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In the Old Testament, they had the tabernacle, and they built this structure. God gave them all of the criteria that they needed. They had a temple, they had the place where they burned the sacrifices, and He describes all the things in there. There was all this stuff, all these things they collected from over the years. They actually took some of the manna, when the children of Israel were walking through the wilderness, and God fed them with manna from heaven, and they would go out and eat that manna. They saved a little bit of that, and they put it in a container, and that went into the holiest place, and Aaron's robbed that budded, God brought forth this miracle, because there was a lot of people questioning, okay, who's going to be the ruler, who's truly in charge here? There was never a doubt, but these people were trying to usurp Aaron's authority, and God said, okay, bring me a rod for everyone that thinks that they should be in authority. God made Aaron's rod to bud, basically it's a stick, it's not a tree or anything, it's not alive, and God made it to bud and to bring forth leaves or whatever. All these different things, all these different articles, they were kept, the Ten Commandments, all this stuff was kept in the holiest of all. He's saying, look, they had the first covenant, they had all these ordinances for the service, these people that were doing the service, they had to do it a certain way, but all of the things that they did, they did these sacrifices, they had to keep on doing them, time after time, year after year, once a year the high priest would go in and offer the blood, but these were all just figures. God had a specific way for how He wanted it laid out and designed because it was a pattern for things that are actually in heaven. So the tabernacle that was on earth was a picture of what is actually in heaven, so when Jesus Christ came and He offered up Himself once as the sacrifice, all of those things that they did, all the rituals that they did, they weren't in vain, but they were rituals showing this is what's going to happen one day and it's going to happen one time and it's actually going to happen in heaven. See they had this sanctuary on this earth and they would do it and it was just a picture, it was just a constant reminder, it was over and over again saying look, there's this sacrifice, the blood has to be shed, blood has to be shed to pay for these sins, and that's why He said for without shedding of blood there is no remission, there's no remission of sins. But we already saw this morning that the Bible says to deal with the blood of bulls and of goats can't save you, that is not what's going to save you. So what was the shedding of blood that we needed was the shedding of blood of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ died and when He resurrected, when He went back up into heaven, He sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat in heaven, which is exactly what they did here on earth with the blood of the bulls and the goats, showing that look, this was all just a picture of what Christ was going to come and do and fulfill that prophecy. Now what we're going to get into, and that's one of the reasons why we don't do these sacrifices and stuff now, because that has been fulfilled. So all these aspects of the law that God gave us, a lot of them, once they're fulfilled, there's no reason to observe that anymore and to do that. It served its purpose, and the purpose was for that time. Look down at verse number nine, it explains exactly what I'm saying here, it says, which was a figure for the time then present. This was a figure for them in that time in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience, which stood only in meats and drinks and divers, washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation. So he lists off a few things right here in verse number 10, saying that these were imposed on them until the time of reformation. Reformation is a reforming, okay, restructuring. And this is what he did, and these things that are mentioned here, these are basically it. This is the basic changes that we see between the Old Testament and New Testament. We're given a list of things that were temporary under the Mosaic law that we just saw in verse number 10, and those are meats and drinks. So in the Mosaic law, they were not allowed to eat many types of food. Many types of animals were considered unclean unto them. And if you go back in the Old Testament and read it, there's a lot, I mean, God lays out and says, you know, you can't eat this, you can't eat this, you can't eat this, these are unclean. You can't eat it. You can't eat shellfish, you know, you can't eat whatever. There's all these different dietary restrictions, and they had a meaning, they had a purpose. Okay, I'm not going to get into all the purposes of these different things. Today, it's a little bit outside of the scope of the sermon, but that was something in the Mosaic law that God said, you can't do this, you're not going to eat this. But in the New Testament, those meats and drinks, those restrictions have been lifted. Now, prior to the laws of Moses, you know, the times of Abraham and before that, there were no restrictions on food and eating, okay? After the flood, at least, before the flood, it was basically they were eating plants and stuff like that. After the flood, they were able to kill beasts, and God didn't put any restrictions on what they were allowed to eat. The Mosaic law comes, he says, okay, these are considered unclean to you. And the reason why he did that is because he's teaching them something. He's showing them. It's a pattern. And you want to teach them that, but then, at the time of reformation, when Jesus Christ came, when he came and fulfilled these aspects of the law, okay, that time is over. We don't have these restrictions anymore. The other restrictions were in divers' washings. So you read a lot, especially with like the plagues of leprosy and other things, there's all these different rules