Let's get a turn to Leviticus chapter 3 as we continue to study the Levitical offerings. By Levitical offerings we mean the offerings of the Old Testament period that the Jewish people were required to bring that are recorded in the book of Leviticus, which gives us the most extensive treatment of the worship, the Old Testament system, properly called a ritual, which just means that you go through certain steps, a ritual for worshiping God and coming into His presence. We usually think of ritual as a bad thing, and ritual can be a bad thing. There are many religious rituals that people go through that God did not require of them. So if God requires any ritual for us, then it's a good ritual. If it's a ritual that we invent, then it's a bad one. So the Levitical offerings are found in the book that deals with the Levitical worship or the worship. And Leviticus also relates to the word Levi, the priest, the tribe of priests. So that's the connection of what we're doing. No, I have not met a Christian yet who does not have an interest in and appreciation for the Levitical offerings. That's not to say that many Christians find it difficult to read through the book of Leviticus, because I find it difficult as well at times. And it's certainly not as edifying as some other books of the Bible. But I have never met a Christian who does not have an interest in the Levitical offerings. I've never met a Christian who, when you talk about the Levitical offerings, doesn't get excited that this actually is a really great subject to talk about. Our gracious God, when you look at it, has really created a wonderful ritual or way of approach to him in the earliest years of redemptive history. Some of men's rituals, as you may think of different religions in the world today, are actually very dark and somber. But the religious worship of the Old Testament people was filled with symbolism and color, if I may use that word. Although it was a bloody ritual, they had to kill animals, sacrifice animals. They had to take the various parts of the animals and offer them up in different ways, as we shall see in Leviticus chapter 3. But all of this, despite all of that, was a very colorful and very wonderful. display of wisdom because in each of these actions God was showing the people something about their need and about his provision for human need. And again, people sometimes say, well, where is God? God seems so distant. God doesn't seem to care about what's happening in the world today. But all of this is false. It's not right to say that about God because God has done and is still doing much in this world to bring us the help that we need. And also, believers love the Levitical offerings because, well, first of all, we don't have to go through these actions anymore. We're thankful for that. And there's nothing wrong with being thankful that you and I do not need to bring animal sacrifices and cut open animals and take the parts out and all of the rest and offer them. There's nothing wrong with being thankful that we do not need to do that anymore. Nothing wrong at all, because we have now the privilege of resting in Christ, rejoicing in Christ, who is our perfect offering. But having said that, we find it fascinating, we find it interesting, and we love studying the Levitical offerings. So here we are, picking up now on the third one, which is the peace offering. Back in, I think it was March, these were originally intended and still are intended to be Lord's Supper meditations. Our communion is tonight, of course, but in March we talked about the burnt offering, and then in June we talked about the grain offering. So now we come to Chapter 3, the peace offerings. So follow with me as I read this chapter. Now, if his offering is a sacrifice of peace offerings, if he is going to offer out of the herd, whether male or female, he shall offer it without defect before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of his offering and slay it at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood around on the altar. From the sacrifice of the peace offerings, he shall present an offering by fire to the Lord, the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys. Then Aaron's sons shall offer it up in smoke on the altar on the burnt offering. which is on the wood that is on the fire. It is an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. But if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord is from the flock, he shall offer it, male or female, without defect. If he is going to offer a lamb for his offering, then he shall offer it before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the offering and slay it before the tent of meeting. And Aaron's sons shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar. From the sacrifice of peace offerings, he shall bring as an offering by fire to the Lord its fat. the entire fat tail, which he shall remove close to the backbone, and the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar as food, and offering by fire to the Lord. Moreover, if his offering is a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand on its head and slay it before the tent of meeting. And the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar. From it he shall present his offering as an offering by fire to the Lord. the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar as food, and offering by fire for a soothing aroma, all fat is the Lord's. It is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings. You shall not eat any fat or any blood. Lord, help us now as we find ourselves in this section of your word concerning the peace offerings. And Lord, help us to understand and appreciate and apply the lessons that we see here, especially concerning our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the