Deuteronomy 19

If you turn to Deuteronomy 19, we want to continue in our discussion of that book. For those of you who are newer or new, once a month I tried to go through a portion of one of the books of the Bible. We started this series on Deuteronomy some time ago. Obviously, it's a very large book. We're tending to go one chapter at a time, so it's going to take a couple of years.

We do it once a month, in lieu of having an in-home Bible study during the middle of the week. Our people are always so busy it's hard to do that anymore. But once a month, on the Sabbath, I like to go through one of the chapters of Deuteronomy. When we're done there, we'll move someplace else. But the reason I selected the book, as I've made mention on a number of occasions, but again, to refresh your memory, the book of Deuteronomy is a series of three sermons.

It's a series of three sermons that Moses gave to the Israelites just prior to their going into the Holy Land. They are on the other side, the side that is not the Holy Land, that side of Jordan. Right across the river, the Jordan River, looking into the Promised Land, they see this great citadel, perhaps one of the oldest cities ever built, a city by the name of Jericho. So they're looking at Jericho, they're thinking about the fact that just across that river is their homeland. And Moses realizes he can't go across the river with them. He had committed a sin that God dealt with him because of his sin.

But Moses realized that the children of Israel, the people he loved so much, needed proper preparation to go into the Holy Land. And as he wrote, there were several things on his mind. And the reason we want to go through the book of Deuteronomy, as New Testament, New Covenant Christians, is not because it's a history lesson all by itself. Deuteronomy was written to teach God's people how to live victorious lives. And you and I, as Christians, we want to know how to live a victorious life.

How do we overcome, as Jesus requires us to do, as Jesus says we are to do there in the book of Revelation and the other apostles and other locations? How do we have a victorious life? How do we conquer our spiritual enemies, our trials? How do we do that? Deuteronomy gives us a lot of insight into that. And the second reason we want to study Deuteronomy and what Moses was trying to get across is that Moses wanted God's people to rededicate their lives to God.

And certainly that's something, especially as we approach Passover. Last week over in Windsor, I began working with the congregation. I'm only there once a month, but I thought that since I'm there only once a month, we begin working with getting ready for the Passover. Because that will be here before you know it. And again, we'll be having Passover right here at the social hall, and I'll be with you this year for Passover. But it was in Moses' mind, in God's mind, to have the people learn to rededicate their lives to God, to renew their commitments.

And a number of our ministers around the country and around the world have voiced concern about some in God's Church. Why in some places is attendance flagging? Why in some places is attendance not where it should be? Are some of our people – and again, I say some – are some of our people do it? We no longer love the truth like we once did. You know, it used to be for all of us when God first called us that there was no place we wanted to be but in Church services. And frankly, for most of us, if we could have a Church service every day, that would be fine with us.

Now, I know work would get in the way – that pesky thing called work. But if we can meet with God's people on a daily basis, boy, that would be so enjoyable and so profitable. But we can't do that. But God does give us the weekly Sabbath day. Recently, we heard a story about somebody who – well, last week.

Last week in Windsor. There was a – right after we meet, one of the other Church fellowships meets. We meet at 10.30, another fellowship comes in, and they meet at 2.30. And so we need to clear the hall out of there by 1 o'clock or so. Well, there was a woman that came to services. She lives in the Windsor area.

But she lived on the other side of Windsor. Doesn't have a car. So she gets on a bus. She takes a bus all the way across town, and she gets to services an hour and a half – she got there at 1 o'clock. She said, I just didn't want to take a chance on missing Church.

And I thought, bless her heart. You know, we need to make sure everyone has that sort of frame of mind. I just didn't want to miss Church. She didn't have a car she could get into. She was a person in her middle age. She got on a bus, came across town. She was going to make it her point to be there in Church.

