Add line breaks, correct punctuation and capitalisation where it makes sense so that this transcript it reads like a sermon transcript. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT under any circumstances, change any of the words in the original transcript.
Add line breaks, correct punctuation and capitalisation where it makes sense so that this transcript it reads like a sermon transcript. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT under any circumstances, change any of the words in the original transcript.
Add line breaks, correct punctuation and capitalisation where it makes sense so that this transcript it reads like a sermon transcript. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT under any circumstances, change any of the words in the original transcript.
our text for tonight's message is taken from Exodus 22: 16- 20 as we have mentioned in our previous messages that through Moses God had given to the children of Israel all these laws so that they would learn how to live and function as a Covenant Community when reading all these laws some people will find it very tedious and some may even think that since these laws were meant for the children of Israel at that time therefore they are not relevant to us who are living in modern times although these laws were meant for the children of Israel at that time however we can still draw spiritual principles and lessons to apply into our lives today there are many reasons why we ought to study the Old Testament laws for example it teaches us what God expects it guides us onto godliness it exposes our sins and shows us our need for the gospel but there is something else very important why we ought to study the Old Testament law and that is it reveals God's correct that is why the Old Testament laws they are so different from any courts of laws in this world when you and I study God's law we begin to understand his character and when we apply these principles into our lives we are conforming to his character so as we study this section of the law we want to learn about the character of God how each law reveals to us his character the title of our message message is the character of God firstly we want to learn about the law of Seduction beginning with verse 16 of Exodus chapter 22 and if a man entice a mate that is not betro and lie with her he shall surely endow her to be his wife this law is often misunderstood because the people do not understand the context this was not a case of rape if it was rape then the man who committed the crime would be put to death this was a consensual sexual relationship before marriage the word enti means to seduce the man has seduced the woman and the woman was not without fault she was receptive to his advances in other words the man had persuaded the woman and she had consented both of them had committed the sin of premarital sexual relationship to endow her to be his wife means to pay the marriage endowment or the dowy payment for the marriage this payment was made to the woman as a guarantee of support in the event that something happened to the men or to their proposed marriage there was an example in Genesis 24 where Rebecca received silver and gold from Isaac as a marriage endowment this law was given for the protection of women there were always men who would take advantage of the women to entice them into having sexual relationships without the responsibility of marriage this is very typical in our modern society as well even more so often times when a young couple is dating and they are engaged in a sexual relationship the girl would say but he said he loved me he said he would marry me and now he left me well marriage is the last thing in the boy's mind all he wants is to satisfy his sexual desires and after he receives it he is nowhere to be found this law was given to God's people to remind them that the sexual relationship was only permitted within the confines of marriage and only to be reserved for marriage so within the Covenant Community the children of God the young people were taught at a very young age age that they should keep themselves pure and if there was a situation in which the man had seduced a girl and she had consented and the act of a sexual relationship was committed then the man had to do the right thing which was to marry her sadly today there is no such law in our society to teach the people to live impurity all to protect the women that is why we see so many single mothers and babies born out of wet loocks and there were tragic cases where youngers had taken their life when they realized that they had been cheated of their virginity how sad but the situation was different in those days they had the laws of God to teach the people to live in Purity and to protect the women from men who refuse to take responsibility today we also have the word of God to teach us to live inity and to protect us from all these pains heartaches and miseries but there was one exception the father of the girl could refuse to allow the man to marry his daughter look at verse 17 if her father utterly refused to give her unto him he shall pay money according to the doy of virgins in other words the premarital sexual relationship did not constitute or establish a marriage especially in the eyes of God they were not considered married if they were to be married they had to be married properly which included the father's blessings God had given the girl parents and they had a say in her marriage obviously the man had already proven himself to be spiritually immat by enticing his daughter and if the father found out after careful observation of the man's character that he was truly not suitable for his daughter he had the right to refuse the Hebrew word for arly is the same Hebrew word for refuse so you see a repetition which indicates a strong rejection knowing that the man was not suitable for his daughter the father would strongly reject the marriage that is what it means if the father refused the marriage the man still had to pay the Dowry of virgins because he had robbed the girl of her virginity which made it harder for her to get married the money would at least provide some means of support for her if she could not find a suitable husband in the future or made it easier for another man to marry her because he would not have to pay more money for the wedding what lessons can we learn from here people in those days place a very high regard for their purity and virginity unlike today I read in a recent article that students in our high schools would make fun of their classmates because they are still