Our God truly is an awesome God.
He is the one that created the world.
He is the one that gives us the opportunity to be saved.
He is the one that is sustaining the world at this very moment.
Now,
Many today say that that God changed his personality between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
They say during the Old Testament this was a God of wrath, this was a God of raw justice with no mercy.
But then under the New Testament he is a God of light, a God of peace, a God who wants nothing but unity.
Rather, this is nothing but false.
Our God is the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Hebrews 13 verse 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and not just tomorrow, forever.
And also not only is God the same, we want Him to be the same God.
Exodus 34 describes who God is.
Exodus 34, that's a part of the Old Testament.
And it says that God is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness, mercy.
forgiving iniquity and transgression, will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity upon the father's children unto the third and fourth generation.
This is a God who is merciful and then just." And that is how He described Himself in the Old Testament and that is who we want Him to be today.
This is not a God who has changed His personality.
Now, He is the same Lord, but He has changed His law.
They were under the schoolmaster that brought us unto this
new law, Colossians 2, 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, when Christ
was dying, when he was nailed to that tree.
He was setting in place a new law that He was giving to us.
John 14, 6, He is the author of our new way.
He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Hebrews chapter 12, He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Our God is the same God.
He has just given us a new law.
Now, God...
has given us lessons in the Old Testament that still apply to us today.
Those things were written a four time for our learning.
We can look to Hebrews and see so many parallels of the things God set in place for them when it came to their worship, when it came to their laws, and how it was a type for what
was going to take place later under the new law.
Let's look at three specific points in how God interacts with man and how those were the same today as they were under the Old Testament.
God just had a different avenue of doing them.
First, God leads those who follow Him.
If you will, turn to Exodus 13.
Exodus chapter 13.
This Lord and God is one who wants to be your God, and He wants you to follow Him.
But for you to follow someone, you need to know where they're going.
You need to know where He wants you to go.
Exodus 13, 22 and 23, 21 and 22, and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way, by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, to go by day
and night.
He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people.
When the Israelites were in the wilderness, when they wandered there for about 40 years, God was leading them
this pillar of fire, He was leading them with this pillar of a cloud.
He was making sure they knew where they needed to go.
When that pillar of fire or that pillar of cloud stayed in one place, the Israelites stayed there.
When it went on the move, they knew it was time to pack up their tents and get moving.
The Lord was letting them know where they needed to go.
m
Nehemiah 9-12, moreover thou lettest them in the day by a cloudy pillar and in the night by a pillar of fire to give them light in the way wherein they should go.
Again, the same point.
God was showing them the way they were to go.
But while He did this, He was also showing them that His presence was there.
This pillar of fire, this pillar of cloud would stay above the tabernacle and it would show the people the Lord is within the camp.
And this was something that they certainly wanted.
When the Lord said that He would not be with them, they cried and they trembled.
We want the Lord to be with us.
We want Him to be in our presence.
There won't be a pillar of cloud above us.
There won't be a pillar of fire at night.
But we have His Word and His light.
In our lives, the Lord gives us the light of His Word to lead us.
Psalm 119, 105.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.
light unto my path.
Think about that pillar of fire.
That was illumination, that was light, and the source of it was fire.
Think about a lamp in Psalm 119, 105.
They didn't have lanterns from Academy.
They didn't go get Magellan products before they went camping.
They used fire.
That was what their lamps were.
That was what God used to guide them.
Whenever they thought about this lamp, they were thinking about having a light, a fire, like a candle.
God's Word is our pillar of fire.
It is our lamp that leads us in the way we are to go.
It tells us when to stop, when we're not to go any further.
It tells us when to go and do what we need to do.
We are to speak as the oracles of God.
Many great men of the past would paraphrase it speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where this Bible is silent.
We need to go back to God's Word which says speak as the oracles of God.
We are to stop where he stops.
We are to go where he goes.
We are to follow his lamp and his light.
Now, the Lord's light not only shows us the way we are to go, it reminds us that He is with us.
The Word, which is the lamp and light of God for us in our lives today, reminds us that He is with us.
Hebrews 13, 5 and 6, Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.
For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
This word literally translated
is I will never leave you down and out.
