in your Bibles, please, to Leviticus chapter 19. We'll read verses 33 and 34. Hear now the inerrant, infallible, and inspired word of God. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you. And thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. May God add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his most holy word. As we have made our way through Leviticus 19, being recommended there, commended there from the Apostle Peter, we have seen many things with regard to holy living. Now we come to this section toward the end of that chapter and we have some command. with regard to the strangers that would enter into Israel's gates of old and the general equity applications that belong to ourselves. Let's hear the Reverend Stephen Charnock to introduce the sermon today. If thy disease were not so great, Christ's glory would not be so illustrious. Pardon of such sins enhanceth the mercy and skill of thy Savior. The multitude of devils which were in Mary Magdalene are recorded to show the power of the Savior that expelled them and wrought so remarkable a change. Are thy sins the greatest? God that loves to advance his free grace in the highest manner will be glad of the opportunity to have so great a sinner follow the chariot of it and to manifest thereby its uncontrollable power. Use David's argument, Psalm 37, 12, when he, verse eight, prayed that God would deliver him from his transgressions, he useth this argument that he was a stranger. I know no reason, but it may be thine, for if thy sins be great, thou art more alienated from God than the ordinary rank of men. Lord, thou dost command us to show kindness to strangers to love our enemies, and wilt thou not use the same mercy to a stranger that thou commandest others to use, and show that same love to so great an enemy as I am? The greater my enmity, the more glorious will thy love be. There is a typo in that which comes out of the publication that should be Psalm 39.12, not Psalm 37.12. Well, that is well said. We'll take a look at that toward the end of our sermon today if we have the time, if we do get that far. Let's talk about our review as we opened up this topic last week. First of all, we looked at three definitions, if you remember. We looked at the stranger, we looked at the phrase that sojourns among you, and then finally we said within your land. And I'd like to go on a little bit more on the land before we move on to the proper command itself, you shall not vex him. But when we talked about the stranger, we learned that the stranger in ancient Israel was that one who was more vulnerable, had less resources, was more likely to be oppressed, was without recourse. We looked at several passages of scripture where the context was clear. They were grouped, strangers were grouped with widows, with orphans, with those who did not have any sure abode and no constant supply. And so stranger then calls forth compassion, in other words, as we would have compassion upon others like the widow and so on. The second phrase, that sojourns among you. And we looked at a few things with regard to that. The first was that there was not a responsibility for the ancient Israelites to care for strangers outside their national boundary. The stranger that sojourns among you, this is the attitude that you'll have toward him. Now, there was a mutual respect and honor, and we could see that laid out for us in scripture with regard to other nations' borders, that they were not to despise those borders and things like that, but their care for those nations that were outside their borders were different from those from those nations who came within their borders. they were to have a different care for them than they would for those outside their border. That's why it said, the stranger that sojourns among you. There's a specificity there that we have to pull up. Second, there was a tacit understanding that in sojourning among the people of God, that they had leave to do so, that they were not lawbreakers, right? That they behaved themselves in a lawful manner. That's part of loving the stranger is wanting him to be a law keeper, in other words, not to suffer sin upon him. And we read that earlier in Leviticus 19. That's what it means to love someone as you love yourself. Then third, that God in his providence brought them to Israel for a reason, that the people of God would know that even in the ancient days when the gospel was centered in one nation, one people, the nation of Israel, that God brought others outside of Israel to hear the gospel inside Israel, and that that first word about strangers that the people of God ever heard even before they left Egypt, when that word stranger would have been very acute to them, was what? Remember in Exodus chapter 12, that when a stranger will come and join to you in your land, he shall not eat of the Passover unless he is circumcised, he and all his, and then He shall partake of the Passover and be as one born in the land. He shall enjoy an ecclesiastical equality, in other words. We also saw that it wasn't necessarily a civil equality. That in ancient Israel, there was not necessarily a civil equality there, but there was an ecclesiastical equality. He could come and be joined to the people of Israel, partake of the Passover, if he took the covenant. If he and all his males were circumcised. then he could be as one born in the land. And we made some emphasis that this teaching was given to the children of Israel by Moses while they were yet in Egypt. And so everything that you read subsequently in the Pentateuch that talks about loving the stranger, it comes after that. It is built upon that. The first word Israel ever heard about strangers in their economy was when they came out of Egypt as strangers that night and heard that if a stranger will draw near unto you and keep the Passover, if he desires to become a part of the Israelite church, not just to sojourn in the land, but to be circumcised, then he's going to be as one born in the land, ecclesiastically speaking. Okay? So we saw all of that last week. We looked also at, with regard to that civil inequality, if you will, I don't know if inequality is the right word or not, but they could maintain a