Let's go back to Leviticus chapter
3. The book of Leviticus chapter
3. We've been studying these offerings
that the Lord gave to Israel, and I would say to you just from
the outset now, if you're interested in knowing how to draw near to
God, then you need to pay attention
to the message and pay attention to the book of Leviticus. You
see, this is the issue. We know God is holy and righteous
and just in all of his ways. God is absolutely holy. Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. All of the earth is filled with
His glory. God is so pure, He is so righteous, that He even charges His angels,
those heavenly messengers, He charges them with folly. We read that God is so holy that
even the heavens aren't pure in his sight. And now here we are, a bunch of sinners. We drink iniquity like water. We're thoroughly defiled. When it comes to our depravity,
we'll just have to say like the Queen of Sheba said about Solomon,
the half has not been told. Nobody knows the depths of our
sinfulness. No matter how black we try to
paint the picture, it isn't black enough. I know sometimes folks get a
little offended and say, how come the preacher keeps on calling
us sinners? Well, just because that's what
we are. And unless God the Spirit is
pleased to show us the seriousness of our disease and our pollution,
We're not going to appreciate what the cure has got to be. In light of who God is and what
we are, how can God be just and justify
the ungodly? That's the issue, isn't it? That's
always the issue. As a preacher, I've heard these
words before. I wonder if they're just words
to us. I wonder if we've ever been shown
our defilement, the awfulness of our guilt. I wonder if we've ever been shown
the vast distance between God and us. Or to put it this way,
the vast distance between God and me. God and you. It being a fact that God is so
holy, and I'm so sinful, how in the world
can this holy God have anything to do with me? Without defiling
himself. without God Himself soiling His
own nature and character. How can He be a loving Father
to me and pick me up from the miry clay and embrace me and
not contaminate Himself with my filth? There's only one answer and it's
the Gospel answer. It's the Gospel answer. that
God sent His Son into this world to be the propitiation for our
sins, to be the satisfaction of divine justice for our sins. Something had to be done about
our sins, our guilt, our miserable condition. And we can't do anything about
that. We can't wash away the defilement. There's no work that
we can ever perform that would put us in good standing with
God. There's nothing we can do to
erase the in-debt, the indebtedness we owe to God. I owe a debt I
cannot possibly pay. And I wonder if we have been
made aware of this, if the Spirit of God has impressed us upon
our hearts, that we're so miserably in debt to God, that there's
no possibility that any work we could ever perform would ever
remove what we owe to Him. We sing the song, what can wash
away my sin? The answer is nothing but the
blood of Jesus. And in the book of Leviticus,
this is what we learn. We learn how it is that somebody
like me, can draw near to a holy God. And this holy God will receive
me, and accept me, and welcome me, and embrace me, and pick
me up, and hold Him close to His heart without compromising
His law and His justice. This is the gospel of God's grace. This is the gospel of substitution. The very first offering that
is set forth in Leviticus chapter 1 is the burnt offering. It's
the very foundation of the worship of God. Therefore, in Israel,
it held the highest position among the offerings. The Hebrew
word for burnt offering is fire that goes up. It goes up to God. The ashes and the smoke ascended
up to God. It's all for God. It's all for
God. I need God to do something for
us. There's no question about that.
But before God could do anything for us, He had to do something
for Himself. He had to satisfy his own law
and justice that declared, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. God had to do something for Himself
before He could do anything for us. This burnt offering, it's
for God. Even as our brother read here
concerning the peace offering in Leviticus chapter 3, it's
always the offering before the Lord. It's for the Lord. It's
for the Lord. Do you understand that? We are
the recipients of God's grace and God's mercy and God's forgiveness. That is all true. But it's only
because this offering has been offered to God. To God, who therefore
in justice, and according to His law, can look at the sinner
and say, I freely and fully all forgive because your sin-debt
has been paid by another. Even the Lord Jesus Christ. The
burnt offering was the foundation for the worship of God. Since the law says the wages
of sin is death, somebody who is acceptable to God had to die
in the stead of the guilty so that God could send His salvation
to us. Christ Jesus came to seek and
save the lost. He came to save His people from
their sins. He was acceptable to God. The
burnt offering. It was a spotless offering offered
to the Lord, whether a bullock, or whether a sheep, or a goat,
or a turtle dove, or a pigeon. The entire animal was given to
the Lord with the exception of the skin of those four-footed
beasts. Everything was put up on the
altar. The animal was flayed. It was skinned. The entrails
were removed, washed in water, because it's got to be a pure
sacrifice to God. It's got to be a sinless sacrifice.
