26. Ablazing Grace: Sanctuary Part 2

and we're gonna just start with a quick prayer and we're gonna get right into the study of Scripture this is a big week it's a big presentation it's a big week for us because this brings us to the end of our third of seven chapters right we've been through the beginning we've been through family now we're at the end of Exodus this is the last sermon that's I think it's one of nine I think it's the last of nine sermons in the Exodus chapter that sort of make up this section of Scripture where the descendants of Abraham have gone into Egyptian captivity they've come out of Egyptian captivity and the gift was not only the law the Ten Commandments not only the gift of freedom and of sovereignty but the gift of the sanctuary which we talked a little bit about last Sabbath and we're gonna talk more about today and then we'll begin the next chapter which is the land and of course this is simply following the basic flow of the Old Testament that after the Israelites came out of Egyptian captivity they spent the better part of a year at the base of Mount Sinai they received the law they received the sanctuary and then the the goal was or at least the intended purpose was for them to go and overtake and inhabit the land but as we're going to learn that is a rather circuitous journey one that does not go directly from A to B so to speak but makes its way through CD efg hijk LMNOP all the way to Z and that's where we'll be going beginning next week so we're wrapping up our section on Exodus today or the Exodus movement and it should be really really good so I'm just inviting you to pay attention and let's see if we can't learn something about how good god is this morning amen Father in Heaven we are anticipating your presence you've been with us in the music you've been with us in that beautiful children's story and father now we we come to you and we present ourselves to you in the study of the word and we want to better understand Scripture father at the end of the day we are here to fellowship we are here to socialize we are here to sing and to pray but we're also here to learn and that's a big part of worship is to to love the Lord our God as Jesus said with all of our heart done that that emotional connection but also with all of our mind and so father now we pray that you'll give us that intellectual emotional connection that we'll look at the text and we will emerge not just better but brighter more aware of your goodness and of the great plan of salvation as revealed in the sanctuary and we're expecting your presence and so we ask that you'll give it to us now in the person of your spirit in Jesus name let everyone say Amen all right we're gonna start with just a little bit of review here and I had several people ask me if my wife was back she is back but she's not here today unfortunately because I have my youngest son is very sick he just got back from his week-long trip down to Canberra with the year six students from TV AC and he was sick the whole time all right so can you imagine get down there looking forward all of this fun and he basically spends the whole trip puking his guts out so anyway he's back now and now he's at home puking his guts out so we're just thrilled to have him back and we were trying to decide between myself or Violetta who should come to church today and I won out so we're gonna talk about the sanctuary and want to start by maybe old five or ten minutes of reminding and reviewing what we covered last week and sort of reorienting ourselves to the great paradox of the sacrificial system and the paradox is presented in this way we have come now to the book of Exodus and basically the latter third of the book of Exodus there are forty chapters in the book of Exodus and from about chapter 25 to chapter forty the latter third it largely revolves around the very specific instructions and details that God gave to Moses and ultimately to the children of Israel about the construction and the ceremonies surrounding the sanctuary it needs to be built in just this way it needs to be oriented in just this way there needs to be these certain materials and only a certain group of people the the descendants of Aaron of the house of Levi can minister in the sanctuary all of the particulars and that's not only the latter third of the book of Exodus it's also basically the whole of the Book of Leviticus we're gonna talk quite a bit about the Book of Leviticus today that we won't get a lot into the text and you'll see why in just a bit so the paradox is this God gives these very specific instructions detailed instructions about the sanctuary system which revolves around sacrifice animal sacrifice and yet there are many passages in Scripture and we noted this last week where God says he doesn't want animal sacrifices and so we're presented with a paradox which is it God is it that you do want these sacrifices and you've given us an elaborate and complex system of how to present them or is it that you don't want the sacrifices or is it some combination of both and I'm gonna read you just a few texts that we actually looked at last week but last week we didn't pay particular attention to the specific words that we're gonna look at this morning briefly not all of the same text that we looked at last week and again this is not all of them that suggests that God does not want sacrifice but this is a representative sample and probably the best-known is found in Psalm 51 verses 16 and 17 where God says David speaking to God says for you do not and can you see that word right there desire for you do not desire sacrifice david says or else i would give it you do not you do not what's the next word you do not delight in burnt offering the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart these are God you will not despise notice the the importance of those specific words desire and delights okay hang on to that look at the next one here this is from Isaiah chapter 1 - what purpose God says through the prophet Isaiah to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me why are you coming he says I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and of the fat of fed cattle I do not and here's our word again what's the word delight I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats and a final one here this one from Micah Micah chapter 6 verses 6 and seven mica the Prophet says with what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God shall I come before him with burnt offerings with calves a year old will the Lord be and what's the word here please that's another word that intimates the same basic idea you do not delight you are not desired is this the kind of thing that would please you so we're talking here about pleasure what God wants what his preference is what brings him happiness we could set will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousand rivers of oil shall I offer the firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul and so one of the paradoxes that were presented with as we come to the end of Exodus here when the gift of God to Moses and to the Israelites was the sanctuary is this sort of irony this this paradoxical notion that God both sets up a complicated maybe that's too strong forward sets up a relatively complex system an elaborate system of sacrifices revolving around animal sacrifices and then has the audacity to say in several places through the prophets I don't want those sacrifices they don't bring me pleasure they don't bring me delight I don't desire them well what's going on here well we then went through sort of the basic structure of how we arrived at the sacrificial system I mean the sacrificial system is introduced