A man wakes up in a critical condition in the ICU after a horrible accident. Most of his body parts are damaged; his eyes see most things double, his ears cannot hear. Worst of all, his brain is so terribly damaged that he doesn’t remember his name, his past, or his very sense of self. He was once a handsome young man, but his face is so twisted that he hates to see it. His sense of taste is gone, so the most bitter flavors are not bitter, and he has no sense of salt or sweet. It is a sad condition. Two people are feeding him and taking care of him, but he thinks they are strangers; he doesn’t recognize his parents. His heartbroken parents bring him home and show him their family photo, his room, his original state; they try everything to somehow revive and spark his old memory so he knows his identity and remembers his original state.
The man in the ICU is mankind. We met with an accident in Genesis 3, where every part was totally depraved and getting worse and worse. Like those parents, in redemptive grace, God redeems Israel, gives his law, and in the book of Leviticus, we see him using many things in creation to remind these demented patients of their original created state. “Do you remember I created you like me? I created you holy, righteous; I created a sense of clean and unclean, holy and unholy.” But since man is spiritually dead and has lost all spiritual senses, God uses created things to appeal to physical instincts to remind him of his created image and restore him back to a holy state.
I titled this message “Whispers of Holiness from the Animals” because we see in Leviticus 11 that God uses animals to remind him of his holy state. Have you asked yourself why you naturally like some animals and hate others? There is a natural revulsion that arises in our hearts, forgetting about eating, to touch, see, or even think of them. The way a certain animal looks, walks, or eats, like a lizard, snake, or cockroach. Think of a serpent; there’s something distinctively disgusting about the serpent crawling on its belly, eating dust, and its slimy and slithering locomotion. The lizard’s shape and color, going back and forth. In fact, even as I describe it, something happens inside you, right? Why? And if I said, “Look, there’s a snake under your feet,” most of you would run away now. Because there is something instinctively repulsive about it. Some other animals we love; we want to touch, like sheep, and cows. We even love all kinds of fish. Last week we went to the biggest aquarium in Bangalore, and we loved to keep watching for hours. We keep aquariums, but other animals like snails and squids have a different appearance. In the same way, for air animals, some birds, like doves, we love to see, but others, like owls, crows, and vultures, are so hateful. Why do we feel that way?
Can I tell you it is the greatest proof that you have been created in the image of God? Every time you feel that, it is your own conscience proving to you that you have been created perfectly holy; you have been created to hate what is unclean and love what is clean. God has written these laws in our conscience when he created us. That is why, even before these rules were given, hundreds of years before, how did Noah know, in Genesis 7, to take clean and unclean pairs into the ark? It remains in our soul that reminds us that God created us holy, and we like clean things. Now, in Leviticus, we see God’s gracious attempt to redeem us through physical instincts.
In Leviticus 11, when the people of God were spiritually just toddling, an immature child, God uses the animal world to remind their demented minds of their creation glory. He teaches them what is holy and unholy, clean and unclean from the animal world. God uses visible signs to teach them important spiritual truths. Chapters 1-7 dealt with sacrifices, 8-10 with temple worship, and after the temple is installed, he is teaching how God’s people should live holy by avoiding uncleanness in every area of life and living holy. He uses food as a baby picture lesson. The whole chapter is divided into three sections. We saw in verses 1-23 the distinction between clean and unclean animals. The second division, 24-43, explains what to do in case you defile yourselves with any unclean animals and how to treat that pollution. And now, the third main division, 44-47, gives the explanation of why they should be so careful about their cleanliness and holiness.
Last time, we saw verses 1-23 on clean and unclean foods. It is given in three categories: creatures of the land, creatures of the sea, and creatures of the air, just like God created in all those three spheres in Genesis 1. For creatures of the land, two things are needed: it must have a divided hoof and chew the cud. It cannot have just one, like a camel, which chews cud but does not have a divided hoof, or a pig or a rabbit, which has a divided hoof but does not chew cud. It should have both; only then is it clean. Similarly, for water animals, it must have fins and scales. For birds, all birds that are scavengers or birds of prey are unclean. So these are the clean and unclean animals on land, in water, and in the air.
Now let us further understand the chapter in 24-47 in two headings: the treatment of pollution in 24-42, and the purpose of this careful observance in 44-47.
