If you've got your Bibles, please turn with me to Leviticus chapter 20. This morning, Leviticus chapter 20. As we continue our study in this book of the law, we're examining a portion of the book, this second half of the book, which is part of the holiness code that takes up the second half of Leviticus and having come to the 20th chapter we've come again to a passage in which the penalties for specific sins are enumerated indicating just how radically God was willing to deal with sin in the people of Israel. Let me point you back to chapter 19 just to remind you that In the very second verse of chapter 19, we see Moses giving to the people of God a motivation for holiness. And we find that in this phrase, you shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. This is why the people of God are to pursue holiness, because they are to be like God. And of course, nothing is different for us. The Israel of God in the new covenant. We are to be holy because we are to reflect that holiness of God. We've said that the Bible gives us various reasons for why we ought to pursue holiness. Sometimes the scripture stresses that God has shown his grace to us, and therefore, in gratitude to God for his grace, we ought to pursue holiness. We ought to want to live like he tells us to live. Another motivation for this is because we understand that God's law is good. If we strive to be holy as God is holy, it will be to our benefit. How does he put it there in Leviticus 19 too? You shall be holy because I am holy. We are his image and we are to reflect to the world what God is like. so that the very pursuit of holiness is part of a witness to the world that our God is entirely different from anything that they have known and experienced. He is a holy God. We are to be the image, the reflection, the representation of that holiness to the world. And so there is this God motivation to holiness. Now the reason I want to draw your attention to this is because we're going to see that occur here again in Leviticus chapter 20. This God motivation for holiness is going to be put right up before our eyes and the eyes of God's people again. So as we do this, returning to chapter 20, let me give you a brief outline of the passage. And then we'll come back and I'll pull a few things out for us to consider this morning. First, in verses one through six, we find the death penalty required for false worship. Of course, this is not unique to the law of God. The death penalty has been set forth from the very beginning of the giving of the law. If you go back to Exodus chapter 20, in the giving of the Ten Commandments, you'll find there that God commands his people not to murder. Now, the King James says, thou shalt not kill. That's caused all kinds of problems over the years. But it is not a prohibition against all killing, but against murder. We know that because in the very next chapter, In chapter 21, as part of God's law, he sets forth capital punishment. He sets forth the death penalty. And we're finding that again here. In this particular context, it deals with false worship. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, You shall also say to the sons of Israel, any man from the sons of Israel or from the alien sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given some of his offspring to Molech. so as to defile my sanctuary and to profane my holy name. If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech so as not to put him to death, then I myself will set my face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him by playing the harlot after Molech. So this is the first requirement of the death penalty that we have in this particular chapter, and it has to do with the worship of Molech, or really, as we read through much of the rest of the law, any kind of false worship. Now, this worship of Molech was particularly hideous because it entailed child sacrifice. But it includes spiritism and necromancy, resorting to a medium, demonic activity in worship, the conjuring up of spirits. Now, in part, what God's doing here is saying to the children of Israel, I don't want you to follow the religious practices of the people of either Egypt or Canaan. Their religious practices entail child sacrifice. That was what the worship of Molech was all about. So you're not going to take your religious cues from the peoples around you. You're going to take your cue from me. You're going to be obedient to those things which I have set before you. So the very first thing that he's saying in this passage is, you're going to worship God the way God tells you to worship God, not the way that Egypt or the Canaanites try and worship God, whether it be through sacrificing children, whether it be through resorting to familiar spirits or various other forms of spiritism. That's what's happening there in verses one through six. And the death penalty is assigned to this. Obviously, You know, the red light is flashing here. God wants to make sure we understand how serious he is about this. Now, no ritual sacrifices are prescribed for Moloch worship or for going after these familiar spirits. The death penalty is ascribed. Don't do this anymore. The people we know, as soon as they came out of Egypt, were going back to the idolatry of Egypt, even while they were in the wilderness. And God knew exactly what was going to happen when they entered into the land. They would take upon themselves the religious practices of the Canaanites as well. And God wants them to understand what they're getting into when they do this. You can't come in and offer a couple of birds or a goat or an oxen. That's not gonna take care of that particular sin. That particular sin requires the death penalty. In verses seven and eight, we are reminded once again, as we've already spoken of, that God is holy, and we are to be holy before him. You shall consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my statutes and practice them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. So once again, a reiteration of that motivation to holiness. We won't spend a lot of time here because we looked at it Last week, we are to be holy as God is holy. We are the image bearers of the holy God. In verses 9 through 21, we see the serious penalties that exist for serious sins. If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood guiltiness is upon him. If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If there is a man who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed incest. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality. Both he and they shall be burned with fire. so that there will be no immorality in your midst. If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death. You shall also kill the animal. If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who takes his sister, his father's daughter, and his mother's daughter, so that he sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness. He bears his guilt. If there is a man who lies with a minstress woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow and she has exposed the flow of her blood. Thus, both of them shall be cut off from among their people. You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative. They will bear their guilt. If there is a man who lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They will bear their sin. They will die childless. If there is a man who takes his brother's wife, it is abhorrent. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They will be childless. Now, many of these obviously are sexual in nature and involve sexual activity with those who are within the bounds of kinship, which ought never to be violated, those boundaries of kinship in terms of sexual relations, but all of these sins have serious penalties. To some of them, again, the death penalty is attached. To some of them, God says, I'll make you childless if you commit this sin. And in some of them, God says, I will curse you if you commit this sin. So serious consequences are attached to these very serious sins. In verses 22 through 26, we see exile and separation as a result of sin. You are therefore to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances and do them so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not spew you out Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them. Hence I have said to you, you are to possess their land, and I myself will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean, and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean. Thus you are to be holy to me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the peoples to be mine. So God says, now, just so you're getting my point, if you are unfaithful to my call to holiness, I want you to know I will take you out of the land. There's a threat of exile here from the promised land if the people are not faithful to the Lord's commandment. And of course, this is exactly what we see later in the history of Israel. God has been patient. He has been forbearing. He has allowed centuries to pass. And the people continue deeper and deeper into sin until the Lord says, that's enough. And he brings down Assyria against the Northern kingdom and Babylon against the Southern kingdom. And he takes his people off into exile, just as he said. Verse 27, of course, brings us back to the death penalty. Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their blood guiltiness is upon them. And this is a repeat virtually of verse six. As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists to play the harlot after them, I will also set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. So back to the whole issue of spiritism and necromancy, the sins of going after familiar spirits, he says again here, the death penalty attaches to those who involve themselves in these occultic practices. And so he frames the chapter by warning the children of Israel against the religious practices of those around them. Those are the five sections of this chapter. This morning I'd just like to pull out several things for us to focus on together. And the first is back at the beginning of the first section. I want you to see this principle in verses 1 through 6. This passage in Leviticus reminds us that there is such a thing as lesser and greater matters of the law. Jesus spoke about this, of course, when he spoke of the weightier matters of the law, implying that there are those that are weightier and those that are lighter. Jesus said this to the Pharisees who were tithing their mint and dill, and they were very scrupulous in doing so. They would go out into their garden and they'd get their mint and they'd get their dill and they'd weigh out a tenth of their garden harvest, and they would make that part of their offering to the Lord. And they were very, very scrupulous about this. But you remember, Jesus says, the problem is that you have done this, which you should have done, while neglecting the weightier matters of the law. And people sometimes wonder, and I've sometimes been asked, are there sins that are more serious than others? And there are really two answers to that question. The first answer is no. In the sense that every sin is enough to condemn us. Every sin. which is a violation of God's law and his holy character, is enough to condemn us. Which is why God says through Isaiah that even our righteousness is as filthy rags. Paul says no one has done good. We have all sinned and are under the condemnation of God. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. All sins are equally serious because any sin can send you to hell. Any transgression of the law of God is enough apart from the saving grace of God to condemn any sinner. Now, of course, there's no one in this room and no one in the world who can say, almost made it. It's just that one little thing I did. I stole a paper clip from the office. If it wasn't for that, none of us can say that. We have all sinned in any number of ways, and any one of our sins separates us from God. But that's not the only answer. There is another sense in which sins can be differentiated. The Westminster Catechism asks this question, are some sins more heinous than others? And the answer is, some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others. And what the Westminster divines meant by this is that some sins are more evil than others by nature of the person committing them or the nature of the circumstances connected to those