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Man, Exodus chapter number 22, starting in verse number one, we're getting into more of the statutes and judgments which have to do with the criminal law and the civil law that the children of Israel would have. Now, obviously, in the New Testament, we're in a different situation, but the reason why this is relevant is that this is a perfect system. And so therefore, we would be wise if we're passing judgment in 2019 or people that are in positions of authority or government, they should look to God's law as a guideline of the perfect law. The Bible says the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. So the Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. We're going to have situations in our lives where we run into disputes with people, somebody steals something. How do we handle that? What's fair? What's right? What is justice? We learn that from the Word of God. So look what the Bible says in verse one of chapter 22, if a man shall steal an ox or a sheep and kill it or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. Now you may be wondering, why is it that in one situation you pay back fourfold and in another situation you pay back fivefold, and then if you go down just a few verses to verse four, it says he shall restore double. You know, what's the deal? Why is it sometimes double, sometimes it's four times, sometimes it's five times? Well, here's the thing. If somebody steals your property and you actually get back that exact item that was stolen, meaning that they still have it intact, so they steal something from you and they still have the item and it's still intact, then basically they have to pay back double. They have to give you back your item and then give you one additional item, right? So they steal your ox and you catch them, they give you back the ox and then they give you another ox, okay? Sheep, the same thing. The fourfold and the fivefold is if they don't have it anymore. So they stole it from you and then they sold it or they ate it or they destroyed it or whatever. So it'd be like if somebody stole your car, let's say in modern times, somebody stole your car and your car is found by the side of the road totally stripped up on blocks and everything's been stripped from it and it's just completely junk now or it's been vandalized and destroyed as stolen cars are often found, right? Well then if that person's caught, they would have to pay back fivefold. Whereas if they're caught with the car, the car is still intact, you get your car back, same old car that you lost, it's all good, then they pay back double. That's the difference there, okay? Now you say, well, what's the difference between the fourfold and the fivefold? Well if you think about it, stealing an ox is much more serious than stealing a sheep, okay? A sheep is a much smaller animal. So you've heard of like grand theft auto, this is like grand theft oxen, all right? It's a very similar concept because if you're stealing a cow or an ox, you're stealing something way bigger, this is much more brazen and so there's an even bigger punishment for it, you know? And we've all heard about how in the old west, cattle rustling is a hanging offense in these parts, right, where they would actually put people to death for stealing cattle in the west sometimes, okay? Now is that the punishment that God prescribed? Did God say, hey, if you steal cattle, you shall be put to death? No. The Bible says that if you steal cattle, you pay back fivefold if it's damaged or sold or gone and you pay back double if you're caught with those exact items. Verse number two says, if a thief be found breaking up and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him, for he should make full restitution. If you have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. So what does this mean here, blood shed for him or blood not shed for him? What the Bible is saying here is that if you're being robbed and you kill the person who is stealing from you, so you catch them, I guess robbed maybe isn't the best word because robbed you kind of picture somebody like coming at you with a gun or a knife or something, obviously you can defend yourself. But let's say you catch someone stealing your stuff, okay? Let's say I get home and someone's in my house stealing stuff, right? Well, if I kill that person, then the Bible's saying that if it happens at night, if it's the middle of the night and somebody's breaking in and robbing me in the middle of the night and I kill that person, then I'm totally justified killing that person and there shall no blood be shed for him, meaning that there's no avenger of blood, there's no person being put to death for murdering another or, does everybody understand what I'm saying? Basically, if you kill someone who's stealing from you in the middle of the night, you're totally justified, there's no criminal charges brought against you, you're in the clear. But if the sun be risen upon him, meaning that you do it in the daytime, it's light outside, then if you kill that person, now basically you're guilty of murder because you just murdered someone. Because the punishment for stealing is not supposed to be death, right? That's why it says he should make full restitution. That should be the punishment, right? It says, if the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him, for he should make full restitution. He shouldn't be killed, he should be paying double or paying fourfold or fivefold as the case may be. So this is relevant, okay? Let's say somebody's breaking into your house in the middle of the night, you're justified in killing that person to defend your family. Because you know, if somebody's breaking into your house, you don't know what their intentions are, and you don't know are there four guys coming into your house. Because a lot of times when your house is robbed, it's not just one person working alone, you got people coming from the front, you got people coming from the back. You know, if I'm at home with my family at night, doors are locked and somebody's coming in, I'm going to kill that person. I'm going to shoot to kill because of the fact I don't know if their buddy's coming in and I got to go, you know, get the next guy. So you know, you're justified to protect your house, to protect your family, to protect your safety. If somebody's robbing you in the middle of the night, you don't know what their intentions are, and it's very dangerous, and so you shoot and ask questions later, okay? If somebody's actually like coming into your house at night. Now look, if they're outside or something, obviously you'd want to avoid killing someone if at all possible. But if somebody's coming into my house, I don't know who they are, I don't know what they're doing, I got to protect my family, so I'm going to go ahead and just, you know, take care of that. Now in the daytime though, it's a different story. Somebody's breaking in in the daytime and everybody can see what's going on, you don't want to just