Heavenly Father, we now give You our devotion for the next hour as we fly very rapidly through many chapters of Leviticus. I pray that our minds would be sharp, I pray that we would give You our best attention, that we would learn, and that as we learn, we would grow, and as we grow Lord, we would share with other people in our community and in our lives. And we again pray that the work that You're doing here, midweek, would be transferred and multiplied throughout the rest of the week as we interact with people around this community. In Jesus' Name. Amen
If you were to ask the average Christian, "What's your favorite book in the Bible?" You probably wouldn't hear, "Leviticus." You wouldn't have people say, "Yeah, my life verse is in Leviticus." Or "Yeah, Leviticus is the place I often go to for personal comfort." In fact, as I mentioned Sunday, it's the book where a lot of people ditch their New Year's resolutions. If their resolution was, "I'm going to read through the Bible," they make it through Genesis; it's exciting. They make it through Exodus; it's exciting until you get to chapter 21, then it slows down a bit. Then it's all over in Leviticus. It's like, "Forget it." There are so many people that have never read this book. Yet, the Bible does say, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable," and that would mean this is part of it. In fact, did you know that in ancient times, in some Jewish communities, Leviticus was where they started training their children? I know that sounds outlandish, to give a kid Leviticus. You think, "Wait a minute, that's for seminary graduates." No, they would start them young in this book and a passage in the Midrash says this, "Little children are pure and the sacrifices are pure, let those who are pure come and occupy themselves with pure things." So that's what we're going to do tonight in this book.
Okay, in the book of Leviticus, the Children of Israel, who have left Egypt and are going through the wilderness, don't move at all in this book. They're camped out in the wilderness of Sinai and the book ends right where the book begins. They're not making any physical progress during this book. It opens and closes in the same spot. The book has a theme and here it is: the way to God through sacrifice. You could even narrow that theme down to a single word, holy or holiness. Now when you hear the word or I hear the word 'holiness,' it doesn’t excite most people because we have weird things in our minds. "Oh yeah, holiness, that's guys in long robes who live out in caves in the desert and they do weird things like fast for several days at a time and they isolate themselves from people and they think thoughts of God because they're holy." I want you to rethink the word. I want you to think of the word, 'holy,' as being, 'wholly.' The idea of wholly is total or complete. You are complete when you draw near to God in holiness. When you become holy you become whole. It's how God wants you to live. Now, you are going to find that a lot of the theme of this book is holiness. You're going to hear the repeated phrase where God says, "For I am holy." Here's why; here's a key: the way to happiness is through holiness. Parents, teach your children that. Teach your children that if they want to be happy people, they should be holy people. If you think of Jesus Christ, people noticed something about His life. There He was - He didn't have a place to lay His head at night; He was wandering around Galilee and on into Jerusalem and yet He was so attractive; there was a vibrancy, there was a spark about Him. It was because of the righteousness, the holiness, the proximity to His Father, that gave that off and people noticed it. So the way to happiness is the way of holiness. I'm going to read a quote to you by Peggy Noonan. She was the former President Reagan's speech writer and she said this, "It is odd that some Christians see themselves as the media does, as bland guys in gray suits with gray buzz cuts. They ought to see themselves as a young Marlon Brando on a Harley; for they (that is believers; Christians), are the true anti-establishment, the true rebels and with a cause." I like that. Holiness, you might say, is being a rebel with a cause. Rebel against this world; rebel against the values and the standards. If you want to be a true non-conformist, don't be like the world. Anybody, any dead fish can float downstream. Being different; being whole; being holy; is the way to happiness and is the way to pleasing God.
In Genesis, we saw the condemnation for sin. It was the fall and the fall out because of the fall. It was the condemnation because of sin that brought a fall on all of mankind - that's Genesis.
Then we came to Exodus and we saw that it was redemption for their sin as God took them out of the bondage they were in and brought them through the wilderness.
