Leviticus chapter 19. Tonight we're going to begin looking at reading in verse 19, Leviticus 19, 19, and then we'll read through verse 25. Once again, I believe if you are following along in the Pew Bible, this is found on page 134, Leviticus 19, starting in verse 19, page 134 in the Pew Bible. And this is what Holy Scripture says. You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you. Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed to a man as a concubine, and who has not at all been redeemed nor given her freedom, for this there shall be scourging, but they shall not be put to death because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord to the door of the tabernacle of meeting a ram as a trespass offering. The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him. When you have come into the land and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you, it shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase. I am the Lord your God." And this is the Word of the Lord. Thank you. You may be seated. I remind us all again that Leviticus 19 is really a theme provides for us the theme of the entire book of Leviticus. Indeed, it provides the theme for God's intention for His Old Covenant people, Israel, and His intention for His New Covenant people, the Church. And that is, you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. This command for Israel is, of course, repeated in the New Testament, 1 Peter 1, verses 15 and 16. We are called to be holy in all of our conduct, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. And as we've made our way through Leviticus chapter 19, we've seen that though some of the specifics regarding God's command for holiness in this chapter may change, The main ideas and themes remain abiding for us. We saw that holiness looks like honoring your parents. We saw that holiness looks like entering God's rest. We saw that holiness looks like resisting idolatry. That holiness looks like worshiping reverently and obediently. That holiness looks like compassionate generosity. That holiness looks like honesty and integrity. Holiness looks like treating the disabled with dignity. Last week we saw that holiness looks like practicing justice, rejecting tail-bearing and plotting, resisting resentment, or in summary, loving your neighbor. Tonight, as we move forward, we will encounter, I think, three more characteristics of what holiness looks like as we live before the face of God in community and in life in this world. Holiness looks like practicing separation. Holiness looks like restraining lust and fornication, and holiness looks like yielding consecration. Let's consider the first of those, and that is this. Holiness looks like practicing separation. It may seem very strange to us, the commands that are given in verse 19, but it is clear that God in this verse is commanding separation in three representative areas. We could call those areas the flocks, the fields, and the fabrics. One author says about this passage, this verse in particular, the Israelites learned from these rules to keep separate what God had divided. These rulings for Israel's daily life were not retained in the New Testament. Like the regulations for diet and purification, these stipulations were temporary, but they reveal eternal truths. The principles of separation, order in creation, and purity in life all emerge in the New Covenant to guide the believer in the way to live day in and day out. Now we see, as it relates to the flocks and the fields, this idea of separation. God is commanding his people that they are to make sure that things reproduce after their own kind. And when it comes to the matter, that's in the flocks and the fields. And in the matter of the fabrics, there is to be a distinction between the various types of garments. We can be grateful today for all that modern technology and progress has brought to us in terms of how animal husbandry has increased. We can be grateful for how the fields and crops have been developed to provide for us different types of produce. But at the heart of all of this is a reproduction after its own kind. Animals were not to reproduce with any other animals than their own kind. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind, and you shall not sow your seed with mixed field. These distinctions go back to the order of creation. the distinction in the different types of garments. I'm grateful that we can have garments today of mixed fabrics. That is good for us here in Canada, both in the summertime when it's really hot and we don't want to be wearing thick wool garments, and it's also nice in the wintertime when we want to have a garment that breathes and yet also keeps us warm. And so in a sense, I'm very grateful that these are not enduring commandments for us today. However, the principles behind them, the principles of separation and distinction remain. We think about these principles again articulated in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, starting in verse 14, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. This passage in particular has a direct application to purity within the church. That the church was not to be a hybrid of believers and unbelievers trying to advance a common mission. Because there is no common mission at that point. But that principle goes beyond just purity of the church. Think about our church here. We believe that a person needs to be a believer in order to be a member of this church. We believe that a person needs to be a baptized believer as a Baptist church. We believe that a person needs to be a baptized believer in order to be a part of this church. And you might think, well, it just makes sense, right? A Christian church should have Christian members. But you would actually be surprised at how many churches today try to get people in and identify them as members even before they have made a profession of faith. There seems to be an idea among some churches that you bring people in and you get them involved and you get them serving, you get them on the membership roll, and that's a way to get them saved. Well, that's not the way to get them saved. It's quite backward. We thank God for any time that someone might get saved under those conditions. But to do that disrespects the principles of separation and the purity of the church, and sows the seeds of mess on down the line. What happens, for example, when you have a group of believers and unbelievers, and a matter of morality and purity comes up as a matter of vote. How do believers and unbelievers think about things like that? Well, they think very differently. But that principle of not