Fat and Blood May Not Be Eaten

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Hey, hey, good morning, good morning.
Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, have a little bit of coffee, get into God's Word. We grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today.
Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, you are a generous and loving God, abounding in kindness and mercy. and we need your spirit today. Please, Father, help us. Help us to understand your word, and we pray that you would apply it to our lives. In Jesus's name, amen. Alright, so we are at Leviticus chapter 7, beginning at verse 22, and we'll get through verse 27.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, You shall not eat any fat of ox or sheep or goat. And the fat of an animal that dies naturally, the fat of what is torn by wild beasts, may be used in any other way. But you shall by no means eat it. For whoever eats the fat of the animal, of which men offer an offering made by fire to the Lord, the person who eats it shall be cut off from his people. Moreover, you shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people. Well, we need to ask ourselves our three ABC questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So what's this about?
This is regulations about the fat and the blood of animals. This is specifically in a ritualistic system, but it's very clear here. And we're going to see again in Leviticus and someday we'll get to Numbers and Deuteronomy and we'll see it again. God is very clear about not eating the fat of an animal because it's His. It's the best part of the animal. It's the most savory part and He claims it for Himself and He says it's Mine.
Now the average Israelite, I was just reading a little bit ago, probably only ate meat about 10 times a year. And so anytime they would eat meat, they would go to the temple and actually do this. If you found an animal, right, you have a herd and your animal dies, you can still use the fat, right? You can butcher the animal and all that and you can take the fat and you can make it for polishing or use the fat for candles or lamps or you could use it for, you know, working into the leather of worn out leather as a conditioner, right? There's all sorts of stuff you could do with that fat that was perfectly acceptable, but not eat it.
Now the thing that was not to be eaten or used in any circumstance was the blood. The life was in the blood, and this is how God viewed it. And so he said, no blood, period. So severe that again, just like people who come and treat the holy things unholy, if you are found in Israel and you're eating the blood, you're to be cut off. Actually, it's going to be God who's going to cut you off, and that's a scary thing.
And so So, what's the best verse in this passage? Well, I would underline in my Bible, Verse 24, And the fat of an animal that dies naturally, and the fat of what is torn by wild beasts may be used in any other way, but you shall by no means eat it. And then verse 26, Moreover, you shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast. So what is this calling us to do? We're not Old Testament Israel anymore. There's no sacrificial system. Jesus fulfilled all these things. So, the question is, are you allowed to order a rare steak?
What do you think? Are you allowed to eat meat with the blood in it? Are you allowed to have a drink of an animal's blood? I gotta say, I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the way in which our culture still cavalierly treats blood. You know, there's, this is the time of year, it's October that we're recording this, and this is when horror movies come about and vampire movies either normalize and make fun of this idea of drinking blood, But there's still in the human conscience something that goes, it's not normally like something we do. And then the question is Acts chapter 15. This is one of the questions that people had when the early church first started and the early church fathers, the apostles are the ones who told us.
Right? If it's the wrangled animals, whether it's going through these idolatrous kind of scenarios, it's better not to eat the meat. Don't do that. I would still say. I'm always a little bit squirmish with this. I don't like my meat that's completely burnt to a crisp, but I've become more and more sensitive to this idea that, no, do I really want to eat the meat that is, well, it's almost like the cow is still moving, right? Somewhere, there's a line somewhere here. I don't think that we need to go back to the kosher laws. I don't think that's what this is calling us for, but this is, do we value life? Do you value life, even the life of animals? Do we have bloodthirst? Or do we value the sanctity of what God has created?
That's what he was calling them to see here. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we pray that we would value life and that we would walk in your ways. Please help us, Lord, to know how to apply this. But Lord, we thank you that you have poured out your own blood for us for the remission of our sins. Lord, we thank you for the blood that's better than the blood of Abel. the one that has satisfied all justice. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may God bless you. May you rest in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.