THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Well, brothers and sisters, we've been in this book for a little while now. I think most times I come up or a brother comes up and gives a brief explanation in any of the chapters, always reminding you somewhat of the context.

And it's very important we do that. And the reason why we always remind of the context is because we need to have that in the back of our minds. We need to understand what is going. We need to understand what is happening here in the book of Deuteronomy. Several sermons from the mouth of Moses, the prophet of God, speaking on behalf of God, the law of God, to the people of God, who had been redeemed from slavery in Egypt.

Now, we know these people now are sitting or standing. We don't know, but they're listening to the prophet that God has ordained to speak his word. And these are people who are on the very verge of crossing over the Jordan River to attain the land that was promised by God to their forefathers some 400 years earlier. Now, who are these people? Yes, they are the people of Israel, but we need to also understand that the majority of that generation that came out of Egypt have been slain and have died and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

So what we have before us, these people listening, as Moses opens his mouth on behalf of God, we have a people who, if they were present when they left Egypt, they were young, under the age of 20, and barely could remember what had taken place or transpired some 40 years ago. But most of this generation had been born in the wilderness. What does that mean? That means that their Their understanding or their relationship, no that's not what I'm looking for, their experience with unrighteousness, their experience with the pagan culture and the wickedness and the evil and the filth that goes on outside the camp is very limited. Their parents knew it, because they were adults when they were in Egypt, and they saw all around them the pagan worship, the disgusting rituals that they would call religion in that place.

But these people, you could say, almost sheltered from it. They had glimpses here and there, but for the most part, they were sheltered. Their neighbors were covenant people. They knew all along. All they knew was the covenant that God had given them, and the law that God had given them, a law they should never break.

So look to the left and look to the right. There may have been unrighteousness, but not to the grand scale that they would have seen if they were in Egypt. And they're on the brink of crossing over the Jordan, being given a land through conquest, through battle. It's almost like It's almost like parents who have young children, rear them in a godly home, and then one day you see your child go out of your home into the world to experience work, to experience adulthood, to experience what goes on really in this world. You've sheltered them to some degree.

And you hope and pray to God that the God of the upbringing in your own household would be enough, trusting them in the hands of the Lord as they go, that they would see the truth of what they were being taught. But nonetheless, their eyes will be open to some very violent, filthy activity that goes on. This is what's happening here. The people of Israel are going to cross over and they're going to be confronted with pagan idol worship. They'll be confronted with the filth that goes on in those pagan nations.

And God is saying to these people that you, you're my people. I have chosen you. I've called you by my name. I've set my love upon you. You are to be holy.

You are to be concerned with righteousness. You are to be concerned with obedience. You can be concerned with loving me. To be concerned to know who you are as a people redeemed for my glory and a people who will be peculiar people, set apart people, and the people who've been given the name of the Lord. You can say that Leviticus chapter 19 is a verse in the first two verses there is a verse of the verse or truth that speaks to the whole Bible, but especially in the chapters of Deuteronomy as we move our way forward in these various laws.

And there it says, Be ye holy and ye know the rest. For I the Lord your God am holy. Set apart. You ought to be different. You ought to be different.

You ought to love the things I love and hate the things I hate. You ought to be concerned with upholding the law and righteousness and purity, that the land would not be defiled, that your eyes would not be defiled, that your hearts would not be defiled. You ought to be concerned with these things. You can't be indifferent to them. But your heart will be engaged to make sure that your neighbor on the left and your neighbor on the right, but more so you yourself are concerned with loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

And if there is unrighteousness found in the land, you should have a zeal to see it eradicated, expelled. Expel the evil that is among you. And that would entail punishment. And so what do we have before us? We have five sections.

Five sections before us, very neatly summarized in your Bibles, with titles, and they're good titles. And what I'm going to do this evening, for the sake of time, I'm going to quickly, briefly address every one of them. However, it will be a very quick fly-through by our standards. Very quick. I mean, quick is an understatement.

But we'll go through them very, very quickly. And the statements three and four, I believe, are united. So we'll speak to those together. But also, I hope and I pray that I'll lead you to Christ. Because after all, it's always, always about Jesus.

So what do we have before us? In verses 1 through 9, and these verses speak to the atonement for shed blood. What do you do in the case when you go over into the land that the Lord has given you, you settle in the land, and then there is a murder. A man or a woman lies in the open field, and it's clear that a murder had taken place. That an atrocity has taken place in Israel.

