Trinitas Church, many in Christendom celebrate this is the beginning of Lent on the religious calendar that has been developed. Now we should note from the get-go that Lent is not a biblical holiday. And if you want to in some form or capacity involve yourself in taking this season to remember Jesus' suffering in the wilderness, that's perfectly fine, that's valid, but it's not incumbent upon you. Well, the passage that we are about to read, Leviticus 16, actually sets forth the only feast in Israel's history that really wasn't a feast, that was rather a fast. I should say the only such fast day at the time of Moses, that is, because later on they'll have the Feast of Purim in which something similar takes place. but this is the only time where God requires his people through Moses to humble themselves. I'll have you know the passage that we're about to read is of central significance quite literally. Leviticus is the middle book of the first five books of the law, and Leviticus 16 is the center of Leviticus. That should tell us all something, shouldn't it? What we're about to read today is very, important to God. And it's very important for us. I'll have you know that you will gain, if you tend to this passage, you will gain one of the deepest portraits, one of the deepest pictures of who Jesus Christ is and what he did for us. With that in mind, let's go to the word of God in prayer before we read Leviticus 16, verses one through 34. Let's pray that the Lord would open our hearts and minds. Oh living God, we come to you having confessed that we are sinners. Now we confess just as well that we are weak. Our minds are dull. Our hearts, they wander. Our attention spans are minimal. Even the slightest distraction from a child sitting next to us to our concerns about what lies ahead in the coming days can arrest our attention from you entirely. We pray, therefore, God, that you would restrain these tendencies of our mind and soul, and that you would do even more, that you would open up our hearts and minds, illuminating them by your Holy Spirit, so that the word of God read and preached would be to our benefit, that we would come to know our Savior the more through it, that we would come and be inspired the more to obedience and a life of faith. We pray these things, Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus, and by your Holy Spirit, amen. Leviticus chapter 16 verses one to 33, we will read. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. And the Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat which is on the ark or he will die for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this, with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body. And he shall be girded with the linen sash and tired with the linen turban. These are holy garments. Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. He shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin offering, which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell and make it a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his household. And he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. He shall take a fire pan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense and bring it inside the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die. Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side. Also in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities. when he shall go or when he goes in to make atonement in the holy place no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of israel then he shall go out to the altar that is before the lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides. With his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it, and from the impurities of the sons of Israel consecrate it. When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat. Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins. And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place and shall leave them there. He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people. Then he shall offer up and smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar. The one who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward, he shall come into the camp. But the bowl of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire. Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward, he shall come into the camp. This shall be a permanent statute for you. In the seventh month on the 10th day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native or the alien who sojourns among you. For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. You will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest to you that you may humble your souls. It is a permanent statute. So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father's place shall make atonement. He shall thus put on the linen garments, the holy garments, and make atonement for the holy sanctuary. And he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar. He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. Now you shall have this as a permanent statute. to make atonement for the sons of Israel, for all their sins, once every year, and just as the Lord had commanded, so he did. This is God's word. Trinitas Church, I'll have to admit, I'm very excited to expound this passage. It is so deep and rich and many-layered, it's almost hard to believe. It is in itself a sure proof of the divine authorship of scripture. Let me lay before you the problem that this passage answers. You might have been paying close attention for the last several weeks when we've been discussing the laws of impurity in Israel and thought, my goodness, there's no way that the people of Israel could have avoided accidentally bringing their impurity into the presence of God. We saw