Treatment of Defilement by Unclean Animals
Notice with me three areas: clothing, vessels, and seed. First of all, clothing in verses 24-28. If any of these unclean animals are touched by an individual, or an individual touches their carcass, he becomes unclean. So what should he do? Two things: first, that individual’s clothing must be washed, and second, the individual is unclean until evening and must be separate.
Then, he talks about vessels becoming unclean in verses 29-35. If a creeping animal, like a rat, lizard, or chameleon, anything that haphazardly moves to and fro, not straight with purpose but back and forth, dies and falls into a wooden bowl, the wooden bowl is unclean. So you have to wash the wooden bowl with clean water, and then it is made clean. But if it falls into a piece of pottery, you should not wash and use it, but the pot must be smashed. Any edible food upon which water falls becomes unclean, and any drink that may be drunk from it becomes unclean.
Now, what happens if any of this falls into a well? Should we stop using it? That was the source of water for the whole community. No, verse 36 says, “Nevertheless, a spring or a cistern, in which there is plenty of water, shall be clean; but whoever touches their carcass will be unclean.” If a carcass of an unclean animal falls into a spring or into a cistern, the whole spring or cistern was not made unclean. And God in his mercy said that would be allowed to be clean. Moreover, because of the plenty of water, the infection may not spread. But the individual who fished that rat out of the well and puts it out, he himself would be unclean until evening, and his clothing would have to be washed.
Finally, so first clothing, next vessels, and thirdly seed. We see in verses 37-38 that if an unclean carcass, such as maybe a dead lizard, falls into a barrel of dry seed, is the whole barrel unclean? No, it’s dry seed. The seed remains clean. But if it falls into a barrel of wet seed, then that seed is unclean and it is not to be used. Maybe the wetness spreads the bacteria and infection. So we’ve seen the distinction between clean and unclean. So that is the treatment of defilement by unclean animals.
Now, we want to ask the question, “Why, Lord?” Why should we be so careful?
Explanation Regarding Cleanliness and Holiness
Verses 44-47 give the explanation. Verse 44: “For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Verse 45: “For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Then verses 46-47 again summarize the land, water, and air animals. It says this is the law of clean and unclean animals.
As an explanation, two elements are highlighted: the idea of imitation. He says, “See, I created you like me, but now you have fallen. But I have redeemed you now, and I want to restore you to your original glory; so follow me.” Like he tells a demented patient, “Talk like me, walk and eat like me, avoid what is unclean.” As you slowly avoid uncleanness and live clean, you will enjoy my fellowship and gradually you can be restored to the original image. You have to be holy. Holiness starts when you learn and develop discernment and distinguishing between what is good and evil, clean and unclean, holy and unholy. “I want you to learn to be like me in making distinctions between something that is clean and unclean, acceptable and not acceptable.”
The first is imitation, and the second is the theme of separation. “You are my people. You have to be separate.” He talks about this again in Leviticus 20:24. Notice the theme of separation. “Hence I have said to you, you are to possess their land, going into the land of Canaan, and I myself will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has separated you from the nations, Israel!” He says in verse 25, “You are, therefore, to make a distinction between clean and unclean, between the unclean bird and unclean animal. And you shall not make yourself detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean.” Notice this: “Thus you are to be holy to me, for I, the Lord, am holy. I have set you apart from the peoples to be mine.” All humanity is demented patients; you should be separate and follow me, not other sinners.
In other words, you are to be holy because I am holy in imitating me and making distinctions, but also be holy because I am holy in separating yourselves from what the other nations do. God also intended this to be a means of avoiding Israelites from mixing with other nations because most of our deep relationships are built at the dinner table, when we sit down and eat and fellowship; friendships are formed. These dietary requirements will make Israel distinct in the eyes of their neighbors, and in fact, what others eat will be odious to them; what they eat others will hate. Like beef is hated by Hindus, in those days Egyptians hated it, they worshiped it. In the same way, pig is eaten by some, but hated by Israelites. “You are to be different than all the other nations. And a profound difference will be what you eat and what you don’t. And that will be very helpful in teaching you holiness.” Well, that is the survey of the chapter’s contents.
Application
How do we apply this? I explained last time, we should apply this with biblical balance. Though we don’t have New Testament rules, neither should we put them on others, but we should be careful about our diet and ensure we eat healthy food. We must be a health-minded people. God is concerned about their physical prosperity. We should uphold the sanctity of life. And we should be wise and prudent and self-controlled in what we eat. You know I love sugar, I love kebab, but cholesterol is a big problem for me, but I watch. If I don’t, my wife and daughter always watch me like two eagles. We should be careful and take care of our bodies. We should not be careless, spoil our health, become physically weak, lose our spiritual life, become desperate, and keep wasting our time running after these false teachers for healing miracles.