That everything that God has said thou shalt not do has taken place. Rebellion against the Lord. What are you to do in an instance like that? The people already know that life is being given by Yahweh Himself. He's the giver of life and He's the only one who has the right to take away life.

But what about the laws? What about death penalty? What about capital punishment? Yes, that's because Yahweh has given His word. He has commanded in cases that are warranting the death penalty, you are to do this.

You are to be my ministers. My instruments, my vehicles of judgment. Yahweh is still in control. Yahweh is the only one who can take away life because Yahweh is the one who gave it in the very first place. Here we see someone rebelling against Yahweh.

Someone has rebelled. Someone has committed murder. Innocent blood is shed in the land of Israel and something needs to be done about it. You can't just let it go. He's saying, remember all that speaker that I spoke about earlier about holiness in the land.

About you being having a zeal to uphold the law of Yahweh. That you have a zeal to see righteousness and justice in the land. Because that is the character of God Himself. And He wants you to emulate His goodness. He sits on the throne of righteousness and justice, we're told.

What are they to do? They can't just let it go. The blood was shed and it needs to be accounted for. Because wickedness like this cannot continue to exist among the people of God. They must have a zeal to see that sort of wickedness eradicated.

Now, of course, that zeal doesn't come simply because they thought about it or because they hold it in their mind. That zeal comes because they truly love the Lord their God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their minds. That zeal ought to be rooted in love for God, not simply legalism. We spoke about that the week before last. It's not about legalistic, doing things for the sake of doing them, but because your heart is engaged in worshipping truly the Lord your God, and you love Him, and you want to see His righteousness dwell in the land.

So here we have a prescription of what ought to be done. The elders are involved, the Levites involved. We see the reasons here. And what they do is an expression before the people of Israel to say that we are on Yahweh's side. We are on God's side.

We have seen an act of immorality, an act of wickedness. We have seen here that someone has definitely taken another person's life. We don't know who it was. There's no witnesses. We can't point the finger and say, that's the person.

However, what we're going to do is we're going to obey what the Lord has said that we ought to do. Grab a heifer and then break the neck of the heifer like an execution in order. It's like them saying that if we catch the murderer, We will do the same. We will put out his life, just like we're putting out the life of the heaven. But we don't know who it is.

We don't know who it is who shed this man's blood. But we despise this type of weakness because Yahweh despises this type of weakness. We despise to see innocent blood shed because Yahweh despises to see innocent blood shed. And we don't want to defile our land because shedding of innocent blood will defile the land. Yahweh, we know eventually, Yahweh, that your law will be upheld, that your justice will be done.

But until then, we will obey. We will obey as you have called us to obey and let we leave the rest in your hands. The elders are to do this and they're there to pray and if you take notice of the prayer, it's a beautiful prayer, I won't repeat it, but I want you to take notice that it's a prayer not simply for the city. So it wasn't the elders of the closest city that came out, they did the activity or the ritual, but they pray not only for their city but all the people of Israel. Because this ought to be a concern for everyone who lives in the land.

The fact that they're the closest means that they're taking the activity upon themselves as God commands. But this is something that concerns everyone. Everyone in Israel should have a zeal for the righteousness of God. Because unrighteousness in the land defiles the land. What do we have from verse 10 through 14?

There'll be times Although God hates the murder of anyone, there will be times when people will die and it will be in a righteous way. How does one die righteously apart from the punishment that God had ordained, but also in battle? Remember, they're going to go over now to the Jordan River, and they're going to put people to death. And that will be righteous, as I said earlier, because God said that you'll be my instruments of justice. And there'll be time where you'll go into battle, and you'll be victorious in battle, we're told.

And when you are victorious in battle, your eyes, the men's eyes, one of men's eyes may look upon a beautiful woman and decide, I would like for this woman to be my bride. This is not to be forbidden, we're told. However, doing this to satisfy a temporal fling or an impulsive desire of the flesh is forbidden and it's curtailed with the law that God has given them. Because it'll take at least a month for this man to intimately know this woman that he desired back a month ago. The Lord is saying that when you want to engage in marriage, it's not something you just think about on the spot.

It'll take time. You need to think about it. You need to pray about it. You need to make sure this is the right person. This man's got a month to do it because what we're told here is that he needs to be careful to act in kindness and care.

The passage is very clear to that. He needs to offer the woman dignity that Yahweh demands not to act like the cave pagans like that would be aware when the pagans win a battle and they they get the spoils of the battle what they do with the women we would not even repeat that from the pulpit here it is so disgusting unlike these pagans You're going to be coming across people like that, but you're not like them. You're my people. You're called by my name. You're to be holy as I am holy.

