Leviticus 5–7

To the book of Leviticus chapter 5 Leviticus chapter 5 We're continuing on in our study Of these main five offerings That will be sort of the basis For this first half of the book of Leviticus Each of these offerings we've looked at How Jesus is presented in them And how Jesus fulfilled them These offerings, if you will Are the way that the children of Israel Could approach God They were the way that the children of Israel Could have a relationship with God Could be made holy before God And acceptable before him And of course all of that Finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ And so we're on the last one tonight The guilt offering And so as we approach chapter 5 We see that before he gets to the guilt offering He really sort of deals with

Three specific areas of the sin offering That was what we looked at in the chapter before In this first section of chapter 5 There's a little bit of conjecture As to whether it is a part of the guilt offering And the sin offering But as I look at it It seems like these are three portions That go along with the sin offering And this is what it says Now if a person sins After he hears a public adjuration To testify when he is a witness Whether he has seen or otherwise known If he does not tell it Then he will bear his guilt Or if a person touches Any unclean thing Whether a carcass of an unclean beast Or the carcass of unclean cattle Or a carcass of unclean swarming things Though it is hidden from him And he is unclean Then he will be guilty

Or if he touches human uncleanness Of whatever sort his uncleanness may be With which he becomes unclean And it is hidden from him And then he comes to know it He will be guilty Or if a person swears thoughtlessly With his lips To do what he does To do evil or to do good In whatever matter A man may speak thoughtlessly With an oath It is hidden from him And then he comes to know it He will be guilty In one of these This is why I think That this really is an addendum To the sin offering Because these are three specific areas Where the sin offering would be necessary These three areas First of all The knowledge of a crime And then refusing to testify To that crime When you're brought before a judge Put under oath And then you refuse to testify

To that crime It's a sin Therefore there's an offering That needs to be made for it The second specific instance Is being made unclean In some sort of ceremonial way The touching of a dead body The touching of an unclean animal And one of those ways You've made yourself Ceremonially unclean And when you come to know about it You have to deal with it And then of course The third way If you make some sort of an oath And then you don't keep that oath For whatever reason Whether it's because you Deliberately chose not to Or something else Or something happened That you were unable to It is a sin And when that sin Becomes known to you That sin has to be dealt with And I want you to notice What it says in verse 5 Because this is how we deal

With these three specific aspects Of sin In the sin offering So it shall be When he becomes guilty In one of these That he shall confess That in which he has sinned He also shall bring His guilt offering to the Lord For his sin which he has committed And he shall confess A female from the flock A lamb or a goat As a sin offering So the priest Shall make atonement On his behalf For his sin But if he cannot afford a lamb Then he shall bring to the Lord His guilt offering For that in which he has sinned Two turtle doves Or two young pigeons One for a sin offering And the other for a burnt offering He shall bring them to the priest Who shall offer the first That which is for the sin offering And shall nip its head At the front

At the front of the priest's head The front of its neck But shall not sever it He shall sprinkle some of the blood Of the sin offering On the side of the altar While the rest of the blood Shall be drained out At the base of the altar It is a sin offering The second he shall then prepare As a burnt offering According to the ordinance So the priest shall make atonement On his behalf for his sin Which he has committed And it will be forgiven him But if his means are insufficient For two turtle doves Or two young pigeons Then for his offering For that which he has sinned He shall bring to the Lord He shall bring The tenth of an ephah A fine flower For a sin offering He shall put oil on it Place incense on it For it is a sin offering

He shall then bring to the priest And the priest shall take His handful of it As its memorial portion And offer it up in smoke On the altar With the offerings of the Lord By fire It is a sin offering So the priest Shall make atonement for him Concerning his sin Which he has committed From one of these And it will be forgiven him Then the rest Shall become the priests Like the grain offering Now I would like for you To take note in these three areas In much like the rest Of the sin offering That had to be made There was one thing That needed to be done first Well I suppose Even before you got to it There was a thing Even before that That had to be done And that was the Acknowledgement of the sin That was committed You may have taken note

That in each of those Three instances It says When he becomes aware of it Isn't it kind of interesting That that's what can happen To you when you're a priest To you and I sometimes We can end up Falling into some sort of sin Be it at times Unintentional And yet we don't realize What's going on We don't realize the sin That's popped up Into our heart And yet God's holy law Reveals that to us Just like it does here For the children of Israel And when that is made Aware to us We have to first of all Acknowledge it But then the next thing That has to take place Is that we have to Confess it That sin has to be confessed of Because until confession is made There really can't be That forgiveness of sin Because confession is where I agree with God

That what I have done Is wrong Now who does that confession Need to be made to? There's a little bit of debate About this amongst the church Right now Would you agree? There's an entire sect Of what we might call The church world That says You now need to go to a priest And confess your sin And perhaps in the Old Testament That was exactly what Needed to take place Is they would go to the priest Confess that they had sinned And then they would make Their offering for the sin But you see You and I know Longer have to go to a priest You know why? Because we have The ultimate high priest Who is Jesus Christ So when it says here That confession has to be made What does that mean For you and I As New Testament believers?

