Well, the book of Leviticus is a book that shows the gospel of Jesus Christ so richly that even when you read the commands, which I'm going to read for you now, they're in a context of grace that is so rich that it's not an overwhelming thing. It's a joyous thing that we can enter into. I'm going to read from Leviticus 19, verses 30 through 37. God says, you shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am Yehovah. Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits. Do not seek after them. Do to be defiled by them. I am Yehovah, your God. You shall rise before the gray-headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God. I am Yehovah. And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am Jehovah, your God. You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hymn. I am Jehovah, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them. I am Yehovah. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our glory to study it, to live it, and to rejoice in it. And I pray that as we continue to worship, you would receive our praises. In Jesus' name, amen. Did you know that Leviticus was the very first book that the Jews introduced to their children and had their children study? I think a lot of us adults are far more intimidated by this book than the children are. And it's true, some of the kids might say, ooh, you know, and you read about the blood and the guts and the cutting apart of the animals. Leaking body fluids and where to go to the bathroom and all that kind of stuff. They're still curious about it. They want to know more about that. And it's a very visual book. It is filled with pictures of sin and of Jesus and of holiness. And I'll give you five reasons why this book is a book for children and not just for a 63-year-old pastor who loves odd things. I went actually to a modern apostate Jewish website to see what they would say, because the Jews continue to teach this to their children, and there are Jews who wonder, why do we bother? We don't have a temple, we don't have sacrifices, why do we go to this book first? Because they've always done this. So I wanted to see what kind of a lame reason they would give as to why they continue to do this. And because they miss the Jesus that Leviticus so clearly points to, they get the first reason wrong. One rabbi said, children are pure, therefore let them study the laws of purity. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the exact opposite. It's because our children are not pure, and all of us parents know it, right? It's because our children are conceived in sin, they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies, and they just get more and more sophisticated in their sin that we have to show them step by step how to get right with God. And so priests used Leviticus and the Levites and the parents used Leviticus as a picture book to take their kids step-by-step through God's view of sin, step-by-step through the gospel process of heart cleansing, and step-by-step through the principles of restitution. It's a book that teaches children as well as 63-year-old pastors, you know, how to be holy. Now second, Leviticus gives almost half of the 613 laws or commandments that the Jews counted up in the Old Testament, almost half. Now granted, it's a mixture of ceremonial laws and moral laws that are in there, but once you teach the children what these ceremonial laws mean, you know, how it points to Jesus and the gospel and cleansing from sin, the lights go on and they begin to realize there is a rhythm in life, there is a structure of life that God gives to bring comfort and security. Third, this book teaches children to respect authorities that God has placed into their lives. Now that does not come automatically, and children need to be taught to respect authority. I just read one example, a passage earlier, Leviticus 19.32 says, you shall rise before the gray-headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God, I am Yehoah. and other portions of the book show children how they should show respect to clergy, how they should show respect to civil magistrates. We live in an age when reverence for authority is almost a thing of the past. You have very, very little respect for authority, and Leviticus can help us to restore that. It needs to be taught. It needs to be taught very early. Fourth, this book taught children the rituals of worship that they would be going through for the rest of their lives. Now, we have a hard time identifying with these, because we're not under the law, right? We don't sacrifice animals. We don't go through all those temple rituals. But our God is a God of ritual—Old Testament, New Testament. And he introduces the children to these rituals before they even know what is going on so that it becomes a part of the rhythm of their life. They begin to capture these gospel rituals just by osmosis, just by being in their presence. And by the way, even though our children do not understand all of the rituals of standing and kneeling and praying and when to sing and all of these kinds of things, by being from the youngest years in the midst of it, They learn things as well. In fact, I think this is one of the worst parts of children's church. The kids never learn to adapt, to realize this is a part of real life. They get an artificial life, and then when they get introduced at the age of, what, eight or 10 or something like that, it's like, I like the fun and games, you know, in children's church a whole lot better. So it undermines what God intended. And then finally, this book grounded children in the gospel in a very concrete way that they could not forget. Every day they were surrounded by symbols that said, hey Johnny, you are a sinner, and don't forget it. You need a savior, and don't forget it. You need to be cleansed of your sin, and don't forget it. They were completely surrounded by symbols of the gospel. And they lived and breathed these gospel rituals. Now, if we wanted to summarize Leviticus in one word, it would be the word holiness or holy. The Hebrew word is kadosh. Even though kadosh is only translated as holy or holiness 78 times in the New King James, that word kadosh actually occurs 304 times in the book of Leviticus. It's astounding. Now, it's translated different ways, holy, holiness, sanctified, consecrated, dedicated, or separated. But the concept of holiness permeates the book of Leviticus in either describing a transcendent God who is completely separate from all creation—He's transcendent—or God's calls to us to be holy and to be separated to Him. So it's a book that constantly reminds us we have a holy God that we deal with, and we're not nearly holy enough. I think we can get at least that much. The key verse for the book is Leviticus 19, verse 2, which says, speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I, Yehovah, your God, am holy. Now that phrase is actually repeated several times in the book, so you could have several key verses. I'll just give you one example. Leviticus 20, seven through eight, expands on our theme verse by saying this. Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am Yehovah your God, and you shall keep my statutes and perform them. I am Yehovah who sanctifies you. Now, even though there's a lot of activities in this book that relate to this theme of holiness, they are not teaching us, hey, by God's rituals, you can earn God's favor, or you can somehow manipulate God into pleasing you. No, every one of these rituals was teaching us, in ourselves, we are not adequate. It's only God who can make us holy. They're very crystal clear, the way that they teach this truth. Now, one other introductory matter that I wanted to address is the relationship of Leviticus to Exodus. There was a logical flow to the order of God's books. I'm not a huge fan of Chuck Swindoll, but in a recent short blog, I think he hit the nail on the head when he described the significance of Leviticus coming after Exodus. He said this, now that Israel had been redeemed by God, that's the book of Exodus, They were to be purified into a people worthy of their God. That's the book of Leviticus. You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy, says Leviticus 19.2. In Leviticus we learn that God loves to be approached, but we must do so on His terms. And I love that last sentence of his. In Leviticus we learn that God loves to be approached, but we must do so on His terms. And as we approach God, We realize His holiness is so much beyond ours that we learn to both fear God as well as want to become more like Him. When we gaze upon His holiness, it's unnerving, it's uncomfortable, but at the same time, it also makes us admire God. When I was in Bible school in the late 1970s up in Canada, I absolutely came to love the book of Leviticus. And this one semester I was reading through very, very slowly, meditating upon the holiness of God. And I remember one time I was on my knees beside my bed. Worshiping God through the book of Leviticus, this God who lives in unapproachable holiness, and suddenly God manifested Himself in His holiness to me so powerfully that I was absolutely overwhelmed with His holiness. Now, I had previous to this time had God manifest Himself to me in His love. a cascading wave after wave after wave of love upon me till I thought I was going to die and enjoy dying in His love. And this was different than that. Even though I never doubted His love, this holiness of God was so powerful in my life, so overwhelming, that I literally backed out of the dorm room into the hallway. I was oblivious to what anybody else was thinking, still on my knees. And then afterwards, I was kicking myself. Why on earth would you leave God's presence? But there was something about His holiness was like a magnet that was attracting me. But at the same time, something about His presence where I realized I cannot be in His presence. It was a very, odd mixture of feelings. I... I wanted to be like him, and yet I realized I was not like him. So that was one of the things that immersing myself in the book of Leviticus produced in me. It also produced a great appreciation for his gospel and the security that I have in Christ. And I tell you that story just to show you, the more you immerse yourself in books, there are various facets those books will imprint upon your life. And Leviticus has become a favorite book of mine. It is deeply imprinted into my soul. Let me make a couple of comments on the first chart on the backside of your outline. If you flip those over, I'm going to be referring to the outline quite a bit. It has often been said that it took only one day for God to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. You know what I mean? They thought about life in Egyptian ways and Egyptian actions, and God was trying to purge them of that. And this book shows that without the continual cleansing and empowering of His grace, even Christians cannot successfully get rid of Egypt out of their mind, their heart, their soul, and their actions. And if you look at the underlined words in that chart, you can see that this book claims every part of our personality, our families, our churches, our land for the Lord. Even the state must humble itself and humble its pride by adopting God's laws rather than making their own. Now, in looking at the same chart, you may wonder why little children would have to study the duties of the priests when most of them were never going to become priests. And there are two good reasons for that. One reason is that it helped the children to appreciate all of the sacrifices that those priests went through to God on their behalf. And then secondly, this book called every man, woman, and child to be a part of a nation of priests who would draw people to God and a nation of kings. a kingdom of kings who would take dominion in life. And so those priests were actually models of a royal priesthood of all believers. Though we cannot today perform the sacrifices, we don't have a tabernacle, we can point to Jesus who was the final sacrifice and we can point to the tabernacle in heaven. The open Bible correctly states, in Exodus, Israel is redeemed and established as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And in Leviticus, Israel is taught how to fulfill their priestly call. They have been led out of the land of bondage and exodus and into the sanctuary of God and Leviticus. They move from redemption to service, from deliverance to dedication. And if you look at the top part of the outline chart again, you'll see that the first half of the book deals with the basis of fellowship with God, that's chapters one through 16. And the second half deals with the way of life before God as kings and priests, that's chapters 17 through 27. And I want to emphasize, even when you're looking at the laws of God in this book, that these laws assume you are already a people of God. You've already gone through the Exodus experience. And so the laws and the ceremonies in here that focus on the gospel are not so much on how to get saved. They are about how a people of God can become more and more close to the God of all holiness. And this is true even of the first five sacrifices in Leviticus 1 through 7. I'm going to spend a fair bit of time on these sacrifices because they're really important. These are described quite well. If you look at the front side of your outline, there's a graphic by Campbell in there, and I've looked forever for a graphic that could capture these five sacrifices, and I think this was so, so well laid out. And then I'm going to flip as well to the reverse side. The second chart describes those five sacrifices as well. Now, the first three offerings were sweet savor sacrifices that showed God's people lovingly consecrating themselves to the Lord. All three are voluntary expressions of love, from a people who are saved. They're not mandated. And I'll try to distinguish them for you. What I'm going to do today, we're not going to do every sermon the same way. I'm just going to give you an overview of the whole book, and we'll kind of interweave the themes of Christology through it. I think it'll be easier to handle the book that way. Okay, let's look at chapter one. The burnt offering of chapter one represents the entire consecration of a person who is already saved. So basically, what they're saying is, Lord, as this bull is being completely, or whatever other animal they gave, is completely