An Overview Study of Leviticus

Moore's Corner Church

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So this evening, I'm gonna do an overview study of the book of Leviticus.

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Leviticus has 27 chapters. It is the third book of Moses, and it's estimated to have been written,

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I think, around 1450 BC. So why is it called Leviticus?

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Well, it's named basically after the tribe of Levi. Levi was the priestly tribe, so the book of Leviticus, you can think of it sort of like the instruction manual for the

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Levitical priests. It has been said that the theme of the book is holiness before God, and this is where the

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Lord gives Moses detailed instructions regarding the sacrifices and offerings in the tabernacle.

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So if you've ever read the Bible cover to cover or set out to read the

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Bible cover to cover, then you know Leviticus is where it starts getting a little more challenging, right?

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Who can relate to that? Look at Leviticus chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.

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It says, Now the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying,

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Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the

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Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock, of the herd, and of the flock.

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And I don't know about you, but I don't have a herd of livestock. So New Testament Christians often will look at the book of Leviticus and wonder, you know, how does this apply?

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How does this or does this apply to us today? Who's wondered that? Probably just about just about everybody who's ever opened it.

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Well, obviously it applied back then. We get that much. How about this?

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Love your neighbor as yourself. Does that apply?

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Right. And that's a quote from the book of Leviticus. When Jesus quoted that, it's in Matthew 22, he was quoting from the book of Leviticus.

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So here's the thing. Everything in Leviticus is true It's profitable for doctrine, but not everything applies.

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So much of the book, if not most, describes the ceremonial aspect of God's law, which has already been fulfilled in Christ.

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So while not everything applies for us today or to us today, this is key that the moral code found in Leviticus, this never changes.

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So this, this certainly does apply. All right. So instead of ignoring Leviticus like so many do, and but you know, so you might have been tempted to do this or but no, we're not going to do that.

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We're going to look at an overview of these. But all that said, turn to Leviticus chapter 10.

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Leviticus 10. And last week we ended the book of Exodus with the children of Israel camped at the foot of Mount Sinai in the wilderness near Mount Sinai.

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And Leviticus really doesn't advance the narrative at all. This is just information.

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So the early chapters of the book go over the offerings. Chapter 3 verse 17 gives the command to God's people that they are not to eat blood.

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Does anyone know why they were not to eat blood? Because right.

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Life is in the blood. Chapter 17 verse 11 says for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

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And we understand how that points to the cross. So we don't have time to cover everything, but all of the sacrifices are prescribed here in Leviticus.

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So burn offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, etc.

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All right. Look at Leviticus 10 starting in verse 1. This is probably the most memorable story in the book.

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It says, Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and put incense on it and offered profane fire or strange fire before the

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Lord which he had not commanded them. So fire went out from the

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Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, This is what the

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Lord spoke, saying, By those who come near me I must be regarded as holy and before all the people

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I must be glorified. And look at this. And it says, So Aaron held his peace.

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Wow. I wonder what his peace was.

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I wonder what he was thinking. But what does it mean to offer profane fire or strange fire before the

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Lord? I think it's generally accepted that what they did is they took these censers or the fire pans and instead of taking coals from the altar like they were instructed to do, the altars continually burnings, they took fire from another source.

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And in addition to this, many believe that they also did this while intoxicated.

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Since a few verses later, God gives this command to the priests that they are not to drink wine when they are going to go into the tabernacle of meeting.

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So a couple things seem pretty clear. Number one, this wasn't just an honest mistake.

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Like a few weeks ago, we talked about the man who was picking up sticks on the Sabbath day.

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It's not like he just forgot or they just went in and offered this strange fire. Whoops, we didn't mean to.

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That's not what this was. Basically, you had the priest right at the beginning of the ministry not regarding the

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Lord as holy. That cannot stand. And then the second thing, which is very clear,

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God, because of that, makes an example out of them. So God is sending a very clear message.

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And what a contrast between the the two rebellious sons of Aaron and then

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Aaron himself, who upon seeing or hearing about this doesn't say a word.

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Wow. I just try to put myself in that position.

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And the Lord consecrates you as the high priest, consecrates your sons.

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You know that throughout the nation's history, the priests, they are from your line.

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What a privilege. What a great responsibility, too. And right at the start, this is what happens right at the beginning.