Now we have separation from their sin. That's the book of Leviticus. The sin issue has to be dealt with and it's dealt with here. Now, let me tell you a key word in this book beside holy. It's the word 'blood.' Eighty eight times the word 'blood' is going to show up in the book of Leviticus. Frankly, it's a bloody book and one of the reasons people don't like it is because there's so much blood. Here's the key lesson and the reason why. Leviticus and the mention of blood, show us the awfulness of sin. This is what sin will do: it makes a bloody mess of things. So an innocent victim, i.e., an animal - the blood was shed, sacrifices were made because the wages of sin is death. So it's either our death or an innocent victim's death and hence blood will be mentioned a lot. So Leviticus shows the awfulness of sin - death, blood. It also shows us the graciousness of God. Besides God saying, "I'm holy," and the awfulness of sin, you'll find the phrase, "I will forgive," or "I will forgive their sins." Chapters 1 through 7 form a unit of the sacrifices that were brought to the tabernacle and the blood that was shed; the offerings that were given. Although everybody in Israel brought an offering to the Lord, there was only one group of people that received those offerings and sacrificed those animals, and that was the tribe of Levi. Not everybody could do it. There was only one special tribe in Israel that was set apart to do the business of the tabernacle; to receive the animals, slit the throat, drain the blood, pour the blood at the base of the altar, bring in the burnt offering, etc. So not just everybody could do it, but a special priesthood could do it and it was the tribe of Levi. You had to have the right genetics or you might say you had to have the right genes and you had to be of the Tribe of Levi for the sacrifices.
We're flying over this book tonight so as we're flying over this book I want you to notice out the window four landmarks in chapters 1 through 17. The first one is personal; the second one is professional; the third one is ritual; and the fourth one is national. So let me go back to those four because we are going to zip quickly through it and you're going to notice them out the window of the airplane sort to speak.
The first section that we want to look at, chapters 1 through 7, are laws of personal proximity. It answers the question, "How can I approach God? How can I ever, being a human being and imperfect, hang out and fellowship with a perfect, holy God?" And it's through the sacrifices that are given. And then, second, chapters 8 through 10 are laws of professional activity. It answers the question, "How can I serve God?" It's about the priests whose profession it was to offer those sacrifices. So, laws of personal proximity, laws of professional activity, and then the third are chapters 11 through 15, laws of ritual purity. And it answers the question, "How can I stay clean before the Lord?" Fourth and finally, laws of national sanctity, chapters 16 and 17, and they talk about how the nation should obey God. So we are going to fly over those chapters.
Chapter 1 through 7 is the first one - laws of personal proximity - and it has to do with worship through animal sacrifice; through offerings. This is the worship that God prescribes for the people to approach God. God is looking today for worshipers, not animal sacrificers. We don't need animals because of Jesus; His blood is enough. But God is on the lookout, according to Jesus in John 4, "For true and authentic worshipers." A.W. Tozer once said, "Worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical church." I wonder, as God looks through our group here tonight, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, how many authentic worshipers He finds; those who are in it for God's glory; for God's fame; and for His majesty. Well, chapter 1 is the burnt offering. An animal is brought before the tabernacle, it is burned upon an altar, and we see that animal sacrifices are instituted. Now go back in your mind. This is not the first time an animal is killed to cover sin. What's the first occasion of that? It's in Genesis after the garden incident in chapter 3 when Adam and Eve sowed fig leaves together because they said, "Well, we woke up one day and discovered we were naked so we covered ourselves." And the Bible says that, "God took the skins of animals and covered them." Well that animal had to be killed for those skins to cover Adam and Eve. So what God instituted right after the fall is what He now continues in ritual form with the children of Israel. Verse 1, "Now the Lord called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock - of the herd and of the flock. 'If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord. Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He shall kill the bull before the Lord; and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of meeting.'" We understand that mankind has a huge problem. How on earth is sinful man going to hang out with holy God? Sin is the great separator. That virus has infected our race from the very beginning after the fall of Adam. Well the first seven chapters are about remedying that and it is by shedding blood. Hebrews 9:22 says, "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." Okay, so they brought these sacrifices and you have to keep in mind what this would look like to the worshiper. It was a very visual worship system. That is, it was the ability to see rather than just hear at this point in their history, what sin did and what was required to cover it, thus this great pageantry of animal sacrifices. It was like watching a drama on stage and all of these sacrifices expressed the truths visually rather than verbally. It's sort of the equivalent of agent television. They saw acted out in front of them, every time an animal was brought, what their sin did. Now I want to throw this in because we live in a day and age where people say, "Well, all religions are the same and all roads lead to God." Well, if that's true now, was it true back then? Some would say, "Of course it was; it's always been true; all paths lead to God; it doesn't matter what you believe in." That's called relativism. The Bible teaches the opposite. The Bible teaches exclusivism. There's only a certain way that anybody can approach God, and according to Leviticus it's by the shedding of blood of an innocent victim, and so the sacrifices. In one sense, they're repertory, they cure the problem; I'm separated from God, how do I approach God? Well, you bring an animal, blood is shed, you can hang out with God by the shedding of blood. Number two they're anticipatory. They point forward to the finished work of Jesus Christ and His shed blood once and for all, of all of our sins.
