Leviticus chapter 19, what we just read, is a chapter that contains a lot of just various laws, a lot of diverse laws. A lot of them don't necessarily go together with each other on the surface, it's just God just laying out a bunch of different rules for how he wants the children of Israel to conduct themselves, how he wants them to live their lives. There are a few other chapters that contain a lot of loss for our personal lives in the book of Leviticus.
Now out of all the books of the bible, Leviticus is probably one of the books that takes the most flak that probably gets ridiculed or attacked the most and a lot of people, if they ever want to talk about part of the bible being obsolete or outdated, this is probably the first book they're going to point to, Leviticus, and you often hear people make light of Leviticus and say, "Oh, come on. You're going to actually show me something from Leviticus telling me how to live my life?" The bible tells us in the New Testament that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God maybe perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
We know that Leviticus still has a lot to teach us today. Now there's no doubt that of course, some things in the Old Testament have been changed in the New Testament, okay? The bible clearly tells us in the book of Hebrews, "For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law," okay? We're not saying that everything in the book of Leviticus is still in enforced today because there are some carnal ordinances and priestly ordinances that have been specifically changed in the New Testament, but you're making a big mistake if you just throw out the baby with the bath water and just completely throw out the whole book.
No, God told us to study and read and meditate on these books. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These books are still applicable today. There's a lot that they can teach us today aside from that which has been specifically changed. Let me just emphasize for you very quickly before I get into the chapter an important rule for interpreting the bible, okay? When you're reading something in the Old Testament, unless it has been specifically changed in the New Testament, you should assume that obviously, it's still enforced because unless God specifically repealed something or did away with something, then we should still be following what he sought in the Old Testament. God never changes and so God's opinions, God's beliefs, God's values have always been the same.
There are certain special things that he imposed on the children of Israel for a temporary period of time that have been altered in the New Testament but the rest of the things that Leviticus teaches are timeless truths about right and wrong, okay? Let's get into this chapter and let's go through some of these verses.
Starting at verse number 1, the bible reads, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy." Now that is a timeless truth. That is a principle that's reiterated again and again in the New Testament. The bible tells us in the New Testament for it is written, "Be holy as I'm holy." The bible says God has not called us unto uncleanness but unto holiness. We say, "What does it mean when God said he wants us to be holy? What does holy even mean?" The word "Holy" means set apart, different, okay? The first time that we see a really strong definition of holiness I think is in Exodus chapter 12 when he lays out the fact, he says, "Sanctify unto me the first born," and then later in the same chapter he says, "Set apart to me the first born."
It shows that holiness or being sanctified is when you're set apart, okay? That means that you're not profane or common. You're not living as the rest of this world but you're living differently. You're more righteous, you're more clean, you're more godly than the people around you. That is what holiness means. Now in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, if you turn there, we have a teaching on holiness in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians chapter number 4.
This is the chapter that's famous for the passage on the rapture at the end of the chapter but at the beginning of the chapter, it says in verse 1, "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification," and "Sanctification" means that you're made holy. Sanctification comes from the same root word as holiness, okay? That's why the "Saints" are people that are holy, okay?
It says, "Your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour," so God's saying, "I want you to be holy, I want you to be sanctified," and part of that is abstaining from fornication. Now what does "Fornication" mean? Fornication is when 2 people that are not married go to bed together. That's fornication. When they commit the act that married people commit, when they're doing that outside of marriage, when they're going to bed outside of marriage, God says that's fornication. That's a sin, and he says, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication." Look at verse 5.
"Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God," so right away a comparison is made. Look, the Gentiles, the nations, the rest of the people in this world, they're committing fornication. You're to be set apart. You're to be different. You're to be sanctified. You're to live after a higher standard of righteousness, a higher standard of Godliness, a higher standard of purity which involves you abstaining from fornication. You say, "Look, I know everybody's doing it. I know that Gentiles are doing it, I know that the people around you are doing it," but you are to be a holy people, a peculiar people, a righteous and godly people, unlike the people around you.
Verse 7, "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness," and look at verse 8. "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit," so he says, "Look, there are going to be people that despise this kind of preaching or they dislike these type of rules that God has for us that keep us holy. Rules like abstain from fornication, rules like "Thou shall not steal," rules like "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor." He's saying, "Those who despise that, they're not despising men, they're despising God."
Say, "Oh man, I hate the preaching at that church because they're always preaching do's and dont's," but wait a minute, they don't despise man, they despise God because it's God that said "Abstain from fornication." It's God that said "Be holy as I am holy," and so I would hate to be in a position where I am despiteful of God, where I despise God, okay? We need to understand that God is a god of commandments and law. Look, it says in the New Testament, "You know what commandments we gave you by the lord Jesus." He didn't say "Suggestions." These are commandments, okay? Go back to Leviticus 19.
God warns us in the New Testament, we don't want to ever fall into this trap of thinking that while the god of the Old Testament's angry and then he mellowed out in the New Testament. When the bible said God's angry with the wicked everyday, that still applies in the New Testament. He still is a god of wrath and vengeance, and even in the New Testament, he brings up some judgments that were brought out on fornication. In 1 Corinthians 10, he says in verse 8, "Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed," talking about the children of Israel who are living in the days that Leviticus was first delivered. He says, "Let's not commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand."
This is where God killed 23,000 people in one day because the sin of fornication when the children of Israel went whoring and they got involved in fornicating with the heathen of that area, and the bible then says, "Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." The bible's saying, "Look, when you read about God killing people in the Old Testament because they committed fornication, you need to apply that to yourself today," he said. That's an example for you today that God still feels the same way about that sin and is still going to punish sin even in the day we live, and we see people suffering and messing up their lives because of failure to heed God's word.
They don't want to be holy and then they suffer the repercussions of it in this life and they fail in life and they live a miserable life because they go their own way and God judges them. Obviously, God does not kill everybody in the bible who commits fornication but you know what? There are always consequences for our actions. It's not always that serious of a consequence but there are always serious consequences when we commit big sins like fornication, okay? Look at Leviticus 19.
