Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the church. Thank you not only for this building that you blessed us with and that we can meet in, but for our family that's here, the body of Christ. Lord, we gather in this place to worship you, to fellowship with each other, to grow stronger, to sharpen each other. And we just pray the Holy Spirit is here moving, teaching us, opening our hearts. Lord, as we work through some of these issues, They can be a little difficult. And I pray that you teach us. Give us clarity. Give us wisdom. And most of all, give us loving and forgiving hearts, Lord. I pray all these things in your name. Amen. So, if you were here last week or you watched the video last week, you might understand why I said you're gonna have to take these issues home. We got through Sodom and Gomorrah and that was it. Because it just is a lot of information to process. But you're going to have to take them home. And I'm not intentionally trying to drown us. I really am not. But it can feel that way because if you follow, again, the progressive church's theology and how they get to a point where they're able to dismiss what is plainly outlined in scripture, It can feel like you're jumping here, you're jumping there, and so you have to go to all these different verses like we did last week in Ezekiel and Psalms and New Testament to explain how they're thinking and then explain it accurately. So it can be kind of hard. But I pray that hearing both sides of these arguments, again, this one is a really, really big one. I feel that it really is an important topic for our day today. It's big in our society right now. I hope that hearing both sides of these arguments is an encouragement. And like John MacArthur said, we need to be becoming proficient at wielding the sword of the word of God against the lies people believe. Because that's how it gets done. Viewing all things that we see and do and hear all throughout our lives as those that are in Christ through the lens of Scripture is important and we need to learn how to do that. And I think that last week is probably a good example. And as we go through Leviticus today, there's a lot. There's a lot there because we've got to understand the Old Testament law. But I hope that these conversations and these class meetings are driving us Christians to Scripture. which is where we should be. Everything we view, everything we see should be being done and being viewed through the lens of scripture. And you're not always going to have all the time in the world to discuss and outline the entire truth. It's nice if you can sit down and have coffee for three hours with somebody who's struggling with these issues and outline not only what the truth is, but get into a gospel presentation. But you're not always going to have that kind of time. I call them elevator conversations. Can you give somebody the gospel in two minutes while you're riding in an elevator? That's something you may need to practice a couple of times and just have something in the back of your head. And the better that you're able to articulate the truth, explain where you're coming from and explain what the truth is. Your conviction level on the subject will show through. Those two things are gonna be important as we have these types of conversations with people that are using the same verses that you're using. Again, being able to articulate what you say, that's gonna take practice, it's gonna take homework, it's gonna take looking through, being able to recall verses, or at least how books work. Because if you're stuttering around, it doesn't mean that God can't work through that. By any stretch of the imagination, But being able to work through these things and be able to word things appropriately, it's gonna show that you have conviction on this subject, and it actually is important to you. You're not just spouting off what the TV spouts off, because in our society today, this is how some of these folks identify. It's their whole entire world coming, and if you can approach that with love, that's gonna speak volumes to the hearer. This means a lot of good quality exegesis and hermeneutics at home. So don't forget, we interpret the parts in light of the whole, right? We saw that last week as we went through Genesis. We're going to see it even more today in a big way, I think, because we're going to be talking about Levitical law. So you've got to know the whole. which means spending a whole lot of time with it. Remember, the more time you spend with anything, whether or not it's your favorite novel or your favorite movie or a tool, the more time you spend with those things, the more you're gonna get to know it. And then all of a sudden, you're gonna be able to explain it, you're gonna be able to word it correctly to other people, and you're also gonna start seeing things pop out. Take your favorite movie, for example. You watched it a dozen times. On Time 13, I had never noticed this before, about this particular scene. We were just having a conversation in church on Thursday night about this exact same thing, and it works the same way with scripture. I know that my grandfather's been reading the Bible for 93 years, and I guarantee you, it's new to him every day. Why? Because it's alive and active, and the more time you spend with it, God opens up your eyes. That means spending time with it. And these issues that we're talking about are biblical issues. They're gospel issues. Even if on the face of them, We don't get right to the gospel every time because some of these issues are hard. Again, sexuality, homosexuality specifically is what we're talking about now, but abortion, I can argue abortion without using religion at all, but it's a gospel issue like we talked about. People need Christ. So we need to not forget our goals. Our goals are the truth, always glorifying God in every way that we can. That's the goal. And pointing others towards Christ. We've been commissioned, right? Go, make disciples, baptize, and teach them. to observe all the things that I've commanded you. Always keeping in the back of our minds and our hearts the gospel, because the gospel is how we're saved and we need to be preaching that to ourselves every day. And as we're interacting with others, we need to at least have that in mind. And remember that these are real people. with real feelings, and they are