Severed that Ye Should Be Mine

Day 36 – A Year in the Bible – Leviticus 19-20

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LEVITICUS 19 – THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES

Leviticus 19:1 says – And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying… Then He gives some commands

Nine Commands–Civil and Religious Laws (Leviticus 19:2-8)
1. Say to Israel: You shall be holy. (Lev. 19:2)
2. Fear father and mother (Lev. 19:3).
3. Keep My sabbaths.
4. Do not turn to idols (Lev. 19:4).
5. Do not make molten gods.
6. Offer peace offerings at your own will and not as a forced act (Lev. 19:5).
7. Eat of the sacrifice the day that it is offered and on the day following, but not on the third day (Lev. 19:6-7).
8. Burn whatever remains on the third day in the fire (Lev. 19:6).
9. Whoever eats any of it on the third day shall be cut off (Lev. 19:7-8).

Idols – In the Hebrew the word “idols” means “nothings.” Nothings – this is what an idol is called!

At your own will – God’s program of salvation and redemption is all and always on a freewill basis.

[if aught remain until the third day, it shall be burnt in the fire] Anything beginning to decay was not to be used because the sacrifice was to be pure. The sacrifice was a type of the pure, uncorrupt, sinless Son of God. Such food was to be burned instead. To disobey in this was serious enough for death. Why? Because it would honor corruption while offering a sacrifice to God (while being in communion with God).

God’s Plan for the Poor
And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God. – Leviticus 19:9-10

Five commands–law of gleanings (Leviticus 19:9-10):
1. Do not reap your fields clean.
2. Do not gather the gleanings of the harvest.
3. Do not glean your vineyard (Lev. 19:10).
4. Do not gather all the grapes.
5. Leave the gleanings of all your fields and vineyards for the poor.

This was God’s plan to help care for the poor. The generous left plenty for them and created a spirit of love between neighbors.

Twenty-six Social and Religious Laws (Leviticus 19:11-19)
1. Do not steal (Lev. 19:11).
2. Do not deal falsely (Lev. 19:11).
3. Do not lie (Lev. 19:11).
4. Do not swear falsely by My name (Lev. 19:12).
5. Do not profane My name.
6. Do not defraud your neighbor (Lev. 19:13).
7. Do not rob your neighbor.
8. Pay wages at end of every day.
9. Do not curse the deaf (Lev. 19:14).
10. Do not cause the blind to stumble.
11. You shall fear God.
12. Do no unrighteousness in judgment (Lev. 19:15).
13. Do not dishonor a man because he is poor.
14. Do not honor a man because he is mighty.
15. Judge your neighbor righteously.
16. Do not be a talebearer (Lev. 19:16).
17. Do not endanger the life of your neighbor or interfere with justice if he is guilty.
18. Do not hate your brother in your heart (Lev. 19:17).
19. Do not suffer your neighbor to sin if a rebuke will keep him from it.
20. Do not seek revenge (Lev. 19:18).
21. Do not bear a grudge against your people.
22. Love your neighbor as yourself.
23. Keep My statutes (Lev. 19:19).
24. Do not crossbreed your stock.
25. Do not sow fields with mingled seed.
26. Do not wear garments of mixed fabric.

Five Commands–Sexual Sin with Slaves (Leviticus 19:21-22)
1. A man who has sexual relations with a slave who is betrothed but not yet redeemed, shall be scourged. The Septuagint reads: “They shall be visited with punishment.”
2. The slave shall also be scourged.
3. They shall not be put to death (as in other cases, Dt. 22:23-24), because she was not free.
4. The man shall bring a ram ($125) to the tabernacle for a trespass offering (Lev. 19:21).
5. The priest shall make atonement for his sin with the ram and it shall be forgiven him (Lev. 19:22).

Four commands–Fruit Trees (Leviticus 19:23-25)
1. Count all fruit of new trees as uncircumcised for three years.
2. Do not eat the fruit of these years.
3. The fruit of the fourth year shall be given to the priest as holy (Lev. 19:24).
4. The fruit from the fifth year on shall be yours to enjoy (Lev. 19:25).

uncircumcised – Regarding the fruit as being uncircumcised probably referred to plucking the blossoms (Lev. 19:23-25). The law was wise, because it is said that if the blossoms are plucked in the early years, the trees will bear more abundantly afterward.

