Father, we thank you tonight in your blessed, most precious name, the Lord that's ever lived. We thank you for a blessed book that magnifies a marvelous Savior. Lord, we pray you'd bless our evening. I pray you'd bless the Word of God. I pray there'd be liberty in my heart, Lord, to be able to enjoy the things of God, the Word of God, and that, Lord, we all could enjoy, Lord, the marvelous truths that come from a marvelous book. We thank you, Lord, for people with an interest in such a time in our land. And we pray that you'd anoint and bless each and every one of us. and touch us with the very glory of God, for we ask it in Jesus' name. I pray you humor me for one more night, but I always like to look at the man that wrote the book. I remember when I read East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, two books that were, they're highly acclaimed in the literary world. And they won recognition, they're still taught today as books, quality of writing. And after I read those books, I wanted to know something about the man that wrote the books. So I got a biography on John Steinbeck, read all about him. And so when it comes to the book of Leviticus, I wanted to know something about the man that wrote the book. Tells you a lot about the man, tells you a lot about the book when you enjoy the man who wrote the book. Moses was the writer of the book of Leviticus. His birth was dramatic and his death was dramatic. And I said, you know, anybody that finds God, Moses found him out in a desert land where it seems like we all find God somewhere in a desert place in our life. But you ever find him and start towards Jordan and the promised land, you're gonna have a dramatic life too. It's dramatic to know God in this world, in this dark world. It's a dramatic journey to make. What makes the book of Leviticus a dramatic book. And so the Bible gives us a biography of his life. And as any great author, his five books sit on our shelf and they've been up there for thousands of years to enjoy. Moses, we have his final days as he's nearing Jordan in the Book of Deuteronomy. He's closing out a long 40-year journey. In the 33rd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, you've got his last sermon. You've got his final parting words before he leaves his people and leaves this world. And then in the 29th verse of Deuteronomy 33, you've got his final words of the final sermon. You know what his final words were to those people that had made that long, hard journey? He said, be happy. After all they've been through, and after you read the book of Numbers and you see what he said, you people of the Lord should be happy. Well, that's a twist, isn't it? Be happy. And that's the way, and then right after he tells them to be happy, the Bible said he went up, went up to the mountains. And that 34th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, you've got his death. He goes up to the mountains and he goes up alone. And he goes up by himself, but he wasn't alone. Now all this Paul said is a learning. It's for our learning. Moses goes up and he's alone, but he's not alone. Jesus in John 16, 32, he said, I'm alone. He said, but I'm not alone. My father's with me. So when it comes time to die, you won't be alone. There'll be somebody with you. No matter where you're at, what you're going through, there'll be somebody with you. And we learned from Moses when it come time to die, for him to cross over, there was no fear in dying. He had no fear of death. Fear no evil. Thou art with me. And we also learned that there was an angelic presence with him. Michael was with him, keeping the devil off of him, keeping him company. Paul said, only Luke's with me. Moses can say only Michael's with me. That's pretty good company. There was an angelic presence at the time of his death. The Lord had been with him through the whole journey, the whole 40 years. God had been with him. So now when it comes time to cross over, it's time to go up, God's with him, keeping him company. But before he goes up, God just kind of opens up the curtain and lets him look over into the promised land. He lets him look into Immanuel's land. Lucifer was there to contend with him. but he had that angelic presence with him, and he died happy. He got to see the land, he died happy. He died faith in the Lord, he died looking in the promised land, and he died with a heavenly presence with him. Now, I still wanna look at Moses just for a few minutes, but I want you to look in Leviticus chapter one, The book of Exodus closes out. The tabernacle is erected, the cloud of God, the presence and the glory of God's come in. God is beckoning. And in Leviticus chapter one, it said, the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation saying, speak unto the children of Israel. So you know what we see in Moses right here? We see his ministry. And we see the life that he's gonna live. We find him speaking, preaching, teaching, fellowshipping in the glory. And