Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus, chapter one, beginning in verse one. The book of Leviticus, chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, he shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, Let him offer a mail without blemish. He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. It is my morning practice and routine to rise long before daybreak and to go down into my office and take up the Translation of Matthew Poole's Synopsis. And it frequently strikes me, I marvel that I have the Word of God, a complete Bible. I do know that there are Christians in the world even now who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ based on a handful of pages of the Gospel of John. and how they would be amazed to have a Bible whole and entire and complete so that they might know the fullness of God's revelation in Jesus Christ about Jesus Christ. And so I go down in the morning and I have a Bible. I have an English Bible and a Greek and Hebrew Bible and a great advantage of having commentators, new and old, to help me understand the things that I find there. And I was struck with this all over again as I was looking at this very first verse. In your outline, you'll see Leviticus 1.1 with a couple of Hebrew notes. The Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation saying. What an amazing thing to think of the living God of heaven calling and speaking to a man, the great creator. He spoke to Moses, and by Moses, he has spoken to us. These things have been recorded and preserved for the church in all ages. We'll come back to this great marvel of the speech of God. But first, let us take a careful look at the very first verse. The very first, very first word in Hebrew, you see it there. I've, I reordered the English just a little bit to reflect the Hebrew, Vayikra, and he called. If you're reading it from right to left, as you should be, that very first character It's what's called a vav. And joined with an imperfect verb, as it is, it's called a vav consecutive. What's the significance of this? It's simply pushing the story along. This is the common Hebrew narrative device of simply moving a story along. And you can see this in your English Bible, in your King James English Bible, in the many ands. not generally speaking good English style to connect sentences by a continual series of ands, but it is good Hebrew. And it's great Hebrew narrative. It is the device that the Hebrews used to push their stories along. And the most basic significance of it is, and then the next thing happened. And then the next thing happened. But it can also take on other nuanced meaning, sometimes it can be a logical consequence, sometimes temporal, and there's a handful of others. But its most basic thing is pushing a story along, the next thing that happened. And to have this at the beginning of a book is interesting because it presupposes something that's gone before and it's pushing us on to some other things. The book of Leviticus stands in a continuous narrative with the end of the book of Exodus. And if we're going to understand it and place it rightly, we have to see it there. According to the best chronologers, the year is about 1490 BC. So 1,490 years before the coming of Christ. Interestingly enough, however, under the Old Testament, the time for the arrival of Christ is now more than half past. It was 2,500 years to this point, and now just 1,500 years to go until the arrival of the Savior. And as the time of Christ's coming approaches, what we are going to find in the New Testament is that Christ is going to be revealed with greater and greater clarity. And that is probably the great purpose of this book and all of its ceremonies. to reveal Christ with greater clarity than he had ever been revealed before. Of course, later revelation will clarify the picture even further. And we have the great privilege and benefit of having lived after the time of the arrival of the Savior. As Paul expresses it to the Colossians, the shadows have passed and the body is here. And we have had the privilege of seeing him. But we are in the midst of that developing process and the church of Jesus Christ now in the wilderness is going to learn things about Christ that they had not known before. We should also know that this year is about one year after the exodus. Israel is still camped at the foot of Sinai. And this whole book is going to take place in the space of about one month So there is about one month's time between the end of Exodus and its events and the beginning of Numbers. And they're moving out from Sinai to begin their journey towards the promised land. More immediately, what happened in Exodus 40? You remember? After having received all of those instructions on how to build the tabernacle, they have now built it. So they now have the tabernacle of the living God in the midst of the camps of Israel. And for those of you that are not very familiar with the tabernacle and its construction, I want to do my best to try to put you there so you can, as it were, see what's happening here as God speaks to Moses and understand where Moses is. A tabernacle facility would have been entered from the east and you would be moving westward. As you pass through the great gate, you would enter into an open courtyard. So there were curtains all around the courtyard and all the way around the tabernacle, but it's open sky. And those tents that are surrounding or rather those curtains that are surrounding the tabernacle are quite beautiful. But right in front of you, just as soon as you entered into that courtyard, you would see a large, bronze