Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you, God, for allowing us to be here this morning. Thank you, God, for the sunshine, the beautiful weather outside. Lord, we thank you for salvation, Lord. Thank you for Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. Lord, we pray that as we dig into the Old Testament, Lord, that you'll show us your son, just like he said, speaking to the disciples, speaking to everyone, he said, that the scriptures speak of him. Lord, we pray that as we go through here, Lord, you'll just open our eyes to it and help us understand The sacrifice that he made for us Lord. Thank you for all that you do in Jesus name. We pray. Amen All right, Deuteronomy chapter 21. So again along the the study of Jesus in the Old Testament We'll pick it up there towards the end of the chapter and we'll start in Verse number 22 Verse 22 says, And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and now hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all the night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is hanged is accursed of God, that the land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Alright, so here they give some instruction, the Lord gives the children of Israel instruction on a form of capital punishment, which the Bible, just a little side note, is for, God is for capital punishment. I need to move this before I spill it. There we go. God's four capital punishment all throughout, not just in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, we see that also. Paul said, if I'm worthy to be put to death, put me to death. He wasn't trying to use the Bible, trying to use the love of Jesus Christ as a crutch or as an escape route from losing his head, but he was using his innocence for that. He said, I'm not guilty of what you're claiming I'm guilty of. If I was, put me to death. But here the Lord's going to give them some instruction. We see just in a couple verses before this how to deal with a stubborn or rebellious son. Punishment for that would be to stone him right we see in verse 21 It says all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he died So shall thou put evil away from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear so There's a couple different ways that that a man can be put to death. We see stoning we see hanging and right? And we know that the Lord Jesus Christ hung on a tree, right? He became a curse for us. We're going to jump there in a second, Galatians chapter 3. But the instruction is that don't leave the body hanging out there all night. said, you hang him, his body shall not remain all the night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. Why? Because he that is hanged is accursed of God. So when that person is killed in that fashion, he's accursed And because he's a curse, he has to be buried. Why? That thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. He said, don't leave him hanging because it's going to curse the ground. It's going to curse the land. We know all the way back there in Genesis chapter three, God cursed the ground, the orange and thistles, right? And he's out there weeding his flower bed the last couple of days. All right. We did ours last week. Why? Because of Adam and Eve. Alright, by the sweat of our brow. That's the reason. But Galatians chapter 3, go ahead and turn there, Galatians chapter 3, this will connect Jesus Christ to that verse right there in Deuteronomy 21, 23. In Galatians chapter 3, Verse number 13, all right, what do you know about that number 13? All right, it's connected with rebellion. It's the number four rebellion, but it's connected time and time again with things that are cursed, things that are against God. It's connected with the Antichrist. But here in verse 13, it says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. So, He redeemed us from the curse of the law. The law is a curse because no one can keep it. And the only way to cure a curse was to become a curse. He became our curse for us. In 2 Corinthians 5.21 it says, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Jesus became a curse for us, He became sin for us when He was nailed to that tree. Cursed can be defined as detested or devoted to destruction. That's a pretty good definition for it. It is the opposite of blessed. We sing that song, I have been blessed. You see people wearing shirts all the time, blessed. You don't see people walking around with one that says cursed on it. No one wants to be cursed. But the Lord Jesus Christ was cursed on our behalf. We've got to let this thing sink in sometimes. Sometimes we'll read through the Bible and we've heard these verses over and over and we've taught them and all that stuff, but we've just got to let some things sink in sometimes and realize what exactly Jesus Christ did for us. God manifested in the flesh. The Son of God, part of the Trinity, came down holy, sinless, became sin for us, became a curse for us, so we wouldn't be cursed, so we could be blessed. It's unreal. He was the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. What should have been placed on us was placed on him. He took our punishment, he took that sin, nailed it to his cross. All right, so he took the cross that