Defile Not The Land

As we look around the world today it’s not difficult to find epic natural disasters, and these disasters raise a lot of questions. After all, whenever something truly terrible happens people tend to wonder if there’s something more going on than what it seems. Are modern natural disasters just a part of living in a fallen world, or can they sometimes be divine judgments? Yes, there are passages in the Bible that talk about God judging the entire world with the Flood, and there’s also the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But that happened back in Bible times. Does God still do things like that today?

It’s an interesting question and I think it’s worth asking. I believe that the Bible does give us an answer. Buried in the book of Leviticus we find these verses:

Leviticus 18:24: “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
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 spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you.”

There’s a lot going on here, but the basic message is pretty simple. God told the nation of Israel that, although there were many different sins, there were some sins that were especially bad. These sins were so terrible that they caused the land to be defiled and brought down God’s judgment. God destroyed the nations that used to live in Canaan because they committed these sins, and God warned Israel that if they committed the same sins they would be destroyed as well.

In other words, God established a principle. If a nation commits certain sins, those sins defile the land and God will judge them. In fact, verse 25 warns us that the “land itself” will “vomit out her inhabitants”. It is important to note that this threat was not directed specifically at Israel. God made it clear in verse 28 that this principle applies to all nations. We can see this in the fact that the nations that possessed Canaan before Israel were evicted from it because of their sin.

Now, it may seem strange to divide sins into categories of “bad” and “really bad”, but that is exactly what the Bible does. Yes, all sin is sin, and the wages of sin is death. But there are some sins that God singles out and calls “abominations”. The list of abominations is actually pretty small. Homosexuality is singled out as an abomination several times:

Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

But homosexuality is not the only sin that causes the land to be defiled. We find the complete list in Leviticus 18:6-23. First, incest is forbidden:

Leviticus 18:6: “None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.
7 The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.
9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
10 The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
11 The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
12 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is thy father’s near kinswoman.
13 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman.
14 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.
15 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
16 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.
17 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.
18 Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.”

Committing adultery is forbidden:

Leviticus 18:20: “Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.”

Child sacrifice is forbidden:

Leviticus 18:21: “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.”

Having sex with animals is forbidden:

Leviticus 18:23: “Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.”

Homosexuality is also forbidden – and it is also the only thing on the list singled out as an abomination:

Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

In other words, as bad as all of these other sins are – incest, bestiality, child sacrifice – the one thing that is worse than everything else, the one thing that rises to the level of an abomination, is homosexuality. While all of the things on this list do cause the land to be defiled, homosexuality is especially bad. God hates it with a passion and promises to judge nations for it.

Some might object that these provisions are from the Mosaic Law and that they do not apply to us today. We live in a new age, they claim, and are not under the law. While that may sound wise, there are actually several problems with it.

First of all, notice that the nations that were evicted from Canaan were evicted for committing these sins – and they did not have the Mosaic Law! Sodom and Gomorrah were also destroyed for these sins and they did not have the Mosaic Law either. On top of that, the sins listed in Leviticus 18 are still sins. The New Testament is quite clear that adultery is still a sin and warns Christians repeatedly to abstain from fornication. It also warns against homosexuality and goes so far as to say that no unrepentant homosexual will enter Heaven. Finally, taking children and burning them alive as a sacrifice to pagan gods is still a terrible sin. So you cannot argue that Leviticus 18 no longer applies. The things that it lists were sins before the Law was given and they are still sins today.

(In the interests of full disclosure there is one slight caveat to this. Before the time of Moses it was not a sin to marry a relative; Sarah was actually Abraham’s half-sister, and Cain probably married his sister as well. Marrying close relatives would not have caused genetic problems back before there were mutations in our DNA. It was only later, when our genetic code became corrupt, that it would cause birth defects and other problems. That being said, homosexuality and adultery have always been wrong, and incest is absolutely wrong today – Paul even chastised the Corinthians for tolerating it.)

There are some other things that can cause the land to be defiled. We find them listed in Hosea:

Hosea 4:1: “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.”

Hosea tells us that because of swearing (yes, swearing!), and lying, and murder, and theft, and adultery, the land mourns, and those who live in it languish. The Lord was angry because the country lacked truth, mercy, and knowledge of God. We are even told that the fish of the sea would be taken away – implying that these sins may trigger mass animal deaths.

As Christians it’s easy to point at Israel and say “They sinned against God, so God evicted them from the land” – and that is true. But we miss the fact that these principles apply to all nations. Israel is not the only nation that God threatens with judgment for committing abominations in His sight. After all, the Canaanites were evicted from the land for their sin (as Leviticus 18:28 said), even though those nations were not God’s chosen people and did not have a covenant with Him.