When you look upon a woman and you want her to be your bride, you bring her into your own home. You give her shelter. You give her care. We're told here that you're to cut her hair and take away the clothing that she was wearing. very much a symbol, I believe, of taking off her old identity and now to show that now she has a new status.

Realize she's not brought in as a mistress. She's brought in as a wife. She has a new status. She's been brought in as a wife of a Hebrew male among the people of Israel. And she's to be treated with the utmost respect.

Beauty of this passage is that even in the end, if he does not end up taking her to be his wife, she'll still retain all the dignity and all the respect of a female living among the people of God. And God made sure of that. He made sure of that. She's to mourn her family, we're told, for a full month. And He's not to be intimate with her for a full month as she mourns her father and her mother.

Mourning for a full month. You may remember that there are other passages, for example, in Numbers chapter 20, when that chapter of, I would put the chapter of death, where you have the whole family of Moses Practically dying. You have Miriam dying in the beginning of the chapter. You have Aaron dying in the end. And in the middle, God pronounces a judgment on both Moses and Aaron, which pretty much seals the deal for Moses as well.

When Aaron dies, we're told for 34 days. 34 days, the whole congregation mourned for him. I think there's something in that. I think the fact that when you bring this woman to your home under your roof and you treat her respectfully and lovingly, because you're not going to treat her like others treat, that the pagans treat the women. When you bring her in that way and you allow her to mourn her family for a full month, God is saying, I don't care what the pagans do.

I don't care how long she's normally mourned her family. It doesn't matter. She's going to be treated like the people of Israel. And you're going to treat her with integrity as one of my own. She will mourn her family for a full month, for 30 days, just like you mourned Aaron for 30 days.

You don't have to distinguish her. She's not going to have a lower class, a lower status among the people of Israel. I love that. In a time when women were trotted upon, this is our God. You have so many critics looking to the Old Testament and saying, look at that, they never treated their women right.

Maybe because of the sinful hearts of men. But our God, Yahweh, the only true God, treats women with the utmost respect like He treats men with the utmost respect. There is no partiality in the eyes of God. He loves them all. What you see is examples of sinfulness in the Old Testament.

Yes, but that is because of the sinfulness and heart of heartness of men, but not because of God. We're told here that maybe after the full month, he still wants her to be his wife. The sinful urges are now behind him, but now he has had time over a month to surely have discussions with this woman. And after the month, he now wants to marry her. He has the right to.

And she becomes his wife, with the privileges of a wife. And he can consummate his marriage. Now we're told here, if he no longer delights in her, if he finds that he doesn't want her to be his wife no longer, then we're told that he is able to divorce her. But beloved, we have to look at that and think, it's not a matter of divorcing over anything. It's not because she burnt the food, or now she doesn't look quite as attractive with the cropped hair.

It's not that at all, because the chapter that speaks of divorce in chapter 24, a few chapters time in the book of Deuteronomy, tells us the same thing. She no longer finds favour in your eyes, he says there. And then he goes on to say she has an act of indecency, because that's the explanation. If she's acted indecently, then you have a right to divorce her. But I love this, she's set free.

You are not to gain financially at all. You would have set her free. You are not to treat her as a slave. And she's able to dwell in the land free, like a citizen of Israel. Whether you marry her or not, she has her freedom.

verses 15 through 21. If a man has two wives, now we go into this area which is a little bit vague for us in the 21st century. If a man has two wives and loves one, naturally if you love one of your wives, we've seen this biblically, that you're going to end up loving what? Her children more than the others as well. And God is saying, if you love one of your wives, let's say it's the wife that has borne you, not the firstborn, but other children, don't you dare Do you dare give the privileges of the one you love, the privileges, my apologies, that are rightfully that belong to the firstborn, the firstborn who is actually the child of the one that you don't love or the one that you love less, and rob him of his inheritance, which is a double portion, just because you love this woman and you love her children more, and you decide because of your own prejudice, because of your own favouritism, to give him the double portion.

The Lord's saying, no, no you're not to do that. He's not addressing the sinful heart of a father who shows partiality among his children. We have examples of those in the Old Testament, don't we? I'm sure a few will come to mind. No, he's not addressing that.

But he's saying you may have sinful prejudices, but the fact is the right ear belongs to the firstborn. He's the one who gets the double portion, and that's all there is to it. you may prejudice prejudice you may favoritism but the law of God the word of God supersedes anything that you have you will die and give an inheritance to your children but the word of God remains forever grass withers and the fowl flower fall but the word of the Lord remains forever no favoritism but if you do the firstborn will get the double portion now The difficulty here in these passages, they presume things, don't they? First, they presume that divorce will take place and also polygamy will take place. That's when you marry more than one woman.

