Turn with me, if you would, this
morning again to the book of Numbers. Numbers chapter 8. I
was recollecting, you know, when you get along, someone told me
yesterday how young I looked. I said, well, that's a figure
of speech anymore, isn't it? When I knew that student, I had
black hair. I have white hair now. My brother
told me that. Before I came here, I was in
religion. And I don't think that there
was a half a dozen, maybe a dozen places out of the Old Testament
that I ever spoke from when I was in religion. And someone told
me the other day, all you ever preach from is the Old Testament
now. Well, I found out that's where Christ preached from, is
the Old Testament. But we bring in the New Testament
all the time, how it shares with us what the New Testament means.
Well, here in the book of Numbers chapter 8, we've noticed some
wonderful things about that candlestick or lampstand. It tells us there
in verse 2 of this that, speak unto Aaron and say unto him,
when thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light
over against the candlestick. Point the light forward. put
it on the bread. And we find that verse of scripture
in the New Testament where the Lord Jesus in John chapter six
said, I am the bread of life. He is the true bread of life.
He is the only sustenance that will sustain us for time and
for eternity. And then we read here in verse
seven of this chapter that when they were purifying the Levites
for the use to help the priests, that they were to shave all their
flesh. They were to take every hair
off their body. And we find with regard to that,
that not a hair was left, it was all left, it was shaved off.
It tells us that our righteousness, every bit of it is found in Jesus
Christ alone. We can't put a hair of our righteousness
for him. We have no righteousness whatsoever. And we, one hair, will take us away from our trust
in Jesus Christ. So, and we find over there, we
have an advocate with a father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is all our righteousness.
First John chapter two and verse one. Now we're going to go down
to verse nine. There's some things that are
going to happen here that are so beautiful and share with us
such a beautiful picture of Christ. We have this time of year, we
have the buds of the roses. It won't be long, they'll be
starting to open up, and oh my. Then they'll open up some more,
and we say, oh my. And then we smell them, we say,
oh wow. Well that's just the way it is
when we go through the word of God to his people. At first it's
that bud, it's so beautiful, and then it just opens up and
opens up and opens up, and the smell is so delightful. Here it is as we read further. in the eighth chapter of the
Book of Numbers, and thou shalt bring the Levites before the
tabernacle of the congregation, and thou shalt gather the whole
assembly of the children of Israel together. These Levites are going
to be taken out of all the rest of the folks. They're going to
be used to help the priests. Now, there is a demonstration
here of something that is not very popular in the religious
world, And that is, there's an election of these folks. He's
choosing a group of people out of the rest of the folks. Now,
Israel is a picture of the elect of God, and yet not all Israel
is of Israel. They're a picture. The church
is the reality of that. Well, here we have a group, and
it tells us there that the children of Israel, they've gathered the
whole assembly of the children of Israel together. What that
is telling us is what we found over there in the book of Acts.
His brother Craig read it this morning. That passage of scripture
that the Apostle Paul shared with the King of Festus, he said,
these things were not done in a corner. These things are going
to be open to everyone of Israel. They're going to observe what
is going on here just as all of the acts of the apostles and
all of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ were not done in
a corner. They were observable. People
could see them. Now, it really shares with us
the problem of natural man is that they saw what happened,
but never saw what happened. They saw with their physical
eyes, but they could not get beyond that until the Lord gives
us spiritual eyes. They could not see him as bread.
until he is revealed to us. They could not see him as water
unless he is revealed to us. They could not see him as a door
unless that's revealed to us in the new birth. These things
are hidden from them. And it brings us back to that
passage that we mentioned several times now about the apostles
themselves saying, why did you speak to us in parables? And
he said, it's for you to know the kingdom of God. It's not
for them. Well, we might say that's a harsh
thing, but to me, it's such a blessing that he would even show one person
the kingdom of God, not alone a host that no man could number.
