18 Leviticus - Sexual Sins

18 Leviticus – Sexual Laws

Why have forbidden sexual laws? To set up family boundaries.; immediate family versus extended family. Father, Mother, sister, or brother being the immediate family.

1-5 – All about God, “I am the LORD your God”

· I think it’s fair to say Israel had already slipped into these types of sins and God is here addressing that they shall not do as the Egyptians and Canaanites do. FIRST, He establishes that HE is their GOD.

· V.4 is clear – Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.

o Again, God is looking to create a holy nation unto Himself, and that will manifest His relationship with them to the world.

6-18 – God deal with sexual sins. READ verse 6 and stop.

There is an idiomatic phrase for have sexual relations found in Leviticus and it is – “to uncover the nakedness”. According to Leviticus 20:17, to “see someone’s nakedness” is the same thing.

And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.

Go back to Genesis 9 – Noah and the cursing of Canaan because of what Ham did – he lays with his mom – using Levitical language for interpretation. (We covered this in our study of Genesis).

As long as we’re in Genesis, let’s visit “marriage’ before we dive off into sexual sins, after all, God introduced love, marriage, and sex – in that order.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. One holy flesh at that.

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

I’m not sure I need to define whoremonger or adultery. Nonetheless, the whoremonger, male or female is a sexually immoral person., fornicators if you will. Habitual offenders, even.

So, what is fornication? Sexual relations outside the Covenant of Marriage is fornication and therein is the marriage bed defiled.

God/Paul admonished us in 1 Corinthians 6:18 saying, Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Fornication is best viewed as sexual immorality.

Let’s talk Covenant for a moment.

Marriage – It was always meant to be a blood covenant between One Man & One Woman.

Without a covenant there is no obligation on the part of either party. That makes it easy to quit and walk out on someone. BUT God did make a blood covenant and promised never to break it.

He made a blood covenant with Abraham and another one with Moses and the children of Israel. That covenant being broken by the people, God made an everlasting covenant with mankind through the blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant… Watch this! 13:21…

· Make you perfect in every good work to do his will,

· working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight,

· through Jesus Christ;

· to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

A covenant that came with many promises on the part of God but with only one requirement on the part of the people – BELIEVE! Believe and ye shall receive -

· Power

o Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

· Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

o John 7:39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

· Eternal life

o John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

· Peace

o

· …just to name a few

Sins of another nature:

19-23 – list of abominable sins, see V.26. These commands go beyond the immediate family as well as the extended family. These seem to be more offensive to God. All of these to the best of our knowledge were acceptable in the heathen nations.

· V.19 – during the minstrel cycle. The life is in the blood. She is unclean / bodily fluids and all that.

· V.20 – Adultery

· V.21 – The sacrifice of children

· V.22 – Homosexuality

· V.23 – Bestiality

If something was ever an abomination in God’s eyes, can it ever not be one? No, and yet the world thinks it’s okay to do these very things. Many of you may even be guilty.

24-30 – Abominations to such an extent that even the land is sick.

V.24 Is a reminder that because these sins were prevalent in Canaan nations, God cast them all out.

What is made evident here is that when we defile ourselves, we set ourselves up for troubled times.

On a national level, I’d say the USA is setting herself up for troubled times.

On a personal or individual basis, well that’s between you and God.