Lesson 26 - Deuteronomy 21

[Music] today we're going to begin Deuteronomy chapter 21 and this chapter begins with a very odd ritual that Jewish rabbis and ancient Hebrew sages have had a hard time explaining Christian scholars don't even try to mess with it and we're going to explore that ritual and see what sense we can make of it now this chapter is really divided into two parts verses 1 through 9 discusses the problem of an unknown assailant who's murdered someone then the remainder that begins is a four-part chapter section that deals with several miscellaneous laws for Israel now the key I believe to understanding the first part of chapter 21 is that it revolves around the subject of blood guilt so let's read Deuteronomy chapter 21 together we're gonna read just a small portion of it to get started just the first nine verses so if you have a complete Jewish Bible where page 219 Deuteronomy chapter 21 if in the land at a night your God is giving you to possess a murder victim is found lying in the countryside and the perpetrator of the murder is not known than your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between the murder victim and the surrounding towns and after it's been determined which town is the closest the leaders of that town are to take a young female cow that's never been put to work or yoke for use as a draft animal the leaders of that town are to bring the heifer down to a Wadi with a stream and if that never dries up to a place that is neither ploughed nor sown and they're to break the cows neck there in the wadi then the priests who are Levites are to approach for Adonai your God has chosen them to serve Him and to pronounce blessings in the name of out of nigh they will decide the outcome of every dispute and matter involving violence all the leaders of the nearest the murder victim are to wash their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the wadi and their to speak up and say this blood was not shed by our hands nor have we seen who did it had and I forgive your people Israel whom you redeemed do not allow innocent blood to be shed among your people Israel and they will prefer given this bloodshed then thus you will banish the shedding of innocent blood from among you by doing what our own eye sees is right now the typical approach to this chapter of scholars and teachers is to focus on trying to make meaning out of each of the ritual elements that's involved in this mysterious breaking of the neck of a heifer a female cow it's done in response to the problem of an unsolved murder being committed in the local or near by the local sub local community now certainly we will do the same however the much larger subject that we're gonna begin with today deals with the terribly serious negative spiritual effect the unsolved murder has on the town closest to the place where the victim's body was found and more correctly how this affects Israel as a whole the problem is that the sin of blood guilt or better the condition or status of having blood guilt has been laying upon Israel as a result of this unsolved murder now let's talk about blood and blood guilt for a little while because believers especially Western cultural bleep Christians know very little about what blood guilt is and why blood is so important in God's system of justice and jurisprudence in a nutshell blood guilt is a serious condition of defilement it's a sin that is brought upon a person who violates God's laws concerning blood I'd like to begin by offering a rather sweeping statement that I hope by the end of the day we'll have explained in sufficient depth to give you a better perspective on what is really a touchy subject blood lies at the center of God's justice system in the way that a fulcrum why is it the center of a teeter-totter as it swings fully one direction there's one effect as it swings back to the other there's an opposite effect on one end of the spectrum the misuse of blood is the cause for the Lord seeking retribution from a man on the other end the proper use of blood is the remedy for most blood crimes as Americans living in a carefully sanitized society we know almost nothing about the necessity and the role and the centrality of blood in the scriptures because it offends our ears it causes us to avert our eyes sometimes it turns our stomachs merely to talk about it any more than to sing a few Christian Diddy's about our saviors blood that makes us white as snow yet as we studied the Torah we find that the Bible has this fascination with blood and at the same time holds the value and necessity of blood in highest regard as Christians we have scores of songs that both celebrate and lament the precious blood of Jesus non-believers particularly atheists like to point out what they regard as this gruesome and barbaric thread of bloodletting and blood spilling that runs from Genesis through revelation Christian's often avoid the Old Testament largely because of all the blood letting at the same time somehow sort of mentally minimize the role of blood in the New Testament especially in the book of Revelation when one studies the Bible carefully we find that blood is the main required element to make covenants as well as to atone for trespasses it's forbidden to eat and is forbidden to take the blood meaning the life of an innocent person blood causes defilement on one hand on the other hand blood is the supreme purifier of defilement on earth for the ancient Hebrews for most other ancient cultures blood was central it was indispensable in worship the Bible wastes no time he bringing us to the