Men, Deuteronomy chapter number 27, the Bible reads in verse number 1,
And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments
which I command you this day, and it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan
unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set up great stones
and plaster them with plaster, and thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law
when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee.
And we'll continue on in a moment.
But the idea here of writing the laws of God on these giant stones is that they would be
publicly available so that everyone could see what those laws are.
And part of living in a just society is not only having laws that are fair and punishments
that are equitable, but also knowing what those laws are, right?
In an unjust society, you don't really know what the rules are.
You don't know what the laws are.
So how can you even begin to follow them or avoid punishment and so forth?
So the laws are supposed to be readily available for anybody to see them and read them.
Now one of the problems in our society is that the laws are so long that they're literally
impossible for us to read.
You wouldn't be able to, say, put up some stone monuments and put all the laws of the
United States out there on a stone monument.
Even just all the laws of Tempe, let's put them all on a monument.
And so one of the problems with our society is that there are just too many laws.
And there will be one piece of legislation passed by the Senate or the House or whatever,
and it will just be a thousand pages long or 500 pages long.
Even the lawmakers themselves are not even able to read every page of these laws.
And that's an unjust thing.
And it's funny because people complain about God that he has too many laws.
He's too strict.
He has too many rules.
But yet it can all fit in one little leather-bound volume.
You think you could carry around the laws of America in a book like this or the laws
of Tempe or the laws of Phoenix or the laws of Arizona?
No, it'd be giant libraries of laws, okay?
And not only that, but the Bible is not all laws.
You know, a huge amount of the Bible is stories, narrative.
Another large section of the Bible is poetry, praises to God.
I mean, you have all kinds of prophecy and preaching.
The actual law part of it is such that you could literally just get some large stones,
plaster them, and just put a nice giant print of the laws of God.
Everybody can see these are the rules that we need to follow, and everybody's on the
same page.
We know what the rules are, and we know where we stand with God.
So when it says here, you know, you're going to write this law, of course, we don't know
exactly what he means by that as far as write this law.
Is he talking about what he's giving them orally in the book of Deuteronomy?
Is he talking about the laws from the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, all of the
above?
It's hard for us to say exactly what was written down.
But at some point, because obviously these stones no longer exist, but at some point,
you know, these things were publicly available, whatever the law of God was.
I don't believe for one second that it was, you know, the whole books of Genesis through
Deuteronomy that they're writing, because they're not going to put all the narrative
sections and stories.
The whole point is putting the law of God on those stones.
We don't know exactly what was written, but the idea here is just making everybody aware
of what the rules are.
You know, God does not want to leave us in the dark as human beings.
God wants us to know the truth, and that's why he's given us his word.
And when I've talked to people sometimes who aren't really sure about Christianity, they're
not really sure what they believe, they just kind of go through life as an agnostic or
maybe thinking there's a God out there but not really knowing who he is, one of the ways
that I have logic with people sometimes is saying, you know, if God created this world,
wouldn't you think that he would make himself known unto us, that he would reveal himself
to us in some way?
And that's exactly what he has done through the Bible.
God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son.
And so God throughout history has revealed himself and made himself known through a multitude
of prophets in the past, but now we predominantly have the written word of God as our way of
hearing from God.
I mean, we have the entire Bible at our fingertips, and so God has worked throughout history to
deliver the Bible to us, and we have God's word, and there's really no excuse to be ignorant
of the word of God because if you live in the United States of America, you can pick
this thing up at pretty much any corner drugstore or gas station or 7-Eleven or Walmart or Dollar
Tree.
I mean, it's everywhere.
It's easy to get, let alone the electronic versions of it.
And even throughout the rest of the world, even if we were in Timbuktu, we're going to
be able to find a Bible.
I mean, the word of God is out there.
It has been disseminated throughout this world.
And even if many languages do not have the full Bible, they typically at least have the
Gospel of John, Epistle to the Romans, maybe a New Testament.
They have at least the basics.
They have something to start with.
And there are all kinds of missionaries who have gone out there and just translated a
King James on the fly to some guy with a bone in his nose, you know, some kind of a strange
language.
Okay.
And obviously, there are all kinds of obscure languages and dialects in this world.
And so we don't have the Bible in every little dialect, okay.
But if you stop and think about it, depending on how you count, how many languages are there
in the world, right?
It's hard to answer that question because some people lump a lot of things together
into one language and some people want to split everything and say, no, Norwegian and
Swedish are two totally different languages, right, even though they can understand each
other, no issue.
So it's, you know, it's around like 5,000 or something, depending on how you count.
But what's interesting about that is that out of those 5,000 languages, only about a
hundred of them really matter.
And you say, well, that's a bold statement, you know, what kind of a thing to say is that?
Well, the reason that I say that is because only about a hundred languages have any meaningful
literature, you know, or any kind of a literature tradition of books and poetry and scholarship
and whatever.
So, you know, people just kind of talking in some kind of bone in the lows, ooga booga
type language, you know, a lot of those people typically have access to a more major language,
okay.
And you say, well, why are you down on, you know, these super minor languages?
Well, if they have no literary tradition, if they don't have reading and writing, if
they don't have books, if they don't have, you know, that kind of material, well, then
they're going to die.
They're on their, they're already half dead.
They're on their way toward no longer existing.
And obviously, God wants us to study, to show ourselves approved.
And so as God's people, you know, we believe that we as human beings should be literate
people.
We should be able to read and write.
We should be studying.
We should be learning.
