THROUGH THE BIBLE - Leviticu..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Leviticus chapter 18, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I'm bringing you.

You shall not walk in their statues. You shall follow my rules and keep my statues and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them.

I am the Lord. None of you shall approach any of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother.

You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, of your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter, of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter brought up in your father's family, since she is your sister. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister. She is your father's relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is your mother's relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother.

That is, you shall not approach his wife. She is your aunt. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness. They are relatives. It is depravity.

And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is alive. You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife, and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it. Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. It is perversion.

Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its inequity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep My statutes and My rules, and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For the people of the land who were before you did all these abominations, so that the land became unclean, lest that land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep My charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them.

I am the Lord your God." Amen, this is the perfect word of the Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, we are arriving to a very important section that actually our brother started in this book of Leviticus that started in chapter 17. And now as we are progressing through this book, beloved of Christ, your attention, as we are progressing through this book, It's very important that as we go into more detail and more laws that are given to the people of Israel, that we remember this concept that we introduced a few weeks ago in which I spoke to you and I said that the book of Leviticus is everything about holiness. But we are to understand the book of Leviticus in terms of holiness from the perception of positional holiness and the experiential holiness of the people of Israel.

When I said to you positional holiness meant that God chose from the nations, from the nations of the world, that God chose the people of Israel. He gave them freedom from the bondage of Egypt. So He chose them and positionally He set them apart as His people. That is, positionally they were made holy, set apart from the nations. That is one side of holiness in this book of Leviticus.

The other part of it is that now these people who have been set apart as holy are called to be holy experientially. Yes, they have been set apart as holy from the nations. They have been given freedom from the bondage of Egypt and now they are holy in that sense that they are set apart from among the nations, but now they are called to practically be holy because God is holy. Those two concepts are very important for you to have in your mind. This is the book of Leviticus.

And that is very important, not only because this concept of positional holiness and experiential or living holiness, it is also translated into or goes into the New Testament for the church, but also, beloved of Christ, because this helps us to understand the concept of holiness. You see, holiness is that we are set apart as the people of God. Or holiness is, yes, that we are removed, set apart as different to others. But also, holiness requires an active devotion to the One who separated us. Okay, so the passive aspect of holiness is that we are set apart, removed, just as Israel was removed from the nations.

But the active part of holiness is that these people are called to consecrate themselves to the Lord, to devote themselves to the Lord. So holiness is to be set apart plus being devote entirely to the one who has set us apart. And this concept of being set apart and being devoted entirely to God, it is even seen in the Trinity because God is holy because He's set apart from all other creatures, yes, but He's also holy because God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are fully and gloriously devoted to each other. So they are completely set apart from any other being. So we are called to be holy because He is holy.

Now understanding that is also important, beloved of Christ, because this book could be divided, as the brother said last week, into sections. The first section that goes from chapter 1 to 16 and the second section that goes from chapter 17 until the end of the book. The first section of the book deals with Israel as positionally holy, as a covenant nation that has been set apart and everything that they have to do in worship as a nation so that God will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. while the second half of the book, starting from chapter 17 until the end of the book, deals now with experiential or practical holiness. That is the individual consecration of the Israelite to God, or what they call the holiness code, what they were supposed to do to remain in holiness.

Okay, keep that in your mind, because now from chapter 17, we're dealing with practical holiness. And now we arrive to chapter 18, in which we are going to have these laws that deal with, as the ESV says, unlawful sexual relationships. Okay, now it is about practical holiness for the people of Israel, individual, not so much in the sense of corporate worship as Israel positionally holy, but more experientially holy, individually. And we have these laws, these instructions better when it comes to sexual relationships. Now, sexual relationships are not sinful.

But what the Lord is addressing in verse 18 is unlawful sexual relationships. So we see that here he's addressing unlawful sexual relationships with relatives, with people in the family, or unlawful relationships with animals. or unlawful sexual relationships between men and men and women and women. Homosexual sexual relationships are unlawful and the Lord calls them an abomination. And also we see the sacrifice of children here who are the result or the fruit of lawful sexual relationships.

This is what this chapter is dealing with, unlawful sexual relationships. Now, in the New Testament, when we take this to the New Testament, brothers and sisters, When we take this to the New Testament, the New Testament calls this sexual immorality. Sexual immorality. And then when the Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and then before he is going to write to them about all these special things about marriage in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, before he writes those things about marriage in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, he speaks about sexual immorality. And he says that every scene...

