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Man, the title of my sermon tonight is The Most Hated Bible Verses Defended. The Most Hated Bible Verses Defended. So I was looking up something online about the Bible, and somehow I stumbled upon this website that was ranking the top 20 Bible passages to use against fundamentalists, okay? So basically just these God-hating, atheistic types were collating the worst stuff in the Bible, you know, that you could show fundamentalists just to show them the bad things in the Bible or the wrong things in the Bible. So I figured I'd go through some of the top ones here that thousands of people who are against God's Word have said, oh man, these are some of the worst things in the Bible. Now look, the Bible tells us here in verse 7 that the law of the Lord is perfect, and I believe that. Look what the Bible says in verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right. It's the atheists that are wrong. It's this world that's wrong. God's always right, rejoicing the heart. To God's people, when we hear God's statutes and laws and rules, we rejoice. They make us happy because they are so good. They're sweeter than honey, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. So it says here, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. So the Bible's very clear here, saying this a whole bunch of different ways, that everything in the Bible is perfect, it's right, there's no error, there's nothing in it that is unjust or unfair. Everything about it is right in every way. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them, as thy servant warned, and in keeping of them, there is great reward. So of course, they go through the Old Testament and they find these things that go against their views or their beliefs, or they go against our current culture, and they say, well here, what is this to throw in the face of Christians when they try to preach against sin, when they try to speak out against wickedness, hit them with one of these. All right, well, let's do it, let's check these out. Let's start with the number one that was, and this was like a thing that was voted by the people who visit the website, so this had thousands of upvotes, this was the number one worst thing to them, or thing that they're going to throw in your face. Go to Leviticus chapter 21 verse 18, you don't know, I bet you don't know where I'm going. Everybody's laughing, but you know what, I'll bet nobody's going to predict this one. Nobody knows, you're about to find out. All right, Leviticus chapter 21, we're going to start in verse 18, and of course they misrepresent these things, so this one is labeled, deformed people cannot approach God. All right, that's how this one's labeled on the website. Let's see what the Bible actually says. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach. A blind man or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken footed, or broken handed, or crook backed, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken, no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest, shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire, he hath a blemish. He shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. And they're trying to construe this that God is somehow negative toward people who have a physical disability, and that they can't approach God, they cannot draw nigh to God or something. Is that what this has just said? No. What it's actually saying is that the people who have these physical infirmities cannot perform the sacrifices. So Aaron's sons, the priests that are actually performing sacrifices unto God, they can't do that particular job. Now let's get the context that they left out. They left out verses 16 and 17. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak unto Aaron saying, whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. It's not saying they can't approach God, they can't draw nigh to God. It's just saying that they can't perform the offerings. Look what else they left out. Look at verse 22. Same group of people. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy. So verse 22 is saying that these people with the hunchback and everything else that's possibly wrong with them, it says they can eat the bread of God, they can eat the holy bread, they can eat the most holy bread. They just can't perform the offering itself. Oh, wow. Isn't that terrible that they don't get to perform the offering? They get to eat all the food. There are other jobs that they can do, but they just can't be the priest that's doing the sacrifice. Look at verse 23. Only he shall not go into the veil, nor come nigh unto the altar because he hath a blemish that he profane not my sanctuaries for I the Lord do sanctify them. Here's what you have to understand. The reason why the priest was not to have any blemish was that he pictures Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the high priest. He's the one that made an offering for sin. And so the one who represents him has to be without blemish because that represents the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. That's why he doesn't want somebody with all these major physical problems coming in there like, all right, let's go offer the sacrifice. It's not appropriate in that situation because he's picturing the spotless, sinless Son of God. Now, here's the thing. Why did this make them so... Why were they so triggered by this? Who knew we were going there when I said Leviticus 21? Everybody thought it was going to be something else. One person knew. But the thing is, most people thought I was going somewhere else. Why would this be the thing that gets voted to the top? How dare God be so negative toward people just for being a dwarf or crook-backed or broken hand or broken foot? Folks, that's not what it's saying at all. They get all the food. They get all the gear. They just don't get to offer the sacrifice because that would mess up the picture. It's the same thing with the lambs that are being offered. The lambs have to be without spot and without blemish, picturing the Lamb of God. It's not that God just hates infirm sheep, okay? It's just that they're not for that function. Now, look, the reason why people are so triggered by this is we live in such a strange society today that's so just overly politically correct and so weird about these things that literally today there are ballet troupes where you have someone in a wheelchair doing ballet. I'm not kidding. I literally saw a dance performance where they have all these dancers in a row dancing and then they had somebody moving the wheelchair around. Now you say, oh, isn't that so great, you know, giving them a chance. No it's not. That makes no sense. Why are you lying to that kid? You know, look, if you are in that situation, maybe you can't walk, maybe you're in a wheelchair or maybe you have other physical disabilities, physical infirmities, maybe somebody's blind or deaf or just has whatever the physical, we all have our physical issues, okay? But some people have serious disabilities. Why would you tell a person, hey, you can do anything. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do what other people do. Look, there are many wonderful things you can do if you have no legs, but dancing is not one of them. Is it bad for me to get up and say that? Is it bad for me to get up and say the obvious, you're not going to be a ballerina. It doesn't mean you can't live a wonderful life. It doesn't mean that you can't experience all the love and joy and peace that God has for you in your life. It doesn't mean that you can't win souls to Christ and be a great person and live a full life. You're not going to run a marathon. You don't have legs. And look, God has a plan for the hunchbacks of this world and God has a plan for the people of this world who are all scurvy and have a messed up eye and everything else. But you know what, offering the bread in the temple and in the tabernacle wasn't one of them. Get over it. And you know what, we need to not take our overly politically correct wheelchair ballerina culture and then try to force that on the Bible and act like there's something wrong with the Bible. There's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with our society. God's word is right. It's clean. It's pure. It's correct. Don't force these weird 2019 everybody's offended American ideas into the Bible. They don't fit there, okay? It shouldn't offend someone to say, you're blind. You're not going to be an interior decorator when you grow up. It's just not going to happen. Get over it. And look, I'm all for loving the disabled and helping them and for them to live a full life and accommodating them. And we try to accommodate them every possible way that we can here, but we're not going to make a fool out of them dancing them around on stage because you know what, that kid's going to grow up one day and realize how dumb that was and then they're going to feel like an idiot for being patronized like that. That's what's really going to happen. All right, number two. So this is the number one, okay? So number two, what has offended the atheist of this world? And by the way, after each of these, the voting was, is this insane? Yes or no? So that one got the most yes votes. The world is calling that insane where God said that the priest who offers the sacrifice can't have a physical disability. He still gets to eat all the food. Wow. Okay. Number two, turn if you would in your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 22. Not where you think I'm going. Deuteronomy 22, we're not going to verse five, all right? All right, so the number one thing that triggered them was that the part about the people with physical injuries and ailments. Number two, and again, here's how they labeled it, non-virgins are to be stoned. That's the way they labeled this as the second most insane thing in the Bible according to these atheists, thousands of atheists that voted on this. Deuteronomy 22 verse 20, but if the thing be true and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel, then shall they bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die because she had wrought folly in Israel to play the whore in her father's house. So shalt thou put evil away from among you. So this is the number two thing, and you know why they're so mad about this is because they want to be whoring around. They want to go out and be the whores and whoremongers and fornicate. They want to commit adultery. They want to do all these wicked things, but what the Bible is actually teaching, let me actually explain to you what's being taught here, okay? This is talking about a situation where a woman who is living at home with her parents puts herself forth to them and to her future husband as being a virgin, and then he marries her and finds her not to be a virgin, and it turns out that it's true. She had fornicated, then she's to be stoned. So we already covered this on Wednesday night, the law where if two people commit fornication, they're not put to death, right? What was the punishment if a man entices a maid and he lies with her? What was the punishment? Remember, the man has to marry her. If they have a consensual relationship outside of marriage, he has to marry her, and if the woman or her father refuse to give her unto him, then he basically just has to pay the dowry and he doesn't get the wife, and that's his punishment, a financial penalty. So what's the difference between that and this? The difference with this is she's living at home with her parents and deceiving her parents and deceiving her future husband, and she has gone and played the whore behind their back. That is the difference, and so let me say this, obviously we're living in a society that's very permissive of fornication, so this goes against the grain, but God doesn't change. God's Word doesn't change, and God demands purity, and our young people need to realize that they are required by God to stay pure until they get married. Fornicating is not an option. Fornicating should not be named among us, the Bible says, and they need to wait until they get married to engage in that physical act. But one other thing that we can draw from studying the Word of God and this particular law in general is that if you are not a virgin, you should not lie to your future spouse and put them under the impression that you are. And often in life, the cover-up is worse than the crime. So you end up doing more damage many times. When you've committed a sin and you lie about it and you try to cover it up and hide it, it's better to be forthcoming and tell the truth. This is someone who is deceiving and lying, and that's why it's more heinous. Now look, fornication is wicked. The Bible says flee fornication. The Bible says that God killed 23,000 people in one day because of fornication. So we don't want to make light of that sin, but even worse is the one who is growing up in the Christian home, living with her parents, and then losing her virginity and lying about it. Stone her with stones. I mean, that's what the Bible says. Now obviously we don't do this because we're not living under this system. We're living in the US and we have our own laws and whatever, and we're not under the Bible's criminal code. But you know what? God was right about this. I think he nailed it here. And you know what? The children of Israel, this was their law and it was right. And so I don't understand why everybody's so triggered except that they just are offended because it's them. They're clicking that upvote because they know how many times they've fornicated. And so this hits a little close to home. All right, go to Deuteronomy 25. And again, I'm just going down the list that they ranked, they voted, and this is what they voted as the quote, most ridiculous things in the Bible, most insane, what they want to hit fundamentalists with. Point number one was about the people that have the physical ailments. Number two, non-virgins are to be stoned. And then point number three, and again, these are their words, a woman's punishment for defending her husband equals cut off her hand. Okay, let's see what the Bible says. Deuteronomy 25, 11, when men strive to gather one with another and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him and putteth forth her hand and taketh him by the secrets, then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. Now, the Bible's not saying here that the penalty for defending your husband is to cut off the woman's hand. It's for grabbing another man in this area, okay? And I say, amen. Cut off her hand. All right? All right. Let's move on. I don't even need to defend that one. That one just kind of defends itself. I mean, that one makes sense to me. All right. Leviticus chapter 12. Go to Leviticus chapter 12. And the fourth thing is that according to them, giving birth to a daughter makes you unclean for 66 days. Now, apparently these people aren't very good at reading because they say giving birth to a daughter makes you unclean for 66 days. Then they quote Leviticus 12 verse 5, but if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks. So can somebody explain to me when two weeks became 66 days? Are these 33 day weeks that the atheists are operating on now? I know they don't like God's seven day week because our entire week is based on the creation week. You know where weeks come from? God. God created the world in six days and he rested on the seventh day and in the French revolution when they were trying to get away from God and there was an atheistic extreme faction in the French revolution, they switched to