Sundry Laws: How Do They Apply Today

We continue With both microphones on there we go. We continue our study this evening in Leviticus chapter 19

Leviticus chapter 19 and once again, let us ask the

Lord's blessing upon our time a grace heavenly father as we open your word once more

Even in these brief moments, which we have together. We ask that you would honor your name That you would honor your character your holiness amongst us this evening as we handle your word

May we do so recognizing that our Lord and Savior taught us to believe these are the very words of God So may we bow before his authority may we accept may we understand and may you change us to your honor and glory

Pray in Christ's name this morning. We began looking at this 19th chapter and we saw that in essence the

Overarching theme is our holiness our walking in holiness what it means to Be in covenant with God and to love him and to demonstrate that love.

I did not plan that the text we just read from Deuteronomy would be read this evening, but I I can't imagine a better text to read along with this because it very much

Repeated many of the themes that we mentioned this morning and certainly demonstrated the centrality of the call to love

Yahweh your God and I'm afraid that that is a an element that is so often missing as people seek to look at this text of Scripture is

The concept of the fact that if we do not love this God if we do not desire to glorify

This God then any law he's going to give no matter how extensive it might be no matter how minimal it might be

No matter what aspect of life it touches Any law that this

God is going to give to us is going to chafe. It is going to be a burden Central to this understanding is that we desire to love

God and that we recognize that God is holy and that holiness is something That is attractive to us not something that is repulsive to us

We know that anyone who remains in their sin anyone who is in rebellion against God Will find that holiness that is his to be something that is

Repugnant and repulsive and we cannot argue somebody into loving the holiness of God.

That is clearly I think obviously a work of the Spirit of God in a person's heart

And so we began looking at chapter 19 and we came to the section that I mentioned

In at least this particular printing of the English Bible that I have in front of me is entitled sundry laws

Which is what you do when you really don't want to put a whole bunch of sub subtitles in and just go

Well, these are laws and there we go. But as we will see they are very important laws.

I want to look specifically at Verses 9 through 18 if we can get through them this evening

I don't know that I can but I will do my best. That's certainly my goal Now when you reap the harvest of your land

You shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest Nor shall you glean your vineyard nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard?

You shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am Yahweh your God You shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another

You shall not swear falsely by my name so as to profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh You shall not oppress your neighbor nor rob him the wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning

You shall not curse a deaf man nor place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall revere your

God I am Yahweh. You shall do no injustice in judgment You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great but you are to judge your neighbor fairly

You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people and you're not to act against the life of your neighbor

I am Yahweh. You shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart. You may surely reprove your neighbor, but But shall not incur sin because of him you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself

I Am Yahweh now It's very clear that these verses in this section have a very close relationship to one another

They speak very broadly of the proper relationships that are to exist amongst

God's people as they live as A people in the promised land and we looked especially at verses 9 and 10 very briefly this morning just simply to note their overarching meaning and to recognize that At the end of verse 10 it says you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger the needy and for the stranger now the stranger would be

The non -israelite the one sojourning in the land the needy would be the Israelite who for whatever reasons

Has maybe lost their inheritance whatever other Situations might arise maybe foolishness on their part or foolishness upon those before them and they've lost their inheritance.

They are needy and Therefore Provision is to be made for them now notice.

It's not forcefully taken From one group of people and given to another group of people instead it is the produce of the land and We can recognize as we mentioned this morning that when you harvest the land there are different levels of Completeness I guess we might say and how that might be done

Obviously in our modern day with the machines that we now have you could harvest the land significantly more fully than you could in a day when you would be reaping by hand or by very primitive tools and So even when even today when the harvester goes through the field there is going to be

Stuff that is blown about knocked about it's going to end up on the ground And there's going to be those areas that you know you don't exactly get

I mean I I guess I am I'm not certain of this my understanding is that Farm equipment today is pretty advanced and in fact they've got tractors now with GPS and So you can

I mean You know it used to mean something about about plowing a straight row

You know you'd put your eyes down there and you'd you'd keep your eyes on the goal and all the rest that stuff now you just got to make sure your

GPS is working correctly and You've got a good fix on the satellites, and just let the machine do its thing

Well back in the olden days, and this was really the olden days there would obviously be