that it affected everything. Every fluid that leaves a human person, every ailment of the skin. You're touching the carcass of an unclean animal. It seems inconceivable that the people may not have accidentally brought that impurity into God's house. You might have also considered another thing. Inevitably, the people of Israel would have been filled with some, maybe even many, who really weren't even trying. that many would have perhaps been people who did not take seriously God's law, even the weightier requirements of it, and were ritually bringing their sins into God's presence. Things even worse than ailments of the skin, outright disobedience. This situation of humanity's grave and dark sin brought into God's presence is what the Day of Atonement is all about. And it begins by reminding you of the episode that began chapter 10, where the two sons of Moses, excuse me, of Aaron, two of the first priests, flagrantly disobeyed God in his own house. Verses one to two open like this. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. This is the occasion for talking about the day of atonement ritual. We're told there that Moses is to tell his brother Aaron that they're not supposed to enter the tent of meeting whenever they please. They're not to enter the most holy place but when God allows. You consider the death of Nadab and Abihu, these two rebellious priests, and think about what a serious problem this presents. These two men were priests, the very people who were supposed to mediate between the people of Israel and God, and they had flagrantly disobeyed, bringing into God's house strange fire, a form of worship that was not requested by God, but was their own invention. Even more, these two men died inside the house of God. And we've seen that the purity laws were all about keeping death away from God's house. And what do you have? Two dead bodies inside of it. Therefore, Leviticus 16, we are told in verse 16. is all about making atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, that's death being brought into God's house, and because of their transgressions, flagrant disobedience to God's law. The feast that's set before us is the day of atonement, and as we saw, this is actually more like a fast. Verse 31 says that this whole ritual is to take place on a day. that is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest. Literally, it says a Sabbath of Sabbaths, a high Sabbath, a unique day of rest. A day in which the people were to humble their souls. The way in which you would humble your souls in the Old Testament would naturally involve depriving your bodies of food, a fast, and even wearing clothing that wasn't comfortable. sackcloth, itchy clothing, humbling your whole bodies. Not only did the people humble themselves, but even the priest would humble himself. He would wear something different than his beautiful garments that had all sorts of gold and colored materials interwoven with one another, and he would strip down to pure white garments. And therefore, verse four tells us that he would wear these linen undergarments, a tunic, which is like a gown, a white turban and a white sash, but he'd be dressed in all white. And it's on this day that atonement would especially be made. What do you suppose atonement means? I'm sure you've heard about it in church since you were young. Many of you might have heard that the actual etymology of this English word is at one meant. That is to say, some sort of act or procedure which makes God and man one, reconciled together. As true as that may be, the Hebrew word which underlies our word atonement means to cover. To cover something up. to cover in such a way that you remove the angry disposition of God toward mankind, a covering that dispels anger. When you think about it, this is a very familiar concept. If you're angry with someone, think about any person you might be angry with, there's a variety of ways they might dispel or get rid of your anger toward them. The very most basic of which is this, that they undergo some sort of punishment, their countenance changes, shows that they are broken and sorrowful for what they did, and think about it, their face now has a covering which displays brokenness of heart and draws out from you a changed disposition toward them. Doesn't that make sense? They cover their face with something different. That's what Israel's doing on this day. They're covering their face with humility. Another way that your anger toward another person might change is if their bad behavior is replaced with good behavior, virtuous behavior, which is another sort of covering. that changes your disposition and your regard for them as not being an enemy any longer, but as someone righteous, holy, someone different. It's a covering. In addition to these two sorts of covering by punishment and good behavior, there's also another sort of covering. It is the covering that you get when you have virtuous relationships. I'll tell you what I mean. There was a kid in high school who was a little bit annoying, but he had an exceptionally beautiful sister. I'll tell you, having that relation definitely affected the way that we all regarded this friend we had. By virtue of who he was with, he could draw out a different disposition from other people. One time I was explaining the gospel to someone at a restaurant and what Jesus does for us, and he goes, oh, I get it. He's like a guy that you go up to a club with and they won't let you in the club, but then they see you're with him and they go, okay, well, if you're with him, you can come on in. I was like, well, I suppose that's actually somewhat accurate. Having a virtuous, extremely valuable, rich relationship can actually cover up your shame and change how people regard you. Now, there's one final way that you might think of a covering. You