Now, in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, the part that I wanted to focus on is beginning in
verse 11, where the Bible reads,
For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.
And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not
steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.
But their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil, untaken away
in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
And this is a very profound passage.
This chapter merits a whole sermon of itself.
But just to point out something here that the Bible talks about, when a person gets
saved, when a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, that veil is lifted.
And specifically, this scripture is talking about reading the Old Testament.
And specifically, it's talking about reading Moses, meaning the first five books of the
Old Testament.
And it talks about the fact that we that are saved, we have great liberty.
And we have the Spirit of the Lord.
And when we look within the pages of the books of Moses, and of the Old Testament, we can
really see the glory of the Lord.
Because it talks about, in verse 11, the fact that the Old Testament and that the law given
to Moses was glorious.
And that we see that glory of the Lord, even in the New Testament, as we go back and read
those words.
Now, truly, we are not under the law, but are under grace.
And obviously, the Bible says the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by
Jesus Christ.
But we still realize that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable
for doctrine.
And so there's still so much to be learned and taught from these books, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
What I want to focus on tonight is the commandments of the book of Genesis, the commandments of
the book of Genesis.
Now, let me explain to you where this sermon came from.
And I don't know if I'm going to even be able to finish my notes tonight, just because I
have a lot of notes and a lot of information here on all the commandments that are found
in the book of Genesis, which I came to the number 13 commandments that are found in Genesis,
is that you often hear people talk about the fact, and I don't know if you've heard this
before, but the fact that there are 600 and some commandments in the first five books
of the Bible.
Who's heard that statement before?
And usually people kind of round it out that way.
But really, the number that you'll hear is 613.
And people will say, hey, there are 613 commandments in the first five books of the Bible.
And I've always heard preachers my whole life say, you know, somebody counted.
Somebody counted and came up with 613 commandments.
And I thought to myself, you know, I'm going to count myself instead of just saying somebody
counted.
You know, let's count.
And let's figure out what these commandments are.
Turns out the somebody who counted was a bunch of Jews, of course, you know, rabbis and Pharisees
and people like that.
And you know, it's interesting because the rabbis who are the Pharisees, they tend to
focus on little nitpicky things that Jesus looked at and said, you know, you've looked
over the weightier matters of the law.
You've passed over.
You know, it's great that you got all the nitpicky stuff right.
But you left the other undone.
You know, you've passed over these important laws.
So I just was thinking to myself that if they went through and counted 613, I'll bet you
they passed over some really important stuff, just based on what Jesus said.
And not only that, I'll bet you they added a bunch of stuff that wasn't really there.
Just because that's how they are.
So because that well, here's the thing.
It's hard to work blindfolded.
As we read in Second Corinthians three, you don't believe in Jesus when you're not saved.
You're working blindfolded.
So I figured as a man with 20-20 vision, having the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I might
as well make my own list.
So I'm not done.
So I can't tell you the exact number.
I can't tell you whether the 613 is right.
Is it wrong?
Is it high?
Is it low?
I don't know.
But I went through Genesis.
You know, I got that far.
And I went through Genesis.
And I identified 13 unique commandments in the book of Genesis.
And I'm going to go through as many of them as I can tonight.
But first of all, you have to understand what my criteria was.
This is all just introduction.
Then I'll get into the preaching.
But what was my criteria for commandment?
Well, you know, if there's a commandment given that could only really be fulfilled at that
place and that time by that person, I'm not counting that as a commandment.
It would have to be a commandment that people could fulfill going forward.
You know, that the children of Israel in the Old Testament could fulfill going forward.
For example, the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
didn't really apply to anyone else living under the Old Testament unless you're Adam
and Eve.
OK.
Or, you know, when God tells Moses to pick up the rod that he just threw down.
You know, that's not really a commandment that can be applied unto mankind.
But commandments that are applicable unto mankind under the Old Testament, you know,
are what were counted here.
That's what I went by.
Now, I already started, just in starting this study, I already noticed that there were a
lot of problems in the Jewish list.
A lot of things that they were calling commandments that simply were not commandments of God.
And a lot of things that they just seemed to just skip over and just not pay any attention
to that are commandments of God.
So it's always good to study to show yourself approved unto God.
I think there's a lot that we can learn from these commandments in the book of Genesis.
First of all, you know, we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God.
Now, are some of the commandments of the Old Testament done away in Christ?
Absolutely.
Under the New Covenant, there have been changes that are made.
But let me say this, though.
As things have been specifically done away in the New Testament, all of the moral laws
of the Old Testament would still stand.
I mean, God is still God.
And He's the same yesterday and today and forever.
And so how He felt about things in the Old Testament is how He feels about them in the
New Testament, except those that have specifically been changed from one covenant to another.
Let's look at the first commandment.
Go to Genesis chapter 1.
I want to show you the 13 commandments that I identified in the book of Genesis.
And of course, when I say 13, there's repetition.
Some of these commandments are repeated over and over.
These are unique commandments that are different from one another, 13 different commandments
that are given in the book of Genesis.
You say, wow, there's only 13?
Well, you've got to understand that most of Genesis is a story.
Now, later when you get into Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the commandments
are going to become a little more densely packed.
In Genesis, they're a little more spread out because there's so much story in between commandments.
But look at Genesis chapter 1 verse 28.
We're going to find the first commandment in the Bible, the first commandment in the
law of Moses.
It says in verse 28, and God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply
and replenish the earth.
That's the first commandment that God gives to mankind right there.
He says, for man to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
And I'll read the rest of the verse that says, Ansem, do it and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth.
Now, go to chapter 9.
Flip over to chapter 9.
This is a commandment that's actually repeated multiple times throughout the book of Genesis.
There it was in chapter 1.
Look at chapter 9 verse 1.
It says, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply
and replenish the earth.
Look at verse 7.
And you, be ye fruitful and multiply and bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply
therein.
Look at chapter 35 verse 11.
So we see this commandment is given unto Adam and Eve.
We see that the commandment is given unto Noah and his sons.
