Okay, let's open in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, just bless this time today, Lord. Use us as a conduit. Let us look into your word. Let's consider some of the ramifications before we dig in. Do it as kind of a first level. Again, help us to just kind of think through and even ask questions of the passage. Father, we thank you so much for the blessing of the holiday season and Lord, recognizing the gift when you sent your son down, Lord, to be born, born as an infant, Lord. It's so amazing to us whose eyes you've opened, Lord, who believe and recognize the depth of and the completeness of your salvation. So, Lord, let us look back in this. What I see now is kind of a foundation, Lord, for redemption right here. You explain, Lord, how much we need redemption, what state we're in, and, Lord, your provision for it. Then, and ultimately, Lord, what it pointed forward to, So Lord, just let us consider that today. Let us meditate and think deeply into your word. It's in your name I pray, amen. So you see what I gave you, not much. I gave you a little outline for today. We're gonna go over real quick and finish up chapter 15 that we started. Really, I think if we get the gist of it, it's not like we need to read through the chapter. My goal today is to kind of read through the chapter 16 and just start. I want to do an overview. This is the crux of the whole thing, isn't it? It's the atonement, the day of atonement. And to me, this whole Leviticus experience has just opened for me just so much. how much we need redemption, the things we're being redeemed from, the things that Christ did. Everything that we've studied up to this point, Christ has paid for all of this. And really, to me, God is revealing, this is the stuff you need to be saved from. This whole world system, we are immersed in a system that's not holy, that's not godless. God knows that. He created it. He knew that people were gonna fall. He knew Adam and Eve. It was his plan. And really, he also knew that the earth was going to be destroyed. I mean, there's going to be new heavens and new earth. God's the Alpha and Omega, beginning and the last. He knows it's his plan. This was always a temporary situation. And it just helped me really see that. And it also helped me see the depth of what people are saved from. And that's what we're going to finish up. We're looking at 15 is really It's the sex organs of the man and the woman. Emissions from the man and emissions from the woman. And they are natural. Sex is in here. God tells us to be fruitful and multiply. It's a natural thing and yet it's not holy. The bodily fluids, it's not holy. It just kind of points out that we are in this situation. And it's not like we've done something, this is what we've been placed in. It makes me realize this is what I need to be saved from. Heaven is going to be, it's a whole glorification thing. And I hope it's done this to you, that you've seen really how far off this life, material situation is from God. It's a temporary thing. That's the other thing, and I'll get into that when we get into 16. So we went over this before. Here's the outline for 15. And we're just going to go through this quickly just to finish it up. Because there's a couple of things, one in particular I really want the New Testament to show the dramatic change. So we got male discharge. Right? And you see female discharge. They're kind of in parallel. And this is, Wenham and the other ones have explained, this is a chiastic thing. It's A, B, B, A. Right? And he does this to kind of show the unity between the sexes in this. So you got male discharge, you got long term, is the first section, verses 2 to 12. Cleansed by sacrifice, you have transient. sexual intercourse or any type of mission that's not, you know, a disease. Then you have the female discharge and you notice it's the parallel, okay? It's the transient is mentioned first, you know, menstrual cycles, intercourse, things that don't need a sacrifice that are just cleansed by time and washing. And then it goes long term, you know, if there is a bleeding that goes beyond the normal period, right, something, it's a disease or a sickness, what have you, but it's uncleanness. And so, but there's a unity there, and we read this last week, but I want to review it again. It's a chiastic form, and he goes, this is a quote from Wenham. He says, form and content here complement each other to express the idea that Guy created man in his own image, male and female, he graded them. Genesis 127. The unity and interdependence of the sexes finds its most profound expression in the acts of sexual intercourse And very fittingly, this is discussed in 18, the midpoint of this literary structure. So, it is something that God has, you know, created, ordained, and he tells us to be fruitful and multiply. And yet, in his presence, in the holiness of God, okay, they cannot approach his presence. They can't approach his sanctuary. until after they've waited till evening and washed, then they can go back. So, even this is just, and you know, when you think about it, you know, Solomon wrote, right? God put eternity in our heart. All these things, again, we don't know what was on their hearts and their minds for those who believed during this period. But, you know, if you did believe, it had to point towards a future. You had to be looking for something better. And I think the sacrifices do