Published: February 12, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Leviticus - The Parable of Leviticus 3 - Part 1 | Scripture: Exodus 19
Transcript
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name. Amen. So, welcome back to the Leviticus study. Um, the plan is that this will be the third and final session of Levit the Leviticus study and we are dealing with
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a section of Leviticus known as the holiness code. holiness code. So um in terms of of uh both Jewish and
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Christian analysis of the book of Leviticus, it's broken into two basic
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Torah. And that goes from chapter 1 and some people ended at 16, we ended it at 17. at 17. Um there's a little bit of an overlap I
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believe, but the priestly Torah and this of course deals with uh the the
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ministry of the tabernacle, the ironic high priest and then his sons, the priests. uh doesn't even deal with the the Levites and their function that
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that's in Exodus and Numbers. So from 1 and I'll say we'll do this we'll say 1
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to 17 to 17 being the day of atonement the day in which the entire camp including the tabernacle is cleansed. And I think that
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feature of uh chapter 17 is what makes it an overlap. And then the part that we're looking at
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And I'm going to say it goes from Leviticus 17
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chapter 27 being essentially an epilogue. So, a little bit of an overlap. I think that's uh it's significant considering
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what modern scholarship has done with all of this. I mean, certainly, you know, that if if the second half of Leviticus doesn't sound like the first half of Leviticus, that clearly means
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it's from a different source, right? a different author. And sure enough, the documentary hypothesis, which I don't know why they still call it a hypothesis because it's gospel to to most um
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liberal and semieangelical scholars today. This is the air they breathe. The the the old JPD. Okay. So,
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the Deuteronomist. These are the different redaction groups redaction groups that allegedly brought together the Pentatuk. Um, we're going to talk a little bit
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more. It's kind of a refresher. Uh, why I don't agree with this theory and think it's it's actually utterly silly with a capital S. Um, and it's awfully funny
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sometimes to read the uh the authors that still abide by it and hear them tie themselves up in knots. Um, and they're
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trying to get away from it, but they just can't because this is this is like evolution in the public schools or in the scientific organizations. It's now
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established. It it is the shibilith. And so even when what you're saying was listening with uh my granddaughter to a YouTube video on amphibians
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uh the ancient giant amphibians and just listening to the fellow he think do do you even listen to yourself when you speak but he he said that at some point
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in time at the end of the pletoine or or the plexiglass era or whatever it was 96% of living organisms on land and in the water were wiped out.
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And that was allegedly 250 million years ago. Well, you're starting with only 4%. And yet you're somehow accepting the in incredible diversity, special diversity
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of our world today when everything was wiped out 250 million years ago. But you needed more than that to get to that point. And all you had were flappers. You know, you didn't have you didn't
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have bipeds, you didn't have anything. And everything gets wiped out. And now look at what we have. They don't even recognize the ridiculousness of and the same thing is true with the documentary hypothesis. They they've tied themselves
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up in knots and to the point where, you know, we we've lived with these for most of the 20th century and then some brilliant scholar decided that we needed
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to add another one H for the holiness code, which is what we're studying.
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But if you look at the text carefully, even in the English, you realize that the holiness code is integrally related to the priestly Torah. And in fact, over here, I have a little
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bit of an outline of the of the first five chapters. Now, two of these chapters are are like the chapter in Judges, the Levite and his concubine.
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It's a nasty chapter to read. Okay. Um and Leviticus 18 and 20 are also
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nasty. Um and and so just as with the with the uh the story of David and Ba Sheba or the the Levite with his concubine, um they need to be handled with care. Um
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and I hope to do that, but they are actually related in terms of their literary structure. They're they're clearly bookends of a sort. the the
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epicenter of of the holiness code is actually Leviticus 19, which is kind of a bummer when you get to the climax so early in the series. You know, what's what's left? But there's a lot left. Uh,
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nonetheless, Leviticus 19 is is probably the most concentrated chapter in the Bible on what holiness looks like in a
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practical manner. practical manner. And it is a very positive chapter, which is refreshing as it's bracketed by two very negative chapters. But they're there for a reason. And I hope to be
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able to show you why they're there rather than getting into if you've read them, you know what I'm talking about. But rather than getting into the weeds of those two chapters, um they are
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fairly self-explanatory in terms of that which they prohibit and they really don't need um much in the way of discussion. we we know what he's talking
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about, but why is it all there? What does it signify? Well, I want to up here on the board, I want to point out that in each of these chapters, and again, chapters are not original. Um, but in
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this case, I think they're they're well placed. Chapter 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Well, chapter 17
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begins. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to Aaron and his sons.
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And if we jump ahead to chapter 21, then the Lord said to Moses, "Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron.
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Chapter 18 verse 1. Then the Lord said to Mo spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel."
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then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "You shall also say to the sons of
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And I I hope that what we're doing here, it's not only a bit of an outline before we actually get into the meat, and we're not going to really get into the meat of of chapters 18 and 20, but I I think what this is showing us is in this
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particular section of Leviticus, we're homing in on chapter 19. In chapter 19 verse one we read then the Lord spoke to Moses saying
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speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel. Literally it's speak to each and every man or each and every person of the
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congregation of Israel. So speak to all the congregation
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It's just enough of a distinction to set it apart. So I'm going to submit early on that what we're looking at here is a jewel, which is Leviticus 19.
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and its setting moves out concentrically from the priesthood chapter 17 chapter 20 21 excuse me to the camp but in a
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very negative way don't do these things and then to all the congregation of the sons of Israel come no okay so point being this is
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where we're kind of heading early on and I don't really plan on taking too long getting there. Um, in fact, over the next few weeks, I really want to
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focus on setting the redemptive historical setting historical setting for what we're reading. One of the reasons that Leviticus 18 and
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20 are uh difficult to read is because they're there. and being there they have powerfully influenced western morality
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so that when we read what is prohibited in Leviticus 18 and 20 we think duh of course not you don't do that stuff we
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don't actually stop to consider that they used to do that stuff they used to do that stuff regularly and in fact they used to do that stuff as part of their religious worship not the Israelites
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they would do it later sadly. But the pagans, especially those in the land that was promised to Abraham, you see, we take for granted the influence
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of what's called the Judeo-Christic Christian ethic. Um, it really could just be called the Judeo because the Christians simply adopted it. We didn't
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add to it. Um if you if you listen if you read uh the letter of the council of Jerusalem to the Gentiles of Paul's churches in Asia Minor, some of it
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actually flows out of Leviticus. You shall not do these things. And that became part of of Christian morals, Christian ethic. And as Christianity
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spread through the world, it became part of social morals and social ethic. And I hope that makes sense. we we we now take for granted which was what was once
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widespread and accepted within culture and even considered an act of worship. These are things that Paul says that that are done by them in the dark that
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it is not even proper to speak of them. And I'm going to try to take that approach in terms of the of the nitty-gritty is that these are things about which it is not even proper to
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speak. But in Paul's day, these are things that the Gentiles still did. And Peter mentions the same that they still run to this dissipation. this dissipation. So we're looking back from 2,000 years
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of a pervasive leavenvening effect of Christianity even over those who do not accept Christ. Their their society has been molded.
