Children are given a game: a connect-the-dots puzzle. At first glance, the page will merely be a jumble of haphazard dots; nothing will make sense. But when we carefully trace out the numerical interconnections—1, 2, 3, 4—we see a wonderful picture coming from what seemed like meaningless dots. Nowadays, there is a color-by-number game where the page first looks full of meaningless shapes and lines, but when you fill in the proper color, a beautiful peacock appears. As we can see, amazing sights are often concealed in obscure images. Only the children who can connect the dots can see those beautiful pictures. In the same way, the book of Leviticus is God’s connect-the-dots puzzle book. For many, it is all confusing and meaningless, but those who, with the Holy Spirit’s help, can connect the dots, can see amazing sights concealed in obscure images.

We have been connecting dots in chapters 1-7 and saw the marvelous picture of God meeting our great need as defiled sinners through five sacrifices. Then we looked at the colossal value of the high priest’s ministry in chapter 8. As sinners, we can come to God only through sacrifice and the high priest to offer acceptable worship (chapters 9-10). All of this points to the earthly and heavenly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we are cleansed, forgiven, justified, adopted, and brought into the temple of God as His redeemed people to worship and enjoy God’s presence. The God we worship is holy.

After instituting temple worship in chapters 11-16, God now talks about how we should live personally as His holy people. We saw in the last chapter, Leviticus 11, what seemed like irrelevant rituals of clean and unclean animals teaching us the basics of a holy life. As saved people, our great need is to continually enjoy God’s presence and His salvation blessings. Maintaining personal holiness is necessary for experiencing all salvation blessings. Otherwise, remember the seven consequences of sin: displeasure to God, grieving the Holy Spirit, impairment of our comforts and graces, a hardened heart, a wounded conscience, hurting and scandalizing others, and experiencing God’s judgments. So, the God who has drawn near to us in grace, we can draw near to Him by holiness. Fellowship with and enjoying His presence requires holiness. And that is the basic lesson taught in the perplexing chapters of Leviticus 11-16, using animals, childbirth, leprosy, and bodily discharge.

As a saved person, your happiness and peace depend on the continual enjoyment of God’s presence. For that, you should not allow anything unclean to defile you. The problem is that our world is full of unclean things, and we defile ourselves in 101 ways by our actual sins. How do we deal with those actual sins of mind, word, and action that hinder the enjoyment of God’s blessing? How do we live holy? Chapter 11 shows us baby lessons on how to deal with our actual sins. I tried to explain that in the last application with an acronym. A great holiness lesson can be remembered in VWWW. How do we live holy and continually enjoy God’s salvation blessing and presence? Four steps: VWWW. If you ask any saint how he maintains holiness, I am the least, but if any holiness I maintain, it is by these four steps.

V – Vomit

Cultivating a nauseous, hateful sense of sin. The Bible calls us to hate sin. Whatever color the devil paints sin, remember the unclean animals. When you look at a woman with lust, see her as an unclean serpent with poison, or a shrilling lizard. When you see a lizard, you don’t eagerly keep looking at it again and again. It is shrilling, so you turn away. You don’t want to look that way again. In the same way, when you see something that can defile you, like an attractive woman. After a wonderful worship in the morning, I was going along, singing and enjoying God’s presence. We go down Nehru road, and there is a lady in a tight white shirt with large breasts, exposing her chest. Everyone on the road is watching her. If I want to continue to enjoy God’s presence and blessing, I have to turn away as if I see a big lizard or a snake coming from afar. “Oh, a snake.” For some, it is covetousness. You see someone’s house, good clothes, or facilities, and your heart will be defiled by envy. Turn away as if you see a cockroach. See anger as a dead rat. Cultivate a vomiting sense of sin. Run from it as unclean. This is the first step. You will not believe how many sins you can avoid at the root by this first step.

W – Watch and Pray

Realize you are not safe anywhere in this world. Anywhere you go, uncleanness can attack and defile you: even after church, on the road, in a shop, at work, on the bus, on the train, on vacation, on land, in the sky, in the water, even inside your house, on your mobile, or on TV—everywhere in the world. No place is an exception, so always and everywhere, watch and pray so you are not defiled and do not lose God’s presence. Don’t let your guard down and relax.

W – Watch Your Mind

Like clean animals, practice the art of chewing the cud more and more, meditating on truths day and night. Your spiritual mouth should always be chewing, chewing like the man in Psalm 1, meditating on God’s Word day and night. That is how your inner life can be clean. If you don’t meditate, you may look like a decent Christian on the outside, but inside you are full of uncleanness and covetousness. There is no inner holiness without meditation.

W – Watch Your Life

Like clean animals with a cloven hoof, be sure you walk uniquely, not like everyone in the world, but firmly and progressively with a single mind on the path of God. Don’t walk back and forth without an aim. That is an unclean lifestyle.

VWWW consists of practical steps of holiness we learn from Leviticus 11 to deal with actual sins. Now, as we come to chapter 12, it again all seems very irrelevant with some ceremonial rules for the purification of a woman after childbirth. A woman gives birth and gets defiled, and rituals must be followed to cleanse her. But if we take the time to connect the dots, we will see marvelous things in the law of God. We will see how God, in His grace, not only teaches us how to deal with actual sins through clean and unclean animals but also uses natural birth in chapter 12 to show us how to deal with our original sin. It’s a short chapter, but it’s strange. It hits our minds and our hearts.

Let us understand this with two headings: 1. The delivered mother and baby’s unclean days in verses 1-5. 2. The delivered mother’s purification in verses 6-8.

First, come with me to the delivered mother and baby’s unclean days. Verse 2 says, “If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity (period) she shall be unclean.” An Israelite woman giving birth is very common; they bore many children in those old days. Now, if she gives birth, for the first seven days, she is to be unclean, as in the monthly cycle of the flow of blood. Then, verse 3 implies that the baby born is also unclean. So, verse 3 says, “And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” Verse 4 says, “She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days.” So, when a male child is born, it’s one week of impurity, and add to that 33 days, a total period of uncleanness of 40 days in all.

Women who have been pregnant know those 40 days are generally a time for recovering from pregnancy with continual bleeding. During that time, she is unclean. She is not whole; it is a weak time, and her godly privileges are revoked and removed. Verse 4 mentions two things: she shall not touch any hallowed thing. She cannot participate in temple worship, and she couldn’t touch any of the meats that had been offered up for peace offerings during this time. If she was a priest’s wife, she couldn’t take any of the tithes, which were sacred things, nor could she eat any of the first fruits. Secondly, she should not come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. She is to be isolated from the tabernacle, and even society. She is to have no access to the public worship of God. She is cut off from much close social contact, since this would also ceremonially contaminate visitors. So, when someone would come to her house, she had to stay at a distance from them for 40 days. This is all for a male child.

Next, what happens if a female child is born? Verse 5: “But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her customary impurity, and she shall continue in the blood of her purification sixty-six days.” Wow, what is this? Male is 1 week, female is 2 weeks. 33 becomes 66, a total of 40 days for a male, but here it is 80 days for a female. Basically, the unclean period is doubled for a female child. Even though the bleeding may stop within 40 days, she has to be unclean for 80 days. Modern feminists may take this chapter and raise their protests. Why this gender inequality or partiality? Secondly, motherhood in the world is seen as the most sacred time for a woman. Giving birth is such a joy to the whole family. At this joyful event, why is God making such ceremonial laws at this very joyful occurrence?

Commentaries mainly explain the health benefits. Yes, there could be many health benefits and safeguards for the woman and child’s health by following these rules; even modern medicine advises some of them. Women get maternity leave, a good recuperation time, after having gone through a traumatic birth. During this time, she might not be busy with burdensome housework, lifting weights, cooking, or washing dishes. This would enable the woman to be nursed back to normal health. The isolation time with the child allows the woman to focus on her child, bond with the child, and give regular mother’s milk. General isolation can help avoid infections. Yes, there could be many health benefits. But I believe the primary reason is not just for physical health.

The highest priority is not focused on health. Look at verse 4. What does this text emphasize as a high priority? The alienation that she experiences is not primarily for health benefits, but the alienation is rather from Jehovah, His tabernacle, and all His means of grace. She cannot touch any consecrated thing, nor can she enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. The question comes: Why? Keep thinking of that question as we look at the next heading. We have seen the delivered woman and baby’s unclean days in verses 1-5.

Next, the delivered woman and baby’s purification in verses 6-8. After these days—40 for a male, 80 for a female—are completed, verse 6 says, “When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” So, a burnt offering of a lamb, and a sin offering of a pigeon. Verse 7: “Then he shall offer it before the Lord, and make atonement for her. And she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who has borne a male or a female.” Just as an addendum, the last verse, verse 8: “And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.”

Now, this chapter may pose many questions. But when we connect the dots, we see that Leviticus, which we think is the most confusing book, is where God in those early days teaches deep lessons of spiritual realities using visible signs. You know that uncleanness typifies sin in the life of man. In those old days, what would people understand about the lesson of original sin, actual sins, total depravity, and the need for regeneration? But here, God wonderfully, through the birth of every Jewish child, reminds and teaches them these wonderful lessons. Imagine you are a Jewish family with a husband and wife, and the wife gives birth to a child. God designed these rules to teach four deep spiritual lessons.

1. Behold a Lesson of Original Sin

Motherhood is seen as such a sacred thing in every culture, some even see it as a divine act. It is seen as a joyful thing by all of humanity. Why does God institute such barbaric rules? It is as if she has committed some terrible sin by giving birth. This is not an ordinary woman, a mother; not a gentile mother, but a mother of Israel, a covenant mother. She gives birth to a beautiful covenant child, and she becomes unclean not for a day, but for 40 days for boys and 80 days for girls, almost three months. She cannot come to the temple, touch any sacred thing, or any means of grace. Then after 80 days, she has to offer a burnt and sin offering for atonement, and only then can she come back into God’s presence. What is her sin? How do we answer this?

In context, verse 7 may give a basic answer that her flow of blood, bleeding, makes her ceremonially unclean. But the ultimate answer comes to us from Eden. I have titled this “Echoes of Eden in Every Birth,” because in Genesis 3:16, we see that every childbirth’s unbearable pain is a memorial of original sin. The great sin which made all of mankind fall. That sin primarily came from the mother of all women. Eve’s wicked disobedience and the resulting curse. As God spoke directly to Eve after He gave the curse to the serpent, it says in verse 16, “To the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.'” That was the penalty for her sin against the living God.

