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I'm turning now to the first
chapter of the book of Leviticus, and I hope, God willing, to conduct
a fairly short series. on surprising topics from Leviticus. And the first chapter and into,
well, the first seven chapters really are about true repentance
for believers. And there are a great many principles
of worship and of repentance and of holiness that we can learn
from them. The first chapter is a chapter
of burnt offerings, general offerings, offerings for atonement of sin. The most common sacrifices which
people, well, assuming them to be believers and in earnest,
people at any time moved of God, would be able to come and offer
sacrifice for the atonement of sin and make repentance. And these activities went on
constantly, of course, from the Israelites. Now there are many
lessons to us, though the sacrifices themselves, as you know, are
long ended. The sense of the sacrifices didn't
always remain clear to the Israelites, to the Jews, the typical church
of ancient times. We realize this in reading the
letter to the Hebrews, because it was written to Hebrew people,
people deeply versed and taught in Old Testament worship. people
who'd come to the Lord in recent times. Many were a little troubled
about leaving their Judaism, leaving it all behind, still
feeling to some extent bound by the ceremonial law of the
Old Testament. And the inspired author of the
letter to the Hebrews spent some time, as you'll know, explaining
to them what the ceremonies actually meant. And when you read Hebrews,
it shows you that even instructed Hebrew people didn't always understand
the meaning of their own worship and their own ceremonies. They
should have done. The author of Hebrews spells
it out to them as simply as though he was speaking to uninstructed
Gentiles, which is very useful to us. But he isn't, he's actually
speaking to informed Jews. And yet he goes to great lengths
to illuminate them and help them to understand the significance
of the ancient law and how it's fulfilled in Christ and how it's
come to a close. So these things they taught immensely,
but the people often offered only nominal worship and they
didn't pay much attention and they lost touch with even their
own instructions and we can see how this can happen. I mentioned
something in a morning service very recently about hymns and
about psalm based hymns and one or two people had questions in
connection with that and this is a just an example of how the
people of God can forget their own traditions and their own
practices and the reason for them and the meaning of them.
Now in the independent churches of this country, and most Baptist
churches and congregational churches, the old independents, for many,
many years there was a great deal of attention paid to psalm-based
hymns. And you'll be aware of Isaac
Watts and that tradition. He didn't actually begin it,
though he's credited with doing so, but he was one of perhaps
the most prolific hymn writer of his age, and yet the churches
rejoiced to sing psalm-based hymns, free composition hymns
also, but almost all the psalms were represented in Christian
hymnody. Now there was a background to
this. The whole point was that the non-conformists, the independents,
the Baptists, they didn't care to use metrical psalms. The very rigid translations of
the psalms, such as you find in the Scottish Psalter. They
didn't care to use those, although they certainly used some of them
that are extremely beautiful and relevant. They didn't care
to use them because they believed that the Psalms should be Christianized
and adapted for Christian worship. Sounds terrible when you put
it like that. Adapt the word of God. Adapt the Psalms. Of course, what is meant by that
is that the Psalms are using all the types and the shadows
of the Old Testament to express truth and doctrine, and Christ
hasn't come, so Christ is not literally in the Psalms, though
he's foreshadowed, and the enlightened mind can see him there, and all
the references to the coming Redeemer. Nevertheless, the Psalms
are couched in obscure language. as far as the Christian church
is concerned and so they need to be Christianized and that
is the great tradition that came in to the non-conformist churches
and there were hymns for every psalm, psalm-based hymns. Now
as time went on, I must be quick because this is just an example
of how we forget, as time went on The compilers of hymnbooks
said to themselves, wouldn't it be a good idea to have the
psalms classified under the different subject headings of the hymnbooks,
just like all the other hymns? What a pity, we have the psalms,
psalm-based hymns as a block, and then we go into the hymns
about the Godhead, hymns of worship, the hymns of salvation, the hymns
of various doctrines and experiences in Christ, why don't we arrange
the Psalms under those same headings? Well, very good idea. People
thought, and most of the hymn books produced from the middle
of the 19th century on went down that road. Problem. the people
no longer related the hymns to the psalms and nobody any longer
knew what the psalm based hymns specifically were. The link was
broken and so as time, further time went by, many of the psalm
based hymns were dropped. so that in hymnbooks there would
still be a fair number of them, but nobody realized they were
psalm-based hymns anymore, and the churches stopped making sure
they sang psalm-based hymns in every service, along with free
composition hymns. So the whole tradition became
almost lost, and the Spurgeon hymnbook was one of the last
to continue, with a whole section of psalm-based hymns and we imitated
that naturally in modern times but when we did that it was something
of a novelty because the tradition had been forgotten that the people
of God for generations consciously sang not only free composition
hymns but psalm-based hymns. How you can forget and in the
last few years When an evangelical hymn book was brought out by
a certain group of pastors, fine pastors, sound pastors, They
wanted some Psalms, so what did they do? They put the Scottish
Psalter in the front of the hymn book. They'd forgotten they had
their own tradition. It was no longer recognized.