and washings that they had to follow, and you know, in preparation for sacrifices and whatever, there's different washings that they had to do. It says in carnal ordinances, one of the carnal ordinances would be like, you know, I think of circumcision or, you know, carnal just means fleshly, you know, things of the flesh. Carnal ordinances. Ordinances is part of the laws that just kind of have to do with those fleshly ordinances, and also with the preparing of the sacrifices, that carnal flesh that you get from offering up the sacrifices. Those were all until the time of reformation. Now there's a few other new Testament passages that we're going to turn to. Let's see. Go ahead and turn to Romans chapter number two. You've got the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and then Romans. Now I'm going to read for you from Colossians, because there's a few other new Testament passages that will specifically say what else was done away, besides what we saw here, which meats and drinks, divers, washings, carnal ordinances, those things were for the time then present. He specifically writes it out and says, look, that was for that time. It's no longer until the time of reformation. In Colossians two verse 16, the Bible reads, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink. Again, same thing that was repeated here in Hebrews nine or in the respect of a holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. So now what he's adding to that, he's saying, look, a holy day, a new moon, or the Sabbath days. These are also things that was required of the children of Israel. There were certain feasts that they had to keep every year. There was a few different times throughout the year where they had these feasts and they had to make sure, I mean, they went to these feasts and they participated in them and it was something that they had to do. They had holy days and then they also had the Sabbath. Now the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest. And again, this is something that God needed to teach them. The Bible says, it's one of the 10 commandments to obey the Sabbath, to recognize the Sabbath. And the Sabbath just means seventh, so the seventh day, they were not allowed to do any work. They weren't allowed to do anything basically, they just had to rest. And what God was teaching them with that, which we can see in other places, again, that's kind of a whole other sermon in and of itself, is that Jesus Christ offered us rest. Salvation comes through faith, it's not of our works. We have to stop working and we rest in Christ's finished work. Christ did all of the work. So that Sabbath kind of helps to signify that, look, you do absolutely no work and you completely rely on Jesus Christ, He does all the work, He did all the work. And that's a real side note briefly, when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, you know, He was in the grave for three days and three nights, the Bible says, those three days that happened to stack up before the first day of the week when He rose again, they were all a Sabbath or a holy day. They're all days that just happened to work out, there was three consecutive where nobody was supposed to be doing any work at all according to their law and according to these ordinances while Jesus Christ was dead in the grave. Just amazing, one more proof that, you know, God did all the work for us. While Jesus Christ was doing the work for us, while He was paying for our sins in hell, no man was supposed to be doing any work for those full three days that He was dead and then He rose again and work could commence. But this is another one of those things, I mean, it tells us right here that Sabbath days, no man should judge you of those, it says, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Again, those are things that were a shadow, those were things, those were ordinances that God imposed for a specific reason to teach them, they were part of the law, but when Christ came and rose again, those things were fulfilled. They no longer need to be recognized anymore as part of the law because they've been fulfilled. Another thing that's been done away with in the New Testament versus the Old Testament is circumcision, okay? Now I'm going to read this for you too, you should be in Romans, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 18 it says, is any man called being circumcised, let him not become uncircumcised. Any called uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the commandments of God. And in Romans 2, look at verse number 25 here in Romans 2, the Bible says, for circumcision barely profited if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker of the law thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Look, okay, you know, you want to obey the law and the commandments, sure circumcision will profit you if you keep all of the law, if you keep all of it. It says, therefore if the uncircumcision, in verse number 26, keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision, and shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law. For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Now what does this always mean about circumcision? Well, in the Old Testament, and again we can go back to the last verses we read this morning about Abraham. God introduced circumcision on male children back in Abraham's day, and it was a sign then. Now Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. The Bible clearly states it was before he was even circumcised, and the reason why this is even coming out in the Bible is that in the time of Jesus Christ, there were people that were teaching that you had to be circumcised in order to be saved. This had to be something that you observed and that you did, because it became a part of the law back then. God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision. It was something, again, there was teaching behind it. There was something that they were sanctifying themselves. They were separating themselves from the rest of the world, and one of the things that they had to do was circumcise