altar. There they would offer the sacrifices, the sacrifices that we will soon be reading about, the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offering and so on. That was as far as the normal Israelite was allowed to go. He would stop there. But if you are a priest or a Levite, you could go further into the tabernacle complex. And while you were still in the courtyard, approaching the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle of the Living God, which had a ceiling. So this is an enclosed tent in front of you. You would see a, what was called a bronze laver. Basically, it was a very, very large bowl or basin. And in that laver, the priests would be ceremonially cleansed. which was the thing most necessary if they were going to enter into the tabernacle of God. Before entering into that tabernacle, you would see a veil, which basically served as the door to enter into that tabernacle. Very beautiful, very ornate. Passing beyond that veil, and only the priest could, you would see on your right hand a table known as the table of showbread. And on top of that table, you would see 12 loaves representing all of the tribes of Israel. On your left hand, you would see a golden candlestick, but not a single candlestick. It had seven branches, three on either side. So it had a main stock and three branches coming off either side providing light. Because remember, this is a closed place. There's no opportunity for sunlight to come in, no windows and no open door. In front of you, directly in front of you, you would see a golden altar. And on that golden altar, the priests would offer incense. And beyond that, you would see a second veil, which was even more beautiful and even more ornate than the first in a tapestry of blue and scarlet and purple. Only one man was allowed to pass beyond that veil and that only one time in the year. And beyond that was the Ark of the Covenant, a visible representation of the throne of God and the dwelling place of God. Israel has just set this tabernacle up and the Lord has moved in. He takes possession of it by a demonstration of power and glory. His glory descends and fills the place and drives everybody out. We see this at the end of Exodus. Look at Exodus 40 verses 34 and 35. We find that Moses is unable to approach the tabernacle because of the weight of God's glory abiding upon it. Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation because the cloud abode thereon and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Beyond this point in Exodus, there is a summary statement of how Israel would pick up and move camp. That is something of a digression and it wraps up the book of Exodus quite nicely. But our book really picks up right after the glory cloud has descended. Moses is unable to approach unto the tabernacle or enter into it because of God's glory abiding upon it. And then the Lord called to Moses. It's very interesting at this point Moses is unable to enter into the tabernacle. But the Lord did not drive him away either. He calls to him. God calls to Moses to speak to him. Interestingly enough, in later times, we will find Moses going into the holy place. It seems that he was the only non-priest that was allowed to do this, but he would go into the holy place. And God would speak to him out of the Holy of Holies. There's no evidence that Moses ever went into the Holy of Holies, but he would stand in the holy place and God would speak to him out of the Holy of Holies. But right now, Jehovah appears to be addressing Moses while he's still in the courtyard and unable to approach the tabernacle because of the weight of God's glory abiding upon it. One other interesting bit of the Hebrew text. And this is one of the great glories of learning Hebrew. And I would say if you ever have an opportunity to learn the biblical languages, do. Because there's a certain richness to them that cannot be translated or passed on. And the Hebrew in particular, there's even certain idiosyncrasies in the way that it's written that might be things significant. If you look at that little bit of Hebrew text that I've given you, the Vayikra and he called, do you notice that the final letter, the letter all the way on the left is smaller than the others? Do you notice that? It's what's called a minuscule olive. Normally it would just be written at the same size as all the rest. Here it's very, very small. The Jews have passed on this writing. from the time of Moses down to the present day, that this last aleph is to be written smaller than the others. And the question is why? Nobody knows for sure, but that it is significant is altogether likely. This is the perfect divine original, the perfect text as God had delivered it to Moses under the inspiration of the spirit. But here we have a mystery. the significance of which we can only guess at. Let me give you four possible significances that the Jews have proposed. Some have thought that perhaps the aleph is smaller, the end of the word is smaller, because God met with Moses unexpectedly. To me, this is the weakest possible interpretation. I have a hard time even understanding the significance of the smaller aleph and unexpectedness. But this has been proposed by the Jews. The latter three, I think, it's at least easier for me to make a connection. The second was that Moses had humbled himself. He had diminished himself. He is at this point attempting to get out of the way of government. And so the Lord calls to him in his humbled condition. In other words, Moses is humbled himself and wants to get out of the way. Again, I don't I don't find much strength in this, although