Welcome to chapter by chapter, four-year journey through the greatest book given to the human race, the Word of God, the Bible. We get to go through it chapter by chapter, seven minutes a day and seven days a week. Join us each day and share it with others so they can join this journey that will be life-changing. We'll stop at unexpected places on the journey and be challenged. Some verses will create awe and wonder, and we will have chapters that will be instructive, and in others we'll find joy and comfort. We will occasionally be convicted and want to change, but all in all, the journey will be worth it. Once in a while, we may take a detour on the journey and hear from some of God's servants on their favorite passages from a chapter of scripture and let them give you their insight. Every journey needs a small detour occasionally. The best way to get the most from this podcast is read the chapter we're discussing before or after. It's his word that transforms. You will find more and see more than I can ever articulate. Welcome to chapter by chapter, and today's chapter is Leviticus 11. God gives us a menu. We are all reeling from the sudden death of Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abayu. They offered strange fire in Leviticus 10, and God consumed them immediately for not following God's prescribed way. Instead of the sacrifice being consumed with fire, they were consumed by fire. What is sometimes overlooked is that Leviticus chapter 10 almost concludes with the death of Aaron's remaining two sons, a father almost lost all four of his boys in one day. Moses just comes off the burial of the Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abayu, for offering strange fire. The shock is over and he looks for the goat for the sin offering, and he finds out that the other two sons of Aaron burned it when they should have eaten it. Listen to Leviticus 10, 16. But Moses searched carefully for the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up. So he was angry with Aaron's surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar. Aaron, whose heart was too crushed to bear a new load of grief for his sons, heard the charge and quickly offered an explanation. Though Leviticus 4 says it should have been eaten, Aaron did something and God showed mercy to him. Listen to Leviticus 10, 19 and 20. But Aaron spoke to Moses, Behold this very day they presented their sin offering and their burn offering before the Lord. When things like these happened to me, if I had eaten the sin offering today, would it have been good in the sight of the Lord? When Moses heard it, it seemed good in the sight. Though it was not clear in Leviticus 4 to eat the offering and it was burned, there seemed to be margin for his grief and what he went through. Instead of Moses holding to the letter of the law, he showed mercy for the spirit of the law. Aaron was decidedly wrong by God's command, but Moses sympathized with his deeply afflicted brother. And after pointing out the error, he said no more. The last scene needed to be in this chapter. It shows wicked motives will be judged and pure motives shown mercy. Both violated the law, but the motives were diabolically opposite. God really does know the heart and God wants the heart clean. And what seems to be a whole new mindset in Leviticus chapter 11 is actually a byproduct of this final story in Leviticus 10. After God's dealing with these four boys, God seemingly takes this hard left from judgment and gives a restaurant menu. It's a big menu of food items. It was like reading a long menu here at a New York City diner that is every category of food for the patron. But Leviticus 11 is bigger than the words on the menu. There is more here than what the children of Israel can and cannot eat. There was something larger happening than a grocery list with sections of creatures on the earth, things that swim in the water, fowls in the air and swarming things on earth. I think God was helping us to be mindful of clean hearts more than clean diets. That's what saved boys three and four clean hearts. This food list will all be temporary. We will see the larger scope of it in the New Testament. After the menu items are listed, this was God's summation in Leviticus 11, 44 through 47. For I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God. Thus you shall be holy for I am holy to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean. You see, God was wanting holiness more than simply physically fit people that shop at natural food markets. I think God was asking us to discern between the clean and the unclean, but not just animals because this was about holiness, not fitness. This wasn't the beginning of a clean diet. I think it was the foreshadowing of a clean spiritual diet. God was telling Moses that though everything may be from the same genre, ground, air and water, it doesn't mean everything is good for intake. Just because it's located in the same place, you need to be discerning. There are those that would want to use almost 50 verses in chapter 11 for dietary reasons, but I believe it's about a spiritual diet for us. If it's in the ocean, God says it may not be healthy for you physically. And just because something is in the church building doesn't mean it's healthy for intake either. You may see thousands of books on the shelves in a bookstore marked Christianity. Leviticus 11 says they put it in the same genre, but you have to know what's clean and unclean, that everything you read in a book labeled Christian is good for intake. In Mark 7 verses 18 through 23, Jesus speaks about the spiritual diet. He says this in verse 18, and he said to them, Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from the outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and it's eliminated. Thus he declared all foods clean. And he was saying that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within out of the heart of man proceeds evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Jesus declared all foods clean. Peter sees a vision in Acts 10 with all of these Leviticus 11 foods on a sheet and God tells him to eat. The conversation in the vision went like this in Acts 10, 11. And he saw the sky opened in an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground. And there was in it all kinds of four-footed animals crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, get up Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said by no means Lord for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean. And again, a voice came to him a second time, would God as cleansed no longer consider unholy. And then Paul reiterates what Jesus said and what Peter saw when he writes to this young pastor about the last days in 1 Timothy chapter four. But the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with the branding iron. Men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with gratitude for it is sanctified by means of the word of God in prayer. It's not the food intake, but the intake of things into our spirit. The dietary laws were temporary, but the principle is permanent. Christians must have discernment and avoid what is unclean. The prophet Ezekiel speaks about a new heart that will come to God's people. He calls it a heart of flesh. It says that God will give you a heart of flesh is a promise in Ezekiel 3626, meaning God replaces a stubborn, unfeeling heart of stone with one that is soft, responsive and obedient. But that heart will need the right diet to stay soft and pliable. God will give leaders discernment to help our spiritual diet. He says in Ezekiel 4423, William Faulk, an interim chief of the Week magazine, wrote the following short column. A Yale study that tracked 3,635 people over 12 years found that book readers lived an average of two years longer than non-book readers. The more time spent reading books, the study found the better. So my friends, no matter what fresh madness the new year brings, arm yourselves with a pile of good books. Our lives and our sanity may depend upon it. I want to interject my Leviticus 11 menu into this article. You may get two more years from reading books. However, if you adjust your diet to the word of God and let that book sink in and obey it, you get more than two years to live. You get forever. You get eternity. You get heaven. Read the clean and leave the unclean alone. Thank you for joining chapter by chapter. Every chapter from the greatest book, the Bible, the Word of God, seven minutes a day, seven days a week. We'll see you tomorrow.