the male children on the eighth day, and that became part of the law. It was something they were supposed to obey, and it was another commandment. But again, circumcision is not what saved people back then. We already saw this morning that it was through faith, and you see as we kind of go over these things, you understand why we had to cover that this morning of salvation has always been by faith, and I really had to get that hammer down because these things that keep coming up, oftentimes they're being dealt with because people thought that you still have to do these things or you have to do these things in order to be saved. We never had to do them for salvation, but they were still part of the law, and he said, look, no, it's not for them. He said, look, if you want to keep all of the law, then yes, get circumcised too because that's part of the law, but it's not going to prop you of anything if you break the law, which we've all broken the law and everybody does. Circumcision, it says, is nothing. Uncircumcision is nothing. That's another thing that was taught, and that's basically about it. I mean, there might be one or two things that I'm missing, but as far as things that were changed in the law, that's essentially it. That's what the Bible lays out. So why is it that we still have people today that teach, they say, hey, you know what? We don't need that Old Testament. And here's what they'll say. They'll say we're free from that law. We don't need to, you know, the law doesn't matter for us today. That was only for the Old Testament. They'll use a scripture, you know, that says that was a picture of the time then present. But they kind of group all of the laws together. They don't realize, hey, look, there was only a few things that are listed off there, you know, meats, drinks, divers, washings and carnal ordinances. They'll say, no, no, no, we don't need the law. We don't need to worry about it. And they don't think that any of the laws apply to us today. There's a lot of people out there that believe this. And you're in Romans two. Flip a few pages to Romans chapter six, because this is the, this is one of the verses that they'll typically use, even if they don't know they're using it. And most people who believe in this doctrine really don't know their Bible very well. But they just know some catchphrases or some snippets of verses, which, hey, it sounds good to them. And you hear something, you hear it over and over again. Sure, it sounds great. Most people don't like to do the work and actually learn the Bible for themselves. But you ought to, you ought not to be ignorant of God's word. God expects all of us to be able to know for ourselves what he has for us and not to be easily deceived by others. Look at Romans six, verse 14. The Bible says, for sin shall not have dominion over you for year, not under the law, but under grace. And they'll stop reading right there and they say, okay, cool. Yeah, look, we're not under the law. We're under grace. Great. That sounds good. Cool. All right. I guess we don't need the law anymore. So we can do whatever we want. God's not going to care. Hey, we're under grace. And people call us the age of grace and that we're free from the law. Now, what is it? Just a total lack of understanding of what he's talking about. Yeah, we're free from the law in that we're free from the curse of the law. We're free from, from having to spend an eternity in hell for the sins that we've done. But it doesn't make the law null and void. It doesn't mean we don't have to obey it or we shouldn't, or we shouldn't honor it or respect it or try to live by it. It just means that the law was not part of salvation, but it doesn't mean it's just good for nothing because look at the next verse. They'll stop reading after it says, Hey, we're not under the law. You're under grace. Verse 15. What then shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace, God forbid. So say, look, just because you're not under that law or you're not under the curse of the law, you're under grace. That doesn't mean you should still go out and continue to sin. And here's the funny thing is that the Bible says that the, basically the definition of sin is transgression of the law. If you transgress the law, that's called a sin. And you can find that I'm not going to turn there. I have them. I don't plan to have a real big, my nose, but that's basically in, um, in first John chapter number three, verse number four, if you transgress the laws that, that that's what sin is. Sin is the transgression of the laws where the Bible says. So shall we sin? So I'll get to, I'll get to that point a little bit. I got that in my notes. I'm getting ahead of myself. Um, people want to just throw out the entire law and that's, you know, that's a silly belief too, because if you think about it, you say, oh, we're not under the law. We're under grace. Well, do you think that thou shalt not kill has just done away then in a new testament because we're under grace? I mean, you can see how ridiculous that is. How would you, how would you then decide, okay, well, no, no, no. Cause they'll say, oh no, no, no. That, you know, of course you shouldn't kill anybody. Well then where do you draw the line? How do you decide which, which rules, which laws are good for today and which ones aren't good for today? The only way you could do that is through God's word and through the scripture we already saw. And then there's also those that believe that, no, we should be following all of the commandments from the old testament. You know, we should be obeying the Sabbath. We should be doing the, you know, performing these feasts and being part of that. We should be circumcised. And some people might even think we need to be doing animal sacrifices. Most people don't, they won't go that far, but a lot of people say, no, no, no. We have to, you know, the Torah, the law, like we really have to do all of this stuff still today. But again, that's, that also is clearly not a scriptural because we already saw that this stuff was done away. The Bible says not to