it makes more sense of the smaller olive. These last two, I think, to be more likely. The third possibility that they suggest is that God condescends to speak, not now from heaven nor from Sinai, but from this tabernacle, a more humble abode. Up to this point, God has sometimes said to speak from heaven and sometimes to speak from the mount. But now he speaks out of a more humble position. He speaks out of the tent that they have made for him while he has pitched his tent and is dwelling in the midst of them. So it becomes a picture of God's condescension. And one final thing, which also could be the reason for the significance. Some have suggested that rather than thundering from Sinai, the Lord now speaks to him in a still small voice. And that also seems to be a possibility. It doesn't appear to be that all of the children of Israel could hear God thundering now in the way that they heard him at Sinai. All of these things are possibilities, all very interesting. The Hebrew text is full of these mysteries. And in some ways, it's a great delight to read because of them. It adds a lot of richness to them. But to put our feet on more solid ground, we consider the origin of this voice as it comes to Moses. We know that it comes from the Lord and it comes out of the tent of meeting. As I mentioned, formerly, the Lord spoke to them from heaven or from Sinai. But now the Lord has taken possession of his tabernacle and he's speaking from the tabernacle. And here, and I want you to put something in your pocket, he speaks to Moses out of the tabernacle in the fulfillment of his promise. So turn back with me to Exodus chapter 25. Exodus chapter 25, beginning in verse 20. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings. And their faces shall look one to another. Toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat. from between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark, the testimony of all things, which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. The Lord, when he was giving the instructions for how to make the tabernacle and its furniture, had also delivered to Moses a promise that he would speak to Moses and give him commandments with respect to how Israel was to live and how they were to conduct themselves in the worship of God. And now God appears to fulfill the promise that he had made. The tent is called here, sometimes it's called the tabernacle, which in some ways, based on its Hebrew root, related to dwelling, really highlights God's dwelling. Here you have a highlight of him meeting with his congregation. That's what's in the foreground. ohel moed, the tent, ohel, of meeting, moed. And moed comes from a Hebrew verb, ya'ad, which means to appoint. And this is where they get their language of congregation. The congregation met or convened at an appointed place at an appointed time. And here, you know, at the Lord's appointment. So Thus the King James translation of the Tent of the Congregation. It's the time and place of the appointed meeting with the Lord. So here we have at the foreground in this very term, in this very way of describing the tabernacle, God's meeting with his people and here meeting with Moses to speak to him. One other interesting thing that I found in my studies Again, I want to highlight here that I don't hold this to be a thing certain, but it was a thing interesting and worthy of some reflection. And I trust that any sort of meditation along this line will be harmless. Andrew Willett, that old Puritan interpreter, just simply observed that the moral law of God was revealed from a mountain. And the mountains in scripture are frequently portrayed as being unmovable. Their foundations are unmovable. And that moral law was written by the finger of God himself in stone, which speaks of the permanency. Everything around it speaks of permanency of that law. But Willett said this ceremonial law was revealed from a movable tent written in a book of parchment. sign that it was yet but for a time. Whether or not, I'd say Willett's doctrine is certainly true, whether this is taught in the significance of God's revelation from Sinai as over against his revelation out of the tent, I can't say that I could be quite certain. But it is a profitable meditation. From this, I wanted to take just a little bit of time to meditate upon what we learn about God. about the divine being from this verse. And the primary truth that comes through here is that Jehovah, our God, is a speaking God. He condescended and he spoke to Moses. And we can draw some derivatives from this. There are things that we can learn about our God simply by his speaking to Moses. First of all, Jehovah our God is a living God. His speech shows something of his life. We sang Psalm 115, and in this way, God is differentiated from the idols. The idols have mouths and throats, but they do not speak. Jehovah our God speaks. Turn with me to Psalm 115. My main purpose here is simply to, in a catechetical way, point out that Jehovah is a living God. His speech reveals this. But the psalmist derives much in the way of practical application. The idols are not worthy of the trust and confidence of their worshipers because they cannot do anything to help. But our God is the living God, the creator of heaven and earth. and well able to help his people. Psalm 115, beginning in the first verse. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusted in them. You see, the idols are not worthy of any sort of trust because they are dead and powerless. And the fact that they are mute is a demonstration that they are dead things and unable to help. But not so Jehovah our God. Verse 9. Oh, Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. The Lord hath been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great. The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children. Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. Do you catch the contrast there? The idols are made by men's hands and cannot do anything. But we have set our trust in the God who made heaven and earth and all of the things that are contained in them. The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's. But the earth hath he given to the children of men. The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. So we learn here that our God is living and we take a practical application that this living and mighty God is worthy of our trust. But we can take a second derivative from his speech. In speaking to creatures, God shows his condescending goodness. There is an infinite divide between the creator and the creature. The creator is described as dwelling in a light inapproachable. In other words, the creature could not bridge the gap and couldn't make any approach to the great creator. We could not initiate any sort of fellowship with him. But here we find that the creator condescends and he speaks to the creature and this speaks of his goodness, his condescending goodness. And do you know what condescending means? It's a, it's language of stooping down. John Calvin likened it unto a child stooping down or a parent stooping down to lisp to his child to speak baby talk, something that the child can. understand. And so the great creator of heaven and earth condescends to speak to a creature, to speak to Moses. But even more wonderful than that, God has condescended to speak to a fallen creature in Moses and through Moses to all of Israel, which teaches us that our God is a merciful God. If God had been pleased to speak no words to man, to fallen man, and to leave fallen man on his death march to the grave without speech, without a gospel, and without fellowship, he would have been altogether just. And there isn't anyone that could have laid a hand upon him and said, what are you doing? But God, in his mercy, condescended to speak. to a fallen creature, to speak gospel words concerning a way of salvation, and to initiate fellowship with sinners in Jesus Christ, the mediator. So we learn that God is merciful. And when we speak of mercy, we mean that God has treated us far better than what we have deserved, or as Ezra says in his prayer of repentance, God has always treated us better than our iniquities have deserved. This is a very good definition of mercy. And one final thing that we saw in the exegesis of our text, when God speaks in fulfillment of his promise, we see his great faithfulness frequently expressed as the truth of God. God is true. That is, he is faithful and does all that he says that he would do. He promised to speak to Moses out of the Holy of Holies, from between the cherubs. And he does so. He shows himself to be faithful to God's promises. And so children never forget that by the speech of God, we learn that he is alive, that he is good. that he is merciful and that he is faithful to fulfill all of his promises. From our text, I wanted to take away just one use. We are reminded here that the scriptures are the word of God. And let us receive the scriptures for what they are, which is the very word of God. Unhappily, you have probably heard it, the book of Leviticus has gotten something of a bad rap, even in Christian circles. Leviticus has become almost a proverb for that which is a bit boring and difficult to understand. Interestingly enough, over against this, do you know that the Jews from ancient times, at least to the time of Christ, In most cases began their religious instruction of their children with Leviticus because it was seen to be easy and something useful for teaching the first principles of religion to the simple. But be that as it may, this is the word of God and Leviticus as much as any book in scripture is portrayed as being the very word of God. We will just see it over and over again. And God said to Moses, speak ye unto the children of Israel and say, speak ye unto the children of Israel and say the direct speech of God to his people. And we need to receive God's word, Leviticus and all as being the very word of our God to us. You remember that Paul commended the Thessalonians for this. He says, for this cause also thank we God without ceasing because When he received the word of God, which he heard of us, he received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. This is the very word of God and we receive it as such. What implications does this have for us? What does it mean to receive the scriptures as the very word of God? In your outline, I have included Larger Catechism 157, which is full of instruction. And we are really just going to look at one or two facets here. But you will have not wasted your Sabbath evening if you spend the evening thinking upon these things. How is the Word of God to be read? The Holy Scriptures are to be read with a high and reverent esteem of them, with a firm persuasion that they are the very Word of God and that He only can enable us to understand them, with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them, with diligence and attention to the matter and scope of them, with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer. I would commend to you just a couple of things. If we receive the word of God as the word of God and not merely the words of men, we will receive his word with reverence. You remember at Sinai, when God spoke with