was meant for who? Barabbas, right? It literally, that was a substitutionary sacrifice. It was meant for Barabbas, he took Barabbas' cross, but he became a curse for you and me in the spiritual sense. So, I want to look at...we're going to look at a few things here in the Bible that were cursed. Look at Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, here we know the story, Adam and Eve, right? And the serpent comes to Eve, beguiles Eve, tells her, yea, hath God said? And tells her, ye shall not surely die. Just straight out lied to her. Got her to question God's word, had her break God's word, and he did it by lying. And because of that, look at verse number 14. The Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go. Thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. All right, so it appears that that serpent in the garden had legs. It wasn't a snake that was slithering around at the time before that because that was his punishment. That was part of the curse of the serpent was that now he's going to crawl on his belly All the days of his life right tasting that dust right tasting what he had You know Adam came from the dust of the ground. So now he's gonna be tasting that all the rest of his days as the serpent but We're talking about Jesus Christ becoming a curse for us. He's in the same category as the devil Cursed above all cattle Why from you and me look over Genesis chapter 4 In verse 11, speaking to Cain, look at verse number 9. The Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth. which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thine hand. When thou till'st the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear." You know what the punishment for sin is? Death. Physical death, spiritual death. An eternity in hell. Cain, his sin was murder. killed his own brother. Why? Because his brother had the sacrifice that God accepted. Here's a lamb, and he worked tooth and nail, worked his fingers to the bones, what, planting a garden, tilling the garden, keeping everything going. Just making sure the weeds were pulled. He harvested all that. He did all that work and offered the fruit of his labor to the Lord. And the Lord goes, I don't have respect for that. I reject it. I want what your brother gave me. He said, my brother, what do you mean my brother? He didn't do anything. All he did was go to the flock. He didn't have to do anything. These sheep that he takes care of, they breed on their own. All he does is watch over them. It's a pretty easy job, Lord, of being a shepherd. How come I did all this stuff and you don't accept mine, but he barely does anything, you accept that? Because the life of the flesh is in the blood. He wanted a blood sacrifice. Because he got angry about that, wouldn't go to his brother, the only shepherd in town, to get the right sacrifice, he'd rather kill his brother. He had bitterness, he had envy, he had all these things toward him. Killed his brother, and the Lord said, cursing art thou. Thou art cursed from the earth. Who? Cain, a murderer, a liar, a type of the devil. Jesus Christ became a curse for us. I mean, as we go through here, look at Genesis chapter 9, look at the category of people that the Lord has lumped into. The devil, the serpent, right? Cain. Well, here in Genesis chapter 9, you know what happens after Noah and his family come off the ark? They're going to have a celebration and Noah, he planted a vineyard, had some grapes, he had some wine that he made, and he got a little tipsy one night. He drank so much that he passed out in his tent naked. And look at verse 21, it says, He drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him." So what happens? Noah gets drunk, passed out, and Ham takes advantage of him. A lot of times that's what happens in the world. A guy will try to get a girl drunk so he can take advantage of her. That happens. They call them roofies. They drug people. Date rape drugs. They slip it in their drink to get them more drunk so they can take advantage of them. It lowers their inhibitions. They can't say no. That's what happened to Noah and his son did that to him. Look at verse 25. He said curse it be Canaan a servant of servants. Shall we be unto his brethren? Well, that's kind of odd Why would he curse Canaan and not curse Ham? Ham's the one that did it Ham is the father of Canaan Why would his son take the curse? well because of verse number one of the same chapter God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful multiply and replenish the earth God already blessed Ham he couldn't curse him. So he cursed his son and So, you see who's been cursed. The serpent, the devil, right? Cain, a murderer and a liar. Here we have Canaan because of Ham. He was a rapist, a sodomite. The Lord's a curse. He became a curse for us. Man, the more I dig into this, the more it hits me. Deuteronomy 27. Deuteronomy 27, verse 14. The Levites shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsmen, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen. So who's cursed? An idolater, someone who makes a false god, a graven image. Then look at the next verse. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother, and all the people shall say, Amen. He's taking advantage of his parents. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark, and all the people shall say, Amen. He's a thief. He's moving the property line, right? Oh, there's the marker. Let's move it over here. I need that extra acre so I can, you know, tell them I've got more acres than my brother, all right? Verse 18, cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. The people shall say amen. So they're leading them the wrong direction. That's kind of cruel, isn't it? A blind man, he can't do anything on his own. He needs help. The man that takes him out of the way, the wrong way, the Lord said, curse him. Verse 19, cursed be he that perverted the judgment of the stranger. Fatherless and widow, all the people shall say amen. All right, so one that's going to pervert judgment, they're going to lie, they're going to cheat, they're going to do things to pervert the way people think, to lean in their own favor. Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, amen. I skipped 20. Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife, because he uncovereth his father's skirt. And all the people shall say, amen. So now we're getting into some physical sexual sins, all right? Laying with his father's wife. Why? Because he's uncovering his father's skirt. Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. That's gross. Why would God have to put that in the Bible? Because it was happening. When you read Genesis chapter 6 and you see those angels, those sons of God that were coming down, they were cohabitating with women, it appears that they were also lying with beasts. Why did God kill all the animals? Why did God kill all the animals in the flood? What did they do wrong? Well, they were defiled. All of them? No. But there were some, so God tried to wipe that stuff out. You're going to see more and more of that as we get closer to the Lord coming back. Because as in the days of Noah, that stuff's going to be coming back around. You want to know why we see all this? You're seeing in the news more and more about UFOs and the government starting to, you know, the secrets are coming out that this stuff is happening. Because those UFOs are real. They're not Martians. You know, they're not, you know, some alien race. They're a spiritual race. It's those sons of God. They're spiritual beings. And the closer we get to the Lord coming back, as it was in the days of Noah, all that spiritual wickedness going on, you'll see more and more. What else? There were giants in the land. What's the land? The NBA, right? You see the kid that just got drafted, he's like 18, 19 years old, and he's like 7'6". And he's huge. He's got like an 8-foot wingspan. That's wild. What are you saying, he's a spiritual being? No, I'm not saying that, but I don't know. I'm not saying, I'm just saying, all right? Verse 22, Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly, All the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. The people shall say, Amen." Who's that? That's the list of people that the Lord's lumped in with. When He became a curse for us, when He became sin for us who knew no sin, You know, when we compare ourselves amongst ourselves, we always, you know, people go, well, you know, I don't do, I might do A, B, C, but I don't do X, Y, Z, right? Yeah, I might lie, cheat on my taxes. I might, you know, use the Lord's name in vain, but I'm not a sodomite. You know, I don't cheat on my wife. I don't do these things. You know, what is it? It's, we like to list these sins. We like to rank the sins. The Lord's lumped in with them all. He took every single one of them. Phew, look at Psalm 119. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Man, Lord, you did that for me? Look at verse 21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments. The proud are cursed. Look at Jeremiah chapter 11. Verse number one, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant. That's exactly how Deuteronomy 27 ended. Who's cursed? He that disobeys the word of God, doesn't keep all the words of the commandment. Doesn't do exactly what God says. Well, that's kind of a broad statement, is it? Yeah, it is. Because we're all cursed under the law. Look at Jeremiah 48. Verse number 10. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully." Who's that? That's Joel Osteen. Who's that other one, that weird guy? Kenneth Copeland, that's who I'm thinking of. Man, that guy is demon-possessed. You just see it in his eyes. Who needs three jets? Kenneth Copeland does. Why? Come on, man. It's all about the money. You know what people do? They're deceived, and they send that creep money every single week. What's the Lord have to say about people like that? Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully. Doing it for riches, for filthy lucre. Not trying to fill their own bellies. The Lord says mark them, avoid them. But not only them, cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. You know what I just did there, naming them guys? I'm taking the sword out and I'm getting blood. I'm not holding it back from blood. Naming sin, it's naming, you know, the Lord says mark them and avoid them. So what do I need? I need to mark things for you guys, for the sheep, so we can all avoid them. The Lord says, he that keepeth the sword back from blood, he's cursed. Why? Because he's not doing his job. The job of the shepherd is to protect the sheep. So what happens when a wolf comes in? Oh, it's a big, bad wolf. Well, the hireling will flee, leave the sheep to themselves, but the true shepherd, a real shepherd, will stay and defend the flock. David's a great type of that. He had a bear and a lion come in there. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. What'd he do? He took them by the beard, smote them. Just a little kid, just a little teenager. cursed it be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." We're just talking about some things that are cursed. Look at Malachi chapter 1. Here in Malachi, the Lord's going to get on the nation of Israel for offering up things they weren't supposed to offer. When God declared what was to be offered, He wanted a lamb. He had these specifics that He wanted. It had to be a lamb. It had to be a male lamb. It had to be a spotless lamb, no blemish, right? But what they were doing, they were, look at verse 7. It says, ye offered polluted bread upon my altar. And you say, wherein have we polluted thee? In that the table of the Lord is contemptible. And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts? They were offering up the ones that were sick, the ones that were lame. They weren't perfect. They weren't spotless without any blemish. And look what he says in verse 14. But curse it be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and vows and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I'm a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen." So he said, curse it be the deceiver. Oh, you know, I'm just giving you the best I got, Lord. This is all I have. Now, you had a male. You had exactly what I wanted. You just didn't want to give me your best. Sounds like most Christians today don't want to give God the best. We have that song in the hymn book, Have I Done My Best for Jesus? Let's have an altar call right now. So the deceiver, not giving the Lord what he had demanded. Look at Galatians chapter 3. Verse number 10 says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." So the one who's cursed here is those who don't keep the whole law. The ones that are trying to keep it. You know, you'd ask them, you know, hey, are you saved? Do you know if you're going to heaven when you die? And they go, I sure hope so. You know, I'm hoping my good works outweigh my bad works, my sins. You know, I hope everything works out. Well, if that's what you're banking on, the Lord says, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things. Are you doing them all? All right, and so, yeah, well, I'm doing all these things. You could just stop someone right in their tracks and say, okay, are you, do you love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, with everything you got? You loving Him like that? Probably not. So, curse it is everyone that continued not in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them. Curse it. Look at Matthew 25. Verse number 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Who's cursed? Lost sinners cast into hell. Kind of gives you a little bit different perspective when you hear that Christ became a curse. He was made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Kind of makes you think a little bit differently, doesn't it? Like, man, you know, you hear curse it, but then when you see over and over what it is, the devil, Cain, Canaan, sinners, the proud, those that disobey the Word of God, he that does the work of God deceitfully, he that holds his sword back from blood, the deceiver, all these things, that's who the Lord's lumped in with. That's what he became. for us. The Bible says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Now, that's another thing to look at. All the different people in the Bible that hang on a tree, see the group that he's lumped in with, look at Genesis chapter 40. In Genesis chapter 39, we have Joseph being thrown into prison after Potiphar's wife lies about him. And remember, he's thrown in prison, and he's got two other prisoners in between him. He's got the chief baker and the chief butler, according to chapter 40, verse 1 and 2, right? You have these guys in there. Remember, they have a dream. Both of them dream dreams. Joseph interprets them. One of them is going to be set free. One of them is going to be killed. All right. So, verse number 22, or verse 21, it says, He restored the chief butler unto his butlership again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand, but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to him. All right. So, we have the chief baker being hanged here on a tree. Well, see, he was a malefactor. He was a criminal. When Jesus Christ became a curse for us because he was hanging on a tree, he had two people hanging on the other side of him. People that had broken the law, people who deserved to die. It doesn't say that the chief baker and the chief butler were thrown in there without cause. So he was a criminal, worthy of death. That's who hanged on a tree. Look at Joshua chapter 8. You know the story of Joshua chapter 7 when the children of Israel try to go in and they try to overtake Ai and they fail because Achan had taken them the accursed thing and they take care of Achan and then in chapter 8 they're going to go and take Ai like the Lord now gave him commandment to do, gave him the okay. And look at verse number 29. It says, And the king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until eventide. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree and cast it in at the entering of the gate of the city and raise thereon a great heap of stones that remaineth unto this day. Joshua obeyed the law. They hanged him on a tree. Why? Because he was accursed. Who was he? He was king of Ai. He was the man occupying the land that God had promised to Israel. right so he's gonna hang on a jury but joshua files a law it's not only been there overnight because he didn't want to curse the land right you don't want to defile the land so you hang them there let him die they threw him at the gate cover them with stones there's a big heap of stones there for them to remember there's a king of a i right there who's that someone that's that's occupying the land is not supposed to be there alright look at joshua chapter 10 And here in Joshua chapter 10. Verse three, we see five kings mentioned. It says, wherefore Addo the Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent unto Hoham, king of Hebron, and unto Piram, king of Jarmath, and unto Jephiah, king of Lachish, and unto Debor, king of Egalon, saying, Come up unto me, help me that we may smite Gibeon, for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. All right, so you have these five kings. They go attack Gibeon. Gibeon reaches out to Joshua, going, look, we made peace with you. Now we're being attacked for it. Come help us out. So Joshua and Israel come, and they fight them, and they end up chasing these five kings into a cave during the battle. So then they roll a stone in front of that cave. They go wipe everyone else out, and then they come back to the cave and say, all right, let's bring those five kings out. Look at verse 26. And afterward, Joshua smote them and slew them and hanged them on five trees. And they were hanging upon the trees until the evening." Again, he's not going to leave them hanging overnight because the Word of God said, don't do that. You don't want to defile the land. Again, these five kings were hanged for what? For one, they attacked Gibeon for making peace with Joshua. So it's a picture of what will take place in the Tribulation period. Anyone that's going to help those Jews in the Tribulation is going to be accursed. All right, that's Matthew 25, that's what we just read. You know, just a couple of verses before, all those that weren't, that didn't help the Jews in the tribulation, the Lord says it's like you're helping Him. All right, the judgment of nations, they're going to be judged on how they deal with Israel. Here, that's what that's a picture of, so they're gonna be accursed. But it's also a picture of what happens with us when we get saved. Joshua's a great type of Jesus Christ. Joshua is interpreted as Jesus in the Old Testament, right? The word, you'll read over somewhere in the book of Acts, I don't know the exact spot, but it says, and Jesus did this, this, and this. And it's not about Jesus, it's about Joshua, what he did in the Old Testament. So if Jesus showed up in the Old Testament, his name would have been Joshua. That's what it would have been in the Hebrew. In the Greek here, we have Jesus. This is a simple way of putting it. But what happens when you make peace with Joshua? Don't you get attacked by the world? What happens when you make peace with the Lord Jesus Christ? When you come to Him as a sinner and get saved, ask Him to save you, it doesn't seem like the five kings want to attack you for no reason. Only because you made peace with them. That's what happens. Persecution comes. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 4. Showing you some men that were hanging on a tree. Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. 2 Samuel chapter 4, this is at the beginning of this chapter, at the end of 1 Samuel, beginning of 2 Samuel, we learn about Saul and Jonathan being killed. David is now instituted as the king. And here he has another son, or Saul has another son named Ish-bosheth. And you have two of his men In verse number two, it says, Saul's son had two men that were captains of bands. The name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other was Rechab, the sons of Rimeh, Berethite, of the children of Benjamin, for Beeroth was reckoned to Benjamin. So they go in, and they end up killing Ishbosheth, right? They cut his head off, and they bring it to David, thinking, OK, we're going to get on David's side. We're going to show him, look, we killed your enemy, Saul's son. Yay us. Let's be on the same team. And David doesn't play that game. Remember when the armor bearer came, or when that one person came and said, look, I killed Saul. He was wounded and I'm the one that killed him. And David said, you think I'm going to reward you for that? And he ends up killing the guy for it. He does the same thing with these two guys, coming in and think they're going to be rewarded for