This morning we begin a series on the book of Leviticus. I suppose most Christians find this book to one degree or another to be uncharted territory. We may read through it as part of our Bible reading program, but For many, it will be at precisely this point that that Bible reading program goes off the rails. Leviticus seems utterly alien to us. What we find within it doesn't make a lot of sense in many cases. It's a book of seemingly endless, Regulations covering sacrifices offered in the temple, which we don't do anymore because there's no temple. Annual feasts that we don't celebrate anymore. Ritual impurity, which is not a word we know anything about anymore. Which animals can or cannot be eaten. how to deal with skin diseases, and a whole host of issues which we tend to read about and then ask, what does this have to do with the relationship between a person or a nation and God? And of course, even asking that question reveals something about a problem which Leviticus is seeking to address. It's a problem far more evident in our own lives than it was in the lives of the ancient Israelites. You see, we actually believe this silly notion that there are parts of our lives which have nothing to do with God. Whereas Leviticus reminds us that the Lord is, in fact, Lord, and he is Lord over everything and everyone. There is not, as Abraham Kuyper said, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not exclaim, mine. That's what Leviticus reminds us of. It reminds us of that truth, that the Lord is Lord over everything. And there is nothing in our lives or in this world that is outside of his sovereign authority. Nothing in this world that he is not interested in, that he is not active in. In that sense, there is a universality to this book, but we've also got to admit the obvious. When we come to Leviticus, we are plunged into a world that is so very different from our own that we struggle to make any sense of it. Of course, if you were with us for Going Deeper last week, we were reminded of the words of Paul written to Timothy, that all scripture is inspired. and it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training, and righteousness. That is both for doctrine and for life. So we know then, because we believe that what Paul said is true, we know that Leviticus falls within that truth. It is scripture It is just intended, it is exactly what God intended it to be. It is profitable then for God's people. So we may acknowledge that all of these laws that we're going to see here in Leviticus were somehow useful for Israel's spiritual life. And we probably realize that in some way or another, all of this looked forward to Christ, but Leviticus remains nonetheless a very difficult book for us to understand. And one which is difficult for us to find the ways in which it is profitable. And yet, Leviticus is one of the most important books in the Bible. It is Leviticus, after all, which contains, more than any other book in the Bible, and almost in its entirety, the direct speech of Yahweh. Virtually the entire book is Yahweh speaking. The book is quoting God. The book begins this way in verse one. Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying. And then you have the rest of the book. What did God say? Read the rest of the book. That introductory formula in one variation or another occurs 36 times in the book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus essentially consists of a series of divine speeches. That being the case, the man and the woman of God ought to be very slow to give up on the struggle to understand it and to profit from it. So this morning, before we begin the actual exposition of the text, I want to consider with you how we ought to think about this book and how we ought to evaluate its teaching. After all, there can be no doubt that much of the teaching of the New Testament depends upon Leviticus. Throughout the New Testament, the book of Leviticus is either quoted directly or alluded to some 140 times, depending on how you count, give or take. The Old Testament sacrifices. the function of shed blood, the day of atonement, the work of the priesthood. All of these things are front and center in the book of Leviticus and they are the crucial foundation for understanding the substitutionary sacrifice and atoning work of our Savior. So as we come to Leviticus, we recognize that Leviticus is a book of enculturated regulations. It's a bunch of regulations that specifically and immediately apply to the Israelite nation of many thousands of years ago. We get that. We understand that. It reflects a culture in which it was written and in which these regulations were observed. So many of the things that we will come to in the book of Leviticus, which will cause us to scratch our heads, were very obvious to the people to whom it was written, the people of Moses' own day. The regulations it contains were for the people of God at a particular time in redemptive history, and yet, within those regulations, we are given that which is profitable for us. We are given a shadow, and it is a shadow which points to a reality, and that reality to which it points is not bound by any particular time. and place. The reality to which the shadow of Leviticus points us is a reality that is both universal and eternal. It is the reality of Christ and his gospel and his church. For instance, Leviticus is the record of a shadow which came in the form of elaborate instructions about sacrificial worship given to one particular people in one particular place at one particular time. But the shadow embedded in those instructions and in that worship points us to a reality which is fulfilled in the death of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of what? The world. The literal lamb points us to the divine lamb. The blood of that literal lamb points us to the shed blood of the divine lamb. The blood of the literal lamb covered the sins of one particular people while pointing to the divine lamb which takes away the sin not only of one particular people but of the world. It is only because of the rituals ordered and described in Leviticus that we know, for instance, what John the Baptist meant when he pointed at Jesus and said, behold, the Lamb of God. The theology of