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All right, so Leviticus chapter 20, I'm sure you're all wondering what we're gonna be preaching on this morning. Actually, I'm gonna be continuing on with the series I started last week regarding human government and it kind of makes the most sense to segue from last week's sermon in this week's series just by covering the death penalty, just all the crimes that carry a capital punishment. We've got a lot of scripture to look at, but before we even get started, Leviticus 20 probably has the most crimes listed within one chapter that have to do with the death penalty, which is why we started there. But before we even get started, if you want to turn really quickly to Hebrews, keep your place here, because we're gonna be going through these verses quite a bit, to Hebrews chapter 9. I want to point this out from the very start, because if you remember from last week, I made the point that when it comes to establishing rule of law and human government, that what better source should we be looking to than God's Word, than the Bible? How else are we gonna determine what's right and wrong? How else should we learn how to judge things, judge what's an appropriate punishment, judge what is appropriate for even just being against the law? How should we determine these things in human government other than going to God's Word? God's Word is timeless. This wasn't just good ideas for a nation of Israel for one small segment of time in history, especially when it comes to these moral laws and the things that are just right and wrong and things that are so bad that if you break these, God says you deserve to be put to death. That's a very serious crime. It's something that God hasn't changed his mind about. But I just want to point this out before we go any further, because as we will be looking at all of the instances of the death penalty being carried out in Scripture, it's important just to make this real brief distinction, and this is gonna be useful coming up as well, is that while the vast majority of the law is still good, there's certain aspects of the law that have changed. And in Hebrews 7, in verse number 12, the Bible reads, For the priesthood being changed there is made necessity a change also of the law. And the priesthood changed from being under the order of Aaron to Melchizedek, and of course Melchizedek was a representation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our high priest, and because the priesthood change is made of necessity a change of the law, and in Hebrews 9, we get a real brief summation of the changes in the law just to help identify, because people want to just say, oh, well, there's a change of law, so it's just all gone. It's just all invalid. Oh, the Old Testament's just no good anymore. And that is completely ridiculous, because the areas that have changed have been spelled out for us in the New Testament, which is, you know, if you were just to take a step back and just logically think, if God's gonna expect us to understand His Word, wouldn't you just expect to see, well, unless God repeals it and says something specifically about it, then wouldn't you just normally assume that, well, that must just be the way it is? I mean, that's the way that just makes the most sense, and it not just doesn't make the most sense. That's just the way that God did it, too. I mean, you know, there's no point in having to reiterate and restate things from an Old Testament to a New Testament. It all stands unless, unless God says so, and here's a perfect example of this. Hebrews 9, look at verse number 8, the Bible says, the Holy Ghost is signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing, and that first tabernacle is representative of the law, right? That was the tabernacle that was built according to the law of Moses, and he had the Ark of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, and all the rest of the law that was given unto Moses. That's the representation there is that tabernacle, and it says in verse 9, which was a figure for the time then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices. In what? In the temple. The temple, there was offered gifts, there was offered sacrifices, right, that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. So even back then when the tabernacle stood, and obviously this has more to do with salvation and stuff like that, but we're going to see in the next verse what has actually changed. We see from this verse, even back then, those gifts, those sacrifices, those animal sacrifices, they didn't make the person perfect, they didn't cleanse them from their sin, it didn't actually pay for and remove the sin that they've committed. It was there, why, verse 10, which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation. Those things were a symbol, they were symbolic of what was to come of Jesus Christ, but in verse number 10 it says that those things, what, the things pertaining to the tabernacle, because there's lots of ordinances, there's lots of laws regarding the sacrifices, how they perform the sacrifices, whether they're burned, how they cut them up, how they administered everything, there's lots of laws given, and we're not going to spend time, as I go through human government, we're not going to go through all of those laws explaining, they're not supposed to be part of today's laws, so I'm not, we're going to omit the dietary restrictions, we're going to omit the laws on performing the animal sacrifices because these were things that stood, it says here, and they were imposed on them until the time of reformation, reformation means reformed, right, things were changed a little bit, obviously this is referring to a reformation, but it's not, it doesn't mention everything, it doesn't say everything changes, there's certain things that stood, meats, right, what you eat, those are the dietary restrictions, drinks, same thing, divers washing, so all the things regarding, you know, the, I don't want to call them necessary rituals, but what the priest had to do with all the washings and stuff, that changed. The carnal ordinances, carnal means fleshly, so having to do with the flesh, with the preparation of the meat, right, those are the carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation, so these are the types of things that have changed, and when we look at the law, especially for capital crimes, you're not finding these types of things in general that have been changed, now there is one or two areas that have changed, and we'll address those as we go, but I just wanted to bring that up from the beginning, that it's clear, we see there is some change, but just from that one verse, and I could preach an entire sermon, I've done it before, where you kind of go through all of the differences and the changes to the law, and I may end up doing that again near the end of this series, but for right now, I want to focus, just because there's so much material anyways, on these capital crimes, let's go back to Leviticus chapter 20, so you can see from that summation in Hebrews, that these things haven't changed, these are the types of laws that should still be in effect, because God would still feel the same way about it, because they didn't pertain just to the priesthood, right, so the priesthood being changed had no bearing on whether or not a murderer should be put to death, that had nothing to do, that wasn't specific to the order of Aaron, right, that's just wrong, telling a lie, it's still a sin, right, there's still things that are wrong and a sin, and when it comes to punishment, there's no reason for it to have changed, so let's start reading here in Leviticus chapter 20, we're going to go through this mostly verse by verse, but I only want to touch on the capital crimes, because I don't believe that everything that's mentioned in Leviticus 20 is a capital crime, but the ones will tell specifically that the people ought to be put to death, look at verse number 1, the Bible says, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, whosoever be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death, the people of the land shall stone him with stone, so right off the bat, we're seeing not only a death penalty, but how that's supposed to be carried out, it's supposed to be stoned with stones, and this is anyone who's going to offer, this is their seed, it's talking about their children, a child that they're going to offer, pass through the fire as a human sacrifice unto a false god, now even in today's society, I think that most people would be just fine with saying, yeah, yeah, that's going a little too far, I think that that would be appropriate to put a person like that to death, that if they're going to offer up their child as a human sacrifice, that that person deserves to be put to death. Okay, I'm not going to spend too much time on that, that's the first one, and if people do that today, I believe the government ought to put those people to death, and