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I've mentioned and and I quote him in one of the chapters of our notes on this series, Tom Holland, the his British historian who is a classical historian u
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steeped in ancient Greek and Roman history um and some Anglican background, some some religious background. He still doesn't, I don't think, profess to be a
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Christian. He attends a church now. Okay, well I guess that's good. That's better than before. Yeah. Um, and I've seen him on some podcasts or whatever where he's his book Dominion was, as he
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places it somewhat, uh, puts it as somewhat of a revelation to himself because he had always been brought up believing that the western western civilization owed its being and its
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thought patterns, its worldview to ancient Greco Roman philosophy and society. and and he came to realize no actually we owe it to Christian society
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that what we take for granted in terms of human rights um child protection uh spousal protection spousal protection law yeah the Romans had law but that law
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was not equitable what we we as hospitals orphanages all of these things did not come from our Greco Roman heritage they all came from
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our Christian heritage. Now, obviously, we now take all of that for granted. In fact, others now take credit for it, but he was pointing out and it's an excellent book. If you if you have if
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you have something if you're you know, you don't have anything on your reading list, Tom Holland, Dominion.
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I don't know if I heard that, but Dawkins. Yeah. Richard Dawkins. Christian by those principles. Yeah. Yeah. And and
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some of you Muslims coming in
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at all like like all these persons. I I I started to laugh because there's a little uh skit where a news uh news anchor in in Britain um he says about a
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poll asking uh asking people if if immigration is a problem and 23% said no and the rest said and then he rattled
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off Arabic. Oh, it's I think it's scary. Europe's scary right now. It really is. Um, but
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that's that's that's a rabbit trail. Um, so I I do recommend this book. I think you will find it very enlightening, encouraging. Um, and also um well, I I
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say encouraging because we're we are definitely led to believe that Christianity is marginalized and it's out of the public square. And and yet some of you may remember an essay that
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I've handed out in several classes uh where the author asked the question, can we be good without God? Um and and his answer, and again, he's not an evangelical. I'm not even sure he's a
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believer, but his answer is no. That there really is no justification for even the word good without God. And he meant, of course, the Christian God. So
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we take for granted the prohibitions we're going to read and I think that's a good thing. So for example, we take for granted the principle of consanguinity
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or in-laws or in-laws which is actually a Christian term announcing that the two people that were about to be married were far enough
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apart in degrees of consanguinity. In other words, they weren't first cousins. They weren't siblings. you know, they were far enough apart. Well, that's what we're reading here. That didn't used to
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be a problem. In fact, in Egypt, the Pharaoh and and his sister were married, you know, so it and it was part of their
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religious statutes, their religious life to live the way they did. And that's going to come out in the text here very early in chapter 18. So what we're reading is is
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rooted in redemptive history up to this point. And I want to show that carefully over the next couple of weeks. How the um the the text of Leviticus 18 and 20
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actually takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The terminology that is used is reminiscent of events that occurred earlier. And even the peoples
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that are involved bring forth echoes and illusions to earlier events right after the flood for example. So I want to set everything in
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its context but in the beginning just kind of lay it out where we're headed is we're going to spend some time here. Um it's really a very amazing chapter in
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terms of of living life. Tim
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226. How do you see the relation
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I I think it's it it is a modern western culture to make outlines. Um, and every commentary that you read, the first part of the book outlines the whole book and then the first part of each chapter outlines the whole chapter.
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Some scholars, I think, have correctly taken issue with that. And and oftentimes when you read these these um uh outlines, you you see that they're
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they're fairly forced. And often they do try to they try to force it into a kayastic structure because everybody loves a kayazm, right? Erin pointed that out in Sunday school, I believe, that
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you know, everybody loves a kayazm whether it's there or not. Um, we're going to make it there because, you know, X marks the spot, I guess. So, I
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don't know that 22 through 26 has this kind of a structure.
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Um, I guess my question is also just do you see those as kind of case law? Yeah, I was going to say I was going to say miscellaneous. Okay. Okay. Um and that sounds bad. Uh case
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law I think is is a fair, you know, where case law is when when this happens, you do this. And there's certainly some of that. And there's actually some of that in in these chapters where if this happens, this is
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what you do. If you find a necromancer or a diver or a spiritist or a witch, you kill them. You know, if if a child or a son uh rises up against his
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parents, you take him outside this that's case law. You this happens, you do this. That's woven in all of this. That's getting down in somewhat into the weeds. But I do think that there are
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passages of scripture that do classify as what's known as miscellaneous where the author has presented the framework of his thought
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and then there are almost I hate to say I hate to use the word random um but not necessarily systematized
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related. They are all related. They're kind of under the rubric of all of this. And I do think some people call this the ten commandments of the holiness code. This is widely recognized as the as the
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beating heart of this section of Leviticus. So, um I want to spend some time there because I think the principles then are worked out in the later chapters, but I
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don't know that I would um I would be able to do chapters 22 through 26 in in I there just isn't any textual um uh to
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work. No, no textual markers like that to work with. Fact, I want to add another one up here. It's getting a little bit ahead of myself. Um but 18 and 20 are also linked
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by the participation of the land because in 18 it is the land that is vomiting out the Canaanites.
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And in 20 if the Israelites follow in the path of the Canaanites, which they will do, guess what the land is going to do?