a 10 day week, a decade, and they would actually change the months of the year and they even got rid of the years. And in 1792 they called it year one because they didn't even want to acknowledge that they were 72 or I'm sorry, 1792 years after Christ. So they called 1792 year one, 1793 was year two and they changed the names of the months, the 10 day week, everything else. Of course it didn't work out. It fell apart and they went back to a normal seven day week. But you know, the Bible says that when the antichrist comes, he'll think to change times and laws. And so I think with the French revolution, we saw a little bit of a foreshadowing of some of the things that the antichrist will do and some of the things that will happen in the end times. And by the way, people that were living at that time, some of them thought they were entering the tribulation when the French revolution happened because there were all these people being beheaded and they're changing times and changing laws. You know, people in world war one thought it was a tribulation. People in world war two thought it was the tribulation. These are all things that are just a little taste or a little foreshadowing of what's coming. But we see human nature doing these things that are going to happen in the end times on a grand scale. Okay. Not just in France or one place. But we see here that no, it's not 66 days, it's 14 days. So they need to work on their reading comprehension skills a little bit because it clearly says she shall be unclean two weeks as in her separation. And then it says she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three score and six days. Okay. So that's not saying she's unclean for 66 days, it's saying she's unclean for two weeks if you can read. And then it's just saying that she's going to continue to be purified. Now, atheists love to point to this passage to say that God is negative toward women because they're unclean for two weeks when they give birth to a girl, one week when they give birth to a boy, 66 days of purification for the girl, 33 for the boy. But this is simply because the recovery after giving birth to a girl is a longer, more difficult recovery. This is just a fact of science. Now, you say, well, how do you know that? Well, let's see. My wife has 11 kids, right, that she has given birth to. And I was there for every single one of them. And guess what? The girls were a more difficult recovery than the boys because it's a different set of hormones at play. When a woman is pregnant with a boy, she's partaking in his hormones. And when she's pregnant with a girl, she's partaking in the girl's hormones. And so there's a different physiology involved between these two things. And when the Bible says that the mother is unclean, it's not saying that she's bad or wicked or evil. It just means not clean. If you go outside and work, man, you're going to get dirty, right? Does that mean you're bad? You go to your job as an electrician or carpenter or plumber, and you come home covered in dirt. Is it like, oh, you're sinful or something? No. What it is is that you got dirty. Now, if your hands are dirty from working, do you want to just go right in and start eating your food? Do you want to just go right in and start brushing the kid's teeth? You know, you're just going to go right in and start just feeding them by hand to your baby or something? Look, folks, unclean often has to do with sanitation. And obviously, after a woman gives birth, I was just talking to somebody about this a couple days ago about the home birth and about how putting down plastic, they were talking about tips for preserving the carpet. And I just said, well, we just don't have any carpet because carpet, when you have a large family, just doesn't work. Okay. So we've eradicated all the carpet from our house a long time ago. When you have 11 kids, you do that. But the thing is, you know, when a woman gives birth, there's a cleanup involved afterward. If you give birth at the hospital, they take care of it. If you give birth at home, then you got to take care of all that cleanup, right? I mean, there's just a lot of blood and there's the placenta and there's just a lot of fluids and it's just, it's a mess. You got to clean up. It's not bad. It's not sin. It's not wrong. It's unclean. Okay. And so, obviously, after the birth, the woman continues to bleed and that bleeding is good because the bleeding is her body's way of cleansing out her uterus, cleansing out her womb. And, you know, her uterus went from being tiny to growing large enough to hold the baby and now it has to shrink back down to size and it has to, she has to heal up inside. There's a recovery. And that's what the Bible is talking about. And actually, Leviticus chapter 12 is actually protecting women. I did a whole sermon on this. You know, by forcing them to stay home and relax for a little while, this is good for them so that they can recover and take care of their body and not just be like our modern society where they give birth on Friday afternoon and then they're back at work on Monday morning. Okay. That's not the way that you take care of your body in the long run. Let me read for you what, and they had like a few paragraphs of text for each of these and most of them are just so dumb and inane, I'm not even going to read them. But I'm just going to read a couple of them just to give you a taste of what's in this article. Okay. People should hold signs that say God hates women because it really will be the most accurate Christian sign you could ever make. God made the one thing women were actually appreciated for, the ability to give birth to life, a dirty act. It is a dirty act in the sense of it makes a mess. If you have white carpet and a white sofa, let's have a woman give birth and then you can tell us how clean it is. What in the world? They're mixing up something being clean and something being righteous or holy or good. Of course, giving birth is good. Giving birth is righteous, but it's not something that tends toward cleanliness. Okay. You got to wash afterward. That's all the Bible is saying. These people are complete idiots. Let me read the next paragraph. When women give birth to their children in the hospital now, they're immediately handed their child because that's what you want to do when you pop out a kid after carrying it for nine months in your belly, not to go through 66 days of church mandated shame. What? These people are crazy. They're making it sound like the baby's taken away from her for 66 days. Obviously, every mother is immediately handed her baby. When it said that she's unclean, it's talking about how she's not going to go to church. She's not going to go to the house of God when she just gave birth and bleed all over the place. Oh, wow. So woman hating. Women need to rest after they give birth anyways. That's actually doing them a favor for them to stay home and take care of themselves. These are the kind of weird things that atheists believe. One of the biggest things that I took from this as I'm looking at their list is that unsaved people cannot understand the Bible. The Bible said the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. Boy is that true. Whenever you listen to atheists talk about the Bible, it all just goes right over their head. It just does not compute. They just don't get it at all. Yeah, now when we give birth at the hospital now. Yeah, that's great. Give birth at the hospital and then you can be back to work on Monday morning. You can drop your kid off at don't care and you can be back to work on Monday morning and clock in and put on the hairnet and the name tag and have your boss tell you what to do and you can be liberated. So much better for women. Go to Leviticus 26, Leviticus 26. So we're going to go to the fifth member. These are