Leviticus 18:28-29 (ESV)
lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people.
Although the above two verses are taken right out of the middle of a paragraph, there is a truth to learn from them. Moses is writing about the sexual behavior for the nation of Israel. If we used a New Testament passage to sum up what Moses says in this chapter of Leviticus it might be this passage Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:
1 Thessalonians 4:1-5 (ESV)
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
In order to live a life to please God, whether in the Old or New Testament, we are not to look like the world in our conduct, especially in the area of sexual activity. It is amazing that God is concerned about our sexual lives. He sees the act of intimacy as a holy act created to bring glory to Him. Man always seems to distort for himself what God creates for His glory. In this Leviticus instruction Moses has just told them that having sexual relationships with family members, with same gender partners and with animals, is forbidden for them. These are things the Gentiles do, who do not know God. These things are so sinful the land itself vomits. The impact from immorality has a negative effect on any nation, any culture and any land where these things are permitted. The reason the nations were removed from the land and the land was given to Israel was the wicked way they lived. God does not tolerate wicked living. Sexual immorality was just one aspect of that life style that cost them their land. God destroys nations and countries that run rampant with immorality. He did then and He will now.
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