subject of blood because in the third chapter of Genesis the Lord's own hand brings about the first recorded death in history when he kills an animal and he uses its skin to cover Adam and havas Adam and Eve's nakedness why did God kill an innocent animal in order to provide clothing there were other possibilities how about vegetation big leaves wool pad sheep because from this point forward the case will be made that only blood can atone for sins against the Lord so God had a choice he could take the life of the criminals had a man Eve or he could provide a substitute and he could accept that substitutes life is both reparation and atonement for the criminal sins another God principle concerning blood is also presented early on in the scriptures organic life that is filled with blood is different than organic life that exists without blood that is animal life is wholly different than plant life plant life so very valuable is a lesser value in God's eyes than animal life plant I plant life can be offered to God for Thanksgiving offered his first fruits but never can plant life be used and offered to atone for sins and this is demonstrated in that when Adam and Eve felt shame they used plant life fig leaves if you'll recall to cover themselves from a physical rational point of view those leaves work just fine in their role as clothing so why did God replace those fig leaves with animal skins God didn't find those fig leaf garments unacceptable big because they offended his fashion Sensibility nor did he think that animal skins were maybe more durable rather it was that the shame that Adam and Eve felt was the result of their guilt and their guilt was the result of trespassing against the Lord and trespass against the Lord can only be paid for with blood not by plants therefore the Lord had Adam and Eve where think about this where the result of their offence over their physical nakedness was the physical remains of an innocent animal whose blood was taken to atone and pay for their sin the blood of the animal spiritually speaking satisfied God's demand for however even though the sinful act was paid for the entire nature of Adam in Halle is now infected with sin they had broken God's one and only commandment to them God gave them a one commandment pora and they couldn't do it Wow a lesson for us huh don't eat the fruit from that one tree the tree of knowledge of good and evil a man Eve inherently knew when they did that because they had eaten from that tree their sin nature had to be covered they tried to do it in their own strength with plant life God says that's not sufficient only blood can cover your sin only blood can cover your offense of course Adam and Eve worked consciously thinking in terms of sin they only knew that they felt shame and thought that it must be because of their physical nakedness so they sought a physical remedy like covering themselves up what does physical of course all flesh requires blood to exist however spiritual beings like angels and cherubim even Satan and his demons do not require blood in order to exist even so physical blood has a spiritual effect and it is this spiritual effect that matters to God so really oughta matter a lot to us too now the Bible uses a term to describe the ritual taking of the life of an animal as a substitute for the death that's rightly due to the human who has trespassed against God and I term his sacrifice now I just mentioned early that early on in the Bible the blood principle was established that life with blood is distinct from life that exists without blood and I'm a life plant life and we find just as early on that mankind while recognizing the need to sacrifice to God would usually rather do it in a way each man prefers the end of the way God wants it done according to his principles so we have the example of a Valentine Abel and Cain who are told to bring a sacrifice to God Abel brings an animal Cain brings produce the produce is of course rejected because this apparently is an offering that involves atonement so plant life is not acceptable this rule God's rule so infuriates came that he decides to kill Havel Abel and thus we have the first recorded human murder I want to put this in another sense we have the first unlawful killing of a human by another human the Bible also calls this act of murder the taking of blood now we have another principle about blood that's established the unlawful unjust killing of a human being creates then or the Bible calls blood guilt upon the perpetrator and blood guilt is so serious that it can only be satisfied by the blood of the guilty party as reparation blood guilt is such an extreme defilement of the person who commits the crime that it causes instant separation between that person and God to be clear there are other sins involving blood that also cause blood guilt and one of them for instance is for a human to ingest blood of any kind we find later on in the Bible it wasn't permissible up until the time of Noah after the Great Flood to take the life of an animal for food to them the only authorized source of food was plants in other words until the time of the Great Flood for a man to kill an animal and eat it was a crime against blood a crime against God's laws concerning blood which therefore incurred some level of blood guilt and out of this also came to prohibition against eating blood which is different than eating meat eating blood means to drink it or to kill an animal by strangulation or some other means that doesn't permit its blood to drain out before you eat the flesh or can mean to use blood as