being burned up on this altar, I give myself as a living sacrifice. I consecrate the entirety of my being to you. I do not hold back anything. Now, of course, the only way that we can effectively do that is through the Jesus to whom those sacrifices point. So all of these sacrifices look to Jesus, but there's something about us that we're offering up. So when it's pointing to Jesus, it shows that Jesus completely, better than we could ever do, He completely consecrated Himself to the Father out of love for the Father and love for us. And I'll give you an example. Ephesians 5, verse 2 says, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and gave Himself for us. Here's the word, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. All three of those phrases describe the burnt offering. And what's our response? Well, Romans 12, verse 1, calls us to, in similar fashion, offer up our lives entirely to the Lord as a living sacrifice. And by the way, this burnt offering demonstrates at least three, if not four, of the five languages of love. This is a love offering to God. First of all, if you look at the fourth column on the backside chart, labeled our work. Each of these things had something that the priests had to do, something that is our work that we have to do. So if you look at that column, you'll see that preparing for this offering involved an enormous amount of work, at least one hour of hard work on the part of the sacrificer. So if you've ever skinned an animal, and cut it up and washed it and prepared that animal, you know that it is describing at least the language of love called service. There's labor involved. There is service that is involved. But that time that it took for this worshiper to prepare this animal for the Lord could involve a lot of quality time with the Lord as he prays and says, Lord, I'm doing this for you. I'm so excited to be able to give a burnt offering to you. And then, thirdly, there was gift giving. This worshiper gave the animal as a gift to the Lord, and gave the skin as a gift to the priests. And Romans 12, 1, and there's other scriptures say, hey, even in the new covenant, we can offer up sacrifices to the Lord as a consecration of our whole being. The next offering was the grain offering, where the first one was the consecration of the person. This grain offering is a consecration of our dominion, the fruits of our labors, all of the works and the possessions that we have. Now, because there was no blood associated with this offering, it was always, without exception, connected with one of the two other voluntary blood offerings. And the reason is, Without blood of Jesus, there is nothing we can offer to God that is acceptable at all. Even as Christians, it is made acceptable through the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you look at the graphic on the front side of those five offerings, you'll see there is a chain that connects this offering together with the other two offerings. They always had to be related in some way with blood. But think of the love languages displayed in this gift as well. Scholars point out that finely ground flour would have been expensive at the time of the wilderness wanderings when Moses gave this for three reasons. First of all, at least initially, they were wandering in the wilderness. They couldn't grow grain. So they either brought it from Egypt, and later on it would have been many years before, or they traded it from neighboring countries. Secondly, the way that they would grind it, they couldn't go to the store to get finely ground grain. They had to put the grain on a stone. They have another stone that grinds and grinds and grinds on it. And that produces coarse flour, and you had to keep grinding the coarse flour so that it would become fine flour fit for a king. So again, there's the labor and time that is involved in making this. And then third, salt, oil, olive oil, and frankincense were hard to come by, and so it was expensive. And then fourth, this was something prepared by the person himself. It didn't count to go to the grocery store and buy a bag of flour and say, here, Lord. No, this involves a lot of the person's time, labor, thought, and care. So let me apply this. When you're teaching your children to give to the Lord above and beyond the tithe, it is much better to have the children earn what they are giving than to hand them a dollar and tell them to put it into the offering plate, and they thoughtlessly put it in the offering plate with no sacrifice, no cost to them. Even though we are not under the law, it shows us we should express our love to God using all five languages of love. When it costs us quality time and thought and labor and money, it is a fabulous gift. It's a fabulous gift to the Lord. It's kind of a thanksgiving offering that in effect says, Lord, I so appreciate all of the things that you have blessed me with. You've blessed my finances, you've blessed my home, you've blessed me in all of these different ways. And this offering is just an acknowledgement of the fact that what you give me, what I have, could not be in my hands if it was not for you blessing it. I'll just give you an example of how we gave a thank offering. When we sold our Davenport house, when we counted up, we were shocked at how much money we spent on repairs. There was no profit to tithe on, but we were so blessed with the miracle of the sale of that house that we gave a substantial thank offering, basically telling the Lord, Lord, this is a miracle. This comes from your hand, and we're thankful. This is a thank offering. Thank you, Lord. So that gives you an idea of what the grain offering is about. It's saying, Lord, all that I own is consecrated to you. The first one, my person is consecrated to you. Now all that I own is consecrated to you. The third offering had to do with entering into fellowship, friendship with God. It's called a peace offering, but some people call it a communion offering, okay? This is in chapter three. It's the only offering that was eaten by both the priest and the worshiper. Now, 1 Corinthians chapter 10 connects the Lord's table of the new covenant with the Passover as well as a variety of these peace offerings that are listed in Leviticus chapter three. And the vast majority of Paul's examples of Old Testament meals that have an exact correspondence with the Lord's table that we partake of are these peace offerings, okay? For example, 1 Corinthians 10, 1 through 4 compares the Lord's table to the peace offerings that came a few days after the Passover. Verses 5 through 7 compare the Lord's table to the peace offerings in Exodus 32, 5 through 6. Verse 8 compares the Lord's table to the peace offerings in Numbers 25 through 26. Verse 9 compares the Lord's table to the peace offerings in Numbers 16, 1 through 49. Verse 18 compares the Lord's table to the peace offerings eaten in the temple in the first century. I think you get the point, that there is a correspondence between those peace offerings and what we partake of here. In fact, Paul says at the beginning of chapter 10, that they ate the same spiritual food and the same spiritual drink that we eat in the Lord's table. Okay, so with that as a background, let me make two applications from these peace offerings to the Lord's table. First, I think it is clear from the chapters where the peace offerings are discussed in Leviticus, that's chapters three, four, seven, nine, 10, 17, 19, 22, and 23. In other words, it's discussed all through this book, that only those whom the Levites determined were already believers could partake. In other words, it was a credo communion. Now, I very much respect the pedo communion viewpoint. I used to hold the pedo communion myself in the past, But let me just share with you some of the reasons, people have been curious, what are the differences between these different camps. Let me share with you some of the reasons why we believe that the peace offerings were credo. First of all, it was called a free will offering, chapter 19, verse 5. 