Our God is always going to be with us.
He is not going to forsake us.
His presence will be with us.
One man...
to Abraham Lincoln said, well I hope God is on our side.
Abraham Lincoln said, no, I hope that we are on God's side.
As long as we stay in God's way, as long as we stay on God's path, He is not going to leave us, He is not going to forsake us.
There's a story of an old man and wife.
uh
From the story, seems like they had a bench seat truck.
And as time moved forward, they grew further apart in where they'd sit.
And one day the wife said, you know, we've grown further apart these years.
Husband asked who moved.
He was in the same spot.
He was in the driver's seat, but she had moved away.
God is not capable of moving further away from us.
We can move away from him.
We are to stay in his way, stay close to him.
He will never leave us.
He will not forsake us.
And his light reminds us of that.
And more than anything else, his light reminds us that he wants us to be in his presence one day.
John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The Lord loved you and me enough to come to this earth and die so that we can be in His presence." Looking at Hebrews 12, we mentioned it earlier with Christ being the author and
finisher of our faith.
Hebrews 12, 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.
He had a joy, and that joy had two different aspects.
He was going to have that
He wouldn't be suffering the shame of the cross, but he would also have what is described in John 3, 16.
He would have us with him for eternity.
God's light reminds us that he is with us here on this earth.
God's light reminds us that he wants us to be with him one day.
Now...
His ultimate goal is for us to be with Him, but for us to be with Him, to be in His presence, we must follow His Word.
The Lord in the Old Testament and in the New approves those who obey Him.
Turn to Leviticus chapter 9, and we'll stay there for a little while.
Leviticus 9.
God in Leviticus 1-10 had been describing to the Israelites how they were supposed to worship Him.
Exodus was about much of how they were to live for God, how they were going to be a nation for God.
This is about their religious service to that same Lord.
And it is coming to a high point.
Leviticus 9 verse 4.
and also a bullock and a ram for peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord in a meat offering mingled with oil.
For today the Lord will appear unto you." These were things they were going to offer and it was for something special.
The Lord would appear to them.
Verse 6, and Moses said, this is the thing which the Lord commanded that ye should do, and the glory of the Lord shall appear unto you.
Something special is about to take place.
God is going to, as we showed earlier, show his presence in the camp.
Now when he does this, verse 22.
And Aaron lifted his hand toward the people and blessed them, and came down from the offering of the sin offering and the burnt offering and peace offerings.
And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation and came out and blessed the people.
And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.
And there came a fire from before the Lord and consumed the altar, the burnt offering, and the fact which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their
faces.
is an amazing scene.
Imagine offering a burnt offering to the Lord.
And it doesn't just get consumed by fire bit by bit, it is consumed in an instant by His power, showing the fact that He accepts your offering.
That is what the Lord wanted.
He wanted to approve what they were giving, so long as what they gave was according to His Word.
They followed God's commandments.
Remember this showed the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offerings.
We don't have time to go into all of these, but the
Lord was incredibly specific, showing that He had a way for them to live.
If there is anything that we take from the book of Leviticus, it is the fact that God has a specific way and that the details matter.
Now, no, we are not to turn to the right hand or to the left.
We don't go into liberalism.
We don't go into being ultra-conservative.
We stay on the path.
We stay in God's way, not adding to or taking away from.
And Leviticus shows that time and time again.
Now, the Lord will not come down and devour any offering we give Him today with fire, but He will accept a life lived in His service.
We serve the same Lord, but under a different law, as we said earlier.
John 14, 6, Christ says, ìI am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh to the Father, but by me.î When Christ was on this earth living His ministry, He was living under the old law.
He was living under those old paths.
play something that would apply to you and to me and for all others that would come later.
That new way.
He shows us that we are now His dwelling place.
We live under this new law and we are now God's people.
Remember the Israelites, Moses and Aaron were going to go into the tabernacle.
God has a new dwelling place.
His dwelling place then was the tabernacle and then the temple, but now we are the temple of God.
him shall God destroy, the temple of God is holy.
Which temple ye are?
Now, Corinthians is in the context of looking at sin and how we are the temple of God.