And once the entrails were washed, the animal itself was cut into
four parts, laid up on the fire, and the fire burned it. It was
consumed. It's for God. The sacrifice of
Jesus Christ is for God. It's for God. That's the burnt
offering. You see, Christ is the burnt
offering who offered His whole self to God, body and soul. Well, preacher, what's the skin being
flayed? The sin from the animal being
stripped? What's that a picture of? That
skin was given to the priest to robe the priest. It became
his coat. And we wear a coat that's much
more beautiful than Joseph's coat of many colors. We wear
the coat, we wear the robe, we have the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Christ the Lord that covers us. God has covered us
with the beauties of His own Son, so that when He looks at
us, He doesn't see us in our sins. God who is righteous and
holy in all of His ways, He doesn't see us in our sins. He sees us
in the beauties of His Son. And we're accepted in the Beloved. That's the burnt offering. Then
the meat offering was really a food offering or a meal offering
that was brought following the burnt offering. The meal offering
recorded in chapter 2 of Leviticus was never brought alone. It was always brought upon the
basis of the burnt offering. It was the only one that was
bloodless. But still it pictured our Savior
because it was a fine flower, the best flower. What did God
give us? He gave us the best. In giving
us His Son, He gave the best. He gave fine flower, not coarse
flower. Not rough flour. He gave fine
flour. The fineness of His Son. Thank
God for His unspeakable gift. He gave the best that He could
give. The meat offering sets forth our Savior's perfect character
and His conduct. He was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. We know a portion of the meat
offering was for the priests. And they fed on that. Even as
we feed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is to us the living bread. He is the bread that came down
from heaven. And we feast on Him. And He nourishes
us. He strengthens us. He who is
the bread of life. Now today we want to consider
the third main offering, the peace offering in chapter 3.
I'm going to give you immediately the connection between these
three. The connection between the burnt offering and the meat
offering and the peace offering. Because of the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus that's set forth in the burnt offering, we rejoice
with thanksgiving and consecration of ourselves, that's the meat
offering, and we rejoice that we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the peace offering. You see,
understand this about the peace offering. It was not presented to the Lord
in order to secure peace with God. That peace with God was
secured by the burnt offering. Rather, the peace offering is
offered to God because peace had already been made. And this
peace offering, it was presented to the Lord with a much less
intense, with less intensity than was the burnt offering.
The burnt offering was very solemn, very serious, As the worshipper
brought his offering to the Lord, be it of the herd, or from the
flock, or the birds, he laid his hands on the sacrifice, picturing
a symbolic transference of guilt, and he watched in absolute silence
as the priest killed that offering, slit the body open, took the
entrails out, and all the things that were necessary to prepare
that burnt offering for a sacrifice to God. He put it up on the fire,
and the worshiping Israelites He stood there in solemnness
and in seriousness and in silence as the fire consumed that offering. And he knew in his soul, this
is why God accepts me. Because a suitable substitute
has died in my place. But when we get to the peace
offering, intense solemnness is not so
much. Really, when we get to the peace
offering, it's more of a joyful thing. This is a delightful time. It's a delightful service. It's
a happy time. The peace offering was presented,
therefore, with more of a festive attitude. In fact, the peace
offering was much more of a celebration. It's a celebration. Well, what
are they celebrating? Peace has been made by the burnt
offering. I would liken this to us coming
together today. Certainly, we gather to worship
the Lord with a very serious attitude. We've come to worship
Him. We've come to adore Him. We've
come to thank Him. But we've also come to rejoice. We've come to rejoice in the
fact and to celebrate the fact that God through Christ Jesus
is reconciled. He's a reconciled God. Yes, we're
solemn. Yes, we're serious. But we approach
this service with great thanksgiving and joy. Listen! Our sins have
been put away. Does that make you joyful? You
see, the burnt offering, the burnt offering, that's where
the sin was dealt with. That's where God's justice was
manifested. Oh, the solemnness of the shedding
of the blood, the offering of the offering to God. And the
Israelite who had offended God by his sins, he brings it and
he knows in his soul, I ought to die, but this offering is
dying in my stead and in my place, pointing to the Son of God, God's
Son who dies my substitute on Calvary's tree. Oh, what solemnness! When you get to the peace offering,
say, Lord, I bring this peace offering to you, And I offer
it to you on the basis of the burnt offering. I'm so thankful
I have peace with you and I rejoice in my heart. Now the peace offering,
get this, it was always offered on top of the burnt offering. Now notice with me in verse 5.