Things that were left over because you'd miss a section you wouldn't you wouldn't have perfectly straight furrows, etc

Etc and the point is there would be food left either in the field or Fruit in the vineyard and even when you were trying to harvest fruit from the vineyard there be stuff

That would be dropped to the ground and so the point is that this was to be utilized obviously however

The poor and the needy Would have to come get it doesn't say and you shall gather these things up and place them in the central storage houses

It doesn't say that The poor and the needy would be able to come and to freely enter into that land and to be able to gather

That which would provide for them and provide food and sustenance for them and when he makes this command

God says I am Yahweh Your God so clearly there is not only the provision for the poor of the land

But there is also I think we need to see a subtle rebuke and Prohibition of not only a sense of Entitlement on the part of the person.

This is my land everything. That's mine. I want anybody come on my land again Anything for me You have that kind of an attitude, but there's also a rebuke of greediness here

You know you think of the story that Jesus told the man who you know saw the all the produce and he builds himself barns and bigger barns and so on and so forth and there was this this this attitude of Self -sufficiency and greediness that was that was being rebuked there

I think you have the same type of rebuke here as you are told no

You shall allow these individuals onto your land, and you shall allow them to Reap from the very corners of the field and from so on and so forth the gleanings

They will this will provide for them Something that is important to them in regards to their sustenance and their survival in the same way in the rest of the section you have

Laws of what might be called general equity without which no society can truly survive you shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another and so there is to be a

Recognition of the proper fact that God provides to individuals

Their own property the things that God has given to them They come from his hand and they belong to those individuals you are not to simply remove property from someone else's possession you shall not steal and of course this would be the case of The Israelites together with one another they were not to steal from one another that would cause great division in the land

That would cause great problems amongst the people But likewise you shall not deal falsely now here.

We start talking about an underlying attitude if you do not steal from someone it's because you have a respect a

Respect for God and respect for that individual and for the law that God has established in the order in the land

The same way when we're talking about dealing falsely That is in gauging in commerce engaging in any kind of buying

Selling all the kinds of interaction that we have with our fellow citizens

This is not to be done on the basis of falsehood in other words the positive command would be you shall be a people marked by truth a

Mark of the people of God is we recognize our God is true Our God is truthful in what he says to us and therefore we want to reflect him

Even in those situations where that might be to our detriment You know that in many cases

Situations in our land today the idea is you got to get ahead You've got to get ahead.

You've got to you've got to have an advantage over someone else and to assume truthfulness on the part of many in our society is unfortunately to show oneself naive and So we have to have all sorts of contracts, and we have to have all sorts of well

No offense to anybody I know we have somewhere on here, but we got to have a lot of lawyers and they've got a they've got to draw up those contracts and when those contracts are broken they get to go to court and and we all get to pay the tax money to have the judges and and everything else and and Unfortunately, it's just assumed especially within business that it's a it's a kill -and -be -killed type of a context and The idea that a man's word is his bond

Is obviously something that's more for the history books than it is for reality in our experience today

But to reflect God and to reflect God's dealings with us and his commandments with us.

We cannot steal We cannot deal falsely. We cannot lie to one another The people of God are marked by truthfulness and God is glorified

When we act in such a fashion You shall not swear falsely by my name so as to profane the name of your

God I am Yahweh now of course, it's rather unusual these days for People to take much in the way of oaths

To swear by the name of God or anything else any longer But it's certainly we know that there were various oaths that were taken in the temple there are things associated with that we think of the

Nazarite vow and and issues like that and Here you have a prohibition of swearing falsely by my name

Obviously to invoke the name of the covenant God of Israel to invoke Yahweh's name

Was to say that I swear by the greatest authority there is when when we when we swear by something

We are in essence saying well I am invoking the highest authority that I can invoke to To guarantee the truthfulness of what

I am saying to you now well, obviously if you do that in such a fashion so as to lie to seek to deceive

To cheat or in any other way you are you are showing absolutely no respect whatsoever

For the one by whom you have sworn So if you've sworn by the king then you're showing disrespect the king if you swear by the very name of the covenant

God of Israel Then you are denigrating that God and you are profaning his name you're making his name a common thing

So obviously there is supposed to be some kind of of true weight

For someone to say I swear by God in the same way that Paul for example in Romans chapter 9

