verses there at the beginning of the chapter, and then we'll ask for the Lord's help in our study this morning. Leviticus chapter 3. And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd, whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. He shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord, the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the call above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. And Aaron's son shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire. It is an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord." Well, we'll end our reading there. We'll look at more passages in this before we're through. But let's seek the Lord's face in prayer this morning and ask for His help in our study. Gracious Father, we are thankful that this morning we are met in Jesus' name. We ask that you would help us to exalt that name in our hearts. We know that thou hast exalted the name of Christ above every name, and that even now he sits at thy right hand, ruling and reigning. Lord, in this church, we wish to exalt Him. We wish to do that which is pleasing unto Him. We wish this morning that we would know His presence, His power, His grace upon each believer. Lord, we would come and call upon Thee this morning that Thou wouldst be pleased to come and meet with us. Lord, we plead the blood of Christ over our gathering. We ask that You would cleanse us from every sin, even from every earth-gathered stain for this past week. And Lord, we ask that we would come and ascend the hill of God this morning, and know what it is to commune with thee in the Holy of Holies. Lord, come and help us in this class, in this hour. We also, Lord, ask for our Sabbath school teachers, that you would bless them, that they would know your help and power and grace, even as they would seek your face this morning. Lord, we pray for each one of our young ones, that they would come to Christ, that you would open their hearts the way that you opened Lydia's heart, and that they would receive the truth of the gospel, and that they would believe upon Christ. Lord, do this gracious work. It is thy work. Lord, we ask for your help and power, even as we meet together this morning, for we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We began a study a few weeks back on the tabernacle. And we have looked at the tabernacle in general, and we have said that the tabernacle served a number of functions in the Old Testament. One, it showed the people that God was a God of order, and He was the one who dictated to them where they were to live and how they were to behave. We also said that it showed the people something about God's holiness. And there was in the tabernacle a holy place and then a most holy place or the holy of holies. And that was teaching the people that our God is a holy God and that we are to be holy like him. And then we said that the tabernacle taught something concerning salvation. The people would see by the blood atonement that there was only one way to approach God, and they would look forward to the Messiah who would come and wash away their sins. And then in connection with that, we also said that the tabernacle was a picture of communion. Not just that we are saved by the blood, but that we commune by the blood. And they have in each one of these pictures concerning the furniture in the temple, in the tabernacle, in each one of these pictures you have something being described to the people of God concerning their communion with the Lord. Now, we said that the first piece of furniture that you would come upon as you came into the courtyard, as you passed through the curtains, before you got to the holy place, before someone would go into the holy place, a priest or a high priest in the most holy place, anyone could go into the courtyard. And in the courtyard, there were two pieces of furniture. And the first one you would see was the bronze altar. The second was the brass laver. Both of those are symbolic concerning our communion with the Lord. And we have been looking at the bronze altar. It's also called the Altar of Burnt Sacrifices, where the sacrifice was placed, especially the one that was placed morning and evening, which was the burnt sacrifice. Now, we looked at the dimensions of the altar. We said that the top had horns on it, four horns on each corner. There was a horn, and that these horns symbolized power, but they also had a practical application in that you could tie the animal to the altar as it was burning, so it wouldn't roll off. And we find that actually being referred to in the psalms. But we said that most of this Altar is defined for us by what was put on it by the sacrifices that were laid there So that began a study of the five sacrifices that were put on the bronze altar Throughout the week you had every day a burnt offering and that's what's in Leviticus chapter 1 a burnt offering offered in the morning and in the evening and Burns offering indicated there was need of cleansing. But even more specifically, as it's found in Leviticus, the Burns offering has the idea of consecrating your life to the Lord. Now, Israel was to be a consecrated nation. And even in their consecration, there would be imperfections, there would be sin. And so God made a sacrifice, demanded a sacrifice to be offered in the morning