Flash back to 1985, I was 14. A certain skateboarding brand had finally made its way to Combine, Texas. Vans. Vans started as a footwear accessory to the booming California skateboarding scene in the late 60’s, a user friendly slick bottom shoe that could grip a skateboard in quite the rad, gnarly way. One of their offerings was a slip on shoe that was totally done up in black and white checkerboard, ala the finish flag for car races. Be still my heart. I just had to have a pair. I did snag a pair, even though I lived on a dirt road, had no skateboard and there wasn’t even 35’ of concrete over the nearest 50 acres. People like me were called posers.
Flash forward to 2019, a few weeks ago we had Margie’s family over for Thanksgiving. Among my many nephews, one of them 14, strolled in wearing what? Yep, the identical black and white checkered slip on Van’s. I asked him about them and as we talked, I chuckled that he thought he and his generation had “discovered them." 34 years after my generation had "discovered them." In fact, the older I get the funnier it is to see new generations rediscover old things and think that is a new thing. Of course, how can they know any better, they never knew it existed, right? Along that same vein I have noticed that records and record players are being rediscovered by today’s youth. You can buy them all over this Christmas season. Bizarre. To be doing something that has been done for countless years, but to you it is new and fresh.
Great segway (it’s almost like this was planned.) Today we see a viciously honest chapter from God that deals with just this topic, yet much more serious than a pair of skateboarding shoes. Gross Sexual Immorality. Specifically, adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, bigamy and other types of unclean sex.
In the 1960’s we saw what was called the sexual revolution. Folks, that was no revolution, the things that supposedly opened the eyes of a generation were written right here in Leviticus 3,400 years before that revolution. You see, generation after generation comes along and like that rediscovered pair of Van’s, thinks that they have found something sexually new. That they have somehow discovered new and different ways of sexual immorality. Not possible. We see here in Leviticus this morning that people were debaucherous and vile long before the world was even fully discovered.
God gave this chapter to Moses as the Israelites were as you would say, between a rock and a hard place. God had just rescued them from bondage in Egypt and He will soon lead them into the promised land of Canaan. The struggle God had then and still has today? Keeping His people pure amongst a vile, disgusting, sin-filled world. You see, the Egyptians practiced every kind of impure sex. All the ones listed here. The Canaanites were no different. And because of these nation’s deplorable sexual immorality, God will “punish their iniquity and vomit them out of their land.” (Lev 18:25b)
But God commands His people to be different. Sexually different. He spells it out clearly here in chapter 18 just exactly how He expects them to be different sexually so they can avoid God’s judgment like the Egyptians and Canaanites. And folks, as sad as it may be that 3,400 years later our society needs these same commands, it’s never been more true. Our world is as sexually debased as it was 3 and ½ millenia ago. The reason? Moons can rise and fall, tides can ebb and flow, but the hearts of mankind will always be filled with sin.
We see an extremely disturbing, yet precise laundry list of no-no’s here. No sex with immediate family, no sex with extended family. God includes parents, daughters, sons, spouse’s siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, parent’s siblings, in-laws etc. A sad list indeed. He then goes on to clearly declare that homosexuality is an abomination to Him. (Lev 18:22) Abomination is defined as something that causes “disgust and hatred.” Folks, homosexuality is being marketed today as something that is sweet and loving, merely two people that want to have sex together. Regardless of what I or our society thinks is not important or valid at all. All that matters is what God says, and He says it is disgusting to Him and He hates it. He commands His people to never engage in it. He next goes on to mention bestiality, sex with animals, men or women. It is so sad to see this list in God’s Word but folks, it’s not here by accident. The hearts of mankind can reach levels of evil that is not understandable to most, but it still happens and God wants all people to avoid His judgement.
Sexual immorality is not anything new. It has been around as long as men and women have inhabited this planet. Sexual immorality has always been and always will be, abhorrent in the eyes of God. In order to protect us from His wrath He commands us to avoid it at all costs. To flee from it. Folks when your parents gave you an order growing up you had a choice. Do it or suffer the consequences. It is no different with God’s commands. God wraps up the chapter with these words or warning:
“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.”
Blessings for your day as you fight the good fight.
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