Don't Close Your Eyes - The Sin of Omission

Well, you can turn in your Bible to Leviticus 20. And we're going to read a few verses there in a moment. I want to speak to you this morning on the topic of don't close your eyes or the sin of omission, or you could say the danger of neglect. And I want to start by mentioning something I read. I read that in 2018, there was a certified lifeguard supervising students at the time of a 13-year-old boy's drowning. And the lifeguard told police that he fell to aid the child's rescue because he was not on the clock. He was not on the clock. Now, if a child is drowning in a pool, must you attempt to rescue that child? Is there anything binding on you? For this lifeguard, his point was, well, he didn't think legally there was anything binding on him to try to prevent that child from drowning. But you look at different laws, you'll find, yeah, the lifeguard who's on duty is legally bound. He's on duty. If he fails to act, he could be liable to face charges for that child's death. However, the random parent who's sitting on the pool, if they see the child drowning, legally, in a governmental sense, at least in the UK or in the US, that parent has no legal binding to act to try to preserve the life of the child. And they will not be guilty of a criminal act if they sit by and watch the child drown. One wrote, if a lifeguard freezes and can't remember training or otherwise fails to act, this is a lifeguard on duty, in a responsible manner and this contributes to a victim's injuries or death, the lifeguard could be liable. He could be held responsible for the death of that child. Now when you look at France, at least at some point I read, the laws in France, they held it a duty to help rescue, whether you're a lifeguard or not, they impose that on their citizens by law. So if you're sitting there and the child is drowning, it doesn't matter if you're a lifeguard or not, the French law would impose you better do something. If you don't do something, you could be held liable and responsible for the child drowning and being in danger and you failing to arrest. And one example of this even in France, not with a lifeguard, was when Princess Diana died in a car wreck many decades ago. There were some photographers who were already following the car. And when the wreck happened, rather than get out and render aid there in Paris, France, what did they do? They started to take pictures. And they could have been held liable of refusing to help her and go to prison for five years. Now, I don't know if any of them actually went to prison. But isn't it interesting? Here we're thinking about the U.S., the U.K., France. We're thinking about governments, and governments have laws. They have legal obligations that are put on humanized consciences, right? Governments are of God. He has instituted these things. He's given them even the sword to execute judgment. But how many of these principles that you even see in a law, like holding someone guilty for omitting and refusing to help, could be punishable legally? Where do these type of ideas even come from? Where are they even getting this in their law? Why does France, which used to be very, very religious, why do they even have that as a law? Why does the U.K. have these different types of laws? In some way, you should say it's so obvious that our governments would have those type of laws where they punish people for negligence. But where do those laws find their basis? I would declare they find their basis in the Word of God. More than that, in just the fact that mankind has a conscience, right? No one has to tell you it's wrong to murder. You don't need a law to tell you it's wrong to sit by there and care not at all as one is laying in the pool and drowning and to close your eyes to that. So Leviticus 20. Why read in Leviticus 20? Which we're going to do in a moment. Why read there in Old Covenant law that was given to the nation of Israel? Why go there? In this case, we could even go to the Good Samaritan story, right? The Good Samaritan story no doubt teaches this same principle. You have a priest who evidently was not on the clock, and so the Levite who passed by was not on the clock either as that one lifeguard said. And then a Samaritan who Jews hate, and according to John 8, Samaritans they believed had demons, you could say. John 8:48. Why is it the Samaritan came by, he had compassion, and he gave of his time and his resources to save this man's life? When the religious leaders, they walked by as if they were not on the clock. We could look there. That's pretty big negligence. That Samaritan had no law to tell him to stop and to help. And why did Jesus even bring this up? He brought it up to show the Samaritan that you and I are always on the clock. In Luke 10:29, the lawyer had been desiring to justify himself, and he had told Jesus, who is my neighbor? In other words, who am I legally bound to help? Just give me a list. You let me know who I need to help. Give me a list and I'll follow it. I want to avoid punishment. See, no internal change in the heart. The New Covenant Christian doesn't need that external law because God has done something internally in the heart and we have the Spirit guiding us and leading us to love. But this morning, I want to look at a law the Lord spoke to Moses. Though Romans 6:14 says the New Covenant believer is no longer under the law, we've got to remember what Paul says at the end of Romans 15. He says at the end of Romans, in chapter 15, he says whatever was written in the former days is written down for what? Our instruction. There are things that really instruct. Whether it's the law about why you should build a fence around your second story to keep someone from falling off. Yeah, I should know that intuitively and love should dictate I protect someone, but it's interesting to read these laws. And the law indeed does reveal the character of God and the rules that were given to a physical nation. Just like the laws in America reveal something about its who? Its leaders. You look at the laws in our country, it says something about its leaders. And right now, the laws in our land don't exactly say something very nice about the leaders of our nation. And the law, the Old Testament law, it did influence Paul. It was formative in some of his thinking. And we see this because many times in the New Testament, moral judgments that he mentions have a direct connection or allude to some principle in the Old Testament and from the law. Now, Israel was mostly an unregenerate nation. Right? You've got to remember, who are these laws being given to? A people who is mostly unregenerate, who 1 Corinthians 10 says the vast majority of them perished in the wilderness. And they just had a legal binding, most of these Israelites. That's all it was. It wasn't love. It wasn't the Spirit. But the New Covenant believer, they had something internal. And listen to Jesus' words in John 13, verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Love one another. And what's the standard? Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. How did Christ love us? What did He do? Sacrificed Himself. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my all. And who did He give His life to? His enemies, Romans 5 says. So Leviticus 20. Leviticus 20. First, just look right before this at 19.34. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself. Why? You were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. I mean, it kind of makes me wonder, did the lawyer in Luke 10, did he know about this reality of actually loving the stranger who is among you? I mean, that's not just some New Testament idea. But Leviticus 20, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses. Again, these are laws going out to a physical nation of people, mostly whom are not regenerate. And these laws indeed do reflect the character of God. Again, Christ is going to be the greatest display of the character of God, what we find from the Lord Jesus in the New Testament. But what we find here is very reflective also. So Leviticus 20, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel, any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech. Now stop there for a moment. Gives any of his children to Molech. That either means he gives as in they go when they serve in the temple, or it would mean what? They sacrifice their child. And I would say it means they're actually giving their child to be sacrificed to Molech, and at the same time, they're then going into the temple of the Lord and they're profaning that in view of what they're doing. And the reason I would say this is when you go to other places like Ezekiel 16, it says there, you slaughtered my children, you delivered them up as an offering by fire to them. So it's very well known. The issue with the Israelites, it wasn't just they gave their children to Molech to serve in some pagan temple. They actually gave their children to be murdered and burned in an offering to Molech. It's somewhat shocking. I mean, some of you children here, you think you've got bad parents? There are some children, their parents, they don't even get to see the light of day, their parents take them right after they were born, and they go take them to Molech wanting some blessing, wanting some rain, and they have that child burned alive. I mean, imagine that. Some kids, you say, I've got bad parents. Well, there's many kids who never got old enough to be able to use their mouth to say to their parents, you are bad parents. You should be grateful. We should be grateful for our parents despite their flaws. So what was the punishment for this crime? He goes on, "...shall surely he be put to death." He's going to be put to death. How's this death sentence judicially going to be? Is it electric chair? Is it a hanging? What was going to happen in this physical nation? "...The people of the land shall stone him with stones." So you've got capital punishment for the offender of this crime. And stoning in a way was very ordinary. It became an ordinary way by which to execute capital punishment upon people. Now on top of this, verse 3, on top of this, "...I Myself the Lord will set My face against that man, and I will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech to make My sanctuary unclean and profane My holy name." In other words, the Lord is saying, I stand fully behind their punishment of this man. We have a God here who's very jealous for His people to not be corrupt. And as these things would come into the nation, the Israelites, if they did not deal with it, God Himself would deal with these things. In the text, it says there, I will cut him off. Cut him off. What's that mean? It's like church discipline. You just get kicked out and you're gone from the people. There are places where it uses the term cut off. In the very next verse, it talks about being put to death. So it seems here, that's what He's referring to. This person is to be cut off, meaning they're to be put to death. A life for a life is what we find even in Old Covenant law. Verse 4. Verse 4 is what really stood out to me this last Tuesday during the Bible study. We were looking about what happened to Jephthah's daughter, and we ended up reading this passage in verse 4. It just really struck me. And if the people of the land... So this is not the one doing the offense. This is someone else. They're not committing anything. Verse 4, if the people of the land do it all, close their eyes to that man. Close their eyes to that man. When He gives one of His children to Molech and do not put him to death, and then He goes on. But think for a moment. Close their eyes. What does that mean? Does that mean He literally closes His eyes? Like some of you do when I preach? No, it's a metaphor. It doesn't mean you literally close your eyes. It means to look the other way. You see something happening. It's like, you know what? I didn't see that. Look the other way. It means to disregard the man. It means to shut their eyes to the man. It means to hide their eyes. It means to turn a blind eye. It means to omit from doing anything. You know, there the kid is drowning in the pool. It's like, I didn't see it. I don't want to be involved. I don't want to be held accountable. It's to be negligent. It's to overlook, right? You see something happening and you overlook it. It's to intentionally not regard or be concerned about something. And this closing of the eyes is ultimately a closing of the what? The heart. You think of the eyes, the heart. It's this whole person. The person themselves is just closing themselves off from wanting to respond to this situation right here. Now, I would ask you this, is that a big deal? Is it a big deal for the lifeguard to close his eyes and let that child drown? Well, legally in the American government and the UK, it is, because he'll be held liable because he's on duty. But that other random person sitting there, since they're not a lifeguard and they're not on duty, they're not legally bound. Oh, unless they're in France, then they are legally bound. Who cares about the laws of nations? Is that our standard? What does the Constitution say? What does the government