He he says my conscience bears a witness the Holy Spirit testifying together with my conscience

I am NOT lying. I have severe pain and grief in my heart for my fellow countrymen He's basically saying

I I can tell you with all the honesty that I have and the Holy Spirit is testifying with my spirit

This is true. Despite what all the the Jews have done to me. I truly desire to see the salvation of my fellow countrymen and so obviously to to make reference to those higher authorities is

To either honor them because you are honestly saying yes, this is the case here is the reality or to profane the name of Yahweh by associating him with falsehood and so obviously if the if the

Jewish people were to go about in doing business with the people around them and swear by the name of Yahweh that that their their scales are accurate or that they're going to Fulfill the conditions of the contract and so on so forth and they became known as the people who never did that Then what would be the reflection upon the name of their

God? the pagans the peoples of the land would rightfully Denigrate that God as a

God that has no meaning as a God who is not the creator of the universe Verse 13 you shall not oppress your neighbor

Nor rob him the wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning

And so the assumption is that you're going to have to have some kind of interaction with your neighbors

It's not like here in in the valley certainly in my neighborhood people move in and out all the time and We have those six to eight foot solid block fences now

You know I I was I was looking at at Google at the street level

Google stuff I was looking at my old houses where I lived back in Pennsylvania long long ago and I was

I was looking at them, and I was surprised to discover that in one of the houses I lived in Charlemontown, Pennsylvania The They've put up they put up a fence

That's a fence you can see through But they they put up a fence because back in the olden days We didn't have a fence around the backyard and so I could go running through the backyard

I remember one of my like one of my fondest memories of childhood doesn't happen here, but back then we had fireflies

Y 'all know fireflies if you're a native here. You're going what? Did they start forest fires?

No no that's that's not what they're about And it was really gross because what we would do is we once it was dark we'd chase those fireflies around we get these we get the you know a glass canister, and you'd catch them and Then we discovered that if you take them and you squish them on your tennis shoes

Your tennis shoes will glow for a little while and the next morning will be really gross

But we're kids who's thinking about what they're gonna look like the next morning You know until then you're running around with glowing stuff on your shoes

This was before kids had the shoes that lit up and all that kind of stuff and that you know So this was this was how you made your shoes glow back when

I was a kid Before the internet and cell phones and things like that so anyway

I was I was looking at that, and I just noticed that We just had so much more ease of access

You knew who your neighbors were here. It's a sort of like you know we're all fenced in and and it's just And that's not the way it was obviously in the ancient world you were going to be you're you're actually in many ways

Dependent upon your neighbor for many things You couldn't have the the nice little you know

I'm safe in my little box type of a situation in that context And so you were not to oppress him or rob him you were not to deal falsely with him in Other words there was a an incumbent duty upon people who are in covenant with Yahweh the creator of the universe

To act in such a fashion as to be a neighborly person to not rob that person and if you hired that person if you if you brought in a fellow

Israelite and Hired that individual to do work The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning

It wasn't like you you gave somebody a 30 -day contract and at the end of 30 days you had to pay up No, that's that's not how it worked especially because most of the time you'd be paying somebody and something other than money you'd be paying them in food in sustenance and something like that and So the point is that there was to be a prompt rendering of payment to the hired man because that hired man that may be the only way that he can have sustenance for that day and so there is to be a great concern about Integrity in how we deal with others and how we deal with our neighbors and that really comes out in verse 14

You shall not curse a deaf man nor place a stumbling block before the blind

But you shall revere your God I am Yahweh now there's there's

There's almost no parallel to these aspects of the loving aspects of the law of God in the surrounding cultures of that day when you hear the first you shall not curse a deaf man a curse would be a spoken thing and So the obvious idea is that you can get away with with cursing a deaf man

Because he's not going to hear you now a curse was considered to have Meaning behind it you are you are actually wishing and and and invoking

Some kind of judgment upon some which means there would have to be some kind of reason for it And the point is the the deaf man could not respond to the speaking of such a curse because the deaf man cannot hear

That curse I mean if you really wanted to say that there was this person had done something tremendously evil and that there was a curse upon Them because of God's law then you would have to go out of your way to communicate to the deaf man what it was the person had done wrong the idea is he lacks the ability to hear and Therefore you shall not curse the deaf man or obviously in the same context

You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind But you shall revere your