to us in the book of Genesis and we're told basically nothing about its origin God never says ok ok ok here's what's happening this will become hugely important for us in just a bit here's why you present your sacrifice and here's what the sacrifice means Moses doesn't tell us that he just says oh there were these two brothers Cain and Abel the descendants of Adam and Eve and one brought a sacrifice that was acceptable and one didn't Moses gives us no background no backstory he just assumes at some level that we will understand that Genesis is part of what the Jews call the Pentateuch Pentateuch means 5 books right the Pentateuch is the first five books of Scripture Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy and that none of those books can really be understood a nice halation I want to say that again none of those books can really be understood in isolation the Book of Leviticus would make zero sense without its being surrounded by Genesis and Exodus and numbers in Deuteronomy the book of Exodus would make no sense if we didn't have the book of Genesis to set up who Abraham is and why we should care and the book of Genesis would only get us part way through the into the story it would leave us in a coffin in Egypt with the demise of Joseph no no Moses understands that rather than being sort of five books this is like five chapters or five volumes of a single series and so when we come to the book of Genesis we're not given any an explanation any particular explanation about the purpose of sacrifice or even the origin of sacrifice Moses leaves that for later in Exodus and also in especially Leviticus what we are shown in the book of Genesis is this is the progression of the sacrificial system right first of all in Genesis 3 God made them coats of skins right so that requires the death of an animal then as we've already mentioned Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:1 brought unacceptable the other an unacceptable offering then Genesis 8 after Noah comes off the ark he offers and sacrificed to God then Genesis 15 and the confirmation of the Covenant God tells Abraham to bring five animals and they were sacrificed and then we come to Genesis 22 in Genesis 22 is the logical conclusion of the way that a sacrificial system would go if we didn't have Exodus and Leviticus and that is to say hey look if God wants my best lamb and if I can't bring one with a spot or a blemish she wants my best Ram my best bull my best goat well what if I've committed a really terrible sin a really egregious sin I mean this is this is next-level stuff or I really want to show my supreme devotion of God maybe I should go from the stockyard rather than just offering animals and now I go into my living room and I'm going to offer my son now as crazy as that sounds that's exactly the point that Micah makes here at the end of chapter at the end of verse 7 of chapter 6 look at what he says here again will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with 10,000 rivers of oils would I offer my first one my child for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul it's a logical progression and we mentioned last week that child sacrifice is something that is fairly common in some cultures it's it's even rampant in history just do a little bit of research on it and it's a terrible repugnant thing in fact there's a passage in Scripture that we noted last week where God says he never commanded any such thing in fact not only did he not command that you shouldn't offer your child he God said this never even came into my mind I find this repulsive I find this disgusting and yet we're confronted with the reality that right in Genesis 22 in the progression of sacrifices God says to Abraham take your son your only son Isaac and offer him as an offering and you know this is completely out of left field for us we would have a very difficult time reconciling what we now know about God with any sort of in sense or command that we saw I'm gonna offer you no land and I'm gonna offer chaebol none of us in this room would do that because we now know what Abraham at the time didn't know and that is just as Abraham was about ready to plunge the knife into the chest of Isaac the voice comes from heaven Abraham Abraham you're in the midst of a colossal misunderstanding Abraham Abraham don't even lay your hand on the boy don't touch the boy don't hurt the boy don't harm the boy and God forbid certainly don't sacrifice the boy and at just that moment a ram was seen caught in the thicket and Abraham you can just imagine the parental relief he would have felt right at the very moment of getting ready to slay his own son and Abraham don't touch the boy and at just that moment here's a ram caught by his horns we talked about the significance of that last week in the thicket and the RAM takes the place of Isaac right and Abraham would have felt relief Isaac of course would have felt huge relief and Abraham was so relieved by this reality that he names the top of that mountain mount moriah incidentally the very place where the temple would later be built Solomon would build the temple of God on that very mountain where Abraham had offered Isaac he names the place Jehovah Jireh or Yahweh a day God will provide and the message here is yes a message about Abraham's faithfulness yes it's a message about Abraham's obedience all of that is there but there's a larger message here and that is that God does not want child sacrifice he never did he says that never even came into his mind God doesn't require this kind of sacrifice rather he provides it himself right this is the great message of what's taking place here God will provide he does not desire sacrifice he provides sacrifice now along this note and this will be our final point of review and then we're in the new territory we asked the question how many parties are involved in the sacrifice of Jesus is it the Father and Jesus and sinners is it God and Jesus and sinners that would be a three-party atonement or is it merely God and sinners well the point here beloved is that if the atonement is a three-party sacrifice where God the Father really wants to I'm using you know anthropological language here anthropomorphic language here God really wants to pour out his wrath on sinners but instead he chooses to pour his wrath out on Jesus that's the good news that's the gospel beloved that that God really wanted to pour his wrath out on you but he chose to pour his wrath out on somebody else let me tell you right now not only is that not the gospel that's not good news right that's not God news that says well I was gonna do it to you but instead I'll do it to you and now I've you know my anger is gone I have ass waged my anger my anger is ass waged it's appeased and now I can accept you guys you would not feel comfortable spending eternity with a God who would effectively sacrifice his own son I mean if you wouldn't do that are you more moral than God are you holier than God are you more merciful and kind than God the answer of course is oh you're not so what's happening there well what's happening is that Jesus is God can somebody say Amen so what's happening is that God himself pays the penalty god himself doesn't require the sacrifice he becomes the sacrifice and this is where Abraham though he himself didn't know it as he was walking up mariah's Mountain as Abraham is walking up mariah's mountain and Isaac says to him hey where's the lamb well dad here's the wood and you know there's the knife but where's the lamb and does anybody remember what Abraham said God Himself will provide a lamb now listen to this this this phrase God Himself will provide a lamb can also be rendered like this God will provide