judge anyone in respect of holy days or of Sabbaths. We don't need to keep those things. They were just for the time then present and they're done away. So what is it then? What do we believe? What, what things do we, what do we look at and what things do we not from the old testament? What do we have to observe? Basically, unless something has been specifically removed or changed and has been called out so in the new testament, then it should still apply today. And, and because the thing is, the Bible doesn't have to repeat itself in the new testament just, just to say, yeah, it's still good in the new testament. Why would God have to do that? The assumption should be, look, everything is still the same unless we say so. If I say, no, actually that's changed, then it's changed. And we read, I think just about all the verses. I mean, I studied this out, but, um, I don't want to say that I completely didn't grab a hundred percent of everything, but that's essentially it. And, and look it up for yourself and see if I'm missing anything. But see, most Christians today, most, most people want to ignore the law. They want to, it's because they want to, and it's because they just don't like, they either don't like what it says because either they're doing it or someone else is doing it and they just don't like it and maybe they're guilty of it and they just, it's something they don't want to hear. So it's easier just to say, oh yeah, well, we don't need the law than it is to actually do something about it or, or, you know, accept that even though just, just to humble yourself and say, okay, wow, the Bible says is I really shouldn't be doing it. It's a lot easier just to push it off. Oh yeah, that was just the old testament. We don't need that today. And it makes, it makes people just lie to themselves basically and want to continue doing whatever it is that they're doing. Now here's something that's not very popular today and brother Romero and my good friends, he used this recently in the sermon that he preached. So if I'm going to go ahead and reuse it, cause I like, I like it a lot. Go ahead and turn to Leviticus chapter number 20. So we're going to look at some of these old testament laws. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus is the third book of the Bible right near the beginning. We're going to look at Leviticus chapter number 20. Cause if you were to ask people today, right in this day and age, if they would consider it to be like a wicked thing or perverted thing for a man to lie, to lie down with a beast, as you normally would lie with a woman, people would say, yeah, that's pretty disgusting. That's pretty messed up. That's pretty wicked. That is not quite, that is a weirdo. People would say that today. I still think we're at that point. I don't know. Things are getting really bizarre, really weird in this world, but I think that people would probably still have that mentality by and large or the same thing. If a man were to take a wife and to lie down with his wife and with her mother, like both that's sick. Okay. That's weird. That's pretty extreme. Now these are pretty extreme things, right? Wouldn't you say that's pretty extreme stuff, but those are laid out in Leviticus chapter number 20. Now, would you think for some reason that God has it in his mind that, Hey, yeah, that's, that was just old testament because you know what? Those things aren't repeated in the new testament. God doesn't tell us again, Hey, bestiality is wrong. He doesn't say, Hey, don't lie with your, with your wife and your wife's mother. It doesn't tell us that in the new testament. But do you think that those have just been done away? That's ridiculous. Well then what about this? Because here's something that's going to get people in today's day. Look at verse number 13. Cause those two verses that I just read that are those two instances I was just talking about, those are found in verse 14 and verse 15. Like let's look at the verse right before that in verse 13. It says, 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. Now in this day and age, a lot of people don't like to hear that, but I'll tell you what God has not changed how he feels about that. A man lying with another man is disgusting and perverted. It's an abomination and they ought to be put to death. That's what the Bible says. It's wickedness. It's sin. It is not something that we tolerate. It's not something that we accept. It's disgusting. It's perverted. God put the death penalty on it for very good reason. He hates it. It's an abomination. He hates it just as much as he hates someone lying down with a beast. If you notice there, you can look at verse 14. Look at verse 15. The punishment is the same for all three of those things. Their blood shall be upon them. They ought to be put to death. They'll be stoned with stones. That's the judgment that God put upon those sins. Those things have not changed in the New Testament. I don't care how much this world changes. I don't care how much people say we ought to accept this and say, no, no, it's just an alternative lifestyle. It's wickedness. It's garbage. And you know what? There's just not enough good people standing up and preaching the truth and telling it the way it is and telling it the way it is from the Bible. A lot of people say, oh, no, no, that's just Old Testament. Why are you trying to bring us back under the law? If I say people shouldn't be committing bestiality, am I trying to bring you back under the law? God's law, He meant it for a reason. He wrote it for a very good reason. Yet that will offend people. That offends, I mean, that drives people out of churches. Just what I said right there, this one little thing. And you think, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that wouldn't be driving people out. That was the norm. To understand that, that's weird. That's wicked. That's perverted. But now it's just this world is becoming so evil and so corrupt and so wicked that it's just becoming accepted and their voice is getting louder and louder and people are just not standing up for