And so if you go on Google Translate, there are about a hundred languages, approximately,
on Google Translate.
And those are pretty much the only languages that have any kind of literature tradition
whatsoever.
Now, I'm not saying that that's exactly the parallel, but it pretty much is.
You know, the languages on there are the ones that are significant, okay.
And so the Bible is in all those languages on there.
And of course, many of those languages have many translations of the Bible, and some translations
of the Bible are better than others.
But the bottom line is, in the literate world, the world that actually has books and has
reading and writing, let me tell you something, the Bible exists.
The Bible is out there in all of the tongues that are significant, that have reading and
writing.
The Bible is out there.
And in fact, many languages first get reading and writing because some missionary says,
well, I want to get you the Bible.
You don't read and write.
Let's get you reading and writing your language.
Let's put the Bible in your language.
And so many languages, the first thing ever printed in that language, the first document
ever written down in that language is the Bible in many different languages.
It's been that way with many of the Native American languages, where the first thing
ever written down in their language was a New Testament by some missionary.
And so God's word is available for us to look at and read all over the world.
Just as God wanted his law to be up on a stone publicly, anybody can just walk by and see
what it says, that's the way it is now.
It's not on a stone, but it's better.
It's on our phone.
It's on a tablet.
It's on bookshelves in virtually every single home in America.
It's in every hotel room.
I mean, it's everywhere.
And so God's word is readily available because God wants us to know who he is and he wants
people to come to know Christ.
And so the earth is truly filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the
waters cover the sea, just as the Bible predicted it would be.
And so that, in many ways, has already been fulfilled.
And so the Bible says in verse number four, therefore it shall be when ye be gone over
Jordan.
I guess I didn't read the end of verse three.
It says, a land that floweth with milk and honey is the Lord God that thy fathers have
promised thee.
Verse four, therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up
these stones, which I command you this day, in Mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them
of plaster, and there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of
stones, thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.
Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones, and thou shalt offer
burnt offerings there unto the Lord thy God, and thou shalt offer peace offerings, and
shalt eat there and rejoice before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt write upon the stones
all the words of this law very plainly.
He's saying, look, write it clearly.
Don't do it in some kind of a calligraphy that people are gonna have a hard time reading.
Make it easy for the common man to just walk by and see what's written there.
And so we can all know what the Word of God is.
Now it says here about building the altar to offer sacrifices upon.
Of course, we know that the main place to offer burnt sacrifices in this period is going
to be at the tabernacle.
And there's the brazen altar at the tabernacle, brazen meaning it's made of brass.
And that altar is the main place to offer burnt sacrifices.
But yet God also makes allowance for burnt sacrifices to be offered elsewhere on an altar
of earth or an altar of whole stones.
Now of course, the book of Deuteronomy, we've talked about this, has a big push that God
wants them to be doing their worship of the Lord in a central location.
He wants them to bring their sacrifices to the place where he would choose to put his
name there, which ultimately ends up being Jerusalem.
But the tabernacle, later the temple at Jerusalem, is not the only place where a burnt sacrifice
can take place.
Because think about, for example, Elijah.
He's on Mount Carmel facing off with the prophets of Baal.
There is an altar under the Lord there.
And what does he do?
He repairs the altar of the Lord made of whole stones.
And he offers a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord on the altar.
And God sanctions that sacrifice by bringing down fire from heaven to consume the offering
that's on the altar.
And I say that to say this.
The Jews today claim that they can't do any kind of an animal sacrifice because they don't
have the temple.
But yet the temple was never even God's idea in the first place.
The temple was man's idea.
It was King David that wanted to build a temple under the Lord.
God actually prescribed the tabernacle.
And what's interesting is when you go into the New Testament in the book of Hebrews,
and God's making all the parallels between the old covenant and Christ coming and fulfilling
those rituals of the old covenant, it's all about the tabernacle.
It's not even about the temple.
In the book of Hebrews chapters 9 and 10, it's all about the tabernacle, which was God's
original plan, his original intent.
Now God did sanction the temple.
God did approve of the temple being built.
And he did fill it with his glory in the days of Solomon.
And of course, he sanctioned the second temple that was built in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah
as well.
But the point is this idea that says, well, we can't do an animal sacrifice because we
don't have the temple is bogus.
It's not a legitimate argument.
You could make possibly an argument that says, oh, well, if we're in exile and we're just
kind of scattered everywhere, we're not really able to do the sacrifice because we don't
have the Levites and the priests and whatever we need.
But here's the thing about that is that the Jews, so-called, are back in the land.
And I mean, they even control part of Jerusalem and they've got their fake Levites and priests
and fake everything.
So why aren't they doing animal sacrifices right now?
Well, we don't have the temple.
Do you have chapter and verse on that?
Because I'm seeing altar of whole stones.
I'm seeing an altar of earth.
I'm seeing a tabernacle, which is a portable tent.
I'm seeing that God chose to put his name in Jerusalem, but they're in Jerusalem.
You see, the real reason why they don't do animal sacrifices is because Christ is the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
And Christ has already died on the cross and has already fulfilled the animal sacrifices
of the Old Testament.
So there's no reason for an animal sacrifice.
Now, of course, the Jews don't believe this.
But yet, subconsciously, they must recognize that that's over because here we are in the
New Testament, no more sacrifices.
And even though they reject the Lord Jesus Christ, still somehow they must subconsciously
know that these animal sacrifices just don't make sense anymore.
Now someday, in the end times, I do believe that the animal sacrifices will come back.
And I'm not talking about it a good way, my friend.