We saw on verse 2, he told us, "Be holy for I am holy." He says in verse 3, "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God." When we look at this verse here, we see first of all that God tells us that children should fear their mother and father, and this is something again that's reiterated in the New Testament when the bible says, "Children, obey your parents in the lord for this is right." When the bible says, "Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it maybe well with thee and now may as live long on the earth." We're told to honor our father and mother. We're told to obey father and mother, okay? Children need to obey their parents, but you say, "Well, why does he use the word 'Fear?'"
In Hebrews 12, you don't have to turn there, but in Hebrews 12, the bible says, "Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence." What does "Reverence" mean? Reverence is very deep respect but also if you study the word "Reverence" throughout the bible, it's tied in with fear also. The bible says, "Let us serve God acceptably," in the same chapter, "With reverence and godly fear, for our god is a consuming fire," so reverence is respect but it's more than respect, it's also fear and respect, okay?
You say, "Well, why in the world would children fear their parents?" Well God's commanding you to fear your mother and fear your father. Why? Well because of the fact that your father and mother are going to punish you if you do not obey. That's where the fear comes from. The bible says, "Furthermore, we've had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence." Just before that, he explains what that correction is, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The bible of course teaches in the Old Testament, "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."
Fear is something that children should have for their parents. Say, "Your children are afraid of you, you're terrible." No. My children love me, my children want to be around me, my children enjoys spending time with me, but they do also fear my judgment and they fear my punishment, and that is as it should be. There is a healthy fear there that says, "I can't just do whatever I want, I can't just say whatever I want, I can't just act however I want because my parents are there to judge me and to punish me," okay? Today, we live in a day where children do not fear their parents.
Now you can say, "Well, I just don't agree with that," but you don't despise man, you despise God, because the bible says here, "You shall fear every man his mother and his father," and that's not something that's outdated in the Old Testament because in the New Testament, that's reiterated strongly in Hebrews 12 and elsewhere about parents punishing the children and the children reverencing or fearing their parents.
You see a child in the grocery store saying "I hate you" to their parents. Who has ever heard a child say to their parent, "I hate you?" Almost every hand in the building goes up, and you know what that is? I never would have said that to my parents because I would have been afraid to say that to my parents, and look, obviously I love my parents but when you're a kid, in my house, you never would have thought of saying that to your parents, and I remember, I was down the street in a neighbor kid's house and he said to his parents, and I was just in shock. I was like, "What in the world?" You know what? He did not received discipline when he said it. There was no spanking that went on when he said it, and that's why.
Now when you look at fear or reverence, this is not always a negative thing, okay? There is a place for this. There's a place for fear and reverence and you have to understand that when we have deep respect for our parents and when we listen, it's going to help us to live our lives better, and when we respect and fear God, it's going to help us to govern our actions. Today, we live in a day where people have no fear of God, therefore they basically just do whatever they want. Just if it feels good, do it. They live their life with no restriction, no boundaries, and honestly, it doesn't make them happy. They're miserable.
When you live a life that's just completely without boundaries ... You show me the kid who has no boundaries and his parents never told him no and it'll be a miserable kid, because you know what? There's joy in doing what's right and following biblical rules and biblical guidelines, and look, you see a kid that's never disciplined and they're angry. You say, "Well, why would that make them angry and sad and upset?" Because getting everything that you want makes you miserable, okay? That might not make any sense to you but just look at every rock star, look at every actor, look at every famous person who has all the money, all the fame, all the fortune, all the good looks, and they're all miserable, they're committing suicide, they're on drugs, they're on their face, but why? Because just getting everything that you want, it seems like it would make you happy, but it doesn't.
It gives you an empty feeling. Life is about struggle. Life is about challenges. Life is about doing what's right and standing up for what's right and fighting the good fight. People who live their life in that way are much happier than people who just gratify them self and their flesh, but that's a whole other sermon in and of itself. Anyway, back to chapter 19 here. The bible's telling us to fear our mother and father and then it says, "And keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God."
Now when it comes to the Sabbaths, the Sabbaths involved a couple of different things. Number 1, it involved every 7th day they were supposed to take 1 day off to rest. They were supposed to work for 6 days. The bible says, "Six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest unto thee," and they were to rest the 7th day. Now there are a lot of people who insists on this being something that we should observe today, but this is one of those cases where the bible specifically tells us that it has been changed. Go to Colossians chapter 2. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but go to Colossians chapter 2. The Sabbath is something that was specifically changed in the New Testament along with the meads and drinks and washings and the priestly ordinances, okay?
Now the New Testament contains 260 chapters and in those chapters, God gives a lot of commandments, he gives a lot of rules, and he reiterates a lot of things from the Old Testament but you're never going to find one time, from Matthew to Revelation, one time where God commands us to keep the Sabbath. One time. Not even once, but you will find a couple of times where he tells us, "Don't worry about it. It's done away in Christ, it's part of the old covenant," so if we have a couple of places telling us, "Hey, this is part of the old covenant, don't worry about it," and we don't have a single place telling us to observe it in the New Testament, it's pretty obvious that this is not something that we need to observe.
Now I do believe that the principle is still a good principle. Any book that you read on exercise, let's say you read a book on running or weightlifting or swimming or whatever type of exercise you like, if you read those books, pretty much all of them will recommend the same thing and that is one day of rest per week for any workout program. Most books on running, they're not going to tell you run 7 days a week. Most books on weight lifting aren't going to tell you, "Lift weight 7 days a week." Pretty much every single one will tell you, "Take a day off in 7 to let your body rest," so there is a principle here obviously that it's good for you, it's healthy for you to rest one day a week and not to just constantly be going all the time. You have to rest, you need to take it easy, okay?
I'm not saying that that is not a good principle, but what I'm saying is that as far as religious observants of observing a specific day in the New Testament where we all drop everything and we all rest on the same day and we have a Sabbath day, that is not a New Testament doctrine and that is one of the things in the law that was done away. First of all, there is no command to observe the Sabbath before Moses, so Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there's nothing to say that they ever observed the Sabbath, but when we see Moses and the Mosaic Law, that's where the Sabbath was introduced as a rest day.
