Leviticus 24

In chapter 24, we have an interesting story set before us. For the second time in scripture we have set before us the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This is the concept of a PUNISHMENT that fits the CRIME COMMITED. Within different societies this is a major issue, often times you have heinous crimes that go unpunished, and minor crimes that get totally mishandled. Look at our own country for instance; we have murderers walking free, and people who lose their jobs, their careers, and their reputation for something as simple as calling homosexuality a sin. The bible said this would happen, that we would live in days when Injustice grew so bad that men would “call good evil, and evil good”.

The man concerned in our story had committed the crime of BLASPHEME. The story goes like this: There is a man (we don’t know his name) who was half Egyptian, half Jewish. Now, the problem here with this guy was not mixed nationality, but mixed religious beliefs! Here we see him fighting with a full blooded Jew, and it sounds like it was quite a fight. We don’t know what started it, and I won’t even speculate, but we do know that it resulted in this half Jew blaspheming God and cursing. These 2 words that appear in the text, BLASPHEME and CURSE have various meanings… but the gist of it is this: he laid undue blame upon the name of God, he attributed things to God that were not true, he made light of who God was, and in the descriptive language of the Hebrew, “he put wholes in God”. He cursed God! He acted as though he didn’t need God! What was to be done!?!?

Moses goes before the Lord to see what should be done, and the message comes back loud and clear: STONE HIM. He was to be put to death for the way that he talked about God, for the way that he viewed who God was. It wasn’t a quiet death either, it was one that involved the whole congregation of Israel, and there was a reason for this: The stoning of this guilty man was to serve as a deterrent. It was meant to hold forth the HOLINESS of God, and the seriousness with which we must approach relationship with Him, and it was meant to cause all those present to look at their own hearts, and examine their own views of who God was. It was meant to restore proper order to the congregation.

Now, I want us to fast-forward a couple of thousand years to the days of the early church. Beginning with Stephen, and moving on into a vast persecution, this VERY LAW was used to martyr countless believers in Jesus Christ. The same law that cast the blasphemer out of the congregation of Israel resulted in the martyrdom of a great servant of God, and many other great servants after him. Does this fact make this law BAD? Does it compromise the Holiness of this law? Could the law be GOOD even if it was used to do something so DREADFUL?

I believe the answer is: The law is good, always and forever good because it was created by a HOLY GOD. However, it can be misapplied by unholy self serving men. There are many things that we can learn from this passage and others like it, but as we rap things up this morning, I want to drive home one point in particular. The only difference between this law being used to elevate God’s holiness and purify the body, and it being used to defame God’s name and destroy his body was the HEART OF MAN. Though we no longer go around stoning people, we have the laws of God in our possession, and it is our responsibility to uphold them. We speak out when society around us defies them, for we want to live holy as God is holy. I challenge you today to take a closer look at the way you handle the word of God. Do you treat it with respect? Do you consider it to be HOLY? Are you careful about the way you use it? Are you using it to promote the plans and purposes of God, or are you twisting it to serve yourself? The bible says that their will be men in the last days who twist God’s word to their own destruction. This is what happened to those Jews who condemned innocent believers in Jesus to death. They were twisting God’s word to their own destruction. Don’t be like them... Don’t use God’s word to say what you want to say… instead go to it to determine what GOD has to say… If we treat God as holy, and His word as holy, we have nothing to fear!