Lesson#20

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Leviticus

September 21, 2015

Introduction

May 13, 2010

Leviticus Lesson #02

May 13, 2010

RETURN TO THE LIST OF LESSONS

LEVITICUS 19
Lesson #20
AVOIDING THE SMALL DETAILS OF THE LAW

• Memory Verse: Lev 19:2
• The memory verse is the key thought for this chapter. God gave the Law to the Israelites so that they would be a holy people because God is a Holy God.
  • The problem with the Law was that it demanded holiness but it could not supply holiness. The Law could not make anyone holy.
  • The value of the Law was that it showed man what God expected in the way of holiness. Even though the Law could not make man holy, it revealed to man that he must look for a way to achieve the holiness that God demanded.
    • Read Luk 18:18-25 The rich young ruler
      • Why could the young ruler not attain to eternal life?
        • He did not have the assurance of salvation because he wanted to know what more he could do.
        • His salvation was based on his actions and not his faith.
      • Why did Jesus tell him to sell everything he had?
        • That is what the young man wanted to hear. He wanted to continue working his way to salvation.
        • Jesus knew it was the young man’s one stumbling block.
      • If the man had sold everything, would he then have eternal life?
        • No, because salvation does not come by works of the Law but by faith.
        • The young man was not ready for the true message of salvation until he discovered that he could not keep all of the law all of the time.
        • Then he would be ready to receive Christ by faith as his savior.
    • When man comes to the end of his own efforts, he is ready to look up in humility to trust in the grace of God for the free gift of eternal life given to the believer in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
    • Read Rom 3:19-20
    • Read Rom 8:3-4
• Read Lev 19:1-8 Man’s Relationship to God
  • In the same way as with the rich young ruler in Luk 18:18-25, God emphasizes their weak areas of the Law of Moses.
  • Weakness #1 (3)
    • Honor your father and mother and keep the Sabbath.
    • This represents the two parts of the Ten Commandments: Love God, Love Others.
      • Read Mar 7:10-12
        • The Jews knew they were supposed to honor their parents and take care of them when they were old.
        • However, instead of caring for their parents they developed a practice called “Corban” which was to give money to the temple in place of taking care of one’s parents.
        • In giving money to God, they neglected their parents. Violation of the law in the name of God did not alleviate one’s responsibility before God.
      • Read Amo 8:5
        • The Jews rebelled against keeping the Sabbath all through their history, and they looked for ways to get around keeping the Sabbath with their whole heart.
        • Finally they failed to keep the Sabbath year where every seven years they were not plant any crops. They were to trust in God’s provision by faith.
      • Read 2Chr 36:20-21
        • Because the Israelites did not keep the Sabbath year for 490 years, they had to make up the 70 missed Sabbath years.
        • Therefore, God removed them from the Promised Land for 70 years in the Babylonian Captivity so that they could not plant the land.
  • Weakness #2 (4)
    • Turn from the worship of idols.
      • Idolatry in Israel became a huge stumbling block to God’s people.
        • They intermarried with pagan people that worshipped idols against God’s command.
        • They tolerated idols in their houses and among family members.
        • They eventually put idols in the Temple of God.
        • They sacrificed their children to idols.
      • Finally idolatry had become so widespread that the people did not notice when the Shekinah glory (divine light) of the presence of God left the Temple in the book of Ezekiel.
    • To break their idolatry, God removed them from the Promised Land for 70 years in the Babylonian Captivity and permitted the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem with all its idols. (Jer 25:6-11)
• Read Lev 19:9-10 Man’s Relationship to the Poor
  • Weakness #3 (9-10)
    • Leave a crop only partially harvested so as to supply for the poor.
    • Read Lev 23:22
      • Notice that the pattern of gleaning was in the form of a cross where they left the four corners of the field unharvested.
      • This was God’s welfare system for the poor. Notice that it was not the government that was to provide for the welfare of the poor. It was individuals that God held responsible to provide for the poor and for the stranger by leaving crops in the fields.
        • Notice that the poor had to work to gather the food they needed.
        • God’s system is better than a welfare check where the poor do nothing and better than socialism where the government takes care of everyone’s needs.
      • The Israelites out of greed eventually failed to leave parts of their crops in the field as a means of feeding the poor and the stranger.
    • The temple also gathered a tithe periodically (every three years) to feed the poor and the stranger (Deu 14:28-29)