See, verse 44, God clearly says the primary purpose of these rules is to teach you to be holy as I am holy. Two lessons of holiness as application: three general lessons of holiness, and three practical steps of holiness.
General Lessons of Holiness: Discernment
Though God gives rules in written form here, I believe God has written these rules of clean and unclean animals in our conscience when he created us. That is why we have a natural revulsion to some unclean animals and a liking for some clean animals. Our disgust towards certain animals reflects a God-given sense of order, purity, and aesthetics. Our inherent dislike for these creatures is a reflection of our spiritual nature, aligning with God’s own aversion to sin and impurity.
That is the greatest proof that you have been created in the image of God. Every time you feel that, it is your own conscience proving to you that you have been created perfectly holy; you have been created to hate what is unclean and love what is clean. There is a discernible pattern in these animals in the way they eat and walk. Some are so disgusting and unnatural that they make us hate them, and some, by their wholeness, uniformity, and normality, reflect the holy image with which we are created. It reflects basic lessons of holiness.
Physically you are alive, so you feel that consciousness, but when you die, you will not feel any hatred towards whatever snake or lizard runs over you. In the same way, though you feel it physically, because of the fall, your soul is fully dead, and you have lost that sense of spiritual clean and uncleanness. Though you are wallowing in uncleanness, a dead soul doesn’t feel any revulsion. But God, in his redemption and gracious revival of your soul life, uses physical instincts to train your spiritual senses and bring us back to our created image.
So he gives us a sense of clean and unclean and makes us sensitive to sin. If we understand what sin is, the more we grow in spiritual senses, the more we are being transformed into the image of God. Do you know what will happen? We will hate every sin like we hate a lizard, snake, or some other disgusting animal; some dead rat eaten by a cat; we hate even to see it, and our whole body gets goosebumps. You will vomit and run from it, “unclean, unclean.” Every lust, lie, hypocrisy, hatred, bitterness, every anger, short temper, covetousness, envy—you will feel instinctively nauseous.
The reason you don’t run today is because your spiritual senses are dead or very weak, we are blinded. The deceiving devil, knowing our blindness, comes in with his lies. He brings a cockroach soul and says it is sweet corn soup. He brings rat kebab and says it is chicken kebab. He brings crow biryani and says it is special tender chicken dum biryani. He brings snake fry and says it is special sheer fish fry. He brings lizard halwa and says it is carrot halwa. Should I stop? When the devil brings it, it will not look so ugly. He is a master chef. His presentation, color, smell, perfect ambiance, and timing, will all be so fantastic that you cannot resist eating. Even the initial fleeting taste will be good. When will we know it is unclean? When it goes into our stomach and soul, it creates guilt, shame, and all kinds of upsets in our soul. Remember the seven consequences: displeasure of God, grieving the Holy Spirit, impairing comforts and graces, hardening the heart, wounding the conscience, hurting and scandalizing others, and punishments from God. Oh, don’t be deceived. Sin looks delicious, but really they’re dreadful and dangerous.
Do you see? The first step towards holiness is the great important work of God where he opens spiritual senses and makes us see how hateful sin is! He tears the mask of the devil and shows how dreadful and dangerous it is; it should be so unclean and hideous in our eyes, as in God’s eyes, he hates even to see it. Oh, may we pray that God opens our spiritual senses and makes us see how hateful sin is.
The devil may tell you, “Man, sexual contact with that strange woman is like pudding, a sweet delicacy. Look at it. Aren’t you bored with the same old life? See this new adventure; until you taste, you will not know the thrill.” We are blind, we believe him sometimes. If God opens our spiritual eyes, you will see it is not pudding, but smelling dung; it will make both your body and soul unclean. No, God has said it is unclean. We ought to recognize it for what it is. We must learn to train our senses, our minds and our hearts for clean and unclean, and be revolted according to God’s assessments. We must be a holy people by imitation and by separation. So the general lesson is discernment to know what is clean and unclean.
Three Practical Lessons of Holiness
Last week, I mentioned three steps we can learn from this chapter: WWW. Watch and Pray. Watch your mind. Watch your walk.