image bearers. That's the word that I want you to remember, is everybody you ever see, no matter where you are or what you're doing, is an image bearer of their creator, whether you agree with them or not. So we spent a few minutes remembering that scripture tells us that those that are not in Christ can't fully understand. This actually has been mentioned from the pulpit a few times. And I mention that because we need to remember when they attack us personally, when we're telling the truth, or they attack and misuse the Bible, they're doing so based on a lack of ability to understand. I think that's an important thing to remember, and that they need Christ. The Holy Spirit gets them to the place where they can understand. So be kind, and be forgiving, and be loving, but tell the truth. So a great question was asked last week that I wanted to address from here before we get into Leviticus regarding this. And someone just asked, hey, you keep mentioning that those that are not in Christ can't understand. So why do we keep using Bible verses to talk to them? I'm paraphrasing here. But why do we keep going through these if they can't understand in the first place? And that's a great question that I felt really valid that I wanted to answer this way. Number one, because we're told to. Matthew 28, 19, and 20 says, go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So we've been commissioned. 1 Peter 3, 15 says, but sanctify the Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and with fear. And we talked about that verse the first week. So we've been commissioned, we've been told by our sovereign who we are to be, and that this is what we're supposed to do. We preach the gospel, we preach it with our lives, we preach it with our words, we preach it with those who interact, but that's who we do, and this is the gospel, number one. And number two, because faith comes by hearing, right? Romans 10 17 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So the Holy Spirit will bring conviction and salvation through the Word of God for those who hear and accept. There was a time when all of us didn't fully understand and something happened. Well that something is the Holy Spirit. It might have been the Holy Spirit working through a pastor, or somebody that you were at the mall talking to, or just reading a book. I know multiple people that sat down to prove the Bible wrong. They read the four Gospels, and they became Christians. That's why we do what we do. That's why we keep these things in mind, and that's why we stay prepared, because the Holy Spirit has blessed us with the ability to be involved in that process, because he doesn't have to do that. God doesn't have to include us in his plan, but he does. And we do that through speaking the truth. So last week we got through just the first of the so-called clobber passages. We got through Genesis and the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I want to remind you and reiterate, we don't use the term clobber passages. You need to be aware of it and know what it refers to, those six verses that specifically deal with homosexuality throughout the Bible. But that's not a term we use because we don't clobber people with scripture. I believe, I don't know who, but I believe that the opposing side is the one who coined that term, and rightfully so. Because especially in the beginning of this issue, they got clobbered with these. Well-meaning Christians would hit them over the head with all these verses and tell them how much sinners they are. And they did that with divorces under their belt. And they did that while living with their girlfriend or their boyfriend. And so we just clobbered them with all this scripture that they didn't know how to use appropriately. So let's briefly talk about the Old Testament. I told you we were gonna kinda do that this week. Genesis worked a little bit differently than Leviticus because it wasn't Levitical law. So let's briefly talk about the Old Testament and its use in the defense of the truth. So remember, the Old Testament is God's word. It is the inerrant, infallible word of God. The whole 66 books of the canon is the whole counsel of God. As Christians, we need to be taking it in and we need to be recognizing it as such. Three quarters of our Bible is the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the only scriptures that Jesus and the disciples had. So when they refer to scripture, that's what they're referring to. And it bodes us well to remember that the Old Testament is God's word and it's inerrant and infallible. We can't just dismiss it because we're so-called New Testament Christians. That's not a thing, remember? You're either a Christian or you're not. But it also needs to be read in context. Context, context, context is super important in how we're dealing with the Old Testament. And maybe most importantly, God is unchanging. He doesn't change. He never has. He never will. So the God of the Old Testament The God that destroyed the Canaanites for the reasons that He chose, the God that rose up the nation of Israel is the same God of Peter, and it is the same God of the apostles in the New Testament, and it's the same God of today. And that's important, I think, for us to remember, because God is unchanging. That's good, that's good for us, that He's steadfast, and that He's always there, and we can always count on Him to be true, and to be accurate, and to be right. But it's important to remember that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of today. And that's gonna come into play a little bit today. But as we started to see last week, we're gonna have to do some extra work when it comes to using the Old Testament or when it comes to the Old Testament being used against us. You're gonna have to do some extra work when it comes to explaining these passages in the Old Testament and how they apply to us, New Testament Christians, right? There is no such thing as a New Testament Christian. You're either a Christian or you're not. But how do we use these things? So just know that. Know you're going to have to do a little bit of extra work. And we're going to talk a little bit about that extra work today because most people, Christians included, don't really understand how the two work together. They don't understand the context. They haven't done their homework to kind of flesh