Living a Holy Life Before The Holy God

Make your way this morning to the book of Exodus. We will find ourselves again in the 22nd chapter and while you turn I just want to kind of get us set up for the The conversation this morning so that we are prepared and understand what it is that God would have for us here today.

Holiness Called For by 1 Peter and 1 Thessalonians

In In 1st Peter chapter 1 in 13th through the 16th verse Peter writes. Therefore Having girded your minds for action Being sober in spirit fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children not being conformed to the former lust which were yours in ignorance, but be Like the Holy One who called you Be holy yourselves also in all your conduct Because it is written you shall be holy for I am.

Holy.

Similarly Paul in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 1 through 8 writing to the church at Thessalonica Says to them. Finally then brothers we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus. That as you received from us as to how you ought to walk and please God.

Just as you actually do walk that you excel still more. For you know, what commandments we were who get we gave you through the Lord Jesus. So this is the will of God your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality that each of you know How to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

Not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God and that no man Transgresses and defraud his brother in the manner because the Lord is the avenger in all things. Just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

For God did not call us to impurity but in sanctification. Consequently who who sets this aside is not setting aside man But the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now both of these passages one of the things that we are shown and one of the things that we are given a focus to is the fact that we as Believers are called to live a holy Life and that we do so in response to God's provision in our lives however We all too often find ourselves simply going along with the flow of the world versus living the life that God has commanded us To live in light of his word and accordance with the change that he brought about in the life of the new believer.

Remember we are his new creations. Ephesians 2 10 Just after we are shown that.

Grace.

Through faith is what leads to salvation. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus for we are his workmanship Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Therefore remember that formerly you the Gentiles in the flesh who are called Uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision which is performed in the flesh by human hands. Remember that you were at that time without Christ Alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far off have been brought near By the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who made both groups one and broke down the dividing wall Of the partition by abolishing in his flesh the enmity the law of commandments contained in ordinances.

So that in himself he might create the two into one new man Making peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross having put himself to death. Having in himself put to death the enmity.

And he came and preached the good news to you who were far away and peace to those who were near for through him We have both our access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens and with the Saints and are of God's household.

Having built on the foundation of the Apostles and the prophets Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being joined together is growing in a holy sanctuary in the Lord in Whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

The the understanding is that as a result of our salvation as a result of us being those who were far away. Now being brought near the expectation is is that our lives are transformed and we move into a situation Where we are no longer living in the ways that we used to live but we are now living in the ways that God has called us which ultimately means that we as Believers are called to live a holy life in front of the Holy God and.

So the question is.

How?

Do we as the people of God new creations in Christ Jesus? How do we live a life a holy life in this present world? Over the last several weeks in our journey in Exodus, we have been focusing on the law of God.

And when God had first introduced this law in Exodus He did so with these words in Exodus 20 verses 1 and 2. Then God spoke all these words saying I am Yahweh Who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery reminding us of a few amazing truths first and foremost that this is The Word of the Living God that this is not the Word of man.

That these are the truths spoken to us by God that he alone is our God and that he alone without any Assistance or help or any desire on our part Delivered us according to his power and his own pleasure ultimately for his own.

Glory.

However in our lives To be the lives of most believers law of God holds relatively little value. We run through the the texts and what we would call the Pentateuch the book of the law the first five books of the Old Testament.

We enjoy the stories that we find. But when we encounter the law the rules the the regulations the the expectations that God places on our life We really struggle. We struggle to find relevance to our modern way of living.

We find struggle to find relevance on how we apply these things to our life. Yet we must because this is the Word of the Living God. This is sacred scripture. It is our responsibility to rightly apply this profitable word in our lives.

Daily and.

To do so we've got to study this word. Now when we come to our text for today again in Exodus chapter 22 It's gonna seem as there is kind of a random selection of one-line Situations that we have going on in the law.

But as we begin to Study and dig deeper into these verses we find that there is.

More.

Than just a list of actions to be taken or to be avoided that in fact these laws Rightly understood in light of the rest of Scripture show us that as believers We are called to live a holy life before the Holy God.

And so let us take a look this morning at our text. Would you stand if you can in honor of the reading of the Word of the Living God? If a man who seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her he must pay a dowry For her to be his wife.

