Tonight we are in the book of Leviticus, chapters 18 through 27 and tonight we will finish the book. Once again, we're soaring through this book at 30,000 feet, which is cruising altitude, looking down over the landscape; getting the highlights on the horizon and the topography and seeing how certain things fit together in the Bible and how they all apply to our lives. Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, it is warm tonight but we think of all our brothers and sisters in parts of the world where there is not even any air conditioning whatsoever and so Lord, though it is a bit uncomfortable, we thank You. I thank You personally for the hunger that is in this community for the Word of God and so many faithful men, women and children have come out and I pray You bless each one of them because You said in Your Word that You are a Rewarder of those who diligently seek You. Lord, help us, help our minds to stay sharp and focused tonight. In Jesus' name. Amen
In the book of Leviticus, we have been studying a very important word, the word "holiness" and we sung about it tonight. Our call to worship hinted at it tonight. You know, God's holiness is probably His least attractive attribute. I'm speaking generally of most people who view God. Most people would say that God's love is His most attractive attribute, or God's creative nature, or God's ultimate control and power, or the fact that He knows everything, but most people wouldn't pick God's holiness as His most attractive or even most important character. Yet the Bible talks about God's holiness more than any other attribute. So because the Bible puts an emphasis on God's holiness, we too must emphasize it. Lest you think that holiness is just Old Testament business and not New Testament business, we know that our Lord Jesus said, "When you pray say, 'Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed," (or holy), "is Your name." We're to recognize God's holiness. Also, holy is the main description for the third person of the Trinity; the Spirit. You notice in the Bible that He's not called the Loving Spirit, though He's certain is loving; He's not called the Powerful Spirit, though certainly He is very powerful; but He is called by His primary character, and that is the Holy Spirit. We find a correlation between who God is and who God wants His people to be. God will say, as we'll read it, "Be holy for I am holy." Here's the point, we can't pick and choose which attributes of God we like and then toss out the rest. We take the whole package as God reveals Himself to us.
In review, we saw in Genesis, the foundation of everything. We looked at four great events: the formation of the universe, the fall of man, and the flood that was universal and the fall out due to sin. The second week we looked at four great people: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Then the third week we got into the book of Exodus and for two weeks we looked at redemption and revelation. So we have the foundations in Genesis, we have redemption in the book of Exodus, and in this book of Leviticus we have separation.
I want to take you to chapter 19, verse 1, even though we are studying chapters 18 through 27; I'm going to jump around just a little bit. We'll get started on this foot, "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.'" The basic idea of being holy is to be set apart, or you might say, to be different or for special use. You may recall back in Exodus, chapter 40, there were several things God said, "Those things are holy." There was an altar; they were to dedicate the altar, it was holy. In other words, "You're not to use that altar for anything else (you can't barbeque hamburgers on the weekends on that altar) that has a holy, special, set apart, different use, totally for My worship and My sacrifices." The basin for washing - the same thing; the utensils for the priesthood - the same thing; the garments that they wore - all of them were dedicated and they were called holy. It's not that anything changed in the intrinsic nature of those items once they were dedicated or consecrated to the Lord, it's just that God said, "I want them for special use." Now, we do that at home and I brought this item tonight to show you; this is our teapot. It's not a fancy teapot. We've had it a long time; it sits on our stove 24/7. It's a holy teapot because it is set apart for one purpose and one purpose only: tea. We have a coffee maker, we have a French press; but we don't do any coffee or anything at all in our teapot because it is holy, simply meaning, it is set apart for special use; we use it only for tea. "Set apart" is the best description to apply to yourself when you say, "Well what does it mean that God says He wants me to be a holy man or a holy woman or a holy teenager?" (Now I know some of you parents are saying, "That's like an oxymoron - holy teenager." Not so.) You know what it means? Be different; the ultimate non-conformist to this society and this culture is a holy person. I will guarantee you that if you decide to be holy, dedicated, consecrated to God, you're not going to have much competition. There are not a whole lot of people out there in this world vying for that position at all. So if you want to be a true revolutionary, counter-culture person, non-conformist - be holy, different, set apart for God.