can have restored relationship with a person by being excised from and cutting off relationships that are bad, relationships that lower your status in the view of others. That's to say if you hang with a rough crowd for a while, people are gonna think lowly of you. But if you can get rid of that rough crowd, sometimes people's disposition will change to you. The way they regard you will change. because you've removed a covering that's ugly. Friends, I'll have you know that what's going on on this Day of Atonement is all four of those things all at once. But there's one other sort of covering we've gotta consider. It's the sort of covering where you cover up your sin. You don't ever have a change of heart toward it, you hide it. We have this in news stories when politicians are engaged in a cover up. trying to hide some bad behavior that really doesn't take it away, only prolongs the inevitable of it being found. I'll tell you, the cynic could have thought of Israel's whole worship system as a mere cover-up in the bad sense. After all, man is separated still from God by layers of compartments and sheets and garments and cloud cover so that really at the end of the day, God is behind many layers. And it's as if we don't really see him and he doesn't really see us. And that's not entirely mistaken. But the picture in the Old Testament is that our sin can be so dangerous and so bad, so contagious. that at some point it's as if it breaks through the walls like leprosy can go through the walls of a house and God can not but look upon it and it has to be dealt with. That is what the day of atonement is like. It's as if our sin can be piled up so high that it comes up to the very doorway of heaven. And so Ezra says in Ezra 9 6, I am ashamed and embarrassed for our iniquities has risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. It's right before the face of God and it calls down judgment. Leviticus 16 tells us what we do when our sins have penetrated every single covering and come before the face of God. And it hinges on this item in the temple called the mercy seat. The entire ceremony about which we read hinges on this object and you would do well to focus your attention on its nature. We read about the creation of the mercy seat and the ark of the covenant in Exodus 25. It is the centerpiece of God's house on earth, his tabernacle. And we are told some 12 times in Exodus 25 to 31. that Moses was to model all of the furniture in the tabernacle after something that he saw in heaven and the holiest of holy things that he saw in heaven was to be reflected and mirrored in this mercy seat. Let me tell you about what it was. It was the lid or covering of the Ark of the Covenant. I'll start with the Ark. The Ark of the Covenant was a box. It was about four feet long, two feet wide, and two feet deep, and it was made of acacia wood. If you wonder what acacia wood is, an acacia tree is one of those trees that you see in the African savanna that has a real narrow base and then spreads out real far. You've all seen that picture. It's a beautiful tree that covers people from the sun. The Ark of the Covenant was made out of this wood and then overlaying with gold. So you have this golden box. Inside of the Ark of the Covenant, you would place the two tablets of the Ten Commandments that Moses was to make. It's very clear what this box was. It was a box that preserved the law of God. It kept it safe and unbroken, you could say. It preserves the very covenant relationship between God and man. You may recall the story in Exodus 32 that when the tablets were first made, the people of God had broken them as soon as they were made, and Moses threw down those tablets, and they were broken as a symbol and sign of man's rebellion against God. Well, this ark keeps those tablets, keeps them intact. This leads us, therefore, to what was laying on top of it. It is the most holy item in God's house and it's called the mercy seat. It is the only item in God's house that is pure, solid gold with no wood underlying it whatsoever. and it was placed on top of that box. And do you know what? The name of that item that we call mercy seat, what it literally means in Hebrew is atonement, place where atonement is made, propitiatory, place where God's just wrath is satisfied. That is the name of this object. I'll tell you about it. This object also is four feet long and two feet wide. We don't know how thick it was, but it had to have some girth. It might have been as much as two and a half inches, surely wasn't less than one inch. Can I tell you how much money this would be worth? A bar of gold is worth something like $50,000 in our society. If you had four feet of one and a half inch thick gold that's two feet wide, you are literally talking about an item that in our current currency would be in the tens of millions of dollars. And I'll tell you, on top of this slab of pure gold, they were to hammer out two golden cherubim, pure gold angels. whose faces were to be bent down looking at the surface of that mercy seat. Now friends, if you want to get an idea of what's happening here, consider that above the mercy seat, God's glory was to appear. Do you want to know what this mercy seat was? It was a golden mirror that mirrored back to God his own glory and presence. When the New Testament tells you that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, it is telling you that he is the mercy seat, the golden mirror who shines God's nature back to him because he is God himself. See, Hebrews 1.3 says that Jesus is the very radiance of the Father's glory. The place where atonement will be made is the place where God looks down at humanity and does not see sinners, but sees his own glory shine back to him. What a mighty image. Only two items would go along with the ark and the mercy seat and the