Leviticus chapter 4. As you know, we've been going
through pictures of Christ through the Old Testament. Henry's been
using his, among others, primarily his, going through this. And this is the 15th lesson in
this study. I think there's 96 of them. I
think there's 96 lessons going through the Old Testament on
pictures of Christ. And this is the 15th one. It
seems like we've gone so fast. But here in Leviticus chapter
4, verses 1 through 7, the one statement that keeps
jumping out and you will see this as we read it the blood
before the lord before the lord it just comes up about three
three times i think something like that in verse one And the
Lord Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against
any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which
ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them. Now let
me stop here a second. This really jumped out at me
this morning. If a soul sin through ignorance,
That soul is still not excused. He's still not excused. There
still has to be bloodshed. This shows how holy God is. You
and I can do something through ignorance and we can say, and
we do say to one another, well, he didn't know it. You know,
don't, he didn't know. God can't say that. That really
struck me this morning. God can't do that. God is so
holy. righteous, that even a sin of
ignorance has got to be paid for. That really struck me this
morning, of God's holiness. Now, if the priest that is anointed
do sin according to the sin of the people, and let him bring
for his sin, he's not excused either. Which he hath sinned,
a young bullock, without blemish unto the Lord, for a sin offering. And he shall bring the bullock
unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the
LORD, and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and
kill the bullock before the LORD. And the priest that is anointed
shall take of the bullock's blood, bring it to the tabernacle of
the congregation, And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood,
and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord, before
the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some
of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before
the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation. and shall
pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar. None
of it's left. All of it's poured out. Christ
shed all his blood. And shall pour all the blood
of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering
which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now there's
one thing that's very clear. when we read the Word of God
from Genesis to Revelation, and it's the blood, the blood, the
blood, the blood. I started to title this the blood,
the blood, the blood, because without the blood, there's no
remission of sins. God said in Exodus 12, when I
see the blood, when I see the blood, not when I see your repentance,
Not when I see your faith. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. In Leviticus 17, the life of
the flesh is in the blood. You can take a blood test and
they can tell what's going on in your body. The life of the
flesh is in the blood. Hebrews 9, without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission, there is no forgiveness of sins,
not even the sins of ignorance. David said in the Psalm, cleanse
thou me from secret faults. Our Lord put away sins that we
don't even know. We're not even aware of, we're
not even really aware of it. You know, to not love God with
all your heart and all your soul and all your might, is probably
the greatest sin. That unbelief, being the greatest,
but not to love God, that has to be the greatest. And yet,
our Lord put that away, and we don't realize, we won't realize
until we stand in His presence, how little we really did love
Him. We do love Him more than we ever did before. But my, how
short that love is. how short it is, and the Lord
put away, He put away all our sins, even the sins of ignorance. Verse Peter 1, it says, You were
redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but
with the precious, precious blood of Jesus Christ. If there's one thing that I could look back on maybe
myself and have a regret is that I didn't make more of the blood,
did not preach more of the blood. People ought to leave knowing,
knowing that their sins are gone only by the blood of Christ,
only by the blood Now throughout the Old Testament, this shedding
of blood shows us through the sin offerings and the sacrifices
that there must be. We see these offerings, these
sin offerings, these sacrifices done. You go on down and read
the rest of that chapter, how that bullock is parted and sectioned
off and all this. There's got to be suffering and
death, not just death. Christ could not just come into
this world and just die. He has to suffer and die. Because
our sins deserve suffering. Suffering. And so there has to
be suffering and death. And we see this all through the
Old Testament. And we see through the sacrifices,
the death of these sacrifices, these animals, we see that sin
deserves death. That's what it deserves, death. The punishment for our sins is
not just suffering, but death. The reason every person dies,
the root cause, is sin. It's not old age. It's not cancer. Those are second causes. It's
sin. That's why when we get to glory,
when we are standing in heaven, we are on that new earth, there'll
be no more sorrow, no more death, because why? No more sin. No more sin. It's gone. It's
gone. Listen here in Genesis 2, 17. In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die not get sick die man's not sick man's
not crippled man's dead dead in trespasses and sins the soul
that sinneth it shall die what says ezekiel 18 verse 4 and verse
20 and in romans 6 23 the wages of sin is death The wages of
sin is dead. People want what they work for,
don't they? They demand what they work for.