sins. Some sins are just more evil than others. Committing adultery is a great sin. But for David to commit adultery the way he did with Bathsheba had things connected to it that made it a greater sin. For one thing, he was David. He already had multiple wives. He was the richest, most powerful man in the land, and he could have had any woman that he wanted, but who does he take? He takes the wife of one of his most loyal men. A man we later find out was one of his mighty men. And David betrayed this good and loyal man and had him killed, sending him to the front line of the battle so that David could take his wife. And all of these things go together and bring Nathan to come and tell this parable about a man who had many sheep and another man who had one sheep. And the man who had many took that one sheep that this other man possessed. And then he looked at David and said, You are the man. David's sin had things connected to it that made it exceedingly heinous. So there are some sins more heinous than others. So it's interesting, isn't it, in Leviticus and in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, there are some sins that are forgiven. There are particular ways that those sins can be dealt with under the sacrificial system, especially sins that have to do with the ceremonial code. And then there are other sins for which the death penalty is given. and there is no sacrifice sufficient for them. And the point is, of course, that these things are the part of the weightier matters of the law. They are moral concerns, not just ceremonial, not just ritual, but moral. In fact, in the New Testament, we find reference to the moral principles contained in passages like Leviticus 20 applied to Christians And so one thing we learn from this passage is that there is such a thing in God's Old Testament law as weightier and lesser matters, and those ceremonial matters, like the tithing of mint and dill, those things would pass away with the end of the ceremonial code. But issues of sexual morality the demands of biblical fidelity within marriage, these things do not pass away. They are weightier matters of the law, and God appointed more serious punishments for those laws to draw attention to this as a core moral value for his people. He wanted his people to be different. So that's one thing we learned from this passage. There's a second thing I want you to see in this very first section as well. You see it especially when you look at verse five. I myself will set my face against that man and his family and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him by playing the harlot with Molech. Now, there are actually two things here that I want to draw your attention to, and the first is this phrase, I will cut off. Now, very often as we approach the Old Testament, it's as if it is a shadowy kind of pre-Christian book, and then the New Testament is the Christian book, and the Old Testament is just sort of a book of illustrations. Some preachers treat the Bible this way. I have heard preachers say, I'm only going to preach the New Testament because the New Testament is for Christians and the Old Testament was for Israel. And I'll dip into the Old Testament every now and then if I need an illustration for something I'm dealing with in the New Testament. But generally speaking, I don't preach on the Old Testament. The early Christians viewed the Old Testament in a very different way. They viewed the Old Testament as a Christian book. And indeed it is. The relationship between the Old Testament and this, and the New Testament, is this. The New Testament is the book of interpretation for the Old. When we come to the New Testament and we see the New Testament authors, As we do, for instance, in the book of Acts, preaching from the Old Testament, we're being given a lesson on Old Testament interpretation. When we find authors of New Testament books making reference to Old Testament passages, they're telling us how we are to interpret, how we are to understand the Old Testament. So as we come to look at these things, we're not just looking at historical, interesting kind of statements. We're looking at something which has application for us even now. If I didn't believe that, we wouldn't have spent so much time working our way through Leviticus. What should be obvious is that the New Testament treats the Old Testament as something which still applies to new covenant believers. Let me give you one example. Look at this phrase again. I will cut him off from among his people. I will cut him off. Now, I want to contrast this for a second because toward the end of the chapter, As we read in verse 26, when God is dealing with exile, he uses a different term. Verse 26, he says, I have set you apart. There's a difference between setting apart and cutting off. Cutting off means death. Cutting off means death. The man who commits this particular sin is to be put to death. Now, what passage in the New Testament picks up on that principle and applies it to Christians? This was happening in Corinth. One of the things that we're told here is that if there is a man, verse 11, who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death, for their blood guiltiness is upon them. In 1 Corinthians chapter five, in the midst of this wonderful exposition of holiness, Paul draws attention to the fact that in Corinth there is a man who, as he says, has his father's wife. He has taken his stepmother from his father and is now with her. And Paul quotes a phrase that comes from Deuteronomy, but probably it was very similar to this. And he says, the evil one shall be cut off from among you. Same language as that which we find here in verse five. Now in the Old Testament, that language literally meant the application of the death penalty through stoning or through burning or through exile. but it was the death penalty. When I say exile there, I mean sending someone out from the camp to die in the wilderness. Paul applies it differently, but it's the same command. Paul speaks to this situation in Corinth, which is exactly what's described there in verse 11. But Paul says, here's the way this works itself out under the new covenant. This person is to be put out. Under the new covenant, within