And Aaron's son shall burn it, burn the peace offering, on the
altar, on top of the burnt sacrifice which is upon the wood which
is on the fire. It's an offering made by fire
of a sweet savor unto the Lord. In other words, the peace offering.
It wasn't brought by itself. But just like the meat offering,
it's always brought and put on top of the burnt sacrifice. You see, the substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ is the basis for everything.
That's what we've got to see. That's what we've got to learn.
And there is no thanksgiving with God, there is no peace with
God, except Jesus Christ come and give His life a ransom for
many. The peace offering was a joyful
offering. It was a celebration of the satisfaction
of divine justice in the burnt offering. And we've come here
today to celebrate the mercy and the grace of God given to
us in and through and by Christ Jesus and His sacrificial death. We've come to join our voices
together to sing joyful praises to the Lord. I like the words
of Isaac Watts in his great hymn, We're Marching to Zion. I don't
think we've sung that since I've been here. Do we know that? Well,
we'll sing that maybe next Sunday. We're Marching to Zion. Well,
one of the verses says this, Let those refuse to sing who
never knew our God, but children of the heavenly King may speak
their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad. We're marching
to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Then let our songs abound, and
every tear be dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's
ground to fairer worlds on high. Listen, this is for the people
of God a time of rejoicing. This is a time of celebration. This is a time of really merriment
in the heart. Now, we don't want to get in
the flesh. Don't want to get too much like
the charismatics and that sort of thing. But listen, I'm happy,
aren't you? I'm thankful. I'm joyful. My
sins have been put away. God is not angry with me. And the issue between me and
God, my sin, that has been settled once and for all at Calvary. I'm happy. I'm happy. And I don't want you to try to
take my happiness away from me, my merriment. I've come here
today to celebrate, to rejoice in the substitutionary death
of my Savior that makes me righteous before a holy God and all of
my sins have been washed away, drowned in the blood of Jesus
Christ. Please don't try to dampen or
drown out my gladness. This is a time of celebration. You know, our Lord gave that
parable of lost things. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. And in each one of them, when
that which was lost was found, you know what the owner said? Rejoice with me. This is a time
of rejoicing. The shepherd called his friends
and his neighbors. When that lost lamb was found,
when he found the lamb, the sheep that went astray, he said, Rejoice
with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. The shepherd
is Christ Jesus. And there's the woman. The woman,
the one lost, one coin out of ten was lost. The woman lit a
lamp and found the lost coin in the dust and in the dirt.
When she found it, she called her friends and her neighbors.
She said, rejoice with me, for I have found the peace that I
lost. The woman pictures the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
who uses the searchlight of God's Word, who uses the Gospel to
find the lost. And where does the Spirit of
God find us? In the dirt and the mire and
the darkness, the filth of sin. Just like the shepherd found
the sheep wandering further and further away. The shepherd said,
rejoice with me. The woman said, rejoice with
me. This is a time of celebration. It's a time of merriment. Rejoice
with me. I did the work and I am rejoicing
and I want you to rejoice with me. And then the father, when
the prodigal comes home, the father said to his servants,
bring the fatted calf and be merry. For this my son was dead
and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And
then they began to be merry. Like I say, I don't want us to
get in the flesh, I don't want us to carry on in a way that's
unbecoming to the Lord. But listen, peace has been made. We gather with joy. We gather
with thanksgiving. That's the reason when we sing,
I want us to sing from our hearts, making merriment and making melody
in our hearts to the Lord. Not just mouthing the words,
because we've sung them a hundred times before, but singing them
from a heart of thanksgiving, from a heart of joy. Listen,
if the Lord is joyful about our salvation, and He is, Isn't He? The Lord is joyful about our
salvation, then it's not wrong for us to be joyful as well. It's not wrong for us to enter
into merriment and thanksgiving. We gather with joy and celebration
because peace has been made with God by the blood of our Savior.
You see, this is our great need, peace. What kind of peace? First of all, peace with God.
