Interesting that the instructions
that God gave to Moses, who would then give them to Aaron about
the Day of Atonement, they immediately followed the deaths of two of
Aaron's sons. We read that In the first verse
of chapter 16, the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of
the two sons of Aaron when they had offered before the Lord and
they died. We know they offered what the
Lord said, strange fire. That's what they burnt incense
on. And as I read this again, I thought,
here's the verse that I believe connects with this real well.
For the wages of sin is death. Isn't that what this says? The
wages of sin is death. Here are these men. They ignored
the sacrifice. They should have got their hot
coals to burn the incense off the brazen altar, because that
speaks of our Lord's substitutionary death. That brazen altar, that was the
very first piece of furniture that anybody would encounter
when they walked into the outer court of the tabernacle. There
was no drawing near to God to do anything except, first of
all, on the basis of a sacrifice being offered to God, on the
basis of blood being shed. And these men, rather than go
and get the hot coals from off the brazen altar, which God had
ignited with His own fire, They got fired from somewhere
else. And it doesn't matter where it
came from. It strains fired no matter where
they got it. And God didn't warn them after
they did it that they would die. He just killed them immediately. Because the wages of sin is death. This is serious business to overlook
the Lord Jesus Christ. To ignore the blood, to ignore
that sacrifice that made satisfaction to God's law and justice, to
do that is to seal your own death. And God didn't spare them at
all. He didn't show them any mercy. They ignored God. They forgot
God, they disregarded the sacrifice, and God Almighty killed them
instantly. And Moses said, you take those
men out from the tabernacle before the congregation. And everybody
saw it. And then immediately, God said
to Moses, now you give this word to Aaron, that when he goes into
the tabernacle to do business with God, that that man die not. That's what the second verse
says. You see? The Lord said to Moses, speak
unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into
the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat, which
is before the ark, that he die not. The subject then is death. And the reason for death is disobedience. The reason for death is sin.
That's what God said to Adam back in the garden. In the day
you eat thereof, you'll surely die. And it's interesting in
that passage, by the way, the Lord didn't say, if you eat,
He said, in the day you eat. That fall of Adam did not catch
God off guard. That transgression of Adam did
not in any way surprise God. And in some mysterious way, our
God ordained it in order to bring Him the greatest glory, which
is the removal of sin in such a manner that His grace was magnified
and His law was honored. Death, that's the wages of sin.
Nadab in a bayou sought to draw near to God to burn incense.
And I don't doubt the fact that they were sincere. But I would say, what about the
truth? It's not good enough to be sincere. Good intentions are not enough. There must be an approach to
God based on the truth. God is spirit. They that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It must be by the
enablement of the Holy Spirit from our spirit, from our hearts,
according to God's revealed Word, which these men ignored. So God gives instructions about
the day of atonement. Now on this day, I want you to
notice, there's only one man who labored in the sanctuary
on this day of atonement. He's Aaron. He's the high priest
of Israel. Notice in verse 17 of chapter
16. Verse 17. There shall be no man
in the tabernacle There shall be no man in the tabernacle of
the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the
holy place until he come out and have made an atonement for
himself and for his household and for all the congregation
of Israel. No man must be in there with
him. No man can enter into the tabernacle save this man alone,
according to old Jewish records. On this day, every duty, every
duty, even the most menial responsibilities of an ordinary ordinary priest,
as well as all the duties of the high priest, They were all
performed by Aaron. He did all the work, all the
work, from the trimming of the lamps, to the keeping up of the fires,
to the burning of the incense, to the slaughter of the victims,
to the catching of the blood, to the sprinkling of the blood
on the mercy seat, Everything had to be done by Aaron. One
man. One man. From first to last,
Aaron labored alone. And no work was to be performed
by anybody else in the sanctuary. Turn over to chapter 23 of Leviticus. And I read this last week, but
it will bear reading again. chapter 23 of Leviticus. First of all, verse 27. Let's identify the day he's talking
about. On the tenth day of the seventh
month, there shall be a day of atonement. That's what we're
talking about. It shall be a holy convocation
unto you. Ye shall afflict your souls.