and in the evening six days a week. And then on the Lord's Day, we would call it the first day of the week. But in that age, it was the last day of the week. When they came together, two burnt offerings were offered in the morning and two in the evening. So there was no way possible you could miss the need of a blood atonement in your dedication in your worship. You knew that you had to come to God through the blood and it focused your attention on the fact that there was coming a day when the Messiah would come and he would wash away the imperfections of your consecration, your dedication. But beyond that, There was also added to, as we saw last week, there was added to the burnt offering a meal offering. And that was picturing the perfect humanity of Christ. The meal offering never stood by itself. It was always added to another offering that was made by blood. Cain offered a meal offering. It's called a meat offering in scripture, but in that day, a meat wouldn't indicate a whole meal. It wouldn't necessarily indicate flesh. This is actually a grain offering when we say a meat offering. It is a grain offering. And so I use the terminology of meal offering. Cain offered such an offering and he was rejected. Why? There was no blood atonement. But when God demanded that the people give offerings to him, he also put within the five offerings a meal offering that it might more fully symbolize Consecration and how that you and I are accepted because of the consecration of Christ and because of his blood atonement So the burnt offering and the meal offering went together and in both of them there were pictures about the work of Christ now when you come to the book of Leviticus in the third chapter you have another offering it's called the peace offering and Many times in scripture it is just called peace, and it is understood by the context you're talking about the peace offering. Same is true of the sin offering. There are times when the sin offering is just called sin, and it was understood by the translators talking about the sin offering, and so they would add the word offering to the word sin. Now when you look at your notes, you'll note that I have listed for you sin offering, burnt offering, peace offering. As we have stated before, the order in Leviticus chapters 1 to 6 is not the order you and I would follow if we had sinned against the Lord. If we had sinned against the Lord, we wouldn't come first with a burnt offering and meal offering and then a peace offering and then a sin offering. No, you would start with the sin offering. And the sin offering was confession of sin. We'll see that next time we have opportunity of studying the offerings. But in the sin offering was confession of sin. Then in the burnt offering, you were dedicating your life back to the Lord. The very instruments, the hands, the eyes, the mind that was used to sin was dedicated back to him. And then you came to the peace offering. Now, you see this order in a number of places when Hezekiah cleanses the temple. And the people are trying to get right with the Lord. You have a lengthy description of the offerings that were made, and they started with the sin offering. They went to the burnt offering, and then they went to the peace offering. We have that picture for us again in the book of Exodus, and we have it in Leviticus, and actually in Ezekiel. Now, I've given you two passages here so you can see this, but turn if you would to Leviticus 9. I only give you one verse. Let's go to Leviticus 9 where you can see the context. Verse 15. And he brought the people's offering and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it and offered it for sin as the first. Here's a sin offering offered for sin. You would confess your sin over the animal, you would kill the animal, and then the blood would be manipulated and the body burned. Then you came to verse 16, and he brought the burnt offering and offered it according to the manner. And he brought the meal offering and took a handful thereof and burned it upon the altar beside the burnt offering of the morning. And so you have the burnt offering following the sin offering and meal offering combined with the burnt offering. And then you have what? Verse 18. He slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings, which was for the people. And Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood which he sprinkled upon the altar round about, and the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump, and that which was covered, the inwards and the kidneys, and the call above the liver, And they put the fat upon the breast and he burnt the fat upon the altar. And the breast and the right shoulder Aaron waved for a wave offering before the Lord as Moses commanded. And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them and came down from the offering of the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offering. You'll note that the meal offering isn't mentioned because it's Considered almost a subset of the burnt offering and so you just have sin offering burnt offering and peace offering verse 23 and Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle the congregation came out and blessed the people and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people and there came up fire out from before the Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering in the fat and that which when all the people saw they shouted and fell on their faces now and The glory came when? After all three sacrifices were given. In those three sacrifices, there is a completed picture of Christ's one sacrifice. We don't offer three sacrifices. Christ offered the one sacrifice. But what you and I do in the sacrifice of Christ is very similar to what was done in the Old Testament. We come and we sin against the Lord. We confess our sin. And so we come, like the sin offering, laying our hands on Christ and saying, You are my offering. We're confessing our sin. We're claiming the blood to cleanse our sin. But we also give our bodies back to the Lord. We give ourselves to Him. We don't continue on in our sin. We give back to the Lord that which we took and used for sin. And so we give it back to Him. That was the burnt offering. We claim the blood over the imperfections of our dedication. And then what do we do? We enjoy the peace. the peace that comes to us through the atonement of Christ. And if you never get to that point, you're not seeing the blood atonement correctly. Three offerings were used to try to show the people how that they were now reconciled and at peace. So that is the offering we're looking at now, the peace offering. All three of these offerings went together to show us something about the work of Christ. That we confess our sins through his atoning work. That we dedicate and consecrate our lives through his atoning work. And that we commune with God through the blood, through his atoning work. Now, you'll note that in Ezekiel, We have this glorious vision of the temple. I'm not going to try to get into Ezekiel, this passage, and explain it all to you. But I would just say this, Ezekiel 43 gives you what is really going on in the vision that begins in chapter 40 and runs all the way to chapter 48. And if you would look in chapter 43, you have this given to the people as an inducement to repent. Did they repent perfectly? No, they didn't. Was God then obligated to give the temple in that fashion? No, He was not. But what happened was Christ came, He took away the types, the symbols, the ceremonies, with the reality of His sacrifice. Now He is the temple, we are the temple of God, and what you see in the book of the Revelation is that from that temple flows the perfection that you see in Ezekiel 40-48. Now, that was a mouthful. And I'd probably be better if I walked you through it, rather than just say it. I say all that to say, when you come to Ezekiel 45, he is showing the perfection that would have come on that side of the cross if they had repented perfectly. If they had repented perfectly, God would have brought in a perfect temple. He would have brought in perfect sacrifices. It would have been a perfect blessing. But they didn't repent perfectly. But in describing for them on that side of the cross, where everything was done in ceremonies and types and shadows, you have described the sacrifices again. And look at what it says in verse 15 of Ezekiel 45. Now, you have this in your handout. If you want to turn there, you can. But verse 15 of Ezekiel 45. And one lamb out of the flock, out of the two hundred, out of the fat pastures of Israel, for a meat offering, and for a burnt offering, and for a peace offering, to make reconciliation for them, saith the Lord." What was the peace offering portraying? Reconciliation. Now, back in the days when our translators worked on the authorized version, you came to Romans chapter 5, Verses 9 through 11 they translated the Greek word reconciliation reconciliation, and then they translated reconciling the verb But then they came to the last time the word reconciliation occurs, and they translated it atonement Now that's the way we pronounce that word atonement, but it was pronounced earlier at one mince at one mince being at one with God, with one another. That is what we call reconciliation. And so truly atonement or at-one-ment and reconciliation is the exact same thought as it's being used in Romans 5. Well, when we start to think of our reconciliation and the peace that flows from that reconciliation, it's one of the major themes of the New Testament in describing your salvation. This then was picturing that for the people. You do the burnt offering, then you come to the peace offering, and everything is at peace. At one. Everything has been reconciled. Now, when we come then to the description of this peace offering, there are a number of things that were done in the peace offering. In verses 1 and 2 of Leviticus 3, We saw that it was stated there that you could bring a male or female. By this point, the sin offering and the burnt offering, which were only the male, was surely picturing the fact that sin could only be atoned for by this one man who was coming, the Lord Jesus Christ. But now in dealing with fellowship, sin has been dealt with. Now you have female animals are being used as well. But you know, Estelle was had to be without blemish. This teaches us that it was a sinless representative that would make the people whole before God. They would never be made whole by a sinful representative. They had to have someone represent them, some man who would represent them who was sinless. Secondly, you see in verse two, they laid their hands