[MUSIC PLAYING] The Bible from 30,000 Feet,
soaring through the scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Would you turn in your Bibles
to the book of Leviticus? When Stephen said that,
he said, how many of you are excited about
being in Leviticus? And you all cheered. I don't know how many
churches that would happen in, so I'm just so happy to
be a part of this church. And I love that
you love the Word. And so we are in the book
of Leviticus in The Bible from 30,000 Feet. I'm guessing that if you ask
the average Christian, what's your favorite book
in the Bible?, they're not going
to say Leviticus. So let's just take a quick,
random poll, if you don't mind. How many of you, your
favorite book in the Bible is the book of Psalms? I want to see hands,
hands raised up. Psalms' your favorite book? OK, let's say the Gospel of
John, the Gospel of John. Wow, a lot of them. Ephesians? Romans? Wow, some of you are
voting three or four times. No, I'm just kidding. Hebrews, the book of Hebrews? Leviticus? Yeah, see what I mean? There's probably not
a lot of underlines and yellow highlights
in the book of Leviticus in your Bible,
if you do that to your Bible. I'm guessing your life
verse is probably not found in the book of Leviticus. In fact, I would say
the book of Leviticus is sort of like the
graveyard of good intentions. What I mean by that is we
make a New Year's resolution. This year, I'm going to
read through the Bible. We make it through Genesis. That's awesome, cool stories. Exodus-- again,
miraculous stories. Then you get to Leviticus,
and you start slowing down. Or you just sort of push
the pause button altogether and go, ah, maybe
next year, I'll chug my way through this thing. The Bible does say,
however, all scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable, so that means this book, because
it's part of the scripture, is part of that promise. Little known fact--
the ancient Jews began training their
children in the law of God by using the book of
Leviticus, so a child began his study of the scripture
not in Genesis, not in Psalms, certainly not in
the New Testament. It wasn't around. But it was in the
book of Leviticus. Now, why is that? Well, there is a commentary
called the Midrash, Jewish comments on
the Old Testament, and it says in that set of
books, children are pure and the sacrifices are pure. So let those who are pure
come and occupy themselves with pure things. They just believe
that this was sort of like the hub, the center of
their life, their community life, their spiritual
life, the laws that are given in this book. Something else you should
know-- the New Testament quotes the book of Leviticus
more than 100 times, so this is part of the all
scripture that is profitable. I contend that you will
not be able to understand the book of Hebrews
unless you at least have a working knowledge of
the book of Leviticus. The book of Hebrews opens. God, who, at different
times and in different ways, spoke to our fathers
through the prophets, has, in these last days,
spoken to us by His son. The things that God
spoke in the past that that book occupies itself
with, the book of Hebrews, primarily, are the
sacrifices and the analogies that are found in the
book of Leviticus. Now, as you open the book
of Leviticus-- and again, we're just soaring over this. We'll bend the plane down to
a scripture here and there and look at it and get a little
closer a couple of times, but they are camped
in the wilderness. As you open this book,
it's a wilderness setting. In fact, there in front of a
mountain called Mount Sinai. It's in the middle
of the wilderness. I have been there
once in my life. I had the opportunity
of climbing it up to the top and back. Jabal Musa, the Arabs
call that mountain. So they're camped
before this mountain, and the book opens and closes
at the same geographical point. They begin-- the
beginning of Leviticus, the end of Leviticus. It's all instruction that God
gives while they are camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. They're there for about a
month, and during that time, they're going to school
as God instructs them. Now, let's divide the book up. I'm going to cut it
into two sections. Chapters 1 through 17, section
1, chapters 18 through 27, section 2, The first 17
chapters are about the way to God through sacrifice. That's the key word in those 17
chapters, "sacrifice," the way to God through sacrifice. Beginning in chapters 18
all the way to chapters 27, it's a walk with God
through sanctification. Don't worry. I'm going to explain what
that means in a little bit. So the way to God through
sacrifice and then a walk with God through
sanctification-- so those two words,
you could say, if you wanted a nutshell
version of this book, those two words sum
it up, "sacrifice" and "sanctification." Sacrifice is an event. In the case of the Old
Testament, they took an animal and slaughtered it. That's an event. That's the sacrifice. Sanctification is not an event. It's a process. It's over a long period of time. A walk with God is a lifetime. So that sums up your
testimony, doesn't it? The sacrifice at Calvary through
Jesus Christ, your Lord-- He died for your
sins on your behalf. That's the event. But then a walk with God
through sanctification-- that's the rest of your
Christian life after the event. And we discover in
the book of Leviticus that the major issue is
how to get close to God and how to stay close to God. Now, I think everybody would
agree that God is good, right? We say that God is
good all the time. And we would say, it's good to
be in the presence of the Lord, right? And that's what we say. Now, we've been in the
presence of the Lord tonight. It is good to be in
the presence of God. Can you say that? It is good to be in
the presence of God. However, it's also dangerous
to be in the presence of God. We discover that in
the book of Leviticus. We kind of, in
the New Testament, take for granted what it takes
to get us into God's presence, so we just think,
God, we're here. I know Jesus died on the cross. It's good to be
in God's presence. We open the Old Testament,
and we discover it's good, but it's also very dangerous. We're going to
see how dangerous. Animals are killed to get
people into God's presence. Blood is shed for
that to happen. A high priest represents
the rest of the nation, and he approaches very, very