Now, unless he shows it to us, we'd never see it. He reveals
it to us. So we're going to have these
folks all gathered around a group of Levites, and they're going
to observe what's going to happen here, just like we find people
saw what the Lord did. Now there was his disciples that
saw them. Eleven of them were called of
him to be his disciples unto salvation. One of them was called
to fulfill the mission of God, the full mission of Christ here
on this earth. He was written about in the Psalms.
He was brought into the fold, physical fold, by the Lord during
his own personal ministry. He says, Judas, I want you. Guess what? He came just like
the rest came, but it was never revealed to him of the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was used by the Lord to betray
the Lord just as it was fulfilled in scripture to do. There is
no secret handshakes in Christianity. There is no secret code. There
is no, um, There is no secret message that
we have for you. It is broadcast wherever we can,
under every circumstance, whether it be here, whether it be through
Zoom, or whether it be through the Sherman Audio, it is the
declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when
I got into religion, after I was there, they told me the secret
things. After they got you into the water, they told you the
secret things. And the secret things were, we're the only ones
on the whole world. You just got something from us
that nobody else has, that's baptism. We heard that talked
about. He just, that's not going to
do any good. Baptism does us no good, except
it is an answer of a good conscience to God. It's a picture. All right. So we have the whole assembly
gathered around these folks, these Levites, and in verse 10
it says, and thou shall bring the Levites before the Lord,
and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites.
The children of Israel were to come and put their hands. Now,
probably they had representatives. Probably they had someone that
represented them to come up and do what the Lord commanded them
to do, and that was to put their hands on the Levites. Now, we're
going to find out that the Levites are going to represent them in
a very powerful way. They were to put their hands
on the Levites. In many ways, it was we're sharing
something with you that we can't take care of ourself. What is
it that we cannot take care of ourself? We cannot take care
of our sin, and we need someone to take care of it. So we have
these whole Israel and probably through a representative, I don't
know if six million people came by and touched them or not. But
somehow he used them to share with the Levites a responsibility. Now we're going to see these
Levites are going to share with us that they are an advocate. They are a minister for the rest
of the folks. Let's go on in here. And it tells
us in verse 11, and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the
Lord for an offering of the children of Israel that they may execute
service to the Lord. The children of Israel, they're
all gathered together. This is not done in a corner.
We have the children of Israel touching the Levites, and now
we have Aaron taking the Levites aside, and certain things are
going to happen here that demonstrate to us that there is only one
way, only one person that can take care of all of the activities
that are pictured here. Verse 12, the Levites shall lay
their hands upon the head of the bullocks. There's going to
be some bullocks, it tells us about here. There's two bullocks,
or two young bulls, that are going to be used for sacrifices. One for one sacrifice, one for
another sacrifice. But the Levites come and put
their hands on them. Now in the Hebrew, it's much
stronger than we read right here. It means to lean heavily. You know, if you lean heavily
against something and that something moves, what happens to you? We
fall. That's what it means. We're leaning
heavy enough that if something moved it, we're going to fall.
Well, the church is leaning heavily on Christ, but he is the strong
foundation, so the church will never fall. But we're leaning
heavily on Him. We're leaning heavily upon Him
to take care of our sin. We're leaning heavily upon Him
for our eternal life. We're leaning heavily upon Him
for all things. We're not leaning on anything
else. Now, if we're not leaning heavily, we're trusting ourself. Put yourself
into the position that you're in an angle that you could not
recoup yourself if He moved. Now he's not going to move. But
if he could, if he did, you'd fall. Now that's how heavily
it is. All right. They're going to lean
heavily upon verse 12. The Levites shall lay their hands
upon the heads of the bullocks, and thou shalt offer the one
for a sin offering and the other for a burn offering unto the
Lord for an atonement for the Levites. When I read that passage
of scripture, it took me back to a study that we had in the
book of Leviticus, because it is here that these two sacrifices
are explained. They're brought out in the book
of Leviticus, and we have some meaning there. Here it is, the
declaration of what's happening. In the book of Leviticus, it
draws it down to the point where we can understand. So we're going
to go over to the book of Leviticus for a moment. Return with me
to Leviticus chapter 1. Now, it's another Old Testament
book that we had the privilege of going through for some time.
