Holiness and Obedience in the Old and New Testament

Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 21. This section is sort of an expansion of commandment number seven, where God was talking about not murdering or killing. And so it's sort of an expansion on what it means to do that. To set a context for this passage, I want to talk a little bit about how the Bible focuses on the people of Israel. Whenever God promised them he would give them this land, sometimes you hear people call it the holy land. All that really means was that God set this land apart for a specific use by himself. His specific use was to bring his people into this land and develop in them a land of people who were obedient servants to him. Sort of like you might set up a trial thing, so that you would run that to show everyone else what would happen if you planted a crop of wheat on this ground, and you fertilized it properly, and you did everything you should, and you sprayed it properly, and to show that you could really produce a good crop on it. The people of Israel were gathered out of Egypt and brought to this land to be put on this land. He wanted them to clear everybody out of there who worshipped any other god. And he wanted these people there to be completely devoted to him. He wanted to show the entire world what he was like. He wanted to show the world what would happen if people surrendered themselves to be obedient to God, and lived and obeyed him faithfully. And this was his experimental plot. That's what he was trying to do. And he opened up the land of Israel for these people, brought them there. All of this stuff that Moses is talking about in the book of Deuteronomy is to prepare them to enter that land, so that what might take place would be this perfect example of the world God wanted to recreate, like the Garden of Eden. So he called this land the Holy Land, and he called the people there holy people. Now, the word holy means set apart specifically for the use of God. So that this land was set apart specifically for this experiment God wanted to do. The people of Israel were set apart from all the rest of the world specifically to show what God could do when there were people who were completely dependent and obedient to him. All the regulations in the book of Deuteronomy are set apart to help us understand how God could do this, and what he was trying to accomplish. And all the regulations that are given in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, although they may see sometimes weird, we try to get a reason for them. Why did God say that they couldn't plow with an ox and a donkey at the same time? We try to figure out why there would be a good reason physically, or in terms of animals, or in terms of the crops, why this needed to be done. Some of the things that are in these regulations in the Old Testament don't have a good reason for them. There's not really a good reason why a person shouldn't eat any pork. But God said, I don't want you to do it. What he was trying to build was a group of people who were disciplined, who did what they were supposed to. I was talking to a guy the other day, it was last Wednesday night, and he's in the military, he's just home for a little while, and he was talking about marching, and how when they march, you know, they just make a march here and there, and turn around and do all these things just to teach them to obey. He said, we have to learn that, because when we get in combat and they give us an order, we have to not even think about it, not think if it's right or wrong or anything else, but just do it. I think some of these regulations were given to the people of Israel for that very reason, to teach them self-control and discipline, and to always make them remember that they belong to God. They were not like the rest of the people. They had to do things differently because their master told them to do things differently. Now, in the New Testament, it's not different than that, except for this one thing. No longer does the people of God have a particular geographical place. See, that's gone with the Old Testament. The experiment was done on that land. Now, after Christ comes, he tears the temple veil down, and now he makes available to all the people in the world, wherever they are, the presence of the Holy Spirit. So that in the New Testament, no longer does it talk about a land that's holy, but in the New Testament, it only talks about the Spirit of God that's holy and the people who are holy. If you look through Paul's writings, you will find over and over again that Paul references the holy people. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1, when he's writing, Philippians chapter 1, verse 1, Colossians chapter 1, verse 1, and verse 12, verse 22 of Colossians chapter 3, verse 12, Philemon chapter 1, verse 1, 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 9, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, Romans chapter 1, verse 7, you get the point? Every place he wrote those stories, he said to the holy people of God. You see, suddenly the frame changes. The holy is not the land, but it's you. You become holy because you're the elect of God. When God enters your heart and he says, I want you to give yourself to me, I want you to give yourself to me, then you become holy because you're now dedicated for the purpose of God, not on Sunday, not on Wednesday, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now what God wants to do for you is to show all of the people around you what it is like for one person who is completely under Christ's control. The Holy Spirit now comes to live with you. In the Old Testament, the people didn't have the Holy Spirit present like we do, but now when you give your life to Christ in Romans, Paul says that the Holy Spirit comes in to take control of your life, to give you the very power of God and wisdom of God inside of you. So you become holy and the life you live is that life of holiness. That's why that's so important to us. And all the way through the New Testament, what the Bible is talking, what it keeps talking about is how does a holy person live? What does their life like? Because what God is still trying to do is to show all the world who he is and what he's like and what he can do in the life of an ordinary human being. He wants to see for people to see what a father who's controlled by Christ is like