Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <silence>
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Good morning, village Church. Good morning. Good morning. If I have not had the joy to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling, I'm the lead pastor here at the Village Church. Uh, before we jump into Leviticus, um, just a quick word for anybody who calls Village Church, their home church, or anybody who is thinking, uh, I have a, a, a nudge maybe from the Lord or my conscience that, um, I I might want Village Church to become my home church. Or maybe you're visiting and you're like, uh, uh, jury's out. I have to work through a couple things, but I'd like to get more information. Um, last week I think is one of the most important sermons that we have given, um, in recent history because what we did, we call it epistle and you may not know what that means. And epistle is a New Testament letter.
Speaker 1 00:00:50 And when you look at every single letter in the New Testament outside of the gospels and Acts, they are letters written by an apostle who is shepherding a church. And every single letter where you're gonna notice is that they actually, um, take principles from God's word and they teach the unique things that that church is working through and struggling through and ground them theologically and give them practical next steps in terms of how this specific local church can actually, we'll say, bring God more glory, bring, be together in unity, get trained on the things they need to be trained on, and get kinda the information they need. So a couple times a year we epistle you, we follow the modern or the, the biblical principle of how the pastors and the apostles taught their church. And we kind of do a state of the union.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 And so if you want to know what's happening culturally, personally, financially, relationally, staff wise, the past, the present, where we're going, some really big decisions that we're in the middle of, I'm not gonna repeat that, but go back and check that out. You can find that online. I wanna encourage you to do that. Alright, now to Leviticus, there is a, a question every Christian is, is forced to face at least one time in their life. It goes like this, will I give this thing to God? So that there's a, a theme in scripture where God asks people to give back to him their most valuable thing. Don't worry, this isn't a money sermon, it's actually about food. Go figure. But, but there is this principle that like you start seeing in people's lives in scripture, if there's a thing that has too high of a priority, uh, maybe it is a threat to God or now it has become more important than God, there's something that you should expect that the Lord is going to probably ask you to sacrifice that thing.
Speaker 1 00:02:47 Uh, I've been, I've been thinking quite a bit about Abraham and Isaac, and if you don't know the story, um, God looks at Abraham and says, I want you to go take your son and I want you to sacrifice him. Right? And now imagine if you are Abraham and this is your promised beloved son. And, and there are all these moral quandaries that people have with this. And, and what's interesting is that what I learned from this is that, uh, at the very last second, Abraham is about to obey God. And God's like, no, don't do that. That's what the evil god's do. I just wanted to know that no matter what I ask you, you would trust me. And, and, and so sometimes God is gonna ask you to give something up because he wants it out of your life. Amen. Sometimes he's gonna ask you to give something up because he just wants to see if you're gonna do it.
Speaker 1 00:03:30 And I, I can't promise you in any circumstance which one it is. But I can't tell you this. If you walk with the Lord long enough, there is going to be something that threats his sovereignty in your life. And he will, without hesitation, ask you to put it on the altar and to sacrifice it. So in, in my experience, there are five things that people have the hardest time giving to God. Number one is just my, my stuff. Can I truly be happy if I give up my money or my feeling of security or my current standard of living and lifestyle of fun and travel? If God told me to give it all away, like the rich young ruler, could I still be happy? Second people have a hard time giving up my relationships? Can I, can I truly be happy if I let go of my boyfriend or my girlfriend?
Speaker 1 00:04:21 Lord, I know, I know you don't want them in my life. They might even be a good person. They might even be a Christian. But sometimes you know when you know and you're like, I don't know if I can be happy without them. And maybe it's your friends. Maybe it's a mom and dad who are trying to figure out what does it mean to leave and cleave. I don't know if I can let them go, even though it's the good and right thing. Third, people have a hard time giving up my reputation. If it means losing my reputation, will I do the right thing at work? Will I do the right thing at school with my, with my family, with my friends? If it means losing my reputation and people talking about me, am I willing to do it? It's the fourth, fourth thing. My beliefs, God will I let go of my ideas, which are really good and the culture's ideas which are really easy and submit my mind and truth to your word. Will I do this on cultural issues? Theology, how about just basic reality on eternity, on authority.