It means that we must go To the one that we have Actually offended And that's God With our sin You see we can't hide it from him We can't cover it up We can't pretend it didn't happen We can't soft pedal What took place We have to go to God And we have to confess And the aspect of Confession Is simply agreeing With what God has already said That which he calls as sin I agree That's sin And that is what is Separating me from God You see that Ceremonial uncleanness Would keep them from being able To go before God That being deceptive About not testifying That would keep them From being able to be In the assembly The lack of keeping an oath It would prevent them From being able to go Into the assembly It separated them from God So the first thing

That they had to do Was confess their sin To the Lord So I suppose Along those lines I do have a little bit Of a searching question In your heart Is there unconfessed sin Between you and the Lord Are there things That have taken place In your life That while you know It's wrong And you know that God Has been talking to you about it It's been hard for you To go to the Lord And confess it Oh sure you've made The blanket confession You've been able to say God I'm a sinner today I know I've screwed up today But you know as well as I do That when it comes To specific sins God wants Specific confession Of those sins Because until then God can't really do His work in our heart Because until I own up To what I've done God can't change my heart

From what I've done And so are there things Specifically between you and God That are keeping you From connecting with Him That are keeping you From fellowship with Him Because you're unwilling To confess them to the Lord And so when they were Made aware of the sin In this particular aspect Of the sin offering They shall confess The sin that was committed And then there was a sacrifice That was to be made Did you notice the tears Of sacrifices that were to be made The ultimate sacrifice If you could afford it Was a female lamb Or a female goat From the flock They would of course And much like they would do The burnt offering Like we talked about last time With the sin offering The one offering This offering to the Lord Would be the one

That would lay his hands On the head of the lamb Or the goat And he would say And they would slit the throat And then they would Sprinkle the blood And they would burn A portion of it Unto the Lord And that was the first aspect Of this offering That was to be made But you may have taken note Like we've pointed out before That if you could not afford that God offered another option And the next option That God offered Was that if you could not Afford a lamb Or a goat From the flock You could bring Two turtle doves Or two pigeons I would probably be In the turtle dove And pigeon sort of range myself Because that's what They would have to bring One would be the sacrifice For the sin The other would be The sacrifice For the burnt offering

But did you notice That there was even one more That if you even Couldn't afford Two turtle doves Or two young pigeons Which would have cost Almost nothing You are so dead broke That you can't even afford that But you want your heart To be right with God You want your relationship With God to be right You want to be able To go into the assembly again That even you God still said There's still a way Made for you Because what you can take Is a tenth of an ephah Of five and a half In flour And you can bring that To the Lord And the priest will reach In his hand Pour some of it On the altar And it will be burned Unto the Lord As a sweet aroma And your sin Will be forgiven You know what's really cool About this Is that The forgiveness

That could be offered Through these sacrifices Was not dependent upon Your economic status Because God did not want The approach of him To have anything to do With your status In the world Who you were As far as The world Standards were concerned The amount of money That you had As far as the world Standards were concerned Your position in life As far as the world Standards were concerned Did not matter to God Because he wanted to make Any way possible For you to be able To come to him Because you see As New Testament believers We understand That Christ died For all of the ungodly The rich and the poor And that we are And that when we come To the foot of the cross It's a level playing field Because it doesn't matter How much money you have

How little money you have It doesn't matter How much social status you have Or how little social status you have All that matters Is that you come To the foot of the cross And you bring all of that sin And you lay it At the feet of Jesus So that it can be covered With his precious blood Isn't that a cool picture That we're given there In the book of Leviticus And then I love How this closes out In verse 13 it says So the priest shall make Atonement for him The one who has Committed sin And confessed his sin The priest shall make Atonement for him Concerning his sin Which he has committed From one of these And it will be I love this part It will be Forgiven him The rest shall become The priests Like the grain offering Two words in that verse

That really stuck out to me The first word was That word atonement That word atonement Which means covering In other words Though you had sinned You've now confessed your sin But once you've sinned You've now confessed your sin You've brought that sacrifice And that confession To the priest That sin is then Covered So that God doesn't look upon you And see the sin anymore He simply sees the covering Of the sacrifice And then did you take note Of the second word That was used That I thought was Kind of interesting And that word was Forgiven Do you know what the word Forgiven means? The word forgiven means To lift off of The idea is Someone carrying a burden And as they're carrying That burden That burden is lifted off Of them and placed Somewhere else

Because That's what forgiveness is The guilt of sin Is a burden That we all carry on us But once that sin Once that sin Is forgiven Then the guilt That burden of that guilt Is lifted off of us Because we've been forgiven Covered in the blood Of the sacrifice The burden Lifted off of us And brothers And sisters In Christ That's Who we are You see We have been given Forgiveness Through his blood All of this All of the burden Of the guilt of sin Has been lifted off of us All of the burden Of the things That you've done wrong Not only before You came to Jesus But all the things You did wrong Right before you Came here tonight They've all been covered In the blood of Jesus And if we confess Our sin He is faithful And just To forgive us Of our sin

And to cleanse us From all unrighteousness Because Jesus Is our ultimate Sin offer And if we Now is where we actually Get into the guilt offering Portion of things Notice what it says In verse 14 It says Then the Lord spoke to Moses Saying If a person acts Unfaithfully And sins unintentionally Against the Lord's Holy things Then he shall bring His guilt offering To the Lord A ram without defect From the flock According to your valuation In silver by shekels In terms of the shekel Of the sanctuary For a guilt offering He shall make restitution For that which he has Sinned against the holy things And shall add to it A fifth part of it And give it to the priest The priest shall then make Atonement for him With the ram of the guilt offering