a lamb himself God becomes the lamb and so what we have at the top of Mount Moriah and what we have through the whole sacrificial system here is not a bloodthirsty God he's not the God of the volcano with lava billowing over and smoke you know shooting to the sky is like I need more blood bring me your cows bring me your Bulls and if I get particularly a frustrated or enraged bring me your virgins and throw them into my fiery cavern now that's not the god of Scripture the god of Scripture is not requiring this sort of ridiculous child sacrifice pact we're gonna see a huge point that I learned just this week on this giant point there was a particular God in the Old Testament - in fact I used lower G gods that required at times child sacrifice one's gods one God's name was Moloch and the others name was Bale we're gonna see that in just a second that'll become huge for us alright so we closed last Sabbath by saying last Sabbath sermon the god of scripture is not a bloodthirsty God but a bleeding God he does not require blood he gives it can somebody say amen to that alright now with that in mind I want you to come with me to Exodus chapter 25 Exodus 25 we're into new material now and now we're gonna ask the question well then what's going on in this building I've got here an artist's conception of what the sanctuary may well have looked like I can tell you right now that the artists conception is off at least in several particulars one of which is the the scale is all wrong here and I'll show you that in just a second the size of the courtyard relative to the size of the inner sanctuary that contains two compartments what was called the holy place in the most holy place the scale is off and I'll give you a diagram here in just a moment a sort of top-down view of what the scale actually looked like but before I can show you that we need to do a little bit of explanation as to what's happening here with this building why was God so specific so insistent about the nature of this building and the nature of the sacrifices that were offered there and we're gonna go to Exodus chapter 25 and in Exodus chapter 25 5 we find God's saying we'll pick it up in verse 1 Exodus chapter 25 verse 1 then the Lord spoke to Moses said speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering from every one who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take my offering and this is the offering which you shall take from them gold silver and bronze purple and scarlet thread fine linen and goats hair Rams skins dyed red badger skins and acacia wood oil for light spices for the anointing oil for sweet incense onyx stones to be set in the ephod and in the breast flight now you might be thinking to yourself well wait a minute how do slaves have access to all of this material that required wealth right gold and silver and blue and purple dye these are the things of royalty these are the things of the of affluence and of wealth well we know as we've just read before that when the children of Israel came out of Egypt they took what was rightfully theirs some people have been troubled by that they said man God told the Israelites to steal he didn't tell them to steal he told them to reclaim the property that was theirs all along the property that had been illegitimately and even illegally taken from them by pharaoh and so when they went out if they were poor in Egypt as slaves but when they went out they went out with great Goods with great rich and they would have thought man look at me this is gonna set me up now for my future I'm got a nest egg now I've got gold or I've got silver I've got these certain garments or or the beautiful wood right and now God says hey save the children of Israel bring me an offering and notice he doesn't say bring me dirt and and and bring me some stones now there were stones but they were precious stones and it was gold and there was silver bring me of the best to what end god dude should we should we light them in a fire should we bury them in the earth should we make an idol out of them and bow down and worship them to what end are we bringing these these material offerings physical things like wood and stones and gems and gold and silver verse eight and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell with them verse nine according to all that I show you that is the pattern that's a key word here the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all of its furnishings just so you shall make it so the offerings weren't to go to just some you know burning or to some you know construction of an idol or something they were to build a house I build a building they were to build a building but not just any building of their own fancy of their own preference they were to build a specific kind of building God calls it a sanctuary and he tells Moses twice he says you will build it according to the pattern not only will the building itself the according to the pattern all of the furnishings that will go in the building all of the furniture will be according to a pattern - a lot - a pattern and it's fascinating stay in the same chapter stay in the very same chapter jump down to the last verse of that chapter so 25 Exodus 25 verse 40 and see to it God speaking to Moses see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain and this is hugely remarkable when it says the pattern that was shown you this immediately alerts us to things here alert us to the fact that this was not Moses architectural design it wasn't something that he came up with that two things are at or in play here number one it's a pattern which means it's a copy or a miniature a model of something else number one and number two God says that I showed you I showed you something and I want you to make a replica of that on the Sinai desert floor now that word pattern there comes up several times in not only the writings of Moses it comes up in the rest of scripture including the New Testament in the New Testament we have this sort of saturated biblical idea here that this wasn't just any ordinary house it wasn't just any ordinary building it wasn't according to Moses architectural fancy God was very specific and very particular about the way that it should be constructed the dimensions in which should be constructed and then beyond that the furnishings that would fill it and then beyond that the specific ceremonies that would be conducted in this house hugely specific and that's why the Book of Leviticus is a little tricky to read as is the latter half of the latter third of the book of Exodus because it reads like an instruction manual right who buys a fancy electronic device a new flat-screen television or a computer and says man I can't wait to dig into that instruction manual you know great reading sit down in front of the fire with a warm glass of tea and the instruction manual right who wants to do it nobody wants to do and the Book of Leviticus is a little tricky to read because that's what it is it's an instruction manual there's not really a plot there's not really a story it's just like do this and then do this and all of these particulars that strike us in 2015 in Australia as as ancient antiquated arcane dusty and frankly unnecessary you know we read it we're like man I'm so glad I'm born in the New Testament times I'm so glad now that all I have to do is put my faith in Jesus so glad I don't have to you know know exactly what kind of sacrifice to bring under exactly what kind of circumstances and I'm glad I don't have to know that well it is true that we are not actively participating in the ongoing sacrificial system as the Israelites were that doesn't mean that what's taking place here is somehow unimportant for us it's