And we see that in chapter 35 verse 11, the commandment is given unto Jacob.
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply.
A nation and a company of nations shall be of thee and kings shall come out of thy loins.
So four different times in Genesis, the command is given to be fruitful and multiply.
This is one that the Jews actually recognize in their list.
But God is commanding us to be fruitful and multiply.
What does he mean by that?
Well, you know, he means to have kids.
He means to have children.
And a lot of people have this idea that having children is somehow optional to them.
You know, if they feel like doing it, if it fits into their plans, if, you know, if they
feel like they're ready for that, well, here's the thing, if you're ready to get married,
you're ready to have kids.
And if you're not ready to have kids, then you're not ready to get married.
You say, well, birth control.
Well, I don't believe in birth control.
I, you know, my wife and I have not practiced birth control.
And we don't use it.
I don't recommend it.
I don't believe in it.
I think it's wrong because of this command right here where God wants us to be fruitful
and multiply.
There's nothing in the Bible that ever negates this command.
Say, well, we're in the New Testament, but nothing in the New Testament negates this
command.
You know, everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, if anything, just reinforces
this teaching that God wants us to be fruitful and multiply.
The devil has a lie that says that the world's overpopulated and we need to reduce the number
of children that we're going to have.
That's why there's a lot of propaganda and brainwashing through the media to try to get
you to not want to have kids, to get you to feel that having children is a burden, that
it's too expensive, it's too difficult, it's not something that you want to do, anybody
who does it is crazy.
But honestly, God wants us to have a lot of children.
And you know, here's the thing.
It's not a matter of you must have 10 children because honestly, God might only give you
one or he might only give you two or he might give you three.
But the key is to just trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not onto your own
understanding and let him bless you with however many children he sees fit.
Notice he said God blessed them and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply.
Why?
Because the Bible says children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his
reward.
So children are a blessing from God.
And so we shouldn't seek to not have a blessing from God and to try to take things into our
own hands.
But God says over and over again, even in the book of Genesis, that he is the one who
opens and closes the womb.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the first command in the Bible.
I think that makes it significant in and of itself.
The fact that it's the first command in the law of Moses is that we would be fruitful
and multiply.
God wants us to have children.
This is also reiterated in the New Testament when it says in 1 Timothy 5, 14, I will therefore
that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the
adversary to speak reproachfully.
So God in the New Testament says that it's his will for young women, meaning under 60,
to marry, bear children, and guide the house.
Now we're getting a little more into that later.
But let's first of all look at the second commandment before we get into that.
It's also found in Genesis 1.
It's in the latter half of that verse there, Genesis 1, 28.
It's separate from the fact that God wants us to be fruitful and multiply and replenish
the earth is the fact that God wants us to subdue the earth and to have dominion over
all the animals of the earth.
Now let me say this first of all.
Some people will try to take the be fruitful and multiply command and say that was just
for Adam because the earth was so empty.
You know, he needs to fill the thing up.
And we today live in this world that's full of people.
We don't need to multiply.
We don't need to replenish the earth.
But the proof that he's not just talking to Adam is the word replenish.
Because if he were just talking to Adam and Eve, the word replenish would make no sense.
Because replenish is refill.
And I've heard some people try to say no, no, it just means fill.
Well, you know, I don't buy it.
I think it means refill.
That's I've studied it and that's the conclusion I came to.
And it makes perfect sense that he would say refill not because it had ever been filled
before.
That's a bizarre doctrine.
Adam truly was the first man.
But he says replenish because it's a command to all mankind.
And there's a continual process of replenishing the earth.
See Adam and Eve are going to die one day.
So they have to basically have children that are going to have children so that the earth
can continually be replenished with people.
Why?
Because there's a process whereby people die and they're replaced by new people on the
earth.
So there's a constant refilling and replenishment that takes place.
But the second commandment is that man would subdue the earth and have dominion over the
fish of the sea.
Are you there in verse 28?
And over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
This is a commandment.
This is one that most people would skip over and ignore.
But this is a legitimate command.
God's telling us subdue the earth.
Have dominion over these animals.
What does that mean to have dominion?
Well, the word dominion comes from the Latin word dominus, lord, dominion.
Think about this word, dominate, okay?
And when the Bible says to have dominion over these animals, it means to lord over them,
to rule the animals, to control the earth, to rule over it.
What does this mean?
This means that we should look at animals as something that have been created for our
use and our benefit that we own and that we rule over.
Now go to Genesis chapter 9 again and see this reiterated in a certain way in verse
2 where the Bible reads, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast
of the earth and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth and upon
all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given
you all things.
Now these verses are not a command, but they do bolster the command that was given in chapter
1 that was clearly an imperative to subdue and have dominion and rule over the animals
of the earth.
Why is this important today?
Because today we're taught a bizarre philosophy that exalts animals and worships animals and
puts them on the level of human beings and is not biblical.
Right away from the very beginning, the second commandment God ever gave, rule over these
animals.
You're the boss of these animals, subdue them.
Every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is tamed and hath
been tamed of mankind.
We own the animals on this planet.
God said I've given them all to you.
But today we have a warped society, and listen, it's not an accident, it's of the devil.
Because the Bible shows us that people, when they become reprobate, when they become godless,
it says that they worship and serve the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever,
amen.
And we see today people exalting animals in a sick way.
And we see people exalting animals in an ungodly way.
Look, there's nothing wrong with enjoying pets and treating your pets nicely, but people
are going overboard with it.
You know, and all throughout the Bible we see people worshiping animals, right, worshiping
a golden calf.
You know, you see people in India, right, the sacred cow.
People make all kinds of graven images of animals and bow down to them and worship them
all throughout history.
And today we have people who exalt animals above human beings or even just to a level
where they don't belong.
Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9 in the New Testament.
Because again, we see that these are Old Testament commandments, but the New Testament
teaches these same things.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, it says in verse number 9 of 1 Corinthians 9, for it is written
in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the
corn.
Now, this is not a commandment that we're looking at tonight.