I'm talking about Christ rejecting Jews will someday, I believe, rebuild the temple in
Jerusalem and offer the morning and evening sacrifice, which is blasphemous.
It is never of God that there ever be animal sacrifices again because Christ has fulfilled
that once and for all.
But yet, you even have independent fundamental Baptists teaching this absurdity that says,
oh, in the millennial reign of Christ, we're going to be doing animal sacrifices again.
What?
Are you insane?
But it's all part of their regressive, backward-looking dispensationalism where everything starts
regressing and reverting back to the Old Testament.
Wrong.
The New Testament is an eternal testament.
It's eternal covenant.
We are never going back to the Old Covenant.
We are never going back to the Old Testament.
The New Testament goes on forever.
It never ends.
And the Old Testament's done.
It's over.
It's gone.
The Bible says in Hebrews 8, 13, and that he sayeth a new covenant, he had made the
first old.
Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
It's over.
Old Testament is never coming back.
The New Testament is forever.
And so this idea of, oh, we're going to do animal sacrifices again.
You know, again, this kind of eschatology, even though it's probably taught by a lot
of good and well-meaning people who are just confused or have been lied to, you know, it's
perfect for the Antichrist.
Because then it's like, oh, yeah, that's right.
With the Second Coming, there's going to be animal sacrifices again.
You know, and then it's like the Antichrist shows up and he's supposedly the Second Coming
and got animal sacrifices and, oh, the Jews are all getting saved just like they said,
you know, because they're all believing in the Antichrist.
I mean, it's so perfect.
And you wonder, like, do these Bible teachers realize that they're just teeing up things
for the Antichrist because that's pretty much what they're doing with this wrong teaching.
Folks, sound biblical doctrine is that Christ has died on the cross once and when he died,
that veil in the temple was rent and twain and there's no more animal sacrifice.
That stuff's over.
Christ fulfilled that.
It was only imposed on them until Christ came.
And of course, Hebrews is super clear on that.
I'm not going to go in-depth on that right now because it's a whole sermon, but it's
over, friend.
There are no more animal sacrifices because Christ died on the cross.
Bringing it back is blasphemous and if you think about it, you know, animal sacrifices
are like basically implying that Jesus hasn't come yet.
You know, when the Jews build their temple over in the Middle East and start offering
animal sacrifices, you know, the implication there, it's like Christ didn't already do
this.
So we're still looking for the Messiah.
And they really are looking for another Messiah, which is Antichrist, which means in the place
of Christ, replacing Christ.
So if you think about it, even offering animal sacrifices is, in a sense, Antichrist because
it's in the place of Christ, this other thing, this other animal that we're killing here,
you know, when it's supposed to be, no, Christ was the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sin of the world.
And he died once and it's over.
And then, of course, so in the early stages of the end times, you're going to have this
kind of Antichrist animal sacrificial cult.
And then later in the end times, you're going to have a literal Antichrist saying that he's
the second coming of Christ.
This is both not of God.
It's both wicked.
But the Bible says without the shedding of blood is no remission, right?
I mean, in the Old Testament, it says that God has given the blood upon the altar to
make an atonement for their souls.
So how do the Jews have atonement today if they have no blood of the altar?
We know where our atonement is coming from.
It's coming from the blood of Jesus Christ.
But where are the Jews getting their atonement?
Because I don't see them doing an animal sacrifice.
They have no blood and without shedding of blood is no remission because almost all things
are by the law purged with blood.
And if you read the book of Leviticus, it's a lot of animal sacrifices.
It's just chapter after chapter after chapter.
And yet what's funny is if you go to a Jewish synagogue, they read through the book of Leviticus
as part of their Torah reading.
But here's what they say, well, you know, if you read about doing it, it's like you
did it.
That's what they literally say.
So it's like, well, instead of doing it, we just read about it.
And it's like we did it in our mind.
Whatever.
Well, you're also have an atonement in your mind, but that's the only place you have atonement
because you don't have it in reality.
All right.
That was a rabbit trail.
Let's get back on track here.
So it says in verse number nine and Moses and the priests, the Levites spake unto all
Israel, saying, Take heed and hearken to Israel.
This day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God and do his commandments and
his statutes, which I command thee this day.
And Moses charged the people the same day, saying, These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim
to bless the people when ye are come over Jordan, Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar
and Joseph and Benjamin.
These shall stand upon the Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, Gad and Asher and Zebulun, Dan and
Naphtali.
You see, today's Christianity wants all blessing and let's just not talk about the cursing.
But yet the Bible talks about blessings and cursings.
And God's word consists of blessings and cursings.
And so both are important.
He's got six of the tribes representing one, six of the tribes representing the other,
and they're going to announce the blessings and cursings.
And as we get into this next week in Deuteronomy 28, you will find that there are way more
curses than blessings.
Blessing section is small.
The cursing section is what, triple the size?
Okay, because of the fact that God is really serious about punishing sin and curses are
just as important as blessings.
And if I only preach the blessings, then I'm not preaching all the counsel of God.
I'm not doing my job.
It says in verse 14, the Levites shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a
loud voice, cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination
unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and put it in a secret place.
And all the people will answer and say, Amen.
Now there are 12 curses here in this list, okay?
So we have a list of 12 curses.
The Levites announce the curse, and then all the people say, Amen.
They're agreeing to it, is what they're doing when they say, Amen.
They're saying, this is true.
We agree, Amen.
They're putting their stamp of approval upon it.
