120_The Lord who sanctifies Leviticus 20:1-9 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “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 shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. 6 “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. 7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. It was a moment that left everyone stunned. A young man stood before a judge in a crowded courtroom, convicted of a brutal crime. The evidence was overwhelming, and the sentence handed down was the maximum under the law. As the judge pronounced the words—life imprisonment without parole—there was a collective hush. Outside, news cameras rolled. Commentators debated whether the punishment was too harsh, while others said it was too lenient. The weight of justice felt tangible that day. Now imagine if the judge had smiled and said, “You seem like a decent person. Let’s forget about this. You’re free to go.” We would be outraged, wouldn’t we? Something deep within us cries out for justice, for wrongs to be acknowledged, for consequences to matter. And yet, how often do we question God's justice? How often do we read passages like Leviticus 20 and recoil at the penalties God demanded in ancient Israel, wondering if they were too extreme? This chapter in Leviticus offers us a stark window into the holiness of God. In our modern societies, the seriousness of a crime is generally understood by the penalty it carries. For instance, capital punishment is reserved for what we call “the rarest of rare” cases. Even among murderers and rapists, very few face the gallows. But in the theocratic society of Old Testament Israel, the standard was not human opinion but divine holiness. The difference between God's morality and man's becomes painfully clear. Psalm 71:19 says, “Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?” God’s moral standard is