ranked. These were voted on by the God haters of this world. Number five, they said, if you disobey God, you will eat your babies. Now in my neighborhood here in Tempe, I was out walking and I saw a woman wearing some kind of a satanic sweatshirt and it had like demonic symbols on it. I don't know, maybe it had like a goat head on it and like an upside down star with a circle around it, you know, just the kind of typical demonic witchcraft kind of symbols on it. And then on the back of this sweatshirt, it had Leviticus chapter 26 verses 28 and 29. It had this giant print on the back of the sweater with no explanation, just some satanic symbols on the front and then these Bible verses on the back. And I'm pretty sure, you know, I was trying to interpret this and process this. I'm pretty sure that the point of the sweater was, yeah, we love Satan because look how bad God is because here's what God said in the Bible. That's why we should worship Satan instead. Like that's what I took from the sweatshirt. I don't know if that's what the sweatshirt meant, but that's what I took from it. Okay. But anyway, it says in verse 27, if you will not hearken, excuse me, and if you will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury. And I, even I will chastise you seven times for your sins and you shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat. And I will destroy your high places and cut down your images and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols and my soul shall abhor you. Abhor means to hate. He's saying, my soul shall abhor you. Now the Bible pretty much says the same thing in Deuteronomy 28, but if you would flip over to 2 Kings chapter 6, 2 Kings chapter 6, Deuteronomy 28, 53 says, and thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straightness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee the same thing as in Jeremiah chapter 19 verse 9, and I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters and they shall eat everyone of the flesh of his friend in the siege and straightness wherewith their enemies and they that seek their lives shall straighten them. Now God is not telling them to do this. God is pointing out a simple fact that if they are evil and wicked and disobeying his word and going out and doing all these sinful things, he's going to bring enemies upon them to punish them. And in the process of that, he's explaining to them how bad it's going to get. It's going to get so bad, this is what you're going to end up doing. That's how bad it's going to get. So he's just driving home how horrific this is going to be because a lot of people don't stop and think about the consequences of sin. They think that going out and doing all these sinful things is not going to have any consequences. They can commit murder and they can commit adultery, they can go out and get drunk and take drugs, and they think everything's going to be fine. They think it's going to be okay, there are going to be no consequences. But God is trying to impress upon them the seriousness of how bad things are going to get. Notice the Bible said this is what they will do in the siege and in the straightness. Now straightness, that's S-T-R-A-I-T-N-E-S-S, this is not G-H-T like straight as opposed to crooked. This is straight as in narrow, like the straights of Gibraltar. So when the Bible says in the siege and in the straightness, he's talking about that their city of Jerusalem or any other city is going to be under siege. Now what does it mean to be under siege? To be under siege is when the city is surrounded by an invading army and no one's allowed in or out. So when they are besieged, they're locked in. Straightness, because everybody in the suburbs and the surrounding areas, when the invading army comes in, they all get in the city walls and they all honker down in there. All the people from the surrounding countryside, they all get in the walled city, they shut the gates and they all honker down in there. So it's straightness because it's a tight area. It's cramped because a bunch of people are all jammed into a city. So in the siege and in the straightness is referring to the fact that they're all crammed into a small area within the city walls. They can't go out. They can't go out and get food. They can't go out and get water. And the idea is that sometimes the invading army doesn't even have to fight. Sometimes they don't even have to fire a single arrow. They can just besiege the city and just wait. And they just hang out outside the city. All the abandoned farms and all the abandoned fields, they'll just kind of raid all those dwellings, find all the food and drink they can, live off the land, do whatever and just wait. Because the people in the city are going to run out of food, they're going to run out of water and it's just kind of who can out wait the other. How long can they last in the city before they finally just, we don't have any food. We don't, you know, we've got to surrender at some point. And so a lot of cities are defeated this way, even without any fighting taking place. So in these kind of situations, people do insane things. When people have not eaten in weeks or something, they start going crazy and doing crazy things. And not only that, why are they being besieged in the first place? Because they're so wicked. So if you put a bunch of super wicked people in a city and they don't have any food, what do you think is going to start happening? Horrific things. And the very fact that this is horrific is why God's bringing it up. Because he's saying, look, you think that you're going to have so much fun living a life of sin. You think that you're going to enjoy everything that this world has to offer and eat, drink and be married, but actually I'm going to punish you and you are going to be reduced to being like an animal and you're going to do some horrific things and you are going to be suffering so bad. And the Bible even gives an example. He says the woman, I believe it's in Deuteronomy 28, but he says that the woman who's so delicate and so dainty is going to have an evil eye toward her own children and they're going to basically do these horrible things because they're just that desperate and that wicked. So look at an example of this in the Bible. In Kings chapter six, verse 26, and as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, verse 26, there cried a woman unto him saying, help my Lord, okay. Verse 28 and the king said unto her, what aleth thee? And she answered, this woman said unto me, give thy son that we may eat him today and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and did eat him. And I said unto her on the next day, give thy son that we made him. Because she has hid her son, make her give us her son. Now look, this is what happened. So was God telling the truth in Leviticus when he said this was happened? Was he telling the truth in Deuteronomy when he said this would happen? It happened and you say, well, I just can't believe that the Bible would have these gnarly things in it. Well, have you noticed that we live in a pretty gnarly world? And I know that we happen to live in literally one of the nicest places in the whole world. And you should thank God every day that you live in such a nice place. Thank God for the peace and safety and the things that you enjoy, the prosperity in the United States. Because the Bible says the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. There are some horrible things going on in this world. And you know, it always blew my mind when I'd be out soloing and I'd run into one of these jaded military veterans. Have you ever run into these guys out soloing and they say, man, if you saw the story of the stuff I saw, you wouldn't believe in God if you saw what I saw? Who's ever had that conversation before? Folks, the stuff you saw should