They're agreeing to the terms of this covenant, becoming the people of God, the state.
Now what is with this list?
What is this list about?
Well, if you go over the list carefully, I think the thing that really jumps out at you
is what all the things on this list seem to have in common, is that they're typically
stuff that you do secretly.
That's the thing that keeps being emphasized.
You're hiding it, you're secret, you're doing this stuff, but these are not really public
sins that you would be just flaunting openly.
Even the prohibition on idolatry says, you make a graven or molten image and put it in
a secret place.
So that tends to be the theme that we're going to see with these 12 things.
Of course, the final curse is just a catch all that says in verse 26, cursed be he that
confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them and all the people shall say, Amen.
That is probably the most important verse in this whole chapter.
This is, of course, the verse that the Apostle Paul's going to quote in Galatians 3 and it's
very significant.
So that's probably the most important verse of the chapter.
Let's look at some of these individual curses.
We're talking about making an idol and putting it in a secret place because they're supposed
to be worshiping the Lord, they're God's people, no false gods allowed, no idolatry allowed.
And so they're supposed to be a society that would not allow this to be happening publicly.
So therefore the only way that people would be worshiping idols would be doing it secretly.
Because remember, if a city of Israel kind of breaks off and starts worshiping false
gods openly, I mean, they're supposed to go just kill everybody and burn the place
to the ground.
And again, this is not to say that we don't believe in religious freedom in 2024.
In the New Testament, it's a different story.
The Old Testament, God had a special nation, the physical nation of Israel, and so he enforced
that they only worship the Lord because that was the whole point of having a nation of
Israel.
If everybody in the nation of Israel is not going to worship the Lord, then what's the
point of it even existing, okay?
Whereas in the New Testament, that's not the case.
God does not have a special physical nation where everybody is supposed to be worshiping
the Lord, where it's God's chosen people are, say, America or Mexico or something.
It's instead a spiritual nation that's just made up of all believers.
So therefore, there's no imposing of our belief on other people in the New Testament.
There's no forcing anyone to be a Christian because if they're not a Christian, then they're
just not part of the nation.
If they are a Christian, then they're part of the nation.
It's a spiritual nation.
And so, you know, I do not believe that people in America should be forced to be Christian.
If I could pass a law, if I could be somehow king and dictator of Arizona or the U.S. or
something, you know, I wouldn't make a law that says, hey, everybody has to go to a Baptist
church because then you'd just be filling the Baptist church with unbelievers.
Why would I want a bunch of unbelievers coming to the church?
I want the church to be predominantly consisting of saved people, okay?
Because obviously it's great if a few unsaved people come in so that we can reach them and
win them to Christ.
But when 51% or more of the church is unsaved, yeah, that's a big problem.
You know, even if 30, 40% of the church is unsaved, think about all of the garbage that's
coming in, all the false doctrines and stuff.
And this is why these state-run churches are apostate, because they brought everybody
in.
You know, the Roman Catholic Church is, oh, Christianity is the official religion of the
Roman Empire.
So you're just bringing in all the pagans and guess what?
You didn't reach them.
They reached you.
They made you a pagan idolater like them.
And that's what the Roman Catholic Church is.
It's a pagan idolatrous cult that has nothing to do with biblical Christianity.
It's a false pagan idolatrous religion.
And so in the time of this book, you know, with the people of God, Old Testament, nation
of Israel, then, you know, everybody in the nation of Israel has to worship the Lord or
they need to get out, because it's that physical nation and it's being enforced.
But there's a curse on the guy who, even in spite of the public prohibition, is secretly
worshiping idols and false gods on his own.
That man is cursed by God.
God will deal with that guy, since he's doing it privately.
Verse 16, cursed be he that seteth light by his father or his mother, and all the people
shall say amen.
Now what does that mean, you know, cursed be he that seteth light by his father or his
mother?
The meaning of saying this would be like, that maketh light of his father or mother.
Basically, this is just saying, cursed is he that doesn't honor his father and his mother.
Because one of the key commandments in the Ten Commandments is honor thy father and mother.
And so cursed be the man that seteth light by his father or his mother is saying that
he makes light of them, looks at them lightly, despises them, dishonors them.
So somebody who dishonors, despises, disrespects their parent, even in their heart, is cursed
by God.
Okay.
We need to honor our father and mother, reverence our parents.
Every man shall fear his father and mother, the Bible says in Leviticus 19.
The New Testament says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may
be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
But cursed be he that seteth light by his father or his mother, and all the people shall
say amen.
Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark.
Again, this is something that you secretly do, where you're trying to kind of move the
border between your property and your neighbor's property in order to enlarge your portion.
That's something that you're doing secretly.
See how this is all things that are probably secret or private, at least you're trying
to keep them a secret.
Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way, and all the people shall say
amen.
Right?
This is just a malicious, evil thing to do, I guess just messing with people who are handicapped
is obviously wicked in the sight of God, cursing the deaf, or putting a stumbling block before
the blind.
We're supposed to have compassion for those people and not harm them.
Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way, all the people shall say amen.
Cursed be he that perverted the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow, and
all the people shall say amen.
Again, God cares about the people who are less advantaged, people that are dealing with
serious challenges in their lives, of being an orphan, or being a widow, or being a foreigner,
and they're struggling.
God wants us to love and have compassion on such people.
The Bible says in verse number 20, cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife, because
he uncovered his father's skirt, and all the people shall say amen.
Again, the Bible has this really strong prohibition on a father and son ever being with the same
woman.