If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins. You shall not allow a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with the Shall surely be put to death. And he who sacrifices to any God other than to Yahweh alone Shall be devoted to destruction.

You shall not mistreat a sojourner or oppress him for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. And if in you indeed afflict him and he earnestly cries out to me I will surely hear his cry and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

If you lend money to my people To the afflicted among you you are not to act as a creditor to him. You shall not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge. You shall return it to him before the sun sets for that is his only covering.

It is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall be that when he cries out to me, I will hear him for I am gracious. You shall not curse God nor curse a ruler of your people. You shall not delay the offering from the fullness of your harvest and the juice of your wine vat.

The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with his mother seven days and on the eighth day you shall give it to me. You shall be holy men to me.

Therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field. You shall throw it To the dogs father. We thank you for your word. We pray this morning that as we come to the study of your word. That your spirit would commend this word to our hearts and lives.

That we would seek to live according to your truth and live in a manner that makes our life a sweet aroma in your sight. We pray this in the name of your precious Son Jesus Christ. Amen, you may be seated.

I know this will probably come as a Difficult truth to most of you sitting here this morning, but we live in a shocking.

Time I Know I know.

At least. That would seem to be the case. We turn on the TV and we see news and we see situations and our mouths can fall open in awe. But the truth is. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing shocking about the time in which we live.

To God.

From all eternity past.

God.

Shapes and molds the way in which we as believers live our lives and approach this world. Our right understanding of him Helps to direct this. But it's imperative of us that we get to this right understanding.

So often we are quick as believers as people to point out all of the things that we see that the world is doing wrong in the eyes of God. And the question that we often ask or should be. Asking is if the world is living in this way How am I living.

Are we taking stock of our own lives? To be sure that we are wholly. Living a holy life. Wholly holy living a holy.

Life.

Doesn't take long for us to look around and know and understand that this world is lost. It's broken and it is doomed for destruction. But thanks be to God that we are not of this world in our understanding.

We should recognize that Although this word is world is doomed for destruction. We have a hope in a future but the church today faces an Epidemic and it is not a new epidemic. In fact, it is an epidemic that is Increasingly progressing.

And unfortunately this epidemic actually deals And is founded on the issue of sexual impurity. What we see in the church today. Is it coming to us in many forms the church looks just like the world. There is adultery, there is promiscuity there is homosexuality there is in this specific chapter what is mentioned here is Fornication or premarital sex and so we look here in in chapter 22 verses 16 and 17 and Initially when we look at this text the way most of us in our modern day Reading will react to this is that there is an issue going on here that has to do with something called rape.

This is a forced act but the language here actually shows us that this is not a Forced act that in fact that this is a consensual.

Action.

Now the first thing that we need to understand is that the world today Has approached sex with the attitude that is nothing more than an experience to be enjoyed for the pleasure that it brings. And unfortunately this attitude and approach has invaded the church.

The church has become afraid to stand up and to stand firm on God's Word And to hold our people accountable to its commands. So when we get to this text And we begin to do a proper study in a proper evaluation of exactly What it is God is trying to get to in this passage the first thing we have to obviously deal with is exactly what type of Interaction this is.

And this is where it becomes important that we understand that this is not Rape. Now, how do we know it's not rape. Well the first thing we know and first reason. We know the first clue we have found right in the verses themselves because it says that if this happens Then he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.

Well in Deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 25 through 27.

The word says.

But if in the field the man finds the girl who was engaged and the man forces her and lies with her Then only the man who lies with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the girl. There is no sin in the girl worthy of death for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him.

So is this case. When he found her in the field the engaged girl cried out. But there was no one to save her. So we see in the Word of God that the action of rape in The civil law of the time was punishable by death.

Well. That's not what we see in Exodus 22. What we see in Exodus 22 and and what is further confirmed by an understanding of the word that we have here the English word That is translated the Hebrew word is that is translated as the English word seduces is that it actually means to persuade or Entice.

In fact most places that we find it in the Word of God in the Old Testament it is translated Enticement so it is a consensual Encounter between a man and a woman.

So.

What does that mean?

Well what it means is that this action is occurring prior to marriage so we see and We understand and we know from the study of God's Word that sex is a gift of God that is to be enjoyed Only within the confines of marriage and that marriage is clearly defined by God as a union between one man and one woman.

