It has taken us six days to cover all the material contained in Leviticus 18 but we will be finishing this section of the book today. We'll begin with the last prohibition in a long list of sexual relations the Lord says are unlawful. Then the Lord tells us what led to the downfall of the tribes of Canaan and how they became so corrupted that He plans to uproot them from the land.
"Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion." (Leviticus 18:23) You would think it wouldn't be necessary for the Lord to have to mention such a thing. You would think something like this would never even enter the thoughts or the hearts of human beings. Yet He has to talk about it because there are people who have done such things in the past, and people who are still doing such things, and people who will continue to do such things in the future.
To use a simple modern example to illustrate this point, have you ever noticed how strange some of the instructions are on bottles of over-the-counter medicines or on those printouts the pharmacy gives you with your prescription medicines? An eye ointment, for instance, will have a warning that says, "Do not take by mouth". Antibacterial and antifungal creams will say, "Do not put in eyes". Suppositories, for goodness sake, actually have to have a warning on them not to swallow them like pills. These warnings are included on these products because somebody somewhere actually used them in these bizarre ways. The Lord includes the warning against bestiality in verse 23 because somebody somewhere was using animals in this bizarre way.
Part of these "somebodies" were the tribes of Canaan. "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled." (Leviticus 18:24) The Lord is speaking not only of the sexual practices of verse 23 but all the sexual practices mentioned in Leviticus 18. The downfall of the people currently living in the promised land began when they started living by the motto "anything goes" when it comes to sexual relations. Their sin probably began in small ways but as time went on their hearts became more calloused and their minds continually sought new diversions. Nothing was taboo to them and, as a result, nothing was exciting to them anymore unless it was new and different and tested the bounds of social, moral, and religious decency. Eventually they fell so deep into a pit of sin that their souls didn't even recoil from the idea of child sacrifice but began offering their children in the fire to that abominable false god Molek.
The tribes of Canaan have polluted the land with sin and blood and now the Lord intends to pull these tribes up by the roots and plant the tribes of Israel in their place. "Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants." (Leviticus 18:25) The land has food poisoning, so to speak. Like a person who has food poisoning and whose stomach vomits out its contents, the land is going to vomit out its contents.
But Israel is never to become prideful about her position in the promised land. She must follow all the Lord's laws and commandments. She must avoid the things He has prohibited. Her continual occupation of the promised land depends on behaving like the Lord's people and not like the people of the unbelieving world. "But you must keep My decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:26-28)
The Israelites are to be on guard against falling into any of the practices listed in Chapter 18 and must take action whenever this type of behavior begins breaking out in the community. Anyone who has been drawn into these sins must be quarantined (by excommunication) from the general population just as someone with a very contagious deadly illness must be quarantined from the general population. If sin isn't recognized and dealt with early on, it grows and spreads just like a disease. The Lord wants to keep Israel as spiritually healthy as she can possibly be. "Everyone who does any of these detestable things---such persons must be cut off from their people. Keep My requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 18:29-30)
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