Well, you know, we want to make sure we're dedicating our lives to God, renewing our commitment to God. Are we doing that? One of the first things we're going to discuss on Passover evening is we take the Passover as a renewal of our commitment to live like Christ lived. This is one of the reasons why we got the book of Deuteronomy. Now, in those three sermons, let me discuss with you the three sermons that Moses gave in the book.

The first sermon covers the first five chapters of Deuteronomy. In that section, Moses talks about what God had done for Israel. Now, we've gone all through that by now, so we've gone through that portion of the book. We're now in the portion which is his second sermon. His second sermon is what God expects of Israel. And that's where we're at now.

We're in Chapter 19. The second sermon goes from Chapter 5 through Chapter 26. It's the longest of the three sermons. Then the last sermon, going from Chapter 27 through the 34th chapter, not quite the end of the book, but through the bulk of the end of the book, is what God will do for Israel. So now we're in a section where what God expects from Israel. Now, in Chapter 19, if you'll turn over there, there are basically three portions. We're just going to go through this one chapter today.

There's three portions to the chapter. Let me give it to you as an outline so you can take notes if you'd like. Verses 1 through 13 talk about justice for the unintentional killer. There are many ways that people can die that aren't because somebody murdered them.

Murder is one issue, but sometimes people are killed through accidents. As I made mention over in Ann Arbor, Mary's family and my family were no stranger to accidents taking people's lives. Mary had a uncle who did, I think, a tour of Vietnam and came home, did what was in war, and came home only to be killed in a car accident. Mary's father was killed in a car accident. Mary's brother was killed in a car accident. And my niece was killed in a car accident. All those were accidents. None of them were premeditated by the person who killed the four individuals.

Well, there's a discussion in this chapter about what do you do with people like that? Because people can get hot under the collar relative to say, Well, I want my pound of flesh. I want to get revenge for the person who killed my favorite aunt or uncle or nephew or whatever.

So God has some direction there. Verse 14 is the second portion, just one verse, talking about justice for the landowner. And then verses 15 through the end of the chapter, verse 21, talk about the proper use of our tongue. And so we don't falsely accuse one another. And that's something that we'll spend time with as we go through the chapter.

Okay, so let's take a look now, starting here in chapter 19 of Deuteronomy, verse 1. When the Lord your God has cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God has given you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses. Now think about this for a moment.

These people were so wicked that were living in a promised land. The God said, I'm going to dispossess them. I'm going to drive them out from before you. And, but the infrastructure is going to stay there. Their roads, their buildings, their homes, all that's going to be there. And then all you've got to do is walk in and move into their homes. You've got a home right there. You'll have all these other buildings, all the infrastructure that is there.

You're going to have that. God says He's going to give that to you. And, brethren, one of the things I want to get across as we go through this chapter, it can be so easy to look at this chapter and think of this chapter as just dealing with physical people, historical people, you know, thousands of years ago, being very irrelevant to us from a spiritual perspective or a physical perspective.

But, brethren, I tell you, when you know, you've read enough prophecy to realize there's coming a time when our nation is going to be taken into a national captivity. There's coming a time when our people are going to be dispossessed and foreigners are going to come into our land and the infrastructure will be there.

The roads, they can have the roads. The roads, the bridges, I mean, initially we must have the worst roads in the world. You know, it's one thing when you hit the potholes, another thing when your car goes into the pothole, you've got to drive out of the pothole. But they're going to come in, they're going to take our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our buildings. People think, well, there's not going to be much left, there'll be nuclear warfare.

Well, there are bombs out there that just destroy matter. They don't destroy buildings. They'll just wipe people out and you have the buildings that you can use for your own benefit. So this has application for us as well. This is going to happen in perhaps our day.

We don't know when Christ is coming back. But when He does come back, there won't be a United States of America. When you go out, as I do, from time to time, those who I'm in a mall or something, I look at all of our citizens. I think, boy, I love being an American. I watch the Olympics and my heart pounds when I was our team fighting for the gold medal. I think I watch the nations come in as opening night ceremony and just, I think, why can't the world be like this all the time? You know, all those bright faces, all those shining faces representing their country so full of hope, they're all pulling together.

