Leviticus Session 2 of 16 (Chapter 1) with Chuck Missler

[Music] well we're studying the book called bayakara which in the hebrew means and he called it comes from the first few words of the book in other words it is a book that's really labeled the called and if you're in christ then you are the called paul will tell you in romans 8 28 remember for all things work together for good to them who are the call according to his word and so on it's an incredible book um i'm always reminded of the insight that socrates himself one of the greek highly venerated greek thinkers he said it may be that deity can forgive sins but i don't see how and that remark that he did 500 years bc was very very perceptive he recognized the contradiction of a holy god who could not violate his righteousness for giving sins but the answer to that of course is given by john the baptist in the early first chapter of the gospel of john where he introduces jesus christ he says behold the lamb of god that taketh away the sin of the world that's god's climactic plan through all the universe and it's interesting to discover that the book of leviticus every detail of it points to that in some way all these rituals all these things we're going to look at in one way or another illuminate the implications of what god did for you and i and for himself on that cross just as we have a predicament god had one too it's interesting that uh this book leviticus is so widely ignored by christians we study the new testament those of us that graduate and get some founding in the old testament even then still tend to skip over this book of ancient rituals and what have you and yet paul includes it in his observation where he says whatsoever things were written before time were written for our learning that we threw the comfort and patients of the scriptures might have hope it's in that spirit that we jump in it's interesting that the lord himself makes an illusion of this in effect remember when he pointed out that man shall not live by bread alone but by what but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god here is a book that is almost totally a direct transcription of what god told moses so it's all through the bible we have prophets telling us this that and the other thing and so but here we have god telling moses that's that's the way the book presents itself and it deals with the very core of god's plan every detail does and of course this the first thing we encounter in this book are the sacrifices again we tend to uh so easily dismiss these as ancient rituals but uh these sacrifices codified of course the levitical system in the torah they were instituted i believe as early as when garden of eden yes i believe these when adam and eve were expelled from the garden god made a provision for their sin even then when he took away the the coats of fig leaves and gave them coats of skins teaching them that by the shedding of innocent blood they would be covered and you can't infer that just from that little illusion there in genesis 3 21 but as you read the rest of the torah and come back to that you realize it's all part of the plan and in fact unless you understand that the following chapter you know adams follows in chapter three of genesis in chapter four this whole business between cain and abel hangs on the fact that abel gave an offering in accordance to the specifications we get we get uh sidetracked because we know that abel was a shepherd and the other was a and kane was a you know a farmer and that wasn't the issue the issue was that abel gave an offering as god had specified and cain was giving him an offer uh offering of uh the fruits of of his labor from a cursed ground and uh that created the tension which of course resulted in that murder but one of the key verses in the book of leviticus we'll be confronted with again and again again uh is summarized in leviticus 17 11 for the life of the flesh is in the blood and i've given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is that blood that maketh an atonement for the soul the word atonement widely misunderstood it is it really means to cover not to remove the word atonement occurs 45 times in this book let's not confuse the atoning blood on that altar with the that don't confuse that with what it really points to the only offering that can uh make uh provide for remission of sins is is the blood of jesus christ and this is it it affects because god is in effect able to look at that in anticipation of the cross blood is the forefront is blood is the substance of life and sin is the forfeiture of life so the shedding of blood is just intimately tied up in its significations with with uh the sin problem the shedding of innocent blood itself couldn't change a person's heart and that's really what it's about and he and the shedding of the the blood of bulls and goats does not take away sin in hebrews chapter 10 is your commentary on this whole area but god did state that the sins of the worshipper offering these offerings would be forgiven and he says that all through in in in leviticus in chapter four he mentions it one two three four times in in chapter five he mentions it four times and so forth um but he does this on the basis of an anticipation of the sacrifices of jesus on the cross now six different specific offerings could be brought to the altar in fact if you go into some jewish encyclopedias they really list almost 20 of them but most of them are just very slight variations of a basic six each one of these six different offerings will instruct us would teach us something distinctive and essential about christ and his sacrifice and your behalf and mine every one of these offerings speaks to implications of the cross they can be classified as just a review from last time in three categories the first category deals with the commitment to god and your first reaction is well it speaks of our commitment to god yes it can but the primary things it demonstrates or it speaks to christ's commitment to the mission for his father the burnt offering the greater meal offering and the drink offering are in that category they speak of total dedication to the lord and that has two elements of course that christ was our example in terms of his total commitment to his mission and of course as as we worship that also teaches us something about what real consecration is all about so the first three of the six speak of our commitment to god the next one is called the fellowship offering often called the peace offering some of the names that we label these with from the king james translations are not as descriptive as we might like when we speak of the meat offering i said well king james term for meat really meant meal or grain offering so we have the burnt offering and the what i'll call the grain offering or meal offering called meat offering in the king james and the drink offering those three offerings are um dealing with our commitment to the lord the communion with god is the peace offering or more pro better called the fellowship offering we'll deal with that of course when we get there and then the last two again are the sin offering and the guilt offering or