Now, when you think of holiness, and I want to firmly fix this in your mind, the idea in separating (or being different) is to "turn from" and "turn to." You've all heard the word "repent" or "repentance." It simply means to change your mind or to turn around, but it implies something. It implies turning from something: i.e. sin, bad behavior, and all that junk from your past and turning to God. That's the idea of holiness - to be qadowsh, qodesh, holy, different, set apart - "hagios" in the New Testament, "saint" is the same word. I'm turning from and I'm turning to. Sometimes people say, "Well, I'm going to stop doing all the bad things that I've done in the past." That's not enough. You have to not just turn from something; you have to turn to Christ. On the other hand, some people will say, "Well, I'm going to turn to Christ and give Him my life." That's great, but you need to turn from sin and to Christ; it's a package deal and all of that is holiness.
Last week we saw the way to God through sacrifice and the five offerings in the first seven chapters of Leviticus were: the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. The first three were voluntary; the second two, compulsory. The burnt offering was the total consumption of that animal, voluntarily thanking God for what He had done and it really was the consecration of one's self to God. It's the equivalent of Romans chapter 12, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice." The meal or the grain offering - the second one - was the dedication of my service to God. Since I had to make it before I presented it, it involved my own labor and my own effort and I was saying, "God, I want to serve you." The peace offering was the celebration of salvation because the priest ate some, some of it was burned, and the worshiper ate some as well; sort of like a holy barbeque, as we mentioned. They were out there sharing that fellowship together. The first part of Leviticus is the way to God through sacrifice. This second half of Leviticus is a walk with God through sanctification or holiness or being different.
I'm going to outline it for you this way - I'm going to give you five ways Israel was called by God to be different. The difference is to be seen, morally, in their moral conduct. The difference is to be seen organizationally, as they organize for worship services, the priesthood, the high priest. The difference is also to be seen devotionally, as they go through all of the offerings and rituals. Fourth, the difference is to be seen corporately, in the entire community. And then fifth and finally, the difference is to be seen voluntarily, and that's where we'll end the book.
In chapters 18 through 20 God says, "I want you to be holy, different, set apart - morally." So for the next couple of chapters, the Ten Commandments are applied to different life issues. It's the nitty-gritty of holiness: it's where the rubber meets the road, the details of morality, it deals with all sorts of sexual activity. Look at verse 1 of chapter 18, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'I am the Lord your God.'" Did you notice that? "Moses, here's a message: go tell the people this - I'm God." Now why does He begin this way? By the way, that's a phrase that recurs 42 times in this book, simply for this reason: this is the authority that stands behind the instructions. "Well, why should I do it?" "Because I am the Lord your God, that's why." God gave us His laws and every now and then somebody will come along and say, "I don't like God's laws; they don't agree with my perception of reality." Answer to that: tough toast; big whoop! Here's why: when you can create your own universe with a set of planets, your own air to breathe, your own dirt to walk on, have planets revolve and have a 79 percent oxygen to twenty some percent nitrogen and one percent of Varian gasses in your own atmosphere that you've created - then we'll talk about it. Until then, you're on His real estate, walking His earth, breathing His air, and He says, "Here're My laws in every aspect, even morally, because I am the Lord." Verse 3: "'According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.'" In these chapters, there's a list of pretty disgusting sins: incest, homosexuality, and bestiality all of which were practiced, oddly enough, by both the Egyptians in some cases, and some Canaanites. We say we live in the sexual revolution but all of the stuff that is going on today is as old as the hills and twice as dusty. It's been going on a long time and I'm sure all the Canaanites thought they were the first to come up with it - it goes all the way back. Christians are to be different in all areas of their lives and certainly in the moral areas. Think about it this way: if the Holy Spirit is living in you, then what is going to happen is that you are going to become more and more holy and it's going to turn up in every area of your life - from the dining room to the board room to the bedroom - holiness. Now, unfortunately, we live in a culture that is bombarding us with messages and filth and most of the filth that we have to contend with comes from two states over in a little town called Hollywood, California. Hollywood and all of the environs around that area have pumped out pornography throughout the world. Did you know that in 2006, the revenues generated from pornography were more than all of the revenues from the NBA, the NFL, and major league baseball combined? They are a huge money making outfit - 13.3 billion dollars per year and it goes into movies and into our homes and we become desensitized to it. One research study says that the average person views 9,230 sex acts or implied sex acts every year on television; 81 percent of those are outside the bonds of marriage. From eight to eighteen years of age, 93,000 scenes or implied scenes will be picked up by the average person; 72,900 are pre or extra marital sexual relationships. Hollywood has an agenda, folks. Here's the message Hollywood wants you to know: everybody's doing it, it's okay, this is perfectly okay as long as you feel good about it and to coin Steven Stills, "If you're not with the one you love, then love the one you're with," as long as you both feel good about it. That's the message they have.