as a father. What a mother who's like Christ and controlled by Christ is like. What a husband and wife who are both controlled by Christ in their home is controlled. But what is this like? So that all the world around looks at that family, that couple, that individual, and they recognize that this person is holy. That is, they belong to God and they're living for God's purpose. There's a big mistake that people make, and I guess that's kind of what I got on to. So you remember this, probably a lot of you have seen this story about the basketball player that declared he was gay and how many people have been excited that he did that and congratulated him. One of the sports writers writing about this, and so the lady says, I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I know, but what I know for sure is that people who get their salvation from the New Testament would be wise not to get their doctrine from the old. And when in doubt, ask yourself, what did Jesus say? Well, you see, Jesus and all the people in the New Testament got their doctrine from the Old Testament. You see, that's the ignorance that people have. They think you can divide these two things up. You can't. They're one long string of whole. What God was trying to do with the people of Israel, he's trying to do in the church today. What his instructions for the people in the Old Testament were, were also for us. Now, there are some things that have changed in the New Testament. Jesus indicates that we're no longer to be worried about eating, being some foods unclean and others clean. We no longer are asked to wear tassels on our clothes. But what he does say, Peter does say, is that women are to dress in a modest fashion. That's a command. In the same way in the Old Testament, he commanded clothes, too. He said that women are not to take so great pride in jewelry as they are their character, which is exactly what the Bible is talking about in the Old Testament, that the primary ingredient is obedience to God. Now, what the Old Testament, what it talks about are things that set the people of Israel apart from their culture. And what happens if you don't do that is that suddenly the culture begins to control the people of God. In the Old Testament, he said, when you go into this land, I want you to kill all the idol worshipers there, because if you don't, they're going to influence you till all of a sudden you are doing the things that they do. There was a time in our culture back in the 1950s, for example, when if a Hollywood starlet was found to be immoral and committing adultery, no one would hire to make movies with her. Now it's almost required that they do that or they don't get any movies. There's a time, you see, whenever certain standards of behavior were widely accepted in the culture. In the New Testament, God was not so much worried about what the Romans did or the Roman government did, but he was passionately concerned about what his people did. Our concern is not about this foot basketball player that's gay. Our concern is not about what the culture around us is doing. Our concern is what we are doing, the standards that we hold on to. And what the Old Testament told us was when you live around people who are not holy, you are inclined to become like them. And that's true in the New Testament. You know how we stay holy? And that's that we stay together and we stay talking about how we're going to obey the scriptures. And we encourage each other and support each other. And within the community of faith, we hold on to the principles of scriptures regardless of what anyone around us says or does. Our job is not to get on to this guy that's declared he's gay. That's not our task. God does that. What our task is, is to look at ourselves and say, do we measure up to what God is asking of us? Christians have spent far too much time trying to fight people who are not doing what the Bible says they should do, and not nearly enough time disciplining ourselves so that we are doing what the Bible says we should do. And slowly but slowly, the churches have begun to adopt the lifestyle of the world around them. And what happens is we keep complaining we want the world to change its lifestyle so we won't have any temptation. In the Old Testament, it would be like the people of Israel coming into town saying, you guys quit worshiping idols because you're tempting us to start doing it too. That wasn't what God said. He said, you look at yourselves and you make sure that none of you ever worship idols. See, our call is a call of holiness. We are to be holy as God is holy, exactly the same claim that's placed in the Old Testament. And the things that were required in the Old Testament are not absent from us. They're still a part of this scene. Now, I want to read chapter 21, verse 22. If a man is guilty of a capital offense, if a man is guilty of a capital offense, is put to death, and his body hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day because anyone who's hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Now, in this passage, what God is saying to the people who are his, human life is valuable. And the death of a person, even though it's a person who's executed for a good reason, still belongs to me. And the dead person, even though they're dead, is not to be humiliated. So, he's not talking about crucifixion here. He's talking about any kind of death that would come as a result of capital punishment given by the scriptures that the person was to experience that. Now, after the capital punishment, usually by stoning, sometimes they would hang the body out on a post so everyone would see that the punishment had been given. This was a punishment required by the law, by the scriptures. And that this person had done something absolutely overwhelmingly opposed to what God said they should do. And because of that, this execution must take place. Now, see, some people look at this in the Old Testament and they say, well, you know, if God really loved these people, he wouldn't do anything bad to them. That's what this lady was saying in this deal here. God is love. And God didn't do anything, you know, that loving would mean that God would treat everybody good. Well, there's a story, you know, about a guy that went out hiking and a boulder fell on him and crushed his arm. And you know what cut his arm off? You ever read that story? Do you think he