We are not to live in ways that are unholy.
The point still stands that we are now God's dwelling place.
We are now His tabernacle, His temple.
Ephesians 2, 19 and 22.
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and
of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed
together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord." There is a foundation to this temple.
We mentioned Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.
And He left His apostles to give us His word.
That is the foundation.
And it has been built upon not with new words, not with new doctrine, but with the
of God's people, leading to His church growing greater and greater.
This is the Lord's dwelling place.
We are the Lord's dwelling place.
Now, we've looked at how He approves those who serve Him.
We are now His dwelling place, and He gives examples of how He desires for us to worship and serve Him today.
We are
Ephesians 5 19 to sing to God.
Speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord.
Remember Leviticus 1 through 10 is showing how they were to worship God.
We worship the same God today.
He is just specified a different means of doing it.
He tells us to sing, to offer the fruit of our lips in praise to Him.
Also, 1 Timothy 2 8,
God would have us pray in worship.
Paul says, will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
Now, 1 Corinthians 11, 16-24, And when he had given thanks, this is about the communion of God, he break it and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, this dew
in remembrance of me.
We did this this morning.
We took of the communion, we took of the bread of Christ.
Verse 25, and after the same manner also, he took the cup when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new test in my blood, this dew as oft as ye drink it in remembrance
of me.
We serve the same God but under a different law.
And we could go further and further looking at the commandments God has given us and how we are to worship him today.
We are to preach his word.
We are to give to him.
The Lord has commanded us and shown us how to serve.
Now,
The Lord wants to lead you as he led the Israelites.
The Lord wants to accept you as he did the Israelites.
But if we fail to serve God, the Lord will judge us as he did those that were among the Israelites.
Looking back at Leviticus 9, it was a glorious scene.
The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
The Lord devoured this offering that was before.
But look at what happens in the next chapter.
In Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he
commanded them not.
If we had time to look back through Leviticus, the Lord repeated this phrase, Moses repeated this phrase as the Lord commanded Moses in his writings over and over again,
showing that the commandments that they were following were directly from the Lord.
But now we have a contrast at the end of these passages showing how they were to worship, which the Lord commanded them not.
verse 2, there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.
Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh to me, and before all the people I will be glorified.
And Aaron held his peace.
the Lord had just described how they were to be worshiped.
And then when Nadab and Abihu violated how God said they were to worship, they were punished.
The Lord showed his approval in the fire that devoured the offering, but then the Lord showed his justice in the fire that devoured Nadab in Abihu.
The Lord's commandments matter.
When we do not follow God's commandments, when we do not follow his way, that is dishonoring God.
Look at how the Lord responds in verse 3.
Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh to me.
When we do not follow God's command, we are not sanctifying him.
and then that come nigh to me and before all the people I will be glorified." When we stray from God's commandments, when we decide we're going to make our own paths, we're
going to follow our own Burger King religion doing our own way right away, we are not following God's way and He is not glorified.
The Lord's commandments matter and they will always matter yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
No matter what man comes and establishes a new congregation or a new church under His own name,
rather than Christ's name, the Lord's commandments are what matter.
He devoured them with fire, and this was a sorrowful thing.
Aaron was not going to even be able to mourn his own sons because the Lord was showing them that this punishment was not going to bring the spotlight on Aaron and on his sorrow.
This punishment was going to be for the purpose of showing how important it was to serve God.
And therefore, Aaron was not allowed to bring attention upon himself by mourning the way he would want to mourn.
Now,
The Lord will not come down and devour an offering that we make to him with fire.
Neither will the Lord come down and devour us with fire today if we stray from his commandments.
But there is something scary that is waiting for those that do stray from his commandments.
Now, before looking into that, there are several reasons for straying from God's commandments, and this is seen throughout Scripture.
The very first time worship was not followed correctly.
Genesis chapter 4, Cain and Abel offer their sacrifices.
Abel's offering is accepted, but Cain's is rejected.
Why is that?
Hebrews chapter 11 describes why Cain's offering was accepted, why Abel's offering was accepted.
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
He offered this offering that was accepted by faith.
Now, that means this faith, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is based on evidence.
What does it mean to offer something based on faith?