Verse 19: "And you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her." Please understand that what God is doing is putting a fence, a hedge, around the family. He's trying to protect married couples, marriage, and the family. Why? Because otherwise the family can disintegrate. It's the basic core of society; if the family is destroyed, the nation will be destroyed. History has shown us that over and over again. Adultery is mentioned here in verse 20: "You shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her." It is fashionable today, although people usually don't say, "Yes, I want you to know that I'm committing adultery," they usually say, "I'm having an affair"; that's the new term, it's been around a while but it sounds so much nicer than, "I'm living in sin committing adultery." One poll estimates that one third of all married Americans has either had or is currently having an affair. You say, "Oh, Skip, that can't be the average. That has to be maybe Hollywood - yeah, maybe Hollyweird, there are weird out there; or maybe New York City." No, it's the national average and more than that 62 percent think there's nothing morally wrong with it all. It might be fashionable but it's fatal; that's why God gives these laws. Hollywood tells you lies, ladies and gentlemen. Every time they portray it, it's so satisfying and looks so good - they don't tell you the truth. Here's the truth: number one, it will hurt you; Proverbs chapter 6 says: "Whoever commits adultery destroys himself." It can destroy you physically for one; you can get a sexually transmitted disease, you can even get aids and die pretty quickly even though there are these drugs that stay that for a while. It will hurt you emotionally, and it will certainly hurt you spiritually. Secondly, it will hurt your family. The trust is broken between you and your family once that sin is committed in the family - the oneness bond, where two become one flesh, is broken. Thirdly, it hurts other people besides you and your family. The Bible says that if you're a Christian it actually hurts the entire church; if one member of the body suffers, we all suffer together. Here's the bottom line: every disobedient Christian weakens the body of Christ whereas every obedient Christian strengthens the body of Christ. It also hinders unbelievers from coming to Christ. Remember what King David did with committing adultery and Nathan the Prophet came to him and said: "By this deed you have caused God's enemies to blaspheme." "You're keeping people who have heard about God and you, David, this great King who has a covenant with God, away from God." Finally, and really we should put this up at the top, you hurt God; you offend God by it and that's really the most important and yet God is usually the last person considered in an affair. After David committed adultery, he finally got around to confessing and in Psalm 51 he says something interesting, though he had sinned against a lot of people, he said: "Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and committed this evil in Your sight." He knew that he hurt the heart of God.
Verse 22, I want you to notice this verse because it is repeated often: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination." I'm just reading the text and I notice as I read the text that it doesn't say, "It is an alternative lifestyle." It doesn't say, "It's normal, everybody's doing it, it's been around a long time." It says here in my Bible, "It's an abomination." Many people today around the world are telling us that this is not sin and that it's okay. Romans 1 says, "It's against nature." There is a church in the United States, and actually now it's all around the world, called the Metropolitan Community Church. It boasts of 25,000 members worldwide and they're all about preserving the homosexual and lesbian lifestyle; exalting it, exonerating it, saying it's okay and it's great before God. In fact, here's a statement released from a Quaker church in the United States: "Homosexuality is no more abnormal than being left handed." You know, if I was left handed, I'd be insulted by that. In the book of Romans, chapter 1, it says: "Men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another." I want you to hear those words; they burned in their lust for one another. There's this strong inward compulsiveness and burning that drives them. In hearing that, I'm going to give you a quote, not from a Christian but from a secular man who was the chief medical officer, coroner, for New York City some years back. His name is Milton Halpburn and he says, "I've done 60,000 autopsies and I'm not one to make a judgment on lifestyles, but I would warn anyone who chooses a homosexual lifestyle to get ready for the consequences. In 60,000 autopsies I can take one look at a corpse and tell you if it was killed by a homosexual because of massive mutilations. I don't know why, but it seems that the violent explosions of jealousy among homosexuals far exceed those of the jealousy of a man for a woman or a woman for a man. The pent up charges and energy of the homosexual relationship simply cannot be contained. The multiple stabbings and senseless beatings obviously must have long continued after the victim dies. When we see these brutal, multiple wounds in the single victim, we just automatically assume we are dealing with a homosexual victim and not a heterosexual victim or attacker." Those are the words from a medical examiner after 60,000 autopsies - he says, "I can tell you the difference by one look." So God simply says, "Don't do that. I love people, I love you, and I know what makes life work best; one man and one woman, committed to each other."