trespass offerings it's called the king james we'll obviously take each one of these as we go through the first seven chapters but we're going to start with the most basic of them all the most frequent of them all the most fundamental one obviously is the burnt offering as it's called it's the oldest offering known to man it was the offering that abel noah and abraham are recorded as offering it's mentioned first in leviticus because of its prominence and its priority it's the only offering made by those who wanted to approach god it's called the ola in hebrew which means that which ascends its distinctive aspect is that it was totally consumed and went up in smoke it literally it literally went up in smoke we use that as an expression that fits this perfectly it was totally consumed nothing remained but ashes it's the only one of that kind see this is and also reveals what god sees in christ in leviticus chapter 1 verse 9 13 and 17 the sacrifice is described as a sweet savor unto the lord a sweet smelling saber literally by that's what's translated it's sweet-smelling savor is in your king james it literally means a a savor of rest a soothing uh quieting tranquilizing scent fragrance or aroma which stays his wrath and calms his soul as sort of the image it's presenting and that's exactly what paul picks up in ephesians chapter five verse two he says then in advocates that we walk in love as christ also have loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god for a sweet smelling savor same same idea there we find that same expression used after noah's flood when the the the there was arrest described in genesis 8 21. the flood of noah is really worth studying in this regard because it's interesting to focus for a moment on the time that the flood ended the flood ended in in genesis 8 verse 4 on the 17th day of the seventh month and it's one of those strange details the holy spirit puts there why well if you do your homework you discover that jesus christ when he was resurrected that was our new beginning god had a new beginning on the planet earth under when the at the after the flood of noah and he had and we have a new beginning in christ on the on the resurrection desk where we we choose to worship on sunday well it's interesting that that sunday morning was the 17th of nisan which is the seventh month of the old calendar in exodus 12 god gives them a new calendar it has them make the seventh month in the sun being the the uh the first month of the it becomes that that's the jew as jews we have two calendars the original calendar which is what i'll call the genesis calendar in which it starts at rosh hashanah uh in the fall in uh first of history but the seventh month is nissan and that's the the month of passover that's and they're instructed to make that the first month when you go through all that it turns out that the flood of noah came to an end on the anniversary in advance of our new beginning in christ and when you discover those little things you begin to realize the integrity of design in the scripture in any case a sweet savor a sweet smelling savor that's god saying in effect that he's satisfied with what jesus did for your sins and mine he paid it all he can save you to the uttermost by that sacrifice the question is it's satisfying god is it satisfying to us do we want to add something to that are we really satisfied with that is the issue now the whole sacrifice had to involve death it was not the spotless life of christ and our approval of him that saves us only as death can do that and this is the very definition of the gospel we use that term gospel all the time but it's defined for you in first corinthians 15 verses one through four we've gone through that many times and that how the christ died for our sins according to the scriptures he was buried he rose again the third day according to the scriptures his death is the the thing that makes it possible for you and i to be saved and his qualifications for that death which of course i wouldn't demean let's move on okay let's just jump in leviticus that's all that's all sort of a warm up in the review from last time let's jump into leviticus chapter one verse one and the lord called that gives the book its name and the lord called unto moses ah let me back up so you'll get confused that's the hebrew name for it the septuagint translators contrived a word in the greek to represent the levites since the book is so full of not only the priests but also the levites the levites is a broader term you had to be a levite to be a priest but not all levites were priests you had to be a descendant of aaron so you have all the levites and within within that the priest but there's much in this book of course it focuses on that and for that reason the greek translators labeled the book leviticus which is where we get our english label for it anyway the lord called unto moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation saying and he goes on most of this book is literally quotes from god himself he's now no longer speaking from the mountain he's speaking from the tabernacle from the mountain moses got it comes down and has his ten commandments and he also has specifications for this portable sanctuary that we call the tabernacle and they built it put it together and uh when that was assembled and sanctified god speaks to moses out of the tabernacle okay and he's the direct speaker the lord spake unto moses this is actually said 56 different times in the 27 chapters but in front of us this book is made up almost entirely of direct quotes more than any other book of the bible okay verse 2 god says speak unto the children of israel and say unto them if any man of you bring an offering unto the lord you shall bring your offering of the cattle even of the herd and of the flock if any man you know realize the openness of this any person anyone at any time could bring a an offering this is a another way of saying whosoever will may come there are two types of animals that are specified here for the burnt offering animals of the herd are cattle and of the flock are sheep that's what the terminology really means so we're talking cattle or sheep what is excluded here are any animals of prey or carnivorous animals see it wouldn't do to have an animal that lives by the death of others to typify christ every detail this is intended to typify or point to uh jesus christ who became a ransom of course for all of us and a further restriction was that the animal had to be a clean animal and it had to be domesticated it was not an animal it could be taken in the hunt only that which was valuable and dear to its owner would operate here and again because it prefigures christ god spared not who his own son each of these by the way are also horned animals and in the ancient uh vernacular here or or vocabulary a horn symbolized power and authority what's also going to be portrayed here as we go forward is jesus of course suffered on the cross but the father also suffered in heaven that loss was not you know removed it was there a final restriction on these animals is that the animal has one that had to be obedient to man and christ was of course