tabernacle. A golden urn that had a piece of that manna that fell from heaven. Apparently that manna is food that never ever goes bad. And what does that represent? But eternal life provided in that place of atonement. The only other item that was set before the ark and the mercy seat was Aaron's rod, what would seem to be a dead tree branch which sprouted life from it. represents God's power to bring life out of death. When we understand all of this, we can look at the Day of Atonement ritual and see what is going on. There are two phases with which it starts and two with which it closes. Consider what goes on. Phase one, the priest himself, who is a sinner just like you and I, would offer a bull as a sin or purification offering and gather its blood. Before he would sprinkle that blood anywhere, he would get a coal from that altar. He'd put it in a fire pan. He would take two handfuls of incense before he went behind the veil, and what it would do is it would produce a wonderful smoke cloud of a soothing aroma as a covering for him so that he could go into God's presence. Man was not to look directly at the presence of God, and he needed this cloud. After he did this, he would go and get the blood from that bowl and he would sprinkle with his finger against the east side of the mercy seat, maybe one or two inches of gold, he would sprinkle, sort it seven times. And then he would sprinkle that same blood seven times on the ground. After he had done this, he would undergo almost the same procedure for the people. The people then would have a goat that was slain. He would take the blood from the goat. He'd go before the mercy seat, sprinkle seven times on the east side, seven times on the ground. And then he would proceed outward to the next holy place. and sprinkle the same blood on the four corners of the incense altar and seven times on that altar that he would go out to the courtyard, sprinkle the blood four times on the bronze altar and seven times toward the ground. Do you know what this conveys? This conveys that sacrificial blood from animals cannot atone for sin until it is applied to the mercy seat, thus becoming heavenly blood, not mere animal blood, and then it would flow down from that high point of heaven down to the ground, down through the stars represented by the holy place, and down to earth, and only that blood could take away human transgression. The point being made by this procedure is that the human priest cannot mediate between God and man by his own will until God first condescends and places his mercy seat on earth. He makes himself accessible. It's at this point that you might look at the entire sacrificial system of Israel and think that the active ingredient, you know when you look at medicines and you try to find out what the active ingredient in it is, there's all this other stuff, but what's making this work? You'd think that the active ingredient was the mercy seat. See, even the mercy seat, friends, even the mercy seat is still weak. See, if the priest and the sacrifice have no inherent heavenly value to atone for sin, note this, the mercy seat and the priest are also weak. They have no blood with which to atone for sin. Golden boxes don't bleed. And if the priest was bleeding, well, he would maybe never make it through the whole event. They need blood from a sacrifice. But the mercy seat and the sacrifice, they also are weak, because guess what? They have no personal volition. The mercy seat cannot walk on its own. It doesn't have legs with which to move, and the animal sacrifice doesn't present itself on the altar. They need a human person to facilitate this connection. Friends, when you put all of this together, you'll see that only these three items working together can function as an image of Jesus Christ, the true active ingredient in atoning for sin. Let me tell you about who your savior is, maybe you've never considered it. Jesus Christ is like pure heavenly gold, like that mercy seat. In fact, he is of infinite value because he is God, the eternal son, who reflects back the wholeness of God's person to him. He holds the entire heavenly host on his back like the cherubim on top of that mercy seat. And he commands their gaze at all times. So that first Peter 1 12 can say that the angels have anxiously looked into the gospel, anxiously looked into what this grand heavenly mercy seat Jesus Christ is going to accomplish. and He is the lone sufficient covering for human sin. This golden man is simultaneously a living human priest by his incarnation, and he does what a golden box without legs and without a will cannot do. He keeps God's moral law, not by hiding it behind gold, but by keeping it, obeying it down to the most minute detail. He is the perfect active obedience who covers us and changes the disposition of God toward us, and he enters God's presence, not with incense, but with prayers, fueled by the eternal spirit of God who flows from him at all times. And let me tell you something, this golden man is simultaneously a sacrificial victim, carried to the cross, not by someone else, but by his own two legs. so that in his passive obedience to the law, suffering its penalties, he bled out not animal blood, not even human blood, but golden blood of infinite value, so that it can be truly said in Acts 20, 28, that God purchased the church with his own blood. Not because God bleeds, but because God can take on human flesh. and impart a value to that blood, which is beyond all creation. Friends, Jesus is our mercy seat. I'll bet many of you going into church today would have gladly confessed that Jesus is our great sacrifice, the one who died for our sins. You might even say, Jesus is our great priest. He is the one who intercedes for us. But I'll bet almost none of you have ever thought to call Jesus your mercy seat. If