upon the head of the offering. And so, as the offering came, you took your hands and you put it upon the head of that animal. As you pressed down on that head of the animal, you were in effect saying, this animal now has my sins and we're going to deal with them accordingly. So, sin offering, you did that. You did that in the peace offering. Transference, as it were, of guilt. Well, we know that that has to do with Christ being the substitute for us. In a very real sense, it wasn't the Romans that nailed Christ to the cross. You nailed Him there. I nailed Him there. By our sins. And we have placed our hands upon Him. And when we come to confess our sins and to claim the blood over our sins and claim the reconciliation by that blood, even as believers now, we are still, as it were, putting our hands upon the sacrifice and saying, Christ, You are my sacrifice. You have died for me. My guilt is upon You. I was actually the father that did that, putting our guilt upon him, but we do that from our hearts when we own him as our Lord and Savior. Then they killed at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and it was the man who laid his hands upon the offering that did the killing, and then Aaron's sons, the priests, got involved. So you are the one that slew the animal as well. Again, this shows, symbolically, you are the one who is killing that animal. In a very real sense, Christ died for our sins, we put him on the cross, we're the ones who slew him, even though God himself was the one doing the punishing for our sins. Then you have the sprinkling of the blood. And the sprinkling of the blood symbolizes satisfaction. God is now satisfied. That was the old word that the Puritans loved, and the theologians, a generation or two ago, loved to express what we call now the atonement. They loved to use the word satisfaction. Why? God's law is satisfying. God's wrath is satisfying. And you have that depicted in that sweet-smelling savor. The wrath is turned away. The noscos have been placated. The man who is angry is no longer angry. Or in this case, the God who was justly angry is no longer angry. He's at peace. And so you have then in these first two verses a sinless representative, a substitution for the sinner and satisfaction by blood atonement. That's what the sprinkling of the blood was all about. Now, in verses three to five, you have something that seems quite strange to us. You have the fat being taken away from this sacrifice and burned. The fat was burned, and if you were to eat the fat, you were in trouble. That was something was an abomination. The fat being burned meant that part of this sacrifice was burned to God. And so your peace, obviously, is based upon the fact that atonement was made to God, and so the burning of the fat was giving to God the part of the animal that he demanded, what they would have considered the best part of the animal. It's actually called food. You see that in verse 11. Food for the Lord. And the flesh and the hide, Shoot, I'm in chapter 9, let me get down to chapter 3. Verse 11 of chapter 3, "...and the priest shall burn it upon the altar. It is the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord." The word food there is the word bread. Lachem. Same word that you have in Bethlehem. The house of bread. It was the Lord's food. Again, what's being symbolized here is a meal. Where God has given part, his part is consumed by the fire, and then part is given to the priest, and then part will be eaten by the worshiper. Now, when you come to chapter 7, Well, before we go there, the bread was offered by fire to the Lord, fire symbolizing the consuming by the Lord, and then you have the offering said to be a sweet savor to the Lord, offering therefore was in a sense appeasing wrath, making everything at one, but God used three pictures to do that, the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, and the peace offering was the last of those pictures indicating God is at peace. No longer is he angry. The sweet savor has come into his nostrils, and God himself is satisfied. Now, when you come to chapter 7, verse 14, then again later on in verses 32 to 34, you have the heave offering and the wave offering being mentioned. Of it, he shall offer one of the whole oblation for heave offering unto the Lord. And it shall be the priest that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings." Right? The priest could now eat the heave offering. Question, what was the heave offering? We don't have much explanation for that. So, when men have come to study that, one explanation is that the heave offering was this offering that's stated here as being an oblation, was given to the priest and he would hold it up. indicating that this blessing came to him from heaven. But he also would wave it. There was a wave offering that you see later on in verse 34. For the wave offering and the heave offering have I taken. What was the wave offering? The wave offering was something that was waved perhaps from side to side, indicating blessings upon earth. And so commentators have said that this right shoulder given as a heave offering was lifted up indicating God's blessings are coming upon him, and the wave offering then indicating this peace, this reconciliation is throughout God's people. And therefore, great blessing was upon the people. Now, that's one way of explaining that. I have not heard of a better way. But having said that, the heave offering and the wave offering were then used. The heave offering was something that the priests could eat, perhaps the wave as well. It was to be eaten in a clean place. 