Now I spent a long time on that, but you see how something can
get lost. And so the Jews of ancient times,
they forgot the theology behind the offerings. They forgot the
reasons, all the intricate details of the ceremonial. There was
a lesson in each twist and turn. And they forgot those meanings,
rich meanings and lessons. And they apply to us too. Not
the ceremonial itself, no longer is it literally carried out,
but the significance of it should not be lost on us. It teaches
us principles of worship and walking with the Lord. And so
it's extremely helpful to go through some of these things.
Now in the book of Leviticus, The Lord is shown to speak to
Moses exactly 56 times from the Holy of Holies, and this is how
the book is introduced. The Lord called unto Moses and
spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, and later
we read that more clearly expressed that it was from the Holy of
Holies, saying, speak unto the children of Israel and say unto
them. Now commands are given. commands
for the worship which attended repentance in those ancient times. They were not to devise worship
for themselves, it would all be laid down for them. And that's
so important today when people, even sound people, devise worship
for themselves. And the principles of the word
of God are forgotten. If any man of you This is an
individual statement. Bring an offering unto the Lord. He shall bring your offering
of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. And that's
further defined as the passage goes on. Now, first of all, there's
the offering of the bullock. Verse three. If his offering
be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without
blemish. And we're going to look first
of all at the atonement offering, the offering which accompanied
repentance. And the offering has to be a
male without blemish. You'll remember that all this
is going to be carried out in the light of the great expectation
of the Hebrews. The great expectation is that
of a Messiah who is to come. The Messiah is in the background
in the book of Leviticus and you See him constantly, but you
bear it in mind. What are these sacrifices all
about? Are they similar to the cultic
practices of the pagans? No, they're not. They're all
speaking volumes, and they're performed in the light of a coming
savior. Back in the Garden of Eden, at
the fall of man, you remember, the seed of the woman is promised. And the coming seed of the woman,
this special person, who will be human, and yet it becomes
clearer and clearer, will also be divine, promised to the people,
will come and deal with the whole problem of sin and of guilt. At serious injury to himself,
in the first prophecy of the Savior, in Genesis 3, 15, that's
made so clear. So that's in the back of the
mind of the people. and then the same great descendant
who would be divine and yet man would come promised to Abraham. once, then twice, then a third
time, then a fourth time, then a fifth time, the great descendant
to whom all families of the earth would be blessed and the Redeemer
would come. And then the promises were repeated
to the patriarchs and Jacob speaks of something that awaits him
when Shiloh comes, a mysterious word which means something like
When he who will come will come. So this is in the background
of everything you read in the Old Testament. The expectation
of a Redeemer, a mysterious Messiah who will deal with the problem
of sin and guilt. So now come the sacrifices. And what are they? They are symbols. And we read that quite clearly
stated in the New Testament, in the letter to the Hebrews,
that they could not actually take away sin. Of course they
couldn't. The people would have realized
that, or should have realized that, because the same sacrifices
were performed over and over again. And the great annual Day
of Atonement took place every year, and the same sacrifices
were offered. In other words, sin was still
there. It was not taken away. Yet, it
all awaited that great coming day, the Great Descendant. But
in the meantime, by trusting in the mercy of God, and the
principle of atonement, they could convey their sin, as it
were, symbolically to the sacrificed bullock, or the sheep or goat,
and Garnering conformity with the law of God, with the ceremonial
given to them by God, they could trust that their sins would be