carefully the presence of God lest he himself is killed. So I heard an analogy
the last couple of weeks that really helped me. It sort of like the sun. I think all of us would
say the sun is good. That's why we live here. We like sunshine. We live in the great Southwest,
copious sunshine most year round. It is good, but if you get
too close to the blazing glory of the sun, you will die. In fact, if you get within
3 million miles of the sun, the ambient air temperature
will be 248 degrees. You will die. You will burn up. So it's sort of
like that with God. God's pure holiness is awesome,
but you get too close to that, you can't handle it. Moses said, show me Your glory. Remember that last time? God said, you know what, Mo? You'll die if you behold My
full, unfiltered, undiminished glory. I'm going to pass by,
guard you with My hand, and at the appropriate
moment as I pass by, I'm going to let you
see the afterglow, and that's about
all you can handle. So we can't behold
Him face to face yet. We're not equipped to do so. One day, we will be, and we
will have that privilege. So Leviticus provides
the solution to that. What's the solution? You need sacrifices. You need somebody offering
the sacrifices-- in this case, the priesthood-- and then you need purity laws so
that the nation can stay close to God's presence. Now, just another note-- Leviticus speaks more about
holiness than any other book in the Bible. The word "holy,"
the word "blood," the word "priest," and the word
"sacrifice," those four words are repeated in this book
more than any other book in the entire Bible. One of the key themes is the
word I just mentioned, "blood." "Blood" will be mentioned
in this book alone 88 times. Now there's a key lesson there. When you see "blood"-- in the case of Leviticus,
animals who shed their blood-- it is meant to
teach us a lesson. It was meant to
teach them a lesson. What's the lesson? Sin is awful. That's what sin does. It is destructive. It destroys life. The wages of sin
is death, so sin makes a bloody mess of things. And that's what we notice
when we see the sacrifices. Blood must be shed. A victim must be slain
to atone for sin. Now, the people will
bring the offerings in the book of Leviticus. The priest will
take the offerings, and we'll slaughter and make
the sacrifice for the people. So the priest's business is
the business of the tabernacle. Now, quick note-- if you
want to serve as a priest, you can't just say, I feel
called to the priesthood. I'd like to be a priest. You have to have
the right genes. You have to have
Levi jeans, right? And I mean G-E-N-E-S,
the right genetic makeup. You have to be of that
tribe and of that lineage, so you have to have
Levitical genes. Hence, "Leviticus" means
pertaining to the Levites. Chapters 1 through 7 give
laws of personal proximity. If you're taking
notes, write that down. Laws of personal proximity--
what do I mean by that? These seven chapters
answer the question, how can I get close to God? How can I come into
God's presence? Answer? Only by sacrifice. Now, the sacrifices that are
mentioned in the first seven chapters-- some of the sacrifices are,
in effect, the people saying, I'm sorry, God. I've sinned. Please forgive me. Other sacrifices are
saying, thank you, God. You're awesome. I just wanted to tell you
that and give you this. They're voluntary
and not compulsory. In verse 1 of the book, it says,
"Now the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the
tabernacle of meeting, saying, 'Speak to the children of
Israel, and say to them, when any one of you brings
an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your
offering of the livestock-- of the herd and of the flock. If his offering is a burnt
sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male
without blemish. He shall offer it
of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle
of meeting before the Lord. Then he will put his hand on
the head of the burnt offering, and it will be
accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He shall kill the bull before
the Lord, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the
blood and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar that is
by the door of the tabernacle of meeting.'" What's going on here? Well, man has a huge
problem, and that is, if mankind wants to get
close to God who is holy, wants to hang out with God,
he has to deal with an issue. What's the issue? Sin. So we have a sin problem. We are all S-I-N positive. We're born that way. It's part of our genetic makeup. We were born fallen because
of what Adam has done. But then we ourselves,
we do things that are disobedient
to God as well, so that has to be taken care of. Sin is the great divider. 1 John chapter 1, verse 8 and
9, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. But if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness." So we have to admit it. We have to confess it,
and the word "confess" means that we agree with God. We agree with God about sin. We say the same thing about
it as God says about it. It's funny how some people will
pray without kind of admitting that they're sinners. It's like, well, God,
if I have sinned, would you please forgive me? Stop right there, buddy. If you're not quite
sure about it, why are you even
praying about it? You see, if you try
to hide it-- the Bible says, "You will not
prosper if you confess and forsake your sin. You will find mercy." So we should call "sin"
what God calls "sin." OK, so I'm kind
of big about this. I've noticed that,
over the years, the church sort of likes
to soft-pedal things and say things differently. Don't use that word. People are offended
by the word "sin." Good. Be offended by it. Be so offended that you
hate it like God hates it, and you want to forsake it like
God wants you to forsake it. So we need to confess our sin. If we call it
something differently, it does no one any good. If you take a bottle
of poison and you decide to relabel it like-- I don't know-- "wintergreen
mouthwash," is that helpful? No, that's harmful. In fact, the more you dress up
the label, the more dangerous the contents become. We need to label it what
it is, that it's poisonous, that it's harmful. So the first seven
chapters are all about fixing that without
the shedding of blood. Hebrews 9 tells us,