it, not standing up for the word of God. Now, it's also important to note that the Old Testament gives a lot of laws that the children of Israel were supposed to use to establish their government. So what we're reading here in Leviticus 20, God lays out like all these laws. And this is how they were supposed to establish basically their government, how they were supposed to run things and how they did things. Now, I just want to make sure I'm clear. They had judges, right? God was supposed to be their king. God was the law giver. That's why He's giving them the law here and says, look, this is the perfect law. This is what I want you to follow. This is what I want you to obey. He made up the laws. Today, we kind of make up our own laws, but they're not necessarily based on God's laws. God is perfect. God laid out the law. This is what He wanted him to do. And then He set up judges. He established judges, right? Their system of government is not exactly like ours today. There's a lot less bureaucracy. They just had that God's law and then they had judges that were able to judge. When a dispute arises, when somebody commits a crime, it wasn't upon them to take the law into their own hands and just execute judgment, just anybody. They had judges that were established to find out the truth about a matter and say, okay, they'll do the research. They'll look up and say, okay, we've got two or three witnesses here saying that this happened. This is true. Here's the evidence. Here's what happened. And then they could judge. And then after they judge, they'll say, okay, well, God's law says they're guilty. Well, they need to be put to death or whatever it may be. And that was the system of government they had. So I'm not saying today that, yes, here's the thing. God still feels the same way about this. God hasn't changed His mind about that, about any of these things, any of these laws. He hasn't changed His mind about it. He's still very serious about it. But when He tells us their blood shall be upon them, they should be put to death, that also doesn't mean, of course, that we should just be going out and taking the law into our own hands and just executing judgment on people because that's the way that God's law was laid out. These are laws that were laid out for established government to carry out those rules. And if we had a godly, righteous nation with godly, righteous laws that obeyed this, that is what we would be doing in our government today. And that's how we would have judges that would be able to determine this. And this is the just recompense for their error, for their sins. Now, we're going to look at this. There's a lot of things here in Leviticus 20, we're not going to leave this just yet, that have the death penalty in it. Now, if God thought a crime was so bad that it deserves a death penalty, do you think that He's just completely changed His mind in the New Testament? If it's that bad, think about it, that's a severe punishment. You can't really get any worse than that unless you're sick and decide to torture somebody. But God does not torture people. That's not something He does, at least not in our government here. People get tortured and tormented when they go to hell. But in our government, the worst penalty you can pay is death. That's the worst thing you can do. So if God thought a crime was so bad it deserves a death penalty, there's no way He's completely changing His mind about it. The only things that changed had to do with basically the Levitical priesthood, which was the people who kept the carnal ornaments and basically how they conducted their service for God. Because they're the ones that would do the sacrifices and do all this stuff. That changed. And the reason why that changed is because the Bible says that the priesthood changed because Jesus Christ became the high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He replaced Aaron's priesthood line and brought in the better covenant. And see, those things that were changed, and we read that earlier, the washings, the carnal ordinances, none of those things were moral issues. None of those were inherently bad or wrong. They were just rules. They were ordinances, rules that were set up. It's kind of like those carnal ordinances. We think about an ordinance today. An ordinance is not the same as a law. Now they're similar, but they're not exactly the same. So you might have town ordinances or city ordinances, right? Maybe an ordinance, some places will have like, well, you can't let your grass grow too long, something like that. Or you get a fine because you're not keeping up. And that's the city ordinance or city code. A crime is when you actually violate somebody else. You steal from them, you injure them, you do something like that. That's a crime. That's a whole other thing that's done. So what was done away with in the Old Testament are these ordinances, these things that weren't moral issues. They weren't something that anyone can look at and say, oh man, that's just wrong. I can't believe you did that. The moral issues still stand. I kind of brought this up earlier in my notes here. If we truly didn't have to worry about any of these Old Testament laws, then why are we exhorted in the New Testament not to sin? Like we saw before, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? The law is still very meaningful for us as believers today. We ought to walk in a newness of life. Now we saw a few of those sins that were worthy of a death penalty. Let's look at some more here in Leviticus chapter 20, I hope still. Because there's this chapter, this is not a pleasant chapter. Leviticus chapter 20, it's pretty rough. I mean, there's a lot of things that you list here, but we're going to take a look at these because it's important that we understand how serious God views these sins. Okay. Because today in many cases they're totally acceptable and fine, and in some cases even promoted. And we need to balance out this propaganda that we get from the media that from the TV, from the music industry, from all these places that you hear about how