the obedient service a servant he came to minister and was obedient unto death we're going to discover there are six parts to the to every blood ritual the presentation the laying on of the hand the killing of the victim then the sprinkling of the blood and then the burning those five will be present in the burned offerings in the rest of them there's a sixth element called the sacrificial meal there's no sacrificial meal with this one because it all gets burned up some of the others they burn part of it and they they feast on part of it not here everything this is 100 goes up and each one of these offerings that we're going to look at in the book of leviticus will have distinctives in it that will point to its unique features it's it's it's unique signification anyway let's go to verse three if his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd let him offer a male without blemish he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the lord sacrificed to be a male without blemish and this of course too speaks of the second adam just as the first by the first adam came as death by sin the second animal deal with that and that's exactly the way the book of romans breaks that up and we go through a lot of verses on that but i think that's familiar vocabulary to most of us it has to be without blemish it has to be the most perfect of its kind god claims the best that we have it's impossible to induce impu induce purity by anything impure so this had to be perfect there's going to be uh this is all gonna be quite different in the peace offerings which will typify the effects of christ's sacrifice in the receiver which may be imperfectly experienced by the sinner even though the work itself is perfect and we'll talk about that when we get there he shall offer of his own voluntary will i want to focus on that for a minute the off-roar would bring the victim himself this is distinctive here the the guy that's bringing the offering brings the offering himself the hebrew phrase that's translated of his voluntary will and indeed it was but that's not really what the hebrew expresses the hebrew phrase there is better rendered that he may be accepted before the lord and see by by his bringing this offering he is signifying his acceptance of god's arrangements here he's not just bringing the offering he's also in effect putting himself under god's program no one can do this for anyone else you couldn't have a friend or a father or a son or something bring an offering on your behalf not this kind of offering this is something you had to do for yourself and the same thing is true of our reception and acceptance of jesus christ we have to do it personally and this of course as one commentator puts it says this is free will with a vengeance it's equivalent to the term that jesus used in john seven if any man thirst let him come it's an open door for anyone that would participate anyone can choose to come to christ if he so chooses you don't have to come to christ but if you want to be saved you will have to come to christ there's no other way you say that well gee that sounds pretty dogmatic and pretty narrow yes it is but it works and uh god made the place and he makes the rules the door and you brought the offering to the door of the tabernacle it was the only way in if you want to come to god you must come this one way because that's what god has established the tabernacle had just this one entrance and that's where you had to go and you don't come to god on the basis of your righteousness you're going to come to god on the basis of an innocent victim paying the way our righteousness is what filthy rags is the king james translation the hebrew term implies used menstrual cloths that's graphic isn't it that's our righteousness and so you have to come to him you have to come to god in his terms not our own you can't work for it you can't buy it but it's free for the receiving through faith in christ verse 4 and he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him this is an act of designation as kellogg put it so well i think this symbolizes a transfer according to god's merciful provision of an obligation to suffer for sin from the offeror to the innocent victim henceforth the victim stood in the offeror's place and was dealt with accordingly putting the hands on the offering was a signified a transfer of responsibility the opera was thus confessing that he had that he deserved to die the little animal was dying in substitutionary death in the place of the offeror that's exactly what christ did for us you know we take so much of this so for granted because we've heard so many sermons on the cross and so forth this is god's demonstration of what it's really what was really going on in the cross when you designate jesus as your savior he takes your place in your stead that's exactly what second corinthians 5 21 and a bunch of other verses nailed down and the word here in the hebrew is samakh which means to lean heavily or rest upon it did he you he leaned his hand on the head it was it implied it was it was a reliance if you will on that it's the same word that's used in psalm 88 7 to actually lean on it and again as i emphasized before but i want to emphasize again it's not possible for the blood of the bulls and goats to take away sins that's what hebrews 10 4 says only the lamb of god can take away sin but all of this prefigures that all this points forward and so the offeror having left his sins conveyed to his victim he now steps aside that's all he has to do he's done his part the treatment of the victim is god's part he's done it from here on and this all is done publicly he went down the tabernacle and the animal was slain in a public act and the sinner needs to confess christ publicly we often have an altar call that people come down but part of the whole procedure is an intent to make it a public declaration that's the primary reason for baptism today that's the real uh impact of of the the rite of baptism baptism means to be identified with and it symbolizes our identity with christ is death burial and resurrection that's the whole idiom there again emphasized by paul in his first corinthians letter well now we get to the ritual all this is a preamble now we get to the ritual and i should emphasize of course like even among the jews just like christians today much of these rituals can be very uh empty they can be just going through the motions without putting our heart in it and the same thing was true back then some of us obviously became ritualized and yet we need to be on the guard of that god doesn't want our sacrifices he wants obedience from our hearts that's really what should be going on here but there's a lot to learn from these details just as paul told us in romans 15 4 verse 5 and he shall kill the bullock before the lord and the priest who does the killing here he does aaron's son shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood round about the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation he's transferred his obligation to suffer for a sin he would bring his offering then to the entrance of the tabernacle publicly where he'd be met by the priest