Lesson#21

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Leviticus

September 21, 2015

Introduction

May 13, 2010

Leviticus Lesson #02

May 13, 2010

RETURN TO THE LIST OF LESSONS

LEVITICUS 20
Lesson #21
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR IMITATING THE SINS OF THE CANAANITES

• Memory Verse: Rom 13:4a and b

 

“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which isevil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain.”

• Background:
  • God believes in capital punishment! That statement will surprise to a lot of Christians who don’t know the Bible. Your memory verse is from the New Testament to illustrate that even in this New Testament age God has given the power of capital punishment to human government.
  • The practice of capital punishment began with the Jews after the flood of Noah’s day in the covenant initiated by God with Noah.
    • Read Gen 9:1-6
      • For the first time, God gave human government the power over life and death.
      • That situation still exists today.
    • Rom 13:4 tells us that governments do not bear the sword in vain but to deter evil.
  • Originally in Gen 9, God initiated capital punishment for the crime of murder.
  • Under the Law of Moses, of which the book of Leviticus is part of that Law, God extends capital punishment to include more sins than murder.
    • The death penalty is extended to include breaking many of the 10 commandments.
    • In our current criminal justice system, punishment is given for the purposes of reforming the individual.
      • This concept is foreign to the Bible in regards to punishment for a crime.
      • The reformation of a life can only be accomplished through the blood of Jesus Christ, who gives to the believer a new life when he is born again.
    • Capital punishment in the Jewish culture was by stoning and for extreme cases by burning.
  • What was the purpose of punishment for a crime in the Bible?
    • Punishment for a crime was for the purpose of the moral good of society. It was to be a protection of society.
    • Punishment for a crime was to deter others from committing that same crime. But certain guides must be followed:
      • Justice must be done swiftly.
      • Justice must be accomplished fairly and without favoritism.
      • The severity of punishment must fit the severity of the crime.
    • God’s justice and righteousness demand punishment for crime.
      • Read Num 35:33
        • Murder defiles the land.
        • That defilement is not satisfied until the death of the murderer is accomplished.
      • Read Mat 23:35
  • Special note:
    • Through the Old Testament there is a phrase that is difficult for which to assign a strict meaning.
    • That phrase is “to be cut off from his people”. (Lev 17:4, 9)
      • At times that phrase can mean to be separated from his people by spending a designated time outside the camp so as to isolate the sin.
      • At times that phrase can mean physical death.
      • At times that phrase can mean spiritual death where the wicked are separated from the righteous in Sheol or Hades. (Luk 16:19-31)
• Read Lev 20:1-5
  • Capital punishment for child sacrifice to pagan gods.
    • The Canaanites worshipped the god Molech. The Canaanites were the inhabitants of the Promised Land when Joshua led the Israelites into the land after having left Egypt under Moses.
    • This god, Molech, demanded the horrible practice of child sacrifice. However, the way it was done was exceptionally cruel and evil. The hands of this metal idol were heated to a red hot glare. Then the Israelites that accepted this god, placed their live babies in the hands of this evil god.
    • This practice of child sacrifice in this way was abominable to God for three reasons:
      • =1= God said in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exo 20:3)
      • =2= God said in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
      • =3= God’s love and mercy is always on the side of the weak and innocent that cannot defend themselves. (Mat 19:14)
  • Read Eze 23:37-39
• Read Lev 20:6-8
  • Capital punishment for the practice of spiritualism (spiritism)
    • What is spiritualism?
      • It is the belief that the spirits of the dead communicate to living people through the means of a medium who has the gift of communicating with the dead.
      • This practice was part of the false worship of the Canaanites.
    • What is a “familiar spirit”?
      • The Bible calls these spirits “familiar spirits” because they pretend to be the spirit of a dead loved one.
      • In reality these are demon spirits that have no relationship with any dead loved one. They masquerade as a dead loved one only for the purposes of deceiving the living that mourn for a dead family member. The purpose is to get people to open themselves up to Satanic activity.
    • Read Deu 18:9-13 The definition of the practices of spiritualism:

 

• “pass through the fire”

 

= human child sacrifice to the God Molech.

 

• “divination”

 

= fortune telling by any means. (tea leaves, horoscope, etc.)

 

• “an observer of times”

 

= any form of astrology or horoscope.

 

• “an enchanter or a witch”

 

= someone who leads people into the worship of Satan by using magic.

 

• “a charmer”

 

= someone that casts spells, either good spells or evil spells.

 

• “a consulter with familiar spirits”

 

= a medium that communicates with demon spirits.

 

• “a wizard”

 

= a Satanic priest.

 

• “a necromancer”

 