Speaker 1 00:05:35 Fifth, people have a hard time giving God my hurt. God, can I make it through the pain if you ask me to face it, my enemy, that place those people. So getting too close to home, good <laugh>. 'cause that's what the word of God does. If you're paying attention, most people, we have some things that are off limits to God and I've just found often those are the things he goes for first. I've also found him to be gentle. I've also found him to be patient. But I've found him to be very intentional. And and here's what you're gonna see in Levitical law. Levitical law is going to be really invasive. It is going to be really intrusive and it's not going to leave any, any stone unturned. And, and here's what God wants the people of Israel and then therefore each of us as followers of Jesus Christ, to understand no part of our lives is off limits to God.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 None of it the deepest personal secret of part of your lives. He wants to be the king of those. He wants to have them. He wants more than a say. God wants to be able to tell you what to do. And, and, and already like, we're like, okay, God, I get it. You wanna be the only God I worship. I get it. My spouse wants to be the only person that I'm married to. I got it. You, you want me to be generally faithful and loyal. You cannot touch my food. So help me God. You cannot touch my money. You cannot touch my children. You cannot touch my sexuality. You cannot touch my novel ideas. These are mine. You stay over there. I'm right here. I'm God of this part of my life. You're God of that part of my life. And that is just not how he's putting up with it.
Speaker 1 00:07:31 And, and the Levitical law is, is is like to the American ears. It's so offensive because it wants every part of our life in submission to God, public and private. Alright, we're starting in Leviticus a new series. It's called Clean. And, and in the Old Testament, if someone or something was going to be called clean, here's what it meant. It meant that it had the ability to be in the presence of God. So if a thing or a person is clean, it means it has the ability to be brought near to the presence of God. If something or someone was unclean, then it could not be brought near to the presence of God because unclean things provoke the anger of God. And they're going, God is obligated to destroy those things. So you saw a couple weeks ago, maybe like two months ago, naab in a bayou, they came unclean with uncleaned fire and unclean things.
Speaker 1 00:08:28 And, and by nature, unclean and holy do they mix well, the holiness of God and unclean things they don't mix. And so fire came out and, and devoured them. And so clean and uncleaned. I want you to catch this though in the Old Testament, it's not about sinful and non sinful things. It's not what it's about. It's actually about things that have the ability to come near the presence of God and things that don't. So Leviticus chapter 10, uh, verse 10 11, God commands Israel, you are to distinguish between the holy and the common and between the unclean and the clean. And you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses. And if you pull back the clean laws and you get away from kind of the, the fear of God just wants to control every part of my life, what God wants is a people who are able to approach him in relationship and not be incinerated.
Speaker 1 00:09:27 Amen. Will church, this is what he wants. You're like, why are you controlling me? Listen, my dog got skunked last week in the eyes in the mouth. And where it got skunked is this little part where there was nowhere to go but in the house with the dog because the skunk was like apparently not given up. Spray, spray, spray. His, his, his. And so my wife, I'm sleeping, she takes the dog and she goes in the house. Guess what? To this day, my house smells like <laugh>, skunk. My dog smells like skunk. Just when you think it's gone, it's back. And I know there's a thousand remedies we're trying and we're working on it. It is so objectively annoying. What what I kinda learned is that this is actually legitimately like chemical warfare. It is so vile. Okay, let's just pull back for a moment.
Speaker 1 00:10:13 <laugh>, if you show up to my home and you've been sprayed with skunk and you say, can we hang out? I want to come in <laugh>, what am I gonna tell you? No, no, I love you. I love you. No, I'm gonna say stay outta the house. Rule number one, when you look up like dog skunk protocol is don't take them in the house, right? Because it gets in everything. It starts to smell up everything. Like that's rule number one. Well, what do you do when you're in a little like alcove and then you're getting attacked? Well, you go in in the house. Terrible, terrible idea. But here's the deal, being skunked isn't sinful. In fact, God designed this skunk with a mechanism to protect itself. It's actually genius. The fact that those chemicals can come out of a skunk and the skunk thinks like, oh, that smells good.
Speaker 1 00:10:54 Like I'm not offended at all. That's crazy to me. It's a good thing, but it is unclean in my house. You want proximity to me? You, you can't have skunk smell on you. Okay? This isn't happening. Okay? And so like, it is okay for me to look at you and say, proximity to me is really rooted in a certain, like couple things you've just gotta not do by the way. And, and it's really offensive. Like here's another one. If you try to walk toward me with wet cat food, we're done. I'm not, I'm not going near you. I will automatically lose it. There is no question asked. The moment it's opened into a room, I go, ah, and I have to leave right away. This goes back years. It's a thing that is uncleaned proximity to me is restricted under these, under these circumstances. Wet cat food is not objectively evil.