They're assumed in the text. They're right here before us. Does God approve and encourage both of these? Has God encouraged him? It's spoken of here.

Is God encouraging divorce or polygamy in this text? No. No, love, we have to be careful here. We have to be careful not to see just because there's prescriptions for when these things happen that God is behind it to encourage the activity itself. That's not what is going on here.

His intention is so clear in the book of Genesis. One man and one woman, they unite covenantally and they unite for life. The two shall become one. One flesh from two. It's a miracle.

It's an amazing thing that God does. Just because God gave the allowance, it doesn't mean that he's encouraging the divorce to happen. God's plan was for the unity of marriage to be lifelong. I said that. And when Jesus was questioned in Matthew chapter 19, that section that we all have come to know and love about divorce.

You remember what he said? He said, because of the hardness of the heart. Because of your hardness of heart. He's speaking to the Jews. It was your hardness of heart that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.

But from the beginning it was no so. In other words, God's intention was that you would not divorce. Because God hates divorce. God hates divorce. One woman and one man come together and unite for a lifetime until death do us part.

The two shall become one. What God has joined together, let no man separate. Divorce and polygamy is not encouraged. But what we see here, beloved, I believe, is a regulation put in place by the gracious God of the universe. to protect all parties involved, especially those who are more vulnerable, the party who is the woman.

To protect them from cruelty, protect them from injustice, because you know what? Sadly, injustice will occur. Sadly, divorce will take place. Sadly, polygamy will take place. How and why?

Because of the hardness of man's heart. If there is sin, these things take place. So if divorce occurs, and the wife is dealt with dignity and care unlike the pagans, and if polygamy occurs, the firstborn child is not to take second place because of dad's sin, like the pagans. And since inheritance rights are on the table, and speaking of which, natural death comes in mind. Because normally the child, the sons, don't get daddy's stuff if daddy's alive.

Normally they get daddy's stuff when daddy is dead. Life goes on far beyond the life of the father. And that means the father, as well as the mother, ought to be thinking beyond only their lifetime. Ought to be thinking beyond the duration of their own life. They ought to be thinking about the whole of the people of Israel.

About what they leave behind. You see, the people have covenanted. These people, Israel, have covenanted with God. And the covenant with God is predicated upon obedience. All Israel is covenanted with a good and holy God.

Every generation and they are. That covenant is predicated upon obedience and a life of holiness. So that means that when dad and mom are alive, they are to be concerned with righteousness and to do their own part, not only in their own life, by disciplining their children, by bringing them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord, by having the word of God to bear upon the soul of the children, by training them well, by not withholding the rod, but also they have to be thinking and concerned with the holiness of the people of God, the land, not to be defiled even after they're gone in death. So when a son is found to be rebellious and the discipline of the parents is not obeyed, then what we find is steps to be taken in verse 18 through 21 And in a theocracy that is Israel, it's both prudent for when they are alive, and these steps are also prudent for when they pass in death. Think about that for a sec.

Think about what the mother and father are called to do. And it's both. Mums and dads take the responsibility. Both the mum and dad take the child, the rebellious son, to the elders in the city and say, this child will not listen to discipline, he's a rebellious child. Brothers and sisters, I want you to think, those of us who have children, I want us to think, how difficult a thing that would be.

I know sometimes we look in the past and we think, okay, that's them, that was somehow different to us. Do they have the same emotions that we have? They love their children just like we love our children, it's just as difficult to bear a child back then as it is today. Think about what was required for these people, for mum and dad to finally take their son and say, we've tried everything, he must die. Now, they didn't have the permission to do it themselves.

God protected the children from parents putting out the capital punishment themselves. It was the elders, and I'm sure the elders would have done some deep examinations to make sure that the child is both a glutton and a... What's the other one? A drunk. A drunk.

A glutton simply means to be loose morally, and a drunk means to be indulging in the desires of the flesh, really, literally alcohol. What a difficult thing to do. How much, how deep, how great is your love for Yahweh that you would be prepared to even give up your own son because of his rebellion, because your son's rebellion will infect the land, will infect others, and it's a dishonor in the eyes of God. I've never seen it practiced in the Bible. I don't know if it has been, but I can tell you this much.

An action like that would speak multitudes of where the heart is. You don't really need to ask a parent like that. Where is your heart? Are you with God first and foremost? Or are your affections and your loyalties to your family?