we see Moses very much alive, very much in the work, very much in the fellowship of God, much alive. But now I want you to turn to Joshua chapter one. By turning to Joshua chapter one, we've just turned 40 years. And that's how quick 40 years will turn. In my mind, I just got to Shady Acres. I just got here. And it's 41 years later. And that's how quick it turns. Just turn one book and 40 years is gone. And then all of a sudden, that's the way I feel. I just turned around, 40 years is gone. Man, it's not gonna be too much longer than me. I'm gonna join up with Moses and I'm gonna go to Pisgah and look over and be gone. So look here, look at chapter one, verse two. We just saw him alive. We just saw him in the work. Moses, my servant, is dead. That's how quick things, that's how quick. Moses' life, they followed him. Those children of Israel, they followed him for 40 years. You gotta have faith in somebody to stay with them 40 years. They watched him for 40 years. He went through, he took them through troubled waters, took them through difficult times, but they followed Moses all the way through the wilderness. Not only followed him, they loved him. When Moses said, hey, he said, blot me out. He said, I'll die for him. They saw that in Moses. They loved him. Moses loved them. They listened to him. They listened to him for 40 years. They listened to him. He came down off that mountain and had the word of God in his hand. And you watch Moses. Moses had a little temper to him. He was either preaching the book at him or throwing the book at him. That's the way a pastor does. He got mad at him, he just chucked 10 commandments down, broke them all to pieces. Pastors will do that sometimes. They'll just throw the book at you. They'll get fed up, aggravated like anybody else. That's what Moses did. They talked to him. They lined up. for hours and hours and hours, all day, just to wait so they could talk to Moses. When he sat out in front of his ten on the platform, all the young men gathered around him. You know what it says in Deuteronomy chapter 34 and eight? It said they wept and died. And it says they wept for 30 days. They missed him and they wept and moaned for 30 days. They needed Moses. When the waters were bitter, they all looked at him. What are we gonna do? He made the water sweet. A good man to do that. They trusted him. Moses said, this is the way. and they believed him and they followed him. But now Moses is gone and life has changed for them. The loved one that they had followed and been with, he's not here anymore. The friends they traveled with, they're not here anymore. And the land is new. And they're in a new place. And they've never been without him. And they've never been in the place that they are without him. Never have. This is brand new for them. Because he's been with them since they come out of Egypt. You miss old men. When old men die, In any age, when old men die, they take something with them that you just never get back. Men will replace them. They will. But old men take something. That's why they're to be honored. That's why God said to honor them. They're gonna take something out of here that you never get back. In my little short life, I can remember sitting at a table in a restaurant with a little Carl Lackey. And I can remember just sitting there talking to that old man. I remember sitting at a restaurant table with Edgar Thomas and Jack Wood and just sitting there and listening to them talk about the Word of God. And I can remember how thrilled my heart was. I remember sitting at a restaurant with Harold Clayton and a whole bunch of preachers. Harold Clayton, Brother Jack, and I just remember, I was just a young guy, and just sitting there with them old men, just listening to them. They take something with them. Did you know, in the book of Joshua, after Moses died, 54 times it says, Moses said, he's dead. They said it, Moses said, 54 times. But when you get over to the book of Judges, they don't say it two times. They done forgot him. And look at the mess they got in in the book of Judges. They needed him. So Moses is dead in chapter two, but look in verse eight. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. Moses is dead. but they still got the book of Leviticus. God didn't leave them empty. They still got, and when your best friends and the best men leave here, you still got a book. They had a book when that old man died. We got a book when the men that we listened to for the last 30, 40 years, they just about all gone. but we still got their book. Still got it. He said, and the book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. We've got the book in the daytime, we've got it in the nighttime. We've got it when it's sunny, we've got it when it's dark. We got it when we can see, we got it when we can't see. We still got the book, even when that generation comes and goes. Now they've got to trust the book just like they trust Moses. Yes. My comparison is whether you're