referring to Leviticus, "Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission for sin." So if you were to go to
the tabernacle back then on any given day, you know
what it would look like to you? A slaughterhouse, like
a meat-packing company, like a [SPANISH], right? It's like animals
being butchered and blood being let
and caught in basins and removed and more
animals being slain. It was like a slaughterhouse,
enormous amounts of blood. This bothers some people. They say, you know, the Bible
is sort of a bloody thing, and Christianity is
a bloody religion. You bet your sweet bippy it is. Boy, that's an old term. That's like the 1960s or '70s. So listen, blood circulates
throughout the book of Leviticus, and did
you know that blood is circulating throughout
the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation? And scholars have noted
this as the scarlet thread of redemption. It's woven through all the
different books of the Bible, and it leads right
to Calvary, right to the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, "offering,"
the word "offering" and the word "sacrifice," those
two words appear 192 times in the book of Leviticus. Why? Because where sin
exists, there must be a payment, and the payment
that God accepts is blood. So the blood of animals was
used to cover sin in those days. Think of it this way. The essence of a sacrifice was
like a drama, a staged drama. And when somebody would bring
an animal and blood would be spilled and the animal
would be killed and offered up, everybody saw that, so the
sacrifices expressed truths visually, rather than verbally. I'm expressing verbal
truths tonight. It would be quite different if
I had a little animal that you could hear it bleed, and I slit
its throat in front of you. See, just me saying that
makes you grossed out. So the Old Testament sacrifice
was that drama played out. It was like ancient
television, only they saw it. It happened in front of them. Now, what does this tell us? Leviticus-- and you start
going through these sacrifices. You discover the
fallacy of the idea that people have about religion. They say, well, you
know, all religions are basically the same, and
all religions lead to God. And we discover, as we go just
through the book of Leviticus, that that ain't so,
that it's very narrow and that God is very exclusive. If you want to hang
out in God's presence, you have to bring an
animal that will be killed and that blood will be shed. These sacrifices by the way,
are not just reparatory-- that is, to repair things,
to fix the problem of sin. They are also anticipatory. That is, the sacrifices
speak of better things. That's what Hebrew said. Hebrew says, the
sacrifices of Leviticus speak of a better sacrifice,
a better high priest, a better altar. In other words, they're
fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus said
to the Pharisees, if you would have believed
Moses, you would believe me, for Moses wrote about me,
which begs the question, well, where did Moses write about you? Well, Leviticus is one of them-- blood that is shed,
a lamb that is slain, an innocent victim in the place
of the people who have sinned. And I always have wished
that Luke chapter 24 would be expanded-- you know, the
road to Emmaus when Jesus walks alongside those guys incognito. They don't know
it's Jesus, and it says that, beginning at
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the
things concerning himself. I'm sure he opened
their Jewish eyes to the meaning of the
Levitical sacrifice as part of that discourse. So chapters 1 through 7 are
the laws of personal proximity. Five offerings are
given, five offerings-- burnt offering, grain
offering, the peace offering, a sin offering, and the
trespass offering-- those five offerings. The first three-- when
they're made, God says, that's a sweet-smelling
aroma to Me. I like the smell of that. I do, too, by the way. When somebody takes meat
and puts it on a fire and grills it, like
barbecue lamb, I love that. God is saying, I love it, too,
but for different reasons. You like the barbecue smell. I love the idea that you're
doing it to worship Me. My heart is glad that
you come to worship Me. So the first three-- the burnt, the grain,
and the peace offering-- are called "a sweet
aroma to the Lord." They're optional. You don't have to bring them. They're not obligatory. They're optional. The last two-- the sin
offering and the trespass-- are reversed. They are obligatory. They're non-discretionary. You have to do it. Why? Because all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And so to fix the sin problem-- and by the way, a sin is
different than a trespass. Everybody sins because they
fall short of the mark, but then there's
the trespass, which is crossing the line
deliberately, like, don't cross the line. OK. So that's a trespass. I know I shouldn't do
it, but I do it anyway. That had to be paid for. So those are the five offerings. Now, chapter 6 and
chapter 7 are laws for the priests who
would administrate those offerings that were
brought that are enumerated in the first few
chapters, so it's like office protocol
for the priest. When we get to
chapter 8, 9, and 10, I call these "laws of
professional activity," laws of professional activity. Why? Because we're dealing
with priests now. It's the priesthood. It's their profession to
take yours and my sacrifices, if we lived back then,
and offer them for us. So this answers the question,
who can approach God for me? First question that the first
few chapters ask and answer is, how can I approach God? Answer, by sacrifice. Chapters 8 through 10
answer the question, who can approach God for me? Answer? Only a priest can. So chapters 1 through
7-- get the flow of this. Chapters 1 through
7 says, we need a sacrifice to approach God. Chapters 8 through 10-- we need a stand-in. We need a representative. We need somebody to offer
the sacrifice for us. That's what a priest does. A priest stands before God
on behalf of the people and offers a sacrifice
on their behalf. Now, I want a zero in. Let's tip the plane
down a little bit, get a little closer
to the ground, look at chapter 8, verse 22. We're going right into
the ordination ceremony of the ancient priesthood. Chapter 8, verse 22, "And
he brought the second ram, a ram of consecration. Then Aaron and his
sons laid their hands on the head of the ram,