It's going to come later in the law of Moses.
But he says here at the end of verse 9, does God take care for oxen?
He's asking a question.
Did God make this commandment that says, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn?
Because he just really cares about oxen.
That's what he's asking.
Does God care about oxen?
Does God take care for oxen?
Watch this.
Or saith he it all together for our sakes.
For our sakes, no doubt this is written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and that
he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.
See, even when God has a law in the Bible that seems to protect animals, the Bible says
it's written all together for our sakes, meaning 100% for us, not because God cares about animals.
Well, God just really cares about the animal too and wants to say, no, it's all together
for us.
And we need to realize that human beings have a never-dying soul, human beings are made
in the image of God, and animals are not.
And we need to not let this world twist us on that.
Now, I'm not against having pets.
We have some pets.
We have a dog.
We have a little kitten now.
That was my idea.
We have chickens, you know, we have a rooster, you know, don't tell the city of Tempe.
But anyway, you know, we, you know, we have pets.
We have animals.
And you know, we treat our animals nicely.
But we don't call them our children.
We don't call them our babies, because they're not, okay?
And honestly, you think I'm just making this stuff up.
You know, I remember when I used to have XM satellite radio when I used to drive a lot
before my Hyundai Sonata gave up the ghost, I'd be driving down the road and flipping
through the channels on the XM radio.
And there was a radio channel called Animal Radio.
This was the theme song of Animal Radio.
Animals are people too, Animal Radio.
Okay, that was the theme song.
And then, I remember when I'd drive through the city of Los Angeles, there'd be billboards
that would say, you know, animals are children too.
Love them, don't abandon them.
No, they're not children.
No, they're not people.
No, they're not made in the image of God.
Now, I heard people say the most bizarre things.
For example, there was a story in the news or something about some guy who kicked a squirrel
off a cliff.
Did anybody hear about that one?
Yeah, hands all over the building.
This guy, he was just fooling around and just kicked a squirrel off the edge of a cliff.
You know?
And here's what they said.
You know, they were talking about how the FBI needs to investigate, we need to open
it, you know.
And here's what they said too.
Here's what a lot of people said.
Listen to me now.
They said kick him off the edge of the cliff.
Now look, what kind of a sick, disgusting world do we live in where people want to kick
a human being off the edge of a cliff because he kicked a stupid squirrel off the edge of
a cliff?
That is not biblical.
That is garbage.
So, you know, and I don't tolerate it.
I don't want to hear it.
I'm not going to sit here and act like it's normal when people want to kill a human being
because of what they did to an animal.
It's an animal.
Get over it.
And that's not a biblical teaching.
It's part of our sick society that elevates animals to people's deaths.
And then you know what it does?
It reduces us to animals.
They tell us we're animals.
They tell us we're mammals today, homo sapiens.
You know?
No!
We're men.
We're in the image of God.
We're not on the level with a squirrel.
I'd rather kill a thousand squirrels and save that man's life because he's a human
being.
He's in the image of God.
All throughout the Bible we see, and I don't have time to turn to all the places, what
about where Jesus wanted to save one man who had the legion of demons within him?
One man.
And you know what he did?
He sent 2,000 pigs running off the edge of a cliff.
2,000 pigs ran off the edge of a cliff.
They all died.
Talk about kicking a squirrel off the edge of a cliff.
Jesus kicked 2,000 pigs off the edge of a cliff to save one person.
So where are you getting your beliefs?
From the Bible?
Or from the world that's brainwashing you to worship animals?
Okay.
And people say, you know, I saw somebody left their dog in the car.
That blankety blank blank.
You know what?
You're in your own business.
Get over it.
Oh, it's so cruel.
It's their dog.
You protect your dog.
You treat your dog well.
That's great.
But you know what?
That dog is their property.
My dog is my property.
My chickens are my property.
They're not my children.
They're not members of my family.
They're my property.
And I'm going to do what I want with my property.
I don't even take my dog in the car.
So, you know, I wouldn't even let my dog in my car, let alone leave it in the car on
a hot day.
But let me tell you something.
That's my property.
I'll do what I want with it.
And you need to learn to mind your own business.
We live in a free country, I thought, or do we live in some country of communist snitches
where everybody's out to make sure everybody's following the rules?
You know, if I saw a human being locked in a hot car, you know, I'd break the window
and save the child.
If I saw a dog in there, you know what?
That's their problem.
That's their property.
That's their business.
Stop worshipping animals.
Now, yeah, the Bible says, you know, the righteous man regarded the life of his beast, but the
tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
So where does that say that I'm supposed to go around condemning people because of how
they treat their property, their animals?
It doesn't say that at all.
And so get over it.
And you know what?
When you eat animals, they have to die before you can eat them.
Well, they should be tranquilized first.
Why?
So you can eat a bunch of drugs in your meat?
I mean, think about it.
Do you want to eat a bunch of meat that's filled with drugs?
You can't tranquilize animals before you kill them because then you eat drugs.
I remember the first time I watched a pig slaughtered in Hungary and they said, we're
going to tranquilize it and then kill it.
You know, I expected a hypodermic needle.
They pulled out a sledgehammer.
That was the, they said, we're going to tranquilize it.
Boom.
You know, and it was tranquilized.
And then they slit its throat.
Sorry, that's how you, that's how you get the meat.
And that's actually more humane than the way they used to do it.
When my wife was a kid, you know how they did it when my wife was a kid?
They just stab it in the neck.
She rode the back of it while it was bleeding out.
You know, but I, but you know what?
There's probably people out there who think she should be kicked off a cliff.
You know what I mean?
Because of the perverse society that we live in.
Hey, I'm with God.
We own the animals.
They're our property.
Subdue them.
Dominate them.
Lord over them.
Eat them.
But anyway, all right, let's look at the third.
We could spend all night on that commandment.
That commandment sounds pretty good right now.
But anyway, let's go to the third commandment.
Go to Genesis chapter two, verse 24.
Genesis chapter two, verse 24.
I take all these commandments seriously.