Oh, you don’t believe in original sin and the curse. It is not a reality for you. However much we teach or say that mankind is fallen, you don’t realize it. You don’t believe the truth of Genesis 3 that original sin affects all of us. When you marry and joyfully expect to have a child, what is God doing by giving all that pain and tension in childbirth? Why do the daughters of Eve bear such a sentence? How many women have asked, “Why should I go through such a terrible time of not only bodily trauma, but also psychological depression, weakness, and pain?” Now, with medical painkillers and anesthesia, it is better. Imagine those days, with no medicines for women. Even now, it is so painful. Which science, culture, or religion can answer? God’s Word alone satisfactorily answers the daughters of Eve that they are bearing the curse of original sin. God painfully reminds you of original sin when He said, “when you eat the fruit, you shall surely die.” Every mother knows from experience that she in a way actually dies and comes to life during that terrible experience. Think of the Jewish woman. On top of physical suffering and depression, during this difficult time, she cannot come to the temple or use any means of grace, but is banished from God’s presence. Oh, when you feel like complaining, “Oh, why 80 days, such a long banishment,” you should realize that the justice rule was, “if you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.” God didn’t kill mankind, but in Genesis 3:24, “So God drove the man out of the Garden of Eden and he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Because of the profound sin of the woman, man was banished from the presence of God. Therefore, now when she gives childbirth, and there is that memorial of her sin, she is banished for a time from the presence of God as a holy reminder of original sin. But there is also grace. We should be eternally banished, but only temporarily for 40 days or 80 days. The 40 indicates a time until atonement is provided. We will see that He provided atonement to come back. This is a God-ordained memorial that the woman deserves banishment from the presence of the living God due to her original sin.

Yes, in the New Testament, this period of isolation, 40 and 80 days, regulation has been lifted in the New Covenant. It says in Hebrews 9:10, “These are regulations passed until a time of reformation.” Yet, there are certain effects of the curse that remain on the female gender to this day. Mothers sitting here, have you asked the question, “Why this pain?” All mothers shrieking in pain late at night ask, “Why, God? Why am I experiencing this pain?” And the biblical woman’s mind goes back to the curse. “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.” Two effects of that curse: The first part says, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.” But the second part says, “In pain, you shall bring forth children.” Just as you broke my heart by becoming a disobedient child, depraved children will be born to you who will be senseless, ungrateful, and repeatedly break your heart. Women, don’t you face this pain with your children? Women know her deepest and most unbearable, most profound and relentless pain through relationships with her children, through the physical and the emotional and the spiritual relationships with children. Yes, this is a sad reality. That’s where she would feel the deepest pain. All these little sinners tearing at your heart, bringing you all the grief and sadness and sorrow. And it has been true throughout all of history. But there is good news in the gospel. There is a remedy. 1 Timothy 2:14-15: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”

Wow! Great hope for a woman in a difficult situation. Women have a hard road, but it can be softened; it can be changed. “Women shall be saved by childbearing.” This does not mean salvation from sin by bearing a child. The context is talking about a woman suffering from Eden’s curse with her children, but they shall be saved from the impact and pain of the Eden curse that comes from children. How? There is one condition: A mother can be delivered from the impact and pain of the Eden curse, the relentless pain and heartbreak coming from children, if she truly repents and is saved. Not just outwardly saying “I am saved,” but if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control over their mouth, hands, and so on. Basically, living as a godly woman, an example to their children. If a woman will live a godly spiritual life before the depraved sinners born to her, you know what will happen? All these little sinners breaking her heart and giving constant grief will, by her example, repent and be saved. Mothers have the greatest impact on their children’s salvation. These children, through your example, will be saved. As believing children, instead of being a pain and a curse, they will be a joy and a blessing. I read that some godly women gave a witness that their relationship with their children didn’t bring much pain to them. God saved them, and the children were a sheer joy to them. You know why? Because the mother, as a godly woman continuing in faith, was delivered from the curse, so the curse is mitigated and you are delivered from its impact. It’s the only way. Her godly example and life will impact the children and bring them to faith, and she will escape from that curse.

2. Behold a Profound Lesson of Total Depravity because of Original Sin

Here, we not only see that the woman cannot enter the presence of God, but even the child born to her cannot. Now this is a striking memorial that birth not only reminds us of the cursed sinfulness of womanhood, but it also reminds us of the cursed sinfulness of her offspring. The child who comes from the womb is also a sinner. You see the beautiful connection to Chapter 11 and this. Chapter 11, with the clean and unclean animals, was a picture of the sin that was external to man, outside of man, reminding us that the world is full of uncleanness that can lead us to commit actual sins. While chapter 11 speaks of that external pollution, now as we come to chapters 12 through 15, we’re going to see the internal pollution. Man’s problem isn’t only environmental, outside. Man’s problem is inside, and he himself as well. That problem starts as soon as he is born. This is a deep lesson of man’s total depravity. Original sin led to original depravity. All of us unconsciously inherited a depraved nature when we were born. A little child pops out of the womb. The child is a depraved sinner. Not by any conscious sin, but by an unconscious inherited nature from Adam. David says the same in Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” In the New Testament in Ephesians 2:3, it says, “We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Some churches teach that a child is considered innocent until maybe 9, 11, or 12 years old when accountability dawns on him. The Bible knows nothing of this. Think of this idea of childbirth. What could be a more joyful event to humanity than the procreation and birth of a little child? But God says even this is laden with accursed realities. Even this! From a man’s beginning as a bloody child to his ending as a dead corpse (we will see a dead body is unclean and anyone who touches it becomes unclean). God shows that man from beginning to end is unclean. In between birth and death, in the next chapters, we’re going to see in 13 and 14 how, like the disease of leprosy, this birth creates a depraved nature of leprosy within a man. And then in chapter 15, through bodily discharges, we are going to see how what comes out of such a man is only unclean and defiled. Beginning, middle, end—all unclean. From the womb to the tomb, everything that man does in the eyes of God is unclean. Everything about man, within and without, is saturated with the sin leprosy that makes him unfit for the presence of God. So, very early in Revelation, in this old book, God teaches in picture form that man’s sin problem is not merely environmental, outside. His sin problem is personal, inside. Man is a veritable fountain of wickedness and sin and is totally depraved. This is an awesome picture lesson of total depravity in Leviticus 12-15. A picture is given to make us realize the despairing hopelessness in ourselves to make ourselves fit to approach the living God who is holy, holy, holy. That is why not only was the woman banished from the presence of Jehovah as a result of original sin, but also all her seed were born estranged and separated and alienated from God as well. They are born as depraved, defiled sinners by original sin. That is why after Genesis 3, in chapter 4, Eve gives birth to a murderer of his own brother, more murderers, more adulterers, until God couldn’t bear it and drowned the whole world, and then had to control Himself by making the rainbow covenant not to destroy them. And so too, there was a necessity not only for the mother to be purified, but the offspring to be purified. So we learn another sad lesson of total depravity. The woman’s suffering is because of original sin, and the child is born with total depravity. Pastor, all bad news—but next we will see two good news.

3. Behold a Lesson of Atonement for the Woman and Child

Oh, think of the mother. My childbirth reminds me I am cursed with original sin, and my child born is also defiled and totally depraved. We cannot go into the temple, are unfit to go into the presence and be blessed by any of the means of grace. What is their one hope of coming back to God’s presence again after 40/80 days? Their one hope was in verse 6: the Lamb of God as a burnt offering! Oh, when we think of the extent of sin, how it has fully saturated us from birth, not left one area—all leprous, defiled us—and we are utterly unfit to come to God. Original sin and original depravity would have excluded us eternally from the enjoyment of God if He had not graciously provided a way of purification. What is our hope? The Lamb of God! In our hopelessness, we find the blessed truth that in this passage, God has yet made a way. The Lamb of God who takes away not only our actual sins, but even original sin. Eve could have cried out, “Oh, Lord, my punishment is great,” but a hope was promised to Eve: one day the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Deliverance will come to the sinful womb. That is why to deliver us from original sin, our Lamb had to be born like us to a virgin. Though He was not conceived in sin, Luke 2:22 says His mother fulfilled the purification days of 40 days and came to the temple. God Himself not only became human to save us, but so poor. So poor were Christ’s parents that they were not able to bring a lamb for a burnt offering but could offer a pair of turtledoves. Joseph and Mary may have felt so bad that they were so poor they could not buy a lamb. Oh, they didn’t realize they were bringing the only true Lamb that day to the temple. He will crush the serpent’s head. Who would have thought that the provision for the poorest people—just the addition in verse 8, “And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons”—was given by God for the Messiah, that He will come so poor for our sakes that He can only offer two pigeons? And that’s just one of the ways this passage is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But He amazingly fulfilled the law for us by becoming our lamb, our burnt offering, and our sin offering. It is because of His life and work on the cross that we can come to God, enjoy the presence of God, and eternally dwell in His house forever. Now, how does God apply the work of the Lamb of God to the depraved child?

4. Behold a Lesson of Regeneration for Born Sinners

The woman is made clean after 40 days, but notice in verse 3 how the child is purified. It is by the ritual of circumcision for the son. It says, “and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” A rite or ritual of purification enabled the boy child access into the presence of God. In Genesis 17, we find that circumcision was the sign of the covenant, indicating that all of Abraham’s seed, all of the male offspring, were to be circumcised, and that gave them access to the temple and all the blessings of God’s salvation because they had the sign of the covenant. And this idea of the cutting off and the removal of a fleshy foreskin—this is profound symbolism. This depicts the Old Covenant concept of new birth and regeneration in a picture form. The putting away of the flesh, the cursed and unclean and corrupt nature we are born with, leaves a remaining tender, sensible heart toward God. It was an outward symbol of an inward reality. We even see in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 10:6 and Jeremiah 4:4, that even to physically circumcised Jews, God repeatedly said, “Circumcise your heart,” “remove the foreskins of your heart,” “stiffen not your neck,” “harden not your heart,” which is equivalent to regeneration. All of this prefigured the new birth. And we find this clearly in the New Testament. In Romans 2, Paul gives this interpretation of Old Covenant circumcision as a symbol for the new birth. Romans 2:28-29 says, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. There’s a deeper relevance to circumcision. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his praise is not from men, but from God.” Colossians 2:11: “In Christ, you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” You see, God in old picture shadows was teaching Israelites that the only way a depraved child can enter the presence of God and be cleansed is through regeneration. The only solution for total depravity is regeneration. You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Whatever you do, even if you become a big religious leader like Nicodemus, you can never enter without regeneration. It was done on the eighth day. Why? The Sabbath was on the seventh. In the next chapters, you will notice repeatedly that for leprosy and other uncleanness, all atonement will happen on the eighth day. See, the Old Testament anticipates something special coming on the eighth. The eighth day starts a new week. God completed all creation work in six days, rested on the seventh day. On the eighth day, the old creation started. Guess why the eighth day is important? A new creation will start on the eighth day. All of this is a picture prefiguring the completion of Christ’s atonement work by rising from the dead on the eighth day, on Sunday. Life-giving resurrection power for the new birth, for the regeneration, the circumcision of the hearts of men, came on the eighth day. It is by His atoning death and resurrection completion that we are circumcised and cleansed and we are able to come into the temple of God and fellowship with God. That is why today we have come to church. What day is this? The eighth day. Why do we gather on the eighth day? There is a profound reason for it. The Old Testament expected special things on this day. The Old Testament defiled people were cleansed and expected the eighth day to enter God’s house. Do you see why the New Testament church met on the eighth day? This New Covenant Sabbath day is holy ground. The eighth day. See, this is our New Covenant Sabbath, not haphazardly changed, but profoundly and theologically changed. We are to take off our sandals and greatly respect this day. It is the Lord’s day, the resurrection day. I hope that helps you understand why it is so important not to sleep and watch TV at home on Sunday, but to come to the house of God in the morning and evening. It is a sacred day. Not haphazardly the eighth day, it’s purposefully. This also answers the question of why 40 days for a male child and double that, 80 days, for a female. The male was purified by being circumcised. But there was no act provided for a female, and God had ordained an additional 40 days for female purification. The mother’s extended separation was so that she might endure a longer sentence not only for her uncleanness, but also for her girl child’s uncleanness. The girl, who wasn’t purified by circumcision, had to be purified by the mother’s extra 40 days. Whether male or female, they both need to be purified. They must be purified either by circumcision or the additional 40 days of uncleanness to enter into the presence of God.