and Moses killed it. And he took some of
its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron's right ear,
on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe
of his right foot. And then he brought
Aaron's sons, and Moses put some of
the blood on the tips of their right ears, on the
thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes
with their right feet. And Moses sprinkled the
blood all around the altar." What's all this about? It's the idea in sanctifying
it with shed blood. May this priest hear
the voice of God by putting it on his ears. May he do the will
of God by putting it on the thumb of his hand. Well, can work the works
of God, do the will of God, and by putting it on
his foot, he's saying, may this priest walk
in the ways of God. So may he hear, work, and
walk in the ways of God. Now, let's fast-forward
in the New Testament, just to make an analogy. In the New Testament,
Jesus Christ is called "our great high
priest," our great high priest. Here's what's interesting. Jesus is both the
sacrifice as well as the one who offers the sacrifice
because He offered Himself. So He is the sacrificial lamb,
and He is the high priest who offers the lamb. "Behold the Lamb
of God," John said, "who takes away the
sin of the world." But He's also our high
priest, our great high priest. He offers it, so there is
the fulfillment of that. Now, let's move off of that
and think of ourselves. In Romans chapter 12,
Paul borrows the language of sacrifice from
Leviticus and says to us, "I beseech you, therefore,
by the mercies of God that you present your
bodies," right, just like their ears and hands and
feet were covered with blood. "You present your bodies
as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
to God, which is your reasonable service." So he's saying you,
like the priest, come and voluntarily offer your
bodies for God to work through. And can I just say when you do
that, life gets really good. Life takes on a
whole new level when you see your body as a base of
operations for the Holy Spirit to dwell within and work
through to other people. That's when life really,
really gets good. Think of the people
in the Bible that God got a hold of their bodies,
as imperfect as they were, and used it for His glory. Moses said, I
c-c-c-can't t-t-talk. He stuttered. God says, great. I'm going to use you to
be a spokesman to Pharaoh. Yeah, he used Aaron to help do
that as well, but then Moses' mouth gave the law to people
that he heard from God's mouth though his body was
a living sacrifice. David's hands put a
sling in it one day, and God guided that
little missile right into the head of Goliath. Paul's feet-- anointed by
God to spread the gospel through the known
world and your body as well as you offer it to God. You know, it's always
interesting to me that God has chosen to
use his redeemed people, so he redeems us. He saves us. We come sinful, but then we ask
Jesus to forgive us our sins. So we're now
instantly his child. You know how it works by faith. And then God says, now,
I'm going to use you, and you don't have to
have any special training. You don't have to have
any special education. I'll use you just as you are. If you let Me, I'll work
My ways through your body. And God didn't have to do that. God could have used angels
instead of redeemed humans. And wouldn't you agree, if
God decided to use angels, they probably do a much
better job than we've done so far in 2000 years? You could count on angels
to really get the word out. God's going to use an angel
in the book of Revelation to proclaim the
everlasting gospel to all the people on the earth. The job is going to get done. But God has chosen to restrict
himself in the meanwhile to do the most important
part of His work now through our bodies. And you go, not
a good plan, God. I would counsel against that. The reason God does that
is it gives Him more glory. The more imperfect
the instrument, the greater the glory goes to
the one using that instrument, so God uses priests. God uses your body and
my body for His glory. Chapter 10-- there is a
glitch in the priesthood. Aaron has two sons, one
named Nadab, the other Abihu, and this is when
worship gets dangerous. Verse 1, "Then Nadab and
Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered profane
fire before the Lord which he had not
commanded them." Now, it says "profane fire" in
my translation, the New King James that I'm reading from. The old King James
calls it "strange fire." Some translations call
it "unconsecrated fire." The New Living Translation puts
it this way-- "different kind of fire." So they're all taking a stab
at what this profane fire or strange fire is. Some-- and I'm putting
a question mark here-- some unspecified
infraction occurred that had to do with
burning incense. You know what it was? Because if you know what it
is, please tell me afterwards. I have no idea what it is. I have read so many books and
commentaries on what it is, and nobody really agrees. Some think it's-- they lit their
censors with ordinary fire, other than the prescribed fire
from the altar of sacrifice, that brass altar that was
in the courtyard for animal sacrifices. So they just decided,
why go out there? Just get a Zippo lighter. Do it that way. That's a possibility--
not the Zippo lighter. That didn't exist, but
just an ordinary fire. Others have guessed
that maybe they were drunk because in
verse 8 and 9 to Aaron, it says, "Do not drink wine
or intoxicating drink, you nor your sons with
you, when you go into the tabernacle of
meeting, lest you die, and they will die
with this infraction. It shall be a statute forever
throughout your generations." But here's the point. Instead of trying to figure out
what the profane fire exactly is, God, when He calls
priests into the special role of representing the
people, He calls them to a higher standard. Yes, they're humans. Yes, they sin. Yes, they're going
to need sacrifices, but if you're going to
serve in the priesthood-- let me modernize it. If you're going to serve
in the ministry today, we are called to
a higher standard. Those who teach the word are
called to a higher standard, the Bible tells us. So our work-- yeah, we work. All of us do our work,
but in the ministry, it's not a 9:00 to 5:00,
and sometimes, it's not five days a week. Sometimes, it's like,