God I am Yahweh so it is not just simply well be a nice person and don't do this

It is a demonstration of reverence for God because God has made that person in his image and God could have taken from you your gift of sight

God could have taken from you your ability to hear you have blessings from God and Therefore if you mistreat those individuals you are demonstrating

You do you are not thankful and do not recognize the blessings that you yourself have therefore you are not revering

God You are not showing reverence for God who has made every man and placed him in the position that they are and so there is to be a a

Kind of simple human respect that is based upon a reverence for God if we have a true

God who has made us as his creatures That's the very essence of any type of meaningful law is the recognition of the value of human life and that Value comes from the fact that God has made us.

That is why we see Western culture Collapsing into moral and ethical chaos is because we no longer have a creator.

We no longer have a God Who gives meaning to life and that we are to reverence and revere

Even in our treatment of our fellow man, that is no longer something that is relevant to most people in our society

You shall do no injustice in Judgment. Wow, I Hate to go through this so quickly

Because we could expand upon this section almost indefinitely in light of what we see today unjust judges are a curse upon any people

Judges Judges are a blessing. We see the establishment of judges within the people of Israel and What is absolutely necessary for those judges that they be righteous?

that they first and foremost recognize that they are subservient to God himself and That the authority they have is derivative from God himself

Just judges are a blessing upon any land therefore unjust judges are indeed a tremendous curse a

Tremendous curse because they they shake the very foundations remember in the Psalter We're told that justice is the foundation of God's throne well if the judges are to reflect and the only judge is ever going to be truly just is one who recognizes he's supposed to reflect the

God who made him a Judge who reflects God's justice is going to be a judge who is not going to be impressed by the money you have

He's not going to be impressed by the big name. You have he's not going to be turned by a bribe

Because he's always looking first and foremost to the one that he is Representing to his fellow man.

That's what the judge is supposed to do He is always going to be seeking God's wisdom in giving the proper judgment that's what a judge will be held accountable by God for doing and So you shall do no injustice in judgment.

You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great See, there's the two extremes and we see it all the time

We see that people who are great They've got they've got the money and they get the they get the lawyers and So there is there are those judges who will defer to those who have power who have influence

Who can guarantee a nice cushy retirement, whatever else it might be, but there's also the other side

Notice both sides of the path are marked off here. You shall not be partial to the poor

Just because a person does not have a lot of money doesn't mean that you shall stick it to Everybody else and say well, let's just even everything out here.

That is not a biblical concept You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great

But what are you to do the positive command you are to judge your neighbor?

fairly God has given the standards The standard is truthfulness

Righteousness judgment God's law gives us the framework in which to judge these things There is a commandment to judge your neighbor fairly

You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor

I am the Lord a person who goes around amongst the people as a slanderer a

Person who is always looking for the the newest juicy bit of information and is always always reading between the lines

It might indicate this This person said that it might indicate that that person spreads

Disorder breeds distrust lays a foundation for anger and violence

Amongst the people and Just as that was very true in that day my friends.

We now live in a day where we can slander people instantly and to thousands hundreds of thousands we possess through technology the capacity to absolutely

Ravage someone's entire life and oh how people are doing that today.

Oh the shaming and the bullying Electronically that is being done by the politically correct today my goodness and yet Sadly, I see it amongst

Christians. I See many a Christian who's just as has just as much an itching ear to hear the newest thing

Did you hear about so -and -so? The Bible says that we are not to accept

Accusations except on the witness of two or three witnesses and Yet all you've got to do is get the same story repeated two or three times and man

We're on top of somebody we live in a day where we need to really go back to biblical standards at this point

Because I am deeply concerned I am deeply concerned in light of the technological capacities of The enemies of God that The kinds of attacks that we could see in the future will be of such a such a

Character that none of us will be able to defend ourselves against them. We already seeing it. I see it happening right now

We already know that if you will stand up for anything moral and ethical in our society you will be ravaged

But We're starting to hear I heard a story. I have not spent a lot of time studying it but about someone in the press where a governmental agency

Basically hacked their computer and placed files upon their computer and then charged them for having the files upon their computer that kind of power and ability in the hands of corrupt people

Could be an extremely extremely damaging thing

You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people at least amongst ourselves at least amongst ourselves

We should always be the first ones with a word of forgiveness and the last ones with words of condemnation

Let grace mark ourselves. Let grace mark our language and our approach

Truthfulness and honesty always be the goal that is ours and You are not to act against the life of your neighbor

Act against the life your neighbor you mean you mean attack them physically with a sword or something? No, but but there are things that we can do that can endanger our neighbors

By not doing certain things or by doing certain things we can endanger our neighbors lives. I mean you know

I Understand that there is a house in fact. I run by it fairly frequently.