And it will be forgiven him Now this starts off Kind of interesting It says if a person Acts unfaithfully Depending on the translation You're reading It may also say If a person Transgresses Or trespasses Against the Lord But I love that This kind of gives The indication Of what he means By a trespass Someone who acts Unfaithfully Someone who acts unfaithfully Even though it was unintentional Remember we talked about What unintentional meant A couple of weeks ago Two or three weeks ago We said that Unintentional meant That sometimes It's simply a sin of weakness Something that In the weakness Of your flesh Though you didn't want To give into that Though you didn't want To do that thing You ended up Giving into it And as you gave Into that flesh

You were Unfaithful It's an interesting word Isn't it? It's a word That we don't like To be called Because if you're unfaithful It means something About who you are In your life If it's in your job And you're unfaithful In your job Usually it means That you're not A very good employee One that can't be Trusted very well But where it really Comes into play I think is in a marriage Because in a marriage If you're called unfaithful It means you haven't Stayed true to your spouse And you've committed A trespass Or a transgression It's an interesting word Is it not? And he says If anyone has been Unfaithful Or acts unfaithfully And sins Unintentionally Against the Lord's things Then he shall bring His guilt offering To the Lord Now what you're going to

Pay attention to here Is he's going to give again Some specific instances Of somebody acting Unfaithfully But in each of these instances You'll notice that The difference between this And the sin offering Is that with the guilt offering Restitution had to be paid Remember we talked about this A little bit in the book of Exodus That in God's economy When we sin against each other Because that's what a lot Of these guilt offerings are When we sin against each other Restitution needs to be made In some way, shape, or form And that's what we see Take place here He says When anyone acts unfaithfully And sins unintentionally The first thing he says is Against the Lord's holy things In other words Anything to do with The tabernacle The temple

The worship of the Lord If he acts faithfully And sins unintentionally Against those holy things He doesn't give his full tithe He wasn't clean When he brought his sacrifice You name it Any of those kinds of things Where he is Sinning against God's holy things There was restitution And a sacrifice That needed to be made So the sacrifice Is similar to that Of the burnt offering He was to bring a ram Without defect From the flock According to the valuation Of silver by shekels And then after he made This sacrifice for guilt offering Which would have been similar To what the sin offering Looked like A portion would be given To the Lord A portion the priest would keep A portion would be burned It says He shall then In verse 2 Verse 16 Make restitution

For that which he has sinned Against the holy things And shall add to it A fifth part of it And give it to the priest The priest shall then Make atonement for him With the ram of the guilt offering And it will be forgiven him In other words If there was financial damage done To the tabernacle or whatever He would pay it back Plus 20% This restitution Would be made Because sin had robbed In some way shape or form The temple Of what had taken place He had to pay restitution For it Now he gives us Another instance Now if a person does Any of the things Which the Lord has commanded Not to be done Though he was unaware Still he is guilty And shall bear his punishment Now I tried to do Some deep diving And some searching Into what he means by

Any of the things Which the Lord says Not to be done And you know what All of the commentators That I read said We don't really know Exactly specifically What he's talking about But it sure feels like A rubber band clause Any of the things God said not to do I thought you know If you really take that thing At face value That pretty well handles Just about everything else That you can do wrong Right If a person sins And does any of the things Which the Lord has commanded Not to be done But the part that got me In this verse Because I do think This is a little bit Of the rubber band clause Of the guilt offering Is he says Though he is unaware of it Now that part of that verse Kind of got me a little bit A little bit a little bit Because

In many of the other sins Many of the other offerings Like we've talked about They had to be made aware Of what was going on Have you ever noticed That we can slip into sin And not realize it You can fall into Some aspect of the flesh And completely be unaware of it But it doesn't mean You're not guilty of it You see that's where The power of the Holy Spirit Comes in in our life Because you know what The Holy Spirit is really Faithful to do He's really faithful To point out Those areas of our life Where sin has crept in Even though we were Unaware of it Sometimes the Holy Spirit Uses other people to do that Sometimes the Holy Spirit Uses his word to do that Sometimes the Holy Spirit Uses natural consequences To do that But he's always faithful

To show us those areas If we're seeking God And we belong to him He's always faithful To show us those areas Where we've fallen short Though we were unaware of it It's kind of a crazy thing To be reading through scripture This happened to me recently And the Lord sort of Pointed something out And I was like Oh no Oh I think I'm doing that And I don't think I realized I was doing that Oh that's a bad attitude Lord that's got to go And I was like Oh I felt so terrible about it And God's like But that's my faithfulness Is showing you the areas Where you're wrong So that you can be made right He says If anyone sins In any of the things Which the Lord has commanded Not to be done Though he's unaware Still he's guilty And shall bear his punishment

He is then to bring to the priest A ram without defect From the flock According to your valuation For a guilt offering So the priest Shall make atonement for him Concerning his error In which he sinned unintentionally And did not know it And it will be forgiven him It is a guilt offering He was certainly guilty Before the Lord Now we come to the third instance In chapter 6 Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying When a person sins And acts unfaithfully Against the Lord And deceives his companion Excuse me In regard to a deposit Or a security entrusted him Or through robbery Or if he is extorted Or if he has extorted From his companion Or he has found what was lost And lied about it And sworn falsely So that he sins In regard to any one of the things

