If you would please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 22. Exodus chapter 22 beginning in verse 16 and reading into chapter 23. This is God's Word. If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride price and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride price for virgins. Do not allow a sorceress to live. Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any God other than the Lord must be destroyed. Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword. Your wives will become widows, and your children fatherless. If you lend money to one of My people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender. Charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people. Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day. You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts. Throw it to the dogs. Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness. Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd. And do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit. If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you falling down under its load, do not leave it there. Be sure you help him with it. Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge, and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous. Do not oppress an alien. You yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt. For six years, you were to sow your fields and harvest the crops. But during the seventh year, let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the slave born in your household and the alien as well may be refreshed. Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods. Do not let them be heard on your lips. Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. Celebrate the feast of unleavened bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year, all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning. Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. May God add His blessing to this reading from His holy and inspired Word. Wow, that's quite a diverse list of rules. I mean, this is a portion of the law God gave to the Israelites, and some of it is clearly having to do with things like sexual morality, but some of it has to do with social contracts, and some of it has to do with cruelty to animals, and some of it has to do with getting along with people who may be hating you. How do you treat somebody who's made it very clear that they hate you? You hate them back? All of that is dealt with in this. Witchcraft, sorcery, dealt with in this section. Not cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. What is that about? Well, folks, as we said the other day, as we headed into this section on the law, there are different kinds of laws that God gave to his people. And some of them are moral law. Some of them are civil law. Some of them are ceremonial law. We do not observe the Hebrew feasts in our worship of God today. That's not something that God has charged us with if you read the New Testament. All of that pointed to Jesus and He fulfilled all of it. If I went out to dinner with my wife, and I've used this illustration before, but if I went out to dinner with my wife and instead of Looking at her across the table, I got out one of my favorite pictures of her and put it on the table in front of me and just sat there and looked at it and thought about how beautiful my wife is, how much I love her, how great it is to be married to such a wonderful person. And I said, you know, such beautiful eyes. love those eyes. They're blue with little gold flecks around the iris and just forming almost like a starburst of gold around the pupil of the eye. It's marvelous. And here she is sitting right across from me looking at me. And instead of looking at her eyes, I'm looking at a picture of her eyes. Do you think she'd like that? I don't think so. I think you could have me locked up if I behaved that way. Okay? That's crazy. Well, the ceremonial law that God gave to the Jews was all pointing to Jesus. And so we are not now to be trying to act out those things. There is a new covenant that was promised during the old covenant. God promised through the prophet Jeremiah that there's going to be a new covenant coming. It would be superior. It would be better. It would replace the old. That has now come in the person of Jesus Christ. And that's why we're freed from all that ceremonial law. We are also, if you read the New Testament, freed from the dietary laws. That means I can now eat arsenic? Well, if you're suicidal, you need to get help. because that's not okay to poison yourself. And there is much in the law that God gave his people concerning diet that is instructive for us. Some animals and seafood are less healthy, okay? But we are no longer legally bound by God and forbidden to eat those things. Jesus declared all foods clean in the New Covenant. Now, when the church gave instructions to the Gentile converts, they told them to abstain from blood and animals that had been strangled, along with abstaining from sexual immorality. But I want you to understand, we are not under the Jewish dietary laws. We're freed from that. So does that mean that if I want to, I can cook a young goat in its mother's milk? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to do that? Well, let's ask, since that's the last verse in the section, why would God not want you to do that? Frankly, I believe it's because it just seems cruel. He doesn't even say you can't cook a goat in milk. But to take the milk from the mother that was meant to nourish its young and instead turn that into the substance that you cook that animal in, that just develops a twisted, perverse, cruel personality. And if that's the way that you approach life, you are not like God. God is compassionate. And in this section, he says that. And then he gives some wonderful, important applications that we better still remember today. When we're talking about the aliens, he says, don't be cruel to an alien. You were an alien. You want to know what it's like. I want you to think for a minute about if you had been picked on and bullied in school. And now you got older and bigger. And instead of being the one who was ostracized and excluded all the time and desperately wanted to be accepted and instead was treated cruelly by your peers, now you've had a growth spurt. Now people have accepted you into the group. And you see some other person who's being picked on, given a bad time. They're being bullied. What's the right approach? Join in now because now I get to be part of the in crowd. Now I'm one of the popular ones. Or do you say, no way, I'm not going to stand by and let that person be bullied. I'm going to side with them. I'm going to take their part because I know what that feels like and it's wrong and nobody should have to go through that. Yeah, but if I do that, then they might bully me again and exclude me again. Well, you'd be much better off. being excluded from a group of punks. God says, you know what it is to be an alien. Treat your aliens well. The people who are not from here, the people who are outsiders, the people who don't have a place here, you should be kind to them because you know what it is to be in their situation. Don't be cruel. What about widows and orphans? Don't take advantage of them. Do not exploit them. They don't have a man to be their defender, but they have God to be their defender. And God says, if you are cruel and exploit the widow and the orphan, I'll make your wife a widow and I'll make your children fatherless. Well, that sounds kind of harsh. God says, I don't want you to behave that way. And I'm telling you right now, you better not do that. God is compassionate. The wrath of God in that situation is a mark of God's compassion. He will not put up with that kind of cruelty. And as we look at this world today where there is so much cruelty, and we think, how can a good God let all this go on? Let me tell you. it's not gonna keep going on. Everybody, everywhere is gonna have to answer to God. And what seems to us like a long time of suffering is instead a display of God's mercy, giving more time for people to repent. If a person lives 150 years, and they won't, but if they lived 150 years, longer than any of us live, and then dies and has to stand before God and spend forever, forever enduring His wrath? You think somehow they got away with something? Nobody gets away with that. God promises, God promises Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Whether a person is a knife-wielding Islamic fundamentalist, practicing jihad, or whether it is somebody with nuclear weapons, God says, they're gonna have to answer to Him. And so God tells His people, don't put yourself in that situation. Do not exploit others. And look back toward the beginning of this section that we read. God warns that you must not Pervert justice chapter 23 right at the start of the chapter When you give testimony in a lawsuit do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit what I Thought it was gonna say do not show favoritism toward a rich man in his lawsuit. In other words, he warns against taking bribes because bribes pervert justice. And what this is saying is that if there's a lawsuit, if there's a court case, you are not to pervert justice in favor of the rich or the poor. Years ago when I was in Atlanta, A woman came back from a party way after midnight, drunk as could be. She was with some guy and I guess wanted to show off. So she decided she was going to go for a swim. They had a fence around the swimming pool there at the hotel. It was locked so that no one could accidentally go in there. She climbed up over the fence and fell off the other side and broke her neck. Sued the hotel. The sign said, pool closed. These are the hours it's open. Keep out. Danger. But apparently, the pool planners didn't realize they needed to have chain link covering the whole pool. It's an outdoor pool. She scales the fence in a drunken state, breaks her neck, sues the hotel. She won. Why? Well, because people felt sorry for her. I mean, after all, she's just an individual. Now what she's going to do? I mean, she's paralyzed. She's got a broken neck. So she's sitting there in court, can't move her arms and legs. This is a big hotel. They ought to be able to pay for that. The insurance company will pay for it. Let me tell you, those jurors will pay for it because they're going to have to answer to God for perverting justice. several years back after I was here. Some guys decided they wanted to sneak into Six Flags over Georgia. They didn't want to have to buy a ticket. So they scaled multiple fences and ended up one of them becoming decapitated because the roller coaster went by. And this guy was in a place where he had climbed several fences to get there, and the signs on the fence read, danger, keep out, no admittance. But he ignored all that, and his family decided to sue Six Flags. Let me just tell you, Six Flags is not responsible for your child being a criminal. And I'm sorry your son lost his head, but you should have tried to put something in it that would tell him not to do that kind of thing. Is that clear? Don't pervert justice. Don't pervert