actually hugely important for us because it will is we're going to see illumine something that's taking place not just on the Sinai desert floor or in Solomon's Temple or in the Second Temple it's actually shedding a light on some that's taking place in heaven that's taking place what did I say in heaven in other words this is the pattern Moses it's the pattern it's the representation the picture the miniature of what's taking place up here that is the shadow this is the substance now with that in mind that sort of basic understanding of what the sanctuary is let me kind of explain to you what's happening in the sanctuary first of all the sanctuary consists of three major areas and the three major areas are the outside this sort of courtyard out here and that's what it's called the outer court or the courtyard and then there's a house here right a tabernacle and inside of that house or tabernacle there are two rooms right there's the first room that you encounter sometimes called the holy place or the outer sanctum and then there's the second room which is toward the back and that is the most holy place or the inner sanctum so you have three basic areas here courtyard inner outer sanctum inner sanctum or courtyard holy place most holy place now there are several mark remarkable things that will immediately strike you the first is is that there is only one place of entrance there's not numerous doors and this is this is very important I'll just contrast that with for example when we get to the New Testament when John sees the New Jerusalem right and all of its splendor and in all of its glory when John sees the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation right at the end he describes the New Jerusalem as having strangely twelve gates twelve gates right three gates on each side and this is remarkable because no city in ancient times had twelve gates it would it would be suicide right it would be like a massive you know put a security threat to put 12 gates on something most large cities in ancient times had one primary gate and then a secondary gate and then perhaps some smaller tertiary gates but you wanted to minimize the number of gates because your wall was your place of protection it was your point of keeping people out and so you wanted to limit the number of points of access right and so when we come down to the New Testament and we see the New Jerusalem John sees in all of its glory and majesty twelve gates alerts us to this amazing reality that God wants people to have access to the New Jerusalem can you say Amen God's not trying to keep people out in fact John actually makes this fascinating little notation there in Revelation 21 he says the gates never shut everyone what no we don't shut these gates because these are not gates to keep people out these are gates to let people in and we put 12 of them on the city but the temple is not that way the temple had a single point of access a single point of entry and it was a point of entry that faced east always east right you entered a single gate a single way there was not multiple ways to approach God and one of the things that emerges from the tabernacle is that God is very particular very specific not just about who approaches but how they approach and when they approach and and under what circumstances they approach God is sending a message here I want to come dwell with you saying to the Israelites I want to dwell with you but I can't just show up in your neighborhood it's not like moving from you know kingscliff to Coolangatta now this is different man I am moving from heaven where there is no sin there is no death there is no rebellion I am coming from the splendor of glory and I am stooping condescending to come down into your midst and I'm happy I'm desirous I'm willing to dwell with you but it will be under many and particular specifications well we might say why why it's got so particular why is he so persnickety about it well we're gonna see that one of the reasons is that God is sending a very strong message about the nature of sin and the nature of death the nature of sin and the nature of death now I should just say here one quick word in terms of the total volume of material that there is an Exodus and Leviticus in other places about the sanctuary we're gonna present about 1/10 of 1% this morning I mean we're literally scratching the surface of the surface of the surface one of the most difficult things about preparing this sermon was deciding not what to include but what to leave out and you have to leave out so much material in order to make what is apparently a very complicated reality but to show that in its basic essence it's actually very simple and I want to show you the simplicity of it and in order to emphasize the simplicity today I'm gonna have to leave off a lot of details okay but for our purposes at this point it's a building that was made after a pattern that consisted of three parts okay the outer court the holy place and the most holy place there were priests that officiated here and they officiated primarily in the outer court and in the holy place but the high priest could go annually into the most holy place on a very specific day a day called the day of atonement just a brief word about the day of atonement we'll come back to it the day of atonement does anybody know where the chapter is in Leviticus that shows up and sort of describes in detail the day of atonement anybody know that one I heard somebody say it's Leviticus 16 now here's the interesting thing about Leviticus 16 Leviticus 16 and this has been noted by both Christian and Jewish scholars it's right here Leviticus 16 occurs at almost the very center of the Pentateuch I've already told you that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible that's Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy Leviticus is not only the center book but the day of atonement is the centerpiece of the book Book of Leviticus so in a huge lease in a hugely significant way spatially significant way the day of atonement is at the very center of everything that Moses wrote the whole story of Abraham the story of the Exodus the story of everything that we have in overtaking the land that we're going to be getting into all of Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy of all that Moses has to say where he puts the most arguably the most important thing with regards to the Israelites in the sanctuary and the whole story of God's covenant 'l is right in the center Leviticus 16 surrounded by equal sides roughly equal sides on both ends of the Pentateuch now that Day of Atonement was a special day because it was the only day that the high priest went in to the most holy place all right we're getting slightly ahead of the slightly ahead of of the sermon here let's back up just a bit first of all according to on hill Rodriguez he says the israelite sacrificial system was God's gift of love to his covenant people now that's a bit of a tough pill to swallow frankly when you think about it was a hugely bloody place it was a place of death it was a place of blood it was a place I'll tell you a cute little story I'm a vegetarian have been since I was 17 years old and except when I'm in Alaska then I eat fish it's sort of a you know win in Alaska do as the Alaskans but apart from that basically a vegetarian and have been for a very long time and my good friend Nathan Renner who also became a Christian at the same time that I did he's preached in this church he also became a vegetarian at the same time well on a few occasions he and I have been in various places where we've been hanging out not just with regular vegetarians but like with really pious vegetarians like super like