Leviticus 18

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you this morning. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word and we pray that as we read your word this morning, please Lord help us to understand it. Please apply it to our lives. Please Lord let it teach us how to love you more. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, so we are at Leviticus chapter 18. Leviticus chapter 18. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I am the Lord your God.
According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do. And according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do. nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall observe my judgments, and keep my ordinances to walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness. I am the Lord.
The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. The nakedness of your father's wife you shall not uncover, it is your father's nakedness. The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. The nakedness of your son's daughter, or your daughter's daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover. for theirs is your own nakedness. The nakedness of your father's wife, your father's wife's daughter, begotten by your father, she is your sister. You shall not uncover her nakedness.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister. She is near of kin to your father. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister. She is near of kin to your mother. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. 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 her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness.
Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while she is still alive. Also, you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. Moreover, you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her. And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech. nor shall you profane the name of your God.
I am Jehovah. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. You shall not mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is a perversion. Do not defile yourself with any of these things, for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you, for the land is defiled. Therefore I visit the punishment of this iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations. either any of your own nation, or any stranger who dwells among you. For all these abominations the men of the land have done who were before you, and thus the land is defiled, lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
For whoever commits any of these abominations, that person who commits them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore, you shall keep my ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God." God. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So, what's this about? This is the laws of sanguinity. Laws of close relations.
The big portion of this is talking about who you're allowed to marry and not marry. Who you're allowed to sleep with and not sleep with. And the point is, not with close relations. And you're not to uncover nakedness. There's disgracefulness as the relationships get closer and closer to home. One, you're not supposed to be seeing your brothers and sisters, father and mother, your cousins, your aunts and uncles, you're not supposed to see them naked. There's an honor that you're to preserve for them in their nakedness. There's a certain part of our culture that wants to get rid of this.
We have bodies, and our bodies are beautiful, and we show off our bodies in the snow, right? In these laws of sanguinity, especially in Old Testament Israel, the point was Your body wasn't made for show like that. We're not exhibitionists. We don't need to show off our bodies and we don't need to go chase down looking after other people's nakedness and the lust after our own hearts.
The question is, does this apply to us? Well, this is one of these points I'm going to talk a lot about tomorrow with Leviticus chapter 19. I think the general equity of the principle, what still applies in this law is that we shouldn't be marrying super close relations. we see the genetic problems that flow from that. We also shouldn't be uncovering our fathers and our mothers, our brothers and their sisters, our aunts and our uncles' nakedness, right?
There's a preservation of personal modesty and saying, no, no, I'm going to honor my parents. I'm not going to go to try to see them naked. I'm not going to go try to see my sister naked. I'm not going to try to lie with my neighbor's wife. The general principle of these sayings is there's laws of sanguinity. I don't want to marry that close and I need to preserve the honors of others.
But there's also a couple other parts here that are later on after verse 18. Verse 18 is really the law of sanguinity, but right in verse 19 If a woman's having a period, he says don't sleep with her during that time. Maybe that's something that husbands should practice with their wives. Maybe you should talk with your wife or talk with your husband about stuff like this, whether this applies. You shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife to defile her.
Some people will sit there and say, oh, this is all Old Testament ceremonial law. Well, you have to ask yourself, does that sound like Old Testament ceremonial law, or does it sound like at times the line between ceremonial law and moral law Are they close? Or ceremonial law and civil law, are they close? Well, I think this is one of those where lying with your neighbor's wife, that's called adultery.
Don't defile yourself that way. I think that's a Ten Commandment moral law. Then don't let your children pass through the fire to Molech. That's a violation of the Second Commandment. Your child passing through the fire of Molech is offering your children up. to an idol, literally killing your firstborn to an idol. There's archaeological evidence of this, where there's ashuary jars where children's bones, charred bones, are inside these jars because they pass their children. into the fire of Moloch. It's detestable, right?
He says, don't profane the name of your God. I'm Jehovah. Don't do that. They're going into a real land, and this is really going to happen. So what's this about? The Lord's telling them, right? You're not to do these types of things. And one of the other things that the Canaanite, the pagan people, they're doing is they're engaging in bestiality. People sleeping with animals. I'm not talking about sleeping with them in their bed like a dog at the foot of your bed. I'm talking about having intercourse with an animal.
That's defiling to the Lord. He says that's an abomination. And if the Lord calls it an abomination, I'm pretty sure it's not time bound. I don't think the Lord all of a sudden goes, oh, that's not an abomination to me anymore. I don't want to throw up over it. No, the Lord doesn't change.
And so again, I would say the general equity of this moral law behind this is there's still shouldn't be sleeping with animals. And I hate to say it, in the dark corners of our culture, it's been coming around for the last 60 years, this happens. And it's horrible. It's wrong.
And then the Lord says, you're not doing any of these. Why? Well, the pagan nations all around them are doing these things, and the Lord's going to just vomit them out. He says the land is going to kick them out because not even the land can stand this. Now you need to be careful because if you start doing this as Israelites, you're going to get kicked out.
I'm the Lord. I see all of it. and I'm not going to stand for it. So this is what it's going to be, my covenant people. You did these types of things when you were in Egypt and you saw them happen there. Not allowed to do them in the promised land. The people who are getting kicked out, their sins weren't yet fulfilled. Now their sins are. The land's vomiting them out.
But you could also be. Therefore you shall keep my ordinances, verse 30, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am Jehovah your God. I think verse 30 is the best line to summarize all this. So what are we called to do? What's the response to this? Well, I think the response to this is how do we deal with honoring people in their nakedness? How do we deal with keeping close relationships pure?
We get all upset and bent over, and rightly so, when we hear about incestual relationships, especially when they're dealing with molestation and rape and things like that. And we should, we should get really, really, really mad at that. I'm of the opinion that we're too light with them as we look over the laws of our land. But why? Why would we have that moral outrage? I think because it's a moral issue.
And I think that's what God's getting at here in Leviticus chapter 18. We also need to make sure that we're not then saying, oh, you guys are so bad with all this stuff that then we go and sleep with our neighbor's wife. Engage in bestiality. That's the Lord is saying, or let our children be sacrificed to idols. The Lord is saying, all of this, the family, sexuality, all of that, is to be holy.
Because I'm the Lord your God. So in our lives, do we honor Christ with our bodies? a temple of the Holy Spirit. Did you not know that the Holy Spirit resides in you? Therefore, glorify God with your body. Glorify Him with what you see. Glorify Him with who you love. Glorify Him in the relationships you pursue. Glorify Him with your heart and with your life.
Let's pray. Father, you have redeemed us and we thank you for your love. Lord, we pray that you would please help us to walk in your ways. that even in our relationships, our desires, and who we marry, Lord, that it would be according to what is bringing you glory. Lord, we thank you so much for the love you have shown us in Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk in the joy of Jesus. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.