but the sinner himself in this case in this particular one would slay the victim there is an exception when we use birds instead we'll get to that in verses 14 and 15. there is a provision for the poor there's no excuse not to give a burnt offering because if you couldn't afford to have the cattle uh you know from from the herd or from the flock there was a provision for used birds where it's relatively obviously relatively inexpensive mary and joseph gave birth now come we'll come to that in verse 14 and 15. the sinner himself would slay the victim why to demonstrate the wages of sin what were the wages in death he has to participate in that and the presumption here too is that the offering the the innocent animal the victim is uh of dear value to the offeror not something casual not something really expendable at all that's the point so the model is really clear the innocent here is dying for the guilty and that's exactly what first peter 3 18 probably in your bible memory versus it's for christ hath also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to god and bring put to death in the flesh but be quickened by the spirit you know there's been a lot of discussion over the centuries as who is responsible for the death of christ debates usually involved whether it was the religious leaders the jews in general the romans what have you you know whose fault it really was mine my fault and yours it was our sins that put him on that cross and only the blood of christ can cleanse us from all sins and so anyway after slaying the victim the priest took over by sprinkling the blood all about the altar say gee it sounds like a mess yes it was deliberately so the term for sprinkling by the way it's tsarak which means to scatter abundantly in large quantities this wasn't a little tocal sprinkle this was intended to be a a mess very conspicuous and well just as as as the offeror relied on the priest to do all that we do too we leave it to our heavenly priests to act on our behalf before god and of course god is not the author of confusion we say that so frequently we need to really understand that it's from first corinthians 14. but everything had to be done decently and in order and it's interesting to see how it happens next the offering is now cut into pieces so that it can be totally exposed and also more easily consumed by the fire very practical in one hand and probably idiomatic in the other he's really laid open verse six he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into his pieces flayed he's totally uncovered there's a complete undoing nothing of him is protected from god's view it's interesting how the inner life of jesus christ has been on inspection for two thousand years he's been examined more than any other person in history and still the question remains did he ask who do men say that i am peter jennings can have his tv special manifesting his ignorance and we're indebted to john ankerberg and that had a two-hour video response to that by real experts but uh who do men say that i am and i deny the son of man in and cut it into his pieces verse 6 says it was a deliberate and systematic procedure every stroke relentless and determined as if there's an order to all of this verse 7 and the sons of aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar and lay the wood in order upon the fire and the priests that is aaron's sons shall lay the parts the head the fat in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar the head and the fat see one is tend to be the inward the other the outward psalm 37 20 says but the wicked shall perish and the enemies of the lord shall be as the fat of lambs and they shall consume into smoke and they shall consume away the fat really also see acts as fuel for the fire it helps the the the thing to be totally totally consumed verse 9 and his inwards and his legs shall he wash with water and the priest shall burn all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice an offering made by fire of a sweet savior unto the lord there's that phrase again see again we have the innards and the legs the inward and the outward we can't give our bodies to the service of god without our hearts or it's meaningless and the whole man must go we speak of consecration we need to understand this is really the definition of it it means to be to be consecrated means without reservation the whole person in and out the whole the whole bit that's what jesus really includes in matthew 10 28 where jesus says fear not them which can kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both the soul and the body in hell and again it's washed simply to make sure that the offering is pure it's clean it's just as christ was the just for the unjust he was taking our place all was burned that's the main thrust in this offering as distinct from the others every p every bit of it was burnt went up and spoke um the sinews the horns the bones the hoof the wool and the sheep's head the hair on the goat's beard and so forth and so on verse 10 and if his offering be of the flocks namely of the sheep or the goats for a burn sacrifice he shall bring it a male without blemish see the previous remarks are really focusing on the presumption it was a cattle or a bullock whatever here we're talking about okay if it's suppose it's a sheep or a goat again it's a male without blemish so and this of course is pretty straightforward just as it was before but it also reminds us reminds us of isaiah 53 verse 7 he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before our shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth as we it's very instructive after going through this chapter to go back and read psalm 22 read isaiah 53 and and see the titus verse 11 and he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the lord and the priests aaron's son shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar this little verse fascinates me for a number of reasons there are people that quibble about where jesus cross really stood the church of the holy sepulchre which is a traditional site picked by constantine's mother i don't know how she became an expert but anyway is on the west side of jerusalem there are some scholars that have a contrived in my opinion a list of reasons why the cross really was on the mount of olives they have their reasons for trying to suggest that primarily because it's recorded the temple veil was torn so how could they see it unless they were on the mount of olives well they may have known that without actually you know i mean that could be tied together so that to me is pretty thin the uh i believe that the the cross stood on the exact spot that abram offered isaac which was at the top of mount moriah which is a ridge system and the top of that ridge system is not the temple mount the ridge system starts at about 600 meters above sea level and it rises between two valleys the kidron valley to the east and the tropium valley on the west which is go beyond those valleys is the mount of olives on the east and the mount zion which is main part of jerusalem today on on the on the west side but the ridge system rises goes to a saddleback which is a thrashing