This is just something that's considered perverted in the sight of God, or a man being with a
woman and her mother, both.
This is something that God prohibits in Leviticus ... I believe it's in Leviticus 18 in the
list there, but it's something that comes up actually quite a bit.
If you remember, this is one of the really horrible things that Absalom does when he's
so bitter and vindictive about King David that he goes and lies with his father's concubines.
Again, even though in many ways, early on, Absalom's kind of in the right about some
things, and David has done some wrong things, Absalom just lets that bitterness just take
over, and he becomes such a rotten person, such a gross person, that he just goes and
lies with his father's concubines, which is considered just revolting, wicked, and so
forth.
Then in the New Testament, we have this same thing in the Corinthian church where the Apostle
Paul is horrified by the fact that a man would commit fornication with his father's
wife.
He's horrified.
He says, look, even the Gentiles would be horrified by this.
Such fornication is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have as father's
wife.
This again is a reiteration of that commandment.
The Bible says in verse 21, cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast, and all the
people shall say, amen.
Of course, this is a super perverted, filthy act, but you know what?
It's really no more or less perverted than the crap that we accept in America today with
this LGBTQ faggotry.
It's just as sick.
It's just as disgusting, and in fact, the prohibition on this in Leviticus 20 is right
next to the prohibition of the other because they're both just super gross.
I think this one is in this particular list because of the fact that, again, it's probably
something that someone would get away with.
They're doing it secretly because it's an animal, for crying out loud, but it's so disgusting
and filthy, but it's so funny how our society still would think this is weird, but then
they'd condone stuff that's just as gross, that's like a man with a man or a woman with
a woman, which are also repugnant.
And you know what that tells me is that probably the way we're going, eventually this will
come into the mainstream if our country is allowed to just keep going down the toilet
morally.
We don't know, of course, what's going to happen in the future, when is God going to
bring judgment and reboot things.
We don't really know how far it's going to go, but man, if you just let it keep going,
that's where it's going to go because let me tell you something, God didn't just make
this commandment out of thin air because he lists all these perverted things in Leviticus
chapter 18 and Leviticus chapter 20 and he said, and I remember the first time reading
Leviticus as a child because even long before I read the Bible cover to cover, I tried and
failed to read the Bible cover to cover.
And I made it to like the beginning of Numbers.
And I remember as a child reading Leviticus and I'm just thinking like, God, why you got
to bring that up?
Because I'm reading all these wild commandments in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 and I'm thinking
like, what in the world?
Like I don't need you to tell me that.
But then I got to the end of the chapter and he said, all the nations that are there in
Canaan have done all these things.
And I'm like, wow, I guess that's why God's got to come up with these commandments because
people are literally doing this stuff.
It's out there, my friend.
And it shouldn't surprise us because when I was a child, of course, even men with men,
women with women did not exist in public.
You never saw it.
I mean, I was 15 years old or 16 years old the first time I ever met a sodomite in real
life.
And the only reason I knew he was a sodomite is because someone told me, because he just
looked like and acted like a totally normal person.
Nowadays, of course, they're everywhere.
But it was not so, even in my short lifetime, I had a childhood where this just wasn't a
thing.
Thank God.
And I feel bad for the fact that kids growing up today, especially in a non-Christian home,
are being exposed and confused by all this stuff.
I mean, they go to school and there's just all this confusion.
At least our children are being taught this is an abomination inside of God.
At least they know what it is and where we stand, whereas kids are growing up today and
getting all this confusion and just this mind warp that's going on in the school system
being taught this stuff at an age when they're way too young to even grasp or comprehend
what this is.
And then they're being told, hey, maybe it's you.
Maybe you're an LGBT whatever.
It's disgusting and wicked in the sight of God.
And those who commit these sins are cursed.
They are major, major wickednesses.
It says here, cursed be he that lieth with any man or beast and all the people shall
say, amen.
Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of
his mother and all the people shall say, amen.
Again that's probably something that's not happening publicly.
It's probably something that's happening.
That disgusting sin is happening behind closed doors.
Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law and all the people shall say, amen.
Was that one really necessary?
But there it is.
But again, that one actually ties in with the one that we saw about lying with your
father's wife.
It's kind of the same deal if you kind of do the math there.
He says in verse 24, cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly and all the people shall
say, amen.
So you see that even though not everything on here is really explicitly a secret thing,
you kind of see how that was a theme a bit, like the word secretly came up a few times.
And then some of these things are things that are just clearly not happening publicly.
And then it says in verse number 25, cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent
person and all the people shall say, amen.
So don't be a hit man basically.
And then verse 26, cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them and
all the people shall say, amen.
Now here's why I say that this is the most important verse is because there is a curse
on every single person who doesn't fulfill the law of God perfectly.
And the problem with that is that the Bible says that whosoever shall keep the whole law
and yet offended one point, he's guilty of all.
And that my friends is James 2 10.
And that's why whenever people say to me, hey, what about James chapter two?
I always just say, oh yeah, James 2 10 whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offended
one point, he's guilty of all.
So how's that works based salvation working out for you, right?
I mean, they, you know, they forgot about, they were so focused on verses 20, uh, what,
14 through 26 or whatever it is, you know, they kind of missed out on a really key teaching
there in verse number 10 that they probably should have put in their computer before moving
forward into the rest of the chapter, because that's a key point there that if you keep
the whole law and yet offended one point, you're guilty of all for he that said, do
not commit adultery said also do not kill now if thou commit no adultery yet if thou
kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
We can always point to some part of the law that we're good at keeping.