A man may do Then it shall be When he sins and becomes guilty That he shall restore What he took by robbery Or what he got by extortion Or the deposit Which was entrusted to him Or the lost thing which he found Or anything about which he swore falsely He shall make restitution for it in full And add to it one-fifth more He shall give it to the one To whom it belongs On the day he presents his guilt offering Then he shall bring to the priest His guilt offering to the Lord A ram without defect from the flock According to your valuation For a gift of the Lord For a gift of the Lord For a gift of the Lord And the priest shall make atonement for him Before the Lord And he will be forgiven For any one of the things Which he may have done To incur guilt

Now this last one gets much more personal The first one had to do with Things done wrong with the Lord's holy things The second one was a little bit rubber bandy When we looked at it Because there was a lot of interpretation That could be given there This one gets very personal And has to do with our relationship with each other Man's relationship with man He says if somehow you have deceived your brother Or if you have deceived your brother Or if you have robbed your brother Or extorted your brother When that becomes made known to you Or you finally confess it Then you shall first of all offer a sacrifice But then did you take notice Of what else was supposed to happen Not only were you supposed to restore what you stole But you're to add to it 20%

I don't know if this sounded familiar to you at all But I'd like to tell you a little bit of a story That gives an illustration Of something like this Like this happening You see Jesus was walking to the town of Jericho And as he was walking to the town of Jericho There was a little short guy Who I very much can relate to That wanted to see Jesus As Jesus came by But he was too short I was in a large crowd of people here recently And all I wanted to do Was see what was going on up in front of me And you know what I couldn't do? See what was going on up in front of me Because there were seven tall people in front of me Now tall for me is much different than other people You hit 5'10", you're a tall guy in my book, right?

And I'm like, my gosh, I can't even see past you anymore Now imagine Zacchaeus Now, at that point in time Especially in the nation of Israel Men were not overly tall I think I would be considered a tall guy at that point in time I clearly was born in the wrong era But here's Zacchaeus, this little short guy And all he wants to do is see Jesus And so Zacchaeus crawls up in the tree But do you remember who Zacchaeus was? Zacchaeus was a tax collector He was a guy that everybody in the world knew about And the world hated Especially the Jewish world He extorted all of his brethren He robbed from all of his brethren He needed to make a guilt offering And so, my desire to sing the song and do the motions I'm going to curtail right now

And my desire to make all of you sing the song And do the motions with me I'm going to curtail right now If you were in my high school Bible class We'd be singing right now Anyway, so as the Savior passed that way Zacchaeus had crawled up in the tree Jesus looked up there and said, Zacchaeus, come down I'm going to go eat dinner at your house today I mean, I can't hardly tell the story without singing the song, right? And so Jesus goes over to his house And do you remember what Zacchaeus said? This is the part that you don't sing in the song Because it just wouldn't flow very well Zacchaeus confessed his sin And he said, I am going to pay everyone back what I stole For me Fold Now that adds a lot of color to what Zacchaeus was wanting to do

You see, what Zacchaeus needed to do According to the law Was pay back 20% One-fifth But what did Zacchaeus say he was going to do? Four times That's because repentance had taken place in the heart of Zacchaeus And it wasn't a bother for him to have to keep the law As a matter of fact, Jesus didn't even have to tell him to keep the law Now, what did Zacchaeus volunteer? He said, not only am I going to keep the law But I'm going to go above and beyond the law You see, that's what we call living according to the heart of the law Not the letter of the law It's a pretty good illustration, is it not? And that's exactly what took place Now, Zacchaeus didn't need to go and make a sacrifice Because the perfect sacrifice was standing right in front of him

Isn't that amazing? Everybody else in the world was like, how are you going to eat with tax collectors? How are you going to eat with tax collectors? How are you going to eat with all those people? And Jesus was probably like, this has already been covered in the law And I'm about to deal with the sacrifice part He's dealing with the restitution part This has all been taken care of

Well, that brings me to how we see Jesus in the trespass offering Now, get your Bibles ready Because you know we're going to turn a couple of places The first place I want you to go is over to the book of Romans I want you to look at Romans, chapter 4 Verse 25 I think I even put it up there Look at me Romans, chapter 4, verse 25 And this is what it says He was delivered over because of our Oh, there's that word Transgressions And he was raised because of our justification Now, remember we said that transgressions could also be translated as our unfaithfulness Now, I want you to think about that That about makes you emotional just thinking about it, doesn't it? God? God? God?

God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? God? Deliver Jesus over to death for my unfaithfulness Now, if I were to sit down and write down all of the ways in my life that I've been unfaithful I could fill up journals from today for about the next five years Because I'm so desperately aware of the areas of my life Where I have been unfaithful in my walk with the Lord

Where I have been unfaithful through my laziness Where I have been unfaithful through the sins of my flesh Where I have been unfaithful through my selfishness Where I've been unfaithful in all of those ways And yet, why was Jesus delivered over to death? Because of my unfaithfulness But you see, I don't live in the knowledge of my unfaithfulness Because He was delivered over to death for that Why was He raised? For my justification What does that word justification mean? Well, in the most simple way possible, it means Just as if I'd never been raised for that I'd never sinned Because you see, when Jesus was raised from the dead God had put His stamp of approval on the sacrifice that Jesus made That perfect sacrifice that Jesus made

And He said, it's paid in full I no longer see you as one who is unfaithful I now see you as covered by the blood of my own precious Son And the moment I look at you as unfaithful Is the moment that I look at Him as unfaithful You see, He is unfaithful That ultimate sacrifice That ultimate gift, guilt offering made for us Well, there's one more place I want you to go Over to Isaiah chapter 53 Isaiah chapter 53, and I want you to look at verse 10 Isaiah 53, 10 says this But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief If He would render Himself as a Oh, here's this phrase again As a guilt offering He will see His offspring He will praise Him as a guilt offering He will prolong His days