floor scene that's where the temple is but that's not the high point that's about 741 meters above sea level you go up another 60 meters roughly it happens to be a 777 meters above sea level and that's where we have a place called golgotha that's where the cross was and uh right next to that happens to be a very a garden that has a cistern that's of a quarter of a million gallon capacity which means the whole area was under one owner and in that area it's not an area of graves in general there is a special stone grave that uh without getting into all the detail i uh i tend to believe is was not just representative really was the the tomb of jesus christ but what's interesting about that whole little excursion is you know where all that is it's on the north side of the city of jerusalem and i think it's interesting that they kill it on the side of the altar northward before the lord and the priests and so forth strange that that's there doesn't otherwise don't talk about the east south or west but it mentions the north and i think that's interesting i can make something of that i wouldn't build any big case on it i just think it's an interesting observation verse 12 and he shall cut it into his pieces with his head and his fat and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is on the altar and again we have the defenseless victim left without any kind of covering lay it open and he shall wash the inward innards and the legs with water and the priest shall bring it all and bring it all unbuilt and burn it up on the altar it is a burnt sacrifice an offering made by fire of a sweet savior to the lord cut in pieces and totally exposed the sacrifice at this point of course is totally disfigured it's a mass of disjointed bones and mangled flesh when you read the 53rd chapter of isaiah remember to start a couple of verses earlier the chapter breaks our man's division the natural division is about three verses earlier isaiah 52 13 14 15 in that area isaiah 52 14 says his visage was so marred more than any man and is formed more than the sons of men and so shall he sprinkle many nations and so on when you're familiar with the burnt offering of out of leviticus and then you read isaiah 52 and 53. the parallels are very very graphic his visage was so marred more than any man in his form more than the sons of men that translation is deliberately altered by the king james translators because they didn't think you could handle the literal translation many of your study bibles will have a footnote giving you the literal hebrew which basically says that he was beat so badly he no longer looked human and i believe that may be part of the reason you see we do know that in his resurrection body he still carries his scars the nail prints in his hand and the wound on his side are his emblems of recognition to the disciples at the on the emma's road and in the upper room and so forth to thomas he exhibits them but that all raises a strange question why do they need that couldn't they recognize him the possibility is that he still has the scar tissue of his humiliation which of course is his at this point his glory and we have this offering made by fire many people i think go too far and they try to make that fire emblematic of hell and i don't that that that does an injustice to the lord fire represents the resistless power of god which sometimes destroys as in deuteronomy 9 3 it sometimes cleanses it's like a refiner's fire it sometimes purifies malachi 3 3. it sometimes consumes in deuteronomy 4 verse 24 our god is of consuming fire which is also quoted in hebrews 12 29 so the fire i think is best understood as the power of god that one cannot resist it is it is final it's a fire is a cleansing agent purifying agent refiners fire we often sing that during our worship time the sacrifice of the burnt offering speaks to the total commitment of the chris of christ to god it speaks of his total commitment to god absolute consecration yes there's a sense in which it is an example for us but its focus is christ himself and i think the reason there is so much phoniness in christian service we all see it everywhere is that we're not serving god unless we're letting him cleanse and purify our lives that needs to be going on as a preamble and we need to deal with that we have forgotten this matter of holiness today we're so accommodated to this the grace of god that we fail to really acknowledge and recognize and deal with god's holiness and our need to be holy through him that perhaps is the the main thrust of this chapter total commitment well now we get to the a little exception here we've talked so far the bird offering is either a bullock or a a male goat or a male sheep and now we have a situation where suppose you can't afford it if you're too poor to be able to bring a burnt offering that means you what you die in your sins no no there's a provision poverty is no excuse for not bringing an offering to god he's made a provision here and what was considered the inexpensive path here of course is to use a bird bernoff if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the lord be of fouls then he shall bring his offering of turtle doves or young of young pigeons so the bird could be substituted for an a more expensive animal they were not expensive because they probably weren't they had no other economic value there's not much not much of a meal in the quail or a pigeon or something every time i think of that there was a time in our lives when we lived in the penthouse of the balboa bay club there in newport beach and it was a convenient way in our executive life to to also host people because they had a nice upscale restaurant as part of the club environs that overlooked the yacht basin and was also the location newport beach where all the big expensive yachts were and uh one of the things that they offered on their menu that was one of the popular was it was it was duck of orange and that was very often if we had guessed what they would eat well something else if you live in newport beach you also know newport beach is a peninsula that shelters seven islands in about ten thousand boats and the bane of every boat owner's existence who lives down their noses are the seagulls because you know there you can put you can put all kinds of little tags and things on your on your covering of your boat it doesn't keep away some people put plastic owls are supposed to work they don't work um and i can remember we had a storm we we later in newport beach lived right on the water had our own dock and all that and right near the entrance of the of the harbor and uh one year because of southern swell there was tremendous damage we had we took green water on the living room wall actually but they uh it tore away a lot of the a lot of the uh the the dachshund things that that stormy night i remember our neighbor two doors away a guy named irving berg deer guy um uh uh had purchased some plastic owls and gave him those neighbors because the idea was if you put that up on your little flag post that will keep the the supposed to keep the seagulls away well i can remember so vividly walking out that next morning we were all