We have come to Leviticus 18. There is a long list of forbidden sexual relationship sins—very convicting and sobering. Again, it is somewhat an embarrassing passage to preach in a gathered assembly with children, women, and men. But as I said, it is God’s Word, and we believe it is for our profit, for our growth in grace, and for our living in righteousness. In the name of decency, avoiding such open talk only leads to ignorance and harmful consequences in our families and churches. By speaking openly and honestly about such chapters, God again and again makes it clear that sexual purity is a part of living as a Christian and living a holy life.
Sex was created by God as a very powerful human force for multiplying and maintaining a fruitful human race. We don’t fully understand the power of that force. When any force crosses its limits, it becomes uncontrollably dangerous. In the same way, this driving force is a blessing and a boon only when we enjoy it within the boundaries God has established. When we cross those boundaries, not only the individual and the family, but whole generations are carried away like a destructive, uncontrollable tsunami or full flood, overwhelming and destroying the entire landscape.
Look at the terrible consequences of sexual sins in verse 25: not just a man or a family, but the whole land, the whole nation, and the entire culture suffer. We will also see that after a certain point, demons get involved in this activity of destruction. So God graciously, lovingly, and carefully comes to us and says: “You cannot fully understand the mysterious, amazing, and fantastic power I created for multiplying nations. If you handle it wrongly, it can destroy you and your family, just as it has destroyed nations. So let Me teach you how to use it so that it is a blessing and not a curse for you.” He wants to help us regulate this force and assist us in this area.
Let us grasp this chapter under three headings:
- Motivation to avoid sexual sin and warnings against sexual sin.
- Wrong sexual relationships forbidden.
- Shocking consequences of sexual sins.
1. Motivation and Warning to Avoid Sexual Sin
The chapter begins with motivations and ends with warnings. Like book covers, this chapter starts with motivation in verses 1–5 and ends with warnings in verses 24 through 30. The motivation is: Know your identity. The warning is: Do not be like other nations. Identity and separation.
Know your identity: The Lord comes to speak to Israel, and He brings a reminder of their identity. As Brother Francis read the whole chapter, you may have noticed how many times a particular statement was used: “I am the Lord,” or “I am the Lord your God” (verses 2, 4, 5, and 6). “I am your God; you are now My people.” Verse 4 says: “You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God.”
You are My covenant people—that is your identity. I rescued you from your past bondage in Egypt, and I am bringing you into your inheritance of the Promised Land. I will protect you all the way as a refuge ahead of you and ensure I bring you in as I promised. I am your God, you are My people, and you are in a covenant with Me. That is your identity—do not forget it.
Why does the Lord repeatedly tell them the glorious things He has done for them as a nation? God knows how forgetful we are, and He wants them to repeatedly and daily meditate on His acts. It is only such repeated reminders and meditations that create the constraining love needed to worship Him and obey Him. You were in a pathetic state through hundreds of years of bondage. I saved you with mighty wonders and brought you out. I have accomplished redemption for you, and I have pledged an inheritance ahead of you.
Doesn’t all this sound quite compatible with New Covenant Christianity? Just as we see in Ephesians, we were in terrible bondage to sin. God chose us, predestined us sovereignly and graciously, and redeemed us by His blood. We have been delivered, and we have a great, glorious promise of a great inheritance that we are looking forward to. It is perfectly compatible with New Covenant Christianity. We see that rather than just hearing these truths and going away to forget them, if we are to live accordingly, we must regularly remind ourselves and meditate on them.
So first, know your identity. Isn’t this what Paul prays for us in Ephesians? The Holy Spirit gives us exceedingly great power to live holy lives and avoid such attractive, powerful sins when we are constantly reminding ourselves, meditating, and knowing what God has done and who we are in Christ. That first step is so important. Therefore, the first great motivation to avoid sexual sin is to know your identity.
Take His warnings seriously: The second aspect is a warning to avoid impurity in verses 24 through 30. Because they are God’s people, God not only calls them to imitate Him by following His commands, but He also calls them to be separate from the nations around them. You are not to follow any of the abominable practices of past Egypt or future Canaan. Holiness has two sides: follow God and be separate from the world.
