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Is your church
affecting the community in a positive way?
I have a question in relation to your current
sign message at your church. I was wondering how you justify your interpretation of that
passage within its context. And secondly I really just wonder how you feel this is going
to reach the community in a positive way. I am not trying to be offensive, I just am
curious about your motivation in doing this.
(The sign in front of
the church reads)
Tattooing
God Says No
Lev. 19:28
Thanks for your inquiry about what is on the
sign. Your question, "I was wondering how you justify your interpretation of that
passage within its context."
The context of
this passage is a whole series of things that the heathen practiced, and the way that they
lived — practices and ways of which God disapproved. Leviticus 19:26-32 says,
"Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment,
nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar
the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor
print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause
her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.
Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. Regard not
them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am
the LORD your God. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of
the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD."
Look at the
context in detail:
#1 —
"Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood..." The heathen drank and ate
blood -- God's people are not to do that. Leviticus 17:10-14 says, "And whatsoever
man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you,
that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth
blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in
the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:
for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said
unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger
that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of
Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast
or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with
dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life
thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner
of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall
be cut off." Acts 15:19, 20 says, "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not
them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that
they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things
strangled, AND FROM BLOOD." God did not list all of the possible ways that people can
eat or drink blood (like eating a rare piece of meat with the blood oozing out, or just
plain drinking blood like Satanists and tribes in Papua New Guinea do) — but the
point is clear — God disapproves of man eating or drinking blood in any manner.
#2 —
"Neither shall ye use enchantment..." Enchant means "to influence by
or as if by charms and incantation; bewitch" (Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate
Dictionary). Incantation means "a use of spells or verbal charms spoken or
sung as a part of a ritual of magic" (Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary).
Acts 8:9-12 says, "But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the
same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was
some great one: To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This
man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he
had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things
concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men
and women." The early church applied this Scripture, and when a person got saved,
that person was expected to forsake that heathen practice.
#3 — "Nor observe
times..." Isaiah 47:13,14 says, "Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy
counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up,
and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as
stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the
flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before
it." We are not to make decisions in our lives based upon astrology or other worldly
or satanic means, but based upon the Word of God and prayer seeking God's will and timing.
Psalm 90:12 says, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts
unto wisdom." James 4:13-15 says, “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow
we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It
is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought
to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” The early church
practiced discerning the will of God through the Word of God and prayer. The heathen
decided their course in life and decisions based upon the movement of the stars and other
means of divination — all of which God disapproved.
#4 —
"Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of
thy beard." God forbids the shaving of the head or beard into unnatural shapes. The
Egyptians did this with their beards (you can easily find pictures of the Pharaoh’s
with their beards trimmed into long, shiny shapes. We see the marring of the head today
with unnatural shapes cut into it. From flat-top haircuts that change the natural shape of
the head, to names and symbols shaved right into the hair. God forbid anything like that.
The New Testament does not shy away from commenting on hair. I Corinthians 11:14,15 says,
“Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame
unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is
given her for a covering.” When is the last time that you heard it is sin when a man
has long hair, and sin when a woman has short hair? Is it being negative to say
what God says, but positive to say what man says? That will be seen to be backwards
in the reality of eternity. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
#5 —
“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon
you: I am the LORD.” Remember, thus far, what is being listed in the context
are things that the heathen do. The context is that the heathen practiced cutting their
flesh and printing marks upon their bodies (both types of disfigurement to the flesh) to
inflict punishment and lasting marks on their bodies — trying, in their feeble and
unscriptural way, to suffer with those who had died, and to somehow try and appease their
gods (false gods). God condemns and forbids disfiguring the body in any way, and for any
reason.
If this passage
only says that it is wrong to cut your flesh or print marks upon your body FOR THE DEAD,
does that mean that the false prophets on Mt. Carmel were doing something acceptable to
God? Of course not. I Kings 18:25-28 says, “And Elijah said unto the prophets of
Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many;
and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock
which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from
morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any
that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon,
that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and
must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and CUT THEMSELVES after their manner with knives
and lancets, TILL THE BLOOD GUSHED OUT upon them.”
We read of
demon-possessed people cutting themselves, but not for the dead. Does that mean that God
approved of that? Of course not. Mark 5:2-5 says, “And when he was come out of the
ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his
dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that
he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder
by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And
always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and CUTTING
HIMSELF with stones.”