14 of chapter 10 we're on the second page now the way of offering the heave offering shall you eat in a clean place thou and my sons and my daughters for thee and for and for they be thy do and my sons do which are given out of the sacrifice of peace offerings for the children of Israel in verse 15 it talks about the worshiper eating of Leviticus 7 The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for Thanksgiving shall be eaten on the same day that it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. So now we're talking about the worshiper, the one who came, put his hands on the animal, slew the animal, and then part of that animal was cut open and part of it was burned to the Lord. Part of it was given to the priest who lifted it up before God, indicating all blessings came from him. And then another part of that animal was now given to the worshiper. to eat, not with the blood. The blood was removed, but the worshipper was to eat. So what you had were God, as it were, being satisfied with a meal, the mediator being satisfied with a meal, and then the worshipper being satisfied with this meal. All is at peace, a communal meal. Everyone is satisfied in the sense that there's no anger, no animosity. We're all sitting down together, eating, indicating that we're at one, one with another. We're at peace. So God made them not only kill an animal, not only sprinkle the blood, not only burn it on the altar. He made them eat, indicating that all was at peace. Now, it was to be eaten the same day. This shows a close connection with the peace offering, with the other offerings. It shows that the fellowship has been restored. And it was to be, as it were, indicated by this meal. You were to eat that same day the peace offering. Now, the vow offering could, which was a type of peace offering, the vow offering could be eaten at a different time within two days. But the peace offering was to be eaten immediately, indicating the fellowship has been restored. If the next day that fellowship was disrupted by sin, what did you have to do? You came back, sin offering, burnt offering, peace offering. And then you ate again, indicating everything has been restored. I think sometimes as God's people, we come and confess our sins and we know he said he forgives us, but we don't get the sense that we have peace with him. We haven't come to eat yet. We still think he's angered, and we go around with the guilt of our sin, and we keep trying to work it off. We keep trying to deal with it, even though we've already confessed it. And by Scripture, it's gone. But in our hearts, we're not eating the peace offering yet. We haven't come to enjoy that fellowship. They were made to eat it that very day. That very day. They could not wait to the next day. If they did, it was an abomination. And it says in verse 7 of Leviticus 19, that if anything was eaten on the... now this is, excuse me, this is the vow offering, a type of peace offering, that if you ate any of that on the third day, it was an abomination, not acceptable, and everyone that eat it will bear his iniquity, because he profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among the people. The vow offering could be eaten on the day that you offered it, that type of peace offering, it could be eaten the next day. It wasn't so closely connected with the sin offering, it was connected with peace. But that third day was out. You could not do it or you became something that was abominable to the Lord. Now, the picturing of this offering, as we have said, is the idea of peace. And what a tremendous theme in the New Testament there is concerning peace and reconciliation. Now, I haven't given you all the verses, just a smattering of verses. Our Lord said that he gave his peace to his people, and he did. There's a real peace that he has given to us, that he has earned by his atoning work. When you come to Romans chapter 3 and verse 17, it says concerning the unsaved, the way of peace they have not known. The ungodly do not know the way of peace. They're trying to find peace, but they can't find it. So what they do is they drink themselves drunk so they aren't thinking on what's going on in the world, can't remember their guilt until the drunkenness wears off and then their guilt comes back double. Or they take drugs, and while they're on the high from the drug, they can't remember the guilt, they don't feel, as it were, the pain and the agony of conscience, and then as soon as the drug is over, bam, it comes back again. No peace for the wicked. So, the way of peace they've never found. Where is the way of peace? It's found in Christ. In Acts chapter 10, The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. That's where peace comes. It's by Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter two, Paul's dealing there with reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and reconciliation between that new body of Jew and Gentile, that new congregation being reconciled to God. And so we find then in verse 14, it says this about Christ, for