great it is to sin and where the devil's trying to get at you and to warp your mind into thinking it's not really that big of a deal. We're going to see how God feels about these things and what were the types of things that a person can do in order to receive the death penalty. So in verse number two, it says 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, seed meaning children, and Molech was a false god, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. Now what he's referring to there is a lot of times these false gods, Molech, people would actually sacrifice their own children. They said they would pass them through the fire onto Molech. They would do a human infant sacrifice of their own children. That's not something that's accepted today the way that it was done then, but I'll tell you what, it's completely accepted when the baby's still inside the womb. And they say, yeah, go ahead and kill it. It's legal. You can do it. Now, you might not have an altar to Molech where you're burning the infant in, but the baby's dying the same way. The baby's still dying. You're still shedding innocent blood when you take it away. And that is accepted today. And that is even promoted. There are so many women today that are being told, you need to go do this. And so many people are ignorant. They don't know. They don't know how bad it is. They don't understand that it's a life. They don't understand these different things. God has a death penalty on this. And it ought to be the death penalty on abortions today in America if we had a just society. Skip down to verse number nine. This is the next instance in this chapter that talks about a death penalty. It says, for everyone that cursed is fought. Now, look at this. This might blow you away. For everyone that cursed his father or his mother shall be surely put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him. This is what people like atheists and other people will try to mock the Bible. And they'll point the verses like this. Oh, do you believe that? Well, go ahead and keep mocking because that's what God said. This is what the Bible said. We ought to have a respect and reverence for our parents. And again, God knows this. And he says this is extremely important because as soon as the kids stop losing respect for their parents, guess what? They're going to grow up and be monsters. They're going to grow up and just do whatever they want to do. And there's going to be no, you know, what are they going to care about? They don't even care for their own parents. How are they going to respect anyone else? How are they going to respect God, the father in heaven? See, we need to show the respect. The kids need to show the respect to the parents. And here's the thing. Now, when it says curses, that's not just some disobedient child. I mean, all children are disobedient. Cursing someone is like, I mean, you're bringing a curse upon them. Okay. That's not just, you know, saying something stupid. That's like, you know, a blessing. If you were to say a blessing on someone, you say, man, God bless you. I hope, you know, I hope you get good things. I hope, you know, God does all I say for you. When you curse someone, it'd be like, go to hell, right? I hope that you burn in hell. That would be a curse. And the Bible's saying, look, if a child does it, if someone curses their parents like that, their father or their mother, they ought to be put to death. That's a, that is a respect issue that God, God takes very, very seriously. And this is, again, this might be kind of shocking and it is like, when you first see this, it's like, man, like put to death for words that come out of someone's mouth? Well, I mean, is it, or is it not what the book says? This is what it says. And that's, and we can either accept it or not. And a lot of people, they don't want to accept it. And that's why they want to throw it away and say, you know what? That's the Old Testament. We don't need that anymore, but God was serious about it. Look at verse number 10. Here's the next thing. This is something that's acceptable today. And the man that committed adultery with another man's wife, even he that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Death penalty, adultery. And I'll tell you what, this is, this is why, this is one of the main reasons. This is one of the, one of the many reasons why we don't watch TV. We don't watch Hollywood movies. We don't watch any of that garbage in that field because you know what they do? They promote this. It's all over the place. You have people committing adultery, going to bed, you know, men and women just going to bed and you know what's going on, you know what's happening. And what they're doing is they're desensitizing you to it. They're getting used to it. They're making you think, oh, hey, this is normal. They get you to try to understand, oh, well, this is what's going on. And he's having all these troubles and, and he has all this stress and, and things are starting working out at home and they're having fights and it just sort of happened with this woman and trying to make excuses for it. You ought not to be making excuses for it. Just try to get some understanding. If you just understand that it's awakening, God put the death penalty on it. I think there'd be a lot less adulteries if that, if that law was still in effect today, there'd be a lot less adultery going on because is it really worth it? Is it really? You started thinking about that then, you know, guys out there and, and they're tempted or whatever, and there's this woman and, and it's already wicked that, you know, they must not be having a good relationship or with her wife, but they're having these temptations. But I'll tell you what, that's got to stop a lot of adulteries if they start thinking, man, I could be killed for this. It ain't worth it. It's not worth it. And, and there'd be a lot less divorce and there'd be a lot less broken homes and a lot less other things going on if, if, if we could just get this through our heads, how serious adultery is. It is not a joke. It's, it's, it had the death penalty on it. Look at verse number 11. And the man that lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them shall show you put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Verse 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. Verse 13. We already saw this earlier. It's about the homos. 