perfect Lamb, the sufficient Lamb, who offered a once-for-all sacrifice, thereby abrogating and doing away with this entire system from A to Z Lord you have removed it and you have kept your pure law the moral law for us so that in Christ now we can walk according to your will according to your word and according to your law in the light of your forgiveness and the granting of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom all of these sacrifices pointed. Amen. Now The direction for the peace offerings presented here is very basic. And what I mean by that is that if you were to go back later and look at Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 on the burnt offering and the grain offering, you would notice that there is a lot more detail given in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 concerning those two offerings. And the reason for that is that God gave us that detail in chapter 7, which we'll be looking at shortly. So the further detail that we need for understanding the peace offerings actually does not come until chapter 7. So follow with me as I just try now to give you the basic structure of the Peace offerings, notice it's plural also. Grain offering in chapter 2 and verse 1 was singular. chapter 1 and verse 3, the burnt offering was in the singular and now in chapter 3 and verse 1 you have it in the plural so you have peace offerings. But all that this chapter tells us is it gives us direction, it gives them direction for bringing their peace offerings either from the herd, that would be the bulls, right, the cows, the bulls, from the herd, verses 1 through 5, And you look back in chapter 1, regarding the burnt offering, that the first thing mentioned there was also the herd. So you have the distinction in these chapters between the herd, which is the bulls, and the flock, that is the flock of sheep or a flock of goats. So in chapter 1 and verse 3, you have the burnt offering from the herd, And then verse five, also the bull, and he shall slay the young bull before the Lord. And then in verse 10, you have the offering from the flock of the sheep or of the goats for a burnt offering. So it is in chapter three. In chapter two, of course, you have the grain offering, which was a non-animal sacrifice. It was an offering of grains. So no animals were mentioned there. So in chapter three again, the peace offerings, you have direction for bringing the peace offerings from the herd in verses one through five, and then the rest of the chapter, verses six through 17, contains the direction for bringing peace offerings from the flock. First, with regard to a lamb, verses six through 11, and then secondly regarding with bringing a goat in verses 12 through 17. Now you say, well, what's the purpose of even mentioning all of this stuff, this detail? What does it really matter to us? Well, going through this, seeing what's there, helps us to understand ultimately what the peace offerings were all about. And as I stated, when you consider that, that's all it says, then you realize that the Bible must say something more about the peace offerings somewhere else, which it does. So if you look at the three sections, real quickly, surveying the three sections, verses 1-5 deals with bringing from the herd or the bulls, verses 6-11 bringing a lamb, and verses 12-17 bringing a goat. Now, each section repeats itself. So you have four or five things mentioned under each. So let me go through those with you. First of all, with regard to the bulls and the lambs, they are to be without defect, verse one and verse six. And you'll see this pattern repeating itself. So chapter three and verse one, the bull is to be without defect. Verse six, the lamb is to be without defect. But with respect to the goats, it doesn't say without defect. This factor is not mentioned. It seems to me that it's implied. So the first thing about bringing these animals is that all these animals have to be without defect. Although it's not mentioned in verse 12, it's implied. So that's the first thing that is stated about bringing these offerings. They have to be without defect. So that means they have to be your very best. If you want to make a sacrifice to the Lord and you're an Israelite, and you have all these flocks, and you have this herd of bulls, and you say, well, I'll sacrifice this one over here, this one isn't doing as well as that one over there, that's my best bull over there, this bull is sick, or this bull has a broken leg, or whatever, I'll offer that one. That was not allowed. in the nation of Israel. And it's to be expected. You offer God your very best. And this happened in the days of Malachi, when Malachi the prophet came and said to the people, you know, you're offering your worst offerings to the Lord. You wouldn't even offer those to your governor. Remember that passage. So these animals have to be without defect. Secondly, in all three of these sections, the pattern is that the offerer lays his hand on the head to slay the animal. Chapter 3 in verse 2, verse 8, and verse 13. The third thing that is mentioned here then, after the animal is slain, is that the priest sprinkles the blood around the altar with regard to the bulls in verse 2, verse 8, the lambs, and verse 13, the goats. The fourth thing that is mentioned is that they present the offering by fire to the Lord, and specifically the fat is mentioned in verses 3 and 4, the fat of the bulls, the fat of the lambs, verses 9 and 10, and the fat of the goats in verses 14 and 15. The last thing that is mentioned here in this repeating recurring pattern is that the priest offers the parts and the fat on the altar as a soothing aroma to the Lord. So this is the This is the culmination of the sacrifice. And the emphasis is that God is pleased. It's a soothing aroma to the Lord. It's an