going through the wilderness or you're fixing the crossover in the promised land, you are still going to need the book. The book of Leviticus was a lamp and a light. Because they were in a dark, dark wilderness. Very dark. And that book gave them light. And you watch them through the wilderness. Time, places changed. Peoples changed. Problems changed. Enemies changed. There was a constant change going on in their journey through the wilderness. And you're gonna find out in our life too, it's gonna constantly change. The things you plant in the springtime of life, they're gonna be gone in the wintertime of life. But they still had that book. They still have. The book will stay the same yesterday, today, and forever. Just like somebody else I know. That'll be the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it's obvious to us that the children of Israel would never have gotten through the wilderness the great and terrible wilderness, Moses called it, they would never have gotten through without the book of the law. Never would have. They never would have known what was clean and what was unclean. They never would have been able to stay clean without the book. And once they got unclean, they'd have never been able to have gotten clean again if it hadn't been for the book. The book taught them how to get clean when they got unclean. That was the only source they had. They'd have never been able to have communion without the book. The book told them how to have communion with God. They would have strayed and wandered without the book. Paul said in Romans 7, 7, he said, I would have even known lust without the law. So the children of Israel now are out in a world they've never been in. They've been down in Egypt. But now they're in the wilderness, but they're in a world, they're in a life that they had never been in. And it was not like Egypt. In Egypt, you can do anything you want. Everything's legal in Egypt. Everything is legal in Egypt. But now they've come out of Egypt and now they're in the wilderness and God has given them a book. They've never traveled this way before. This is a new land. The wiles they're fixing to face, They ain't never faced these type of wiles. These are different wiles in the wilderness than they faced when they were in Germany, in Egypt. Germany, Lord. Probably pretty close to the same, I guess. So God brings them out and gives them a pastor and precepts. That's what he does. The book of Leviticus becomes a lamp under their feet so that they can stay clean, so that they can have communion. The reason why God warned them to stay clean is because he could not have communion with them if they weren't clean. And it was God that instituted and beckoned them to come. He's the one that wanted the fellowship. He's the one that wrote the laws. He's the one that took the time there on Exodus to tell him how to build an altar. When you read that in the book of Exodus, that 27th chapter, when you see him building that altar, that is God telling him how to build it, because he says, that's where I want the fellowship within. It's not man building it, it's God building it. Because he wants the fellowship. Let me find myself. It was a light under their path to avoid becoming undefiled and unclean. Look in Joshua chapter 23. Verse six, be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses. It's an important book. It's a spiritual book. It was the leper's hope. If you look over in Leviticus chapter 13, you find a leper sitting down there in that little leper camp. He's unclean. He's gotta tell everybody he's unclean. He can't go back in the camp. He can't go home. He can't fellowship with his family. He can't go to the tabernacle and he's sitting down there and the only hope he's got is what is written in the law that the priest can go down there and take a cage of birds to get him out. But nobody would have known what to do if it hadn't been for the law and the book. The best way that I can say to approach The book of the law, Leviticus, where it becomes interesting. It opens up by saying, the Lord, and he says, speak unto the children. So you've got a whole book of the Lord speaking unto the children with a mediator in between. So what you have, It spins off when the disciples went to the Lord and said, teach us to pray. Remember the first thing he said? He said, pray like this, our father. He wanted them to see that God was more than just a God in the heaven, that God was a father. And you see that fatherly role of the Lord and God in the book of Leviticus. Because all of a sudden now, he takes the role of a father and he's gonna do things for them that a father does for his children. The Lord loved his children, Deuteronomy 33. He loved them. And what a gift and what a treasure he gives them in the book. It's like a father lecturing a child. It's the same principles. You know what a child does? They will eat anything. They will touch anything. They will go anywhere. They will trust