he, Christ, is our peace. He's our peace offering. He is our peace offering, who hath made both one, he's made both Jew and Gentile one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain of two one new man." The word make there, to make in himself, literally is the word create. He creates in himself one new man. So the reconciliation is there. There's not two bodies to Christ, there's but one. So there's a reconciliation, Jew with Gentile, soul making peace. How did he do it? He did it through what he did on the cross. It was he abolished in his flesh the enmity. On the cross, when he suffered in his flesh, he abolished the enmity and he's bringing both together now. Then it says, verse 16, and that he might reconcile both where? Unto God. That's what we normally think of reconciliation. It's God word. that he might take both Jew and Gentile and reconcile them to God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." The enmity is now gone. The enmity between Jew and Gentile is gone, or should be. From God's standpoint it is. The enmity between this body and God is gone. Christ slew the enmity as He died on the cross for our sins. And verse 17 then says, "...and came and preached peace." To you which were far off, that's the Gentiles, and to them that were nigh, that's the Jews. They came to preach peace. That's what they went through the world, preaching peace. It's a gospel of peace, according to the armor that we put on our feet. We're to put on the preparation of the gospel of peace. That means that we're ready to go into the world and tell the world about the fact that there is a peace now between God and man through the sacrifice of Christ. If you will have Him, there is a peace. A sacrifice has been given that will result in your reconciliation in all being one. Now, when you come to Romans 5, this is also used, this language of peace, in relationship to your justification, not just your reconciliation. Reconciliation indicates two parties are at odds. They're at war, one with another, and a gift is given, perhaps from one party to the other. The offended party is receiving a gift, and by that gift, their anger is turned away, and they are satisfied, and both parties are brought together. But justification is a courtroom term. It implies we're coming before the judge of all the earth. And as in a courtroom, there are those who would come and bring accusations. We call them a prosecuting attorney. And some of our cases are decided simply by a judge. And they would bring the accusations, the judge would hear the case, and then make a verdict based on the law. Right? This is what the word justify means. It has to do with the verdict that the judge makes where he says, you are righteous. Or, he says, you are not righteous, and then the word would be condemnation. Paul uses these two words, justification and condemnation, especially in the book of Romans, to explain the gospel. You and I come to God's courtroom. How do we come? We come guilty. No question about that. No debate about that. We come guilty. Yet we leave his courtroom declared righteous. That means he had to do something to get rid of our sins. That means he had the final righteousness that we didn't have to be able to declare us righteous. Because we haven't kept the law. We did break it. So how does he declare us righteous? It comes into the courtroom a substitute. And that courtroom stands in our place. That substitute stands in our place. And God says this man should die because of his sins. And that substitute says I died for him. The law says, this man must keep the law perfectly, and the substitute says, I have kept it perfectly for him. And so what you read in Romans 5 and verse 1 are these words, therefore being justified, being declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God. How? Through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one in the courtroom. saying, I died for his sins. He is the one in the courtroom saying, I have provided perfect righteousness. I have imputed it to that person. Let him go. And we go out of the courtroom righteous. We go out of the courtroom at peace. If there was anything left for us to do, then we would not be at peace yet. We would only be at peace when we have done that. But we leave the courtroom declared righteous. That's what justification means. You can't see it so much in the English because righteous and justification come from two different roots. But when you think of the word just, that means righteous. You see that in the word justification. Justification is declaring someone to be righteous. If you're looking at this in the Greek, you would see it very clearly. The word righteous and the word justification are all from the same root. Justification is declaring someone to be righteous. We come into the courtroom guilty. We leave the courtroom righteous, declared righteous. Why? It's through Jesus Christ. Not because of anything we did. How good was his work? Great peace. That's what Paul says. Therefore, being declared righteous for this great God, we are now at peace. I'm not talking about in the future. Yes, that'll be true at the Day of Judgment. But he's talking about right now. We have peace with God. Reconciliation, yes. Justification, legal. What God has done is legally right. You can't find a loophole here. You can't