And we saw the Lord Jesus Christ displayed in such honorable and
glorious ways in these sacrifices. No one was ever saved by these
sacrifices. No one was made even better by
these sacrifices. There wasn't one thing put away
on people's hearts by these sacrifices. They were a picture and a type
and a shadow. The New Testament tells us that
there's nobody is saved by the blood of bulls or goats. All
of those sacrifices, in fact, we find in the book of Isaiah
that they were vain oblations. That's God's description of what
they were, his commentary on them. They didn't accomplish
anything. They're symbolic pictorial, but
they didn't accomplish anything. Well, here in the book of Leviticus
chapter 1, we have these words. Verse 1, and the Lord called
unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the
congregation. Two days ago, I got to go to
St. Vincent de Paul, and I always
check the Bible section. I got this giant print, leather
bound Bible for $2.49 less 10% because I'm old. I was in there the other day
and they had another nice Bible and it put all of the words that
God spoke in Old and New Testament in red. Guess what? The book
of Leviticus is all red. These are the words of the Lord.
Just as we find in the book of John, the words of the Lord Jesus
in many Bibles are in the red. Well, the book of Leviticus is
in red because, as it tells us there, the Lord called unto Moses
and spake unto him. Verse two, speak unto the children
of Israel and say unto them, if any man of you bring an offering
unto the Lord, You shall bring your offering of the cattle even
into the herd of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice
of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish, and he shall
offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. Well, here we have the beginnings
of the sacrifice. It's mentioned over here in the
book of Numbers that the Levites are going to take part of, or
observe, and buy those two bullets. There's going to be a burnt offering
and a sin offering given. This one, as it tells us here
in the book of Leviticus chapter 1, verse 3, it talks about the
burnt sacrifice. Now, what does this symbolize?
As we look here, we find that it teaches us about our terrible
need for a mediator, number one. The Lord spoke to Moses and Moses
went on and spoke. The Lord gave his message to
us. God the Father gave a wonderful message to God the Son to deliver
to us. And he delivered it with his
mouth, but he also delivered it with his body when it went
to the cross. Here we have in this passage
of scripture that it's a voluntary sacrifice that was to be offered. Well, that's interesting, isn't
it? A voluntary sacrifice. Guess what? No mom or dad or
grandparent took anybody over to Aaron to have this taken care
of. It was voluntarily. You know
what? It was for sinners. And I cannot lead my children
in that direction. It takes the Holy Spirit. I'll
never forget the words of my friend, Wayne Boyd, when he was
talking to his daughter. She said, Dad, you don't think
I'm saved. And he said, I know you're not.
Now, most parents would have automatically said, oh, let me
talk about that for a minute. Oh, you know, I was there, I
saw it, and we make all kinds of excuses. But Wayne said to
his daughter, I know you're not. And she said, how do you know
that? And he said, because you've never been a sinner and you don't
believe the record. You don't believe the Bible.
You don't believe what it says about Christ. You don't believe
what it says about sin. You don't believe what it says
about heaven. You don't believe what it says
about hell. You don't believe the Bible. What a clear-cut statement. You never were a sinner, and
you don't believe the record. Well, these people that came
and offered this sacrifice, number one, they were a sinner, and
they believed the record. They're the only ones in the crowd. And I said when we went through
the book of Leviticus a number of years ago, this probably did
not happen very often. This offering, this sacrifice
probably didn't happen very often because a sinner is a sacred
thing. The Holy Spirit hath made him
thus. We cannot come to that conclusion
on our own that we're a sinner enough to have to offer a sacrifice.