Again, I'm not saying it's not a good idea to take a rest day but in America, most of us have 2 rest days. 90% of people in America have Saturday and Sunday off. That's 2 days off, so I don't think that we're really doing that bad on the rest thing. Some of you need to start working on the 6 day shalt thou labor part, or I don't think you guys are having the problem of and I don't think I'm having the problem of just running our bodies into the ground by doing hard, manual labor 7 days a week. Most of us are not doing that. We probably don't have a problem that we're all running 7 days a week, we're all lifting weight 7 days a week. We're probably not struggling with that in America today. I'm sure some people are but most people are getting all the rest that we need, okay?
Look what the bible says in Colossians chapter 2. It says in verse number 14, "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ," so look, those were shadows of things to come. Those were things pointing toward the New Testament that were symbolic. Do you understand that? The new moon observance was symbolic. The Sabbath was symbolic. The meats, drinks, and divers washings were symbolic. The carnal ordinances were symbolic and the bible flat out says, "Let no man judge you in these things."
Look, if someone's judging you saying, "Hey, you're not right with God because you're not keeping the Sabbath," they're violating the scripture because that is not something that we observe in the New Testament. The bible makes it clear that those things were a shadow of things to come. Flip back if you would to Romans 14 verse number 5. Romans chapter 14 verse number 5. Here's another verse that basically lets us know that the Sabbath has been done away in the New Testament. Romans chapter 14 verse number 5 says this.
"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," so does this look like there's a concrete rule in the New Testament telling you it's got to be a certain day? Also, people will argue about whether it's Saturday or Sunday, right? There are people out there that will say, "Saturday's the Sabbath," and there are people that will say, "Sunday is the Sabbath," and then there are people out there who will just say, "We don't observe the Sabbath in the New Testament," which is where I'm at because the bible's telling us, "Look, if you esteem everyday alike, that's okay. If you want to esteem one day above another, you may."
What if somebody says "I want to just observe Sunday and I'm never going to work on Sunday because I just want to take that day of rest. I think it's healthy, I think it's good for me spiritually to just take a day off and just relax and just study the bible and just go to church." Is there anything wrong with doing that with observing Sunday like that? You know when it becomes wrong is when you want to impose that on someone else or when you want to impose Saturday on someone else.
Now the whole debate between Sunday and Saturday is foolish anyway because the bible never mentions the word Saturday. The bible never tells us, "It's Saturday," and people say, "Well, but it's the seventh day." Okay, but how do you know that the seventh day is really Saturday? "Well every calendar in the world says." Okay, I guess you've never been to Germany, I guess you've never been to Norway, you've never been to Europe where all the calendars start on Monday and end on Sunday, and we do call Sunday the "Weekend" and virtually, everybody in America, their first workday of the week is Monday, so if you start working on Monday and work 6 days, then the seventh day would be Sunday that you would take off, so really, it's just silly anyway to fight over.
"But you're worshiping on Sunday, that means you're worshiping the sun." Okay, well I guess you're worshiping Saturn on Saturday. It just doesn't make sense and we need to be aware of people who are imposing rules that are not biblical, okay? The Sabbath was never supposed to be Saturday. Anyway, it was just supposed to be you work 6 days and then have a 7th day off. That was the law. Are we on the same cycle of weeks that we were on in the creation week? Probably not, so it's hard to say you know exactly which day is on that exact cycle, but I do think it's good or healthy to take a day off. When you're a pastor, Sunday doesn't feel like a day off anyway, you know what I mean? Because that's the hardest day as a pastor, but what I'm saying is that we don't have to observe the Sabbath as a matter of law or commandment in the New Testament.
If we want to we can and most of us in America seem like we want to take 2 days off. "Hey, I'm not sure if it's Saturday or Sunday, I'll take both." Seems to be the mentality of most people in America, right? Anyway, go back to Leviticus chapter number 19. We see that about fearing mother and father, keeping the Sabbath on the lord. It says in verse 4, "Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the Lord your God." Now what does the word "Molten" mean? Molten comes from the word "Melt." Molten means something that is melted. "Melted gods?" What he's talking about is metal that is melted and shaped into gods. They would basically make idols. You see like a little Buddha statue made out of metal, right? That is a molten image. It's melted down metal and it's formed and fashioned in to something and people will pray before it, they'll light candles before it.
Whether it's the saints, whether it's even supposedly Jesus or God or Buddha or whatever it is, the bible's real clear that we should not make any graven or molten images. This again is something that the bible reiterates in the New Testament. "Little children keep yourselves from idols," it says in 2 John, that we should flee from idolatry all thought the New Testament that's reiterated that we should not have molten images or graven images. I don't even think that you should have a nativity scene where you have a carved image of Jesus. We saw a nativity scene last night where Joseph was wearing a pink dress and Mary was wearing a blue dress. That's not biblically accurate, okay?
I don't think that we should have statues and images especially of Jesus or Mary or people that are worshiped in an image, okay? I don't have any images like that and the bible teaches that he said, "When you were at Mount Sinai and God appeared on the mountain in a flame of fire and he gave the word of God," he said, "You saw no image. You only heard a voice," he said. He said, "Look, when Moses got the 10 commandments, you heard a voice but you saw no image." He's saying, "Look, don't make an image of me because you don't know what I look like," is basically what he's saying. Nobody knows what Jesus looked like so therefore we shouldn't make pictures of Jesus and images of Jesus.
Nobody knows what God the father looks like. We're not going to see him probably until after the millennium to be able to look upon the face of God the father. We don't know what he looks like, let's not make an image of him. He said, "Look, you heard a voice. If you want to emphasize something, it's his word. It's the voice." If you want to have, you say, "Well I want a picture of Jesus on my wall." Put the word of God on your wall. That will give you a picture of who God is. His word, it's God's word that makes manifest who God is, not an image made by man's device and man's imagination. You see pictures of Jesus, you go to a black church, it's giving you Black Jesus. You go to the Chinese church, it's going to be a Chinese Jesus. You go to the white church and it's going to be a blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus. Why? Because people just make Jesus how they want them to look.
You don't know how you looked and I thank God they didn't have cameras back then and I thank God no one painted them back then that survived because if so, everybody would worship it, and I think God made it purposely that all images of Jesus did not survive. Probably none of them were made at the time because you know what? A lot of people, the bible tells us there was nothing about his appearance anyway that would make us desire him. I don't think he looked any different than anybody else, if you study the bible, so in Leviticus 19, it tells us, "Don't make idols." He said, "Nor make to yourselves molten gods. I am the lord, your god." Verse 5.