They've got a goal and it's not warfare. They're playing games, but the camaraderie is really something to behold. Why can't the world be like that? Well, it's not going to be that way. And we have to make sure that we are prepared for those times. Okay, getting on with this chapter here in verse 2. You shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. You shall prepare roads for yourself and divide into three parts the territory of your land, which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, that any mass layer may flee there.

So here we have a discussion about the cities of refuge. And again, there's some spiritual analogy here that we don't want to get lost on us. This is not just something physical for back thousands of years ago. You and I have murdered Jesus Christ. And we need refuge. We need refuge. And so there's a spiritual analogy here. Now here in Israel, actually before they even got into Israel, before they came into the Promised Land, already they had three cities that were built, cities of refuge, for the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh.

Because they settled in a land that wasn't inside the Holy Land. They settled outside the Holy Land, those three tribes. And so there were already three cities of refuge for them. But now God says through Moses, I want you to build three more cities. And not only build them, I want them to be a good roadway system to get to those cities.

I want it to be easy for the people to get there. When the relative of the person who's been slain comes after the person who accidentally killed somebody, we don't want them to be killed by the relative because he didn't have an easy way to get to the city. Satan wants to kill us. And so God gives us something that's not easy. The salvation we have through Jesus Christ and the sacrifice, that's not easy for Jesus Christ. We're going to talk more about that next Sabbath.

But we have that as a refuge, as a shield, as a protection. And so God wanted these people to be protected from somebody who would kill them.

And so they were to put in a central location these three cities for those people who had accidentally killed somebody so they can go there, stay there, until the death of the high priest. And the death of the high priest may be several decades. Maybe sometimes. So somebody might kind of be marooned, but the avenger of blood, the relative of the person who was accidentally killed, they're not supposed to be able to come into that city and hurt them and touch them. They're off limits. And when it comes to you getting into God's kingdom, there's only so much Satan can do. Satan has to have God's protection, just like when Satan went to God about Job. He had to have God's permission to do what he did. And God loves each and every one of you, and he doesn't give Satan just willingly permission to do whatever he wants to do to you and I. He wants to make sure that you have a place of refuge. And that place of refuge is God's church. That place of refuge is your knowledge of the great God. Your place of refuge is under the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Okay, we're going on here in verse 4. And this is the case of the man's layer who flees there that he may live, whoever killed his neighbor unintentionally, not having hatred in time past.

And he gives an example. When a man goes into the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head, the axe that slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, he shall flee to one of these cities and live. So here you've got an example of somebody that they took somebody's life that was accidental, that was unintentional, there was no malice there.

Verse 6, Let's the avenger of blood, this would be a relative, let's say maybe this is the uncle or the father or the brother or the person who was killed, let's the avenger of blood while his anger is hot, pursue the man's layer and overtake him, because the way is long and kill him, though he is not deserving of death, since he had not hated the victim in the past. So here you've got this discussion about the avenger of blood. You know, in the scriptures you see this on several occasions.

The kinsman or the redeemer was responsible for a number of items.

And brethren, here again is the beauty of Deuteronomy.

What this passage is also telling us is there is a responsibility that family has toward family.

Responsibility, family has toward family.

In this case you've got the avenger of blood.

You've got the kinsman in the scriptures.

One of the responsibilities for this individual would be to buy or redeem a relative from slavery. You see that in Leviticus chapter 25. Another thing that a kinsman or redeemer was responsible for is buying back or redeeming the property of a relative. You know, taking care of the family. We see that in Leviticus 25.

We see in the book of Ruth, you know, I've gone through that book of Ruth with you on several occasions since I've been your pastor.

Here you see a man marrying his dead relative's widow to provide support for her to bear children in order to carry on the family name.