anybody. They will. And so a father takes the time to teach his children, this is what you eat, this is what you don't eat. This is what you can touch, this is what you can't touch. This is what you can look at, this is what you can't look at. And a father instructs his children because he wants to keep them safe. He wants them to grow up. And God does the same thing in the role of a father in the book of Leviticus. Don't put that in your mouth. Don't touch that, don't look at that. It's the same identical principle. It's the same thing he did to Adam and Eve. He spread the table, gave them, and he said, listen, You can have anything you want, but don't, don't eat of that tree. And because the death sentence was so severe in the garden, and I always believe that what God's doing, He's trying to put the truth that Adam lost back into the children of Israel with the book of Leviticus, because this is what Adam lost. And I've heard people preach that when Eve was talking to the devil, he said, God told us not to touch it. Well, I know it doesn't say that. But when you look into what happened to them, and then you get over here to the book of Leviticus, where God was saying, don't eat it, don't touch it, you can rest assured that God told them in that garden, don't go near that tree, don't eat that tree, don't touch that tree, don't. And when they did, they died. because it was severe. And so now you see him doing the same thing with this book of Leviticus. It's the same thing that a parent does with a child. There's just some things that are forbidden and he teaches them. These are the things you don't do. The Lord teaches in the book of Leviticus. He corrects in the book of Leviticus and he punishes in the book of Leviticus. It's the same thing. You say, why? Because the Lord loves his people. The Lord wants them to go through the wilderness. He wants them to go through. He wants them to go into the promised land. He wants them to go through life. And he's not trying to deprive them, he's trying to save them. He's trying to keep them happy. When you're clean, you're happy. When you're unclean, you're not happy. There's just things forbidden that will destroy you, body, soul, and spirit. And the book of Leviticus is a very spiritual book. So there's some things in there that belong to them. There's a spiritual teaching of learning that Paul said for us all even today. So what does the Lord do? He writes them a book, the book of the law. And he gives them this book of Leviticus. Leviticus 10, 11, he's gonna teach them all the statutes. And Leviticus 14, verse six, seven, he's gonna teach them. And he wants them to read it. He wants them to learn it. He wants them to hear it. He wants them to memorize it, meditate on it night and day. It is a school. It is a school to help them. It's a father, you know what children love? Children love for the father to read to them. They want a parent to read to them. They always want to read to them. That's exactly the same principle that God is doing as a father to these children with the book of Leviticus. Read this to them. It's like a teacher before class. The Lord speaks on every page. The Lord spake. The Lord spake all the way through the book of Leviticus. He speaks on every page, and he speaks very direct. You understand him when he's saying what he's saying. What these children face, we face. What they're told to look out for, we're told to look out for as we get into the book. There's things that will hurt them, There's things that will defile him. There's things that will make him unclean. There's things that displease him. There are snake bites. There are strange people. They meet people that you never knew existed. I've met them often. They will face sufferance that they never dreamed that they would face. They'll find sweet water, bitter water. Happy one day, unhappy the next day. Strong one day, weak the next day. The father wanted the children to listen to him. That's why he's constantly saying through the book of Leviticus, speak unto the children because he wanted the children to listen to him. because their life depended upon the words that he's saying. That's why he wanted them to listen. Their life, their living, their family, their home, everything depended upon the word, speak unto the children. And everything he said was very important. Fathers do the same to their children. I love this verse, but it says, When Solomon is writing in the book of Proverbs, he said, my son, hear the instructions of a father. Same principle, but the other part of that verse, and forsake not the law of your mother. Daddy's instruct, and mama's lay down the law. Always been that way. It's an age old argument. that man wrote the Bible. If you talk to anybody, you'll hear that for long, man wrote it. Well, there's some books with the Bible, you can argue that with, but not the book of Vinicius. There ain't no way man wrote that book. Not killing animals the way he killed them. Pulling