We must have loyalty to family. But who comes first? These are hard things to think through because our generation doesn't have these. We aren't living in a theocracy like Israel was. But beloved brothers and sisters, we must think these things through.

Where is our heart? Is it loyal to Yahweh? Is it loyal to the only true God? Are we more loyal to our children? How do we deal with our children's indiscrepancies?

How do we deal with our children's sin? He's telling. Are we on their side or are we on the Lord's side? the rebellion must be dealt with. And beloved, once it is and the elders have seen what the child has done, you remember what happens.

The child is stunned by some very piercing looks from some of our children. That's a scary thing. It is a scary thing. And he's stoned not by one person or two, but all the elders, and all the men in the city actually are involved in the stoning. Because preserving the purity, and the holiness, and the set-apartness, and the loyalty, and the faithfulness to Yahweh is a collective thing.

Remember, the people of God all should have a zeal for God, and that zeal should be rooted in love for God. And as hard as that would be to carry out, horrendous. I wouldn't even want to put myself in the shoes of carrying any one of those stones. But if it must be done, it must be done. Because God's Word, as difficult as it is for you and I to actually fully understand and grasp it, God's Word is good.

His laws are good. He is the epitome of all that is good and right. And if we have hearts and feelings that say, this is unjust or this is not right, then beloved, can I say to you, with all due respect, that error is in you, not in God himself. And I say that to myself as well. because they are difficult truths to swallow.

Finally, if a punishment like this occurs, if the death penalty is necessary, then if they find it necessary, that is the elders and the people in that place, then it would be okay for them to grab that lifeless body and hang it on a tree for all to see. and all to be warned. This doesn't speak of crucifixion. There was no crucifixion in this day. This person, this rebellious person, a murderer or whoever, whatever, the sin or the crime that was committed that would warrant the death penalty, this person or persons would have been stoned because that was the penalty.

And then they would be hung on the tree after their death as a display for all to see. The Bible tells us before us, here in the last passage, that then before sundown or at the end of day, no more than day, that that body needs to be pulled off the tree because cursed is he who's hung on the tree. That is not because once you put them on the tree they become under the curse of God, but rather those who are hung on the tree are a picture, an expression to everyone in Israel that the reason why they're there is because they're lawbreakers. Because they committed atrocities in the eyes of God. Because their sin and their depravity is so vile and so wicked that they have come under the curse of God.

We have enacted the curse of God by stoning that person and we're going to hang him on a tree so you can see the curse of God. This man, this woman, is under the curse of God. Cursed is everyone who is hung on the tree, Galatians 3, 13. I said I'll bring you to Christ. It's taking me longer than I thought, but we will get to Christ, and here he is.

Because although I said earlier that this hanging on the tree is not speaking to crucifixion itself, it is a display where one hangs lifeless for all to see and for all to recognize that this person who is hung is under the curse of God. But let me ask you, this passage speaks to lawbreakers. This passage speaks to those who have committed heinous sins. But when the Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians chapter 3 and points back to Christ and he's the one who bore the curse on the tree, Jesus never sinned. Jesus is perfect in righteousness.

Jesus was that son that had never sinned, faultlessly obeyed the commands of God. His will was to do the will of God. Perfection was seen in Christ. Never did he sin. Never was he in and of himself because of his own actions under the curse of God.

Never. Not once. Then how do we understand this? How can we look at this and say, this speaks of Christ, Galatians 3.13 I'm speaking about, who hung on the tree.

And how do we understand it in relation to the Old Testament that tells us that only the wicked and the vile are to be hung on the tree. That is, only those who are warranting the death penalty after being stoned. They're the ones who hang on the tree. As an example for others, how do we understand this, beloved? I'll tell you how we understand it.

Before we can understand it, we need to remove ourselves And we need to remember some words that we always say from this pulpit. Over and over again, we say everything is pointing to Christ. The Old Testament, when we read the Old Testament, we find Christ throughout the pages of the Old Testament. It is all about Jesus Christ. It's all pointing to the culmination, to the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption that is found in Jesus Christ.

And what that means is, when we look in the Old Testament and we find Jesus, it is the epitome of arrogance not to find yourself there as well. What's Jesus doing there? He's there because He's needed. He's there because He's needed by you, beloved brothers and sisters. It's because of your sin and your depravity.

And when you find Christ in the earth, you'll find yourself there as well. And you need to find yourself in these passages. You need to find yourself in these passages. Let me propose to you. When we look back, We see the violators of God's law.