some of these things out and be able to explain how the law, specifically today, but how Levitical law works and how it applies to us today or how it doesn't apply to us today and why that's true. So oftentimes, well-meaning Christians will try to explain something like Leviticus. We'll pull up Leviticus 18.22. We're going to read it in a minute. They'll try to explain it, but they'll end up kind of painting themselves in a corner with the things that they say, because their argument's inaccurate, in a sense. It's not completely inaccurate, but the way they said it's inaccurate, or they don't know how to explain the rest. So they'll end up painting themselves in a corner. Then they're caught like a deer in the headlights, looking kind of foolish. when a well-placed rebuttal or question, some of us have experienced these, comes their way. You know how I know that? I'm that guy. For many, many years, it was well-intentioned. I know that the truth of Levitical law, as we're going to talk to today, says homosexuality is a sin. But I rattled that off, and then the questions started coming about all these other laws that are in Leviticus, and I had no idea what to do or where to go. So we just need to be careful, and we need to know that that's a possibility, so we gotta practice these things at home. So let's get into Leviticus. We have two passages that we're gonna go through today, Leviticus 18.22 and Leviticus 20.13. These both deal directly with homosexuality. Leviticus 18.22 says, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. And Leviticus 20.13 says, if a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. This is a part of what's known as the holiness code, which is essentially a detail of how Israel is to live as God's people. And more specifically in Leviticus 18, about sexual morality. It covers sexual sins such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality. It also covers, and this is going to come up at the end, killing and sacrificing your children to Molech. So in Leviticus, we have a few explanations from progressives that attempt to explain how these passages aren't really about homosexuality, just kind of like last week. You know, that was one of the biggest, well, it doesn't really apply to us. or really they might veer into kind of the, it's about a specific type of sexual behavior. It's not a blanket statement about homosexual behavior in general. Don't forget, words are important. Phrases like monogamous, same sex, consenting, relationships. Those words should be flags as you kind of see them coming up because they're gonna use some of these words to explain away some of these scriptures and we'll get a little bit into that. Now, I want to show you a screenshot of what you'll see. If you go to, say, the Reformation Project. I mentioned the Reformation Project last week. This is a group or organization started by Matthew Vines, and it's an inclusive organization. Matthew Vines wrote a book called God and the Gay Christian. He was one of the first that really started to speak out on this issue, and he essentially went back to scripture because he was raised in a church. and did a bunch of research because he himself identifies as gay, and found out that he was wrong, and everybody's been wrong for the last 2,000 years, and started explaining away some of these passages, these six passages. So if you go to his website, the Reformation Project, and this isn't unique. These are some of the same things that you'll see in Reconciling and Christ Movement, which is the Lutheran one. This is what you're going to see. And I want you to first very clearly see that they are stating their case. Number seven, right up there at the top. The prohibitions in Leviticus don't apply to Christians. Okay, so that's what you're, great, that's fantastic. If you're going to his webpage and you're looking for affirmation on yourself, you've got it right here. So we already have somewhat of a disclaimer, right? Because before even making the case whether homosexuality is a sin or not, you know that it doesn't matter whether it's a sin or not because it doesn't apply to Christians. But they're also giving away their hands, so to speak, with the little subtitles. I don't know if those words are a little too small for you guys to read. Again, it's a screenshot, so I couldn't blow them up. But what it says is, non-affirming message, affirming message. It's just interesting, right? What is it they're trying to do here? Are they trying to point us towards Christ? Are they trying to reveal what the Christian worldview is? Or are they trying to affirm something or somebody? Right here, we're affirming. Remember eisegesis? They're reading into scripture with the intention of affirming themselves and what they're about. So this is what I'm about. I need to be affirmed. And here's the affirming message of these particular slides. What they're not doing is pointing you towards Christ and saying, this is what Christ says. This is what scripture says. We need to work out ourselves in relation to that. They're not affirming Christ. So one of the more popular explanations that Christians, New Testament Christians, right, gets used is that we've never been subject to Old Testament law. Just like you just saw, this doesn't apply to us today. The claim is that there are many laws, there's 613 to be exact, that instructed the Jewish people or the nation of Israel specifically on how to live and worship in the New Testament. And that's true. These laws are aimed at Israel, the nation of Israel specifically. There are 613 of them and they do instruct on how to live and how to worship. So they'll say, but in the New Testament, such as in Romans 10, 10-14, it says, for Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes. Christ is the end of the law. Right out of the Bible, I'm reading you from the New King James Version. Colossians 2 says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all your sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Word of God, right there, right? So this would show that New Testament teaches that Christ fulfills the law. So it doesn't apply to Christians any longer. That's what it kind of sounds like. And then they'll reference Hebrews 8.13 to really seal the deal. But calling his covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. So it sure sounds like they have their