vegan Pharisees and there are none of them in this church I'm sure of that um maybe some vegans but not some vegan Pharisees and one of Nathan's favorite things to do and this I've seen and do this at least twice is we would pull up to say I don't know like a strip mall somewhere or a place of you know like we were gonna go shopping and when we get out there'd be like a McDonald's or like a Ruth's steakhouse or something and as soon as you'd step out of the car you know you would just smell the smell of a McDonald's or of a barbecue and you know often the sort of very pious vegetarians be like Oh disgusting right and Nathan would always preempt that sort of disgust that reaction of disgust and he would step out of the car and if he knew that we had some particularly pious vegetarians with us or even if we didn't he would often just go ah the smell of the sanctuary because the truth of the matter is is that that's exactly what the sanctuary would have smelt like it would have smelt like an Australian Barbie right in fact in some ways that's what you have here you have your courtyard and you've got the barbecue right there right you bring me up because fat was offered on that and flesh was offered on that it would have smelled like a restaurant right like a place where they cook a lot of meat the priests were eating the meat they were cooking the meat and it was a big bloody meaty place right so it's a bit of an unusual place to call that kind of a place God's gift of love to his covenant people what a strange sort of way to think about it well I thought I feared this might happen but let me sort of describe you what you're seeing here what you can't see unfortunately because our projector is is having a bit of a fit right now this is an overview of the sanctuary looking down notice that the dimensions are very different from this notice the relative size of the tabernacle here versus the same size of the outer courtyard right it fills up most of the outer core but you go here and this is a this is far closer to the actual dimensions of what is described in Exodus and Leviticus so this here is the outer courtyard okay the outer court this is looking down on the building that it's divided into two parts this line shows the dividing between the most holy place the inner sanctum the holy place the outer sanctum this is the Laver where the priest would wash was a bloody work it was a messy work so there needed to be some water around and this is that outer altar or like the barbecue here now what you don't see unfortunately it's actually on the slide but you can't see it is that this division right here down the middle makes two perfect squares okay I want you to feel that there are two perfect squares that you put together and you make the sanctuary and the the entrance to the second square lines up exactly with the door to the the outer sanctum then all into the inner sanctum now there's several things that are hugely important about this and the first of which is if you were to take and draw a line from here to here on this first square it would find its center in the altar and if you were to do the same for the second square draw a line from here to here and also from here to here the very center is the Ark of the Covenant right so what we're dealing with here even though there are three compartments and this is huge this is the basic point of everything we're gonna talk about today even though there are three compartments there are two sides there are two basic notions two basic services and those can be communicated very simply as the daily the yearly and the daily okay so the first square deals with things that happen on a daily basis right and the center of things that happen on a daily basis was here in the outer Court where the sacrifice was made and also where the fat was burned now you might say well wait a minute on a daily basis they went into here and that is absolutely true but the center of the daily sacrifice was right here the sacrifice is made in this area the blood is sprinkled on the altar whereas the center of the yearly sacrifice the day of atonement that took place in the Jewish calendar on the tenth day of the seventh month is right here in the most holy place entering on this box this golden box that contained the Ten Commandments called the Ark of the Covenant now this is very simple here I want to keep this as simple as possible there were two primary services that minused that happened that took place ministrations that took place in the sanctuary the daily service the center of which is the the altar and the yearly service the center of which is the Ark of the Covenant does that make sense now with that in mind I'm gonna read you several statements here from this book and I'll tell you a little bit more about this book at the end as we wrap this up this is a book called Colton character written by dr. Roy game okay and I'll tell you more about this book in just a second but before we do I can just say that this book is representative or represents more than ass more than a decade of study under a Jewish man by the name of Jacob Milgrom who died in 2010 but was widely considered the world's listen to this now the world's foremost expert on The Book of Leviticus the world's foremost expert on the Book of Leviticus he was a Jew not a Messianic Jew not a Christian a Jew right so so he taught at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and then Roy gain the author of this book went and studied under Jacob Milgrom for more than a decade he went in as a young man 23 year old young seventh-day Adventist kid who'd hurt his dad who was a pastor talking about the sanctuary the cleansing of the sanctuary Jesus is coming soon and he got interested in it and went and studied under the I want to say it again the world's foremost expert on the Book of Leviticus for more than a decade and then he wrote his doctoral dissertation and then that book grew out of that doctoral dissertation now I can summarize in just these few quotations up here the basic point of this book okay so the book is a distillation of more than a decade's worth of study at under the the world's foremost expert on the Book of Leviticus and I'm gonna give you the paragraphs cuz I've read the book that summarized the book okay here it comes pay attention because this is the whole point at the Israelite sanctuary sacrifice maintains equilibrium between justice and kindness as Yahweh God extends forgiveness and restoration to the faulty people among whom he condescends to dwell let them make me a sanctuary that I may come and live among them okay sacrifices throughout the year and the special rituals of the Day of Atonement enact a and this is key to phased process of reconciliation this is giant and it's the only point in the sermon today o two-phased how many phases two-phase process of reconciliation reconnecting between the Israelites and their divine king in which his holy balanced character is revealed he's basically saying okay the same it balances justice and forgiveness and it takes place in two phases here's the second quotation this is at the close of his book dr. Gaines says I have demonstrated that the system of purification offerings also enacts a two-faced process of reconciliation between faulty Israelites and their divine king which reveals how he spares the loyal ones for retribution without compromising his justice by emphasizing the cost of kindness as represented by rituals at the heart of the Israelite religion the sanctuary makes a profound contribution to biblical theology by portraying Yahweh's character as he deals with people of both loyal and disloyal character and finally I have discovered key evidence pointing