14. We saw this earlier. That was the one with, with the man that takes a wife and her mother. And verse 15 and 16 are both talking about bestiality. And then the last one in the, in the chapter is the last, the last verse, verse 27. It says, a man also or a woman that has a familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death. Now we don't commonly, um, you know, think about wizards necessarily the way the Bible is talking about, but basically this is talking about people with familiar spirits and with wizards. This is the sorcery. This is the, the, the, um, Oh, what's the word I'm thinking of? You know, these, these people that are like the fortune teller type people, the astrologists that, that, um, you know, these people that are mediums or whatever people want to go and talk to dead people for you. Psychs. Thank you. Psychics. These psychics that, that, that, that say, Hey, I'm going to talk to this dead person. These are the types of people. That's the type of thing. And people turn it today like a joke and say, ha ha. Yeah. It's a bunch of garbage. And you know what? A lot of it probably is a lot of it's probably just made up, but I don't think that it all is. I think that there's people that, that do these wicked things. And the thing is we shouldn't even be joking about it because again, this is another sin that has the death penalty put on it. Death penalty is serious. I mean, the God's got a lot of laws and we're not going in all of the God's laws today. We're looking at the worst ones. We're looking at like, Hey, this is the death penalty. This is what I'm choosing to focus and spend our time on because our society has gone so far down the tubes that half of these things are acceptable. Half of these things, people are just saying, Joe, it's not a problem. When God said no and Christians are saying, no, yeah, that was old Testament. We don't need that. It's ridiculous. Go ahead and turn to Exodus. It's one book before Leviticus is the second book of the Bible. Exodus chapter 21. There's a few more instances here of a death penalty. That's not that there's other places that kind of repeat some of the same stuff. I'm trying to get as many as possible about the death penalty and things that that ought to have the death penalty. According to the Bible, just to show you how far we've come from this, we're looking at Exodus 21 and verse number 12 where we read 12 through 17 and it lists off a few more things here. It says he had smited the man so that he died shall be surely put to death. But then he puts in a caveat here of like, you know, how it happened because how it happens when someone gets killed does matter. Your intention, it matters. If you accidentally do something and put someone to death, God does not put a death penalty out. We see that right here in verse 13. It says, and if a man lie not in wait. So lying in wait is like you're ready to trap him. You're ready to spread. You know, you have evil intent. You're looking to get him. It says if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand, then I will appoint thee a place whether he shall flee. So he's saying, look, he doesn't have to go. He's going to be, you know, he's going to, he's going to be like exile. He's not going to go back to that place. But the reason is because he doesn't want the family members and other people there to take revenge on him. So he's just going to go to this other place and he's just going to stay there for a while. And that's, and that's the way they deal with that. But it's not like he's put to death. It was, you know, an accident or whatever. And then it says in verse 14, but if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar that he may die. So he's saying, look, that guy needs to die. The murderer, someone takes another man up. He needs to die. Verse 15, it says that he that smited his father or his mother shall be surely put to death. Again, this is a little bit different than cursing, smiting a city. I mean, you go up and you sock your mom, you sock your dad in the face. The Bible says that's a death penalty. And again, it's along the same lines of cursing him. I mean, that's his total lack of respect. You don't do that. I mean, you just don't do that. And again, God put the death penalty on him. Again, this is something that people try to say and they'll try to get you to back down. People will try to mock it and they'll get aggressive. People who've seen verses like this, and especially it's kind of among atheists, like, oh, well, the Bible says that if you hit your mom and dad, you should be put to death. Do you believe that? And they'll try to catch you off guard with that and make you get defensive and say, oh, well, no, I don't think that's right. Well, that was in the Old Testament, right? That doesn't, no. Don't back up from God's word. Don't back off of God's word. When God says it, you better just believe it and defend it. Don't be ashamed of it. I mean, this is what's right and this is what's true. Look at verse 16. It says that he that stealeth the man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Kidnapping. God had the death penalty on kidnapping. That doesn't happen today anymore. Not at all. I mean, people get, people these days are getting slapped on the wrist and going right back out. That's a wicked sin, kidnapping. And then verse 17 says, and he that cursed his father, his mother shall show you put to death. So again, we already saw that one earlier, but it's repeated again here. You curse your father or mother, you put to death. And I mean, it's listed twice at least. Now there is one instance, turn to Exodus chapter 31. This is, this is almost exhaustive. Again, I don't want to see, I kind of ran out of time in finding all of these death penalty