And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand He would render Himself as a guilt offering No more need for it because Jesus has done it And I loved what William MacDonald said in the Believer's Bible Commentary He said this He said, Jesus restored what had been stolen through sin And He restored so much more Because He forgave sin And He restored so much more Because He also gave me brand new life Isn't that a great picture of what Jesus did for us? Jesus made that restitution for us Because not only did He restore that which sin had robbed What did sin rob from us? Sin robbed from us Our ability to have relationship with the Lord Our ability to be in the presence of God To have a relationship To go boldly before the throne of grace

Sin robbed us of that And Jesus not only restored that But He gave us His righteousness His righteousness His brand new life And now He's given us purpose in life Because I don't know about you But when I look at my life right now I can say I can't believe what God has done With someone as unfaithful as me I was just teaching my kids in Genesis In Bible class the other day In the book of Genesis The part where Isaac was born And one of my favorite parts in that chapter of Isaac being born Is when Sarah sits back and says Who would have ever said That Sarah would birth a child? A child for Abraham in his old age And I told the kids, I said If you would have told me 20 years ago That this is where I would be right now

I would have told you you're a liar Because I would have never imagined 20 years ago That I would end up here Because 20 years ago I thought God can probably never use me again Because I know how unfaithful I am And yet because of who God is He not only can use me again He not only restores what sin has stolen But he gives us so much more Because not only has he shown me That my sin has been put on him at the cross Never to bear it again But he said now go and tell everybody else about it And he's given me this calling And he's given me this ability And he's given me this place Where I get to tell people every week Just what Jesus has done for me Because he not only restores what sin has stolen He does so much more

And so back to the book of Leviticus As we move into verse 8 He's going to recap all of the offerings But what we're going to take note of is That these are now instructions for the priests Up to this point in time This has been instruction for the entire nation But now there's more instructions That is given to the priest Where he's going to recount the same thing Now remember we said when the Bible repeats itself It's okay What you're going to want to do right now Is you're going to want to go And power down Because it's going to repeat himself a lot But there's going to be a few little differences That I'll try to point out to you But it's okay that the Bible repeats itself Because we're slow Remember we've talked about this

I need it repeated because I'm slow on the uptake So he gives some instructions for the priest Notice what he says The Lord spoke to Moses saying Command Aaron and his sons saying This is the law for the birds offering The burnt offering itself Shall remain on the hearth on the altar All night until the morning And the fire on the altar is to be kept burning on it The priest is to put on his linen robe He shall put on undergarments next to his flesh Because that's just a good idea And he shall take up the ashes To which the fire reduces the burnt offering On the altar and place them beside the altar Then he shall take off his garments And put on other garments And carry the ashes outside the camp To a clean place

The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it It shall not go out But the priest shall burn wood on it every morning And he shall lay out the burnt offering on it And offer up in smoke the fat portions Of the peace offerings on it Fire shall be kept burning on the altar It is not to go out And so he repeats again this burnt offering Now remember the burnt offering Was the whole consecration offering Everything was to be burnt on the altar Before the Lord Because it was a picture of the fact That our lives are to be laid on the altar Before God fully consecrated Fully devoted to him And a picture of the fact that Jesus When he came to earth held nothing back But was completely surrendered And devoted to not only our salvation

But the will of the Father But he gives some instructions for the priest He says when that's burning And the ashes are all burned up The first thing that you need to do Is put on your holy garments Take the ashes, move them off of the altar Then take off the holy garments And put other garments on And then take those ashes Outside of the camp to the clean place Where they're to be kept But did you take note That three times it made one statement Three times it said But the fire shall be kept burning On the altar continually Now with this we're given an idea We're given the idea that At no point in time on this burnt off altar Was the fire to go out Now I don't think I'd ever picked up on this before Again because I'm slow On the uptake

God has to repeat himself a lot But I never took note of the fact That the fire was always to be kept burning Now I didn't come up with these myself But I think that there's some really good things Why is it important? Well first of all because The offerings were to be continual That's sort of the point of the Old Testament Isn't it? That's sort of where the New Covenant Is so much better than the Old Because in the Old Covenant The offerings were continually being offered Before the Lord Because not once did the Lord say One single offering Was enough to do away with sin They were only good enough to cover sin It would not be until Jesus came And offered that one sacrifice After which he was raised from the dead

And then sat down at the right hand of the Father Not until that point in time Was the fire ever to go out On the altar Because the offerings were offered continually But the second thing And I believe it was David Guzik In his commentary pointed out Is that The first thing that was offered to the Lord The process of consecration in our lives Is both slow and continual Remember what we're told In the book of Romans chapter 12 That we are now to present our bodies As a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God That process in our life Should be continual There should never be a day that we say But today I won't offer myself to God We say that sometimes We probably never say that But we live that way We live that way sometimes Where it's like

Oh today Today's a me day Today I take myself off the altar And I do what I want to do And God's like May as well just keep it burning today too Because life's going to be happier that way But also we think about the fact That the consecration The sanctifying process in our lives Is a slow and continual process We pointed this out In the book of Exodus Remember at the very end When God told Moses You're going to go in And you're going to take the land And I'm going to go before you And I'm going to drive out The inhabitants of the land But I won't do it all in one year Otherwise the beasts of the field Will become too numerous And they will take over the land Instead I will do it Slowly but surely Little by little Because that's the process