In chapter 19, the Ten Commandments are further applied to a variety of life situations: offerings, keeping the Sabbath, caring for the poor - and it's interesting that sandwiched in all of that - is gossip. God knew human nature when He gave the law. Look at verse 16 of chapter 19: "'You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people; nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.'" Yes, there's a difference between a talebearer and a concerned friend. A lot of times people say, "You know, I'm just really concerned and I have to tell 20 other people this." That's called being a talebearer and that is sin and it's high on God's list. It's like the difference between being a butcher and a surgeon; both cut meat but for different reasons. One way that I've always likened how you can tell gossip or not is by whether you lower your voice or raise your voice. If you have something to say, say it; but if you have to whisper to someone, chances are it's not very good and it's called being a talebearer.
Chapter 20 is about capital punishment and since we're going to get into that on the Ten Commandments, let me just say that the Bible sees capital punishment as righteously administered judicial execution, and not murder. God says don't murder but then God says here is a list of capital crimes for which you need to execute people: child abusers and child sacrifice, (verses 1 and 2 of chapter 20), kidnapping and sexual immorality, (verses 10 through 21); witchcraft in verse 6 of chapter 20; cursing your parents in verse 9; magic, astrology, idols and false prophets. All of them fall under that list. So the difference in your life and in my life should be seen morally.
Number two takes us to chapters 21 and 22. The difference should be seen morally but the difference in our lives should also be seen organizationally. When we get together and we organize how our worship services are to be conducted, holiness ought to be involved and we ought to be different. The next two chapters deal with the priesthood and the sanctuary. We find that the ministry standards for the priesthood were pretty high. In chapter 21 verses 1 through 9, ordinary priests are covered. In the next few verses after that, the high priest and his restriction are talked about. Chapter 22 is how all of these guys can be defiled if they touch something dead and they have ritual impurity, and how to be cleansed from it. Here's the lesson in chapters 21 and 22, the higher your position organizationally, the higher your responsibility, organizationally. The whole community of Israel was to be holy but within the community, the priests were also to be set apart from the normal man or the normal woman. Why? Because the priest was the link between God and men. God says, "You're all holy, but you priests, I'm holding you to a very strict and high standard." There were two men who robbed a jewelry store. One was a lawyer and one was a high school dropout. They were arrested and taken to court and the judge sentenced the lawyer to ten years in prison but the high school drop out to only three years. Of course the defense attorney went ballistic and he tried to overturn it but the judge simply said that the lawyer was under greater responsibility to be an example of the law than the high school dropout - because he was a lawyer. "You're a priest; don't defile yourself in these ways."
We're only going to look at two sections of these chapters. In chapter 21 verse 4 Moses is telling the priests that they can't touch dead people or be around people who die unless their mom, dad, daughter or son dies; then they they're exempt from this. Verse 4: " Otherwise he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself." That's one verse. In the next chapter, Leviticus 22, verse 15: "They shall not profane the holy offerings of the children of Israel, which they offer to the Lord," that is they have got to treat holy offerings with reverence. Verse 16: "'Or allow them to bear the guilt of trespass when they eat their holy offerings; for I the Lord sanctify them.'" All of us are to be separated. Those in ministry, or if you want to be in the school of ministry, or if you want to be in ministry like in the Sheppard's school or pastoral eldership ministry - we have a stricter sense of separation. There are certain places Christian leaders just shouldn't go. I could stand here and say, "You know, I have liberty to drink." So let's say I go to the bar (which I don't, by the way), what would it be like if you saw me sitting at the bar chugging down a cold one? You'd go, "Dude, Pastor Skip's chugging down a cold one at the bar!" You wouldn't go, "Oh, halleluiah, he has liberty!" People will often ask, "Is it okay to drink?" I tell people, "I drink as much as I want. I don't want to drink." I don't want to drink because I don't want anybody to be stumbled by it and so we have these laws for the priesthood.