verses. This is almost exhaustive. But you get the idea, right? The point, the point should be taken that how God views these sins and how we ought to view them. And you know what? These laws, these laws are still in effect today for us as Christians. We ought to, we ought to adhere to this, obviously. I mean, and these are some, these are pretty extreme things. I would hope that, that, you know, you're not going to do some of these things, but I mean, still like the adultery, it's, it's accepted today, but don't, don't fall into that. Don't, don't, just because we don't have those punishments today, don't let that make you think that, well, it's okay. It's not that big of a deal, especially the more you see it in, you know, being pumped down your throat from, from every other place. But look at Exodus 31, 14, because here's an instance of actually one thing that was changed in the New Testament that did have the death penalty on it. Exodus 31, 14 says, you shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy unto you. Everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death, for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. The Bible says, even, you know, when, when, if you didn't keep the Sabbath, that was a death penalty. Now that's one instance here where, where God says, okay, in the New Testament, but he specifically said, you know, that we, you know, we're not an observant, we don't need to be observant of the Sabbath day anymore. But I wanted to point that out and, you know, in all fairness and looking at all the death penalties and stuff, that that is one of the things. But again, that was, that was God's teaching and the symbol of what, you know, what, you know, that had a deeper meaning than just some things being right and wrong. That was something he imposed on them for a specific purpose. Now, again, it's not a hundred percent complete list of death penalties and green over, but it's pretty close. And I'm not going to go over, there's a few things that were actually added in the New Testament. Baptism is one of them. People were not baptized in the Old Testament. The way that we're baptized now, you know, people going immersion, going under the water. And again, baptism is just a symbol, just like all those other things were figures for the time then present. Baptism is a figure for this present time. And the figure of baptism, without getting into too much, when a person's baptized, an adult, someone who, or at least someone who put their faith in Christ, what they do is they're signifying the death, the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They're showing that because if you think about it, Jesus Christ died on the cross. He was buried. So when you go under the water, you get dunked under the water, you're showing his burial. And then when you come back up out of the water, you're showing his resurrection. And that's something that we ought to do. And it's also a cleansing. I mean, you're being washed. You know, you're showing that you've been washed from your sins through Christ and that you're going to walk in newness of life. You're kind of making that step. You're saying, you know what, I'm done with this. I'm going to get baptized. I'm going to get washed and clean. Like it's not the actual water that does it. Obviously it's the faith, but you're showing that. You're showing this picture of salvation when you get baptized. And then the other thing in the New Testament that we receive also is the dwelling of the Holy Spirit when you get saved. Old Testament believers did not have that. See, when you get saved in the New Testament, the Bible says that you receive the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Ghost dwelling inside of you. You know, God basically comes into your heart. The Holy Spirit comes in your heart and can help teach you and guide you. And God's laws are written in your heart and He can lead you and guide you in all truth and knowledge through God's Word. And the Old Testament believers did not have that. That was something that's special that was given to us in the New Testament. And the Bible says that unto whom much is given shall much also be required. So I believe also that God requires a lot more of us today, not less. I think He required less of the people then that didn't have His full Word, that didn't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God requires more of us today because we have been given more. We have His complete Word. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us. He expects us to go out and do more work for Him and do more for Him. So hopefully you're able to understand that now a little bit better, like some of the differences between the Old and New Testament, and how we shouldn't just say, ah, yeah, that's just the Old Testament doesn't mean anything for us today, because it still does. We just need to understand what few specific parts the Bible says, yeah, we don't need to observe that anymore. Let's go forward to the Word of Christ. Dear Lord, I thank You so much for the service tonight. I thank You for giving us Your Word. And Lord, I pray that You would please just help us to have this understanding and have it down, Dear God, and to give respect unto Your laws. Help us to obey Him. We know that we're not perfect, but help us to strive to just live pleasing in Your sight, Dear God. You give us these rules, and these are not some crazy rules that aren't going to let us have any fun, Dear Lord. They're rules to help us and to benefit us. And that You've given us these rules on purpose because You love us. And You don't want us getting into any of these weird, wicked sins, Dear God. Help us to be able to reshape the way that we think about some of these sins, because there's been such an attack on how wicked and sinful they really are by this world. Lord, help us to combat that with Your Word, and help us to just change the way that we think about them in our minds so that we wouldn't even come close to committing these things in the future, Dear Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.