Speaker 1 00:11:41 Ah, <laugh>, I could go on and on. I have a whole bunch of proximity rules, but that's fine. But you have more. That's what I do. Now you have more clean and unclean are fundamentally about relationship. Yes, there are some unclean things that are sinful. Um, and there are some unclean things that are neutral like skunk spray. But like at the end of the day, what God wants through these laws and regulations is for each one of the Old Testament Jews to have proximity to relationship with him. And they are really invasive. And here are some of the things that we're gonna see over the next few weeks. God invades, uh, the food they eat, the things that they can touch, even the way they're allowed to handle dead bodies of animals, people, et cetera. Their personal health, their children, their sexuality. Like he goes deep into the most secretive private parts of their life and says, I want to regulate that because you have no idea what you're doing.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 I I I want to, I want to actually give you control. I wanna take control over that because if I gave you control, you would all be dead way quicker. So in ancient Israel, to hold any of these laws back from God was to be separated from the physical presence of God. It's really important. And, and if you were going to disobey some of these laws, it means that you would be permanently separated from God being clean. It was, it was serious business. All right, so open up your Bibles. Leviticus 11, chapter 11 verse one. Here's how the, the beginning of the chapter flows. God's gonna give clean cleanliness, food, law, instructions, what you're permitted to eat. He's gonna start with the land. He's gonna then move to the water, then to the sky. And then he is gonna talk about bugs. Now you gotta remember, 99.9% of all species of plants and animals are extinct.
Speaker 1 00:13:27 So like there's no world where god's gonna be able to like identify every single kind of animal. So what you're gonna see is that God gives principles that apply consistently, and then he lets the people apply those principles. All right, Leviticus chapter 11, verse one, the land animals that the Jews are allowed to eat. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and he said to them, speak to the people of Israel saying these are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof and his cloven footed. And choose the cud among the animals you can eat. So here, here's just a basic picture, two regulations. And what you have is cloven hooves, which basically means that on the left. And then you have choose the cudd, which is, uh, uh, essentially means it choose and it choose and it choose and it choose.
Speaker 1 00:14:20 There are like some scientific terms for that that we now use, meaning they have like multiple stomachs. But like at, at the end of the day, this was more of of a, you're observing the animal and the animals that chew, chew, chew, chew, chew. They gotta choo, choo, chew, chew. And then like a train. They have to have those feet. If they don't chew and they don't have those feet, you don't eat them. Okay? If it's got a paw, do you eat it? No hot dog n <laugh> in every way, shape or form. Unless it's a beef hot dog. Then, then we're good. So like horses, cats, yeah, <laugh>, it's fine. I'm joking. No cats that have paws. I see you. Some of you're like, I'm out, I'm never coming back. That's fine. It was a joke. Alright, but definitely don't eat cats. Alright? I want you to empathize with the Jews because where did they come from?
Speaker 1 00:15:17 What country? Egypt. And they didn't have these kind of like restrictions. And so here they are, they're like enjoying this food and that food and this, and all of a sudden now the land animals are allowed to eat. They're restricted. Now, don't get me wrong, there are so many animals that fit this kind of category. They're gonna be fine. Nobody's gonna starve. The land of Israel is filled with them. But, but now God is saying what's like, you remember your favorite food, you cannot even touch it again for the rest of your life. That's hard. Verse four begins the list of restrictions for the land animals. Nevertheless, verse four, among those that chew the cut or part the hoof, meaning it's one and not the other, you shall not eat these. The camel. I know, boo-hoo, you're so sad because it chews the cut, but it doesn't part the hoof.
Speaker 1 00:16:03 It's unclean to you and the rock badger because it chews the cut, but it doesn't part the hoof that's unclean to you. The hair, by the way, I know hairs, people are all like, um, actually got the the terminology wrong because, um, chewing the cut rabbits don't do that. It's not talking like all the internal, the Jews didn't cut open animals and say, oh, that's got seven stomachs. We're gonna call it chewing the cut. It's about what you observe that they do. So the, the the hair don't eat rabbit because it chews the cut, but it doesn't part the hoof that's unclean to you and the pig because it parts the hoof and is cloven footed, but does not chew the cutud. It's unclean to you. Verse eight, you shall not eat any of their flesh. You shall not touch their carcasses. They are unclean to you.
Speaker 1 00:16:43 Now, here's what I wanna know. This is like 21st century Michael with my temperament and personality. Why? Right? Why? My son keeps asking me why? And I'm like, stop asking me. Why? Because I said, I don't wanna explain why every time, but I get it. I get the impulse. I wanna know why. Prove yourself to me. Are you creating random, arbitrary rules just to control me? What's going on here? You kinda pull back and here's sort of the ultimatum. You can have the animal, but if you take the animal, you can't have me every relationship, all of them. Your marriage, your friendships, everyone has restrictions. If you want this thing, if you want this person, then there are a whole bunch of things that have to go away. And they're not always bad things. Sometimes there are good things in the wrong context. But if you want the person, sometimes you can't have all the things.