22 verses 21 and 29, and each one was supposed to be, who participated in it, was to participate, it says, of his own free will. Not somebody else's free will, but of his own free will. Babies can't do that. And other descriptions of this sacrifice and fellowship meal that follow it make it clear that it was, number two, a conscious gift to God. We'll look at some examples. Three, it was voluntary. Four, those who ate of it were held accountable for any violations of the law. And five, were not to eat unworthily. For example, chapter 9, excuse me, 19 verse 8. In fact, most commentators, if you look in the commentaries, they will say the first three offerings were voluntary offerings. Okay, that excludes children, because if a child participates, it's not voluntarily, okay? Voluntarily means you are consciously, actively being a part of this symbol. Sixth, I want you to notice in verse 2 that the offerer laid his hands upon the animal, symbolizing the fact that there was an active Acknowledgement of his own sin and a transfer of his sins to the head of this animal. That was always done by those who partook. This is why 2 Chronicles 30 is not giving something new when it speaks of, quote, offering peace offerings and making confession to the Lord God of their fathers. That's 2 Chronicles 30 verse 22. So do you see how those two are connected with each other? Offering peace offerings and making confession to the Lord God of their fathers. Those two are always linked together. Confession of sin, repentance, is a prerequisite to partaking of the peace offering. 2 Chronicles 30 verses 18 through 19 shows that, quote unquote, everyone who partook was expected to, it says, prepare his heart to seek God, and when they failed to do that, they were smitten with sickness. The vast majority of the Old Testament sacramental meals that the Apostle Paul compares to the Lord's Table 1 Corinthians 10-11 refer to these peace offerings that have a very active credo element. And Paul gives example after example of people partaking of the peace offerings unworthily and suffering God's judgments. Now I want to actually write a book on this subject. because I want to demonstrate the balance. There's three positions, mature communion, young credo communion, and then there's paedo communion. I wanna demonstrate the young part of this credo communion. Today we have admitted into communion a very young child, much, much younger than most Reformed churches would allow into communion, but we have done so because we have examined This child, we believe, he meets the minimal qualifications that the Bible sets forth. And the Jews and the parents of the Jews had their children studying the book of Leviticus very young. Why? Because they wanted their children to come to the Lord's table as early as possible, but they had to come knowledgeably. This is why Nehemiah 8, 2-3 clarifies which little ones, little ones do partake, But which little ones partake of the Lord's table? Two times it clarifies, that is, those who could hear with understanding. And so parents actually, you parents have a responsibility. You want your children to come to the Lord's table? Just as the parents in the Old Testament had their kids studying Leviticus, and they said, here's what the gospel is about, and here's what restitution is about, and here's how your heart gets transformed. You need to teach the children So that we're not expected to, that's not our responsibility. According to the Bible, it's you parents' responsibility to train these children. What does the gospel mean? What does your sin mean? And how do you relate your sin to God? And what is the, you know, the laying of the hands on the animal? How is imputation of my sins to this animal, and then the imputation of Christ's righteousness to me, how does that all work out? You've got to train your kids in these things. So, I've not yet written a defense. I really need to. I've just written against the mature communion position, but I want to write at some point a book that shows the credo part of the young credo position. It's a very defensible position, and these peace offerings would just be a small part of that argument. Now, here is my second general equity application of these peace offerings. There are some people In fact, even in Reformed circles, it's beginning to be the case, never used to be, who say, hey, any parent can serve communion to his kids anytime that they want to. And I know somebody who's just all by himself in the home, and he says, well, I served communion to myself this morning. I said, that is weird. That is not a biblical thing. Now, against those who participate in communion without being members of churches and without being under the authority of elders, I would point out that the peace offerings were always eaten before the tabernacle, that's verses 2, 8, 13, and actually there's a bunch of verses in Leviticus, and under the oversight of the Levites who were from their synagogue. That's chapter 7. Deuteronomy 12.18, 14.29, and a bunch of other verses. 2 Chronicles 31 verse 14 speaks of Levites who had authority over the freewill offerings to God to distribute the offerings of the Lord and the most holy things, unquote. In other words, only Levites, that's pastors. Levites were scattered throughout Israel. They were not the priests. The Levites were the ones who were over the synagogues. Only Levites could distribute what was eaten. And it wasn't just for the peace offerings, it was for the Passover as well. Before the tabernacle was set up, Exodus 12 verse 21 says the Passover lamb was under the authority of the elders. Later, Scripture says that the Levites, quote, had charge of the slaughter of the Passover lambs and divided them quickly among all the lay people. So, all of the Old Covenant meals were clearly connected with the church. It's not a family sacrament. It is a church sacrament, and I've put a whole bunch more Scriptures up on the web that show that it is a violation of Scripture to take communion without the authority that the elders alone have authority to admit or demit from the Lord's table. So those are two general equity applications that the New Testament itself makes of the peace offerings in chapter 3. Now let's move on to the next offering. Sin offering in chapters four and the beginning of chapter five indicates that fellowship can be broken by Christians. And when