different aspect in a couple of different ways. They could charge usury. interest on loans to those who were strangers in their land, and they were forbidden from doing that to their brethren, and we'll talk about why that would be true a little bit later on. We looked also that with regard to the land, the stranger, although he could own land, it would only be a temporary ownership of that land, that in the Jubilee, it would always go back to its original border. We talked about that as the Israelite might become poor from Luke chapter 25 and sell himself into slavery and his land to his next-door neighbor who could be one not born in the land, could be a stranger. He could be enslaved to him, but he could be bought out of that slavery before the Jubilee. If he was not, then he went free at the Jubilee. That's what we talked about last week. So there is this general equity principle with regard to the land. I don't want to talk to you about that for a moment because it often trips us up. The Israelites had this what we call the land of promise. God promised Abraham that land, didn't he? And it was big. It was a large, large piece of real estate. We find out that in Joshua, the end of the book of Joshua, chapter 21, not exactly the end, but near the end, that the Lord gave to the children of Israel after the conquest of Canaan all that he had promised to the fathers. That that land had been given, had been ceded over to Israel. And now they didn't treat it very well. They didn't do what they were told to do. They didn't exterminate the Canaanites. They kept them in some cases, and they became stumbling blocks to them later. We recognize that. But with regard to the land itself, they got all of that land. And Josh was very clear to tell us that so they received all of the land that God had that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, was then God's promise that he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob fulfilled? And the answer to that question is no, because the land was never the terminus of that particular promise. Now we've seen this before. We read of it in Hebrews chapter 11, don't we? In Hebrews 11, we look at verses eight through 10 for a moment. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed and he went out, not knowing whether he went. By faith, he sojourned. in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Now we're gonna skip down to verse 13. These all, and we're gonna add Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, and so on, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned, but now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city." We note that then these dear saints of old did not look to the land as the fulfillment of that promise, but only as a type of that promise. They went out to receive a land, but they understood that the true promise that they were receiving was a heavenly promise instead. In Matthew chapter 9 verse 27, we recognize that fact very clearly because Jesus will say to his disciples, Peter will say, well what about us? We've left everything to follow you. Right? What about us? What will we have in the resurrection then? Notice what Jesus says. Then answered Peter and said unto him, behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye shall sit upon 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name's sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first. This is repeated again in Mark chapter 10, verse 28. And then we turn over to Acts chapter four and verse 34. Why is it that The people of God are coming to the church, in verse 34, neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to every man as he had need. They're giving up their inheritance. Well, again, in the days of the greater light of the New Testament, they're seeing that greater inheritance rather than the type of the inheritance. And then Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20, Paul the Pharisee will write, verse 24, our conversation, the word conversation is the Greek word polytevma, our citizenship, is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, this will be in keeping with what he says to the Colossians in chapter three. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for you're dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. So then, now we understand the purpose of the Jubilee. We talked about the Jubilee for a couple of moments here where this Hebrew slave that had sold himself into slavery to his brethren or to a stranger had given up his land to his brethren or stranger can either redeem it back at the right time when he is able to amass the funds that he needs to do that, and there was a very specific procedure for doing that. You were to count the years to the jubilee and make a division out, and he was to buy all of that out according to the price of his labor for each year, but then beyond that, If he could not do that at the Jubilee, it went back because what's the general equity principle? That the land, which was a type of their eternal inheritance, could not be lost to them while that estate stood. Why? Because beloved, your heavenly inheritance cannot be lost. And so the principle of the Jubilee was to teach them that their heavenly inheritance could not be lost. And so that's why that Jubilee promise was so very dear to the people of God, because every 50 years, all borders went back to where they belong. It didn't really matter how difficult your situation became. You could be in such straits, remember that in the Old Testament, we will recoil at this because our modern sensibilities don't really understand what the scriptures are teaching us here but you could be driven into such straights that you would sell your daughter into slavery to eat. I mean imagine the straights involved in a father that would have to do something like that. You could sell your land, you could give up your inheritance, you could give up yourself if you were in such straights but At the end of 50 years, even if you couldn't buy that out, that would return to its proper boundary and proper order because the Lord was teaching the people of God that no matter how difficult their circumstances are on earth, their eternal inheritance