Speaker 1 00:17:41 So everybody who starts dating you say no in that moment to 4 billion other things. You get married, you're saying no to things. Sometimes if you want a person, there are some things that they can say, no, this, this is not gonna fit here. And, and, and essentially, here's what I think one of the main things God's saying, am I worth it? Is the thing that you don't want to give up more important than having, having me? I think most marriages, not all, but most are gonna get to this point where one or looks to the other and says, it's, it's this thing or it's me. And the thing's usually not a bad thing. It's usually a fine thing that got taken out of, out of control. And again, this is actually very, very normal. And then, and then most, most people at one time in their life, they're gonna have be put to a decision.
Speaker 1 00:18:30 It's the thing or the person. And, and I'm gonna choose the person that I'm in relationship with. All right, let's move to the water. Verse nine. These you may eat of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has, here's the rule, very simple fins and scales, whether in the seas or the rivers you may eat. Now very easy. That's the rule. I want you to notice though, that, that God is gonna move his vocabulary from talking about unclean things and he's gonna use a bigger, stronger, almost moral word. Okay? So whatever he felt about eating unclean land animals, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't do that. But now, unclean sea creatures, this is a different level. And, and people have surmised because you know, like let's say you eat a bad pork or whatever, you get some something, you get sick in a couple days and it sticks with you.
Speaker 1 00:19:24 But if you eat bad oysters, you're done within an hour. Like these seem to be maybe more dangerous. Okay? Verse 10, anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales of the swimming creatures in the water and of the living creatures that are in the waters is now look at this word detestable to you. Uh, this is also translated as an abomination. Something that is to be absolutely revolting and disgusting. Like wet cat food is to me, you shall regard them as detestable, you shall not eat any of their flesh and you shall, do you see this word? It's, it keeps coming up. Detest their carcasses. Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales, in case you didn't get it the first three times I said it to you is detestable to you. It is an abomination.
Speaker 1 00:20:19 So fins and scales, tuna, salmon, halibut, mackerel in anybody hungry right now? I'm so hungry. Okay? Shellfish, shrimp, crab, oysters, lobster out detestable. Don't go near 'em, don't eat 'em. It doesn't matter how good they look to you just walk away and God's like, trust me. Let's move to the sky. Verse 13. And these you shall detest among the birds, they shall not be eaten. They are, what's the word everybody? Detestable the eagle. Oh man, <laugh>, the bearded vulture. I was hoping <laugh>, the black vulture, the kite, the falcon of any kind, every raven of any kind. The ostrich, the night hawk, the seagull. I know like some of you, it's like the, uh, the swirl of the sea. Anyways, the hawk of any kind, the little owl, the corner rent, I don't even know what that is. I should have looked it up. The short eared owl, the barn owl, the tawny owl, the carrying vulture, the stork, the hering of any kind, the whooo and the bat.
Speaker 1 00:21:22 Guys, I love how detailed he is here, but with the other ones, he's like, here's kinda a general principle, but we gotta get more specific because there's something about bird world, um, that you need to be pretty, pretty paying attention to. So verse 20, he goes into the insects, all wing, all winged insects that go on, on all fours, they're detestable to you. Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours, you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet with which to hop on the ground. Clarity like hoppers, okay? Now flyers of them. You may eat the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind and the grasshopper of any kind. But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. Okay, there you have it. God wants detailed control over every single thing they eat.
Speaker 1 00:22:17 There's something really intriguing about the cleanliness laws and and I wanna show this to you. Uh, I wanna show this to you by reading you just a section of a commentary. I'll, I'll put it up here. But, um, this isn't the first time God has introduced cleanliness laws. Um, it's interesting because all the way back to the flood in Genesis seven, they already had clean and unclean distinctions with regard to food. Isn't that interesting that this actually seems to be something that God is codifying into law for the first time, but that somehow even before the flood, God already gave this information as a gift to humanity so that they could know there are things that are unclean and there are things that are clean. This wasn't new information. This is codifying old information. Uh, Warrens, we, warren, we weby is a, uh, pastor and he writes commentaries.
Speaker 1 00:23:06 And here's what he said. He said, since Noah knew about clean and unclean animals all the way back, Genesis chapter seven, verses one to 10, the distinction was a part of an ancient tradition that annotated the mosaic law. Whether a creature was clean or unclean had nothing to do with the quality of the beast. It all depended on what God said about the animal. And this is huge. This means all the way back to Noah, Adam and Eves kids and grandkids knew about clean and unclean animals. And it seems, it's a little bit of inference, but it seems that some of this information had already been given to God's people. And, and there is no way that they had the science or technology to really figure out all of the clean and unclean things at all. But God in his grace and his mercy gave them information that even though he didn't give them the why, if they obeyed it would save their lives.