We're a sinner enough to require Christ to come and take care
of us. We thank him only going part way and in religion, we'll
take care of the rest of it. That is a sham Christ. The Christ that God causes his
children to understand is a Christ that was required to die in their
place. So we have a sinner coming. It's
of their own voluntary will. It's to be a male in the first
year, it's a voluntary will. The gospel's warrant is to whosoever
will may come. Now, don't turn that around because
we have to deal with the will first. Did you know the will
is not a separate part of us? It's a part of us that fell in
the fall. It's just as dead as the rest of us. Don't make it
a special part. That young man I've been visiting
with for a long time now, two years, he thinks the will is
separate from the rest of us, that it is okay, and if we just
can get into that part, we can get somebody to make a response
towards Jesus. You know what? He believes a
lie because the will is as dead as the rest of us spiritually
and we will not have Jesus Christ unless he quickens us and we
then want to have him more than anything else in the world. There must be a willing soul. None but a soul made willing
in the day of his power pays any regard whatsoever to the
atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ or to the sacrifice that he made. It's a very small seed. You go through the religious
world and there are very few that know the first thing about
voluntary will and the requirement that Jesus Christ must make us
willing in the day of his power and then we're willing to lean
on him heavily for the rest of our life and for eternity. To
lean. This burnt offering is for those
who are of own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And he shall put, verse four
of Leviticus chapter one, he shall put his hand upon the head
of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to
make an atonement for him. What is this a picture of? We're
transferring all our sin to a substitute. Now we can't do that. It's a
picture of that. God alone can do that. But it's
a picture that we're transferring. We acknowledge the very fact
that we are sinners by nature, sinners by practice, and sinners
by choice, but we're transferring all that sin to the Lord Jesus
Christ, the substitute, leaning on him, leaning on him. And then
we go on and we find out what's going to take place. It says
here, and he, now this gentleman doesn't do this. We have Aaron
to do this for us. You know, when it comes to all
of that sacrifice, our part is sin on him. What happened on
the cross, is God's business. He's the one that requires this.
He's the one shall put his hand on him, lean hard, lean heavily. What is the sinner's part? Leaning
all his sin and leaving it and conveying it to the sacrifice.
The treatment of the victim is the Lord's part. And when we
read about what happened to Christ on the cross, that's the Lord's
part. His treatment of his son is the
Lord's part here. It's not our part. What we have
here is a picture of a sinner in desperate need of having salvation
taken care of and leaning hard on the one that's been revealed
to us that we can lean on and he'll take it all. Not a hair
of ours is left on us. It is all transferred to him. In other words, it's imputed
to him. And who imputed it? God imputed our sin to his son. God laid it upon him. We picture it here by putting
our hands upon this beast. But we're putting our hands spiritually
upon him who loved us with an everlasting love and has caused
us to know that he's done something for us that no one else could
do for us. And he is the only savior, the
only atonement, the only sacrifice, and the only hope that we can
have. And then it tells us there, he shall kill the bullock before
the Lord. Verse five, that the priest Aaron's
son shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood around about
upon the altar that is at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation. Right here in the very presence
of that tabernacle that had just been built, we have this person
coming, bringing a bullock, first year, male of the first year,
bringing that bullock and going through this process and it's
right in the presence of a symbol that represents it all about
God. Here is our door to the mercy
seat is the blood of Christ. The door to Christ is his blood. Nowhere else will we ever reach
him without the sprinkled blood. Goes on to tell us in that passage
of scripture that this sacrifice, all the entire body of this beast
was to be consumed and consumed completely. The innards, the
outards, the head, the skin, everything. What a picture that
God's eternal wrath was totally consumed when he put his son
and offering for sin. All the wrath of God the Father
was totally consumed when he put his son and offering for
sin. When God's people stand before
God, and we'll get to that in just a moment, we keep mentioning
this, when God's people get before God, they will not be one answer
to give for sin. Not one. Because the next offering
that we have, that those Levites offered, and there's a picture
found here in the book of Leviticus, shares with us wonderful things
about how how far the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all
sin. All right. They shall put his
hand on it. They shall kill the bullock.