Now I need your attention because we're going to get into what the chapter teaches. The Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 6, in the end of that chapter, that every sin that we commit is outside of the body. But when we commit sexual immorality, that is a sin that is against the body, that is inside the body. But he says, every sin that is committed is outside the body. But when you commit sexual immorality and lawful sexual relationships, those sins are against the flesh.

This is very important to understand. So if we were going to take New Testament words to understand Leviticus chapter 18, we could say that this chapter 18 is dealing with sins that are against the body or sins that are against the flesh in the concepts and in the words that the Apostle Paul uses there in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, in the end of chapter 6. He even gives the illustration that if you're joined to a prostitute, you become one flesh, that you're members of Christ and that with Christ, your union with Christ goes beyond the flesh and you are one spirit with the Lord. So he says that all sins that are committed are outside the body, but sexual immorality is a sin against the body or in the body, in the flesh. We have that type of sexual immorality or sins here in chapter 18.

Sins against the flesh. And as I said, those are unloveful relationships with family members, unloveful relationships with people of the same gender, homosexuality, unloveful relationships with animals, which are an abomination, and also and also the sacrifice of children, as it says in verse 21, which is a sacrifice of the fruit of the flesh. Now, that's why Paul speaks now in chapter 7 of marriage, because one husband and wife coming together, they become one flesh, and that is the lawful sexual relationship. God instituted sex to be lawful under the covenant of marriage. But I want to point, before I make that point, something that I want to point your attention to is not only that this chapter is dealing with this unlawful sexual relationship, but I want to point your attention to the fact that the Lord is quite displeased with these unlawful sexual relationships.

In the end of verse 17, He calls him a depravity, that this is a depravity. Or in verse 22 and 21, or in the end of verse 22, it says that this is an abomination. Or in the end of verse 23, it says that it's a perversion. And then the sacrifice of children, he calls that, that you are profaning the name of the Lord. Now, those are very strong words.

A depravity, an abomination, a perversion that you profane the name of the Lord. The Lord is quite displeased with unlawful sexual relationships. But now the important thing that I want to bring now your mind a little bit deeper, brothers and sisters, It is that these words that the author of Leviticus uses to describe these unloveful sexual relationships, depravity, abomination, perversion, or profaning the name of the Lord, more particularly depravity and abomination, speak of something that goes against nature. Something that goes or violates nature. That it is something that is against the divine design that God instituted.

That it is that unloveful relationships are relationships that violate or break the natural design of the body. This is important for what I'm going to say next, brothers and sisters. Here we can see a list of not only unlawful sexual relationships, but something that we can see here is that they are unnatural. And the Lord God is in quite high displeasing, if that is a word in English, or He's in complete rejection of these not only unlawful, but also unnatural relationships. Now, brothers and sisters, This is very important because the deep teaching of this chapter is not so much about what the unlawful relationships are and what unnatural relationships are, but the person of Israel was being instructed about the natural relationships and the lawful relationships or sexual relationships and that is marriage.

As you can see here, the author of Leviticus is using the words, husband, and wife, and daughter, and son, and your son, sons, and your daughter, daughter, and your wife, and husband, and continues like that, saying those rules or those instructions of relationships that should not be. implicitly saying that the only loveful relationships or sexual relationships that can happen are between husband and wife. And if the unloveful relationships were against nature, then that means that the relationship between husband and wife are in nature or natural. Now, brothers and sisters, I know that we know this, but this is very important because Marriage is a divine design of God given not only to the people of Israel, but also to the world. Because the deeper concern of the Lord here is...

we're going to go one more point. The deeper concern of the Lord is not so much these sexual relationships, but what the people of Israel did or did not do about them. Go to verse 2 and you will see here the deeper concern of the Lord when He was given these instructions. It says, verse 2, "...Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God.

You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived. And you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statues." Now, brothers and sisters, here we have a very deep teaching, okay? Something that the world rejects, but that is given in the divine design of God.

First of all, that natural sexual relationships are to happen between husband and wife. The husband and wife are to be male and female, because when you have male and male, that is no marriage, and that is an abomination to the Lord. So, sexual legal relationships are between husband and wife, and this is male and female, and the fruit of that marriage, children, is of honor to the Lord. You are not to give and sacrifice your children to Melech, it says here, because that profane the name of the Lord. Why?