whenever there's a need. And Charles Spurgeon wrote
a great book called Lectures to My Students, one
of my favorite books that I always tell young men who
want to get into the ministry to read. And here's a little
section in there where he says, "If
you plan to be lazy, there are plenty of
avocations or jobs in which you will not be
wanted, but above all, you are not wanted in the
Christian ministry. The man who finds the
ministry an easy life will find that it also
brings a hard death." So Nadab and Abihu, instead of
trying to cut corners and just light your little incense
thing with a Zippo, get out there and do it right. And the grand theme
is the worship that God accepts is the
worship that God prescribes. God says, do it this way. Don't argue with that. Just do it the way
God said to do it, so that's the
glitch that happens. When we get to
chapters 11 through 15, we have laws of ritual
purity, laws of ritual purity, and now, some of
these are weird. I will admit that,
and they're not going to really apply to
you in a modern day and age. But it does answer the question,
how can I be clean before God? In fact, the word "unclean"
appears over 100 times in chapters 11 through 15. Now, some of these,
as I say, seem weird. Let me give you the big picture. The big picture-- God is
saying this, all of your life, all of your life,
all of your life is to be lived under
the eye of God, whether you're in the kitchen,
whether you're in the office, whether you're in the bedroom. God wants to be a part
of all of your life. So chapter 11 are
regulations about food, chapter 12, about
childbirth, chapter 13, about skin diseases, chapter 14,
leprosy as a specialized skin disease because of the
contagion that it provides, and then probably your
favorite chapter in chapter 15, bodily discharges. Ew, yeah. So chapter 11, verse 1, "And the
Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 'Speak to the
children of Israel, saying, these are the animals which you
may eat among all the beasts better on the earth. Among the beasts,
whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hoofs and
chewing the cud, you may eat.'" How many of you ever
worry about this when you go to the supermarket? Excuse me, does it
have cloven hoofs? You probably don't. If you were Jewish,
you probably would. That's according to kosher law. Here's why. Here's the big reason. Go down to verse 45,
still in chapter 11. "For I am the Lord who brings
you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be
holy, for I am holy." So that's reason number one. God is saying, I want
Israel to be different. That's what "holy" means,
"different," "set apart." I don't want you like
every other nation. I don't want you to
be like the world. I don't want you to think you
need to be like the world. You're my people. I want you to live
and act differently, including what you eat. Then verse 46, "This is the law
of the animals and the birds and every living creature
that moves in the waters and of every creature
that creeps on the earth, to distinguish between
the unclean and the clean, and between the animal
that may be eaten and the animal that
may not be eaten." So the second reason is God is
saying, for sanitary reasons, I want you to eat certain
things and not eat other things, to preserve your
physical health. And why is that? Well, back in those
days, there was no FDA. There was no Food and
Drug Administration. We have FDA today, so
our foods are highly regulated by the FDA. There was no FDA. There was only G-O-D, and
God knew that certain animals can be harmful. Moses didn't. Aaron didn't. God knew that
certain animals were what are called
"unclean feeders" and are liable to disease,
not only having them, but spreading them, especially. So God knew that, and so
this is part of kosher law. Funny story-- I was
overseas a few years ago, and on this particular
trip, I went with a buddy who
had not traveled out of the United States. So that's even more fun just to
watch what he thinks about some of those places, smells,
temperatures, food. And we were in India, and
at first, he was just like, come on. Bring it on. I'll eat anything. And you don't do that in India. He got dysentery on that trip. So we were there
about two weeks. That got cured. He left India with me. We went to Egypt. The food doesn't look
a whole lot different. And he was just a
little bit skittish, but he ate a few things. But now, he's eating
less and less, and then we finally
made it to Israel. And I remember him just
saying, you know what? Just find me a bag
of potato chips. I'm not going to eat
any of this food. I said, here, you
don't have to worry. Here, things are
kosher, and there's a very strict rabbinical
law of cleanliness instituted in Leviticus. Eat what you want in
these Jewish quarter, in the Jewish
sections we were at. So God knew that, and
a very interesting book or a very interesting
author named Dr. S. H. Kellogg said this. And I'm quoting him, "One
of the greatest discoveries of modern science is the fact
that a large number of diseases to which animals are liable
are due to the presence of low forms of parasitic life. To such diseases, those which
are unclean in their feeding will be especially exposed." And he goes on to say, "That's
why God said certain animals can and cannot be eaten." So in this article that I
was reading in this book, he then went forward
to 14th century Europe during the Black Plague when
people were dying like crazy, and he said, "Long ago, as in
the days when the plague was desolating Europe,
the Jews universally escaped infection,
which brought suspicion that they were
poisoning the wells and the springs in Europe." True story. The Jews were spared. Why? Because of this, because
of eating kosher, because of the laws
that God had given. And that caused the
other people who were non-Jewish to view with
suspicion the Jewish population of Europe back then
and say, these Jews are poisoning our wells. It's their fault. Now, we get to
chapter 16 and 17. I'm going to call this "the
laws of national sanctity." In this section of
Leviticus, we're at the very heart of the book. It is the theological hub
of the book of Leviticus. And the question these two
chapters answer is, how can we be one nation under God? You know we say that about
America, one nation under God? Israel in the wilderness truly