heads off. bringing heads off, plucking feathers, burning them, teaching them to hate, sin, and all that they've got to go through. When they sin in chapter four, the sin offering, and when they sin in the trespass offering, all that he makes them go through to get everything right, he wanted them to hate it as he hated it. Moral issues. He brings up all these moral issues in the book of Leviticus. And on a humorous note, the age-old argument that man wrote the Bible, if you want to argue that, they couldn't eat catfish. Tell that to a Southern boy. But then thank God for the apostle Paul, because he comes along in 1 Timothy 4, verse 4, and he says, batter it up and fry it. Just pray over it and you'll eat it. Oh, yeah. Hallelujah. I mean, that's exactly what he's saying. Yeah. You can eat anything you want to, just pray over it. Yes. Glory. When then Jesus came along and in there in Acts chapter 10, when heaven opened up, all them animals keep coming down. And he said, kill and eat. Fry up those bass and crock and chicken. The Lord's the only one that could have wrote this book. He's the only one. It's a heavenly written book. I'm telling you, it is. John will come along and say, God is love. The book of Leviticus proves it. Because it was written for the children's safety. It was written for them that they could make it all the way to Jordan. It was an instruction manual on how to survive in the wilderness. What to eat, what not to eat. He did not want his children hurt. He didn't want his children suffering. He didn't. So he gave them laws to keep them from it. But when they did, he helped them get it all back right. He goes to the very length to save and help his children. He keeps an eye on them night and day. Now that is written for our learning. There never was a time that he wasn't in camp. He never forsook them, never did. He was there by day, He was there by night. You can rest assured, looking back now on the 40 years that I've come through this wilderness, I look back now, He never forsook me. Never did. Even when I couldn't find Him, He knew where I was. Just like He knew where they were all the time. He knew where they were. Never out of his sight. He made sure that they had food. He made sure that they had water. Made sure that they had clothes. He made sure they had shoes for the whole journey. He made sure they were provided for. And he wants them to know By providing for them, that's how much he cares. That is divine care. And he's trying to prove that. He never let his heart, his heart never lifted. Following down into Egypt, he tore up Egypt like a mad dad. I want my children out of here. I want my children down here. Let them go or I'll tear your house up. Let them go or I'll take your children. And there's times when you, through the book of Leviticus and through the Pentateuch, there's a time you just get to see the very character of God. And the children, they had a lot to learn when they come up out of Egypt. God, when we got saved, we had a lot to learn. They come out of a hard life. They came out of a very bitter experience. The Bible uses the word rigor. It's hard. They had suffered burdens to carry, taskmasters that left scars on them that were never gonna heal in a lifetime. They never felt a lot, they never, those pains, they were with them. The Bible said they cried unto heaven and God heard them. And so what God does, he gives them a book. It's what I call the children's book. Speaking to the children, so he gives them a book. Not a book of combat, or war, or carnal warfare. But it's a book of illustrations and instructions of truths that he illustrated. He illustrated everything in the book of Leviticus. Paul wrote what happened to us. Leviticus, it shows us what happened to us. You'll see it plainer than you've ever seen it before. Everything's written in a picture. Everything's illustrated in the book of Leviticus. It's an allegory where pictures are hidden in the meanings of those words. Paul said we had a vile body. Well, Leviticus just shows you how vile it is. I love Leviticus. He said he got running issues. We all got issues that are running somewhere. We all got issues that are running. Running issues. Paul said, there's no good thing in my flesh. Leviticus shows you just how there's no good in your flesh. It's a spiritual book about a spiritual life. Because the Lord brings them out of Egypt. into a great and terrible wilderness, and now he's gonna teach him how to live spiritual in a wicked world. That's the same thing he does to you and I. He wants us to live spiritual in a wicked world. So he gives us a book. Gives us a book to help us. They didn't have a book in Egypt. All the books that were in Egypt were about flesh and body. Positive thinking. How to make a better you. Seven steps to wherever you want to go. But the book of Leviticus is a spiritual book that gives you a knowledge of God, a life of a conscious presence of God, of living right, in a wrong world