that. Again, not with near the clarity that we have, right? But even unbelievers, with all this word, without belief, it's still meaningless. So, you know, keep that in mind. God opens the eyes. God opens the hearts. So, let's see, the other thing I wanted to, again, this is another quote, it's very similar, it's in kind of the same context, but this is what Wenham writes, and I like this, I thought he expresses this idea really well. It is most appropriate device to implore these particular laws, focusing as they do on the unity of mankind and two sexes. Form and content here complement each other. to express the idea that God created man in his own image, male and female, and created them, Genesis 127. The unity and interdependence of the sexes finds its profound expression in the acts of sexual intercourse, and very fittingly is discussed in verse 18, the midpoint of the structure, right? So I kind of repeated it. But I liked what he said. It is true. God gave us these things. Procreation, we kind of, in a loose sense, right, we participate, in a very loose sense, right? Because, you know, Psalm 139 tells us, I formed you in the womb, in the inner parts, right? And Psalm 139 explains that, that God, there are no accidental children. God formed them in the womb. And this is critical, especially for the people who understand this who don't have. Some come from really rough backgrounds and they probably think, you know, God created you. You're not an accident. It's huge. And again, this is just parallels, right? We're not going to go through this. Regular discharges for females, chronic discharges for females. The only thing I want to say is, Remember, these people, when they were like this, they were not to be touched. They were to isolate. They didn't have to go outside the camp, but they had to isolate. They were kind of contagious. And to go through this whole thing. If you read through the chapter 15, you know, if a woman does this and, you know, her clothes are unclean, somebody touches something she sat on, et cetera, et cetera. And I only want to point that out is because when you think about this, let's go to Mark 5.25. I'm not sure you guys know this well, but I think it helps us think through this incident, right? Let's read Mark 525. Where's the end of it? I guess 337. We volunteer to read Mark 525 through 37. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. and who had suffered much under any physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in a crowd, and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I'll be made well. And immediately a flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was fevered for a disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned around in the crowd, and said, Who touched my garments? And his disciple said to him, you see the crowds pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler, you said 237, right? Yes. While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house... Yeah, no, we can stop there, because I really wanted to read the story about her. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, think about this in the context, Old Testament. These people were still in that Old Testament economy, right? The law and everything else. Think about, why would she have been so afraid? Lots of reasons. Huh? Lots of reasons. Okay, well, let's talk about, like, from the Old Testament context. She probably was somewhere she shouldn't have been because of her flaws. Exactly. Not only with Jesus, but the people around her wouldn't have been happy about this either, right? If they knew, you're not supposed to tell, you know, now they're unclean. What else is neat about this? What did Jesus, Jesus, what happened to Jesus? Did he become unclean? No. He healed her. And he healed her. Remember, and we've been talking about this. Remember from chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, all these different things. We talked about foods. We talked about childbirth, leprosy. And remember, we said leprosy could be any kind of a skin disease. It was really just that. It could be from a burn. that turned, you know, got infected, right? It's a skin disease, so leprosy was a broad term. And I assume, obviously, we could be talking about leprosy proper, but were any of those people healed? They got healed by, if they were really contagious, they had to go outside to camp. So, I mean, you know, again, it was always pointing to God. God in the flesh could heal this person. This is something new. Totally different. And you think about what she did. She had a lot of faith, didn't she? She'd go, if I only touch his garment. Huge faith. I was impressed by that. I hope you were. And this is an important thing. Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst." Again, this is a theme we've kind of been covering the whole time. So, I guess to us, look, it points to glorification when we go to the New Jerusalem, to the heavenly tabernacle, right? There isn't. There's not going to be any uncleanness. There can't be. There won't be any sin, right? And, you know, this is what he's telling us. To me, the big picture I'm getting from this when I keep going over Leviticus is that this is the human condition, is really what he's saying. All these laws are telling me this is the human condition you're in. If you're trying to work your way out of this, It's, you know, you should get the picture. It's ridiculous. You don't have a chance. And really, isn't that kind of what we do? We do it by work somehow? Any questions on any of that? Like I said with some of the others, what we're going to do, we're going to go over 16. We're just going to redo it. We may spend two, three weeks on this. Because I'm thinking, first, we need to look at this and think about it from a big picture before we start getting into the weeds. Second, we'll kind of look at some of the details. But third, I think, if we go with atonement, what's the next thing you want to say? Well, what is atonement in the New Testament? Really, the word atonement is not used in the New Testament. a term we use to cover what Christ did. And theologically, so we'll just do like an overview, but I think if we don't, it'll kind of like, it kind of begs the question, okay, so this was Old Testament, what's the New Testament atonement? And really what happens is when you look at atonement in a theology, they'll list, you know, and we'll get into this, you know, forgiveness, justification, right, redemption. Just remember, all the things we've been building on, all these different sacrifices, right? The burn offering, the meal or dedication offering, the purification, they call it the sin offering, a lot of times, that word used for it is purifying, cleansing. But that's the other thing. As we've been going over this, you hear cleansing, you're unclean, clean. It's such a huge Old Testament issue. We don't really think about this in the New Testament. I didn't. It's a theme though, isn't it? And we're going to see that in this, in chapter 16, the atonement. Any thoughts, any questions? You with me? Everybody asleep? It's tiring having these holiday things. We got war, Laura got war now. My son and his daughter-in-law, and they were young, and they wanted to do all this. We're nonstop. And it's kind of like, well, we're not 20 anymore. All right, so I gave you an outline just to give you something. I don't think it has the, it's Alan Ross. I didn't put the footnote in there, but that's who it is. It's kind of a paraphrase of his outline. So let's start with Leviticus 16. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of his two sons, after the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, or he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat." Okay, let's just start with that. I'm just going to kind of highlight this, a couple things that we should be looking for. Number one, mercy seat. We're probably going to have to define that. That's a late Uh, it's really a theological kind of a thing. Uh, it makes sense, but it's not, it doesn't say mercy seat. This is, uh, a form of kafar, which is, um, you know, substitute or, uh, you know, uh, the, the atonement is, is defined with that, but it's really substitute. This is a word of it. It's really place of atonement. place of sacrifice, place of offering. The other thing that's in here is, do you notice how he says right here? He says, now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of his two sons. And remember, we talked about that, right? Chapter 10, remember? Maydab and Abihu. And they went in, and there was a lot of speculation. We'll kind of see this. Remember what they did? They took in the incense in the fire pot with the coals from the altar. And there was speculation that they get the coals from another place other than the altar, that they use different incense. And it's funny, the commentators don't really agree on that. But it seems like, well, to me, and this is just me, It seems like they went in and they weren't commanded to go in. But it never said, wouldn't they dab and abide who did. Did they go into the holy of holies? Why were they carrying the fire pan in there? But you can see, this is what has to be done. Everything is in order. Okay, so it calls it Mercy Seat. Why do you think they came up with that name Mercy Seat? What is the image you think the theologians were thinking about? Mercy Seat. God's presence in there, right? Anybody need coffee? Isn't the Mercy Seat the lid? Yeah, right. It's a name that they use. You see, it's in my Bible, right? And it's on the mercy seat, on the lid of the... Right. Right. That they would sprinkle the blood if I received mercy. Right. I assume he's calling it a mercy seat, almost like it's, okay, this is God's presence, this is his throne, right? He's taking up residency. I don't know why they call it a mercy seat, you know, but again. But remember, think about covenant, right? Remember we had the covenant in Exodus 19. And we said it's very similar to a covenant that would have been a Middle Eastern thing. You make a covenant, oftentimes with a king or some ruler over you. You don't go and see the king anytime you want, do you? You think of Esther. Remember Esther? Remember her big deal was? Mordecai says, go see the king. And she's going, you just don't do that. I could lose my life if he's in a bad mood. The king tells you he wants to see you. You don't tell the king. And here we have a special time. This is what God said. This is the way you approach me. I'm holy. He says, let's read verse 2 again. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter any time in the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat. And mine has a note. It says propitiatory. Again, that's, again, another. But anyway, it's a place of atonement. Let's use that. And we'll get into some of the weeds on this when we go through it. mercy seed on the ark or he will die will appear in a cloud over the mercy seed verse 3 Aaron shall enter the holy place with this with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering he shall put on the holy linen tunic and the linen undergarments he shall next shall be next to his body And he shall be girded with a linen sash and attire with linen turban. These are holy garments. Then he shall bathe his body and put them on." So he's got to be, there's this whole thing about being cleansed again. He uses a separate, special set of garments. They seem to be just plain white garments. Probably a nice, really nice thread. He doesn't use the garments he uses when he's mediating to the people. He uses garments just for this. These are holy garments. Again, there's that cleanliness thing. Five, he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, a ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall offer the bull the sin offering, which is for himself. that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. So you can see that the first thing he's got to do is he's got to offer something for himself. Before he does any of this, he's got to... We see this in Hebrews. He has to offer cleansing for himself, right? The bowl. And we assume it's also for the priest. Later it says it's for his household. So he can't even approach this. Again, it's this cleanness, uncleanness thing. And while we're going through this, I mean, this is all material, right? I mean, he's actually got blood, a bull's actually being killed. But is that what's really satisfying God in all of this? I guess what I'm pointing out to It's just a manifestation, right, on a physical thing, but it's pointing to a spiritual reality, is it not? I mean, where's the real change happening? Why is God appeased by this? I know it seems obvious, but sometimes we have to stop and think, because sometimes we make this just so mechanical. Well, were they saved by the blood of bulls and goats? The whole world wasn't saved by the blood of Christ, right? It is a reality. It is something that Christ did pay. But the reality really is spiritual, is it not? I mean, think about it. God is spirit. And again, it points back to that theme I kept going over in my mind. This is just a material This material world we live in, the reality really behind it all is the spiritual aspect, is it not? Our souls, right? What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, or loses his soul? You know, it just helps me take it out of here. It's like, I guess what it does, it's like this world means less and less to us when we realize. I mean, there is a reality we need to be doing, you know, while we're here. There are physical, actual things we can go on. We don't want to just be totally spiritually minded. But really, isn't that the essence of all this is pointing to? What are we doing spiritually? What are we storing up in heaven? Again, this is my thinking. I don't know if you're tracking with us or not, but this world means less. The more God opens our eyes, the more we see this world means less and less. laws of sacrifice in order to enter the holy place, the holy of holies. All of that obedience wasn't necessarily an end unto itself, a purification or atonement, but the faith in, like God said, if we do these things, we will not die when I walk into that room. That faith is the spiritual end goal that all of these laws are pointing to. Absolutely. Because Isaiah chapter 1, what does he say? We all know this, right? I'm sick and tired of it. Don't bring me your sacrifices. I'm tired of your festivals, your new moves. Why? He established it, right? So he wasn't like, oh, I made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Why? It's because they were just going through the motions. It's not effective, right? Yeah. You know, it's one of those things. It's hard to, it's like, well, I don't want to just be, it's, you know, I hate to say, it's not one of these let go and let God things, right? I don't mean to totally minimize the, uh, our material beings. That's just the way God created us. And there's things we should be doing for sure. Uh, but yeah, the essence of it is relationships. I mean, We even know that, the secular world even knows that. Some relationships are just surface phony relationships and they know it and the people are sick and tired of it too. A real relationship is kind of when you get down and you're vulnerable with somebody else and they're vulnerable with you. You move off the surface down to the faith, the belief, the knowledge. God gives God gives us knowledge. It's not like it's just, oh, I just believe. No, we believe in what He's revealing to us. But I'll get off of that tangent. That's just to me. It's just this is what God has taken me down to a new level. I'm just kind of sharing with you. Let's see. Where did I finish off? Let's just read 6 again. Then Aaron shall offer the bowl for the sin offering, which is for himself. that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. And I assume with his household, he's talking in general. You're going to see a summary of this in the end. He's going to make atonement for the tabernacle. He's going to make atonement for the priest. He's going to make atonement for the people. We're going to see that in the conclusion of this chapter. So I assume with