case kind of made here because that is the word of God and it sure sounds like he did away with the law. So are Christians subject to this law or not? The answer is no. And yes, I had to pause there, give you a little pregnant pause. It's not that simple. It's not just as simple as a sweeping no or a sweeping yes, and here's that work that we talked about when it comes to using the Old Testament in your defense. You're gonna have to do some extra work. So we need to take a brief jaunt down the road of the Old Testament law and how that works. And that's gonna help us work through some of these issues and some of these claims that scripture doesn't say anything about homosexuality, especially to New Testament Christians. It's true that we Christians are not the nation of Israel. That's important to understand. We are not the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is no longer as it's spoken of in scripture. And the nation of Israel is for and to whom the law was given. And we're not under the old covenant. That's all true. But that doesn't mean that none of the laws that are mentioned in the Old Testament do not apply today. So we need to understand that scripture reveals different categories of the law. Now, I want to mention this, because at least you should have it in the back of your head. The nation of Israel, when these laws were being passed down to them, would not have recognized the difference in these things, because it is who they are. All three of these, moral, ceremonial, they didn't differentiate because that's who they were before God is that, is all of these laws together. But scripture is clear about them. If you read through scripture, we interpret the parts in light of the whole, you see these categories and how the categories play out. But I mention that because you're not going to open up the book of Leviticus, as most of you know, and see moral law, and it has a bunch of laws listed, and ceremonial law, and it doesn't work that way. So what are these laws? The moral law reflects God's holy nature. And these are really blanket statements. Again, you're not going to find this definition in scripture, but you find it by like the Trinity, what scripture shows us and how it maps it out for us. The moral laws are understood as reflections of God's holy nature and as such are true for all people in all times, in all places. The moral law was the law before and after the nation of Israel received the law. For example, murder has always been murder. We know that from Cain and Abel, right? Right from the very beginning. Adultery has always been adultery. Idolatry, covetousness, homosexuality, theft. Those sins have always been pretty much the same from the fall, and they've always gone against God's holy nature. And because they go against God's holy nature, and God is unchanging, they remain unchanging, because that's why it's wrong, because it goes against his holy nature. But then we have a couple of kind of other categories of laws. We have ceremonial laws. Ceremonial laws were such that they really only applied to those that were in Israel. for the nation of Israel, not to the surrounding nations, not to the nations that surrounded Israel. And these laws will be laws that seem to be laws that give attention to God. They point towards God or they point towards Christ, such as festivals and feasts. If you read through the New Testament, you'll see that the nation of Israel is obligated to a handful of festivals and feasts throughout the year. And that points us towards God's work in Israel. That's what those feasts are remembrances of or reminders of. Or one standing before God, so which you would have sacrifices and like the cleanliness code. Distinguishing Israel from others. This is a big one. Distinguishing Israel from the surrounding area. So from that God had separated them and set them apart, right? The nation of Israel specifically. And it involved clothing, body modifications, and dietary restrictions. and things that point to the Messiah, such as Passover and circumcision, even the priesthood, okay? And the last one is civil law. Civil law is included and talked about. All three of these are included in both the London Baptist and Westminster Confession, and they give a little bit of an explanation of these also. But civil law is basically judicial law that specifically was given to the culture. It includes the moral law, because again, murder is murder. But it also deals with practical day-to-day life, such as being gored by an ox. What do you do if your ox gores someone? You know, you read through these laws. enjoy the Old Testament now way more, the more I read it because it's very entertaining. I don't know if that's an appropriate word to use with the Word of God, but it's interesting to read about. So the civil law deals with being gored by an ox, or if you accidentally kill your neighbor's goat, what do you do? Those laws were governed by Israel. So how does one distinguish between these laws? Well, one way would be, does the law pertain to those outside of Israel? Again, murder is murder. It doesn't matter whether you're Israel or whether you're not Israel. That goes against God's holy nature, and it pertains to everybody, not just the nation of Israel. If it does, it's moral law, because these moral laws, remember, are a reflection of God's holy character, and it's applicable to all people in all times and all places. I keep using that phrase, and as I'm saying it, Maybe, hopefully you'll be able to see why towards the end here. Another way we can decipher between these categories would be, what is the law doing? Is the law pointing towards the Messiah? Because some of these laws do that, right? Again, circumcision, sacrifices, the sacrificial system. Because if it's pointing towards the Messiah, the regulations of the priesthood, these laws were all preparing Israel for Christ. So if it's doing that, pointing towards the Messiah, we know that those laws are temporary, right? Why are they temporary? Because Christ came, and He fulfilled those laws, and we now know that He is the High Priest, always and forever, and there no longer is a priesthood as is outlined in Levitical law. the tribe of Aaron, right? And his sacrifice was once and for all. So there is no set more sacrificial system, but because Christ came and fulfill those things, they're no longer