justice, not for the rich and not for the poor. You don't pick who we're going to have as a winner based on whether, well, I want to be with that person because they've got money and power. Did they do right or did they do wrong? If they did wrong, they need to pay. If they didn't do wrong, they shouldn't be paying. Or saying, well, I want to go with this person because they're poor and they need help. And this is an opportunity to kind of redistribute wealth. It's straight out of the pit of hell. It's perverting justice. You don't rob from these people to bless these people. It's not okay. If this person has been criminal and unjust in their conduct, they need to be punished. But if this person has been criminal and unjust in their conduct, they need to be punished. And so God warns against perverting justice. But not only that. I want you, if you want, what's the takeaway? Here it is. Verse 2 of chapter 23. I mean, there's tons in here. But as I prayed about it, Lord, what do you want me to emphasize? This is it. Verse 2 of chapter 23. Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. Guess which way the crowd's going to be going. The crowd's going the wrong way. If you try and see which way the traffic is going and then get in with them, which is what sheep tend to do, you're going to be going in the wrong direction. If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you're going to be going against traffic. The crowd, over and over and over, will choose wrong. So don't follow the crowd. Don't follow the crowd in doing wrong. Well, does the crowd ever get it right? Yeah. But it's rare. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. Narrow is the way that leads to life. And very few people find it. I've said it before, I will say it again. My goal for those of you who are students at Wears Valley Ranch, is not for you to have a normal childhood. I don't want you to have a normal childhood. I want you to have an extraordinary childhood. I don't want you to grow up to be a typical American person, because the typical American people are going to hell. And I realize to some people that may sound awfully judgmental, but I'm basing it on the words of my Lord, Jesus Christ. The typical American is like the typical Frenchman, and the typical Norwegian, and the typical Kenyan, and the typical Rwandan, and the typical Brazilian, and the typical Peruvian. I think I mixed Peru and Burundi. That would be a Burundian and a Peruvian. They can have a child and be a Peruvian. The typical American is a typical human. And the typical human is on a broad road that leads to destruction. You understand? So I don't want you to be typical. I don't want you to be normal. Don't go with the crowd. If that's your gauge of what to do, you're going to do the wrong thing. The crowd is headed off a cliff. Well, everybody else is doing it. I guess I will too. Don't do that. You don't have to do that. You don't have to be average. I want people to like me. You want who to like you? Well, people. I could give various grotesque images, but let me just tell you this. you better be concerned about whether or not God is pleased. Because if God is not pleased, it doesn't matter how many fans you've got on Facebook. If God is not pleased, it doesn't matter if you fill a concert hall or a sports stadium. If God is not pleased, you've got a huge problem. So you better be concerned about what he thinks and what he likes and what he says. For those of you who aspire to having Facebook, I just want to know, would God like your page? If God looked at the stuff you post, would God say, like? If God wouldn't like it, don't post it. Don't repost it. Don't pass it on, and don't like it on somebody else's page. Well, God wouldn't like this, but I think it's really cute. Be careful. because it's God's opinion that matters, nobody else's. Anybody who disagrees with God is an idiot. Well, God says this, but I think this. We've got a society and a ton of churches right now that are disagreeing with God because they don't like what he says. You know what? Unless they repent, they're all gonna be in hell. That's not a smart road. I mean, that is just really incredibly dumb. When the Bible says we all like sheep have gone astray, it's because we all like sheep have gone astray. True story in the news within the last 15 years. In Greece, a flock of sheep went off a cliff. Only the last few survived. because they landed on top of such a big mound of other sheep that were killed going off the cliff. It was the whole village that had their sheep in that pasture. This guy's sheep, that guy's sheep, that guy's sheep, that guy's sheep. And one of the sheep got a wild and crazy idea. and started running for the cliff. And the other sheep were like, where are we going? I don't know. Here we go. Let's go. Keep up. Don't fall behind. And they went right off the cliff. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And they were killed. They weren't just injured. They were killed. God says, repent or you will perish. Jesus said when they asked him about some people who'd been killed, he said, do you think they were more wicked than the others? I tell you the truth, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. That's from Jesus. I like to think of Jesus as being kind of a Christian sort of man. Jesus wasn't a Christian. He's the Christ, Elton John. Elton John's the one who made the dumb statement about Jesus being a Christian. Jesus is the Christ. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. And he said, you better repent or you're gonna perish. You're gonna be destroyed. But you see, we have wonderful news. And that is that God loved us so much he sent his son. to die, taking the punishment for our sins, because it's not some of us who've messed up, it's all of us who've messed up. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. If you trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, You will not perish. You'll have everlasting life. Because God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. But I implore you on behalf of Jesus Christ, repent, turn, stop going with the crowd. Do not follow the crowd to do wrong. The crowd's going in the wrong direction. Don't go with them. Popular culture is going in the wrong direction. Don't go with them. The courts are going in the wrong direction. Don't go with them. Better to suffer persecution than to go off the cliff with the crowd. Don't do it. And so God gives His people instructions about how to relate to each other. Just a couple of items here. Verse 12, the purpose of the Sabbath was so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household and the alien as well may be refreshed. The purpose was not to give us the Sabbath in order to make us miserable once a week. It was that we might have to take a day to rest and be refreshed. I remember when some of my kids were small, it was hard to get them to go to bed and go to sleep. They didn't want to miss anything. They wanted to stay up. Well, you're not going to bed yet. No, I'm not going to bed yet. I wish I could, but I have work to do. Well, can I stay up with you? No, you may not. You need your sleep. I don't want you to still be three and a half feet tall when you are 16. You need to go to bed and grow. Well, I'd really like to stay up. Can I read? You can read for a half an hour, and then you've got to turn out the light and go to sleep. Why did I force my kids to go to bed and go to sleep? You wanted a break from them? No, I love my kids and I want them to get what they need. They need rest, they need sleep. God says you need rest. And so I'm gonna force you to take one day off every week. And I'm gonna force you on your day off not to make other people work. Everybody gets a day off. The Sabbath is the one day of the week when whether you're a slave or a king, you have a day off. Everybody gets a day off. Everybody. Even the donkey. Even the ox. No work on the Sabbath. That was a gift from God. It was so that his people could be refreshed. Not only that, but God says, Be careful to do everything I've said to you. This is verse 13 of 23. Do not invoke the names of other gods. Do not let them be heard on your lips. In one of the places, it's not here, it's elsewhere in God's law, he tells his people, you're gonna come into a land where the people are involved in all kinds of evil religious practices. I don't want you to even learn about that stuff. See, sometimes it's like, well, I'm not going to do that. I'd just like to know more about it. I'm not going to drink, but I'd like to know, how do you mix a good martini? I'm not saying that I want to engage in sexual immorality, but I'd like to know more. Is it OK to get a subscription to a porn magazine just so that I can learn about that stuff? God says, I don't want you even to mention the name of these false gods. Don't have anything to do with it. Don't have anything to do with it. Just completely cut it off. Why would he have such strict laws? Because his love for his people is so great. How much cancer would you like to have? A little spot right here. I don't think it's cancer. I'm waiting to see if it grows into something bigger, because if it is cancer, I'd like for it to really be bad. You think? You think? No. If I've got cancer, I want to get it out right away, while it's small, before it gets started and takes off and puts down roots and sends cells all through my body. I don't really want just a little bit of cancer. How much cancer can you have and it won't kill you? That's the approach of tons of people towards sin. I don't want to take over my life. How much kudzu do you want in your yard? You know, I mean, I don't, boy, it'd be terrible if, I mean, kudzu, it'll grow over the top of your car. I mean, you know, I don't want to do, if your car's up on blocks. I don't want to do that. But, well, then don't let even a little kudzu live in your yard. God tells his people, don't have anything to do with it. Don't have anything to do with it. Get rid of it. Cut it out. So, what are you going to do? Well, God says, be careful to do what I say. We're not trying to earn His love. We are thanking Him for loving direction. And that's why we keep going back and looking at His Word and saying, well, what does God say about this? How does God see this? What does God want from His people? We're not under law. I can eat bacon and it doesn't have to be turkey bacon. But I'd be pretty silly if I sit around eating bacon all the time because it's not good for me. You understand that? It's not just the fat, it's the nitrites. I'm going to get some organic bacon. Just don't be a glutton. And don't pig out on bacon. Deliberate pun. All right? Enjoy God's good gifts. We're not under law, but don't be foolish. Celebrate God's kindness to us. But when it comes to sin, when it comes to lying and injustice and cruelty, don't think that God is gonna put up with it. He's not. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for your word. I pray that you would remind us of what you have said so that we would not follow the crowd to do wrong. And we'll be careful to give you the praise as we follow Jesus, our Savior and King. It's in His name we pray, amen.