Alright, my intention was to try to cover chapter 11 and 12, but then each time I get into it, I feel like there's too much to cover both chapters. I was kind of debating back and forth whether I'm going to try to finish Leviticus in this session or to do it in two sessions.

And I, as I was preparing, especially this week, I realized it's not, I don't think it's going to be beneficial to try to finish it in one session because each chapter, even though sometimes we can get lost in it, there's so much depth inside of it and so much of it connects us to a deeper understanding of the New Testament.

I don't want to skim through it and I think if you really grasp what's happening in Leviticus, it will really open up the New Testament to you. And so I think it would be beneficial for us to take our time, so we are going to take it a little bit slower.

Not that we've been going fast, but we're going to cover chapter 11. Chapter 12 is very few verses, but we're going to cover chapter 12 and we're probably going to just do one chapter at a time. And then this session is going to go toward mid-June, mid to second and third week of June.

And then there's about a six week, seven week break. And then we pick up and then we'll finish the second half after that. Okay. So that's our schedule. All right. Chapter 11, I'm sure if you took some time to read it, you probably have come into this room thoroughly confused.

Like what, how does this benefit and what is the meaning behind it? The split hooves and the scales and no scales and what is the meaning behind this? Okay. So we'll cover that today. One thing that I was thinking about this week before we even get started about, I preached through the book of Leviticus maybe about 14 years ago.

And I know there's only like a very few people who are here, maybe like two. Yeah, I can only think of maybe Esther. Did you come Peter? You came in the middle. Yeah. Peter came in the middle. There's a few. Yeah. So maybe four. Now I'm looking at four or five.

And I remember at that time studying through Leviticus, how difficult it was to study because there's so little material in the Old Testament, in particular Leviticus and Numbers. And so I tried going to the library, looking up commentaries and usually even in the commentaries, they would just kind of cover broad sections at a time.

So there's so little material. But this time around, as I was studying, because of the internet, there's so much material to cover that I don't have time to read all of it. And I was just thinking as I was studying through that, just in the period of about 10 to 12 years, because of the internet, the resource that has been available to all Christians around the world.

And it just, the only reason why we don't know the Bible is just because we lack the will. You know, but the opportunity to be able to dive into even deep things that would have taken a long time to even grasp or understand, it's just a matter of your curiosity and just taking a few minutes to type it in.

It's just right there. You know what I mean? And to sift through all of that. Now just thinking about that, just how much the landscape has changed and how really privileged we are. But along with that, as we study, the scripture says much is given, much is expected. So in God's economy, there's no other group of people in human history that should have a better grasp of God's word than the people who are living in this generation.

Just because of the resources that we have. It's just any question you have, you can just type it in. You can just ask and it tells you. The only reason why we may not know is because we're not curious enough. We just don't have the will or we're just too distracted.

But definitely no Christian in our generation should ever be able to say, "I couldn't grow because," or, "I couldn't mature. I didn't know because." Because we already have it. Anyway, I was just thinking about that, just feeling blessed to be able to have all these resources. Let me pray for us and then we'll jump in.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessing. I thank you for my brothers and sisters who many of us have come from long day of work. I pray that in the midst of physical fatigue, that our spirits may be renewed and that even our physical strength, Lord God, may be restored, Father God, as a result of meeting you and knowing who you are.

We pray that you would bless this time and that your grace would truly be sufficient for all things. Help us to understand the deep things that you have implanted in these verses, Lord, that the New Testament and the gospel message may open up to us, that we may have a better grasp of what you've been doing in history and how we got here and your detailed plans, Lord God, and your blueprints, that all of these things would make better sense to us.

So we thank you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you look at your outline or if you look at the sheets that I've given you, on the top of it I put the phrase, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." I thought that was kind of interesting because when I typed that in or I was looking at that, he said that at least in the modern era, modern era meaning the last two, three hundred years, okay, that's what I mean by modern era, the first record that we have of this phrase was given by John Wesley in a sermon.

The context of it wasn't about this passage. It was basically John Wesley teaching about discipleship and how we need to be disciplined and all that. So that's interesting because at least the phrase itself, it relates to the text that we're looking at this morning. Godliness or cleanliness is next to godliness.

The whole thing that we're going to be looking at, chapter one all the way to chapter 11 all the way to 15, is about how God distinguishes what is clean and unclean. So this is just a quick review of the outline. What do you call that kind of outline?

Okay, chiastic. And what makes it a chiastic outline? Right, just that order. So you have it starts the first half of it up to chapter 16, you have the laws, laws of priest, laws of purity, and then the center of it is the day of atonement, right? So if someone was to read this, you know that the day of atonement is the kind of main point so everything points to the day of atonement and everything points from the day of atonement.

