Yesterday we had a warning against idols from Leviticus 17 and 1 John 5. We continue the theme with another tough chapter: Leviticus 18. The middle contains detailed prohibitions against incest – we won’t go there in this blog! But the beginning and end are very instructive:

You shall not do according to what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do according to what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to do My judgments and keep My statutes, to walk in them; I am Yahweh your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am Yahweh. (Leviticus 18.3 – 5, LSB)

There are times when we must be distinct from the culture. We are…

• “to do God’s judgments”
• “Keep God’s statutes”
• “Walk in them”

“I am Yahweh your God.”

The close is similar to the opening:

So do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. (Leviticus 18.24, LSB)

It’s a hard chapter to read, but the bottom line is that there are standards. There are boundaries. And just because the culture is doing it, doesn’t make it right. Real life is in God’s way of life. “If a man does them, he will live by them.”

There are many kinds of things a culture does, that if I participate in, it’s wrong. It’s not just sexual dysfunction. What about oppressing the poor, for example, or depriving minorities of their rights? God’s people are to be different. How many of those yelling obscenities at Ruby Bridges were in church on Sundays, for example?

It’s easy to spend too much money on “toys,” expensive new cars, exotic travel, etc. Fall will be here soon, and there will be an epidemic of people worshiping at the altar of college football teams.

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things. (Leviticus 18.24, ESV)

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5.21, ESV)

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. (Romans 12.2, J.B. Phillips)

The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it proves unfruitful. (Mark 4.19, ESV)