anthropomorphic way of saying that God is pleased, just like you would be pleased with the smell of some delicious meal, or the one you hope is going to greet you when you open the door when you get home, if the oven timer worked. It's the same kind of idea. The Lord is pleased with what they were doing, because the Lord had ordained that this is the way he wanted to be approached. And so in obedience, they followed all of the details. That's why you have this emphasis on all of the detail, because God wants his people to obey him, not just generally, but in every detail, especially with regard to sacrifice. So the priest offers up the parts and the fat on the altar as a soothing aroma. This is repeated. This is stated in verse 3, repeated in verse 11. And then you see the concluding verse 16, the priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar as food, an offering by fire for a soothing aroma. There it is again. And then you have this added or concluding statement, all fat is the Lord's and the blood. So the people were never to eat the fat or the blood, although they could eat the meat. And we'll see in chapter 7 that this is the one offering that the people could actually partake of, in contrast to all of the other offerings. So what we have here then in terms of chapter 3 is direction as to how to bring the peace offerings and the steps are different from the burnt offering and the grain offering. Now the most notable thing about the burnt offering that we noticed in chapter 1 is the phrase all of it, verse 9 of chapter 1 and verse 13 of chapter 1, this phrase all of it, all of it, the whole animal was burned So a burnt offering was an offering of a total consecration of the animals to the Lord. They had to be without defect, the very best, and so forth. But the phrase that stands out is all of it. And also the phrase atonement in chapter 1 and verse 4. You're looking for, as you're going through these chapters, you're looking for important words, phrases, that help you to understand the significance of that particular offering. You're looking for hints, for clues, in other words. So the burnt offering, you see all of it, all of it, that tells you something about the nature. Atonement, that that offering was for atonement. You don't see the word atonement in Chapter 2, and you don't see the word atonement in Chapter 3. so that a grain offering and a peace offering was not for the purpose of atonement. So it was more of a consecration offering. And there is this difference between the offerings or in the offerings. Some offerings were for consecration and some were for what the Bible calls expiation or propitiation for the covering of our sins. The burnt offering was unique because it was a total offering, it was for both. So you have in verse 4 of chapter 1 that the burnt offering is to make an atonement on his behalf. And this was the primary sacrifice on the day of atonement. Because on the Day of Atonement, the people found a general atonement for all of their sins year after year. I'm sure you know that. General atonement for all their sins once a year. And we all know that we need forgiveness for our sins more than once a year, right? We need forgiveness every day. Every day we ask the Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive those who trespass against us. So the burnt offering, the day of atonement was for this general atonement. When you come later on to the sin offering and the guilt offering, chapter four and chapter five, these are the most important, these are the important propitiation offerings. These were the two offerings that dealt with the people's sins specifically. So again, in Chapter 3, all we have is direction as to how to bring them, and the steps are different from the burnt offering and the grain offering. Of course, the grain offering is a totally different kind of offering, which we saw last month. They were non-animal sacrifices. So therefore, the most significant thing about this third offering in chapter three is going to be, I'm going to actually make this like a Sunday school class now and open it up to you. What is the most significant thing then that you see about this offering, which all it talks about is how to bring an animal from the herd or from the flock. What would be the most significant thing in this chapter about this class of offerings? Anyone know? It's right at the top. I'm also giving my hints. Right at the top. It's very obvious. Huh? Nope. Okay, their name. Their name. Peace offerings. So that's the most significant thing. Peace offerings. Otherwise, the directions, that's what I'm trying to point out, the directions are very general. So the most significant thing about this is peace offering, the name, and the plural peace offerings, you would expect that, oh, there are going to be different kinds of offerings, and that is truly what you find. So therefore, if we just had chapter 3, you would know that the peace offerings have something to do with celebrating our peace with God or recognizing our peace with our fellow men. And that is indeed one of the main purposes of the peace offerings. That is correct. They are offerings which recognize our peace with God and peace with our fellow men. It's similar to the Lord's Supper. The peace offering then actually is the most similar of all the offerings to what we do in the Christian Church when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. We are recognizing our peace with God bought for us by the Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the peace that we have with one another. Remember, Paul talked about that in the Corinthian letter, chapter 10, chapter 11, when he talked about when you come together and you break of the one bread and you drink of the same cup, we are a united body and there's to be no division in