God's going to give it to them. The wages of sin is dead. Now,
in order for our Lord to be a proper Redeemer, one who redeems, and
for Him to be a proper substitute, He has to suffer and die what
I must suffer and die. He's got to do it in my place.
What belongs to me, he's got to take it to himself. Suffering
and death belong to me. And all of his elect. And the
only way that God can honor his holy law, and it's going to be
honored. God's law is going to be honored.
You know, those whom God saves, they are either saved to the
praise and glory of his grace, or they will be punished, they
will perish under the praise and glory of His justice. God's going to be glorified either
way. But for Him to honor His law and satisfy His perfect justice,
Jesus Christ, not only as God, but the God-man, He's got to
come into this world suffer and die in the stead of those whom
he saves that substitution that substitution I don't make him
my substitute by faith I do not make him my substitute God made
him my substitute God made him my God made him both Lord and
Christ God made him my Lord and my Christ my Savior my Messiah
And God made him my substitute. And for him to do that, he had
to become a man, and in doing so, he died under the penalty
of law. And the law has nothing against
us now. When I say us, us who believe.
And all who shall believe. All his chosen. Which is sinners. Sinners. Multitude of sinners. And all the blood sacrifices
under the law of Moses, here's what they typified. They typified
the Lord Jesus Christ taking the place of sinners. You see, in the Old Testament
here, the Bullock is taking the place of the children of Israel. Not Egypt, not the Philistines,
of Israel. And Jesus Christ died for God's
Israel. He died for God's Israel. And if you'll notice, throughout
the Old Testament, when these animals were chosen, there were no wild beasts chosen
among them to offer up as a sacrifice. They didn't go choose something
that was wild and untamed. It was always a bullock, a lamb,
something that was calm and tame, and they could just lead it over,
over to the place where it was to be sacrificed. Cut his throat,
bleed it, didn't just cut it up. Our Lord, see, here's what this
shows. This shows that our Lord was willing to die in our place. They didn't drag him to the cross.
He told him to get up. When he said, I am, they fell
down. He said, get up. And he willingly, he willingly went
to the cross. No man, he said, no man takes
my life from me. You don't have that kind of power.
Man does not have that kind of power. He said, I lay down my
life. No man takes it from me, I lay
it down. I lay it down and I take it up again. As God, he was able
to raise himself up again. So those animal sacrifices, they
were always of a tame sort. And then if you'll notice here,
it said that they were to be young. Those bullocks were to
be young, not get an old bullock. Our Lord was 33 years old when
he was crucified. At 68, I realize now how young
33 is. 33 is young. It's young. He was in the full strength of
life. He was young, and it says that
they had to be without blemish, which shows his holy nature. What pictures are drawn so clear
for us? I mean, it's like looking at
a painting on the wall. It's so clear to see these things. I think I sent Tommy a text.
He sent me a text of a portion of the scriptures and gave some
comments on it. And I said, it's easy. And I
quote a scripture. It's easy to them that understand.
The picture is not clear to those who don't understand the gospel.
You can't see. any of this. You can't see Christ
in any of this, but you can. You can. Some of you can. You
can see just as clear as can be. God's given you new eyes. God's given you eyes of faith.
You see, faith has eyes. You see beyond what these eyes
see. These eyes can only see the horizon.
We can look up and see the moon, the stars, and the trees, and
we can see what's created, but we can't see God until God gives
us eyes to see Him. And then it becomes very real.