Does that just mean He knew that God existed?
Cain and Abel had full assurance that God existed.
They weren't dealing with the theory of evolution or any other atheistic doctrine.
They knew that this was the Lord.
This faith was something different.
This faith was based on the instruction that they were going to receive from the Lord.
Romans 10, 17, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
The faith that is going to follow God and follow the system of faith God has laid in place for us today is the faith that He has given, that He has commanded.
There was a specific way to offer, or a specific thing to offer, the details of which we are not told, but Cain and Abel were.
They were told how to offer to God.
Abel did it the right way, and Cain did it the wrong way.
And then his sacrifice was not accepted.
we can decide not to follow God because of a lack of faith and that is what happened to Cain.
There is another man who tried to offer something to God who was not proper and that was King Uzziah of Judah.
2 Chronicles chapter 26.
2 Chronicles 26, King Uzziah was a king of Judah and he was a king that for a while was righteous but there would come a time where he would become haughty.
This is another reason people stray from God's way.
This was a lack of faith in what God says.
The second is because of pride.
Second Chronicles 26, 16.
But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction.
For he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him four-score priests of the Lord that were valiant men.
This was something that needed to be stopped.
something not according to God's way.
Verse 18, and they withstood Uzziah and said unto him, it pertaineth not unto thee Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron.
that are consecrated to burn incense.
Go out of the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed, neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord." What Uzziah was doing was not going to be something that honored him,
something that honored the Lord, something that would be accepted.
It was to stop immediately.
Isaiah does not respond according to God's word.
Verse 19, then Isaiah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense.
And while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar.
And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests looked upon him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out thence.
Yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had submitted him.
And Isaiah was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several separate house, being a leper.
For he was cut off from the house of the Lord.
And Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land.
This is a man who became prideful.
This is a man who went to burn this incense that he was not authorized to do.
The lineage from Judah, from David, were to be the king's, and then the lineage from Aaron,
were to be the priests.
Now, today we are both apart, we are priests that are under the priest king Christ today, but it was not so under the old law.
There were those separate departments of how they were to serve God and how authority was to take place.
And Isaiah wanted to try to weld them together too early and do it for the wrong reasons.
He wanted to go and offer incense himself.
And what were the consequences?
He had that leprous spot.
He was now unclean and it says that he was cut off from the house of the Lord.
Now this man was not executed for what he did, but he was banished and now he will be remembered through all of time not as a great man, but as the one who tried to offer
incense in God's house against God's law.
This was not something that was going to help him, it would only hurt because he wanted to change what the Lord said.
Cain offered out of a lack of faith, looking at these
reasons for rejecting what God says to worship Him our own way.
Uzziah did it out of pride, and those consequences were overwhelming.
They were going to result in him being alone for the rest of his life, not having the authority he once had.
But now, let's look back at Nadab and Abihu at the reason they likely worshiped God the wrong way.
Again, we don't know exactly what they did wrong.
We don't know exactly why this fire was strange.
Perhaps it was from the wrong place.
Perhaps it was the wrong mixture of incense.
Whatever it was, God gives them a command in Leviticus 10, 8 through 11.
And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine, nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die.
It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
Scripture does not explicitly say in Nadab and Abihu drank alcohol and went before the Lord to offer strange fire.
But immediately after Nadab and Abihu did offer strange fire was when God made the ordinance that the priests were not to drink wine nor strong drink when coming before the
Lord.
They were to know what they were doing.
We are to be sober, be vigilant in this present age.
And they were to be sober and be vigilant when they were going to
go serve God.
What they did might have not even been something that they did purposefully, but they did it because they were under the influence of what was making it where they could not serve
God properly.
Many want to justify alcohol.
They want to say this is something right, this is something good, this is something okay.
Here it shows the danger of it and the fact that this alcohol changed their decisions and they did something, this alcohol likely changed their decisions to do something that was
against God's will and it resulted in them being burned with fire.
Many say, I'm not hurting anybody, this isn't going to do any harm.
Look at the harm it did to Nadab and Abihu.
Think about the harm it does to so many today when they go and imbibe in that which is only going to hurt the mind.
going to take away the ability to make decisions.