You'll humble yourselves before the Lord and offer an offering
made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no work in that
day. For it is a day of atonement,
to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. For
whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same
day, he shall be cut off from among his people. You've got
to have a heart broken over guilt and sin. Now look at verse 30. And whatsoever soul it be that
doeth any work in that same day, that same soul will I destroy
from among his people. God said, I'll do it. If I see
anybody labor, if I see anybody lifting a hand, it's to in some
way assist what the high priest is doing. God said, I'll destroy
him among the people. Look at verse 31. Ye shall do
no manner of work. It shall be a statute, a law. This is a divine precept forever
throughout your generations and all your dwellings. And this
day of atonement, look at verse 32. It shall be unto you a sabbath of
rest. That's what the Day of Atonement
was. It was a Sabbath of rest. And ye shall afflict your souls
in the ninth day of the month, at evening, even to even, shall
ye celebrate your Sabbath. In other words, this Day of Atonement,
it's a Sabbath to you. Well, what was the law of the
Sabbath? Well, we could just summarize
the law of the Sabbath this way. Thou shalt do no work, rest. Is that the law of the Sabbath?
Thou shalt do no work, rest. Because on this day of atonement,
somebody else is doing all the work. All of the labor, all of
the effort, all of, if I may put it this way, the blood, sweat,
and tears, all of that is being offered by somebody else. Aaron is doing all the labor
on this day. And God says, if I see you lift
your finger to assist him, I'm going to kill you. That pretty
clear, isn't it? And that's also severe. Because
you see Aaron's work, it symbolizes, it typifies the work of our Savior
in redemption. In reconciliation. in the removal
of our guilt, in the salvation of our souls, in our justification
by a holy God. And in this work, no man has
any part whatsoever. The work is done in full by Jesus
Christ alone. It's His sacrifice, it's His
labor, it's His work, it's His substitutionary Death upon the
cross that settled the issue. You don't lift a finger in this.
Now I know when the Spirit of God quickens us using the Word
of Grace, I know we're brought to repentance of our dead works. We leave our idols behind, we
leave all of our supposed good works behind, and we look to
the Lord Jesus, and in that we're active. But in the removal of guilt,
In our reconciliation to God, one lone individual did all the
work and gets all the glory. That's Jesus Christ the Lord. And if you lift a finger toward
God in this matter of salvation, well, Lord, surely there's something
I must do. Here's the beginning of salvation.
Here's the end of salvation. Surely there's something along
the way that I must do. Some contribution that I must
make. If you try to make some contribution,
the Apostle Paul says, then the grace of God and the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ, it won't profit you anything at all. You
read what he says in the book of Galatians. He said, I do not
frustrate the grace of God. If salvation comes by the works
of the law, by the deeds of the law, then our Lord Jesus died
in vain. Listen, if salvation is by works,
if it's by something you do, something you contribute, then
all that the Savior did was needless. That's what I hear people say. I hear preachers that say this.
No preacher that we have any confidence in, of course. But
I hear preachers say, you know, there are many roads to heaven.
There's the Catholic road, and the Baptist road, and the Presbyterian
road, and the Muslim road. There are all these different
roads. They all lead to the same place. No, they don't. There's only one road that leads
to glory, and that's the road of grace. It's the road of the blood and
substitution. It's the road of crucifixion
of our Savior. Our Lord says, you make some
effort on this day, you work on this day. God said, I'm going
to kill you. And you listen to the scripture,
you listen to this poor preacher. If you make some effort to justify
your soul before God, mark it down, God is going to kill you.
Is that right? God is going to kill you. He will not share His glory with
some piece of flesh. Some vessel that's worth nothing. Some insignificant worm of the
dust. He's not going to share His glory
with us. He gets all the glory for Himself. The Lord says on this day, don't
you do any work. It's a Sabbath to you. Well,
preacher, I think, don't you think we need to keep the law?
You can't keep the law. We're righteous in the Lord Jesus,
so the law's not even made for a righteous man. What's the law
got to do with us? The law doesn't have any argument. The law doesn't have any charges
against somebody who's righteous. We're righteous in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Well, but you got to be baptized
though. Does baptism wash away our sins? Or did the blood of the Lord
Jesus wash away our sins? Boy, it's so easy for works just
sort of worm their way in, you know. That's why we have to keep
coming back to this salvation by Christ alone, by grace alone. And this salvation is received
by faith alone, but that's not a faith that we even contribute.