What does that kind of look like in God's economy? The cross, right? Everything is preparation toward the cross and everything after that is pointing back to the cross, right? So that's a chiastic format. We're kind of in chapter 11 through 15, the different laws of purity and all of these things are going to lead us to the day of atonement, right?

The reason why the day of atonement needed to take place and then from that it's going to go beyond and talk about how to fulfill that in personal lives. So we're in chapter 11 through 15, the laws of purity. So the previous chapter 10, 10 and 11, so if you have your Bibles open just turn there real quick, 10 and 11 God says to the priests, you are to distinguish between holy and the common and between the unclean and the clean and that was the job of the priest.

The priest through God's law were to identify what is acceptable, what is not acceptable before God. So chapter 11 through 15 is identifying for us what they are. So chapter 11 is talking about what is clean and unclean in animals and then chapter 12 through 15 is unclean and clean pertaining to human beings.

So if you were to split up chapter 11 through 15 that's how it would be split up. So starting from next week's chapter 12 we're going to get into specifics of how God views clean and unclean as it pertains specifically to human beings. Today it's going to be about animals.

So the previous chapters deal with the ritual dealings with worship at the tabernacle but this passage in particular, chapter 11 through 15 is how these laws should be practiced at home. So up to this point it was all talking about the tabernacle and the priesthood and their purification and their washing and their ordination but starting from this point on it's specifically talking to individuals.

So these aren't necessarily things that are practiced only in the tabernacle but in their personal lives. So if there's any distinction that's a distinction. So in chapter 11, 32 separate times the word unclean is used. The word unclean is used. So you can already tell just by the repetition of this word that that's the theme.

What is unclean before God's eyes and then it uses the word detestable. Some of your translations abomination, 11 separate times. So some things are unclean, some things are abominable, they're detestable before God and you're not to touch it. Now these distinctions between clean and unclean animals are not new in Leviticus.

Remember we talked about that, a lot of the sacrifices, these burnt offerings, remember we saw it even in the book of Genesis. That's most likely the offering that maybe that Cain and Abel or Abel offered. It seemed like it was a burnt offering that he was given. So the distinction is a lot of these sacrificial systems and what is considered clean and unclean, it existed but in chapter in the book of Leviticus it's clarifying it and make it into a law, a collective law.

I think the best way for us to describe that is when you become a member of the church we have a tenfold covenant. Now that tenfold covenant is not a new thing for Christians at Berean. Berean didn't create that. The tenfold covenant in what we ask you guys to sign are things that are commanded in the New Testament.

That this is what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus and all we've done is identified ten core things that we want to make sure that you understand and we're expecting the Berean community church to practice that.

But it was not created by Berean community church. It was things that was already in scripture that we just kind of collected it and trying to emphasize it. So that's I think probably the best way to understand that a lot of these regulations clean and unclean, we see it before the book of Leviticus.

Now what they understood, how they understood it, how they applied it, we don't have the details. All we know is that there are passages specifically that mention clean and unclean. So in Genesis chapter 7, 1 through 10, where God tells Noah to prepare these animals and he tells them to distinguish between the clean and the unclean.

So that idea and that concept already existed before the book of Leviticus. So it wasn't like, you know, they receive the book of Leviticus and all of a sudden it's like I don't understand this. It was already embedded into their culture. So again, as I mentioned, this distinction was part of an ancient tradition that antedated the Mosaic law, which is what I've been saying.

The reasons behind these distinctions with clean and unclean animals, there is no universal agreement in the Christian community. And this is part of the reason why there's so much confusion in the book of Leviticus, because there's nothing, no one thing that clearly says, "Aha, this answers all of our questions." But some of it makes more sense than the other.

These are the four different views. The arbitrary view. Maybe you see arbitrary views basically, we throw our hands up, none of this makes sense. There's no use trying to understand it. God said it, we just do it. Right? That's the arbitrary. There's no rule. There's nothing to look, just read it.

It doesn't apply to you today. It happened in the past. Forget about it. Right? That's basically the arbitrary rule. It's completely arbitrary. There's no meaning behind it. Obviously, I don't think there's anything that God does that's completely arbitrary. When I think about that view, it kind of reminds me of tonsils.

I had my tonsils taken out because the doctor told me to. And then right now, because I think modern medicine, their underlying backbone is evolution. So their ideology is that we've evolved, that we don't, certain organs that we don't understand, it just doesn't function anymore. So it just kind of, if you don't see the reason for it, get rid of it.

But the tonsil was one of those things that they don't really know exactly what it is. But after I took it out, I started having really bad breathing problems. Then I asked my dad who had the same issue and he took his lung, his, not lungs, but his tonsils out.