start, you know, shooting and killing somebody. You know, somebody's out breaking into your car, you know, just get the gun and just, you know, blow them away or something. I mean, that would be murder on your part, okay? So what the Bible's differentiating here is the difference between self-defense and protecting your stuff in the middle of the night, which is a scarier thing, and protecting your stuff in the daytime, which is not a self-defense situation, it's just a situation of guarding your stuff, right? Does everybody see the difference there between those two things? And then it says that if he doesn't have anything, right, because you say, well, what if somebody steals my ox and they don't have another ox to give me, how am I going to get paid double? Well, then the Bible says, he shall be sold for his theft. And now we see the necessity for chapter 21, you know, chapter 21, you're kind of scratching your head at some of those things, why do we need this? I thought we should abolish all slavery. Now you're starting to understand where God was right about having the indentured servitude because of the fact that if somebody owes a penalty of five oxen and they don't have anything, well, then guess what, they're going to have to work it off. So they're going to have to be sold into servitude to pay that off. So it all makes sense now. Now what's the world's answer to this? You know, the world would say, oh, the Bible's archaic, it's barbaric, this is, you know, bronze age, morality. Okay. But here's what the world will do. If you steal today, what will they do? Do they have you pay back the person that you stole from five fold? No, they block you in a cage, which is not a biblical punishment. They basically put you in jail, which is not what the Bible teaches. Not only that, they make you carry around a criminal record for the rest of your life, which is also not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that when you've done the crime and when you've paid the punishment, it's not supposed to be brought up. If you're living right now, you're supposed to be able to live that down. Let him that's soul steal no more, rather let them labor. And how can you work in labor if every time you go to get a job, you have this felony on your record and then you can't do it. Now look, if somebody stole from me, I would rather get paid back double or fourfold or fivefold than to see that person locked in a cage. If somebody steals my car, I'd love to get two cars. You know what I mean? If somebody steals any of my stuff and it's like, all right, here's five of your, you know, computers or whatever. Great. You know, or the value of it. Hey, let's have that paid directly to me since I'm the victim. But our government, yeah, our government uses fines to punish people. But they keep the money. They fine you and then they keep the money instead of giving it to the victim. God's system, the money goes to the victim. Then it's not so bad being a victim, right? You're okay with getting robbed every once in a while because you can multiply your stuff. You know, you something for your trouble, right? So it says in verse number five, so that kind of wraps up that section on theft there. Verse number five says, if a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten and shall put in his beast and shall feed in another man's field of the best of his own field and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution. So here's the rule on fields and vineyards. If you're walking through somebody's field or vineyard, you're allowed to just grab whatever fruit and just eat it. So you know, like the you pick strawberries and stuff. I mean, everything was a you pick strawberry in Bible times or you pick peaches or apples. You were allowed to go into anybody's field and just walk through and just, you know, take an apple off the tree and start eating it. That was considered legal in God's economy. And if you remember, the disciples did this. Remember when they were walking through the field and they just began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat, they didn't own that field. That was what God provided. And he provided that for poor people to be able to just get food if they just needed food. And the Bible even said that when you harvest your field, you weren't supposed to go over it a second time. You were supposed to kind of leave the gleanings and leave the stuff that you missed for the poor, the fatherless, the widow. And remember when the reapers were reaping Boaz's field in the book of Ruth, Ruth was a gleaner. So as a poor person, Ruth didn't have her own field. She would just show up at Boaz's field and everything that was spilled, everything that was missed, everything that they dropped, she would pick that up. And of course, because Boaz had a soft spot for her, he basically told his reapers, hey, spill stuff on purpose. So she ended up just coming home with just these huge amounts of produce. And her mother-in-law was thrilled like, wow, you're bringing home a lot because they were leaving handfuls of purpose, basically on purpose, they're spilling extra, leaving extra for Ruth's benefit. So that was God's system. Now what God did not allow though is you can't bring any container. So this isn't like the you pick, you know, apple orchard where you're filling up a basket or filling up a backpack or even, you can't fill any vessel, the Bible said, only what you can carry in your hands. So you can get an apple in each hand, but that's it. That's all the apples you're going to get or if you want to try to like juggle them all or whatever. But the point is you can't use any vessel, no container, just what you can carry in your bare hands. But what you're not allowed to do is to take your animal into your neighbor's field and let them eat all you can eat buffet. Now you can go there and do your own little all you can eat buffet, but you can't bring your beast. So you can't bring your animal. And so the Bible's talking about if you bring your beast over and you want your animal to kind of graze on your neighbor's yard, then you have to make restitution from the best of your own vineyard or whatever that animal ate or destroyed. You have to take your very best produce and make restitution and give the equivalent in the very best step. Even if your animal ate some junky plants, you got to give your best plants to make restitution for that. Verse number six, if fire break out and catch in thorns so that the stacks of corn or the standing corn or the field be consumed therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution. So if you start a fire and the thing just gets out of control, burns down houses, burns down property, now you're liable for all that damage. If you accidentally start a fire that just gets out of control. So you know, you're responsible for your own fire safety and if you get it out of control, you know, you have to pay for it. My wife showed me a video recently of this border patrol guy and he was doing a really elaborate gender reveal, okay, who