they break it, they need to rededicate themselves to the Lord. Some people question whether you should ever rededicate yourself to the Lord. Absolutely, and these offerings are the basis for that. And so when a child has sinned grievously and has this, just can't get rid of this sense of guilt, well, the parents can take them here and say, well, here's how you resolve that guilt. You do it through this sin offering. And by the way, people who didn't have much money, no problem. You tell the kid, okay, here's a box, set a trap in the backyard and catch a dove, catch a pigeon and we'll bring that to the temple, right? So God accommodated the young as well as the old and the rich and the poor. And again, it points to Jesus being the basis for even the forgiveness of sins we commit long after we were saved. We always look to Jesus for forgiveness, and I won't take the time to demonstrate it, but 2 Corinthians 5.21, 1 Peter 2.24 speaks of Jesus as being our sin offering. Now, it says, he who became sin for us, but that word can be translated sin or can be translated sin offering in the Old Testament as well as in the New. Now, where sin offering looks to forgiveness, trespass offering serves the function of restitution. Okay, because of the blood sacrifice, we know that even restitution needs to be made worthy by what Jesus Christ has done for us. But restitution still needs to be made. So you've stolen something, okay, you give it back, plus what? One fifth. And forgiveness does not nullify restitution. I think too many parents neglect this whole aspect of teaching our kids. When you break your brother's toy, there needs to be restitution. It was an accident. Well, it doesn't matter. There still needs to be restitution. We're going to give an equal value toy plus one-fifth. Well, obviously, if you're crying over this, you don't have a heart that's really set on pleasing the Lord. So restitution needs to be taught. Very, very important lesson. Now, in chapter 8, we see a description of the ordination of the priests. They could not take this office to themselves, and it has got wonderful typology for Jesus. And we're not going to get into chapter 8. We're not going to get into chapter 9. Chapter 10 highlights God's displeasure with even the slightest deviation from His instructions for worship. In fact, those of you who have studied, read books on regulative principle of worship, you know chapter 10 is always in there. They spend time on this chapter. We're going to start at chapter 9. Just back up a little bit, and I wanna demonstrate through this verse, first of all, that God does not accept man-made religion. Every detail of the tabernacle was given by God, and even the fire that was on that altar came from heaven. So chapter nine, beginning at verse three. No, it's not verse three, what is it? Oh, verse 23, okay. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of Yehovah appeared to all the people and fire came out from before Yehovah and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Once God lit the fire on the altar, they were to never let that fire go out. all other fires in the temple were to be lit from coals that came off the altar to symbolize the fact none of our worship whatsoever is acceptable to God unless it is lit from the fire of heaven. And in the same way, unless the Holy Spirit ignites our worship, it is not acceptable to God. Now, let's move to chapter 10 and show how the sons of Aaron messed up on that symbolism. Chapter 10, verse 1. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before Yehovah, which he had not commanded them. So fire came out from Yehovah and devoured them, and they died before Yehovah. And Moses said to Aaron, this is what Yehovah spoke, saying, by those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified. So Aaron held his peace. Those two priests must have figured, hey, fire is fire, and it's raining outside, I don't want to go through the inconvenience of going and getting coals from the altar. I'll just light with my own fire. and yet it spoiled the symbolism. But much deeper than that, this is the principle that we can only worship God in the specific ways that He has commanded us to do in any given age. We cannot add to His instructions or take away from them. At the time of the Reformation of Scotland, John Knox correctly stated about this verse, All worshiping, honoring, and service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God without his own express commandment is idolatry. Okay, having given that as a background, let me give you four things that this passage says must continue in every age and characterize all worship. These are general equity applications. First, God is jealous over worship. He's jealous, and the intensity of his jealousy can be seen by the intensity of this event. He does not take an uncaring attitude to how we worship. People say, oh, the how is not that important. No, it's very, very important to God. He regulates our worship. Second, when we come to worship God, the focus should be on God and what God wants, not on man and what man wants. Seeker-sensitive services have completely inverted that principle. Third, this passage shows that God does not give you a pass simply because you're sincere. Sincerity doesn't justify disobedience. Nadab and Abihu were no doubt very sincere in what they were doing, but they were still wrong, in this case, dead wrong. Fourth, no man stands above the law. It doesn't matter how talented or popular or prominent an officer may be, his violations of God's laws on worship are not given a free pass by God and should not be given a free pass by men. Even though Aaron felt bad about what God had done to his sons, he knew God was just. Kellogg says, the tenderest natural affections must be silent when God smites sin. Too many people tolerate disobedience to God by officers, like us, because loyalty to them runs deeper than loyalty to God's law. In the next section, chapters 11 through 15, God surrounded Israel with moral and ceremonial laws that would remind them of how important it was to remain separate from sin and from the devil and from the world. These were laws of purity. The food laws Reminded Israel, again, there are different people. You know, when the kids say, how come we can't eat pork like everybody else can eat pork? I said, well, because we're a peculiar people. God wants us to be reminded we're different. We're different than them. Now, were there health reasons for those food laws? I happen to think that that's the case, but that's not the primary purpose. Primary purpose for those laws, since they were not commanded for Gentiles, they can't be moral laws. They're ceremonial laws that showed you have to be a separate people. Childbirth laws are the same. They showed sensitivity to women, And science is now showing problems that can arise when sexual intercourse is resumed too quickly after childbirth, including developing allergies to sperm. OK, so men, if you don't want your wife to become allergic to you, you might want to do a little bit of study on this issue. And I get into this in detail, probably too much detail in my book on conception control. but entirely apart from health concerns. That's