This kept them from worshipping God properly and it will keep us from serving God properly.
This is not the only passage that shows that this is a bad idea, a sinful idea.
1 Peter 2, 5, ye also as lively stones are built up.
This is the wrong verse, I apologize.
Proverbs 20 verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Isaiah 5:11 woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink and continue until night, until wine inflame them.
Habakkuk 2: 15, woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and maketh him drunk also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness.
Wine is something evil, something that is used for ill intent.
Now, there are ways to use it properly.
Paul would tell Timothy he was to take a little wine for his stomach's sake.
It can even be argued if that was alcoholic or non-alcoholic wine.
Even if it was alcoholic, it was medicinal.
The scripture shows time and time again the dangers of alcohol.
It shows illicit uses of alcohol that still take place today, more than we want to admit.
It shows that danger.
It will keep them from worshipping God the right way.
It will keep us from worshipping and serving God the right way today.
There are doctrines that say we are to take wine and use it in the Lord's Supper.
The priests in the Old Testament were told not to drink wine or strong drink.
We are told not to do that today.
And that doctrine wants to say, listen, this is a part of what we supposed to do.
That is against God's way.
Those who take that doctrine will not be burnt with fire on this world.
But there is something waiting for those who will not change to follow God's way.
The Lord is specific.
And no matter what motive, no matter what reason is behind worshipping God the wrong way, the wrong way is the wrong way.
We've looked at Cain, the one who offered out of a lack of faith.
Uzziah, who offered incense out of pride or tried to.
Nadab and Abihu, who likely offered out of a negligent act because they were drunk with wine.
God has a new law.
We've looked at all these people who followed God the wrong way and the fact that these people were punished for what they did.
We serve the exact same God that they were trying or at least acted like they were serving, but we just serve Him under a new law.
We might not be offering fire to the Lord, not offering incense, but do we offer that which the Lord commands today?
John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commandments.
The Lord doesn't want us offering goats.
He doesn't want us offering
bullocks, whatever it is, He does not want us offering those kinds of things.
He wants our lives.
He wants our obedience.
We may think we are giving to the Lord, but are we giving of our own desires rather than what He commands?
Matthew 9, 13, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees after they are asking questions and they don't like that it looks like Christ is eating with publicans and sinners.
Matthew 9 on 12 and 13.
But when Jesus heard that, He said unto them, The aid that behold, need not a physician, but they that are sick.
But go ye and learn what that meaneth.
I will have mercy and not sacrifice.
For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The Pharisees were one who throughout their time in scripture wanted to show a self-righteous doctrine.
They were those who were willing to lose things that God said were supposed to be a part of our lives.
but they were willing to bind extra things on themselves and on others to make them feel righteous.
These were people who were not serving God the right way.
These were supposed to be the teachers of the law.
But Christ says, ye and learn what this meaneth.
He tells the teachers, go back to school.
when we do not follow God's way, when we follow those who are supposed to be leaders who are not doing God's will, we are following those who Christ would tell to go back to
school, to go and learn what this meaneth.
He would also describe the Pharisees as the blind that leadeth the blind.
Worship according to leadership, even worship according to leadership that is not leading God's way is still wrong.
It is something that is going to result in being rejected by God because we have rejected Him.
Looking at these verses, John 4 24, God is the Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
We are to worship God in a way that is sincere, in a way that is according to how He has told us to do it, not just out of some inner sincerity.
Sincerity without God's Word until it leads to God's Word is not going to get anyone anywhere.
Romans 12, 1 and 2, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service.
Again, God wants the service of our lives.
This is the Lord that we get to serve.
This is the Lord we get to worship.
And He has told us exactly what He desires.
we may act like we are praising the Lord above, but are we simply trying to exalt ourselves?
There are those who try to serve God, they look like their leaders, but they are leading people away from God.
There are those who live their lives not wanting to do it according to God's service.
And there are those who act like they are praising the Lord, but doing it out of self exaltation.
Looking back at Uzziah, he wanted to do it because his pride was lifted up.
And there are many more who did the same thing.
We could look at Diopsh
in the New Testament who wanted to destroy the church and he did it because he wanted the preeminence.