will never be in jeopardy. And so the land is spoken of rightly by reformed theologians as a type, not the terminus, of the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the difficulty is we have a lot of schemes of prophecy and schemes of Bible understanding today that terminate that promise upon the land. And so, we'll hear things about, well, you know, the Jews are coming back, they're going to get their land back, and so on. No, that's not happening. They're not going to get their land back, because the land was never the real promise in the first place. It was always their eternal inheritance that was being taught. And I wanted to make sure we understood that, because we had talked all around that issue before we moved on. All right, so we're talking about the stranger. We're talking about who he is. He is one who is most normally destitute. He has no place to go home to recuperate. He doesn't have those lands, right? Not normally, anyway. There might be, quote unquote, the stranger that waxeth rich by you, as it says in Leviticus 25. That was generally not the case, but it would happen from time to time. We talk about he sojourns among you, that is he is among the people of God. He could be a fellow church member with you. in ancient Israel. And then thirdly, we have understood that this land promise, the eternal inheritance, and jubilee, the stranger, did not have that. He was not with the Israelites in that. He could not own land in ancient Israel permanently unless he could be adopted into a family of ancient Israel. And then he would have legal rights, just like any other adopted child would. Alright, so with that then we move on to the command, and the command is, ye shall not vex him. That's the command in verse 34. You shall not vex him. So to vex means to oppress, to treat with hostility, to suppress, to maltreat, and it's the opposite of the next verse, thou shalt love him as thyself. Very often in scripture we are given the opposites. We know that the opposites are given so that we might see that there is a continuum of behavior, and yet even in that continuum of behavior that we owe one to another, still the standard remains the same. Thou shalt love him as thyself. That's what Paul will call the glory of God in that, right? That you love him as yourself. Everything you would desire for yourself, you desire for him to be brought about in lawful ways. I guess we'll have to stop and talk about that a moment because there is a perversion of that concept today that often takes place. In other words, when we hear thou shalt love him as thyself, that means everybody should be equal. Everybody should have the same money, the same cars, the same houses, the same this, the same that, their worldly estate. And we hear that in the term equity, and then even among certain Christian churches, we'll hear them talking about loving your neighbor as yourself means that you give up all your goods and make him equal to you. That's not what's being said, obviously. We are to have the same kind of desire in his place and station that we would have for ourselves if we were in his place and station, right? Love your neighbor as yourself doesn't mean take him out of his place and station and give him your place and station. It means, rather, if you were in his place and station, treat him as you would want to be treated in that place and station. It doesn't mean masters become service, bosses become employees, employees become bosses, or anything like that. It simply means employer If you have employees, treat them as you would want to be treated as an employee, with care and compassion, with kindness, with understanding, not with mean-spiritedness, not with censoriousness, not with insult, not with an air of superiority in such a way that is prideful. and so on. It doesn't level everything. It doesn't destroy distinctions. It doesn't remove authority. There are those even who have gone so far as to say, love your neighbor as yourself simply means that there's no more authority or submission. All of those things are sinful perversions of that doctrine, not true. The standard remains. On the one hand, oppress, vex, limit, steal from, hold down, and so on. On the other hand, love him as you love yourself. To love someone as you love yourself means, if you were in that place and station then, to treat him as you would desire to be treated. So not to oppress, but to love him as yourself. And this is obviously the substance of our inclusio. We are taught to love the stranger as we love ourselves, and as a species of holy living, what do we understand? That that was almost unheard of in the ancient Near East. No such thing. There was animus, one nation against another. Very seldom was there this kind of treating someone as you would desire to be treated. If you were a stranger and sojourned in a foreign land, it doesn't matter what foreign land, in the ancient Near East, you would have been considered an outsider. Notice that the people of Israel are not to consider them as outsiders in every way. while that was the practice of many nations of the ancient Near East. So what do we understand love to be? What does it mean? What do we mean when we say love the stranger or love your neighbor as yourself? And we must then run ourselves back to an understanding of what love truly is, and love is nothing other than the keeping of the commandments of God. Love is not tender affection. That may be a sign of love, but sometimes in tender affection, we can abuse and not love one another. You say, pastor, how could that be in this way? Parents, if one of your children misbehaves and does something that You know what I mean when I say this? We just don't do in this house. You've been taught better than that. And you let your tender affection for your child thwart or turn aside punishment. You have not loved your child. Your tender affection at that point has kept you from loving your child. It is possible that tender affection can turn aside love. Now we would hope that our tender affection would promote love, would inform that love, that even when that rod comes, that it comes with the tender affection of love, rather than some false tender affection turning the