Whether two join together to become one flesh and so anything other than that becomes a sin. Now a couple of words of caution. First of all when we look at this text it can become easy to justify this situation.

We can excuse it with thoughts of well We were going to get married anyway, or we are married in the eyes of God so we can just continue in our relationship. But what we find in the text is something completely different than that.

We find a requirement that is placed in the situation. Now the other part that comes in here that that is often misunderstood by the world is this this what appears to be a buying and selling of a daughter in the situation of marriage but all what we see is that this is a Infraction that occurs with the penalty and the bride price the dowry that's paid here.

We don't have a specific direction in which it is paid. In fact in Genesis 24 53 We read the servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold and garments and gave them to Rebecca. He also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother and in this situation that sort of a dent Indicates that the bride price is actually paid to the bride which gives an indication of the support that the husband would be able to take care of his wife as time went on.

But if you'll note however in the second verse it shows us that the father has this Responsibility that goes along with his. He has the responsibility of protecting his daughter and the responsibility here is that he can actually reject the marriage.

But even if he rejects the marriage the man is still responsible to pay the bride price.

Now.

Two things that we can pull from these verses. First of all and this would be a general statement that is true of most of Scripture men or all of Scripture, but men have been given the responsibility and Have been entrusted with the care and protection of women.

Now this is a unpopular and.

Controversial.

Belief and.

It has become unpopular and controversial in recent years. Because it is seen as an oppression and the reality is it is a freeing. It is actually a provision of God that allows the woman to flourish. Under the care and protection of a truly godly man.

That has a godly man that we would first seek to protect the purity of the woman.

There's a.

Responsibility here of the man in the initial paragraph in the initial clause that he is the one who does the enticing He is the one who does the wooing He is the one who does the persuading and as a result of that he now has a responsibility to take care of this woman.

Not just for a moment but for a lifetime. Now we would be tempted to say that Woman doesn't need a man, but that would be to go against the very created order that God has given us in his word. And as a side note just because we no longer pay a bride price a dowry.

It still is right in the eyes of God to seek the blessing of the Father when a Christian young man Seeks to marry a Christian young woman, but none of that.

Is the true?

Depth of what we see here You see the true nature of what God is getting to is that God is a holy God. In fact in Scripture There is only one attribute of God that is elevated to the third level and that is that he is holy.

The book of Isaiah as Isaiah encounters God or Encounters the vision of Christ on the throne and the seraphim are singing back and forth and in Antiphonal response they are crying. Holy holy.

Holy and.

God's holiness is the only one of his attributes that get to this level and that every man of God in Scripture who is confronted with the holiness of God has a visceral reaction to this. And we are to strive to live our lives in such a holy manner.

And one of the ways in which we do this is by respecting and honoring What God has given us when it comes to our sexuality?

That it is.

Specifically given to us in a specific place in a specific time frame for a specific purpose. And that as we defame that or as we dishonor that we dishonor God and so we. Know that purity in our sexual life is of extreme importance in order to live a holy.

Life.

Before the Holy God however what we also must have is Purity in worship. Now the next three verses deal with three situations or three circumstances that while At first blush kind of seen not necessarily this.

Disconnected from each other, but just odd in their placement. They actually show us an issue.

With.

Purity in. It says three things you shall not allow a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death and whoever sacrifices to any God other than Yahweh alone Shall be devoted to destruction now.

The interesting thing about worship is worship. It has become one of those things in the life of the church that has Degree degraded from what God originally intended and we have no true Reverence and understanding of exactly what we are doing because we forget that every time.

We see impure worship in the Word of God. It is a recipe for disaster. I want to give you two examples just two. First of all with Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 2 we see Nahab and Abihu right the sons of Aaron Who took their respective firepans and put fire in them.

They placed incense on it and then offered what scripture describes as strange fire before God Before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them. Now the interesting thing about this is if you read through all of this text, there is a very specific Mixture that they are supposed to use when offering this offering.

I mean God details it out to the letter. And so what we know is that these two young men decided well, I want to maybe you didn't like the smell of it. Right, maybe they weren't trying to be funny at all.