atonement is revealed in the sacrificial regulations that we're going to find in Leviticus. and the perfect atonement to which those imperfect acts of atonement pointed has now been offered in Christ. The imperfect is pointing us to the perfect. We no longer go to Leviticus to learn how to offer sacrifices in the tabernacle. but to learn what Christ's sacrifice meant and what it accomplished. Or to put it another way, the work of Christ is not based on Leviticus. Leviticus is based on the work of Christ. Leviticus describes a system of worship that no longer exists anywhere in the world. I wonder if you've thought about that. There is no place you can go anywhere in the world to observe the system of worship that is described in the book of Leviticus. That all came to a crashing end in A.D. 70, when the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed, thereby abolishing the sacrificial rituals of Israel. That system of worship was dependent upon the existence of a temple. And that temple no longer exists. That system of worship was dependent upon a priesthood. That priesthood no longer exists. Why? The explanation comes to us in one word, Jesus. Jesus is the reality which makes all of that a shadow which is no longer necessary. In Jesus, we are to recognize that a change has come. There is a difference in regard to the sacrifice which accomplishes redemption. It is a difference between a lamb and the lamb. Another difference we've got to recognize is the distinction between Jew and Gentile, which has likewise been abolished. On this side of the cross, where we sit here today, Because Jesus has torn down the dividing wall, there is, among God's people, no Jew or Gentile. We are all one in Christ Jesus. But at the time Leviticus was written, it was the function of many of the regulations found within it to draw a sharp and bold distinction between Jew and Gentile. That is, between the people of God and everybody else. Between those in the covenant and those outside of the covenant. So to appreciate the teaching of Leviticus, we've got to examine its regulations in this light as boundary markers, not between Jew and Gentile, but between the church and the world. Those specific regulations have been replaced in many respects. Messianic Jews, for instance, may observe some of the same regulations if they want to, but they can no longer argue that it is necessary to do so. Not since Peter bit into that first ham sandwich when the Lord lowered the sheet there in the book of Acts and told him to eat. It's this crucial understanding which skeptics and critics of Christianity fail to appreciate. When a Christian proclaims the truth, for instance, that God looks upon homosexuality as an abomination, what is so often the response? Well, I'll bet your clothes are made out of mixed fibers, aren't they? I'll bet you eat shellfish, don't you? Probably had bacon for breakfast this morning." To which I would reply, I did not have bacon for breakfast this morning. We had bacon yesterday at the men's breakfast and it was wonderful. See what these people fail to understand and what they refuse to understand. is the unified nature of the scripture and the shadow reality relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. If one rejects scripture as the word of God, then one is also going to reject the unity of the scripture. If one rejects scripture, one is also going to reject the truth that Augustine understood when he said that the Old Testament is the new concealed And the New Testament is the old revealed. The Old Testament and the New Testament are two separate books only in a superficial sense. There is, after all, an old and a new. But they are not separate in the sense that they are disconnected, and certainly not in the sense that they are in any way contradictory. They are together the inspired, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient word of God, but they are intended to fulfill different purposes. One is intended to lead us to the other. Paul said that the law, which he uses there as a general term for the Old Testament, he says that the law is intended to lead us to Christ. That's the purpose of the law. He means that the Old Testament in general and for our purposes in this study, Leviticus in particular, is preparatory. It prepares us to understand what God would do and from our perspective what God has done when he would fulfill all promises in Christ. It's intended to prepare us by showing us that we have a problem, that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and pointing us then to that Savior. This will be the consistent subject of our attention as we make our way through this book. As we will see, God provides this preparation by using forms and practices which were familiar to the people of that time and place, and then investing those forms and practices with a new and far deeper and truer meaning. For example, in Egypt or in Mesopotamia, Temples played a central role in the religious life of the people. Some of them were quite remarkable in terms of their size and their architecture. The temple at Karnak on the Nile, for example, could fit within it all of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Priests served in these temples. Sacrifices were made in these temples. Offerings were brought to these temples. Those ancient temples contained within them sacred places where only priests could enter. In these temples, as we read in the historical books of scripture, were found images of their gods. Food was brought as an offering each day to provide nourishment for the images of these gods who resided there. Food and drink would be laid at the foot of the image, and after sufficient time had passed, it was removed, the god having received his nourishment, and then new food would be brought in. And lest you think this kind of idolatry no longer exists, look around next time you walk into a Chinese restaurant. As you go in to pick up your takeout, chances are you'll see a shelf on the wall upon which is sitting a Buddha with incense and probably a few oranges. The nature of idolatry in that sense hasn't changed since the beginning of time, at least time that begins after the fall. Well, of course, the Israelites also had a tabernacle and a