FBC Morning Light – February 23, 2023

Good Thursday morning to you. Today we're in, again, I'm going to look at a passage in Leviticus chapter 18 specifically.

We're reading chapters 17 and 18 today, as well as Mark 11 and the 39th

Psalm. But there have been very, very, very few times in my years of ministry, so I've been in pastoral ministry since 1982, 1980 sorta, first couple of years were kind of part -time, but from 1982 to today

I've been in pastoral ministry. And there have been very, very few times in all those years of preaching and teaching where somebody after the event came up to me furious with what was said.

I probably could count on my one hand the number of times that's happened. The one that's most outstanding to me in my recollection was a result of preaching from the book of Leviticus.

I, several years ago, preached through the book of Leviticus. Now that's a pretty odd series of messages to preach through, on the one hand, and yet it's

God's Word, all Scripture's profitable. So anyway, I was preaching through the book of Leviticus, got to chapter 18.

If you haven't read it, you might pull out your Bible and take a scan, because very quickly you're going to realize, okay, this is a lot of pretty heavy stuff, because it's all talking about sexual morality.

And there's all these different potential scenarios that the

Lord says those are off -limits. So for example, none of you, he says, shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness.

And then he gets specific. Nakedness of your father or your mother you don't uncover, your father's wife you don't uncover, your sister, your daughter of your father, and so on and so forth.

And then it actually, I'm trying to look for the...okay, this is the passage where it would condemn homosexuality.

It says, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman, and then the next verse says, nor shall you mate with any animal to defile yourself.

So when I preached this passage, I wasn't graphic about it, but I was pointing out that the

Lord is very concerned about sexual morality, and he limits it.

He limits it, he puts strict boundaries around sexual practices. It's incredibly important for us to know what those boundaries are, and to be alert to them, aware of them, and to instill that in our young people as early as is reasonably possible.

And in these days, it's getting more important to instill that younger and younger,

I'm afraid. I'm not going to put any age limits on it, but there's a person who came up to me after I preached that passage and was furious with me because their teenage daughters were in the congregation and thought they should never hear such stuff, should never ever hear such stuff coming from the pulpit.

I begged to differ with them and thought, at their age, they really do need to hear this stuff, because here's why.

The culture is bombarding us with the total disregard of any sexual restraint.

Well, I shouldn't say total. There are still some things that are considered taboo. Pedophilia and so forth is considered taboo, but beyond that, if there's love between two parties or three parties or four, it doesn't matter.

They should just be able to express that love however they want to express it. The old strict morals of one man for one woman for life, that's just passe.

That's just old passe puritanical stuff. We don't need that anymore. The culture must not dictate my morals.

The culture must not dictate my morals. God's Word does. Just because the culture accepts something and maybe cloaks it with the word love.

Well, we love each other. We just love each other. There's no way you should restrict our love, our expression of love for one another.

Well, really? Where does it end?

Where does it end? We've already, as a culture, just pretty well whole scale accepted the homosexual lifestyle and the whole notion that two men who love each other, they should be able to marry each other, two women, they should be able to do that.

We've become more and more acceptable of, shall we say, multiple relationships.

We're becoming increasingly accepting of any kind of distortion, a perversion, or what

God would call an abomination. The bottom line is, and this is what Leviticus 18 is communicating to us, the culture must not dictate our morals.

All of those things that the Lord prohibited in Leviticus 18 were things that were going on in the world at that time.

They were practices in the cultures around God's people. There's no, not you.

One man, one woman, that's it for life. This is the way it should be. Everything else should be restricted.

Everything else should be taboo. Let's be sure that our morality is defined by and determined by, bounded by,

God's morality. I think that's the safest and the best route to go, regardless of what the culture says.

Father, I pray that you would give us the wisdom to listen to you, to submit ourselves to your authority.

You're the one who created us. You certainly know what's best for us. I pray that we would accept what you know to be best, in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right. Well, listen, have a good rest of your Thursday. I trust the