was one nation under God, and God gave them laws. And these two chapters
formed the theological hub of Leviticus. What do I mean? Well, there is a thing called
"the Day of Atonement." By the way, next week-- I think it's Wednesday-- will be the 2018 Yom
Kippur, Day of Atonement. Right now, we're
at Rosh Hashana. There's 10 days between
Rosh Hashana, the new year, to Yom Kippur called
"Days of Repentance." So this deals with
the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement, Yom
Kippur, was a special day, one day a year in which sin
nationally was dealt with, nationally was dealt with. These two chapters are like the
Isaiah chapter 53 of the Torah. These recalled days of awe. Yom Kippur was not a joyful day. It was a mournful day. It was a day of introspection. It was a day of meditation. It was a day of
confession of sin. Nobody said, merry Yom
Kippur, happy Yom Kippur. It wasn't happy. It was mournful. It was the one day a
year, and still is, when Orthodox Jews fast
for a period of 25 hours, a whole day. Why 25? You want to make sure
they cover the entire day. So the 10 days between
these two festivals-- Rosh Hashanah, beginning
of the new year, Yom Kippur, those 10 days-- are called days of repentance. What happened? The high priest bathed. The high priest dressed in
special ceremonial garb. He sacrificed a bull, sacrificed
a ram, and took two goats, and that's where we get
into chapter 16 and 17. The first goat was killed. It was killed because
that one goat-- the blood was a
substitute for the nation. It was receiving the punishment
of the nation for their sin so that the nation
wouldn't have to die. The second goat is
called the scapegoat. I'm sure you've heard of that. If you haven't heard of
the biblical scapegoat, you've heard of the
modern idiom we'll say, you're using me as a scapegoat. This where it comes from. It was the second
goat on Yom Kippur, and the priest walked
up to it, laid his hands on the head of the
goat, confessed the sins of the nation. So it was like all
of the sins were being transferred to the goat. Then the goat went
into the wilderness. Chapter 16, verse 21, "And
Aaron lay both his hands on the head of the live
goat, confessed over at the iniquities of the
children of Israel, all their transgressions"--
that would take a while-- "concerning all their
sins, putting them on the head of the
goat, and sent it away into the wilderness by
the hand of a suitable man." I've been in Judea before,
and I had the privilege of getting in a Jeep. And I was taken out of Jerusalem
through the Judean desert, through the foothills,
to the stations to where they would have fires
that would be signal fires to watch the scapegoat
go in the wilderness. So they would let it
go in the wilderness. Once it got out of
sight, the priest would wave back to the guy
upon the little pinnacle. He'd light his fire. The guy in the next
pinnacle, a little higher up, closer to Jerusalem,
would see that fire. He'd light his fire. The guy on the pinnacle a
little bit closer to Jerusalem, higher up, would let his
fire, all the way back to the city of Jerusalem. When the people in the city-- in the temple when
that was built-- when they saw that the scapegoat
had vanished from sight, all the people in the temple
jumped and shouted praises to God as if to say,
our sins are taken away. Now, quickly, the scapegoat is
the hope of the new covenant. It's the hope of
the new covenant. What I mean by that? Well, this happened every what? Day of Atonement happened
every year, every year, every year, just like there's
a sacrifice or two every day, and there's festivals every
few months, every year. This happened every year, every
year, every year, every year, year after year, generation
after generation. But Jeremiah 31
predicts a new covenant. Jeremiah 31, "I will make
a new covenant with Israel. I will forgive their
iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." It anticipates a time
in the future where it won't be like the
covenant of the law anymore, having to do
this over and over again, but God will take their sin
and remove it completely, not cover it over-- that's what the blood of
sacrifices animals did. It just sort of
covered it over-- but remove it completely. The scapegoat Jesus
Christ, once and for all, would take the sin away. That's the new covenant. Leviticus 17 explains why. Why was all this done? In fact, why all the
blood in this book? Why every chapter-- it's about
blood and sacrifice and priests going through the ritual. Verse 11 of chapter
17 explains why. "For the life of the
flesh is in the blood, and I have given it
to you upon the altar to make atonement
for your souls. For it is the blood that
makes atonement for the soul." So blood was sacred. Why? Because blood was its life. The animal's life is its
blood, so the basis of approach is by blood. Now, this tells us
something about the law, and I think you really
get it from Leviticus. The purpose the law
is not to show us how approachable God is,
but exactly the opposite. The purpose of the
law is to show us how unapproachable God is. You just don't hop
in and go, hi, God. It's me. Pow, dead. You have to go to a priest. You have to bring a sacrifice. It has to be done a certain way. Every little detail has to be
in place for that to happen. If you don't approach
God with blood, then what do you approach God with? What do you got? See, this is the
thing, and when I have conversations with Jewish
friends, I bring this up. Hey, you guys don't
have sacrifice anymore. When's the last time
you brought a Levitical sacrifice to a temple and
had it killed for your sin? What do you do about your sin? You know what the
answer of most people is, most religious people? Good works. Good works. I try hard. I try to outweigh more
good works than bad works. That's religion. Religion is about
earning your way to God, praying your way to God,
sweating your way to God, making a pilgrimage
to please God. The gospel is, trust
your way to God. Just by simple faith,
believe in the lamb slain for your sin, Jesus Christ. Trust in Him. He'll take it away. It's not by your works. It's by what He has done. So chapter 1 through 17, the
way to God through sacrifice. Now, chapters 18 through
27 is the second part, a walk with God through--
what's the word I gave you?-- sanctification, sanctification. What does "sanctification" mean? "Holiness," "holiness"
