How wicked had the people become in Moses' day, and just to remind you, this is after

Sodom and Gomoram, in the unfolding of redemptive history.

If there is a man who takes his brother's wife,

they will die.

They will die childless. So the point is that under the Old Covenant, if you committed

immorality, sexual immorality of any kind of wicked nature.

They were called for the death penalty.

Under the new covenant, the adulterer is given a divorce rather than death.

They're given the death penalty and that's a mercy of God to just not immediately

take you out and it is an expression of the patience of God and the long suffering of God

to give the adulterer, the guilty party,

time to repent of his sin and time to confess his sin and to turn away from it.

And to give the adult to her time to come to faith in Christ before you go to hell.

Because when you're stone to death, you're going straight to hell if you're an unbeliever.

It's not to say that a believer cannot commit one of these perverted sins, but if it's an ongoing lifestyle,

1st Corinthians 6th, verse 19, says that no adulterer and no homosexual and no effeminate will inherit the kingdom of God.

And this is a mercy of God because it also gives the adulterer time to try to reconcile

with the offended spouse before she remarries.

So it was a mercy of God.

Now, at this point you need to know there's one other exception

clause and I want you to come to 1st Corinthians, and we're having to squeeze in a lot here.

But I want you to come to 1st Corinthians 7, beginning in verse 10.

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