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It's going to vomit them out. Okay? So you have you have a lovely image
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that further links these two chapters in in a sense 18 and 20 should be read together and I'm treating them together in the class. Okay? I'm not going to go I'm not going verse by verse you so you're not going to see that that often
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standard motif where we put out a verse and then commentary. It's it's more let's look at the big picture. Let's see what it is that why this is here. What is the Holy Spirit trying to
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establish in what God has already called a holy nation. So we're talking about the framework of holiness and 18 and 20 establish it in contrast
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whereas 19 establish it is establishes it in principle. So 18 and 20 are it's not this and 19 it's this. Okay. And
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then we have the the uh the fundamental principle of holiness and that is separation. And this is part of all of that. We've talked about the holiness spectrum in
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the first part of Leviticus. This really is flowing right out of that. Just so to say that there's a different source or different redaction is is ludicrous.
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This this flows out of chapters 1-6 or 1-1 17. The theme throughout is a holy nation. And to remind us of this,
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let's let's remember our setting. Okay, this is the only.
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This is the only section of the pentatuk that we can date with exactness. We read in Exodus 40
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verse 17. I'll go ahead and and read it. So at the end of Exodus before we get to Leviticus, we find out where Israel is.
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Verse 17. Now it came about in the first month of the second year on the first day of the month that the tabernacle was
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erected. So we're on the first day of the first month of the second year. Second year after I'm taking it as the crossing of the Red Sea, the coming out. Then in
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numbers 1 verse one, then the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Si to the tent of meaning in the tent of meaning meeting meaning on the first day of the
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second month in the second year. They've been here a month. Considering that's the only
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place. Now, we know that they wandered in the wilderness 40 years, but we don't we're not given we're not given the day and the month and the year like we are in Exodus 40 and Numbers 1. Leviticus is
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right in the middle. Most scholars recognize Leviticus in the middle of Pentatuk as well for a reason. So you have Genesis and Exodus. You have Numbers in Deuteronomy. Right in the
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middle is Leviticus. It is the hinge. Um it is also the heart of of everything that goes on around it. But it also flows from everything that goes on
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around it. Jennifer. Okay. Are we um discussing Is this the time like Nissan Nissan would be month one?
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Are we are we I'm not really good on my Jewish calendar. Um calendar. Um yeah, but I think isn't Nissan the first? Now they you know they do have
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two What's that? What's that? It wasn't that. Okay. It is the first. And they do actually have two calendars. They have a religious calendar and they have a um a civil calendar. In the civil calendar I
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be well it's the religious that begins Yam Kapoor Yam Kapoor Tish okay so it's shifted by seven months yeah so actually he's the one but
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yeah that's that's what we're talking about the measured from the time that they crossed the Red Sea it's been a year or I'm sorry two years and now
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they're at Sinai and that's also significant and we'll spend some time talking about Sinai um probably actually in the next biblical theology class where we talk about the kingdom of God.
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Si and Zion are two very significant mountains as as Aaron again has pointed out in uh the Deuteronomy study that the the pair pairs of mountains two
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mountains is a motif in scripture and such motifs we should we should learn to recognize them because they they have significance. Um, but they're at Sinai.
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They're at the foot of Si and the tabernacle is erected. And with that, the ministry of the ironic priest is established. is established. And then we get the rest of Leviticus.
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And it's it it's incredibly important in this context this context because it teaches us that at least the old covenant and and I
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think absolutely as well the new covenant but at least in the old covenant there was no such thing as a separation between ritual and practice.
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that while there was a priesthood and of course the priesthood was holy and it dealt in the realm of the holy,
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we saw even in the first half that the rules of holiness, especially those of clean and unclean, pertain to every Israelite and even to those who were simply going
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along for the ride. Sojourers in the camp who were not actually Israelites. They were still held to the same standard of clean or unclean, holy or
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profane or common. But now we get into a section that is almost entirely dealing with the way the average Israelite lived his life. And we find that he was no
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less held to a standard of holiness than was the ironic priest. So every move in the history of true
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religion that has tended towards a separation within the community of a holy or sacred people and a ley or
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secular people is false and dangerously false. But it's the tendency of human nature to do exactly that. To set off, set aside
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priests, monks, nuns, whatever you want to call them, pastors, but to set them aside as the holy men or the holy women. And they're the ones that have a higher
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calling. And in fact, in the by the high middle ages, uh, a vocation was really only holy orders. holy orders. And that was one of the things that Luther attacked was the notion that that
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a printer or a cobbler or a housemmaid was not a vocation, was not a calling. He said, "No, yes, it is. We, you know, do all things as unto the Lord," Paul
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writes. But the church had had so removed the holy into its little enclave of clergy that it left everybody else as the unwashed masses. and they would
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receive their washing through the holy ones. Not here. Okay. I I pointed out uh as other scholars have done that the
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ironic priesthood, the the iron the ironic priestly ministry was entirely silent. Nowhere in the instructions in the priestly Torah do we hear the Lord
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telling the priest to say anything. No mantras, no abracadabras, no not even any prayers or benedictions. Just kill
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the animal and sprinkle the blood. Do do, but don't say anything. Now, I don't know that they never said anything. I'm not saying that it was entirely silent at the time. Maybe they did. I don't
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know. But they're not commanded to. They're not given any script as it were because they're not to be seen as anything different. They have a role to play. And for that role, okay, that's an
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honored role. But what did they pay? Well, they were left out of the inheritance, weren't they? They didn't have any land. They didn't have any sustenance. They didn't have
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any identity in the ancient world. Their identity was the tabernacle. Okay? So, they paid a price for that position, but
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they were not any different. So when we go back to Exodus 19 and that's when um Israel shows up pretty much um at Sinai
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and they're about to get the law. Exodus
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starting in verse um five. Well no let me start in verse four. The Lord is speaking. You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you out brought you to myself.
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Now, what I'm reading here is the long version of something that we're going to read over and over again where the Lord gives a statute or a commandment and he says,
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"For I am the Lord your God." Or, "For I am the Lord your God who redeemed you." or I am the Lord your God who sanctifies you. What's not said is what's said
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here. I am the Lord who brought you out of bondage to myself. That that's the background and everything else is kind of shorthand.