being unequally yoked together with unbelievers, not just in the corporate sense, but in the individual sense, is important. Paul would tell the Thessalonians, We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which he received from us. So there's a time that you even need to separate from someone who professes to be a Christian. And that is if they are walking in patterns that are unrepentant, that person needed to be separated from Certainly, sometimes things are very clear, very obvious. Like when Paul says to the Ephesians, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Unfruitful works of darkness seems fairly obvious. But sometimes it's a little bit more difficult. When is a person walking orderly or disorderly? At what point is someone behaving more like an unbeliever than a believer? To what degree does someone need to separate themselves from someone in that condition? These are difficult questions that need to be worked out on a case-by-case basis, but they don't diminish that overall principle that holiness is about separation. It includes that concept at its heart. We must not mix what God has separated. We must make sure that we distinguish between what is true and false, right and wrong, darkness and light, good and evil. We must make a clear separation between the two. 1 Timothy 6, 3-5 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words. From which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain." And the next thing he says is, from such withdraw yourselves. So we must be careful To practice separation, let's think about some arenas of separation that we need to practice. We need to practice personal separation. That is, personal to ourselves. That we need to resolve not to mix light and darkness. We need to separate ourselves from all that is wrong and evil, from all that is suggestive and immoral. We need to practice that kind of separation. We can cast that loop a little wider, not just ourselves, keeping ourselves from those things, but also casting that loop a little bit wider and refraining from close fellowship and close relationships with people who themselves are involved in those things. Some of these decisions you might need to make on a familial basis in the sense that you as the leader of your family may need to make decisions about what you believe is permissible and what is not permissible. And then of course certainly the church. The church must make these decisions. We must be a people that makes the right kind of separations. That we do not mix what God wants to be distinct. But let's move on. Not only does holiness look like practicing separation, holiness second looks like restraining lust and fornication. Verses 20-22 are difficult. Difficult enough that there are many commentaries that barely touch on them before running on. A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that a study Bible is an expensive way of finding out what kind of passages The experts don't want to touch. Because you might buy yourself a study Bible and you'll see that very difficult passage and they jump right over it. Well, here's one of those kind of passages. The scenario is this. A person sleeps with a woman who is betrothed to someone else as a concubine. That's a mess. So betrothed not as a wife, but as a lesser wife, a concubine. Here's what makes it even messier. This woman is not free. She is a slave. That's the situation here. Well, what we see is that for this offense, there is punishment. But the punishment is not as severe as if the woman had been free. And there are all kinds of questions that arise here. Is God saying that it's okay to have concubines? Is God saying that it's okay that we have slaves? One thing I should mention very quickly on that basis is that, more than likely, In this case, if a woman is in the condition of slavery, she is in that condition or will be in that condition on the basis of one of two things. Number one, it could be that it is God's judgment upon her people and she has been captured in their conflict with those people. Another is that it could be a matter of family indebtedness. While it's hard for us to parse everything that's going on here, one thing that is very crystal clear is that this woman is not simply to be taken and used sexually because she's a slave. That the man who is free should not simply think that he, well, he can do as he will with her. that it is sin. The scripture says that very clearly in verse 22, that this is sin. It is a sin that demands punishment. Though the punishment may not be as great as if she was free, there is punishment nonetheless. In verse 20 there is a disputed word here, for this there shall be scourging. The dispute is, is this scourging literal, in the sense that there will actually be scourging? Or is it symbolic to speak of the fact of general punishment? Now personally I think that it probably does mean literal scourging. That for this sin there would be scourging and there would be the trespass offering. Now if you remember our discussion of the trespass offering, back in chapter 6 and following, we saw that there were different types of trespass offering, including the type of trespass offering where you have not just sinned against God, but you have sinned against your fellow man. You have in that action done wrong to God and done wrong to your fellow man. And it seems to me as though this is the intention behind this word about the trespass offering. And so, while the details of this are difficult to parse, what is clear is that this kind of unrestrained lust and fornication is sin, and it demands punishment. It is a sin specifically against God, but it's also a sin against the fellow man. We live in a world where sadly, lust is not taught that lust and fornication should be restrained. In fact, it seems more and more in our world that people are encouraged to give full vent to their desires. And if they should feel some small element of restraint or shame, well just hide it and hope that no one looks into your search history on your computer. But lust and fornication must be resisted and restrained. In these words, there's both a note of personal restraint. The person must realize that this is sin and not do it. And there's also the sense of the public restraint. That there is this very public scourging. There is this very public sacrifice that must be made. And that on a personal and on a corporate level, Lust and fornication was to be resisted and restrained. Today, we need such a message again. That lust and fornication must be resisted and restrained. Think about God's words to His people in the New Testament. When, for example, Paul, under