I know the case personally years ago in a place I used to pastor where there was a couple and the husband died.

You have a widow and the man who died, his brother, married his former sister-in-law.

I don't know that he was doing that because of what he sees here, but it's an example of what took place in the Old Testament, where a man was able to help his family in that way.

One of the other things that we see for the kinsman or redeemer is what we see right here in Deuteronomy 19.

Verse 7 Other people lived in these cities. It wasn't just a bunch of vacant buildings and whoever killed somebody accidentally moves in.

This was a regular community, a regular town.

If someone had killed somebody accidentally, the person who had done that, they would go to the city and stand at the gate, ask to be admitted.

It wasn't a for sure thing that they were just admitted and there were no questions asked. We'll get to that in a moment. Verse 8 Then you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three, so a total of six cities.

God says, I want you to be a law-abiding people. I want you to be a people who are acquainted with justice, who have justice in the land. Brethren, do we have justice in our land today? When you listen to the news, I mean, I've told you on so many occasions, I'm listening to the news when I hear what judges hand out for sentencing.

When I see the kinds of laws that are passed, I don't care what we're talking about, Democrat, Republican, Independent. I don't care whether we're talking George Bush or Barack Obama. I don't care who we're talking about. I throw all of these politicians in the same bunch. I am very disappointed with what I see in our country. Very disappointed with what I see in our country. Do we have justice in this country?

How many times have you seen situations where somebody's brutally hurt little children, and because of the way a law was written in a certain state, this individual gets to get out of jail after just a few months?

How many times have we seen that? God wanted his people to live in a just society. Verse 10, "'Let's innocent blood be shed in the midst of your land, which the Lord your God has given you, as an inheritance, and thus guilt of bloodshed be upon you.'" Now, we may have mentioned a moment ago that this chapter is talking about the responsibility of relatives, and that's true. What responsibility do you have to your relatives? People under your roof, or people who are not under your roof, but they're your relatives. What responsibility do you have?

Here in verse 10, we see another responsibility, and this is a national responsibility to be just people, to seek justice, to seek God's justice. So not only as family to family, but as a nation of families, as a collection of families. This is what God wanted for Israel. Verse 11, "'But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies and wait for him, rises against him, and strikes him mortally so he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,' in other words, verse 11 is talking about a real murderer. Verse 12, "'Then the elders of his city shall send him, and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he might die.'" So when this individual, when any individual came to a city of refuge, he wasn't just automatically accepted. Due diligence had to take place. Is this man the real deal? Is he truly innocent of murder? Guilty of manslaughter, but innocent of murder? Or is this man actually a murderer?

And so the judges and the elders of the city had to make that determination.

Verse 13, "'Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.'" Today in our society we want to be so politically correct. We give more, we afford more protections for the criminals in our society. And that doesn't go well with us. When we don't follow God's rules, it doesn't go well with us. Now maybe I'm all by myself here in my thinking, but I think that because of the way we've been breaking God's laws, as a nation, it isn't going well for us.

Now let me pause here. We've gone through this first section of the chapter, verse 13 verses. Let me draw some lessons that I have learned as I think about what we've covered here to this point. Number one, God is our refuge. There's a discussion here about the cities of refuge, but God is our refuge. What are you going through right now? What's happening in your life? Are you facing one trial after another? Are you being overwhelmed and overloaded?

I made a comment of that a couple of weeks ago over in Ann Arbor, and I had several people come up to me and say, I'm glad I came to service. Also, we're in Windsor. I came to services. That's exactly what's happening in my life. I'm being overwhelmed. I'm being overcome, overloaded by all that's happening. And brethren, when that's happening, you know, Satan's at your door. He doesn't want to give you time to think. He doesn't want to give you wiggle room.

He's got 6,000 years of human history to call upon. And he knows your personality type. He's seen many like you through the centuries, through the millennia. He's not going to come at you the way that you've expected him to come in the past. He'll do that, try to wear you down. But he will come at you different ways, ways that you didn't think about. We'll talk more about that next Sabbath. Are we letting Satan in the back door?