That's a faith that's a gift of God to us. And faith doesn't
add anything to what Christ did. Faith is just the weary hand
that reaches out and takes the gift of life, the gift of salvation. That's all faith is. Faith receives
who He is and what He did. That's what faith is. A lot of works. A lot of works. Go back to Leviticus chapter
16. So, on this day, Aaron, he's doing all the work. Don't you
go in there trying to help him out. No, don't do that. He does the work. The Lord said
very clearly, there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the
congregation when he goes in to make an atonement. Hold your place here and look
at Numbers 29. This is an interesting passage
of Scripture. Numbers chapter 29. This is also
talking about the Day of Atonement. Numbers chapter 29. Look at verse
7. You shall have on the tenth day
of the seventh month and a holy convocation. You shall afflict
your souls. Ye shall not do any work therein. Boy, he tells us that enough,
doesn't he? You'd think that would begin
to sink in after a while. No. Forget about your works. Look at verse 8. But ye shall
offer a burnt offering unto the Lord for a sweet savor. And that's
the sacrifice of our Lord according to Ephesians chapter 5 and verse
2 is a sweet savor to God. Now watch what he says offered.
One young bullock, one ram, seven lambs of the first year. They'll
be unto you without blemish. And their meat offering, a meal
offering with them shall be a flower mingled with oil. Three-tenth
deals to a bullock and two-tenth deals to a ram. A several-tenth
deal for one lamb throughout the seven lambs. One kid of the
goats, that's a male. A male of the goats for a sin
offering. Beside the sin offering of atonement
and the continual burnt offering that is the morning sacrifice
and the evening sacrifice and the meat offering of it and their
drink offerings. Now let me tell you how busy
Aaron was on this day. If my math is correct, he offered
up 15 sacrifices to God. He started at 9 a.m. in the morning
and ended at 3 p.m. in the evening. At 9 o'clock
in the morning was the morning sacrifice of the lamb. At 3 o'clock
he wound it all up with the death of another lamb. They got two lambs, one for a
morning sacrifice, the other for an evening sacrifice, one
young bullock, one ram, seven lambs, one kid of a goat, and
then back in our text in chapter 16, you can add to that one young
bullock, another ram, and another goat for a sin offering. Fifteen
animals. he had to kill. Oh, what labor
there was for Aaron on this day within a six hour period of time. And what a labor it was for our
great high priest. of such a labor to bring in salvation
for us, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to remove our
guilt, all the labor, all the work of our blessed Savior. The night before He spent on
His face before God, sweating as it were great drops of blood. Read His high priestly prayer
in John chapter 17. And see him saying to the disciples,
what couldn't you watch with me? They fell asleep. He had a sleepless night. See
our great high priest. Such a labor that all of the
efforts of God's elect could never accomplish what he accomplished.
The bloody sweat of Gethsemane. That lack of sleep. Going before
the Sanhedrin early the next morning. Going before Pontius
Pilate. Going before Herod. All the cruel
beatings. And then the crucifixion of his
body. The physical agonies of the cross. And then the agonies of his soul. The Lord laid stripes on his
soul. The Lord made his soul an offering
for sin. With his stripes we are healed.
His physical stripes and those spiritual stripes as well. And
then the taking on of our awful indebtedness. and then bearing
the wrath of God due to our sins, and then the taking of our sins
and casting them into the very depths of the ocean of forgetfulness. See our substitute doing all
the work, all the labor to save his people from their sins and
satisfy all the demands of a holy and a righteous God. Oh, how he labored. He alone made redemption or accomplished
redemption for his people. You see, all of the elect had
been entrusted to the Savior from before the world's foundation. And just like Aaron represented
all of Israel, Christ Jesus represented all of the nation of God's elect. In Israel's situation, all of
the nation rested upon the shoulders of one man, Aaron. If he succeeded
that day, the nation lived. If he failed, the nation must
die. What an awesome responsibility
rested upon Aaron. And I'm sure the Israelites,
those who had some awareness, some sense of what was going
on, and they saw Aaron that morning, I bet you they said to Aaron,
be careful. Do everything just right. Don't make any mistakes, Aaron. Do exactly what a holy God commanded
you to do. Nothing less and nothing more
because our safety, Aaron, rests on your shoulders. What a responsibility. And I tell you, the safety and
the salvation of God's elect rested upon the shoulders of
King Jesus. And God said in Psalm 89, I have
laid help upon one who is mighty. Don't you worry! He's up to the
task. He's up to the task. Everything
God required of the Lord Jesus Christ, He successfully fulfilled. Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 4
says, He shall not fail. He can't fail. Whatever He set
out to do, He did. Whoever He set out to save, He
saved. Whatever redemption He set out
to accomplish, it's been accomplished. The righteousness He labored
by His death to bring in, it's been brought in. And the sins
that He labored to put away, rest assured, they've been put
away. He did it, and He did it by Himself. I'll tell you, If our Lord Jesus,
if He didn't save His people from His sins by His substitutionary
death, and if He doesn't preserve us and take us all home to glory,
He's going to lose more than we're going to lose. You see, we'll lose our souls
forever. That's true. But my friends,
He'll lose His glory. And that will never happen. That
can't happen. Everybody he set out to redeem,
they are redeemed. Everybody whose debt he set out
to pay, they're debt free. We don't have any indebtedness.