I've offended God. I'm a transgressor of His law. You read Romans chapter 5, we
are by nature ungodly. We're enemies against God. But
guess what? God has reconciled us unto Himself. Who did that? He did that. And
He's joyful. Let me be joyful. I need peace
with God. Peace has been made. Been made
by the blood of Christ Jesus and I'll show you that in a couple
of minutes. What kind of peace do we need? We need peace with
God. We need peace within. There's not a lot of people in
this world who have peace in the heart. Not real peace. You read about people who are,
some are wealthy, some have great fortune and fame, and you read
they commit suicide. They don't have any peace. They
don't have any joy. And I wonder, do you have any
real peace in your soul? You see, the wicked are like
the troubled sea when it cannot rest. There is no peace, saith
my God to the wicked. And to those of you who don't
have, don't believe, don't rest in the Lord Jesus Christ today,
there is no way you can have any real peace. You can't have
peace that things right with God. You can't have peace that
your sins have been put away. You can't have a peace that when
you leave this world, you'll enter into everlasting paradise.
You can't have any peace. Not really. I've had children
of God say to me, when they're going through different trials
and troubles, they'll say, Preacher, what do people do who don't have
the Lord to lean on? Well, I tell you, they don't
have any peace. But we have peace. We have peace knowing that He
who gave Himself to die for us, ever lives to make intercession
for us, and He rules all things from His throne, working all
things together for the good of His people, and gives us inward
peace. My sins have been put away. I'm
at peace. My God rules. I'm at peace. Oh, but preacher, look at the
world, look at the nation, look at the things that are happening.
I'm at peace. How so? My Savior is the Sovereign
who governs all things according to His will, and all things will
fulfill His pleasure. We're at peace. Don't be troubled. Don't be anxious. Didn't our
Lord say to His disciples, be anxious for nothing? In all things
give thanks. But the world is in such a mess,
no doubt about it. But who controls the mess? Who
controls the world? Who reigns over all? Does not
our sovereign Savior? Has he not earned the right to
rule the world according to his own sovereign will by his successful
substitutionary death for his people? Is he not the Lord? God has made this same Jesus,
both Lord and Christ, is not my Savior the Lord? Let me be
at peace. I need peace within. Oh Lord,
speak peace within. And I know some of the Lord's
people, some of you maybe today, just maybe in your soul there's
so much turmoil, so much anxiety, so much worry. May the Lord say to your heart
what He said to the angry sea, peace be still. He told his disciples, my peace
I give to you. Not as the world gives. That's
not a temporary, a band-aid peace. This is a peace knowing that
all is well. All is well. What kind of peace
do we need? We need peace with God. We need
peace within. And we need peace between each other. I need to be at peace with you. The only thing that will bring
peace between you and me is that one who is the Prince of Peace,
who made our peace with God by the blood of His cross. You see, it's the death and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus that gives us peace with God. It's the death
and resurrection of our Lord Jesus that gives us peace within.
It's the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus that gives
us peace between each other. In coming to God to rejoice and
give thanks, make sure you understand this, we still come by way of
the blood of one who's innocent. Look at verse 1. Leviticus 3,
if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer
it of the herd, whether it be a male or a female, he shall
offer it without blemish before the Lord. As Israelite, he could
bring an animal from the herd. He could bring a bullock or a
cow. He could bring a sheep or a goat. There is still in the
peace offering this basic principle of substitution and satisfaction. Certainly that's more fully set
forth in the burnt offering, but it's always kept in view. You see, we never lose sight
of Christ Jesus and Him crucified. We never lose sight of the necessity
of the cross of our Savior. We never lose sight of the necessity
of His sin-cleansing blood. We never lose sight of the necessity
of Him satisfying divine justice. We never lose sight of His imputed
righteousness to us. You'll notice this. With the
peace offering, it could be male or female. Now that's a little
unusual because with the burnt offering, the animal always had
to be a male. But not in the case of the peace
offering. Verse 1 is very clear, it could be male or female. Male
or female. In verse 6, if you bring it from
the flock, it could be male or female. It doesn't matter. Why could this offering be male
or female? when the burnt offering demanded
it be a male only. Well, because the peace offering
pictured the effect of the death of Jesus Christ, the result of
His sacrifice, and His atonement, not the manner of it. In the
burnt offering we see Jesus Christ dying for sin. We see Him suffering
the infinite wrath of a holy God against sin. But in the peace
offering, we see the results of His death. And the results
of His death is this. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Doesn't the Scripture say, Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee,
because he trusteth in Thee? We're talking about peace. And
we want peace within. Why don't we have more peace?