Go down to chapter 2 because the sacrifices in Leviticus 1 through 7 go beyond just sacrifice for sin, listen carefully, they also deal with personal surrender and thanksgiving. Do you ever come to a place where you aren't asking God for anything, or you aren't doing something because you have to do it? You just say, "Lord, I know I don't have to do this but I want to because I'm so thankful for all that you've done." Well, there were offerings specifically for that. Chapter 2, verse 1 "When anyone offers a grain offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. And he shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it. He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, one of whom shall take from it his handful of fine flour and oil with all the frankincense. And the priest shall burn it as a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord." This was the only unbloody offering. It was grain, meal - ground up - oil was poured in it, made into little cakes; part of it was burned and given to the Lord, and part of it was given to the priests to be their bread at home. It would be part of what the priest would eat; it would sustain them; it was part of the offerings that they would accept. Now this offering was prepared by the worshiper. It symbolizes the work of our hands. So that is, "I'm going to offer something to the Lord; it's going to take time and it's going to cost me; and just as a matter of thanksgiving, I'm going to offer it, surrender to the Lord - the work of my hands." Let me just say that anytime we give to the Lord it ought to be done with that mentality. That is with the mentality that it's going to take my time and it's going to cost me something. That's true sacrifice. I don't think it's right to say, "Well, I've given some of my money to the Lord." Newsflash - none of it's yours to begin with. It's not like God let you keep ninety percent and you give him ten. He owns it all. He's made you a steward and He's graciously told you, "Here take this 90 percent and sustain yourself, just give this ten percent." But it always should cost us something. David, when he wanted to build the temple for the Lord, 2nd Samuel 24, goes up to the threshing floor of Arana in Jerusaleum and says, "Hey buddy boy, I want to buy that little mountain peak; I want to build a house for the Lord. I'll buy it from you." Arana said, "You don't have to buy it from me, you're the king, you're going to do it for God, you can have it." David said, "No give me a fair price; I'll buy it from you." Arana said, "Don't buy it from me, you can have it." Then David said, "I will never, ever give God something unless it costs me." So that's the idea of a gift to the Lord. "I am so thankful and I want to give back to the Lord." So that's that sacrifice.
Chapter 3 is the peace offering. That is, you bring your animal, it's killed at the door of the tabernacle, and blood is poured on the altar or at the base of it. Now in the peace offering, part of the animal is burned - that's the fatty part; and all the parts are given in here, we don't need to go through it. Part is given to the priest, again for their meal at home and then part is enjoyed by the one who brings the animal. It's sort of like a holy barbeque. You're going to eat part of it and enjoy it right there with your family. Verse 8, chapter 3, "And he shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of meeting; and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle its blood all around on the altar." This is the only offering that is eaten, by the way. Verse 9: "Then he shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offering, as an offering made by fire to the Lord, its fat and the whole fat tail which he shall remove close to the backbone. And the fat that covers the entrails, And all the fat that is on the entrails." This is the peace offering and I love the Hebrew greeting. Shalom; peace. It's more than just, "Hey, what's up?" The idea of shalom or peace is well being; wholeness; satisfaction; and the idea of the peace offering is, "I'm satisfied in fellowship with God and with God's people." There's a sense of well being and wholeness and satisfaction. And by the way we pray that for you often. We pray that as you enter these gates, these doors, as you come in for Bible studies, you go out and you live your life throughout the week - that you would live with a sense of fellowship and satisfaction and shalom and peace. That's from the Lord. I think it's a beautiful picture of being God's guest at His table. You know, in the Middle East, it's always been a custom if you're invited into a home, (or in those days the tent), for a meal, not only did the host feed you a meal and take care of your needs but in coming into the house or into the tent the host was sworn to protect the guest. "If you're a guest in our home we're going to make sure that you are free from worry and free from evil; we're going to protect you." I love that idea. God welcomes us into fellowship. Like Jesus said, "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone will open the door I will come in and sup with him," (or have intimate fellowship with him), "and he with Me."