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of shorthand. But you you you need to include all of this in every time you read that. Does that does that make sense? Okay. It's not just a power play. I am the Lord. Do
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it. No, that's not the point. It it includes and sometimes it actually goes a little further and brings in but it includes all it's like the souari treaties we talked about in biblical
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theology. It begins with the prologue where the great king reminds his vassel of what he did for the vassel. And that's what God is doing whenever he
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says for I am the Lord. He's saying that brought you out of Egypt and brought you to myself and bore you as on eagle's wings. All of that is is included in
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each short statement throughout Leviticus. So, um going on now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own
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possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. And we talked about that in biblical theology as well. At no point has God ever abdicated his
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sovereign authority over all mankind. He he has never said I'm going to give that all the rest of that to Satan and I'll just take this little one here.
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No, he he says, "All the earth is mine, and out of all that is mine, I have chosen to make covenant with you, Israel." Later in Deuteronomy, he'll
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remind them it wasn't because they were a great people or or a large people. Deuteronomy 7:7, he basically says, "You were nothing and I've made you a nation." And we talked about that again
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in biblical theology. Um, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, a kingdom of priests.
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Not one of your tribes will be the priest kings. No, you shall be all of you, all y'all will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
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Conditional if you will keep my covenant and if you will obey my commands. So the setting of Leviticus 18 and 20 is God's having created and formed.
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If you remember Isaiah uses that language to speak of Israel the same language as creation the barah of Genesis 1. In the beginning God created
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well in Isaiah I think it's 50. No, it's not 53. 43. God created Israel and then formed Katsar is what he did with Adam
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out of the dust of the ground. He formed him and breathed into him the his spirit. And that's exactly what Isaiah says God has done in Israel. So Israel,
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even though it's not ex nilo, it's not out of the dust, it's as it were out of the nations, the nations, God has said, "Let there be Israel." And he with the tabernacle and his presence
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is breathing life into this new nation. It was not a nation in Egypt. It was not a nation until Si. So what kind of a
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nation is it going to be? And that's really what this is all about. A holy nation. Now the parallelism should be rather
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obvious. What Israel was supposed to be so also the church is supposed to be. What Israel was supposed to do in the setting of the ancient near east, the church is
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supposed to do in the world. And what Israel had in the tabernacle is now indwelling the church and every individual believer.
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individual believer. So that's what happened on Pentecost. Okay, that's that's the imagery there was the shikina, the glory of God coming down upon the first Christians and that
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has been present in the church, the true church ever since. So if we look at Leviticus 18 and 19 and then we look 18 and 20 and we see all the negatives and
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we say, "Okay, we don't do those things. We're fine." And and then we see Exodus 19 and how we're supposed to act and we say, "Well, not doing so good there, but
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capitalism was great." Um, go capitalism. Forget living 19. That's not handling the scripture
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correctly. It is by God's grace that the abominations of Leviticus 18 and 20, the offering up of children to Molech, for example, it just ain't done anymore,
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okay? Not at least not in in Christian nations as we might call them. It's not a problem in the West. I know some of this stuff still goes on, but but even in our very
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uh perverse generation and compared to to my parents' generation and my grandparent, we're in a perverse generation. The vast majority of people still rather not talk about what some
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people talk about very publicly. We just don't talk about it because as Paul says, you don't talk about the things done by them in the darkness. That's because of these chapters. And and to
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leave it at that though is to render these chapters no longer profitable for instruction, for reproof. Okay? What we're dealing with actually here is
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idolatry. It it's it's there are two commandments that really stand out. The first and the fifth and they are related. You shall
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have no other gods before me. That's a prohibition on idolatry. And then you shall honor your father and your mother, which as we've seen and talked about in
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in the Romans study has implications of all human authority structures that as in Romans 13 when Paul says that
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there is no authority but that has been put in place by God and is answerable to God. So that the authorities that are beginning with your parents are the
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representatives of God. And he says in Romans 13, if you rebel against the authority, then you are actually rebelling against God. So these two
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commandments one and five are the the the first one is like the metaphysical truth. There is only one God. And then the second one is the practical truth.
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you shall honor the forms of authority that God has set in place beginning with your parents. Okay, so that's that's what's behind this. It's not it it is
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very much moral. The things that we're going to read were the depths of abomination.
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What we're actually reading here, and this is kind of a a foretaste of what's to come, but what we're reading here is the other part of the covenantal prophecy of Genesis 15
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where Abraham sees that vision of the divided he divides the animals, remember? And then a great darkness comes and he sees in a vision the the smoking furnace passing through and
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there's something else flaming torch and a smoking furnace I think it was passing through the it's cutting a covenant and that's where the land is promised and
41:17
yet there's a proviso it'll be another 400 years Abe because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet
41:28
complete You see that prophecy is read and then forgotten. Well, when we get to Leviticus 18, the iniquity of the Amorites, folks, is complete. And now they're going to be wiped out.
41:39
See, this is also it ties back even to that that God is going to use the army of Israel under Joshua to bring about the destruction of the the wicked and
41:51
and they were wicked in the midst of a very wicked age. So is this a crescendo of reaching a
42:02
certain preparation of Israel to come and take Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's both. That's the thing. That's what I'm trying to point out. It's not just Israel taking the
42:13
land. It's not just Israel being in the land still threatened with the possibility of being expelled. It's also the land expelling
42:23
the people who were there then. So it's both. It's a crescendo of wickedness. And we'll actually spend a class kind of talking about that not again not in
42:34
great detail but just in in the general concept of the the depths of depravity that we see in the Canaanites. By the
42:46
way, Amorite and Canaanite are synonyms. The Amorites are not a different tribe. It's just a different word. Uh so there there's also that part of the history
42:58
involved in what we're reading. So in Leviticus 18 Leviticus 18 where we read
43:18
verse three, you shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their
43:33
statutes. Now, the operative term here is first of all Canaan. That's where you're going. But this is going to have ramifications later when the Israelites want to go
43:43
back to Egypt during the time of the exile. The land is actually vomiting them out. And the prophet Jeremiah is saying, "Go to Babylon. That's where you
43:54
need to go." and they're saying, "No, no, no, no, no. We'll go back to Egypt." So, this is going to come back into play as they will go back down to Egypt. But the the real important part here that as
44:07
will come out later in in the Holiness Code and in the book of Deuteronomy are the Canaanites, the Canaanites, the people who dwell in the land. Now, but what's what's really significant
44:17
here is the word he uses. You shall not walk in their statutes. Now listen to what he says in verse four. That is
44:27
three and four. Excuse me. No, here we are. You are to perform my judgments and keep my statutes to live in accord with
44:38
them. I am the Lord your God. Statutes. That's a Torah word. Okay. That that's a
44:49
word like ordinance or commandment or ritual. or sacrifice all the other words that are surrounding the worship of Yahweh. You shall walk in my statutes, not in
45:02
theirs. Okay, this is all about idolatry and the form of idolatry. Again, we don't necessarily see it and that's why we have to look at it carefully. We see
45:14
things, these things that we read as just horrible sins, immoral behavior. We don't necessarily see them as perverse
45:26
worship, but that's how God saw them because that's what they were in the ancient near east. They were not just sins. They were definitely that. They were sins
45:38
committed in the name of deity. They were sins committed in the worship of the gods.