knows what I'm talking about with a gender reveal. So they'll have these things where there's like a cake and then you cut open the cake and it's blue inside or you cut open the cake and it's pink inside or whatever. So some of these have gotten a little too crazy or out of hand where it's like a smoke bomb and it's like a blue smoke but it just went too crazy. Well, some bozo that worked for the border patrol set up like this explosive device that was gonna do some kind of a blue explosion of smoke or whatever and he was gonna shoot at it but he basically just sets it up in just like this field of dry grass. And I mean like you're looking at this video, you already know what's gonna happen because it's just like this super dry grass and he's got this explosive that he's gonna blow up to reveal the gender of his baby. It ended up costing billions of dollars of damage. It started a major forest fire that just burned for miles and miles and miles, just completely just destroyed just acre after acre and mile after mile. I think it was like, I don't know, just billions of dollars of damage or something. It was just some crazy amount of damage. You know, that baby's gonna grow up and have a story to tell. You know, when my gender was revealed, you know, a large portion of the state of Arizona burned down, you know, and so that's, yeah, you know, that guy is gonna get sold and look, now there's a maximum of six years that, you know, he's only he's only gonna be sold into servitude for six years, but he's doing the full six years. All right, for that one, because he kindled a fire, he's got to make restitution. If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to keep and it be stolen out of the man's house, if the thief be found, let him pay double. If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbor's goods. So basically, somebody loans me something, right? And then I say, oh, somebody broke into my house and stole that thing that you loaned me. Now, I might be telling the truth or I might be lying, right? Somebody could just borrow something and maybe they damaged it. They destroyed it. They don't want to admit it. Oh, it got stolen, right? The inside job, you know, where they basically pretend that they're a victim of a robbery that never actually took place. So the Bible says, look, if the thief's found, then the thief pays double. It's not the owner's fault. I mean, I can't control if my house gets robbed or something, right? So you loaned me something, I've got it, I got robbed. If the thief's found, he pays double. But it says if the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, verse 8, to see whether he put his hand unto his neighbor's goods. So he's going to be investigated like, are you sure you didn't just take this stuff as an inside job, you know, and here you are blaming some anonymous thief or whatever. For all manner of trespass, verse 9, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challenge it to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges, and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbor. So if there's any kind of a lost, let's say I lose something, right? And then next thing I know, so this is a new thing, okay? So we wrapped up, 7 and 8 go together, okay? But verse 9 is a new situation, okay? This is just all manner of trespass, lost thing, which another challenge it to be his. This is like, you know, I lose my bike. My bike's gone. And then the next week, I see you riding my bike. That's my bike. And you're like, no, this is my... I've had this bike for years. That's my bike, right? So then it becomes a situation of it's brought to the judges to try to figure out the truth here. They're going to investigate and figure out, okay, is this stolen property that you have, or is it just like the thing that was lost, or is this really the thing that he lost? Does this belong to him? How did you end up with his stuff? So it's just saying, you know, investigation needs to take place. And if it's indeed stolen, then you pay double when you give the thing back. And the judges have to decide that. Verse 10, if a man deliver unto his neighbor an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it, then shall an oath of the Lord be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbor's goods. And the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good. So basically, you're borrowing your neighbor's donkey, or cattle, or sheep, or whatever. You're borrowing it to do some work with it, right? Or to use it in some way. And while you have it, it dies. Or while you have it, it gets hurt. Or while you have it, it gets driven away, meaning like it just runs off. Something scares it, it runs away, it's like, oh man, where is it? And that was the borrowed animal. Then basically, you have to swear an oath, it says, there shall an oath of the Lord be between them both, that he hath not put his hands unto his neighbor's goods. So you would go to the judges, and you would basically have to swear an oath, testifying under oath, saying, I did not do this. I didn't steal it. I'm telling you, the thing just ran off, or whatever. Or it just got hurt, and it wasn't anything that I did wrong. I mean, what if you borrowed the animal, and it just falls over? Hey, can I borrow your horse? And it just dies, right? If there was no malice on your part, you don't have to buy them a new horse, you know, if you were using it properly, and it just happened to die while it was with you. Now, if you're using it improperly, then at that point, you know, you're liable for damaging their stuff. Now, this is something that does not exist in the New Testament, okay? Because remember, the New Testament goes a different route. Because Jesus basically said, you've heard that it had been said, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths, but I say unto you, swear not at all. And then James 5 says, above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, lest ye come into condemnation. So we do not follow this particular thing. Now, look, we can learn from the Word of God here. The Word of God is instructive. The laws of the Bible are instructive. We should pattern our current justice and our current ideas of morality and ethics and business and everything, government laws, should all be based on the Word of God. But we need to understand that not everything in the Old Testament carries over into the New Testament, not everything, okay? Say, well, how do I know? Well, here's a good rule of thumb. Unless it's specifically changed in the New Testament, then we should assume that the Old Testament teaching is still valid. You know, there are certain things that have been changed. The Bible says the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law, okay? So, for example, in the Old Testament, you have all these burnt sacrifices. You have the Levitical priesthood. There are certain things that are done away in the New Testament. And one of the things that has changed in the New Testament is that in the Old Testament, you have