undo this later by saying the judge was corrupt and somehow the law was set aside. No, everything has been met. God has overseen it. God is the one who says, you're righteous. God is the one who says, I'm at peace. I have laid down mine arms. I'm no longer going to war with you. The enmity is removed. I am legally at peace. How is that pictured in the Old Testament? This peace then becomes a practical peace. If you really believe that, you're going to pray, and you're going to give all of your burdens to the Lord. And in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7, he says, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Why? You're at peace with God. Let them all be made known. And then he says in verse 7, In the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, so keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. There is a peace now that is subjective, that is in your heart. When you realize you're at peace with God, and you take all of your burdens in this life and give them to Him, because you're at peace. What a peace floods the soul. When I was a child, I could come to my father and I could give him my burdens, and once I knew he knew about it, I could just let it go. I didn't have to think about it, didn't have to worry about it. He was going to take care of it. And this is what Philippians 4, verses 6 and 7 is telling us. There is a practical aspect to this peace, where your mind and heart are put at peace, when you believe you're at peace, and you come and you bring your burdens, you leave them with Him, and that gives you peace in the heart. And so, Paul goes on to say, those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do, and the God of peace shall be with you. Again, Colossians chapter 3 and verse 15, Paul says, let the peace of God rule in your hearts. Let the fact that the peace offering has been offered rule in your heart. Come and reflect on that peace offering. Come and reflect on what Christ has done. Come and reflect on the glorious statements about your reconciliation or your justification, and see that you are truly at peace with God. Now, reconciliation, as we have said, is talked about in Romans 5, the latter part of that early chapter. Justification is talked about in the latter part of Romans 5. Reconciliation is talking about 2 Corinthians 5, Ephesians 2, Justification Philippians 3. I mean, we can go through verse after verse after verse on those two themes, and they all leave us in the same place. We're at peace with God. Legally and practically, we're at peace with God. Let it rule your heart. The word rule there, we studied this on a Sunday evening a few months back. The word rule literally means, let it be the umpire. The word comes from the root from which we get our word, umpire. What does an umpire do in a game, such as a baseball game? He rules things in as being okay, and he rules things out as not being okay. That was a strike. That was not a strike. That was a fair ball. That was not a fair ball. He's ruling things in, and he's ruling things out. Paul says, let the peace of God rule your heart that way. Anything that comes to your heart and it denies the peace that you have with God, that is ruled out. Get rid of it. Anything that comes into your life and teaching that comes to you that rules in the fact that you're at peace with God, the atoning work of Christ, let it be ruled in. Let it stay there. Let it rule your hearts. Let the peace of God govern you. Very few Christians do that. They're looking at their lives the same way the unsaved look at their lives. And you and I are not to see ourselves that way. We're to see ourselves through the gospel of Christ, through the peace that we have with him. Now, there is a counterfeit peace that the world has. They think God's at peace with them when he's not. And even in the day that the Lord returns, there'll be people saying in 1 Thessalonians 5, 3, peace and safety, and then sudden destruction will come upon them. What is that sudden destruction? It's the return of Christ. But false prophets always tell people that they're at peace when they're not. We're not making up with peace. We have real reason to believe we're at peace because we can see the atoning work of our sacrifice, Jesus Christ, our peace offering. Again, Isaiah chapter 57, you have the Lord saying, I create the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far off and to him that is near, saith the Lord. That reminds us of Ephesians 2, doesn't it? I create this peace to the one who is far off, the Gentile, as well as to the one who is near. And I will heal them. But the wicked, like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, there is no peace, saith my God to the wicked. As long as the wicked are at war with the living God, no peace. He would have to die before there could be peace. Because God is at war. That warfare doesn't stop with this life, it goes on into the next life. He is at war. There is no peace for the wicked, yet He creates peace for you and I. How does He do it? Through the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. Now, we have said that there are some offerings that are more than Just a peace offering in that there could be a Thanksgiving offering, which would be a peace offering. And you would come and offer that to the Lord. Again, it shows