing how some of the people who arrested us and put us into captivity, how they ended up going into captivity, watching how what goes around comes around just in the three years since that Botswana trip happened, the curses and bad things God brought upon the people who arrested us and banned us and threw us out of the country. God's not blessing them. And so I don't want to say anything more than that. But anyway, January 23rd. Amen. Amen. So where was I? Let me jump back in here. That was a little commercial break. Okay. So we got to get to this. I'm almost out of time. We got to get to this. So verse 28, 28 through 36 is pretty much all dealing with violent animals hurting people. Okay. From verse 28 all the way to verse 36. So it says, if an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned and his flesh shall not be eaten. The owner of the ox shall be quit. So basically you got an ox and it kills somebody, stabs them with his horn. You kill the ox, but you don't punish the owner. His punishment is that his ox gets killed and he doesn't get to eat it like, oh, well, we were going to butcher it anyway or no, you kill it and you don't eat it. Okay. But if the ox were want, the modern word would be if the ox were prone to push with his horn in time past and it had been testified to his owner and he had not kept him in, but that he had killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and his owner also shall be put to death. Wow. That's a pretty serious punishment. So what's the Bible saying? If this guy has a violent animal and somebody told him, hey, your animal has attacked me or been violent and you need to keep that thing in and he doesn't keep it in, he doesn't take precautions and he's just like, ah, it's harmless and just leaves it out and it kills somebody, then the person who does that is put to death. Now look, you say, what does that have to do with anything in 2019 America? Two words. Pit bull. Right. Woo. Pit bulls. And let me just say, and I know that this might offend some people. I am 100% against owning a pit bull because it is a breed that is known for being extremely violent, hurting people, being unpredictable. It's a trained killer and it has the power to kill people. It's strong enough. It has the weapons and the ability to kill people and it has the tendency to kill people and it was bred specifically to be a violent animal and people are being ripped apart by pit bulls every single day in America daily. I mean there are news feeds and stories where you can see the pit bulls that are just constantly ripping people apart. Look, just this week I saw a thing where they had a pit bull with some toddlers and they said, this is our child's babysitter. A pit bull sitting with a couple toddlers and it just had like thousands and thousands of likes and shares and they show all these, they put a pit bull in like a pink sweater. Oh this little baby, oh it's so sweet, how can anybody think, oh he's such a gentle giant and oh, you know, he was just scared and then when these pit bulls like rip people apart then people just make excuses for it like, oh well, you know, it was the person's fault who got ripped apart, I mean, they just, you know, it's not the breed, it's not the dog, you know, it was just scared, it was just scared, that's why it ripped apart that toddler. And you know what, there are literally these rescue organizations that will literally take a pit bull who has attacked somebody and either just rip them apart or injured them or whatever, so it's been wont to push with its horn in time past and they will literally just shuffle them around to another state so that they're no longer declared vicious, so that they have a clean bill of health, like a priest in the Catholic Church or something, they just kind of get, you know, brought along to the next parish. Look, dogs are predators, eyes on the front, born to hunt, eyes on the side, born to hide. Dogs are carnivores, they are predators and pit bulls specifically, and look, it's not the breed, oh really, that's interesting because if you look at the top five breeds for dog attacks, they make up 90% of the attacks and the number one is pit bull and there's more pit bull attacks than the other four behind it combined, but it's not the breed, but go ahead and have your toddler play with a pit bull, why don't you, maybe you can bring home a lion or a tiger or a viper to have as a pet, and look, I'm just, I'm just speaking the truth tonight, this is an extremely dangerous and unpredictable animal, and look, these dogs can be super nice for years and then they just snap, and you don't know what's going to set them off, what's going to set off some deep-seated instinct that they have deep inside them where they just, you wear the wrong color garment, and they're just like, you know, the phone rings and they just rip you apart or whatever, you know, you don't know what's going to set them off, you can't just have this, you know what a pit bull is, it's like having a dog, or I'm sorry, it's like having a gun that had like its own mind and can shoot by itself. It'd be like if you just had this loaded shotgun with legs, just picture it like a loaded shotgun with legs just walking around, walking around, and you're just like petting it, it's loaded, and you're just like, oh, it's a nice shotgun, oh, he's such a good boy, you know, right? Wouldn't you think that's crazy? If the thing has a mind of its own and just could just shoot someone? Well, these pit bulls are super dangerous, okay? And that's what you're doing, you have a loaded weapon, you know, just, and you know what, by the way, so there's a website, I think it's called dogsbite.org, and it documents like the daily maulings and all the pit bulls that are ripping people apart and whatever, and they'll often show these people's Facebook feed, the people who get ripped apart by a pit bull or killed or put in the hospital or maimed or disfigured, and they will actually look at their