hated his arm? Why'd he cut it off? Because if he didn't cut it off, he was going to die. And when capital punishment is given in the Old Testament, it's because a certain number of the people in the family of Israel have done something so contrary to what God wants that it endangers the whole community of faith. And God says, out of love for his people, cut that off. If you don't, it's going to kill all of you. It's not that God hates people against this capital punishment. It's that he's trying to save the whole of the people because he cares for them. Now, in this instance, capital punishment has taken place. A person is held out there to announce to everyone that God has limits on what he allows you to do. And this person is a witness to that. But he says, this evidence of judgment is not to bring humiliation on this man and his family. So you can hang that person out there to let people see, but do not allow the sun to go down and that person hang there past this time to humiliate everyone in his family. Concern for the family, concern for the human body that this represented, a respect for them. So be sure to bury the person on the same day because anyone who's hung on a tree is under God's curse. God's already cursed them. That's why they're dead. It's not that they're cursed to be hung on a tree, but they are cursed because they did something God said they shouldn't do that resulted in capital punishment. And that's happened. So whenever that happens and they're killed and they're hung on a tree as an example for that, that person's already been cursed. All of it's happened. Now, if you leave a dead body there, it will desecrate the land the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. I can't think of maybe a very good example of this, except that if we came to church one day and a man or woman fell over with a heart attack and died. Would it be hard to have church with them still laying in the floor? You see, what God sees is his land is holy. And a dead body hanging there brings desecration to his own land. So what he asks is the judgment has to be done. You've obeyed me in that the evidence of it is given. But this is not to desecrate the land that I've given to you. The maintenance of the holiness of God's land is a critical issue for him. Translated to us, the holiness of the church is critical to God. When he talks about the church in the book of Ephesians, he says he wants to present the church to him as his bride spotless, pure and holy. So what God wants from all of us is a life of holiness, that is our life set apart to live in obedience to God. And this is very, very critical to God. Living a life of holiness is critical because we represent the holiness of God. So in this matter, when capital punishment has to be carried out, it has to be carried out in a certain way so that it honors what God says is the right way to do things. Chapter 22, verse 1. If you see your brother's ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it, but be sure to take it back to him. If the brother does not live near you or if you do not know who it is, take care of who he is, take it home with you and keep it until he comes looking for it. Then give it back to him. Do the same if you find your brother's donkey or his cloak or anything else he loses. Do not ignore it. There are two commands in this passage. One is if you see a man's animal, something that belongs to him, even his clothes. Now, you know, for us, we have so much, so many clothes you can just store, you know, you want to get rid of them all the time. They just had one or two pieces of clothes. And so to lose your coat was a very critical thing for them. So he's talking about something essential. If you have somebody that loses something that's really important to them and essential to them, we might say it's like their car. Someone loses that or if they lose money and you find it, you're to take care of it. Here is the very same New Testament principle that you do to others what you would want them to do for you. Not any different than that. So if you had an animal that was straying away and got lost, what would you want someone to do? If they found your cow, you'd want them to take care of it for you. You wouldn't want them to say, well, we found it. Nobody was around here. We killed it and ate it. And I mean, it really was good. We thank you for it. You'd say that wasn't quite what I wanted. He said, you're to look at this animal as if it were you're in the position of that other person. And so if you can't find the owner, you don't know who it is. You're to take it and feed it and care for it like it was yours. And then when the owner comes and claims it, you give it back to them. You do to others what you would want people to do for you. This is the principle of love. You care for them. If you find their coat, you do the same thing. What he's trying to what he's trying to create in this holy community is the very nature of God. God takes care of us. He overlooks our mistakes and he helps us. So that God doesn't take advantage of us whenever we do something wrong. I've heard people say, you know, if you pray, don't ask for something or God is going to give it to you. Like he's going to punish you for praying for the wrong thing. God is always on our side. He's always trying to help us. And in this way, see, the people of Israel are mirroring the very nature of God himself. God is kind and patient and he helps you. So if someone loses an animal, you take care of it. You try to find the person that has it. When he comes back for it, you give it to him. And you do the same thing for your brother's animals, whatever they are, or even his coat. And the second command here is, do not ignore the man's animal or coat. This is what the sin that took place with the story of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levi went by and saw the man left over there beaten. And they said, we're busy. They ignored it. It's as bad to ignore it as it is to take advantage of it. If you find the animal, claim it's your own, kill it and you eat it, you've destroyed it. If you ignore it, you've committed the same kind of crime. I don't care about the guy that lost this animal or this coat. It's none of my business and I'm not going to trouble myself with it. We cannot be indifferent to the loss of those things around us. Now, I want you to understand what he's talking