this is interesting too, because as we get into this, we're going to start losing believers, and who I'm most concerned about today, I'm not as concerned with trying to teach unsaved people why we need to listen to the Bible, and have that guide our laws, and appropriate punishments for crimes, because they're going to reject God's word anyway, I don't care about that, what I care about are the believers, people who at least claim to believe the Bible, people claim that this is the word of God, that they believe in the perfect law of the Lord, they believe in the Bible, they believe in Jesus Christ, okay, let's look at God's word, and if you don't think, and here's the thing, I challenge anybody who listens to this online, or even sitting here today, you know, if you're just fine with what we just said here, or if you're just fine somewhere else with any of these other capital crimes, but then you don't agree with other ones, why not? Why not? Ask yourself that, can you be consistent? Now, if you have a reason from scripture that says, well, in this situation, this has actually changed, because you know, and you could turn to scripture and back that up, then I can say, you may have a valid case, you may have a valid point, and you know, that's worth looking into, but if you don't have that, but you just don't like it, and you just don't think it feels right, and I just don't see how that should be, that's not a valid point. You have to be able to at least turn to some scripture. Now, I'm not gonna be able to have time to go into all of the various reasons that people will give. Some people will say that, oh, and actually, I didn't have this in my notes, so I better cover it right now, because I intended on doing this. Some people will say, well, in the New Testament, capital crimes are abolished, that no one should be put to death for any reason, right? And they'll turn to things like the woman taking an adultery and say, well, see, Jesus said not to put her to death, but that's not what Jesus said. I've gone over this in sermons past, so we're not gonna spend a lot of time on that this morning, because what did he actually say? He says, well, hey, he is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her, right? So what did he actually say? He actually said, well, go ahead, put her to death. Now, obviously, he's teaching things, obviously, he's making a greater point, obviously, there's much more to that, but he didn't just flat out say like, no, she doesn't deserve death penalty. And of course, they were trying to trick him in his words, they're trying to be able to arrest him, they're trying to bring accusations against him. He answered it wisely, he taught a point, that at no point in that story did he ever say, death penalty is just no longer a thing now, even though it was a thing, even though God felt that people commit these crimes deserve death penalty, they no longer do anymore. And at the end of Romans chapter one, we have a New Testament saying, in verse number 32, who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but a pleasure in them to do them. Right there, we see these people who commit these crimes are worthy of death. There is no repeal of, oh, they used to be worthy of death, but now they're not worthy of death anymore. In the book of Romans, I mean, that's after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I mean, that's how much more New Testament do you need to get? Jonathan, pay attention. How much more do you need to get as far as New Testament? Obviously, we see there just a reference to the people being worthy of being put to death. And how could you have that unless you believe that that should be a human government punishment, right? Make sense? All right, let's continue on here. In Leviticus 20, verse number three, and I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he hath given of his seed unto Molech to defile my sanctuary and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do anyways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech and kill him not, then I will set my face against that man and against his family and will cut him off and all that go a whoring after him to commit whoredom with Molech from among their people. So now, not only is he saying that person deserves to be put to death, he's saying, if you just hide that person, if you just try to ignore it and pretend like, well, we don't want to deal with this at all, this is unpleasant, I don't want to have to carry out this, then God's going to bring judgment on you, is what this is saying. God's saying, hey, you deal with this. This is what's appropriate. This is what the law is. This is what you need to do in this situation. And if you're not going to do it, then I'm going to bring a curse on you, then I'm going to judge you and anyone else that's going to go along with this wickedness. Now, obviously, that part of it isn't part of the human law. That's God just making sure that things are going to be handled if the people are just ignoring what they're supposed to be doing. God treats this very seriously. Let's keep reading here. Verse number six, and the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people. So when we see these statements here, like in verse six, this is God saying against the people that are following these people. He says, I'm going to cut them off from among their people, but this isn't the law that's being established. So the law, and we'll see this later at the end of the verse, the people who practice, you know, the wizards, the witches, and the people who have familiar spirits, those are the people that are by the law supposed to be put to death, but the people that follow them aren't getting that same crime being brought against them in a criminal court because God's just going to deal with those people. And we see that as we go through this. It's important to look at the law very closely if we were going to understand how we would implement such a thing in our system. Let's keep reading here. Verse number seven, sanctify yourselves therefore and be holy for I am the Lord, your God, and ye shall keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord, which sanctify you. And again, before I even continue, last week I mentioned, you know, there's a lot of things that are sinful and there's a lot of things that are wrong. There's a lot of things that are not expedient, you shouldn't do, but they're not all crimes that ought to be punishable, you know, in a human government. So there's lots of things that are sinful and that God will judge you for, but they're not intended on being laws. Okay, so just keep that in mind. That would be one of them, of people who go after those who are wizards and things like that. Those people, they're going to be judged by God because that's sinful and wicked and wrong and you have nothing to do with that, but that's not an actual crime that he was implementing, that, oh, you went to this person, now you're going to be, you know, brought up on charges. Verse number 9. And here's one, remember, we started off with someone who's going to give a human sacrifice and sacrifice their child and pass their child through the fire. That person deserves to be put to death. Well, look at verse number 9. For everyone that curseth his father, his mother, shall be surely put to death. He hath cursed his father, his mother, his blood shall be upon him. And I said most people wouldn't have a problem today saying, yeah, if someone's, you know, killing their child and passing them through the fire, people don't have a problem with the death penalty on a person like that. By and large, most people wouldn't have a problem with that. Say, yeah, that guy deserves to die. But then we get to verse number 9, so what about the person who curses his father or his mother? Now, cursing doesn't mean just using some four-letter word, but cursing is a curse where you're wishing and intending evil and bad upon somebody. And the Bible says that that's so wicked, that's so wrong to do that to your father or your mother, that if you curse your father or mother, you deserve to be put to death. And you know what? Don't think that you're somehow more loving or more compassionate than God is. Oh, I can't believe that we ever, you know, this is the perfect law of the Lord, and this is what God has prescribed to someone who would curse father or mother. And this should help us understand how important it is and how much respect that we ought to have for our parents, especially as we get into a society where children are lacking respect for their parents more and more continually on a daily basis. This is one of the reasons why we're in the shape we're in today, and this is a whole other sermon. I don't want to get too far on this because we're dealing with a death penalty, but just yesterday we went out. It's for my daughter's birthday. We went and went to a place as an urban air, as a park, trampoline park, all this stuff, and there was just tons of kids all over