Why is it that we are so easily disturbed? Why is it that we can quickly
become filled with anxiety? Why is it that we can so quickly
be driven to worry? Isn't that amazing? We all know
this is true. You come in here and you listen
to the gospel, your soul is filled and you're fed, and you go out
the door, and then something happens, and immediately the
joy is gone, the peace is gone, and your life is in a turmoil
all over again. Why does that happen? Well, I'd
say it happens because our minds aren't stayed on the Lord. See,
thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
Thee, because he trusted in Thee. Our Lord walked out to His disciples
one time, walked on the water. And they saw Him, and Peter said,
if that's You, Lord, bid me come to You. The Lord said, come on,
Peter, start walking on the water. And the scripture says, when
he saw the wind, he began to sink. He took his
eyes off the Savior, and when he took his eyes off the Savior,
his peace sunk. As long as he's focused on the
Savior, the Savior said, come to me! And he's just walking
to the sea, walking on water. And all is well, all is peaceful. And then he starts looking around.
And when you start looking around, you're not focusing on Christ
Jesus anymore. And that's when you begin to
go down. And that's when we begin to go down. We take our eyes
off the Savior. Who is this One who is our peace? Well, He's the perfect Son of
God. You know, these sacrifices, these animals that were brought,
it's always emphasized, it's like the end of verse 1, without
blemish. Without blemish. Without blemish,
without spot. You know, the expression without
blemish is found 43 times in the Old Testament. And of our
Savior it is written, He was without blemish and without spot.
Without blemish means unblameable. Unblameable. Our Savior who made
our peace with God, He's the unblameable Savior. He's the
perfect Savior. He had to be. An imperfect Savior
came to save us. The sins of His people were transferred
to Him, but He was not polluted by them. The sins of His people
were imputed to the Savior, but not imparted to the Savior. He
was the just dying for the unjust to bring us to God. And notice
this, and I'll quit because we're going to obviously pick this
up again tonight. But three times in this chapter,
there is again this emphasis on the offerer laying his hands
on the head of the offering. Look at verse 2. He shall lay
his hand upon the head of the offering. Look at verse 8. He shall lay his hand upon the
head of the offering. Verse 13. He shall lay His hand
upon the head of it." The laying of the hand on the head of the
offering indicated several things. Number one, a symbolic transference
of guilt and sin. Oh, how gracious of God that
by His own appointment, He transferred our sins to Jesus Christ. No man had the power to do that.
I love most all the hymns by Horatius Bonar. But he's got
one song that says, I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless lamb
of God. Do I lay my sins on Jesus? No. Do you know who made all
of the iniquities of God's people to meet upon the head of the
scapegoat? God himself. All we like sheep
have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Literally,
the Lord has made to meet on him the iniquity of us all, and
He bore them away like that scapegoat into a land uninhabited. And
He doesn't bear them, and we don't bear them. They're gone. They're gone. It's a symbolic
transference of guilt. It's also a confession of sin. I like that song, I was guilty
with nothing to say. And they were coming to take
me away. But then a voice from heaven was heard which said,
turn him loose, take me instead. And I should have been crucified.
I should have suffered and died. I lay my hands upon the head
of the substitute and say, I should have died. But this one upon
whom I lean, I lean the weight of my soul on this one. He took my indebtedness and he
paid it. And I'm debt free. I should have
died, but he died for me. And since He died for me, I will
never die. You see, there is therefore now
no condemnation of them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Now, let me ask you.
And I'll wrap this up. And this will make you joyful
because I'm coming to the end of the message. Those of you who believe the
Gospel, Do you have joy in your heart now? We want to look at the Savior.
We view Him by faith in His work of substitution and satisfaction,
and find such a thrill and such a delight in Him. We say, Oh
Lord, I'm so joyful. I'm so thankful. And you know,
as we look at Christ Jesus, the sin bearer, and as we view ourselves
in Him, righteous before a holy God, for that time when we're
focusing on the gospel of Christ Jesus, the cares of the world
just seem to float away. Don't they? Yeah. Why? Because we're focused in on Him.
We're joyful in the Lord. Joyful in the Lord. Well, let's
sing the closing song.