If they weren't serious, they wouldn't even be in the Bible.
These are important.
We need to learn these things.
Look at the third commandment.
Genesis 2, 24 says this, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.
That's a commandment.
Now, are there exceptions to this?
Sure there are.
There are exceptions to other commandments in the Bible also.
You know, we take the whole scripture in total to get the big picture of what God expects
from His commandments.
But you know what?
In general, that is a commandment that God does tell us to be married.
In the New Testament, He says, Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have
her own husband.
And He said again in 1 Timothy 5, I will therefore that the younger women marry.
That's God's will, that they marry, bear children, guide the house.
God commands us to leave father and mother, and to cleave unto our wife, and to be one
flesh.
That is a command of God.
Are there exceptions to that?
Yes.
You know, the Apostle Paul talked about certain people who have a certain gift of God where
they just don't really desire to be married.
They just want to just serve God with their lives, and they don't want to get married.
But let me tell you something.
It's probably less than 1%.
You know, 99 point whatever percent of us need to get married.
Okay.
And again, other people have different circumstances and so forth.
The exception proves the rule.
It's still a commandment when he says, Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and
shall cleave unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
Let's go to the fourth commandment, Genesis chapter 9.
Flip over to Genesis chapter 9.
We're going to find a few more commandments in Genesis 9.
Genesis 9, 4, we have a commandment given.
Not to eat flesh with blood.
Not to eat blood in our meat.
But that the blood should be removed from the meat.
And he says in verse 4 there, But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof,
shall ye not eat.
Therefore, we should not eat things like blood tacos.
You know, you go to Mexico, and they'll make tacos, and sometimes they'll have blood sprinkled
on.
You know, we should not eat that, because God says don't eat it with the blood.
Not much else to say about that.
Look at verse number 6.
Here's another commandment.
This is what I find to be the fifth commandment given in the Mosaic law.
It says, Whoso shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image
of God made he man.
Now this is different than the commandment not to murder.
This is different than the commandment that says thou shalt not kill, and here's why.
This is not a commandment not to kill.
This is a commandment to execute the one who does kill.
To execute the murderer.
Everybody see that?
It says, Whoso shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image
of God made he man.
This is where God is commanding the authorities to kill those who murder.
To execute the murderer today.
That's a commandment that has been given here in Genesis 9, verse 6.
Now I do not believe that this has been disanoled in the New Testament.
I don't believe there's anything that teaches that.
I think that a lot of people will, of course, try to bring up the story of John chapter
8, with the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus says, He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her.
And they'll take that to say, see, Jesus just abolished the death penalty across the board.
That's not what he was doing in that story whatsoever.
If you get the context of the story, they came to Jesus, and the Bible says their goal
was to tempt him.
Now can you think of another time when they wanted to tempt him?
Where they brought him the money and said, hey, are you going to pay taxes?
Should we give tribute to Caesar?
They're trying to get him in trouble with the law by getting him to say, hey, don't
give tribute to Caesar.
Then they're going to go accuse him to Caesar.
They're going to go accuse him of the Romans.
Well if you read the book of John, a little bit later on in the book of John, it's very
clear when the Bible says that it was not lawful for the Jews to put anyone to death.
Because remember, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus.
They couldn't put anyone to death legally.
So they had to go to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and say, we have a law, and by our
law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God.
And they said, and basically Pontius Pilate said, well, take he him and judge him according
to your law.
Just go ahead and do it yourself.
And they said, nope, we can't, because we're not allowed to put anyone to death.
It's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.
So think about this now.
The children of Israel, this has nothing to do with Old Testament or New Testament,
the children of Israel were under the laws of Rome.
So they had to follow those laws.
They didn't have the power to put people to death whenever they wanted.
They had to follow the laws of the land.
And so coming to Jesus saying, well Moses said that this woman should be put to death,
what do you say?
If he says, let's put her to death, they're going to accuse him of the Romans.
And if he says, let's not put her to death, they're going to say, he's contradicting Moses.
He thinks he knows about it.
So they're trying to get him in a catch-22.
That's what the Pharisees are constantly trying to do.
So he outsmarts them by saying, okay.
He doesn't say don't do it.
He just says, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast his stone at her.
Just to basically put the ball in their court, just to shut them up, kind of like he did
with the coin where he says, well, you know, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's,
render unto God that which is God.
Jesus just always had a smarter answer than their games that they were trying to play
and the tricks that they were trying to play to get him in trouble.
And then when all the accusers were gone away, Jesus says, you know, is there no one here
to condemn you?
Well, neither do I condemn thee, go thy way and sin no more.
Another great thing about that story just shows Jesus' power to forgive sins.
You know, it's another great lesson there.
But that doesn't mean that we should just have total anarchy where basically just no
one is punished.
Because you know what, people who don't believe in the death penalty, they don't say just
don't punish.
Find me someone who's against the death penalty that just says, just don't punish.
Just let them go free.
You know what they'll say?
What do they say?
Lock them in a cage.
Where's that in the Bible?
You know what I mean?
But so the thing is, if you look at God's law, and if we were to go through and read
right now Genesis through Deuteronomy, all of God's law, there's no prison.
There's no cage.
Because prison is not a biblical concept.
So this idea of, oh, well, in the New Testament is prison.
What in the world?
Show me that in the New Testament, show me prison.
There's no prison.
So if you think that we should abolish the death penalty, basically what you're saying
is just no, you know, let's just descend into anarchy, I guess.
Doesn't even make sense.
Because how do you punish the murderer?
If you don't give him any punish, we're going to go into anarchy and violence.
That's what we saw happen before the flood, where the whole earth was filled with violence
because there was no death penalty.
That's why the death penalty is even being instituted in Genesis 9, to avoid that happening
again.
And obviously, God doesn't want us in the New Testament to live in a place where people
are just being killed and slaughtered and there's no consequences.
This whole idea of putting people in prison is very inhumane.
It destroys people's lives.
It's not a righteous, especially when they put people in solitary confinement.
It makes them go insane.