And the Spirit of God wakes us up from the sleep of spiritual
death and He says to us, listen, the Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity, He settled the issue for you long, long ago. And the Spirit of God brings
you to rejoice in and believe in and rest in the One who did
it all. Who did the work by Himself. That's the point. He did the
work by Himself. But note this, in the case with
Aaron, Before he could do anything for the people, before he could
enter into the holy of holies, on behalf of the people, he had
to enter into the holy of holies having blood for himself. Because he's a sinful man. Look
at verse 6. Chapter 16 verse 6, And Aaron
shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself,
and make an atonement, make a covering for himself and for his house. He couldn't do anything for all
of Israel until first of all he did something for himself.
But as our brother read to us from Hebrews chapter 7, our Lord
Jesus, He didn't have to offer a sacrifice up for His own sins
and then the sins of others. Because He didn't have any sins.
He didn't have any personal defilement or guilt. He's the spotless Lamb
of God. No sin. No contamination. You and I, sin has thoroughly
contaminated us. And it's contaminated, it continues
to contaminate everything we do. I was thinking about this this
morning when I came to the building. And I thought, oh, the defilement
that we bring into this place, that I bring into this place.
I bring such defilement. And this is a house of worship. And I know it's just four walls
in here. I know it is brick and mortar
and wood and so forth and so on. And there is nothing intrinsically
holy about this building. But this building is set apart
for the purpose of worship. And when we come in here, when
I come in here, when your pastor comes in here, I thought of this. I defile this place. Just by
entering in, I defile it. By stepping behind this pulpit.
You know, the old time writers, they used to talk about the holy
desk. This is the holy desk. Meaning, of course, nothing sanctified
about the desk, but it is set apart for This is where the Word
of God is preached. We've not moved the pulpit over
to the side like in a lot of so-called churches. Been in those
churches? Now where's the pulpit? Well,
it's over there. It's stuck over there to the
side because that's what they've relegated preaching to just the
sideline job. It's other things more important.
Not here. The pulpit is in the center.
The holy desk is in the center because our service is centered
around the preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
then I step behind it and I feel like I've sold it all. I tell you, in Aaron's case,
he even had to make an atonement for the holy place. Yeah, you
read down through here, he had to do that. He goes to the altar
of incense and he puts blood on the four horns of the altar.
Why? It's defiled. Anything that people
get around is defiled. You know what's wrong with the
whole world today? Us. We're the problem. Because we're
full of sin. And the only hope for this world
is, get us out of it. Get us out of it. But even then,
it's going to have to be renovated with fire, because we've kind
of ruined it. We've contaminated it. We have to have a sacrifice by
ourselves, but not our savior. He was never contaminated by
sin. Now you listen to me. Not before
the cross, not after the cross, not on the cross. Not on the
cross. If he became a sinner, and I
know, I know there are some people today say they call Jesus Christ
a sinner. And I know Luther said, and others
have quoted Luther in saying that the Lord Jesus became the
greatest sinner who ever lived by imputation. Well, by imputation
He was guilty. But the Bible never calls Him
a sinner. Don't you do it either. Why would
anybody want to call the blessed, impeccable, holy Son of God a
sinner? And that just recently arose. Just recently people started
doing that. People that know better. He was never contaminated by
sin. And I say, if He was a sinner,
did His deity become a sinner? Because you can't separate His
deity from His humanity, can you? You can't ever divorce it. When the Son of God clothed Himself
with human flesh, that became part and parcel of Him, and He'll
always be the God-Man. He's the God-Man right now. Never
to be divided. Well, I ask you, was his deity
contaminated by sin? Polluted by sin? Why, to even
voice the question is just absolutely ridiculous. Because, you see, no sinner can
save another sinner. That's impossible. Aaron, yep, he had to have washings,
he had to wash himself, he had to have an animal killed, or
he killed an animal and then he sprinkled the blood of that
bullock for a sin offering for himself. And then he killed a goat for
the sins of Israel. But our Lord Jesus, He had no
sin. He did no sin. Chuck read back
in the office from 1 Peter chapter 2 of the sinlessness of our Savior. Even as you read in Hebrews chapter
7. Oh bless His name. That offering
which He offered, it was offered to put away our sins. Well, did he do it? Did he do