forgiven if they truly repented. They had to rely on symbols in
the meantime, which could not actually take away the guilt,
but by trusting in the principle of atonement, they were assured
that God would forgive them. you see the details of the sacrifice
of the bullock here. First of all, in verse 3, if
his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a
male without blemish. Will Christ, who the sacrifice
foretold would be a male without blemish, pure and holy. He shall offer it of his own
voluntary will. This was not a compulsory command
for all Israelites. It was very important that this
was a voluntary matter, that people who felt deeply the need
to repent of their sin would do so. And as they came to repent,
they would bring their offering. He shall offer it of his own
voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle. It wasn't to
rush in because he was a sinner. This was an offering of atonement.
It had to be offered at the door of the special holy tent of God
before the Lord. That's two thoughts there. It was offered outside because
he was rejected by God. until he repented and was forgiven
by God. And also it was before the Lord. You'd better be sincere. You'd
better mean this because you come as one who is watched by
the Lord. You do it before the Lord. And
verse four, he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt
offering to identify with the burnt offering. offering is symbolically
going to take his sin. He lays his hands on, he doesn't
quite do this, but it is as though by the laying on of hands he
transfers his guilt to the offering. And the bullock is going to take
the punishment for him. And it shall be accepted for
him to make atonement for him. So The word translated atonement
there means, for in the Hebrew, a cover, although some argue
that it means even more than that, a taking away. But at the very least, it means
a cover. The sin will be out of sight,
covered, perhaps even taken away. So as he lays his hand on the
creature to be offered, It should be accepted for him. Of course,
if he does it in faith, if he does it sincerely. Now you just
think of the usefulness of that picture. You could almost wish
we had such a ceremony ourselves. I don't wish this, but you could
almost wish we had a ceremony to help us think. I don't know
what it would be, but to lay our hands upon some representative
object and think, my sin has to be transferred to the son
of the living God and like the bullock of olden times he will
take it away. Well they had a symbol. You think,
did they have an advantage over us? We do everything by faith,
No, they didn't have an advantage, because while they had a symbol
to make them think, you laid your hand on the bullock, or
the sheep, or the goat, and you closed your eyes, and you thought,
Lord, forgive me, take my sin away. I symbolically lay all
my guilt upon this creature. It helps you think what's going
on. But at the same time, they didn't
have a clear view of Christ. They had to work with a symbol.
So they had the tiny advantage of a symbol to work with, but
the great disadvantage in that they lived before Christ, whereas
we have the clear light of the gospel. But however, you can
see the usefulness of the symbol, but it gets more, well, effective
than that as it goes on. Look at verse five. And he shall
kill the bullock before the Lord. Now that's a quite surprising
statement. We are townies, or at least most
of us are, in this place. This would have a tremendous
effect upon us to kill the bullock. You're going to stand there outside
the holy place and you're going to have to pull yourself together.
This bullock has got to die for me. And whatever the method employed,
you are going to have to slaughter it. That'll make you think. This is a dramatic event. Oh,
you can sit there looking cool, calm, and collected if you're
a butcher. Or you work in a slaughterhouse. But for most of us, it's a massive
thing to do, to kill the creature. But that was the command. They
don't hand over to the priests a living creature. They did later
on, the rule was changed when the crowds at the temple were
so big and the priests did it all. But in these early stages,
and there's a lesson to learn here, they killed the sacrificial
animal themselves, the individual who was making the offering.