necessary because we have a high priest and we have a perfect sacrifice. So those are temporary laws and they can help us see and understand, but we're obviously not bound to the sacrificial system any longer. And lastly, I'll mention that there are laws that are, I guess what's referred to as carried over. So laws that get carried over or abolished for that matter, carried over in a different sense in the New Testament. These are laws that are mentioned by the New Testament writers, even Christ himself, such as murder and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, right? That's at least one place that it's mentioned. Sexual immorality is all over the New Testament. There's a bunch of these laws that the New Testament writers mention. And again, they get kind of carried over. Nine of the 10 of the 10 commandments are carried over because they get re-mentioned. So therefore they're re-established or not re-established, but continually established. They didn't go away like the sacrificial system. You also have in this category of being carried over laws that were abolished by God, such as the dietary laws. That's important to remember because these things come up. The dietary laws, remember in Mark 7, Jesus himself declares all foods clean, and later Peter receives a vision from God that implies what was once unclean is now clean. So that's just an example of the fact that the dietary restrictions and the dietary laws were abolished by Christ himself while he was here. So what we've heard here is kind of the start of a defense or an explanation of how these Old Testament laws may or may not apply. And that's important, like we talked about in the beginning, because when you're dealing with the Old Testament, you're going to have to do a little bit of work. So are Christians subject to the law? Is the law still relevant? Because it's going to get used against you. I dare say, no true disciple of Jesus would blanketly dismiss any inspired word of God, which is the law. In Matthew 5, Jesus himself says that he hasn't come to destroy the law and not a jot or a tittle will pass away until it's all fulfilled. If you can recall the screenshot that I showed you, the very first point in this defense of the Levitical law said something to the effect of, it doesn't apply to Christians. Well, friends, it's still the Word of God. And to blanketly dismiss something like this without proper explanation is one thing that will first reveal to you that they don't fully understand how it works. So the law doesn't get thrown away. We see the sacrificial system and the priesthood fulfilled by Christ, and those laws went away. We see food declared clean. Life is certainly different under the New Covenant than it is the Old Covenant, but the law hasn't been destroyed, so we need to learn to understand it for what it is. That's gonna take work to read through and to figure out which laws are ceremonial and which laws are civil. Paul also references Leviticus when he uses the term arsenikoitai, which scholars agree that he got from Leviticus and the Septuagint. You might have heard this word come up before if you've had conversations with those that are defending the LGBT lifestyle and saying that it's okay. They do all this kind of gymnastics around this word, asynakoitai, which prior to Paul, he got, again, scholars agree on both sides of the fence, that he got this word from Leviticus and the Septuagint. Remember the Septuagint is the Greek interpretation or the Greek writings of the Hebrew Old Testament. Paul uses this term and before Paul uses it, it really hadn't been used before. This leads us to the claim that while they didn't really know what homosexuality was, I'm going to read you some stuff at the end that's going to blow your mind. Not in a good way, but we have worship afterwards and we can go pray to God because it's crazy, the stuff that's in here. So this word, asenor koitai, asenor means man, koitai means bed or to bed. Paul uses it to mean men who practice homosexuality, and he gets it from Leviticus. If we read closely, we also see that in chapter 20, the death penalty is the consequence for both parties. This takes a little bit of reading, or maybe this is the first time you've heard that about chapter 20. It's just something people don't pay attention to. This shows us, one, the seriousness of the offense. That's important. Some of the laws that you broke, ceremonial laws, made you unclean for a day. That reveals to us God's character and how serious the offense are. Maybe it made you unclean for a day, maybe it made you unclean for a week, but the death penalty was not assigned for breaking those laws. But because in chapter 20, the death penalty is the consequence, and it's assigned to both parties, both the seriousness of the offense is mentioned, but it also removes the possibility of rape, or a master-slave situation, because that is one of the claims that you're gonna hear regarding these verses, is like the master-slave situation, or the old man and young man, and that that was like a cultural norm for older men to have like young men to do with as they pleased. This removes that. And an explanation of it will show that both the passive and the active roles, those are important words when it comes to this particular issue and the LGBT crowd. Both the passive and the active roles in the homosexual act are condemned here in chapter 20, which makes these passages clearly a blanket statement about homosexuality, not rape or any other variant. We know from Deuteronomy 22, we interpret the parts in light of the whole, that if it's a rape situation, only the aggressor gets put to death. And nowhere is age specified in either of these passages in Leviticus. So the appeal to, oh, it's an age issue. Oh, it's really about rape and we're not supposed to rape. Well, Leviticus 18 and 20 deal with that. It can't be rape because both get the death penalty. And if both get the death penalty, we know according to scripture in Deuteronomy, if it's rape, only the aggressor gets put to death. So these particular passages mentioned aren't contradicting themselves. But again, we interpret the parts in light of the whole, and we must remember the context of these laws. What type of laws are they? They're moral laws. Where do they fall? What are the consequences of the laws when you break them? And reading