walking out on our docks to see the damage from the storm and uh our our dock had been damaged and the the flagpole had been lean over and so forth and but the owl was still attached to the top of the flagpole and i was just making a small conversation i says well irv at least one thing i'm impressed i'm oppressed with your owls i didn't realize it could sustain the form he yelled the hell from the other dog says you have never seen a jewish owl before [Laughter] but i started to say most people down there understand that the i just take for granted that pigeons are and seagulls are just a bane of a boat owner's existence and as we would whenever we had a guest especially from the newport beach area for dinner and so forth almost always they'd have some that ordered duck and when they're about halfway through i would turn the conversation and say do you ever notice down here at the balboa bay club they have all these fancy we're looking we're looking out the window all these fancy yachts do you ever notice that around the balboa bay club there's never any seagulls they would be eating their duck they'd stop for a minute and think about that and because most people down there know those two facts have never connected the dots they're never any seagulls on the balboa and the reason is of course is because boats are coming and going all night there's always activities so they don't really but it uh it was always fun to watch them connect the uh which has got absolutely nothing to do with this verse but but but anyway birds uh were in their economy more available more inexpensive and so they were the the uh the offering of of choice i should put it that way i guess for the poor and the indigent in fact mary and joseph we observe offered foul in their offerings which indicates they were obviously of very very poor uh people the hebrew word here by the way actually uh is um ben yonah you wanna like jonah jonah means dove banjona is the son of the dove the hebrew word here is the son of the dove and he he too had to be a male by the way it's interesting that it was the dove that after the flood brought the olive branch the message of peace there's always an identity of the dove with with peace because of the olive branch with noah and so forth also in in the in the new testament um idioms we use the the dove also as an emblem of the holy spirit because of his appearance uh at jesus baptism so it all ties together obviously as a as a piece i want to say peace offering because that's a whole different category we're going to study but here here the turtle doves or the young pigeons uh could be misconstrued as a visa we know this is a burnt offering this is totally consumed in fact verse 15. the priest shall bring it to the altar and ring it off itself now in this case it's the priest that does the execution but that's an exception normally the burnt offering it's the off-roar that comes and exit executes the the victim if it's a bird the priest does it rings off its head putting this violent stroke on this p emblem of peace and burns it on the altar so in the blood thereof shall be rung out at the side of the altar deliberately portraying it the awful violence done to something so tender so pure so lovely and again we're reminded of isaiah 53 9 he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth the contrast between the emblem of peace and the violence done to it is intentional it's intentional see one thing comes through if you're actually in this culture you're actually experiencing these things happening it's a continual reminder of the awfulness of sin that i the whole concept that sin has to be paid for it can't be winked at can't be sluffed over it had to be dealt with and the dealing with it was involved death and the shedding of blood verse 16 and he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers and cast it beside the altar on the east part by the place of the ashes the crop which contains the food seems to be considered unclean because it is an emblem of appetites and the feathers are removed because they are covering of the doves they strip away the covering in effect verse 17 he shall cleave it with the wings thereof but shall not divide it asunder and the priest shall burn it upon the altar upon the wood that is upon the fire it is a burnt sacrifice an offering made by fire of a sweet savior into the lord the cleaving the word is shakka in the hebrew it implies a separation that's not complete it's a term we would use as like a dislocation uh not a disruption of the parts and it's it's correlated with the clause that he in fact he says it right here but shall not divide it asunder and this is uh also echoes john 19 the cross says for these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled a bone of him should not be broken in exodus chapter 12 at the passover in exodus 12 we have moses receiving instructions for that original passover in egypt and uh in verse 2 46 of chapter 12 that they're not to break a bone of the passover lamb let's echo it again in numbers 9 verse 12. it even shows up in psalm 22 14 and psalm 34 20 not a bone of him should be broken that identity is preserved in at least four places in the old testament and of course as we said earlier the sweet savor was the very reason for the sacrifice and this is what god sees in jesus christ so you can actually get very strict in the understanding of this and recognize that this points to jesus christ and from god's point of view what he sees in christ the whole sacrifice was burned i'm hammering that because that is the main distinctive of this particular bloody sacrifice as opposed to some of the others that we'll be looking at this ritual was an outward right corresponding to an inward experience this was intended to be an act of worship not with some casual words not with just some raised hands and some very poetic comments from a song we call that worship and i'm not disparaging it don't misunderstand me this worship was vivid this was these were real live animals that were precious to the off-roar it represented a a very meaningful commitment on his part it involved the death of something dear this is an act of worship intense worship very painful worship but subtly here it was not so much christ representing his people in his atoning death that's going to come later in one of the other offerings it's more a question of christ representing his people in perfect consecration and entire self-surrender to god in a word perfect obedience that's really what we should be carrying away from this christ's perfect obedience to his to the father he's become the perfect example of what consecration to god really is it's not part you can't consecrate your right hand or your left hand or this or that it's either all if it or nothing if you're if you're serious about it now we're gonna uh uh we'll we'll set the burnt offering aside after this chapter we're gonna take it up again in chapter six in the sense of the priest in chapter six we're going to uh six and seven we're gonna deal with uh laws that have to do with the sacrifices broadly involving the priests if you and i were in that in israel in those days we