That stamps on your mind, I think. It strikes home, this is serious. My sin has got to be laid on
another. Another has to die in my place. This is close up now. It comes
home to me how serious this is. So when you read these things
through, you may think to yourself, what was all that ceremony about? But you think about it, it had
a terrific impact at the time and made you think your sin has
to be transferred to another. One who is not guilty of those
crimes and has to be born by that other on your behalf. and
he shall kill the bullock before the Lord. Some people, they recoil
from this, some interpreters, and they say, well, no, this
is just a manner of expression. It must have been done by the
priest, but actually the record is very careful. He, singular,
shall kill the bullock before the Lord, and the priests, plural,
Aaron's sons shall then do such and such, and this, Balance between
the singular and the plural is maintained all the way through
the passage. So it's absolutely clear that
the offerer kills his own sacrificial animal. And not only does he
kill it, he flays it, as our King James version says. He skins
it. And the priest takes it and deals
with it from that point on. Well, you see, it's all designed
to bring home to you There's got to be a death for your guilt. There's got to be a punishment.
This is serious. And you think about it, and it
helps us today. When I repent of my sin, I've
got to be much more serious. I've got to remember every time
that my Savior took all this from me. It was a transfer of
everything to Him, and He bore it away. and he took the pain
and the agony and made the sacrifice and paid the price for me. They
had to think about it every time, if there was sincerity in them.
I suppose the formal worshipper could just harden himself, herself
to everything. But they were made to think because
there was the symbolic ritual. We don't have that. We are trusted
by the Lord to think for ourselves. So don't repent lightly. Remember
the transfer of guilt. And he, verse five, shall kill
the bullock before the Lord. And the priests, Aaron's sons,
shall bring the blood, what the letter to the Hebrews calls,
and first Peter calls the blood of sprinkling, shall bring the
blood in a bowl of some sort, later the formal furnishings
were organized, and sprinkled the blood round about upon the
altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Why was that done? The blood
was drained and then sprinkled ostentatiously all round the
altar. It wasn't done in a little single
place. which would minimize the cost
of salvation. This animal's blood, my sin has
been, my guilt has been transferred to that bullock. Look at it,
sprinkled around the altar to be accepted by God. There's so
much of it. It's done in the longest imaginable,
most obvious way. And it reminds me how great my
sin is. That's my sin being dealt with
symbolically. And then verse six, having seen
the blood of sprinkling, he shall flay the skin, the burnt offering,
cut it into his pieces. Then the sons of Aaron take over.
The priests once again, they put the fire upon the altar and
lay the wood in order upon the fire. There was an order, there
was a prescription. It's described later on. Why
was all that? Well, because this had to be
done in a formal manner because it could only be done by God's
command in a certain place by certain people, namely the priests,
the sons of Aaron, You couldn't devise your own way of repentance
in that way. You could repent by prayer wherever
you lived, which may be far, wherever you, once they settled,
which may be far from the place of worship, the central shrine
of the country. But nevertheless, you were made
to think every time you went to the temple that there was
an order in all this. God is holy. Your repentance
must follow a sincere and a serious form and order. You couldn't
devise your own things. There would only be one place
in Israel where there was an altar for sacrifices, only one,
because there'll only be one place where Christ comes and
suffers and dies. There'll only be one way to meet
with him. One place where sins can be forgiven,
Calvary's cross. Then you look at verse nine. But his inwards, that's the intestines,
and his legs shall he wash in water, that part of the body,
because the digestive tract was regarded obviously as unclean. And so were the legs. which could
be contaminated by discharge and so on. And so they were not
fit to be offered without first being washed, because this offering
is not only an atonement, but it's an offering of perfect obedience
on behalf of the sinner. And the priest shall burn all