into things such as, not reading into, but reading carefully the passages where it says both parties get put to death. Those are all little pieces of information that you should be ready to pass on. Because we can't just pull verses out and claim them as true. true or untrue for that matter, and then build our whole theology based on that one verse. And that's, I hope what you can see is happening here. That's what the progressive church does, because remember, they're looking for what? Affirmation. Like we saw in this first, one of the first slides here, they're looking for affirmation for a sin process that they don't want to give up. So you'll start hearing somewhat ad hominem. I'm calling them ad hominem attacks. It's not ad hominem proper. An ad hominem attack is when they start attacking you instead of dealing with the actual issue, start name calling essentially. So you're gonna start hearing some somewhat ad hominem attacks against you or really against the church because of the difference in the laws. I'm sure you've heard them before. Well, you say homosexuality is a sin, but you're wearing a polyester shirt and eating shrimp. I've heard this more times than I can, why? Because they don't know how to deal with scripture properly. Well, now you know, and can explain hopefully, especially after you go home and practice, the dietary and ceremonial laws did only apply to Israel in the Old Covenant. but we can explain the difference between dietary and ceremonial laws and moral laws. And one of the reasons those laws existed was to separate Israel from the surrounding areas who were often worshiping false gods. And this set them apart. And in their worship of false gods, if you recall, involved the clothes that they wore and involved the foods that they ate and sacrificed to Molech, involved burning their children literally alive on a red hot iron in the fire to their God. And what do you know? God separates Israel with these ceremonial and civil laws and sets them apart as God's chosen people from these areas. Because of Christ, those laws, for the most part, are no longer binding. I also wanna point out that many objections to these specific passages in Leviticus and others revolve around the condemnation of specific acts, such as rape or master-slave relationships, the old taking the young, we mentioned that already. But it's important to notice that chapter 18 goes into quite a bit of detail. If you go home and read it, chapter 18 goes into quite a bit of detail on which types of incest are okay and which types are not. Why is that important? Why would they not, why would the writer, in this case Moses, the Pentateuch, why would the writer of the Pentateuch not go into the same amount of detail as inspired by God to explain which types of homosexuality are okay and which types are not? Monogamous, same-sex, consensual relationships, when in the entire verse prior to this verse that they pulled out, and I was trying to explain away, it details very distinctly which relationships you're okay to have physically and which cases you're not okay. We also need to be aware that other than sex during menstruation, the rest of the sexual ethic in Leviticus is carried over in the New Testament. Homosexuality, incest, adultery, etc., God's hate for divorce, these things are all carried over and rementioned all throughout the New Testament. Author and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, who was, according to the research that I did, the first openly gay person elected to the Episcopate, gives quite a few pages in his book, God Believes in Love, Don't buy it. If you really want to read it, borrow my copy. But he takes quite a few pages to explain natural and unnatural. We've mentioned this a couple times in the last week or two and specifically today. And he says this, I'm going to read it directly out of this book, a few passages here. because there's no reason for me to reinvent the wheel and try to explain to you what he's saying when I can just read it. And this is a very common explanation of why these verses don't apply to Christians. He says this, it never occurred to the ancient Israelites that a man might naturally be affectionately, erotically drawn toward other men. because everyone was understood to be heterosexual. Presumably, this word didn't even exist at the time since it only has meaning in contrast to homosexual. Any same gender sexual activity was unclean and prohibited as acting against one's own nature. Indeed, it would have been an abomination to God and God's natural order. This is an important point, difficult for the modern mind to grasp. Homosexuality as a sexual orientation was unknown to the ancient mind. Let me be clear. Intimate physical contact between people of the same gender was not unknown, of course, but everyone, and that word is emphasized in his words, but everyone who engaged in it was presumed to be heterosexual. Therefore, any man who lay with another man as with a woman was considered to be a heterosexual man acting against his true nature. The psychological construct of a homosexual orientation was not posited until the late 19th century. That's the definition of chronological arrogance right there. So, at this point, this claim, I've mentioned it a couple times this week and last week, the fact that they didn't know then what we know now. You've heard it from the words of one of the first, most outspoken Episcopal bishops. I want to insert this tactic. Don't defend things you don't need to. It's not on you. It's okay to ask them questions and to make them defend their claim. There are no actual facts or any information to support the notion that there was no such thing as consensual same-sex relationships. You cannot find that throughout all of history. They will try to explain it to you. Well, the Romans did this, the master-slave relationship, temple prostitutes. These are terms you're going to hear that they're trying to explain away the fact that there was actual consensual homosexual thoughts and desires. As a matter of fact, three different authors of scripture talk about it, spanning from basically creation all the way to the first century. So it's not about cultural concerns or about patriarchal gender roles, or scripture would have said that. It's not about idolatry or exploitation, or scripture would have said that. It's about