The blood is sprinkled, wholly consumed. There's a complete,
and I love this word, complete exhaustion of wrath. Now those on the left-hand side
will have the wrath of God for eternity. But those that have
hear his words, welcome thou good and faithful servant. Welcome
to the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
His wrath was poured out on a substitute and he exhausted his wrath. It
was total. All right. The atonement was
made, expiation was had, sin was covered, purged, and reconciliation
was made. Now, turn with me, if you would,
over to the book of Leviticus, chapter four, the other offering
that is made. Now, it's interesting when we
read this passage of scripture, it begins by a sacrifice. It says in chapter four, verse
one, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, red letter edition. It's in red again. The Lord spoke. And look at this, speak unto
the children of Israel saying, now that sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ took care of all our sin. God is so merciful that
in time he comes through the valley where we are by birth
into the great pit, if you please, that is with muck and mire, filled
with mire. He comes and retrieves us out
of that pit and sets us on a solid rock and establishes our going
and puts a new song in our heart and we say hallelujah. What a
joy. We just begin to see that rose
open up. In 15 seconds. Now, let me put
it this way. It's not the day that you should
go back to. It's the Christ you should go
back to. But it is not very long after
the Lord reveals Christ to us that we found out we're still
sinners. You ever noticed that? We're
still sinners. Lord, why did... He didn't save
this flesh. He left it like it was. He left
us in the flesh, sinful flesh. He has saved our soul. He's given
us the Holy Spirit as the down payment of our eternal redemption,
not to be taken away from us for any reason, but we're still
sinners. What now? Lord, I've sinned after
you saved me. What will I do? Well, let's look
here. It tells us here in chapter four and verse two, speak unto
the children of Israel saying, if a soul shall sin, what? through ignorance 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 them against them if
a priest that is anointed due to sin according to the sin of
the people then let him bring for his sin which he has sinned
a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering
if you sin in ignorance I shared with a young lady last night
on the phone, my dreams are filled with sin. I'm not even awake. I'm thankful. They say that when
we're really in sleep, we dream. My dreams are full of sin. I sin in ignorance, even after
the Lord saved me by His grace. I sin openly, I know, too. I've sinned before my friends.
I've sinned hidden before. But in ignorance, what has to
be done? Well, there are four different
classes of people that are mentioned in this chapter about sinning
in ignorance. The first part is the priest's
sin. The second part is the congregation's
sin. The third part is the ruler's
sin. Well, we got a lot of that. And
then we have in verse 27, would you look at verse 27 for just
a moment? Numbers chapter, or excuse me,
Leviticus chapter four, verse 27, we get down to the individual.
Now, if any one of the common people sin through ignorance
while he does something against any of the commandments of the
Lord concerning things which ought not to have been done,
Be guilty. Here we go. Here's the remedy.
You know what the Lord is going to show us through this? That
Christ is truly our sin offering for all our sin. But when we
were saved by the grace of God and we still find out we're still
carrying around this flash of sin. This flesh that we're thankful
that God has constrained to some degree so that we don't do all
that we would have done. We are constrained by the love
of Christ, it tells us. We find out that there were times
in the Old Testament that there were people that were going to
do something in their minds. They said they were going to
do something and you know what God, he constrained them so they wouldn't.