make you believe in God more because it's the same kind of stuff you read about in the Bible. I mean, look, think about it. If the Bible were a book of all sweetness and light, then you'd say, wait a minute, this isn't matching reality. Here we are living in this dog-eat-dog world, you know, no pun intended. Here we are living in a situation where there are all these cruelties and bad things and suffering and misery in the world. We should expect to read some gnarly things in the Bible. And that's exactly what we find. When we start reading the book of Genesis, what do we see? All kinds of wickedness, all kinds of violence, all kinds of sordid things in the Bible. Why? Because that's the world that we live in. That is our sinful condition. That's life. Life matches the Bible. The Bible matches life. What's the problem? You know, if the Bible were all sweetness and light, it wouldn't match reality. And if reality were all sweetness and light, it wouldn't match the Bible. But what do we have? A Bible that's compatible with what we see. And I don't care what that Vietnam vet or Iraq vet saw over there. I guarantee you, I could show you something gnarlier in the Bible or I can show you something as gnarly in the Bible. It's a gnarly book for a gnarly world. What's the issue, right? Oh, can you believe the Bible has these sordid things? Can you believe the story about Lot and can you believe the story about Noah and can you believe the story about... Yeah, I believe it because look at the world. It's a story about sinful people. Now look, of course, there are all kinds of beautiful things in the Bible. Most of the Bible is just tagging summit after summit of glorious beauty and wonderful things. But guess what? There are a lot of rough things in the Bible too because the Bible is giving us all the info we need. And you know, we would be unprepared for life if the Bible were sugar coated and censored and then we get out of the real world, whoa, we weren't ready for that. Well, this will get you ready. But you know what's sad is that most churches are only preaching like 10% of this book. And guess which 10% they preach? The sweetness and light portion of it is what they preach. I mean, how many sermons have you heard on this woman who wants to boil the other lady's son? You know what I mean? Like how many sermons? You don't hear a lot of sermons like that. And the problem is if you never hear sermons on the rough portions of the word of God, you're getting an imbalanced view of the Bible, you're getting an imbalanced view on life, you're getting an imbalanced view of God. We should get the whole thing. You know, we need the sermons on heaven, we need the sermons on hell. We need the sermons on Moses, we need the sermons on Jesus. We need the whole council of God. All scripture is profitable. And so churches who only preach the positive things, the nice things, the beautiful things, they're doing a disservice to their people. And then they say, well, but we don't want to offend these atheists, so we better never bring it. I mean, literally these pastors probably go on this website and they probably get the list of 20 things. Like, oh, I better never bring these 20 things up. I'm going on there and saying, well, here's my sermon tonight. Here's 20 things. Oh, 20. Oh, you don't like these atheists? These are the 20 ones you don't like? Well then, sounds like a sermon to me. Folks, we need to preach the whole Bible. Cover everything. Okay, go if you would to Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12. So every once in a while they included a New Testament item. This is point number six. If your brother dies, you have to marry his wife. This is what they don't like. All right. So, look what the Bible says in Mark 12 19, master Moses wrote unto us if a man's brother die and leave his wife behind him and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. Okay. So this is the verse that they quoted and they said, can you believe this? This is crazy and let me read for you where they're taking this from because they're getting this from Deuteronomy 25. So I'll read you the original. If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her and it shall be that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of the brother which is dead that his name be not put out of Israel. Now, this is a very specific situation. This isn't just saying everybody whose husband dies that, you know, the brother has to marry her. The Bible says very clearly, if brethren dwell together, what does that mean? They're living together. Who here lives together with you're an adult, you're out of the house of your parents and you live together with your brother? Does anybody here live with your brother? Wow, zero people. So does this sound like it was something that was just constantly happening? If out of an auditorium with, you know, a whole bunch, hundreds of people, not even one is living with their, these are brethren that are dwelling together, it means that they literally are living together, okay? So that, you know, families that are living together and the idea here is that basically this is a close family, the wife is being supported by this household, okay, her husband dies, it's not like, oh, now that brother's dead and you're on your own, you know, to just go marry whoever out there or whatever. You know, the situation is basically saying, okay, instead of that, let the brother marry her and raise up seed to his brother so that the brother isn't just forgotten and his name is gone. So, and by the way, here's the other stipulation. If the brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no child, this isn't something that's happening every day. Brothers are living together, one of them marries a wife and then dies before she has a child. That's a pretty specific scenario, isn't it? Okay, so in this situation, he's giving this commandment saying that so that the brother's name isn't forgotten out of Israel and he's not just the end of his family line so that he could have an heir, then basically the first son is going to be named after him, she marries the brother, the first son is named after him and then that name is carried on and he inherits what his brother would have inherited. It's an inheritance thing, okay. Now, when you run into things like this in the Bible that seem like they really fit these really rare situations or they just seem really specific and they're probably not happening constantly, what we should get from them is not just the literal application because obviously the literal application is a little bit specialized. Maybe a judge could have just made a ruling in a situation or help people out in this situation or people could just kind of figure out what to do in situations like this. But the point here is that there's usually something symbolic going on under the surface when there's a rule like this that's not necessarily just the literal. And of course, the literal interpretation matters and they did follow this or they were at least supposed to follow this. But there's the idea of the kinsman redeemer and different things that you could dig into this and draw all kinds of symbolic meaning out of it. And also, you could just get principles out of this, just general principles because in the aftermath of this passage, it explains how if the brother refuses... The brother doesn't have to do it. He's supposed to, but if he refuses to do it, then basically he's shamed publicly and humiliated. And basically, the idea is that the woman... If you actually read the passage in its context in Deuteronomy 25, the woman wants to marry the brother and he's supposed to do this to help her out. Not just send her out... Because remember, they're living together, she's part of this family, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, you're