or "to be set apart." I heard somebody shout that out. Thanks for the shout-out. Holiness is paramount. You know why? Because God knows the truth
that you and I need to know. Holiness is your
key to happiness. Holiness is your key to-- I want to be a happy person. Get holy. Pursue the Lord. Seek first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness, not yours, His, and all these
things will be added unto you. If you want a happy
life, live a holy life. That's sanctification. Leviticus chapter 19, verse
1, "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to 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 the word "holy"-- [HEBREW] in Hebrew is what
somebody shouted out-- "set apart"-- it's for a particular use. It doesn't mean that you wear
a halo, that you float off the ground, that you
have a beatific smile. That's not holiness. That's just goofiness. It just means you are set apart. Your life is now pushed
over into one corner to be used for God's
purpose and for God's glory. That's holiness. Example-- at home, I
have a dish or a vessel called a French press. You that are coffee aficionados,
you know what that is, right? It's a little carafe. Mine's made out of glass,
has a little filter in it. You push it down. It does separates the beans and
puts the beans in the water. Good coffee. Now, my French
press unit is holy. What I mean by that is
I don't put tea bags in my French press. I don't do hot
chocolate in that. I save it for the holy bean. I put coffee beans ground a
certain way in my French press. It is set apart for
a particular purpose. So for instance, in
Exodus chapter 40, there are holy utensils,
holy garments, holy altars, holy basins. That's the idea, so the best
idea for us when God is saying, I want you to be
holy, be different. Be different from the world. So what do you
mean, be different? Be a nonconformist. I remember when I was younger-- compared to a tree,
I am young, so-- but when I was younger,
I prided myself in being a nonconformist. And I discovered that the most
nonconformist person anybody could be in this world
is to be a Christian. You are swimming in the opposite
direction of this world. You want to be a
nonconformist, and that's how God wants you to live. Don't conform to this world,
it says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So be a nonconformist, and
that's the idea of holiness. Another way to think of holiness
or being holy is being whole, W-H-O-L-E. Wholeness is a
good way to look at holiness. Somebody whose whole
is complete, mature, well-rounded-- a holy person is that
kind of a person. What's the first
step to holiness? It's called repentance. You're going your
way, the world's way. You're going one direction. God says, stop. Turn around. Go my way. That's the first step toward
being different from the world. So chapters 18 through
20 deal with moral laws and consequences for
breaking the moral laws, chapter 21 and 22, more
regulations for the priest, more regulations for the
high priest, the big kahuna. Chapter 23 are regulations
about annual festivals, annual feasts. Now, I want to bring
the plane down a little bit again because,
when we deal with some of the ancient feasts,
there's principles here about our celebration,
our going to church. Chapter 23, verse 1, "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'"-- look at this-- "'these
are my feasts.'" Lord, I'm going to go to church. I'm going to my church. God's saying, it's My church. Every church that bears
the name of Christ and preaches the true
gospel is His church. It's not your church. It's His church. I'm going to-- for me
to go this is my time. God's saying it's
My feast, My time. Go down to verse 40. Now, we're talking
about one of the feasts. This is the Feast of
Tabernacles or Booths. Remember how they would
camp out for a week. It's in the fall. "And you shall take for
yourself on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees,
branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees,
the willows of the brook." Now watch this. "And you shall"-- what? That's a commandment. "You shall rejoice before the
Lord your God for seven days." I want you to have
a party for a week. That's why the kids love
this week in Israel. It's like, we're camping out. We're going to have a
party for seven days. And God gives a command,
"You shall rejoice." Boy, I wish Christians
would underline that verse in Leviticus and make
that one of our life verses. To be around some
church folks, you think you are
witnessing an autopsy. It's like, I'm a Christian. I'm dead. I have no emotion. I'm serious. I'm sober. Get over it. Be happy. Rejoice. Man, we have all the reason
that the world doesn't have to be rejoicing, joyful people. Worship isn't an obligation. Did you know that 18 times in
the book of Psalms, 18 times, it says, make a joyful shout,
or, make a joyful noise? That's, again, a
command that God gives. And I've noticed the
bars have this saying. I've driven by bars for years. I always notice that same
goofy sign, happy hour. When is happy hour anyway? Anybody know? I'm not trying-- you thought
I was trying to bust you, didn't you? OK, OK, I kind of was, but
they call it happy hour. That's not happy hour. There's nothing happy
about that hour. I'm in a bar for an hour. That's not happy. Church ought to be happy hour. This is happy hour. Charles Spurgeon
said, "Our happy God should be worshipped
by a happy people. A cheerful people is in
keeping with his nature." Now, we discover something else. We discover that
holiness is practical. Chapters 25 and 26-- see, we're almost at
the end of the book-- is so practical. It gives you laws on how
to treat workers, people that you have to employ
for a period of time to get them out of
debt, how to treat them, how to relieve debt in the
tribes and in the culture, and how to let the land
recover, the farmland after it's been plowed and reaped for a
number of years, which takes us to a chapter 25, verse 8, which
brings up an interesting word called "the year of jubilee." Now, the word "jubilee,"
our word "jubilee" comes from a Hebrew
word [HEBREW].. Can you hear that in there? Jubilee, [HEBREW]? [HEBREW] literally means
"a ram" because a trumpet was a ram's horn. Excuse me. I have to go here in the
aisle of the airplane to get the ram's horn. So this is a-- it's called a "shofar," right? You've seen one of these? Usually, the real