Notice verse 30: “Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the Lord your God.” Imitate Me as My children; do not imitate them as My enemies. There will be great temptation from your past in Egypt and great, powerful temptation in the future in the land of Canaan, acting like a magnet. How can you protect yourself? What is the secret to overcoming the temptations of the world?
Remember two things: First, realize your identity and what I have done; meditate on it daily, which will give you enough power to follow Me on one side and avoid surrounding defilement on the other. Second, take His warnings seriously. He gives them a terrible, repeated warning in verse 24: “Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.”
The Canaanites defiled the land by these practices, so God punished them for their sins. Notice the interesting phrase at the end of verse 25: the land itself will spew them out. You should not follow any of these abominations; otherwise, as stated in verse 28, the land will vomit you out as well when you defile it. We know this was not an empty threat. Later in history, this exact outcome happened during their captivity and exile to Babylon when they followed Canaanite practices: the land vomited them out.
Again, we have similar and even more solemn warnings in the New Testament:
- 1 Corinthians 6:18: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
- Galatians 5:19, 21: “Now the works of the flesh are evident…”—and first in that category is sexual immorality.
- Ephesians 5:5: “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure… has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
- Hebrews 13:4: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
So, the motivations to avoid sexual sin are: Know your identity, and take His warnings seriously.
2. Wrong Sexual Relationships Forbidden
What kind of sexual relationships does God forbid here, prompting such a terrible warning?
Notice verse 5: “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.” These rules are given to make you live life to the fullest; they are not given to restrict you, narrow you in, or prohibit you from expressing your desires. Quite the contrary! They are given so that you might live, enjoy sex to the fullest degree, and find it wholesome and rich.
God teaches repeatedly in the Scriptures that the fullness of sex can be enjoyed when it is not merely a physical union, but when there is also deep emotional acquaintance, growing mental oneness, and spiritual intimacy. That is what sex is all about: a total union of body, mind, heart, emotion, and spirit. That kind of union can happen only in a marriage. Therefore, marriage is its only proper expression—anything else immediately becomes not only unfulfilling and abortive, but also very harmful because the union cannot be total outside of marriage. So, as you see, sex with the wrong person is always harmful. That is why He forbids certain relationships in this chapter.
What kind of sexual relations are forbidden? We can group them into two types:
- A list of harmful sexual relationships between close relatives (verses 6–18).
- Perverted abominations that result when people continue in such relationships, leading to uncontrollable and intensified demonic influence (verses 19–23).
First Category: Sex with Near Relatives Verses 6 through 18 talk about different incestuous relationships. The word incest means impure—impure in the sight of God. The passage uses the phrase “do not uncover nakedness”; it says not to uncover the nakedness of your father, your mother, or your sister. The core meaning is a euphemism—a decent, polite phrase—for sexual relations or sexual misconduct with forbidden relations.
The phrase includes all kinds of wrong views toward them that lead to sexual arousal, such as wrongly imagining them or looking at their bodies with wrong eyes to raise sexual arousal. Even that is prohibited because it is harmful. In those days, when men had multiple wives, it could also refer to entering into long-term marriages with close relatives. All of this is forbidden.
What is the list of forbidden close relationships? Close blood relations are forbidden. Verse 7 onwards lists incestuous relations with a mother, a stepmother (your father’s wife), a sister or stepsister, a daughter or daughter-in-law, or a paternal or maternal aunt. So first, He forbids sexual relationships and marriage with close blood relatives.
We may scratch our heads and wonder why all this needed to be spelled out. In those days, with large, closely knit families, men sometimes had many wives (like David), and children had stepsisters and stepbrothers all living together. Remember how Amnon and Tamar, David’s children, fell into this and destroyed their lives. So these guidelines protected people from the wrong kinds of relationships and prevented illicit sexual activity.
Why is this forbidden?
- First: It is wrong, against God’s creation order, against His law, and it is sin.
- Second: If you go against God’s order and law, there are both physical and spiritual consequences.
Physical Consequences: It is a well-known, scientifically proven fact today that the closer the blood relationship between two biological parents, the more the creation order is twisted, leading to various physical, mental, and psychological problems in children. These include birth defects, damaged genes, and chromosomal abnormalities. Studies worldwide show that when siblings marry, there is a higher incidence of mental conditions and organ malformations. Even animal breeders know this is true; offspring born within the same animal family are often defective, so breeders do everything possible to avoid such breeding. Some developed countries recognize that these relationships are injurious to society and have laws forbidding marriages within close families.