killing the son of Saul. Look at verse 12. Well, verse 10, it says, When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings. How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed, shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand and take you away from the earth? And David commanded his young men, and they slew them. and cut off their hands and their feet and hang them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron." Alright, so you have these two men that murdered Ishbosheth and trying to bring his head to David and their hanged on a tree. Alright, chapter 18. I'm sorry, go to chapter 17 first, 2 Samuel 17. These are the kind of men that are cursed. You're hanging on a tree. These are men that you read and go, yeah, he pretty much deserves that. If he's going to do what it says he did, yeah, he should be cursed. Matthew Henry said this, he said that the picture, the reason why it's a curse, the picture of someone hanging in a tree, it's almost as if they're stuck in between heaven and earth. right, that neither one, he's not worthy of either, right, and has been rejected of both. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but it makes some sense. Bible says, Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. Here in 2 Samuel 17, you have, look at verse 23, you have Ahithophel. Ahithophel was one of David's most trusted advisors. Ahithophel is the grandfather of Bathsheba. All right, so when you read about Ahithophel, when Absalom starts to show up and to show out and to start to try to take control from David, Ahithophel goes with Absalom. He's got that bitterness in his heart for what David did with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. So he's going to start to advise Absalom, and he has, oh, who's the other guy in this story? of And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, rose, and got him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulcher of his father." Alright, so here you have Ahithophel, who went against David, a type of Christ, and is advising Absalom, a type of the Antichrist. So what kind of men are hanging on a tree? Cursed men. Cursed. Next chapter you have Absalom end up hanging in a tree. We're not going to be able to go through all of these, but look at verse number 9. We have Absalom met the servants of David, and Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick bows of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth. And the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it and told Joab and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And we know Joab goes up with those darts, puts it into his heart, and kills Absalom. And what's that? It's just another type of the Antichrist being hanged. Why? Because he curses every man that hangeth on a tree. We're not going to, I won't go through all of these, but in Esther chapter 2, you have two men that We're not going to read the passage, but two men, they start to plot against King Ahasuerus. And Mordecai finds out, warns the king. What do they do with those two men? They hang them. Esther chapter 7, Haman, a great type of the Antichrist who puts those gallows together to hang Mordecai. He starts this plot to attack the Jews. He's their adversary, it says in Esther chapter 7, a type of the Antichrist. He's hanged in the gallows for plotting against the Jews. These are the men that are hanging, they're cursing. Then in Esther chapter 9 you have Haman, he has 10 sons. What does the number 10 represent? Gentile, right, the Gentiles. The Antichrist is going to be connected with the Gentiles and also with the Jews, right, because he's going to, it looks like he's at least part Jew. but the 10 sons are hanged on the gallows. They're hanged. It's a picture of the 10 horns, right, in Revelation 17, verse 12, that represent 10 kings of the Antichrist kingdom. They represent the 10 toes in Daniel chapter number two, representing the Antichrist kingdom. They're hanged. Matthew 27. We'll look at that one. We'll go to Matthew 27 and be the last one. And verse number one, when the morning was come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down those pieces of silver in the temple, departed, and went and hanged himself. Why, cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree, another type of the Antichrist. hanging in a tree, another one committing suicide. Makes you wonder if that deadly wound to the head might be a suicide attempt by the Antichrist. Maybe. I don't know if that's definitive or not, but it's a possibility. All right, so that part, all the way back there in Genesis, or not Genesis, but Deuteronomy 21. He that is hanged is accursed by God. Jesus Christ is lumped in with all that sin all those men Because he hanged on a tree Christ had redeemed us from the curse of the law Being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree That's what the Lord did for us The more I think about it, the more it just tears me up. The more it just exposes me of how wicked and evil I am. We try to sugarcoat ourselves. Yeah, we're sinners, but we're not that bad of sinners. No, we're that bad. We're in that same group. And Christ took that from us, became a curse for us, that we might be gophery. Amen?