what he set out to do? Oh, bless his name, he did. He did. He made atonement for
our sins. What a busy, busy day Aaron had
on the day of atonement. Offering a sacrifice for his
own sins. Offering His sacrifice for the
sins of Israel. Taking the two goats before the
Lord. Let me just read down through
here real quick. And I'm going to pick this up
again next Lord's Day. But look at the fifth, well first
of all the third verse. Aaron shall, he shall come into
the holy place. And he'll have a young bullock
for a sin offering and a ram for a burn offering. And he puts
on the clothes. He hadn't killed those yet. He
brings them in. Verse 4, he puts on these holy
garments. He lays aside what they call
the golden garments. He puts these garments on. And
then he washes his flesh in water. Then he puts them on. Then he
takes of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids
of goats for a sin offering, one ram for a burnt offering.
He shall take of the congregation. In other words, the congregation
footed the bill for them. That's what that means. I'll
go into that more next message. Aaron shall offer his bullock
of the sin offering, which is for himself. He's got to make
an atonement for himself and for his house. He'll take the
two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. Lord, here they are. And then
Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one for the Lord,
the other lot for the scapegoat, and that word scape means literally
removal. For the removal goat, this is
going to be the goat that removes the sin, which speaks of the
results of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. That first goat
speaks of His sacrifice. Well, what's the result of the
sacrifice? The removal of the guilt. That's
what the second goat, the scapegoat, the removal goat pictures. Verse
9, Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell
and offer him for a sin offering. He didn't kill him yet. That
will be stated later. But the goat on which the lot
fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the
Lord. Lord, this is the one you chose. to make an atonement with
him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. And then
Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is
for himself, and make an atonement for himself, for his house. He
shall kill the bullock. Now he kills the bullock. Oh,
the blood that was shed. He is going to get blood. These
white garments. They are going to be bloody garments.
Before the end of the day. They are going to be red with
blood, picturing the sacrifice of Christ. He shall kill the
bullock of the sin offering, which is for Himself. He'll take
a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before
the Lord. Not strange fire. You ought to
have been warned about that. Oh, He'll get these burning coals
of fire from off the altar before the Lord. In his hands full of
sweet incense, beaten small, bring it within the veil, and
he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that
the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that's in
the testimony that he die not. And he shall take the blood of
the bullock." Now remember, this bullock has been killed for his
sins. Because he's a sinner. And for
the sins of the rest of the priesthood. He'll take that blood and sprinkle
it with His finger on the mercy seat eastward. And before the
mercy seat shall He sprinkle of the blood with His finger
seven times. Then He kills the goat of the
sin offering. That's for the people. That's
what it says. That's for the people. And bring
His blood within the veil. And do with that blood as He
did with the blood of the bullet. So this is the second time He
goes in there. And this time he's in there as
the representative of the people. And he sprinkles it upon the
mercy seat and before the mercy seat he shall make an atonement
for the holy place because it's been defiled by his very presence
because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because
of their transgressions and all their sins. and so shall he do
for the tabernacle of the congregation that remaineth among them in
the midst of their uncleanness. The blood is for all of it. Then
there'll be no man with him. And in verse 18, he shall go
out unto the altar that's before the Lord, make an atonement for
it. He shall take of the blood of
the bullock and the blood of the goat, put it on the horns
of the altar round about. That's the altar of incense.
He shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with His fingers seven
times, cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the
children of Israel. Blood, blood, blood. Why so, preacher? Because without
shedding of blood, no remission of sins. No remission of sins. What can wash away my sin? Baptismal waters? No, that won't
do it. Good works? That won't do it.
I'll join up at the church? That won't do it. The only thing
that will wash sin away is nothing but the blood of Jesus. God's sacrifice for sin. Let's sing a final hymn. Number
477, what is that?