Leviticus Chapter 20
God answers the question that may have been on the lips of Moses before he could ask. The question would have been, “what do we do with those people who break your laws and commandments?” God answered all of the questions before they needed to be asked, and He supplied the reasoning behind the punishments as well. God needs no other reason to exact punishment upon the sinner other than this – “Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you.” Leviticus 20:7-8
We often find ourselves saying that if the punishment given would fit the crime, then our world would be a better place. And oh, how I would love to read that child molesters were given the punishment of death, but I am not God. In fact, I found myself wondering as I read through this passage, how long did it last? What I mean is, how long did humanity actually follow the laws God instituted and exact the punishment for the crimes in the way He commanded? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I would guess that people abandoned these commands fairly quickly.
Let's Reflect
1. What did you read was the punishment for someone who offered their child to be burned as a sacrifice to Molech?
2. What was the punishment for almost all sexual sins?
3. What did God say He would do if a person was not punished in the way that He commanded?
4. God wanted His people to be holy as He is holy. He wanted them to consecrate themselves to Him before they ever entered the promised land. What did He say would happen if they did not consecrate themselves to Him and behaved as the heathens do who were currently occupying the promised land? See verse 22.
5. When you read through the list of sins that God names in this chapter, we learn that all of these sins were practiced by what people? See verse 23.
6. God is promising to throw these heathen people out of the promised land for the Israelites. What other promise did He give in verse 24?
7. God called the people of Israel to be separate from those heathen cultures. In verse 27 we learn the punishment for those who practiced things associated with the occult such as fortune telling and communicating with the dead. What was the punishment? These sins have become so prevalent in our world now that people do not even recognize this as sin. We need to wake up to the cry of our Lord and be separate from these practices.
Devotionals