It is wrong to cut your flesh
(an obvious exemption from this is surgery — Genesis 2:21,22, “And the LORD God
caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and
closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,
made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”), and it is wrong to print marks upon
your flesh. They are both disfiguring to the body, and mar the appearance of it. God used
the example of what the heathen did for their dead TO CONDEMN TWO PRACTICES WHICH HE
FORBIDS — cutting the flesh and printing marks upon it. If are going to insist that
it is only wrong to print marks upon your body if you are doing it for the dead, then you
are also going to have to say that it is only wrong to cut your flesh if you are doing it
for the dead — and for any other reason, it is okay. Are you prepared for people to
start going around and cutting their flesh because it becomes a fad? Would you defend the
practice as okay because they are not doing it for the dead? Of course not.
The practice of
tattooing is not pleasing to God, but is forbidden of Him. It is a painful procedure that
leaves a permanent mark upon the body for adornment (have you ever noticed the evil nature
of much in the realm of tattooing — snakes, dragons, spiders, bats, immoral
pictures?). Consider the evil names of the tattoo parlors (look in the Yellow Pages —
it might shock you). Christians never got the idea to get tattooed from the Bible —
they got that idea from the world. I John 2:15 says, “Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is
not in him.”
#6 —
“Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to
whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.” Do you see the context is filled
with the evil that the world does — not what believers do? And we could go on.
Your second
question: “And secondly I really just wonder how you feel this is going to reach the
community in a positive way. I am not trying to be offensive, I just am curious about your
motivation in doing this.”
That is a good
question, and churches are failing to Scripturally consider it. What is truly positive
for a community? Is it allowing them to follow the ways of the world with no warning? That
is what the false prophets do. Ezekiel 33:7-11 says, “So thou, O son of man, I have
set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my
mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt
surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall
die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou
warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die
in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Therefore, O thou son of man, speak
unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon
us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live,
saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked
turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye
die.”
Is it really positive
to sit idly by, while young and old cover their bodies with marks that they will one day
tire of, but cannot remove (except through expensive and painful procedures, and then not
all can be removed)? When we get saved, our bodies are not our own. I Corinthians 6:19, 20
says, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” God says
not to cut our bodies or to print marks upon them.
What is positive
for our community? Is it the place of churches to just put their stamp of approval upon
whatever a community wants to do, so that the church will have praise of the community?
Once again, that is the motive of false prophets. Luke 6:26 says, “Woe unto you, when
all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
The thing that
is really positive for a community is to tell them truthfully what God says,
because each person is going to one day stand before God. If we just tell them what they
want to hear today, and then they face judgment before God for it, how have we helped them
in a positive way? We have not.
The church in America is
failing in our day, because it has a faulty idea of its purpose in the earth, and a
totally unscriptural idea of what is truly positive. We are not here to draw the
largest crowd that we can by placing our stamp of approval upon the world’s fads
(music, clothing, tattoos, body piercings, etc.). We are here to call the people to
repentance. Matthew 3:1,2 describes how John the Baptist began his ministry, “In
those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying,
REPENT YE: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Was his message positive? In
light of eternity, it was positive, but it was pretty negative for those who were not
right with God.
Read on as he
continues in verse 7-12, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to
his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the ax is laid unto
the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn
down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize
you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he
will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up
the chaff with unquenchable fire.” If you were sitting in church, and the preacher
called you a viper, a snake, I do not suppose that you would consider that too positive.
But in light of eternity, it was. Because if those religious people who were so filled
with hypocrisy did not get saved, they were going to spend eternity in the lake of fire.
Lest you think
that John the Baptist was just an ornery preacher from spending too much time in the
wilderness alone, Jesus gave John the highest commendation possible to a man upon earth,
and He started out His ministry in the exact same way. Matthew 11:11 says, “Verily I
say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John
the Baptist.” Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to
say, REPENT: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The only way to
truly affect our community in a positive way, is to bring them to repentance. Repent
means “to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life; to feel
regret or contrition; to change one's mind; to cause to feel regret or contrition; to feel
sorrow, regret, or contrition for.” (Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate
Dictionary). That was the message of the early church. Acts 3:19 says, “REPENT ye
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of
refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Acts 17:30, 31 says, “And
the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to
REPENT: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” If a person
is truly turning to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, then he is going to be turning
away from his sin.
We are facing
increased sin in our land (abortion, sodomite marriages, tattooing, body piercings, etc.),
because the church, for the most part, is no longer willing to say what God says. If
Liberty Baptist Church comes to the place where it only says what man wants to hear,
instead of what God wants man to hear, then Liberty Baptist Church will be nothing more
than a social club. II Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people, which are called by my
name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked
ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their
land.”
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