5. Practical Lesson for Parents

We need to learn to prudently walk based on the reality that our children are born totally depraved. Some parents go completely wrong by thinking their children are divine beings and give everything to them. No, our children are depraved. Knowing this should result in: Lowered Expectations of Innate Goodness: Realism, not Cynicism. Parents are less likely to be shocked or disillusioned by a child’s selfish, defiant, or manipulative behavior. They understand that these are manifestations of an inherent sin nature, not just a phase or a reaction.

Lowered expectations of innate goodness: Realism, not cynicism. Parents are less likely to be shocked or disillusioned by a child’s selfish, defiant, or manipulative behavior. They understand that these are manifestations of an inherent sin nature, not just a phase or a reaction to bad parenting.

Our only hope for such children is not allowing them to do what they want; our only hope is regeneration. As loving parents, knowing their sad condition—born in sin, alienated from God, accursed under the wrath of God, and hellbound—we need to take out the sharp two-edged knife of God’s word and keep using it on their hearts. We pray that God may one day remove the foreskin of their hearts, circumcise their hearts, and give them new birth. Every time sinful flesh shows its face, we need to wisely and regularly learn to use the knife and show them their heart.

Day and night, we must teach them God’s word. We apply the sword, that sharp edge, to the heart of our child in family devotions. We bring them to Sunday school. They will not want to go to a church with no dancing, jokes, or entertaining messages, and less Bible study. Oh, if we love their souls, we bring them to a church where the sword of God’s word is applied to their hearts, shows them their sin, and regularly brings them to preaching services where the knife is repeatedly applied, and we pray that God should regenerate them. That is the only hope. God’s word is the only means he uses to circumcise the hearts of our children. That is why we don’t do anything else.

How foolish for some parents to take their children to churches because Bible study is boring and they want lively worship. As parents, it is so cruel as pushing our own child into hell. The Old Testament says, “Woe be to the indolent and lazy father who didn’t take out the knife and circumcise his son.” That child had no purification and no access to the presence of God. God even went to kill Moses because he didn’t circumcise his child.

And I say in the New Covenant, woe be to the father and mother who, because of laziness, indolence, or lack of will, don’t take out the sword and daily apply it to the heart of their son and daughter, hoping that the Spirit of God will so press it in that the foreskin of their sinful heart will be thrown away and a sensitive tenderness will come.

May we not be fathers who, on the last day, our son stands before us at judgment, uncircumcised in his heart, and says, “Dad, why didn’t you pull out the knife and lay it to my heart?” May it be on the other hand that we will be able to see our offspring on the last day and say, “Thank you, Dad. I got a circumcised heart, and I bless you that when I got it, when I walked along the way, when I sat down, and when I bent down at night, there was always the double-edged sword at my heart. And bless God, it was applied to my effectual salvation.”

May God help us as we look at this symbolized reality of original sin.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

We live in a day of diets: the Keto diet, Paleo diet, Low Carb, and fasting diets. Today, in chapter 11 of Leviticus, we will see the Mount Sinai Diet given by the Lord. Chapter 11 is the third division of the book of Leviticus. So far, we have seen the first two divisions. The first one, Leviticus 1-7, covered the five great personal sacrifices and the need of a High Priest for sinners to gain God’s favor and enjoy God’s presence. Then we moved into the second section, Leviticus 8-10, which covered the installation of the tabernacle, the first inauguration of the Aaronic priesthood, and the first worship of the people of God. Now that the temple is erected and they have worshipped the true God, the next beautiful, logical step, in chapters 11-15, is for God to teach his people how they should live by avoiding uncleanness in every area of life and living holy. We read in the previous chapter, in verse 10, that one duty of the priests was to teach Israel to distinguish between “the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” These next chapters provide the teaching about discernment.

The people of God at that early time were spiritually just a toddling, immature child. God uses visible signs of clean and unclean food, diseases like leprosy, the childbirth process, and bodily discharges to teach them important truths. A superficial reading may make it all seem irrelevant to us, but with the Holy Spirit’s help, I believe we can see many wonderful truths that are very relevant to our practical lives as God’s people. We can learn basic lessons on how to live holy, shown clearly as you would teach a small child. So you have to patiently learn and dig for the truths in these chapters.

Chapter 11 talks about the dietary laws in Israel; it is very puzzling to many people. Each commentary will say different things about clean and unclean animals. One great question everyone asks is, “Why is this one clean, and that one is unclean?” Let us see if we can find the answer.

The whole chapter is divided into three sections. First of all, in verses 1-23, we notice the distinction between clean and unclean. Then, in 24-43, we see the instruction in case you defile yourself with unclean things, how to treat that pollution. And now, the third main division, 44-47, gives the explanation of how they should be so careful about their cleanliness and holiness.

Let us first understand the first section, 1-23, and then we will see the second and third sections next week, and we will also see the marvelous spiritual and practical application for living a holy life. Because of English and other languages, I don’t want this to be long.

First of all, in verses 1-23, we notice the distinction between clean and unclean. You will notice the distinction is given according to three categories that are used in the creation account. Three spheres we will see in verses 1-23. There are 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. Animals are divided into three parts. Verses 1-8, we see creatures of the land discussed.

Now, there are two specific distinguishing features that determine whether or not a creature of the land is clean or unclean. For something to be clean, two things are needed: verse 3 says, “Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—Those are clean and that you may eat.”

The hoof must be divided, meaning the animal’s feet divide into two and look like two toes, and it also must be a ruminator, one who, like a cow, eats the grass but doesn’t immediately swallow, it keeps chewing on it again and again. So clean animals have two features: all that have a split hoof and chew the cud, and there are edible animals like the oxen, the sheep, and goats. These are creatures of the land that are edible.

Now, there are other unclean creatures that are inedible. How do we know they are unclean? They may neither chew the cud nor have a split hoof. Donkeys and horses all do not have two toe nails. That is unclean. Some animals may chew the cud, like the camel, but it does not have two toes; it may seem like two toes, but the foot is one, it just has two nails in front. For an animal to be clean, it must have both these two traits: the split hoof and chewing the cud. If it fails to possess both features, it is unclean. Remember this, it has amazing truths for us. Under unclean animals fall the camel, the rabbit, the pig, the donkey, and horses. You should not eat them. So all of this is for land animals.

The second group of animals is water animals, in verses 9-12. The distinguishing features here are different. It is not a split hoof and chewing cud. Here it is the issue of fins and scales. Verse 9: “‘These you may eat of all that are in the water: whatever in the water has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers—that you may eat.'” Fins are the wings of a fish, which makes it swim, and scales are on the body of the fish, which we brush and clean when we buy fish. If it is to be clean, it has to have both fins and scales. It has to have an appendage coming out from its body that propels it through the water, fins. And it also has to have scales, which is skin overlapping like flakes.

Clean animals, which have both fins and scales, are different fishes, and salmon, and mackerel, sheer fish, Sheela, catla. All of these are clean. However, there are certain types which do not have such, a shrimp, squid, octopus, crab, frog. It doesn’t have fins or scales. These are said to be detestable and abhorrent, even a stronger word than unclean. Oh, what have you said, pastor, I love shrimp, squid. Wait for some time.

So we see land and water. The third category of animals, clean and unclean, is creatures of the air, in verses 13-23. Birds are spoken of. And all birds which are scavengers or birds of prey, these are unclean. Verse 13, you see a list: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the kite, and the falcon after its kind; every raven after its kind; the list goes on.

Then, verse 20, other creatures of the air, not only birds, but what else flies? Well, insects fly. And so, too, certain distinguishing features of the insects. If they are to be clean, they must not be both winged and walk on all fours. If it’s winged and walks on all fours, with four legs of equal size without thighs, it is considered to be detestable and unclean, such as the mosquito. It has wings, but it also walks on fours. Some have six legs. Mainly, I think it is flies that also walk. Those are unclean.

What insects are clean? Verse 21: “Yet these you may eat of every flying insect that creeps on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth.” These would be insects that have legs, but they also have large legs in the back, which enable them to hop. And these would be the locust, the cricket, and the grasshopper, and they are clean.

So these are clean and unclean animals on land, in water, and in the air.

Application

How do we apply this? If you read most commentaries, each commentary takes a single view. Some groups say, “These are only dietary regulations we should follow for good health,” but that contradicts New Testament Bible teaching, which clearly reveals we are freed from these ceremonial dietary rules. Then some say, “God wants to keep them as a distinct people, unlike unclean gentiles eating everything, even worshiping some of these unclean animals, like snakes. They have to be clean, like Daniel guarded himself from unclean food.” Some say, “God arbitrarily, for no reason, made this rule. There is nothing in the animals themselves, but God wants to test their obedience.” And then some say, “It has no dietary applications, only allegorical spiritual explanation.” We have to take a biblical balance and compare it with other scriptures and apply this to our lives. When you see other passages and church history, I believe there is truth in each of those aspects. A biblical balance is not seeing them as a single thing but integrating and blending all these approaches. Yes, there is a hygiene lesson. Yes, God wants to keep his people holy from gentiles by food. Yes, God wants to test their obedience. And yes, there are also important spiritual lessons. We will focus on two applications: hygiene and then the spiritual application.

Dietary Rules and Hygiene

Should we follow these diet rules? The New Testament clearly reveals we are freed from these ceremonial dietary rules. Matthew 15:4 declares that all foods are clean. In Acts 10:15, remember God gave a vision to Peter. He’s hungry, people are making preparations to eat, but there’s no food for him yet. He falls into a trance, and in Acts 10:11, he beholds “the sky opened up and a certain object like a great sheet comes down, and lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.” And a voice came to him and said, “Arise, Peter, kill and eat!” Now, listen to that description of what’s on that sheet: “…all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.” These are things right out of the unclean foods list in Leviticus 11, and yet the voice from heaven says, “Peter, arise and eat.” And how does Peter respond? “‘By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.'” And the answer comes in verse 15: “‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.'” God taught him a dietary lesson, that these Old Testament diet rules are not applicable. Paul explains this in Galatians and Romans 14. The New Testament makes it clear we are free to eat anything. So if you like shrimp or squid, don’t be discouraged.

But is there no dietary value in these rules? No, the Bible and history show there is definitely a dietary value in these rules. In those olden times, when they were vulnerable and out of the desert, they didn’t have high-tech medical care or vaccinations, where people were dying with all kinds of viruses from animals. Remember our latest coronavirus came from bats, which is an unclean animal mentioned in verse 18. If the Chinese would have followed Leviticus 11, we wouldn’t have a global pandemic. In those olden days, God was careful to preserve his people from diseases so there would not be an outbreak of many plagues among God’s people.