the swearing of oaths. Whereas in the New Testament, Jesus said, I'm saying to you, don't swear at all. And James Chapter 5 reiterates that. Now, why the change? Because this is something that was abused so much in the Old Testament. So many people are lying and getting away with things by just swearing false oaths, testifying falsely, swearing on their mother's grave, and it turns out they're just lying through their teeth. There's just so much lying and abuse of this that basically Jesus tightens it up in the New Testament to just, look, don't swear at all. So in 2019, we should not swear any kind of oath whatsoever for any reason. This is why when you go to court, you're allowed to abstain from swearing. In the United States, you are allowed to do an oath or affirmation. An affirmation is just saying yes. So if they say, hey, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God, I would say, I do not swear that, but I will affirm that. I'm not going to swear that, but I will affirm to tell the truth right now. And that's acceptable because of the fact that our nation respects people's religious freedom to abstain from swearing oaths under the New Testament. Not a lot of people try to jump through all these hoops to explain why we should still swear oaths in the New Testament, but come on. Matthew 5 is clear and James 5 is clear. I did a whole sermon on it like a month ago, if you're interested in that. So it says in verse number 12, if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof. If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for a witness. You know, bring the ripped up animal and show it to us if it was torn in pieces. And he shall not make good that which was torn. So I borrow my neighbor's animal and some wild beast comes and rips it apart. And I bring the ripped up carcass and say, sorry, this happened while I borrowed it. I don't have to make restitution because it's not my fault. I can't control the fact that some wild beast came. So this is where you get in our legal system, things that are like an act of God where you're not, I'm not responsible if a storm comes and destroys something, you know, it's an act of God. Okay. So all these principles that we're reading about, we have all of these principles in our society today to some extent. Sometimes our laws follow something similar to what the Bible is teaching. Sometimes the laws are very different and the closer they are to God's law, the more right they are. Okay. But you know, these principles, these could actually just guide us even at work. You know, somebody borrows a tool, the tool breaks. I mean, you know, these kinds of things come up. Am I right guys? I mean, these things come up. So basically, you know, there could be situations where you're even as a child, brother and sister and you borrow a toy. What happens when I borrow a toy from my sister and it breaks? You know, well, let's turn to Exodus 22, sis, and let's figure out how this works. Okay. You know, because the Bible is our guide, you say, oh man, you know, Exodus, why are we in Exodus? You know, why do I need to read Leviticus? Folks, this stuff is super relevant. When somebody is breaking into your house, you better know Exodus 22. When you're borrowing stuff and it breaks, when you loan stuff out and it breaks, okay, I loan you the car and the car breaks down. Are you responsible or am I responsible? Well, turn to Exodus 22 to figure that out. Think about that now. If we're in Exodus 22 and we see, okay, if the ox gets ripped up under his watch, so basically how about this? Let's say I borrow your car and I'm sitting at a red light and somebody just slams into me from behind. Is that my fault? Do I owe you another car now? No, because it's like, dude, this wasn't my fault. I had no control over it. That's like if I borrowed the beast and the beast got ripped up. I don't have any control over that. Now let's say I borrow the tool and I'm misusing it. I borrow the car and let's say I'm driving all crazy with it. I'm burning rubber on the tires or I do that, okay, let me teach everybody something that you should never do with your car. If you're smart, you'll listen to this advice. Some people I've told this advice to and they didn't listen and then they needed a new transmission because they didn't listen, okay, because here's what it is. When you're backing out of the driveway in reverse, don't put it in drive until you've come to a complete stop. If you're rolling forward and you need to reverse, come to a complete stop. Who knows what I'm talking about? I mean, you'll see people do this all the time. They reverse out of the driveway, they're still rolling backward and just throw it in drive. That will destroy the transmission. You can't just switch from reverse to forward even at a slow speed. You come to a complete stop, all right, if you're driving a church vehicle, you're driving a church van, hey, if you want to destroy your own transmission, fine, but you know, when you back out, you stop, then you put it in drive, then you go forward or the other way around. Very important. What's that? Yeah, this is, yeah, we're talking, I don't know anything about that. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, my first car was a manual. I know how to drive a stick, all right, and when, you know, when you go to other countries on missions trips, a lot of times you have to do stick because that's what they, that's what they rent you, so my generation knows how to drive a stick, amen. My first car, I remember I learned how to drive in an automatic because my parents drove all automatics, so they taught me how to drive an automatic, but then when I got my own car when I was 16, it was a stick shift. So I spent the first few days stalling and making mistakes, but then I figured it out within a day or two. Boy, I remember going to San Francisco and the streets are like this steep. You're like, you feel like you're like in a space shuttle about to take off. You're like laying on your back at a red light in San Francisco or that street that you used to live on, Paul. Oh, Paul used to live on a street that was like this, and it was this like ignition. When that light turned green, you had to take your foot off the brake, release the cut, you hit the, I mean, it wasn't hard. It was hard. Who's ever done that before on a super steep? Yeah. All right. So, but look, let's say somebody borrows the car and they're just, they're trashing it, they're using it wrong. Let's say they get stuck in the snow. So then they just start going from drive to reverse, drive, reverse, drive, reverse, and burn up the transmission in one sitting. You can literally burn up the transmission in five, 10 minutes doing that. People are stuck. So we got to go forward, back, you know, we're going to rock it a little, forward, backward, forward, backward, you know, and all transmissions burned up. Well, you probably needed a new transmission anyway. No, I didn't. So that's your fault. So you can see how these things are so relevant. Like you could apply