You know, I mean, Hey, I didn't lie with my mother-in-law, you know, like pretty much
every hand can go up on that one.
But guess what?
You did other things, right?
You've lied.
You've been prideful.
You have disobeyed your parents.
You've probably set light by father and mother at some point, right?
You have at some point thought all kinds of different wicked thoughts and the Bible says
the thought of foolishness is sin and there are all kinds of rules and all kinds of laws
and it's impossible for us to keep all the law of God perfectly.
And there's a curse on us cursed, uh, be he that confirmeth not all the words of this
law to do them and all the people shall say, amen.
What does that mean to confirm them to do them?
It basically means that you're saying amen and assenting and saying this law is something
that I'm going to do, but you're not just confirming it with lip service.
You're confirming it to do it.
You're saying, yeah, I'm going to do it.
And then you turn around and do it.
Let's end tonight by going to Galatians three and looking at this quotation in Galatians
three and that's the last place we'll go tonight.
Galatians chapter three and we'll look at this quotation in the new testament.
It's worded slightly differently in the new testament, but it says in verse number eight
and the scripture we're in Galatians three, eight, the scripture for seeing that God would
justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee
shall all nations be blessed.
So then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham for as many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse.
So anybody who says, well, we're saved by faith, but we're also saved by works, you
know, it starts with faith, but you know, we have to do the works as well.
And I mean, I can't even count how many times people have just flat out told me that.
Well, it's faith and works.
You need works to be saved.
And a lot of people even who aren't willing to explicitly admit that when you get down
to it, that's what they believe.
They think you have to do works to be saved.
Well guess what, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the
book of the law to do them, right?
Anyone who is of the works of the law is under the curse for it is written, cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,
but that no man is justified by the law on the side of God.
It is evident for the just shall live by faith.
So let's think about just the slight difference in wording here.
In the Old Testament, when we look at this quotation in Deuteronomy 27, and this is of
course because our Old Testament is translated from the traditional Hebrew text, which God
has providentially preserved and kept pure in all ages.
There is a Greek Old Testament out there that has not been preserved by God, and the copies
of it that we have are filled with error and mistakes.
And who's to say that that particular translation was even right in the first place?
There were a lot of problems with it from day one, I believe, the so-called Septuagint.
So the Greek Old Testament, Septuagint, today's Greek Septuagint is based on the manuscripts
typically Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus, which we know as New Testament villains, but
they are also the manuscripts that we derive today's Septuagint from because they're a
full Bible.
They're not just a New Testament, but they also have a Greek Old Testament copy which
is the Septuagint.
We do not believe in the Septuagint as the word of God.
We believe that the final authority, the authoritative book is the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament,
the traditional text of the Hebrew Old Testament.
And guess what?
Our King James Bible is 100% translated from that Hebrew text, 100%.
Every verse in your King James Bible Old Testament is translated from the Old Testament
in Hebrew, okay?
And that was one of the rules to the translators.
If you look at the rules that King James gave, he said Old Testament must be translated from
Hebrew, New Testament must be translated from Greek, okay?
Now of course when I say Hebrew, I'm including the Aramaic section as obviously in Aramaic,
but you get the idea.
Old Testament comes from Hebrew, not from the Septuagint.
Now here's the thing, sometimes the Septuagint will match a New Testament quotation better
than the Masoretic Hebrew text, okay?
But a lot of people just act like, oh, it always does.
No, no, no, there are tons of places where the New Testament is clearly quoting the Hebrew
text and the Greek contradicts it, okay?
I hope I'm not going over your head.
Hang with me.
I'm not trying to get super technical here, but what I'm saying is that sometimes there
are quotations in the New Testament that more closely resemble what we have in the so-called
Septuagint from the fourth century AD than the traditional Hebrew text.
So people will come along and say, oh, well, the Septuagint's more accurate here.
No, wrong.
First of all, there are two things to think about here.
Number one, we need to think about the fact that sometimes there's more than one legitimate
way to translate something.
Anybody who does any kind of translating knows that there could be more than one legitimate
way to translate things, and you're still capturing the spirit and the meaning of the
original.
For example, if I wanted to translate my name is Steven into Spanish, we could say, me llamo
esteban.
Is that a good translation?
Or we could say, mi nombre es esteban.
And that is also a perfectly good translation into Spanish.
And that's kind of just a silly example, kind of just a dumbed down, super easy example.
But I just want you to get the idea because you've all probably had a semester of high
school Spanish, and you know what I just said.
So the bottom line is there's more than one right way to translate things, and sometimes
words can come over to English a variety of ways that are legitimately right.
You know, for example, you'll find that the King James Bible will interchangeably use
words like affliction and tribulation and trouble, and it's just variety.
They mean the same thing.
Affliction and tribulation mean the same thing, and they're translating the same Greek word.
So the point is, the first thing we need to realize is that it could be sometimes just
a coincidence that it's worded the same or in a similar manner, but number two, we also
need to come to grips with the very real possibility that a fourth century Greek Old Testament
could have been changed to match the New Testament.
When was the New Testament written?
The first century.
When are our copies of the Septuagint from?
The fourth century.
Now do you think that maybe somebody could have come along and said, oh, well, the New
Testament does it this way, so let's make the Greek Old Testament match the Greek New
Testament.
Why would we want them to be different?
So you can't just authoritatively say the New Testament authors are quoting the Septuagint.
You cannot prove that unless you found copies of a Greek Old Testament that were older than
the New Testament.