= someone that foretells future events by communicating with “familiar spirits”; a medium or someone that holds séances.
• Why did God give the death penalty for these practices?
  • From God’s perspective, these practices are spiritual adultery or treason.
  • God brought the Israelites out of Egypt to serve the living God. He set them free from slavery to be God’s people.
  • If the people turned from God, they would worship God’s enemy, Satan.
• Read Lev 20:9
  • Capital punishment for those who curse their parents.
    • While this may seem harsh to some, cursing one’s parents is evidence of breaking the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother that you days may be long upon the land.” (Exo 20:12)
    • Read 2Tim 3:2-3 The conditions of the last days in which we now live.
  • The characteristics of the last days were the same characteristics of the Promised Land during the time of the Canaanites.
• Read Lev 20:10-16
  • Capital punishment for sexual sins:
    • =1= Adultery (10)
      • Notice that both the man and the woman were to be stoned.
      • You will remember when Jesus dealt with this sin in Joh 8.
      • Read Joh 8:3-5, 8-11
        • If the Law required stoning for the woman, why did Jesus let her go?
          • There was no one there to accuse her. In the Bible, a crime required two or three eye witnesses.
          • The scribes and Pharisees did not bring the man with the woman. Jesus would not judge a situation imperfectly giving favoritism to one person and condemning the other person.
    • =2= Incest (11-12)
      • Incest violates the order that God established in the family.
      • The family is of supreme importance in the kingdom of God both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
    • =3= Homosexuality (13)
      • Notice that homosexuality is a sin just like adultery and incest.
      • There is no excuse for the practice of homosexuality such as, “I was born this way” or “It is an act of nature.”
        • All mankind are born with a sin nature which includes the sin of homosexuality.
        • Only through Jesus Christ, the believer is able to control these sexual appetites.
        • It is society that blurs the lines between right and wrong. Man in his sinful nature will give in to these practices and society will grade some practices as worse than others. However, to God all are sin and all men are sinful.
        • Man cannot say, “I was born with the desire to steal.” Society has a law that says stealing is a crime. Society in the United States used to have laws that said homosexuality was a crime. However, even though society changes, God does not. Homosexuality is still a sin and will be a sin until the final judgment.
          • Science has discovered certain changes in the brain of a homosexual. The homosexuals will point to that and say, “See, I was born that way.” In fact, the changes in the brain occur after the fact.
    • =4= Sexual orgies or group sex.
      • Notice that the death penalty for this sin is not stoning but burning by fire.
      • I do not know why God made a difference between this punishment and the other sins. The burning by fire is a more severe punishment than stoning.
      • This sin is also on the rise today and you can now see it in certain movies.
    • =5= Bestiality (15-16)
      • Sexual practice of humans with animals is forbidden throughout the Bible.
      • Like all deviant sexual practices, it is on the rise today.
• Lev 20:17-21
  • Sexual offenses with lesser punishment.
  • In these verses sexual modesty is required. Why?
    • Nakedness promotes desire and desire results in the acts of sin that require capital punishment.
    • Notice that God says the result of these practices is that the person will be childless. (20-21)
      • This does not mean that the person will not give birth to a child, but that the child would die before the parent so that the sinful lifestyle would not be perpetuated in the next generation.
• Read Lev 20:22-24, 26
  • God’s purpose for these laws.
    • All these practices pollute the land. We do not usually think of sin polluting the land, but God says that it does.
    • This is the reason God told the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites when they entered the land. God wanted to purify the land for His people. He did not want the Israelites to learn these sins from the Canaanite people.
    • God warned the Israelites that if they did these sins, God would remove them from the Promised Land in the same way He removed the Canaanites.
  • Did the Israelites abide by God’s warning? No.
    • Read 2Kin 21:1-2, 6, 9
    • The result was that they eventually lost the land.
      • The Assyrians came and took the Israelites in the north to the Babylonian Captivity.
      • The Babylonians came and took the Israelites in the south to the Babylonian Captivity.
    • Read Deu 29:24-28
• Conclusion and application:
  • There were 15 offenses in Israel that were considered capital crimes. We have discussed some of them in this chapter. Here is the list of 15 capital crimes:
    • =1= Striking or cursing a parent (Exo 21:15, 17)
    • =2= Breaking the Sabbath (Exo 31:14)
    • =3= Blaspheming God (Lev 24:10-16)
    • =4= Participating in occult practices (Exo 22:18)
    • =5= False prophesying (Deu 13:1-5)
    • =6= Adultery (Lev 20:10)
    • =7= Rape (Deu 22:25)
    • =8= Pre-marital sex (Deu 22:20-21)
    • =9= Incest (Lev 20:11-12)
    • =10= Homosexuality (Lev 20:13)
    • =11= Bestiality (Lev 20:15-16)
    • =12= Kidnapping (Exo 21:16)
    • =13= Idolatry (Lev 20:1-5)
    • =14= False witness in a capital crime (Deu 19:16-21)
    • =15= Intentional murder (Exo 21:12)
  • We see all these same sins today in our nation. God in his mercy has delayed judgment, but He will not always delay judgment.
  • The Israelites thought that delayed judgment meant deferred judgment. How wrong they were! Even when the Babylonians finally attacked the Southern Kingdom of Israel, they could not believe that God would permit the destruction of their beautiful temple and their capital city of Jerusalem. They did not see the total pollution of their land, their society, and their religion because of their spiritual blindness.
  • Only in the judgment of the Babylonian Captivity did the people finally partially wake up, but it was too late.
  • In history many large powerful empires have fallen because of these same terrible sexual sins and alcohol. These are not sins between consenting adults, they are the sins that affect all of society and everyone in that society.
    • History records the fall of Babylon, Egypt, Rome, and France because of these sins.
    • Read Pro 14:34

 

• The other side of history’s sordid story:

 

• When the Pilgrims first came to the America, they brought with them the Christian training they received from Rev. John Robinson on how to live the Christian life in community with others. They also brought with them the Geneva Bible. On landing in America, they wrote a covenant on how they were going to self-govern their lives. This covenant is called the Mayflower Compact. Its principles come from the Bible. They trusted in God to guide and protect them. As a result they survived terrible hardship and planted the seeds of freedom based on rights that came from God and not kings.

HOMEWORK
Leviticus 21 and 22
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Application of Lev 20
  • Take this week to pray for our state and our nation and the lack of righteousness in our land. Pray for our citizens to wake up to trusting in God for our national destiny.
  • Fast and pray this week for our nation.

 

• Preparation for Lev 21and 22
• Read Lev 21:1-24
  • Explain why in light of verse 7 that God told the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute. (Hos 1:2-3)

 

• Why do you think physical contact with death defiled a person?

 

• Why did the priests have to be physically perfect?

 

• Read Lev 22:1-33

 

• Memory verse: Lev 21:4