Look at chapter 4. This is the sin offering. This is for unintentional sin. It's what people call "boo-boos", "mistakes", "uh-ohs". God still calls it sin. Verse 2, chapter 4: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them, if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering." Now the very next offering is a trespass offering, so isn't it interesting that there's a difference in the Bible between sin and a trespass and can you see the difference? One is unintentional and one is intentional. The Bible says, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Whether you want to or not. The Bible says we are all born in sin; we are infected with that disease; we're sinners by nature, number one; and sinners by choice number two.
Now here's the difference illustrated. Let's say you're walking down the street and you take a turn and you cross into private property but you don't know that it's private - it was unintentional - and somebody comes out there with a shotgun and a cowboy hat with chewing tobacco saying, "Boy, get off this property, it's private property." Okay, you didn't know it; you still crossed the line; it's a sin; you get off. A trespass is where you see the sign and you cross over it intentionally; it's something you know, and you do it deliberately. And they were offering sacrifices for both of those. Okay, whether you mean to do it or not, it's still sin and blood still has to be shed. "Oh, but I try really hard not to miss the mark!" Sorry, everybody does it. Blood has to be shed.
Chapter 5 is the trespass offering. If you touch something unclean; if you speak thoughtlessly; if you give an oath and you're not able to fulfill it. Again, we've all seen the sign, "No Trespassing - Private Property", now up to that point, until you saw the sign you were unaware, now you are aware. Having seen the sign, you've been warned. This is what I want you to notice before we move on. There was an offering for a trespass and the offering was a public demonstration, a public confession. This is what you notice about all of these offerings; it wasn't just done in private - there was a public accountability that was demanded by the people of Israel; a public honesty that they had to live up to. They had to confess it and they would bring an offering. So if you're bringing a trespass offering, everybody knows, "That guy blew it. Look, he's bringing an animal. It's a trespass offering, he blew it." And yet, they felt the freedom; they had the freedom by God to go ahead and say, "Yep, I did, and I'm going to get forgiven of it." I think too often we hide behind our masks; we try to pretend that we're okay when we're not, when it would be so much better if believers would become a little more honest about who they are and their need for forgiveness. There's an old Latin proverb that says, "He does not get cleansed of sins who denies them." I've heard people pray this prayer, "Lord, if I have sinned, I'm sorry." Wait, time out - if? If you've sinned? I mean if you're not sure, why are you even praying about it? You only pray about it when you want to make a confession and the word confess means to agree with and bringing the offering meant you agreed with it.
There are five offerings: burnt offering, peace offering, sin offering, trespass offering, and grain offering. I didn't give it to you in order. It's burnt, grain, peace, sin, and trespass. The first three are called 'sweet aroma offerings.' That is, it says when you bring them, it's a sweet aroma to the nostrils of the Lord. The first three were optional. The second two were obligatory. You had to bring them because everybody sins. In the first three it's surrender, it's thanksgiving, it's Romans 12:1, "You present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable which is your reasonable service." The next two, everybody had to do; sin and trespass offering - because all sin and all transgress.