out, go marry a stranger. As opposed to, hey, we're going to keep you, take care of you, I'm going to marry you, I'm going to take you, I'm going to provide for you. Because if he won't do that, then she basically accuses him to the judges, hey, he won't do this for me and this is what Moses said. And then he's publicly shamed. He doesn't have to do it, but he is publicly reproached for not doing it. And again, this is a picture of Christ. Everything in the Bible pictures Christ, and so the one who's marrying her is Christ being pictured. So that's obviously the more important meaning than this rare situation that probably barely ever happened. So anyway, I don't know why they're so triggered by this because this isn't really that wild or radical. And you have to understand that in today's world, we live in a world where women are really independent and they're just going to go out and have their own careers and do all this stuff. But in a lot of ways back then, they're a poorer society, they didn't have all the technology that we have, they didn't have the prosperity that we have in America. So for this woman who's living there and she's married to a husband and then her husband dies and now she's this widow and she doesn't have any kids, she might need help, she needs someone to take care of her. So the brother's going to step in and take care of her. See, I think that component is kind of going over people's heads because they're just living in this really ultra prosperous society that we live in in America. But in poor parts of the world, they probably read this and understand this like, yeah, this woman could be high and dry. So anyway, all right, let's move on. I'm almost done here because I'm not going to go through all 20 of these, don't worry. But I'm going to cover point seven and 10, okay? So go to Deuteronomy 23, Deuteronomy 23. So remember these were ranked by the atheists, by the people who hate the Lord. And they said these are the top 20 scriptures to use against fundamentalists. You know, to throw in the face of fundamentalists. And it keeps saying, hey, when some fundamentalist tries to tell you what the Bible says about the homos or abortion or anything else, pull out one of these. And then they voted which ones are the best and that's we're going down through the rankings. So here's number seven. No bastards may enter the church. And then point 10 is similar. No one who's male genitals have been cut off may enter the church. That one's gotten especially relevant lately. But anyway, look at, look at Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse one. It says in Deuteronomy 23 verse one, he that is wounded in the stones or hath his privy member cut off shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. You know, to that I say a hearty amen. Now here's what you have to understand about the congregation of the Lord though. This is not the New Testament local church. The congregation of the Lord in the Old Testament is something different. And again, there are different levels of holiness in the Old Testament as far as approaching unto the things of God. So you have the high priest going into the most holy place only once a year. Once a year, only the high priest enters the most holy place. Then you have the holy place. Then you have the court, which is without the sanctuary, right? And then you have the congregation of the Lord. And then you have the people that are not allowed to enter the congregation. So there are different layers of getting closer to the holy things of God. And remember, the whole difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament is that the Old Testament is showing God as unapproachable to the common man, right? I mean, the common man can't just waltz into the mercy seat and slap his hand down on the mercy seat and start talking to God. Can't just march into the, well, you know, I'm saved, I'm just marching to the most holy place. No, because you have the veil. You have the holy place, the most holy place, the court, which is without the sanctuary. You have all these different layers. And the idea is to teach us how God cannot be approached by sinful man. God is too holy for sinful man to just waltz into his presence. And then what the Bible is teaching us in the New Testament is that through the blood of Christ, we've been brought nigh unto God. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed unto us. Our sins have been washed in the blood. We are separated from our sins as far as the east is from the west. And now the Bible says we can come boldly into the throne of grace and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We can boldly approach God now. And that's why when Jesus died on the cross, what happened? The veil ripped in half. The veil separating man from God, locking out man where only the high priest could go in there. Look, that high priest that went in there represented Jesus going in there, making the atonement. And by Jesus going in there, he opens up the way for everybody else. The Bible says that we can enter now by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. The Bible says that we now have access to the Lord in a way that in the Old Testament is portrayed as being impossible. No man can see my face and live, God says in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is walking right up to people. And he's even kneeling down and washing the disciples' feet, for crying out loud. So he's making himself approachable to us. And through the New Covenant, we all have access. So you don't want to take the stuff in the Old Testament about the congregation and just apply that exactly to the church in the sense that this level of holiness required to come into the congregation, that's not required in the New Testament. Because in the New Testament, we have access. It's a house of prayer for all nations, okay? In the Old Testament, a foreigner, a stranger cannot enter the tabernacle or the temple. But in the New Testament, God's house is what? It's a house of prayer for all nations. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, it's not like, oh, you're a Gentile, you can't enter. No, everybody can enter, okay? So that's the first thing we need to understand, okay? Because it says, you know, the bastard shall not enter the congregation of the Lord, verse 2, even to his 10th generation shall he not enter the congregation of the Lord, and Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord. So we're not going to take these literally in the New Testament, in the Old Testament they were literal, but in the New Testament, they don't apply because the veil has been torn asunder and everybody's brought in high, whether they be Jew or Gentile. But we still can learn principles, because remember, all scripture is still profitable for doctrine and instruction in righteousness. So when we run into Old Testament passages of scripture that no longer apply, let's say we're reading chapter after chapter in Leviticus about animal sacrifices, we can still learn from those scriptures, we can still apply those scriptures, but do we apply them literally? I mean, we don't have the book of Leviticus open and we're like, okay, the call above the litter, the liver, you know, and we're, okay, the kidney, okay, kidneys, check, you know, and we're sitting here taking apart animals and no, we're not gutting animals according to Leviticus and burning them on an altar, are we? But does that mean Leviticus isn't profitable? No, it is profitable. When we read about those burnt offerings and sacrifices, we're learning about Jesus. He's the lamb of God. He is the sacrifice. He takes away our sins. So we're seeing all the symbolism and allegory in addition to the literal meaning that's no longer in force for us today. Does everybody understand that? So what can