Speaker 1 00:24:05 It, it would actually create entire culture of flourishing distinct from every other culture on the planet. And, and in fact, there are actually some things, especially in the Old Testament, that the only way humanity would ever know these things is if God told us, like, here, here's another one there. There's no way to discern a week by looking at the stars. Months, years to a degree, but weeks, no. The only reason humanity knows about a seven day week where you work six and you rest one. And because God told us. And, and so you can't learn that by looking at the stars. And so what you have is a human body and a human soul designed to function in a specific way. And the only way humanity will ever know those things is if God tells people and his people tell people. And so here, here's what happens.
Speaker 1 00:24:54 In the ancient world, you had weak cultures, w e e K and weak less cultures. And the weak less cultures worked their people, especially their slaves to the bone. But then you had weak cultures, six days of of work and one day of rest where slaves were able to thrive and the land was able to thrive and people were able to thrive. Well, you also had food cultures that emerged all over the world. You, you had people who adhered to clean cleanliness laws and you had cultures that adhered to a lack of cleanliness laws. It, it's interesting, when we look kind of back at, at like the ancient world, we just kind of transfer our own sense of like the week, the month, the year to all those cultures. They didn't have them unless they were influenced by the Jews. They didn't have those kinds of notions in their culture.
Speaker 1 00:25:41 And we also find is that where the Jews began to influence people, their food laws set them apart as culturally distinct, but also made them a whole lot healthier. Alright, I have three. So whats the first one's longer and the second two are shorter? You guys ready? Number one, God's ways are always higher and better even if we don't understand. Alright, so why, why, why all this? He, he didn't really tell them all the why's, but now as we kind of move on, we have the New Testament, we have some time to think through this. And, and I wanna pull out five big, five big whys. Number one is that God was distinguishing his people from other people. Uh, is your family different than other families? Yes. Some similarities, right? Like, but but there are, are there different unique traditions that your family has that maybe even go back generations?
Speaker 1 00:26:38 And if somebody says, why are we doing these things? Because it makes us, us because it's what distinguishes us from everyone else. Because wherever you're at in the world, right? Like you'll know, you'll know a Jew by a couple things. The kosher food they eat by the things they do and the things they don't do by the way they dress. And there are just some things that reinforce culture in culture is so important. And so what we all intuitively do is we want to hand down the good parts of the familial culture we've received and we want to hand it off to the next generation. Those are the strongest family units who have a shared culture through generations. And, and the families who don't hand down culture, guess whose culture your kids are gonna become a part of the world's culture. And so we we step back and we say, you're not a part of them.
Speaker 1 00:27:27 You bear my last name. This is our culture. Here's the family values. And and, and we know this intuitively, it is a good thing. It is the right of every mom and dad to create a culture, reinforce a culture. Hear me create arbitrary rules if we want to just to create a culture because culture is good for people. And if God wants to do that, is he free to do that? Absolutely. If we never figure out half of the reason why the laws were given is he's still just and right to give us the laws, the answer is of course why these laws. Number two, God was testing their trust. Okay, so faith and trust, same thing. Faith, trust by the way, villa Church, we're saved by what not by works, by faith, synonym by trust. So we'll say, uh, have you placed your faith in Jesus?
Speaker 1 00:28:16 Have you personally trusted in Jesus? Uh, it comes from the same, uh, Greek word. Uh, tis one of the greatest words in the New Testament. Greek, uh, uh, uh, faith, trust, same word translated the same in God's economy. It is the most valuable currency. We are saved by it. We flourished by it. We fail without it. We die without it. And apparently without this currency, we don't have the ability to please God, because without faith or trust, it is impossible to please God. And again, there's something annoyingly wonderful about these laws. He doesn't give the details why he wants to know, will you trust me? Because again, in God's economy, and honestly in any human relationship, trust is the most valuable currency. Why these food loss? Number three, God was growing their confidence in him. I had this she'll, I had this one experience with my daughter.