the body. Why? Because we are at peace with God. So now, having looked at chapter three, let's go on to consider the chapter seven and what that chapter says about the peace offerings. So before we get there, In Leviticus chapters 1 through 6, you have the presentation of the five offerings. And the order of those offerings in chapters 1 through 6 is, as we've been saying, the burnt offering comes first, then the grain offering, or your Bible may say the cereal offering, the grain offering, and then the peace offerings, plural, and then the sin offering and the guilt offering. So those are the five offerings. Now that concludes in chapter 6, chapter 6 and verse 7. Notice in your Bible there, chapter 3 is the peace offerings. Chapter four is the sin offering. Chapter five is the guilt offering. And chapter six, verses one through seven, is the remainder of the guilt offering. Seems to be another one of those places where the chapter division is poorly placed. So it is what it is. That's how it came down to us. But it seems to be poorly placed there. So then in chapter six and verse eight, you notice in your English Bible, and they say, the priest's part in the offering. So that's what this next section of Leviticus is all about. So it presents the offerings, what the people do, what the priest does, but now more specifically, what the priest does, his part, in the offerings. Starts at chapter six and verse eight, and goes down through the end of chapter seven. After that, in the book of Leviticus, chapter eight, you have the consecration of Aaron and his sons. So Leviticus has this very clear structure. Now, an interesting thing to note about the offerings which start at chapter six and verse eight, so you're still with me, right? Is that the burnt offering receives five verses, see chapter six, verses eight to 13. So you have five verses on the burnt offering. The grain offering receives 10, chapter six, 14 to 24. The sin offering receives six verses of treatment. The guilt offering 10, again, verses one through 10. But the peace offerings receive 29 verses. So that's notable. As you're going through the chapters, you say, well, God gave more attention to the peace offerings in this section of Leviticus. So chapter seven, 11 through 38 is a very large section dealing with the peace offerings. So you notice the structure then of this section here. Let me read it. Bear with me in the reading. I think it's important for us to read through these sections as well. So we do want to process what's there in the Old Testament. We don't want to just skip over it, right? We do want to let it filter in and we want to process it and analyze it so that we can apply it. So starting at chapter seven, verse 11, now this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which shall be presented to the Lord. So this is all new direction from chapter three. If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of well-stirred fine flour mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving, he shall present his offering with cakes of leavened bread. Of this he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord. And this word contribution, you'll see it later on, is actually in the margin says heave, so you've heard of a heave offering. This is an action. A wave offering and a heave offering is just a motion that the priest made in presenting this to the Lord. So verse 14, of this he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offerings. Now as for the flesh of the sacrifice of his thanksgiving peace offerings, notice that phrase, it shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it over until morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a votive, that means a vow or a free will offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what is left of it may be eaten. But what is left over from the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned with fire. So if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings should ever be eaten on the third day, he who offers it will not be accepted, and it will not be reckoned to his benefit. It shall be an offering, an offensive thing, and the person who eats of it will bear his own iniquity. Also the flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten. It shall be burned with fire. As for other flesh, anyone who is clean may eat such flesh. But the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which belong to the Lord, in his uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from his people. When anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or an unclean detestable thing, and eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which belong to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from the people. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, You shall not eat any fat from an ox, a sheep, or a goat. Also the fat of an animal which dies and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but you must certainly not eat it. For whoever eats the fat of the animal from which an offering by fire is offered to the Lord, even the person who eats shall be cut off from his people. You are not to eat any blood either of bird or animal, in any of your dwellings. Any person who eats any blood, even that person, shall be cut off from his people. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel. He who offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands are to bring offerings by fire to the Lord. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be presented as a wave offering before the Lord. The priest shall offer up the fat and smoke on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons. He shall give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution or a heave offering." So that's the connection there. The wave offering is the breast and the heave offering is the thigh. Verse 33, the one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat, the right thigh shall be his portion. For I have taken the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution from the sons of Israel, from the sacrifices of their peace offerings and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as they are due forever from the sons of Israel. This is that which is consecrated to Aaron and that which is consecrated to his sons from the offerings by fire to the Lord. And that day when he presented them to serve as priests to the Lord. Then the Lord had commanded these, the Lord had commanded, to be given them from the sons of Israel in the day that he anointed them. It is their due forever throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and the ordination offering, and the sacrifice of peace offerings, which the Lord commanded Moses at Sinai in the day that he commanded the sons of Israel to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai. So there we go. We've read the whole section here. And there is much in there that I'm not going to comment on. It would take too long. Like, why couldn't they eat the fat? Why couldn't they eat the blood? We're just going to leave that. We're going to leave off comment on some of the prohibitions and the uncleanness of being cut off from the people. We're going to just leave all of that. Not that that's not important, but there's only so much the mind can take in one sermon. So, therefore, let me point out the most significant thing about chapter 7 and the change in the order. And the first thing is to notice here in the change of the order is that the peace offerings came last. In chapters 1 through 6, they're in the middle. But in reality, they're in the middle because they go with the other two. Burnt offerings, serial offering. Burnt offerings, serial offering, and peace offerings are consecration offerings. Basically, in those offerings, the offerer presents himself to the Lord. See the difference? Two things are happening in the Old Testament system. One, is that the people present themselves to the Lord, and two, they present something in place of themselves. You see that? So they present an offering. They present an animal sacrifice. And this applies to us in the Christian life because we do the same thing. When we come before God, we draw near to God, we come into His presence, to be accepted by Him, We come in Christ, saying, Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. So we come in Christ. Christ offers himself on our behalf, and we come in him. That's the beauty, the glory of the Christian faith. It is not a religion of works. It is a religion of grace. God does it for us, and we come in Christ. We are fully accepted in Christ, in the beloved, and so many verses could be quoted. But the second thing that happens, both in the Old Testament system and in Christian faith, is that we offer ourselves through Christ, or because of Christ, to be acceptable to Him. So that in the Old Testament system, the animal has to be acceptable, right? It has to be without defect. And you have to go through all these steps. You have to lay your hand on the animal. You identify with the animal. The priest lays the animal. The blood is sprinkled on the altar. It's burned by fire. He rises up to heaven as a soothing aroma to the Lord. Why? Because God is pleased. This is what he ordained. His people are following his His direction. His people are realizing, if this is how I need to have my sins forgiven, then this is what I will do. And they enjoy forgiveness with God and they have the smile of God upon their lives because it's a soothing aroma to the Lord. The Lord is pleased. And then He draws near to them and He blesses them and so they see the tangible evidences of their faith and they know that in all of this, this is not going to continue forever. They also know through promises that are woven through the Old Testament and even in this system that there is a Messiah who is going to come who is going to put an end to all of this. And so they also offer these things by faith and if they don't As long as they don't get weary of it, like they did when they went back into the land under the prophet Malachi. Malachi said, you sniff at the sacrifices, you don't like them, you sniff at them, you disregard them, you offer your worst animals. As long as they don't do that, but they come in faith, then God is pleased with them. And so it is with us. In the Christian faith, these two things are happening. In your life, in my life. I come to God on the basis of Christ's merit. Christ offers himself for us and we are accepted in him. This is the significance of those first three offerings. The burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering. All these offerings celebrate different aspects of our consecration. In the burnt offering, the whole animal was consumed, all of it, in smoke on the altar. And when I come and present myself to God as a sacrifice, which is the second thing, then I offer myself to God without any reservation. I say, Lord, here I am. Take me. Use me. I am yours. I am not my own. I've been bought with a price, as Paul said to the Corinthians. So you have these two things happening even in the Christian faith. Christ presents himself, and in that, he is like the sacrificial animals. And we offer ourselves through Christ, or because of Christ, because we, we want to be acceptable to God. That's the point. We want to be acceptable to God. So Christ's offering is acceptable to God, and we want to be acceptable to God through Christ. And this is the same thing that you have then in the peace offerings. So that's the first thing that we notice. And the second thing that we notice from chapter seven