"And if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will. It shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow: and if ought remain until the third day, it shall be burnt in the fire. And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted. Therefore every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord: and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Now you look at that scripture right there and you say, "Wait a minute, Pastor Anderson. That's not applicable to us today at all because the peace offerings, that was an animal sacrifice that they did. It's done away in Christ. Now that Christ has once been offered, all animal sacrifices are supposed to cease at that time," but even though this is something that has been specifically repealed again in the New Testament, we can still learn from this because the bible's telling them, "Look, if you cook this meat," because when you offer a sacrifice, they would burn the fat unto the lord and then they would cook the meat and the priest would eat the meat, and he's telling them, "Look, eat it on that day, eat it the next, and don't eat it the third day."
Now even though we're not performing those sacrifices, that's probably just a pretty smart idea just when it comes to food in general, and when you think about it, they didn't have a refrigerator back then, so you're cooking a meal, you eat it today, you eat it tomorrow, don't eat it the third day. We can still learn a principle that food is going to go bad after it's been cooked. Meat that's been cooked is going to go bad after a couple of days, just like the Sabbath day. Even though we're not observing the Sabbath as a ritualistic thing, it still gives a good principle of resting every 7 days is just good for your body, just healthy to take a rest. Even an exercise book will tell you that, so don't eat things a few days later if they'd have been left out of the fridge, right?
Anyway, verse 9 says, "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God." Now what is this saying? This is saying that when they were farmers and they would have a field full of crops, when he says "Glean it," what he's saying there is for example, today when we reap the field, we have a machine that does it, right? Big tractor drives through and it's got things turning and it's harvesting the crops.
Whether you're harvesting with a machine or whether you're harvesting by hand, there can be something that doesn't make it into the machine or that doesn't make it into the basket. You're going through and you're doing the main harvesting, there's going to be a lot that falls down and is left behind, so gleaning is when you basically go back over at a second time and you get all the, let's say you're picking apples, you go back and get all the apples that fell out or that were laying around that you didn't get to, so what the bible teaches is that the children of Israel were not supposed to glean their field. They weren't supposed to glean the corners of the field, meaning the edges of the field, saying "Leave that for the poor, the fatherless, the widow."
Basically what would happen is there's a law in the Old Testament that says that if you walk into someone else's field, somebody else got a farm, right? If you walk into their field, you're allowed to just pick the fruit and just eat it, whether it's off the ground or off the plant, but you're not allowed to bring any vessel into the field, meaning you can't bring a backpack and fill it up with food or you can't bring a wheelbarrow and start ... You can't just harvest somebody else's crops, right? But if you're hungry, you were allowed to just go there and just whatever you could carry on you, you were allowed to take that. This was a way for people to survive. This was a way for orphans and widows to survive.
If you remember, Ruth was a widow in the book of Ruth, and so this is what Ruth would do. Ruth went after the reapers. The main reapers would come through and they would reap all the barley and they would spill behind them and they would not get every single little last grain and she would go behind them and gather up what they had left behind. That's the gleaning, and so she as a poor person, as a widow was able to survive. These government programs are inefficient that we have today to feed the poor and also they keep people reliant on government and they keep them poor.
Now you'll notice that when people are not motivated to work, they're not going to work, so if somebody's just getting the check every week and they just sit around and do nothing, there's a tendency to just keeping getting that check. Let's say unemployment last for 6 months. Usually around 5 and a half months is when that person starts looking for a job. Now if unemployment lasted 9 months, that person would start looking for a job at about 8 and a half months, because the tendency is that if you're getting free money, you're just going to keep receiving the free money, okay?
Now this program that God had for the poor, look, God doesn't want poor people to starve to death, does he? Does he just want people starving and dying? No, but what he had was a program where they still had to do a little work for it. Nobody's delivering it to them, but rather they had to go and they had to go and go hunting for it and gather it up. Ruth was working hard. All day long, she's out gathering and gleaning and everything like that, so a poor person that doesn't have any land, don't have a job, that's a way that they can at least get food to eat and survive. They could go glean the field. It's a great plan. God's way is always a better way, and so this is a good plan.
Now obviously, there were people, who were ungodly people, who would go back and they would just glean every last apple, they'd glean every last piece of grain, they glean the corners of the field and they wouldn't leave anything for the poor, for the fatherless, for the animals. They would just gather everything up and God's saying, "You shall not do that. You should leave something for the poor," and obviously the bible teaches elsewhere that people who have money should generous with their money and help people that don't have money anyway and give to the poor, but it shouldn't be a forced government program that just causes people to become lazy and to do nothing.
You say, "Well, some people are not physically able to go out and work," and maybe they're handicapped, right? Maybe they're lame or they have some other handicap, but in those days, that person would ask for alms or charity, and here's the thing. If I'm giving alms or charity to somebody, I'm going to be able to judge, "Okay, does this person really need help?" Because there are a lot of people who come and ask our church for help and we have to judge, does this person really need help or is this person lazy? Is this person just wasting their money? Is this person just not working?
Now the government, though, they just give it out to all kinds of people who are not legitimate, because it's not their money. When you're giving out your own money, you see somebody by the side of the road asking for money and you're going to give them of your hard earned money, you're probably going to stop and think about it. "Okay, is this legitimate? Before I give my hard earned money." Whereas if you just had an unlimited, if somebody just gave you millions of dollars and just say, "Give this out to poor people." "Okay, line up, poor people." You're not that worried about it. You're just giving it out because you didn't earn it, it's not your money, so the government's giving out other people's money. They're very generous too with other people's money.
When it comes to their money, they hoard it, they put it in Swiss bank accounts, they build million dollar mansions and drive fancy cars and fly around in jets, but with your money, man, they want to give it all to the poor because they're so loving. God's program is a better program because it allows for people to have the joy also of giving to the poor because they want to, not being forced to. This is what the gleaning of the vineyard has to do with. Look at verse 11. "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another."