the Spirit's inspiration, lists the works of the flesh, he starts out first with sexual sins. He says, Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness. tells the Ephesians, therefore be imitators of God as dear children. What does that sound like? Be ye holy as I am holy. Be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you. Notice again, that concept of being holy as God is holy, and then this practical application, fornication, uncleanness, not even being named among you. Paul would tell the Colossians in Colossians chapter 3, if then you were raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind, your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, and hear this, brothers and sisters, put to death your members which are on the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, passion." Notice again where He gives us these words to put to death these members on the earth. And it starts out with those sexual sins. This is a kind of sin that not only is a sin against God and a sin against yourself, it's a sin against your neighbor. I'll have you turn with me to this passage, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 3-7. Hear the word of the Lord here. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. That word sanctification is very much related to holiness. That is a process by which we are transformed into greater degrees of holiness. We are growing in grace. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, your holiness, that you should abstain from sexual immorality. Notice right after saying the will of God is your sanctification, the very first thing that the Apostle Paul tells the Thessalonians is abstain from immorality. And that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter." Notice there, the sin of sexual immorality is a sin against yourself, but it's a sin against others. When someone commits sexual immorality, they defraud the spouse of that person that they are sleeping with. They sin against them. They sin against the family and friends of that person as well. Listen, you should not take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but holiness. I would say, brothers and sisters, that one of the greatest threats to the holiness of the people of God in the church, one of the greatest threats to our sanctification is sexual immorality. Even if a person does not go so far as to have an affair with someone, to conduct one's life in a condition of lust and perpetually seeking gratification in a sexually immoral way, it's one of the great and besetting sins of our society and sadly also of the Church. A person that is pursuing pornography is not pursuing holiness. A person that is pursuing lust is not pursuing holiness. A person that is involved in an affair is not pursuing holiness. It seems very elementary, doesn't it? But it's so vital that we grasp this. This is not a matter to play around with. Again, in these four passages that speak of how God calls us to be holy people, we find this very sharp admonition not to walk the path of sexual immorality, not to indulge our lust, not to indulge in fornication. This, in times past, used to be a sin that was 98% a man's problem. And sadly, as time has gone on, the proliferation of all kinds of horrible content on the internet, we find that increasing numbers of women are also engaged in living lives of lust. No friends, God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness. Holiness looks like resisting our lusts and fornication. Let me look together with you at the third point in our passage. And that is this. Holiness looks like yielding consecration. Verses 23-25 When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. The idea behind that uncircumcised is basically unclean. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised or unclean to you, it shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be wholly appraised to the Lord. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase. I am the Lord your God. God has a claim to all of his people's lives, every aspect of it, including their work and produce. And God has claim over all of our lives, including our work and our produce. This command that's given in these verses is fascinating to me. So when a fruit tree was planted, for three years, the fruit wasn't to be eaten and presumably to be touched. The fourth year really was the year in which the tree would begin to produce fruit that was fit for consumption, that was good, tasty, the kind of fruit that you would want to eat, not the tiny fruit that hadn't really reached that maturity that would come with a mature tree. But it was not, and that fourth year then, the fruit was to be consecrated to the Lord. It was not until the fifth year that the fruit could be eaten by God's people. So for the first three years, they might not have wanted to eat it anyways. Maybe by the end of the third year, it might be okay. The fourth year, they probably would want to eat of the fruit of the tree that they planted. And God said, hold on. Even though the fruit is mature, and tasty, and good, that's not yours. you have to wait another year. That first year of mature fruit belongs to God. And it is not until the 5th year that you can eat of the fruit of this tree. This command then required faith, trust in God, you are hoping that there will be a 5th year so you can eat the fruit of that tree. Trusting God's faith required patience, as well as consecration. Patience to not go ahead of God's timing. Consecration to say, yes, that fourth year fruit is yours. Yes, I will bow to your commands. Now again, that fruit of that tree was not in itself sinful. But the people had to honor the Lord, and they had to wait on His timing. That patient, yielding consecration. We need this principle too. In this, there are really two related things that come together. One is giving God His due, and the other is waiting on God's timing. and they both flow together into this command about the trees and its fruit. Yielding consecration is about giving God His due. That's what consecration is. And the yielding part is about waiting on God's timing. We, of course, must give God His due. Isaiah 42 verse 8, God says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another. I've told you before, about when I was interim pastor at that church in Bell-Yort, I realized after a few months that I needed to have my own attitude and heart in check. Because it's a small church, and I would hear people praise me for my sermon, and I would get a big head about it. And then if I didn't hear that praise, then I'd get all grumpy. And I was reminded that I was living for the wrong applause. And