In 1st Timothy chapter 3, verse 1:"This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop," an elder, an overseer, "he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless," or above reproach, "the husband of one wife," etc. The standard is given by Paul to Timothy for those in leadership and it's very similar to the Old Testament. If you desire the office of a bishop, an elder, a pastor, an overseer, hooray, it's a good work but it's a holy work, thus it's a dangerous work and in some cases, I'll even say this, in some cases it's a very isolating work. These priests had to be separated from the community and were not allowed to touch certain things or go with certain groups and there was a high degree of separation and loneliness. I found this interesting: a survey of pastors by Fuller Seminary indicates that 80 percent say that pastoral ministry has affected their family negatively; 33 percent said, "Being in the ministry is an outright hazard to my family." 90 percent feel like they were inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands (often seminaries fail in that regard). 37 percent confessed to being involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with someone in the church. And 70 percent say that they don't have one person they consider a close friend. All of that to say this: if you desire the office of ministry, you desire a good work but count the cost because if you don't count the cost before, and in midstream something happens to defile yourself, the damages can sometimes be irreparable.
Chapters 23 and 24 are now before us and we see that the holiness difference should be seen morally, should be seen organizationally, and third, the difference should be seen devotionally. In these chapters the feast days and the pageantry of those offerings and those sacrifices and the Sabbath days are mentioned but there's an interesting detail. All of them were to be a time of joy except for only once during the year and that was the Day of Atonement. All of the feasts were to be times of great joy; all males were required to go to Jerusalem on Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles - three times a year, all the males within the proximity of Jerusalem, all had to convocate at the Temple. If you lived elsewhere outside of the land, it was always your life's dream to come to Jerusalem for those three feasts. Chapter 23, verse 1: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.'" Verse 40, "'And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.'" God gives a commandment to rejoice. Why? This is the way I figure it: sometimes God has to give us a commandment to rejoice because naturally we so often look at the wrong things and we walk around grumpy half of the time. God wanted them to come to His feasts and have some fun. He wanted them to rejoice. To be around some church folks, you wouldn't know that this command is in the Bible (or they flatly disobey this command). To be around some people, you'd think you're witnessing an autopsy - no rejoicing whatsoever. I grew up in a church where we called it our Sunday obligation - you had to go to church; it's Sunday and it's your obligation. There was no joyful voluntary exuberance or excitement. It was nothing we looked forward to, it was something we had to do. Yet, 18 times in the book of Psalms it says, "Make a joyful shout to the Lord," or "Make a joyful noise to the Lord." Sometimes you just have to obey the command and the joy and the emotion will follow. You see, if you say, "I don't feel like being very rejoicing right now," do it anyway. "Then I'll be a hypocrite." No, you'll be obedient. Sometimes your emotion is like the caboose in the train, you make the decision with the right behavior and then as you walk in obedience, you find that the emotion comes as a consequence of being obedient. "You're going to have feasts, and you shall rejoice." Charles Spurgeon put it this way, "Our happy God should be worshiped by happy people, a cheerful people as in keeping with His nature." Can I just say, that's why I love you so much? You are a happy people. I've had people from other places visit here and notice that about this church. "Boy, they're just a happy, loving, embracing group!" I mean look at us - it's summer, it's hot in here, we're sweating, we're in Leviticus, and you're rejoicing in the Lord - that's pretty cool! You know how bars have happy hour? I think church ought to be happy hour - it's the happiest people on earth and the happiest place on earth.