It's not a humane punishment.
The punishments of the Bible are better and make more sense.
And so we see here the punishment to put to death those who shed man's blood.
One who would kill a man should be killed, according to the Bible.
And again, that's not something for us to take into our hands because we're not living
under the Romans but we're living under the United States, which is similar to the Romans.
And so basically, we have to follow the laws of our land.
It's not our job to take things into our own hand and decide, well hey, this person killed,
we're going to make sure they die.
No, we're supposed to lead that to the powers that be.
But biblically speaking, if our government were doing its job, they would put to death
those who commit first degree murder.
Because later, this is clarified in the book of Exodus as being a premeditated murder,
not just a crime of passion, second degree type murder.
So that's the, what commandment was that?
That was number five.
Go to chapter 15, go to chapter number 15.
So so far, we've seen commandment number one, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
earth.
Commandment number two, subdue the earth and have dominion over all animals.
Commandment number three was to leave father and mother and cleave unto your wife.
Commandment number four, do not eat flesh with the blood.
Commandment number five, who shew shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
Now commandment number six, a lot of people would scoff at this as a commandment, but
I believe it's a commandment because of the fact that if you read through Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, you're going to see that this is repeated so many
times.
God keeps saying this and then all through the rest of the Bible, He keeps saying it.
And then all through the New Testament, He keeps on saying it.
It's a command.
Look at Genesis 15.
It says in verse one, after the these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham and
of Israel saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.
You don't have to turn there, but in Genesis 26, 24, it says, and the Lord appeared unto
him the same night and said, I'm the God of Abraham, thy father.
Fear not, for I am with thee and will bless thee and multiply thy seed for my servant
Abraham.
The command of God throughout the Bible is fear not.
Fear not.
And just to prove to you that fear is a sin, unless it's a very small case of the proper
fear toward God, the only legitimate fear, think about Revelation 21.8.
When he's listing the sins of those who will go to hell, he says, but the fearful and unbelieving.
Well how can being fearful be a sin if fear not is not a commandment?
So although most would skip that and not count it as a commandment, to do so would be folly
because later on he's condemning people for having fear.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for
thou art with me.
The only legitimate fear that the Bible ever teaches from Genesis to Revelation is fear
God and keep his commandments.
That's it.
The only type of fear that we used to have is fear God.
He says, fear not them that kill the body.
He says, do not fear what man shall do unto you.
Don't fear them.
Don't fear your enemies.
Don't fear, look, just fear the Lord only.
So there's a lot of fear in our life that's sinful.
And you say, well what do I do when I'm afraid?
Well David said, what time I'm afraid I'll trust in thee.
And honestly, whenever I find myself experiencing fear, and it's the wrong kind of fear, it's
not a fear of the Lord, it's a fear of something else, you know, I quote scripture that tells
me not to fear.
You know, I remember just being in some really rough areas in the middle of the night, back
when I used to work in South Chicago, and quoting, you know, yea though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.
Because you know, in the flesh, it's fearful, because the danger is real, when you're in
the murder capital of the world, walking around at night.
But you've got to trust the Lord to give you that physical protection.
The angel of the Lord, who campeth round about them in fear.
Not saying to be reckless, but being fearful is not a spiritual condition.
The Bible says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a
sound mind.
Number 17, and this is another one that some would scoff at or not count at, but remember
they pass over a lot of the weightier matters of the law.
Genesis 17, another great commandment, in verse number 1 is this, and when Abram was
ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the almighty
God, and these three words, walk before me, and be thou perfect.
So commandment number 7 is the commandment to walk before God.
Now a lot of people might look at this and say, is that really a commandment?
But did you know that this concept of walking before God is mentioned almost twenty times
in the Old Testament?
In fact, there are a lot of scriptures on this.
Why don't you, we don't have time to turn to all of them.
How about if you turn over to 2 Chronicles chapter 6, flip over to 2 Chronicles chapter
6.
While you're turning over there, let me read for you some other verses.
Genesis 24, 38 says, but thou shalt go unto my father's house, and my kindred, and take
a wife unto my son.
And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me.
And he said unto me, the Lord before whom I walk, do you see that?
Before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way, and thou shalt
take a wife for my son of my kindred and of my father's house.
What does it mean to walk before God?
I'll tell you what it means.
The Bible says trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own
understanding.
Listen to this, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
He said I'm walking before God, and he made my way to prosper.
What does it mean to walk before God?
Obviously anywhere I walk, I am literally before God.
What does it mean to be before, in front of?
Obviously I can't hide from God.
No matter where I walk, I'm technically walking before God.
But the question is, do I realize that?
Whether I think so or not, I'm always walking before God.
But when God says walk before me, he's saying you know walk with the acknowledgement and
the realization that I'm there, that I'm God.
That you are walking before me.
Now look what the Bible says there in 2 Chronicles 6 14.
And said, O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven, nor in the earth,
which keep his covenant, and show his mercy unto thy servants that walk before thee with
all their hearts.
Walking before God with all your heart.
Look at chapter 7, just the next page.
Verse 17, and as for thee, 717, if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked,
and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shall observe my statutes and my
judgments and on and on.
Psalm 116 9 says, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
Genesis 48 15 said, he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and
Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day.
See when God, go back to Genesis 17, when God says, walk before me.
Walk before me.
You know the importance of walking with God.
The Bible said of Enoch that he walked with God.
Noah walked with God.
You know these men, they walked with God.
It's just talking about our walk as the way that we live our lives.
As we walk.
You know, have you heard the expression, you know, your walk walks and your talk talks
but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.
Say that ten times fast.
So the walk is our action.
The way that we live our lives.
We need to walk before God realizing that the decisions we make should be made in the
acknowledgement of God.
Acknowledging his presence, acknowledging his lordship, acknowledging his commandments.
That's what it means to walk before God.
It's an important commandment.
Walk before me.
But then in the latter half of that verse we find the eighth commandment which is be
thou perfect.
At the end of that verse there, because not only does he say walk before me, he also says
be thou perfect.