Twenty Social and Religious Laws (Leviticus 19:26-36)
1. Do not eat anything with the blood.
2. Do not use enchantments.
3. Do not observe times.
4. Do not round corners of the hair or your head (Lev. 19:27).
5. Do not round the corners of your beard.
6. Do not make cuttings in your flesh in honor of the dead (Lev. 19:28).
7. Do not print any marks on you.
8. Do not prostitute your daughter (Lev. 19:29).
9. Keep My sabbaths (Lev. 19:30).
10. Reverence My sanctuary.
11. Do not regard those with familiar spirits (Lev. 19:31).
12. Do not seek after wizards.
13. Rise up before the hoary head (Lev. 19:32).
14. Honor the face of the old man.
15. Fear your God.
16. Do not vex a stranger (Lev. 19:33).
17. Consider the stranger living in your midst as one of you (Lev. 19:34).
18. Love him as yourself.
19. Be righteous in judgment (Lev. 19:35).
20. Be honest in your dealings having just weights, balances, measures (Lev. 19:35-36).

Observe All My Statutes and Judgements
Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the LORD. – Leviticus 19:37

MY Sabbath and MY Sanctuary
Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. – Leviticus 19:30

One little (huge) Word in this verse struck me this morning. MY. God doesn’t say THE sabbath or THE sanctuary. He says MY sabbath and MY sanctuary!

It is sad how few of us keep His sabbath and give reverence to His Sanctuary. Preaching to myself here!!! Some say it is just a building, and that is in some ways right, but most church sanctuaries were set apart for the Lord when they were initially built. Over time they have changed. But even if it were true that it is just a building or part of the building,  the way we treat God’s house (the building) is very representative of how we keep God’s house (our heart). You say, well, His Sabbath is actually on Saturday. It is just a day. But then Saturday or Sunday, if we keep His Sabbath day by treating it as just another day, it very likely an indication of how little time is given to God every day.

This passage hits home for me and brings me conviction. I am more apt to revere His sanctuary (the building) than my heart, His Sanctuary.  Do we treat our hearts and what goes in our hearts with reverence? Do we regularly clean out anything that is not in line with His Word and His Way? In the same line, keeping His Sabbath, as  He created His Sabbath to be, has become less and less a day of rest and worship and more like just an hour or two at church before we go out to lunch and then head off to other things of this world. If we keep on the path of slowly eliminating one thing and then another that we think doesn’t matter, eventually there will be only shells of the church but no real church. It is not just a building. If we aren’t gathering together, we are scattered abroad. When I see old churches that are closed down, I often wonder where the people are now.

Keep – To hold to; retain in one’s possession; not to lose or part with; to preserve; to retain; to tend to.

Reverence – Fear mingled with respect; to regard with respect and affection. We reverence superiors for their age, their authority, and their virtues. We should reverence God, His Word, and His ordinances; an act of respect such as a bow or a curtsy.

God help me to keep your instructions, even as You told us in our Proverb today, that I might be on the correct path – the Way of LIFE. Help Your church, Father!!!

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LEVITICUS 20 – SEPARATED FROM OTHER PEOPLE

Eighteen Death-Penalty Sins
1. Sacrificing children to Molech (Lev. 20:2-3)
2. Sympathy with idolaters (Lev. 20:4-5)
3. Turning to those in witchcraft (Lev. 20:6; Lev. 20:27)
4. Cursing one’s parents (Lev. 20:9)
5. Adultery with one’s neighbor’s wife (Lev. 20:10)
6. Adultery with one’s father’s wife (Lev. 20:11)
7. Adultery with one’s son’s wife (Lev. 20:12)
8. Homosexuality (Lev. 20:13)
9. Marrying a daughter and her mother (Lev. 20:14)
10. Bestiality by a man (Lev. 20:15)
11. Bestiality by a woman (Lev. 20:16)
12. Adultery with one’s sister (Lev. 20:17)
13. Sexual relations during menstruation (Lev. 20:18)
14. Adultery with one’s mother’s sister (Lev. 20:19)
15. Adultery with one’s father’s sister (Lev. 20:19)
16. Adultery with one’s aunt (Lev. 20:20)
17. Adultery with one’s sister-in-law (Lev. 20:21)
18. Witchcraft (Lev. 20:27)

Sanctify Yourselves
Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you. – Leviticus 20:7-8

Separation
Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out. And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. – Leviticus 20:22-25 

These last years, I have lost some close friends to other friendships and new callings. I don’t take offense at it, but there are days I look back, and on those days, I sometimes ask why. Then the Holy Ghost brings to remembrance that I asked the Lord to be my closest friend. I asked Him to show me the truth of “deep calling unto deep.”

This passage touches me because I know there is a promised land. I know the Father is answering prayer. And though it has required a cost I never counted, the Holy Ghost is taking me to deep places that I likely would have ignored if life were busy with a larger circle of friends. The Lord, my God, has separated me from other people (as the scripture says of the Israelites in today’s passage) for His Glory and my good. It is the Lord that does this…

I know if He has separated me, He has separated others.

Severed that Ye Should Be Mine
And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine. – Leviticus 20:26

(All lists come from Dake Bible Notes)