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And I always view this as like a test of loyalty. It's almost as if, and this is not what it says, but this is kind of how

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I I look at it, it's almost as if the Lord is is now saying to Aaron, who do you love more?

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Do you love me? Because he needed to love the Lord first and foremost as high priest.

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Do you love me or do you love love your children? What's the first commandment?

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What does the first commandment say? Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

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Sometimes, though, people don't put other gods before the Lord, they put people before the

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Lord. That could not be the case here with the high priest. Just along those lines,

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Jesus said in Matthew 1037, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

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And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. I would make the argument to love your parents or to love your children as much as you can and really truly love them like you should.

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You will love the Lord first and that helps you to love them more. But God has to be first.

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Amen. We know from the pages of the New Testament when Jesus walked the earth, the people who hated him the most were who?

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In the nation of Israel, who hated Jesus the most? Yeah, it was the religious leaders.

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And I think this this this story shows something else, that the Levitical priesthood, the

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Levitical priesthood was imperfect. So it was the priest, right?

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We've heard of the scribes and Pharisees. We know that they hated Jesus, but also the the chief priests.

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So from the beginning, the Levitical priesthood, this is a picture, Levitical priesthood had problems, which speaks to a need of an even greater priesthood that the book of Hebrews addresses.

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Okay, anything, questions or comments so far? When they did this,

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I couldn't find any reference as to, in the immediate context, whether they were alone doing it, or if there were people gathered to celebrate at that time.

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If you go down to a couple of verses, verse 4, Moses called unto

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Michal and Elisabeth, the sons of Aaron's uncle, and said to them, so there were people after the fact, but it might have been because God had already taken these two guys out.

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Yeah, nobody would have been in there with them. God didn't call them to take the bodies out. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna comment on that.

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Matthew Henry says something about that, I'll read in just a moment, but flip over to chapter 16. Any other comments?

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16. Okay, so just to finish up with this account of Aaron and his sons,

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Leviticus 16, verse 1 says, Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of his two sons, or after the two sons of Aaron, when they offered profane fire before the

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Lord and died. And the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron, your brother, not to come at just any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, lest he die.

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For I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat. So I had said at the beginning that the theme of Leviticus is holiness before God.

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So when Nadab and Abihu died, that is what the Lord said,

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I must be regarded as holy. So now the Lord has this message for Moses to give to Aaron, that even

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Aaron can't just come in at any time and do whatever he wants to do.

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He had to follow the instructions and he would give more instructions.

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When was the one time he could go in to the holiest place was what day? The day of atonement, right?

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Once a year. Okay, one last thing about the two sons of Aaron. Matthew Henry writes this.

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He says there is reason to think that these two sons were puffed up with pride and that they were heated with wine.

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While the people were prostrate for the Lord, adoring his presence and glory, they rushed into the tabernacle to burn incense, though not at the appointed time.

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Both together instead of one alone. I think that's what you are asking. And with fire not taken from the altar, if it had been done through ignorance, they had been allowed to bring a sin offering.

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But the soul that do it presumptuously and in contempt of God's majesty and justice, that soul shall be cut off.

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So Matthew Henry sees this like an intentional act almost against the

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Lord. Explain the alcohol. Yeah, there's there is another priest who had bad sons.

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Who is that? So that it looks like, you know, we read this one story about them.

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Who knows what else they were doing? So this is probably just just one thing.

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Okay, so this, I think, is the memorable story in the book. But there's many memorable verses, verses and passages.

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So let's just go through a variety of them. Turn to chapter 17, Leviticus 17,

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Leviticus 17, starting in verse six. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the

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Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting and burn the fat for a sweet aroma to the

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Lord. They shall no more offer their sacrifices to what? Demons.

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To demons, after whom they have played the harlot. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generation.

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So the people, he says, have, quote, played the harlot. So spiritually, they did this by worshiping other gods.

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So they belong to the Lord. And here they are worshiping other gods. Notice this. There's there's the altar of the

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Lord. And then there's sacrifices made to demons. Sacrifices made to demons.

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Do you think that's how they would have seen it? I mean, do you think that anybody would have said,

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I mean, maybe somebody. But generally, do you think people would have said we are offering sacrifices to devils?