any of these things. And if you just kind of adapt it to our culture, you can see how all of these principles are still relevant. So except for we don't do the oath taking because people are just going to lie about it anyway and just lie under oath. And that's why God changed that in the New Testament. And you say, well, didn't God know that was going to happen? Of course he did. But see, the law was designed for people to have more integrity than they actually ended up having. Okay. Did God know that? Yeah. God also knew that the whole earth was going to be filled with violence and he was going to have to flood it. But it still repented God that he'd made man on the earth. And he didn't have the death penalty before the flood. He instituted the death penalty after the flood because of the violence that was there. So God is teaching us things by rolling out laws, showing us how they work, and then saying, okay, that's why we're going to tighten this up. You know, he showed us what the world's like without the death penalty for 1,656 or so years. And then after the flood, it's like, all right, now you understand why we need the death penalty. Okay, this is how God operates. There's nothing new with that. All right, let's keep going here. I got to hurry up and get through all this. So if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good. I'm sorry, let me back up and make sure we get the context. Verse 13, if he be torn in pieces, let him bring it for a witness. He shall not make good that which was torn. And if a man borrow out of his neighbor and it be hurt or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good. But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good. If it be an un-hired thing, it came for his hire. So basically, I borrow your stuff, something bad happens. It wasn't something that was going to happen anyway. It wasn't like an act of God that he couldn't control. Something bad happens while I'm borrowing your stuff, then I have to get you a new one, okay. But if the owner is there, like if I'm borrowing it and you're standing next to me while I'm using it and I end up destroying it and you were standing right there, well, you know, you should have stopped me because you were standing right there. You see what I'm saying? If a man borrow out of his neighbor and it be hurt or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good. But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good. If it be an un-hired thing, it came for his hire, it's saying, you know, things go wrong, things happen and you were right there, you were with me, we were working together when it happened, do you see what I mean? So you're, you should have, you know, stepped in if you felt that something should have been done differently or something here, you know. Okay, so we're kind of past that section and, you know, there's a lot of nuance. I mean, we could spend hours and hours dissecting every little nuance. I'm just kind of giving you the overview and you're going to have to study XS 22 when the situations come up and things get damaged. Verse 16, and if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, basically that's saying she's not engaged, she's not spoken for, she's not already married or promised to someone else in marriage, if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. Now, the reason for this law is that at this time in history, being a virgin was considered important. Now, unfortunately our society doesn't feel that way, but they should feel that way. Amen. And amongst God's people, it still ought to be that way. Okay. Where we would value this. Okay. So because of a woman's virginity being valued and people not wanting to marry a woman who's not a virgin, you know, they want to marry someone who's a virgin, you know, it's going to be harder for her to get a husband if she's not a virgin is basically what's going on here. So basically, if a man goes out and takes this woman's virginity, if a man entice a maid, maid there is talking about a virgin, okay, so this is not some sleazy woman or promiscuous woman. This is like a woman where she's a virgin and you deflowered this woman of her virginity. Well, because you've done that now, she's going to have a harder time getting married because now she's not a virgin, which is not considered as valuable. So basically now he has to marry her now, basically, you know, because, hey, if you're going to deflower her, then you have to be willing to marry her. So he goes out, a guy goes out and entices a maid, he lies with her, takes her virginity. Basically he has to marry her. But let's say the girl herself or her father don't want her to marry, you know, what if the woman doesn't want to marry the guy, right? Well, she doesn't have to marry him. And this is where you get the twisting of scripture by atheists. The Bible says you have to marry your rapist. Folks, this isn't rape. And they'll take you to Deuteronomy where it teaches the same thing in Deuteronomy, but in the NIV it changes it to rape in Deuteronomy. The King James doesn't talk about rape, okay, it's the NIV that wrongly translates that as rape, okay, where it says, hey, if you rape a woman, you have to marry her. You know, that's not what it's saying. If you rape a woman, you're put to death. Okay, the punishment for rape is death, all right. The punishment for accusing someone of rape that didn't actually rape you is also death. Because any time you falsely accuse someone, you get the punishment that they would have gotten for what you're accusing them of. So women who lie and say that a guy raped them under the Bible would be put to death. And the rapist would be put to death, okay. But when it comes to this, this is talking about something that is consensual, and Deuteronomy is also talking about something that is consensual, where a man and woman, you know, they're singles, they lie together, well, if she's a virgin, he takes her virginity, he has to endow her to be his wife, meaning that not only does he have to marry her, but he has to pay the dowry to her father. He has to pay like a bride price as well as marrying her. Now, let's say dad says, I don't like you, I don't want you marrying my daughter, you're a trash individual or whatever, then he doesn't have to give her. It's just that this is a one-way street, friend, does everybody understand how this works? It's one way. Meaning that the guy has to marry the girl, the girl does not have to marry the guy. Does everybody understand that? Under this system here. If her father utterly refused to give her unto him, so meaning he just says, no way, I don't want my wife, or I don't want my daughter married to this guy, this guy's wicked or whatever, he just utterly refuses. He's not like, well, I don't know if this is the best match. If he's just like, no, no, right, utterly refuses, then he has to pay the money as if he were endowing her to be his wife as a virgin, but he doesn't get the wife. He just pays the money. He's paying the money either way. If he deflowers the virgin, he