his household, he means he's probably talking general household, not only his immediate household, I mean, he's related to all the Levites, right? He shall take two goats, present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord, the other lot for the scapegoat. Here's another one to deal with. Any of your Bibles have any notes in there for scapegoats? Yeah, yes, that's one of them. The name is Azazel, and they don't really know what this means, 100%. It's one of those words, I believe it's only used here in Leviticus, and the Hebrews, the Jewish scholars, and yeah, and we'll get into that a little bit in the weeds, because there's some interesting things, some of them, One of them is it points towards a person, almost like a demon, you know, kind of where you get the demon goat, you know, I guess that's where... But even Kyle kind of leans that way. I see he's kind of a spiritual writer. I told you about Kyle and Dillich, but he doesn't take it as it's a sacrifice for the demon. He sees it more as it placing the sin on the demon. But whatever, This goat, again, what do they do with the goat? We're getting a little bit ahead of myself, but what are they going to do with the goat? They're going to place their hands on it, right? Again, I mean, you know, I kid around with people all the time when they say they're sick, you know, go, heal myself. I shouldn't do that, but you know, isn't that kind of what he's doing? He's putting his hands on a goat. Is something transferring out into that goat? Right? It's a spiritual thing that's pointing towards, you know, your removal of sin. Do you believe that? Yeah? Yes. faith that you can transfer or confess the sin of your people onto the scapegoat, that God would even accept it, and then the sacrifice on the mercy seat as well, that God has the option to accept it or not. It requires a lot of faith. Right. But he did give them huge manifestations. along the way, right? Obviously, you know, I'm not going to go through it all, but you know, when he came out of Egypt, there was all those manifestations. When they were at Sinai, with the mountain, things were lighting up, the mountain was shaking. Nadab and Abihu, when they died, fire came out. When they finished the tabernacle, glory appeared in the tabernacle. It gave them real manifestation. But you're right. It's still, yeah. And that's why I keep saying that. How do people in the Old Testament get saved? The same way they do in the New Testament, faith. Now they didn't have, obviously, the revelation that we have, but they had the revelation they did have. They had a different manifestation than we don't. right, with the physical, you know, seeing the sea part and things like that. But it still takes faith. Yeah, and it wasn't enough, right? I was going to say, I was like, oh, if I saw the Red Sea part, man, that would really get me. Right. But the Israelites, they not only saw it, they walked across. And then what did they do when they got to the other side? They started worshiping a golden calf. I'm like, immediately. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes it is. Yes it is. We're forgetful. Yeah. And that's why you've got to be in the Word. You ever go through periods where you kind of got off of it for a bit or something and you notice it? Even for some of us, it could be a shorter period than others, but I notice it. I need to get fed with this word, because the world, we are, I see the world, it's like being immersed in water. We are totally enveloped in this world. Right? We are. It's the system. The only way we get out of this system is through Christ's revelation, his light, but We can fall right back into it with the flesh. If you just neglect it for a while, yeah, we're forgetful. Very forgetful. Same thing with Christ. I mean, think about what... It's almost a Monty Python, you know what I mean? It's almost a joke. They go, well, show us a miracle. And usually, if you look back in the context, he just did one. No, show me another one. It just doesn't, unless God, and that's the other thing that we really need to take away. And I'll get to this at the end of the chapter, because he really, to me, he kind of emphasizes a couple of phrases that kind of talk about this whole thing you opened up with this faith. It's getting ourselves off our eyes of ourselves, and that takes grace, because That's the other thing. We are wired. We come into this world selfish. That's our state. God knows it. He cursed us. We're fallen. We're selfish. To do otherwise, though, it's just like faith. You really can't. You can get better at it. Some people are better at it than others. But really to go for the kind of selflessness that God wants, you can only do that by grace. There's no way. I mean, look at Elijah, right? After he was on the mountain, fire came down and everything else. He goes out in the wilderness, right? Leaves his servant behind. He's all by himself. When God shows up and talks to him, he's like, I did this, and I'm the only one left. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Look at it. Look at the thing. I don't know. It didn't count. I'd say there's three, four, five eyes. I don't know in there. He goes, you know, God probably was saying, you know, didn't I help you burn up that altar? I was there too, you know. I got, what did he tell him? He says, no, I got, was it 5? 