45:48
Aaron, there's a bit
46:00
for their god. Right. Thank you. Yeah. So, Deuteronomy 12 uh makes the whole thing explicit, but it also alludes to something that we've really
46:11
lost sight of, and that is we've made a separation between our actions and our beliefs. And we we don't realize that God doesn't make that situation or that separation.
46:22
And he's the one whose judgment matters. That all that we do when Paul says what all that you do do as under the Lord. And that is because all that you do, you owe to the Lord. And this is where the
46:32
reformers tried to bring back the idea of all life, all legitimate work as a vocation. Not just the holy orders, but everything you do if it's a legitimate work, if
46:43
it's a legitimate job and not in and of itself sin. I mean Luther did not exonerate prostitution for example or extortion, embezzlement. No, those those
46:54
are crimes. Those are sins. But but all other forms of work from farming um all the way up maybe even to to lawyers are considered of oaks. That was for you.
47:07
Just making sure you're awake. um they're all considered to be acts of worship and and that's how Israel that's why this this whole section of history
47:18
is so important because as Israel was supposed to live so also the church is supposed to live what we read here is not just and this is what
47:28
dispensationalism has done to us it's separated it off into its own hermetically sealed era that has really nothing to say to us but it has everything to say to us Which again is
47:39
why the New Testament writers quote it so often that this is still the same God. This is the same Messiah, the same yesterday, today and forever. The same
47:49
spirit who who dwelt dwelt in the tabernacle and in the temple now dwells in the church and in every member. Okay. So there's there's really no um paradigm
48:01
shift as it were in terms of morals and ethics or any separation between what we do as worship and then what we do as just everyday life. We already saw that
48:14
what everyday life was like in the camp. Remember I made the comment that it seemed like sometimes there were more Israelites outside the camp than inside the camp because of all the various
48:24
uncleannesses and how they contracted them and how long they had to stay out and what they had to do to to regain cleanliness so they could come back sometimes even into their own home.
48:35
It was really tough. Holiness was was real. And in the sermon on the mount that's what we find. You shall be perfect. you shall be holy
48:46
because your father in heaven is holy. So the same paradigm that we'll see in in um in Leviticus 19, you shall be holy
48:57
because I your Lord your God am holy is what Jesus repeats in the sermon on the mount. Okay. So, um, tonight I want to
49:08
make sure we have our geographical setting, but now I want to talk about our, um, our spiritual setting as it were. And that brings us back to the concept
49:19
of the holiness zones that we talked about in the first part or the middle part of Leviticus.
49:45
This is not something that we we read explicitly in scripture. This is something that um several uh Bible scholars um Peter Jensen is the one I can think of right off the top of my
49:56
head u kind of developed this overarching framework to help us understand the movement of Israelites
50:08
between the holy and the profane, the common and from the clean which you cannot be holy unless you're clean.
50:19
And the unclean, which is actually worse than profane, because profane actually just means common. And so the this was a a moving dynamic spectrum that dealt
50:33
with that overarching question. How can a holy God dwell in the midst of an unholy people? And then the flip side,
50:43
how can an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God? I mean that that's the fundamental question I think of the whole book of Leviticus. How are we going to do this?
50:54
How are we going as we are unclean? Isaiah says, "I am I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips and I am I have seen the presence of the Lord in his glory." And
51:06
and and um he says, "Woe to me. I am undone." So here's a whole people, two and a half million people who are unclean except that God has cleansed them. So he has made them into a
51:18
situation where clean is the the status quo. That's the normal. They don't have to do anything more to get clean. What they do is because of what they do,
51:30
they become unclean. And then we saw that oftenimes it was just the natural path of life. It wasn't necessarily, in fact, in many cases, it was by no means a sin. And yet, they were unclean. So,
51:44
it was a daily reminder. Even the food that they ate was either clean or unclean. And and so, it it wasn't just the priests. It was all the people. All the people were under this paradigm of a
51:56
holiness zones. Okay? So, we we see this epicenter, ground zero of holiness.
52:07
is the Holy of Holies within the tabernacle. Okay. Then we have, and I'm going to make it a little bit larger even though it wasn't this way.
52:18
We have the most holy place wherein the ironic priest ministered every day with the table of showbread, with the incense altar, and with the the
52:29
lampstand. And that was that was administered every single day with blood and with bread and with oil. Okay. So that was zone two.
52:49
there was the tabernacle court where the Israelites would bring their offerings. And I've always thought this very significant. They would slay their offerings. very unusual in the ancient
53:00
religion religious world for the people themselves to slay the offering. All the priests did was basically act as a butcher after the animal was dead. They
53:12
they they disseminated the different parts according to the priestly Torah. Took some of it from themselves. Some of them went back if it's a peace offering. Some of it was burned on the altar. Some
53:22
of it was burned as refuge outside the camp. Some of the blood was wiped on the altar. Some of it was taken into the holy place, you know, and then on the day of atonement, it was taken into the holy of holies. But that's that's zone
53:36
three because in in each of these zones, there was you go here and no further. So the 12 tribes, not not including
53:50
Levi, came to the altar and no further. They went no further than that. than that. And again the the diagrams that you see
54:00
of the second temple with the court of the Gentiles and the court of women, the court of Israel, that is not biblical. It is historical. But by that time,
54:10
Judaism was moving far away from the biblical model and it was beginning to segregate its own people in an un unbiblical and ungodly way. There was no
54:21
such prohibition. In fact, we see in Leviticus in the first chapters women not only bringing their own sacrifice but killing it. Okay, so that that should stir you up a
54:33
little bit that what happens in religion is systems and institutions that bind. I mentioned this last Sunday. I mean,
54:44
what is the lowest common denominator of liberty that we can all live with? Well, let's keep the women out there and the Gentiles even further out. Okay, that there was no such prohibition
54:56
in in the actual scripture. There was no such prohibition in in Solomon's temple and certainly not in the tabernacle. But there were prohibitions. So, Israelites could go this far, but no further.