on the altar to be a burnt offering, an offering made by fire. And
let's look at this phrase, end of verse nine, repeated through
the chapter of a sweet savour unto the Lord. I have to be acceptable
to God. I have to be clean and pure and
I'm not. And I depend not only on an atonement,
somebody bearing the punishment for my sin, but I depend upon
the pure perfection and the holiness of Christ to be offered up on
my behalf because I'm not fit to be received by God. He must
be received and accepted for me. And so the offering works
both ways. It's an atonement and it's a
pleasing offering on our behalf to the Lord. Now from verse 10
you'll find the offering of sheep. If his offering be of the flocks,
namely of the sheep. And the passage goes through
pretty well, almost, with few variations. which I won't touch
on this evening, exactly the same provisions. And that ends
there at the end of verse 13, a sweet savour unto the Lord. And then, curiously, in verse
14, something quite different. And if the burnt sacrifice for
his offering to the Lord be of fowls, specifically turtle doves
or young pigeons, Well we learn about this a little later on
in chapter 5 and verse 7 where it seems to indicate that this
is for the poor and that seems to be the reason why Mary and
Joseph offered turtle doves and young pigeons because this was
a provision for people who didn't have flocks and herds. I couldn't
afford to buy those animals. So it was possible for the poor
to offer up something much more cheaply available to them. And
there are different prescriptions, slightly different prescriptions
for that. But the great sense is the offering
up of the sacrifice for sin and the shock and yet the due order
in which it must all be done. I read verse nine, the innards
or inward parts or intestines and the legs, nothing of this
world clung to Christ. He was pure and holy and throughout
his earthly walk he did not conform in any way to any of the sins
and ways of this world. And even that is foreshadowed
in these offerings here. I come down to chapter two. And
when any will offer a meat offering or a food offering, a meal offering,
some even translate it a grain offering, but it actually isn't
that because it's a refined white flour and bread or unleavened
bread and cakes that might be made from it. So food offering
will do well. And when any will offer a meat,
meal, food offering unto the Lord, his offering should be
of fine flour. What's this? The main atonement
covers atonement for sin, substitutionary righteousness, that we need offered
on our behalf. What's the meal offering? Well,
this also is an offering of obedience and righteousness, but particularly
of a refined character. We are to bring forth fruits
and we fail to do so. Flour, it's a refined product. The oil that was used may be
described, it isn't strictly, but it may be described as a
refined product. The frankincense certainly was
the ground tree resin that added fragrance to the whole. When
any will offer a meat offering, it's going to be not for sin,
not for atonement, but it's going to be for acceptance, a sweet
savor. So now comes the offering of
refined products of character, we say. His offering should be
a fine flour, white flour, we would say. And he should pour
oil upon it. and put frankincense there on. That was costly. Some people
may say, this is going to be burned up. I don't want to go
to the expense of putting that on it in the offering. It's going
to go in just a moment. But no, the aroma is very important
and it has to be put in. It's the ultimate of the refined
products. And he shall bring it, verse
two, to Aaron's sons, the priests. And he shall take there out his
handful, which seems to be, though some disagree, the same as the
memorial, which is referred to later. He shall take there out
his handful of the flower thereof, and of the oil thereof, with
all the frankincense thereof, and the priest shall burn the
memorial of it, the portion of it, which is going to be here
for an offering on behalf of the one who comes upon the altar
to be an offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. Much of this offering is going
to be taken by the priests and it is for their help and for
their support. Remember the priests didn't have
fields of their own to till, and flocks and herds, and provisions
of their own, and so they took their support from what was brought. But there is a handful which
is offered on the altar. And verse 3, the remnants of
the meat offering should be Aaron's and his sons. It is a thing,
this doesn't refer to just Aaron's bit, it refers to the whole offering,