not the chief thing. Yes, there are always health issues that God brings. He always gives even the ceremonial laws for the good of his people. We're not bound by those ceremonial laws, but they symbolize something. Chapter 12 symbolizes the fact that children are not innocent. They are conceived in sin. They are born in sin. They need a Savior. Later, he gives circumcision in this chapter for male children to symbolize the fact, hey, the future child, Jesus, is going to grow up and he's going to be cut off on behalf of our children. Then the baptism that happened to the males and the female babies symbolized the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. And then there was another peace offering that was offered in connection with this safe childbirth, thanking God. And so the Anglican Book of Common Prayer has a wonderful prayer of thanksgiving that a woman can give to the Lord after a safe childbirth. So that's a general equity application saying, yeah, we should not take it for granted. When our children are born safely, we should say, thank you, Lord, so much, and offer up some kind of offering to the Lord. The leprosy laws Of chapters 12 through 14, yes, they do give health principles. Quarantine laws were patterned after them. There's hygiene issues. That's not the main purpose. Main purpose of those laws was to symbolize sin. I've often threatened to preach on leprosy of the scalp. I finally get a chance to do so. So I want you to turn to chapter 13, beginning to read at verse 40. As for the man whose hair has fallen from his head, he is bald, but he is clean. He whose hair, so we're safe over here. Yeah, you're clean. He whose hair has fallen from his forehead, he is bald on the forehead, but he's clean. And if there is on the bald head or bald forehead a reddish-white sore, it is leprosy breaking out on his bald head or his bald forehead. Then the priest shall examine it, and indeed if the swelling of the sore is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, as the appearance of leprosy on the skin of the body, he is a leprous man, he is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean. His sore is on his head. Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare, and he shall cover his mustache and say, unclean, unclean. He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore, he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Let me share 11 things that this symbolic display of the Old Covenant teaches us about sin. First, many Scriptures liken our sin nature to leprosy, and you can look online. I'll give some of those. Second, just as leprosy grows, our sin nature does not remain static. It gets worse and worse. As leprosy gets worse and worse, you lose feeling in your fingers and your feet, and fact, and your entire body. And in the same way, sin that is unchecked gets worse and worse till a person begins to lose all feeling in their conscience, and they begin to be so hardened that they become ugly in their sin. And I decided not to put any pictures of leprosy. It is so gross. I think you wouldn't want to look at your your charts on there. So the point is that total depravity does not mean you can't get worse. It just means the totality of your being has been affected and infected by sin, but it's going to keep getting worse. It's going to keep growing unless it is checked by grace. Third, this leprosy symbolized the fact that sin can spread to others. If God's grace is not brought to bear upon a person's life who is in rebellion, who is in sin within a family, it's going to begin to negatively affect other members of the family, just like leprosy would. If a rebel within the church is not disciplined and excised from the church, it can affect other members of the church. It spreads. Fourth, serious sin should be confessed seriously and not swept under the carpet. Nice churches nowadays try to be really ultra, ultra nice about sin. But the priests treated this leprosy very seriously, as did the individual. Fifth, in verse 45, the leper lets people know that he is unclean, that he's a leper. He has a public responsibility to tell others about that, and in the same way, sin that affects the public should be publicly confessed. Sixth, up until recently, there was no cure for leprosy except for divine healing. In the same way, self-reform cannot change our sin nature. Only God's grace can wash us and make us as clean as Naaman's skin was cleansed in the Jordan River. Seventh, leprosy is no respecter of persons. Scriptures here that show it affects kings like Uzziah and servants like Ahaziah. It affects men like Azariah, women like Miriam. It affects Jews like Simon, Gentiles like Naaman. And the comparison, I think, to sin is obvious. Eighth, just as there were classifications of leprosy that the priests had to be able to detect, Jesus knows every sin that we have inside and out. Ninth, they would tear down a leprous house, burn leprous garments, cast leprous stones outside the camp. And in the same way, Jude says, we've got to make a distinction. And with some, we've got to hate even the garment defiled by the flesh. Tenth, leprosy separated people from their loved ones, just as sin does. Eleventh, just as those who were cleansed from leprosy by God were baptized in chapter 14 and admitted back into the community, those who were cleansed from sin are baptized and admitted into the church. And by the way, this is the meaning of baptism for the dead. You've got all kinds of bizarre views out there, including the Mormon view, where you can keep getting baptized over and over for your dead relative. It had nothing to do with that. The leper was considered dead outside the camp, as is anybody else who is an unbeliever, and when they are saved, they're coming, what, from death into life, and so there's a baptism for these dead and a ceremonial bringing into the kingdom. And this kind of application that I've just made to this leprosy can actually be made for every single symbol in the book of Leviticus. I'm not going to do it, obviously, but it can be made. And I'm sure you were absolutely hoping I would preach on all the bodily discharge laws in chapter 15. And if I was preaching through Leviticus, I would. Now, they're fascinating. Even blowing your nose could make you unclean. But as several commentators point out, While sin taints every aspect of our lives, even the purest aspect of our lives, grace, which is pictured in the cleansing, purifies absolutely everything in our lives. So, just as one example, Kellogg says about semen, the fountain of life in man is defiled, But what does Hebrews say grace cleanses? Absolutely everything, including the fountain of life, so that Hebrews 13 says the marriage bed is pure and undefiled. That is the power of God's grace. If you're curious about the menstruation laws, I was going to preach on them. I've had to cut so much stuff out of this sermon. You'll have to read it on web. I'll put it up on the website. Some very encouraging things on the menstrual thing that I didn't even realize that Kellogg's commentary pointed out. Next section presents the laws related to national atonement, and they illustrate that it's not just individuals who need to get redeemed by God's grace. Entire nations have to have Christ's atonement applied to them. and I was going to give you an exposition of the two goats. I'm not gonna do that, I'm gonna put that up on the web as well, but Seventh-day Adventists are absolutely wrong when they say the first goat represents Jesus, the second goat represents Satan, who bears away the sins of the world. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus alone can be the offering, the sin offering for us, and both goats represent Jesus. Now, related to the nation is the location of the sacrifices. It couldn't be just any place. It had to be in the tabernacle. That's chapter 17. The laws related to blood in Leviticus 17 are upheld by the church council in Acts 15. No blood eating for Jew or for Gentile. This is not just for Jews. God forbade eating blood long before there was in Israel and long after there was in Israel. There is not a single verse in the entire Bible. You can show me if you think I'm wrong, but there's not a single verse in the entire Bible that can justify eating blood. Leviticus 17.10 says, and whatever man of the house of Israel or of the strangers who dwell among you who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. And verses 12 through 14 say much the same thing. So again, it's not a Jewish thing. Genesis 9 applied it to all humanity. Acts 15 applied it to Jew and Gentile alike. So brothers and sisters, no blood sausage, okay? That's what it means, really. Next, in chapters 18 through 20, come a long list of laws that were designed to sanctify every facet of life. You will not find individualism in the book of Leviticus. God's law and God's grace applies, yes, to the individual, but to clothing, to houses, to bodies, to sex, to food, to families, tribes, church, nation. And in chapter 18, we see laws that are designed to protect the marriage and the family. And again, these laws are not restricted to Israel, as the so-called gay evangelicals claim. There's all kinds of books that are saying, ah, yeah. That's just all ceremonial law, and you can be a homosexual today and just be totally pleasing to God. Absolutely false, and I dealt with this section here in depth in my Acts series, and showing that Acts 15 applied these marriage laws to the Gentiles. Canaan not only tolerated incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and the other abominations, their laws and their writings, which are gross, celebrate all of these things just as America is more and more beginning to do so. Any culture that comes to the stage where it calls these abominations good seeks to erase the traditional family, and they will end up under God's rod of judgment, guaranteed. Verses 26-29 say, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you. For all these abominations the men of the land have done who were before you, and thus the land is defiled, lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it as it vomited out the nations that were before you. For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people." Morecraft writes about this passage, In Canaan, the ancient people were completely submerged in depravity and proud of it. Homosexuality was so prevalent that it was even made a religious right. For this, God sentenced the Canaanites to death. Israel's failure to execute the sentence ultimately became its own judgment. Sodomy promotes idolatry, false gods, increases perversions, and rots the soul of the nation. Thus God, in his patience, gives time for cleansing and rewards those kings or leaders who rid their land of the abomination. Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord. He took away the Sodomites out of the land." 1 Kings 15, 11, and 12. Okay, chapter 19. gives even broader applications of His law and grace to culture as a whole. By the way, there's many examples that the New Testament says you still have to look to these chapters for general equity. For example, the New Testament quotes this chapter and says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, appeals to the law. So it's repeated twice in verse 18 and verse 34, and the chapter shows you how to love your neighbor as yourself. Tells you, have just weights and measures. Be fair in your financial dealings. Don't rip people off just because they're ignorant of what the price is, you know. No, be fair. Chapter 20 authorizes the state to intervene and punish certain offenses in the previous sections. Only certain offenses. Verse 2 and following say abortionists should be put to death. The Bible clearly states that the state should implement the death penalty for abortionists and for the parents who committed the abortion. death penalty. And interestingly, Jesus quotes verse 9, the most controversial verse in this entire chapter. He quotes it in Mark 7 10 and says that children should be put to death by the state for cursing their parents. And he rebukes the leaders, the civil leaders, the Pharisees there, for not implementing that. They were cowardly and refused to do it, probably because of a fear of man, who knows why. But Jesus said they should have. Now, that's not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to apply the gospel and to bring forgiveness to those who engage in capital crimes. So we could have people who have engaged in capital crimes, and they've repented, and they're in our church. But the state does have that responsibility. Now, is every law in chapter, oh yeah, and it talks about incest and things like that, but is every law in chapter 20 a moral law? Depends on who you talk to. Rush Dooney says yes, there's others who say no. But one of the applications that I want to make here is whichever side you come down on, this chapter and all of these chapters are very clear that the state is very restricted by the Bible. There are only certain things that the state is allowed to enforce, to engage in. Not all sin is a crime. Not all sin is a crime. And those who rail against the Bible for being too tough need to realize that the Bible keeps the state out of our lives far, far, far more than modern civics does. I haven't calculated it exactly because there's so many laws in the books. I don't know how to calculate it. But it wouldn't surprise me if the Bible would rule out more than 99% of the laws that we have in our nation. It would not at all surprise me. Now I'll skip over most of chapters 21 through 22, which lay down laws for the priesthood. There are general equity applications that the New Testament makes of those passages. For example, Paul says, hey, you need to pay your pastors. Why? Because the law says so. And it gives symbolic teaching of the gospel. I won't deal with that. Hebrews moves on to that. Chapters 23 through 24 deal with sanctifying worship. There are seven feasts of Israel in chapter 23, and all of them, all of them have been put into the category of having passed away. They're optional. You can celebrate them. You don't have to. But there is a general equity that we need to apply even to those feast days. For example, on the Sabbath, 1 Corinthians 16 is quite clear that, as I have given orders to all the churches, so you must do on the first day Sabbath, let each one, and so he's commanding a first day