to two major phases of sacrificial probation for sin both of which are accomplished through sin offering sacrifices now this is key the first phase removes the sin from the offeror thus the second phase removes the same sin from the sanctuary on the day of atonement okay two phases the first takes the sin away from me puts it in the sanctuary the second phase takes the sin away from the sanctuary and puts it in the wilderness if you understand that you understand the Book of Leviticus if you understand that you get it that's the point that there's two phases here to the whole system all of the priests all of them offerings all of the rights all of the rituals the whole thing just keep boiling it down boiling it down pulling it down pulling it down pulling it down boiling it down boiling it down you don't have to go study the better part of 15 years under the world's foremost authority on Leviticus no I'm telling it to you right now this is the summary that when the the the sacrificial system and the sanctuary was given to the Israelites God was communicating two basic ideas 359 days out of a Jewish year the sin goes off of the offer and one day out of a Jewish year they had a 360-day year one day out of the year the day of atonement the sin goes not off of the offerer that already happened the sin goes out of the sanctuary to even further simplify it for the youngest of the young to get 359 days out of 360 days the sin is going in to the sanctuary and one day out of 360 the sin goes out of the sanctuary that summarises years of research and and not just years of research but the actual text of Leviticus and Exodus now just this week mark was very generous to have me in early Monday morning to get an MRI right people keep asking me what's wrong with your knee well we don't know yet but we know something is wrong with it we're trying to figure that out and I went in early and and Mark very graciously penciled me in and we went in and and I saw the doctors and did all of that and it's not easy to see from this picture but for those of you that have been in an MRI this was my first ever so this is a big moment for me I had to document it we had a little cake I'm kidding about the cake if you look at an MRI and unfortunately this picture doesn't fully show it it actually looks super simple it's a tube how many here been in an MRI and it's just it's just it's a tube am i right markets it's just it's a tube now here's the interesting thing what separates that tube from say these tubes right I just go crawl in one of those and Mark stands at the you know the the entrance and I say I come out and say what's wrong say well you know okay what separates these two tubes because when you look at this tube from the outside it's actually very simple General Electric I think that's who makes it they've they've put a plastic fascia over at a plastic covering over it so that you don't see what's actually going on you just see the plastic covering it it doesn't look much different than like a straw or a simple a concrete pipe that I just put up there a moment ago but if we were to and I mean you might have even done this mark if we were to start taking panels off there would be layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of electronic complexity computer-generated complexity magnetic complexity the laws of physics and of many other things would be put to work but all of that complexity is covered up with a very simple fashion right just just a very simple covering so that what it looks like to me to the uninitiated I'm crawling in a tube and then I come out and now I know something about my body that I didn't know before of course if I crawled in one of those tubes I wouldn't have the same level of Revelation the sanctuary is just like this and I want you to think about this here for just a moment if we didn't have the sanctuary salvation would just be a big black box what would we know about it we would know nothing about the mechanics of salvation we would know nothing about how it works or why it works or why God seems to be making seemingly really unreasonable demands like offer your firstborn son on Mount Moriah we would be scratching our head in fact our religion would be no different from the religion of Animists and spiritualists and traditionalists down through the decades and centuries that have thrown virgins into volcanoes you got to appease the angry God you got to assuage the the regional deities Christianity would be no different from that if we didn't have the sanctuary God would say bring me a sacrifice okay but what God does in the sanctuary is he says come on show and tell come here I'm going to show you what's going on I'm going to disclose I'm going to reveal I want to show you in a pattern in a model in a miniature I want to show you in ceremony what's taking place in substance in my presence why would God do such a thing well there are a variety of reasons but the chiefest of which in my opinion has to be this that God is not the kind of God who ever says ah never mind how many times do we say this to our children when they ask us a question maybe we're tired maybe we're feeling a little ornery maybe we just don't know the answer and we're embarrassed to say so kids ask us something we're like I'll just never mind see never mind is an off-putting way of saying I don't want to tell you either I don't know or I'm not in the mood to tell you or I'm tired by your you know perennial questions I don't want God never says I never mind what God says is Wow let me show you how salvation works let me show you how an infinite holy infinitely alive God has never been dead except in the Incarnation and that's a whole nother issue in Christ God condescending to become a man's that he could die but God in himself God and his person is impervious to death that's the whole point of the book of Hebrews it says that Jesus became a man so that God could do what he couldn't otherwise do die so God is perfectly alive and he is perfectly holy and God says come here and let me show you how a perfectly alive and perfectly holy being can come and dwell in the midst of a bunch of sinful dying dirty people now here's a great point we often think of the sanctuary as the place that you came if you committed a sin you know you stole your neighbor's shovel and you were sorry about it so you brought us you brought an offering you brought a sacrifice it is true that the sanctuary was for dealing with moral impurities but the sanctuary a huge part of the sanctuary was also for dealing with ritual impurities really weird stuff to us stuff like this if you touch a corpse you must go through this certain ceremony and present yourself to the priest bring an offering why if you touch the body of a dead animal then you have to bring this certain offering to be cleansed to be purged and we look at that and we're like I don't understand it doesn't make any sense you see beloved the church is not excuse me the church the sanctuary was not just to get rid of moral impurity the sanctuary was also to get rid of ritual impurity that came now watch this from contact with death you see sanction the sanctuary is God in His infinite holiness and in his perfect life condescending to live amongst a bunch of people who are dead and dying and death is is imprisoned pervious to death he how does the perfectly alive one come and dwell in the midst of a camp that's saturated by death and furthermore in the midst of a sanctuary system that is itself built around death sacrifice blood fat offerings and God basically says I'm at war here I'm at war with sin and I'm at war with death and if you come into contact with either you can't just come waltzing happily merrily into