There are those who want to destroy the worship and service to the Lord.
Reject those who God accepts and accept those who God rejects because they want to be God.
That is not what we can follow.
Remember, our theme, our title today is same God, different law.
We serve God who has one law today.
And no matter what man tries to come and change it for whatever motive, that is not the way to live.
God's way is the only one.
Though God would have all men to be saved, remember all of these that were punished for what they did.
God would have all men to be saved.
but there are those who will not follow God's way.
And an eternity of fire awaits those who continue to reject God until the end.
As we have seen, God has used fire repeatedly in punishing.
He did it with Nadab and Abihu, and there were certain crimes that were so grievous under the old law that God commanded that those who did them were to be burned with fire.
Leviticus 20, 14 and Leviticus 21, verse 9.
Moving forward, remember Genesis chapter three.
After the very first sin, God cast man out of the garden, but he didn't just cast man out of the garden, he set in place something that would keep them out.
Genesis 3, 24, God set a flaming sword in the garden that would go every which way.
Now this was not a sword by which Adam and Eve had to feel, but it was something that was warning them, you are not coming back here.
After the very first sin, fire was used to show the severity of what they did.
This is not something that is strange to God's way, strange to God's personality.
It is something He has used from the beginning.
against Sodom.
Genesis 19 shows the wickedness of the people of Sodom who wanted to go and violate the people, the angels that had come to Lot.
And that city was going to be burned with fire and brimstone.
Again, fire is not outside of God's way of punishing.
And now he sets the command in place where some criminals are to be burned with fire as we described just earlier.
Now, God does not have commands like that in place for us today on this earth, but as we have mentioned time and time again, He will use fire as punishment against those who are
estranged from His presence.
God does not send any person to hell.
God just lets people choose if they do not want to be in His presence.
Mark 9, 44.
Christ describes the tortures of what is to come for those who reject His way.
He says to cut off your hand if it offend you, cut out your eye if it keeps you out of heaven.
Now these things being metaphorical for cut the things out of your life that are going to keep you outside of heaven.
Not literally cut off your hand, not literally cut out your eye, but be willing to get rid of anything for the kingdom of heaven's sake so that you do not end up in this place.
Verse 43, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off.
It is better to enter into life main than having two hands to go into hell
into the fire that shall not be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Those exact words are repeated two more times.
Verse 45 and 46, they would be cast into hell into the fire that shall not be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And the same words appear again, where the fire is not quenched.
Verse 49, For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be seasoned with salt.
Hell is something that Christ taught.
He taught it more than any other person in scripture.
It is real and it is something that though God would not have it for anyone, it is waiting for those who will not accept His way.
God punished with fire throughout the time before the Christian age and He will punish with fire after the end of all ages.
It is something serious, something awaiting those who do not serve God properly.
Now the Lord does not want you to
there.
The Lord wants you to be with him.
As we mentioned before, God would have all men come to the knowledge of the truth.
Follow God's way and repent.
We looked at all of these things under the old law, where God was willing to accept the Israelites if they were going to follow him the right way.
He wanted to lead them, they just had to follow his light.
But there would be rejection if they did not follow God's way.
but God wants us to be with Him.
He wants you to obey His gospel.
He wants you to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and follow that new way of life.
Acts 2 also shows that they lived in God's way after they were baptized.
They were breaking bread from house to house.
They were having fellowship with one another.
They were living as Christians.
God has a way for us to live, and He wants us to walk in His light.
1 John 1, 7-9, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, in the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
God wants us to walk in His light.
The Israelites had a pillar of fire they could follow, but we have something better.
this right here shows us how we can follow our Lord.
And all we need to do is look at the words it says.
It is simple.
It is able to be understood.
And all we have to do is walk in God's light, walk in God's way, living how He has prescribed for man.
If you have not been baptized into Christ after hearing the Gospel, believing it and obeying it, repenting of your sins and confessing that Christ is Lord, now is an
opportunity.
If you have done
that but have strayed from God's way, you can walk in the light as He is in the light, you can confess your sins and come back to Him.
If you have need of the forgiveness of God, will you come forward today as we stand and as we sing?