These three feasts are mentioned and God says when you have these feasts, you are going to rejoice before the Lord. One of the feasts that is mentioned (and let me just highlight this) is the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles happened once a year in the fall and it's where the Children of Israel would build outdoor booths. They would take willow branches and sticks and they would build a lean-to; a very crude place to hang out and for one week would live outside. They still do this every year in Israel and the kids love it and look forward to it, it's like camping out all week. They take out a few provisions, but very sparsely, they go outside and sleep under the stars or with just a little bit of covering and they were to remember (during the Feast of Tabernacles) that our God brought us through the wilderness and provided for us miraculously; protected us during those years. This is how it would work: the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles was a Sabbath; the eight day of the Feast was a Sabbath, a day of rest; there were times when you'd meet in booths during that time and you'd have sacrifices. Every day of the Feast, there was a priest in the Temple who would go down to the pool of Siloam and he would take his pitcher and put water in it. Then he'd walk up to the base of the altar in Jerusalem and pour water at the base of the altar and he would cry out Isaiah, chapter 12, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." So can you picture it: there's this big convocation, the water is poured, and the people rejoice as this is done and the priest cries out. The water port at the base of the altar was indicative of the fact that God brought water out of the rock in the wilderness; so all of this happened during the Feast of Tabernacles. The Bible tells us that something happened on the last day during the Feast of Tabernacles during the time of Jesus. On the last day, the eighth day, the priest went down to the pool of Siloam, got the pitcher of water, poured it at the base of the altar, cried out, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." He did it a second time, and it was then that our Lord Jesus stood up in the Temple and said, "If any man thirsts, let Him come onto Me and drink, for out of his innermost being, as the scripture says, will flow torrents of living water." I wanted you to know how that was placed - it was on the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles after the priest had poured the water signifying that God gave us water in the wilderness. Then Jesus says, "Let me tell you something, if anyone is thirsty, you just come right here and you'll be satisfied." It was a beautiful fulfillment of Scripture.
By the way, get used to the Feast of Tabernacles because you're going to be practicing it one day. In Zechariah chapter 14 it says that during the Kingdom age, when Christ is ruling from Jerusalem, that we will be going up annually to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles - looking backwards to its fulfillment, not forward like they did. We are going to participate in some of these beautiful pageants of God's love and provision. If you've never been to Israel, you'll go. This is how it's going to work. You say that you can't afford to go to Israel and you really want to go? Okay, after the rapture, you'll be in heaven, you'll come back with Jesus to Israel to put to an end the Battle of Armageddon, and then Jesus will set up the Kingdom in Jerusalem and you'll see Him remake it and reconstitute it and you'll be there. However, I've always thought that it's nice to have a before and after comparison like when you see the picture of the guy looking really mangy before and then he gets some kind of a makeover and you have something to compare it to. So it would be kind of nice to see it now and then you'll be able to say, "Boy, I remember what it used to look like; it's really cool now!" - so come to Israel with us!
Chapters 25 and 26 take us to the community of Israel. The corporate life of Israel was to be different. The difference should be seen morally, should be seen organizationally, and should be seen devotionally. But it should also be seen corporately, as a community of people gathered together; how they cared for one another, how they loved one another, how they handled people that had debts in their midst and couldn't pay their debts, and how they would treat people who lost their land and couldn't get it back. In Chapter 25 verses 1 through 7, is an interesting concept: the Sabbath Year. This is how it worked. You would work for six years, and the seventh year you would let the land lie empty - fallow - you would not do anything in terms of harvest or agriculture; you wouldn't work the land. Whatever grew of itself in the seventh year, you would go out and eat. God said "If you do that, I'll make sure the seventh year really blesses you and you'll have yield for a few years." So they would work six years and the seventh year they would let it lie fallow. One seventh of the time in Israel, the very rich and the very poor were on equal footing. One was not better than the other and they all went out to the fields to get whatever they could get no matter who owned it. God said that He would give them enough and provide for them. Verse 8 speaks about the Jubilee - after the Hebrew word "yowbel", or "trumpet". Verse 8: "'And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.'" On the Day of Atonement, every fiftieth year (it's six years, the seventh year fallow, and you do that seven times and that is 49 years) was the year of Jubilee with the blowing of the trumpet. I brought a trumpet here; this is a ram's horn. This ram's horn is the "yowbel". It was blown for feasts; blown in the year of Jubilee and when it was blown, people probably had a great sigh of relief because in the year of Jubilee: all slaves went free, all debts were cancelled, and all of the land that had been lost reverted to its original owners.