Chapters 6 and 7 continue with that theme - remember these are laws of personal proximity, that's the first of the four sections. How do I approach God? Chapters 6 and 7 are laws for the priests who are administrating all of these five offerings. This is the office protocol. This is the other end of the deal. You bring the offering, the priest has to receive it and the protocol is given. So look at verse 35, "This is the consecrated portion for Aaron and his sons, from the offerings made by fire to the Lord, on the day when Moses presented them to minister to the Lord as priests. The Lord commanded this to be given to them by the children of Israel, on the day that He anointed them, by a statute forever throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the consecrations, and the sacrifice of the peace offering." So a certain portion, verse 35, was for the priests; but it was only a certain portion. Later on we're going to read that there was a high priest by the name of Eli. He had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. This is 1st Samuel, chapters 1 through 4: "Hophni and Phinehas the sons of the priest, were very careless, they put in the flesh hook and whatever came up," usually the best, because they saw where they were grabbing the meat, "they would take home for themselves." They got sloppy about the way they were serving the Lord and not giving the Lord the prescribed piece and then taking home the prescribed piece and the Bible says, "That caused the people to hate these sacrifices." Talk about the power of a bad example. No wonder, in the New Testament, James, concerning leadership says, "Be not many masters, for you will receive the stricter judgment," or the greater condemnation.
When they went up to the tabernacle it must have looked like a slaughter house. Throats being slit, blood being poured out at the gate, more blood being poured out at the great altar of sacrifice that was in that court; an enormous amount of blood and people. Blood circulates through every single page of the Bible - the need for shedding of blood. Again without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. There is what we call a Scarlet Thread of Redemption that is woven from Genesis to Revelation. I mentioned that blood is talked about 88 times - offering and sacrifice, those two words, appear 91 times in this book. Why? Wherever sin exists, blood must be shed or payment must be made. Speaking about the Scarlet Thread of Redemption, fast forward to the New Testament. Remember what Jesus said to the leaders? Listen to what He said. "If you would have believed Moses, you'd believe Me because Moses wrote about Me." And you wonder, "Where did Moses write about You exactly?" Or Jesus on the road to Emmaus, in Luke chapter 24, it says, "And beginning at Moses and all of the prophets He explained all of the things that were concerning Him." What did He talk about in that Bible study? He must have talked about some of these offerings. "Hey guys, remember all those offerings? Yeah, they spoke about Me. Here is how I have fulfilled them all."
We go now to the second slice of this. These are the laws of professional activity. Chapters 8, 9 and 10 answer the question, "How can I serve God?" Now, specifically we're going to be dealing with those who have the Levi genes and those who are ministering as the priests in the tabernacle and how they serve God. If chapters 1 through 7 tell us why we need sacrifices, chapters 8, 9 and 10 deal with why we need a priest. It's true, we need a sacrifice for our sins but we also need a priest to be a mediator - the go between. You see if you go to the tabernacle, you have to have somebody take the offerings from you and mediate between you and God. So there was a high priest and there were other priests, the priesthood. Now in the New Testament, who is our great high priest according to Hebrews chapters 4, 5 and 6? Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. Hebrews 4, "We do not have a high priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like we are yet without sin." He's called our great High Priest. In that same analogy then, if He's the great High Priest, who are the priests? We are. Believers are all called priests. In 1st Peter, Peter says, "Don't you know that you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a people that is set apart?" What does a priest do? A priest stands before people for God and then a priest stands before God for the people, offering sacrifices. He's the go-between, the mediator. He stands before people for God and he stands before God for the people. That's what you're called to do: stand before people at work, stand before people at home, in the neighborhood, at the store, at school. Stand there and be God's spokesperson. Tell them the truth; tell them how they can be right with God; tell them how they can be saved. That's your role as a priest. Then don't stop there; stand before God for the people in prayer. Pray for them; ask God to bless them; ask God to save them. We're a chosen generation, we're a royal priesthood.
Chapter 8, verse 1 begins the ordination ceremony of these priests, "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 'Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, the anointing oil, a bull as the sin offering, two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread.'" Now notice that they're to take a sin offering. Did you read that in verse 2? "A sin offering? These are the priests, do they need it?" Absolutely. Hebrews 4 tells us Jesus is the great High Priest; Hebrews 5 tells us that even the Old Testament priests couldn't just rush in and go, "I'm a priest." They themselves had to sacrifice like everybody else; blood had to be shed; a priest couldn't approach until there was a sin offering for his own sin. Everybody in ministry better make sure that they're right with God. Now we're starting a Sheppard School coming up in a couple of weeks and we have a School of Ministry and we've seen people over the years get raised up in ministry. I know this sounds elementary and it might shock you, but do you know that there are people today in pulpits around our country, ministers of the Gospel, who are not saved individuals? This I know out of personal experience. I remember it was a Christmas Day, it happened to be on a Sunday that year, it was several years back, and we gave an altar call and one of the men who came forward was an elderly gentlemen and with tears in his voice he said, "I have served in the ministry all my life and I realized today, I haven't been saved, genuinely. I really want to give my live to Christ." It's hard to imagine. How do you stay in the ministry without a relationship with God? But these guys, even back then, needed to be right with God through these sacrifices.