55:08
The priests could go this far, but no further. And only the high priest could go all the way in, but only once a
55:19
year and essentially in blindness because he was to fill the whole room with with the fog of incense. So he did not see the glory of of Yahweh. Um and
55:30
so there was these are these are degrees of separation but we also have the camp
55:45
zone 4 and that's often let left left out of our thinking when we think of the Old Testament religion. We think of the ironic priests and the slaughter of animals and and even then we don't always think correctly of it about what
55:56
was actually happening and the involvement of the people in all of this. But then we have all of those rituals of of cleansing where you were moving either this way or
56:07
that way. But the camp itself was a holy nation. They were to be a holy people. And so con uh contrary to the idea that
56:19
the holiness code came about through the moralizing efforts of the post- exilic priesthood. It flows from the first half of Leviticus that these people couldn't
56:31
they couldn't bring for example their free will offerings and their peace offerings if they were unholy. So the idea of the holiness zones
56:41
are you're moving one way toward the clean and then and I'm this I'm just writing this over top
56:53
or you're moving in the other direction.
57:07
So you're moving one way or the other. Every day of your life, you're moving one way or the other. Michael Morales in his commentary summarizes the pursuit of holiness as
57:18
the pursuit of God. That to the degree that we pursue God in truth according to his revelation, we are pursuing holiness.
57:31
I think that's good. It it kind of echoes awtoer echoes awtoer who famously said that the essence of idolatry is to think thoughts of God that are unworthy of him. What these men
57:43
are trying to do with these little apherisms is they're trying to show us that holiness is not about what we do and do not do. It's about who we approach or who we
57:55
turn our back on. Holiness is a a a characteristic of worship. It's not a characteristic of behavior. Now, don't get me wrong. You you can't
58:09
approach God through unholy behavior. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm not advocating uh a kind of let go and let God or it doesn't matter what we do as
58:20
long as you're, you know, sincere at heart or whatever garbage is perveyed. That's not what we're saying here. There's a great deal of morality in what we read in the commandments and statutes
58:30
of the Lord. Absolutely. But those are not the essence of holiness or of worship. They actually flow out of and
58:41
if they're not flowing out of a pursuit of God, they then form a form of idolatry themselves. idolatry themselves. So that when the people come to Ezekiel
58:52
in Babylon and they say, you know, we fasted on the 15th and we fasted on this day and we fasted for 40 days and Ezekiel gives the word of the Lord to them. Was it for me that you did all
59:04
these things? these things? Very rhetorical because he knows the answer. You were doing it for yourselves. So even good things, you know, in Isaiah
59:14
we read that the Lord hates the new moon feasts and and even the things the offerings that were commanded, he says, "They are an abomination to me. Don't bring them before me anymore because
59:24
your hands are full of blood." Yes, we're heading there. Yeah. But five is not really a holiness zone.
59:37
It's the unholy zone. Yeah. and it's outside the camp which is why certain degrees of uncleanness had to go there especially
59:49
those that were contagious. Now again Now again there are a lot of theories as to what made something contagious. I personally think that it was made
1:00:00
contagious because the Lord said it was a contagious. a contagious. I don't believe that the thing is I also think think the same thing about unclean animals. I I don't think there was anything inherently wrong with any of
1:00:12
those animals, which is why we're now free to eat all of them. Not at once, though. So, I I think the idea of the of the outer zone outside the camp is the
1:00:26
wilderness. Okay? That's where the scapegoat is sent is out into the wilderness. So there is a zone five, but that zone five
1:00:37
is again the wilderness outside the camp,
1:00:52
the Gentiles, which in the um in the Hebrew it's Guim, but I don't really know if that means the same thing is ethnoi the Greek but
1:01:03
we know ethnoi because we get the word ethnicity these are just the other ethnic groups okay not other races because there is only one race but there's there's only one chosen
1:01:16
ethnicity that was Israel and then there all the rest of the ethnoi which we read in our bibles as gentiles so these are the ethnoi
1:01:26
the ethnoi they are the unclean goim [ __ ] J g o y i m or plural. Uh it it
1:01:37
means everyone else. I It's rather um it's rather vague and broad, but it certainly means not a Jew. Okay.
1:01:48
Modernish. Yeah. It's kind of that's a Yiddish pronunciation of the goim. Yeah. Um, and so you know, if somebody in this in the in the delicates and calls you a goim, um, don't buy him a ham and swiss on rye because he's not a
1:02:00
friend. He's not not a gentile either. Um, so this is, yeah, this is all uh sort of holiness zone, but it's actually an unholiness zone. And and it's an
1:02:11
important one because we learn that these zones have perspective. And this is why Leviticus I think is
1:02:22
divided up the way it is. Not because of different sources or redactors but because this is the realm of the
1:02:38
and the priesthood's role is toward the people primarily. They serve as the intermediary for the people. Now they do that in the presence of God,
1:02:48
in the presence of Yahweh. But Yahweh is complacent in the sense that he doesn't need anything. The sacrifices that are being brought to him
1:02:59
are not because as in the other pagan u religions, it's not because Yahweh was hungry or Yahweh was hangry. That's the big thing. Get him some food because
1:03:09
he's hungry and he's gonna do something bad. Now the idea of appeasement is replaced by the idea or the reality of atonement of atonement and that's a very important distinction
1:03:21
in ancient religion. All the other religions of the world including many modern ones and many modern versions of Christianity are trying to appease the
1:03:33
deity. Now God has made he says I have given you the blood for atonement. It's not man trying to appease or please the God. It's the God saying, "Okay,
1:03:45
I've provided for you a means by which you may now approach me." This is this concept of the priesthood's
1:03:57
orientation is worship.
1:04:08
camp. So or the people. So we have the the tabernacle
1:04:18
and the camp. These are the two geographical elements of Israel in the wilderness. Now that's all going to change when Israel enters the land,
1:04:29
the land, which is why the years in the wilderness are so important. They're like boot camp. And even Leviticus itself and especially the holiness code I is like um intense boot camp.