the Bible would have you regard Jesus just this way, I would submit is totally obvious. Argument number one for why is because Jesus is literally called the mercy seat. That's a pretty good argument, right? He's literally called the propitiation for our sins, which is the name of the mercy seat. We spoke it today in our call to worship, and I'll remind you of it. Of Jesus we read in Romans 3.25, we read that he is the one whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation, as a mercy seat. He goes on to explain that in God's forbearance or patience, he had really just been passing over sin for generation after generation in the Mosaic law. He'd been passing over it. But in Christ, he really deals with it, and listen to what it says about him, so that God may both be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. Look at what this tells you. Jesus, like the ark, is the one who preserves God's law perfectly, and at the same time, somehow enables God to be utterly merciful toward us. He is the one who renders God absolutely just. consistent with himself and the justifier of sinners by grace. Friends, the repetition of the day of atonement in the Old Testament pointed to the fact that putting away sin awaited a future day. Friends, that model, that pattern that Moses saw in heaven after which the ark was modeled was not just another box in heaven, it was the Christ to come. If that weren't enough to convict us or compel us to the belief that Jesus is the mercy seat, consider that the Bible is telling us again and again that Jesus is heavenly gold. You might remember at the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples go with Jesus up on a mountain, and guess what? God peels back Jesus' flesh so that you can see something of his glory, and it says his face shone like the sun, like heavenly gold. That it was white like flashes of lightning, we're told in Luke 9.29. that this episode is meant to show you that Jesus is the mercy seat would seem to be even more obvious by the fact that we're told that when Jesus transfigures, he is covered with a cloud just like the priest who would go into the holy place with that incense cloud. And that out of that cloud spoke the very voice of God saying that this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. This sounds a lot like the mercy seat about whom we read. God saying that from above the mercy seat and between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you. Jesus is that heavenly gold. He is that place of atonement. In Revelation, it's made even more clear. Listen to how Jesus is described when John gets to see the risen Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 1, 12 to 15. It says, then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, and I saw one like a son of man girded across his chest with a golden sash, and his head and his hair were white like wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his feet were like burnished bronze when it had been made to glow in a furnace. Jesus is this man made of heavenly metal. Jesus is a man who is in truth, God in human flesh, pure deity. The gospel of John has its own way of setting before us this same wonderful truth that Jesus is the true ark and mercy seat. It opens up by calling Jesus the word of God. This illusion is more powerful when you understand that the 10 commandments that were written on the stone tablets are literally in Hebrew called the 10 words. Jesus is the one word who contains all the 10 words and he takes on human flesh and walks among us just like the ark contained the word of God. John Jesus is so clear that he is the manna from heaven. He preaches a whole sermon on it in John six. He is that golden jar of food that never goes bad. In the same gospel of John, Jesus makes it clear that he is the vine who has living branches. He is the true rod of Aaron out of whom living things grow. But the mightiest way that John tells you and me that Jesus is the mercy seat, is in John 20, verse 12, at the resurrection. Recall that the mercy seat was to be made this way. We were told in Exodus 25, 19, make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end, both peering down at that mercy seat. Listen to how the empty tomb was first seen by Mary. And she saw two angels standing in white one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been laying. But Jesus isn't in that dead box. He's not even in a golden one. And we read that she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. This is John telling you that everything that that mercy seat in the Old Testament was ever intended to do was accomplished in Jesus Christ He is that place where God's very face is reflected back to him, and he is that place where the blood of animals was not shed, but the blood, the blood of the eternal Son of God. What a mighty and powerful truth. You know, the word for ark in the Old Testament, the first place it's ever used, it just means box. The first place it's ever used is in Genesis to describe a coffin. Jesus, he's the mercy seat. And our Lord would have us know it, he would have us celebrate it. But I ask you, Trinitas Church, this one simple question. Have you ever stopped to just consider the value of Jesus Christ? The sheer value of Jesus Christ, he's like an infinite sheet of radiant, glowing, heavenly gold. And he is so thick, he's infinitely thick. No judgment, no judgment from God can get to you through it because it's as big and deep and wide and valuable and glowing as God himself. Have you ever stopped to consider the utter divine pleasure and satisfaction that God the Father has with us when we wear Jesus Christ? He sees nothing at all but a golden infinite image of himself in his own eternal son. That's what you are covered with. Every time we speak of Jesus, every time we bear witness to