the new covenant church, because we're no longer dealing with a civil government like ancient Israel, the church isn't going to go around executing people. The death sentence within the church is excommunication. The person who has fallen into this kind of heinous sin and will not repent is to be put out of the church. Paul says there is to be holiness. The same principle remains. There is to be sexual morality among the people of God. They are not to violate the moral standards that God has set forth in his word. So Paul is appealing to an Old Testament moral principle and saying that this is the requirement for Christians to be faithful sexually within the proper bounds of marriage. And if that is not what's happening and repentance does not come after the process of church discipline has taken place, they are to be put out of the church. The next thing I want you to see here has to do with this language of playing the harlot. You see that in verse 6. As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists to play the harlot after them, I will also set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. You know that in the Bible, in the Old Testament and the New, there is this language of saying those who are unfaithful to God are in some way playing the harlot. They're committing spiritual adultery against the Lord. And you're seeing that language here, verses five or six. I will cut them off. They're playing the harlot. They're playing the harlot after Molech. In other words, if the children of Israel start worshiping Molech through this horrendous practice of child sacrifice, they are playing the harlot, they are being spiritually unfaithful. And this image is found throughout the Old Testament, where Israel is reckoned to be in a marriage union with the Lord Yahweh. and their unfaithfulness to him is called adultery. It's called spiritual adultery. You're playing the harlot. You're going after other gods. You're not being faithful to me. And the New Testament has the same phrase. In fact, one of the interesting phrases in the New Testament is this idea of making God a liar. and is really communicating the same thing. There's an extremely important principle here for holiness. All our love to God begins with the perception of God's love to us. What does John say? We love because he first loved us. So all of our love to God begins by perceiving His love to us. Therefore, when we turn to any other God, any other thing as the one, as the thing, as the person that we love the most, that we get more delight or satisfaction from than God, we are committing spiritual adultery and we're saying that there is a love more satisfying than the love of God. And because God has said that's not true, we make God a liar. When God says you will find no rest, until you find it in me. And then we proceed to go off and look for our rest somewhere else. What are we saying? God, I don't believe you. I think there's something better. And when we do that, we're committing spiritual adultery. When we say, you know, what I really delight in is, and then we start filling in the blanks, my husband, my wife, my job, my status, my dream, my boat, my team. Whatever we say, if that becomes the ultimate object of our affection, we are committing spiritual adultery. And by the way, we don't actually have to articulate it that way. We can deny that that's the case when our heart says something else. We can say that we love God, and then we can live in such a way as to show that our real delight is in something else other than God. And when we do that, we're saying, no, Lord, it's not true that your love is better than anything else. I don't believe you. And of course, that's precisely what Satan wants to convince us of. There is something better than the love of God. There's something more fulfilling. There's something more satisfying. There's something more delightful. Something better in this universe than God and His love and His rest and the satisfaction and contentment we find in Him. This is what happened at the beginning in the garden. When Satan came to Eve and he put the idea in her mind, God's trying to keep something from you, but you can be like him. I can offer you something better than what God has given to you. You mean God told you you couldn't eat from all the fruit of the garden? What a stingy God. He's keeping good things back from you. And the woman ends up looking at the fruit, saying, that really looks tasty. And she takes the fruit. Why? Because Satan has tempted her to believe what? That God is not good. That God is lied. And that's what sin always does. Still it may not be a piece of fruit anymore, but Satan holds it out to us and boy does it look good And we begin to think I can't imagine a good reason why God would not allow me to do this Which is just another way of saying God's a liar Let God be true and every Man be found a liar. Satan wants to convince us if you follow the exciting, unsatisfying, unfulfilling, boring, terrible life. But if you reject all that puritanical nonsense in the Bible, then you can really live. What has God said? Come to me and I will give you life and life more abundantly. And God here in Leviticus, and of course it's not just here in Leviticus, elsewhere, is over and over saying to his people, delight in me. I'm the source of contentment and peace and rest and joy The light in me, all satisfaction, all real experience of love is found in relationship with me. And if you choose something other than that, not only are you committing spiritual adultery against me, you're giving up that which is best for that which is nothing at all. You're giving up the waters of life for a broken cistern that holds no water. God created us to be satisfied with him. And he has graciously given us an abundance of gifts, but the gifts are not him. We rejoice in who he is, not what he has kept from us for our good, not even the good things which he has given to us, but Christ and Christ alone. Father, may we find our satisfaction only in you. May we recognize the voice of the serpent when we hear it. May we recognize that temptation for what it is. Father, may we reject it that we might be holy as you are holy. For Christ's sake, we ask it. Amen.