I was seeking glory for myself, more than for God. And so there was a bulletin at the back, as you went out the back door of the church, and I put on that bulletin board that passage. Isaiah 42 verse 8, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another. So every time I stood up and preached, I'm looking back across the audience and I see, I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory will I not give to another. I talked on Tuesday the other day about we need to be careful that we're not glory thieves. That we don't try to take what is due to God and attribute it to ourselves. We need to give God His due. We may not have to wait and give God a fourth year harvest, but we do need to give to God what He deserves. Even when we do what is right, the glory needs to go to Him. I think sometimes when it comes to this matter of doing right and giving God the glory, we sometimes get tripped up because we think that simply doing something secretly will in itself give God the glory and keep you from taking glory. And I don't think that's entirely true. Sometimes it might. Sometimes we need to do things in secret. Sometimes that's the best way of doing it. But it's not the only way. And here's an example of what I mean by that. Jesus himself said, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house. And then he says this, let your light so shine before men. In other words, live brightly. Live loudly. Live in such a way that people see it. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Notice that progression there. You're living to be seen. But you're living to be seen, so that when people see your good works, they don't glorify you, but your Father which is in heaven. Friends, let us give God His due. Of course, when we think about our own lives, what does God do? God is due all the honor and the glory and the praise. What do we have that we haven't received? we start boasting about something that we have, or something that we do, or something that we know, we could have, do, and know nothing if it weren't for God and His grace. But the other side of this is not just giving God His due, but waiting on God's timing. And wow, that can be a hard one. Let's just go to one of the ones that people often fail most in this area, waiting in God's timing on relationships. Waiting on God's timing in relationships. How many people, even professing Christians, become sexually active before marriage thinking, we're already committed to each other. How many people wanting a relationship run ahead of God and will take anyone that will give them the attention, even if it crosses boundaries of separation we talked about earlier? Yoking of a believer with an unbeliever. No, we must wait on God's timing, being willing to accept what God gives, when God gives it. Think about rewards. Sometimes people seek attention or accolades. Sometimes people will even stoop to unlawful tactics, because they're not willing to wait on God's timing. Humble yourself, and He will exalt you in due time. Not that many years ago, although time is passing quickly, a very famous preacher in the States and very influential preacher in the States was discovered to have plagiarized major portions of a book that he had written. And then coming shortly on the heels of that, it was discovered that he had taken massive amounts of money from the church offerings to pay to have his books placed on bestseller lists. And I thought about that person and how he ruined that ministry. I thought about that as I was preparing this. waiting on God's timing, humbling yourself, God will exalt you in due time. A humble person, he may not give a visible exaltation in this life, but that exaltation is certain, for glory awaits. We can also think about not only relationships and rewards, but remuneration. People want compensation that doesn't seem to be coming. Well, I deserve it. And so the run ahead of wisdom and righteousness. Well, I have worked so hard with my life, I should be further ahead than where I am. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to cheat on taxes. Or I worked so hard for this company, and I really deserve to be getting more pay than what I'm getting. And so when I fill out my report sheet about how many hours I put in on this job, I'm going to add another 5 or 10 to it. All of these are examples, brothers and sisters, of a person who is unwilling to wait on God's timing, and thus runs ahead of it into unrighteousness. Friends, may we have patience. May we have patience in our dealings with one another. Patience in the difficulties of life. Patience even as we wait for our Savior from Heaven. This is one of the prayers that Paul had for the Thessalonians. That God would direct their hearts into the patient waiting for Christ. I look at these commands, brothers and sisters, and I recognize once again that every single one of us has fallen and failed in these areas. There is not a person that can look at every single one of these areas just that we mentioned tonight, let alone that we've mentioned previously, and say, I am pure. I have never failed or fallen in these areas. And once again, we are reminded that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But I hope that from that we are also reminded that though we have sinned and come short of the glory of God, there is One who perfectly fulfilled God's law, who never failed in any of these areas. And that is remarkable. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the One who perfectly obeyed all of God's commands, fulfilled all righteousness. And because of His active obedience and His passive obedience on the cross, we can be freed and forgiven. We can be forgiven of our failures in each of these areas and so many others. And so, brothers and sisters, let us strive to be holy, for our God is holy. But let us also remember with joy and gratitude the great sacrifice of our Savior, that has secured for us forgiveness. May we live in love and holiness because of that. Again, if I were to return to that passage that I mentioned earlier, that we are to seek those things above where Christ is. That we are not to simply That we are not to simply live our lives for our own desires, but remember where Jesus is. Seek the things which are above. We are to walk in love as Christ has loved us and given himself for us. We are to be holy as he has called us. He who has called us is holy. And so brothers and sisters, let us be a holy people. Let us be a people who practices separation. Let us be a people who resists and restrains lusts and immorality and fornication. Let us be a people who will be yielding and consecrated before the Lord.