temple, and that temple had within it a holy of holies. Worship was superintended by priests the offering of sacrifices, the burning of incense, and on and on and on, but there the similarity ends. There were no images of God in Israel's temple. It was understood that God made himself known, he made his presence known in the tabernacle and in the temple, but it was understood that there was no sense in which God actually lived in the temple, for the temple could not contain him. The grain offerings and the burnt offerings were not given in order to feed Yahweh. More than once, Israel was taught that the Lord was not dependent upon the gifts of his people. The Lord says in Psalm 50, for instance, if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you, and you will honor me." And what God is saying there is, let's keep everything in the proper order. You need me, I don't need you. I demand sacrifice, but I don't need sacrifice. Even the offering of sacrifice is for your good. You call upon me and I will meet your need. You call upon me and I will rescue you. I had this conversation just last week. It's a reminder that we need to be careful how we speak. Sometimes people will make the mistake of speaking about God in terms of need. God created us because he needed fellowship. Or God created us because he needs us to glorify him. Brothers and sisters, God does not now, nor has he ever needed anything from us. Or from any other source. God is entirely self-dependent. God does things not because he needs, but because he desires. He desired to create man. He desired to have fellowship with his creation. He desired to create those who would glorify him. God does things because he wants to do them. He's not forced from some outside source, nor from any internal need. God does not need us. We need him. Of course, from the fall, This has always presented a problem. The question for the Israelites was how to love and how to serve and how to maintain fellowship with an entirely holy God when they themselves are not holy. But rather sinful and fallen. The gods of the ancient world were far from holy. They were as petulant and selfish and vindictive as any human being you might want to name. Worship among the pagan idolatrous religions was intended to manipulate their gods. It had nothing to do with the people's love for them. Israel's worship, such as it is described in Leviticus, represented a radically different worldview. and was the expression of a radically different faith in an utterly different God. One of the most obvious lessons that we are going to find here in Leviticus has to do with this holiness. That holiness in its most basic sense refers to a separation. It refers to that which is distinct. Yahweh expected Israel to be different from all of the peoples around them, just as the living God himself is entirely distinct from his human creations. And as we will read again and again, Israel was to be holy, why? Because Jehovah is holy. That understanding played no role in the ancient religions of the Near East. It was a concept only in the revelation of Yahweh, the God of Israel. The worship then that we find in this book at its core is the answer to the problem of holiness. It has at its core the answer to the problem of how a sinful person is able to come into a relationship with a holy God. In my preparatory reading for this series, I found a great deal of help in one particular book on the biblical theology of Leviticus, and by that I mean it's a book seeking to place Leviticus within the larger story of the Bible. looking at its relationship to the overall story of redemption. And the author made the point that the aim of the covenant as it is presented here in Leviticus is actually very, very simple. It is to bring a people to dwell with God in the house of God. In that sense, Leviticus is a microcosm of the entire Bible. because that is really what the entire story of the Bible is about. From the garden to the new heavens and the new earth, God is bringing a people to dwell with him in his house. Whether that is the garden as his house, or the tabernacle and the temple, or the church, or the new heaven and the new earth, all of which are portrayed as being the dwelling place of God. But as we said, there's a problem. Because of the nature of God, which is absolute holiness, only a certain kind of person can enter into his habitation. So when Adam and Eve disobeyed, what happened? They were cast out of that place where they had dwelt with God, where God had come to walk with them in the cool of the day. The book of Leviticus is about dwelling with God in the house of God and how that is finally made possible. And that is finally made possible as we will see again and again and again through Jesus Christ, the reality to which the shadow points. Entering the house of God to dwell with God, beholding, glorifying, enjoying him eternally is the story of the Bible. For this ultimate end, the son of God shed his blood and poured out the spirit, even to bring us into his father's house. In him, we are sons and daughters of God, heirs of an inheritance. Psalm 84 verses one through four says this. How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of my Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. The bird also has found a house and a swallow, a nest for herself where she may lay her young. Even your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. How blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. Would you dwell in the house of God? Leviticus is going to show us the way. And that way, as Jesus himself said, is Jesus himself. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to me. No one comes to the father but through me. That is the point of Leviticus. And that is what we will be seeing again and again and again and again. Father, we want to thank you for that. Your word, Father, is a wonder. And though it is often difficult for us with our finite minds, yet the study of your word Every portion of it is profitable for us. And there is glory to be found here in Leviticus. May your spirit open it to us that we might see that glory and that we might be changed. In Leviticus, Father, show us Jesus and magnify him among your people. In his name we ask it, amen.