Reading God's Word beginning in Leviticus 1 and verse 1, thus says the Lord, Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock. This is God's Word. Please be seated. I don't know if you heard that Richard John Newhouse died this past week. Many of you may not even be familiar with Father Newhouse. He was a Roman Catholic scholar. And he is probably best known for his book written, I think, in the 70s, maybe the 80s, The Naked Public Square, where he incisively critiqued the growing secularism in the United States and argued for, in various ways, the legitimacy of God and religion being included in public debate and public discourse and policy considerations in the United States. Next to that book, probably his greatest accomplishment was the journal First Things. And it's a journal of some intellectual and theological note. And I'm not sure whether or not it'll continue to be published now that Father Newhouse has died. But the title itself says a great deal. The importance of dealing with first things, first principles, foundational principles. Because if those aren't solid, then no matter what we do, whatever is built upon them is not going to be solid either. And what I want to do here tonight, is continue dealing with first things as we approach this book of Leviticus. I think in this first verse or two, there are some crucial first things that will help us as we think about the book as a whole. Now, I've given you three points on the back of your bulletin, but as I said, I'm not sure we'll finish the first. I don't know if we'll get beyond the first one tonight. As we look at this verse, which is the doorway, the first verse to this book of Leviticus, where God is speaking to His people through Moses there at Mount Sinai, the first principle, the first thing I want us to notice is that communion with God is central to biblical religion. communion, personal fellowship with God is absolutely central and vital to biblical religion. Now, let me explain how I'm using the term biblical religion. Religion is defined by Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as the service and the worship of God or a personal or an institutionalized set of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices. So it's the service and worship of God or it's a combination of beliefs, attitudes, and practices in terms of how we relate to Him. Now, biblical religion means then the service and worship of God or the system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that are contained and taught and required in the Bible. There are lots of different approaches to religion. Lots of people have ideas, attitudes, practices they recommend, but we're talking here about those attitudes, those beliefs, and practices that the Bible itself teaches. Now, I think we have to be quick as new covenant Christians come to this book of Leviticus to say that biblical religion, some aspects of biblical religion, have changed over time. In the days with the progress of the history of redemption, in the days of the patriarchs, the father of the family was the prophet, the priest, and the king. The Mosaic laws that we're going to be studying in the next six months probably that pertain to the tabernacle and later to the temple don't apply to us in the same way. We're not going to be concerned with the need to offer physical sacrifices or to keep dietary laws and the various religious festivals that God mandated for His old covenant people. Under the new covenant, there is no priesthood except the high priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of all believers. There's not the priesthood in the same way there was before. No physical temple. We're told our bodies are temples, and the church is a temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but no physical temple in Jerusalem or anywhere else where we're required to appear before God and bring our worship to Him. And again, these specific laws, many of them we'll look at, are no longer applicable to us. So I concede that in terms of biblical religion, there have been changes. But my point tonight, beloved, is that notwithstanding these outward superficial changes, there is a core that is common to biblical religion, the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of how God wants His people to relate to Him. There's a core that applies throughout redemptive history, and I would suggest that this is one of those core values that doesn't change and hasn't changed, even though some of the outward things has. And I would suggest that the central, at the heart, the throbbing, living heart of biblical religion is not ritual. Now, I'm not going to argue that ritual is completely unimportant. I think it is important. God cared enough about it to say a lot about it. But at the heart and soul of biblical religion is not ritual. Whether it's the Old Testament ritual, the Passover and all the rest, circumcision, whether it's New Testament ritual, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, we don't despise those things, but they, the ritual themselves, is not at the heart of biblical religion. It wasn't under any of the covenants, old or new. But communion. personal fellowship with a personal God, that is at the heart of biblical religion throughout history. Now let me see if I can make that case, and this is the main thing I want to talk about tonight, really from verse 1 here where it says, "...the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting." Now that phrase, the tent of meeting, I think is a pregnant phrase. It's full of significance and meaning. Why the tent of meeting? Well, one reason it's called that is because God said that's where he would meet with Moses. In verse 42 of the previous chapter, Exodus 25-22, he says, "...there I will meet with you and from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubim on the ark of the testimony I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel." God's speaking to Moses. And He says He's going to meet with Moses in that tent and speak to him from above the mercy seat and give him the commandments and the messages that He wants Him to deliver to the people of Israel. But I'm arguing more importantly than just meeting with Moses, if you look at Exodus 29-43, God says, there at the tent I will meet with the people of Israel. The tent of meeting is called the tent of meeting not just because God met with Moses there, but because there He intends to meet with all of His people. And in Numbers, you'll see as God Himself organizes the camp of the