All practical holiness starts with watchfulness. God, with these rules, is teaching the Jew to live watching. As a Jew, wherever he is in this world, he is always in danger of touching an unclean animal. Whether he is on the land, a camel, a pig, a lizard, or a rat can defile him. He goes to the water, and all creatures without fins and scales can defile him. He climbs a mountain, and a crow or vulture can defile him. He sits at home, shuts the door, and a mosquito can defile him. Anywhere he goes, he cannot escape defilement from unclean animals, so he has to always watch, watch. However beautiful this world is, there is a constant reminder of uncleanness everywhere in this fallen world, and God, by this old type, shows that we should live with watchfulness and a consciousness of sin always. So the first baby step if you are serious about being holy is to leave all your careless, easy-going attitude. Get up, be upon your watchtowers. Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.
The second W is “Watch your mind and watch your walk.” If we apply the distinction of land animals to us, each of us can test now whether we are clean or unclean, holy or unholy in God’s sight; who are saints and who are not. There are two tests: the test of the inner life and the outer life, but we have to pass both these two tests to be clean.
Just like an animal that chews the cud, how do we know if we are truly holy in our inner life? Every holy person will not only read, learn, and hear sermons—even unclean unbelievers can do that—but a true, clean believer will always chew the cud of the sacred word of God and digest it. A man is primarily clean not by how he looks on the outside. Holiness starts from the inside, and that holiness always comes not just from hearing and reading, but like clean animals chewing the cud, from the regular practice of meditation. It is this inward exercise which supports his life. It is that exercise of chewing the cud that makes his inner soul holy, helps him inwardly digest sound food, and fattens his soul. It gives stamina and strength to his spiritual life. Puritans called it the “soul-fattening exercise of meditation.” A man who just hears and reads and goes away, but does not chew the truth by meditation, it doesn’t do anything to make him holy. He doesn’t know the sweetness of God’s ways, the relish of it, the stamina and energy that comes from the truth to be holy; that man can never be clean in his inner life.
Secondly, clean animals are also known by their walk. The Jew at once discovered the unclean animal by the undivided hoof. The divided hoof always gave it not only a peculiar walk but two toes gave it a firm walk, not a hesitant one. So a clean, holy believer not only chews cud but he lives a peculiar walk, but a firm walk, such as God requires.
You are not to be like the world. God expects us to walk and live with a striking difference. Yes, God knows the world will not join us, just like the Egyptians wouldn’t eat with the Hebrews. And that’s okay. That should be acceptable to you because you’re distinct. You should be different. That is one way God keeps you holy, but that is what holiness means. We’re not to try to be like the world. We must be different in dress, words, entertainment, and music. We must be a holy people.
Clean believers are those with the determination to walk progressively forward with a single mind in holiness. See, God has created all these unclean animals with features to teach us how we should not be if we have to be clean and holy.
- We should not be like an unclean lizard. One thing that makes these animals so disgusting to us is their walk and movement. You notice a lizard or a rat. It never walks progressively straight, but always back and forth without an aim it seems to us. It stops sometimes, and we don’t know why. It stays in a place; a crooked nature. Or a chameleon? Back and forth, back and forth; changing itself for the situation, no firmness. Or a mouse scurries back and forth in a helter-skelter, to-and-fro motion. Is this not a picture of inconsistency? Pray today, read, come to the Bible for one month, move forward, and the next go back. One week in front, next week back. We become unclean in our life if we keep moving to and fro. We cannot be clean and commune with God if we do not walk progressively forward.
- We are not to be like some unclean frogs; they live in two worlds, water and land, living in two spheres. One leg in the world and one leg in heaven; one for the devil and one for God. We are taught that we’re not to halt between two opinions; that is an unclean lifestyle, trying to serve God and money. We are not to be double-minded. That is uncleanness. We are not to be Christian in our church and pagan at home or at work, like a chameleon changing colors.
Watch your mind, watch your walk. You cannot tell if a man is clean by any one of them—he must have them both. These pictures show the fundamentals of holy living in a baby language, in ABCs. If we have to continually enjoy God’s fellowship and bear fruit, WWW—we have to watch and pray in the world, watch our minds, and watch our walk.
This morning we saw Revelation, and how Revelation identifies true believers and false ones. Those who have the mark of God on their forehead and right hand. Again, some people twisted this to say a technical antichrist chip will come. Where is the Bible support for that? The Bible shows a godly man is known by his mind always meditating on God’s word and his actions and life being based on it. Those who receive the beast’s mark are those who never think of God’s word and never live according to it.