And he told me that he had the exact same problem when he took his tonsils out. So we don't know exactly what it is, but definitely we start having problems with breathing because of it. So it kind of reminds me, the arbitrary view is if we don't understand it, there's no meaning behind it.

I think that's human arrogance to think that if we don't understand, there's no meaning behind it. I don't think anything God does is random. There's a purpose behind it. But that's the first view. The cult, sorry, the cultic view, that this view states that the unclean animals are associated with some pagan worship.

Now no one has identified specifically what those pagan worship is. There are obviously some, some traces of that in some of the idol worships of the Canaanites, but it does not cover comprehensively the things that he's saying. But that's one of the views, that maybe God told them not to touch these animals because certain animals were sacrificed in idol worship.

But again, there's no evidence behind that because the list that we have in Leviticus, there is no religion or nothing that we can identify historically that has any, any list that comes even close to that's mentioned in the book, in Leviticus. But that's again, a theory, right? Better than the arbitrary view.

The third view you may have heard, because this is a view that is propagated in some circles. I've heard, I've gotten into deep conversations with Seventh-day Adventists, and they are very strict with this. That there's, we don't understand fully, but there's some modern medical things that some of these animals are clearly unclean.

It's not good for you. They're, they're considered less healthy than the clean animals. And so some of it we understand, some of it we don't understand. So I've, I remember speaking to, in particular, I don't, I'm not sure if all Seventh-day Adventists believe this, but, but many of the Seventh-day Adventists believe that the Old Testament dietary laws are something that we ought to practice because it has personal benefits, right?

There's some people in the Christian community who also believe that, right? I think there is a mixture of that. And it clearly, again, when I was back in college, I read an article from a non-Christian who read all of these, again, not, not having medical background, just reading their conclusion, and this is coming from a non-Christian, who was questioning the Mosaic authorship because the detailed information about what is unclean and clean was so accurate that Moses could not have known this information.

And so therefore, he rejected Moses' authorship. This was a non-Christian talking about this. I don't know the details of what animals are good for what or why certain animals are not good for eating, but I remember reading an article that that was the conclusion of this particular person. So that's one of the views, that we don't fully understand it, but God told them to do something because in the long run, it was, it was all, it was healthy for them, okay?

I believe that there's probably a lot of that embedded in there because there's nothing that God tells you to do that doesn't ultimately benefit us, right? The order in the church telling us to submit to government, I mean, there's all kinds of things that God commands us to do.

We may not initially understand it, but in the, in the larger scheme of things, what God has created in his order that he created for us ultimately is for our benefit, and I believe that this probably is one of those things. So we may understand some and not understand others, but I definitely believe there is some physical benefits from some of the things that he said.

The most popular view and most wide-held view is the symbolic view, that there's a lot of symbolism behind them, and it makes sense because a lot of things that God did in the other parts of the tabernacle, like laying on of hands, right, to eating at a certain place, sacrificing the whole burnt offering, or the peace offering, and having picnics, all of these things are symbolic, pointing to something very specific that was going to be fulfilled in Christ.

So the symbolic view basically points to that there are symbolisms that are embedded into these clean and unclean animals that ultimately point to something that would be fulfilled in Christ. Again, but the challenge that we have is then what are the symbolisms? Some are pretty obvious, and some are obviously up to debate, but that's part of the reason why we have such a difficult time coming to a final, comprehensive conclusion in this, because it is not easy.

But it seems to make most sense. Hermeneutically, it's consistent with the other way that we approach every other part of Scripture, that hygienically, there probably is a direct benefit, and maybe some of you guys would know that better than I do, but definitely symbolically, it was pointing to something in Christ.

So that's the way we're going to kind of approach it today, and to see what are some of the things. So to give you an example of that, remember in verse 42, to chapter 11, verse 42, one of the detestable things that God mentions about these bugs, whatever goes on its belly and whatever goes on the fours, or whatever has many feet and swarms, the things that swarm on the ground, you shall not eat, for they are detestable.

Okay, again, just symbolically, in Genesis chapter 3, 14 to 15, what happens there that crawls on the belly? You should know, right? Satan is judged, and what's one of the judgments? That you shall crawl on your belly, right? So again, it doesn't mean that that's exactly what it is, but that's how certain things are being, that for us to understand it, that in scripture, for whatever the reason, God's judgment led to crawling on the belly.

So it could be that a lot of the symbolism is pointing to certain things, just like yeast represents sin in the scripture, right? So whenever he says not to have any sin, not sin, but any yeast in your dough, it represents to be cleansed, to repent, and to not to have any of that, any kind of defect, in bringing that to him.