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No, it was to their deities. What does the Bible say? They're actually demons.

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So, you know, we say there's one God, one true God. That's absolutely true.

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But there are other, you know, gods, quote, unquote. There are other spiritual entities that people worship.

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And they're real, but they're demons. That's what the scripture says.

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You got to remember that the Jews came from Egypt after being there for 400 plus years.

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And Egypt was just flooding all kinds of gods. So that was their mentality.

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So now they've got to go through this whole process of getting those gods, even that golden calf.

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Right. They were heavily influenced through the generations because of their stay in Egypt.

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Yeah. And the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, 20 said the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice not to God, but to demons.

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So this is pretty black and white. It's either God or Satan.

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Right. This is black and white, as clear as it can be.

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But people don't really look at it that way. People don't like that's too black and white. A lot of people are deceived, obviously.

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So there's the worship of the one true God. And when any other being or entity is worshiped according to God, according to Moses, according to the

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Apostle Paul, it's tantamount to demon worship. Well, I don't think

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Jesus would have said that. Well, it's totally in line with what Jesus did say.

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John 14, verse six. No man can come to the father except through me.

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So if you're not going to God through Christ, whatever you're doing, it is not of God.

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So there's the one true God, the one true faith. If that is true and it is, then by definition, all other gods are false gods.

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All other religions are false religions. We live in a time period marked by what is called postmodernism, you know, where everybody has their own truth.

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You know, you just need to speak your truth. You need to speak the truth, not your truth.

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So the world, you know, the world doesn't see it that way, but we wouldn't expect the world to see it this way.

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So all other gods would be false gods. All other religions, false religions.

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And there were many false religions during this time period. One of the most infamous of all false deities was the god

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Molech. How many of you are familiar with Molech? I think

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Molech, Exodus, or excuse me, Leviticus speaks more about Molech, I believe, than any other book.

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Look at chapter 18, verse 21. What's that?

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Yeah, some of the Canaanite tribes worshiped Molech. Leviticus 18, verse 21.

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And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of the

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Lord your God. I am the Lord. So Molech was one of the false deities or demons.

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OK, Molech was a demon and he was one of the demons worshiped by the

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Canaanites. And what did Molech worship include?

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Sacrificing babies. Sacrificing children.

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They would pass through the fire. If there was one thing that God absolutely hated, it was this.

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It was the worship of Molech with child sacrifice. I said this before, that whenever there's something in the

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Bible that's put out there, it's said because it's a problem. Because people were doing it and God knew people would do this in the future.

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Later on in Israel's history, this was the low point in the history of the children of Israel.

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When they actually did fall into the worship of Molech. Israelites, Jews actually, obviously not all of them, and this wasn't common throughout their history.

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But there was a point where the Jews were sacrificing their children to Molech.

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And where did they do it? It was in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom.

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So that is the valley outside of the city of Jerusalem. And that plot of land had such a bad reputation, obviously.

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Everyone knew what had happened there. That the Jews turned it into a garbage dump.

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And the word, Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, the words change over time.

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And the word eventually became Gehenna. And that's the word that Jesus used, translated as hell.

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That's what Jesus used, this garbage dump where fires were always burning to take care of the refuse.

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Jesus used that as a picture of eternal punishment. So to God, the killing of children, one of the words that comes to mind, you think of one of the strongest words that can be used, it is what?

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An abomination. And now you see that word again, look at verses 22 and 23.

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Speaking to men, he says, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman.

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It is what? An abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal to defile yourself with it.

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Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is a perversion.

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So what would happen if Israelites practice these things? Well, he tells us, look at verses 24 and 25.

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Do not defile yourselves with any of these things. For by all these, the nations are defiled.

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This is what the heathen do. Again, not all of them. It would have been probably a very, very small number that did it.

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He says, for by all these, the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you.

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For the land is defiled. Therefore, I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, upon the land.

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And the land vomits out its inhabitants. In other words, if you allow these practices to go on in your nation, your nation will come to an end.

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I will destroy you just as I destroyed the Canaanites.

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Of course, that's what happened. The Jews were removed from the land. Now, I'm not asking for commentary on all of this.

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Clearly, these are relevant topics. Now, just to pause for a moment.

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One of the attributes of God is he is immutable. What does it mean that God is immutable?