If you find them from 300 years after the New Testament and then try to claim, hey,
they're quoting this document from the fourth century AD, well, guess what?
That's the fourth century AD.
They're writing in the first century AD, and we don't know that what they had is the same
as, I mean, do you trust Sinaiticus to be a real faithful, accurate representation of
what the Septuagint originally said?
Because obviously Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus contradict one another many,
many times.
They're inconsistent with one another.
And so I'm not trying to get ultra-technical or anything like that, but I just want to
make it clear that around here, we believe that the King James Bible is the word of God
without error, OK?
So we believe in the traditional text of scripture.
The King James Bible, we believe, is the word of God without error, OK?
And that means that the Old Testament that is legitimate is the Hebrew traditional text
because that's what the King James Bible is translated from.
And the New Testament is the Greek New Testament.
That is the final authority, not the Latin New Testament, not Assyrian New Testament.
No, no, no.
The Greek New Testament is the final authority, and that's where we get our King James Bible
from an original Hebrew in the Old Testament, original Greek in the New Testament.
So people say, what's the final authority?
Well, here's the thing.
In our church, de facto, the final authority is the King James Bible for all matters of
faith and practice.
Now, why do I not include the Greek and the Hebrew in that?
Well, because virtually no one in this church is fluent enough to read the Greek and Hebrew.
I mean, obviously, a few people are, but how could we have as a final authority a book
in another language, and then I and maybe one or two other people are the only ones
who can interpret it, well, then basically you're just having to take my word for everything.
If I'm up here saying, well, the Greek New Testament's our final authority, and here's
what it says, and you're like, well, I don't know if that's true, well, you go back to
the Hebrew, and it says this.
You're like, OK, how do I know that?
I can't expect you to take my word for that.
No one should expect you to take their word for that, and at the end of the day, we as
a church, we need a final rule for faith and practice, and that is our English Bible that
we can all read.
We're all looking at the same thing.
We all see what it says, and so our final authority is the King James Bible.
Now, that is a legitimate final authority, and here's why.
Because the King James Bible is the word of God without error.
I do not believe that anything in the King James Bible is wrong.
And so therefore, it is a perfectly legitimate final authority for us to work with in faith
for Baptist Church.
Now, at the same time, though, I am not one of these brain-dead ruckmanites who claims
that the Greek is wrong and the Hebrew is wrong.
It's only English.
How could you get something clean from something unclean?
You can't.
How do you derive a perfect English Bible from an imperfect Hebrew text or an imperfect
Greek text?
Well, this is where you have to get their double inspiration doctrine that God just
told the translators what to write, and the translators were inspired by God, and God
re-inspired the Bible in 1611.
And folks, it's not just the ruckmanites that believe that.
It's a bunch of so-called new IFB wash-ups that believe that same thing too.
And it's dumb.
And it's false.
God did not re-inspire the Bible in 1611 because God preserved the Bible all along.
You're not going to believe this, but the Bible already existed before the King James
Bible was translated.
It was already on this planet, en toto.
We have the entire Bible, and it was already there.
And guess what?
The Hebrew text was there, preserved by God.
The Greek text was there, preserved by God.
And then the King James Bible was able to translate those.
And I do believe that the King James Bible is the par excellence translation of the Bible
in the history of mankind.
That's what I believe.
I believe this is the greatest translation of the Bible that has ever been made.
But that does not negate the authority of the original.
So is the King James Bible the final authority in our church?
Yes.
Is the Greek New Testament also 100% authoritative?
Yes.
Is the traditional Hebrew text authoritative?
Yes.
You say, well, how can all three be authoritative?
Because these three are one.
Because these three agree in one.
My person, now look, again, the final authority for the church is the King James Bible because
that's the only thing that the church can read.
Because we're sitting in an English-speaking country, and we all speak English.
But what is my personal final authority?
My personal final authority is the Greek New Testament, the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament,
and the English King James Bible.
All three of those are my personal final authority, and all three of those are going into my preaching.
Because I can read the Greek New Testament, and I can read the Hebrew Old Testament.
And I do read them every day.
That's what I read.
I don't even read the King James Bible unless I'm preparing a sermon.
Because I read the original.
And here's the thing.
All of that's going into my preaching.
But here's the thing about that.
There's no issue because these three agree in one.
They're all saying the same thing.
Now if the King James Bible was saying something totally different than the Greek New Testament,
then you'd say, well Pastor Anderson, you're going to have to pick one as your final authority.
If the Hebrew Old Testament were deviating from the King James version, then I would
have to pick.
Am I going to go with the Hebrew, or am I going to go with the King James?
But you know what?
I never have to make that decision because the King James Bible faithfully translates
the two originals.
And so I can use the one to interpret the other, and it's just a symbiotic relationship
between all three.
Does everybody understand?
And so this pitting of the Greek against the Hebrew against the English is folly.
It's nonsense.
And do I think you need to read Greek or Hebrew to have a deeper understanding of the Word
of God?
Absolutely not.
I believe that for one second.
I believe that you have 100% of what you need if you have a King James Bible and a command
of the English language.
Do I think that my pastor friends need to learn Greek and Hebrew?
Absolutely not.
No.
I believe that pastors could do excellent work for God and turn the world upside down
for Christ without knowing a lick of Greek or Hebrew, just with an English King James
Bible.
Do not believe that reading Greek and Hebrew is necessary to understand or interpret or
preach the Word of God or to use the Word of God.
Here's what you need.
The Holy Spirit and a faithful English translation, which is the King James Bible.