pays the money, and he has to be willing to marry her. He has to marry her unless she doesn't want to or her dad doesn't want to, is what this is teaching. Verse 18, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Pretty self-explanatory. Burn witches at the stake, amen. Verse 19, whosoever lieth with the beast shall surely be put to death. Pretty self-explanatory. You know, it's funny, when I was a kid, I remember reading Leviticus for the first time as a kid and reading those really gnarly chapters, chapter 18 and chapter 20 in Leviticus. And I remember just thinking like, God, why did you bring all this up? I was kind of just horrified by those things. And I thought to myself, did God really have to tell us not to do these things? I mean, is anybody doing this stuff? Does anybody want to do this stuff? Like, you're seeing these horrific things that he's prohibiting in chapter 18 and 20. I'm just thinking like, you don't have to prohibit that. Nobody wants to do that. But then I got to the end of the chapter. And you know what it said at the end of the chapter? It said that the people of the land have done all these things. They did all the... And I remember when I first read that, you know, your first time through the Bible is a real eye-opener. You know, if you haven't read the Bible cover to cover, I strongly recommend that you do. Especially before you act like you know what you're talking about about anything, all right? So anyway, excuse me there. But anyway, the point is like, when I read that, they did all this. I remember just being like, whoa, they did all this? And then you understand why God's wiping them out. Why God's telling the children of Israel, wipe these people out. You got to utterly destroy them because they did all these horrific things. So now that we're in 2019, we're not wondering, God, why did you put this in the Bible? Because now our society is getting so degenerate, it's becoming like the land of Canaan. It's becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. It's becoming like the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and Jebusites and the Amorites. We're starting to see these horrific things that it's a shame to even speak of those things which are done to them in secret. We're starting to see these things become normalized in our society. It's very shocking. Verse 20, he that sacrifices unto any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed. I'm going to come back to that verse in a moment. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. So verse 21 is saying, look, don't treat foreigners bad. A stranger is a foreigner, somebody who's an immigrant. Don't treat them bad. You know what it's like to be a stranger. You were a stranger in Egypt, right? Don't mistreat them. And the Bible consistently teaches one law for the stranger and one law for him that's born in the land. They both have the same law. So there's no, well, they're not American citizens. They don't have any rights. Well, is that what the Bible teaches or did the Bible teach that we have the same rules for everybody, whether you're an immigrant or whether you're native born, same rules. Okay. And by the way, last time I checked, the declaration of independence said that our rights came from the creator, not government. So to me, the only prerequisite to having human rights is being created by God. You don't have to be a citizen because they'll say, well, it's okay for them to torture people that aren't citizens, you know, because the eighth amendment that says cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted, that's just talking about for American citizens. Really? And I've even heard these conservative talk radio hosts go, don't give them our rights. You can't just give our rights to these people, folks. You can't give rights to anybody because the rights came from God. It's the government's job to protect our rights that we already have from God. Okay. So don't give me this. Oh, you, they have no rights because you know, they're an immigrant or whatever. Well, guess what? They should still not be tortured. They still have rights, you know, or like what they told you, Paul, right? You're in Africa, bro. You have no rights. Multiple of our people, when they were arrested in Africa, were told, you have no rights. This is Africa. Well, you think you're in America, this is Africa, bro. You have no rights. Is that what they said to you? Yeah. So, apparently God doesn't have jurisdiction over there in their mind. Well, guess what? God is watching everything. And anywhere you mistreat people, you're going to have to answer to God, even if you don't have to answer to the government. So don't vex a stranger, don't oppress him. You were strangers in the land of Egypt, verse 22, you shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. And if thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry it all unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot. And I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. So very strong words here about not mistreating the widow and the fatherless child, the orphans. He says, hey, you mistreat them, I'm going to kill you so that your kids will be orphans and your wife will be a widow. That's very strong words here from God. Verse 25, and this is the one that I'm going to tie this in with verse 20, but verse 25 says, if thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down, for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin, wherein shall he sleep, and it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me that I will hear, for I am gracious. Now what I want to point out here about this verse where it says, if thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. A lot of people, Jews, well, they'll try to twist this, okay, to try to say, well, it's okay to lend money on usury, just don't lend it to the poor on usury. Or they'll try to twist this as, well, we just can't lend it to the people that are by us. You know, and then there are other scriptures that talk about how, you know, you can't lend it to your fellow Israelite on usury, but you can lend it to foreigners on you, like not foreigners in the land, but people that are like in another country or something, people that are not Hebrews, not Israelites, not one of the, you know, you can lend to them on usury, just don't lend to your fellow Israelite on usury. And so this is why today, you know, the Jews have this attitude that whatever they do to the goyim, it's pretty much open season on the goyim. They just have to treat each other right, but they can mistreat the Gentiles, okay. And I'm sure some of you are familiar with that concept or you've heard about that. But here are a couple of things about that, okay. What you have to understand is that the difference in the New Testament, this is another one of those things that's different in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there's a bit of an us against them mentality of the children of Israel, and then you have these nations that are