Leviticus chapter number one. We'll start reading in the first verse. And Lord called unto Moses and spakened him out of the tabernacle of the congregation. So we're going to continue our study in why read the Bible. And this morning, we get to why read Leviticus. In my Bible reading, I'm right in the middle of Leviticus right now. So this message is as much for me as it is for anybody else. Because I'm not going to lie, it's a hard book to read. It's just that there's so much that is outside of what I'm used to. I can read 1 Samuel, and even though I'm not used to kings and battles and that kind of thing, I can relate somewhat to what's going on. But this is so far outside of our everyday life, animal sacrifices, priests and priest garments and offerings and laws about what you can eat and what you can't eat and so forth. Much, not all of Leviticus, but much of the first part of Leviticus is just kind of outside how we live and how we go about our daily life. I can sympathize with Alan Ross, who said, for most Bible readers, the book of Leviticus is as barren and unknown as the dry, trackless wilderness of its setting. This is just a brief period of time. It's not a long period of time that this happens, as God is just giving them instructions. They're in the wilderness. Though it's difficult to read through Leviticus, God's people should read the book of Leviticus, and that's the point of the message, is that we should read it. All scriptures, even Leviticus, is given by inspiration, and it's profitable, even Leviticus, for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness. So there's good reasons to read this book. It's a book about law. It's a book about the gospel. There's a lot of rules for priests, but the book is equally concerned with the people of God as a whole. So it's not just a priestly handbook, and it's not just a list of do's and don'ts. There is a lot that the child of God should be familiar with. One reason we read it is so we can be familiar with the rest of the Bible and doctrines that occur in the scriptures. There are many things in the Gospels, there are many things in the New Testament that won't really click unless you understand the background of what's going on. And when we read Leviticus, we learn what priests do, what they offer, why they offer it, what the people can eat, what they can't eat, what's clean and what's unclean, what leprosy means for someone in the nation. You learn about offerings and meals and sacrifices. And so as you're reading this, you say, well, what's this have to do with me? I don't do any of these things. Well, when we get to the gospel and you start reading through, one of the gospel writers might just simply mention something. And a Jew reading that in the first century would say, oh, of course, well, I know what that is. But us, the only way we will know is if we get the background information. So this prepares us and helps us better understand things that were going on in the New Testament. So for example, when Jesus goes and touches the leper and he's made whole, well, by itself, we know that that's a great miracle for Jesus to heal somebody of an incurable disease. But when you read two or three chapters of what the extent of leprosy and what is required to determine leprosy and what happens if someone is leprous, what it means to be unclean, what it means for that individual, ceremonially and from the religious aspect, it adds to what we can understand what Jesus did. So it helps us to learn more about Christ. There's many New Testament quotations from the book. There's 40 New Testament references to the book of Leviticus. Leviticus has more of God's direct speaking than any other book. Almost the whole book is God speaking to Moses. Now, all the scripture is God's word, of course, but we're talking about God's directly speaking, and the Lord said. So, if you have a red-letter Bible, in the Gospels, when Jesus speaks, everything's in red. Well, if you had a red-letter edition of the book of Leviticus, almost the whole book would be red. It's almost all the Lord speaking. So I'm looking right here, I've got my Bible open to chapter five and six, it says, verse 14, and the Lord spake unto Moses, chapter six, and the Lord spake unto Moses, verse eight, and the Lord spake unto Moses, verse 19, and the Lord spake unto Moses. Is this God speaking? So we should read it because God is speaking this. Andrew Bonar said, there is no book in the whole compass of the inspired volume which the Holy Ghost has given us that contains more of the very words of God than Leviticus. It is God that is the direct speaker in almost every page. His gracious words are recorded where they were uttered. This consideration cannot fail to send us to the study of it with singular interest and attention. that God himself spoke with audible voice to Moses, and Moses recorded these instructions. So for that reason, it should interest us to see what God spake unto Moses. You should read it because it tells us about God. It tells us that God is holy. You read through Leviticus and you'll notice that. Not only the Lord spake over and over, but you'll also notice the word holy, 94 times by my counting. And through it, you not only see, or not only are you told that God is holy, but you see that God is holy. I was listening to somebody on YouTube that was talking about how to write a good novel, and this author was saying some of the advice is you show, you don't tell. So you don't say, the man was very nervous. you show that he was nervous by having the character tap his fingers or tap his foot or pace back and forth. That's what a good storyteller will do. They won't tell you about it, they'll show you. Well, God tells us that he's holy 94 times, but he also shows us that he's holy. And his name is holy, his people are to be holy, the priesthood is to be holy, the tabernacle, the vessels, the garments, the sacrifices, the holy gatherings, but you also