we take from this figuratively? When the Bible says, you know, he that is wounded in his stones or at this privy member cut off, no trannies. I mean, you got something hard for me? I mean, this is an easy, uh, this is supposed to be a hard passage. I mean, this, this is pretty easy to interpret for me. You know, this just means that Bruce Jenner is not allowed in the service is what that means. I mean, I don't, what's the issue. And then verse two, you know, when verse two says a bastard shall not enter the congregation of the Lord. Okay. Obviously what's the spiritual application here in the New Testament? The Bible compares the person who thinks they're saved, but actually isn't, or the person who professes to be saved, but actually isn't, he calls them a bastard because a bastard would be an illegitimate child. Okay. Let's say you have husband and wife and they have children together, that's called legitimate children. Okay. Well, let's say that the wife commits adultery with another man and gets pregnant with his kid. That child is called a bastard, right? An illegitimate child. Okay. Or let's say the husband goes out and fathers a child with some other woman that's not his wife. Then that offspring is a bastard child, a child that's born outside of wedlock and is illegitimate. So what the Bible's getting at in Hebrews chapter 12, when it says, look, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. If you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. What he's saying is if you're saved and you live a life of sin, God's going to chastise you. If you're not living a life of sin and nothing bad happens and you don't get chastised, then you're a bastard. You're not a son. Here's what it's saying. God's not really your father. Just as a child who thinks that their father is their father, and then they might find out, oh no, that's actually not your dad. You're actually illegitimate. This is not your dad. You're the son of a strange man. Not who you think. Not your mom's husband. But a stranger is your father. Here's what the Bible's saying. Hey, oh, you think that you're saved and that you're a child of God. Actually you're not a child of God. You're illegitimate. You're not begotten of God. Does everybody see that? So you see how this is symbolic in the New Testament. The bastard is not the physical bastard, but it's the spiritual bastard. So what the Bible is saying here is just about that church is not for the unsaved. Now again, we're not going by the strict rules of don't allow in the mobile body. That's all done away in Christ because of the major shift from Old to New Testament that just basically rips the veil and gives everyone who wants to. Whosoever will may come. Everybody has access to the most holy place spiritually. So we're not saying, hey, you know, these people, you know, no unsaved people can ever enter the door of our church. But we take a looser, more symbolic allegorical meaning because the literal meaning is done away in Christ. But we can still learn the principle of saying, look, in the Old Testament, God had a congregation and he wanted that congregation to be holy. He wanted the people in that congregation to be saved. And he wanted the men in that congregation to have their parts intact, you know. So what do we learn from that? The idea is that God wants us to be spiritually holy and God wants us as men to be manly, not to be deficient or defective or defunct in that area, you know, not physically now, but spiritually. Okay. He wants us to be saved. He wants us to be manly. He wants us to be God's people holy, not physically, but spiritually. Okay. So you have to take a spiritual application on these carnal Old Testament laws. But I mean, do you expect these atheists to understand that? They're not going to understand the first thing about that. They see this and just say, well, you know, if you're born out of wedlock, you can never go to church again, is what they see here. Now look, in the Old Testament, if you were born out of wedlock, guess what? You're not able to approach the tabernacle and be part of the congregation in the same way as someone who's legitimate. Okay. And you say, well, that's not fair. Now look, it doesn't mean that they couldn't be saved. It doesn't mean that they can't love God and serve God. But look, this was to stigmatize having kids out of wedlock. And how's that working out for you in 2019 America when you've removed all stigma of being a bastard. You've removed all stigma of fornication, adultery, and it's all just considered normal and fine. How's that working out for you? 3000 babies murdered a day at Planned Parenthood is how that works out. You know how it works out is that, you know, more than half of marriages are ending in divorce, right? And by the way, now, now there are more people living together unmarried than married couples now in America. It's reached a tipping point where now you have more people shacking up than actually getting married. And don't, don't even, I hope those idiot MIG towels don't get in the comments on this one now. I just, I just invited all the bozo men going their own way to just troll the comments on YouTube now. But anyway, you know, the thing, we don't have any MIG towels in our church because of Deuteronomy 23 verse one. But anyway, the point is, you know, we today in 2019 America, you know, we think we're so righteous and we think we're so holy, but the Bible says there's a generation that's pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness. You know, they want to stand in judgment of God's word. They want to criticize God's word. They want to mock God's word, but you know what? It's our society that's messed up. God's right. And you know what? Just looking at this list, you know, a lot of this would just be solved by just not, don't fornicate, don't grab some dudes, whatever, uh, you know, take care of yourself after you give birth to a baby. Don't hate and disobey God and force him to send, you know, invading armies that are gonna cause you to be in a situation where you have no food. I mean, don't be a bastard. Don't cut off whatever. I mean, what, what is the problem here, folks? The Bible here is right about these things. Okay. And you say, well, it's not the child's fault that he was born a bastard. Okay. But can I explain something to you? We suffer for the sins of other people. I mean, that should be a simple concept, right? What if your dad, let me explain it to you this way. What if your dad is a drunk? Is that going to make your life as a child better or worse? What if your husband is a total drunk? He gets paid on Friday and he cashes the paycheck and goes out and drinks and gambles and parties and then you don't have any money to buy food. Was that your fault? But are you suffering for it? I mean, hello. When people sin, guess who they hurt? They hurt themselves and they hurt everyone around them. When you sin, you hurt yourself and you hurt everyone around you. So you say, well, it's not that bastard's fault that he was born out of wedlock and that his parents, you know, went out and, and we're with a stranger. Okay. But whose fault is it? God's fault. It's the parent's fault. So if you want to get mad at somebody, why don't you get mad at the people that are out producing all these bastard children? You know, and look, if that's you, if you're born out of wedlock, Hey, God can still use you. God still loves you. You could still grow up and be a great man or woman of God, but you know what? Does that make what your parents did right? And does that make God wrong for calling it out and calling it what it is and putting a name on it? That's unsavory. Well, you know what? Adultery ought to have an unsavory name. Fornication ought to have an unsavory name. You know, having children out of wedlock should be a shameful