Facebook feed where a month ago they were saying, how can anybody not like these babies, these precious little babies, and oh, it's such a wonderful breed, then they got ripped apart. So the people that are in the most danger are the pit bull apologists. So if you are the pit bull apologists, like, I'm trying to save you from dying, you know what I mean? Like, so don't get mad at me, I'm actually trying to help you not to get hurt. Now, one of the reasons why this subject is dear to me is because I was actually attacked by dogs and almost killed when I was 13 years old. Now I wasn't attacked by pit bulls, that's why I'm still alive, okay? Seriously, that's why I'm alive right now is because I wasn't attacked. Because if it would have been pit bulls, I'd probably be dead right now. But when I was 13 years old, I got 21 bites from a couple of dogs that weighed about 150 pounds each. I weighed about 120 pounds myself at the time. I was just a little skinny junior high kid. And I counted the bloody bite marks after it was over, 21 bites. I had one bite that bled for three days, okay? And I only survived, and I'm not gonna tell the whole story for sake of time, I've told it in other sermons, I only survived by jumping out in front of traffic because the dogs were just knocking me down, attacking me, biting me. And the only way I got away was running into traffic and everybody slamming on their brakes and me almost getting hit by a car, that's what caused the dogs to stand down. And these dogs were half German Shepherd and half Rottweiler. So they had like the size of a German Shepherd and the viciousness of a Rottweiler. And guess what their names were? Kane and Zeus. So I mean, these dogs had some evil names. Kane and Zeus. So we went down to the county and some bold dyke lesbian was the person making the decision about whether the dogs were gonna be put to death. And she owned her own vicious dogs and whatever. And so of course the dog, this is in Sacramento, California, the dogs were not put to death because we said, well, hey, these are violent dogs. They just chased him down and attacked him unprovoked and ripped him apart. So we were lobbying for the dogs to be put to death and they wouldn't put them dead. In the Bible, if a dog attacked somebody, you'd put the dog to death. If it's actually harming someone and putting them in danger because you don't want it to kill someone because the next person it could kill if these dogs are just out doing this. So they wouldn't put a death. Well, we opened the newspaper like three months later and we saw a toddler in the Sacramento area got bit in the face by a vicious dog and just ripped open the side of his face and it had permanent damage. It was gonna have permanent nerve damage and stuff. They had to like try to reconstruct its face. But I mean it was disfigured and it was the same lesbian woman that was making the decision and she said she wasn't gonna put that dog down either. And she was justifying her decision in the newspaper of why we're not gonna put this dog down even though it ripped the face of a toddler apart to where it's gonna be. I mean how would you like that young lady, you know, you're a little girl and your face gets ripped open by some dog or something, you know. And you say, well, you know, why kill the dog? It's an animal. Quit worshiping animals and treating them like people, okay? If an animal is dangerous to humans, it should be either kept locked up and if people have already demonstrated that they're not keeping it locked up properly, then they should be put to death. The animal should be put to death. But the Bible's even saying if it attacks somebody and then that person lets it loose again and it attacks someone else, even that owner would be put to death. I mean that shows you that God's pretty clear on how he sees this issue. And so there's no glory in showing off your violent, vicious animal, okay, because it's a hazard to, and you're putting other people at risk, you know, when you expose them to that animal. And look, if somebody wants to have a pit bull and keep it locked up all the time, well then you know what? They're the one that's gonna get ripped up by it and if they wanna do that, then fine, let them do that. But you know what? I go to the park by my house and people have a pit bull running around with no leash at the park. Oh, he's harmless. You don't know that, you idiot. Because these pit bulls are always harmless until they're not. Think about it. And look, I'm saying if you have a pit bull off a leash, I'm personally offended by that. Because you know what you're doing? You're playing Russian roulette with everybody's life around you. You're basically just saying, hey, I'm willing to gamble your life with my stupid, violent, vicious dog. And the reason I'm focusing in on the pit bulls is because they're, like I said, the statistics don't lie. They are bred to be extremely violent. Obviously other violent breeds shouldn't just be, you know, left off leash if they have the capability to really seriously harm someone. And we deal with this on the rez a lot. Pit bulls off the leash. And that's why when we go soul winning on the rez, you know, wasn't that your idea? You know, Brother Segura was a stroke of genius. You know, he had the idea. We have these little handheld tasers, and we know we don't taser the dogs. We've never tasered a dog, so don't twist this into something that it's not. But we have these little flashlight tasers, and we push the button to activate the taser. It's just a little zzz. And when pit bulls hear that noise, they flee before it. They're just scared to death of that noise. Now we tried to just do, like, an app that makes the noise, but they can tell the difference. It's got to be the real thing. We tried to do, like, a sound effect. It doesn't work. It's got to be the real thing. So when we go soul winning, when we have... And so, look, you know, if you go soul winning on the rez, it's good to make sure