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Malachi 3, verse 6, I am the Lord. I change not.

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God's moral standards, we said, never change. A lot of these things in Leviticus, they don't apply.

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You're obviously not sacrificing animals. All of that was fulfilled in Christ. But God's right and wrong morality, this never changes.

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I think the difficulty is for the New Testament church to read all of this and say,

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Okay, what are we supposed to do with this? Some of these commands, these statements, what are we supposed to do with these things?

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What are we supposed to do with these laws? If the morality hasn't changed, what is the church supposed to do with it?

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Okay, so here's the difference. I think everybody in this room understands this.

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A lot of people don't understand this or they don't believe that. Israel is not the church.

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The church is not Israel. Who is this written to?

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The church? No, this is written. This isn't a trick question.

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I like to ask you trick questions sometimes. This isn't one of them. These laws, these commands are given to Israel.

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So Israel was a physical nation with laws. And then there's punishments for those breaking those laws.

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The church is not a physical nation. So this is why it's so important to get this right.

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Because if you get that doctrine wrong, Israel and the church, one thing is connected to another.

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It's connected to another. It's connected to another. You remember when we went through the book of Exodus, I had pointed out that Roman Catholicism, in many ways, is stuck in some of these

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Old Testament practices, right? They have the altar. They have the sacrifices.

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They have the special priesthood. You don't find those physical things in the new covenant.

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This is for, again, the nation of Israel, not us. Well, here's another example of how there are devastating consequences for getting your doctrine wrong.

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Why? Because Rome views the church as the new

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Israel. They view the church as Israel. And some of her offshoots,

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Rome's offshoots, they also believe that the church is Israel. And historically, if you go back and look at history, they believe that the church and the state should be intertwined.

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We do not believe that the church and the state should be intertwined.

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They do believe that. I mean, after all, you could point to the Bible. Here's Leviticus, church and state, the government,

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Moses, right? And the religion, it's together. It's one. And the church is

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Israel. We should do it that way too. That's where that leads. This is why the

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Catholic church used to kill heretics. The apostle Paul said you should mark and avoid them.

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Rome tortured and killed them. And a lot of Rome's offshoots, you know, there were

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Protestants who also did that too. Why? Because they believe that the church and Israel are the same.

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So this is just another reason why we need to rightly divide the word of God.

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Amen. So again, the moral principles remain the same, but these laws and their penalties are for the nation of Israel, not for the church.

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So again, not everything applies. All right. Chapter 19, we'll cover a few more things.

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Again, speaking to the theme of the book, look at Leviticus 19, verses two and three.

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Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I, the

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Lord, your God am holy. What is the Lord saying? He's telling his people to observe his laws and be separate from all the aforementioned defilements.

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So the heathen, that is the people and the nations that surrounded them, they practiced

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Molech worship, adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft, just go through the list.

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That was the type of thing you would find among the heathen. God is saying to the children of Israel, you are not to do those things.

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You are to be different. Now, what would happen if the

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Israelites started to practice some of these things? They would be cut off.

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They would be cut off from the nation. So the spiritual application for the church, of course, is the necessity for church discipline.

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So if you have a believer who falls into these egregious sins, they're not cut off in the same way with maybe like the death penalty, like God gave instruction to Moses, but they are to be excommunicated.

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So there's always that spiritual application. And then chapter 19, verse 18, the most quoted verse from Leviticus in the

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New Testament says, you shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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I am the Lord. That's a great verse, isn't it?

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And again, it's the most quoted from Leviticus in the New Testament. But it's also one of the verses most taken out of context,

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I think. So what's the context of the verse? Well, the context of Leviticus, that verse, is

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God's law. God's law. So we cannot detach love your neighbor as yourself.

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You cannot detach that from the law of God as is so often the case today.

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Can anyone give an example? Or does anyone have an example? It's okay.

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I'm putting you on the spot. Love your neighbor? Yeah. Say, well, you need to love your neighbor as yourself.

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That means this. And then you compare that with God's law. And it's like, wait, no, that's the opposite of what

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God's law says. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and everything, they had taken that very statement, loving your neighbor, and turned it into something that was corrupt.

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Their neighbor, what God was saying was that everybody's your neighbor, whether he lives next door or if he lives ten blocks away.