Of consecration and sanctification In our lives Is it is an everyday Putting myself back up on the altar And watching him do more To conform me into his image Allowing that person To be the pure fire of God To burn all of the garbage off of me So that I can become more like him Not only that I don't remember who pointed this one out But I thought it was good It's not me I didn't come up with myself But I thought that this was an interesting thing The fire on the altar of our heart Should never go out You see there should always be A burning passion on the altar of our heart To know God more To pursue God in a greater way And to know him more and more And to know him more and more And to know him more and more And to know him more and more

And to know him more and more And to know him in a place where we never have That fire, that passion on the altar of our heart Should never go out As a matter of fact I think one of the most dangerous places That we come to in our lives Is when that fire begins to dwindle Just a little bit As a matter of fact Jesus spoke something similar to this To one of the churches in the book of Revelation Remember what he called them? He called them lukewarm If you will he said The fire on the altar of your heart Has burned out And if you don't do something about it Then I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth And so that fire was to be kept burning Continually Well of course we come to I'm going to run out of time here Of course we come to the next sacrifice

Which is the grain offering He says now this is the law of the grain offering The sons of Aaron shall present it Before the Lord in front of the altar Then one of them shall lift up from it A handful of fine flour of the grain offering With its oil and all the incense That is on the grain offering And he shall offer it up in smoke On the fire A soothing aroma As its memorial offering to the Lord What is left of it Aaron and his sons are to eat It shall be eaten as unleavened cakes In a holy place And they are to eat it in the court of the tent of meeting It shall not be baked with leaven I have given it as their share From my offerings by fire It is most holy like the sin offering And the guilt offering Every male among the sons of Aaron may eat it

It is a permanent ordinance Throughout your generations From the offerings by fire to the Lord Whoever touches them will become consecrated Then the Lord spoke to Moses Saying this is the offering Which Aaron and his sons are to present to the Lord On the day when he is anointed The tenth of an ephah of fine flour Is a regular grain offering Half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening It shall be prepared with oil on a griddle When it is well stirred You shall bring it You shall present the grain offering Baked in the morning and half of it in the evening Baked pieces as a soothing aroma to the Lord The anointed priest who will be in his place Among his sons shall offer it By a permanent ordinance

It shall be entirely offered up in smoke to the Lord So every grain offering of the priest Shall be burned entirely It shall not be eaten Of course next we come to the grain offering And of course it was some of the flour And the frankincense and the oil That was all to be mixed together and brought in But he presents what the priest is supposed to do with this When this grain offering is brought The priest is to reach his hand down in You can picture it can't you Can you picture the priest there Doing this whole thing with his garments on He reaches his hand down in whatever bag They brought this offering in He grabs a handful of it And he pours it up on the altar And as he pours it on the altar It catches fire and it burns And it's a sweet aroma

Can you imagine that incense burning With a really sweet smell to it As it went up before the Lord And then of course he could keep the rest for himself They were to be unleavened cakes Because leaven represents sin And nothing of the sacrifice was to have sin Involved in it And he as well as any of the other guys That were the priests Could eat of this cake that was put there And so But then there was one other thing that was presented And the other thing that was presented Was that there was a grain offering That was to be presented when the priest was anointed We'll take note of this in a couple of chapters When we see Aaron and his sons consecrated What they were supposed to do Is they would do the same kind of grain offering

That was to be presented Except since it was for the presentation of the priest For the anointing of the priest The priest could keep no portion of it It was all to be burned before the Lord And so that's the instructions for the priest For the grain offering Now the next place that we come to Is in verse 24 It says Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying Speak to Aaron and his sons saying This is the law of the sin offering In the place where the burnt offering is slain The sin offering shall be slain before the Lord It is most holy The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it It shall be eaten in a holy place In the court of the tent of meeting Anyone who touches its flesh will become consecrated And when any of its blood splashes on a garment

In a holy place You shall wash what was splashed on Also the earthenware vessel In which it was boiled shall be broken And if it was boiled in a bronze vessel Then it should be scoured and rinsed in water Every male among the priests may eat of it It is most holy But no sin offering of which any of the blood Is brought to the Lord shall be eaten in the place of the Lord Not into the tent of meeting to make atonement In the holy place shall be eaten It shall be burned with fire Of course we just talked about the sin offering So we don't need to go into great detail on it Other than he tells the priests A couple of things that we need to pay attention to He tells the priests What they're supposed to do with the blood

But did you take note of the fact that if any of the blood Were to splash on them They had to make sure that they either cleanse themselves Or whatever instrument Or implement that it was put into They were to either break it if it was clay Or they were to scour it if it was bronze Why is that? Well because the blood of the sin offering Was considered to be tainted by the sin Because remember what would happen When you would make the offering You would lay your hands On the head of the offering And you would confess your sin And that sin substitutionarily went on to It was transferred to The bull or the goat Or whatever it was And so any of the blood was considered to be tainted By your sin And you don't want to do that

You don't want your sin getting on the priest You know what I thought of As I was reading through this And learning a little bit more about it I'm reminded of what we're told in the New Testament That when a brother or sister is caught up in sin We who are spiritual Are to restore such one In a spirit of meekness But we're to watch out for ourselves That we not get tempted In the exact same way Because their sin Could taint us If we're not careful You know I've actually seen this happen In someone's life I know of a man Who doesn't live around here From a city I lived in a long time ago He and his friend confronted another individual Who got caught up in the sin of adultery And this particular guy That was a part of this group