And so a lot of these things that are being taught in this, if you search deep enough, there are similarities or symbolisms that are embedded all throughout scripture that it causes us to kind of look deeper. So that's just one example of that. The dietary regulations are divided into three major parts, okay?

You have the animals that are living on the land in chapter 11, verse 2 to 8. The animals that are living on the land are divided into two different sets, clean and unclean. The clean animals are, they need to meet two requirements. They need to be animals that chew the cut and have a split hoof, okay?

So what's an example of an animal that chews the cut and has split hoof? Cow, goat, lamb, right? And a lot of it are the animals that God chose for sacrifice, right? And then the ones that you can, and it has to have both. You can't have one and not the other, okay?

So you can qualify as one, you can chew the cut, but if it has split hooves, it wouldn't qualify, right? What's an animal that would be an unclean animal? Huh? Rabbit, because it chews the cut but doesn't have split hooves, right? How about a lion? It wouldn't qualify for either.

Okay, so you get it, right? So that's how it's distinguished. So in order for it to be considered clean, you have to chew the cut, meaning it basically has to be a vegetarian, right? And then it has to have split hooves, so it has to fit that category, okay?

So I'm not going to go into detail and say, "Well, you know, what about a lion?" And we're not going to go into that. We're going to just try to cover it in a larger scale, just try to figure out the meaning behind a lot of it. The second category are the sea creatures, verses 9 through 12.

In order for it to be considered clean, they have to have fins and scales, right? Fins and scale. You can't have one and not the other. So a lot of the sea creatures that wouldn't fit this category would be what? Huh? Eels, crab, lobster. You can't have that. You're going to sin against God if you have lobster again, right?

So it needs to have fins and scales. So if you love seafood and you love lobster and crabs, shame on you, right? But there's good news at the end, so hold on, okay? So that would be the second category. Third are all the creatures in the air, and specifically it's prohibited.

Birds of prey would be defiled by dead carcasses. Birds of prey would be considered unclean, right? Any birds that are scavengers, right? So what would fall into this category? Huh? Eagles, crows. Okay, those are the only two I know, but I'm sure you can think of more, right? Any birds of prey would be considered unclean.

Chicken, turkey, all that would be okay, okay? And then within the flying, there are insects. And within the insects, the only provision that is given that you can eat is jointed hind legs, which would be locusts, grasshopper, crickets, but all other insects are considered detestable. So if you remember John the Baptist, his main diet was locusts and honey, because it was clean, it was considered clean.

All cockroaches, flies, and insects are rejected as unclean, right? So we're all grossed out by it because the Bible says it's unclean. So there's biblical reasons to hate spiders, right? So we're going through it pretty quick. So that's the first part of it where it talks about the animals that are clean and unclean, right?

And there are, like, the symbolism behind it. Let me give you... Now, again, I'm not going to go through, like, this is the symbolism behind this and the split hooves, and we're going to talk about that. But one of the theories of the symbolic views is that all the animals that are mentioned that chew the clut and split hooves are considered natural and normal, okay?

And this is propagated by a man named Douglas, and he basically says that all the animals and the sea creatures and the birds that are mentioned that maybe God had intended for a certain way, but they don't function the way they're supposed to, whatever they mean. Again, so when I read it, to me, it wasn't airtight.

But this is, again, this is just my theory, my guess. If we were to look at the Old Testament commandment of the regulations on the sacrifices and the priests, what is the primary thing that it says that you cannot bring to God? What was the word that was used over and over again that you cannot bring to God?

Any kind of blemish of any kind. It has to be an animal without defect. And same thing with the priest, right? And then you can't have yeast, and the reason why you can't have yeast is what? It alters the dough, right? Basically it's introducing something foreign, and then the bacteria causes the whatever it is.

I don't bake, but basically for it to change its nature. So anything that defiles the original intention, right, whatever it may be, what he said is defected before God. So it's not identify how these animals are defected, but again, one of the theory is that God's intent in creation, that the clean are the ones that God originally intended, and then the unclean are the things that eventually maybe through, I don't know, some kind of defilement went another direction.

Again, this is just a theory. But whatever it was, those things that he identifies were considered defective. Again, I hope you're following me, okay? That we don't know why it's defective, we don't know by what criteria, but when we apply how God applies clean and unclean to all the other things, right?

Like whether it's human being or sacrifice or whether it's food, anything that defiles God's original intention was considered unclean. So if you apply that same principle to these animals, we don't know exactly why they were considered not God's original plan, but it seems like that's what he's determining. That these particular animals, these birds and these insects, whatever they were, that this was in God's original creation, his intent, but these animals for whatever the reason are living or acting a different way that God has designed.