the place. And one of the things I just observed was how few children One of the things I just observed was how few children are being raised properly these days, like being raised with manners, being raised to, you know, be able to wait in line, to be able to take turns, to be able to just operate and function just in the way that you'd expect them to be able to have to function when they become adults, right? And as the day grew on and as more people came, I mean, it literally started to look like just a bunch of animals running around with just no control, no supervision, kids just doing whatever they wanted. It was really disturbing at how many there were because I was able to observe some kids were doing what was right, you know, and you can see they're playing the way they ought to be playing and having self-restraint and self-control to be able to enjoy themselves and have fun and run around and still be able to play, but do so in a manner that is appropriate. And, you know, that's a whole other story I could get into all of the reasons behind that, but one of the big things is that these days you see children not respecting their parents enough, right, and not listening when their parents tell them not to because parents aren't disciplining children the way they ought to be, parents aren't involved with their kids the way they ought to be, they're giving them devices to let them go off, you know, I could go off on a rant on all these issues, but when we go back to this, and because people are getting so used to this concept that, oh, yeah, well, kids are just going to do whatever they want to do now and it's just accepted, instead of saying no, they ought to be disciplined and raised appropriately, people will hear this law and say, oh, someone curses their father or mother, that's a death penalty, that's not that big of a deal, that happens all the time in my house. And, see, the more common things are, the more normalized it gets, the less people, the more extreme something like this is going to sound, whereas God's saying, no, that is a really bad thing, that's so bad that, you know, that person deserves to be put to death. And if we could align ourselves with what God says is right and righteous, how much better off people would be, I mean, just the concept, now I'm not saying all those kids I saw were cursing their parents, I'm not saying that at all, it has to do, though, with just this raising of kids in a society that embraces something like respecting your parents, honoring your father and mother, and having that as a core value as something that's extremely important for the family, being exalted, being promoted, and being, you know, raising your kids in that fashion, that impacts many other areas. And if you had a law like this, where someone, you know if you curse out your father and mother, you deserve to die, that's how serious of a crime this is. According to the Bible, that's a capital crime, and you know what I say to that? I say, amen. Would to God that we could institute laws like this in our society. God had it right. We don't know better than God. And if He says that that's appropriate punishment, then I believe it. Verse number 10, and the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulterous shall surely be put to death. And again, people might look at these laws and be like, whoa, that's crazy. Do you know how many people will be put to death? Yeah. Yep, I sure do. But you know how many less people would be committing adultery if this was actually a law? Be very good prevention. I'm not saying it would eradicate it. You're never going to eradicate sin. You're never going to eradicate people doing wrong things. That's not going to happen. But you can definitely have an impact when you have punishments like this. Now, obviously, you can't take that to extremes and say, well, everything should have the death penalty. No, that's ridiculous. It's not appropriate justice or judgment. But see, that's why we go to the Bible. Again, God is a God of judgment. God is a God of justice. He tells us what's right and wrong. And someone that commits adultery against their spouse deserves to be put to death. Amen. I say amen to that too. Would to God we could have that as one of our laws. Let's keep reading. And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. And this is just continuing down. As we continue through this, you're going to see the levels of perversion just grow and grow. And God's saying, yep, these people need to be put to death. It is that serious of a crime that it deserves the death penalty. So this is a man taking his father's wife, which that is, that's disgusting. That is something that should never happen. It ought to be revolting. But I'll tell you what, all of these things that we're going to be reading here, as our society grows more and more wicked, it's just going to become more normal, more accepted. These are going to be the types of things that before they become normal, they're going to start pumping out through the movies, through Hollywood, through all the media that you can receive. They start pushing the filth and perversion before it actually becomes normal. They did that with sodomy. They did that with the homosexuality. They tried to pump it on in all your sitcoms and all your movies and everything that you see after a while. You get to the point of like, well, can I watch anything with it? No, you can't because it's an agenda that's trying to be pushed, which is why you shouldn't watch that filth and that garbage. And don't set that wicked thing in front of your eyes and have nothing to do with it so that you're not going to be influenced. You're not going to be brainwashed by the world, by Satan's plan to get you to just tolerate and accept all manner of wickedness when God has such a severe punishment against such things. I don't want to get close to that. I don't want to be reveling in or enjoying or being entertained by people who are doing these things that deserve the death penalty and just having that displayed as not that big of a deal. Because I could see it right now, just some drama of, and it probably already exists, of some son who takes his father's wife, right? And there's this whole drama, but they love each other and have all these different reasons and they'll go into how it's really just a big mistake or how it's not that bad or whatever when it ought to just be revolting and disgusting. But hey, love is love, right? Isn't that what we're getting taught today? Love is love. If a son loves his mom, love is love, right? No. That's perversion. That's disgusting. And according to the scripture, the person ought to be put to death. That's how bad it is. It's not a slap on the wrist. But let's continue. Verse number 12. And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have wrought confusion. Their blood shall be upon them. Same type of thing. Just going the other way now. Daughter-in-law. Your son's wife. That's wickedness. That's perversion. God says no. You don't want something like that to spread. That's so bad. That's death penalty. And that thought never ought to even cross your mind. Which, I mean, that's bad enough, but then to actually act on it and do something like that, God says no. Then we get to verse number 13, which of course drives everybody crazy these days. If a man also lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. And you know, one of the things that we hear today, too, and that I hear, the comments that I get, because I scream loudly about the sodomites, the homos, right, and how wicked they are. They're abominable and that they ought to be put to death. If we had a righteous government, if we had a godly government, if we had a government that cared about God's laws, this would be the law of the land today. But then what do people say when they're kind of like, oh, well, what about this and what about that? Well, you know what, this is a great sermon for those people to listen to, because I say amen to those things, too. I say amen to the adults who are being put to death. Yeah, I'm not just picking and choosing, oh, well, you just don't like us because we're different. No, I don't like you because you're involved in perversion, you're extremely abominable and wicked, and God says that what you're doing deserves a death penalty. That's why. You know, I don't like adulterers either. They're wicked crimes, and they ought to have just punishments given for the crime. People say that it's, they want to say, oh, is it a crime to love someone? It's a crime to do these acts, and whether or not you can understand that, I don't care. That's what God said. Just as much as it's a crime to commit adultery. Well, they're too consenting adults. They may be consenting. They're going to be consenting under the death penalty, according to God's law. Verse 14, and if a man take a wife and her mother. I mean, this is, you know, a lot of these things, you just, you know, I would think, like, why do we even have to