that your Thanksgiving is gratitude. You're not trying to earn it. You're not trying to earn it. You already have his favor. Favors come to you through the sin offering, burnt offering, and peace offering, and now you come and give a thank offering. You see that with Hezekiah, as they were giving a thank offering after the burnt, the sin, the burnt, and then that offering. Well, we give the sacrifice of praise to God continually, according to Hebrews 13, 15. By him, that is by Christ, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. We have a thank offering. We're giving thanks. We're not trying to make atonement with our sacrifice of praise. We have atonement. We are at one. We're not trying to earn it. We have it. And that's what the thank offering was. All these other pictures have been done. Now you offer the thank offering. Everything has already been rectified. Everything is already at one through the atonement. Now you offer this thank offering. The vow offering was a similar one or the free will offering. Those who talked about Leviticus chapter 7 verse 16. And you and I make vows, but we don't make vows to earn his favor. We already have his favor. We're making vows out of gratitude to him. And this is, I think, the context of Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. What are the mercies of God? It's the sacrifice of Christ and all that comes to us through that sacrifice. He's gone over 11 chapters telling you that in Romans. Now he comes to chapter 12, he said, I beseech you, based on these mercies, on this sacrifice, on this work of Christ, Present your body a living sacrifice right here. You're coming and presenting your body to God and saying God take my body and use it It's dead to me. It's a sacrifice, but it's living to you Holy acceptable whatever you want to be done in this life. It's yours That should be the lot of every Christians not just a lot of the preacher If I didn't try to live this way people would find fault with me. They would come and complain They would come and fuss and fume While all the time they themselves would say, but I'm not living that way. Wait a minute, that's hypocrisy. This command is not given to the preacher. It's given to all of God's people. Preacher, as well as what we would call layman. Elder, deacon, Sunday school teacher, those who just come and sit and worship. It's given to every one of us. You are to present your body. This is the vow offering. What was it? The vow offering was part of the peace offering. Peace had already been established. Then you would make your vows to the Lord, whatever you felt constrained to do. And this is what made the vow offering so serious. It was something you freely gave, you didn't have to make a vow. And it says in Scripture, better not to vow than to vow not pay. Marriage is a vow. Making a vow to God, you're making a vow to the people. Nobody's making you get married. It's a vow we freely enter into. There are contracts you enter into with people that are freely entered into. Well, there are things we do with God, and you might make a vow to Him, but you're not doing it to earn His favor, you're doing it because you have His favor. All the difference in the world. And this was a part, not of the sin offerings, this was a part, not of the burn offerings, it was a part of the peace offerings, when Fellowship had been restored he would come and give a thank offering or a vow offering or free will offering Now in a very real sense you and I when we come to the Lord's table We are depicting this we are eating like you did at the peace offer We come to the Lord's table, and it's not a sacrifice don't misunderstand The Lord's table is not a sacrifice as Rome would say they would say it's a continuation of the sacrifice of Christ utter nonsense It is not What is the Lord's Table? It is a picture of the sacrifice of Christ. But like they would eat the peace offering in the Old Testament, so you could come and eat the peace offering. Or you and I come when we come to the Lord's Table and eat the pictures of the work of Christ. In order that we might be nourished and walk away from the Lord's Table saying again, all is at peace. This is the way of peace. The way of peace they have not known. What is the way of peace? The Old Testament peace offering pointed you to it. The way of peace is the sacrifice of Christ alone. Through that sacrifice we are at one with our God. Let's bow our hearts in prayer. Father in heaven, we are thankful for all that was depicted through the burnt altar. We are thankful, our Father, for those many, many, many years allowing sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice to declare to the people the awfulness of this great atonement, the awe-inspiring, the wonder of this great atonement. Lord, we pray that you would help us never to lose the wonder of it. that you would help us to ever stand in amazement and gratitude for what Christ has done as he's offered himself to be our sin offering, our burnt offering, and our peace offering. We're thankful that they are pleased. We're thankful that they are satisfied. We're thankful, Lord, that we this morning are accepted in the beloved. Lord, help us to worship that way. Help us this morning to glorify thee with our whole being. For we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.