Speaker 1 00:29:19 I won't tell you which one, there's only two. But she says to me, I wish I would've listened to everything you told me when I was younger because you always end up being right. <laugh>, guys, <laugh>, it's one of the greatest moments I've ever had as a dad. <laugh>, I looked at her and I said, I don't even remember this moment for the rest of your life, <laugh>. But what's so funny is like all these random arbitrary things I would, I would tell her to do and she'd be like, why? Why? You know, every kid, we all do that, right? And then you start learning over time, you're like, oh, oh. And then maybe you begrudgingly obey, but your friends don't apply the same principles. And then you watch, oh, that's a really good principle. And I imagine God is like, I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 00:30:13 Will you just, just trust me on this right now? Like science, with science, one day there's gonna be a thing called science and it's gonna teach you how to handle pork and not not get botulism. It's gonna be great. We're not there yet. So can you, can we just trust me on this one? It's gonna be good. And then the more they would obey, they would see that they would actually thrive as a culture, as a community and unity and health and more and the nations around them would devolve. And by the way, students, your parents and grandparents are trying to teach you a way and God willing, it's the way of Christ. And what you're gonna start to notice is as you start obeying the way of Christ that is being handed to you, some of them you may not understand, and some of them you may not like and you may not want to do, and you may think they're ridiculous.
Speaker 1 00:31:00 But I'm telling you right now, if you follow the way of Christ, watch your friends who don't. And your paths will slowly but consistently get further and further and further apart. And your life will be marked by flourishing and life. And the others will be marked by sin and degradation. These are the paths. And the world right now is structured so that you have to pick one or the other. It's really hard to play the middle line here. And what you're gonna find very quickly is there is a path of death and there is a path of life. And if your parents are teaching you the teachings of Christ and the word of God, even if you don't understand it, even if you don't like it, future, you has a strong opinion on, on whether or not you obey God's word and trust him, whether or not you understand it.
Speaker 1 00:31:43 Why these food laws? Here's a, a fourth, fourth reason, uh, all of these laws, there's a reinforcement that death is not God's design. I find it very interesting that the vast majority of the animals that they cannot consume, eat dead things, kill and eat their prey, or they eat the blood of the animal, their eating. It's a really striking nuance here that that really, if it has to do around killing and bloodshed, by and large, those, those animals are forbidden. And there's like this reminder that God didn't design the world for death. It's an unfortunate part of it. Um, um, but unless it's around the idea of sacrifice, like there are certain kinds of animals that really incarnate death in their daily life that, that, that God's people don't participate in. And finally, number five, God was protecting his people from disease. Let's talk about the birds.
Speaker 1 00:32:39 Birds of prey. No birds that eat blood. Because what happens when birds eat blood, they get parasites, they get diseases, they're immune to these things, they build up toxins in their blood and it's not good for people to eat. If you've ever had a parasite, then you should be very grateful that God anticipated this before people understood it and said, these are the things that are gonna make you really sick for a really, really long time. They're gonna ruin your quality of life and reduce your pro productivity and make you wanna fill in blank. I wanna talk about the vulture. I've never had an impulse to to eat a vulture <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:33:20 I have been in the desert where vultures circle me. And I think to myself, if I was hungry enough and I had to fight a vulture, would I eat it? Well, the internet now is officially no. I wanna talk to you just about the stomach acid of a vi of, of a vulture vultures. They, they actually possess some of the most powerful stomach acid in creation. So normal pH goes from zero to 14 seven's like in the middle until like, like humans, we can touch things between four and nine on the pH scale. The vulture stomach acid is between zero and 1.5. Do you know why? They can eat anything? Why? They can eat bones and it dissolves in their stomach because it's stronger than battery acid. And so God's like, don't even touch it, just leave it alone. Well, I wanna touch it.
Speaker 1 00:34:11 Just leave it alone. They can eat pathogens, evil, terrible things that would destroy you and their, their battery acid's stomach. Devours it in a moment. Bats, I know you're bummed. Do we need a bat? They carry diseases. So if you're in a home or in a hotel or an Airbnb and you wake up in the morning and there's a bat in the corner, do you know what you need to do? You have to get a rabies vaccine. The only way to avoid that is to capture that bat and bring it in for testing because even if it's scratches you a little bit while you are sleeping, it can transfer rabies to you. And so God's like, don't, don't even touch it, just stay away from it. My bats are fun. No they're not. Trust me. I know. Like we're gonna give up a little bit of fun.
Speaker 1 00:35:00 Like play with the bat, run after 'em, right? Try to catch 'em for a whole bunch of people not getting rabies. Okay, good. Let's talk seafood. Safety. Shellfish. You ever smell bad fish? Enough said oysters. I learned something new about oysters over the last, uh, couple months. Oysters shouldn't be eaten in a month that doesn't have the letter R in it. You know, the half of you're checked out for the rest of the message, I should say saved that. Okay, so may no June, July, August, right now in a, now in the world, like we can probably eat oysters year round because we know how to preserve them, et cetera. But, but in certain parts of the world in the summer months, oysters get an unusual ma amount of, uh, we'll say, say bacteria in them that make it unsafe to eat. So oyster conno sewers often avoid eating o oysters in any month that doesn't have the letter R May, June, July, August.