We're thankful for that. Beyond measure, we're thankful
that in this walk that we have after we've been regenerated,
that God is merciful to constrain us from many things. But those
things that we just read about, sin through ignorance, didn't
even know that it was a sin, didn't know that it was against
God, didn't even have any contemplation about it. And it's brought to
our attention, what is our hope now? Christ is our sin offering
and burn offering. We do not have any multiple sacrifices. Jesus Christ did not die at one
time for an atonement and then die a second time for all the
sins after he saved us. He did it all in one time. All
in one sacrifice. And the people of God are thankful
that he took care of it in one sacrifice. Once in the end of
the world, He was a ransom for his people, for time and for
eternity. Look at verse 28. Or if his sin,
which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge, then shall he
bring his offering, kid of the goats, a female without blemish,
for his sin, while he hath sinned, and he shall lay his hand upon
the head of the sin offering, and lay the sin offering on the
place of the burnt offering, And the priest shall take the
blood thereof with his finger, and put it on the horns of the
altar, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom
of the altar. And he shall take away all the
fat thereof, and again consume the whole thing. This great atonement,
we then discover we have a problem. We still have sin in our members. What will our Lord do with all
that? Turn with me, if you would, to
1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, the Lord never
gives up on his people. The Lord never quits. It tells
us in the book of Malachi, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Note, to the believer, we say,
thank you, Lord. Thank you. If He should regard
iniquity, who shall stand? If He keeps track of it, who
shall stand before Him? The Aaron couldn't stand before
Him. Moses couldn't stand before Him.
Noah, Abraham could not stand if God kept track of iniquity. He put it all on His Son. 1 John
chapter 2, if you'd look at that with me. Oh, the Apostle Paul
summed up his life after he was saved. Oh, wretched man that
I am. I know what I am. It's still
here. I still carry this old carcass
around with me. I have that life that He's given
me. I have this respect and honor
for my Savior. He gave me a view of the Lord
I never had before. I know I'm a sinner before God
and I believe every last word of His. I know I have passed
from death into life. I have committed all things unto
Him. I know in whom I have believed.
Yet he had that to say. John comes up and speaks for
us here in 1st John Chapter 2. My little children, speaking
to the church, speaking to those that the atonement was made for,
not speaking to those without Christ, those who hate him. He
said, my little children, these things write unto you that you
sin not. It's my hope, Your hope, our
hope, that we wouldn't sin. I had a preacher say one time
in a message we had, we should wake up every morning and say,
Lord, keep me from sinning once today. And John said, I would that you
sin not. Thank you, my friend. I do too. And then he goes on
to say, if any man sin, we have an advocate. with the Father. We have someone to speak for
us. Now, I don't know what goes on there, but I could just survive.
Our Savior says, taken care of. Taken care of. All sin is taken
care of. We have an advocate with the
Father, and who is he? Jesus Christ the righteous. The Old Testament, His name is
the Lord Our Righteousness. The name of His bride is the
Lord Our Righteousness. That's our hope. The Lord Our
Righteousness. So I would implore anyone, put
your weight on Christ. Put your weight on Christ. Put
your everything on Christ. Trust Him. You know, I'm asking
people to do what's an impossibility to do. But the scriptures say,
trust the Lord. For His people, He gives them
all of that. And, you know, we find in the
scriptures sometimes the word little faith, O ye of little
faith. Boy, when it comes to ours, it's
a miracle that we even call it little. I don't have any faith. All my faith has been given to
me. All my faith has been given by the faithful one, the faith
of Jesus Christ. And I'm beginning to see that
that where he says, oh, you have little faith, as was brought
out in a lesson, is a term of endearment. He loves us. He's calling us with a term of
endearment. You have little faith. You know
where your faith comes from. Your faith comes from me. I've
supplied it all. He will encourage you to put
all your weight. You know, it takes quite an angle. My brother and I used to do this.
Well, you know what it's like. There in Peanuts, where Lucy
says, OK, come on, Charlie. Kick the football. Go ahead and
kick the football. And he comes. You're going to
pull it away. Oh, no, I won't this time. You're
going to pull it away. No, I won't this time. And he
comes full bore. aimed at that football, and she
pulled the football away. And he goes... Well, thank God
that God is not Lucy. He will continue to allow us
to lean on Him. Nathan, if you'll come.