20230212 - Leviticus 20

So death is all around us dot grandpa just passed away a few weeks ago.

Wasn't that much over a year that Kathy's husband passed

away julie's dad just recently being diagnosed with cancer.

Even though we pray that he is fully healed.

It makes us contemplate death a little bit.

Death pops up even when we least expect it. I remember getting a call not that long ago

from my dad one night that my 20 year old cousin had died.

We had just played softball with him a week before that.

He was going to ST john's university.

He was smart, He was well liked, he was talented in a bunch of different areas.

Death didn't care though,

death didn't care that he seemingly had his whole life ahead of him.

Even little things all around us that aren't directly

related to death kinda remind us of death.

Why do we take certain medicine? Why do we eat healthier food?

Why don't we drive faster? Why do we buy life insurance? All the answers why we do.

These things have hints of death behind them. We want to live longer.

We don't want to take unnecessary risks to have a life ahead of us.

We don't want to die.

Death is something though, that if you look for it sometimes,

even if you don't look for it, it's all around us.

The Bible is actually no different. In regards to death.

Today's chapter in Leviticus 20 has the word death in it 20 times.

You might think that's a lot and it is,

but that's not unique to this chapter in the Bible.

The hebrew word for death or to die is the word muth.

The Old Testament alone uses this word muth for death or to die 835 times.

So, if we read through our bible, we're bombarded with the ideas of death.

Let's look in the bible in of some other places where this word is used.

How about we start towards the end of the old

testament and we'll kind of work our way backwards.

So first one, there's tons more. These are just some examples.

Aim is 9 10 says all the sinners of my people shall die.

Ezekiel uses it in his prophecies.

Ezekiel 1826 says,

when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice,

he shall die for it, for the injustice that he has done, he shall die.

So kind of looking at just different parts of the Bible,

different kind of categories.

So we looked at the prophecies here. How about in the kingly wisdom and proverbs.

Solomon shares this wisdom to avoid death, proverbs 1510,

there is severe discipline for him.

Who forsakes the way whoever hates reproof will die.

His dad David uses the same word. Excuse me.

He uses the same words.

Okay?

His dad.

David uses the same words many times as well psalms

34 21 says evil will bring death to the wicked.

Going back even further, Joshua while conquering the promised land,

as God instructed was no stranger to killing and death himself, Joshua 1026 says,

and afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death.

We see this word also when Joshua himself dies as well as

when Joseph Dies and Isaac and Abraham and tons of others.

If we keep going back,

you might even remember when we went through

the genealogy of Genesis five and he kept

saying something like Adam lived 930 years and all of your kids said and he died.

Do you remember that Seth lived 912 years

And he died. Blanik lives 777 years and he died.

You remember that it repeated the same phrasing

with this word muth eight different times.

Just in that chapter.

If we keep working backwards all the way to the first time,

this word move is ever used in the Bible.

We see it all the way back in creation.

That's in Genesis 217 it says.

But if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

The more and more that I research and look at the hebrew and greek words in the bible,

the more I'm kind of convinced that everyone,

we all should try to learn or at least familiarize ourselves

with the hebrew and the greek as much as we can.

There's some awesome resources out there, lots of different places.

But blue letter bible I think is one of the easiest how you can look at that

because if we don't know, you don't have to know the whole language.

But if you can at least research and kind of familiarize yourself with it,

we miss lots of nuance without the original language.

And this is one of those times.

Instead of our translations that say some version of this verse here in genesis,

if you eat of it, you shall surely die.

The hebrew reading is if you eat of it dying, you will die.

And even that doesn't totally do injustice.

Remember how we talked about two weeks ago about what it meant.

If a word was repeated in the bible,

it showed its importance and it showed that it was really

rare that it happened that something would be repeated three times.

How the Hebrews actually translated in this verse here says muth, muth muth,

you shall die, die die.

We're gonna stick with the dying, you shall die.

Because I think that's the emphasis that the hebrew is

really showing rather than the full di di dive.

But you get the idea this is important. This isn't saying maybe you're gonna die.

This could lead maybe to death or anything like that.

This was a surety that you would die.

I believe this connection is important too and we're

gonna explore it a little bit more as we go

For now.

I want to read through our whole chapter all at

once here in Leviticus 20 and I want you to

listen to how close of a repeat it is of Chapter 18 that we did a few weeks ago.

It's all the same rules about the different

sexual sins that you weren't supposed to commit,

but particularly what is added this week, that is different, is

the punishment for these sins, which is mainly death.

It's that word move.

Death was always going to be on the minds of the

Israelites back then just like it is now for us.

But even in a more concentrated way because they

couldn't do these sins or they would experience death.

So pay attention to kind of those two things as we go through this.

So um Leviticus 20 the Lord spoke to moses sain say to the people of Israel,

any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel

who give any of his Children to moloch shall surely be put to death.

The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

I myself will set my face against that man and

will cut him off from among his people because he

has given one of his Children to Malek to make

my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name.