have laws like this? But the longer we go in our society, the more I see, because people just don't get it. God has to spell it out for us, and things that ought to just be common sense and common knowledge and that shouldn't even be crossing the minds of people are listed out here, and God just saying, nope, death penalty, nope, death penalty, nope, you know. A man take a wife and her mother. It is wickedness. They shall be burnt with fire, both he and they, that there be no wickedness among you. Verse 15, and if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death, he shall slay the beast. Like, I mean, it's just, it's, I don't know if it can get any worse. Like, this is just so filthy and perverted, but you know what? This is what's going to be promoted also. Again, you can use the same motto, love is love, right? Billy Bob loves his goat. Should we just let him get married? Should we just let him get married? No big deal. Tolerance, right? Tolerate it all. Who are you to judge? Who are you to judge, huh? Yeah, you can take that on anything, right? That's how stupid it is. Who are you to judge? You know what? Who am I to judge? Nobody. Who's God to judge? God is the judge. God's already judged. Let's go off of God's judgment. He's already outlined it for us. Why don't we use this? Why don't we institute this? Now, again, when I say why don't we use this, I'm not saying why don't we as a church go out and start executing judgment on people and carrying out sentences, okay? Just so I'm very clear about that we're not, that's not what we're talking about, because that's not the context of this either. When we're setting up human government, there ought to be an execution. These are laws that ought to be put in place, and if we had a righteous judgment, we would do those things, and I brought it up last week, so I'm not going to go too far in depth in it as far as the level of care that goes into like a proceeding of being diligent, to find out the facts, of having the witnesses, to even be able to execute a death penalty judgment upon somebody. I went over most of that last week, so I'm not going to do it again today, but that applies to all of these things, right? Just want to make sure that that's well understood, that this isn't just vigilantism, this is what's being established as law, law and order, and this is why I believe the law and order we ought to have today, that Israel, the nation of Israel wasn't just some special people that only they should have these types of laws, because at the end of this chapter, or not this chapter, but the Bible says that, you know, that the heathen that are around about you, they're going to look to you and be like, wow, what a wise people is this? They have these great laws that are just so wise, and they're going to see that you obviously have understanding and wisdom to have laws such as these put in place, and I believe that would still stand for today, because if you think about it, everybody knows, every normal person knows that these things are wicked. Sodomy, bestiality, whatever, all this stuff, and we become an embarrassment and a laughing stock to the world when we don't have appropriate judgment and punishment. Yeah, there are some wicked people in high places that cause for these things to be allowed and to be acceptable, but the vast majority of people don't agree with this stuff at all. They don't want that being done. They don't want that being done in front of their face. They get it, and especially those that read the Bible, they ought to get it. Let's keep reading, verse number 16, and if a woman approach unto any beast and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast, they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. If a man shall take his father's daughter or his mother's daughter and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness as a wicked thing, and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people, he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness, he shall bear his iniquity. Now, I don't believe that every time the Bible says that a person should be cut off that it's referring to the death penalty, but sometimes it is, and I don't think I have that in my notes today, so we'll go over that another time, but let's jump down, because I'm specifically only dealing with where the Bible very clearly says that they're going to be put to death, their blood shall be upon them, so let's jump down to verse number 22. The Bible says, ye shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them that the land, whether I bring you to dwell there, and spew you not out, and ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you, for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. Them, who's them? All the people. God hated the people of the nations that were in the land before he brought the children of Israel in, and this is why, just another just brief rabbit trail here, this is why, if you don't understand why God commanded when the children of Israel came into the promised land and the Canaan and the Hittites and the Jebusites, the Gerzites, and all these different people that were there, why did God have them annihilate and just wipe them out and wipe everybody out and God wanted all of them destroyed? It's because they had gotten to this level of wickedness in their society that they had done all these things. They were doing all of these things. They were committing bestiality. I mean, that's how perverted and sick that these nations had become, that they'd just become this cesspool, so God just says, you know what, judgment. It's just like when he wiped out the world with a flood. It's just like when he rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities that were round about, because they had gotten so vile and so wicked that God just said, judgment's coming. And that's the way it is. And you can see, as you read through scripture, God outlines in his law how they ought to conduct themselves in battle, if they go to battle against other nations, that they don't just annihilate them, that they're fighting appropriately in all the other situations, but with this group of people, because they had done these things, he said the land's gonna spew them out of their mouth. That's why the judgment came upon these people. And we see that here. They have done all of these things, all the things that you would think shouldn't even have to be listed in God's word because it's so weird and perverted and bizarre. They were involved in all of it. And my friends, this is where we're headed. I don't know how long it will take until we actually get to this point and get so bad, but when the Sodomites are just being completely tolerated, not just tolerated, but promoted, they're the ones pushing this agenda. They are the God haters. They're the children of the devil that are going around trying to just spread their perversion. They're implacable. They will never be satisfied. It used to just be, oh, well, we just want to be out of the closet so we don't get persecuted. And then it was, well, we just want to be able to marry someone. And then it's just, well, we just want to be able to have younger children. Oh, well, we just want to be able to have animals. Well, we just want to be, well, we just want to, and you just keep on pushing the line further and further. If you haven't seen that, you're blind because that is exactly what they're doing. It's never good enough. And they've gone from wanting to be accepted to now persecuting those that don't agree with them. They were never bold enough to go after the Christians and go after the people that, you know, oh, we just want to be accepted. That's all we want. Now they want your job. Now they want my job. They've already cost me to lose one job. That's how backwards things are. Because I believe the Bible and they're perverted and wicked. And people are scared of them. They're scared of the homo mafia. They're scared of their name being publicized. You know what? I'm not scared of that. And if it's for the right cause, if it's for the word of God, I don't care if men speak all manner of evil against me falsely for Christ's sake. I say, amen. Go ahead and do it. Put me in good company. Because they didn't speak that well of the apostle Paul. They didn't speak that well of Jesus Christ. They didn't speak that well of Jeremiah. They didn't speak that well of Isaiah. They didn't speak that well of the prophets of God. So go ahead. You don't have to speak well of me either. And the Bible says, woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. Because God's word offends. And if you're preaching God's word, people will get offended. It may not be the point or the goal, but it will happen. It's a sure outcome. And then jump down to verse number 27 there, Leviticus 20, where it's a man, also a woman, that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death. And this is where we see that law. Remember we saw earlier the people who go after them. God's