rod aside instead. Children, the worst thing that you could learn from your parents is that you can misbehave and it's never cost you anything. That's not love. Actually, over and again in the Proverbs, Solomon will tell us, he who spares the rod, what's the next word? You know it, hates his own son, right? So let's remember that. Tender affection is not always love. Tender affection can turn aside the true expression of love when it ought to be applied. Let's look at a few passages of scripture to remind ourselves what love is. Deuteronomy 11, verse 22. This will be a brief scripture survey, but a very important scripture survey. We're not obviously bringing in every verse we could. Deuteronomy 11, 22, for if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments, which I command you to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him, then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you." Notice how the sentence is structured. You have some infinitives. Those infinitives are, they add color to the command. What's the command? Diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, notice first infinitive, to do them. Not just to keep them on the wall, right? But to keep them here, to do them. Secondly, to love the Lord your God. Thirdly, to walk in all his ways. Fourthly, and to cleave unto him. What is the keeping of the commandments of God? It is walking with God, it is cleaving to God, it is loving God, and it is walking in all His ways. Turn over to chapter 19 of Deuteronomy, verse nine. If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the Lord thy God and to walk ever in His ways, then shalt thou add three cities more for thee beside these three." We're talking about Levitical cities there, cities of refuge. And what's being said? The Lord says, if you love me, and how will we know that we love him? We're keeping all of his commandments. Then I'm going to expand your borders, and you'll need three more Levitical cities. You're going to stretch out the tent stakes. You're going to have to expand. You're going to need more Levitical cities because you're going to have more territory. If you love me, which is expressed by what? Keeping his commandments. Joshua chapter 22 is next. Verse 5, but take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of the Lord, charged you. to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all His ways, and to keep His commandments, and to cleave unto Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents. By the way, I said to you in Joshua chapter 21 earlier that we hear that God gave them all the land that He promised them. That's just ahead of this in chapter 21 at the end of the chapter, verse 43. And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore unto their fathers. And there stood not a man of all their enemies before them. And the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. All came to pass. Was that the terminus of the promise, though? It was not. It was the type that they had received. Now we go to the New Testament, John chapter 14, verse 15, very familiar verse. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Notice what he doesn't say. If you love me, keep tender affection. If you love me, make sure you have palpitations. He doesn't say any of those things. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Now we want palpitations and we want tender affection. But tender affection and palpitations without keeping commandments, that's not what love is. Turn over to chapter 15, verse 10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. We note the parallel there. In 1 John chapter five, verse one, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love God, sorry, by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments, for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. And then in 2 John, chapter one verse Six, and this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. Old Testament to New Testament, without equivocation, without any fear of contradiction, what do we say? We say that to love the stranger as ourselves means that we fulfill the commandments of God toward him. That we also, we pray, have that tender, kind affection toward him. That we recognize his plight as difficult and different from ours. That our hearts go out to him, but they go out to him in the commandments of God. And that is how we love the stranger. In Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 17, we've already read this, but let's go ahead and remind ourselves what it means. As we love the stranger, in the same context of holiness, Moses will write, thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Now it doesn't say stranger there, but I believe that we can apply it in the same way. Because that's what love is. To love the stranger as ourselves, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love our brother as ourselves, means what? That we speak the truth. that we support obedience to the Lord, that we ourselves, in obedience to the Lord, have our relations one with another. There are all kinds of perversions out there of love thy neighbor as thyself and what it truly means. But with God, we cannot be confused here. With the scriptures, we must say that loving our strangers as ourselves, loving our neighbors as ourselves, loving our brethren as ourselves, this means very, very clearly that we behave ourselves lawfully toward one another. We behave ourselves according to the commandments of God toward one another. And that would mean seeking out the good for our brethren, for our strangers, for our neighbors, as we would want that same good sought out for us in obedience to God. Not that we desire an illicit advancement, but that we desire the right kind of advancement, the right kind of care, and so on. We've talked about this before. It's not according to a kindness such that we would bring Joseph, for instance, into some kind of disapproval, disapprobation. There have been those that have called Joseph a tyrant. May I say, Joseph was not a tyrant. He was someone who loved his fellow Egyptians. And how did he love his fellow Egyptians? By selling them grain when they were hungry. Because he didn't have to do that. To give