What they are, I don't know, right? Let me ask you a question. Was weed designed by God as that part of the fall? If you look in the Genesis, was Adam and Eve carnivorous? We don't see him eating meat, right, before the fall, right? Now, it doesn't mean that he didn't, but we just don't see it, right?

So there's a lot of things that happened because of the fall, right? Now we don't know exactly, we say, "Oh, maybe rats came from the fall." Yeah, maybe. Maybe the spiders came from the fall. We don't know for sure, but all we're doing is applying the same principle that we see being applied to human beings, to the sacrifices, to the dough, to the food, that he's applying to these animals, right?

We just don't know exactly why, right? Something went wrong. Something was defective. Something about it, defective, it wasn't God's original perfect intent, okay? And that's about as far as I'll go, because anything beyond that is just a guess and it's just conjecture, right? Because up to that point, it seems clear that that's why he's pointing that out.

It wasn't God's original intent. So maybe when we get to heaven, some of these animals, I don't know. I don't know what they're going to look like, but it's just a guess. Again, that's why I'm not going beyond that. So just to kind of give you a visual, clean and unclean.

So all the animals up there, they're chewing the cod, it's split hooves, right? The birds are not birds of prey. And then fish have scale. What was the other criteria? A fin, yeah. And then everything else down here that doesn't fit that criteria, right? Let me give you another picture.

Okay, so you have the scavengers, creepy things, dirty things. No split hooves, they don't chew the cod, and then no fin and scales, right? And the crab is one of them. Now the significance of this, like ultimately, I thought it was really interesting. Oh, I forgot to give you one more thing, right?

Not only are they unclean, it says we can become unclean by touching them. We can become defiled, right? So becoming unclean by touch does not necessarily mean that you have sinned. So that's a distinction. Being unclean doesn't necessarily mean that you have sinned and you need atonement, right? So when you become unclean by touching something that was unclean, you were unclean for the rest of that day and you had to wait until midnight, right?

So touching dead animals, again, if you were a farmer, how can you not touch dead animals? But if you did touch it, you would be considered unclean for the rest of that night. So you couldn't go out, go and give sacrifices and do ceremonial things or certain restrictions once you became unclean.

But it doesn't mean that you sinned, okay? So make sure that we make that distinction. So touching them made them unclean, it rendered them unclean until evening time. So again, this is part of the reason why they believe that there were hygienic things, because if you touch something that was infectious, it gave it time for that to leave your system or to be cleansed by it.

It doesn't say that, but there's clearly some logical conclusions you can make from what he's doing, because if you had certain kind of infectious disease, you were unclean. If you were unclean, you had to be isolated for a period. So there's some clear hygienic medical purposes for that that's not mentioned.

And that's why the hygienic view is one of the views, and I think there's a mixture of the symbolic and the hygienic view. Now to me, the most interesting part of this is why this was implemented. There's clearly symbolism that points to Christ, but why this was implemented. These dietary laws were temporary and limited only to the Jews.

We know that the laws are divided into three parts. You have the moral laws, which would be the Ten Commandments, and then you have the ceremonial laws, which is what we've been studying, and then you have the civil law, which was given specific to the nation of Israel. So the civil law doesn't apply to us because we're not a Jewish nation.

The ceremonial laws don't apply to us because it was fulfilled in Christ. The moral law, the Ten Commandments, all of that applies to us today, and is repeated in the New Testament. This particular law was specific to the nation of Israel, and even to the nation of Israel, it was for a limited time.

Because we get to the New Testament, and Jesus clearly says to Peter in Acts chapter 10, 9-29, remember he has a vision, and all these unclean animals are brought down, and then Jesus says to eat, and Peter says, "I've never touched anything unclean. I'm a good Jew." And Jesus says to him, "What I declare clean, do not declare unclean." And then he has to say that three separate times in confirmation to make sure that this guy wasn't just daydreaming.

So Jesus confirms that, and then that gets confirmed over and over again. Remember in the book of Acts chapter 15, the first Jewish council was that the Holy Spirit comes not only on the Jews, but it comes to the Gentiles. And so the Gentiles were considered unclean outside of the kingdom, and so when the Holy Spirit comes, the Jewish community was confused.

How can the Holy Spirit come to them too? So the first Jewish council that takes place in Acts chapter 15 was to address this issue, that is God bringing Gentiles into the kingdom through Israel, or is he opening up the kingdom to the Gentiles? That was the debate, and it was clearly decided in Acts chapter 15 that the kingdom was being opened, that they no longer need to be circumcised, and all the rules and regulations that made the Jews Jews were no longer applying to them anymore because the kingdom was opened.

And so that's what caused Apostle Paul to go to his second journey, to go back to the synagogues where he preached the gospel to tell them that they are released from these laws. Okay, some of you guys may or may not remember that. So that happens in Acts chapter 15.