Even today, nutritionists caution us to avoid some meat. For example, eating pork, unless it is thoroughly cooked, can bring about trichinosis, where worms multiply, travel through the bloodstream to muscle tissues throughout the body, stay for many years, and bring terrible suffering later. It is a very serious disease, especially in warmer climates. We talk about swine fever. Also, think of the idea of a mosquito. A mosquito is a blood-sucking insect that can spread malaria by biting us. What if we catch and eat it? So it is unclean.

But what is a locust? What does a locust eat? A locust is a herbivore. A locust eats corn and other types of foliage. And you can see, common sense, one is clean, nutritionally and hygienically, while one is unclean. You think of how a dead rat in a moist flour barrel could result in great tragedy. Zoologists tell us scavenger birds and unclean animals carry a very high load of parasites; therefore, they are a threat to health. It doesn’t mean other animals like chickens don’t have these viruses, but the unclean ones have more.

If you met a Jew, you would know he would be very fastidious about swarming cockroaches and bugs, and that kind of fastidiousness would keep them from bacteria-infested vermin. Historians tell us of the striking health of the Jewish people through the Middle Ages, when plagues frequently decimated the continent of Europe. Kellogg says this: “Even so long ago as the days when the plague was desolating Europe, the Jews so universally escaped infection that, by this their exemption, the popular suspicion was excited into fury, and the Jews were accused of causing the fearful plague among their Gentile neighbors by poisoning the wells and springs.” They were not much affected by the plague; most people thought that they were the ones who were spreading this, trying to decimate everyone else so they could have all the money and all the prosperity of the land.

History tells us Jews were so much healthier than the Gentile population. In fact, in Hungary, in the 1800s, there was nearly double the life expectancy of an individual if they were a Jew, as opposed to being from another Gentile nation. In fact, for years and years, life insurance charts were distinct for Jews, because they themselves lived longer.

I am simply saying I believe these general principles and categories were a means of blessing to his people with scientifically and medically sound diets thousands of years before the microscope was invented or bacteriology was developed. God gave them sound diets, and they didn’t fully understand why, but it was for their good.

Yes, in the New Testament, Christ has delivered us from all these regulations, so can we go and eat daily pork, mosquitoes, and rats? No. Just because we have the freedom to eat anything, it doesn’t mean we can eat anything to spoil our health. Some of these diet rules are good. A clear application to us in the New Testament from this chapter is that it shows God is very concerned about our health and what we eat, and we should learn a lesson about physical diet.

On one side, we have to take seriously God’s law, “Thou shall not murder,” and ensure our diets are balanced with fruits, vegetables, and meats. So you don’t suffer later. No vegetables, fruits, only chicken, meat. You may not feel anything now, but over time, there will be big nutritional deficiencies. After some age, you have to eat a box of medicines like food for not eating fruits. No fibers, so the digestive system becomes weak as you age. Vitamin A, B, C, D, K, all weaken your immune system. Mineral deficiency weakens blood circulation and bodily functions as you age. Magnesium causes muscle cramps and fatigue. Calcium from leafy greens strengthens bones. Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants, which prevent toxins from filling the body. So heart problems, diabetes, kidney, bone, and skin problems. Later, you wonder why you have so many problems. All points to your intake. I know relatives who were trying to be frugal, not eating good fruits, and later kept spending a lot of money on medicine. So God cares for your health. So eat balanced food. Don’t eat anything that will harm your health. If you have no care and are just eating whatever tastes good, don’t blame God and murmur! You are reaping what you sowed.

On another side, we have to be careful not to spoil Christian liberty in Christ, not to make any rules in the church about what people should or should not eat. 1 Timothy 4 says one of the teachings of false prophets, which are doctrines of demons, forbids marriage and advocates abstaining from foods which God has created, to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. We have that Christian liberty in the New Testament, no rules, but take care of your health.

So that is the first point, food regulation and hygiene.

The Great Lesson of Holiness

This and coming chapters will be a great spiritual lesson on living holy lives. I can say this because see what is the purpose of all this, Lord. 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.”

We have seen the intent of Leviticus is to teach us spiritual things in a baby language. I believe we have here profound spiritual lessons of holy living. The Lord is as if teaching the ABCs of holiness. Yes, we are positionally saved, but our walk with God and experience of salvation depends on personal holiness, right? Clean means fit for God’s presence, and, therefore, unclean means unfit for God’s presence. And anyone who was unclean or who had come into contact with uncleanness was unfit for public worship, unfit to come into the presence of God. The basic idea is that God himself is holy. He is clean. If we have to regularly commune with God and enjoy his presence, we have to strive for holiness. “Pastor, can you teach me basic lessons on how I can live holy?” Leviticus teaches baby lessons.

There are at least three basic lessons we can learn from this chapter: Watch, Watch, and Watch. Watch and pray. Watch your mind. Watch your walk. We will see the first lesson today.

Firstly, the first lesson of holiness. If you start taking holiness seriously and want to obey God, it all starts with watchfulness—”Watch and pray so you do not enter into temptation.” How does watchfulness come? When you are conscious of danger, uncleanness, and sin always around you. I have been teaching that our spiritual growth depends on how our sensitiveness to sin grows. The more we are sensitive to sin, the more we will grow in God’s grace and holiness. The more insensitive, the more sin is hardening.

We clearly see in this old chapter, God is teaching this clean and unclean to keep his people always conscious that they were in the neighborhood of sin. God is making his people sensitive to sin everywhere in this world. Think of a Jew. A Jew wanting to follow these rules, the next passage will say he shouldn’t even touch unclean animals. A Jew walks on a beautiful road, meditating on God’s word and praising God, but behold, there comes a group of pigs coming opposite to him. “Ah, these unclean animals, that will defile me,” so he has to carefully walk far away, not to touch the unclean. Then he goes to a beautiful flower garden; there are insects among the flowers. “That is unclean.” He should be careful. Then in the summer, he goes to play in the river, lake, or sea. All those creatures in the water without scales or fins were unclean to him. He should not allow a frog or crab to touch him in the water. It is said Hebrew boys would not even play in such standing waters because of this. Oh, he thinks, “Everywhere I go, I see uncleanness that defiles me.” Oh, he thinks, “Let me go out in the wilderness, no uncleanness will come.” Behold, there he sees a camel, a “ship of the desert,” coming. “Ah, an unclean animal.” Then, “cha…” He climbs a tall mountain. “Ah, no one here, I can be clean and meditate on God with a pure mind.” Then, next to his rock, a group of crows comes and sits on the rock next to him. “Ah, unclean.” “Ayo Lord, this world is full of uncleanness.” And at least he lifts his eye up to heaven to see heaven, but behold, there are vultures flying along through the air, and he says, “Ah! there is an emblem of sin there!” Then he comes home frustrated and closes his door and sits and thinks, “Oh, now nothing unclean will come to me.” Then, buzzing around him, even if it doesn’t touch it, mosquitoes bite him. “Ah, ah!” he says, “unclean. Unclean, unclean. There is sin everywhere.”

Everywhere he would come in contact with some creature that would render him ceremonially unclean. 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. Just as a Jew who wants to be holy, we have to be conscious and watchful, otherwise, he will be defiled by this world.

Yes, our Lord said in the New Testament that defilement doesn’t come from outside, but comes from our heart, but temptations to provoke our wicked heart come from the world. There is no place in the world which is safe, where we will not meet something that will defile us. Is this not our experience? Sometimes, you get all alone and quiet, but do not imagine that you are even there free from sin. As the most beautiful landscape, so the sweetest retirement cannot shut out uncleanness. As the fly or the insect would intrude and defile a Jew’s worship, so sin will haunt and molest us even in the closet of devotion.

So the first baby step if you really want to be holy is to leave all your careless, easy-going attitude. Get up, Christians, and be upon your watchtowers. You may sleep, but your enemies never will. You may suppose yourselves safe, but then you are most in danger. In Ephesians, we have put on the full armor of God and are armed from head to foot, and having done all, we must watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.

Every morning we ought to ask the Lord to keep us from unknown sins, to preserve us from temptations that we cannot foresee, to check us in every path of life if we are about to go wrong, and to hold us up every hour that we sin not. Like we studied this morning, 1 Peter 1:17: “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Watch and pray, watch and pray so you don’t enter into temptation and defile yourself.

Finally, for those who are still not saved, you know what you need. The Lord needs to bring your sin before you. I wish that some of my hearers had sin before their eyes now. Oh! you that trifle with it, you do not know what it is! Fools make a mockery of sin. You laugh at it now—you do not understand what a fire it is that you have kindled to consume your soul! Oh! you that think it is such a little thing, but its deadly poison will soon envenom all your blood, and then you will discover that he that plays with sin plays with damnation.

May the Lord set sin straight before your eyes, and then set the cross of Christ there too, and so you will be saved.

We have been examining the Pentecostal movement. I said we would state the problem, the solution, and the benefits of the solution. We saw the problem last week. There are two problems: According to the Regulative Principles of acceptable worship, they are false worshipers not following any biblical principles. We also saw that when testing them against the gold standard of the Sermon on the Mount, the summary of the essence of biblical truths, they fail in everything Jesus Christ taught in that sermon. Starting from true spirituality—the internal state of every true religion the Holy Spirit creates, which is poor in spirit, mourning for sin, meekness, and hungering and thirsting after righteousness—because they don’t have this godly internal biblical spirituality, they also fail in every outward rule. Whether it is an act of charity, prayer, or fasting, everything is done in a manner exactly opposite to the Lord’s commands.

What makes our blood boil is how they casually treat the Scripture. The Lord Jesus gave such great importance to Scripture. How did Jesus, God’s own Son, who had the most direct revelation and experiences from God—heaven opened, the Holy Spirit came on Him, He heard a voice from heaven, and He spoke with Moses and Elijah directly—how did that Jesus see the Bible? He used the most powerful language to emphasize the great importance of Scripture.

Just after the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5:18, He says, “I myself, the Son of God, came not to destroy, I came into the world to fulfill Scripture.” “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” He who breaks one of the least of these commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Look at His powerful conviction about the permanence of Scripture. Heaven and earth will pass away, but not one jot or tittle. A jot is the smallest letter in Hebrew, a tittle is a small dot used to distinguish certain letters, to say not one dot. Jesus so emphasized the importance of Scripture. He saw Scripture as so important that even a small period or comma He observed in His study, and He carefully saw not only the meaning of the words and context, but even the meaning of the punctuation. Even that was inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is the conviction of our forefathers, the reformers who gave their whole lives and risked their lives day and night for Sola Scriptura. Wycliffe, with no printing press, wrote with his own hands. Read what William Tyndale had to go through to give us the English Bible; every page of the English Bible has the blood of William Tyndale. They took so much pain so that every word and punctuation in the original is translated accurately, so you and I can read God’s Word in our language and understand and know Scripture.

What makes our eyes shed tears of blood is to see how this group treats Scripture. They give importance to their direct experiences. There is absolutely no honor for scriptural truth among them. They continuously attack everything our reformers gave their lives for: the authority, sufficiency, clarity, and finality of Scripture. Forget about punctuation, they have no respect for its grammar, literary style, or context. They just take the holy, infallible Scriptures only as a pickle, tear it out of context, take one verse here, one verse there, and babble whatever comes to their depraved minds so people will clap for them. Their treatment of Scripture is appalling. There is no verse-by-verse preaching. Christ says every small letter will be fulfilled. All this Scripture says will be fulfilled. The same Scripture says Christ will say to them one day, “I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.”