going to judge them. God's going to go after them. But here specifically, we see you've got a familiar spirit. You're a wizard. You shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them. And again, I say to a culture that embraces things that are wicked, embraces people that ought to be put to death according to God's law. What do you say about Harry Potter? What do you say about Lord of the Rings and all these people that are just promoting wizards and witchcraft and magic? And you're going to get your entertainment through this when God says these people ought to be put to death. We shouldn't have a soft spot for all this stuff, for all this magic and all this mysticism when God says these people are worthy of death. Get your heart right with God. Get your heart right with the law of God. You should hate the things that God hates and love the things that God loves. And stop getting your pleasure and entertainment from the world and just allowing them to influence you so much to think that, oh, this stuff isn't that big of a deal. Who cares? Isn't it interesting how they always target the young age, too, the young kids? That's why we don't let our kids do any of the Disney stuff at all. There's magic in like every single one of them. There's always these magic fairy godmothers and all these other things. And you say, well, what's the harm in that? The harm is that you're contradicting the word of God. When God's saying this is actually a really big deal and it's important and you should have nothing to do with this and stay away from it, what we're doing is teaching children, oh, this is cute and fun and interesting and enthralls them with the idea of magic so that way when they grow up, it's not that big of a deal to them. And then they can turn to the astrologers, they can turn to the stargazers, they can turn to these people and end up having damage on their own life because God will judge them for that. And get involved in spiritual wickedness and darkness because that's the reality of it. You see this white magic, oh, this is good magic. No, there is no good magic. God says not to get involved with any of it. And if you've got a wizard that doesn't say, oh, the bad wizard's a wizard's a bad person, you know, they're all bad. Flip over to chapter 24, Leviticus chapter 24. We're not going to get through all these, I don't think, unless I could hurry up. Leviticus 20 was the main one, but there's still plenty of other crimes that aren't listed in Leviticus 20 that the Bible talks about deserve the death penalty. So I'm going to try to hurry up a little bit quicker through this. Look at verse number 10. This has to do with blaspheming or cursing God. This was a law. This was part of God's law. You want to respect other religions or whatever, but the Bible says just like you shouldn't be cursing your parents, right? That's the death penalty. You also shouldn't be cursing God, blaspheming God, because that carries the same sentence. Look at verse number 10. The Bible says, and the son of an Israelitish woman whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel, and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp. And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses, and his mother's name was Shalomith, the daughter of Dibrai of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in ward that the mind of the Lord might be showed them. So they wanted to go and get God's counsel. God, what should we do about this? I mean, this guy, he blasphemed the name of the Lord and he cursed. What should we do? Verse 13, and the Lord spake unto Moses, so this is God's words, saying, bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp, and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. See, I don't like that. Take it up with God. I didn't write this book. It's my job just to preach it and deliver the message and say, hey, this is what happened. This is God's law. If you wanted to stay ignorant, then don't read the Bible if you don't like it. I don't want to be ignorant. I want to know what God thinks about these things. And you know what? I don't think God's changed his mind about people that blaspheme his name and curse him. I think he still has the same judgment. Does that mean he doesn't want people to get saved? No, and I think that's another folly that people have. Oh, but we should want to have everyone. We do want everyone to get saved. That's why we preach the gospel to people, but the Bible never says that in order for everyone to get saved, you should have zero law and zero consequences. Jonathan, sit down and pay attention. You have to have laws. What would our society be like with just no laws? That would be ridiculous. You have to have laws. Well, if we're going to have laws, how should we decide what should be against the law? Well, let's look at the Bible. Blaspheme in the name of the Lord, according to God, carried a death sentence. Verse number 15, and thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying whosoever cursed his God shall bear his sin. And he that blaspheme in the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death. And all the congregation shall certainly stone him, as well the stranger as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death. Flip over to Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy chapter 13, and we're going to read something here that, again, I'm going to stand with the Bible on this, and this is another interesting aspect or interesting scenario, because I've been called, because of my stance on homosexuality, and well, my stance on God's law, ultimately, but specifically with homosexuality, that's what people get nuts about. One of the things that people say is, oh, you're the Taliban, right? Oh, you're just as, why? Because Islam believes that homos should be put to death, too. Well, you know what I say? Amen to that. Now, obviously, Islam's a wicked religion, and ought to be condemned, and is sending people to hell, and everything else, right? I don't condone of Islam at all. So don't take this the wrong way, but the thing is, though, what's interesting is when you see people who hate Islam, they often hate it for the wrong reasons. They hate it because they don't like some of their laws, and some of their laws actually line up with the Bible, and I was just having a discussion with someone the other day who goes to a church that's they invite all these different religions in, and they said it's very new age, right? And they'll invite in rabbis, and Buddhists, these monks, and whatever, you know, and all these different people, and they don't have a problem with any of that, and yeah, we like all the good that they teach, everything else. They said, and then they told me, well, and then they brought in this Muslim, you know, but that was just too much, and because I know what their religion teaches, and the thing that they brought up was the fact that Islam teaches that the infidel should be put to death. How unchristian? Well, we're not going to see, you know, the infidel being put to death here, but it's something kind of similar to that. It's not the same thing. It's not someone who just doesn't believe, right? But what's funny is that people just don't read their Bible, don't understand a Bible at all, and they make these judgment calls, and it's like, do you know who God is? When God institutes death penalty, I mean, we saw blasphemy in the name of the Lord carried his death penalty according to God, yet the same people, if they were to read that or hear that, if they were to hear that, they say, oh, how unchristian, until you tell them, you know, that's actually from the Bible, right? You can read these, they'll probably think that many of these verses are from the Quran if you don't tell them you're reading Bible because they don't even realize what they're reading. They just get brainwashed into thinking a certain way and just like to have their ears tickled and that everything's good. But look at Deuteronomy chapter 13. We're going to see here, there's a law of people who would compel you to serve other gods. So someone who's evangelizing and proselytizing to serve a false god, to draw you away from the Lord unto another god, the Bible says that person deserves to be put to death in God's law. Let's read it. Deuteronomy chapter 13, look at verse number one. The Bible says, if there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, let us go after other gods which thou has not known and let us serve them, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. So basically if this guy comes up and he's able to have these visions and then it comes to pass, see, look, this is the power of God. But he's trying to get you to go serve other gods. God's saying, don't go after him. He's lying to you. Don't believe him. Okay, yeah, he was able to perform something or some trick or whatever, but don't believe him because God's saying, you know what, I'm just trying to test you. See, if you really are going to