it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by
fire. So the worshipper thought, this
is my holiness offered up for me. I have none of my own sufficient
for the Lord. To be acceptable to him, this food offering, meat offering,
meal offering, represents the holiness that I should, and the
refined character that I should have made. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, fruit
of the Spirit in the letters of the Galatians. Faith, meekness,
temperance or self-control, unselfishness, helpfulness to others, pure words,
edifying words, good words, profound words, all the refined products
of character and life. the offering represents. And
as it burns, as it's made, I pledge myself to make such an offering
myself by the help of God for all I'm worth, to be a better
person and to be one who produces refined acts of love and refined
words myself. It's a pledge as well as an offering. Here it is, verse four, and if
thou bring an oblation of a meat offering, the word here, oblation,
is exactly the same in the Hebrew as the word translated offering,
something given, and if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering
baked in the oven, it could be baked, It shall be unleavened
cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed
with oil. On the other hand, it could be
baked in a pan, verse five, and it'll be the same. Or it could
be baked in the frying pan, this is our version, on a kind of,
this probably is a kind of griddle. Again, fine flour with oil. And verse 8, and thou shalt bring
the meat offering that is made of these things unto the Lord,
and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it
unto the altar. and the priest shall take from
the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon
the altar. It is an offering made by fire
of a sweet savour unto the Lord. Oh, that you and I could be ourselves
much more of a sweet savour. We say this, a sweet savour wherever
the Lord places us, not a testy person, a difficult person, a
cold person, an unhelpful person, an unfriendly person, but a sweet
savour of the presence of Christ wherever the Lord has placed
us. And that which is left, verse
10, of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons. It is
a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. And then some interesting restrictions. Look carefully at verse 11. No
meat offering, that is meal, flour, food offering, which he
shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven. No leaven. For ye shall burn no leaven,
nor any honey, we think of honey as something good, but there's
a reason for this, in any offering of the Lord made by fire. Well, we're told, But honey,
if it's burned in the mix of these things, will soon take
on fermenting activity and properties. So in a sense, apart from being
not a particularly pleasant aroma, it'll be like leaven. There must
be no fermentation. That stands for corruption in
the thinking of the Hebrews. And so it mustn't be there. It
stands for a novelty, an influence that will come and interfere
with the original mixture in some way. There are to be refined
products here, flour, and in the earlier offering, frankincense,
and pure olive oil, and nothing else. Nothing that will dramatically
change the structure of those products or alter it. and corrupt it as the corruption
of the world. It was obvious to them in those
days, the symbolism. And so though they baked bread
with leaven and ate it, in holy things, in the offerings, you
couldn't have it because it represented an influence upon the substances
that were offered. that must be intact and pure,
and so it is with us. Interesting, you can see how
we've abandoned these things these days. You can see the complete
liberty of freedom with which people jump in and bring in the
bands and the drama into Christian worship, things that are nowhere
in the New Testament, we're looking at the old. Innovation and to
make an impression, to create an effect, Make things more interesting? They shouldn't want to make things
more interesting. If we were interested in the
word and the worship, we wouldn't be searching for something else
to ginger it all up. But the way in which these days,
even many sound Christians innovate and elaborate and borrow things
from the world, all this is even in the earliest books of the
Bible. Don't corrupt. Don't innovate. Don't bring in
something which is foreign to the process. You mustn't do it.
And here it is written repeatedly throughout this book in the instructions,
banned substances. And we should think of that today.