might bring an offering to the tabernacle doors as described here on behalf of ourselves and we could do that whenever we felt like it whenever it wasn't it could be at any time the place of course was in the tabernacle door but it was our at our voluntary commitment that's the whole spirit of what's going on in addition to that the priests offered burnt offerings on behalf of the nation see we offered it we take we'd go through this whole routine that we just talked about on the basis of ourselves we'd bring our lamb or whatever and and and kill it and as a as our worship to to uh to god on our behalf the priests were the representative of the nation and so they offered it continually in the morning and at night the fire never went out and they were doing burnt offerings continually because on on behalf of the nation it was not occasional it was continuous in fact as one commentator puts it every morning we should imitate the priest of old in putting away all that might dull the flame of our devotion and morning by morning when we arise and evening by evening when we retire by a solemn act of self-consecration we should give ourselves a new to the lord you see we're all uh results of this altar call mentality and i'm not disparaging it i just trying to highlight some limitations we go to some big meeting on a weekend or on an evening and we have a wonderful message by an articulate spokesman for the god who ends up eliciting from us a commitment to receive jesus christ and we respond to that and we go down as i sometimes call it go down the sawdust trail down the tent down to the stadium floor or whatever it is to to to make that commitment and there's some very disturbing statistics about that and i haven't checked them myself but i know uh my dear friend ray comfort has quite a message about this because he's taken the trouble to get into the statistics and uh if you do a study of these big evangelistic moves you'll often discover that one year later only a very small percentage of those people are going to church now there's another side to that there are many people that worship and have a have a time of fellowship without necessarily staying with a sunday morning model that's a whole another thing we can talk a little bit about there's a lot of people that prefer just to meet in homes during the week leave the weekends free for family projects and they still they still us and they're serious they're not it's not that they're immature they're quite the kind they're very mature they just have preferred a a a different model of their of their walk but but the point of getting back to the the evangelistic call the tragedy of it in my mind is a uh it's it's a little uh problematic as to what the real fruit of that is but many many people make their decision there and that bears fruit for uh further and that's great um but there's another thing i'm really driving at there's a tendency for us as christians to celebrate that receiving of christ as some kind of climax and that has that has its justifications but it also has its dangers because it should be a beginning not an ending it's a launching not a not a climax i often ask a large audience you know how many of you are saved and virtually obviously all the hands go up it's a politically correct response in the context i usually ask then i follow up with the questions okay great what have you done with it you're saved you say you're saved great i'm saying in effect prove it james hammers that in his epistle yeah you say you have faith i want to see your faith by your works it's not that your works that save you it's your works that demonstrates you really have the faith that says and that's what as as we as we plunge into the book of leviticus as we try to appropriate the what god has for us in these in these ancient rituals part of what we'll discover i'm getting ahead of this a little because this really comes up more in chapter six when the priests deal with but this whole idea of a burnt offering was done morning and night i'm not saying we should obviously our offering was jesus christ on the cross and we appropriate that ourselves but we but in our own act of consecration self-consecration that's not a once and for all thing that's a moment-by-moment continual renewal and every morning every night and often during the day i it's the time i i enjoy when i'm driving sometimes you have a drive it's a neat play you're by yourself you can sing no one has to laugh at your not billy key you can you can uh just talk to the lord share with me how you're feeling about stuff and he wants to hear and but whenever the point is but certainly when you first get up in the morning and retire at night it's it's scriptural to indulge in a very solemn act of self-consecration we renew ourselves once again to the lord see the whole this whole uh study is intended to understand god's heart leviticus gives us i think an essential glimpse into his heart and he changes not god doesn't change now to sort of tie off this chapter we find the distinctions of clean and unclean um in noah's day you may hear you may hear me uh emphasize that a lot but i think it's very very profound when when god calls no one tells them to what's you know to build the boat and so forth he tells me to take two of every uh uh two of every animal but seven of the unclean and uh actually seven of the clean and we infer that's for obviously for offerings which he does give at the end but um the very fact that god can talk to him in those terms tells me that these issues are how shall i put it indigenous with god they're codified in leviticus they're codified under the days of moses but we find back in noah's day we find even hints of it in eden we find abraham in abraham's day the heifer the goat the turtle and the pigeon are all mentioned in genesis 15 verse 9. the mentions of commandment statutes and laws which is in genesis 26 is parallel to leviticus 26 the very idiom the structure of it and so then we begin to recognize that these fuller instructions in leviticus are simply an expansion of what adam first received when he had to leave eden so as we wrap this up i want to emphasize you know some of us think that sin is nothing that god is too merciful too good and too merciful to punish it some questions to consider why has god chosen such awful illustrations of his wrath consuming his consuming wrath on these things on it why has god ordained so much blood and death agony and burning as the only means of covering it no other procedure there's not an alternative procedure this is it let's look at it another way why did god leave his own son to such unspeakable suffering when he was found among the guilty did god fail to love his son when he was in that dreadful extremity how did god treat jesus i love the way j.a seis he wrote before the civil war he said if the stroke invoked by sin so overwhelmed the soul of him whose voice could hush a storm or stop the ocean's bellows they drive out the devils and raise the putrid dead what shall be thy portion helpless mortal when that stroke comes to be visited on thee if god did not spare his own son from an immolation like this how can he spare