1:04:42
It's all of this is when you enter the land. It's with reference even to the people that now dwell there. But when you enter the land now at this point they're not going to enter the land for
1:04:54
another I think 38 years another generation. They're they're at Mount Si when all this is being given. Okay. So they're being told, "Don't do
1:05:04
as the people do." But they're not going to touch those people for for another generation. All of this period of the wilderness is their is their training in the ways of
1:05:15
holiness, the ways of Yahweh. And and it's being it's it's like this is laid out as I hate to say this, but it's like the the manual
1:05:26
of proper behavior as the people of God. This is what you don't do. This is what you do. you do. to be pleasing. So that's the worship. But the people also have an orientation
1:05:37
and it's not as we would think. It's not oriented toward the tabernacle so much as it's oriented toward the rest of the world. And the word here is witness.
1:05:55
Now the key passage is Deuteronomy 4 which significantly is right before the second giving of the law the ten commandments in Deuteronomy 5. But in Deuteronomy 4 we read
1:06:13
Moses saying see I have taught you now this is at the end of that period okay timewise chronologically they're about to enter the land. Okay. So, Leviticus, they're still at Si, but in Deuteronomy,
1:06:23
they're on the what is it? The plains of Pisgah. They're they're looking out over the land they're about to enter in and conquer. Moses isn't going. And so, he says, "See, I have taught you statutes
1:06:36
and judgments just as the Lord our God, my God, commanded me, and that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do
1:06:49
them. For that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, "Surely this great nation is a
1:07:00
wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on him?" Witness.
1:07:13
They were going into the land with a purpose. Now this has a dark side. The dark side comes out during the exile in the
1:07:24
writings of Ezekiel where the Lord says my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. God has called out a people and given them a purpose. They will fail in that
1:07:36
purpose. Now there will be some bright lights. There'll be some times of revival. There'll be some individuals who who approximate pretty closely an
1:07:46
obedient life as far as we can tell. Not many. Uh I can think of one. There may have been more. May have been a couple more, but not many. And and and yet that
1:07:57
was their uh mission is to be a witness and not to go out with tracks and and evangel. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, "Obey my commandments.
1:08:10
Live by my statutes, not those of the people who are in the land now that you are dispossessing." Actually, no. The land is vomiting them out. You're just the expectctorant or the the epi or
1:08:22
whatever the stuff is I gave Ariel. You know, you that you're just helping the wretching out of these people because their time has come. But you must not live that way or the land will do the
1:08:33
same to you. So again, even with the idea of witness, we've we've turned it around as as it's something we need to do. We need to get
1:08:44
out there and share the gospel and share Jesus and do no we if we do that without doing this first,
1:08:54
it blasphemes the name of God in the eyes of the Gentiles. If we're out there trying to evangelize for a church that is living in sin and
1:09:04
disobeying the statutes of God, then we're not doing the Lord's work. We're doing our own. And much of modern evangelism is nothing but that. And and I wonder if the Lord won't say, "Was it
1:09:16
for me? for me? Was it for me that you went out and preached the gospel when your home is full of strife and your church is full of discord and
1:09:27
there's sin as in Corenth? No, that's not what he says. If you obey my commandments, if you live by my statutes, you will be a witness. You can't help it because you will be a
1:09:40
light in the midst of a dark time. There there's no you'll be a city set on a hill. You'll be a lamp, a lamp placed on top of the table and not under a bushel basket. You'll be leaven. You'll be
1:09:51
salt. You'll be light. There's no way the influence can be missed and you'll be hated for it. You'll be rejected. You'll be persecuted. You'll be killed
1:10:01
for it. But it's it's just living according to the statutes of God. A I was thinking instead of think
1:10:17
very powerful. They can feed everybody. That's why we love God. We think God is with them. with them. They just see me doing my statue, right? Not winning, right? She said, "I'll bless
1:10:29
you if you keep my statues and make a great nation." great nation." And that's not what the people would be witnesses that they're different. And then the people very soon after
1:10:40
entering the land, well, now it's very soon about 400 years later, but very soon in terms of um but what will they ask for? They'll ask for a king. a king who will go out before us in battle. So
1:10:52
they'll basically adopt the same perspective as all the other nations as to what makes you great. Whereas God said, "No, I'm your king. You will be seen to be great and wise and
1:11:04
understanding if you walk in my statutes." That's never changed. The application of Leviticus according to 2 Timothy 3:16 is to show us that the relationship between God's people and God has never changed.
1:11:16
Certainly, you don't do the things the world does. That's 18 and 20. And that hasn't changed either. That's going to come back up in Paul's writings. You don't do these things.
1:11:28
Okay, fine. But what do you do? And that comes up in Leviticus 19 and then afterwards in 22 and onward. I think that's really the root of the matter. I mean, it's it's it's
1:11:45
elementary school to focus on what we're not supposed to do because of two things. Number one, we all have a conscience. And if that conscience is not seared, we already
1:11:57
know we're not supposed to be doing it, right? And Paul points out in Romans 2 that even the Gentiles obey the law when they obey their conscience. Not exactly
1:12:08
that, but you know when they when they do what their conscience is clean, they are keeping the law. And when a Jew who who has the law disobys the conscience,
1:12:20
he says it's as if it was uncircumcision to him. So number one, they have the conscience. Number two, we live in an era that has experienced 2,000 years of
1:12:31
Christianity. So, we know both in our hearts and in our morality books. I know there's so many people saying it's not wrong. It's not wrong.
1:12:42
But that's what Paul says in Romans 1. They they know it's wrong. But not only do they keep doing it, they encourage others to do it, too. And the reason they encourage others to do it is because they know it's wrong.
1:12:55
And if everybody's doing it, then it's not as wrong as they know it to be. But it is wrong. So when we focus as a church, the Christianity on those negatives, we're we're not even halfway
1:13:06
there. We're we're not even out of elementary school as it were. We need to get to Leviticus 19. We need to start incorporating the one anothers
1:13:17
in Paul's letters. And and that's where it's at. That that's the whole context of being a holy nation, a peculiar people. God chose Israel. Israel out of
1:13:29
all the nations. He's chosen us out of all the people from every tongue, tribe, and nation.
1:13:58
Peter says the same thing. Yeah. The theme actually runs through Peter and and Paul and James. Um I'll see if I can find this. I think it's in chapter 4.