Israelites, He tells them to camp in such a way that the tabernacle is exactly in the center. the tribes on three sides, and Moses and the priests on the fourth side, but God's tabernacle, the place where God dwelt in the Shekinah cloud of glory, right in the center, and that was God's plan. Remember, I've argued before when we studied Exodus that the Israelites almost certainly would never have thought of the idea of, let's build a place so God can live right in the middle of our camp. They were terrified by what they saw, what they experienced at Mount Sinai of the majesty and holiness of God. It was God's idea. And so God says in Exodus 29, 43, there at the tent of the tabernacle, I will meet with the people of Israel and I will dwell among the people of Israel. I will be their God. I'm the Lord, their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. God says a great part of His purpose for the Exodus, for redeeming the people from Egypt, is so that He might dwell among them. Now, there's a great deal that we do not know and understand about the Old Testament economy. I mean, there are a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions about various parts of the Old Covenant and how things worked and all of that. But it's very clear that notwithstanding the questions, under the Old Covenant, God's people knew Him personally and often intimately. Even though they did not have as full a revelation as we have of the character of God and the work of Christ, it's clear they still knew Him personally and often intimately, and that the tabernacle and the worship of the tabernacle played a significant role in that knowledge. We use Psalm 42 as sort of the framework for our worship service this morning. Do you remember there? And the psalmist is expressing his desire for God like a deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you for the living God. And it's clear as you read the rest of the psalm that his problem was that for whatever reason, we can speculate, we're not sure, but for whatever reason, he didn't have access to the temple or the tabernacle. He wasn't able to go to that place where in a special way God dwelt and revealed Himself. Psalm 27.4, David says, One thing I've asked of the Lord, that I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all my days, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple. David somehow connected, and David wasn't a priest, he couldn't go into the holy place, he could only go into the courtyard, but somehow he connected that tabernacle with beholding in a special way the beauty of God. In Psalm 63, written by David in the wilderness of Judah, he says, O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You. My flesh faints for You as in a dry and weary land where there's no water. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you." And my point here is David again and again connects this tabernacle, this meeting place, with the knowledge of God. It was intended to be a tent of meeting where God in a special way met with His people. I don't understand and know all of how it happened, but my point is that was His purpose. It's reflected in the language, the tent of meeting where I will meet with my people was that there should be a special way in which his people would meet with him and he with them. Psalm 65 says, O God in Zion, to you vows will be performed. O you who hear prayers, to you all flesh shall come. Blessed is the one whom you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house." It speaks of a special experience of God's presence in the courts and the house of God. And Psalm 84, that we'll sing in just a few minutes, is a psalm that celebrates that. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God." And then he speaks of envying the sparrow who has been allowed to find a nesting place there. He envies that little bird because the bird is able to stay permanently in the place which is God's special dwelling place. He goes on and says, are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." Now, why is the psalmist so excited about the tabernacle or even the temple? The temple was more glorious in an outward way than the tabernacle. But what is the big attraction? As you read these and other Psalms, like Psalm 48 that celebrates the beauty of Jerusalem because it's the city of the great king and that's where the great king dwells. Or Psalm 122, I was glad when they said let's go up to the house of the Lord. It's clear that he rejoices in Jerusalem because that's where God dwells. The attraction, beloved, is not the tabernacle or the temple, it's God Himself. these saints," and I've quoted from David, and the sons of Korah. And I could quote from others, Psalm 78, "'Whom have I in heaven but thee? And besides thee I desire nothing at all. In the nearness of God is my good.'" A host of these psalmists, they knew something of the vital relationship, personal fellowship with God. And that's why the tabernacle and the temple were so attractive to them. Now, we'll see as we go on how they spoke about Jesus Christ and communicated the gospel in the sense of forgiveness. But my whole point here is that God was the attraction. In a special way, in these places, they had a knowledge of God. And it was true from the beginning. Man was created in the image of God, and he had fellowship with God. We read in Genesis 3, many of you have read Genesis 3 within the last week, and we read of Adam and Eve there hearing the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Now again, that's an interesting question. Exactly how did that work? Was it a Christophany, a theophany, where Christ, before His incarnation, where He actually became one of us and took a body, united a body to Himself, temporarily took a physical form to come and meet with Him? We don't know for sure. But it clearly suggests that there was a personal communion with God there in the garden, that they had a very special, intimate relationship with Him. Under the New Testament, time and again, that's the emphasis. Our Lord Jesus commends Mary because instead of being distracted as Martha was by her service, she chose the better part, which was to sit there and listen to His Word, to have personal fellowship with Him. In John 14, 6, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. Jesus describes salvation. The purpose for which He came was to make it possible for people to come to the Father. In John 17.3, in His High Priestly Prayer, He defines eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You sent. God's described