Around the year 1393 BC is when the Children of Israel started counting the Jubilee years. You say, "Skip, why are you telling me this?" Because scholars have done a pretty good job in counting the jubilee years up to the New Testament and many of them believe that Jesus, in a Jubilee year, went into thesynagogue of Nazareth quoting Isaiah chapter 61 and said to them: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, he has called Me to bind up the broken hearted, to set at liberty those who are bound and the captives from their captivity. Recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Then He closed the book and said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus came to bring freedom, to cancel the debt, and to have people who have been lost to go back to their original owner and that's God; coming to set the captives free.
I'm only going to read two verses from chapter 26 and I call this chapter the "iffy" chapter. It's the "iffy" chapter because the word "if" appears about nine times. "If you do this, if you do that, if you promise to obey…" Then the Lord says, 23 times, "I will, I will, I will. If you do this, then I will do that." Verse 3, "'If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.'" God will respond to the "if". What am I saying? Here's the principle: Obedience is the ground of blessing in the Old Testament. Here is one of the differences between the Old and the New Testaments; if you're a Christian and you fall - fail - and you don't do all that God wants you to do (and all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God), God made a covenant with you that is unconditional; not based on your ability to perform it but based upon Jesus Christ who did fulfill it. God has commanded His blessing to you. I'm not saying to go ahead and live anyway you want to and disobey God because you'll be blessed anyway - oh no - you'll live a miserable life unless you live a holy life. The book of Jude in the Bible tells us, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." That doesn't mean God loves you more one day and less the next day but look at it like the sunshine. The sun is always shining but you can use an umbrella and go out in the sun and not experience the warmth of the sun. The love of God is always shining but you can have an umbrella of sin that separates you from enjoying the effect of God's love. So, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." How? By being holy: by being devoted, committed, and obedient to him and you'll enjoy life so much more. The key to happiness is holiness.
We conclude in chapter 27 and this is the fifth and final segment of this book. The difference should be seen voluntarily. Remember where we started - God wants you and I to be holy; different. The difference is to be seen morally and how we live our lives on a moral level. The difference is to be seen organizationally when it comes to organizing worship, especially those in ministry. The difference is to be seen devotionally and in our times of commitment and devotion to the Lord. Fourth, it's to be seen in the community and how we care for one another corporately. Finally, the difference should be seen voluntarily and that is chapter 27. Here's something weird about chapter 27: if you've read all of the chapters of Leviticus like I have (or maybe you've just read the key ones, and that is fine because believe me it's a big book) but if you read through Leviticus and then you come to chapter 27 you kind of go, "Huh? I don't get this chapter." It almost seems added, like it's an addendum, like it doesn’t belong here, like a postscript - but that wouldn't be right. Chapter 27 is the very heart of sacrifice. Verse 1: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When a man consecrates by a vow, certain persons to the Lord, according to your valuation,'" verse 14, "'When a man dedicates his house to be holy to the Lord," verse 16, "'If a man dedicates to the Lord part of a field of his possession.'" All of chapter 27 speaks about voluntary vows and not obligatory worship. Not, "You have to keep these festivals," not, "You must do the trespass and sin offering." All of these are voluntary vows that express thanksgiving to God. Before coinage (dollars and cents and shekels and such), people would dedicate things to the Lord or persons to the Lord and then they would have to redeem or buy back those persons with some kind of silver bit that would be given to the sanctuary. Here's the message: true worship is voluntary. True worship doesn’t have to be coerced or worked up, "Come on people, you're not true believers unless you do this or do that." I have seen services where you can get coerced and pumped up and it's like a pep rally. If it's not in your heart, it's not there and you can't manufacture it - true worship is voluntary. Again, Jesus said, "The Father is looking for those who will worship in spirit and in truth." One time I had a very bad church experience. I was a brand new believer and I went to a church not knowing anything about it, and it was a very lively service. I was sitting in the