Now obviously, we know that all of those things are things that God expects of us today in the New Testament. Not to steal, not to deal falsely, what does that mean? Dishonest business practices, lying one to another. He says in verse 12, "Ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord." What he's saying there is swearing falsely, it's when you're taking an oath or promising that something's true and it's really not true, and then he also says "You're profaning God's name." This is one that has been slightly altered in the New Testament because in the Old Testament, the bible teaches not to swear falsely, but in the New Testament both Jesus and the book of James teach swear nod at all in the New Testament.
This is why when you go to court today, they will not make you swear necessarily to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but you can affirm. Affirm is similar to our word "Affirmative," which just means yes, so you can just truthfully state, "Yes, I will tell the truth" without swearing to tell the truth because the New Testament tells us not to swear but rather to just let yay be yay and nay be nay. That's why in the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States constitution, it talks about how there has to probable cause for there to be a warrant to search someone, right? It says that that warrant shall be issued upon probable cause, it says "With oath or affirmation." Have you ever noticed that in the 4th amendment, the oath or affirmation? Because some people fear an oath, some people swear not at all because that's what the New Testament teaches.
Profaning God's name is definitely something that we should not do. What does it mean to "Profane God's name?" The word "Profane" means common, and this kind of goes back to the subject, what we talked about earlier, holiness. The opposite of holy is common, okay? Holy is something that's set apart, something that's different. That means that we should set apart God's name and treat it differently, have more respect for it and not throw it around.
One of the biggest ways that God's name is profaned is when people will use it as an expletive or a cuss word. People will say "Jesus" as a cuss word. Now if we want to talk about the names of God, the name that is above every name, because God has a lot of names, the name that is above all other names is the name of Jesus. The bible says that God has given him a name which is above every name that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in the earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of God the father. The bible says, "No man speaking by the spirit of God calls Jesus Christ accursed, and Jesus's name is the name above all names, neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."
What is the name whereby we must be saved? Jesus. Now is the name whereby we must be saved the Old Testament name of lord in all capital letters, also known as the Tetragrammaton, also known as Jehovah or Yahweh. Is that the name whereby we must be saved? No. Now here's the thing. If that were the name whereby we must be saved, we're in trouble because nobody knows how to pronounce it. People will say, "Yahweh," but that's just made up. Nobody knows exactly how to pronounce this name because the Jews, they misinterpreted this scripture and other scriptures. They thought, "Well, God's name is so holy, we shouldn't even say it. We should never even say it."
History tells us that around 300 BC, they stopped saying the Old Testament name of God, so then hundreds of years went by and they don't even know how to pronounce it. Nobody really knows how to pronounce it, because Hebrew is written in all consonants. Sometimes it's kind of like texting language, like if you're texting, sometimes you leave out vowels. For example, if I gave you the letters TXT KDS ... Okay, don't ever try to read Hebrew then if you can't figure that. KDS, what word would that be? I'm not talking about the shoes now. Okay, kids, right? KDS, kids. What I'm trying to show you is that if I gave you consonants without vowels, you could usually probably in English, figure out what I'm saying, right? If I said "CHR," chair. You know what I mean? It's not that complicated.
That's how Hebrew is, so it's only written in consonants so nobody knows the vowels, nobody pronounced it for so many hundreds of years that the forgot how to pronounce it, and the Jews came up with all these weird rules about, "You can't say it. It's too holy. Don't say it," and then they forgot how to say it, and then not only that but if they said if you ever write it down, you can never erase it. They have all these rules that are made up that are not biblical. Thank God, that's not the name whereby we must be saved. At least for save by name, we know what it says. We know how to pronounce it, it's "Jesus," okay? In English, of course.
What I'm saying is that we should not profane the name of Jesus but we shouldn't profane the name "The lord" either, because in English, another name that we use to describe God is "The lord," so we shouldn't say things like, "Oh, lord" or "Oh my lord," and really even God is a name that's associated with God, and so we should not say "Oh my god," but isn't that something that people say a lot? You hear it all the time, "Oh my god, oh lord, oh my lord, Jesus, Jesus Christ," and these things will be thrown around in a profane way. Now look, let's not got the strange extreme of the Jews who said it's so holy, you can never say it, you can never pronounce it. Look, we should pronounce God's name. "We should praise him by his name," the bible says.
We should speak God's name but listen to me, when we use God's name, we should always be talking to God or about God. That's the rule of thumb. You say, "Well, how do I know if I'm profaning God's name? How do I know if I take it in vain?" If you're not talking to God in a respectful way and if you're not talking about God in a respectful way, you shouldn't be using the name of God. It shouldn't just be thrown around as an expletive, as a cuss word, as just an exclamation. "Oh god," and by the way, I would even, because I would want to respect God's name, I wouldn't even use these euphimisms for God's name, like for example, people say "Oh my gosh" or "Geez," and they basically will just try to come short of using God's name.
It's better to just stay away from expressions like that and to just be reverent and respectful of God's name especially the name of Jesus but all of the names that are associated where they'll not just treat them as a common word but as a set apart name for God. He said, "Thou shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."
Now in verse 13, we see a couple things obviously not to steal or to rob from our neighbor, but not only that, it says "The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." The bible teaches that when we have people working for us, we should pay them on a daily basis. You say, "Well, that doesn't sound convenient." You know what I mean? That doesn't sound like it's going to work in 2013. Most employers pay what? Every 2 weeks, sometimes it's weekly, sometimes it's monthly, and honestly, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. I don't think God is saying that it's wrong to pay monthly or to pay weekly, but listen, I ran a business for years. I ran my own fire alarm business that I owned. I don't anymore but I did for years, and I had people working for me and I had a policy with anyone who ever worked for me. This was my policy.
I paid them weekly but I said, "Look," I said, "If you ever need money, if you ever run out of money, if you're ever struggling financially, at any time, you can call me and I will pay you up to the minute what you've earned." You know what I mean? Friday was payday, but I said, "Look, if it's Wednesday and you've worked Monday and Tuesday and you're just in a bind and you just need money," I said, "You call me and I'll deposit money into your account because you've already earned that money, I owe you that money, and I'll give you that in advance," just because I wanted to follow this biblical principle.