see it in that God requires blood sacrifices and offerings for sin, that judgment will come upon people if they don't obey God, that he is to be feared, he is holy and righteous and requires that his people be holy and righteous. The first part has to do with offerings of sin, and then you get into the holiness code, where God says, this is how I want you to act. This is what you must do as my people. It's a revelation about God. The Lord says, I am the Lord, 45 times in this book. And if you notice that there at the beginning, and the Lord is called unto Moses, That's in the all caps. We know that is God's covenant name. So Jehovah called unto Moses, the Lord God, I am that I am. So 40 some times we read that, that the covenant God speaks to his people. And it wasn't just to Moses, for Moses, it wasn't just to Moses for the priest, but it was about, all the lives of all the people of God. You should read this because it reminds us that God is present and living with his people. 61 times in the book, it says that God, it has the phrase before the Lord. So they would do something before the Lord in the Lord's presence. and another 10 times a sacrifice, it would be a sweet savor unto the Lord, that the Lord, as it were, would smell the sacrifice, He would be there present with the sacrifice, and it was sweet unto Him. So the Lord's presence is is felt here and shown and seen in this book. That not only is God speaking the whole time, and not only is he speaking concerning his Israel, but this is how God's people are to relate in the presence of God, as he dwells with him and they dwell in his land as his people. So we can kind of look, read between the lines and think about some application of that, that God is real, he is holy, he is with his people, he wants his people to be holy, but he's present with his people and he makes the means by which his people can dwell on the land. How can a sinful and ungodly people dwell with the Lord? Well, it's through those sacrifices, the priestly work of the sacrifice. So we read in Spurgeon's Catechism how Christ is a priest. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our great high priest. Well, what does that mean to us? Well, if we don't know what a priest does and we don't know how a priest stands between man and God and offers prayers and offers sacrifices and is there for the good of the people, then we can't make that connection. But when we think about a priest, we think about our priest, so we read it as a Christian. We don't read it as a Jew. We read it as a Christian. And so when you read about the priest, you say, well, I've got a priest. I've got a priest, my Lord Jesus Christ. And you can see and make the connection how Christ fulfills what they did for us. He doesn't offer animal sacrifices, he offers himself. He intercedes for us as our great high priest. Bonar said, again, for the Christian, God's presence was made known at the incarnation. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. So God tabernacled among us as we looked at last time when we thought about Exodus. So here we have the priest tabernacling with us who offered himself as a sacrifice. So in Leviticus, God is knowable, and not only that, we know how to worship him. God is righteous, and we know how to follow his ways. God is merciful, and that he gave us sacrifices. And God is sovereign, that he chose Israel, he forgave them, and he judges sin. So as New Testament believers, when we read Leviticus, our goal though is to see Christ. We don't wanna read Leviticus and go backwards and start trying to live in the past, but we wanna look at Leviticus in light of Christ. So we're not ones that read the book and can only think about things to the left or wherever we're reading, as some people do. No, we wanna read Leviticus in light of Christ. Christ because God gave us, God gave the Jews Leviticus to picture Christ. And so now that we have the fullness, we can look back and say, and see how Leviticus pointed to Christ. We can see more of Christ. We have the benefit of not looking away from Jesus, but looking to Jesus and seeing how he fulfilled the shadow. So that's how we read Leviticus as a Christian. We read it knowing that Christ has fulfilled those things. So the New Testament for us is a blessing for us because it can shine light upon the book of Leviticus for us. It can shine light on why God gave it to us. I'm not saying that it makes it an easy read like you're reading a novel or something, but that's the mindset that you go into as you read it. How is this showing me Christ? How is this pointing to his work as priest. How does it show his offering of himself for my sins? And then later on, how does it show what is holy and righteous in God's sight? How does the New Testament reveal Christ and reveal holiness to us? So when we enter in the book that way and not expecting Stories like Moses and Moses' mom putting him in the ark and Pharaoh's daughter finding him, not expecting narrative tales, which there is one or two, but not expecting that the whole time, but expecting this book of priestly worship and law that's gonna point us to Christ, then we can read it the right way. and get out of what God intended for us. Hebrews 10, one and two says, for the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer year by year continually make the comers therein too perfect. So the law was a shadow of the good thing to come. So Jesus didn't come and read the book of Leviticus and say, now I have to make my life somehow fit into this scheme, but God ordained Leviticus to be the shadow of what Jesus would accomplish. Hebrews tells us the law was a shadow of the good thing to come, and that God chose the worship, the priests, the law, the sacrifices, the offering, to be a faint picture, a sketch, if you will, of the Lord Jesus himself. So the sovereign God sketched out a shadow for us, for the Old Testament Jews. It wasn't the full picture. but it was