Verse 22, of that chapter: "And he brought the second ram, the ram of consecration. Then Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram," Now this is an unusual ordination service, you'll never see one like this in a church, "and Moses killed it. Also he took some of its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot. Then he brought Aaron's sons. And Moses put some of the blood on the tips of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. And Moses sprinkled the blood all around on the altar." Now this would signify the role of the priest. This is what I'm called to do. Blood on my right ear; I'm called to hear His voice. Blood on my right hand, my thumb; I'm called to do His will. And blood on the big toe of the right foot; I'm called to walk in His ways. All of that was significant. So, this is the priests' equivalent of Romans chapter 12: "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God." This is where service begins. Do you want to serve the Lord? Do you want to be used by God? The first step is saying, "God, I want to be used by You. I'm offering up my life, my body, my future, my talents, everything, for Your purposes. So when we bring young men into the ministry and we ordain them, we call it an ordination service, we're really not ordaining them. We believe that not a single man on earth or an institution or a church could possibly ordain anybody but that only God can call and ordain a person. We can only, at best, ratify what God has already done. When we see the evidence in a person's life and then we lay hands on him and it's evident that God has called them. God has already ordained you and we're saying 'Amen' to that. We're simply ratifying it.
Let me just also say that the Bible is filled with great stories of people who have done this. They've yielded their bodies to God and God said, "Okay, I can use that." Moses' mouth - it wasn't a very great mouth; he stuttered. But when God got a hold of it he was the one that spoke the laws of God to the nation. David's hands - just little shepherd hands. But in the hands of God behind his hands he was able to slay a giant with a sling. Or how about the feet of Paul the Apostle - going everywhere, spreading the good news? Their bodies were given over to God. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest truths of the Bible is that God has lowered Himself, you might say condescended, to using us. He's going to use us; He wants to use you; He wants to use me. Can I just say for the record, it's an enigma? You know, God could have chosen to use angels to get the job of evangelism done and you know what, they would have done a lot better job. It would have been done by now. How do I know this? Because in the book of Revelation, an everlasting angel, flying through heaven, or an angel preaching the everlasting gospel, and the whole world hears it. But God has chosen to use us. He's looking for people who will say, "Here's my body, use me."
Chapter 9 is the beginning of the priesthood; seven days of consecration. In those seven days, a sin offering is presented. This is all in the ninth chapter - sin offering and a burnt offering for themselves. That's the beginning of the priesthood.
Chapter 10 is the breakdown of the priesthood. It's hard to imagine but on the very first "get-go", in that first week of the establishment of the priesthood, it goes south very quickly. There's rebellion in the camp and here's one of the things I love about the Bible: the Bible never flatters its heroes, it always tells the truth about the best of them." Verse 1, chapter 10: "Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire," (or strange fire, asKing James says, or unconsecrated fire), "before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, 'This is what the Lord spoke, saying: 'By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.' So Aaron held his peace." You know what; we don't even honestly know why this was called this strange fire or profane fire. The infraction is not specified. We don't know exactly what it is. We do know that it was some violation of offering incense in a sensor. Here's the deal: there was a fire out in the outer courtyard on the altar of sacrifice. It was to be going continually because the Bible says, "Fire came from heaven and consumed the sacrifice." It was to stay lit. Coal was taken off of the altar and put in the sensor, incense was put on it, the priest would then go into the holy place. It would seem that rather than going to the source at the altar of sacrifice and getting one of those coals, they took out a bic lighter or something (of course they didn't have that) but they took fire from some other place, many coals from another source and lit that fire. You go, "Man, God was like really having a bad God day - to kill these people for that! What's the big deal?" According to God it was profane fire and it is a big deal because it was to be taken from the altar of sacrifice before taken to the other altar; you know why? Worship must always be based on sacrifice. Nobody can just run into God's presence and go, "I think God is this and I think God is that and here's my own way that I feel like I want to worship God." Here's God's holy response to an unholy gesture. Worship must always be based on sacrifice. Here's another possibility. It could be that these sons of Aaron were drunk because look down in verse 8 and 9, God says to Aaron, their father, "Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations." Once again, if you're going to be in ministry, you can't just give God any old service, you give God your best. Charles Spurgeon once said, "If you plan to be lazy, there're plenty of avocations in which you will not be wanted, but above all you are not wanted in the Christian ministry. The man who finds the ministry an easy life will also find that it brings a hard death." Enough said.