And again, this is not the only time this commandment is found.
You can find this in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus says, be ye therefore perfect, even
as your father was seven is perfect.
What does it mean to be perfect?
Unfortunately, today when we hear the word perfect, we think it means to be sinless and
without error.
Well, that'd be impossible.
Nobody's sinless.
There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
But when he says be perfect, he means to be complete, okay?
For example, in James 1 4 it says, but let patience have a perfect work that you may
be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Perfect and entire, entire means complete.
If I said, you know, the entire building, I'm talking about the whole building.
Be perfect.
What does it mean to be perfect?
It means to not just obey the Lord in certain areas of your life, not just be Christian
in certain aspects of your life, but that actually every area of your life would be
in accordance with God's word.
Not just one who reads the Bible but doesn't go to church.
You go soul winning, but you live a sinful and worldly life.
No, one that has the whole package, one who is in church, reading the Bible, doing the
soul winning, living a clean life.
Not to say that you're without sin, but that you have the whole package of a Christian
life.
That's what it means to be perfect, to be complete in him.
That's the eighth commandment.
Commandment number nine, go to Genesis 17.
I might get through all 13 of these tonight.
I'd like to.
Cranking through these.
But the ninth commandment is for every male to be circumcised.
That is the ninth commandment that we find in the book of Genesis.
Go to chapter 17 verse 10.
It says, this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after
thee.
Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant
betwixt me and you.
And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations,
and he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of
thy seed, he that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money must needs
be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
So this covenant right here of circumcision is a commandment to circumcise every single
child of the eighth day.
Now there are many people who believe that this is something that we should still practice
today.
Now out of all the commandments that I've given you so far, I believe that all of them
apply to us today.
None of them have been repealed in the New Testament.
This is the first one we get to that is not something that we practice in the New Testament.
Now go to Galatians.
Let me show you that quickly, Galatians.
Because as I said, we follow the Old Testament commandments unless they've been specifically
changed in the New Testament.
This is one that has been specifically changed.
You say, well, you know, Pastor Anderson, you read it right there, it's an everlasting
covenant.
Here's the thing.
The covenant made with Abraham was an everlasting covenant.
Now let me tell you something.
The Mosaic covenant, not an everlasting covenant.
The Mosaic covenant is no longer in effect.
The Mosaic, you know, because the Bible makes it clear that the Old Testament, you know,
is something that is gone and that we're into the New Testament.
But this is a different testament made with Abraham.
Covenant and testament are interchangeable words, by the way, they both mean the same
thing.
The Abrahamic covenant is an eternal covenant, everlasting covenant, because the seed of
Abraham is Jesus, according to Galatians 3, and I don't have time to go into that.
But of course that covenant's eternal that he made with Abraham, because it's of Jesus,
you know, because Jesus is the seed of Abraham.
We inherit all that in the New Testament.
It's all part and parcel of the New Testament and will continue for eternity, okay?
That's another sermon in and of itself.
But let's just specifically look at circumcision.
Galatians 2, 3 says, But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled
to be circumcised, and that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in
privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us
into bondage.
The Bible's real clear here that Titus did not need to be circumcised.
Now the reason it brings up the fact that he's a Greek, a lot of people misinterpret
that and say, well, you know, that just means that if you're Greek, you don't have to, and
if you're Jew, you have to.
Well, in that case, you'd have to have a genealogy to figure out whether you're Jew or Greek
in 2014.
And, you know, that doesn't make any sense.
The reason he brings up the fact that he's Greek is just an explanation of why he's not
circumcised.
If he would have been Jewish, he's already circumcised.
But because Titus was a Greek, he's not circumcised.
Now thank God for Titus that Paul figured this out, because back earlier in Paul's ministry,
he made the mistake of circumcising Timothy, you know, and it's like, oh man, what was
that all about?
He didn't have to do that.
Titus is like, yes, finally, Paul got this doctrine right, and then, you know, that circumcision
is not of the New Testament.
But circumcision is discussed very much.
Look at chapter 5, verse 1.
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage.
Now in chapter 2, he talked about they wanted to circumcise Titus because they're trying
to bring us all into bondage.
Now he's saying stand fast in the liberty, verse 2.
Behold I, Paul, saying to you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Now does that sound like God wants us circumcised in the New Testament?
If he says, if you're circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Behold I, Paul, saying to you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, you're fallen
from grace.
Now this isn't saying that if you're circumcised, you can't be saved.
But what he's saying is that if these people are going to go out and get circumcised, thinking
that that's part of salvation, because there were people that are teaching, except you
can't be circumcised, you cannot be saved, Acts 15.
And so he's saying if you think it's Jesus plus circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
It's not Jesus plus circumcision, it's not Jesus plus baptism.
It's not Jesus plus anything, it's Jesus.
It's faith, it's not works, okay?
Now look at chapter 6, and again there are many other verses in chapter 5 that prove
that same truth, but for sake of time, look at chapter 6 in verse 12.
As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised,
only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
You see that?
He's saying that these are bad people who want to get you circumcised.
For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised
that they should glory in your flesh.
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
It's clear, doesn't matter whether you're circumcised or uncircumcised.
And if you're going out and getting circumcised because you think that's part of getting to
heaven, you're going to hell, because you're not trusting Jesus alone.
And there are Hebrew roots movements today that want you circumcised, they want to glory
in your flesh.
And let me tell you something, I do not circumcise my children.
Now when I was growing up, everybody was getting circumcised, because it was just, you know,
some kind of, I don't know, Jewish conspiracy or something, you know, where everybody in
America, because my grandfather's generation, nobody got circumcised.
And then all of a sudden in the 40s, 50s, 60s, they just started, Christians started
circumcising everybody.
You know, it's really not biblical.
And so we need to stop doing that in my opinion.
Now I'm not one of these that says, oh, circumcision is evil.
No, because it was, for that time, it was, you know, what God prescribed, there's nothing
wrong with it.
Look, he didn't say it's bad to be circumcised.