as the fountain of living waters, the one with whom is the fountain of life, and to know Him is life indeed. And so, Paul in Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 5 celebrates the work of Christ in the gospel in terms of reconciliation. Now, that has to do with a personal relationship. He describes our situation as being alienated from God and now being reconciled. That's the alienation taken away so that we now have a personal relationship with God. In Philippians 3, he says, whatever things I used to consider as valuable and important, I count as rubbish in comparison to the value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Peter in 1 Peter 3.18 says, He Himself died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. That's why Jesus came and died. That's why the Son of Man died, so that He might bring us to God. So all of this language, beloved, under the New Covenant, has to do with personal relationship, us as sinners relating to God. and in the Revelation where we see the consummation of God's purposes. Time and again, that's what we read about. My own understanding of the book of Revelation is that chapter 7 is a description of heaven and the eternal state. And listen to how it's described here. John has seen a great multitude from every nation and kindred gathered around the throne praising God, and he says in verse 14, These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. John is asked, Who are these people around the throne? These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple. He who sits on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd and guide them to springs of the water of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." Here's a picture of fellowship, the tabernacle spread over them. In Revelation 21, God says He will dwell in the midst of His people, the same language. But time and time again, as we look at the final state, where are we all heading? What makes heaven so glorious? It's the privilege, the opportunity to know God unimpaired, no sin, no distractions, in us, in our environment, nothing to hinder our knowledge of God. And so, my point, beloved, and one last verse, Revelation 22, 4, it speaks of God's people and it says, "...they will see His face." And surely that language, whatever it means, speaks of intimate fellowship and communion. Remember, God told Moses in Exodus 34, you can't see my face. I'll show you my back. I'll show you a little bit of my glory. But there in Revelation 22, it says all the saints will see his face. And so that's why I've argued at some length that this is central to all of biblical religion from the Garden of Eden under the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and in glory itself. So let me ask you tonight, what is central to your religion? Is it doctrine? Now you know me well enough to know that I think sound doctrine is profoundly important. I think the whole Bible teaches that. Jesus excoriated the Pharisees. You're wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. Haven't you read? Don't you know what the Bible says? And he warned his disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, their false teaching. Paul and the other apostles thought it was vitally important. But I would suggest to you that sound doctrine, as important as it is, is ultimately not an end, but a means, or it should be a means to the end of knowing God and enjoying Him. Now, there are many other things that people have as central to their religion, but I would ask, is it with you? Is it personal fellowship with God? Is that central to your religion? It can be. It should be. in the midst of our ordinary, workaday, frustrating, painful, sinful world, the good news of the gospel is that you and I can know God. This is the glory of biblical religion. Without it, no matter how orthodox the doctrine, no matter how majestic the building, no matter how magnificent the music, no matter how many and exciting the programs and activities, it's merely a husk in a shell. It's not the genuine article if personal fellowship with God is not central to it. And this fact, reveals something important and wonderful about God Himself. God is personal. The God of the Bible, the God who reveals Himself in the Bible, is not an abstract idea. He's not an impersonal life force. He's what or who Francis Schaeffer, I think helpfully, called the infinite personal God. He's both. He is infinite, but He's also personal. And He can be known. And as we said today, the wonder of the gospel is that He has gone to such lengths Himself. Now that's really anticipating my second and third points, but that He has gone to such great lengths in order for us to know Him. It reveals something about us, about the dignity of man. men made in God's image to know Him." Now, this is true nobility. There are various ways. You know, in the last 20 or 30 years, the self-esteem movement has been a big thing in American psychology and education, probably in management. I don't know all the different ways its tentacles have gone out. And the root of our problem is that we don't think well enough of ourselves and our need is to boost our self-image. And no doubt there's vestiges of truth in that, but even where it is true that that's a problem, ultimately the best way to address it is by helping us see ourselves as we really are, made in the image of God to know Him, and in Christ redeemed by Him so that we might know Him. And the greatest tragedy of man's human condition, is not the fact that we have guilty consciences, although that's a terrible thing. A guilty conscience, as Shakespeare showed in Macbeth and other great playwrights have shown, a guilty conscience is a terrible thing, but that's not our biggest problem. It's not broken human relationships, although those are profoundly painful. It's not social environmental problems, war, poverty, disease, and all the rest. These are terrible, but they're only symptoms, they're only byproducts. The worst part of all is that we're cut off from fellowship with God. That's why I think our Shorter Catechism accurately summarizes and reflects the teaching of Scripture. Not only when it says our chief end is to glorify and enjoy God, that word enjoy is a wonderful word, implies this whole idea of personal fellowship with God. But question 19, when it says, what is the misery of our estate, the misery of our condition, now that we're falling into sin, the very first thing it says is all mankind by their fall lost communion with God. And it goes on to say that as a