Deuteronomy 14:11-20
NEXT WE come to the clean and unclean birds. "Of all the clean birds ye shall eat." But then God gives His people Israel a list of those unclean fowls they were not to eat — the eagle, the kite, the vulture, the raven, the owl, the nighthawk, the stork, and the bat, and others.
Like the unclean animals, most of these unclean birds are flesh-eating, and were forbidden as food. Eating has the thought of fellowship, and the Christian is not to feed on or have fellowship with that in this world which has these characteristics. The world, as man has made it, is the scene where the flesh finds its satisfaction, a world that has been judged in the death of Christ and only awaits the carrying out of that judgment. The Christian is dead and risen with Christ, and that new life feeds only on Christ and heavenly things.
The eagle soars high into the sky, but in this it speaks of man's pride and loftiness. How often we are warned in the Scriptures of pride, so native to our hearts, and so hateful to God!
We read of Uzziah, king of Judah, that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lard," and "as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper." But then it is sad to read that "when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction." (2 Chron. 26:4, 5, 16.) Unjudged pride was his ruin. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," so we read in Proverbs 16:18. May we watch against the first workings of pride in our hearts.
Some of these birds are fierce, ravenous plunderers, destroying other living creatures. Others feed greedily on dead carcasses. The world is a scene of violence and death, and the Christian is called to find all his jays and pleasures apart from the world, in new creation where Christ is all in all.
Then too some of these winged creatures shun the light of day and come out only in the darkness of night. Now the Christian is of the "day," while passing through the night of this world, and he is to have "no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." (Eph. 5:11.).
The stork is an affectionate bird and is noted for its care of its family and for others of its kind, but it too lives an flesh. Natural affection in a person is lovely in its place, but worth nothing where there is not the fear of God. How often do we meet people who have very lovely dispositions, they may be kind friends or good neighbors, but there is no love for Christ in the heart, and they live for this world. Natural man in his best estate is fallen and unclean before God.
"And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten." Here was a creature that had ability to fly but was characterized as a creeping thing. The earth is under the curse because of sin, and there must be the moral rising above it by faith. Sometimes even a Christian, one who may have made a confession of Christ, goes into the world and seeks to find his pleasures there. Such a one is not a fit companion for another young believer who wants to go on with the Lord.
Messages of the Love of God 4/20/1975