say? No, no, we've got a God who sent His Son and He has set the standard higher than any law possibly can in any land. And so if the people of the land do it all, close their eyes. So they don't do anything about it when this man gives children to Molech, what happens? If they don't put them to death, then I will set my face against that man. Now, that man there is referring to the one who did the offering of the Son. Or the daughter. That man, which is already stated in verse 3, the Lord's going to go after that man. But then look what he says next. The Lord goes further. He doesn't just go after the man. It says, "...and He goes against His clan. And He will cut them off from among their people, Him and all who follow Him in whoring after Molech." In other words, I will set my face against that man. That is the one who did the offering. And the people of the land, they didn't do anything about it. God is saying if the local government won't deal with Him, God who rules all the governments Himself will directly deal with the man. If they're not going to do anything, God's going to execute judgment. And then secondly, the statement says God will be against His clan. He'll cut His clan off. That is, the people who turned a blind eye to the man's sin, God punishes them too. They actually have accountability. They're held liable before God for doing nothing and allowing this corruption to continue to damage this nation that is supposed to be holy, that is supposed to be set apart. And it says He cuts them off, and that word is the word destroys. It says in the same word as Paul uses in Corinthians, saying they were destroyed by serpents, or the word can be rendered they perish. And thirdly, God doesn't just stop there and go after the clan. It says He goes after all who follow Him in whoring after Molech. It's implied that by turning a blind eye, others are giving into these practices as if they are acceptable, and then you see the serious purging begin to happen. It's somewhat shocking. But you see here, my point is, this person, by omitting from acting, is held responsible. And not just him, but all these other people in his clan, by closing their eyes, they face punishment. Let's read the next three verses and we'll stop there. Verse 6, if a person turns to mediums and necromancers whoring after them, I will set My face against that person. And I will cut him off from among the people. Consecrate yourselves therefore. Be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep My statues and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. So one of the things we clearly see here is the Lord desires what? Of this physical nation of Israel. He desires holiness. And a means of that holiness is what? A means of holiness being maintained in the physical nation of Israel is that people don't close their eyes. They don't turn a blind eye, but they actually do something about that which is before their eyes that was corrupting the nation. It's very clear, so clear that God's going to go and punish those people who close their eyes and deal with all the rest of that clan. There's going to be real accountability here. Again, this is all telling us something about the character of God. So what this law is doing, you could say, is legally binding Israelites to say something when they see something. To say something when they see something. And this principle is all over the Scriptures. If you just think about it, I look at this years ago in Ezekiel 33. Verse 8, you don't need to turn there, but if I say to the wicked, this is talking about the watchman. Oh, wicked one, if the Lord says to the wicked you're going to die, and then the watchman does not speak or does not warn the wicked to turn from his way, the Lord's going to kill the wicked person, but what's going to happen to the watchman? His blood I will require at your hand. Omitting, not doing what you should, leads to punishment for the watchman. Omitting from closing your eyes to the person offering their child to Molech leads to you being punished as well. Now imagine if the country you lived in created such a law. Imagine if you cost someone going to abort a child, which you could say is comparable to offering a child to Molech, and imagine you turned a blind eye and you allowed that person to go get their child murdered through abortion. Imagine if that was punishable by death. And you know, our country is doing the opposite, right? They are entirely turning a blind eye to abortion and legally protecting those who do such and punishing some of those who oppose it. Now, think of this. Imagine a nation doing that. We don't have to imagine a nation who has a law like that. We have it right before us. Israel. How did it work out for them? How did their law work out? You know what you find not too far later on? You know what you find throughout the Bible when it comes to Israel? Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It didn't exactly work. It didn't exactly work. To what degree were these laws even upheld? God is giving laws. How many records of this do we even have that they were actually being upheld by the nation and being consistently upheld? Obviously, they weren't. Because the nation continues to degrade time and time again. Then you have a revival. Then it's back more and more to darkness. The law here is constantly showing Israel their absolute need for a Savior and their total inability to be holy just by some binding of some external law. Right? They're hopeless. So we don't primarily need good judicial laws in the nation. That's not at all what we need this morning. Mankind needs to be born again and have a new heart. That's one thing. The whole nation of Israel just constantly screams, give us a new covenant, because this isn't working out. This is miserable. And what does Paul say? He calls it a ministry of death. That's what happened. It's killing people with their inability. So my concern this morning, it's not our government. It's not our government changing our laws. It's you and I, New Testament believers, gleaning something from this passage that is applicable to you as an individual Christian. And specifically, this general idea of don't close your eyes. And what might you be closing your eyes to of sin and others that you should be exposing? Or what might you be closing your eyes to of good that you could be committing and doing which is right? Right? We don't want to be overlooking sin being committed that leavens the church. And we don't want to overlook good that we should be committing. And we want to realize in all these things, it's not a neutral