Speaker 1 00:35:53 Now go through the rest of them and your brain, should we do it together? So we can take this off you January, February, March, April, not May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. So if it doesn't have the letter r don't eat an oyster. They didn't know that. I mean, he's gonna be like, all right, well with the subspecies oyster, you can either every month of the year, except for the ones that start with letter R in the English language, whatever you ever get done by catfish off limits our insects. Hoppers, yes. Flyers? No. Okay, Peter from Uganda this morning, he's preaching at V Church East <laugh>. And he, so we, we go out to eat and he's like, you eat seafood? And I'm like, it's awesome. And he's like, oh, that's like the way you think about grasshoppers is how we think about seafood. And I was like, you eat grasshoppers? He goes, oh, I love grasshoppers. I'm like, that's so weird. So weird. And he's like, when you come and I'm like, I'm not eating a grasshopper, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1 00:36:50 So hoppers, yes. Flyers, no bees. Mosquitoes. Hornets. Like it's funny that God's like, don't eat hornets. Okay, I'm not gonna eat a hornet. I'm really hungry. Oh, like, don't do it. Okay. What, what animal or insect has killed more people and all of human history than anything else? Mosquito. Right, right. Yeah. Not communism. Mosquitoes. A hundred percent. I know some of you're like too far. Okay, lizards. Lizards. If you touch a lizard, you know what like standard modern instruction is? Wash your hands. 'cause just touching them gives you salmonella at a rate that is, I don't know, like wash your hands. Don't eat pork because there are certain parasites in pork that are really dangerous. And if you don't cook it right and perfectly, if there are not major standards around this, you are going to get sick bigger than this. Don't eat anything with blood in it, by the way, Jewish people.
Speaker 1 00:37:43 Why? Because blood actually carries diseases other than the fact that like demons use this and like, don't, don't do that in a world without like knowledge of germs and parasites. I'm thankful for a God who commands us what not to do even though we don't understand it. This is welcome to living under the authority of a good kind God who is smarter than anything we could ever imagine. And if he told us all of the whys of all of life, he would never stop talking because there's a gajillion whys. And at some point we just gotta live our lives and trust maybe the designer, the creator of all matter, understands the ways these things should function. Now, number two. So what number two, the new covenant has retired all Old Testament food regulations, praise God. <laugh> Acts 11, five. Peter says, I saw a vision looking at it closely.
Speaker 1 00:38:44 I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. Now I still don't think you should eat all these, but that's fine. And I heard a voice enemy rise, Peter, kill me. But I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven saying what God has made clean do not call common. Now, there are two levels to what God told Peter. One is about the animals and the second is the people who eat these animals from the Gentiles, they're now clean if they trust in Christ. And, and one of the things I love about the new covenant is that, uh, the ability to approach God to be clean, to be able to have access to him is not rooted on the foods you eat or don't eat.
Speaker 1 00:39:29 God has retired this method of cleanliness. And there is one singular method of cleanliness that allows us to approach God. It does not matter who you are, what country you're born in. It doesn't matter what you eat. In fact, you can actually do the one thing that it takes to be clean and then go eat quote unquote Old Testament, regulated unclean foods and you're still clean, okay? If you wanna be clean, every person in the world can do it in one way. And that is through personally trusting in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This modern notion that I can, I can clean my, the inside of my cup by, by good behavior is ridiculous, foolish and unbiblical because all the good things I do can't negate the bad things. If you go kill somebody, you can't do a hundred years of good deeded and community service to make up for it.
Speaker 1 00:40:16 Good stuff doesn't erase the bad stuff. That's not how it works ever. We know this intuitively, but we mindlessly by the the cultural mantra that good people go to heaven. No, no, no. Forgiven people to, and that is it. And forgiveness and cleanliness is granted in one way only ever. And that is through an individual person, not groups individually. You can't, other people can't do this for you. People who personally confess their sins and trust in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If you have never done that, what I I just love about God is that anyone, anywhere, anytime, can acknowledge that they are a sinner. Ask God to forgive them and believe that Jesus Christ is their God, died for their sins and was raised from the dead. And you may be here and you might be like, wait a minute, I thought I had to go to church.