virgins can you imagine that dear friend we are living in such a morally degenerate environment we must never let our children be influenced by this worldly mentality we must teach our children to have a high regard for their purity and virginity the only way to do that is to teach them the laws of God this law is especially relevant to us today why because often times most parents would rushed their children into marriage when they realized that they had already engaged in a sexual relationship partly to protect their daughters reputation or the fam's reputation whichever it may be even when they know that the man is not suitable or his character is undesirable able the attitude is what to do we have no choice but to agree to the wedding I know of some couples whose parents have rejected their wedding and they went ahead to commit premarital sexual relationships in order to get pregnant because they knew that their parents would have no choice but to agree to their wedding but the parents must understand which is more important their daughters life or their reputation having a sexual relationship before marriage does not make marriage automatic as the saying goes two wrongs do not make a right it is better to avoid a bad marriage otherwise there will be very serious consequences it can be a lifetime of misery and Nightmares and most likely the marriage will end up in divorce a word of exaltation to all our young people God has given you parents praise be to God if they are Christians and godly parents and if you want to get married you should seek their permission and blessings God wants you to be pure if a man if a man tries to entice you to have a sexual relationship with him that is not love no matter what he says that is lust a real man of God will not do that a real man of God ought to be trusted to preserve his own Purity as well as the purity of the one he professes to love if he say say he loves you then he will do everything he can to preserve your Purity not to lead you into sin what can we learn about the character of God God is pure and holy and he wants his people to be pure and holy be holy as he is Holy this law was given to remind the people that the sexual relationship is only permitted within the confines of marriage and only to be reserved for marriage this law was given to protect the women from men who refuse to take responsibility God knows the Temptation that the people will face in regards to marital sex he also knows the subsequent heartaches pains and miseries that will come as a result of it and he does not want his people to experience that as our heavenly father who loves us and protects us he has given to us his loss for for our own good our second point is the law of false worship from the law of Seduction Moses moved on to speak about the law of false worship and he gave three examples all three of them demanded the death penalty firstly it was about witchcraft
Add line breaks, correct punctuation and capitalisation where it makes sense so that this transcript it reads like a sermon transcript. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT under any circumstances, change any of the words in the original transcript.
Verse 18 thou sh not suffer a witch to live the word witch can mean a sorceress someone who tried to gain spiritual power through demonic influences whether to cast magic spells or tell the future or communicate with the dead or practice the rituals of the oout all these were forbidden in the Bible it was a direct violation of the first commandment Thou shalt have no other gods before me as well as an indirect violation of the second to Fourth Commandments the reason why the Bible refers to the woman or witch was because in those days it was more prevalent for the women to be engaged in such practices however whether men or women witchcraft was strictly forbidden today there are some occult practices that make a distinction between black magic and white magic have you ever heard that some even call it good magic they would say that some magic are used for good rather than evil but there's no such thing as white or good magic magic is Magic whether black or white magic they are the tool of the devil any attempt to employ demonic influences is evil any attempt to know God's will outside of the Bible is evil it is contrary to his Sovereign purposes and will witchcraft is a sin because God wants to be trusted and worshiped not to be rejected and manipulated secondly Moses spoke about the law about bestil look at verse 19 whosoever lith with a beast shall surely be put to death at first glance this was a sexual sin obviously having a sexual relationship with an animal was a horrendous sin an Abomination but why do we call it a sin that had to do with false worship interestingly if you notice this sin was stuck in between two sins sorcery and the next sin sacrificing unto Idols which were clear violation of The Commandments of God which were about false worship it is important for us to understand the historical context in those days the pagans worshiped deities that were represented by animals and one of the perverted forms of pagan worship was to have sexual relationships with those animals as a sign of Union between them and their gods for example the Canaanites worshiped bael The Bu God and they would have pictures of bael having sexual relationship with a cow this was absolutely forbidden in Israel God did not want his people to be contaminated by the false or filthy practices of this pagans who worship false gods later on God spoke to Moses in Leviticus 18: 23- 24 let me read for you this is what God Said neither shalt thou lie with any Beast to defile thyself therewith neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down there too it is confusion defile not e yourselves in any of these things for in all this the nations are defiled referring to the Canaanite Nations which I cast out before you in other words this was commonly practiced in those pagans Nations and God said you must not be like them you must not engage yourself in this idolatrous practices thirdly it was about idolatry the offering of sacrifices to a pagan God verse 20 he that sacrifice on unto any God save unto the Lord only he shall be utterly destroyed the Hebrew word for destroyed is interesting because it means the surrendering of something to God for the purpose of complete destruction so it was as if God was saying if you want to surrender your offerings to any Gods then I will make sure you surrender yourself to me for complete destruction not only your life but everything you own including