10,000? How many? 7,000. Whatever. Thank you. 7,000 guys that didn't bow their knee. You're not the only one. OK. What was it? 5? I repeat it every day to God. Don't tell him a lie. Seven sounds biblical, it's a complete number. But you know, it's this I thing. Same thing. Yeah, you're right, it's faith. And it's a gift. So, again, it's not just let go, let God. We're looking at this. This is intentional. We're looking at God's Word. And if you had been here through the whole time, you kept going through this, and it's kind of like the same story almost over and over again. And it's, we're immersed in this, you know, these are all the things that are not holy, is what we've been learning. So, let's, let's, Aaron, shall I offer a goat? which is on which the lot fell to the Lord. Okay, so let me read it again. Aaron shall cast lots, two goats, one lot for the Lord, the other lot for the scapegoat. So really, one lot is for the Lord, right, to appease him. It's going to be sacrificed. The other lot takes away the sin of the people. That's what's being cast out of that camp. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it and send it into the wilderness as a scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer a bull of the sin offering which is for himself, verse 11, and make atonement for himself and for his household, and he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. He shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring it inside the veil." And this is, see, this is kind of why it seems to me that Nadab and Mabiah, you remember, that's what they did. They brought the fire pan, they brought the incense. But if you think back and are looking back, I didn't see anywhere where this was, this in Leviticus, in Exodus it was described. But in Leviticus, I didn't see anywhere this was commanded. when they took that in. It wasn't until here where he's telling them, this is what you shall do in this procedure. And that's why it kind of makes me wonder, well, I mean, I could see me being silly enough to do something like that. Wow, priests have been sanctified. Let's take the fire pan down. Can't wait to see what's behind that. Right? Not thinking? I don't know. Just speculation. We don't know. He shall put incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die. What is it doing? Is this firepan clouding it so that Aaron can't see the mercy seat and protecting himself from it? That's one of the positions a lot of them take. Some say, okay, but what do you need to do? What is the firepan? What is on the incense altar? Why? Okay, you're in the Holy of Holies, right? You got the candlestick, the showbread, table of showbread. But you have that table of incense. What does that table of incense represent? What is really there? What is that for? What'd you say? The ascension of the prayers. Prayers, exactly. They take the prayers in. You see that in Revelation, and the prayers go up. We talked about that in the throne room in Revelation. It's the prayers. The prayers of the saints. It's the prayers of the believers. It's the prayers of the camps. Remember, the priest is a mediator. He has to take the prayers in. Where do our prayers go to? Yeah, the throne room of grace. Christ is in there. The priest is in the throne room for us. moreover he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on each side also in front of the mercy seat and he shall sprinkle some of the blood with the finger seven times um did i skip a did i skip 13 no the cloud yeah no so again he's cleansing this thing okay this is all for cleansing And again, putting blood on something doesn't seem like cleansing dust, does it? That thing's gotta get cleaned. So, you know, obviously, again, you gotta, it's pointing towards a spiritual aspect. It's gotta be, right? Look beyond the physical. Then he shall slaughter the goat, the sin offering, which is for the people, bring his blood inside to veil and to do and to do with his blood as he did with the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of the transgressions in regard to all their sins and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities." Again, we see that sin He's cleansing, the first thing he's doing is he's cleansing the temple. In a sense, again, metaphorically, all this is being brought before God. Remember, this is a different economy. God's presence in this economy is manifested. He's manifesting his glory, his presence, in this tabernacle. amongst these people. You know, you remember later you see in some of the Ezekiel, things like that, right? The glory of the Lord departed out of the tabernacle. He left. Yeah. Yep. Then he shall, where did I finish up? Then he shall slaughter the goat, the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil to do the blood as he did the blood. The bull read the The sprinkler on the mercy seat, in front of the seat, shall make atonement in the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, because they are transgressions in regard to all their sins. And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting, which abides in their midst for the impurity. When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of israel then he should go out to the altar that is before the lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and and the blood of the goat and put it on the horn to the altar on all sides so now so he's he's gone in he's done the the holy of holies he's done the the holy place now he's going to go back out and he's going to do the the altar that the people sacrifice on. And he's going to cleanse that. With his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it from the impurities of the sons of Israel. Verse 20, when he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat. Okay, so that's the third step, right? Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, all their transgressions in regard to all their sins. And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of the man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness." I know there's some controversy, they talk about numbers, that there aren't sacrifices. It seems clear here these are sacrifices for all their iniquities, all their defilement. This is, and I don't know because I am not, I'll be honest with you, I'm not that much I mean, I'm weak with Old Testament. I haven't been in it for a while. I've been in the New Testament. Reading through the Bible probably helped me again this year because, you know, we're forgetful. I haven't been through it. You know, teaching or studying in a while. I've done some of the prophets and things like that, but that's way beyond this. Were the people outside the camp? It seems to me it says all. You know how some people were outside the camp? And I'm wondering. Now, again, it's what Ethan was talking about. Faith, obviously, is what really works. But was his atonement adequate for some of these people outside the camp to come in? Now, if they're unclean, no. They do have to be healed. But say they had a trespass of some type. I don't know. But it says all their sins. One of the people that had to stay outside the camp of Joshua was, I think, the prostitute. Rehab. Rehab. When she came to live there, she lived outside the camp, but she was a progenitor of Jesus. sacrificing of the animal. Like we just read sacrificing, but the priest has placed two hands on the animal and then kill it. Like blood would have been spraying everywhere. A book that says it's an assault. This one would be a lie. This one lived. The other one, yes. But even with a scapegoat, you confess all the sins of your people specifically, recounting like, oh, Peter, he killed this person in anger. And that's an emotional Every single year. Right. I was just wondering how long the farewell. How long what? The farewell. No, I'm serious. Really long. As he stood with his hands on it. All the sins of all the people. I realize he would have had to categorize it. Even that, it would have taken forever. It would have taken a while. His own people. So that would have been quite the day. It would have taken a day of atonement. Right, right. Yeah, and if you really meant it, you'd be serious, right? Because again, they did have the manifestation. They know what happens when God's not happy with them. They'd have an Abihu, and other people cut off outside the camp. Don't forget, he had to change his clothes several times. Yeah. And the symbolism of sprinkling of the blood on the atonement cover. Right. God's law represented as the Ten Commandments. justice for the sin. Then the blood sprinkled on top is where justice is met by mercy. God so chose. So the mercy seat, that's why. Yeah, no, well, yeah, that's, you know, theologically you can see how they got there, but it is a theological definition, the literal, and that's why it is helpful. It's not to throw you off and say, oh, you know, this is all wrong, but you do need to know, it helps to know, how was that word used, again, in their time, if we're trying to place ourselves back to them. The mercy seat is, in comparison to them is a relatively new term. But yeah, to have that all taken care of, and if you believed it, for sure. It still must have been a great encouragement to them. This is their first experience of worshipping God as a nation. And the laws have to be obeyed. Just think If somebody said to you, all your sins can be forgiven. I know. I know. I mean, it's huge. I know. I know. And they had... And that's part of the neat thing about this. They had more of a physical, immediate idea of sin than we do. Sin? I'm not a sinner. I'm not that bad. You know, whereas they had, it was much more, I mean, you're already going through all these things, and they realized that they couldn't go before God in that situation. Yeah, they had a much more, they were much more grounded in reality, what was clean and what was unclean, sin, and just the whole thing. Yeah. It helped me, even going back to this. I mean, I've said this a dozen times, but I mean, I'm saved. I'm good. I do feel confident I'm going to heaven. That can make me slack. I'm in. I got it. Right? And remember, a lot of these, okay, they were unclean. They could move to clean. Clean was common. But if they wanted to go to the sanctuary, they had to be sanctified, right? And that's what we need to remember, okay? Yeah, I'm in. I'm good. Okay, sanctification. How close do we want to get to the throne room of God? How close do we want to be there? I think there is, and it feels like it to me, so you know how feelings can be. When I'm holy, when I'm living right, I mean, you know, you go through periods where you're ups and downs and then, you know, whatever sin comes in, anger, of judging people, whatever it is, I don't care. Could be something worse, but the point is, you feel a distance. You feel the fellowship. And I believe that's what, you