an ingredient in food so then simplistically speaking blood guilt arises when a person violates any of the Lord's laws regarding blood from the eating of it to the unjust killing of a human being to the misuse of it or to neglect the use of it in a ritual procedure the story of Cain and Abel though give us a strong hint of another negative aspect a blood guilt blood kill defiles not only the perpetrator it defiles the land on which it occurred it even defiles the community of people within or nearest by where it occurred listen to Genesis for as to one of the unintended results of the murder of Abel in Genesis 4:10 and the Lord said what have you done the voice if your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground because it has opened his mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand when you till the ground it will no longer yield Hewitt's strength you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth now here we have perhaps the most well known biblical case a blood guilt and the result is that the land itself was affected it's not been able blood necessarily touched the soil although I imagine it did and so the contact between Abel's blood and the dirt caused the dirt to become contaminated with the curse rather than a guilt on the soil resulted from its proximity to this act of murder it produced a negative spiritual effect blood guilt both brings with it both a physical and a spiritual consequence the murderer had the spiritual effect of cursing the ground because the land bore the effect of the blood guilt that was committed upon it thus causing the physical effect of the land to degrade and not produce crops as well or as easily as it did before the blood guilt occurred I can't stress enough please hear this this isn't some ancient superstition recorded in the Bible if the laws of blood were nothing but the products of men's fertile imaginations then Yeshua's sacrifice for us was completely unnecessary pointless so please understand that while we may find these principles of blood and blood guilt strange to us in modern times they are not only still fully in effect they're the reason that the route of redemption history has proceeded along a very purposeful path and I have the deepest regret that those of us in messiahs church who are responsible to teach you about this principle of blood have instead chosen to take the more genteel approach and to simply ignore speaking the truth about the terrible consequences of blood blood guilt that pile up on our shoulders power by our I'd like to remedy that we're gonna talk about that a little bit more in a bit now with that understanding let's continue with Deuteronomy 21 and dissect those first nine verses the one and only case that's being discussed here has to do with someone discovering a murder victim but nobody knows who committed the crime the assumption is since the killer has not been identified then he can't be punished according to the law which is that he's to be executed notice that the issue is not about finding the killer and bringing him to justice rather it's about what to do about the very serious problem of blood guilt that now rests upon the land and upon the people of the most local community to that land notice that this case is further defined as having discovered the body out in the open the corpse was out in the field maybe it was alongside a road technically this does not cover what to do in a situation where someone's found dead inside a city or a village however since there's nothing in the Torah that specifically addresses that nuance rabbis and sages have assumed that certain portions of this law could be applied to an unsolved killing that took place inside of a town as well now verse 2 speaks of elders and magistrates actually that the Hebrews show fat which is judge who are to come to where the victim is discovered and then they begin this legal procedure and since this law envisions the era when Israel's settled the land of Canaan and the land has been divided up into twelve territories one for each of the twelve tribes then these governmental officials elders judges are of course the ones who preside over matters in their own territory so if the crime occurred within the territory of Judah then it would be the elders and judges who are of the tribe of juda who would have fish eat over the matter now their first job is to carefully measure the distance from the location of the body to the nearby towns and determine which town was closest great care has to be taken because whichever town is closest they're assigned the blood guilt brought about by the crime now I want you to have a sink in for a minute because this is not some procedure that Hebrew men just thought up this is the procedure that the Lord created notice how real and vital is the principle the awhole they created human government to administer his laws on earth and that their authority to determine where blood guilt lies is completely valid in his eyes these government officials are being counted upon to determine as God's earthly agents which community is going to be held responsible to deal with the blood guilt that's caused by this unsolved murder the town is nearest not only bore the guilt but they're responsible to purge the guilt the tone for it somehow if they do not do this then they remain in their blood guilt before God in perpetuity now the original procedure to absolve this blood guilt begins in verse 3 and it is that the elders of the town located near the crime scene are to provide a heifer that's never been used for field