      • Notice that it was not the government that was to provide for the welfare of the poor. It was the religious leaders that had the responsibility to gather together an offering for the poor and the stranger every third year.
      • Paul, the Apostle, collected an offering from all the Gentile churches to give to the poor Jerusalem church. (Rom 15:26)
        • Read Gal 2:10
        • Because in today’s world the welfare system is controlled by the government, many churches and Christians don’t even think about the poor.
        • God holds the church and individuals responsible for the poor and it is Christians that are supposed to do this work.
• Read Lev 19:12-18 (35-36) Man’s Relationship to His Neighbor
  • Weakness #4 (11-18)
    • Do not steal, lie, or deal falsely with your neighbor or with God.
      • The Israelites continually had a problem with honest business dealings even among themselves.
      • Read Deu 25:15 (Lev 19:35-36)
        • Here we find another reason why God removed the Israelites from the Promised Land for 70 years to take them captive to Babylon.
        • In man’s business dealings he must exemplify the holiness of God by dealing in a holy manner with others.
    • The first sin God judged in the early church was the sin of lying to man and to God in regards to a business matter. (Act 5:1-3)
      • Ananias and Sapphira lied about the amount of money they received from the sale of land.
      • They lied to the early church, but God said it was a lie to the Holy Spirit.
  • Weakness #5 (14)
    • Do not take advantage of the weak.
      • Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for taking advantage of widows and orphans by confiscating their property and their money.
      • Read Mat 23:14
    • God cares how we treat people who are weak and need help.
  • Weakness #6 (15)
    • Do not demonstrate favoritism in your actions.
    • This verse refers to those in the position of a judge. He is to judge honestly without favoritism.
      • Read Rom 2:11
      • Even in the New Testament, the believer is to maintain justice among people without favoritism.
      • Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
  • Weakness #7 (16-18)
    • Do not be a gossip, have hatred, or take revenge in regards to your neighbor.
    • We have all of these Old Testament commandments repeated in the New Testament, so that they relate to us today in this age of grace.
• Lev 19:19-37 Man’s Relationships in Various Life Situations
  • Weakness #8 (19)
    • The law of mixed elements:
      • This law seems curious to us today for we do not even think about mixing fabrics, or having hybrid plants, or hybrid animals.
      • This detail of law seems strange to us today, but remember that the Israelites were physically acting out spiritual truths.
      • What is the spiritual truth?
        • There is no mixing of truth and error.
        • This principle goes through the whole Bible. For example:
          • In the creation of Gen 1, God said that he created the animals “after their kind”. In other words, that is how they were supposed to breed.
          • Luke 16:13 says, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
          • 2Cor 6:14 says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
    • Read Mat 9:17
      • Jesus gave us a little parable in regards to mixing elements in Mat 9:17.
      • If a person put new wine in an old wineskin bottle, the fermenting process would cause the old wineskin to break because it had lost its elasticity and could not expand in the fermenting process.
      • Jesus was referring to the new teachings of the New Testament that could not be put successfully into the old system of Judaism.
  • Weakness #9 (20-22)
    • Adultery with a slave woman.
      • Notice that the sin belongs to the man. He has to bring a trespass offering, but she does not.
      • This law specifically protected a woman under the authority of a slave owner.
        • God did not approve of slavery, but it was a necessary economic evil as a result of man’s sin.
        • If man trusted God, there would be no lack of economic provision. It was economic deprivation that prompted people to sell themselves into slavery.
  • Weakness #10 (23-25)
    • The law of circumcised fruit trees
      • What a strange law!
      • When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they were not to eat the fruit from the newly planted trees until the fifth year. Why?
        • Agriculturists know that a newly planted fruit tree does not begin to produce good fruit until the fifth year.
        • Therefore, to strengthen the tree and enhance the bearing of fruit, they were supposed to cut off (circumcise) the buds so that the tree would not bear fruit the first 3 years. Then the fourth year, they were to let the tree grow naturally without cutting off the buds.
        • In the fifth year the fruit would be abundant and well-formed.
      • The spiritual principle is that God said the “firstfruits” of the harvest belong to Him. (Lev 2:12) The “first fruits” are that small part of the harvest that ripens first was to be given to God as a faith offering for a greater harvest to come.
  • Weakness #11 (26-28) Laws regarding heathen practices:
    • Read Lev 19:26-28, 31