So Paul, the significance behind all of this was that one of the main things that separated the Jews and the Gentiles was the diet. How many of you, I know there's quite a few of you, maybe about a dozen of you who've been to China with us, but if you go to the western part of China, they're predominantly, more than half of them are Muslim, the Uyghur people.

So some of you guys may remember when we go to the cafeteria, they had two separate sides. They had the sides where the Uyghurs would eat, and then they had the sides where the Han Chinese would eat. And the reason why they had to separate the cafeteria was that the Han Chinese love pork, and they consider that unclean.

And so not only could they not eat in the same cafeteria, they couldn't enter a building where pork was being cooked. So naturally, the Han Chinese and the Uyghurs do not mix, because they can't eat together. So if you think about the most fundamental thing that every human being does every single day is eating.

But if you can't eat together, you can never intermarry. How are you going to marry somebody where one person eats this and the other person can't eat that? Because every single day, you can't even be in the same house. So Uyghurs would not even walk into a Chinese restaurant.

If they know that pork is being cooked, they can't eat there. They can't even enter the restaurant. So it completely keeps them segregated. That was the situation with the Jews and the Gentiles. Because of this dietary law, remember God told the nation of Israel, you get into this land, what is the thing that he kept on telling them over and over again?

To be separate. They're not to intermarry. They're not to follow their customs. They are meant to be Israelites almost in isolation. So a Gentile can convert and become a Jew, but a Jew can never go the other way if he is faithful to God. So by nature of God's law, if they were faithful Jews, he kept them separate from the rest of the world.

And so there's a reason why the Jews didn't want to go through Samaria. Because they believed that if they went through Samaria because Samaritans were compromised and they weren't obedient to God's laws, that they would be compromised by entering into that land. Jews could not enter into a Gentile home.

So the Jews, where they ate, where they lived, where they raised their children, were completely separated from the Gentiles. Because they would be considered defiled. You understand? You understand like God's whole intent for the nation of Israel was to keep them separate. And the most basic thing that would keep a whole nation separate from the other nation is by restricting their diet.

But when the gospel comes, the first thing that happens is these laws are gone. And the Gentiles are brought in. God determines that it is clean. And at the fullness of time when Christ comes, the thing that kept the Gentiles and the Jews separate from each other, he says he takes the barrier out.

In Ephesians chapter 2, 11 to 22, he says that the wall of separation was removed because of Christ. So not only was the curtain torn, remember when Jesus dies, the curtain into the Holy of Holies is torn? The temple itself is destroyed. Because even in the temple, there was a place where the Jewish men can go, women can go, and Gentiles can go.

And if you had any kind of defect, you were not allowed to come in and participate in the worship with the Jews. That's why in the book of Acts, remember when Philip gets carried out and he runs into who? A eunuch. An Ethiopian eunuch. So he's a Gentile, right?

An Ethiopian. And he's a eunuch, so he's defected. So he has double whammy on him. So he would not be able to, traditionally, in a Jewish religion, he would not be able to enter into the temple and to be able to worship. So he could have been a God-fearer who worshiped God from a distance, but he would never be able to enter into the temple because of who he was.

So it wasn't just random that all of a sudden he runs into the Ethiopian eunuch. Him running into the Ethiopian eunuch was symbolic of the kingdom of God being opened to everyone. And so that's what happened. So the Jews were having a hard time because they lived for so many years thinking that this diet kept them holy, but all of a sudden, Jesus says to Peter, "What I say is clean.

Don't say it's unclean." In other words, the kingdom of God is being opened. Now Gentiles are coming in just like everybody else. And the wall that separated the Jews and Gentiles is vanished. And the laws were given to Israel to distinguish them from the rest of the world. And then the passage in 44 through 46, again, summarizes for us, even if we didn't understand the details of how it was applied and why it was applied, Leviticus 44 through 46 gives us the reason behind his commandments.

For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy. In other words, consecrate means to be separate. You shall not defy yourself with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground, for I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God.

You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. Again, the word holy literally means to be set apart. To be set apart. So in this particular situation, to be set apart with your diet from the rest of the world. This is the law about the beast and the bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground.

So the whole point of this was to consecrate Israel, to be set apart, and for the purpose of declaring God's glory. But we come to the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 6, 14-7, it says, "Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. For what partnership is righteousness with lawlessness?

Or what fellowship is light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.' Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing, then I will welcome you.

And I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the body of spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." So if you look at the language of 2 Corinthians, he's talking to the new covenant people, but he's using the same language of Leviticus, to be set apart.