matter. Whether you or I do the good we know we should do, it's not neutral to God. God actually holds us responsible. And one of the verses you could go to in the New Testament is James 4:17, a well-known verse that is often quoted to refer to the sin of omission. Not doing the good you know you should do. James says this, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. It's an amazing statement. You know the right thing to do and you fail to do it, man, it doesn't matter. He says there it's sin. Now in context, the right thing to do, he's speaking about the first application is acknowledging God's providence in all things. If you look at the context and the way that conjunction starts the verse, that's what he's referring to primarily. Are you acknowledging the providence of God in all things? But you can apply it in a broader way. Knowing the right thing to do, closing your eyes to it is sin, because it fails to love as Christ is loved. Is that not what we already read? Jesus says, I give to you a new commandment. We've got this one thing before us, the example of Christ, and we're to love as Christ is loved. And if we fail to do that, life is not just about what sins I commit, it's about what obedience do I abstain from doing. That in itself is to miss the mark. And James 4:17 does not just say when you close your eyes to the big things like child sacrifice, right? It doesn't say if you know the right thing to do to stop the woman from trying to abort the baby and you don't make any attempt to do that, that you're guilty of sin. No, he makes a blanket statement. Again, what we're talking about is the statement, don't bury your head in the sand. Don't bury your head in the sand. And that came from the supposed idea that an ostrich would hide their face when they were attacked by predators. Now, Craig, you guys had an ostrich farm. Did they do that? You just did the engineering. But if you read, it doesn't appear like they really stick their head in the sand. But the point is they will at times stick their head down when they've got enemies coming in. Is that going to do any good for them? Is that really a good defensive posture as you've got a mountain lion or whatever is coming in and you're just going to stick your head in the ground? It's not going to do any good. God's saying here if you're the watchman, if you're in the physical nation of Israel, even you, the New Covenant Christian, you bury your head in the sand, it's not a neutral position. If you know the right thing to do, you fail to do it. He's holding us responsible. What a reminder again that the Christian life is not just about not sinning. It's about doing the good you know you should do. We have to remember that. A positive, lived-out life. Again, that's what Christ did. Christ perfectly lived out a life and gave us that positive righteousness in our bank account. It's not just He paid the negative debt off. A good example of somebody who did not bury their head in the sand we looked at a couple of weeks ago. Josiah. Right? I mean, Josiah, he read the book of the Law. He saw what we must obey and he did it. I mean, he went all out obeying everything he could. He didn't stick his head in the sand. He didn't close his eyes. I mean, he went on for a decade almost purging the land and not closing his eyes to the problems that came about. We see this idea in Ephesians 5. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but what? But instead, expose them. Alright, we've got a responsibility to expose those things. You see, the Lord is telling Moses that every Israelite citizen has a contractual obligation that if they see someone bringing in bad doctrine, bad practice from Molech or anything of the pagan nation, they're bound to act, and if they don't act, they will be punished. Because they're not loving the rest of the nation. They're not loving their God. And in comes corruption and lo and behold, what do we see? The nation gets to a point where a man does what is right in his own eyes. They have no standard. And it's all back to darkness again and again and again. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. You know how that happens? You start closing your eyes to what's in the Word of God, to His perspective, and you start to drift. What an important reminder all of this is for the essential reality of eating the Scriptures and devouring the Word of God on a daily basis. Just think of some of these other laws for Israel that kind of deal with this same reality. You could even turn to Deuteronomy 22. Just to the right. Deuteronomy 22:1 You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. Don't ignore it. He's given a law about that. If one of you... I don't know what's comparable here. Maybe a dog. Here's a working animal. But if one of you is driving near my street and you see my dog Red running around, I doubt you're just going to ignore it and not care about it, right? You realize that's James' dog. At least we think it is. We're going to bring it back to his house. Take it back to his brother. Verse 3, you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment or with any lost thing of your brother's which he loses and you find, you may not ignore it. I mean, you take it home to your house. It shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. You shall not ignore it. Verse 4, you shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again. Right? You see your brother's wallet. You see your brother's car broken down and you're walking outside and you have the ability to help them with their car broken down. And I would say, not just your brother. It goes even beyond that, right? The good Samaritan, his concern wasn't about helping his people alone. Isn't it something that young pastor from Southern Seminary last year who stopped on the side of the road to help some random person with the car and someone veered off and he pushed the guy out of the way and he got killed and he left his wife and four children. He died helping a man fix a flat tire. Someone might say, well, what a wasted thing. He should have let the guy go by. That wasn't any of his business anyways. Really? Wasn't God involved in that and somehow going to get greater glory for His name and work it for good? No, we shouldn't do something dumb. Love dictates. If I can't swim well, I don't go out in the ocean to try to rescue someone and drown myself at the same time if I have absolutely no ability to help. But you see, God cares about us not ignoring things. Not closing our eyes to sin and to the good we should do. He doesn't want us to close our eyes. And He says to the