That went and confronted this man Caught in the sin of adultery Didn't take care of his own life And do you know what happened to him? He got caught up in the sin of adultery And I said What the heck happened there? And my buddy who went with him said You know how it says in the New Testament That when you confront someone else in their sin You need to watch out for yourself That you not be tainted and tempted With the same sin He didn't watch out for himself And I remember as a very young man In the ministry That hit me deep to my core Because I thought wow It really is true That we have to keep our garments And our vessels clean Before the Lord And then the other thing to take note of Is that if it was a sacrifice That was

Let me make sure I say this correctly Any portion that was made for national atonement In other words was taken in To the most holy place That sacrifice was to be completely burned with fire And not to be eaten by the priests Let's see if we can hit chapter 7 here Think we can do it? Everybody with me? Everybody awake? Let's roll Let's do this thing Because I got notes Alright Now This is the law of the guilt offering It is most holy In the place where they slay the burnt offering They are to slay the guilt offering And he shall sprinkle blood Around on the altar Then he shall offer from it all its fat The fat tail and the fat that covers the entrails And the two kidneys with the fat that is on them Which is on the loins And on the lobe on the liver

He shall remove with the kidneys The priest shall offer up And smoke on the altar As an offering by fire to the Lord It is a guilt offering Every male among the priests May eat of it Shall be eaten in a holy place It is most holy The guilt offering is like the sin offering There is one law for them The priest who makes atonement with it Shall have it Also the priest who presents any man's burnt offering That priest shall have for himself The skin of the burnt offering Which he has presented Likewise every grain offering That is a burnt offering That is baked in the oven And everything prepared in a pan or on a griddle Shall belong to the priest who presents it Every grain offering mixed with oil or dry Shall belong to all the sons of Aaron

We've already covered this There's no sense in going into it again We'll just pay attention to the fact That they were supposed to share equally The parts that could be consumed by the priests Now in verse 11 it says Now this is the sacrifice of the peace offering Now this is the last one And oddly enough It's the one he takes the most time on In his instructions for the priest Now this is the law of the sacrifice Of the peace offering Which shall be presented to the Lord If he offers it by way of thanksgiving Then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving He shall offer unleavened cakes Mixed with oil And unleavened wafers spread with oil And cakes of well stirred fine flour Mixed with oil With the sacrifice of his peace offerings For thanksgiving

He shall present his offering With cakes of unleavened bread Of this he shall offer He shall present one of every offering As a contribution to the Lord It should belong to the priest Who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering Now as for the flesh of the sacrifice Of his thanksgiving peace offering It shall be eaten on the day of his offering He shall not leave any of it over until morning But if the sacrifice of his offering Is a votive or a freewill offering It shall be eaten on the day That he offers his sacrifice And on the next day What is left of it May be eaten But what is left over From the flesh of the sacrifice On the third day Shall be burned with fire So if any of the flesh Of his sacrifice Of his peace offerings

Should ever be eaten on the third day Then he who offers it Will not be accepted And it will not be reckoned To his benefit And it shall be an offensive thing And the person who eats of it Will bear his own iniquity Also the flesh that touches anything unclean Shall not be eaten It shall be burned with fire As for the other flesh It shall be eaten on the third day Anyone who is clean May eat such flesh But the person who eats the flesh Of the sacrifice of the peace offerings Which belongs to the Lord In his uncleanness That person shall be cut off From his people So the next one that we come to Is this peace offering Now remember we said the peace offering Was kind of an interesting one Because it was the only offering

In which the one giving the offering Also got a portion of the meat And so The sacrifice would be divided three ways A portion would be burned Unto the Lord That would be the fat And the entrails And the kidneys And all that kind of stuff That would be burned unto the Lord As a sweet smelling aroma Unto him A portion of it Would be given to the priest Which in just a moment We'll see that he'll wave before the Lord And then be able to consume But then a portion was given to the offerer Because it is a peace offering We might also use the term Fellowship offering You see it was very pictorial Very I'm losing my mind I'm losing words right now It presented the image Of one sitting down And enjoying a meal with the Lord That's what it signified

And so he had a portion of it Now there were two different aspects Of a peace offering As you'll notice here it says One is presented As a thanksgiving peace offering The other is presented As a free will peace offering If the peace offering Is a thanksgiving peace offering What he would do Is he would also make an unleavened cake That went along with it So he would have some meat And some bread But it all had to be consumed The same day None of it could be left Until morning The difference between it And the free will offering Is the free will offering Also mixed with a piece of bread Or an unleavened cake But it could be consumed Not only the day that it was sacrificed But the next day However None of it could remain Until the third day

You ever wonder why he chose The third day Well I'm sure there's something symbolic About the fact that God wants Our sacrifices to be fresh And not stale Because he wants our relationship with him To always be new But I think it has a little bit more To do with the fact that When was Jesus raised from the dead On the third day Therefore the sacrifice Was no longer around on the third day Because fellowship Had been made complete And so The sacrifice was to be made But it had to be eaten When you were ceremonially cleansed If you were ceremonially uncleaned You were not allowed to eat it So we pick up in verse 21 And this is what it says When anyone touches anything unclean Whether human uncleanness Or an unclean animal

