Stay Away from Perverted Practices - Leviticus 18:1-5,20-26; 20:6-8

I have had my personal computer for ten or twelve years and it has really filled a void in my life during these years. Like so many other things that have come along in the past century, it has its faults and serves as another avenue for sin to creep into our homes. There is hardly a week that goes by that some pervert doesn’t break in my home with a page or two of pornography. The thing about it that irks me most is that many times it takes several minutes of my precocious time to find a way to remove the junk from the screen. There should be some way that I could force the perpetrator to use his time to remove it from my computer screen.

The title of the lesson today orders us to stay away from perverted practices. This is good advice, but it is a hard order to carry out in the land today when there seems to be more interest in the crude and rude than ever before in our history. Parents during the early part of the last century did not accept minds that were filled with ideas built around perverted minds and exposed bodies. They had the audacity to speak out against immoral perverted exploitation. About the only opportunity for the young people to be exposed was when a traveling circus would visit the town park. There was usually what was called a ‘side show’ featuring nudity and explicit actions that were vulgar. Christian parents kept an eye on their children and very few ever successfully attended one of these “forbidden” shows. Today almost every movie produced and even the prime time TV programs are using this forbidden vulgarity to sell their products. What has happened to the minds of Americans?

You are raising your children in a world where anything goes. Leading the list is the drug culture that is running rampant. In the enter cities and even the smaller towns drug cartels and established gangs are controlling the lives of otherwise decent young people. Many parents have expressed to me that there is nothing they can do. They are wrong! We can all do something positive;--simply by living a life that sets the right example; by using our right to vote against the politicians that allow these things to happen and even grow right before their eyes.

Don’t ever think that you do not have examples to live by. As the background material for this lesson we can go back to Leviticus and find legit instructions. Somewhere on our law books there are important laws and instructions that—if properly enforced—would prevent most of what I am talking about that is so negative and destructive.

Many of the exhibits of nudeness, illicit expressions, and hard pornography have been derived from or have descended down to us from the study of pagan practices. God has warned us that life like the pagan live will lead to destruction. The exact opposite of practice of paganism is the practicing of Godly Lifestyles. If Christians would practice living like Christ, it would go a long way in solving some of the problems of this day.

The last thing I will mention is also a fault of the liberal Christian; at least in most cases. We do not demand our ministers to stand against all of these open sins with force in their sermons. The bible says that in the last days we will listen with itching ears to only that which we want to hear. Far too often the congregation does not want their preacher to fight open sin. It gets on too many personal toes. This reminds me of an old cowboy who riding range close to a church and so he decided to attend the Sunday service. He was sweaty, with a worn look and a bad smell. After church the preacher ask him to talk to God about how he should dress when visiting this church. The next Sunday his heard was still close by and so he dropped in and set on the back row, hoping he would not be noticed. But, after church the same thing happened, the preacher asks him if he talked to God about what to wear. He said, yes, I surely did and God told me that he had no idea what one should wear in this church because He had never been invited to visit there.

We need to live like Christians in our churches and communities. We should demand that our ministers preach the bible, truth, and love—and then we should make acceptable offerings to support the church and its work.

The book of Leviticus is considered to be a copy of God’s holiness code. This idea and name for the book derives its being from what God said in chapter 19 the second verse. God said, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” It is hard to see holiness in the world today, and that is because the condition is a “state of existence” that is apart from the presence of evil. The Hebrew said that you had to be separated from evil in order to live holy. You can not live an acceptable life before God and be a part of the life style today that includes the perverted practices that are so prevalent.

You should never think that the Hollywood perverts of 2010 have anything new to offer this perverted world. These people in this lesson had just been delivered from the wicked nation of Egypt where adultery ran wild and the Gays practiced their perverted ways in front of all. Sodom and Gomorrah were burned to the ground and all the perverts that live there were destroyed because of their wicked ways. In this lesson God warns us that we are not to profane the name of your God; “I am the Lord.” “ YOU ARE NOT TO SLEEP WITH A MAN AS WITH A WOMAN, IT IS DETESTABLE.” “IT IS ABONDABLE IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD.”

“We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice before God.” The only way you can present yourself correctly is by learning what God has said in his word about how we should live. Lou Holtz, our former foot ball coach at the U of A had only one rule for his players…”DO RIGHT”…This is the only rule that one needs to live a Christian Life! But…But…there is a catch to this rule. You can not know what the rule “DO RIGHT” means until the bible spells it out for you….for God only knows…and he is the only one that can tell you how to always “do right.”