In the third section, we will fly over the laws of ritual purity. How can a person be clean before God? Chapters 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 deal with a variety of laws about how to ritually be cleaned from defilement - in their diet, in treatment of bodily uncleanness, etc. So chapter 11 deals with food, chapter 12 deals with birth, chapter 13 - skin diseases, chapter 14 - leprosy in particular, which will be important in the New Testament - and chapter 15 - bodily discharges. It's all there!
You might look at it this way: chapters 1 through 10 dealt with worshiping the Lord; chapters 11 through the end of the book talk about walking with the Lord. There's an old saying I've memorized, "It's not how high you jump, it's how straight you walk once you hit the ground." Some people get all excited in their worship and they lavish God with praises and their hands are high and they stand tall and that's great; it's wonderful; it's cool; but the real test is when you leave church. What are you like in the parking lot? What are you like going down the street? What are you like tomorrow morning and the next morning and the rest of the week? Do you reflect somebody who's been in God's presence? There's a story of a missionary who would pass out tracts, little leaflets, and a man took one and said, "I don't want to read your tracts; I want to watch your tracks - how you walk - and see if I'm interested."
First of all there's worship and now this is walking with the Lord in all areas of life. Chapter 11, verse 1: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 'Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'These are the animals which you may eat among all the beasts that are on the earth: Among the beasts, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud - that you may eat.'" Now do you ever think about that when you go buy meat at the grocery store? "Now let me figure this out here. Did this have a cloven hoof? Better have something else tonight." Dietary restrictions given in verse 45 through 47 are for two basic reasons. Look at them, verse 45: "For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." Reason number one for these dietary restrictions: to show that they were different from all the other people around them. God held them to a higher standard. Verse 46: "This is the law of the animals and the birds and every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that creeps on the earth, to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, and between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten." Reason number two: health; for sanitary reasons. Three thousand years ago there wasn't any FDA, there was only G-O-D and Moses didn't know and they didn't know about what animals in different seasons of the year were good and were bad and were clean and were unclean and would give off poisons and would not, but God did, and to protect them from these diseases, these laws were given. I remember a trip that I took; it was an interesting trip because I went to four countries. I went to India, Egypt, Greece and then Israel. After those three countries, if you've ever been to them, you're really scared about what you're going to eat, especially if you had problems while you ate those foods in those countries - which I did. By the time I'd gotten to Israel I was very skittish, and I said, "Boy I don't know if I should eat that." It was in Jerusalem and I remember the guy patted me on the back and said, "It's okay, it's Kosher." And I thought, "Yeah, you know what, he's right, this is according to a very strict, Biblical standard of cleanliness to avoid some of the parasites that would be present in other countries." Doctor S.H. Kellogg said this, "One of the greatest discoveries of modern science is the fact that a large number of diseases to which animals are liable are due to the presence of low forms of parasitic life. To such diseases, those which are unclean in their feeding will be especially exposed. Also, you can be contaminated from animal to man." He goes on to say, "Long ago as in the days when the plague was desolating Europe, the Jews universally escaped infection which brought suspicion that they were poisoning the wells and the springs." That's just part of the history. God preserved them through these laws through a number of unsanitary conditions.
Chapter 12 deals with childbirth. After birth, get this, as soon as a baby was born a mom had to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering. Interesting isn't it? Cleansing was needed as soon as a child was born. That's the nature of sin. "We're sinners by birth," the Bible tells us. Psalm 51, David says: "I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." So a burnt offering and a sin offering - chapter 12.