But now we're not being set apart because of diet. We're not being set apart because of the tabernacle sacrificial system. He's saying to be set apart in your moral character, right? And not to be. So the symbolism behind that is Christ fulfilled the barrier, the dietary and the civic and civil laws that Gentiles could be the same, but we as a church now is the spirit of God, is the temple of God, right?

So we ought to be distinct. We ought to be separate from the world. And I think that problem that we get into is we try so hard to make the non-Christians feel comfortable in the church that we lose our distinct identity as children of God, right? And we need to be careful that we don't ignore the non-Christians because God calls us to be non-Christians, but then we don't ignore what it means to be holy because our primary call is to be set apart to worship God, okay?

So I only put that up there to show you that so much of the language in the New Testament for the church comes from the language we see in the book of Leviticus, right? Remember John 4, 9? The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, "How is it that a Jew asks for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?" Meaning that because of the separation, right, he was surprised that Jesus was spending even any time because if he was a Jew, let alone a rabbi talking to a sinner who happens to be a Gentile, it says this guy is as holy as you can be, right?

He's a holy man in the Jewish community who even among the Gentiles was considered a sinner. For Jesus to come and even talk to her, she was like, "This is unheard of. Why would you do this?" Because this was a common practice among the Jews, right? So that's what he was referring to when he says the barriers have been taken out.

Matthew 15, 17, 20, "Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hand does not defile anyone." Now why does he use that language? Does that sound a lot like the Jews? They're probably referring to this because the Jews thought that if they kept these dietary laws that that's how they're going to be holy and Jesus said it's not what you put in.

The whole point of that was not to make you clean, but it was to point to something else in Christ, right? But again, I'm showing you this because so much of the New Testament language comes from the Old Testament. And the Jews would have immediately thought of this when Jesus said this.

So if you notice the distinction in the Old Covenant, God told the nation of Israel to come to him, right? So remember how we studied Exodus? Exodus was God coming out to the mountain and he tells people to stay away. If you come, you will die. We come to Leviticus where he sets up the tabernacle and he begins to prepare and he speaks from the tabernacle, but they're not able to enter yet because tabernacle is not established, right?

So chapter 10 was the beginning of the sacrifices, but the very first one, because they didn't consider him holy, they didn't take it seriously, they end up dying, right? So the whole point of it is this holy God dwelling among sinful people, so he's preparing them to come to them, but they weren't ready.

And if they are going to come to him, they have to follow these rules strictly. We get to Numbers where he invites them into the sanctuary, right? But even as he comes to the sanctuary, there's a division between where they can go, where they cannot go, because the inner sanctuary where God is, they could not enter.

There's a curtain that divides them. And that was the system that was taught the nation of Israel. Separate from the world and come to me. You can come to me as close, closer than anybody else in the world, but even you can only come this far, right? That was the old covenant.

In the new covenant, God tears the curtain, he opens the door, and then what does he do? He tells us to go. He doesn't tell us to come, he tells us to go. So last commandment, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." Where before he says, "Separate from them and come to me," right?

The new covenant, he says, "Now the door has been opened, now you go to them. And what kept you from them now is gone." Right? Again, 1 Peter 2.9, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priest, a holy nation of people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." So that was the same passage referring to the Old Testament covenant people, now the New Testament covenant people, where people, he told them to come, "Declare my glory by being separate," but now he says, "Declare my glory by going," right?

In Jeremiah 31.33, he says of the new covenant, "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people." Where everything that we've been studying Leviticus is to how to be pure and without defect physically, externally.

But he said there's going to come a time in the new covenant where the laws are going to be written in our hearts, right? Meaning that what defiles you is going to ultimately be internal. True worship is going to be in spirit and in truth. It's not going to be following regulations in and of itself, but it's going to be spirit and in truth, right?

So these dietary laws existed for a period to separate Israel from the world, but now that we are in a period where God's sending us to go, he's again taking that barrier out, right? And then Hebrews 10.16, so this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my laws on their hearts and write them again on their minds. Okay. So understanding the dietary laws, we may not understand the intricate details. You want me to go back? Okay. There's nothing to write. It's just a verse. Did I miss something? What did I miss?

This? Like here? There's something after this? Oh, number two. So right here. So it should be in between, right? Two and three? All right. It seems like I changed it on your paper and not mine. Yeah. I printed mine out before. Maybe I did that. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

So there's a line here that says biblical meaning of Christian liberty means to be freed from the dietary laws. Is that what you're referring to? Okay. I'll just read it to you. Dietary laws to be able to go to the Gentiles to spread the gospel and become one in the church.

So the Christian liberty in our generation has been used to justify doing whatever we want. Like we have liberty in Christ. The liberty in the context that is used in the scripture is talking about having the liberty to be able to go into a Gentile home, to be able to eat meat that was sacrificed to idols and not worry about is it clean or unclean.