And we look at the rebellious sons who are worthy of death. The sinners, the evil, the wicked. The sons who are worthy not of an inheritance because dead sons don't get inheritance. You see that's why the father needs to take care. of the son while he's alive.

Because if he does not, and the father dies and his son is rebellious, then that inheritance is given to the son and that sin multiplies. Then you have a rebellious son who's using the father's inheritance to multiply sin and sin and sin. And that is one of the biggest problems that the people of Israel experience. Ungodly parents who didn't discipline their kids. And sin begets sin begets sin.

And after generations and generations, they lost their land because they all were under the wrath of God. So I want to propose to you, beloved brothers and sisters, that when we see and look back and we look at these sons, for example, in the in the section that was before the last, and we see rebellious sons who committed atrocities and sins, and the parents have brought the sons to the to the elders and the priests, or they brought the sons to the elders in the city. And we look back and we describe their lifestyle and their rebellion. And we say, look, he deserves that punishment. You might say, and I would say, you're right.

But the next breath, I would say, you're that son. I'm that son. Which one of us has not rebelled against our heavenly father? What is the righteous standards of God? What is the righteous standard of our heavenly father?

Is it anything short of perfection? What is rebellious behaviour? Is it when you've been told over and over again that you break God's law over and over again? What is sin? Is it not transgression of God's law?

Beloved brothers and sisters, are we not born in rebellion? Which one of us has not rebelled against Him? Which one of us deserves to go unpunished? Which one of us is worthy of that inheritance? There is a story, and I'll finish with this, in the New Testament that you all know.

It's titled The Prodigal Son. Probably a more appropriate title would be The Love of the Father. Let me tell you, that son takes his father's inheritance. He squanders it. He lives an unruly living in all the types of depravity, inheritance he does not deserve.

Have you ever thought that that son was a candidate for stoning? Have you ever thought that when Jesus spoke of this story that that son was living in a generation under the law that required, if the law was to be upheld, that that son ought to have been handed over to the others and then stoned? Was it because of the contempt in the father's heart against the law that he wasn't stoned? Why did he hold back from sending his son to the elders and stoning his son? Beloved brothers and sisters, this is grace because that father is a metaphor, is a metaphor of our heavenly father, of the goodness of our heavenly father, of the grace, of the love of our heavenly father.

And we are the rebellious children who are worthy to be stoned. And the reason why we have not, beloved brothers and sisters, those who have come to know Jesus and have been united in Him, the reason why we haven't been met with the curse of God that we deserve is because, not because God the Father has contempt for His own law, but because He does uphold it. but he upholds it in a way that you and I could never understand or come up with on our own. He upholds his awesome law by sending the son who is worthy of the inheritance. The only obedient son.

Remember, it is not all sons who are worthy of an inheritance, but the obedient son. Because when you have a disobedient son, he is to be stoned and nothing is given to him. No inheritance. He's worthy of zip. That is all of us.

Yet the judgment of God was withheld, beloved brothers and sisters, those who have come to know Jesus truly as Lord, as Savior, as King, and have bent their knee to King Jesus. That judgment has been withheld from us because the Heavenly Father had a plan from eternity past that He would forbear your sins and mine. It would not bring the judgment of his righteous judgment upon you and I in real time, but rather he would withhold it, show us pictures in the Old Testament that would point to his plan of redemption, and then send forth his son in the right time in human history, so that his son would be perfectly obedient. The only one who was ever perfectly obedient. The only one worthy of the inheritance.

the only one who God the Father would look upon and say, I am well pleased. And he would take the place of filthy, unworthy sinners who deserve to be stoned. The judgment of God was upheld, but it's Jesus who hung upon the cross And as the Apostle Peter tells us in the first epistle he wrote, he himself bore our sins in his body on that tree. So when the Old Testament speaks to it is, cursed is he who is hung upon the tree. And we see Christ hanging upon that tree.

It is true that everyone who looks upon him would see a man cursed by God. That's true. This is why the Jews find it very difficult to believe in Christ because they know the scripture. How can we believe in the Messiah under the curse? Beloved, he is cursed by God not because he's inherently sinful.

Not because he's that rebellious child who is worthy to be hung on that tree stone and then hung. Not at all. He is cursed by God because the sin of all his people is placed upon his shoulders and is accounted with its guilt. So that the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the inheritance that he earned, be given to those We love Him. Inheritance, imperishable, undefiled and unfading.

Kept in heaven for those who have come to believe in the One who hung on the tree. Let's pray.