ones are short. They just sell these big ones in
Israel because they look cool, and they know Americans
will buy them. So this was the trumpet
that was raised, and on the year of
jubilee, year of freedom, the year of release, the
ram's horn was blown, year of jubilee. By the way, next Wednesday,
Yom Kippur also was a-- and as soon as it was done, it
was a time to blow the shofar. So should I do it? Yes. [HORN BLOWS] That's it. "Shofar," so good. So the year of jubilee-- as we bring this to a
close, the year of jubilee was a way of bringing
equity back to the land. Verse 8, "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 49 years." So 49 years-- the next
year is the jubilee. "Then you shall cause the
trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the 10th
day of the seventh month on the Day of
Atonement," so we got to do it again next Wednesday. "You shall make the trumpet to
sound throughout all your land, and you shall
consecrate the 50th 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." So the way of
getting the land back to the tribes that was
lost because of debt that was incurred
was every 50th year, you push the reset button. It goes back to the tribe. It's a do-over. Interesting thought--
not only were all slaves free on the jubilee
year, all debts were canceled, and the land reverted back
to its original owner. I read that jubilee years have
been recorded since 1393 BC-- that's when they started
counting these 49-plus-one cycles-- and that Jesus, when He went
into the synagogue in Nazareth, spoke His little sermon
from Isaiah chapter 61 in the year of jubilee, which
would be very interesting because the wording is this. "The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal
the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord." And then he closed
the book and said, that is fulfilled
in your hearing. He came to set
the captives free. Thank you, 10 who
like that truth. Chapter 26 is the iffy chapter. The word "if" is used a lot. If you do this, if you do that,
if you do this, if you do that, then I'll do this,
and I'll do that. So it's the iffy chapter. The word "if" occurs nine
times, the words "I will"-- that is God saying He'll do
something because of it-- 24 times. Now, Leviticus ends, and it
ends with, in Chapter 27, heartfelt worship. When you want to dedicate
something to God, you don't have to do it. You just want to do it. It's like, I'm going
to give this to God. I don't need this. This is extra. I want to just give
it to the Lord. Verse 1, "Now the
Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the
children of Israel. Say to them, when a man
consecrated by vow certain persons to the Lord, according
to your valuation'"-- verse 14-- "and 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"-- verse 28, it says, "no
devoted offering"-- that's that free-will offering--
"no devoted offering that a man may devote to the Lord
of all that he has, both man and beast or
field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Every devoted offering is
most holy to the Lord." Go down to the last
verse, verse 34. "These are the commandments
which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of
Israel on Mount Sinai." What God is saying is, I want
worship that is voluntary. I want you to want to do it. I don't like people
who try to pump it up. Come on. You ought to be worshipping. Just, if you're not into
it, then just maybe, you're having a bad day. Maybe you found a
horrible diagnosis, so you're not as happy feeling. That's OK. Still, even if it's a little
bit, just rejoice in the Lord and tell him you trust him, even
if you're in a very weak state. But it should be voluntary,
and I've had bad experiences with people who try to
orchestrate worship and pump it up like a bad tire. Now, by the New Testament
times, this practice of devoting things to
the Lord got weird. It's called "korban." Ever heard that term? Mark chapter 10-- Jesus
nailed the Pharisees on this. He said, the fifth
commandment says, honor your father and your
mother, but if you say, korban-- that is, dedicated to God-- you get out of honoring
your mom and dad. So you could say,
well, you know what? My couch, that's korban. I've dedicated it to God. That shofar, don't touch that. I dedicated that to God. My 18 BMWs-- korban. I've dedicated to God. So your parents say,
gosh, you've got 18 BMWs, and I'm starving. Oh, mom and dad, I'd love
to help you and give you one of my cars, but I
dedicated them all to God. And I dedicated all my food to
God and all my money to God, so you're out of luck
because that's God's. See how it got weird? So Jesus said, you are
dishonoring your father and mother because of that law. Now, how did it get so wonky? As time went on, something
called the oral law emerged, and one of the sayings
in the oral law was this. "The words of the scribes are
more lovely than the words of the law." That's the tendency
of any movement, any religious
expression, is to let the sayings or the
ideas of man usurp the authority of
the Word of God, and I pray this
church always stays tethered to the Word of God. So as we close
tonight, I just want to ask you a quick question. Are you like my French press? Have you dedicated
your life to the Lord? Do you belong to Him? Are you set apart for His glory? Are you holy? Are you walking with
Him in holiness? Father, as we close
tonight, we thank You for the truths that are
in this book, quoted over a hundred times in the
new covenant, the New Testament writings. And so Lord, even though
these rituals are far gone-- they're not even in practice
today, many of them, most of them-- still, we see the greater truth. They're not just reparatory
for a people then. They're anticipatory
of a brand new covenant that the writer of Hebrews says
is much better than the old, but we're thankful that
we can at least gain a working knowledge to know why. So Lord, I pray that these
truths would enrich our lives and we'd walk away with
the voluntary worship in our hearts, a joy in our
hearts, because of who You are and what You've done. In Jesus' name, amen. We hope you enjoyed this message
from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Church. For more resources,
calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from The Bible from 30,000 Feet.