you in your impenitence and unbelief tough question so that uh there remains one other particular to be noticed with regard to this atoning offering and that's the perfect freedom with which any and everyone might avail himself of its benefits the freedom here is is is be noted it was not confined to any special time the notion of his own voluntary will was paramount so let's get personal god sees christ as the only one who can satisfy him for your sins have you seen him like that do you have the sacrifice of christ between you and your sins [Music] has his blood been shed that you might live and have you trusted him today or are you still trying to bring your puny little self and your trite goodness to offer a truly holy god we often think we have this address sometimes our sins are are not so bad that's because we have absolutely no grasp of ours not only our sins we have no grasp of how holy he is it's his majesty that creates the is part of the the the contradiction here anyway god won't take that he only accepts christ what christ has done for you and he counts righteousness of christ as your righteousness he has made this place he writes the rules now one of the things that we need to recognize as we go here the book of leviticus is for the saved it is for the saved and every one of us are just a heartbeat away from eternity it's time for us to take him seriously we've gone through the first chapter in the next session we're going to take up the grain offering or the meal offering the king james rendering of as as the meat offering is in our vocabulary a contradiction in a sense the term meat in the king james era was a broad term not just meaning meat like we use it we use a dino table but they use it connotatively so a better way to translate would be the meal offerings or grain offerings they're going to be different so i'll take that next time and uh one of the things that i encourage you to do as preparation for our next gathering is to read chapters two through seven the first seven chapters are all about the offerings and we'll take them we'll take chapters two and probably chapter two and three we'll take them in pairs pick up the pace a little bit because i see we were able to i didn't think we would get through chapter one with any time to spare and i i must have missed a page of my notes or something because but uh as i've been doing the research i i have deliberately left leviticus uh for this time to do the research because i i really wanted to get into it and uh i'm blessed with uh having accumulated over the years a number of terrific texts and so i have to tell you that i'm really enjoying doing the digging to try to understand uh part of that understanding is to cut through some of the fanciful interpretations and to really stick with the biblical interpretations using hebrews the book of hebrews as the divine commentary on it but uh there are a number of commentators that are that really uh it's so rich and it's but as i stand back it startles me to really come to grips with the the depth of detail in the scripture how it all ties again to jesus christ it's interesting i've said this over many years and it's very true here too that um one way to unravel what's going on is put christ right in the middle of it and then suddenly everything ties together and it's it's astonishing to me to realize how uh in all these ancient rituals with all these details that the priest said to come by and it's interesting god didn't leave it very loose he really specified uh on the tabernacle the materials it was made of and how big and all the details are spelled out precisely and the priests lives that what they wore and how they when they wore it god is very very specific in his demands and i think there's lesson in that too as we watch these rituals not that we should be don't misunderstand me i'm not saying we should be offering these things anymore we're no longer under the law and christ is but we need to understand that god means what he says and says what he means we need to understand that when christ was on that cross he was fulfilling more specifications than you and i have any grasp of we're just seeing a few of these but we begin to realize that the drama that's unfolding there the mission that it was not a tragedy it was an achievement i was really hit by that you know so often we think you know how tragic it was that the son of god was crucified he came to and and there's aspect of that of course that was a tragedy but my point is that that was what he came for that was his mission and his his to to qualify for that to to to make it effective for god's purpose involved an incredible detailed obedience and we so globally talk about christ as our example and yet we have no no grasp of how completely and how thoroughly we need to be consecrated if we're really his now it doesn't have and it doesn't happen you know once and for all walking down the aisle that starts a process and and it starts a good way and he that's begun a good work in you will perform it and the wonderful passage in philippians 1 6. um but again we're on a journey and but that journey should be taking us toward an increasing commitment and consecration to him and as we study these uh details in leviticus if nothing else they should give us a respect for god's requirements what he expects of us and well with that let's stand for a closing word of prayer let's buy our hearts oh father we just thank you for who you are and we thank you that you provided us a glimpse as to what you've done for us in jesus christ we thank you father that you have provided nothing less than your son it was perfect in every way totally guiltless who went in our place yes father we recognize that it's our sins that put him on that tree we also recognize father that it wasn't the nails that held him to that cross it was his love for you and i each one of us here we thank you father that you have gone to such extremes so father we would pray that you would indeed receive us as we plead his shed blood on our behalf we do pray father too that you would send your holy spirit to take over each of our lives that you would illuminate just precisely what you would have of each of us in the days that remain for we do acknowledge our sin father we acknowledge our ingratitude our presumption we acknowledge that there are more ways than we probably have any idea that we offend you and yet you provide this remedy we do pray father that you make us better stewards of these incredible gifts you've given us help his father to grow in understanding of your truth help us to really understand not only who you are but what you've done for us help us father to respond in a way that would please you help us father to be more effective stewards of your grace help us father to be less presumptuous on that grace help us father to walk step by step in gratitude as we just commit ourselves without any reservation into your hands in the name of yeshua our lord and savior jesus christ amen [Music] you

Channel: Koinonia House

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Length: 70min 33sec (4233 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021