Leviticus 11 - Don’t Eat The Chameleon

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to a very unique episode of Tabernacle Talk. You might ask, all right, Brian, why is this episode unique?

It's because we are covering a very special portion of scripture that in a lot of ways is very unlike anything else that we might look at in the scriptures. You know, all right, well, what makes this unique?

The chapters that we're going to be going over today are not just dealing with things of right and wrong. They're not just dealing with things of history. They're not just retelling accounts of what God has done.

It's not just proclaiming God. It is how God worked in a particular moment in time with a particular people in a way that has since that time been specifically countered by the remainder of scripture.

So, the Bible is meant to be read cumulatively, that there are things that are introduced in the beginning of the story that by the time you get to the very end of the story in Revelation are no longer the case.

So obviously, the most striking example as we look at the first ten chapters of Leviticus is that the sacrifices and the priests that once exemplified the people of God, what they did every single year, sometimes could have been weekly or monthly or

yearly, the habits that they did in their worship of God, those have now been fulfilled by Jesus and by those in his holy priesthood, the priesthood of all believers, all those that have identified with Christ as Messiah. So we know that part, but

that one, it's, hey, here's a bigger fulfillment of what was spoken about in Leviticus 1 through 10. For the next section that we're looking at today, it's not quite like that. There are certainly some applications that we can draw and we will do so.

But as we look at chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, these are things that for the children of Israel, as they were beginning to go into the land until the time of Christ, here is what God said that they needed to do, things they needed to observe, not

for morality's sake. So these aren't a list of sins and righteous actions. Instead, these all fall under the category of ceremonially clean and unclean. These are not right and wrong.

It's not that to bury a loved one is not a sin. But it did make you ceremonially unclean.

That because God is the giver of life, because there is just an expectation of holiness in his presence, which is more than just the absence of sin, but it's like who he is reflects life, that anything that had any relation to death, you had to

basically quarantine away from being in the tabernacle, from being in that tabernacle complex. You had to wait a few days. It was almost an intentional remembrance of God is different than we are.

The things that on this earth are like predators, scavengers, bottom feeders for animals and things in the sea, as we'll read about, those don't really exemplify God's character, how he is.

Those are things that take life, that chew on dead things that sink to the bottom of the ocean. Or things that die on the land that the vultures prey on those.

Or even some of the things that go into human bodily discharges, that it's God as the giver of life anytime life comes into the world. There are consequences, things that we realize, oh man, this is a special thing. This isn't like a sin.

It's not a sin to have a child. But you were ceremonially unclean for 33 days or 66 days, depending on some of the circumstances that we'll look at either this episode or tomorrow. These things made you ceremonially clean or unclean.

Reminders that would tell you, oh yeah, God is different than we are. He is the giver of life when life comes into the world, or when life leaves the world, or when there is blood. There is blood, it's a reminder to me of mortality.

And because God is immortal, anything that has to do with our mortality often means that we are ceremonially unclean for a week or overnight. So we're going to look at some of those things.

But I wanted to give that on the outset of this is the type of thing that we're going to be talking about. I'm going to do this. I'm going to read through a chapter.

Each of these chapters are dealing with specific subjects. And then I'm going to give a very, very short kind of recap at the end of it. What I've just described to you is the overall setting for all of these things.

So the animals, human actions and reactions, all of that is going to fall under. These are not sins, things of right and wrong.

These are ceremonially clean or unclean things that help us to remember who God is, what is nature is like, and the fact that all the things that have been tainted by sin, how we bring children into the world is a different process than it would have

been had we not sinned in the Garden of Eden. The kind of food that we eat is different than it would have been in the Garden of Eden. I'll say this as well.

The children of Israel were intended to be something that was very different, that they were a different nation, a different people than the peoples all around them.

They didn't worship in the way that the peoples around them worshipped, and we'll look at some of that as well. They didn't eat what the people around them ate. Instead, they were uniquely gods.

And the same is true for us today, that we need to be uniquely gods, that we don't talk the way the people of the world talk. We don't necessarily go all of the places that the people of the world go.

We don't treat people the way that the people of the world do. Instead, we need to be set apart and holy from him. Okay, Chapter 11.

Let's go. We're seven minutes in, and we'll see how far we go. And then we'll take the next section of it, wherever we stop.

We'll take it from there in the next episode. Chapter 11 and verse number one. You always spoke to Moses and Aaron.