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The Pharisees turned that around and said, my neighbor is the guy that lives next door, period.

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Well, yeah. That's why the fellow that was beaten and robbed, and it says none of the

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Pharisees would stop because he wasn't their neighbor. Yeah. Yeah.

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The problem with the first century Jews is that they despised anyone who is not a

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Jew. So just a word of caution. If you hear somebody making an argument and they quote the

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Bible, well, we should do this because the Bible says love your neighbor as yourself.

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Just take what they're suggesting and compare it to the law of God. Compare it to the commandments.

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And if it's contradicting the commandments, they're not using it properly.

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Dennis. I know there's kind of an order of how that loves to be expressed.

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It's first of all towards the household of faith, and then after that, if at all possible, live in peace in this world and give the gospel and so on and so forth.

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Yeah, great point. Very much a household of faith thing. Love one another as I have loved you.

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Good point. Lenny. Golden rule.

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Sure. Yeah. How do you want to be treated? Good. So when

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Jesus spoke about love in John 14 verse 15, he referenced the commandments.

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This is how Jesus talked about love. If you love me, keep my commandments.

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John did the same thing in his first epistle. God is love. That's where it comes from.

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And if you read first, John talks a lot about keeping God's commandments. People don't like that today.

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They want to detach love from the commandments, and then it becomes whatever meaning they try to infuse.

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It becomes a feeling rather than anything else. Yeah. Here's another thing.

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Did God love his people Israel? Of course. Did he affirm everything they did?

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No. God's love was self -sacrificing literally in that he sent his own son to die so that they might live.

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So the Lord wanted what was best for his people. He wanted them to dwell in the land.

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He wanted them to take the land, possess the land. He wanted to bless them in the land.

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Part of the fifth commandment to honor father and mother is the promise that is attached to it, that your days will be long upon the land.

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So a nation that does not show honor to the previous generation or a people that do not honor their father and mother, a people like that, well, an individual setting themselves up for failure, but a nation that would do that is a nation that is set to collapse.

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So because of this, the Lord commands us to respect our elders. Look at verse 32.

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Skip down to verse 32, says, you shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your

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God. I am the Lord. You know, that's something that we don't really do that.

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We don't stand up and show that honor. That's what the

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Lord told to the Israelites. So whether you stand up, you know, we definitely, definitely need to respect our elders.

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Okay. You shall rise before the gray headed.

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So, you know, gray hair, I'll get myself in trouble a little bit here. You know, people dye their hair and, you know,

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I understand that, but it's a thing of honor. The Bible talks about gray hair as an honorable thing.

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All right. Skip over to chapter 20. Another statement about the promised land and God's blessing, how the

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Israelites were holy. They were to be set apart by God. Part of that was observing all the laws that, just to demonstrate this, that they would live differently.

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Look at Leviticus 20 verses 23 through 24 says, and you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation, which

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I am casting out before you for they commit all these things. And therefore

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I, what I abhor them.

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What does that mean? Right. Yeah. Well, God doesn't hate.

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Well, I, that's what it says. I mean, there's something like 15 or 20 verses in the Bible. That's that say something to that effect.

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That's what it says. But, but I have said to you, what you shall inherit their land.

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And I will give it to you to possess. So they're living in the land.

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They've committed these abominations. They're going to be removed from the land. I'm giving it all to you.

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A land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord, your God, who has separated you from the peoples.

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And then just to finish up in chapter 23, the feasts are laid out. There's the feast of first fruits, the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement.

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So now the Hebrews have their calendar with their holidays or their holy days.

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The word holiday comes from holy day. So in conclusion, the Lord gave the children of Israel, everything that they needed for a prosperous society.

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And I think if a person had to sit down and read the declaration of independence, the constitution and the bill of rights, they might find the reading less than exhilarating.

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But I think we understand how vital those documents are. Well, the same is true for Leviticus, and even more so, because ultimately the ministry of the tabernacle all pointed ahead to the

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Lamb of God who gave his life to take away the sin of the world. So it's a book that not a lot of Christians are reading for, you know, for leisure.

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But hopefully we see there's a lot of important things in this book. And then

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Leviticus ends with chapter 27, verse 34. It says, And these are the commandments which the