Israelites, if you close your eyes, as they go and they offer their child to be burned alive, I'm coming after you. God's coming after them. He's going to come after their clan. Now, for all these fellings in Deuteronomy, it's not punishable by death, but the point is there's a call towards the needs of others that God wants His people to have. Wants His people to have. The world is going to create all manner of laws. They're going to create all manner of standards that are contrary to God's character. And they're going to tell you certain things in no way are required. The thing is as Christians, we want to go above and beyond. I don't even need to look to the laws of the land necessarily. I want to go above and beyond to love the Lord thy God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. It doesn't matter if the world says it's not required to help in this situation. What's love really dictate and call me to in this certain situation? The Scriptures come and they say, you can sin just by ignoring a clear need. Just by turning a blind eye to someone else's sin. We can be accomplices. Someone's robbing the bank. Should I really call the cops about it? I mean, someone else is going to call the cops. Take that into the church. You find someone's in sin. Should I really say anything about it? I mean, someone else is going to say something about it. God's saying, no, no. Do something. Do something here. We can be accomplices. Again, these old covenant laws are showing us something of the character of God. Listen to this one from Deuteronomy 17. If you're still in Deuteronomy 22, you can flip to Deuteronomy 17. But here he says, if he does what's evil in the sight of your God, and he goes on and says, has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon, and he goes on and he says, and it is told you and you hear of it. It's told you. You hear of it. Should I ignore it? Shall I not? Disguise sin? What he's doing? Then you shall inquire diligently. Interesting. And if it's true, now that's interesting. If it's true, meaning you're verifying what you're hearing and seeing. And it's certain that such an abomination has been done, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone the man or the woman with death to stones. And if you look at Deuteronomy 17, so you shall purge the evil person from your midst. Where does Paul allude and quote that verse? 1 Corinthians. Right? I mean, all of this. You look at this old covenant principle, and we've got Paul dealing with the same reality, and praise God, it's different. There's no stoning going on in the New Testament, in the New Covenant. Praise the Lord. It says in 1 Corinthians 5, for one, that church was closing their eyes. How did Paul say to them, are you not arrogant? Meaning, you've got this going on, someone offering a child to Molech, you're not doing anything about it. You have an arrogant attitude as if all is well. You're turning a blind eye, and Paul says, ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed. Right? The man who had his father's wife. Paul says remove him. Not stone him. Remove him. And then in verse 13 is where he says purge the evil person from your midst. So there's no stoning happening here. You're putting them out. Verse 5 says the reason, and this is incredible mercy. You want to talk about having a better covenant? Why do you put them out? So that His Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Well, that's really encouraging. Not capital punishment in the church. That's not our duty. Romans 13, the government's going to make laws about capital punishment. And I guarantee you, they're never going to make laws about punishing all these spiritual things necessarily. Now Calvin and the others, they tried to do it. And that was not a right understanding of the Word of God. For them to try to institute this. We see here the standard here for the church. It's a spiritual purity and there's spiritual punishment that happens. Not a physical stoning. Again, this idea is just throughout the Bible. Don't omit. Don't close your eyes. James 5:19. I looked at this maybe a year ago. 5.19, I'll read the verse. My brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth, then someone brings him back. What does it say we should do to him? Stone him? Is that what it says? Brings him back. You can be brought back. You can go into error. And someone goes out and they rescue you from that error and they bring you back. Let him know, whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death. That's what we're talking about here. Don't omit from helping the brother or sister because you could be a means of God to bring them back and save their soul from death. This isn't about bringing them back so they can stand before the judge and put rocks on their head. None of that. That's not what's happening here. I'll tell you, though, there's one day coming where there's going to be a stoning, and it's not with rocks. It's going to be with the wrath of God. And these are all means to try to keep people from having that ultimate fate of perishing. Notice James 5. It said, if anyone among you wonders, and who brings them back? What does it say? The pastors bring them back. And someone, someone, meaning any of you, someone, we're all on the clock. We're all there at the pool, and we're all on the clock. Someone's out there drowning. It's not just, oh, where are the pastors at? Guys, you see what's happening out there? No, no, no, you've got a responsibility as a member of this body to go dive in and do something about it. Why do we have news titles like this in the world? Doesn't it bother you that it would be such a big deal for a newspaper to have an article titled 13-year-old boy prays for returning lost wallet? That bothers me. That that would even be a big deal. Shouldn't that be obvious? That if you find someone's wallet, you return it? That article implies it's so rare that a kid would find a wallet and not take the money and actually give the wallet back to the owner. It's so rare they write a news article about it. I mean, that's how dark the world is. That should shock you that that's a big deal. That should be common. That's where we're at. That's where sin is done. But the Christian, the Holy Spirit, oh, they changed the person. They've got a new principle operating in their life. Romans 6, 17 says they're obedient from the heart. It's right here. God's law is on my heart. I want to love God with all my heart. I want to love my neighbor as myself. I want to love Him as Christ is loved. Do I need exhortations? Do I need reminders? Absolutely. That all