my presence okay here we go let's go over to God's house for a game of Settlers of Catan God's like no doesn't work quite like that you come into my presence and it happens like this with this specificity and with this offering and with this sacrifice on this day presenting in this way and God is not being arbitrary God it's not being capricious what God is saying is come take a look at the MRI let me show you as a physicist or as an electronic engineer might show you a David that's not just a big piece of plastic that's not just a plastic tube Oh No there's something going on in there there's something big and dynamic and awesome and frightening and beautiful and amazing that's taking place inside of the sanctuary I want to leave you with a final point here and then I'll release you to the day Roy Gaines says at the heart of the Pentateuch that's at the heart of the five books of Moses the Israelite sanctuary system characterized Jehovah Yahweh as a just ruler in short this is where God sits enthroned as the king this is the kind of God that I am this is how I rule this is why I rule the way that I rule and again all of this is in symbol pointing to the thing that is substance and when we come to the New Testament the lid begins to be peeled back the the the the the MRI machine begins to be deconstructed right before our very eyes and we see Jesus and his ministry manifest in three particular capacities and time does not allow us to get into it here but I'm just gonna give you a flash this is the trailer version of what Jesus did Jesus is the lamb Kiley's about ready to sing about that Jesus is the lamb John his elder cousin said behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world but a remarkable thing that is that Jesus wasn't just the lamb in the kort he's the priest he is the priest that ministers the blood of the Lamb and I remind you his own blood not the blood of a child not the blood of somebody else his own blood not requiring an external sacrifice but providing a sacrifice himself but Jesus is not only the dying lamb and he's not only the interceding priest Jesus is also the returning king he is the ruler this is his throne this is how he rules the universe this is how he administers justice this is how he administers forgiveness this is how he administers mercy the whole thing is on display in this marvelous spiritual MRI machine called the sanctuary that that to us if this wasn't available to us if there was no Exodus if there was no Leviticus we would just have to trust God oh just trust me it'll all come out in the wash God says just trust me well how would we know how would we know who we're dealing with and what kind of a being were dealing with and whether he was actuated by kindness or by power or worse yet by Caprice God says no no no I want full disclosure I want full transparency I want full vulnerability come here come here this is how I rule this is how I reign this is Who I am come and see jesus's lamb oh and check this out as lamb at the altar he delivers us from the penalty of sin as high priest he delivers us in the holy place from the power of sin through the table of showbread and the altar of incense all of this we didn't we have no time on that we're gonna have a whole series on the sanctuary later but as the king he delivers us from the presence of sin and so in a remarkable way as you move through the sanctuary God says okay dealt with the penalty in the outer sanctum dealt with the power of sin in your life getting victory over sin and that besetting struggle that you have that thing that just won't let you go not we're getting rid of that by the bread of life and by the oil of the Holy Spirit and the incense of the righteousness of Christ but that's not good enough it's not good enough just to be delivered from sins penalty and sins power one day and the not-too-distant future God says you know what I'm gonna deliver you from sins presence as well and that's what happened on the Day of Atonement all of this sin had been going in all of this sin had been going in going in going in and on the day of atonement God says okay it's now all going out and I just learned something very interesting this week the word forgiveness when a when a offer would bring his lamb would bring his offering and he would receive forgiveness and the outer Court hears a remarkable point the word limited the word forgiveness doesn't show up anywhere in Leviticus 16 in the day of atonement never because the day of atonement was not a day of individual forgiveness that had already happened the day of atonement was the day were the sanctuary itself where all of that sin had been deposited where all of that should have been transferred the forgiveness has happened past tense and now the sanctuary itself is cleansed the Israelites were delivered from the presence of sin anticipating the time when Jesus will in his power and in his glory come and deliver us not just from the penalty not just from the power but from the very presence of sin no more rape no more murder no more oppression no more war no more injustice no more drones no more night-vision goggles for the purpose of blowing people into little bits no more landmines no it's gone he delivers us from the presence of sin I made a big and bold statement last week and I want to stand by it and hopefully you can see it here that seventh-day Adventist believe they have something really important to say about Exodus and Leviticus and you might have wondered well what is it what is that important thing that we think we have to say it's very simple sin goes in and sin goes out not a one phased atonement but to the transfer in the transfer out the cleansing of the offerer the cleansing of the sanctuary and here's the point if we're right if we are right in our interpretation I'll just say a brief word about this book now I'll fight you up in just a second the remarkable thing about this is that ROI gain dr. Roy gain who's teaches now at the seminary in Andrews University spent the more than a decade studying under Jacob Milgrom Jacob Milgrom as I've already mentioned is a Jew he wasn't a believer in Christ but he was the world's foremost authority on the Book of Leviticus and when when RIT when Roy gang went to study he just wanted to know if the Adventist position on the sanctuary namely a two phased atonement if it was defensible it does the text support it is it is it actually there or is it just something that we've invented to save face so that you know in 1844 when William Miller thought Jesus was coming soon he got it wrong and we did a quick cover-up with the sanctuary that's basically what Roy wanted were a gang wanted to know now here's the remarkable thing Gamze fends the better part are the more than a decade studying and diving into the Book of Leviticus and particularly the day of atonement okay when he emerges on the other side of that study he presents his basic thesis which much of which was in harmony with Milgram's own understanding and and thesis in and around the sanctuary but with significant departures and the main departure that he had was that he advocated a two phased system sin going in sin going out sin going off of the offerer sin going out of the sanctuary now here's the interesting thing when gain submitted his dissertation and it passed and he got his ph.d and then he later wrote the book I heard him tell this story with my own ears he said that he went into his senior professor Jacob Milgrom who passed away in 2010 and he said well you know Yaakov what do you think and this is what he said young 7th Avenue boys showed up there years before learning to study Hebrew and at the end the world's foremost authority on the vitta Kentavious