Because they were the fruit of the one fleshness of husband and wife. So the children are the blessing, the honor of the legal sexual relationship between husband and wife. but the major concern of the Lord was to point to Israel that walking according to what is natural or according to the design of God was to go against the ways of the world. It says, Do not walk in the statues or in the ways of Egypt where I have taken you from and do not do the things of the people of Canaan of what I'm taking you. That means that the people of Egypt and the people of Canaan were practicing all of these unlawful sexual relationships.

This is very important. This is very important because Egypt and Canaan represent the world. Israel are the chosen ones of God. They are the positionally holy. Egypt and the people of Canaan represent the world.

And he says, you, because I am the Lord God and I'm your God, and I am in a covenantal relationship with you, you are not to do the things that the people of Egypt and the people of Canaan do. which is against nature. They sin against the body. They sin against the design that I have given you. You are to follow my statutes and my commandments, that it is that sexual relationships are legal and natural when there is husband and wife.

But now, brothers and sisters, there's something even deeper here. Because when you turn your page and when you go to the end of the chapter, you see that violating these instructions is worthy of judgment. It says, if you violate these instructions, that this is worthy of judgment. And this is the language that he uses in verse 24. He says, ''Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean so that I punished its inequity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

But you shall keep my statutes, which is, do not do any of those unlawful sexual relationships. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you, for the people of the land who were before you did all of these abominations so that the land became unclean, lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean. Now, this language of vomiting out, of removing from the land is a language of judgment. But I don't know if you've had seen it here because the law is saying, I am giving you this law, people of Israel, which is not commit any unlawful sexual relationship with relatives, with animals, homosexual relationships, or give your children in sacrifice. Because if you break that law, I will judge you as I judge the Gentiles who do not have the law.

the Gentiles who were in the land where they are going, they were vomited out from the land. They were judged by God based on a law that they had not been given because the book of Leviticus chapter 18, this is being given to the people of Israel. Yet the Lord is saying, this is standard that I'm giving you now. If you violate this standard that I'm giving you now, you're going to be judged, which is a legal language. You're going to be vomited out from the land from which I have already vomited out the Canaanites who are Gentiles and who do not have this law.

And this is because, brothers and sisters, they were sinning against nature. You see, marriage and husband and wife and loveful relationship was not something that was given to the people of Israel, but rather it's something that was given to the world in Adam and Eve. Therefore, every single person who is born in Adam requires and is in obligation to obey the sacred and perfect and beautiful natural law, the natural law of marriage. To the point that when God was given these specific laws and instructions to the people of Israel, the world and including the people of Israel were already under this natural commandment. Now, brothers and sisters, This is the important thing.

Now keep your mind and then we finish with this. That means that what God says is that which is according to nature, because He's the one that created our nature, right? What God says is that which according to nature. What man does, it is against nature. And men, if it's not because of God, will always remain doing things against nature.

So turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 1. Now, we spoke about sexual immorality, things against nature, homosexuality, people given and having these horrendous relationships or sexual relationships. This is what the Apostle under the New Covenant says. Let's just read it from verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they didn't honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men, and birds, and animals, and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up, in the lust of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for the women exchanged natural relations with those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what owed not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God. insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree by nature, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. So when judgment comes and the Gentiles are judged, the spiritually speaking Gentiles, the one that is not in Christ is judged by the divine judge of this world. They are going to be without an excuse because God is just, God is righteous.

and He has taught them, He has revealed Himself in their nature, so they are without an excuse. Just as Egypt and Canaan were judged according to a standard that was given positively and specifically to the people of Israel, Then when the Lord Jesus Christ comes for the second time, He's going to judge the living and the dead. And this is the glory of the gospel, because brothers and sisters, apart from the miraculous work of the Spirit of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, All of us are against nature. Our nature is against God. Our passions are against God.

We are in constant rebellion against God. But it's the mercy, the infinite love and mercy of God who chooses a people unto Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ so that He says, If you are weary or tired, come to Me and I will give you rest. Come and take and eat and drink free, there's no price, and I will make you a new creation. The depraved, depravity, abomination, perversion, profaning the name of the Lord in nature, now is made holy and blameless by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not matter how powerful we are, how strong we are, or how weak we are, or how much money we have.

Brothers and sisters, the message of the gospel that we have, it is the power of God unto salvation. It doesn't matter how tall the building is, how many of us, but what we have in our mouth is the glorious word, the divine word that comes from heaven, that saves souls, purifies people, and gives glory to the Father. Amen?