work for any work purpose in general there to bring the heifer to a nearby Wadi and there they're supposed to break its neck which of course kills it a lot is a riverbed the one that's usually dry part of the year and has flowing water at other times now the instructions about the wadi is a little uncertain the typical translation is that this body must be overflowing or strongly flowing and this is an oxymoron in Israel because there are a few known bodies that flow strongly at predictable times it is very rare at least in modern times so the logical question is since the ceremony must be done nearby the murder victim's body in a local proximity to the designated village and certainly when the confines of that tribal territory what happens in the most usual cases where there is no body that's strongly flowing what do you do most new scholarship agrees that the translation of the Hebrew word eight-ton is overflowing or strongly flowing is not correct another context in the scripture that same word tends to indicate strong but like in the sense of hard a hard surface in the Bible for instance when it speaks of a king or even the Lord with a strong hand a better translation for the 21st century they'll get the literal meaning of those words is a hard hand it means ruling without tolerance unbending unyielding therefore more likely this is referring to bringing the effort to a typical Israeli Wadi one that's unyielding meaning it's so rugged and rocky that it can't be cultivated and so it doesn't provide any useful water those who have been to Israel with me can picture this pretty easily the lot is there are dry almost all year and only occasionally do they have water and that's usually in the form of a very dangerous flash flood you'll find a line usually a bushes and acacia x' Keysha trees which you see in this picture called team in hebrew along these bodies but they're also rock-strewn and the soil is generally in organics and if you tried to remove the rocks to plant things the next flash-flood to just wipe it out if you planted a crop they'd be gone soon not only that's the water this present beneath the wadi is usually mostly in the form of moist moist soil several feet down and it's rarely ever suitable for a well so probably this is speaking about bringing the heifer to a place that cannot and will not be used to grow crops or obtain water it is there that the town's elders are to break the heifers neck now i want to point out a couple of things about this procedure first of all it's pretty cruel you don't just easily break a cow's neck the process would be painful take it sometime and second this method of ritual killing is spoken of in the book of Exodus chapters 13 and 34 as the means to slaughter the firstborn of unclean animals animals that do to their species are not suitable for sacrifice or they're disqualified for sacrificial use because of their imperfections there is nothing about this pepper used in this ritual that indicates that it's not suitable for sacrifice or that it was in any way impure now during this then during this ritual we see that the priests come forward what their role is we don't really know they appear to be there mainly to officiate to assure that whatever the procedure is it's done correctly this brings up an important point the killing of the heifer in response to the discovery of an anonymous anonymous murder victim this is not a sacrifice there's no sacrifice going on here it's already been established by God that the sacrifice can only occur at the tabernacle later on at the temple on holy ground and of course this particular ritual procedure we're studying can occur any number of places further the priests don't do the killing there is no altar and the animals not blend up with fire this means it's not a sacrifice it's something else next is another curious aspect of the ritual the elders of the town that are assigned with the blood guilt washed their hands with water over the body of the heifer and they recite the declaration that's outlined in verses 7 & 8 now many Bible Translators say those words spoken by the elders are a vow to God I don't think they are not only is God's name not invoked which is the absolute must in a vow but the structure of the sentence doesn't deploy the Hebrew participle aim at the beginning of the sentence which is usually what indicates that it's a vow in other words with the I M M included the translation becomes I swear without the aim is just I declare the verse in Deuteronomy 21 doesn't have the aim so we have no reason to conclude there was a vow or an oath the handwashing is probably a symbolic indication of the innocence of the elders in this whole matter and that they're telling the truth they're saying that they shouldn't bear the blood guilt because they weren't involved with the killing they don't know the identity of the killer and they couldn't reasonably have anticipated it or prevented it this hand-washing was so common in meaning in ancient Middle East in the ancient Middle East that this is almost certainly what this meant even today what do we like to say I wash my hands of the matter longtime expression now recall that a long time later the meaning of that hand-washing gesture was still in existence as we read the Gospel of Matthew about Pontius Pilate doing the same thing in this kangaroo court that was convened to sentence Jesus to death when he washes his hands and says to the crowd I'm innocent of this man's blood to this very day we all know that that statements we say it constantly now back to the town elders declaration