We don't want to just write this stuff up. "Oh obsolete. Outdated." It's better to just say, look, people who are working hourly are often poor, they're often struggling, and if they need a loan toward that paycheck because they've already earned it anyway, it's not even really a loan, you should be able to front them the money that they've already earned, and I think that's what God's teaching in this passage. That was something that I tried to live by when I ran a business. I was trying to be blessed by God so I wanted to follow these principles at the best of my ability.
It says in verse number 14, "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord." Now this almost seems like something that would be said unto a junior higher or something. "You want to be funny? Curse a deaf guy because he can't hear what we're saying, or put something in front of somebody that's blind, put a stumbling block in front of the blind." I don't know why God even had to say this. Who would be so cruel, right? I think what we can learn from this is that we shouldn't be cruel to people who are handicapped. We shouldn't treat them badly and harm them and abuse them and so forth. We should be respectful of them.
It says in verse 15, "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour; I am the Lord." That's something that's definitely applicable today. Going around and being a talebearer? What's a talebearer? We would use the term "A tattle tale," but also what this is referring to is a gossip. He's saying, "Don't go up and down as as a talebearer among thy people," and you've known people like this, haven't you? They live for the latest scuttlebutt. They live to get the latest juicy piece of gossip and their favorite thing in the world to do is to pick up the phone and tell somebody the newest dirt on so and so.
Whole magazines are based on this. People magazine, right? It's a gossip magazine. In newspapers, they call it "The gossip column" or whatever. "Do you know this celebrity, this and that, this and that." You know what it all boils down to, whether it's People magazine, the gossip columns, whether it's you being a gossip in your church or at your job or your work, it's just living everybody else's life instead of just living your own life, minding your own business, and the bible tells us the reason why people become gossips and tattlers is simply because they are idle and lazy, because in 1 Timothy 5, it talks about how women should marry, bear children, guide the house, give on occasion to the adversary to speak reproach because he says if not, they learn to be idle. What does idle mean? What is it when your car is idling? You're just sitting there, you're not going anywhere, right?
He says they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but tattlers also and busybodies speaking things, would say ... Look, "Busybody's about other men's matters," the bible says, a busybody, a tattle tale, a gossip. If somebody who instead of living their own life, raising their own kids, dealing with their own husband, their own wife, their own life, they spend time just worrying about what everybody else is doing, judging what everybody else is doing, repeating stories about what everybody else is doing, and this is something that we should stay away from as God's people, and look, I don't think Facebook is bad but you know what? If some people use Facebook just to stalk the lives of other people in order to just talk about them, "Oh, did you see what so and so said?" Basically, they get this mentality where they're not doing ...
Why is tattling wrong? Why is being a busybody bad? Because look, we have enough things to do with our life, and I'm going to promise you something. If you are a wife or mother and you're on Facebook being a tattler and a busybody or if you're just actually in the flesh and blood real world going from house to house literally, or whether you're cyber going from house to house on the internet, you're neglecting your husband and you're neglecting your children and you're neglecting God's word and you're neglecting your work and you're neglecting cooking ant you're neglecting cleaning and you're neglecting child bearing.
Because look, anybody who's doing their job, anybody who's doing the things that God told him to do, anybody's who's reading their bible like they should, praying like they should, cooking meals like they should, spending time with their husband like they should, raising their children like they should or from a man's perspective, going to work as you should, taking care of your wife as you should, taking care of your children as you should, you don't have time to just spend your life fixated and worried about what the Royal Family's doing this week and what all the Hollywood starts are doing this week and what your former 4th grade classmate is doing this week and what everybody in the church is doing this week because you're living your own life.
We need to get off this reality show mentality where we just want to just get wrapped up in other people's lives, and you're missing out on your own life. You're missing out on your own marriage, your own children. You're missing out when you worry about what everybody else is doing and you're neglecting God's word.
It says in verse 17, and I'm not going to go all the way to the end of the chapter if you're looking at your watch, but anyway, I'm just going to go as far as I can, but it says in verse 17, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord." Now again, this is showing a continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. "Love thy neighbour as thyself" is from Leviticus, the book that everybody is mocking, everybody ridicules, everybody says obsolete, yet if we ask them, "Is 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' something that we need to deal with?"
This is where it originally came from, Leviticus. This is what Jesus was quoting as being the second great commandment. He got it from Leviticus, okay? It says here that we should love our neighbor as our self, and he also says that we should not hate our brother in our heart." That's taught again in 1 John chapter 3, but he says that "We shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour" in verse 17, "And not suffer sin upon him," and he says, "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge." What can we learn from this? There is a time and a place to rebuke people. What does it mean to rebuke? A rebuke is when you tell someone that they're wrong.
Now a lot of people think that we should never tell anybody they're wrong. Never say anything negative. Never correct people, but you know what? There are times when people need to be corrected. Let me tell you something. When someone does me wrong, when someone sins against me, when someone offends me, I go and I tell that person that they've done me wrong and that they've offended me and I rebuke that person. Now you say, "Well that's mean. You should just let it go." Well here's the thing. If it's something really minor, if it's something really small, then yeah, I'm just going to let it go, right? If it's just some tiny little thing that it's not a big deal, but here's the thing. If someone has done me wrong and it bothers me and it makes me upset or if I'm hurt or offended, the reason why I need to go to that person and tell them is to get it off my chest.
What the bible is saying here is you shall rebuke your neighbor. Look at it. "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people," because what happens is a lot of times, people, they won't rebuke someone but instead, they just hold the grudge against that person, right? They get bitter, they hold a grudge, they're angry, or they'll try to avenge themselves. "I'll just make things right myself," and they'll get back at them.
Now this can also be true in marriage where basically your wife does something that hurts or offends you or your husband does something that hurts or offends you and you just aren't going to say anything about it. Now if it's something small, it's great if you could just let things go obviously. The more things you can let go, the better, but have you ever had somebody say or do something to you and you tried to let it go and the next day, it still bothered you, right? You tried to let it go and the third day, it still bothered you. You know what I mean? This is because we're human, okay? Sometimes things get under our skin and bother us and hurt us and we need to deal with them.
