Drollinger: Woe to the Nations That Do Not Follow God's Timeless Principles
Advocates for same-sex marriage often insinuate that Christians believe in stoning homosexuals because the Israelites carried out that sentence under the law found in Leviticus (cf. 20:13).
The charge is totally unfounded, however, and the best way to respond is to ask, “Do you believe a specific act found in Leviticus is applicable today, outside of the context of ancient Israel?”
If they answer “yes” then say, “I don’t.” If they answer “no” then respond, “I agree.” Either way, this specious argument is over.
Anyone who has read even a small portion of the Bible knows that we do not live under Leviticus law; Old Testament civil law is not valid during the church age in which we live.
However, what is relevant and applicable today is OT moral law. In the same-sex marriage debate, there is increasing reluctance by believers to mention the moral law found in the OT book of Leviticus.
By way of introduction, a simple, sobering observation is worth making. At the time of God’s giving of the Torah, the set-apart-by-God Hebrews were surrounded by the permissive Canaanites who practiced same-sex marriage. Do you know any Canaanites today? How about Jewish folks?
That simple reality (that one is extinct and the other is not) serves to illustrate the huge error that any and every society makes when allowing sexual predilection to determine who has the privilege to be awarded marital status.
Many are the simpletons (Proverbs 14:18) who claim that “love” should be the sole basis for sanctioning the privilege of marriage. But if “love” is the only reason for marriage, then how can our courts deny matrimony to a petitioner who loves her cat?
Statistics bear out God’s truth on this matter: Only marriage between one man and one woman creates societal stability and sustenance. No other marriage definition affords such positive benefits to a culture.
But this truth about marriage is nothing new! Leviticus underscored it thousands of years before our present regressive social experimentation began.
In Genesis 12:1-3, God promises Abraham that He will create a people through him — a people set apart for God’s own possession and purposes. Several generations later via the patriarch Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham, the Hebrews found themselves in slavery for over 400 years to the polytheistic, pagan culture of the ancient Egyptians.
It follows that when God finally called them out of bondage under Moses’ leadership that He had some major reprogramming to do; God’s chosen people had absorbed many of the idolatrous ways of their captors — and who wouldn’t over a 400-year period?
God also needed to reprogram His people because of their assignment to enter the Promised Land where the depraved, corrupt, anything-goes Canaanites resided. He wanted His people to worship Him in holiness (cf. Leviticus 20:26, 1 Peter 1:16). God intended to reprogram Israel via his amazing book called Leviticus.
This is the third book of the Old Testament, immediately following the book of Exodus wherein the Hebrews escape Egypt.
In Exodus, Israel receives the Ten Commandments. In Leviticus, those commandments are elaborated on in detail. For instance, the sexual sins listed in Leviticus 18 are an elaboration of the Seventh Commandment (You shall not commit adultery) recorded in Exodus 20:14.
However, much of Leviticus, as it pertains to the ceremonies and rituals that God demanded of His chosen ones, is abrogated in the New Testament — i.e., God’s old covenant is replaced by His new covenant as explained in the NT books of Acts (Chapter 2) and Hebrews (Chapters 7-10).
Nonetheless, the spiritual principles embedded in the old covenant ceremonies, rituals and laws are timeless and are brought forward in the new covenant because they are representative of the very nature of God — the prohibitions on homosexuality and same-sex marriage being prime examples.
Nothing is more relevant at this moment in American history — no document shouts louder — than the OT book of Leviticus!
In setting apart the Israelites, God wanted His representatives to be morally differentiated. Leviticus, then, represents God’s deterrents for His people. Note the consequences that God states in 18:24-25 for practicing deviant sexual behavior:
“Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.”
Unfortunately for the Israelites, Scripture records repeatedly that they were less than obedient to all the precepts found in Leviticus (cf. 18:5) and, as a result, they were also spewed out of the land and taken away into Babylonian captivity.
Years later, upon their return to the land of Canaan, Nehemiah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, stated in retrospect that the reason for Israel’s departure was disobedience to God’s precepts (cf. Nehemiah 9:29-31).
On the other hand, when Israel has been obedient, God has greatly prospered her, as is remarkably verified in certain eras of history. For instance, under the early capable leadership of King Solomon, the nation flourished (cf. 1 Kings 10). Even in modern history, God’s graciousness, patience and prospering of His people are still in effect.
In his book “Learning Through Leviticus, Volume II,” J. Vernon McGee elaborates on the sexual sins listed in Leviticus 18: “These are the sins which mark a decadent society and the decline and fall of empires [e.g., Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and France].”
Such recurring historic lessons make it clear: All nations that have legalized same-sex marriage need to be informed by and obey the timeless spiritual principles found in the book of Leviticus!
Woe to those nations that do not!
Click here to read the full Bible study.
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