Tell the Israelites, you may eat all these kinds of land animals. You may eat any animal with divided hooves, and that chews the cud. But among the ones that chew the cud or have divided hooves, you are not to eat these.

Camels, though they chew the cud, do not have divided hooves, they are unclean for you. Hierarchs, though they chew the cud, do not have hooves, they are unclean for you. Hairs, though they chew the cud, do not have hooves, they are unclean for you.

Pigs, though they have divided hooves, do not chew the cud, they are unclean for you. Do not eat any of their meat, or touch their carcasses, they are unclean for you. So here's some land animals.

There's been a lot of speculation on some of the various dietary things that for how low of a standard of food preparation there was in those days, that abstaining from eating these particular types of animals would have given great health benefits

to the Jewish people, that they wouldn't die as a result of eating perhaps a pig who's very omnivorous and would eat things, including things that had diseases or parasites, different things like that. Verse number nine.

This is what you may eat from all that is in the water. You may eat everything in the water that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or streams. But these are to be abhorrent to you.

Everything in the seas or streams that does not have fins and scales among all the swarming things and other living creatures in the water, they are to remain abhorrent to. You must not eat any of their meat, and you must abhor their carcasses.

Everything in the water that does not have fins and scales will be abhorrent to you. That this is not something that you eat. You are God's people.

Obey what he says here. Then unclean birds. So notice he doesn't give some specific examples for the aquatic animals, but he does for both the land animals and then some birds, as we'll see here in a second.

You are to abhor these birds. They must not be eaten because they are abhorrent. That is ceremonially unclean.

Eagles, bearded vultures, Egyptian vultures, kites, any kind of falcon, every kind of raven, ostriches, short-eared owls, gulls, any kind of hawk, little owls, cormorants, long-eared owls, barn owls, eagle owls, ospreys, storks, any kind of heron,

hoopos and bats. So all these kind of meat-eating scavengery type animals, God says these are not to be on the menu. These are not kosher is the word that we use now to describe these type of things.

Verse 20, all winged insects that walk on all fours are to be abhorrent to you. This would be a phrase, the way that they walk, that they walk like an animal.

Obviously we know in our current designations, any insects are things that would have like six or more legs. It's not that, here, God's not foolish. He's using a different classification system than the one that we have today.

So he's saying anything that walks like a cow walks of a swarming type of insect with wings. He says, but you may eat these kinds of all the winged insects that walk on all fours.

Those that have jointed legs above their feet for hopping on the ground, you may eat these. Any kind of locust, katydid, cricket and grasshopper, all other winged insects that have four feet are to be abhorrent to you.

Verse 24, these will make you unclean. Whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean until evening and whoever carries any of their carcasses is to wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening.

So, you know, you carry off a raven dies, falls in your yard, falls on top of your roof. You take them off there because you don't want an unclean animal just rotting.

You don't want any kind of animal just rotting on your house or rotting on your lawn or wherever you move it. But you are ceremonially unclean. You can't go into the Tabernacle Complex until evening.

In that evening time, when, in how the Hebrews thought about time, when the evening comes, the day starts. And so, on that new day, you're clean now, totally fine.

Verse 26, all animals that have hooves but do not have a divided hoof and do not chew the cut are unclean for you. Whoever touches them becomes unclean. All the four-footed animals that walk on their paws are unclean for you, so you can't eat fido.

Whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean until evening. And anyone who carries their carcasses is to wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening. They are unclean for you.

These creatures that swarm on the ground are unclean for you. Weasels, mice, any kind of large lizard, geckos, monitor lizards, common lizards, skinks and chameleons. These are unclean for you among all the swarming creatures.

Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean until evening. When any one of them dies and falls on anything, it becomes unclean. Any item of wood, clothing, leather, sackcloth, or any implement used for work.

It is to be rinsed with water and will remain unclean until evening, then it will be clean. So falls on to, you know, your spoon. The spoon has to be washed and you can't use it until the evening time.

If any of them falls into any clay pot, everything in it will become unclean. You are to break it. So it falls into a clay pot.

The clay pot can't really be washed in the same way. It would hold on to some of the things that would be dead or decay or rot from the animal. You just have to break the clay pot.

Any edible food coming into contact with that unclean water will become unclean. And any drinkable liquid in any container will become unclean. A chameleon dies in your water cup.