Maybe they weren't trying to to offend God. They were simply trying to adjust it for their own personal pleasure or whatever. But what we see is a response from God because we have strange fire Offered before him and it says in verse 2 and fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them and they died Before Yahweh and yet we we in our culture today say, okay.

Well, we can kind of do whatever we want to do when it comes to worship. But then there's the second one and The second one's a little bit difficult a little bit difficult for many people to grasp but it comes to us in a couple of Places.

I'm going to use the account in 2nd Samuel chapter 6. In 2nd Samuel chapter 6 verses 3 through 8 we find that and they drove the Ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill and Uzzah and Aho the sons of Abinadab were leading the cart so now just to kind of refresh your memory that the Ark of the Covenant had been taken captive and It is being now brought back to the people of God.

And so they put it on a brand new cart and they begin to bring it to this place and so it says they brought with the Ark of God out from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill and One was walking ahead of the Ark.

Aho was walking ahead of the Ark. Now David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before Yahweh. With all kinds of instruments made of fir wood and with lyres harps tambourines. Then they came to the threshing floor of Nacon and.

Uzzah.

Reached out toward the Ark and took hold of it because the oxen nearly Upset it. Now before we go any further first thing We've got to be reminded of is that there are specific rules around the handling of the Ark of the Covenant.

God delivers a very detailed account of how this particular piece of Furniture for the tabernacle was supposed to be carried cared for and taken care of. Now in Uzzah's mind All he's trying to do is prevent the Ark from hitting the ground.

Right. It seems okay, but remember God gives specific directions and. So it says. In the anger of Yahweh burned against Uzzah and God struck him down for his irreverence. And he died there by the Ark of God.

Now David became angry. And he became angry at God and it's easy for us to become angry at God. But the reality is it was Uzzah that sinned. There was a direct disobedience in both of these situations when it came to their right.

Handling of the implements or the worship that was given to them by God and how they should come before God. In our text today we have three examples of impure worship. And if you'll note. Each one of them carries with it.

The penalty of death. Not maybe not possibly not could be not. Well, you know if it was by accident, it's okay. Notice that each one of these says. First verse 18. You shall not allow a sorceress to live.

Verse 19. Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. Verse 20. Anyone who sacrifices to any God other than to Yahweh alone shall be devoted to destruction.

Now.

We want to take a little bit deeper look at these three examples because unfortunately for us We take these three at face value and don't truly understand that these three things Still impact our life today.

Most people can get on board with idolatry But that's the only one of the three. But he begins here with a sorceress.

Now.

We talked sorcery and witchcraft up to an area of fantasy and fiction however. This is a very real situation in 2014. 10 years ago It was a study done that estimated Approximately 1 .5 million self-proclaimed Wiccans in the u .s.

According to an article published in 2011 Wicca was the fastest-growing religion in the United States.

Now.

Some would be very quick to say well, what's the big deal? They're good witches. They're bad witches. How do we know they're good witches and bad witches? Well, we've all seen the Wizard of Oz, right.

And There was the good witch from the north and the bad witch or the wicked witch from the West. And if you'll remember this this Example came to us. It was written by Frank L. Baum in 1900. It was made into a movie in 1939 that has become world famous and it is celebrated over and over.

But the reality is that this this Harmless fun is truly Seeking to gain power through the use of demonic forces.

Now.

If you have an interaction with the Wiccan And you say to them you're using demonic forces. They're going to tell you they're not. What they're going to tell you is that that they are commuting with nature.

But listen, the problem is the same. The problem is is that they are trying to persuade or move God based on these actions of their own. The problem is is that they have traded as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans the truth of the Creator for the lion worship the created.

Instead of the Creator.

Exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image and the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling Creatures. And the result is a worship and is not pleasing to God because it is not pure and true and right.

And here's what may shock You. Even more than that is this has become part of mainstream Society it is in books. It is in movies. We see it.

Repeatedly.

And yet as Christians we chalk it up to Good fun, and we don't recognize the impact That it's having on individuals the next thing we come to in this.

Issue.

These three issues we face around worship is this perversion of bestiality. Now some would say that this actually belongs to the previous first two verses because of the Sexuality part of the nature, but the reality is that there is a sexual component, but this is not.

Specifically.

Dealing with sexuality in fact it is a Flagrant disregard of the structure and order that God has endowed on creation according to John McKay. The true impetus behind this is an effort of people to unite with their God through the animal That represented them in the land of Canaan the promised land to where the Israelites were headed.