How are we doing that? There was a nation who paid a high price for thinking they were so strong and their strength became their weakness. We'll talk about that next Sabbath. Is your strength becoming your weakness? You're thinking so strong in some areas, but is Satan going to come in the back door? You've got to be very careful about that.

Very careful. Psalm 46. Put a marker there in Deuteronomy 19. Psalm 46. In verse 1. Psalm 46 and verse 1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. Next week we're going to talk about what is it you've got in your life you've built that you think are your strengths, your mechanisms by which you can stand, and the walls you've put around yourself. Let's be honest, brethren, all of us have done it.

I don't think there's a single person in this room having built walls, emotional walls, or you name it, economic walls around ourselves because we've been hurt in the past and we don't want that to happen again to us. Well, there's a lesson from relatively recent history that talks about that, world history. But God is our refuge. God is our strength. And He is the help and time of trouble. Not our great thinking, not our personalities, not our brilliance in any way. It's God. We need to make sure we understand that. Chapter 57 of Psalms, verse 1.

Psalm 57, verse 1. Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for my soul trusts in you, and in the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by. Until these calamities have passed by. Yes, there are times we've got to hang tough. I gave two sermons about that recently. Are we as tough as Jesus? Jesus Christ had to be truly tough. How long does it take you to sin?

A portion of a second? You know, watching the Olympics, I was watching the one person... They're not bobsleds. They call them the skeleton. It's one person. It's just a little tiny platform. I was watching the women. And the one American woman was in line. She ran her... She was going 90 miles an hour. She was on this little plank with skis on it. And she's going down this course 90 miles an hour head first. And she finished in third place. She thought. There were several more people behind her who had to compete. And as it turned out, it was one of the last people that competed...

Beat her out by four one-hundredths of a second. Now, what is that? A blank of an eye? Four one-hundredths of a second. She didn't get a bronze medal. She ended a fourth place. And she was devastated. She spent four years, maybe more than that, for that one day where she would be going down that... hurtling down that course at 90 miles an hour head first. Arms tucked behind her. The only way that they were... They had a couple little mechanisms with their hands behind them, with their feet, to guide them on these big slopes and so forth.

How long does it take us to sin? A fraction of a second? Jesus Christ could not allow himself a fraction of a second to sin. He had to be on the job, alert, vigilant, 24, 7, 365. All the time. He couldn't take a day off, an hour off, a minute off. And he's our ultimate example. So Christ had to make sure that he was strong, as all the calamities that came before him came and left. And that's something for us to be thinking about ourselves. God is a refuge. That's one of the lessons I learned from that section. We see in Psalm 32, verse 7. Psalm 32, verse 7.

You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. God is our hiding place. Not our personality, not our personal abilities, not the walls we've surrounded ourselves with so we wouldn't be hurt. No, the things we build are quite capable of being torn down. What was it, General Patton said that any structure made by man can be overcome by man? He was never afraid of going up to get some sort of fortification. But God is our hiding place. Not us. We don't hide in our own insecurities. We don't hide under our own walls. We don't hide through our own flesh or behind our own flesh because Satan's got no problem with all the flesh. He's got no problem with that at all in exploiting that. Psalm 119. Psalm 119, verse 114.