Now the bible's clear that we should not grudge against our neighbor in our heart. We should not hold a grudge against our wife, against ... Look, if you're right with God, you wake up every morning and your husband has a clean slate or your wife has a clean slate. If you're upset at your wife or your husband about something that happened yesterday or the day before, you're not right with God, because the bible commands us to forgive and forget, the bible commands us to give a clean slate and to have new mercies every morning.
This is something that will sometimes allow us to be able to let things go, and you know what? I've noticed that if somebody offends me and I just tell them, "Look, you've done me wrong, here's why," then it allows me to be able to move on from it. Now in order for this principle to work, because obviously as a church, we want to get along with one another. We don't want to have all these people in the church with grudges and problems with one another. We want your family obviously to get along. I wish every husband and wife in this church would have great marriage and that the children and the parents would get along with one another and love each other and have a good relationship, and that's why I think this is important, but this is a 2 way street.
Number 1, we should have a church and a family with a culture where when somebody does us wrong, and I'm not talking about some dumb little thing. "He didn't shake my hand" or something. "She wore the same thing I wore" or whatever. I'm just saying if it's a legitimate thing, somebody backed into you in the parking lot and just drove off. Now look, if somebody backed into me in the parking lot and just drove off in my Hyundai Sonata that I used to have, I would have just been like. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." I don't care, right? If somebody would have backed into my Sonata and put a dent in it, that car was such a piece of junk anyway, you know what? I wouldn't even care, okay? But now my nice van that I bought from my wife, right?
Let's say somebody backed into my wife's nice van and I saw them do it and they knew what they did and I saw them kind of looked this way and looked that way and then drive off, that might make me a little bit upset that they would do that, right? Here's what I would do. I would go to that person, I wouldn't be mean or rude but I'd say, "You know what? I saw you back into my van and drive off without saying anything. That was not right. You should have told me. It's okay. I forgive you. I don't need you to pay for it, it's just a cosmetic thing, and obviously that thing's going to be destroyed by all my children anyway eventually," but you know what though? I would just correct them and say, "You know what? You've done wrong. You owe me an apology."
Here's the other side of that coin is that we should be the type of people that when someone comes to us and rebukes us or corrects us, instead of just burst, "How dare you," we should just, as a rule, react by saying, "You know what? You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. Thanks for being understanding. Thanks for forgiving me," and then it could be restored. Instead of me just having to grudge months later, "Yeah, that's the type of guy he is. A jerk. Backs into the car, doesn't say anything, drives off." You see what I'm saying? It'd be better if I just went to him and just told him and just said, "Look, you've done this, you're wrong, I forgive you, but I just want to correct you," but there are some people who can't take correction at all and you try to correct them in any way and they freak out, they get upset, we shouldn't be like that.
This is a really deep scripture here, verses 17 and 18. This is something that we should read several times, we should think about, we should understand and apply this both in our families, on the job, at work, at church, whatever. This is an important teaching, okay?
He says in verse 19, "Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee." This is the last one that I'm going to deal with tonight. I'm going to stop after this verse, but this is a verse that's often ridiculed from Leviticus and usually when people ridicule the bible or ridicule Leviticus, they usually bring up this verse or they'll bring up something about shellfish, the bible telling you not to eat certain shellfish or shrimp or whatever.
Shrimp eat garbage. Shrimp eat excrement and garbage, just so you know. Now I'm not saying it's bad to eat shrimp. I don't think it's bad and I think that if you went to eat shrimp today at Panda Express, I think it's prepared in a way where it's clean and safe for human consumption, and I'll tell you right now, I like shrimp. Who likes shrimp? I enjoy shrimp. I don't think it's bad and the bible's clear that in the New Testament, we're allowed to eat all meats in the New Testament. I'm not against eating shrimp, okay? But I can understand why God said that, though. When you're understanding different conditions back then, different hygiene, God's just trying to teach some difference between clean and unclean and I can see how people could have gotten sick pretty often back then probably eating shrimp in those days.
It's not like God is just making up weird rules that don't make sense. If you look at the rules of what animals to eat and what animals to not eat, if you want to eat dogs and cats, we're living in New Testament, brother. Go for it, but do you really think that's the best meat to be eating? What I'm saying is a lot of these rules that we look at as being Old Testament though, there is some logic behind them, just like there's logic behind the Sabbath, just like there's logic behind a lot of things, okay?
When we look at this scripture, that's the other one that they'll sometimes attack, but this is one that they'll criticize and here's what they'll say. "You guys who want to talk about the Old Testament, you want to talk about Leviticus," because you'll show them the part in Leviticus where it tells you not to cross dress. Men shouldn't dress like women, women shouldn't dress like men. That's in Deuteronomy 22:5. You'll show them that from Deuteronomy or you'll show them from Leviticus, "Whosoever lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." You show them verses against homosexuality, cross dressing, all these things, which are obviously all reiterated in the New Testament anyway.
The bible teaches that men should not be effeminate, the bible teaches that Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of going after strange flesh, whatever, on and on, but here's what they'll say. They'll say, "You're against homosexuality but your shirt is a cotton poly blend, and because your shirt is a cotton poly blend, you are in violation of Leviticus 19:19." Has anybody heard that one before? "Because your shirt is a mixed fabric." First of all, I don't wear cotton poly blend, okay? My shirt is 100% cotton, I'll have you know, number 1, but if you look at this verse, it says, "Thou shall keep my statutes. You shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind."
Now what does it mean for cattle "To gender with a diverse kind?" This is meeting an animal with a different type of animal. Obviously, most of the time, that doesn't work, right? You can't mingle most animals. It just doesn't work. You're not going to produce any offspring like that, okay? There are some cases where you can mingle certain animals with a different animal and produce something different. Give me the most famous example. Right? Again, I'm probably going to get this totally wrong because I'm not a farmer type of a guy, I'm a city dweller, I've never lived outside the city, but correct me if I'm wrong, but if you take a horse and a donkey and breed them, you end up with a mule, and the mule is a hybrid between the horse and the donkey and the mule is unable to reproduce. Isn't that right? It's sterile? That's my understanding, hopefully I got it right.