front; I wanted to get everything I could out of it. The pastor said, "Okay everybody right now lift your hands up." So everybody lifted their hands up. "Okay, everybody start speaking in tongues." I looked around and thought, "These people are like aliens; they're saying weird things out to me." The pastor noticed that I wasn't cooperating because I was new; I was observing, and he said, "Hey, get your hands up." I thought, "What, are you going to rob me?" "Get your hands up and start doing this and start speaking that way." I thought to myself, "He doesn't look much like the Holy Spirit and I think that's the Holy Spirit's job and not his job to tell me to do that." You can't manufacture it; it has to be voluntary; your heart has to be in it and I just frankly didn't understand it at the time. The Bible says in Romans 12, verse 1: "I beseech you therefore, in view of all that God has done in showing His mercy to you, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God holy and acceptable which is your reasonable service." My practice on a daily basis is that: "Lord, I begin my morning, giving You my body, I present my life to You today, what do You want me to do? What's Your will, Your plan? Reveal it to me; I'm Yours, I want You to know that." It's voluntary; it's something I want to do not something I have to do. Look at verse 28: "'Nevertheless, no devoted offering that a man may devote to the Lord of all that he has, both man and beast, or the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted offering is most holy to the Lord." If you give it, give it from your heart.
I always make sure that ten percent of whatever the Lord has given us I devote voluntarily and joyfully. I write my first check out to my church and I don't write it thinking, "Oh man, there's something really cool I wanted to buy this month, maybe I could…" I don't do that. It's not that 90 percent is mine and 10 percent is His - 100 percent is His and I joyfully give that ten percent but then there are missionaries that we support and other special evangelistic projects that we support so sometimes it's 20 or 30 percent of our income. But it is always to be done voluntarily and always to be done joyfully. Verse 34: "These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai."
Now you know, anything good can become perverted, and did you know that by the New Testament times, this whole thing of offering voluntarily to God became corrupted? Remember in Mark chapter 7 Jesus speaks about this? There was a saying they had called, "corban", which means "it's a gift," and Jesus said, "You know, you guys are weaseling out of the commandment to honor your mom and dad by calling everything 'corban'; 'it's a gift.'" So the fifth commandment said, honor your father and your mother but people were saying, "Well, Lord, I just dedicate everything in my life to you; I dedicate my bank account, my tents, my camels, my BMW's, everything is Yours Lord." Then the next day their parents knocked on their tent and said, "Hey, son, daughter, could you help me out?" "Oh, I'd really love to and love to give you some money mom and dad but all of my stuff has been dedicated to the Lord. I can't help you out this month." "Well, can I borrow your car?" "No, I'd like to but it's been dedicated to the Lord." "Can I borrow your camel?" "No, I know you'd walk a mile for a camel, but it's been dedicated to the Lord; it's corban." So they were breaking God's commandment by misinterpreting the Scripture. A warning: there is a danger in any institution or any church or any organization for them to usurp the authority of Scripture by their traditions. Sometimes I get questions like this and I really don't like them, "Well, what is Calvary's stand on such and such a practice?" My answer is, "Who cares?" "Well, what's your belief?" Really, the issue is, "What sayeth the Bible about that issue and that condition?" more so than, "What is our stance?" Now, if our stance is a Biblical stance, hoorah; if it's not, don't pay any attention to it. Be Berean; search the Scriptures daily to see if these things be so.
In closing (and we are done now with Leviticus), I want to ask you this question: Are you like my teapot? It's special, it's holy, it's ordinary, but it's designed and set aside for a special use and one use only. Has your life been set aside for Gods' purposes? Are you holy? Are you whole? The closer you and I walk to the Lord, the more whole we become; complete, satisfied, and we become holy. Holy is a great word; it's not a weird word, not a bad word, not a stuffy word, but a great word. "Be holy, for the Lord is holy."
Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, I thank You for this flock. I thank you for their love for Your Word and for the last several weeks where we can understand together as a group, the foundation of everything; the redemption, and revelation, and now separation. How You took a people and You became their God and made a covenant with them and made them unique and called them to be unique. I pray Lord that we would reflect Your glory, Your majesty. In Jesus' name. Amen.