Psychological and Spiritual Consequences: Psychologically, to have sex with or arouse passion in a close relative is a form of sex with oneself. As the passage indicates, nearness of kin is closeness to self; the nakedness of relatives is tied to our own nakedness. Sex with oneself, in any form, apparently violates a protective shield intended by God to keep the human race from demonic invasion.
We do not fully understand everything about human life, sex, and demonic activity. We are often ignorant of what truly happens in wrong human relationships. There is a connection between continual, illicit sexual practices and an openness to demonic influence. That is why we sometimes see power and activity beyond standard human conscience in such acts.
If you ask anyone driven by inordinate lust, once it crosses a certain limit, they lose control and feel that another force has taken over their mind and body, driving them to behave in ways they normally would not. Consider why we hear about terrible crimes—serial assault, violence, body concealment, and other horrific acts. If you talk to the perpetrators beforehand, they might seem like ordinary or decent people; but in this area, giving room to the devil beyond a point causes them to cross the line, allowing demonic forces to take control by intensifying their lusts. It is as though disembodied spirits use human bodies to satisfy their evil desires.
This is why God warns again and again throughout the Scriptures that those who give themselves to excessive sexual laxity are opening themselves to the most destructive, pernicious, and demonic activity. God has given natural order as a barrier to protect mankind from the unseen forces of darkness. His common grace protects us. When God’s order and the sexual limitations prescribed by Him are broken down through the continuous violation of His law in wrong sexual practices, those barriers weaken. The judgment of God described in Romans 1—giving them up to the lusts of their hearts—takes place. Consequently, the surrounding forces of darkness are provoked, and demonic invasion can occur very easily.
This is what slowly destroys a person. Year after year, an individual becomes an uncontrollable addict, gradually being prepared and led toward destruction. We often hear of someone who attended church for many years suddenly falling into scandalous sin. This is what destroys a person, a family, and spreads to destroy even a nation, as happened with Canaan. Romans 1 reveals the inevitable decay and decline of such a society. Furthermore, this influence does not stop with a single action; uncontrollable addiction progresses into further forms of violations and perversions.
That is precisely what we observe in the second group of sins detailed in verses 19 through 23. When these boundaries are crossed, God highlights shameful and terrible perversions. Verses 19 through 23 outline five specific perverted abominations:
- Untimely Sexual Union (Verse 19): “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity.” This represents an inordinate sexual demand even within a marriage relationship, bringing defilement.
- Adultery (Verse 20): Intercourse with a neighbor’s wife is strictly forbidden.
- Child Sacrifice (Verse 21): Archaeological discoveries reveal that the Canaanites, in their worship of deities like Molech and Baal, became deeply involved in perverted sexual practices. They became so captivated by these rites that their natural affection for their children was dulled, leading them to sacrifice their own offspring. In a modern context, individuals worship similar modern idols, such as pornography, sacrificing hours of their lives, crossing moral boundaries, dulling their natural affections, and ultimately damaging their families and children for fleeting pleasure.
- Bestiality (Verse 23): Approaching an animal as one would a human. In Egyptian and Canaanite fertility rites, such acts were wrongly treated as forms of worship.
- Homosexuality (Verse 22): “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female.” While modern culture may label this an alternative lifestyle, God declares it an abomination—a word whose root denotes that which is detested. It arouses His fierce indignation and is categorized alongside other severe violations of His created order.
All these practices provide open doors to the destruction of both the individual and society by exposing lives to demonic influence, making them like Sodom.
Having considered the motivation, the warnings, and the forbidden relationships, we arrive at the third main point:
3. Shocking Consequences of Sexual Sins
In verses 24 through 30, God declares the certainty of His judgment against sexual immorality. The ultimate end of this path is the complete undoing of the individual, the family, and the whole nation.
In verse 24 He says, “Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am casting out before you defiled themselves; and the land became defiled, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”
Graciously and faithfully, He warns us: If you do not want to be destroyed, obey My commands, know your identity, and keep My ordinances by meditating on them regularly. Positively, this guards your heart; negatively, it keeps you from practicing these abominable customs and defiling yourselves.