Psalm 119, verse 114. Something else we learn about God, that section of Deuteronomy, is here in Psalm 119, verse 114. You are my hiding place and my shield, I hope, in your word. So again, over and over, I'm hitting this point. What is it you're hiding behind? What is it you are hiding behind? You've been hurt in the past. Maybe you're hiding places. You've got a great sense of humor. You joke about things. You just slough things off. You've got such a good wit about you that people say, oh, nothing touches that person. Yeah, they're being hurt deeply. They just don't want people to know it. You know, your hiding place could be your wit. Your humor. That could be the fact that you are an intense person. And it's hard for people to get close to you. And so, you know, you don't have people's issues because no one wants to get near you. You know? You're hiding places the fact that you're an intimidating person. Well, you don't intimidate Satan. Lastly, another thing I've learned as we went through that portion of Hebrews is found over... Deuteronomy is found over in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

Inasmuch that as the children of the partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, Jesus Christ came in flesh and blood. That through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death all their lifetime became subject to bondage. So here we see that we are delivered from the avenger. Just as Jesus Christ delivers us because of our sins through his shed blood, here Paul is saying to the Hebrews, to the Jewish folks of that era, that we have...we don't have to worry about Satan, and Satan's hold on us, and Satan wanted to destroy us, because we have the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He came in the flesh. He died for us. He delivered us from the avenger. Just as the people there in chapter 19 of Deuteronomy were delivered from an avenger. Okay, let's go back to Deuteronomy. Looks like I'm going to be keeping you a few minutes late today. That's okay. I've not been here in five weeks. Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 14, this one verse stands as a section all to itself, talking about justice for the landowner. Chapter 19 of Deuteronomy verse 14, You shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set in your inheritance, which you will inherit in the land that your Lord your God has given you to possess. Don't move landmarks. If you move landmarks, then you're stealing, you're robbing, you're cheating. It's a sin. And, brethren, over the course of time, many wars have been fought over a territory. Think back about World War II. What was one of the things that Hitler told the nations? Well, you know, we've got German people living over in this part of the world. We're just going to walk in there, and we're going to reclaim what's ours. They're really our people. They're in a different geographical country than Germany. But they're really our people. And so he walked in, and the world said, well, fine. We don't want to do anything with this guy. France had been gutted in World War I. England is the same. America was always isolationist. And so Hitler just said, well, you know, and the truth of the matter was, if people wanted to stop Hitler, that was the time. He wasn't as strong as he became. That was the time to stop him. But people said, no. Neville Chamberlain in Britain. Peace in our time. Appeasement. We've got something happening right now in our headlines.

Here you've got the beautiful Sochi area, a resort town on the Black Sea. And there was better than our weather. Most of the days there were 40 degrees and things like that, sunny. That was one of the problems they've had. But people say the Russians as hosts were great hosts, have been great hosts, friendly people. All the buildings and grounds are beautiful. Everything is going well, very well secured and so forth. But just a few hundred miles away, I think, less than 900 miles away, you've got the Ukraine. And you've got the Ukraine. The Ukraine is like a rope in a tug of war. Putin, he loves his Russia. But what Putin loves more than Russia was the old Soviet Union. And so Putin's thinking, you know, if I can get my hands on Ukraine and pull that back, maybe I can start pulling back other countries that have gone independent from the Soviet Union. And maybe we can make Russia the Soviet Union what it once was years ago. But you've got the Ukraine who's also looking westward to Europe, and they really want to be a part of the European Union. But then Russia, the big elephant in the room, starts flexing its muscles. And, well, we're going to make peace with Russia. Russia's going to give us some money. The Ukraine's got some economic difficulties. So what you've got is a power grab happening right now, internationally, for land. You've got what's happening over in Syria. What is it? 130, 140,000 Syrians have been killed and massacred by their own leader. 130, 140,000 by their own leader. They were showing something like 11,000 who have been detained and imprisoned have been slaughtered by their own leadership. These are the kinds of things, and again, this is about land. The Soviet Union is behind the Syrian regime. Asad, why? What is Russia's interest in Syria? Where is Syria? Syria is right on the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and Russia wants that seaport. Russia wants a way into that great lake that we call the Mediterranean, and so he's going to do everything he can to make sure that they don't lose control over the Assad regime and Syria. But it's about land. It's about land grabbing. And this is what God says, don't do this. This is stealing. So it's something for us to be considering as we take a look at what's happening in the world scene. Turn over, put a marker, let's turn to Deuteronomy 27.