The Lord repeatedly, eight times in this sermon, says not to worry about what you eat, drink, or wear—the worldly worries about jobs, money, and family needs. “Seek my kingdom and my righteousness first, and all these things will be added to you.” Why shouldn’t you seek these things? Matthew 6:32 says, “For after all these things the Gentiles seek.” Those who are not born again, who are not poor in spirit, do not mourn, or do not hunger and thirst for righteousness—they seek this always. What do we see in their sermons and prayers? They only seek blessings, what they will eat, money, jobs, promotions, health, and success. Jesus says that is a sign of a group that is not born again. They are not children of the kingdom.

The saddest and most heartbreaking reality is that the Lord shows the end of this group. See the depth of their deception. They will even go to the judgment and not just a few, but many will say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” At least most false religions will have a conscience and know a little bit in their hearts that they are not going to go to heaven. But this religion so blinds people and never allows them to see the condition of their hearts. Even on Judgment Day, they have not come out of deception, until the Lord says in Matthew 7:23, “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'” You never had a saving relationship. If you had known Me, your relationship to the law would be different. What law? It is again the Scripture that says heaven and earth will pass away. They completely ignored and broke it. Their worship was lawless, their sermon was lawless, their songs were lawless, and their lives are a practice of lawlessness. They are not according to the infallible Scripture.

Do you see this is the problem statement: the current state and problem statement? If you have to test any group, you have to first test it with Scripture, and secondly, you have to test them with church history. We can actually do another sermon on that, but they will completely fail the church history test. People will be shocked that before the 19th century, there was nothing called Pentecostalism. They can trace their roots only to false teachers like Montanism and other false groups. Before the 19th century, there was nothing called Pentecostalism; it spread like wildfire only after the 19th century. None of the great reformers—Calvin, Luther, Bunyan, Spurgeon, or the Puritans who lived the most holy lives—never spoke in tongues, and never did what these people did.

So we see the problem statement. Why should we see this? We are learning this so we know its danger and do not flatter them by saying, “Oh yes, you also worship the same Jesus.” I am outrightly telling people, “You are in a false movement, that preacher is a false teacher.” You may not realize it now, but one day you will. At that time, don’t tell me I didn’t warn you; I don’t want your blood on my hands. If any of them are hearing this audio/video or if any of you are talking to them, if someone by God’s grace asks, “What shall we do? What is the solution?”

Let us see the solution the Lord gives in the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord says in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” What can you and I tell our Pentecostal friends when they say, “How can you ever say that we are wrong?” “Oh, don’t believe anything I say, but can you do three things?” Can I call the solution ERT: Examine, Repent, Trust—not Emergency Response Team, but Examine, Repent, Trust.

1. Examine

The Lord says, “Enter through the narrow way.” Realize there is only one way to heaven. There are two roads you can walk in this life. The broad one may seem fun and jolly; they promise it will take you to heaven. What is one sign of that road the Lord says? Many will go on that way; crowds. It promises to take us to heaven and may seem right to us, but it will lead to hell. There is another way, narrow, which leads to life. He says only a few even find it, but that will lead to life. Why? The next verse says in Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” False prophets make it so hard to find the way of life. How can I know if I am on the wrong road? The first thing is to examine. Examine two things: examine your heart and examine your way. If you notice, those preachers never tell people to self-examine. They create a false sense of salvation and belonging and keep reinforcing that. Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith.” First, examine your heart. The reason why such false worship is so attractive to people is because you have never truly repented and are not truly saved. First, examine whether you are truly saved. Oh, I know some of them will say, “Come on.” But there is nothing more important than examining the state of your own soul before you die. What will you do when the Lord says, “I never knew you”? You cannot live forever in deception. You must one day die. You cannot avoid the judgment after death. You must stand before the tribunal of Christ. You can escape the summons of the Supreme Court, but not the court of Christ. The state of your own soul must one day undergo a thorough investigation. It will be found out one day what you are in God’s sight. Your spiritual condition will at last be brought to light before the whole world. Oh, find out what it is now! While you have time and health, find out the state of your soul. You think you will go to heaven, but you are being deceived. What will you do at the last time when Christ says, “I never knew you,” and you are thrown into eternal, unquenchable hell fire where the worms never die? Second, examine your way. Are you on the broad way to destruction or the narrow way to heaven? 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Test all things carefully, hold firmly to that which is good.” 1 John 4:1: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” With what should you examine? You test it with Scripture. The authority of the Bible: The Bible should be the ultimate authority in matters of faith and practice. The reason you are being deceived is because you are so biblically illiterate and never learned the Bible properly. Start reading the Bible; examine what is the true gospel that the Bible teaches. Why did Jesus come and die for us? Please, please give some time to understand the truths taught in the Bible. Don’t live so blindly like you are living in the Middle Ages. This group is deceiving your mind because of a lack of reading. Read and get to know biblical truths. Any group that claims to be a true religion should be able to trace back its beliefs throughout 2,000 years of church history. There is tons and tons of literature for you to read or hear about God’s Word and to understand the truth. Do some reading online, watch some online videos about preachers who teach the basic truths of the Bible. Start listening to good Bible sermon videos from RC Sproul or Paul Washer. Listen to the series on the Strange Fire Conference by the world-famous Bible preacher, MacArthur. They will help you to see how these systems are completely wrong. Most in Western countries have realized it; it is only in India that we don’t read and are stuck. John Piper says there are four things to identify false preachers: 1. No robust doctrine of suffering: “You must enter the kingdom through many tribulations” (Acts 14:21). In this world, you will have tribulation. They fill you with wrong expectations—no suffering, no sickness—and you will be completely disillusioned and not know how to handle it when it happens. 2. No clear call to deny yourself: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” 3. No serious exposition: Does the preaching take the Bible seriously by explaining what is really there in the text? 4. Exorbitant lifestyles and too much focus on self. Don’t be so naive. Of course, if you like, you can listen to our sermons. I can guarantee if you listen to ten sermons from our church, you will know what biblical preaching means. When you go to church, don’t allow your mind to be numbed by the musical manipulation of praise and worship. Don’t become emotional in church. If you are emotional, you will not think. So, start examining everything the preacher says to see if it is truly coming from the Bible. See our LAC video. See if he is preaching with literary style and context. Be like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures to see if even what the Apostle Paul said was true. The Holy Spirit appreciated them as noble-minded. So first, Examine. If you honestly examine your heart and your way, I can assure you God will definitely open your eyes and give you discernment to see whether you are on the right way.

2. Repent

Repent and turn back. If you are going on the wrong road leading to destruction, the only solution is to turn back and repent. Don’t continue on that road, however attractive or difficult. Turn back. If you discover that some of your beliefs contradict the Bible, be willing to repent and change them. It may even involve leaving that church. That is how reformation can start in your life. This is very dangerous. Repent and Trust in the true gospel of Christ. Trust in the true gospel. The gospel which talks about the work of Christ on the cross as your atoning sacrifice for your sins. Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins, to deliver us from all these false ways. Only when you repent of your sins can you see the way of destruction and turn from it. Only when you repent and trust, you will choose the narrow way that leads to life. The Lord says, “Enter through the narrow way.” Why narrow? It is a metaphor. If it is narrow, what does that mean? You cannot come with that mass crowd, mass hypnotism, with all your family and friends, to enjoy entertainment in the name of worship. No, true salvation is intensely personal; it is not mass manipulation. You have to personally choose and enter alone. It’s not a group event. You leave the crowd behind—the mass hysteria, the rock concert. Stop rushing into a maddening crowd all your life trying to belong to the group. This is not mass manipulation. For the first time in your life, you stop rushing with the crowd, turn, and follow the Lord’s way. Secondly, the way is narrow because you have to leave the baggage of all false teaching and believe only what the Bible says. That is the narrow way. It’s very constricted. What constricts it? The Word of God. We test everything strictly by God’s Word. You have to walk in the narrow way. Your beliefs have to be narrow—Scripture alone. In the broad way, there is plenty of room for diverse doctrine. You can believe just about anything you want. “Let’s not judge anyone; let us not argue about doctrines; let us love everyone; accept everyone.” No, that’s the broad way. “Sure, just come along. Whatever you believe is fine.” But that’s how the broad way works. Not in the narrow way. You have to believe the truth, only the truth, and read, hear, speak, and preach truth alone. Anything away from the truth is false. So, Examine, Repent, and Trust—in the Lord’s words, enter the narrow way. So we have seen the problem statement and the solution. Now, the benefits.