And if the people of the land do it all,

close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his Children

and do not put him to death,

then I will set my face against that man and against

his clan and will cut them off from among their people,

him and all who follow him and whoring after, ma'lik!

If a person turns to mediums and necromancers whoring after them,

I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.

Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy. For I am the Lord. Your God!

Keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood is upon him.

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor,

both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness.

Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them.

If a man lies with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death.

They have committed perversion. Their blood is upon them.

If a man lies with a male is with a woman, both of them

have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death.

Their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is a depravity.

He and they shall be burned with fire, that they may be no depravity among you.

If a man lies with an animal, he should surely be put to death.

You shall kill the animal.

If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it,

you shall kill the woman and the animal.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them.

If a man takes his sister a daughter of his father,

or a daughter of his mother and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness,

it is a disgrace and they shall be cut off in the sight of the Children of their people.

He has uncovered his sister's nakedness and he shall bear his iniquity.

If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness.

He has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the phone of her blood.

Both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your

mother's sister or of your father's sister.

For that is to make naked ones relative. They shall bear their iniquity.

If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness,

they shall bear their sin.

They shall die childless!

If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity,

he has uncovered his brother's nakedness, they shall be childless.

You shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my rules and do them.

That the land where I am bringing you to live,

may not vomit you out and you shall not walk in the customs of the nation

that I am driving out before you for they

did all these things and therefore I detested them.

But I have said to you,

you shall inherit their land and I will give it to

you to possess a land flowing with milk and honey.

I am the Lord, your God who has separated you from the peoples.

You shall therefore separate the clean bees from the

unclean and the unclean bird from the clean.

You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or buy anything

with with which the ground crawls which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.

You shall be holy to me.

For I the Lord and holy and have separated you from the people that you should be mine.

A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death.

They shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.

So in the beginning the Lord told Adam that if they ate of the fruit dying,

they would die.

We see that word muth 11 times and over those

11 times in this chapter it's the same phrase,

it's the muth muth muth dying.

They would die here in Leviticus in nine of those 11 times. It's used that same way.

So these people are in a state of darkness.

They either are literally

the gifts didn't work

close your eyes and imagine a candle being blown out. Okay, it's really cool.

These people are in a state of darkness.

They're either literally having their light cut

off from the world and being stoned or

burned with fire or they're being symbolically cut off from the light of God's fire,

not being able to be a part of his

Tabernacle sanctuary and being cut off from the camp.

So, as I was reading through this chapter and kind of thinking about what to do,

I was looking for different stories in the

bible that connect to all these different sins that

are listed here in Leviticus 20 we can see

like an example was lying with his daughters,

we saw Judah sleep with his daughter in law, Tamar,

but one that really struck out stuck out to me when I was going to talk about that,

I was going to talk about with the medium and the necromancers

was the story of King Saul in the Witch of Endor.

The more I looked at it,

there was more and more connections to what we're talking about today with death.

These are there are connections regarding mediums or necromancers to

our chapter here in Leviticus 20 that it condemns there,

there were in the story of King Saul,

connections back to exodus and even Adam and Eve in

genesis dealing with a serpent in the phrase dying,

you shall die

And what death really looked like.

So I kind of scrapped some of the original ideas of doing all the different sins

because I think I wanted to really focus in on the story of King Saul.

So that's what we're gonna do.

I want to spend the rest of our time investigating

this story of King Saul and the woman of ender,

that's in first Samuel 28 and I think you'll see how it relates

to our chapter and ultimately to just death and darkness in general.

So the context for the story of King Saul in in first Samuel 28 begins actually

before Saul is even introduced into the story and that's back in first Samuel three,

we read this about the situation in Israel at that time,

he says,

now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of

Eli and the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

There was no frequent vision

at that time.

Ely whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he

could not see was lying down in his own place.

The lamp of God had not yet gone out

and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was.

So it doesn't say it really explicit, you gotta look for it a little bit,

but we see that darkness was all around them.

At this point, there was the lack of the word of the Lord,

it says God wasn't speaking to them frequently.

So they're in this state of darkness and

then it says Ellie's eyes were dimming and that

plays out when we see his lack of

spiritual perception and it's hinting at spiritual darkness.

And then lastly it says the lamp of God was about to go out.

So all these lights were going out, they were being taken over by darkness.

These themes of darkness, whether physical or symbolic or spiritual,

they arise again in the story of King Saul that

we're going to look at in first Samuel 28.

So if we I'm gonna skip all over the chapter here,

but it says and when Saul inquired of the Lord,

the Lord did not answer him either by dreams or by Urim or by profits.

So now Saul,

the King of Israel is in darkness spiritually

like we saw at the beginning with Samuel

um he's in darkness spiritually and the Lord is not answering him in any way.

God's word is silent. Next we see him removing his robe

20230212 - Leviticus 20 - 1

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