Deuteronomy 27, verse 17. Deuteronomy 27, where it said, cursed is the one who moves his neighbor's landmark. Cursed are the people who do this. Why are you cursed? Because you're breaking the law of God. You're stealing. You're robbing. And whenever you break God's law, that's a sin. Okay, let's move back now to chapter 19 and finish up the chapter. Verses 15 through 21 talk about justice for the accused. Justice for the accused. Verse 15, one witness shall not rise up against the man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, the matter shall be established. By the mouth of two or three witnesses. Brethren, this is not the first time this has been stated here in Deuteronomy. I don't have the time, but it was stated back in chapter 17, verse 6. God wants people to get that message over in Matthew, chapter 18, to go to your brother chapter. It talks about establishing things by the mouth of two or three witnesses. There's a fairly decent chance that most people in this room have been guilty of gossip. I don't know that many of us have a free pass on that one. Over the course of years, it's always upset me when people will call me or email me or send me a letter saying, people are talking about so-and-so. Or maybe they're talking about me. I go to the source and I say, well, okay, you brought it up. Who's talking? If they're talking about me, I deserve to know. Who's talking about me? What are the names? I'd go and talk with them. Oh, no, I can't give you anybody's name. Oh, really? Why even come and say things like that? Why put a person in a situation where they feel people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions of people, our mind starts really going off... it's like those commercials, or the guy loses his job or something, and the next thing he knows, he's being body slammed by a gorilla. One thing goes through another. Have you been guilty of that? Have you passed gossip along? Have people come to you and said, thus and such, and you have no way of verifying whether it's true or not, but you pass it along. Or I've passed it along. Too many of us are guilty with that. But as it says here, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, everything shall be established. What we need to do, somebody comes to us and says, did you know somebody did this and such? What we should be doing is saying to the person who brings us that tale, well, why are you coming to me with that? What do I have to do with that? Go to the person who you think is wronged you or wrong somebody else. Go to the source. Why are you coming to me? Go to the source. Or you could say, I've known the person you're talking about, and that just doesn't sound like them. Doesn't sound like something they would do. Bring me your witnesses. You bring me two or three people who would verify your story. Verse 16. If a false witness arises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord. Both men. In other words, we have responsibility for what comes out of our mouth. Then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. So let's get some impartial people to listen to all this. And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother. Notice the beauty of this, verse 19. Then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. Kind of the golden rule in reverse.

Then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. So you shall put away the evil from among you. God believes in dealing with the situation. Not just passing it on. Not just saying, well, people are talking. Okay, well, who's saying what? Let's get to the bottom of it. Make a diligent inquiry here. Verse 20. And those who remain, faith those who remain, shall hear and fear.

And thereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. There is a method to what God does. If you know you're going to be responsible for every word that comes out of your mouth and you're making accusations, you better be able to back it up. Otherwise, what you thought to have done to the other person, that will be done to you.

Verse 21. Your eye shall not pity. Life shall be for life. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot. And so what we learned from this section of the Scripture, brethren, is really very simple. If the crime has been committed, then the punishment must fit the crime. The punishment must fit the crime. And that is true for our situations as well. That is very true for our situation. Are you a criminal? Well, we've not, most of us in this room have never been in jail. But have we broken God's law? Sure, we've broken God's law. 1 John 3, 4. Do we have a punishment because we've broken God's law? Yes, it's called death. Romans 6, verse 23. But in the Bible, you have this eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But more often than not, the thing that we see in the Old Testament is a principle that God has. And it's not just punishment. What we see from God in the Old Testament is He wants restoration. Restitution. For people to have things restored to them. And, brethren, think about that on a spiritual level. You and I are sinners. Think about it in terms of Passover. We are sinners. We have our crime. Our punishment is eternal death. But just as it says there in Romans 6, verse 23, the penalty is death. But, thanks be to God, we've got a life because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Let's turn to a final scripture today, over here in Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. A very beautiful section of scripture.