thing. And so that's the way the Bible portrays it. Don't get mad at God for calling a spade, a spade. Okay. And no, it's not the child's fault. No, the child should not be punished, but the child suffers the repercussions of the actions of their parents. That's what's going on. And again, there are symbolic meanings and God's symbolic meanings pointing us to Christ are more important than some bastard or hunchback's feelings from the old Testament. They just need to get over it. I just don't think it's fair that, you know, just because I have a weird eye, I can't offer the bread of God. Life isn't fair. You know what I mean? And we just live in this society where everybody's just so sensitive and everybody's so offended by everything and just everybody just has to have every opportunity. I can do anything. No, you can't. You can't do anything. You could be the president of the United States. You could be a marine biologist when you grow up. You know, you could be a ballerina. You could be a professional athlete. You know what? Why don't you be what God wants you to be? And you know what? God might be up in heaven and just look down at you. You're so good at baseball and he might just look down at you and just say, I don't want you to be a professional athlete. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cause you to pull a muscle. I'm going to cause you to dislocate something. I'm going to cause you an injury. Why? Because I decide what you're going to do. I created you. I mean, look, if God created the whole world, he has the right to tell us what we're going to do. And you know what? What if I just decide, well, I don't want to be a pastor. You know, I just want to be a fire alarm guy. You know, do I have the right to just go out and just do what I want? I just want to go make money. Is that God's plan for my life? Well, I got to do what God has for me. You got to do what God has for you. This attitude that we're drilling into our young people. Hey, you can be whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. Why don't we teach them, hey, seek God's will for your life. Seek the will of God. Figure out what God wants you to do with your life. Isn't that a better way to live your life? Hey, figure out what God's plan is. You know, there are a lot of people in the Bible who had a certain plan and God had a different plan for them. There are a lot of people in this room that had a certain plan for their life and life didn't go the way that they thought it was going to go. You know, they're not in the Olympics after all or whatever, you know. Look, folks, quit being selfish and just thinking about yourself. You know, if you're in the Old Testament and you got a broken foot, oh man, I don't get to offer the bread of God. So what? Do what God has for you to do. You know, there was a guy in the Bible who was born blind, he's 40 years old, spent the first 40 years of his life blind. Why? Did he sin? No. Did his parents sin? No. Why was he born blind? For the glory of God. Now, look, I guarantee you that if you talk to that guy and say, hey, did you enjoy being blind for the first 40 years of life? Did you like being blind? He'd say no. Being blind is difficult. Being blind is a challenge. But ask him now if he's glad that he was that guy. And I guarantee you that after he was healed by Jesus Christ and got a whole chapter, and he even gets to stand in front of the Pharisees and ridicule them, right, I mean, he really, he's one of the biggest smart alecks in the whole Bible, you know. Because he was blind, you know, a lot of times when you lose one sense, other senses are heightened. So he was really good at speaking. Because that's all he had was his speech and his hearing. And so because he's blind, I mean, he went in there and really made idiots out of them. And they had to finally just throw him out. But he ridicules the Pharisees. I mean, he was the star of a major chapter in one of the most read gospels, the Gospel of John. By the way, the book of the Bible, it's been translated into the most languages. It's the Gospel of John. He gets a great chapter. I guarantee you he's up in heaven saying, hey, it was worth it to be born blind. It was a great life. I love what God planned for me. I'm just glad I could be a part of his plan. I'm just glad that I could be a part of the Gospel. Because you know what? The Gospel is bigger than that guy's 40-year life. Folks, how many people have been ministered to by John chapter 9 and blessed by John chapter 9 and learned from John chapter 9? I want to be able to see. No. You don't get to see. You're going to be blind for 40 years so that this amazing chapter of the Bible can be written that's going to lead people to salvation. And you know what? Heaven and hell is more. And guess what? That's the way our lives are too. We might just have, oh, I just want to travel and see the world. And I just don't get to travel anywhere. I'm just stuck here in Tempe, Arizona. You're stuck in the coolest place in the world. It's a lot worse places to be than Arizona. This is the best place in the whole world. Look, put an ankle bracelet on me. I don't want to go anywhere. I'm happy right here. Ban me from every country. Ban me from every state. Ban me from every city outside of Tempe. Everything I need is right here. Folks, if you're going to be stuck somewhere, this is the place to be stuck. I just want to travel. Folks, is that what life is to you? Just traveling around in an RV or something? And look, look, I've gotten to travel a lot. I'm sick of traveling. Oh, you just said it because you got to do it. But you know what? Hey, everybody gets to do different things. There are certain things that have been held back from me and certain things that have been held back from you. You know what? Why don't we just live the life that God has for us and not whine about whatever we don't get to do? You know what I mean? It's just like, oh, man, I can't believe I was born with this disability and then God adds insult to injury by telling me that I can't offer the bread or whatever. It's like, no, God has something better for you because whatever God has planned for you is the best thing for you. And it might not involve you being a professional athlete or a marine biologist or a ballerina or the president. He might plan something a little more humble for you. Is that okay? You know, you're not God. You are his humble servant. I am his humble servant. We have to do what he wants us to do. So again, we see that the word of God's perfect. The atheists are wrong and, uh, you know, we learned a lot of great things from these verses tonight. Amen. I mean, there's a lot of great teachings that we picked up here, uh, while the atheists mock at these verses. I like all of them. Who likes all of them? It was all great. Right. All right. Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for your word and Lord, uh, when the atheists scoff and, and throw these things in our faces, Lord, the joke's on them. And so Lord help us, help us not to get angry and, and, and, uh, lose our temper. If an atheist throws one of these things at us, Lord, because it's really, they're really just doing it to themselves. They're really just mocking themselves. They're really just destroying their own souls and their own lives, Lord. And so Lord, those that are ignorant, father, forgive them for they know not what they do Lord, because there's going to be hell to pay for these atheists Lord. For those that are not already reprobate, Lord, I pray that they would get saved before it's eternally too late and help us to win as many of them to, to you as we can through our soul winning. And Lord, I know many have already been saved through the ministry of this church. Many atheists and agnostics Lord help us to win many more to Christ and it's in his name.