thundering and lightning and the blast of a trumpet, that the people of God tremble And it inspired in them a reverent attention for what was going to come from Sinai. For what was going to come out of the mouth of God. No doubt that this was quite easy when accompanied with all of these external manifestations of God's majesty and glory. But the Bible is no less the Word of God. And Exodus 20 is the inscripturated Word of God as it was delivered there. At Sinai, do we have spiritual senses to discern His majesty and His glory and to hear Him speaking to us out of heaven when we read the scriptures? And aren't we struck with awe? We have the Word of God, the Word of the living God of heaven. What a matchless privilege it is to have it. and to have it on the bookshelf and to take it down and read it. And in the reading of it, know that we have fellowship and communion with this God. This is an amazing thing. But this is the reality when we read the scriptures. We can put our reverence to the trial in this way. Do you receive them with diligent attention? very much the way that those Israelites at the foot of Sinai received it with a diligent attention. Do you find yourself eager for the times, for your times in the word? As the very word of life, the word of the living God speaking life to you? How do you enter into your times of worship, whether it be in private, or in family or in public, do you find yourself eager for the word with a firm conviction and belief that God is going to speak to you by that word? Do you jealously guard those times as the most precious times and the best hours of the day? Negatively, we might say, do you allow your mind to wander away when the word is read? Whether that's in private or family or public. When we allow our minds to wander away from the word when it's being read, we certainly do not treat it as if we believe that this is God speaking to us. If you were to ask a person, if the Lord Jesus Christ was to visit us in the flesh and speak to us, would you pay attention? Well, to a man, I think we would all say yes. If the Lord Jesus should visit us in the flesh and preach, we would give him our complete and undivided attention. But when we do not give our attention to the word read and the word preached, it becomes a sign that we do not in fact believe that this is the voice of Christ speaking to us from heaven. That we don't have the spiritual senses to discern that spiritual reality. One final facet of receiving the word as the word of God, we are to receive it in faith. When God speaks, the great God of truth, we believe his testimony about all things. In today's catechism class, we had an opportunity to look at Shurta Catechism number 9. that God created all things in the space of six days and all very good and that he created those out of nothing. Scientific naturalism wants to tell us that it took much longer and that the world has gone on and on and on from time immemorial. Who are we going to believe? Do we believe the divine testimony concerning these things or the continuously changing paradigms of science. Remember, God is a faithful God and a God of truth. And when he testifies, we believe him. This is to receive it as the word of the God of truth. But you remember that that section on saving faith when the Westminster divines talk about the way that faith responds to the word. Believing that it is the Word of God, when it issues commandment, we receive these as the commandment of the Most High, and we obey. That's what it is to receive a commandment of scripture in faith. When a promise is communicated, we lay hold of that promise and rejoice. Believing that that is ours now, and that we will enter into it fully in the life to come. When there is a threatening that comes from Scripture, coming from the hand of the Almighty who is terrible against sin, we tremble. This is what it means to respond in faith to the word and receive it as the very word of God. And being sinful people, when he threatens sinners, we tremble and fly to our Jesus. We could be even more specific at this point, however, in that we must believe God's testimony concerning salvation in Jesus Christ. And God has testified to us that all who put their trust in Christ will be saved. And we believe the divine testimony as the word of the God of truth. And here we find that we are not only believing what God has said, but we are also casting ourselves completely upon the Savior. So when we, as it were, and this is a spiritual reality, if we can imagine a courtroom scene with the great God of heaven on the judge's bench, and we stand as guilty sinners and liable to his eternal condemnation. And the question comes to us, what will we plead? If we plead any of our own righteousness, which is nothing but filthy rags before Him, we will be convicted and condemned eternally. But the man who trusts upon Jesus Christ says, I have nothing of my own to plead, but I do plead His blood. which was promised to anyone who would trust in Him, to take away the guilt of my sins. And I've read in the Scripture that He lived all of His life in perfect righteousness, not just for Himself, but for all of His people, all who would believe. And I lay hold of that righteousness, that blood, and that righteousness, and I have no other blame. Then the gavel swings. Justify! righteous in Jesus Christ. And this is what it means to not just believe him, but to believe upon him, not just to believe what he has said, but to cast oneself completely upon him for eternal life. So let us believe upon Christ, cast ourselves upon him and find that promised life. Let us pray together.