Leviticus 24:10-23

hey hey good morning good morning welcome to coffee and devotions this where every day you and I we get together we have a little bit of coffee we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together in this year 2023 Lord willing make it from Genesis through Leviticus I'm glad to be with you today let's have some coffee we'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's word let's pray father you are an amazing God you've given us your word you've told us who you are and you've promised us your Holy Spirit father we pray that you would please help us now to understand your word please Lord let it resonate with our hearts teach us God we need your help in jesus' name amen okay so we are at Leviticus chapter 23 sorry take that back Leviticus Leviticus chapter 24 and we'll beginning at verse 10 and we'll read through the end of the chapter now the son of an isra Israelite woman whose father was an Egyptian Went Out Among the children of Israel and this Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed and so they brought him to Moses his mother's name was Shalom the daughter of dib of the son of Dan of the tribe of Dan and they put him in custody that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them and the Lord spoke to Moses saying take outside the camp him who has cursed and tell all who heard him then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head and let all the congregation Stone him then you shall speak to the children of Israel saying whoever curses his God shall bear his sin and whoever blasphemes the name of Jehovah shall surely be put to death all the congregation shall certainly Stone him the stranger as well as him who was born in the land when he blasphemes the name he shall be put to death whoever kills any man shall be surely be put to death whoever kills an animal shall make it good animal for animal if a man curses causes disfigurement of his neighbor or as he has done so shall it be done to him fracture for f fracture eye for eye tooth for tooth as he has caused disfigurement of a man so shall it be done to him and whoever kills an animal shall restore it but whoever kills a man shall be put to death for you shall have the same law for the stranger and for the one of from your own country for I am Yahweh your God then Moses spoke to the children of Israel and they took outside the camp him who had cursed and stoned him with stones so the children of Israel did as Jehovah commanded Moses well we need to ask ourselves our three questions a what is this about B what's the best vers to summarize this and C what are we called to do in response to these words well what's this about well we have the story right there a real live situation there's a historical event that happens in Israel there is a woman who has an Egyptian husband they have a son her name is shamith and she's of she's the daughter of debris of the son of the tribe of Dan she has the son so he's half Israelite half Egyptian and he goes and he gets in a fight with a full-blooded Israelite man they fight each other in the midst of this fight we don't know if the fight is literal you know conflict or whether they are uh whether they're arguing with each other but doesn't matter the big violation is the man takes the name of the Lord and he blasphemes against the Lord right he causes injury to God himself by taking the Divine name the tetragramaton yod V upon his lips and he Slanders God himself and the people are like Whoa We don't know what to do with us so they put him in custody they take him to Moses and they find out the will of that God figure out what do we do I mean he's not full-blooded Israelite what do we do he's he's half Egyptian do we have a different La for for people like that how how does this work and the Lord is the one who this is this is where I want to be careful right the Theology of this as I was wrestling right we we get what's called The Lex talionis here the law of retaliation which is just eye for eye tooth for tooth wound for wound this is the idea that the punishment meets the crime right there's there's a limit to it but there's also a Justice to it nobody is above the law you have the same law and I actually have this part underlined right for you have the same law for the stranger and for one of your own country for I am Jehovah your God right no hold on he violated the third commandment right for you shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes the name of Jehovah your God in vain and there's an interesting thing here if you were following along in the new king James version in verse 11 it says that he had blasphemed the name and cursed and and so and then again in verse 16 when he blasphemes the name he shall be put to death in then the new King James will put in italics the name of the Lord but this is actually one of those places why Jewish people will not say the tetr Graton right they'll they won't say yahovah they won't say Yahweh whichever way that goes and I'm I'm not going to get into that debate here but the point is Jewish people take this so seriously that they will not say either of those names instead they'll say Hashem the name because they don't want to blaspheme the lord's name because they see here in this Theocratic Nation if you take the name of the Lord your God in vain you are to be put to death who whoever you are and where where does where does this line up with the Lex talionis the law of retaliation this person has sinned against the highest Authority in Israel they've brought disrepute upon the Covenant King the god of the universe the Thrice Holy One of Israel the one who is supposed to be the Redeemer and the ruler of his elect of this whole nation of corporate Israel and the man has spoken against the king what's the punishment when it escalates that high well the Lord here says it's death what's the best verse to summarize this section oh uh you know we could just underline verse uh let me see here verse 10 and 11 I think that would be fine but I also have an interesting note on verse 14 let all who heard him lay their hands on his head and let all the congregation Stone him there had to be witnesses to this and those who were with the witnesses if they were willing to testify they also had to be the executioners had to lay their hands upon his head and essentially testify that they were telling the truth and they were taking ownership for what they were about to do but let's see calling what are we called to do I don't think that this goes away I don't think the answer is what our Jewish friends have done and they just say Hashem you know they won't say the Tetra grammaton At All by the way Tetra for grammaton name right so they they just won't say it or yeah four letters four letter name uh and so uh our Jewish friends will say well we just don't say they'll actually have a Perpetual uh so when you come to that in the Hebrew you say Adonai instead and so you don't you don't say the name at all you just say Lord Adonai means Lord and so that's actually where we get our reference for Lord from so the point being is that I don't think that's the place for it but I think in our hearts we ought to be those who are very very very careful about blaspheming against the Lord I mean in in our culture right taking the name of God in vain it's just like any other thing you do I mean people use Jesus's name as a swear word as an exclamation point they use it all the time as an insult to each other and it's so often just thrown out there and so the question is are we those types of people are we those who uphold the name of God with our lips and with our lives let's pray father we pray that we would be those who would honor you with our lives and with our lips that we would not take your name in vain Lord we pray that you would please let us follow after you we pray that we would proclaim the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ until he returns again in Jesus's name amen may God bless you may you love the Lord he is your Shepherd and he has called together his sheep and he watches over us all the days of our life so may you take comfort in him I'll see you next time bye thanks for listening to this week's message from God's word for you a Ministry of Sharon RP Church in rule Southeast Iowa we pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week if you'd like to get more information about us feel free to go to the website Sharon rc.org we'd love to invite you to worship with us our worship time is 10:00 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue Morning Sun Iowa 52640 may God richly bless you this [Music] week