When you open your eyes and you look at something, that something
is very real to you. It exists. Faith is a substance It gives
real substance to the things hopeful. The Lord Jesus Christ,
I've never seen Him, I've never seen Him, I've never seen the
Father with these eyes. I see Him by faith. I see Him
by faith, you do too. You do too. God's given you eyes
to see. And then this blood here of the
bullock. was to be poured out at the bottom of the earth. It
was to be poured out. Can't you just see the blood of Christ
being shed here? It was poured out. And then here the blood was shed
before the Lord. This statement just keeps coming
up, before the Lord, before the Lord. You know, when the Lord
Jesus Christ was crucified on Calvary's tree, that was not
an offer to you and me. That was not an offer to me,
that was to the Lord. That was to the capital L-O-R-D,
Jehovah. That was to Jehovah, the one
true God. He offered up himself unto the
Lord. That's who he offered himself.
And he offered himself before the Lord. Before the Lord. Because it was before him and
unto him that the blood was shed. When the Passover lamb in Egypt,
when it was shed, when the blood was shed, it was put to death.
Where did they put the blood? On the outside. Did they put
it on the inside of the door? There was no blood on the inside of
that door. When they shut that door, they couldn't see the blood.
It had to be an act of faith on the inside. They had to believe
that they did what God said. And that blood right there, the
blood over the door would save them. God said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. But that blood was on the outside.
It wasn't on the inside. God said, when I see it, you
do what I say. Put the blood on the door, go
inside the house, shut the door. And when I see the blood, when
I see it, you see it's before the Lord. When I see the blood,
I will pass over you. The suffering and death of Christ
on the behalf of everyone for whom he died, for every one of
them, was before the Lord. Jehovah, Christ. I tell you, this is what gives
me and all of God's children, this is what gives us comfort.
That blood is before the Lord on our behalf. You know what
that blood says? You know that sinful thought
you just had? Or you'll have here in a minute? It's been paid
for. When you leave here and you say
something you wish you hadn't said, It's been paid for. There's the blood. The blood
answers for the sins that I asked forgiveness for. The blood answers
for the sins I don't even know. I don't even know. The blood answers for those sins.
They're gone. They're gone. If God ever makes
me and you to really understand what sin is and who He is, we'll
have a great appreciation for the blood that was shed for those
sins so that God could be merciful and God could be gracious and
God could bring us to heaven as sons and daughters and live
there forever and ever and ever in paradise, in paradise. So the blood was shed before
the Lord. And here's something that the
blood being shed before the Lord also, it declares His righteousness. It declares the righteousness.
Aren't you glad God's righteous? Are you glad God's holy? I'm
glad He is. You know, there was a time, there
was a time when I and you wished that God wasn't so strict. What
we're saying is that he wasn't so holy, that he'd lower the
standards. God's not going to lower the
standards. But see, what God Almighty is going to do, He's
going to meet the standards on our behalf. And we're going to
come into His presence having met the standard of holiness
in Christ. Now, the blood here that was
shed does not change who God is. It doesn't change who God
is. God is immutable. It means he's
unchangeable. But here's what it does. It magnifies
who God is. God is holy and he will not lower
the standards, but he will meet the standards that he might have
mercy and grace on a multitude of sinners. The death of Christ is not Someone
said this, the death of Christ did not cause God to love us.
It's a result of God loving us. It's the result. God is love. God is merciful.