a sketch, it was a shadow. You know what, if somebody draws a sketch, it's not a lifelike representation, it's not like an oil painting, it's not like a picture that someone takes on their phone. It was a sketch, it's an outline. It's something that has some of the major features that you can recognize, but not every particular detail of the image. And that's what it is. And God has done that for his people. So now we can look at Jesus and then look at the sketch and see how he fulfilled that. The law is also a schoolmaster. So you go to Leviticus and think of the law as a schoolmaster. When the son of God came into the world to fulfill his mission, to fulfill his role as prophet, priest, and king, messiah, savior, he did so according to the plan of God. And Galatians 3.24 tells us that it was a schoolmaster, the laws of schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. So when we go to Leviticus, we can think of that as a teacher. But the Spirit of God has this teacher to teach the ABCs to the children of Israel, to teach them the ways of God that they might know Him. They might understand what a purification and atonement and sacrifice and offerings, they might understand what all these things are and what they all mean. So God, in the timeline here, God delivered Israel out of the land of Egypt. He gave all of his laws to Moses and established his covenant. He showed his holiness at Sinai. He gave the detailed instructions in the tabernacle at the last part of Exodus. And it was a special place, a holy place, where the people would meet, where God would meet with his people. So that's how it ends, if you remember, at the last of Exodus. Moses and Aaron washed themselves. They went into the tent as the Lord commanded, and a cloud It says in verse 34, last chapter of Exodus, the 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 of the cloud abode thereon. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. God was there, the glory filled the tabernacle, and then now you have the rules for how a sinful people can meet with a holy God. So the first seven chapters of Leviticus, it just starts off The Lord spoke unto Moses out of the tabernacle of the congregation. So the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle of the congregation and God's presence is there in the wilderness and God speaks to Israel. And then just immediately speak unto the children of Israel and say, if any man bring you an offering unto the Lord. So the first thing, here's an offering. Chapters 1 through 5, you have five different types of offerings. And then in chapters 6 through 7, you have instructions for the priests. So you just have offerings of burnt offerings, meat offerings, purification offerings. Then we get to chapter number eight. So you got the first seven, you got laws of offerings, instructions for the priest. You get to chapter eight, nine, and 10, there's historical events. So I said there wasn't a lot of narrative, but there is some. You have the consecration of Aaron and his son. So God sets Aaron and his boys apart as priests. The Lord appears. But then you have sort of probably the most famous story in the book of Leviticus in chapter number 10, where In verse number one it says, In Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer, and put fire thereon, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. So God gives all these instructions to the priests Aaron's sons offer strange fire, they didn't do it right. God gave them particular instructions on how they were to offer incense before the Lord, and they didn't do it right. They offered strange fire, they took fire from a place that they weren't supposed to take it, and God immediately killed them. So like I said, this is not a long narrative. It's a very short period of time that Leviticus was given, because it was right after they constructed the tabernacle. God speaks all these things. Everybody gets ready. And then they mess it up. And Nabat, Dab, and Abihu died before the presence of the Lord. So this shows God's holiness. The seriousness of what's involved here, this is not something you can mess around with. God will be glorified. God will be glorified. Verse three, it says, this is it, that the Lord spake, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh unto me and before the people. I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. God just immediately says, you are going to worship me my way. You will not mess with the pictures that I have laid out here. Why? Because this is showing what Christ would do. And it's showing God's holiness in the offerings and the sacrifices, and it's showing that God must be obeyed. It's showing that the picture cannot be altered. The gospel cannot be, the good news of salvation cannot be tampered with, else it's no longer good news. Then in chapter 10, verse 9, you have instructions again to the priests not to drink wine when they're in the tabernacle. It's a statute through all generations. And then when you start to get to chapter 11, you have the clean and unclean rules. You've got laws against food, what you can eat and what you can and can't eat as an Israelite. You have the laws of having children, leprosy, cleansing of the leper, laws of discharge. Chapter 16 is the day of atonement. Chapter 17 deals with blood. So you have the Day of Atonement, you have the laws about blood, how they can't eat blood because life is in the blood. So it's interesting that they have all these laws, but you have the Day of Atonement transitioning into the Holiness Code. And that starts in chapter number 18. So chapter number 18 starts telling Israel how they have to live, the people in particular. So there's laws. regarding sexual sins, how to treat your neighbor, how to love God, how to be a separate people in chapter 20. More laws for the priests, holy things that are acceptable for Aaron. Chapter 23, you get into feasts and oil and bread for the tabernacle. An