Jesus in word, in deed, all that God can see in us is his own infinite mercy seat. Have you considered that Jesus is like a golden man who calls you his friend. He envelops you and I in his prayerful intercession, his Holy Spirit. He's like a friend that no one can see past such that your defects of character, your warts, none of it can show because he's too bright. Have you considered that Jesus is like a sacrifice that bleeds golden blood? Have you considered that it is impossible that anything more could be required from you for your salvation? It's impossible. There's nothing more that even could be given. When the blood of God's own eternal son has been given in your stead, there's nothing more you even could do. Bible says that when you understand who Jesus is, the effect of knowing who this Jesus is is that it cleanses your conscience. As I say, when you understand who you are covered with, how his active obedience stands in the place of your failures, how his passive obedience and suffering makes up for every penalty you must bear, when you understand just how weighty, just how valuable, just how complete your conscience will be clear, that there's anything outstanding at all to set you right with God. There's peace in your soul. Peace that can't be taken away. It's important that we all understand, Trinitas Church, that not only are we cleansed by this knowledge of Christ, but so too was any faithful Israelite who looked past these symbols and signs and saw the Christ whom they represented. The final phase of this Day of Atonement ritual is that the priest would strip down. He would actually get totally naked. He would wash in the bronze laver water from that from that place in the tabernacle courtyard that was holy water representing water from heaven. And then he would be clothed again, but guess what he'd be clothed with? He'd finally get to put on those glorious garments again. Do you know that the priestly garments actually had gold threads running through it? He'd wear a gold plate on his chest with these beautiful gems. He'd have a gold plate on his head. Do you understand what's happening? After this day of atonement ritual, The priest would get to be clothed as if he was wearing part of the holiest of holy places. He's wearing the very gold of God. This mere man is the very beneficiary of this saving work. Friends, if you believed in Jesus Christ, you wear him. You wear him everywhere you go. At the conclusion of this, he would resume sacrifice. He'd offer two lambs as an ascension offering, representing Israel and the priesthood itself ascending into the presence of God, the very place you're going to go when you die. What good news? You can see that this entire rite is like a rebirth. God's whole house is made to bleed. It's just an image. The priest himself strips down, is naked. That's what you were when you came into the world. It's as if everything were reborn. This is a picture of what our God does for us in Christ. But note this, at the beginning of this entire rite, he would go into it as a mere man. It would seem he would come out as a glorified man. And Hebrews 9.28 says this, Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time for salvation. He will not come looking like a humbled day of atonement officiant. He will come clad with the very glory of God to those who eagerly wait for Him. But the same cannot be said for His enemies. I will tell you right now, if you have yet to believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you get to keep your sin. Until and unless you lay it on Christ, on the mercy seat, that it might be atoned for. And this leads us to the third part of the rite, the scariest part of the rite, the bad news. It's probably because of this third part of the rite that the Day of Atonement was a day of mourning. Because after all I've said, you think, my goodness, shouldn't this just be a day of joy? The third part of the rite has to do with a goat whom we call in our English translations often a scapegoat. but the Hebrew calls in a Zazel goat. When you hear the word scapegoat, here's what you all think, and this is not true to what's happening in Leviticus. You think of someone who unfairly takes the blame for other people, and you think of someone who is maybe virtuous for doing so, or someone who is to be pitied for unfairly becoming a scapegoat. Well, let me tell you what this word most likely means. The word azazel is probably a word for the devil. Satan bears many names in the Bible, Satan, devil, adversary. And azazel is probably one other. How do we arrive at this conclusion? Well, in verse eight, it says that one of the goats, and a lot representing the goat, it's the sort of dice that you would throw, is for the Lord, and one is for azazel. Our English translations sometimes say is for a scapegoat, which would break the parallelism. The first for is for a personal object, the Lord. The second for is for another personal object, Azazel. An English translation frequently translates that for as to be, which breaks the parallel. Azazel seems to come from the word azal, which means banishment or being sent out. And a zazel would be an intensification of that verb, meaning the banished one. And then the principle is clear. One of these two goats is not going to serve in the tabernacle. as a sign or image of Christ. It's not going to be slain there, its blood is not going to be brought in there, and it's not going to be lain on the divine altar. This goat is to be sent out to a land cut off. To be cut off is the prime supernatural punishment that God speaks of in the law to cut someone off from his people, to sever them from him. And this goat is to be sent out to a cut off place. Some have thought that it was a land divided from Israel by a canyon. Others have thought that it is simply a land that