I ran It's just just off of one of the roads near us and and my understanding is it now it's fine

They're just normal people living there, but I noticed for a while it was sort of abandoned and stuff and Learned that it was a meth house

That someone had built a meth lab in that house. It's right next to a school I mean literally the back fence was right next to a an elementary school

Those places. I don't know if you ever noticed that but it's a really dangerous thing to do okay

Not only can you kill yourself, but you can like blow the whole thing up If you don't know what you're doing and most people who do that don't know what they're doing

So that that would be just a really obvious way where you could be endangering the life of your neighbor

But there could be simple things that you could do that would that would help to secure

Your neighbor's property or your neighbor's life There is to be that kind of well.

It's gonna be summed up at the end of verse 18 love your neighbor as yourself So do not act against the life of your neighbor simply means look beyond yourself

Don't just simply you know if you've got a stream flowing through your property, and it's I really like this

Think about what you're going to do with that if you do a certain thing to it Maybe damn it up or change the directions like that you might end up endangering your neighbor's life

Think about yourself living in a community rather than just me in my little box is

The idea that is clearly here You shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart in your heart

Now Sometimes we get the idea that when Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount He was doing something that had no one had ever thought of before Everybody had just always had the surface level view of the law well.

No that's not true Here you shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart

It was the surface level Externalism of the Pharisees That Jesus is primarily focusing upon When he says you have heard it said, but I say to you

He's putting that spotlight where it needs to be where the regenerate heart that loves

God's law is already going to be aware of these things you shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart, and you go well

Obviously that can't necessarily work for an unregenerate person Well obviously so many of these laws

Only make sense in the hearts and minds of individuals who have experienced

God's work of grace But there is guidance given You shall not hate your fellow countrymen why because if you harbor that kind of hatred toward one

It's easier to begin to harbor it toward another and to another you become hardened you begin to act on the basis of that hatred

That does not mean that everything will always be rosy between you and your neighbors

Because the next line is you may surely reprove your neighbor There are times when that's necessary now

I would imagine that They didn't have too much trouble back then with neighbors who played their stereos too loud after 10 o 'clock at night

There may have been some wonderful Jewish music being played on some type of instrument too late at night.

I don't know but There there would be reasons to reprove your neighbor that happens in a fallen world and sometimes you're doing things and yet you just don't even think and so there are proper times to reprove your neighbor, but You shall not incur sin because of him

That is do not do not act towards your neighbor in such a such a fashion as to sin before your

God Don't be self -righteous Be willing to live in peace and harmony with other people

This is the only way the nation is going to be able to Fulfill its purposes of reflecting

God's glory I'm speaking of the nation of Israel at this time Obviously for us as Redeemed sinners as people have been forgiven of our sins.

We can't even Contemplate storing up hatred in our heart toward anyone Because we ourselves have been forgiven

If you have experienced the forgiveness of God and Jesus Christ, then then you simply cannot

You cannot enjoy that experience of hatred now we can talk about hating evil and and that kind of thing

But there's there's a vast difference between hating evil and allowing that hatred of evil to become focused upon individuals

Recognizing that we were hateful in God's sight outside of Jesus Christ. We were all sons of disobedience

We were all under his wrath It's very easy for us to engage in self -righteousness and very easy for us to not hear these commandments

You shall not take vengeance That's repeated by the

Apostle Paul is it not we are not to take vengeance That Occurs in Romans.

We just we just have that section just for about we're getting there like I'm okay I'm not gonna say anything more about it.