Speaker 1 00:41:03 I thought I had to accrue good works. Welcome to the lie that has pervaded the entire world over the last 2000 years. And I have really good news. You'll never get it by being good enough. But God is offering full cleanliness, forgiveness for anyone, anytime, anywhere who confesses their sin and believes in Jesus Christ. Faith, trust, and believe they're actually all the same word. The person who believes is the person who has faith, is the person who trusts pestis. It's the one thing God wants. It is the secret to unlock every relationship in your life, but it is the secret to unlock a relationship with God. And if you have never done that, I'm gonna tell you, I today is the absolute best day you can do it. Even right now, you can be like, God, I'm sorry, forgive me, save me. I believe that Jesus died from my sins and was raised again from the dead. If that's a decision that you're like, you're here and you're like, I've never made that, uh, I'm, I'm absolutely gonna pray that prayer right now. Tell someone you came with somebody you've seen upfront, anybody, we would just love to help you take a next step. And in a few minutes we're gonna, um, get to witness a baptism of, of somebody who made that personal decision. And, uh, baptism is such a beautiful picture of somebody who's trusted in Christ. If I'm number three, whatever you eat, eat it all to the glory of God.
Speaker 1 00:42:28 I I'll be honest, like if I, if if I was just kinda like reading the Bible as is, I, I would probably think to myself, God, I think as a Christian I should obey these cleanliness laws. I know you retired the Old Testament, but it seems wise. And and also by the way, God, they seem to like predate the old covenant law. So like there are some things like murder is a great example. Can we agree? Don't do that. That's good. All right, good. So before the old covenant was given, there was a restriction on murder. It was reiterated in the, in the old covenant, don't murder. Um, and then thankfully it was reiterated in the new covenant. So we're just gonna agree all the humanity for all time we should murder, we'll clean an unclean, uh, regulations were given before the Old Covenant and they were given during the old covenant.
Speaker 1 00:43:09 But it's interesting that now in the new covenant, God comes in and says, no, there's no more clean and unclean. These restrictions are gone. The you, if you want to obey them, you're free to do that. But, but, and, and there are gonna be, I again, don't eat lizards. Okay? Don't eat bats, that's fine. Don't eat oysters in June in a country that's a third world con. Just don't do that. Okay? But no longer are these food restrictions here. And so now there's this unusual freedom that the people of God had. Now imagine your entire life, if you're a first century Jew and you weren't even allowed to touch a pig, and all of a sudden you're gonna someone's house like, do you want some bacon? And they're like, you're like, sure. And just the change of your brain that now all of these things that were unclean, these distinctions went away.
Speaker 1 00:43:57 And now what makes somebody clean? It's not something that they put into their mouth. It is whether they have personally trusted in Christ. So if you're going to eat whatever you do, whether you eat or whether you drink, we do it all to the glory of God. One Timothy chapter four says this, for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected. If it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God. And prayer one Corinthians 10 31. So whether you eat or whether you drink, whatever you do, you do it all to the glory of God. One, one of the reasons that Christians often before they eat food, they stop and they pray, is because what we do in this, in this moment, when we pray for our food, and, and honestly, sometimes we can not mean it for sure, but like what we do is we say, God, I'm taking this with thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 00:44:47 I'm taking this 'cause it's from you, and I'm just kinda giving credit and glory that when I eat, I'm gonna do this to the glory of God. I'm gonna do this under your authority. And because these restrictions don't count, I'm, I'm going to be wise with what I eat. So I'm not going to eat bat, okay? Um, but I'm gonna eat things that are proven to be proven to be safe. And one of the things I appreciate about the new Covenant, I appreciate that stupid isn't sin, right? So it might be really, really, really dumb to go eat a bat. I'm not gonna say it's sin. And, and, and one of the things I appreciate is that, okay, there's a lot more freedom. People are gonna make a lot more errors. And there are some wisdom that we've learned through the generations of cleanliness laws.
Speaker 1 00:45:26 It's really wonderful and beautiful. But now the most important thing, it's not about what you do, it's not about what you eat. It is whether or not you have personally trusted in Jesus Christ. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, we do it all to the glory of God. Now, this principle, we're gonna play it out over the next few weeks because it's gonna get even more invasive. If you thought God regulating your food was invasive, just wait because he's gonna go deeper. Let's pray together. Father, um, thank you for your word. I I thank you that you are a genius and we are not. Teach us to trust you. Teach us to trust that you know what you're talking about. I am thankful, um, that we have learned how and what to eat. I'm even thankful for the f d a at times. I'm thankful for all that we have learned.
Speaker 1 00:46:13 I'm thankful that we can go to restaurants almost anywhere in America, and we don't have to think twice about the things that we're eating or that are on, on the menu. Lord, these are really amazing benefits that we have to live at this time in history. But Lord, more than all of this, every single thing that we consume is from you. We thank you. We love you. We are grateful. And Lord, you have proven yourself to be a good, generous God who has given us more than we could ever ask or imagine. Fill us with gratitude. Teach us the ways of Christ. Teach us to trust you. And Lord, we want to give you glory. We thank you and we pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Those church. Amen.