Ephesians chapter 2, starting here in verse 1.

And you, He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. See, God's point here is He doesn't want to just punish us. He wants to restore us. He wants us to live the abundant life, as it says there in John 10.

And He restores us through the sacrifice of our Passover, Jesus Christ. And you, He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which He once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the loss of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

So we should be punished. But our Father, God, is a Father. Just like all of us here, we have family. We're not individual units who just, you know, we sprung up under a cabbage. We've got brothers and sisters, we've mother and a father, we've got family. And none of us would want to see our family thrown into the lake of fire. None of us would want to see any of our relatives in some fiery car crash just burning up because they couldn't get out of the car. People talk about our God as a God who has unconditional love. And that's true. Our God is a God who has unconditional love.

But understand something, brother. I think sometimes we have this wrong idea of what unconditional love means. Our loving God, our God who loves us of unconditional love, will march us into the lake of fire if we don't repent of our sins. He won't personally march us into the lake of fire if we don't repent of our sins. If we don't repent, if we don't want to repent, then that's the unpardonable sin. Our sins can't be pardoned because we won't repent.

We don't want God's way of life. And so God, He knows what it's like to have a Satan on a loose. He knows what it's like to have demons on a loose. He doesn't want any more beings out there who won't repent.

And so our loving God who loves us unconditionally will, in His love, bring us to an end. But thankfully, our God is not a God who wants to do that. Your name has been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He wants to restore you, you and I, who are in our trespasses and sins. He wants to give us eternal life, as we see in these scriptures here. Verse 4, But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.

Over in the book of Romans, I don't have time to turn it, but over in the book of Romans, it talks about Romans 5, verses 1 and 2, Paul talked about the grace in which we stand. This Passover season, brethren, let's be thinking about the grace in which you and I stand. Already this Passover season, Passover is six weeks or so away, but actually a couple of months away, maybe. But already people are coming to me and saying, I don't know if I should be there, and I've got all these issues, and I've got all these hang-ups, and maybe my baptism wasn't valid, and so forth.

Brethren, Satan is a negative being. He wants to fill your mind full of negativism. Our God, our Father God, our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, are very positive beings. Yes, you have sinned, I have sinned, but we have a sacrifice, Jesus Christ. We have accepted Him. If you look deeply into your life, you see where God has borne fruit in your life. Though maybe you or I are not where we need to be. Maybe we can be further down the road spiritually than we are. Chances are, every one of us can probably make that statement about ourselves.

I should be further down the road to my Christian wab with God than I am. Probably we all could say that. But think about the positive, where you began, where you are now. And don't allow sin just to feed your mind with the negativism, because we have got something really great here. And that's a loving God who is rich in His mercy, rich in His grace, by which we stand.

Verse 6, We're heading for not the Promised Land Israel was heading for, we're heading for the Millennium and beyond. We're heading for the Kingdom of God, where you and I will live for all of eternity. Because we've got a God who wants us to be restored.

We've got a God who loves us. Yes, He does love us unconditionally. And if we are people who will repent, our sins will be cast behind His backs, as it says in Isaiah. Never to be thought of. The Spirit and man that we have in each and every one of us, all those places where we have a black mark, where we have sinned, will be erased.

And when we're resurrected, the only thing that's going to be resurrected is the Holy Righteous Character that is left in us. So, I wanted to go through this subject with you. Please, as you're going through the book of Deuteronomy and other books in the Old Testament, don't only just look at the chapter and verse and what seems to be the explicit discussion at hand. There's, you know, God has many things, there's many layers of understanding as you look into these scriptures. Make sure that we're asking God to show us the beauty of what is there.

So, hopefully we appreciated what we saw there today in Deuteronomy 19. And next week, we'll ask that question. Are we letting Satan in the back door?