Chapters 13 through 15 - leprosy and running sores. I wonder, when was the last time you heard a message on running sores? No, I won't be giving you one! These were all highly contagious, and they were to be brought into isolation and to be inspected. Think about it. Part of the priest's function was acting like a doctor. He'd isolate people, quarantine them, and then over time examine a sore or a scab to see how it would progress or if it would get better. He would pronounce the victim unclean or cleansed based upon that.
Fourth and finally, and we close here - laws of national sanctity, chapters 16 and 17; how a nation together should obey God. Chapter 16 is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. It's a special day in the Hebrew calendar where sin was dealt with. It was the tenth day of the seventh month, always. It was sort of the center and culmination of all of their festivals. You might look at chapter 16 as the Isaiah 53 of the Torah, of the five books of Moses. Yom Kippur was not a joyful time. You'd never walk up to a Jewish person back then and go, "Merry Yom Kippur dude!" It wasn't a real happy celebration. It was days of awe, introspection, and confession of sins. It was a time, the Bible says, where they were to afflict their souls. Look at verse 7 of this chapter. Let me give you a little bit of background. The high priest would bathe himself, get dressed in his special garments that we talked about last time, sacrifice a bull and a ram, and then he would take two goats, now look at this: "He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat." Verse 9, "And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness. And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel," (that would take some time), "and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man." I've been on these hills outside of Jerusalem. Where the temple stood there were hills out toward the desert and people would stand on them and the goat would be released out into the wilderness. Once the goat was out of sight; the scapegoat left; the sins were taken away; one man relayed the guy on the other hill and that guy would do the same, all the way back into Jerusalem where at that moment in the temple there was a big party - "Our sins have been taken away!" The scapegoat was removed because of the sins. The news was passed from person to person to person all the way to the temple. The good news that Jesus Christ came to take away our sins, passed from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul all the way to us. We hear about it in every generation and we apply it to our lives and we rejoice because of the promise of the New Covenant.
Leviticus 17 - we made it - this is a hinge chapter. This is what I mean. Look at this chapter as a hinge between the first part and the second part. The first part with all of these offerings and priesthood regulations and the following part which deals with more laws and right in the middle is this hinge. It gives us a very key verse to this book. Verse 10: "And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats 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 atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." You might read that and go, "Don't worry; I will have no problem keeping this commandment; I don't plan on eating blood." Well, if you ever go to Scotland or England, they have this weird dish called blood pudding. This is what it is. It's congealed pig blood inside of a portion of an intestine. Who on earth would want to eat that? How could you put that on a menu and charge for it? A dare - maybe. A bill - never. But back then, some of the pagan countries would eat blood. You know why? Because they thought that if they drank the blood of an ox they'd be strong like an ox. If they'd drink blood from a lion they'd be as fast or as swift as a lion or a gazelle or whatever. They would take on the characteristics. God forbade them to act like the world. So once again, blood is the basis of the relationship with God.
Okay, we made it through 17 chapters. You have the gist of these portions of the book of Leviticus: laws of personal proximity, laws of professional activity, laws of ritual purity, and laws of national sanctity. Those are the four landmarks in the 17 chapters.
Before we close, I just want you to get kind of a mega theme here: the purpose of all of these offerings was not to show how approachable God was but how utterly holy and unapproachable God was without the shedding of blood. What does it mean if you don't have blood shed? How could you approach God? There's only one other solution. If you don't have blood shed for you I guess you come in your own righteousness, your own good works, and your own good deeds. You'd say, "Okay, I'm going to be good enough to stand before God and God will just overlook it." That would be a mistake, because Paul says in the New Testament that the Jews at his time have become ignorant of the righteousness of God and in pushing away the righteousness that God prescribed, they are resting in their own righteousness and thus under the condemnation of God. Unless tonight your life is found in the blood of Jesus Christ shed for you, there is no hope. Why live hopelessly? Grab onto the hope that is in Christ.
Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight for a long and deep and wide meal that we've enjoyed. I thank you Lord for the answers and for Kevin and his ministry and the group that is represented here from the mid-high and the high school and all the helpers. What a witness to have all age groups represented here tonight in one building. Thank you for the variety in the body of Christ. And thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ your perfect sacrifice. I pray that everyone would have a relationship with Him. In Jesus' Name. Amen.