homosexuality. This is time two and three that this particular sin is mentioned and condemned in scripture. These two verses very simply and very plainly prohibit homosexuality. There is no specific type of homosexuality mentioned and no exceptions are ever made all throughout all of scripture. It's also worth mentioning that the verse before Leviticus 18 and 22 prohibits child sacrifice. I've mentioned that a couple of times, right? Sacrificing your kid to Molech, same verse, Leviticus 18. The verse after Leviticus 22, which is our verse today, prohibits bestiality. So to be consistent, to make the claim that Leviticus Like was made on the website, Christians are not under, you know, we don't have to obey the law of Leviticus anymore. To be consistent and make the claim that Leviticus isn't prohibiting homosexual behavior would mean that you also need to make the claim, it's gonna be hard to hear, that burning your children alive and bestiality are similarly acceptable behavior. Same verse, same passage of scripture. I also want to point this out and this is something that I didn't stumble across until a handful of years ago and it's phenomenal because it makes so much sense. I want to point out the claim of chronological arrogance such as this one. They didn't know and they didn't fully understand because in the 19th, an actual homosexual orientation, that thought process, that lifestyle were born that didn't happen until the late 19th century. You heard it here, not even my own words. That's a slander done to the omniscience of Almighty God because this word here is His word and it's unchanging. And to claim that we know now something that He didn't know then is to say God didn't know good enough. to explain the problems that we're going through now, which would make this book irrelevant to everybody, because it would not be for all people in all times and all places. I don't want to be the guy to slander God and tell him, well, he didn't get it. He didn't foresee that in 2022, this would be a natural relationship. So he couldn't have been talking about that. He didn't foresee that. That's something maybe you haven't thought about before when it comes to these issues. He is all-knowing and his inspired word is inerrant and infallible for all people in all times and in all places. So to make the claim that Israel didn't have these relationships then but we do now is also to make the claim that God could not have foreseen. God did not know what we know now and he couldn't have prevented this because this is our natural state. I do want to give you a few resources, and we do have a little bit of time for questions, because I know that this stuff is big, and it's heavy, and it's probably going to raise questions. And if you have questions during the week, email them to me, because it can be hard to work through the Old Testament law. I mean, it really can, and to really learn which laws go where, and how to do that, and make sure we're being as accurate as we can. I will say, don't forget, just do your best. I fully believe that God will honor that. Be diligent in your studies, be willing to stand for the truth, but do your best. He can use a failure like me in the conversations that I've had in the past. And so He can use you and He can use us because God is sovereign and His will will be done. But let me give you a few resources. There's about 10,000 resources on this subject, but I'll give you just a couple that have really helped me out, and then if this is something you're really dealing with, I can point you in directions of more. to help you understand these issues a little bit more at length. This is a book lit, put out by Stand to Reason. It's written by a guy named Alan Schlieman. He's an apologist and he deals with this in this much space, which is fantastic. They have a lot. I just brought up a handful of the issues just with Leviticus and how we can deal with some of those. But there's a lot, there's a lot of ways, a lot of little things like this chronological arrogance that you can stick in the back of your head. So a book like this may be helpful for you to just read through the basics. This book by Kevin DeYoung is pretty widely spoken of. And again, he just outlines the problem and he goes through some of the scriptures and talks about them. This book is very thorough. It's written by a guy named James White. If you're not familiar with him, he's a reformed pastor. I guess he's an apologist. But he deals with a lot of these issues. He's really good at it. And this particular book may be very, very helpful. And this is a book that if you haven't read, you need to. It does not specifically deal with homosexuality as we just did. But Christopher Yuan is now a PhD. I've mentioned his name in here before. Christopher Yuan is now a PhD professor, I want to say at Moody or somewhere in Chicago, of hermeneutics and exegesis. Here's the quick version and I'm going to give you the quick version of his life story because it's going to make you want to read this book. He was in dental school to follow after his dad's footsteps. He identifies as gay. He is a same-sex attracted man. He still is to this day. And he is saved. He is a brother in Christ. So he stumbled in after the Marine Corps, during the Marine Corps, he stumbled into the drug trade and into the homosexual lifestyle. You can read more about that. It's crazy. Ended up going to federal prison. He was saved in federal prison because he started to read the Bible. His mom was praying for him this whole time. He ended up getting saved, and I think that, if I remember correctly, he went from prison to Bible college, literally that weekend that he got out, and now speaks on this issue. This particular book, if it doesn't give you a heart for the unsaved, I don't know what will. The way that this book works is his mom and him write every other chapter. So it's a chapter by his mom, a chapter by him, a chapter by his mom, because his mom's telling you her story, and he's telling you his story of how this whole thing works and his journey to Christ. And again, he is HIV positive. He found this out in prison, and he speaks all over the country teaching us what we just went over today. And I think a book like that goes a long way to give us a heart for the lost. Christopher Yuan. I'll leave these books up here on the front. So let's pray, and then if we have any questions, because there might be questions. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for bringing us through what can be a really difficult subject. Father, I just ask us to teach. Teach us, Lord. I ask you to teach us to open our hearts, to open our minds, to help us understand your word, to give us the time to be diligent, to study it and to study these opposing views of your word so we can help other people learn. Make us proficient at wielding the sword of your word so we can show people the lies that they believe and point them towards you. Lord, thank you for giving us your word in all this. Thank you for being steadfast and unchanging. The uncreated creator who's never changed and never learned anything. Lord, what a beautiful thing to be able to rest on you, the rock. I pray all these things in your name. Amen. Any questions? I know that was a lot. I know that we're moving into the New Testament next week. We'll go through Romans and maybe 1 Corinthians, if we get to it. But the Old Testament can be difficult. And I remember when I first started studying these issues and people say, well, what are you going to say to somebody? And we always jump to Romans. I'm going to teach you not to jump to Romans on one of the last weeks. But there's a reason. And I'll give you a little taster of what might be three or four weeks down the road. I thought this was going to be a one-week subject. Nope. Because it's hard to go through these scriptures. But towards the end, I'm hopefully going to... help you learn to share the positives of what God does say about relationships and what God does say about marriage instead of focusing on the negatives that are all throughout scripture because that's what these particular passages are. Well, we got to explain away why we can't do this behavior. I have found slightly more success in asking a few pointed questions. Well, who is it okay? Because this is an issue that really is about who we can be sexually intimate with. Who can we do that with? What does scripture say? And scripture about that issue is very, very clear. One man, one woman, one flesh for one lifetime. So we're going to get there after we get done with the clobber passages. Yeah. I went through some extensive training with Ray Comfort. And one of the things that he brought out is he said the homosexual crowd already has their boxing gloves on, laced up, ready to do battle. they're going to try to justify their sin. That's absolutely true. And his advice was we just go to the law and treat them the way we would treat anybody that is a sinner and needs to hear that they need a savior. are going to want to try to turn it into an argument, but if we go to the law and ask them, you know, the simple good person test questions, you know, have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen? Have you ever blasphemed God's holy name? Have you ever looked with lust? And you just leave it at that. And if they say, you know, I mean, they're going to be confronted with the law. And then they're ultimately... And they'll know. They would open their heart to receive forgiveness and God will change their heart. We don't have to go... Because then they'll see what they are. They just want to... make me feel terrible about my sin. So, I'm glad you mentioned that. First of all, if you don't know Ray Comfort, he does a lot of street evangelism for lack of a better term. Is that what we'd call it? And he puts YouTube videos out. They're really pretty good and you can... They're short about him just asking some of these questions. And he does a really good job with that. And I like that you said that. That they're coming with their boxing gloves on. You just need to know that. That's one of the reasons why I'm trying to word things the way I am. remind you that they're not in Christ, so we can't just hate on them. They're image bearers. But they're coming with their boxing gloves on. They know they've been hated by the world. And by the way, when they're looking at you, we talked about this last week, and calling you a hater or a bigot or this or that or the other thing, they're gonna bring up your sins, so be ready for that. Because you are also a sinner. I am also a sinner. Ray Comfort does a really good job of making sure everybody knows this. I'm guilty of all these same sins. Because what they've seen in the past, one of the reasons they have their boxing gloves on, is because what they've seen are these Christians come and hollering about this one particular sin, while the church has a 75% divorce rate. That's what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable, in the words of, I didn't coin that, it was C.S. Lewis or something. So just remember that, have that in the back of your head, and hopefully that will help you be loving in your response to them, and the Holy Spirit will work through that, because that's one of those ad hominem attacks. Oh, well, you're just focusing on this one sin. They're not wrong. They're not wrong. The church chose that sin for some reason, And the true church obviously is dealing with all of these issues. They're speaking against divorce. They're speaking against abortion. They're speaking against critical theory in a way, you know, because critical theory is a little tough one. But what they see is the church on the news that are clobbering them, that are hammering them about homosexuality, and you have all these Christians that are drinking every weekend at the bar. So they're going to bring that up and be ready. And one of the ways that maybe you can be prepared to defend this, at least this is how I do this, is just to hopefully lovingly you're in a conversation, remind them we're not all that. I'm a sinner just like you are. And just like you don't want to be judged by your worst Elements, don't judge the church based on what you see on TV. Let me lay out for you what the Bible says, and we all fall short. We all need it, and I do just like you do. So maybe that's just something to know. I didn't bring it up today, but I actually thought about it. Just know they're coming with their boxing gloves on, and they're going to hammer you, because we're sinful too. But Ray Comfort does a really good job of working through those. All right, it's 928. It's time to pray. I'm excited. Let's pray. There's lots to pray about, isn't there? So let's do it.