is the why, the answer to the question, why are the peace offerings in the plural? The reason they're in the plural is because you would offer peace offerings for different reasons. Notice it starts at verse 12. You could offer peace offerings by way of thanksgiving. And they are called thanksgiving peace offerings in verse 15. You could offer peace offerings, verse 16, to accompany a vow. That's what a votive offering means, it's the word vow. So when you offer, you make a vow to the Lord. And the Bible says a lot about making promises to God. We make promises to one another, right? Why wouldn't we make promises to God? Sometimes we take, we make something more serious than a promise. We take vows. We take vows to our spouses and we take vows of oaths and oaths, vows, promises. They're all in the same arena, if you will. So in the Old Testament, when you made a vow, you would bring your peace offering. So that's in verse 16. Also in verse 16 is what is called here a free will offering. And a free will offering Free will has nothing to do with whether man has free will and whether his will is bound and all the rest. It's a different use of the word free will. So don't get nervous about free will offering. But a free will offering here just means a spontaneous expression. I want to do something for the Lord. I want to offer myself because I love him so much. I want to do something. You know, you do things for people that you love. Why are you doing this for me? Well, I love you so much. That kind of thing, a free will offering. So peace offerings are offered in these different ways. Verse 11, by way of Thanksgiving, by way of fulfilling a vow or by making a vow or a free will offering. So that's why they're in the plural. The wave offering and the heave offering, I must confess, are hard even for me to grasp. Sometimes I want to recommend this excellent book by Alfred Edersheim. I'm sure you've seen this. Alfred Edersheim was from the 1800s. He was a Jewish scholar. He wrote The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. He wrote this book here, The Temple, Its Ministry and Services. And this edition actually, which was put out maybe 10 or 15 years ago, is a beautiful edition. It's worth having, or buy for someone you love. It's worth having, because Edersheim just makes it all come alive. So he goes through all the different aspects of the temple worship. And as Christians, we certainly are interested in that. And there are nice illustrations. That, to me, makes a book always better when there are illustrations or pictures. I guess I'm still a kid at heart. So I don't fully understand the Wave Offering and the Heave Offering, but what I do know about it is that it has to do with the priests. These are movements that the priests made with the Peace Offering, sacrifices or parts like the breast or the thigh. which signified their approach to God. So it's a fascinating, fascinating thing and certainly worthy of more research. A few other things as we bring this to a close about the peace offerings is, first of all, that the peace offerings are the only offerings which can be eaten by the worshiper. Notice that in chapter 7. Notice the emphasis in verse 15. It shall be eaten on the day of his offering. Verse 16, what is left of it may be eaten. So therefore, the peace offerings are indeed communion meals, or communal meals. And they also are provided for the priest, because we read about the priest's portion and the portion that the people could eat. So these are the only offerings which can be eaten by the worshipers, Verse 20 talks about eating, but eating in your uncleanness, so that's a little different, but it's the same idea. You can eat these offerings, not in your uncleanness. Another thing to notice about this is that they are joyful offerings. These are shalom, peace. They describe our relationship to God and the joy that we have of fellowship with God and fellowship with others. Psalm 100, turn there for a moment. Psalm 100 is an example. The heading of the psalm, not the English heading, but the heading in the Hebrew Bible, says a psalm for a thank offering or a psalm for thanksgiving. So here is a good example and a helpful, it gives us some light as to the nature of the peace offering. So this would be a thanksgiving peace offering. When they were offered, they would recite this psalm. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord himself is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name for the Lord is good. His loving kindness is everlasting and his faithfulness to all generations. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for what you have done for us in Christ, the Lamb of God, the perfect Lamb, the once for all sacrifice for human sin. To all of those who are covered under this blood by the act of submissive and obedient faith, And Father, we see Christ in these offerings and we're grateful for what we have seen already. Christ offering himself completely as a burnt offering to God, giving his whole life and pouring out through sweat, even as we read in Hebrews, in his prayers and in his tears before God in Gethsemane, pouring out his life so that we could be saved. We thank and praise you, our Father, for the peace offerings which remind us of our union with you through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, and pray that Christ, the Prince of Peace, will satisfy Our every longing and desire cover all of our sins, whatever sins we may yet commit. And we pray that you will help us this evening as we come back to remember him at the Lord's Supper. Truly, you are worthy, Lord, of us coming here together this evening to remember our wonderful Lord Jesus. And we pray that you bring salvation to those who are still outside of Christ. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.