That's what you need.
Now, you might ask, well, why have you learned Greek and Hebrew?
Because I do think it is, number one, to be honest with you, just because I like it.
It's fun for me.
The same reason why I learned Spanish and German and Norwegian and a bunch of other
languages.
It's my hobby.
It's what I like to do, number one.
But number two is because of the fact that I do think it's good to have a few people
that do delve into these topics and do learn the Greek and learn the Hebrew and go deep
on these things to defend us against the people that are coming and attacking the King James.
Stop and think about it.
If the only people who knew Greek and Hebrew were just the enemies of the King James Bible,
is that really the world that you want to live in?
Or would you rather have some Greek and Hebrew guys that are on our side, that can shut the
mouths of the naysayers, prove them wrong, and debunk them?
So I didn't even start learning Greek and Hebrew until 2013, maybe, when I was working
on the New World Order of Bible Versions film, simply because we were having trouble finding
really quality experts on Greek and Hebrew that we could interview for the film.
And that was, you know, a decade ago.
And at the time, I knew very little Greek and Hebrew.
And my brother told me, you know, be the change you want to see in the world.
And I was like, you know what, yeah, maybe I'll step up and work on this.
But again, I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I somehow think that that's necessary.
I don't.
I just think it's something that a few people can choose to specialize in.
It's good to have a guy over here that kind of knows about it so that he can be interviewed
for a film or so that he can, you know, shut up the bozos of this world, the fake Greek
and Hebrew scholars of this world that want to, you know, set light by the King James
Bible, to use the wording from the chapter tonight.
Another rabbit trail.
I'm almost done.
So let's just compare, let's just look at the comparison between the two quickly.
Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of the law to do them.
That's the Deuteronomy 27 version.
And what that's basically saying is you're saying amen to this thing, the whole Bible,
the whole word of God that they had at that time, whatever the law is that they're assenting
to, you're saying amen to it with the intent to do it.
You know, you're saying, yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
And then we go to the New Testament.
It says in Galatians 3 10b, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are
written in the book of the law to do them.
And again, this is basically just saying the same thing or paraphrasing that in a sense
by saying, look, if you confirm it to do it, you're basically continuing in it and doing
it.
Basically not just a one time, amen, and then you go do the opposite.
But the idea is confirming it to do it is basically the intent to actually go forward
with doing what you've assented to.
And so I don't think that there's any contradiction here between these two statements.
It's just that sometimes the New Testament, a lot of people freak out when the New Testament
doesn't match the Old Testament quotation exactly, but what you have to understand is
that this might not be intended as a direct quotation.
So like what if I got up and said, Hey, the Bible says that Jesus is God.
Does that mean that there's a Bible verse that says Jesus is God period?
Is there a Bible verse that says Jesus is God, like those exact words?
No.
But what if I said, Hey, the Bible says Jesus is God.
Am I lying?
No, because what am I doing?
I'm basically in caps.
I'm not giving a direct quote, but I'm basically just telling you what the Bible says.
And I think that that's why sometimes quotes don't match exactly because they're not intended
to be a verbatim quote.
It's more like Paul's interpreting what the verse meant because there are lots of verses
that mean that Jesus is God, even though they don't say it in those words.
And so what we'll see a lot is that it's written, you know, the spirit that dwelleth in us lust
it to envy.
You're not going to find that quote in the Old Testament, but you could find that concept
after that idea.
Just like if I said, you know, the Bible says that the rapture takes place after the tribulation.
There's not a verse that says the rapture takes place after the tribulation.
But the Bible does say that because it says immediately after the tribulation of those
days, then shall they see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory shall
gather the elect from the four winds.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
So again, we want to make sure that we know where we stand.
Hebrew Old Testament, not Septuagint.
If a Masoretic Hebrew quote doesn't match exactly with the New Testament, don't freak
out.
Maybe it's just a paraphrase.
Maybe it's just him giving the essence or giving an interpretation or giving an application
of what is said.
And they too match up beautifully.
And maybe the reason the Septuagint just matches so perfectly in certain places is because
maybe it's been doctored since it's from the fourth century AD.
And we don't really know what the Septuagint said before Christ because we don't have it.
And you say, oh, it's like a little scrap.
It's not the whole Septuagint.
It's not even, it's not even 5% of it.
I don't even think it's, it's not even 1% of it.
It's a tiny amount.
Anyway, not to get too technical, but it's always important to know where we stand on
these things.
We want to make sure that we know that the Bible we have is our final authority and not
let people come at us and try to twist us up on things just because the quotes and the
New Testament, you know, the King James Bible is being honest.
They're just telling you how the Greek best translates into English and how the Hebrew
best translates.
They're not, you know, because you know what the King James Bible translators could have
done?
They could have made them all match.
And there were some people in the 16th, 17th century that wanted to do that.
They wanted to make all the New Testament quotes in English match the Old Testament
perfectly.
But they're like, no, we're just going to translate the Hebrew, translate the Greek.
And if it's word a little different, so be it.
Chill out.
All right, let's bow our heads in our word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
We thank you for this great chapter, Lord.
Help us to not only publicly live a Christian life, but help us to also abstain from secret
sins.
Lord, we know that there's a curse on sinning behind closed doors as well as sinning publicly.
But Lord, thank you so much that you have delivered us and redeemed us from the curse
of the law by being made a curse for us, since without you, we would be doomed since we were
all sinners.
Lord, thank you for salvation through Christ Jesus.
And it's in his name we pray, Amen.