Benefits

What are the benefits of the narrow way? Yes, that will lead you to life, eternal life. Let me show you the blessings of that way in our passage in Leviticus 10. I know this series and this chapter have been negative, but I think there is a wonderful positive in this passage. If you repent of these practices—unbiblical, man-centered, and mindless worship—God not only shows mercy and forgives all your sins, but God comes running to you like the prodigal’s father, embraces you, and welcomes you to a true feast. So I titled this message, “Father’s Feast or False Worship.” Oh, if you can just have one taste of the Father’s feast, you will feel like vomiting when you think of false worship. Come back to the Father’s Feast. A comforting reassurance. Let us see the passage. Imagine Aaron and his remaining sons. Their two sons offered strange fire, wrong worship, and they are dead now. Aaron and his two remaining sons’ hearts are broken. They surely must have repented and felt guilty about what their sons had done. You read of God’s comforting assurance to them through Moses in verses 12-15. There is a reassurance first of all regarding the grain offering. Verse 12: “And Moses spoke to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons who were left: ‘Take the grain offering that remains of the offerings made by fire to the Lord, and eat it without leaven beside the altar; for it is most holy.'” Verse 13: “You shall eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due, of the sacrifices made by fire to the Lord; for so I have been commanded.” He says, “Take the grain offering,” then he says, “eat the breast and thigh.” You can count five times that there is the emphasis that says, “for it is your due,” “allotted for you,” “prepared for you.” God calls, “Come to the table.” “Eat it in the holy place, it is your due. It is your sons’ due. It is your portion; it was their privilege. It was their property.” Grain, breast, and thigh—it is perpetually your due to have these portions. God had said this is their due in chapters 6-7 again and again. Why do you think God reiterated these things at this moment? We see great compassionate sensitivity and grace of God here. The Lord knows the hearts of all men. If your heart is broken because of false worship, the Lord knows your heart today. The Lord knew what was going on in the hearts of Aaron and his sons. They were not arrogant and unrepentant like so many, saying, “Oh, what wrong did we do? Why should we repent?” Aaron’s heart is broken in repentance. “Oh, I was such a horrible, undeserving person, I already made a calf and made all of Israel sin against God. But even though I don’t deserve it, He elected me and my family to such a height as high priest and priests. Now my sons have sinned so shamefully.” We know how much we as fathers feel the behavior of our sons; we blame ourselves. So Aaron must have thought, “By offering strange fire, we have broken God’s strict law of worship where He punishes the third and fourth generation. Now God will surely reject me. We will lose all privileges by that awful sin that had been committed. Maybe the earth will open and hell will swallow us like Dathan and Abiram.” There was no doubt a trembling and an insecurity. The same God who killed arrogant sons who offered arrogant, strange fire, when we come to Him with a contrite heart, God is gracious and compassionate and abounding in love. We see that He reassures His sinful servants that their privileges remain as full as ever. With this reassurance, God, as it were, wipes their invisible tears and heals their emotional wounds with continuing love and friendship. See, if you may have been caught up in this movement for many years, doing wrong things, going with the crowd. If you repent and come back to God with a contrite heart, He will shower such true gospel and true blessings and make you enjoy a true feast! Oh, false worshipers, you have no idea of the Father’s feast. He says, “Take the grain offering, breast, and thigh. It is prepared for you.” Remember, all this points to the gospel blessings in Christ’s work on the cross. Christ is the true bread of life, He is our grain. The breast is His eternal love. The thigh is His strength. You feast on that. I welcome you to gospel blessings. The true gospel not just meets your superficial physical needs, but it meets your deepest spiritual, social, and psychological needs, and of course, physical, but that is last. We are studying in Ephesians. Oh, how cheap prosperity preaching seems compared to the infinite, eternal blessings God has given. Let me tell you, those people who say “we are enjoying” do not know anything of true kingdom joys. All their joy is animal tingling to the senses, feeling emotions, music concert highs. They really don’t know what a true soul feast in God’s house is. The feast that comes from God’s Word. “Man shall not live by bread alone,” but by “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” They are only focused on bread, not the Word. When His truth is understood with a discerning mind, that truth doesn’t just touch the senses and skin and make you feel “kundali” senses, but truth pierces through the deepest heart and conscience and transforms your soul. It meets your deepest needs. What joy! Every week we are enjoying this. I see when I wish each of you, “Oh, what joy,” a beautiful joy you go home with. So satisfied that your soul is fattened with the feast of God! Some of our most eager, active, sacrificial, and committed members are people who come out of Pentecostalism, right? Not people who have always been here. Like my wife says, “You are eating good food, and you have not realized its value. I will stop cooking for three months, then you will know.” So some don’t realize the value. But people, when they come out of such Pentecostal churches, always hearing “miracle, miracle” and “blessing, blessing,” all superficial messages, when they hear God’s Word preached, they drink deeply as if they have been thirsty for months. They hear four or five sermons every day, and they find an ocean of truth. There is no limit to their joy in learning the truth. On one side, there is great pain for so many years wasted, but on another side, there is so much joy knowing these precious truths. They know the value of truths more than older people. Oh, false worshipers, come back to the Father’s feast. You don’t know what you are missing. The mountain peak joy of being an elect of God. The joy of forgiveness of all past, present, and future sins. No music joy, worldly blessing, or anything in the world is comparable. Complete atonement, the joy of standing as justified before God. To feel the peace of God beyond all understanding, no loneliness anywhere in the world. The joy of being adopted by God. The Father’s assurance that all my needs the Father will meet; I don’t have to bribe any pastor. Eternal life removes the fear of death. All this you cannot enjoy in that false religion. It comes through the cross of Christ and the heavenly ministry of Christ. That is why God invited Aaron to the Old Testament rituals. Today, we can enjoy the fulfillment of all by faith in Jesus Christ’s work. All this outward music and outward show completely quenches the spirit of faith and never allows us to enjoy. Sadly, people in that movement absolutely don’t know what they are missing. By offering strange fire, they are missing all of God’s feast, the feast of true worship, the feast of truth, and the blessings that come from truth. They have been eating unsound, unhealthy, poisonous food. Here, God says, “Come to the feast.” Just like God said to Aaron, “When you have repented of the false worship of your sons and continued My worship, I know you are crying inside, but I invite you to come to My feast. I want to give you a reassurance of the feast. I want to give you my ministry and my blessing service!” Remember, this is exactly what the Lord Jesus did to Peter. Peter denied the Lord three times with three traitorous denials. He repents and weeps bitterly, and you know how the Lord restores him in John chapter 21. He sees the Lord Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee while he is out fishing. He jumps into the water and he swims all the way to the beach. And no doubt the Lord saw from afar that his conscience was still smarting with guilt. The Lord knew that Peter was still suffering from an insecurity about his own love and his own acceptance. And you know what was the first thing that Jesus said as Peter had just brought this net of fish up onto the beach, standing before the Lord Jesus? Jesus said in John 21:12, “Come and have breakfast with me.” Peter wondered if he still had any affection for the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ invited him to a meal. And so too, just as Aaron had been given the reassurance, “the cereal offering, the grain offering is yet for you.” “Welcome to my feast.” And when the meal of friendship was finished, we see Jesus reassures Peter of his love by giving him an opportunity three times to reconfirm his allegiance. “Do you love me, Peter?” “Lord, you know that I love you.” “Do you love me, Peter?” “Do you love me, Peter?” “Then go off and feed my sheep.” Brethren, we see in passages both Old and New that our Lord does not want His people, whose consciences have been freshly split open by their sin, to be anxious and in doubt about His undying love. Could it be that some Pentecostal brother and sister are hearing our message? Convicted and asking, “Will God accept me? I have done this wrong, man-centered, mindless worship for so many years.” Let me tell you, God still loves you if you repent and come. Just like the father ran and came and hugged the prodigal, He will shower His love. And let me tell you, if you start walking in the path of truth, you will find so much light and love. You will feel like you are feasting on God’s treasures. In this way, God says He welcomes you to His feast. “Oh, pastor, what about my problems?” Come, feed on the breast and thigh. The breast is the heart of Christ. God will fill you with such a sense of love. Oh, we see blessings of election, and acceptance in eternity, loving us as He loved His son. Oh, what thrills! Someone said, “Ah, ha, Paramahamsa,” you will rejoice. “But what about my needs? I am a pastor in that church; I am a deacon; I am benefiting; they are giving me support, they helped…” You notice all these groups, whenever someone is sick or weak, they run and offer support. They catch them in their emotionally weak moments and make them their prey. Yes, you can be grateful for the help, but that doesn’t mean they are right. Most social services are done by the Catholic Church, so should we agree with all they say? It is God who provided for those needs. God will provide for your needs. Feed on the thigh of Christ, the power of God. God is able to provide for all your needs. You seek His kingdom and righteousness; I will tell you God will bless you ten times more. They are the ones who are keeping you in a cursed state.

Every false religion is entirely man-centered in its theology and worship. What separates true Christianity from every other religion is the fact that it is entirely God-centered. It is the Lord who initiates, regenerates, saves, justifies, and adopts us; he will sanctify and glorify the believer. We will spend all eternity in awe of his greatness in God-centered worship. It is God-centered worship that not only regenerates our soul but also revives, strengthens, nourishes, sanctifies, grows, and prepares our soul for heaven. We worship a sovereign God to whom all glory goes.

Today’s churches are filled with a cursed, man-centered worship where people know nothing about this sovereign God. It is all about the preacher; about the felt needs of the people; it is all about their devotion, their self-righteousness, and what they can get from God. Some places are almost like Jesus has to thank them for their worship and faithfulness, and sometimes even ask for forgiveness for allowing suffering in their lives.

These are not small churches; they are the biggest churches in our city. It may outwardly seem harmless and appear as if they teach the Bible in a very enjoyable and practical way. It is in fact very natural for unregenerate people to enjoy such worship, feel so good in man-centered worship, be attracted, and feel that everything is right there. This is because we are born worshipping ourselves. That is why so many people crowd to go there; it mostly attracts huge numbers of young people, and these preachers cater to their base, unregenerate instincts of man-centered needs. It may seem good and harmless and appear as though the Bible is practically taught, but it has a terrible, devastating impact on the souls of those who participate in such worship. Just to state a few:

• No soul connection with the true, living God. The soul regenerates and grows in spiritual life by connecting with God in worship. God-centered worship is born when the theological truths of who God is and what he has done are clearly taught from the scriptures. They are never taught that; it is all the “Bible made practical.” Because of this, they develop a distorted view of God and never learn the true attributes of God. The most blessed truth of the sovereignty of God is always hidden from them, so their soul can never make a true connection with the living God, but with this distorted mental idol. You don’t see them prospering in soul, or growing in the knowledge of God, grace, or prayer and meditation on God’s word.
• Man-centered worship will make souls unconsciously reject God’s truth. This is a great ruining of the soul. If there is one thing that stops our soul’s destruction and heals and saves our soul, it is found in James 1:21: “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Man-centered worship completely blocks our reception of the word and so never allows their souls to be saved. This is because man-centered worship is based on speculative theology on what the preacher teaches to appeal to the flesh, which is a kind of idol worship. It creates a distorted mental image of God in people’s minds. This mental picture makes them think they know God. Such a mind will inevitably take their theology from men, will not make any attempt to understand revelation, and will neglect God’s revealed will at every point. Such a mind will never be interested in any serious Bible study. You observe all these people have no interest in understanding the Bible; the mental idol blocks any interest. This is a great danger Moses warned against in Deuteronomy 4. He sets two things against one another: mental images in opposition to heeding God’s word. They are completely exclusive of each other. He reminds the people that at Sinai, though they saw tokens of God’s presence, they saw no visible representation of God himself, but only heard his word, so he exhorts them to continue to hear his word and not allow any mental image before their eyes to distract them. If you allow any image, you will not listen to God’s word.
• Man-centered worship brings God’s worst soul judgment. We saw that 1 Thessalonians says, “because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
• Man-centered worship can lead to depression. God’s word shows that true joy and blessings come to us by looking to him and glorifying him, not by focusing on ourselves. But this worship trains us to always look at ourselves, our needs, and how God is just a genie to resolve our needs. It never lifts them above their situation. These preachers make people believe the world should revolve around them. All good things will happen to me; God is going to bless me; everyone will admire me; God is going to turn water into wine; I am special. None of that actually happens, so they are most times depressed. They are never taught about the sovereignty of God or the providence of God. Even small problems in life or sickness make them completely depressed, fearful, and tense. They feel guilty they are not blessed, and feel helpless and weak, with no strength to manage. See how the soul suffers and destruction happens.
• Man-centered worship leads to pride and wrong relationships with others. Instead of teaching how depraved we are as sinners and that “blessed are those who mourn,” and “poor in spirit,” it is only mourning for our sin and being poor in spirit that makes us blessed, as the next beatitude says, “blessed are the meek.” This meekness will teach us to be gentle and patient with others’ sins and weaknesses in family and other places. But these people don’t teach any mourning of sin. They fill us with a sense of self-worth and pride, minimizing our sin and maximizing the sin of others. So this leads to terrible relational problems and impatience with spouses and others in families. When someone offends us, oh, how offended they become; how impatient and barking they become. Notice how there are almost always fights in the homes of those who go to such places. They become giants of anger.
• Man-centered worship becomes noise in the camp, not worship. When the Israelites kept the calf idol and said, “This is Jehovah, let us worship him,” Joshua said to Moses, “there is a noise in the camp.” Today, in the name of worship, there is noise in the camp, not worship of the living God. This is because the crowd comes as consumers; they don’t come to worship God; they come to be entertained and served. So, church services are more like rock concerts. Sermons are all about the preacher; the autobiography of preachers; what he thinks, what he feels, what he experienced. It is all hundreds of his stories, not what God says.