know, it's a sanctification. They were being sanctified in the old test, and we need to keep that in mind in the new test. Don't be satisfied, well, man, I'm good, I'm safe. That's Gabe's job. He's got to deal with some people. And he probably says sometimes, come on, guys, let's go. It's a patient thing. I mean, anybody deals with it, if you witness or anything else, it's kind of like you want to grab them and pull them in. It just won't work. So sanctification. Let's finish up. We'll read this real quick. Aaron shall come to attend a meeting, take off his linen garments, put them on when he went to the holy place, I'm reading this quickly, and shall leave them there. He shall bathe his body with water in his place and put on his clothes, come forth, offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering to the people, make atonement for himself and for the people. Then he shall offer up the smoke of the fat and the sin offering on the altar. And again, sin offering oftentimes really means, and we'll look at it, what is sin offering? We said it's kind of, we looked at the other offering, it's purification. It could be cleansing. Okay? It really has this gist. And if you look at what happens, the results, you'll see it. The one who releases the goat of the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body. with water, then afterwards he shall come to the camp. But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and refuge in the fire. Then the one who burns shall wash his clothes, bathe his body with water, and afterwards he shall come into the camp." So there's this cleansing. Remember, burnt offering, Really, the only thing that goes on the altar in the sanctuary is the fat. The fat goes up as a pleasing Roman to the Lord. The rest of the animal, a burnt offering, ola, is completely consumed. We see that as Christ, Christ on the cross. That's Christ. He's doing the work for us. We believe in that, but it's his work. It's totally apart from us. He's given himself completely, burnt offering, sacrifice, his sacrificial offering for salvation. He's obtaining appeasement with God, and so he can justify us. by that, but it's the burn offering, it's the complete thing. And the other offerings, you look, it's their participation in a way. The meal offering is a dedication offering, really, where they're dedicating themselves again to the covenant and to God. The peace offering, they get to share it. The meat goes to the, sorry, it's not on that list. The peace offering goes, you know, The priest takes it, remember, it becomes most holy when the priest takes it and sacrifices it, but then he gives a portion back to the people. It's fellowship. They realize they're participating in this holy thing with God. So let me finish with this. This is important. This shall be a permanent statue for you, verse 29, the seventh month, the tenth day of the month. Humble your souls. You shall humble your souls and not do any work. whether native alien soldiers among you. For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. Again, you see, it's a cleansing thing. You are cleansed. We're dirty with sin before a holy God. It's a cleansing. You will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. Again, there's all. It is to be a Sabbath, a solemn rest, For you, that you may humble your souls. It is a permanent statue. Again, you can see it. It's faith. Humility. I've got to finish up. Humbling. You know, you're not going to humble yourself, you know, without faith. You're just not. It's that pride thing. Humility is the beginning of salvation, for sure. When you're done with yourself and you're saying, I need a savior. I need this atonement for my sins. I'll finish this up then we'll quit. So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father's place shall make atonement. He shall thus put the linen garments and the holy garments and make atonement for the holy sanctuary and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting. Here it is. And make atonement for the holy sanctuary. He shall make atonement for the tent of meeting. For the altar, he shall make atonement for the priest. and for the people in the assembly. Now you have this permanent statute to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once every year. And just as the Lord commanded Moses, so he did." You can see he cleansed everything. I mean, this is a complete thing. Yeah, it's huge. We'll get into some of the weeds of it, but I think we also need to just kind of wrestle with a little bit. We talk about this atonement, Theologically, again, it's not used in the New Testament, it's just a theological word they use, but this is the foundation of all of this. This is the gospel. This is what Christ did. Christ fulfilled all this, all this sin, all these problems, Christ took care of. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for this atonement. Thank you for Christ's work. It's complete. It's finished. Lord, we will be glorified one day. We will be totally clean in heaven. There will be no sin, not for our sakes, but for our sakes for a relationship. You cannot abide with sin. There will be no sin in heaven. That's not who you are. And that's what you're showing these people here. That's what you're showing us that Christ does for us. It's future, Lord. We're saved, we're being sanctified, and we will be glorified, Lord. It's in your name we pray, amen.