of innocence rather than a vow what their state amounts to is more than anything else probably a prayer a prayer to God a declaration to God that is not a vow that's a prayer and in this prayer the elders are directly asking the Lord to absolve them from from the blood guilt caused by the death of an innocent person the murder victim so here's the thing since this ritual procedure is not a sacrifice then what happens with this heifer has no atoning quality his purpose can only be one of illustration and demonstration for the people but it's also an act of obedience to the Lord's commandments the reality is that it was this prayer that was the key for the forgiveness that they were seeking in this situation and the elders being on there already redeemed status for absolution it is quite literally in the same mold that every modern believer asks God for forgiveness we're already redeemed and so our redeemed status gives us the right to ask the Father for forgiveness and mercy the unredeemed have no such thing available to them now note the ending of the ending words of verse 8 and they will be absolved forgiven a blood girl forgive me for repeating something I've tried to emphasize many times it variably doesn't somebody didn't get it over and over again in the Torah when the Lord lays out all of his atoning ritual procedures the passage invariably ends with the words and they will be forgiven and they will be forgiven folks this means what it says these ritual sacrifices in our case today a prayer spoken with her within a ritual procedure that's not a sacrifice brought actual real complete unequivocal forgiveness not partial forgiveness not something like forgiveness you know I've heard so many preachers say that in the Old Testament sins were covered but they weren't forgiven I know you've all heard that the real forgiveness only happens in the New Testament this is not true this is false the issue about covered versus sins absolved or forgiven is a complete red herring there is no such concept of a sin covered but not forgiven in the Bible whether the Old Testament or the New Testament doesn't it's not they're saying a sin is covered is just a colloquialism it's simply a word chosen by a translator covered absolved forgiven all mean the same thing a matter of fact they all translate the same Hebrew word appear or the far it carries the same weight they have the same effect those Old Testament Hebrews who followed the sacrificial system were indeed forgiven for their trespasses if one is determined to stick the word covered in the Old Testament there's nothing wrong with that then there's no basis to ever change it to meaning absolve expiate or forgive in the New Testament it's the same word see this switch in choosing different English words to translate the same Hebrew word is done to try and prove or disguise an agenda even a doctrine of men that says no forgiveness ever occurred under the law only under Christ so what did Messiah sacrifice bring to the table that was different than what happened with all those Old Testament animal sacrifices well at the least his sacrifice was people of atoning for things the sacrificial system couldn't his sacrifice for instance can atone for murder his sacrifice can tone can atone for idolatry there exists no such thing was in the sacrificial system as there resist as a ritual procedure to atone for murder to atone for an idolatry doesn't exist such a person was permanently correct cut off no remedy he was both physically executed and spiritually separated from God however if one truly confesses and repents and trusts in Yeshua your guilt even for murder is atoned for that said you're not absolved from having your physical life taken to expiate the blood guilt nor do you escape earthly justice only your spiritual life is affected only your spiritual life is assured to continue further the Levitical sacrificial system did not create a path by which a human could have his evil nature exchanged for a new Holy One The effect of this is that no human could ever find his way to heaven instead in Old Testament times if he died in a righteous State under the laws of the Torah then his solar spirit went to a place the Bible calls Abraham's bosom Abraham's bosom was not heaven because no man who has not had his nature exchanged for a new holy one can be pair enough to enter heaven true enough the hola and the mija sacrifices dealt with the sinful nature's of men to the extent that the sacrifice allowed a man to have communication with God and be in peace and harmony with him but they didn't actually cleanse a man's unclean nature Christ's sacrifice paved the way for a man's natural sinful spirit is nature our nature to be exchanged for a holy spirit a new one that has a holy nature and with his new holy nature now we can stand before God in His heaven and of course there was necessarily sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice under the Levitical sacrificial system every new day required new sacrifices for the nation of Israel every new occurrence of sin required an additional sacrificial atoning ritual however there was but one single sacrifice by Yeshua of himself that satisfied he multitude of various sacrifices within the sacrificial system plus his sacrifice acted in a way that additional sacrifices aren't needed should you sin again lastly his sacrifice could generally speaking atone for intentional high-handed sins while the sacrificial Levitical sacrificial system had no provisions for it I remind those who have heard this from me before by the way that the