We need to be taught almost again, all over again. It seems that
many Christians need to be brought into a great big class and made
to learn like you may teach little children by going through the
ancient ceremonies to teach them some basic principles. It's so
extraordinary. Here it is, unfolded. No leaven,
no tampering, no innovation, nothing that doesn't belong. And then one or two more before
I move to conclusion. You see down here in verse 12,
as for the oblation of the first fruits, Well, that's a different
rule, we'll come to that another time. But verse 13, and every
oblation or offering of thy meat offering shalt thou season with
salt, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy
God to be lacking from thy meat offering. You see, the symbolism
is explained there immediately, somewhat unusually. Why with
salt? because it reminds you of the
covenant that God has. In other words, all this, as
far from God's side, as far as God is concerned, he will be
absolutely faithful. If you confess your sins and
he forgives you, those sins will stay forgiven. Thought is a preservative. It keeps things. Well, everybody
knows that. And so here it is. This is the
salt of the covenant. God has made an absolute promise. So forgiveness is lasting forgiveness. Repentance, too, should be lasting
repentance. You're serious. You're not going
to likely sin the same sins tomorrow. So there should be salt. It's
cheap today. They tell us we shouldn't have
it. That's another thing. our message
tonight, but in those days it was precious. And again you could
think of many a worshipper put salt on something that doesn't
need to be preserved. This is immediately going to
be burned up and offered up. We don't want to do that. No,
but you must do that, because it's important that the symbol
has in it something representing permanence and duration. And
if you come before God, sincerely repenting your sin, and you bring
the offering, and you trust in Christ, whose righteousness is
imputed to you, that is lasting eternally. And so the people
who repented and who approached God trusting in a given righteousness
They knew that this was something that God would not renounce. They had security in their union
with him. And so it is for us, so the salt
is mentioned there. I won't cover anything else in
the passage except to make some observations. You look at all this, And we're
just thinking about atonement and offerings of a sweet savour. Another time, perhaps next time,
we'll look at the five different kinds of offering, all of which
find a place in the atoning death of Christ. However, for the moment,
you think of these things, what a lot of preparation. How much preparation do we do
for worship? For some on Sunday mornings,
I suspect it's a sprint from the bed into the back gallery because
that's all that's left. Or even further back in the CCTV
rooms, spaces. Where's the preparation? If we
can't make it in time for the beginning of worship, it strongly
suggests there's been no preparation either. for worship. Would you
like to be back in the days of the Old Testament, where you
had to most carefully select your animal, and then get it
to the place of worship, and then execute it yourself, and
skin it, and hand it to the priests as part of your repentance? No,
we have the light of the gospel, but that doesn't mean we should
take advantage of it by not preparing our hearts. not being ready for
worship. We learn from this that God requires
prepared worship, an orderly approach, a thoughtful approach. I'm sure that's all part of it. They went through the place of
worship and sacrifice, we go through Calvary, through the
eternal Son of God. I remind you what we looked at
earlier this evening, see him slain. The old Christians used
to say, when you repent of your sin, in your mind's eye, see
him slain for you, just as you would have seen the bullock,
the sheep, the goat, the turtle dove, the pigeon slain for you. And it was serious. He brought
it home to you. Feel as though you've done it
to him. It is your sin that is transferred to him. Take in the
cost to Christ, the magnitude of his agonies and the necessity
of his atoning death. Make a pledge. Take a meal offering
too. Take Christ for your perfect
righteousness. and longed to be worthy of it,
then I could say, take up your priesthood, because we are a
kingdom of priests, we're all priests. And where the priest
took the portions of the animal and actually put it on the altar,
and made the sacrifice, and did all the necessary things, we
make known Christ. We present him to people and
pray for them. We explain things to them. We
do the work of the priest to bring them to Calvary. Summon
all sincerity. These are free will voluntary
acts, even in ancient times. The offering is your own, from
your own herd, purchased with your own money. Christ has done
everything for us. But there's a sense in which
worship must be costly. It must cost us our concentration
and our hearts and our focus. So this is why I called this
first chapter, True Repentance for Believers. And I'd like so
much if I helped you to see, as we just spend a few studies
in this, the book of Leviticus in a new way. Let's close this
evening singing Isaac Watts' great words, hymn number 400.
True Repentance for Believers
Series Leviticus
The burnt offerings are past and over, eclipsed by Calvary, but by placing ourselves in the midst of the scene we may feel the impact of the symbolism and the nature of guilt. Here we learn much about how to think in times of repentance.
| Sermon ID | 92217730342 |
| Duration | 49:16 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Leviticus 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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