about here. He's talking about one man who sees a brother's animal or a brother's coat and he responds to it. The burden's on us. This is not necessarily about the people outside the kingdom of God, but the high standard is set for us. We are obligated to each other to help each other. That's what the family of God's about. So when you have a need, that's why we take prayer requests, I am obligated in some way to help you. And whenever you have difficulty or trials, I'm obligated in some way to assist you. I cannot ignore your difficulty and find God's approval of my life. I can't. Whether it's simply talking to you, praying for you, encouraging you, supporting you, we all have this obligation to each other. I'm afraid sometimes we see the church as a place where people come, listen to a sermon, study a Bible lesson, and go home and forget about everybody else there, but it's not the way it's supposed to be. We are together and we should know enough about each other to know if another one of our brothers and sisters is in trouble. And whatever their troubles are, we are obligated to assist them. So when every person comes to our church to join, I say to them, you know you promised to read the Bible, pray, you promised God that you would live in obedience to him. And then I ask people to say, I want you to promise this person this is a place where the Bible will be taught and preached and lived. And whatever needs this person has in their life, we commit ourselves to assist them and help them. The reason I'm asking for that promise is because this is what the Bible describes the family of God to be. So use that term family. If you have a child that's born into your family and you say, well, it's not my problem that they're hungry, it's not much of a family. And if we say, it's not my problem that these people in the church are having problems, it's not much of a family. What God expects us to do as a family is to see the need of people and respond to it. Ignoring it is a sin, and taking advantage of it is also a sin. What God's asking us to do is to put the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ ahead of our own. They take priority over this, and that's the issue that he's asking for us to face. If you see your brother's donkey has fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Again, that's command. Help him get it to its feet. So whenever you see someone who's doing something and needing your help, you have to ask yourself, God, is this a place I am supposed to assist? Here he's talking about a guy who's donkey, the means of making a living, is damaged, may not be able to use it. I have an obligation, if I see that, to say, what can I do to help you? So whatever needs there are in the life of the family of God, the church, we're obligated to make our focus on making sure that the needs of the people here are met. Now on the other side of that, sometimes one of the hard things that comes to us in church is people don't want you to help them. They want to be on their own. They want to stand on their own two feet. They don't want the humility of being served. Do you remember that story about Jesus? He came in, he started washing his disciples' feet, and Peter said, you're not going to wash my feet. And Jesus said, if I can't wash your feet, you can't be a part of my followers. The humility of allowing others to pray for us, and serve us, and care for us, is a part of what it means to be a family. If there's one member of your family that won't let you do anything for them, won't let you help them in any way, it's really hard to be a family. But God sees about his people, Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New Testament, as a community of people who put the other interest of that other person ahead of their own. And who are willing to serve others, and are also willing to be served, because it's allowing God to help us in whatever way he chooses. So you get in trouble, and you say, I'm not going to tell anybody, I'm just going to test this out myself. And God's saying, I'd sure like to help Doyle, so he brings somebody and says, can I help you in your own way, and take care of it myself? I turned to God for help. I said to God, I want you to help me, but only my way. And who's in charge of that? Me. All of a sudden I had the humility to be able to say, God, I don't know what would happen to me, if it was in my life, if I did that. If you asked me to get in trouble, I'd say, that was just because I did it. If you asked me to come to your life so you could help me, I would do that. So what I'm really interested in, is embedding you. To do this with God as an instructor, to do this with God as an instructor, and that's what the instruction is talking about, putting God into your community, that's what it's all about. Now, I thought that that's good, and that's great, and that's it. But that's really what this movement is. It's operating in a community of love and trust. And we have to be exactly to avoid that from happening. You see, the federal government operates into the public. It's the people in the public that are particularly attracted to things that affect the people. It's the people in the public that are particularly attracted to things that affect the people. The public doesn't have to be excluded. The public is excluded because they're not going to be impacted. People are getting excluded because they're not going to be impacted when the impact is not going to be there. So it's important to remember that the public does not have to be excluded. There's other ways to explain that. You can't just say that you're excluded because you're not going to be impacted. The other part of that, what is appropriate is talking to the people who are speaking to the people in the public that are speaking to the people. This is how it works in the world. If you have a system, if you have a set of standards that are in place in place, then you can effectively talk to the people that are speaking to the people. The public can't be excluded because they're not going to be impacted. It's the people in the public that are going to be impacted. It's the public that's going to be impacted. It's the people that are going to be impacted. So I'm going to go through the paper stuff for a second. Please remember, I promise you, I will do what you tell me not to do. I'm sure you feel that. Take a look at this.