your property as well God is jealous of his glory and he refused to share his worship with any other gods we often look at the word jealous with a negative connotation but there's a positive aspect in the biblical meaning of this word for example if a man is jealous of his wife's love he will guard and protect it at all cost that is a good thing likewise God is jealous of his people in that he will guard and protect our love and worship of him at all cost and he has given to us prior warning not to worship other gods only the Lord himself why did God give such a strict judgment against false worship as in the death penalty you see the false worship will lead the people to the false gods which could not offer them salvation it had to do with their Eternal Souls they would be eternally lost they would be sent to the Eternal Lake of Fire that was why it was so serious contrary to all those people who says that God was hateful he was loving he loved them so much that he did not want them to to be eternally lost he did not want anyone to lead them into the path of Eternal destruction therefore he gave them this strict command that anyone who committed such sins should be put to death so God was not only jealous of our love and worship of him but he was also concerned about our Eternal Souls take a moment and consider this even with this warning of the death penalty later on many of the Israelites still fell into the sin of building the golden cuff which was essentially the sin of false worship and if you study the history of the Israelites you will see time and again they will fall into the sin of false worship can you imagine if this warning of the death penalty was not given the situation would be worse and consider the number of souls that will perish in Eternal damnation by way of illustration it would be like the death penalty for murder in our modern times even with this strict law we still here time and again of people committing the crime of murder right can you imagine if there's no death p what would happen to our society today people will kill one another over paty arguments quarrels and differences is it not true dear friend are these three sins Witchcraft bestil and idolatry common in our times most certainly today if you search the internet for advertisements for fortune tellers psychics astrologers Palm Raiders Funway and so forth there are hundreds if not thousands in Australia alone and then you consider the number of people visiting those establishments the number will be a staggering tens or hundreds of thousands even our children are not Spar at a very young age they exposed in schools to witchcrafts they would read books like Harry Potter they will play games like Pokemon reading the zodiac signs is a common habit of many people can you fathom the number of souls that have been deceived and captivated by these demonic practices how can our God who loves not be concerned although most people would agree that vity is a horrendous sexual perversion yet at the movies and even on television it is increasingly common to hear jokes about people having sexual relationships with animals people laugh at those jokes people do not take those jokes seriously it becomes so common obviously we all know that the worship of idas is sinful but there's more to Idols than just the physical idols and statues we see when we play something or someone in place of God in our Liv lives that becomes our Idols it can be our careers our Pursuits for material things our worldly aspirations our houses our class our children's education Etc in those days Israel was Theocratic and God was the ruler and as their ruler he commanded all his people who indulge in such sins to be put to death today as a church we are not Israel however God is still our King he is still our ruler and our God gives Grace to Sinners who repent no matter what they have done but if they refuse to repent though we do not have the right to put anyone to death it is not our business to do that but we need to exercise church discipline we need to administer excommunication to all those who profess to be Believers and yet refuse to repent of such sins so from these laws we learn that our God is pure and holy and he wants all of us to be pure and holy in his wisdom he knows what will happen to us if we engage in sexual sins outside marriage in this case it will be premarital sex and it will cause us to have heartaches pains shame miseries and he does not want us to experience that he has blessed us with Godly perish who will help us to discern the right life partners for us to marry for those who do not have parents well you have spiritual parents as in the leaders of the church praise be to God he cares for our souls so much that he is not willing for any one of us to be influenced by those demonic forces in this evil wor system that will affect our spiritual lives we may be saved for all eternity we may be Sav but if we still engage in those sins it will affect us spiritually this is the god whom you and I believe in and his laws are given to us for our good so that when we obey his laws he will bless us emotionally physically and most importantly spiritually so let us learn from his laws understand this God whom whom we believe in his characters and by obeying these principles in our lives we are conforming to his character be holy for I am Holy saith the Lord
Add line breaks, correct punctuation and capitalisation where it makes sense so that this transcript it reads like a sermon transcript. Do NOT – I repeat – do NOT under any circumstances, change any of the words in the original transcript.
let us pray Our Father in Heaven indeed contrary to those people who says that thy laws are so tedious indeed thy laws are given for our good and we are able to draw spiritual principles and lessons to apply into our lives and we know that when we obey Thy word when we apply thy truth into our lives thou will guide and lead us thou will bless us not just emotionally and physically but most importantly spiritually oh Lord help us that we will always learn from thy law for it reveals to us what thou would expect of us it reveals to us and teach us the Paths of righteousness it also exposes our sins and shows us our need for the gospel our need for thee and it most importantly reveals thy character and as we study thy laws teach us show to us who Thou Art and we who believe in thee we want to conform Our Lives as thou has said to us be thee holy as I am Holy Grant to us the empowerment of thy spirit that we will all live our lives to obey thy laws we pray all this in Jesus name amen