I don't want to steal anybody's thunder, but it's coming and so it is interesting to notice that that's also quoted in Hebrews chapter 10 and So it is taken as a given

That these words continue to have relevance to the people of God in The New Covenant you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people

Sounds very much like hating someone in your heart That's the negative You shall not allow that kind of well as the book of Hebrews says that root of bitterness to grow up inside you

There are some people just sort of want to feed those types of things, but no You're not to do that You can't because the positive command that finishes verse 18, which we all know is a commandment

There are Lord and Savior repeated He repeated knowing that his audience would know very well where it came from and He never said and just because I'm quoting this doesn't mean that you're actually to look at the entirety of the law and and and seek to understand it and and make

Application and he never said that so he knew that by quoting this

Paul knows that by quoting from the same verse There is a message being communicated in regards to the fact that God's law

Reveals his heart it reveals his nature and continues to do so Which is why the promise of Jeremiah 31

I'll write my law upon their hearts Means it becomes an internalized thing something that we love not something we hate not something we chafe under But you have the commandment you shall love your neighbor as yourself

Now here the Levitical law Transcends Anything that we can see in the ancient world

It transcends it because we have a personal God We have a just and holy

God and yet he has in mercy and grace chosen a people gives them gifts that they do not deserve and One of the duties that he lays upon this people is that they are to love their neighbor as they love themselves what an incredible commandment here in the midst of these sundry laws

Comes a commandment That Jesus identified as one of the most important in all of Scripture Greatest commandment love the

Lord your God with our heart soul mind strength and the second is like unto it You shall love your neighbors yourself now.

I don't know about you But I didn't see the part Anywhere in chapter 19 says and the second greatest commandment is going to be contained in this chapter

It's not there in fact, it's just Part of it's the at last part of a sentence.

It's just a phrase And yet Jesus said second greatest command

Second greatest man. You shall love your neighbor as yourself now obviously you can't do the second one if you're not doing the first one and If you truly are doing the first one the second one will come naturally and that's where the problem is

Because for most people they hear this command and they go I cannot do that. I Can't do it

You you don't know the people that I have you don't know the people of my you haven't been hurt like I've been hurt

But you see if you love the Lord your God by your heart soul mind and strength that action that obedience is

Absolutely transformative It's transformative When love for God is your passion

Then love for your neighbor as yourself will be the natural result it can't be reversed

You can pretend and you can be a philanthropist and you can do good works and you can do all sorts of stuff

But as long as you are not in proper relationship with your creator You will not have the proper motivations for love for your neighbor and so here you have the second greatest commandment and it comes right after things like Leave the gleanings in your field

Don't lie to one another Don't steal don't rob Think about your neighbor

You'll think about your neighbor if you love your neighbor And of course we remember the question it was asked of Jesus Who is my neighbor?

That's always a good way to get around it. Who is my neighbor? Well, it's whoever God brings across your path

Even when you're walking along the road story of the Samaritan So here you have the second greatest commandment and so on a very practical level

Let me just mention something to you once again as we close when you have people Who roll their eyes

They hear the word Leviticus and go you can't go there. That's just not relevant anymore

You have to ask if the Levitical law is not relevant anymore So you're telling me?

That the second greatest commandment that Jesus my Lord identifies is no longer relevant

Is that what you're telling? That not putting stumbling blocks before the blind cursing the deaf

Honoring the elderly honoring your father and your mother All that stuff is irrelevant to you've got to connect it all together and I Can't imagine too many people we'd be talking to it would not be taken aback

Because they don't know these texts They would be taken aback by the very challenge you would make so you're telling me that we shouldn't do these things to that this was just Stone Age morality and And then you can get down to the real issue the real issue is in their heart

They're not submitted to the God who wrote these things The God who gave us these things they're in rebellion, and that's their real issue

That's their real issue. That's what you want to get to That's what you want to be able to talk about and there is a tremendous way of being able to do so Sundry laws

Yes, sundry laws But they are laws that God gave and Jesus identified

The last half of a little sentence as the second greatest commandment love

Your neighbor as yourself. Let's pray to you a gracious Heavenly Father.

We do. Thank you for the beauty of your word We thank you for its message

And Lord as we have looked into your law this evening once again by your spirit you have convicted us of those places where by apathy by Neglect it's so easy for us to become comfortable with compromise

But may we be a people who seek to honor and glorify you in how we live May we be honest and truthful in all of our ways

And Lord use us as your servants to bring light Into this very dark land even in this coming week may we have opportunity of bearing witness to your truth

May we do so with the knowledge of your word It is honor and glorifying to you.