I can go on. We will see more in application, but man-centered worship completely hardens the soul and ruins it completely. I speak out of a great burden, not to accuse anyone. But there is “noise in the camp.” We have to stop that noise by preaching and breaking the tablet law on their heads.

If you have any man-centered worship, think of this: If there is one sin which God sees as hating him, one sin that makes God jealous, one sin whose consequences affect not only me but also my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and their children, what a horrible sin that must be. It is not murder or adultery. It is the sin of wrongly worshipping God. It is breaking the second commandment. Why does God so much guard his worship that he says he is jealous? If I am jealous about something, no one should touch that. Why does he give the greatest threatening consequences not only to me, but to the whole family group, community, and tradition that comes from me? They will be punished and cursed. We see the effect on many whose forefathers were in the wrong traditional church worship. Whatever you tell them now, even if it is a den of thieves, it is as if a curse holds them there. They cannot come out. Those who attend such worship not only destroy their souls but also bring curses on their children and their children’s children.

Someone said you are all preaching the Old Testament. But if there is one time when the humble, loving, infinitely patient Jesus was so very angry with red-hot eyes, and even took a whip and vehemently drove people out and turned tables, it was when he said, “My Father’s house is a house of prayer,” meaning a sacred place where souls communicate with God and grow in the image of God. But “you have made it a den of thieves,” where people are exploiting others for financial gain, giving false promises that God will prosper them, and teaching them how to be rich, successful, and healed. Hear me: God will not bless you, but your soul is ruined by such places.

You don’t believe the second commandment’s serious threat? God not only threatened with his second commandment, but also executed it when people broke it. We saw that in Leviticus 10. I have been cruising through Leviticus until here, but I am not able to move from here because I think we need to sound this alarm when we hear this “noise in the camp,” where God’s worship is abused. So, we will see this point by point in this chapter. This chapter brings all these points. God is using a teachable moment again to teach the Israelites the seriousness of the regulative principle of worship by the death of two sons of the High Priest Aaron, the death of Nadab and Abihu.

Today’s worship lesson is from a sobering funeral procession: by their funeral, we learn that worship should not be man-centered, but regulative worship should be God-centered. God should be the center of regulative worship.

We learn that lesson from a sobering funeral procession in 4 through 7. Imagine someone dies in our church in the midst of our worship. What will we do? We will forget about all the service, stop the sermon, and then look at the person and their family. In some cases, we may be right to do that. But see here what happens in the midst of worship: two men, not just any men, two sons of the High Priest, are dead in the church. All about them were struck with horror, and every face, as well as theirs, gathered blackness. Great consternation, no doubt, seized them, and they were all full of confusion but were about to burst into lament and crying. Whatever the rest were, the man of God, Moses, who is a matured saint and knows more about God, was composed. Notice what he says: “And Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord spoke, saying: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.”‘”

God must always be worshipped with holiness and reverence and exactly according to his own appointment. If anyone plays in worship, it is dangerous. We come to him in worship. Come very reverent and serious in all acts of devotion, to perform every religious exercise as those who believe that the God with whom we have to do is a holy God, not carelessly or casually as we like. By the way we come to worship, we glorify him before all the people. By the way we come near him, others also should be affected with it. Our neighbors should see how serious we are. Our unsaved children should see that we seriously come to the temple. By the way we behave and pray, they should get the impression that the living God is in our midst. Not playing, disorderly, or careless, as they get the impression we ourselves don’t believe God is holy.

Verse 4 says, “Then Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, ‘Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.'” Verse 5 says, “So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.” Two cousins of these two, Mishael and Elzaphan, he tells them to scoop up these two men.

See how he brings focus on God even at this time. Though it touched him in a very tender part—they were his brother’s sons, like his sons—this is the worship of God; there is no room for personal emotions or affection. In the temple of God, we should keep good order and a due decorum in the sanctuary. To keep the focus on God, he calls two cousins, Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron. They were Levites only and might not have come into the sanctuary; he tells them to carry the body.

We could see it maybe in our mind’s eye, cradling them, one arm behind the neck and the other arm under the knees as they carry each of their cousins out. The limp, fire-struck, thirty-year-old dead bodies. Leviticus keeps telling us that at the age of thirty years old, a man qualifies to be a priest in the service of the living God. Whenever we hear death news, we ask how old they are. These were young men in their thirties who were in the full flush of their strength. It is twice noticed in scripture that they died childless, which is very sad. God justly blotted out their names and laid that honor in the dust for playing in worship.

These men are carried out of the tabernacle, their dead bodies. Remember, the whole nation is standing around the tabernacle, probably a narrow corridor that had been formed by the silent multitude of the stunned Israelites. Doubtless, it was a very awful and affecting sight to the people. They all see the children of the High Priest carried as dead bodies, still in their priestly garments. None of them moves from their place.

All saw them grandly dressed going inside the temple. Now their dead bodies come out. They saw their presumption going with strange fire, and now all see their doom. God made all to see with their own eyes what will happen if you play in the worship of God. All saw God’s worship dishonored by their hands, and all must now see God’s worship honored in their death.

Think of what a heartbreak this was to the people. Now Moses and Aaron are old and are going to live only a few years. After them, people may have thought the next great leaders are Nadab and Abihu. They became very great and honorable among them. They were now lifted to the priesthood with a special dress and honor, and were looked upon as the great favorites of heaven. Now all hopes are gone, as they see two dead bodies. They were carried with grand priestly dresses, with the visible marks of divine vengeance upon them, as sacrifices to the justice of God. Thus the impartiality of God’s justice was proclaimed, and all the people were made to know that even the priests’ garments would not protect an offender from the wrath of God. And it was easy to argue, “If they escape not when they transgress, can we expect to go unpunished?” They could not help but cry out, “Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?” (1 Samuel 6:20).

Maybe only a few relatives went out, tore their clothes, and followed the sobering funeral procession. They all had to go outside the camp in the wilderness and bury their dead bodies. They carried them out (and probably buried them) in their coats, and the garments of their priesthood, which they had lately put on, and perhaps were too proud of. And the priests’ clothes were so soon made grave-clothes.

Moreover, imagine Aaron, the father who sees his two eldest sons’ dead bodies. Look at what Moses tells them in verses 6-7: “And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, ‘Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.’ And they did according to the word of Moses.”

Moses tells Aaron and the surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, and he prohibits them from doing something that would be very natural. He prohibits them from participating in the mourning and weeping over the death of their sons and brothers.

Notice in verse 6, there is a threat that is given. “Don’t uncover your heads, don’t tear your clothes that you might die,” is the threat. If you do it, you will not only be struck dead like them. If you do it, Jehovah’s wrath will come out against the whole congregation. “Lest you die likewise, and lest wrath come upon all the people, who may be in danger of suffering for your irreverence, and disobedience, and ungoverned passions.” Verse 7 says, “And therefore, they are told that they are to not go out from the doorway. They are to stay in the tent.”

They are not to follow the wailing procession to the outskirts of the camp. Now, it may have been in the hearts of these three a question in their grief. Why? “Why, Lord, must we damn up our swelling hearts? Why must we hold in this natural, heart-bursting of our souls?” We even think of the pain of Aaron. Imagine a loving father with all fatherly compassion for his two elder sons. How it must have been a striking grief to Aaron. These are not rebellious sons like Eli’s children, but good sons who followed their father and became priests; and were given the work of a priest. In their first worship, they are dead. Aaron was not like a European or American who swallows all their grief and is very silent in funeral homes. No, Aaron was a Jewish individual like Indians whose hearts and whose emotions are very passionate and very volatile. They express it strongly by tearing clothes and throwing mud on their heads and hair. But he is told that he is to hold it all in. Why?

Why were they silently carried away? Why should Aaron and his brothers control their natural affection and emotion? Why? Because in the regulative worship of God, God should be the center of the worship. Moses, now a matured man, remembers how he was fearful, giving excuses for going to Egypt. All these years he has learned about the glory of God and seen the holiness of God, and he knows this is God’s worship; the focus must be 100% upon God and his glory. It is God’s day. The worship is to be God-centered, and these two dead men are not to have the primary focus. Though these are cousins, his brother’s sons, he kept the focus on God and told them to carry their body.

The responsibility to make it centered is the job of the priests, leaders, and today’s pastors. Well, the rationale is given in verse 7b: “for the Lord’s anointing oil is upon you.”

The reason why you must not mourn like the rest is because you have been elevated to a high position as representatives and priests of God. And this is a unique position as his priests. It is your primary duty then, God is saying, to identify yourselves entirely with my viewpoint as my representatives and as my mouthpiece. The honor of which must be carefully preserved by your doing the duty of your office with cheerfulness.

You are not to arouse any suspicion in the minds of the people of God that you condoned your sons’ sin. It could be that if they were left to grieve and to wail, the congregation may illegitimately interpret this as either a countenancing or an agreeing with their sin. And on the other hand, it could be interpreted as a disputing with the justice of the living God.

And therefore, there was silence. There was silence and submission from these three men, that believing father and those aching brothers. And this silent submission was an eloquent testimony of their ultimate allegiance to Jehovah at whose altar they had been commissioned to serve.

Aaron and his other sons must neither be diverted from nor unfitted for the great work that was now upon their hands. “Let the dead bury their dead,” but they must go on with their service; that is, “Rather let the dead be unburied, if there be nobody else to do it, than that work for God should be left undone by those whom he has called to it.”

They were now actually waiting, doing a great work, which must by no means cease. Moses says in verse 6B, “But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled.” Not only the loss of their priests, but especially the displeasure of God which appeared in it. They must bewail the burning that was kindled, that it might not burn further.

Let me give a few applications here.

1. God should be the center of our worship. Worship is done primarily to glorify God. Do you realize why we do what we do? Only seven things God has commanded in the New Testament:
   1. Prayer – 1 Timothy 2:1, “I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.”
   2. The reading of the Scriptures – 1 Timothy 4:13, “Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.”
   3. Preaching of God’s word – 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
   4. Singing – Ephesians 5:19, “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns.”
   5. The Lord’s Supper – 1 Corinthians 11.
   6. Baptism.
   7. Offering – 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
   This is the only recipe of our worship, only seven things. Do it orderly, earnestly, full of the Holy Spirit, nothing else. The recipe is not determined by the wills and the wants and the appetites of men. If we bring anything else, even with good intentions, it becomes man-centered. Do you know why we even stopped wishing people and giving birthday cards on Sunday worship? God is the center of worship.And we are hereby taught, when we are serving God in holy duties, to keep our minds, as much as may be, intent and engaged, and not to suffer them to be diverted by any worldly thoughts, or cares, or passions. Let us always attend upon the Lord without distraction.

I titled this message, “Man-centered worship will ruin your soul,” because as we saw, God’s divine redemptive presence comes to us when we worship God according to his word. As we saw in chapter 9, there is a blessedness of redemptive presence. That presence revives our soul, strengthens our inner man, makes us grow in grace, and nourishes our soul.

What happens in man-centered worship is the ruining of souls. As we saw, it makes us reject the only saving means for our soul, but also the healthy soul food for our soul, which is God’s word. Preaching of God’s word becomes boring to such people attending such places. The soul is blessed when it connects to the living God, but this worship never allows us to connect by giving us a distorted view of God, and we connect with mental idols, not the living God. This diminishes His holiness, sovereignty, and the true purpose of our relationship with Him.