God is gracious. But God also is holy, just, and
righteous, isn't he? And that's going to be honored
first. See, that's got to be taken care of first. and then
he can be gracious to us and merciful to us kind and that's
the reason when uh in the garden of eden you know the blood had
the blood was before the lord before creation christ is a lamb
slain from the foundation of the world and that's why when
adam fell god did not annihilate the whole the whole of creation
which he made adam over Because the blood had been before the
Lord, even before the foundation of the world. Christ the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. And this blood was
brought into the tabernacle, and it was placed on the altar. What this shows here, it gives
power to the intercession of the priest. You see, our Lord intercedes
for us. But what's the power? What's
the power in his intercession? What is it? Is it the fact that
he's God? Without the blood, his intercession
is not going to do any good. He's interceding his blood. Forgive
them. He could say to the father, forgive
John. Why? Because he's asking Asking
the Father to? Not without reason. Forgive John
because here's the blood for his sins. I'm telling you, get
a hold of that. Forgive him. Here's the blood
for his sins. Here's the blood shed. Here's
the suffering. Suffering. It was brought in and it was
placed in that tabernacle on the altar And that is what intercedes
for us, not just words, but his blood. And that priest would put his
hands on the head of the bullock, signifying our sins laid on Christ,
and we lay our hands on him by faith. Symbolically, symbolically,
we lay our hands on him by faith. Isn't that funny? I mean, it's funny. It's interesting
where the father and the sinner meet at the same place, the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is where we come together,
right here. And the sharing of His blood
shows His oneness with us. You see, as God, He has no blood. As God, He has no blood. As the
God-man, He has blood. He has blood. And this shedding of blood also
shows the full payment of debt. He fully paid our debt. That
means I don't owe anything. Paul says, owe no man anything
but to love one another. But I owe no debt to God's law. You know, God's law is so holy,
so strict, that if you just have a second of a thought of sin,
you're in trouble. You're in deep trouble. In fact,
if the blood of Christ doesn't put away that thought, you perish
forever. That's how holy God is. But his blood has put that away. And then the priest sprinkled
the blood seven times before the Lord. Seven times, that's
a number of perfection. We don't need to go eight times.
Remember Moses strike the rock one time. The second time he
told Moses speak to the rock and Moses was upset and he struck
the rock twice. Don't do that because God said
one time. Here this this is a sprinkling
of the blood shows the effectual Sufficient blood of Christ his
suffering his death his blood. It's sufficient We don't need
to add anything to it And we you and I are so sinful
we got to keep being reminded of this every week don't we We
have to be reminded every week And then there's the altar of
sweet incense. That stood out to me. The death
of Christ is sweet smell to God. The death of our substitute,
because there's a smell of obedience. You know, obedience has a good
smell to it. There's a smell of obedience. There's a smell
of righteousness. There's a smell of holiness.
There's a smell. That's a sweet smell to God.
It's a sweet smell of God. And this sweet incense is also
a type of the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ on our
behalf. His intercession to us is like sweet incense to the
Father. And it's sweet to us too. The His blood, His blood, listen
here, on the altar shows the fulfillment also of the covenant.
You know, there's got to be the death of the testator before
the covenant can be enforced. Well, here it is. Here's the
blood showing the death of the testator. Here's the blood. And this, this, uh, the blood, it said after the
sprinkled seven times before the Lord, The rest of it was
be poured out at the bottom of the altar. Christ shed all his
blood. All that blood, listen, all that
blood was shed, it was poured out, it was poured out at the
bottom of the altar, showing that there was nothing left. Right now, our Lord sits at God's right
hand, And there is no blood flowing through his veins. And when you and I die, and we
go to glory, and we receive that new body, there's no blood flowing
through our veins. Because the life of the flesh
is in the blood. The life of the believer in that
new body, the life of it is Jesus Christ. It's not the blood flowing
through the veins. Right now, the life of this flesh,
this body right here, is in the blood that's flowing through
it. Oxygen goes through it. What I eat today, the nutrients
that are in that food will go into my bloodstream and it'll
go throughout my whole body. We won't have that in heaven.
Jesus Christ is our life. the life of our body in heaven,
that new body, a spiritual body, it's a spiritual body, a real
body, physical body, but it's a spiritual body. And it doesn't
need blood. There's no blood flowing through
the veins of Jesus Christ. He shed it all here. And we're going to have the same
spiritual body. Listen, I know we can't grasp this, but we're
going to have the same type of spiritual body that he has. And
the life of that body is Jesus Christ, who said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. I don't need my heart pumping
blood through this body. I don't need it. I don't need
it. And His blood, His blood of atonement,
gives acceptance to our worship this morning. Don't you wish you could worship
God perfectly this morning? Don't you wish for one complete
minute that you could listen and concentrate without floating
off somewhere, like hot air balloons? His blood is what makes our worship
accepted this morning. It cleanses away all the sin. It's the blood, it's the blood,
it's the blood before the Lord. All right.