Don't drink the water. Don't drink the grape juice. If a chameleon dies in your grape juice.

Anything one of their carcasses falls on will become unclean. If it's an oven or stove, something that would be made through fire, similar to a clay pot, it is to be smashed. It is unclean and will remain unclean for you.

A spring or cistern containing water will remain clean, but someone who touches a carcass in it will become unclean. So chameleon dies, falls into the well.

You can take the chameleon out of the well, but when you carry the chameleon out into, you know, a ceremonially unclean place, you know, taking it away, you do have to rinse and you are ceremonially unclean until the evening.

If one of their carcasses falls on any seed that is to be sown, it is clean. Obviously we would know. It doesn't transfer all the way over.

Okay, the chameleon accidentally touched a seed that I planted in the ground. Okay, well, when you have the carrot, when you have the corn or the grain, it's not the same. There's not that hygienic danger for you.

He says, but if water has been put on the seed and one of their carcasses falls on it, it is unclean for you. So once it actually starts to sprout, then you're running into issues.

If one of the animals that you use for food dies, anyone who touches its carcass will be unclean until evening. Anyone who eats some of its carcasses to wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening.

Anyone who carries its carcass must wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening. All the creatures that swarm on the earth are abhorrent. They must not be eaten.

Do not eat any of the creatures that swarm on the earth, anything that moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet for they are abhorrent. That is that they are not to be eaten by God's people.

Do not become contaminated by any creature that swarms. Do not become unclean or defiled by them. Gives the reason, for I am Yahweh your God.

So you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. Do not defile yourselves by any swarming creature that crawls on the ground, for I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God.

So you must be holy because I am holy. I want to mention here really quick. What's the application for us today?

Well, because as we read in Acts 15, God specifically said these laws are no longer binding on New Testament believers. It's mentioned several other places in the New Testament, including Colossians 2.

One of the Timothes, as Paul tells Timothy, not to listen to the people that are making the food requirements a requirement for New Testament Christians.

God has specifically said, all right, what God has now called clean, you should not call unclean.

But Peter in 1 Peter 1 does bring up this exact statement to say, hey, how you live your life now as a Christian, how you relate with God and with people, your righteousness, the places that you go in order to have fun, the types of things that you

say, your interactions with people are now to be changed because God has bought you, that you are his people. And so that's how Peter draws this into the New Testament is he says it's no longer about what you put in your body, it's what you do with

your body now matters. Even something along the lines of what Jesus would say, he says it's not that which goes into a man that defiles him, but that which comes out of a man.

So basically it's not what you eat, it's what you do with the body that God has given you that is truly sin or not sin.

Verse 46, this is the law concerning animals, birds, all living creatures that move in the water and all creatures that swarm on the ground in order to distinguish between the unclean and the clean between the animals that may be eaten and those that

may not be eaten. Well, I have noticed that we are at about the 17 minute mark and so I'm going to close up for today, but that is chapter 11.

Obviously as we're going through here, I hope that you, number one, are thankful to God that you're not bound by all of these same requirements.

I hope that there would be some appreciation for why God would say some of these things, that it's for the good of his people, it's to set them apart as noticeably his, that even as they interacted with other nations or even as we read Daniel 1, and

we see that there was food offered to them as to all the other people that were serving in Nebuchadnezzar's palace, and everyone else was just eating it, no problem, but Daniel and the three Hebrew children were like, okay, well, we can't eat this.

This is against God's law. And they knew God's law. And they chose faithfulness and fidelity to God, even in a pagan land, and God used that to exalt them and bring them honor, that they honored God in what he had said, and so he honored them.

And I encourage you today, God wants you to be holy, and holiness today, that ceremonial cleanliness doesn't look like eating or not eating a particular food. For you, it's how do you talk to people? How do you talk about people?

How do you treat people? Are you kind? Are you sharing the gospel?

Are you abstaining from those fleshly lusts, Paul would say, that war against the soul? Are you being holy in those ways? Today, God has a mission for you, and it's not to avoid eating a chameleon or some grape juice that a chameleon fell in.

God's mission for you today is that you would shine out His goodness, His kindness, His purity, the light of Jesus and His gospel into the world around you.

Thanks for tuning in, and tomorrow we will be looking at, I believe we can get through all of chapters 12 and 13. So thanks for tuning in, and see you tomorrow.