See how wrong the priorities are. The entire focus of such worship is on feelings over truth. It’s about emotional hype rather than genuine heart transformation and reverence for God. It prioritizes emotional experiences and “felt needs” over a deep understanding of God’s Word and His character. This hinders genuine spiritual growth because the emphasis is on our needs and desires rather than on learning God’s will and becoming more like Christ. False, distorted biblical truth: To make worship more appealing to people’s preferences, churches might downplay or ignore challenging teachings in Scripture and the call to discipleship, leading to a distorted understanding of God’s truth.

It ruins the soul by making us more self-absorbed. The focus shifts from glorifying God to getting something from Him. People treat God as a means to an end. It weakens the soul with a lack of spiritual depth or resilience to face trials and persecution. This leads to a very shallow, false faith that is easily swayed by emotions and circumstances. Such people, when they have a small problem in life or sickness, have no strength or hope; they become very weak and run to towers and pastors.

Curses: The primary purpose of worship is to glorify God, not to make us feel good. Man-centered worship misses this fundamental point, robbing God of the honor and praise He deserves. Romans 1 curses are all effective in such worship. Given up to a depraved mind and lusts: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

Such churches or believers never have a gospel burden or interest. They have no sight of its mission to reach the lost and make disciples. This hinders the spread of the Gospel and the advancement of God’s kingdom. The main thing is to get the crowds, not spread the gospel.

Contrast this with God-centered worship: It exalts God. It recognizes His holiness, majesty, and sovereignty. It makes us truly know God, who our God is, and fills us with confidence and faith. It focuses on His Word. It is grounded in Scripture and seeks to understand and obey His truth. It leads to transformation. It produces genuine spiritual growth and Christlikeness. It empowers for mission. It fuels a passion to share the Gospel and make disciples.

I think it was Martin Luther who said, “A great differentiator is this: is this the devil’s worship/teaching or God’s teaching?” Does it lift man or God? Ask wherever you are attending, “Is this worship truly focused on God, lifting God or lifting man?”

Do you see how perverted worship is today? In the name of worship, notice all the songs; it is not about singing great hymns about who God is. One of the impressions I have nearly every time I read the Psalms is how God-centered they are. We worship God; it is all man-centered songs, not about how much God loves, but how much we love God. All the focus is on who we are, not who God is. Just listen to all the songs; it is all about me. The lyrics in our worship music are filled with “me-isms.” Notice how many times “I,” “me,” and “we” are included, and how little “God” is mentioned. For example: “Oh God, I need you, I love you; you are my everything; I desire you.” A large portion of the words of many of these songs are about ME. My feelings. My needs. My fears. My future. My Jesus. My heart. Instead of “you are glorious, you are loving, blessed.” Notice the focus is not us, but God. Our focus should be God and who he is in regulative worship. We have to search for theocentric (God-centered) lyrics over anthropocentric (human-centered) words. Only these songs are distracting the focus away from our Great God and onto self.

When the sermon starts, what is the sermon focused on? Who God is, and what God says. See the truth of God, and in the application, see how we are sinning against God, and we need to change and repent. We need to learn. No, it is all focused on felt needs. It is all about tearing Bible verses from context, with no care for the literary context or any hermeneutics, twisting the Bible and saying something that makes you feel good. You call this the Bible preached practically. The Bible is fully twisted practically. Most of the points from Bethel AG guy are all techniques from self-improvement and personal success stories over theological truth. I have never heard challenging teachings of the Bible or calls to repentance, but only watering down the message.

They don’t teach how you can live to glorify God and obey God’s word, but how you can use God to solve your problems and become rich. They just give feel-good messages instead of making them deeply think of God’s truths. Is this worshipping God in spirit and truth? This is idol worship. That is why some people come here and say, “Oh boy, this is a very tough teaching.”

Then, they have these celebrity preachers who know how to entertain people. Most of the time, his sermon is nothing but the autobiography of this preacher fellow. “Where I went, what I felt, what I did.” The focus is all on him, not on God.

So brethren, the reason I share all this is we need to recognize that the religious air we breathe is thick with the toxic fumes of soul-killing teachings. Shunning a God-centered worship that glorifies God and edifies man, they are instead infected with a man-centered gospel that extols the preacher, misleads the hearer, and damns the soul. We should watch in our worship and church. God should always be honored. Yes, we have to be compassionate and kind to people, but God and his honor are the center of worship, not people.

But how will people come? Paul is evidently teaching that the regulative worship of God’s people on the Lord’s Day is a more powerful evangelistic tool than preaching things attractive to the unsaved and unchurched. They may gather a crowd, but not grow the kingdom.

The problem today is people lack discernment. Discernment is like the immunization of the soul; you know what to allow into your soul and what not to allow. That discernment comes from scripture. But what to do? These people never give time to learn the scriptures because they lack this. All kinds of soul-destroying teaching and worship are allowed. It comes by knowing the truth. Because they don’t spend time, they cannot attend classes like the 1689 confession, and so they never get discernment and allow their souls to be ruined. My heart breaks to see that.

Long gone are the days of Berean Diligence, when serious-minded believers went back to Scripture to authenticate, corroborate, and validate what they heard preached. These days, a vast number of Christians no longer even bother reading the Bible anymore. Watch all these people in such churches; they are all Bible-ignorant people. If they knew the Bible, they would not continue there. Stay away from such people. Their man-centered theology will bring your soul to ruin.

The second lesson: As true worshippers, our loyalty and allegiance to our Lord supersedes that means it goes beyond our loyalty to anyone, even the most intimate family relationships. Do you see it in the passage? In serving Christ, brethren, our Lord, our Master, our loyalty to Him is to be so steadfast that we are willing to dispense with our heart’s most darling objects, to dispense with our most natural affections in order to serve Him and worship Him.

Now we may see this principle that is drawn in faint colors in this passage. It is drawn in more very bold colors in the New Testament with the Lord Jesus’ comments on this theme in Luke chapter 9:59. A man says, “He said to another, ‘Follow me.'” This is Jesus speaking. “But the man said, ‘Permit me first to go and bury my father.'” “But He said to him, ‘Allow the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.'” And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

What kind of allegiance are we to have to the Lord Jesus Christ as His servants? An unconditional loyalty and allegiance. He is to have our supreme allegiance, even over our most natural affections, like our children, wife, parents, and our family. In Luke 14:26, Jesus says, again to great multitudes following, “fair-weather followers, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” You see, what kind of allegiance does Christ require of us? It’s an allegiance that says, “nothing in this world, as Aaron had to give allegiance, even my own flesh and blood,” oh, the passionate love that we have for those who are dear to us in the flesh.

Doesn’t it sometimes, fathers and mothers, make you afraid about the intensity of that love that we have for those who are dear to us in the flesh? But nothing in this world is to approach the supreme possession that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says, “I consider all things to be lost in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And so too, very practically, it may be that in our kingdom service labors, it may be simply as a Sunday school teacher, or as a deacon, or pastor, or maybe a future missionary. It may be that allegiance to Christ may call you not to sinfully neglect your family.

But it may call you to profoundly and painfully inconvenience your dear family for the cause of the kingdom. Inconvenience in a painful way. We may not be able to do some things they desire and may have to deny their wishes and desires. When fulfilling a wife’s, husband’s, or child’s desire clashes with Christ’s word, we should choose Christ.

God’s kingdom is always built by such Aarons, who continue the work of worship even when facing the death of their two sons. I think of Pastor Bala, who leaves his sick wife and the facilities of a developed country to travel a long distance and come to build a church. Pastor Pitch, for his 70th birthday, you know his children and grandchildren all wanted him there, but he said, “I have this missionary work to go to.”

Shouldn’t we be able to make these small sacrifices, when our Lord Jesus Christ left his eternal Father’s home and came to us, even to die on the cross? Think of his mother, Mary, right in front of him; her firstborn hanging on the cross. What heartbreak for her, and the swords and the spears that struck her soul at this time. How much she would have tried to stop him. No, it is my Father’s will. But notice, he didn’t fail in his duty as a son, did he? He made preparations for her to be taken care of. But he didn’t give room for all her desires at the expense of disobeying the Father’s will. That is the difference. The Lord Jesus’ loyalty to the Father is supreme, even above his own comfort and his own will. Remember Gethsemane, “pass this cup; but not my will, but yours be done.” I will say, “do not sinfully neglect those who are near and dear.” Allegiance to our Lord superseded even the most intimate of family relationships.

There was a man. He was converted, came out of a Roman Catholic church. We find that he found a God-honoring church in the Reformed Baptist church. His soul was being fed, but his wife, who wanted nothing to do with this new form of religion, threw tantrums and threatened divorce. What should the man do? He was godly. He considered allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ to be supreme, even among his most intimate relationships. And he steeled himself against her crying and he made a decision that was seeking the kingdom of God first above all. Later I heard the wife came to his wife and started attending church and was saved. It is when we become spineless disciples that we destroy ourselves and our families.

Or it may be, brethren, that there is some darling habit that you have. In fact, this habit may be so darling that to lose it might be like the death of a close relative to you. It may be as dear as your wife to you. Maybe it’s watching a match on the Lord’s day. We have to steel ourselves for the purpose of seeking the smile of the living God. Allegiance to Christ, brethren, tramples our most intimate worldly affections.

But let me give what would be the most direct application of this theme. Allegiance to our Lord supersedes even the most intimate family relationships.

I believe the most direct new covenant application would be the event of church discipline or excommunication having been leveled against one of your family members. These men, Nadab and Abihu, were cut off from the covenant in their death, struck dead. And we find in the New Testament when an individual has turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ and committed a sin so heinous without repentance, they are to be excommunicated.

They are to be declared as being dead spiritually. In First Corinthians 5, they are to be handed over to Satan. They are to be buried in the minds of God’s people, as it were, outside of the camp of God’s blessing. And you think about it. Who is the one that we’re speaking about? It may be mothers. That dear son that you nursed at your own breast. And now here he is. He’s 21 years old. He’s gone to the waters of baptism and now he has defied the government of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear mother and dear father, you watch this child as the screws of alienation are tightened upon him, as God’s people rightfully don’t speak to him, as he needs to weigh the gravity of his sin. It’s that moment when it’s like this, brethren, that your allegiance to Christ, for God forbid that it would ever happen, but your allegiance to Christ would be stretched to the limit. And there would be a great temptation to disaffection.

Now I assure you, brethren, this is no theory. No mere theory. This is reality. I know families in other churches who have gone through this. And if I could bring each and every family in front of you, they would say that the pull to sympathize and take the side of my son or my daughter over the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and truth was very soul-sifting for me. In fact, some, a couple in particular, came to the very precipice of apostasy because there was this question, “my dear son whom I love” and “the clear principles of the word of God.” It was too painful for me to steel myself because of giving allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Would to God that it would never happen to us as a church, but we would be naive to think that we would be invulnerable to such a thing. Put away in your own mind the heroics of Aaron here who did not flinch. And you resolve in your mind, maybe while your children are still in their fours, fives, and sixes, that if such a thing would ever happen, ultimate allegiance would be given to the Lord Jesus Christ.