Baal was often depicted as having sex with a cow so the movement was to commune with.

God.

Their God so again It is impure Improper Incorrect not real.

Idol worship.

Then we have the third which is specifically brought up here by Moses as being idolatry. Now the Decalogue the Ten Commandments make it very clear abundantly clear that the worship of idols was forbidden in and in that we see in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 20 of Exodus.

You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water. Under the earth you shall not worship them or serve them for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God.

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers of the children on the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me. Again, we see the seriousness of this sin in the result or in the Actions that must be taken on one who commits the sin.

Look look at this. First of all, we're we're commanded to not allow a sorceress to live. So they the sorceress is to be put to death. Secondly, we are told that whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.

But in the third one the versage in the verbiage is a little bit different. Notice that it's.

That for.

Anyone who serve sacrifices to any God other than to Yahweh alone shall be devoted to Destruction. Now, I want you to understand that this goes beyond a simple matter of an execution. To be devoted to this to destruction Actually meant in the Hebrew word that was utter and complete and didn't just involve the individual But also all of the individuals property.

Everything the individual owned all that the individual was was to be destroyed and redeemed. For God remember God is a jealous God and will not Share his glory. So we may see these things as requiring this punishment by death as Severe than they are because they're dealing with our holiness in front of God.

Now what we have to keep in mind is that this doesn't give us the right to go out and take the life. Remember these laws were given to Jews and that were to be upheld and punished by civil authorities.

However.

That doesn't mean that there is no application in our life today. That doesn't mean that there isn't a punishment in our life today. We see that the death here is that is the same as the punishment for these sins the death that in Adam.

We all died all of us Died. We were Sinners and we have a sinful nature in our church. We apply these laws by ensuring that we are operating under the regulative Principle of worship to make sure that our worship is not only worthy in the eyes of God But that is also pure and holy so that it will be will give all the focus and glory to God Not to the man.

Standing.

But to the God who is over all things. But when it is not true of our worship, and when the scandalous sin of idolatry breaks into our ranks there is a Responsibility placed on the church. Interestingly enough if you were to go out and to speak with The broad spectrum of what could be called evangelical Christianity today Most of them would explicitly tell you that what I'm about to say is foolishness.

But God demands of his church for us to exercise Justice within the church. We are commanded to exercise Discipline and practice discipline within the church. We are commanded to call each other to greater holy living and to call each other out when we're not living.

Holy lives.

Even to the point of Separating from a member for the sake of the body. We could launch it to a whole nother sermon here right on Jesus's passage talking about it. But if an eye offends plug it out throw it away For fear that it affects the entire body.

This is specifically dealing with the life of the church and and the individuals within the church in the way We are supposed to live together. We are called to to unity and worship and holiness, but we are to do it together corporately and we are to hold one another Accountable.

And so we see first of all that Purity in our sexuality is imperative for living a holy life before the Holy God. Purity in our worship is also Required to live a holy life before the Holy God, but then we also according to the next set of verses must demonstrate Compassion.

So as we look at verses 21 27 God gives us these pictures of Dealing with foreigners in the land of widows and orphans and of those who are less fortunate.

Now.

To begin with he starts by reminding the people of how they should treat strangers in a strange land. And he specifically says here for them to not Mistreat a sojourner or oppress him and the this language here is the exact language That's used to refer to how they were treated in the land of Egypt.

So they would have a very good understanding of what God was commanding them not to do.

Leviticus.

1934 it says the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself If for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt I am Yahweh.

Your God.

As believers we are to have compassion on those who are strangers in a strange land now. We must be very careful with this and and we've seen this movement in church today that we would call the woke or social justice gospel where We take this to an extreme.

That's not what God is commanding here. God's not commanding this this. Unequal. In fact what God shows over and over in his word specifically as we deal with the law is the equality that is to be delivered to all.

But you need to think of it in this way. Jesus described the second of the two great commandment is love thy neighbor as thyself. One of the commands that God gives us in his word is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

One of the things that we have the responsibility over that we see is that the ends of the earth have now come to us. But how can we be obedient to that command? How can we be obedient to what God has said when we have contempt and dislike for others?