the more awakens this internal desire that I already have to live for the Lord Jesus. Did the Apostle Paul have some external law that bound his conscience when he confronted Peter and Galatians for his hypocrisy? Did he look at the law book and it said, oh, you better do this or else you might get stoned? No, Paul wasn't going to get stoned if he kept his mouth shut. He had a love for God. A jealousy for the Lord that brought Peter's error in practice. He brought it all out in the light. He dealt with it. Think of even old covenant believers. Right? Think of Phineas. Phineas didn't turn a blind eye. I mean, the whole congregation, hundreds of thousands of people, they hear about it. If you see a man go with this pagan woman, you should go and take a spear and stab the man and the woman through and kill them. Hundreds of thousands of people heard it. One man got up and did something about it. And it was Phineas. And it's interesting here what motivated Phineas. The Bible tells us what motivated Phineas. And it wasn't a fear of punishment from a law that if he didn't do it, it wasn't even necessarily he wanted the plague to be averted. Though when he did it, the plague stopped. It says, Phineas was jealous with my jealousy among him. You see, it was a desire to love the Lord his God. That's what motivated him. It doesn't say he was checking his box off on the checklist. You know, if you and I love our neighbor, as Romans 13 says, you will be fulfilling the law. All these laws here, if you ultimately look at them and why they're instituted and why they're there and what they even reflect, and how we should even apply them in the New Testament, it's all going to come back to some connection to the reality of sacrificial love for others. Why do I not ignore this love? Don't close your eyes. What New Testament verse comes to mind? Don't close your eyes. Don't close your heart. We already looked at the Good Samaritan for a moment. Who else? Let's think of James 2. John 5. 1 John 3. 1 John 3:16. This incredible verse. By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us. This is where we really see love. Christ dying for His enemies. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brother. Oh, our lives, not just our wallets. Interesting. Verse 17, but if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet does what? Closes his heart. And you want to see how serious this thing of closing your heart is and omitting from doing the good you know you should do? These are not my words I'm about to say. This is the Word of God. This is hard because it's Scripture. If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet he closes his heart against him, what's John's question? How does God's love abide in him? How is he even a Christian? Don't make struggling Christians doubt their assurance. I'm just reading what he says. And it's interesting, he wrote 1 John and the book of John that we might know that we know Him. And involved in that knowing of Him, he makes this statement like that. Because it's very encouraging as a Christian to think of all the times where I heard of a need and maybe I did somewhat close my heart a little and I did the whole thing and someone else is going to meet the need, but I got home and it's still in my mind and why would I do something about it? You know why I do something about it? He says right there, God's love abides in me. The love of God is in me. I've been changed by the Lord. This is amazing. John assumes what's missing if you close your heart is God's love. That's what he assumes is missing in the person. Meaning, and the opposite, that is what is at work in the believer who's not closing their eyes to the needs of others. And not closing their eyes to sin that corrupts. Love is what is at work in them. So yes, like the good Samaritan, we're responsible for whoever and how far we should help this man. Well, Christ paid His life for us. Are we going all in? Even like that Samaritan. What a rebuke he is. And you know, this is an ongoing issue throughout the Bible. All the way back to the beginning. Who's the first person, at least I could think about, who made the statement? Who closed his eyes? I mean, maybe you make an argument that Adam closed his eyes to Eve or something. But to me, the clearest is Genesis 4:9. The Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And what did Cain say? I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Am I on the clock? Is that my business? Am I on the clock right now? That's my brother. He's going to do what he's going to do. God right there is saying you are your brother's keeper. You should be aware of where he is at. You should be involved in that. Proverbs 21:13, whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor, it's a neutral thing, right? No big deal. You and I can close our ear to the cry of the poor. No, it's not neutral. He Himself will call out and not be answered. Isaiah 58:7, is it not to share your bread with the hungry? This type of fast God requires. Isn't it to bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him? And to not hide yourself from your own flesh. Not hide yourself. That's another way of putting it. Now it's not just the imagery and the metaphor of closing your eyes. Like I didn't see anything. I was sleeping on it. You're actually going and hiding. You're hiding yourself from this need, this situation. So do you think about this? Do you think about sin? Not just in, oh, I sinned by being angry. I sinned by lusting. Do you think about sin as, oh, I sinned by omitting from doing what I should have done? Oh, I sinned by closing my eyes. Oh, I sinned by negligence. That's transgressing this perfect standard of the Lord Jesus Christ. And another interesting connection, Leviticus 20, it's interesting here the motive for them. He says in v. 22, you keep all these statutes, these rules in the land I'm bringing you to. 20-22, why? That the land I bring you to might not vomit you out. Okay, that's an intense language, but what text does that then remind you of from Revelation? Yeah, if you are lukewarm, because of your lukewarmness, that means indifference in a way. You're negligence. You're closing of the eyes. You're sitting there with the hands folded. You're neither hot nor cold. He says I will spit you out of My mouth. And so you've got an old covenant in Israel. They have this warning against them. And their indifference, they're going to be spewed out of the land. And here we've got Christ in Revelation in a similar way warning His people right there. So lukewarmness, indifference, burying your head in the sand, it