enemy nations. You know, you've got nations like the Philistines that are just enemies. I mean, these are the bad guys. I mean, these are people that you're going to be going to war with. You're fighting against them. It's Jehovah versus Baal, you know. It's the people of God versus people who are worshipping the devil. And, you know, we've got to fight back these heathen hordes that are coming. This is not the New Testament paradigm. So we have to understand that in the Old Testament, there's this us against them where you've got God's people, the children of Israel, and then you have these hostile other nations where it would be okay to charge them usury, or it would be okay to sell them your junk meat. Because remember, like he says, hey, if something gets torn, you know, you can sell it to a stranger, but don't sell it to your fellow Israelite. So, you know, there's a little bit of an attitude that you can oppress. You can oppress these other surrounding nations because they're wicked, because they're evil, because they're worshipping the devil, they're not of God. And what you have to understand is that in the New Testament, that's not the system that we're under. We don't have this us against them because the children of Israel are no longer a chosen nation. You know, as far as like a physical nation where you have the physical nation of Israel, God's chosen people. Nowadays, God's chosen people is just anyone who's saved, right? Anybody who believes in Christ is elect, okay, in the New Testament, New Covenant. We're elect by believing in Jesus Christ, not by just being a part of this physical nation. And so we don't have this us against them attitude with the world that we live in. We're supposed to be kind, and we're supposed to be loving, and we don't have this attitude of like, oh, you're not an American? Well, then, yeah, let's rip you off, let's fight you, let's do whatever. No, that's not the teaching of the New Testament, okay? We're supposed to be doing good unto all men and peaceful, and we're of all nations ourselves. We're not part of any particular nation because Christians are in every nation in the world. There are Christians in Canada, but yes, there really are. No, I'm just kidding. There are Christians in Canada, Christians in the United States, Christians in Mexico. Every nation in the world has Christians. So we don't just like hate Canada, hate Mexico. We hate Iran. We hate Iraq. No, we don't because we have brothers and sisters in Christ in Iran, Iraq, Korea. We're not going to get caught up in that kind of us against them mentality because in the New Testament, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. We're not in a physical fight with the Philistines of this world, number one. But number two, just because it was legal to put out your money on usury to a foreigner, does that make it right? We already established last week that many things that are legal aren't necessarily right. There are some things in Exodus 21 that are legal that are for sure not right. Okay. Look, I believe that it should be legal to drink alcohol. But that doesn't mean it's right to drink alcohol. I think it should be legal to smoke pot. But you know what? Doesn't make it right to smoke pot. I'm not going to smoke pot. My kids aren't going to smoke pot. I'm going to preach against smoking pot. If people are drinking and smoking pot, they're going to be thrown out of the church, right? Because drunkenness is an offense that will get you thrown out of the church. And obviously, when we say drunkenness, I'm against drinking any alcohol. I am a teetotaler. But we would throw someone out for actual drunkenness, not for just having one drink or whatever. But let me warn you, you have one drink, well, you know, most people end up having another one. And they end up, you know, crossing over to drunkenness. Every Christian I've ever talked to who said, oh, I don't get drunk, I only drink socially, I've seen that person get drunk every single time of people that I actually knew in real life. You know what I'm saying? So that's a rare bird indeed that drinks without getting drunk in the U.S. Maybe in other countries they do that. But in the U.S., people tend to either like not drink at all or get drunk. In the U.S., we're kind of just on or off, you know, when it comes to our substances. Okay. So the point is, there's no us against them. We're not fighting a physical battle. And the reason I say, hey, just because it was legal doesn't make it right, because the Bible tells us that it isn't right to practice usury. Like for example, what about in Psalm 15, didn't we just sing it tonight? He that putteth not out his money to usury, right? Who's going to receive the blessing of the Lord? Who's going to abide in his tabernacle? Who's going to dwell in his holy hill? He that putteth not out his money to usury. That's why I love going to a church where we sing a song about not charging interest. Only at Faith Forward Baptist Church do you sing hymns about not charging interest, right? We are woke, you know, when it comes to the Federal Reserve and the debt-based economy. Let me tell you something. Let it not be said that we are not woke. All right. Anyway, I've got to hurry up. I'm out of time, but I wanted to tie that in also with this idea of, you know, verse 20, he that sacrifices unto any God save unto the Lord only he shall be utterly destroyed. This is another thing that's under that us against them mentality of saying, hey, if you're worshiping the God of the Philistines, you're wiped out. You know, you're going to get destroyed. That's not the New Testament teaching. We're not going to destroy someone who worships a false god. We want to evangelize them, win them to Christ, but we're not going to destroy them because we dwell amongst nations where people have all manner of religion. Okay. Now, thankfully in the United States of America, the predominant religion is Christianity, but elsewhere it's not like that. It's not Christian's job, a Christian's job in one of these countries that say a Hindu country or a Muslim country to just start utterly destroying, you know, those religions and just, you know, take up arms because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. So verse 20 is something that, again, the, the, the principle, we could still learn all scriptures profitable for instruction. We can still learn from this. What can we learn from this? Hey, worshiping another God besides the Lord is really bad. It's a serious offense. It's something horrible, but what we don't want to do is literally apply this because some of these us against them type teachings were for that time and they don't carry over into the New Testament. How do I know that? Because the New Testament specifically explains the difference and explains, you know, what our life is supposed to be like as Christians and the spiritual warfare that we're supposed to be fighting as opposed to the physical warfare of the Old Testament. And then, uh, just really quickly, uh, verse 26 and 27, we