them grain would not have been to, how shall I say it? To show them the love of God. It would have been to steal from Pharaoh. Wow, see these are things that we have to remember. when we talk about such things and what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are, in some sense, able, if we do it the right way, to take out of our stock and store and give to someone that is in need apart from anything in return. In fact, we're told to do that in scripture to our brethren from time to time, right? Jesus will say, lend and don't expect anything in return. But there are other times, and may I say in places of state, when you're using other people's stuff, you can't simply give that away as if it was your own, because it's, as Daniel, I'm sorry, as Davy Crockett said so many years ago, it's not yours to give. Simply not yours to give, and that's not love. It's not in keeping with the commandments of God. So in all of our private benevolence, beloved, be generous, be magnanimous, and give without expecting in return, unless you come to some arrangement with someone that they're going to repay you, and that's not unlawful. But be generous and be kind and be open-handed. It is the liberal soul that will be made fat, according to Solomon. But a forced liberality is unlawful. Taking someone else's and giving, well, that's unlawful. And the fun's fun until you run out of spending other people's money, right? It's unlawful. It ought not to be done. Then we also want to keep in mind certain other things in scripture with regard what governs our generosity. We don't want to facilitate indolence. The principle from 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 still stands, if a man does not work, neither shall he eat. There are some, Paul will say in that passage, you're not working at all, you're going about as busy bodies. One of the worst things you can do is provide for someone when they're able-bodied and they're not working. You provide for them so that they can go become a busybody and destroy their soul. It's not what we ought to be about. And that's not what is being commanded here in Leviticus chapter 19. So in order to clarify what's being commanded, we have to look at several passages of scripture. We're not going to finish this topic today. We're going to move on to see some other things, Lord willing, next week. But let's take a brief survey of other passages in the Pentateuch which speak to the stranger. We'll begin all the way back in Exodus chapter 12, once again. This is one of the first words that the people of Israel hear about strangers while they are strangers themselves. Oh, how they would have been so very well tuned up to that word when they are yet in Egypt under slavery. All right, so Exodus chapter 12, verse 18. In the first month on the 14th day of the month at even, you shall eat unleavened bread until the one and 20th day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses. For whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land. Ye shall eat nothing leavened. In all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread. The stranger. What does it mean to be cut off from the congregation of Israel? It means to be excommunicated. In other words, these strangers that are being spoken of here in Exodus chapter 12, these strangers that are spoken of here in Exodus chapter 12 are a part of the congregation. And if they have leaven in their homes, just like any other Israelite should not, then they shall be cut off. They shall be excommunicated. So what do the people of God learn here? They learn that their loving the stranger as themselves means what? Keeping the commandments of God, just like we've been saying. If a stranger, oh, well, he's a stranger, he didn't know. He was instructed when he came into the church, when he was circumcised, when he perhaps had that first Passover meal with an Israelite house, so he understood how to do it properly. But if he didn't, just like any other Israelite, he was cut off. Love thy stranger as thyself in the same way that you would show love to a fellow Israelite that violated the unleavened principle through discipline, so also you show love to the stranger through discipline. Verses 18 and 19. We skip over to Verse 48, and when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land. for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is homeborn and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you." And here that means one ecclesiastical law. So they love their strangers as they love themselves in the church. Any penalty or any blessing that came upon an Israelite was also, under those same circumstances, to come upon a non-Israelite that had joined himself to Israel, to the church. Leviticus chapter 17 is next. Verse 8. And thou shalt say unto them, whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer it unto the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from among his people. Notice that the stranger could not call the Israelites his people in the ethnic sense, but he certainly could call the church his people with regard to the ecclesiastical sense, and that's what being cut off means here. If he offers an offering. a stranger. If he offers it not at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, like God has commanded through Moses, whether he is an Israelite or a stranger, you're going to love him as yourself and you're going to excommunicate him until he repents and is brought back into fellowship with the people of God. It doesn't matter if he's a stranger or he's home-born. Leviticus 22.18 is next. Verse 17, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them, Whether he be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, that will offer his oblation for all his vows, and for all his freewill offerings, which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering, ye shall offer at your own will a male without blemish of the beaves, of the sheep, or of the goats. But whatsoever hath a blemish, that ye shall not offer, for it shall not be acceptable for you. And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering, in beeves or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no blemish therein. Blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the Lord, nor make any offering by fire of them upon the altar of the Lord, either a bullock or a lamb, that hath anything superfluous or lacking in his parts, that thou mayest thou offer for a freewill offering, but for a vow it shall not be accepted. Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut, neither shall ye make any offering thereof in your land, neither from a stranger's hand shall ye offer the bread of your God, of any of these, because their corruption is in them, and blemishes be in them, they shall not be accepted for you. Very clear then, if you're an Israelite or a stranger, you want to bring an offering, guess what? There's only one law here. You're gonna love him as you love yourself. Leviticus chapter 20 and verse two. Begin in verse one, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones, and I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he hath given up his seat unto Molech to defile my sanctuary, to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not, then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off. And all that go a-whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech from among their people." So, once again, one law for the stranger and for the Israelite. In Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 6. And the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you, for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land shall all the increase thereof be meat. The Sabbath, again, was made for man. And by being made for man there, that means all kinds of men who came in with Israel. There's several questions that rise up in this passage. This is that Sabbath of years. Six years you're going to sow, and then one year you're not. But it says that that Sabbath will still be meat for you. Now, that's interesting. In what way would it be meat for you? Well, there's a division among godly commentators on that. First of all, it would be meat for them in that they were not sowing, they were not reaping, they were not involved in those agricultural things that normally they would have that took up most of their time and so some commentators are want to say and I'm kind of inclined to agree with them that it would be a spiritual food for them one year out of seven that they would cease with all of their plowing and planting, that they might have more time to reflect, more time to meditate, more time to take care of their spiritual business. And the Lord promised to provide them meat in that year. And so he would perhaps make their cattle to increase and other kinds of things that would feed them without their having to plow and harvest. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 31 for a minute to take a look at this. Verse 10, and Moses commanded them, saying, at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates. that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law, and that their children, which have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land, whether ye go over Jordan to possess it." In preparation then for their traveling over the Jordan River, Moses tells them there's going to be the Sabbath of years. And what's that going to make? That's going to make a greater opportunity, especially for the Feast of Tabernacles. When you come to Jerusalem for a week and live in hovels, that you're going to have greater time. You're going to have your children and everyone. You won't need to leave them home to care for the family farm. Why? Because you're not plowing that year. You're not reaping that year. You're not sowing that year. You can all come and you can meditate upon the good things that you hear in that week of the Feast of Tabernacles from the priests that will teach you the good law of God during that week. All right, turn with me to Numbers chapter nine. We'll continue on in our study of the stranger. Numbers chapter 9, we will look at verse 14. And if a stranger shall sojourn among you and will keep the Passover unto the Lord according to the ordinance of the Passover and according to the manner thereof, so shall he do. You shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and for him that was born in the land. That's how you love him. Not by having separate laws, not by having separate weights, not by having separate measures. by having one law for him. And again, we are talking about the ecclesiastical context here, that you'll have one law for him. Numbers chapter 15, verse 22. And if you have erred and not observed all these commandments with the Lord has spoken to Moses, even all that the Lord has commanded you by the hand of Moses from the day that the Lord commanded Moses and henceforth among your generations. Then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance, without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savor unto the Lord, with his meat offering and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them, for it is ignorance. And they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire, unto the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their ignorance. And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them, seeing all the people were in ignorance. And if any soul sin through ignorance, he shall bring a she-goat of the first year for a sin offering, and the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly. When he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord to make an atonement for him, it shall be forgiven him. Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel and for the stranger that sojourneth among them. But the soul that doth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him. And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation, and they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done unto him. And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died as the Lord commanded Moses. over and again in that passage. Whatever the punishment is, or whatever the blessing is, one law for you, and one law for your strangers that sojourn among you. Now we turn over to Deuteronomy chapter one, and we're just about to finish our survey, and then we will close up for today, and we'll provide a few uses next week for what we're learning today. Deuteronomy 1.16. And I charged your judges at that time saying, hear the causes between your brethren and judge righteously between every man his brother and the stranger that is with him. You shall not respect persons in judgment, but you shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid of the face of man for the judgment is God's and the cause that is too hard for you bring it unto me and I will hear it. 16 and 17 there. And notice here that we've moved outside now of the ecclesiastical realm and we've moved into the civil realm. These are the judges being spoken of here. And those judges are also to judge in the same manner between the stranger and between the Israelite. And that would be, again, in accord with the law, according to the judgment of God, Moses says. In Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 19, thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usury of vittles, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it. So now we have a difference. We were told back in Leviticus 19 not to oppress the stranger. Notice that it's not oppression then to charge usury, to charge interest upon loans. However, the Israelites were not permitted to do that one to another, and that would be because it would mar that inheritance that they had. It would work against that land principle that we talked about before. Now there are some who would argue, and it's a difficult proposition one way or the other to determine with any certainty, that we're talking about a stranger here. If that stranger was a member of the Israelitish church, if you lent to him, if you could charge usury or not. Can't really answer that question from this passage because it's not definitive. All right, so then the Israelites were indicted by the prophet for lending to their brethren upon Uzriah in Nehemiah chapter five, one through 13. We could turn to 1 Kings chapter eight, we could turn to 2 Chronicles 32, where Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple, and he will say something like this, he will say, when there is an offering made in this house, either by one who is an Israelite or by the stranger that sojourns among the Israelites, then hear thou from heaven, right? And then in Isaiah chapter 14, verse one, and we'll have to end with this, turn with me to Isaiah chapter 14. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel and set them in their own land. And the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. and the people shall take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and for handmaids, and they shall take them captives whose captives they were, and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. And the prophecy here of Isaiah chapter 14 speaks of the Israelites becoming then those masters over the ones that had ruled over them with hard and cruel oppression from before. And yet those strangers will come and desire to be joined to Israel. All right, well, what have we seen? Yes, it was a lengthy survey through the Pentateuch. It's necessary. It's necessary for us to see that upon all of these things, God was teaching the people of Israel, who were not disposed to do so, he was teaching them how they ought to love the stranger and what it means to love the stranger. When we come to the New Testament, and I'll close with this, over and over again, We see this animus of the Jewish church against Gentiles. May I say it this way? They learned not to be that way back in the Pentateuch if they were listening. What we see that takes place in the first century when Jews are stirred up with jealousy because Gentiles are desiring to hear the word of God preached. was simply another indication of how far from the gospel the children of Israel had fallen in the first century. Where we're going with this, and I'll give this to you for your meditations, and we will finish out this process, Lord willing, next week. Turn with me to chapter 30, I'm sorry, Psalm 39. We'll see a few other passages of scripture. This is close enough for our meditations in this coming week. Why did the Lord say to the children of Israel, you're gonna love the stranger as you love yourselves? Why? What is the main point that these three sermons will point us toward? What is the general equity principle? It's explicit here in Psalm 39 verse 11. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity. Salah. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears. For I, David says, I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner. as all my fathers were. Why should we love the stranger as we love ourselves? We should love the stranger as we love ourselves because if we're thinking rightly, we remember that we are strangers with God. We are alienated from him. We are separated from him. If we will but remember that, it will change our thinking toward those strangers that dwell in our gates in that context of ancient Israel. Then we'll move on and we'll make all those applications, Lord willing, next week. Let's stand, call upon the Lord in prayer. Our dear Heavenly Father, we pray as Psalm 39 teaches us in in all of it, in its totality, that thou wouldst humble us. We thank thee for the rebukes, the strokes, the chastisements that David speaks about in Psalm 39. And that as he remained silent, as he mused while the fire burned, that when he finally did speak, he spoke those words of humility. We pray that that would be our use of thy chastisements and strokes as well. And that we might remember that we are but strangers with thee. That this earth upon which we dwell is thine. That we are thine, slaves and sojourners before thee. And that we have no right and no call toward any of thy mercy. And Lord, as thy forgiveness is so great and free and clear and runs down upon us, that we might remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who taught us, that as we are forgiven, we are to forgive others. That as we have received of thy kindness, we are to be kind. to others. And as we have heard also this day, Lord, we pray that that tenderness and that kindness and that mercy might be in accord with thy word. We pray all these things in Christ Jesus' name.