matters. We want to live on that type of plane. Imagine, you know people come and they confess sin to you? How many people have come to you and confessed a sin of omission? How many have come and said, brother, I sinned this week. And you're sitting there wondering, what are they about to say? I sinned this week. My neighbor's lawn was such a mess. I had my mower out and I just finished mowing. I had enough time. I could have mowed my neighbor's lawn. I just knew this is a loving thing to do. Give me an open door. I didn't do it. Because I wanted to go in and do whatever. Have you ever heard anyone confess something like that? Sins of omission? Or are we so much in this level of oh, I committed. I did this. May it not be so. Well, a couple closing thoughts and more application. And I'd remind you, again, I hate beating the sheep. That's one of my, I hope, good pet peeves. I don't want to do that. I just want to be faithful to say what the Word of God says. You've got to remember here, Paul strongly made a statement to those at Corinth. He strongly reproved them. I'm not saying this is some great issue in our church. I'm just preaching this because I read it this week and I thought this is a very interesting thought. It makes me ask myself where do I close my eyes? We should ask ourselves why do we overlook? Think first. Why do we overlook sin? Exposing sin. Not overlook sin, but exposing it. Well, the Corinthians' problem was what? Arrogance? Thinking it's minor when it's not? So some, they overlook exposing sin because they think it's minor when it's not. Another reason, fear of man. There's just too much risk involved in my relationships or one of the very sad things in other churches I've heard where they don't even expose sin because somehow those pastors know who the big givers are and they know that that person is one of the big givers and they don't want to confront the sin because they don't want the person to leave the church because the money will go with the person. You've got all these corrupt reasons why people don't love people and confront sin. Paul did not overlook Peter's hypocrisy. Right? We want to be like that. Why do we overlook exposing sin? Insecurity. We wonder is this really right? Is this really not? Should I? Should I not? And often that's because we have an ignorance of God's Word and His character. Now should we ever overlook sin? Yeah, absolutely. There are verses, Proverbs 19, 11. Good sense makes one slow to anger. It is His glory to overlook an offense. And there are times that's an offense against you though. Right? You're overlooking someone who sinned against you. But someone else going and actively committing sin? You're going to find a lot more commands there to say something to the individual. If your brother sins, you go to him. And as Tim pointed out years ago, if you look at the grammar in that text, it doesn't mean just your brother sinned against you. He might have actually sinned against someone else, and you go to that other person who you saw commit sin against someone else. And like Old Testament law mentioned, you see if it's true. You hear people out. You don't come in an accusatory type of way. Why do we overlook doing good? Well, someone else is going to do it. Someone else is going to act. Someone else is a lot more gifted than me. That brother's more gifted than me. I'll just leave it up to him. I can kind of bury this one. Stick my head in the sand. That's one reason. Another reason is selfishness. We just don't want to use our time for the person. We don't want to take time to take care of their ox, so to speak. It takes time out of your day. There your neighbor's ox is stuck. And maybe you have to get them out without your neighbor even being there. Now you've got to take the ox. Now you've got to take the garment. You know how hard it is in our lost and found back there, right? What you guys leave here today gets put in a pile, and Connie emails it to the church, and she's trying to get it back to you. But often what happens, we don't know whose is whose. Now usually it's because it's not that important of an item. If it was your wallet, if it was car keys, you'd probably do something about it. But that takes time. Partiality is another reason we overlook doing good. It's very easy to do good to those who are really special and near and dear to your heart. It's kind of ironic that Matthew 5, verse 46 says, If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collector, do not even the wicked people do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. We don't want to show partiality. Hebrews 13 too, do not neglect to show hospitality. Deuteronomy 15, verse 9, Take care, lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart. And you say, the seventh year, the year of release is near, and your eye begrudgingly look on your poor brother and you give him nothing. And he cry to the Lord against you and you be guilty of sin. Isn't it amazing how it describes it there? You have an unworthy thought in your heart. We've got to be on battle against unworthy thoughts that come into the heart. Yeah, we overlook doing good. The cost. The cost. I mean, I might have to pay the inn for their fee for weeks to stay. I mean, oh, that's a big cost. Or Shirley's radiation, the fourth shot cost $100,000 for one shot. Chemo. Now thankfully, they got a trial where the government is going to be paying for that aspect of it. But I mean, look, you hear stuff like $100,000 for one injection of chemo. Medical stuff is overwhelming. Are there times you and I overlook doing good? Are there times we should? Sorry, that's what I meant. Yeah, there are. There are times there are people in this church you should not help. Where do I get that? 2 Thessalonians 3:10 If anyone is not willing to work, what should your response be? Let them not eat. He's not working a job, and he's constantly wanting you to buy or she is constantly wanting you to buy them food and provide for them financially. There's a place where you say, I'm not doing that. And they might accuse you of not loving them. And you say, I'm loving you according to what Paul said here. You've got to get a hold of the reality of your idleness and do something about it. And go look at the ant outside in that ant hill and learn from them. These sluggards. So we should ask in general, what are you overlooking in your life? What am I omitting? What are we neglecting or closing our eyes and our heart to? What are you overlooking in your marriage? You know, when you initially look at a house, you're really careful to see all the issues with the trim