be loyal to me, if you're really going to stick with me, if you're just going to go around and follow anyone that comes along that can show you a trick or two, right? Verse number four, ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. That's, I mean, that's a very serious thing. If you think about it, people being brought away from the Lord their God, God's the one that's going to save their soul from hell. You think about how much damage the person does that's going around and trying to convert people to some false religion. They do tons of damage. And that's why the Bible says too, that we're not supposed to receive someone into our house that's going around and preaching a false gospel. We're not supposed to bid them Godspeed. We're not supposed to say, Oh, well, I respect your religion. And I agree with what you're doing and shake their hand and wish them a good day. No, that's why when the, when the Jehovah's false witnesses come to my door, you know, I often will try to, to, to convert them and get them saved and I'll give them an opportunity to hear the gospel, but see when they usually come out, they don't come out to listen to you. They come out to teach you. Now I still try to give them the opportunity. I still will. We'll say, Hey, well, you know, and try to take over the conversation and show them how to be saved. But if they're not going to have it, you know what I do? I curse them because the Bible says, if anyone come unto you that preach any other gospel than that, what you have received, let them be accursed in Galatians chapter one, as I said before. So say now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that, what you have received, let him be accursed. I'm not going to bid them good day. I'm not going to say, God bless you. I'm not going to say any of that stuff. Why? Because they're preaching a false gospel and trying to convert people to be children of Satan and to go to hell. And the Bible says that the people that go out and these prophets, these false prophets that go out and try to convert people to worship other gods, they ought to be put to death. Verse number six, if thy brother, the son of thy mother, the son of thy daughter, excuse me, or thy son or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou has not known thou nor thy fathers, namely of the gods of the people, which are round about you, nigh unto you or far off from thee from the one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the earth, thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him. Neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him. So, I mean, God's getting, he's getting real detailed in his commandments saying, look, if it's your brother or your daughter or your son or your really close friend, I mean, it doesn't matter how close they are to you. This is that serious. And he wants to just emphasize, look, when I said this previously, I meant it, that applies to everybody. And even if they come to you secretly trying to say, hey, you know, look, there's this, there's this God of these people over here and you know, we need to go serve them. We ought to, you know, you don't tolerate that. It says not to conceal him, but look at verse number nine, even beyond that, but thou shalt surely kill him. Thou, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people. That's a very choose you this day moment moment. If you're going to love God more than anybody else to be able to, to follow through with that and to, and to be really serious about people who are going to try to lead people away from the Lord and, and end up damning, you know, countless souls to hell. Verse 10 and thou shalt stone him with stones that he died because he had sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of land of Egypt from the house of bondage and all Israel shall hear and fear and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. And, you know, there's all these people who, you know, do these studies and try to say, oh, well, that's just not really effective anyways, because I believe God's word. If God's word says that they're going to hear and fear, and they're not going to do that type of thing anymore. I believe that. Now, of course you always have the outlier, right? There's always the one person that needs to be the example, but you know, what this is saying is that this is going to do the prevent, preventative maintenance against people trying to draw them away. This is way better than the no soliciting sign, right? Because people ignore that anyways, but the, you know, the Bible says that if that, you know, that when they hear, they're going to hear and fear and do no more such wickedness. Verse number 12, if thou shalt hearsay in any one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell, they're saying certain men that shall nobility are gone out from among you and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city saying, let us go and serve other gods, which he have not known. Then shalt thou inquire and make search and ask diligently. So here we're seeing, you know, this is a serious matter, but you don't just get a mob and, and just start hanging people up, right? No, you inquire, you make search, you ask diligently behold, if it be truth and the thing certain, right? There's no doubt. This is certain. This is happening that such abomination is wrought among you. Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly and all that is there in and the cattle thereof with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof and shout burn with fire the city and all the spoil thereof every wit for the Lord thy God. And it shall be in heap forever. It shall not be built again. And there shall cleave not of the cursed thing to thine hand that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show thee mercy and have compassion upon thee and multiply thee as he had sworn under thy father. See in order to get the mercy from God, you need to execute the judgment that God prescribes. People might think they're being real merciful to these other people, but if you're merciful under the people that God doesn't want you to be merciful to, you're going to bring judgment on yourself. But if you execute the judgment that God says, then you will get mercy from God. That's the way that works. Alright, I'm going to try to hurry up here. Deuteronomy, you're in Deuteronomy 13, just flip over to chapter 21. Deuteronomy 21 verse 18, this is about the stubborn and rebellious son. This is not talking about a three-year-old, a four-year-old, a five-year-old that's just a child acting up. This is talking about someone who's an adult, someone who knows better, someone who's old enough to be, well, we'll see this as we get in context. Verse number 18, if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken him. So this is someone who's extremely, I mean, you've been disciplining them. It's not working. They're not listening. It doesn't matter. They're being chastened. And the child is just so hard-hearted and stiff-necked that they are just obstinate. They are rebellious, right? It's not, oh, they did something wrong, but then they're corrected and they're, you know, they're getting back. This is someone who is stubborn and rebellious. Verse number 19, because obviously every child, even teenagers, you start growing up, get older, end up doing things that are rebellious, but this is talking about, you know, not your average case of someone, oh, they just get a little rebellious and whatever. This is someone who's stubborn and rebellious. It doesn't matter how much you discipline. They're not going to listen at all. And then continuing on here, it says, verse 19, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him out under the elders of his city and under the gates of his place. And they shall say unto the elders of his city, this, our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. Look at this. It says he is a glutton and a drunkard, just a little bit further to prove it's not talking about a little kid. Someone who's being called a glutton and a drunkard is not referring to some little child. This is referring to someone old enough to become a glutton and a drunkard, right? This is a rebellious son, not listening to anything, not listening to anyone to say they're a glutton. They're lazy. They're a drunkard. They're good for nothing. They're just not obeying their parents, not listening to them at all. And it says in verse 21, all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he die. So shall thou put evil away from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear. Again, I'm going to say, amen to that. I do believe that that ought to be the law of the land. Chapter 22, we have a story of a woman that basically is claiming to be a virgin at marriage and was not. So there's a fraud going on with a wife. It says in verse 13, if any man take a wife and go in under her and hate her and give occasional speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her and