now newly crowned doctoral candidate in his his eyes and said something like this well Roy if I'm not right you certainly are in other words your system explains the data as good as any and perhaps as good or even better my own in fact he says on the back of the book I read you Milgram's endorsement of gains book games book is a marvel of close reading and impeccable logic it is the first major critique of my own work and I am immensely happy and proud that it was done by my students and that my contribution is so comprehensively acknowledged this is a major work and will be the standard for a long time now beloved I just want that to settle in just to settle in because as I said the other day and you might have thought I'd lost my mind if seventh-day Adventist are wrong about Leviticus and Exodus we are wrong about the sanctuary and if we are wrong about the sanctuary then we are wrong about Daniel the idea that the 2300 days culminated in 1844 and if we're wrong about Daniel we are wrong about Revelation and if we're wrong about Revelation we really shouldn't be here this morning because we're wrong about basically everything but the converse is also true if seventh-day Adventist in their interpretation are right about Exodus and Leviticus namely a two phased atonement that there was the time where it went into the sanctuary and the time where the sanctuary itself is finally cleansed then we are right about the sanctuary if we're right about the sanctuary we are right about Daniel I'm not talking about every detail I'm just saying in the general thrust if we're right about Daniel we're right about Revelation and if we're right about Revelation then we have a message for the world can somebody say Amen so beloved at the end of the day it comes right down to this massive point I'm gonna have the Deacons distribute these connect cards you can start right now guys it comes down to this massive point about Jesus and his various capacities out here in the outer court he is lamb here he ministers as priest giving us the victory over the power of sin in our lives and here he returns as king of kings and Lord of lords to deliver us not just from sins penalty and power but ultimately to deliver us from sins presence and I want to close with this this is the final quotation I promise there are many of us who are very persuaded that Jesus is coming soon and I want to tell you if you think Jesus is coming soon and you're sitting here today as a seventh-day Adventist even if you don't know it the reason you think Jesus is coming soon is based on Daniel chapter 8 even if you couldn't explain it I want you to know that it's a seventh-day Adventist if you're sitting here today if you're not a seventh-day Adventist we're glad you're here you're welcome as a visitor but I'm speaking now in house if you're sitting here as a seventh-day adventist today you are here because a bunch of people thought that Jesus was going to come based on a prophecy found in the Book of Daniel that's why you're sitting here today okay if you yourself are like man Jesus is coming soon look at the signs of the times look at all the world is coming to an end Jesus is coming soon let me tell you the larger context in which you believe that the soon return of Jesus is just around the corner is built strangely enough on that old MRI machine found back in the book of the latter third of the book of Exodus and the Book of Leviticus and even there I want to read you this quotation because some people might be inclined to think there we need to be hearing more Jesus is coming soon as the end of time why are we hearing just listen to this I leave you with this final quotation from one of the founders of the seventh-day Adventist Church Ellen White she writes the shortness of time is frequently urged as an incentive for seeking righteousness and making Christ our friend Jesus is coming soon the world is gonna collapse the whole thing the wheels are coming off right now big catastrophe just around the corner I've been hearing it for the last 20 years right you have to probably the shortness of time is frequently yours as an incentive for seeking righteousness and making Christ our friend this should not be the great motive with us for its savers of selfishness what the motive should not be urgency the motive should not be our sense that Jesus is soon to return this looks like selfishness why watch it is is it necessary that the terrors of the day of God should be held before us that we may be compelled to right action through fear it ought not to be so she says Jesus is attractive now somebody better say Amen if Jesus is not motive enough there isn't motive enough Jesus is attractive he is full of love mercy and compassion he proposes to be our friend and to walk with us through all the rough ways the pathways of life Jesus is attractive and I want to tell you as strange as it might sound there is no place that more fully illumines the attractiveness of Christ and the attractiveness of God then that strange bloody opaque system found tucked away in the Book of Moses called the sanctuary Father in heaven what a beautiful story and a beautiful song and the good news of course is that it's not just a story it's not a fable or a fairy tale it's the great truth of the universe that God became a man and condescended to die in the place of sinful men and women and father we don't pretend I certainly don't pretend to fully understand all of the details and all of the idiosyncrasies of the Levitical sanctuary but Father it's there for us on display it's there for our study it demands our attention our scrutiny our evaluation but father we see there that you though living and perfectly holy have condescended to come and dwell amongst a dying and sinful people and we see that your glory and your mercy and your grace and your forgiveness breaks through the miasma of sin and death break through the atmosphere of this world and creates a new reality and father you entrusted that reality to Israel and then you entrusted it to Christ and then you entrusted it to the church and father today whether we recognize it or not we are the beneficiaries of this marvelous plan so simple and yet immeasurably an incomprehensible complex father today we come to the outer Court by faith believing that our sins are forgiven by the Lamb of God but we are not satisfied to remain at the outer Court we come also by faith boldly in to the holy place where we meet and see Jesus our high priest and intercessor but father we also come with fear trepidation and yet hope and confidence into the most holy place where Jesus our elder brother ever lives to make intercession for us and father we see there that he's not presenting the blood of another the blood of a third party but that he presents his own blood and we are accepted in the beloved and father this beautiful picture of Lamb and priest and King alerts us to the fact that you have comprehensively saved us that you have you paid attention to every detail that no stone has been left unturned in our salvation you will deliver us not only from the penalty not only from the power but also from the very presence of sin itself father help us to take this amazing message and to internalize it and then to externalize it to believe it in our innermost souls and then to share it with enthusiasm with those around us thank you Father we give you worship we give you praise because you are the great Jehovah Jireh you are the God who provides a lamb himself and in the name of Jesus we pray let everyone say Amen god bless you all happy Sabbath

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Length: 66min 9sec (3969 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2015