and you might spot something and see the water stains, and you're concerned about it. But once you move in and it becomes comfortable, you start to less heighten your attention to detail. Same thing in marriage. You get used to it. It's common. And you're not as heightened in the details of the little sensitivities of your life. I'm telling you, multiple times in this last year, some of the root issues in some people's marriages, at least an aspect of it, has been the husband lacking sensitivity to actively communicate with his wife and give her an avenue by which she might pour her heart out to her husband. Don't overlook that. In all the busyness and all... I know, as you have more and more children, it makes it difficult, but that happens that they don't have any children. You've got plenty of time. What are you overlooking in your parenting? You know, one of the biggest failures of parents comes down to one word, inconsistency. And often that comes from turning a blind eye to something because of the time and the effort it will take to deal with it, or you're already in a place where you know your child is going to fight back and they're going to kick back, and so you're already letting them win. Because you've already given away too much authority over the years where your kid won't really respect you, and so you don't really do something about it. Inconsistencies is what corrupted the nation of Israel to the point they were at. Let's just omit every two and ten times we'll just ignore the disrespect that the child is showing. You know what the very next verse in Leviticus 20 is that we didn't even read? If anyone curses his father or his mother, he shall be put to death. The old covenant law, and that word curses is the same word that was used when Shimei was standing there throwing rocks at David and saying to David, you're a worthless man. It's as if in old covenant law, the child had looked at his mother and said, I hate you. You're worthless. You provide nothing for me. That child would be taken out and would be killed. That would have been me if we were under that type of law. I'd be a dead man and I wouldn't be standing here right now and I'd be in hell. But there's a seriousness. We don't want to overlook our parenting. And just because we're in such a merciful place, our children are, and thank God we're not in a land where there's some type of honor killings by parents as actually happens in some countries in this world. But are you closing a blind eye in your devotional life? King David did that. He closed a blind eye. He should have been at war. He didn't go to war. He fell into adultery. He fell into murder. Right? Why? At the times when the kings go to war, David remained. He closed his eyes to the task of going to war. Are we overlooking abortion? I mean, it's interesting. This very passage deals with people offering their children to be sacrificed. And it would be wrong to not say there's something very comparable here with abortion. And millions of babies are going and being sacrificed through the murder of abortion. And there is a place for us Christians to be doing something about that. Not so much necessarily... I mean, sure, if something legally can change, then praise God for that. But we want to be winning these people to Christ. And that's our reason to pray for our pregnancy center that God would use it for good. Well, are your eyes closed to what Christ has done? John 8. This verse, you can read it over and you miss it. John 8. 29. Listen to this. For I always do the things that are pleasing to My Father. You catch that? Christ lived a life always doing what was pleasing to His Father. Right? Jesus' life was not all about abstaining and not committing. It was about actively doing. And everything He ever did was pleasing to His Father. Jesus never omitted one good thing that He should have done. He was full of the Spirit. And He perfectly obeyed the Father. And He perfectly did all the good He could do. Yes, even the times when He went away in a secret place to pray, even though people had need, that right there was the perfect act that He needed to be doing at that moment. And all this talk about what we overlook, we should think about what you and I are overlooking in our Christian life. But you want to remember this, the Lord does not overlook you and I. And there's an encouragement there. The same word in the Septuagint is found in the closed your eyes. It's found in Joshua 1:5. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not close my eyes to you, but it renders it this way, I will not leave you or forsake you. So there you are in that pool drowning. Maybe one of us will fail to hop in, but God might come down and reign through the heavens as it says in Deuteronomy. And He might rescue you. And He might do something in divine providence to pull you out of that pit. The Lord will not overlook you. Hebrews 6:10, For God is not unjust so as to overlook, to close His eyes to your work, and now listen to this, your work and the love that you have shown for His name. That's what we're talking about. Don't omit from showing love for His name. Don't close your eyes to showing love for His name. All this boils down to is not going to Leviticus 20 and grilling in Old Covenant Law. It's going to the cross, grilling in the love of Christ into your heart. And then you're going to go out there and always do the things that are pleasing to God. And you're going to be able to say, I want to do this for the love that you have shown for His name in serving the saints as you still do. That's what you and I are doing. We're showing love for His name because He is worthy. Well, let's close our eyes and pray. There is no verse on closing your eyes when you pray. You do not have to do that. Father, we don't want to close our eyes to the need, Lord, of the needs of the east side. Lord, here we have VBS coming up. We want to reach out to this neighborhood. Lord, we don't want to close our eyes to the needs in the church, those struggling with sin. We don't want to close our eyes to that. And Lord, those who have needs and their ox is stuck and they've lost something. Lord, we don't want to close our eyes to this. Lord, we want to have all the more the love for Your name. Because Your name is worthy. It's precious. It's great. Father, we thank You for sending Your Son. And Lord Jesus, we thank You for always doing what was pleasing to Your Father. And then giving us that perfect life legally to our records that we are now not condemned, but we are justified. Yea, justified. What a blessed thought. In Jesus' name, Amen.