That's not something that God wanted the children of Israel to do, to produce these types of hybrid animals. Now you say, "Well, why is he making ... Does he just hate mules that much?" Because most animals, you can't breed a dog and a cat. You can't breed a dog with a pig, it's just not going to work. No offspring will be produced, and then he says, "Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee." First of all, God is not necessarily ... If we took a real strict interpretation here, God's not even saying that a cotton poly blend is wrong, he's specifically saying not to mix linen and wool, so he's not saying, "Any cloth of any mixed fabric is wrong."
Is that what the verse says, if you actually read it? Does it really? The NIV takes it to that? Just no mixed fabric, yeah, but if you read a King James, there's a specific mixture to stay away from which has a specific symbolic meaning, the linen and woolen, but Leviticus 19:19 is probably the most relevant verse in the whole chapter today because if you think about it, we're living in the day of GMO's, so we might think to ourselves, "Yeah, breeding one animal with another, come on, it doesn't even work 99% of the time. Sowing with a diverse seed, so what? Who cares? Mixing linen and wool, so what?"
Look, today, the mixed seeds and the mixed animals are something that are becoming a reality today because the voodoo science and the tampering with nature today that's going on involves GMO's, Genetically Modified Organisms that are splicing not only different kinds of animals to one another, but even splicing animals and plants together. You might think, "Oh, Pastor Anderson has lost his mind," but do the research. This is something that's going on today. Some of the foods that are being served today are splicing in genes from animals into the plants, mixing plants and animals, and look, once these things are released in to the environment, it destroys the environment, because for example, you take the Canola or what's the one that's really ... The soy, even more than the Canola. The Canola also.
By the way, Canola is actually called "Rape seed," but that name just doesn't really roll off your tongue when you're in the supermarket writing up a grocery list, so that's why they changed the name to Canola which is a fake name, but anyway, Soy. Genetically modified soybeans, listen to me now, if you buy any product that has anything with soy in the ingredient and it doesn't say "Non GMO" and it doesn't say "Organic soy," that is genetically modified soy. Take it to the bank. 99.9% of the time, and by the way, almost every processed food is going to have some soy product in it or some corn product. If you buy anything out of a box, pretty much, or anything that's processed or ready, it's either going to have corn ingredients or soy ingredients virtually 100% of the time. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
It's all corn, it's also ... Soy Lecithin is in almost everything, and even if the product, even if you buy something that says "Organic," but in the ingredient it says "Soy this" or "Soy that," unless it says "Organic Soy Lecithin" or "Organic soy," it's probably going to be non organic because for something to be labeled organic, what percentage is it? It just has to be 95% organic for it to be labeled organic, and the soy is a small thing so therefore, the soy is never organic unless it says organic soy or non GMO. You say, "Why does that matter?" Because these GMO's are basically genetically modified soy and what happens is the reason why it's all GMO now is because what happens is the wind blows this stuff around.
You got a field full of soy beans, right? Your next door neighbors doing GMO, it blows in and takes over, and then what happens is you can no longer be certified organic anymore because they find all the GMO mixed in and then pretty soon, it's like, "Well, we just got to grow GMO's now because we're already infected with it anyway," and this stuff's killing the bees. There are bees all over America and all of the world dying. Did you know that? Because once you start tampering with God's plan, you start tampering with nature, there are all kinds of unintended consequences where bugs are dying from this stuff, the bees are dying, and look, bees are important to production of food. They pollinate everything, they're critical. Bees all over Arizona are dying, the place where we buy the honey from said a lot of the bees are dying and they don't know why.
You've got bees that are dying and then also you've got these GMO products that basically wreak havoc on the human body, and you wonder why so many people today are sterile. So many people. They're infertile, they're sterile, so many people also have all kinds of diseases that never existed in the past, like for example cancer. There are places in the world where people don't get cancer because they don't eat all this processed junk food and GMO food. You got 50% of people getting cancer and everybody's getting a heart attack and everybody's got diabetes. Diabetes is climbing every single year, you get all these things like autism and things that are just skyrocketing in how common they are. They're all these problems that people are having because they're eating this junk, this garbage, and the motive behind the GMO's is financial gain.
They can make food cheap. That's why going to a restaurant costs the same today as it did 10 years ago, even though everything else ... The quality is going down and profits are going up. That's why food is so cheap today. If you buy junky food, it's cheap. Why do you think any size soda, $1? Because you're paying for garbage. You're paying for water and genetically modified high fructose corn syrup and just a bunch of artificial chemical flavors and colors. That's all you're getting in that drink. It's worthless. It tickles your tongue but it's giving you diabetes, it's damaging your body in ways that you don't even understand. It's damaging your body from your bones to ...
Instead of just saying, "The bible's dumb. The bible's silly, the bible's outdated when he said not to mix animals and not to mix plants and not to mix ..." Maybe we should just stop and think. You know what? Anything that God made is perfect because God made it, and when we look at the animals that God made, they're perfect. When we look at the plants that God made, they're beautiful, they're perfect, and we should not try to tamper and think we can make a better soy plant, we can make a better animal, we can make a better ... They're going to start tampering with humans and say, "We can make it better," but whenever we think we can improve upon what God has created, we're wrong, and then it's like there are all these unintended consequences. "Oh yeah, this is great. Look how great it's going," then all the bees are dying. It's like, "Oh, whoops. Now we can't grow anything."
The purpose of the sermon tonight is this. Obviously, we touched on a lot of subjects that you could probably apply to your life. Sure, there is something in here that you could apply and make a change in your life and improve something about your life, but what I'm trying to illustrate to you is the profitability of the book of Leviticus in general and of all Old Testament scripture in general. What I'm trying to show you is that you can read the bible, even in the book of Leviticus, "The most boring book," right? You can really get a lot out of it, right? Look how much we got out of it tonight just in an hour, just going through it, and if you understand how to rightly divide the word of truth, you can go through this and get a lot of good teaching.
All scripture is profitable and you know what? When we run into someone that's a little different than our opinion, we should stop and think, "Well maybe we're wrong. Maybe there's some hidden wisdom in this verse that we could use to be healthier or to live for God and to serve him better," but let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for the book of Leviticus, lord. Help us not to just skip Leviticus and say, "Oh, it's boring, it's hard, it's obsolete." Help us understand that all scripture is there for us and is beneficial to us, and help us to study our bibles and to learn them and to be faithful to church so we can learn the most.