say, I took this woman and when I came to her, I found her not a maid. Obviously he was expecting her to be a maid. A maid means a virgin. Then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity under the elders of the city and the gate and the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife and he hadeth her and lo he hath given occasions of speech against her saying, I found not thy daughter made. And yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity and they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city and the elders of the city shall take that man and chastise him and they shall immerse him in 100 shekels of silver and give them unto the father of the damsel because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel and she shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days. So this is someone, if someone were to say, oh, you know, he ends up regretting getting married to this woman. For some reason he hates her and now he wants to get out of it and say, oh, well, when I came unto her, she wasn't a maid. And this also just goes to show how serious, you know, even, you know, raising children and raising them right. And, and, you know, parent, you know, children respecting their parents and parents actually caring enough to raise their children right to have someone, no, no, my daughter was a very, look, I watched out for her. I protected her. I, you know, I kept her from these things. She was pure. You know, we've got the proof here that on the wedding day, you know, that, you know, without going into detail, she was a virgin. We've got the evidence. So, you know, the Bible saying basically, you know, he can't divorce or nothing's going to happen to her. And actually he is going to have to pay for that because he's trying to bring a bad name on one of the daughters of Israel. But look at what it says in verse 20, but if this thing be true, so he's not lying and say, no, this is actually what happened. And the tokens of Virginia be not found for the damsel. Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house. And the men of her city shall stoner with stones that she died because she had brought folly and Israel to play the whore in her father's house. So shalt thou put evil away from among you. So again, we have a situation here. She was brought up in her father's house, you know, said to be a virgin and everything else. And she wasn't, she played the whore. The Bible says that this is an appropriate punishment for that situation. That's serious. Much, much different than the culture that says, oh, well, kids are just going to do it. So we might as well just give them contraceptives. Oh, we might as well just, just enable them even further just to do, well, we don't want them getting hurt. Well, how about we don't want them getting hurt, like seriously hurt. And especially with, according to God's law, like we ought, we ought to be, even if these laws don't exist, we ought to be raising our kids and we'll be living as if they did exist. That's the standard we ought to be living by. What I mean by that is, you know, we, this, this ought to be such a big deal that you're going to make sure that your daughters stay pure, that your children stay pure, that they're raised right. That you're making sure these things wouldn't happen, even though it's not the law of the land, it doesn't need to be the law of the land for us to do what's right and to behave ourselves and to live and to operate as if it was the law of the land. And we look at these things that deserve the death penalty and, and we ought to be treating them as abominable, as hated, as despicable as, yeah, we're not going to have anything to do with that. So in our today, in today's land, does a wizard get put to death? No, but that's why I take God's teaching on that and say, you know what? We're not going to, we're not going to have that stuff. You're not going to watch that stuff. This isn't good. This isn't right. You're going to learn what's right, according to God's law. And even though the government may say it's just fine, even though the government doesn't have a problem with it, we do have a problem with it because God has a problem with it. And then of course, continuing on in chapter 22, we get into adultery and we get the same exact punishment there. Let's jump down to verse number 25, because this has to do with rape. Rapists, I also believe ought to be put to death, not incarcerated, not put into prison for five years or 10 years or whatever. They ought to be put to death. Verse 25, but if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field and the man force her and lie with her, then the man only that lay with her shall die. But unto the damsel, thou shalt do nothing. There is in the damsel, no sin worthy of death. For as when a man rises against his neighbor and slayeth him, even so is this matter. So basically, because right before that, it's talking about a woman who is found to be in agreement, committing adultery with someone, right? Because what happens is oftentimes you can have someone say, Oh, well I was forced when they weren't really right. So the Bible outlines in the verses preceding that how, no, I mean, if you didn't scream out, if you're not crying for help, you know, you can't just turn around and say that it was not consensual, right? So, and this is just the way that the Bible deals with understanding that and showing us even more importantly, that there's a difference between someone who's doing something consensually and obviously someone who's not, because it's very clear, you know, it's just like someone getting murdered when someone gets raped. I mean, it's against their will. It's totally wicked. It's totally wrong. She didn't do anything wrong. It's not, you know, she's not being punished for anything. The person who's forcing is the one who's going to be put to death. Man, I'm gonna try to get this real quick. Exodus 21. It's the last place I'm going to have you turn. There's just too much. Which really, it's because I'm taking a long time kind of explaining and preaching on it. It's not that there's just so many laws that deserve a death penalty. I'm kind of extending it a little bit longer, right? If I just went through, you can look through this list and, you know, maybe I'll just do that. I don't have them all highlighted like I do and I don't have them all highlighted in chapter 20. But you've got blaspheming and cursing God. You've got compelling others to serve other gods. You've got working on the Sabbath. I didn't bring it up. I skipped over that one. That one deserved the death penalty also, but that one is something that has changed in the New Testament that we don't have to esteem one day above another and that the commandment to not work on the Sabbath day has been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. He is our rest. The Sabbath day was a picture of His rest, a whole sermon in and of itself, but that is another one that deserved the death penalty. Someone working on the Sabbath day, according to the Bible, be put to death. Stubborn and rebellious son, a woman claiming to be a virgin when she's not, adultery, rape. And then I brought this up last week, the difference between murder and manslaughter. So if someone has intent and someone wants to do harm to someone and wants to kill them, that's murder. That's premeditated murder. That's first degree murder. That deserves a death penalty, but manslaughter does not. I went into more detail last week about the person who's able to flee into a city, the slayer, the manslayer flees into a city of refuge to be able to say, no, no, it was an accident. I didn't mean it. And all that goes around. So I'm not going to go over that today. Exodus 21 verse 15, talking about someone who smites their parents, someone who hits their parents and says, and he that smiteth his father, his mother shall be surely put to death. And in the context of everything else, it makes sense. If you curse your father or your mother being put to death, right? Well, if you're going to hit him, if you're going to strike him, where you're going to punch your father or mother, the Bible says you deserve to be put to death. Now, again, this shows you the level of respect that God expects there to be within a family. And when we see things so, I mean, just so you might consider severe, right? To have such a punishment, we ought to look at that and say, this is how the family ought to be operated. That's level of respect you need to have. That really is important. It's important to God. It should be important to us as well. I mean, do these things happen? Sure, they happen. But again, that's one of those things that would happen a lot less when you have laws like this in place. It's going to force people to restrain themselves or force children. I mean, this isn't talking about the one-year-old that's like flailing their hands around or the two-year-old that, you know, this is talking about someone who's more grown, someone