English were unintentional as a as concerns unintentional sentence isn't precisely in all its aspects like we typically huh typically how we think of that word and our modern vocabulary it's similar but there's differences those are just the major differences between what the sacrifice of Christ did in contrast to the sacrifice of bulls and sheep and goats and so on but the completeness of forgiveness by God was the same in both cases now back to other aspects of blood guilt now you're starting to get a better picture of what blood means and what blood guilt amounts to and just how serious it is when I conduct communion is nearly always in conjunction with Passover those of you who have been present know that when I do it I read a certain verse that Paul uttered in first Corinthians and this verse deals precisely what we've been discussing blood guilt first Corinthians 11:27 who for whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup a man will be guilty of blood the blood of Christ if he part takes and what we've come to call communion if he's unworthy to do so now by the way communion is really the name of a sacrament that was created by the Roman Catholic Church but it was adopted by most of Protestant Christianity you won't find that word in the Bible but by my best understanding what unworthy means in this context is it it is to be a an unbeliever or be somebody who professes to be a believer but has fallen so far away from unity with God the Christ sacrifice is simply not efficacious for him he's renounced and something's happened now there is about one single exception in all the scriptures that permits symbolic drinking of blood for that matter symbolic eating of human flesh and that is what has come to be called communion Yeshua's Passover connection of drinking wine as symbolic of his blood has absolutely no parallel in the Bible none wine in the Bible is always associated with joy not blood real or symbolic drinking a blood to a Hebrew was so horrible and repulsive I don't have the words to express it and this revulsion and ingesting blood was ordered and cultivated why are you okay by God and it is explained in as many laws about blood several of which we've discussed today the gravity of this situation as concerns eating blood escapes the average Christian there is a fascinating story and the Gospel of John that might now make more sense to you turn your Bibles to John chapter 6 John chapter 6 we're gonna read just a few verses John chapter 6 we're gonna read verses 49 through 69 49 through 69 so if you have a complete Jewish Bible that's gonna be on page 13 38 start at 49 and go basically through the end of the chapter your father is 8 the maan manna in the desert and they died but the bread that comes down from heaven is such that a person may eat it and not die I am The Living bread that comes down from heaven if anyone eats this bread he will live forever furthermore the bread that I will give as my own flesh and I'll give it for the life of the world and this the Judeans disputed with one another saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat and the new shoe has said to them yes indeed I tell you that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you don't have life in yourselves yikes whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life that is I'll raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him just as the living father sent me and I lived through the father so also whoever eats me will live through me so this is the bread that has come down from heaven it's not like the bread the father's ate their dead but whoever eats this bread will live forever he said these things as he was teaching in a synagogue and finding a home Capernaum and on hearing it many of his disciples at all this is a hard word who can even bear to listen to it but you xual wear that his disciples were grumbling about this said to them this is a trap for you suppose you were to see the Son of Man going back up to where he was before it is the spirit who gives life the flesh is no help the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life yes some among you don't trust for you shoe and knew from the outset which ones would not trust him also which ones would be trained and this he said is why I told you no one can come to me unless the fathers made it possible for him from this time on many of his disciples turned back they no longer travel around with him so you schewe said to the twelve don't you want to leave - shamone caifa Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom would we go you have the word of eternal life we have entrusted and we know that you are the Holy One of the God any issue I answered them didn't I choose you the twelve yet one of you is an adversary he was speaking of you who - Ben Shimon from Crete Kira a Creole Judas for this man one of the twelve was soon to betray him okay in verse 61 after you shoe is pronounced the absolute necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his blood of course this is symbolically he asks a rhetorical question as he watches many of his followers walk away from him I'm sure some of them running in disgust his question is Oh does this offend you what this is he referring to of course it was this message of eating his blood that caused absolute repulsion even among those who had dedicated themself to him and then he goes on to say that these words are in spirit indicating what we all inherently know which is that in no way was he speaking of literal physical eating flesh and drinking blood it was symbolic of