eye for an eye. You have that kind of stuff. You have the Sabbath year in chapter 25, jubilee, celebration, the kinsman redeemer, blessing and cursing in chapter 26 for the disobedience and the prophecy of Sabbath rest, breaking and punishment. And then you have a chapter on vows. So that's a big scope of what Genesis is. So you know what you're getting into. You start out with sacrifices, you have some narrative in the middle, some laws about the priest, some holiness laws, and you finish up with feasts and celebrations and tabernacles, or feasts, celebrations, and offerings. So what does Leviticus teach us? Well, it teaches us how sinful we are, It shows us, particular as Gentiles, that we are born unclean. The Israelites could become unclean in a ceremonial sense. We are outside the camp. We were unclean Gentiles, not even able to draw near. You see how the Israelites would line up around the camp, the tabernacle, the most holy place, and we could not meet those requirements for holiness. All the sacrifices, all the provisions were not made by holy men, but they illustrated God's holiness, that because we are not holy people, there had to be sacrifices made. Then God says, but I want you to be holy. I am holy, so you be holy. My people will be a holy people. So there are laws on how the Israelites should live, how they should eat, how they should dress, how they should take care of their families, how they should bury their dead, how they were not to live like the people in the land. That they were living amongst unclean people, but they couldn't be unclean people. They couldn't live like those around them. It shows the extent of the curse. It shows that the extent of the curse goes to everything that we touch. The food we eat, the land we live in, having children, sickness, disease, bodily curses. It's all impacted. It's all touched by the curse. Every aspect of our life, every aspect of our being is touched by the curse and that sin has defiled it all. If you read through Leviticus and then think back to the Garden of Eden, all these laws about how to live and how to dress and what to eat and what not to eat and laws about having children, laws about just natural bodily functions making one clean or making one unclean. That just being a human being and just bodily functions would make one unclean. So I don't have any control of that. That's just nature. That's our sinful nature. Even things that we don't You say, well, I just do things because that's my nature to do them. That doesn't excuse us. There are sacrifices in Leviticus for people who sin in ignorance. People who do the wrong thing and don't even know it. That's still a sin. It's still a sin against God if we do something and we don't even realize that we're sinning. God's still required to sacrifice even for that. So it shows how the extent of the curse and how far we have fallen. It shows grace. In Leviticus 18 verse five, it says, He shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. You say, well, how is that grace? Well, that is law. That's not grace, is it? Isn't it? We know the distinction between law and gospel. And that is not gospel. That's not good news. Here are my statutes. Do them or else. You will keep the statutes or you will die. You will offer sacrifice the right way or you will die. You will offer incense the right way or you will die. Do this or else, I am the Lord. Well, how is that good news? Well, it's a schoolmaster. It teaches us that we can't do that. We haven't done that and we won't do that. We have no hope in keeping the law. All these laws show us our sinfulness. It shows us what we're lacking. And then as Christians, we think, well, there is one person who did those things. There is one that kept God's statutes and God's judgments, which if a man will do, he shall live in them, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ came as the last Adam, and he lived under the law. He lived under this law, that if you keep the law, you will live. And what'd he do? He lived a sinless life. He lived a sinless life on our behalf. And he offered himself, like on the Day of Atonement, they offered the lamb for the sins of the people. He offered himself for the sins of the people. And he paid for our sins, that we would have our sins forgiven. But he rose from the dead. The sinless son of man rose from the dead. And by faith, his righteousness is imputed to our account. So you can read Leviticus 18.5, you shall keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them, else he die, and say, I have sinned, I deserve death, but Christ kept that law. Christ obeyed, and by faith, the scriptures declare that I receive his righteousness, that I can stand before God and I live in Christ. because Christ imputed his righteousness to my account. I'm righteous. That even though I can't keep the law, he kept it on my behalf and gave that to me by his grace. So the gospel is communicated to us in Leviticus. We see the clear distinction between law and gospel. but it's communicated to us in sacrifices, it's communicated to us in pictures. It's a bloody book, Leviticus is, it's full of blood, sacrifice, but it communicates the gospel. Even though the gospel is in the types and shadows and the law drives us to Christ, it is clear. But this book is about Jesus, and it is driving us to Christ. So you can think of Leviticus like a schoolmaster that's trying to get you from eighth grade to high school. He's trying to get you out of the building blocks to the truth of the word. From the building blocks to go on a little bit further. And what Leviticus is doing is taking us, taking the Jews and saying, okay, do this or die. You can't do it, can you? You know what, you need somebody to do it for you. Here's sacrifices, here's offerings to cleanse you. You can't do it yourself. You need someone to come and do it for you. It drives us to Christ. And so that's why we should read Leviticus. It takes us to Christ.