Because it's just meat, right? And that's what Paul is referring to. And it's in the context of opening the kingdom to the Gentiles, that you no longer need to be separated from them. Christian liberty is not you have the freedom to do whatever you want because Christ died for you.

That's not Christian liberty. That's whatever it is, that's not in the Bible. Is the wrong application, wrong understanding of that. So again, the Christian liberty is we have the liberty where we don't have a barrier. We don't have to worry about like is this clean or unclean in the context of evangelizing and bringing them into the kingdom.

I don't know what else is missing, but that's all I have. Go make disciples of all nations. Okay. Oh, okay. I didn't put that up there. I just put the verse, but I didn't put the... And then point number three, all the laws were to restrict and command external obedience, number one, but the new covenant law is written on our hearts to worship in spirit and in truth.

Is that what you're referring to? Okay, my bad. I put all the verses and I didn't put the main thing. Okay. I don't know about you, but I thought it was really interesting that at least this is a part that I didn't fully understand the first time I preached through it.

Seeing God's economy, how in the Old Testament his intent was to bring them and then after Christ comes now, he's sending us and so he takes every barrier that kept us separate from the world to go and to be among them and to preach the gospel so that they can come into the kingdom.

And so that's why when Paul says, "Whether you eat or drink, do it all for the glory of God," right? So it's not what you eat and how you eat and how much you eat. I mean, the point of it is not the external. The point of it is internal, is why you do it, right?

And all for the purpose of going out and making disciples. That's why Apostle Paul, he circumcises Timothy for the sake of the gospel and then he doesn't circumcise Titus for the sake of the gospel. It wasn't about circumcision. The whole point of it was to become all things to all men.

Now he has the freedom to become all things to all men by all means that he can save some. And that's the point of Christian liberty, right? Now that this barrier has been gone, there's nothing that keeps us from going to the world, right? Oops, can you go back?

Let me just quickly explain. Okay. So, question number one, the old covenant people have had very clear lines drawn for them to distinguish them from the pagan world. If as new covenant people, those barriers have been removed, how do we distinguish between being in the world and being of the world?

Are there any lines that Christians should abide by to distinguish us from the world? You understand the question, right? So I think the error that we can make is since there is no distinguishing line that we can be like the world. And yet the scripture is filled in the new testament and new covenant to be holy, right?

The commandment to be holy in the old testament, the same commandment is true in the new testament. But what does it mean to be holy? Because in the old covenant, when God said to be holy, they immediately thought of these regulations. But what does it mean to be holy in the new testament, right?

Same commandment, but the application is going to look very different in the new testament. And yet it's there, right? Number two, in first Corinthians 10, 23, we are told that all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable or helpful. How do you distinguish if something is profitable or not?

Read rest of context of first Corinthians 10, 20 through 33 for insight. Some of you guys probably already know that text, right? It's about why you eat the meat, you know, who does it bother? So how do we distinguish between something being profitable, unprofitable? I think the biggest challenge that most of us have today is not between should I watch pornography, not watch pornography?

Should I lie or cheat? Those are clear lines. It's just that we are so distracted by unprofitable things that there's no room for the things of God. We're filled with things that don't match, that have no, you know, has no benefit whatsoever to our spiritual life, but we're so saturated in our lives with that, that there's no room for the things of God, right?

There's no appetite for the things of God, right? The other extreme you can go is that you can say, well, where do we draw the line? And then you draw no lines. And then, or the other extreme is that you draw every line where you start becoming a legalist.

How do you distinguish, right? How do you apply that wisdom? Verse three, what are some unnecessary barriers that the church has created that may cause a non-Christian to not want to come to church? How do you balance between taking away barriers versus compromising the church's integrity of holiness and worship to accommodate unbelievers?

So hopefully you'll have some good conversations today. So let me pray for us and then I'll let you guys go to your small group. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Father God, that what we have today, whether we've been a Christian for a short period or long, that we know, Father God, that you've been pursuing us before we were ever aware of you, that all of these laws, Lord God, was to prepare for the coming of Christ to set us apart.

And I pray that you would help us to glean that even now, Father, that there's so many things that we don't fully understand. I pray that you would give us an appetite for your word, that we would hunger and thirst for it, that we would not be satisfied with just the superficial explanations, but we know that it's living and active, that ultimately it's your word.

So help us, Lord God, to come to it with eagerness, to seek treasure, Father God, and not just information. We pray that you would be with us in our discussion. Help us, Lord, that our discussions and things that we say would not be led by our flesh. Help us, Lord God, to have discussions that are biblical and that we would apply wisdom and with surrendered hearts.

So we pray for your grace and guidance during this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.