Beyond direct divine punishment, the text uses a striking expression: the land vomits them out. This signifies that the creation itself cannot tolerate severe moral and spiritual defilement caused by human sin and reacts by casting the inhabitants out. One consequence of moral laxity is environmental and societal collapse. Because a covenantal link exists between human sin and the land, we see a direct connection between moral purity and societal stability.
This is a profound revelation showing how deeply connected human actions are to the surrounding environment and God’s providence. God explains that persistent moral corruption causes the land to turn against its inhabitants. The phrase “the land is defiled and vomits out its inhabitants” indicates that the creation rejects them. For a people whose survival, prosperity, and health depended entirely on the land, this figurative language clearly shows that sexual sins destroy the very foundation of sustenance.
When observing the modern world—widespread pollution, resource depletion, inflation, economic instability, and international crises—one must consider how these issues tie back to the rejection of marital values, high divorce rates, and widespread perversion. History demonstrates over thousands of years that great civilizations, including Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Persia, and Rome, experienced internal collapse and ruin through moral decay. Modern nations often fail to recognize that harmful moral practices directly affect their environment, stability, and future. Yet God, in His faithfulness, clearly reveals these truths to us.
If moral sins carry national, geographical, and generational consequences, consider their severe personal impact:
- 1 Corinthians 6:18: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
- Hebrews 13:4: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
May God help us recognize that sin is never merely private. The Old Testament model completely rejects the modern falsehood that personal sexual choices have no broader impact. Secret sin defiles the individual, the family, the children, and the home. Such actions represent collective moral failures that bring personal, social, marital, financial, and parental distress. The consequences include internal dissatisfaction, psychological distress, marital bitterness, conflict with children, fragmented homes, increased isolation, and internal collapse. A church composed of struggling families loses its effective witness for the Gospel and the glory of God. Without repentance, we grieve the Holy Spirit, forfeit His presence and power, and risk spiritual judgment.
If anyone is caught in such sins, may God open your eyes to see that decline in life is directly connected to secret compromise. As Paul writes in Ephesians 5:5, “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure… has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
The path to deliverance remains unchanged: Repent. Consider the consequences of sin until your mind is changed and your life turns around. Believe in Christ. Faith in His atoning sacrifice alone can lift the heavy burden of past sin. He alone provides the power to master desires and habits, and He stands ready to supply the grace needed to live a full, abundant life.
A Positive Application: Guard Your Family and Marriage
First, let us reaffirm that marriage is God’s divine institution designed for human happiness and serves as the cornerstone of a righteous society. Although married life brings challenges and difficulties, God’s Word, grace, and patient effort can make it a deeply blessed union.
When God established a righteous society in Eden, He created man and formed woman from his side as a companion, bringing the two together as one flesh. This is the cornerstone of a godly community. We must refresh our minds with this truth because modern society often derides marriage as an outdated or oppressive institution. On the contrary, marriage is God’s ordained provision to preserve purity and guard against perversion. We must protect our marriages diligently, as failure in this area opens the door to widespread moral confusion.
When society rejects God’s design, it embraces harmful ideologies—normalizing frequent divorce, encouraging independence outside of God’s order, and trivializing creation through unethical practices. Commercializing human life and redefining family structures are becoming prevalent in modern media, influencing people to view these trends as progress. However, these are deviations from God’s standards that bring judgment. What culture calls progress, God’s Word identifies as an abomination.
In various parts of the world, social systems incentivize living outside of traditional marriage while penalizing formal unions. Society legalizes unions contrary to Scripture and allows non-traditional households to adopt children, creating environments detached from God’s original intent. Anyone advocating for biblical standards is often labeled narrow-minded or bigoted.
As God’s people, we must not let ourselves be swayed. God calls us to know our identity and obey His commandments, which enables us to experience life to the fullest. As a witness to our children and the coming generation, we must not only preach but actively safeguard our marriages, demonstrating that a lifelong, monogamous union between one man and one woman is God’s design for a pure life. Every other path leads away from His truth.
Let us be firmly resolved that marriage is God’s divine institution for true fulfillment. It is the cornerstone of human society, and any violation of its sacred character brings severe harm—not only inviting the judgment of heaven, but eroding the very peace, health, and stability of the land in which we live.