is unlivable, cut off from living things. It's the sort of place where the leopard would go. Solitary wilderness in a place weighted down by demonic presence. You know, in the New Testament, Jesus is talking about demons. It says when a demon goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest. It's not talking about literal deserts, but it's saying it doesn't inhabit a living human person, and it's, as it were, in a wasteland. This goat is sent to a wasteland. I want you to take this in, friends. If you've not believed in Jesus Christ, your sin is not gonna be laying on him. It is gonna stay on you. And you, like this goat, are gonna be sent into an eternal wasteland. with no one with you but the devil and his angels. You guys maybe know in Matthew 25, Jesus describes the final judgment as a division between sheep and goats. You guys know that? Look at the day of atonement. It begins with two goats because we all start out as goats, friends. But one goat is slain like a living sacrifice and able to be an image for Jesus Christ. That's what you all will be if you believe in him and accept his atonement. You will be like a living sacrifice representing the king and the way the story ends for you is actually two sheep or lambs ascending into the presence of God. That's what you'll be on the last day of your life. Goats, by the way, of course, they're these wily, obnoxious animals. Just ask the Burns, they had all these little goats. Those things are crazy. If you've ever seen those little goats, they just bounce all over the place, and they would actually just kick each other all the time. They would jump off this one chair, and then just kick their legs off of another goat, and just jump onto the ground. They'd just kick each other. Never seen lambs do that. You either start out a goat, and you end up like a lamb, or you stay like a goat forever. In Matthew 25, 31, it says this, when the Son of Man comes in glory, all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, and he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left, and he will say, depart from me, accursed ones, into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels, this Azazel goat. It represents that final judgment about which Jesus is unambiguous. Some will go out of his presence forever. This lends a certain importance to one of the things in the church that we all despise, it's church discipline. One aspect of church discipline is excommunication. Do you know what that's meant to be? A taste of the final judgment in hopes that the people who experience it might turn around and race to the mercy seat and repent, and we gotta do it. Jesus describes it this way, or rather, excuse me, Paul, speaking of excommunication, describes it this way. Ask yourself if you can hear the day of atonement, you can hear the Azazel go. He says, of one man, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan. Cast him out of the church and deliver him to this wasteland. for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Saint Paul says, of two heretics, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Why does the church excommunicate friends in hope? that upon having been excommunicated and tasted the lifeless wasteland of unbelief in this life, they might be protected from it in the days to come. There we have all of our means of atonement. There's an atonement that you can have where God's disposition changes toward you because of your association with another Jesus Christ. That's a covering. There's an atonement that can be made for you when humanity's rebellion is mournfully suffered and Jesus Christ suffered that with his blood and made a covering. There's an atonement or a covering when people's disobedience is replaced with perfect obedience and Jesus did that as a mighty covering. But there's also an atonement that takes place when you are separated from that evil, that confusion, that darkness of a crowd who's not really your own. A world that's fallen from which you are to be distinct. And that is what the Day of Atonement covering is about. That's what's gonna happen on the last day of judgment. So friends, knowing this truth, let's pray for our neighbors. Let's pray for nations that are like goats. They're gonna spend eternity outside of God's presence unless their hearts are changed and pointed to the mercy seat. Bow your heads with me. Living God, your message is one and consistent, it's the same. There is only atonement to be had in Jesus Christ, our mighty Savior, our mercy seat, our priest, the eternal Lamb of God. We are thankful beyond imagination and still not yet as we should be to the depths that for eternity we will be. We are thankful for your Son, Jesus Christ, the one who shines back your glory to you because he's one essence with you. God, our heart breaks. It breaks for a world of people who are not covered by that heavenly blood. We have family members, friends, neighbors, people all around us. God, for whom we pray and intercede right now, we pray, Lord Jesus Christ, for unbelieving brothers. Bring them to saving faith in you. We pray right now, Lord God, for unbelieving sisters, daughters, sons, fathers, neighbors, even acquaintances and coworkers, Lord, we pray that your saving work would go forth and rescue a land trapped in darkness. Living God, we ask all of these things for your glory, not because of the inherent deserts of men, which we cannot plead before you, but because you love to magnify your grace and your glory your image bearers shining, shining your holiness back to you. We pray, Lord Jesus Christ, that on the last day, at the resurrection, Jesus would have innumerable brethren, innumerable brethren adopted as sons and daughters. We ask these things, Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus, and by your Holy Spirit, amen.