 

• “enchantment”

 

= the practice of witchcraft using charms, spells, or incantations.

 

• “observe times”

 

= the use of the horoscope to determine future or current events.

 

• “familiar spirits”

 

= these are evil spirits that pretend to be dead loved ones in an effort to supposedly get humans to communicate with the dead.

 

• “corners of the head….corners of the beard”

 

= pagan practices that marked them as worshipers of pagan gods or idols.

 

• “cuttings in your flesh for the dead”

 

= pagan funerals used this practice to express grief.
• The dead believer in Jehovah was destined for eternal life.
• Therefore, mourning in the way the world mourns for the dead is totally different for the believer because the believer has an eternal hope, and the non-believer has no hope.

 

• “nor print any marks upon you”

 

= the tattoo on the body is not a new practice. It was part of pagan worship in the time of the Old Testament.
• While we are not under the Law today, but under grace, the tattoo today is either an identity mark of a relationship with an evil group or a worldly group, or at best it is a mark of the world’s culture.
• The believer in Jesus Christ is bought with a price, body, soul, and spirit. He should glorify God in his body.
  • Notice that in the “last days” before the second coming of Christ, all mankind will be required to take a mark in the hand or the forehead that identifies him with the Antichrist.
  • In contrast, God marks the believer with a supernatural seal and writes a new name on him. (Rev 3:12) That should be the only mark on the believer.
• All elements of witchcraft and Satan worship are forbidden to the believer in Deu 18:9-13.
• Weakness #12 (33-34)
  • The law for treating strangers and foreigners among you: (Hospitality)
    • Because the Israelites were strangers and foreigners in the land of Egypt, they could empathize with strangers and foreigners.
    • Therefore, they were to treat all people with love.
• Summary and Application:
  • While there are hundreds of little laws dealing with all sorts of detail in man’s daily life, Jesus gives us only two commandments in the New Testament that cover all of these small details.
    • Read Mat 22:36-40
    • The overriding motivation for every situation in the New Testament believer’s life is agape love.

 

• Agape

 

love is unconditional love found in 1Cor 13.
• The priority that Jesus mentions is first love for God and then love for others.
• This chapter of Leviticus gave us the small details where the Israelites were weak. Because of their weaknesses to be obedient to God, they suffered the consequences of their failures.
  • The loss of the land in the Babylonian Captivity for 70 years.
  • The loss of the land in the modern dispersion from 70 AD to 1948 AD.
  • The failure to recognize Jesus Christ, their Messiah, who came to save them and to reign over them.
• But in His mercy He will come again to bring them to faith in Christ at the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Homework
Leviticus 20
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Application of Lev 19
  • In which of the small details of the Law given in this chapter do you recognize your own failures in dealings with others or with God?

• Ask God to forgive you and accept His forgiveness. Ask God to help you correct these failures in your character and in your life. Then trust Him to do that.

• Preparation for Lev 20
  • Read Lev 20:1-27
    • What sins required capital punishment?

• Memory Verse: Rom 13:4a and b

 

“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which isevil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain.”