1:14:23
I was starting verse three. For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness,
1:14:34
carousels, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. That's kind of a summary statement actually. And he says, "And in all this they are surprised that
1:14:44
you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation and they malign you." Okay. Yeah. That's such as such this is what you were but now you know
1:14:55
you were once darkness but now you are light. He says walk as children of light. So it's it's about the positives more than the negatives. But again
1:15:06
that doesn't work with religion. And then even the language of Hebrew, right? Like just it's like how much more right it's like you've not come to the
1:15:17
mountain where even an animal you come to the holy city. You come to the holy city. Yeah. You you haven't come to Sinai the mountain burning with fire and thunder and even an animal that touched it would be
1:15:27
stoned to death. You've come to Zion. You know and I'm going to try to bring that out of Romans this Sunday, Lord willing. that, you know, when he says the kingdom of of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and
1:15:39
joy, peace, and joy, he's really saying something incredibly radical and not the least bit religious. Okay? So, when we look at Leviticus again, even though it's called the
1:15:49
holiness code, that's not a very good name for it because it's not do this and you're holy. You know, it's not like a checklist. That's that's not the point. and and you're not s it's not sufficient
1:16:02
to be able to say as you read through Leviticus 18 well I didn't do that I didn't do that you know I didn't do that and get to the end and say well I must be holy because I didn't do any of those things that's the Pharisee right no
1:16:16
that's not the point that's like the bare minimum the synanon you know you can't even enter into the discussion if you're still still doing that stuff you got to get to Leviticus 19 and say how
1:16:28
am I doing here. And and honestly, that's a much more critical test and a much more difficult one that that we'll find. And that's okay because in us
1:16:39
dwells no good thing. And when we read of of what we are to be, we should be reminded that that is why Christ died. That he who knew no sin became sin that
1:16:52
we might be the righteousness of God in him. And with that knowledge, we again seek to walk in the Lord's statutes and not in those of the Gentiles, not in those
1:17:03
of the Canaanites. The Canaanites have have uh as they're no longer a people. They're extinct, They're extinct, but they're not
1:17:14
because there's nothing new under the sun. And the things that we read in Leviticus 18 and and 20 still happen today and far worse.
1:17:24
Parents may not throw their children into a searing hot bronze cauldron to Molech,
1:17:37
but every day even Christian parents sacrifice their children to Molech. We we do when we sacrifice our children to the world. when we give over our children to the world to the world
1:17:48
system even I think to the world educational system we are very much sacrificing them and and it's it's not something that we we can continue to do we need to understand that our place in
1:18:01
the world is as Israel's was in the wilderness or actually I should say as Israel's was in the land the wilderness is a hiatus
1:18:11
I don't think there's a parallel between the wilderness the wilderness and any Christian period of of existence. You you think there may be I think there's parallels to be drawn
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this question on Sunday last summer and there are certainly lessons to be learned. I didn't mean that there weren't lessons
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to be learned. I mean I mean lessons by parallel lessons by parallel. It's just they they tend to say different things. I I what I'm saying is I don't know that there is
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a we sometimes what we do is we say okay especially dispensationalists this period corresponds to that period in a Christian's life. They do that with for example the letters of the churches are
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are different phases of the church's life through history. Now, what I'm saying is the wilderness that I don't know that there's any specific period either in the church's life or in um
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about the only thing I would say and I've said this before is that it was during the wilderness years that the entire generation that came out of Egypt perished and it was in the in the early church up to AD70 that that generation
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perished. You mean a specific I'm saying a specific historical period that correspond. That's all I'm saying. There are there are I think there are more lessons to be learned out of the wilderness and from the tabernacle than
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in all the years they were in the land with the temple. Okay. I I don't think there I mean there's much to be learned there, but in terms of of of applying it to the principles of Christianity, the
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wilderness and the tabernacle is where it's at. Which is why the writer of Hebrews doesn't go back to the temple. He goes back to the tabernacle. And and so I'm just saying I don't think there's any discrete historical period that
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corresponds to the wilderness. In our case, it was a very unique time for Israel. It was a preparatory time getting them ready to go into the land.
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We may find in the consummation that this whole period was the wilderness. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what what it'll be like when we finally enter
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in to the rest of of Jesus and and the kingdom, but we look back and say, "Okay, this was this was our corresponding wilderness era. This was our camp era." Um, I tend to think that
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that may be the case that this is also a time of preparation um for for the church as it was for Israel in the in the wilderness. All right. So, let me um
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let me close us here um and just talk a little bit.
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um just in summary, kind of an overall uh redemptive historical view. Okay. Now, I've used that phrase a lot. What I mean by it is not that it's a different type
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of history than human history. Human history is impacted by redemptive history. Redemptive history is within
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human history. These are real people, real tribes who lived who who worshiped God or or disobeyed God. That's redemptive history is what leads
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ultimately to Christ and the cross and then beyond that to the to the new heavens and the new earth. But it is focused on God's redemptive revelation.
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So, what we're dealing with here, and I'm going to offer this just so maybe you do a little bit of reading if you have time during the week, is that here we are in Leviticus 18 and 20,
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but we're actually we could go forward and we will first Corinthians first Corinthians where some stuff was going on that Paul wasn't happy with and that he
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said, You people shouldn't be happy with this because it was essentially a violation of Leviticus 18 and 20 and he dealt with it in a very summar
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summarily okay very harshly but I want to go back first because as I mentioned this does take us back to Genesis 15
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that a very important flip side to Joshua leading the Israelites into the land what we call the conquest is also the we might call it the vomiting.
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The sins of the Amorites had reached their fulfillment. their fulfillment. And and so that part of redemptive history has come to pass. And that we can actually go back even
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to Genesis 9. Noah coming off the ark becomes a farmer, grows a vineyard, has a bit too much to drink. You know the story. Who
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was it that was cursed? Yeah, it was Canaan. Though it was Ham who committed the offense, it was Canaan
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who was cursed. And that curse on Canaan is going to resonate as we move up to
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this. Let's close in prayer. Father, we do pray that you would guide us by your spirit as we read your word and help us to see your glory, the glory of
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your salvation, the glory of your orchestration of human history to your will. In spite of the rebellion of
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mankind, nothing that you have straightened can be bent. Nothing you have bent can be straightened. You're the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And we rejoice in that fact that your purposes will be
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accomplished. And we give you all the glory through Jesus Christ our Lord.