who's going to, maybe, you know, maybe an older teenager that wants to have it out with dad because he doesn't like what dad's telling him. He doesn't like dad's rules. So he's going to take dad outside and show him a thing or two. That's wicked. It's extremely wicked. And having a law like this in place is going to put that son in his place. So you don't do that. And of course with all of these things, if we were to actually implement any of these things, it's not like we're going to go backwards and say, oh, you were guilty of this. You know, obviously whatever the laws were at the time is what you get punched with. But moving forward, what you would like to see is say, okay, well, here's the new laws. We're reinstituting God's laws. And that's what's, you know what? Try to convince me that it's not going to be this way when Jesus Christ comes back to rule and reign for a thousand years on this earth. What law do you think he's going to implement? Do you think he's going to look to the U.S. Constitution as his source and guidance of what's right and true and what proper judgment and justice should be? Or any other nation for that matter? Do you think he's going to care what kings and rulers have thought and instituted in their governments? He's not going to care about that at all. He's going to go off the Word of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. It's already been determined what's right. He's going to establish what's right. That's why the Bible says he's going to rule with a rod of iron. Yes, Jesus. The same Jesus that everyone, you know, that people have their own visions about who Jesus is, the Bible says he's going to rule with a rod of iron. There's going to be no flexibility in the law. The law will be the law. And again, you know, having a law doesn't change your desire for people to get saved. It's just important to have a law. Smiting parents, kidnapping, verse 16, and he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall be surely put to death. Amen. I think our kids would be a little bit safer. If the person who's going to steal them gets caught, they're going to die. And you look at the human trafficking, look, this is a real thing. I know this is going on, and I know Atlanta is actually a real big hub for that. There's a lot of that going on around here. We're close to Major International Airport. And I'm reading stories of this stuff happening even near, in grocery stores near where I live in Lawrenceville, like there's this, you know, at this Kroger, and at this place, and at that place, and at Walmart. There's people who are being stalked and followed about looking to steal people, looking to kidnap people. And who knows what their intentions are? It doesn't matter, according to the Bible, it doesn't matter what their intentions are. You're going to go steal somebody, you're going to die. And then again, we have another reference here to cursing parents, verse 17, he that curseth his father, his mother, shall be surely put to death. Verse 22, we're going to see killing an unborn child also deserves a death penalty if it was intentional. Yeah, how would we apply that today? Hmm, I don't know. Do we know anyone that intentionally have children killed? Yeah, they're called abortion clinics. We have doctors that stick instruments up inside women and kill babies, kill unborn children. According to the Bible, they deserve the death penalty. Look at verse 22, if men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, fruit is her child, 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 shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. And what that means by mischief, that's basically saying whether it's intentional or not, whether it's something that he was trying to do. You can't just say, oh, that was an accident, someone punching a woman in the gut or something to try to kill that child, try to cause injury and damage because you're mad, you're in a fight or whatever, and someone does something like that. I've heard of it. I've known people. I went to high school with someone who kicked their girlfriend or whatever because they didn't want to have the baby, and it's disgusting and disturbing, and you know what? That person deserves to be put to death because you're a murderer, and that's why the Bible says there life for life because the unborn child is alive. It's a life. It's a human being, and that's why the only reason why it wouldn't be life for life is because it was unintentional the same way that manslaughter is not life for life because it wasn't intentional. It's an accident. It didn't mean to happen. Now, it doesn't mean there's no punishment, but there's a big difference between the two, between murder and an accident, and it's completely consistent here as well with the unborn as well as with anybody else. Verse 28, we've got a negligent animal owner for an animal that's known to be violent, another death penalty. Verse number 28, 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, but the owner of the ox shall be quit. It means you're not going to hold him responsible. There's an animal that ends up killing somebody. Well, they're an animal, so we've got to kill the animal first of all because you don't need animals that are going to be violent towards other people and people losing lives in saving an animal's life. Kill the animal and don't even eat it. Just have nothing to do with it. That's what the Bible is saying. You know what? That's wicked, done, but it's an animal, so you kill it, but look at verse 39, but if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past and hath been testified to his owner, so the owner knew about this saying, hey man, this ox is violent. This ox is trying to kill people. This ox is doing things. This is out of control. You know this, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or woman, the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. You know, we might not have an ox today, but how about a dog? How about a dog that's been known to just bite people and maul people, and then you let that dog out and that dog goes and attacks a kid and kills him? You deserve to be put to death. That's what the Bible is teaching right there. Put it in today's terms. That's how it would be most applicable today. Your pit bull, your whatever that goes out, and you know, hey, if it wasn't known to be violent in the past, you know, that's one thing, but if you've already known that this thing is a violent animal and it's already done these things, you deserve to be put to death for that. You're responsible. And then Leviticus 22 brings up other things we've already been over. I brought this up last week, but the person who's not going to obey the judgment of the judges, right, they're just going to presumptuously say, ah, whatever, I don't care what you say, Bible had that being a death penalty as well. We saw that last week. And then the last thing, which isn't, this has to do with the Levitical priesthood, the Levites were the ones solely responsible for the tabernacle of taking up and putting it down. And it says that the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. So if there's someone else who's not supposed to be doing that, that was a death penalty for that as well. But obviously that's another one that would be changed because that's under the Levitical priesthood and not under the new priesthood with the change of the law. It's a pretty comprehensive list. I don't think I missed anything in my list of death penalty crimes, but obviously other than the few that you can say, yeah, there's been a change in the new Testament, I believe that these laws ought to be instituted today, that our government should have these laws, that these should be the proper, and many of them already are against the law today, not all of them, unfortunately, but this ought to be the proper punishment. They'd be capital crimes because who are by or who are you who to say they shouldn't be and to say that you know better than God knows. Unless you can show me why the Bible says that shouldn't be the law anymore, as I was showing with Levitical, with the priesthood stuff, if you can show me something like that, I'll listen to that and I'll agree with whatever the Bible says, but I don't see that in scripture. Not on all these things, no way. It's about where I just have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the perfect law that you've given, Lord, and I pray that you please help us to understand these laws. I pray that you please help us to have the right mindset about them, dear God, and that we would live our lives as if they were the law or that we teach our children this way, dear Lord, that we'd watch out for the influences of the world that are going to try to teach them the exact opposite of what your law teaches, dear Lord, and I pray that you please just bless the church. Bless us as we go soul-winding this afternoon, dear God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed this morning.