somebody in the group has a taser, because then you push the button, zzz, and they all just run away, because that sound freaks them out. And let me just say this. If you ever are on the rez soul winning, or even in South Phoenix soul winning, and somebody has a dog off the leash that looks dangerous or is a pit bull, automatically should be considered dangerous, do not approach that house unless you're 100% sure that it's safe. Here's what I... You know, you don't want to just risk your life here, like, I'm risking my life bringing the gospel. Look, there's another way to do it. Here's what I do in that situation. If there's a violent looking dog right there, I stand outside the gate and I just yell, hello, hello. And somebody... If they're home, they'll come out. And I'm not risking my life, or risking injury. Now, I've gotten bit a couple times on the rez, but it was just because I was being stupid, okay? Like, one time, one time we were out soul... I'll just do this story and then we'll be done. One time, I was out soul winning on the rez, and there was a house that people had skipped because they said, hey, you know, there's a violent dog there. And that's what we teach people to do, you know, don't take any chances, better safe than sorry. It was just some mangy rez dog, usually they're friendly enough, but you know, you gotta judge these things. And by the way, stay right next to your soul winning partner, because if you're by yourself, you're like 100 times more likely to get attacked. Dogs are trained to attack the one who's by themself. Stay with your partner. But anyway, so I was going back and taking care of some houses that had been marked as, hey, this is a scary dog house. So I went back, I had the taser, whatever, and I went up to the door to clean it up. And when I got there, the person got saved. So you know, I went through the whole gospel and everything, had a conversation. So 15, 20 minutes have gone by, and I'm just kind of really excited about getting somebody saved. This was like maybe last year or something. I was just really excited that somebody got saved. So I run back to the van to tell them how, hey, we got somebody saved. But that's the last thing you want to do when there's a dog, is start running away, right? But I totally forgot about the dog, because I was so into giving the gospel. And then I just felt just the bite on the back of my ankle bit me really hard. And I was like, oh, man. But thankfully, it wasn't a pit bull. That's why I'm alive. Amen. It was some other scary dog, but it wasn't. Because I mean, these pit bulls, man, they bite on and they lock their jaw. You can't pry it open. Who knows what I'm talking about? I mean, you cannot pry it. I mean, big, strong men will try to pry it open. They can't. What's the trick? Is there some secret? Shooting. Shooting. What's the trick? You have to get your arm up inside back of the jaw so they can't open it. Oh, like go deeper. You have to shove your arm into the back. Ironically, you go deeper. Right. And then here's another brother, Segura. One time, he shoved the Bible in his mouth. Wasn't that you? He walked up to me. Yeah. This was in South Phoenix. He walked up to me and his Bible just had like these big teeth marks on it because he had like shoved the Bible into his mouth. Now what I typically do when I'm faced with a violent dog is just whatever I have in my hand, I just start swinging it at it, even if what I have in my hand is totally harmless. Because if you swing something at a dog, it just kind of jumps back. So if a dog is attacking me, then I just start swinging a water bottle or whatever I have. Swing a Bible. And then you just back away slowly, but you don't turn your back. But the real way is you must clear your mind of all fear. They can smell the fear. You have to just be totally at peace. So I walk onto the rise. There's all these violent pit bulls, and I'm just like. And they just go like. Just kidding. I'm not. All those kind of superpowers. But anyway, you know, I don't have time to go through all the back and forth of this because of just the lateness of the hour. But read verses 28 through 36 on your own, and you'll see that God takes this pretty seriously. And he holds people liable for what their violent animal does. So just think about that when you're going to own a super dangerous violent animal that you're responsible for what that dog does, according to the Bible. You're responsible to take precautions. What do you say? Well, that's only if somebody told it that it had been violent. Well, let me just tell you that all pit bulls are prone to be violent. They were. Why were. Do you think that God had two pit bulls on the ark? Do you think there was a male and female pit bull on the ark? Guess what? There are only two dogs on the ark. It wasn't like, all right, two poodles, two cocker spaniels, two Boston terriers, two raw eyes. There were literally only two dogs on the ark. All of our dogs today come from two dogs. And people are like, evolution is like, oh, that's so unrealistic. You think everything on this earth came from two something, two protozoa or whatever. It's like, you think, not only do you think all dogs came from two dogs, you think all animals and plants came from the same parents. But the bottom line is, there's only two dogs on the ark folks. People have bred different dog breeds to bring out different attributes and bring out different proclivities. And the pit bull is the most violent possible configuration. Why do you need that? Okay. You know, that's not, you don't want this lethal weapon with the mind of its own. Amen. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and your righteous judgments. And even though some of them are hard for us to understand, Lord, I hope that I was able to shed a little bit of light on these things tonight in the Bible study and help people understand things that are difficult, Lord. Help us to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.