In fact, there is an important point here. Earlier in the Bible God told Abraham that He was not going to evict the Amorites just yet, and He explained why:

Genesis 15:16: “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”

By the time we get to Leviticus 18, however, the situation had changed. God evicted the Amorites from their land, and warned Israel to avoid certain sins or else they would be evicted as well. In fact, He gives Israel this command:

Leviticus 18:3: “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.”

He warns Israel to not obey the ordinances “of the land of Canaan”. I looked up the word “ordinances” in Strongs (it’s number #2708), and it means what you would expect – ordinance, statute, custom. What God is saying here is that the sins listed in Leviticus 18 (incest, homosexuality, murdering children) had become the law in Canaan. They were not just isolated sins by isolated people; they had become a national custom. At that point – when sin becomes an ordinance – it was all over. The iniquity of the Amorites was full and they were evicted from the land.

The reason I bring this up is because we are now in the same situation as the Amorites. We legalized the murder of children in 1973, and since then it has been an ordinance that parents can have their unborn children executed. The Canaanites murdered their children to serve pagan gods; we do it to make our lives more convenient.

Since 1973 the situation has not improved. Homosexuality – the one sin specifically listed in Leviticus 18 as being an abomination to God – is now mainstream. In fact, it has gone beyond being culturally accepted; it is now to the point where if you disagree with homosexuality you have done something wrong. Anyone who stands against it is criticized, condemned, and hated. Businesses whose owners are opposed to it are no longer welcome in our cities. If you run a business and don’t want to make a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, you will be taken to court and found guilty. Homosexual marriage is not just tolerated; it is celebrated, and more and more states are signing on to it.

In other words, homosexuality has become an ordinance. We have embraced the ordinances of the Canaanites – the very ordinances that brought God’s judgment down on the Canaanites and got them evicted from their land. Our own President signed a proclamation on June 1, 2012, celebrating homosexuality and declaring that month to be Gay Pride Month. He even signed it with this statement:

“IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth”

So, not only did our nation boldly celebrate a sin that God condemns as an abomination, but we went further and attached the holy name of the Lord to it! (Do you really think that God wants His name attached to a proclamation celebrating homosexuality?)

Interestingly, June 2012 was not a good month for the United States. There was a terrible drought, which had not let up as of the time this paper was written (August 2012). In fact, it has become so bad that some are wondering if the Mississippi River itself is going to dry up. Water tables are getting dangerously low. June 2012 was also a time of intense heat; in fact, 2012 became the hottest year on record for the northeast.

None of this come as a surprise. After all, the book of Psalms says this:

Psalm 107:33: “He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground;
34 A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.”

I think it’s a grave error to say that the Israelites are the only ones who have to worry about being evicted from their land. We have this idea that we can do as we please and there will be no consequences. Few people are concerned that God just might judge us for what we have done – even though God has judged nations for sin time and time again.

Have we seen record-breaking disasters? Earthquakes? Storms? Droughts? Animals dying off in large numbers for no apparent reason? Have the timing of these disasters coincided with national sin? These are questions that we need to be asking.

It is very difficult to give a reason for a natural disaster. Disasters, after all, do not come with explanations – but sometimes there are hints in the timing. For example, God has promised to bless those who bless Israel and to curse those who curse Israel. In March 2011 Japan promised to give the Palestinians millions of dollars to help them establish a state and take away land from Israel. Two days later Japan was struck with a 9.0 earthquake. Now, earthquakes of that magnitude are extremely rare. This one just happened to coincide with Japan trying to take away land from Israel – a national sin that God promised to curse. I think that is significant.

Now, I do not believe that every storm and disaster is due to divine judgment. We do live in a fallen world and disasters do happen. But when a particularly devastating disaster happens at the same time a nation commits an abomination against God – well, I think there might be more to that than just a coincidence.

After all, God did warn us. He told us that if a nation commits the sins listed in Leviticus 18 that the land itself would vomit us out. He told us what would happen if we adopted the ordinances of the Canaanites, and we did it anyway. Our nation has taken the sin that was singled out by God as being an abomination – the sin of homosexuality – and worn it as a badge of pride. Even the Church has gotten into it, approving of homosexuality and appointing flagrant homosexuals as ministers. We have even taken the rainbow – a sign given to us by God Himself as a reminder that God would never again flood the entire world – and turned it into a symbol promoting homosexuality! (If that’s not trying to spit in God’s eye then I don’t know what is.) Is it any wonder, then, that the land is turning against us?

Sadly, I think that things are only going to get worse. Both political parties have embraced homosexuality and support it. No one is going to stand up and try to stop it – not even in the church. There are some denominations that are still fighting it, but it is anyone’s guess how long they will hold out against the tide of the culture. Things are not going to go back to the way they used to be; it will only get worse. God has made it clear that He will destroy the nations that do these things, and He always keeps His word. America is going to continue to pursue these abominations and God will destroy her for it.