He said neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything.
But the reason that I think we as Christians should choose to not circumcise is because
we're under the new covenant and God makes it real clear that it's a Judaizing type of
a thing to try to bring us back into bondage to keep circumcising.
We shouldn't do it.
That's where I stand.
Anyway, back to Genesis.
That was commandment, I've got to keep all these commandments straight, but that was
commandment number nine.
Commandment number ten, this one's a key, folks.
This is an important one.
Pay attention, this is very important.
Genesis 17, 14 says this, and the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not
circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people.
He hath broken my covenant.
So in the Old Testament, this is very important, in the Old Testament, if a man was not circumcised,
doesn't the Bible say he's cut off from his people?
Everybody read that real carefully.
I want to make sure everybody gets this.
Genesis 17, 14.
Okay, so let me ask this.
If you're just born of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you're just the chosen people, right?
No matter what, right?
Isn't that what we're taught today?
Oh, man, if you're descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they're God's chosen people,
and then you say, well, they don't believe in Jesus, doesn't matter.
They're beloved for the Father's sake, which I agree that they're beloved, but that don't
make them God's chosen people.
Being loved and being the chosen aren't the same thing.
Hey, in order to be God's chosen people in the Old Testament, it wasn't enough to be
born of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
That was not enough because you also had to be what?
You also had to be circumcised.
And what happens if you're not circumcised?
Are you still, oh, you're still God's chosen people, right, if you're not circumcised?
No way.
Think about that.
Let that sink in.
Now, now listen to these scriptures.
You don't have to turn to these.
How about when God said in Deuteronomy 10, 16, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your
heart and be no more stiff-necked.
Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart
of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that
thou mayest live.
Jeremiah 4, 4, circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart,
ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire and burn
that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings.
Behold, the days come, this is Jeremiah 9, 25, saith the Lord, that I will punish all
them which are circumcised.
He said I'm going to punish the circumcised with them that are uncircumcised.
Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the
utmost corners that dwell in the waters for all these nations are uncircumcised and all
the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.
He said they're physically uncircumcised, all the house of Israel are uncircumcised
in the heart.
And again, other scriptures, Ezekiel 44 says the same thing, Acts 7 says the same thing.
I don't have time to turn there.
What's the point, folks, is that even in the Old Testament to be one of God's chosen people,
being born of the ethnicity wasn't enough.
It was never just a racial thing.
You had to be circumcised.
In fact, people of other ethnicities could get circumcised and join the nation and then
they're a full-fledged part of God's chosen people.
Get circumcised, keep the Passover, you're one of the people.
But wait a minute, if you're not circumcised, you're not one of the people.
But here's the thing.
In the New Testament, didn't we establish that that's not a New Testament, right?
So what about the circumcision of the heart, is that a New Testament teaching?
Okay, so are the Jews living in Israel today circumcised of heart?
Because the Bible says, listen to me, this is key, Philippians 3 verse 3, for we are
the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh.
What does it mean to be circumcised of heart when you worship God in spirit?
What does it mean to be circumcised of heart?
To rejoice in Christ Jesus.
What does it mean to be circumcised in the heart?
To have no confidence in the flesh.
What kind of confidence in the flesh?
Oh, like that the works of your flesh are going to save you, the works that you do.
What does it mean to have no confidence in the flesh?
Oh, to think that because your flesh is Jewish flesh, you're just automatically saved.
Folks, to sit there and say they're automatically God's chosen people because of their ethnicity,
that didn't even fly in the Old Testament.
You had to be circumcised.
And in the New Testament, it's a circumcision of the heart.
They don't cut it.
They don't, you know, no pun intended, but they don't cut it.
Okay, now, the last three, go to Genesis 35.
Now the last three commandments of Genesis, you know, I'm going to go and count these
even though they're not coming out of the mouth of God.
If you want to just talk about commandments that came out of the mouth of God in Genesis,
you'd have 10 commandments, you know, and it's not the 10 that you're used to.
But these are the 10 commandments of Genesis.
Now these three do not come out of the mouth of God, but here's why I will count them.
Because later, these things all come out of the mouth of God.
In Genesis 35, they're coming out of the mouth of a prophet of God.
Therefore they are the commandments of God because number one, they're coming out of
the mouth of a prophet of God, and number two, God himself will later speak all three
of these commandments.
So if God's going to speak all three of these later, and right now we're getting them from
the mouth of the prophet Jacob, I say that these three should be included.
I say there are 13 commandments of God found in Genesis.
These are the final three tonight.
This will be the 11th commandment.
Genesis 35 verse 1 says, And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there,
and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee, when thou fledest from the face
of Esau thy brother.
Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, put away the strange
gods that are among you.
So the 11th commandment there is to put away all strange gods.
Put away all false gods.
This is very similar to have no other gods before me.
But this is saying get rid of all other gods.
Get rid of any competing god.
The 12th commandment is found right after it.
It says put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean.
Be clean.
Now I count be clean as a commandment because later, many times in the Mosaic law, God's
going to command the children of Israel to be clean.
But not only that, even in the New Testament, there's a commandment to be clean.
Second Corinthians, you don't have to turn there, but Second Corinthians 7 verse 1 says,
having therefore these promises dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
So the Bible does teach cleanliness.
Cleansing our flesh and cleansing our spirit.
And then the 13th commandment given here is in verse 2, he says, change your garments.
Change your clothes.
And again, the reason I include this is because throughout the books of Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, there will be many commandments to change your clothes.
And again, it has to do with being clean, being sanitary.
He often tells them in this situation, you need to change your clothes, wash your clothes,
bathe your flesh in water, and so forth.
Over and over and over again.
I could give you a long list of examples.
For example, when the husband and wife come together, they're supposed to wash themselves
and put on fresh clothes when they're done.
All different manner, when they slaughter an animal.
Change your clothes, wash your clothes, wash your flesh.
Now that is another commandment that I would put in the category of being an Old Testament
only commandment, the one about washing your clothes.
Now don't get me wrong here.