result, we're subject to His wrath and curse in this life and the life to come, but those are byproducts. The root problem is the fact that we're cut off from Him who Psalm 36 describes is the fountain of life and in whose light alone do we see light. And that's why question 38, the last question of the doctrinal part, when it talks about how we're going to be blessed, in glory it says, at the resurrection we'll be raised up and acknowledged and acquitted formally before God and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God forever. That is ultimate and final blessing, the full enjoyment of God. Now, that requires a supernatural work. It requires a new heart. As a result of the fall, none of us has the ability, we don't have the desire or the ability to know God and delight in Him as we should. And that's why we need not only the work of Christ for us, dying for our sins, but in us, making us new creatures by the power of His Holy Spirit. And when you and I look at our lives and others' lives from this perspective, that the most important, the most wonderful thing is knowing God. It can have a profound impact. It can make a profound difference. Ultimately, the most important thing about you and everybody else is not how successful you are in your calling, whether you're in business or academia or a homemaker or a student. It's not how wealthy you are, how beautiful, how powerful, how popular, how famous, how intelligent, but how well you know God. And you may have none of those other things. No money, no power, no success, no beauty, no popularity, bad health. But if you know God, then that is something of value, not just in this life, but in the life to come. I was thinking that this idea of communion with God, and I don't want to trivialize it, but it's like a good wine. It's something that gets better with time in this life. The knowledge of God can provide in our deepest needs. It can give us comfort. It can give us strength and stability. It can give us hope and power to love and serve others. So it can do wonderful things in this life and in the life to come. it will be the chief thing of all. And as we grow in it now, we're preparing ourselves so that we can know God better in the next world. It can also transform our view, not just of ourselves, but other people when we regard them from that standpoint. Not so much, again, their looks or their success, but their knowledge of God. As we value that in ourselves and in them, it can change how we look at them. It can change the way we look at our trials and afflictions. when we see them as opportunities, God-given opportunities to know Him better. Things that are brought into our lives to make us more dependent upon Him, to make us more humble, to make us pray more with greater earnestness, to drive us to our Bibles, to search our Bibles in ways that we don't when life is easy and everything is just rocking along. It can change our view of the means of grace, both the public and the private means of grace. It's not just a duty, I have to go to church, I have to pray, I have to read my Bible. And there's an element of duty to that and discipline in those things is a good thing. But ultimately, the point is, these are ways that I know God better. and think about the fact that communion with God for His children is a privilege that can be enjoyed anytime, anyplace. No special equipment is needed. It's certainly helpful to have a Bible and a good hymnal and there are some other things, but if you are born again by the grace of God and the Spirit dwells in you, anywhere in a jail cell, on a desert island, in a hospital bed, at the graveside of a loved one, you can know God and enjoy Him. Did you make any resolutions this year or set any goals? If not, or even if you did, let me suggest one that ought to be perhaps not only on your list but at the very top of it, to grow in your personal communion with God this year. If nothing else happens, if you don't do anything else, if you don't lose that weight but you gain more, If all the other things that we might put on the list don't happen if you grow in your communion with God And I would suggest that you've done the most important thing God himself called the ten of meeting and all that we're going to look at as we go through the book of Leviticus is intended to facilitate and promote his people's ability to meet with him and That's what he's going to tell Moses. He's going to give them these instructions to facilitate their communion with Him. Because communion with God is absolutely central to biblical religion. Now, as a young Christian, I didn't like the word religion. I'd grown up in the church, it was a church that used a liturgy and I had learned the words and could rattle them off as a young person and I tended to equate the word religion with mere mindless outward ritual. And I typically would contrast that with relationship. Christianity is not about religion. It's about relationship. And there's a sense in which that's true. That's what I've been talking about. There's another sense, though, in which religion, rightly used, can promote and is intended to promote and foster that relationship. And rightly understood, the two need not be contradictory, they should be complementary. And I think that's the point here. As we see God giving rituals and making religious prescriptions to his people, the purpose of those things, when they are used rightly in faith and dependence on the Holy Spirit, is to promote that relationship and fellowship with God. Well, may God help you and me in 09 and however many years the Lord gives us to remain on this earth, to be like Enoch and like Noah. If you've been reading, and I'm assuming here that many of you have been reading in the book of Genesis, and you notice that's the thing that they say about Enoch that sets him off in Genesis 5. Enoch walked with God for 300 years. Now, can you imagine? 300 years. But God sustained him. God enabled him to walk with God. And it says, "...he was not, because God took him. Apparently God delighted in him, and he is one of two people. Even our Lord Jesus wasn't carried to heaven without dying. Even he died, but Enoch and Elijah were carried to heaven, translated, without dying." And we read about Noah in chapter 6 as well. In an earth that was riven with violence and corruption, Noah walked with God. May the Lord be able to say that about you and me until we see His face in heaven one day. No longer at the tent of meeting or even in the mirror of Holy Scripture, but immediately in heaven. Amen.