read, uh, when it says taking your neighbor's Raymond to pledge, Raymond means clothing. Pledge is like collateral. So let's say, you know, I loan you money cause you're, you're allowed to loan things. You're just not supposed to charge interest or what the Bible calls usury is actually what we call interest. Now today, when you say usury, it means a high interest rate, but in the Bible, in Nehemiah chapter number five, for example, it defines 1% interest as usury, 1% is usury. So all interest is usury in the Bible. Okay. So you can loan people stuff, but you can't charge interest. So if I, let's say somebody comes to me and says, Hey, pastor Anderson, I need to borrow a hundred bucks. I can loan them a hundred bucks, but I can't say, okay, I'll give you a hundred bucks, but you got to give me 120. I just became a wicked person right there. I just became a usurer. I don't, you know, God doesn't approve of that. So if I, if I loan someone a hundred bucks, I get back a hundred bucks. Well, why would anybody want to do that out of the goodness of their heart? That's the only reason. Now, if it's some bozo that you don't trust, or if it's just somebody that you don't want to help, then don't loan them the money. And by the way, anytime you loan somebody the money, you must be ready to kiss a goodbye because there's a good chance that you're never going to get it back. So never loan someone money that you're not willing to lose. So if you're like, well, I can't lose this money, I'm going to loan it to you, but I can't lose. Then you shouldn't be loaning it. Only loan the money that you could lose. Now that, now you borrowers out there, that's not saying, Oh, well, he was ready to lose this. Cause the wicked borroweth and payeth not again. So you know, you do want to pay it back, but no usury, no charging of interest. Now what you can do is receive collateral. So what I could do is somebody says, Hey, loan me a hundred bucks. And I said, okay, I'm going to loan you a hundred bucks, but you're going to give me something that's worth a hundred bucks and I'm going to hang onto it. And then when you give me my a hundred bucks back, I'm going to give you your item back. So that's allowed. You can do that. That's the pledge. But what the Bible is saying is don't take your neighbor's Raymond to pledge. So basically let's say, you know brother Jake he needs to borrow money from me and I say, okay, well I'm going to hang onto your jacket. You know, while you borrow this 20 bucks, I'm going to take your jacket and let's say, you know, he's so poor that he's, you know, living in a tent or he's living outside or something. And you know, and basically he doesn't have the money to pay me back. And he's like, I need my jacket, you know, I'll give it back to you in the morning. And I'm just like, nope, where's my 20 bucks. So the Bible is saying, you know, don't, you don't take somebody's jacket as collateral when that's what they need to survive. You don't take their food as collateral. You know, you, you take something that they can do without, right? So he says, don't take your neighbor's Raymond to pledge. And if you do take your neighbor's Raymond pledge, you deliver it to him by the time the sun goes down. Right? So that he can put that on and stay warm because otherwise what's going to happen? Hey, that's his covering only. It is his Raymond for his skin. Wherein shall he sleep? And it's so come to pass when he cryeth unto me that I will hear for I'm gracious. If you do this and he cries out to me, I'm going to punish you. Okay. Now, why is it saying that's what he's going to sleep in? Because what people would do in ancient times, they would have like a giant warm cloak, right? They would wear a warm cloak and, and even soldiers have done this on the battlefield for millennia, but you know, you're out in the wilderness, you're traveling, you got your cloak, right? And at night you just wrap yourself in that coat, like a sleeping bag and sleep in it. Okay. A big thick, warm cloak. So in the daytime, it's like your, your coat. And then at night, you know, it's something to keep you warm. Look at verse number 28, thou shall not revile the gods nor curse the ruler of thy people. The word gods, anytime you see gods with a lower case G plural, we're talking about false gods. Okay. Because there is only one God that's a real God. So when you see the gods, this, the gods, that what does the Bible say in Psalms? All the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. And the Bible says the things which the Gentiles offer and sacrifice unto idols, they sacrifice to devils. So when you see gods here, these are demons is what they are. When you see false gods, they're actually demons. And you say, well, why is the Bible saying don't revile demons? Well, what does the book of Jude tell you? The book of Jude says that we should not bring a railing accusation against the devil. So if we should not bring a railing accusation against the devil, it makes sense that we should not revile the gods or speak evil of the rule of our people. So that's what that's saying. Verse number 29. Thou shall not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors. Liquors means basically liquid is what that is. This would be like juices. It's not saying like, you know, give God of the, of the Jack Daniels or whatever. That stuff wasn't even around back then. Hard liquor was actually invented in the middle ages. So distilling alcohol and producing hard liquor is a more modern phenomenon than the Bible. In the Bible, they had wine and strong drink, but it was not what we would call liquor today. What we call liquor today is a, is an alcohol content that was actually impossible back in those days. You know, when you think of the vodka and the Jack Daniels and that kind of stuff. And again, I don't have time. An alcohol sermon is a whole nother sermon. Thy liquors, the firstborn of thy sons, shalt thou give unto me. Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, with thy sheep. Seven days it shall be with his dam, his mother. On the eighth day, thou shall give it to me. And ye shall be holy men unto me, neither shall ye any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field. You shall cast it to the dog. So give God of the first fruits. Give God the firstlings of the flock. In all things, he must have the preeminence. And don't eat stuff that you don't eat road killed. Amen. All right. Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and thank you for all the many things we can learn from this chapter of just miscellaneous rules and statutes, Lord. Help us to form our views on morality and right and wrong, justice, righteousness. Help us to get those things from your word and not to just make up our own version of what's right. Let's base it on the word of God, and thank you so much for giving us the Bible that could teach us these things. And thank you so much for the New Testament that has brought in a more excellent way in many areas. And it's in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.