I'm not saying that you don't need to wash your clothes.
But here's the thing.
In the Old Testament though, there was a ceremonial washing of clothes.
There was a very rigid rule about when to wash your clothes.
Does everybody understand the difference?
Now obviously, even though we're not under some of these commandments in the New Testament,
there's still great principles to live by.
For example, we don't observe the Sabbath in the New Testament.
And that's clearly been done away in Christ.
See Colossians chapter 2, other scriptures, but that's the main one that I'd point you
to, that we don't observe the Sabbath.
But wait a minute.
Isn't it just a good principle to rest every seven days, to rest one day?
I mean, even if you just go and buy a book on fitness, buy a book on weightlifting, buy
a book on running, you know, usually all their fitness schedules will always have one day
of rest and seven.
Even professional athletes will usually take one day of rest every seven, just because
it's good for their bodies.
The principle is still there.
It's just not a strict thing of sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, and it's got
to be that certain day, and you've got to religiously observe it every time.
Washing and changing your clothes is a great idea, especially if you're married for the
sake of your spouse.
Be clean and smell good and have fresh clothes on.
And if you're not married, maybe that's part of why you're not married, if you're not observing
this, you know, commandment.
You're like, don't bring me under bondage.
I'm free in Christ.
Why are you bringing me under the law?
Look, you need to read Leviticus and wash your clothes, buddy.
But what I'm saying is that this commandment is one that is an Old Testament commandment.
So out of the 13 commandments that we went through, I would say that three of them were
restrictive to the Old Testament.
That would be circumcising the child, the one who's not circumcised being cut off from
the people, which is a separate commandment, and then the commandment to change your garments.
Those would be three commandments that I would put under the category of Old Testament only.
The other 10, I would say, are universal commandments that would also apply in the New Testament.
Now, it's funny, I looked up after I made my own list, you know, I made my own list
first.
I went through, studied Genesis, made my list of these 13 commandments, you know, next
stop Exodus, but it's going to be a much bigger job.
But I decided to go and look up the Jewish list, see what they got.
So I went to the list and the most respected list is the list by a guy named Maimonides.
Now Maimonides, who's ever heard of Maimonides before?
Couple people, my son.
He's the most famous Jewish philosopher of all time, a medieval Jewish philosopher, looked
to by the Jews as a great thinker and so forth.
The Orthodox rabbi that we interviewed, he had enshrined various copies of Maimonides'
books and he had some of them sealed in Ziploc bags as being, you know, precious artifacts
and so forth.
So he was really serious about Maimonides and that, you know, he's a big name.
Well he codified the 613.
He's one of the people who codified the list of 613.
So I went to Maimonides' list in order of occurrence so that I could see what he had
for Genesis.
He only had two for Genesis.
Now admittedly some of these he has later for Leviticus, but I thought we're doing,
it said in order that they appear in the Torah, so I don't know why he didn't put the circumcision
law in Genesis where it belongs in chapter 17, but whatever.
But anyway, he definitely left out a lot of the commandments that I gave you that are
clearly biblical, but he did list Genesis 1, 28, you know, to have children to be fruitful
and multiply.
He forgot the one about keeping the animals down, he forgot that one.
But go to Genesis 32, 33 because he added one in that I do not believe is a command
of God at all.
And this goes to show you just how with the Jews it's all about their tradition more than
it's about the commandments of God.
Now again, I'm not saying that Maimonides only has two commandments for the whole book
of Genesis because clearly he has circumcision listed, he just has it under Leviticus in
the list that I looked at.
So I'm not saying he skipped over all of these because I haven't gone through his whole list
and I'm not going to until I do my own research first and make my own list.
But I just want to show you this bogus commandment on Maimonides' list.
So right away we know that the 613 figure is not going to be perfectly accurate because
here's a bogus one for Genesis that he lists Genesis 32, 33 where it says, therefore the
children of Israel eat not the sinew which shrank which is upon the hollow of the thigh
unto this day because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and the sinew that shrank.
Now can somebody explain to me where in that verse it says that God told them not to eat
the sinew that shrank?
That's not a command of God, is it?
It's just saying that's something that they did.
Oh, they don't, they're superstitious about that.
They don't eat that sinew.
Or maybe if you don't want to say they're superstitious you could just say, okay, that's
just their tradition.
Well you know what, we have all kinds of traditions in our family.
We have a tradition in our church of having ice cream every time we break the record.
That doesn't make it the command of God, my friend.
And you know, I'm saying that to brace you guys because we broke the record again tonight
and we're not having ice cream again, we're having popcorn instead, alright, because we
don't want to just give you ice cream twice in one day.
But I'm saying, because we did break our Sunday night record tonight, my wife is in for me.
So see how I just build that into my sermon to let you down easy?
But what I'm saying is just because we do something as a tradition doesn't make it a
command of God.
To sit there and say, hey, it's a command of God, it's in the law of Moses, thou shalt
not eat of the sinew of the thigh is not biblical.
He's doing it blindfolded, I don't blame him.
You know, Maimonides did the best he could blindfolded because he's not saved, didn't
believe in Jesus.
So that's why I'm making my own list.
And why am I making my list?
Because honestly, I think that we can learn a lot from this teaching.
And it's, I learned a lot from this study.
And so those are the 13 commands of the book of Genesis, let's bow our heads and have a
word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and for your commandments.
Help us to study to show ourselves approved, Lord, help us to realize which of these commandments
are enforced in the New Testament, and then some of them have been removed, Lord.
And help us to live our lives in a way that would be pleasing to you.
And Lord, the only way we're going to know how to please you and how to love you is if
we know what your commandments are.
And so Lord, please just help us to be fruitful and multiply, to have dominion over the animals
of this world and not let them dominate and rule over us.
Help us to cleave unto our wives and help us to not eat meat with blood in it or do
these other things that you found to be reprehensible, Lord.
Help us to walk before you and be perfect and fear you only and no one else and all
the other things you've given us, Lord, in this book.
Help us to walk in your ways, in Jesus' name we pray.