Sabbath. And there's other New Testament passages that say we have a Sabbath. It's not the Jewish Sabbath. So even though the Jewish Sabbath has passed away, We have to ask, well, how do we set it apart? How do we rest on this day? Well, we follow the example of Jesus who says, look at the Old Testament. The Pharisees are not following it. They're the legalists. The Old Testament brought great joy and celebration on this day. Likewise, though we no longer need to keep the other six festivals in this chapter, who would not like the kind of vacations and conferences that these festivals called us to? Here's my question. Is the New Testament less generous than the Old Testament is? on having vacation, days off from work where you can spend time with your family. I say no, not at all, it's not less generous. Jesus called his disciples to come aside by themselves for a while, to be refreshed in their bodies. Paul looked forward, for months he was looking forward to celebrating a vacation at Pentecost in Jerusalem. So it is lawful to have vacations, going to conferences, eating some of your second tithe, which they call the rejoicing tithe, that's lawful. It's not mandated, but it's lawful. Going to these things, I think, is a great way of refreshing our families and getting spiritual growth in the process. Now, obviously, not all can afford seven vacations. Even in the Old Testament, they couldn't. God only mandated one for women, and only mandated three for men. But optionally, you could have as many as seven. That's a lot of vacation time with your family. Now, each of those feasts also point to the work of Jesus, and I've had to cut a bunch of this out, but hey, I've put an outline in your bulletin, which, Michael's already pointed out, has a couple misspellings in it, and I forgot to turn off the spelling corrector thing when I did a screenshot. But you'll see the gospel and kingdom are fully displayed. And I've preached on this in the past, but they are marvelous symbols. First part of chapter 24 reiterated the elements of worship. Second part of chapter 24 reiterates, through a public execution of a blasphemer, the importance of reverencing God's name. Though the highest penalty of death is not always required for taking God's name in vain, especially if there was repentance, there were circumstances where it was justly imposed. And interestingly, most states in America had treated blasphemy as a crime up until the early 1900s. I've got the laws copied from various states on that. We've come a long way, but I don't think it's a long way in the right direction. And I think that passage, if you read that passage, those of you who take the name of the Lord in vain, it will put a little bit of the fear of God into your bones when you realize how seriously God takes this offense. Chapter 25 is chock full of principles related to the importance of land and private property. Ironically, Ronald Sider, the so-called Christian socialist, claims that this chapter teaches government ownership of all things and redistribution of everybody's wealth so that everybody gets exactly the same amount of money. It is such a ludicrous interpretation, even on the surface of it, that I'm going to be putting up nine things, embarrassing things with his interpretation. This chapter is the best argument against socialism you could get. So I'm going to put those up onto the web. But as Rushduni points out, with the exception of a few capital penalties and the enforcement of contracts, the civil government was almost non-existent in an Israelite citizen's day-to-day affairs. It was very limited government. So the question comes, hey, if you don't have a big government to enforce the laws, how on earth are we going to keep them enforced? And the answer that God gives us in chapter 26, trust God, trust His providence. It's a chapter that guarantees God's providential blessings upon any land that follows His laws, and promises increasing curses upon any land, whether it's believing or not, that prefers slavery to Pharaoh over liberty. So it takes faith to believe chapter 26. It's a call to trust God. Biblical civics takes an enormous amount of trust in God's providence. Now, I would say it's not a blind trust. Because I've done the studies and I can demonstrate it, but if you look at the last 2,000 years of history, and there's a number of books that have done this, in the West you can see the curses and the blessings do indeed rest upon any nation, believing or unbelieving, it does not matter. It rests upon those nations to the degree that they either follow or they abandon God's laws. In fact, go to mises.org and do a search for some of their studies on China. They go back several thousand years in China and show exactly these, they don't mention Leviticus, but they show exactly these kinds of curses coming upon China when it was centralized and statist, and it shows exactly these kinds of blessings coming upon that country when their economics resembled what they're defending, the free market economics of Austrian economics. That's the closest to biblical liberty. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating studies. They illustrate that God is not mocked, whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. And even the valuation of broken vows or kept vows that are listed in the last chapter presuppose voluntarism. There is no state to enforce those vows. They presuppose a moral character in the citizens that makes them want to keep their word. And when they've broken a vow, okay, they just ask advice. How do I make this right? You know, how do I make it right before God? Yes, the state can enforce broken contracts if and only if the victim takes the other party to court. But these last chapters presuppose maximum liberty. If our nation would follow the moral laws of Leviticus, in the power of the gospel of grace that is pictured in the ceremonial laws, we would once again be a blessed nation indeed. But the first five books of the Bible show that we should not want to make America great again, you know, the MAGA caps, by going from a very heightened statism of our current situation back to a medium kind of statism of a few years before. What the Bible wants us to have is a freer America than America has ever had. you know, a greater America than we have ever been by consistently applying the law and the gospel of Leviticus. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We know it is a blessing to us, and yet sometimes we find our hearts rebelling against it, find our hearts thinking that's just not fair, and I pray that our sense of fairness would line up with yours, and that we would think your thoughts after you, rather than trying to impose our thinking upon your scriptures. Please, Father, cleanse the church of Jesus Christ that is compromised on virtually every principle we have looked at today, including evangelicals who are saying that homosexuality is okay. Please, Father, I pray that you would purge the church of this evil and that you would cause the church of Jesus Christ to love your holiness and to approach your holiness through the gospel that is pictured in these sacrifices. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.