Or any unclean detestable thing And eats of the flesh Of the sacrifice Of the peace offerings Which belong to the Lord That person shall be cut off From his people And then the Lord spoke to Moses saying Speak to the sons of Israel saying You shall not eat any fat From an ox A sheep Or a goat Also the fat of an animal which dies And the fat of an animal torn by beasts May be put to any other use But you must not eat it For whoever eats the fat of an animal From which an offering by fire Is offered to the Lord Even the person who eats Shall be cut off from his people And you are not to eat any blood Either of bird or animal In any of your dwellings Any person who eats any blood Even that person shall be cut off From his people

Now why was God so specific about those things Why does God bring it up again Even to the priests Because remember what we talked about When we talked about these offerings before The fat represented the best part of the animal And God always Wants our best The blood represented the life of the animal And not only is God Our source of physical life But he is our source of spiritual life And God always wanted them To hold in high regard Not only the best of the sacrifice, which was to be given to the Lord, but he always wanted them to hold in high regard life. You know what I'm starting to realize about the culture we live in right now? Probably not starting to realize it. I've probably known it for a while, but I was hit very hard with

it yesterday. We don't value life anymore. Life is not held in very high regard anymore. We saw it yesterday, and quite frankly, we started seeing it today. We saw it yesterday because I don't know if you paid attention to the news at all, but there were at least three major shootings yesterday where multiple people were killed. At least two of them were in high schools.

You know why? Because life isn't valued anymore. Life isn't held in high regard anymore, and quite frankly, people are boiling over not only with frustration and rage, but hopelessness, and because of that, life is no longer valued. But do you know what else is happening today? Today there's a hearing that's being held before the Supreme Court of Justice. It's being held before the Supreme Court of Justice. It's being held before

the Supreme Court of Justice. It's being held before the Supreme Court of Justice. It's being held before the Supreme Court as to whether or not they are going to change some aspect of Roe v. Wade. I don't know that it would completely overturn it, but if I understand correctly, and I've not done a ton of reading on this, if I understand correctly, it will make abortions after 15 weeks illegal.

That's my general understanding. If I'm wrong, I'm willing to be corrected on that, but that's my understanding. And to think that this even has to go to trial is a fascinating thing. You know why? because life is not held in high regard. And do you know what's happening all over the country right now because this trial is taking place? There are protests. And you know what those protest signs

being held up are saying? My body, my choice. If I want to commit an abortion, I will because it's my choice. And if it was only your body, I might be a little bit more willing to go along with that. But you see, it's not because there's a little life that's growing inside of that mother. And that little life has intrinsic value because it is already being formed

in the image of God. Why did God tell them don't eat the blood? Because he wanted them to have high regard for life. And I think sometimes in our culture today, we could take a real lesson from what God has to say to the children of Israel and the priests there in the book of Leviticus where he says you should hold life in really high regard. And so he goes on to say,

the Lord spoke to Moses, verse 28, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, He who offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands are to bring offerings by fire to the Lord. He shall bring the fat with the breast that he may be presented as a wave offering before the Lord. The priest shall offer up the fat and the smoke on the altar, but the breast, shall belong to Aaron and his sons.

You shall give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifices of your peace offerings. The one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offering and the fat, the right thigh shall be his as his portion. For I have taken the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution from the sons of Israel from the sacrifice of their peace offerings and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as they're due forever from the sons of Israel. And then in verse 35, he begins, to wrap it up.

This is that which is consecrated to Aaron and that which is consecrated to his sons from the offerings by fire to the Lord. In that day when he presented them to serve as priests to the Lord, these the Lord had commanded to be given them from the sons of Israel in the day that he anointed them. It is their due forever throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, and the sacrifice of peace offerings which the Lord commanded Moses at Mount Sinai in the day that he commanded the sons of Israel to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai.

And so we finish the first little section of the book of Leviticus. And hasn't it been fascinating, at least I think it is, all of the ways that you see Jesus in this book of Leviticus. But I want to challenge you with something. The things that we've talked about about who Jesus is in the book of Leviticus, you can't just read it as face value and get all of those things.

You have to dig a little bit deeper. You have to take time and you have to pray and you have to seek and you have to study. The amazing thing is that when God gets our full attention and we give our full attention to finding Jesus everywhere in the word of God, it's amazing how he begins to jump out on the page at us and we say, how did I not see that? How did I not see that Jesus was there all along?

Brothers and sisters, there's a lot in the word of God and Jesus is written all over the pages of every scripture that's given to us in the word of God. But sometimes it's like, where's Waldo? Matter of fact, I thought if I was to put an entire title on the book of Leviticus, I would call it, where's Jesus? And on the cover of a book, I would put like a little where's Waldo hat on him, only it would be Jesus with like a crown of thorns or something like that because that just makes sense to me.

Like, where's Jesus? Well, you have to look for him. But you know what we're told in scripture? It says, if you seek me, then you'll find me when you search for me with all of your heart. Seek Jesus, even if it means it's going to take a little more time than you thought it was going to. Amen. Father, we come before you and I do thank you that you have written Jesus

all over the pages of scripture so that even when we are unfaithful, you show yourself faithful to us. Even when we are unfaithful, even when we are unfaithful, even when we are unfaithful, even when we are unfaithful, even when we transgress, you offer yourself up for our trespasses.

Lord, I thank you for who you are. I thank you for what you've done. And I thank you for what you continue to do, not only in my life, but in the lives of the people who love you and seek you. And Lord, I just ask that you would continue that work in our hearts. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.