a spiritual decision to come into full unity with him long after Christ was dead Paul warned in first Corinthians that those who are unworthy shouldn't drink the issue his blood take communion so we call it Grail step personal bare blood guilt and what's the penalty for blood guilt if the perpetrator is no his life has to be taken and a central rule of blood in God's justice system is that when innocent blood is shed the blood of a guilty of the guilty is required by God as payment no exceptions no substitutions and this required blood of the guilty is not the blood of atonement it's the blood of retribution it's the blood of the debt owed to God now I want to end this lesson by pointing out some additional principles of blood guilt and the reason for my pointing out is that this out is as as a challenge to all of us this is not easy we live in a land that is so contaminated with blood guilt that our national future is completely predictable destruction right along with the rest of the world count on it how could we as suppose a Christian nation merit blood guilt and where does our blood guilt lie in our refusal to take the life of murderers instead to simply warehouse them in jail and tell they die at the end of a relatively normal lifespan much of the church much of Judaism says oh yes this is humanitarian mercy a few years ago I think you might remember this there's a case perfect case of a non repentant Muslim terrorist who planned and executed the bombing of an airplane that exploded over a place called Lockerbie Scotland killing close to 300 people he was set free from prison for humanitarian reasons he had cancer so he was sent back to his own nation of Libya a free man given a hero's welcome and guess what he lived for three more years lavished with admiration and money not only was life not taken for this massacre he was set free just because he was ill all this based on some macabre and secular humanist philosophy of mercy and forgiveness but God says such a thing is a refusal to obey His commandments murder brings blood guilt upon the land and the community not just upon the criminal and the only way for that blood guilt to be absolved to take the life of the murderer that's God's law many states in our nation after decades refuse to execute murderers even states that have the death penalty have found innumerable reasons to spare the life of a premeditated murder even of serial killers we all live today in a land soaked in blood guilt and the Lord is going to act in his time in his way I can't tell you how it's gonna look I don't know I'm gonna be good again there's only one prescribed method for dealing with blood guilt execute the perpetrator if you don't then the entire community bears the guilt right along with him that's God's law now I want to close with a related question that any Christian who's been saved for even a few years should by now have asked him or herself why is the coming battle of Armageddon that's going to be led by who right led by Christ pretty clear so bloody without mercy no mercy you see you Armageddon is a holy war of complete and absolute annihilation in many ways it's very similar to Noah's Flood we're the only people spared for those on the ark the only survivors of the war of Armageddon in the entire world are going to be those who profess Yeshua before the battle begins those who try to convert during the battle get the same treatment as those who don't destruction Christ is called the blood avenger in the Battle of Armageddon I hope you're now starting to see what that term means the Lord has declared the entire world is culpable of blood guilt we in this room are but blood guilty because among other things we're part of a nation that doesn't prosecute abortion doctors we actually make it legal we pronounce it as a good thing we in this room are blood guilty because we have in our nation convicted murderers who are not having their lives taken to absolve their blood blood guilt and instead they're simply serving long prison sentences you know what you know a statement I just hate that a criminal is paying his debt to society I don't know about you he's paying nothing I'm paying every day that person is prison doesn't cost him cost me cost you we're paying his debt to society so since we won't do what is required to remove all the blood guilt just what the Lord's doing he's sending his blood Avenger not my turn for him on my term the Bible's turn his blood Avenger Yeshua HaMashiach to do what but the laws always demanded take the blood of the guilty for spilling the blood of the innocent and a community or society that refuses to take God's justice upon the blood guilty is guilty by membership I want to point out that this is neither a call say this loud and clear or an excuse for vigilantism you don't take the law in your own hands folks you don't ever we have a justice system and if there's problems with it we need to work hard to change it but it also points out one of the prime reasons why we need to study the Word of God so thoroughly and also to rush to accept what Yeshua has done for us those of us who ought to bear the price for our blood guilt we'd had a paid for by somebody else Messiah but that only applies to those who actually trust in who he is and what he's done didn't play for the whole world just those who trust next week we're gonna continue in Deuteronomy 21 as it concerns families and the spoils of holy war so with that would you please rise [Music] yes you [Music] issue you

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Published: Wed Jan 02 2019