I watched a clip from a popular TV program
where a man was playing the president of the United States.
He totally "schooled" some lady who said
homosexuality was against God. He started quoting scriptures,
saying that if homosexuality was against God,
then so was eating shellfish, wearing two different fabrics
in a garment, and sowing a field with two kinds of seed.
Then he listed horrible death penalties for these sins.
He went on and on. But in the end,
he sounded pretty righteous. And the woman sounded
pretty stupid, using some Old Testament scriptures
to condemn homosexuality.
It was dramatic. It made you gasp.
But it wasn't real. It was actors.
Writers got together certain laws God gave Moses
and then gave them a huge spin, making up horrible death penalties
and said, "That'll fix those Jewish and Christian Bible believers!"
And they put it on the air with false authority,
since the actor was, after all, portraying a president.
Some of those laws were confined to the Jewish people.
Others are for everyone, including us today.
But which ones are which? And how can we know?
Are there ways to find out the difference between
the laws that God made for the purity of
His chosen people Israel, and the laws that are always true,
no matter who we are, throughout history?
Yes, there are. And I am going to pick
only one of them, using the King James Bible word,
"Abomination."
Are you ready to walk through the Bible
with careful eyes?
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
So let's take apart what that president --
that "TV show president"-- said.
He referred to the scripture calling eating shellfish
an abomination. Well, scripture calls homosexuality
an abomination, too.
Is eating shellfish really equal to homosexuality in Old Testament law?
I looked up every verse on abomination
in the whole King James Bible.
This is what I found.
There are sins --39 sins I found-- that God said are an abomination
"to Him" or "unto Him" or "committed before Him."
That means He hates it.
That's one category.
But there are 2 categories of abominations.
There is one kind of abomination that is "to Him," "unto Him," or "committed before Him."
And there is another kind the scripture says is "unto you" --
meaning the Israelites God is keeping clean and pure
for Himself.
Those are only found in one place: Leviticus 11:10-23.
In Leviticus 11:12 for example, it says:
"Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be
an abomination unto you" --the Israelites.
Leviticus 11:10-12 are about sea foods
the Israelites were forbidden to eat, like eels or shellfish.
Now look at 11:23:
"23 But all other flying creeping things,
which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you."
Verses 13-23 are about birds and flying insects
the Israelites were forbidden to eat, birds that eat dead animals,
and flies and such.
Now you already know where I'm going. As I said,
homosexuality, a man lying with a man
as he would with a woman, is called an abomination.
But let's step back a bit.
A lot of what we say about this comes from one book of the Bible, Genesis,
and one story, about the four cities, Sodom,
Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim.
So let's refresh our memory.
Genesis 13:13 "But the men of Sodom
were wicked and sinners before the LORD
exceedingly."
Genesis 18:20 "And the LORD said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and
because their sin is very grievous;"
Yet God said he would spare their lives,
if only 10 righteous people could be found in Sodom,
Genesis 18:32.
In Genesis 19:1, two angels came to Sodom.
And Lot begged them to come into his house, off the street.
In Genesis 19:4, "But before they lay down,
the men of the city, even the men of Sodom,
compassed the house round, both old and young,
all the people from every quarter:"
They demanded for Lot to bring out "the men,"
that they may "know them."
When Lot resisted, they threatened to
break the door down and do even worse things to Lot
than with the men!
So the wicked men of Sodom saw the angels as "fresh meat"
to do abominable things to.
And you know the result. God rained fire and brimstone
on Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim.
That once beautiful valley was so well-watered that
the Bible says it was like the garden of Eden.
Nowadays not even fish or plants can live in the water,
where those cities once were. That's why it's called "the Dead Sea."
God literally destroyed four cities, their sin was so bad.
But believe it or not, after them, the cities of Canaan
did many of the same things.
First look at the conclusion of Leviticus 18:26-28.
Leviticus 18:26 26 "Ye shall therefore
keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit
any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation,
nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done,
which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
28 That the land spue not you out also,
when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations
that were before you."
What abominations did the Canaanites do
that were so bad God ordered them
spat out of the land?
Leviticus 18:6-20: uncovering the nakedness of females,
old and young, relatives and neighbor's wives.
18:21: sacrificing your child to Molech.
Some people have likened that, killing your newly-born child,
to abortions.
18:22: Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind,
as with womankind: it is abomination."
There's that verse.
18:23: a person lying with a beast --bestiality.
God hates all of these, calling them abominations.
He told the Israelites not to commit
any of these abominations,
verse 28 again, "That the land
spue not you out also, when ye defile it,
as it spued out the nations that were before you."
There is no doubt that Leviticus 18 lists abominations,
things that God hates.
But did the men of Sodom really commit abominations?
Yes, they were wicked. Yes, four whole cities were destroyed.
But you may hear, and I've heard it many times,
"The sin of Sodom was really inhospitality!
That's what it says in Ezekiel!"
Let me read the verse in Ezekiel, and we'll see if they're right, or
if what they threatened to do to Lot and the angels
was an abomination and really all that bad:
Ezekiel 16:49 "Behold, this was the iniquity
of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and
abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters
[Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim], neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."
All true! Nobody should have committed
sins like that. But that is not
what got them destroyed by God.
Look at the next verse, which tells what that pride
led them to do:
Ezekiel 16:50 "And they were haughty, and committed abomination
before me: therefore I took them away
as I saw good."
So it wasn't pride that got them "taken away"
by destroying their entire civilization. Everyone is guilty of pride.
It was what that pride led them to. They had "committed abomination before God!"
That's why the same abominations in Sodom in Genesis
are in Canaan in Leviticus, and it got the Canaanites destroyed.
And the Israelites, too, if they committed those
same abominable acts.
Today all those abominations make up about half of what is
on the internet.
From pornography to Ashley Madison,
it seems that "everybody is doing it." And some of it has even
been made legal to do.
But just because everybody commits an abomination
doesn't make it right.
And it doesn't matter who is doing it, even God's people.
It's still abomination before the Lord.
And abominations before God, unlike the purity laws for Israel...
Let me say it again: abominations before God,
unlike the purity laws for Israel, never change
and apply to everyone.
"Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and for ever."
Hebrews 13:8.
Just because God's people sin
doesn't mean God is happy with it. Sin is sin. And
abominations to God, and abominations committed before Him,
never change.
It's not a matter of what's abomination to you or me.
It's a matter of what's abomination to the Lord.
I hope this has helped make some things clear.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.