Apply them to yourselves. Are you clean today? You call yourselves a believer? Do you have the mark of the beast or the mark of God on your head and forehead? Do you live with watchfulness in the world? What do you feed your mind always? What is your habit of life? Do you chew the cud of truths by meditation day and night like the man in Psalm 1, or are you like one walking in the counsel of the wicked, sitting with scoffers, and standing with sinners? Today, you don’t have to go out; if you sit with your mobile always, all the counsel of the wicked and scoffers will come to your home.
And what about your life? Is it striving to walk according to all you learn from God’s word? If not, just the first test of reading a lot and hearing a sermon will not make you holy. You may profess the faith within, but if you do not walk aright without, you belong to the unclean.
On the other hand, listen carefully. You may walk aright without, and people may not find any fault, but unless that walk comes from the energy, stamina, and grace of chewing God’s truth, and meditation on God’s truth regularly; unless there is a real feeding upon precious truth in the heart, all the right walking in the world will not prove you to be a clean Christian. That holiness which is only outward and moral, not spiritual, does not save the soul. That religion, on the other hand, which is only inward with no outward acts, is but a fancy—it cannot save the soul either. But the two together—the inward parts made capable of knowing the sweetness, the fatness of Christ’s truth, and the outward parts conformed to Christ’s image and character—these conjoined point out the true and a clean Christian.
Can I apply this specifically to some of you? Some of you can be like a camel: you hear the truth, rejoice, and even sometimes meditate on the truth, chewing, but where are the actions in your life? Where are the fruits? Yet your walk is not right. You never walk in God’s garden of godliness and good works, but your feet always walk only in the hot sandy desert of sin. Oh, you say, “Pastor is becoming more Arminian now; not comforting.” We don’t realize that in fearing the “white devil” of Arminianism, you can run to the “black devil” of Antinomianism. Oh, let us not be like the hyper-Calvinist unclean animal which chews the cud but yet does not divide the hoof. You hear only precious, comforting, sovereign doctrines, with no attempt to live according to it. The devil’s great abuse of reformed truths is preaching divine sovereignty always but neglecting human responsibility.
Some of you are like unclean rabbits or frogs in church; they love to hear the Gospel; their eyes will sparkle sometimes when we are hearing about God’s truth; they enjoy it. They will not abide in one place, one truth, and be grounded in truth, and bear fruit. As soon as church is over, they jump from here and keep jumping here and there, from this food to that food. Church over, they jump into the world. One minute in the water, the next minute on land. They cannot fully come out of the world and be domesticated within a clean church and grow with other believers. Your conscience tells them they should be baptized as believers—but they dare not. Oh! Be not, I pray you, like the timid rabbit, lest you be found among the unclean!
Some of them are like unclean swine, they never chew cud, but they have a divided hoof. These never take time to meditate on God’s word, never sit at Christ’s feet, but know how to live decently outside before men. They are a legalistic animal like swine. They make a profession—they seem devout. Yet they are unclean. Why? Their inner part is not right. The foot is right, but not the inward part. There is no chewing, no masticating, no digesting the Word of Life. There are unclean Pharisees who make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whose hoof is divided enough, but whose inward part is very wickedness. All outwardly religious people going to church, and so decent on the outside. But all their outward dead morality will not save them. “You must be born again.” If their inner life has to be clean, they must love God’s meditation on God’s word.
See, God wants you to be holy, meaning whole. The way he created you, lacking nothing. Not just clean outside, but inside; not walking back and forth, but with progress; not inconsistency, not double-mindedness, living in water and land, but wholeheartedness in one direction; not changing colors like a chameleon. Holiness and unholiness are depicted profoundly in clean and unclean animals, with symbolic significance.
Finally, for those who are still not saved, by these unclean animals and the sense of hatred inside you, God reminds you that he created you holy and wants to remind you of your sin. Today you are blind, and your soul is dead. You laugh at it now—you do not understand that a deadly poison from snakes running over your soul will soon envenom all your blood and inescapably push you into eternal damnation.
Oh, pray that God opens your eyes. When he opens your eyes, sin becomes hateful like you hate a lizard, cockroach, or snake. He will run to Christ to save him from disgusting sin. May God give you a true sense of sin which will drive you to Christ.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 