because the Lord wanted them to go through the wilderness and all the trials. Remember what Jesus said in John 17? He said, Lord, I don't pray that you take them out of the world. I just pray that you keep them from evil. And this is exactly what he does in the book of Leviticus. He doesn't take them out of that wilderness world, but he gives them a book to keep them from evil, to keep them from unclean. Keep them out of the leper camps. To look to him, speaking to the children, to listen to him, to trust him. He wants to be their Lord. He wants to be their father. He wants to keep them clean. He wants to stay in fellowship. He wants to dwell in the camps. So here is an amazing thought of the children of Israel. They did find that life was unbearable in Egypt. It was unbearable. But they came to the place where they thought that it was easier than the spiritual life in the wilderness. So they said, I'm going back to Egypt. How about that? Because the spiritual life, they thought was just too hard to live spiritual. So they started dreaming of the flesh pots and the onions and the garlics and, you know, all that they had in Egypt. But they wanted to go back because they didn't want to live spiritual in a wilderness world. We've seen a lot of people like that. They come out of Egypt, but they just think the spiritual life's too hard. They preferred the sufferings of Egypt more than the spiritual life in the wilderness. And that's why, if you go over there to 1 Corinthians 10, verses one through 11, time and time again in those verses, it said, with some of them, he was not well pleased. With some of them, he was not well pleased. He says that about three or four times. And that's those people that came out and drank of that spiritual drink and ate of that spiritual food, and they followed that spiritual rock, and he gave them every chance in the world. But they didn't want to live spiritual. Too hard. But if you come out of Egypt and into the wilderness, You find God in the spiritual life in the wilderness, but you can't find God down in Egypt. He brought them out and then revealed himself to them after he got them out. They found God in the wilderness. They couldn't find him in Egypt. They had to come out of Egypt to find the presence of God. And so do we. He said, come out from among them to be second. He said, come out. He said, come out. And he said, I'll be a father unto you. I'll be in your, you come out and be a father, be a son and a daughter. He said, I'll be a father to you. So they found God in the book, Leviticus chapter nine, verse six. The book was to teach them of the Lord. That's what we begin our journey on next week. The book had the presence of God in it. It was more than killing animals. It was more than sacrificing. The book of Leviticus is still with us. It still reveals Jesus Christ. It reveals him. I brought my son out of Egypt. The light still shines. It's funny, the Pharisees, they had the book of the law when Jesus came, but they couldn't see it. They had it. Paul got it, he saw it. and it totally changed his life. Moses wrote of me what Jesus said. Moses wrote of me. They got some man that wanted to kill him. To them, it was not a book about Jesus. It was a book of knowledge that they could control, exalt their own righteousness and their own works. They could not see Jesus in it. But I'm telling you people, Jesus is all in that book. Glory. Jesus reveals Leviticus. He quotes it. Paul quotes it. He found Jesus on every page. And when he found him on every page, he wrote in the book of Hebrews, he said, he's better than everything. He's better than angels. He's better than the law. He's better than everything. He worshiped God. learning about the Lord in the book. Then he told Timothy, he said, you better study. Better study, and I repeat myself from last week, but some books, you enjoy reading. Some books, you don't enjoy reading. Some books, you just have to study. Timothy, give attendance to reading. Timothy, study to prove. Some books of the Bible, you just have to dig in there. You just have to dig deep. He wrote him a commentary, called it the book of Hebrews. He said a shadow. He said that book of Leviticus was a shadow of good things to come. Brought a better hope, he said. It's a children's book that made them forget Egypt. Those who came into the courts, made them think about God, made them worship the Lord. So when the Lord gets through with them, I'm gonna close here. When the Lord gets through with them, they won't even be able to look at a fish in the water, a bird in the sky, or a creeping thing on the ground without thinking about God. He puts that conscious, he puts that conscious awareness They can't look nowhere if they can't see God. It's a great book. It's much deeper than the ceremonies, duties, and all the washes. And I borrowed Paul's word. He says it's glorious. It's glorious. So next week, we'll start looking at the inside of it and looking at the burnt sacrifice