Now, tonight I want to preach
on the subject again of Christ our sin offering. I introduced
this subject last week in dealing with the similarities and the
distinctions between the last two offerings beginning at Leviticus
chapter 4, and that's where I'm going to preach from my text
in Leviticus 4. And these offerings, the book
of Leviticus begins by giving us the five offerings from which
God prescribed through the law by Moses to the nation of Israel
as a way to approach God. These are ways of worshiping
God. And I want to read the last part
of the psalm that I had Brother Jim read, Psalm 66. as an introduction
to this because I chose this psalm because the last few verses
describe the attitude and the spirit of the offerer, the one
who brings these offerings, the sin offering, the trespass offering,
and even the first three, the burn offering and the meal offering
and the peace offering. But here in Psalm 66 and verse
13, the psalmist writes, I will go into thy house with burnt
offerings. That is, I'm going to approach
God by an offering. That's a blood offering. That's
a sacrifice. You cannot approach God without
a sacrifice, and that represents Christ. Our blood offering, our
burnt offering. He said, I will pay thee my vows. I'll pay homage to God. Give
him the glory. This psalm started off, I don't
know if you noticed it, but several times God is described as terrible. His works are terrible. And when
we think of something being terrible, we think of the negative, don't
we? But that's not what that means. We would say it this way
today, it's awesome. It's awesome. You know, God is
awesome. And his works are awesome. And
we pay our vows to God. He says in verse 14, which my
lips have uttered, that is my vows to God, and my mouth has
spoken when I was in trouble. Now, the sin offering and the
trespass offering there to be brought when somebody's in trouble.
We're going to see that. When you're in trouble, when
sin is committed unknowingly, but then it's found out, you
need to come in repentance. And he said, he said, when I
was in trouble, and he says in verse 15, I will offer. Somebody
said, well, is that the only time we're to come to God when
we're in trouble? Well, no, but that's a good time to come to
God when we're in trouble. And he says in verse 15, I will
offer unto thee burnt sacrifice of fatlings, which with the incense
of rams, I will offer bullocks with goats, these offerings,
these blood offerings. And it says in verse 16, come
and hear all ye that fear God, that's worship God, trust God,
and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. Now, take note
of that. When you bring an offering, what
you're declaring even in your lowest moments, even in your
trouble, what God has done for your soul. And that's important
because I want you to look at the next line. He says, or next
line, he says, I cried unto him with my mouth, verse 17, and
he was extolled with my tongue. I cried out for mercy. God was
honored. That's what that means. And look
at verse 18. He says, if I regard iniquity
in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. That just sounds strange,
doesn't it? Now, let me show you what that
means. Now, we're to acknowledge that we're sinners within ourselves. We're to come humbly as sinners
seeking mercy, but we're not to come regarding our sin. We're to come regarding the Lord,
regarding His grace, regarding the offering which typifies Christ,
which we bring Christ Himself. See, that's our regard. You know,
some people, when they come in prayer, when they come in worship,
they regard their sin. All they can talk about is how
great of a sinner they are. Well, we are great sinners. But
we're not to have regard to that. We're to come in Christ. declaring
what God has done for our souls, that he's put away our sins by
the blood of Christ, that we're accepted in the beloved, in the
righteousness of Christ. We're to come worshiping God,
bringing an offering by looking to Christ, not looking at ourselves. And that's what he means by that.
He said, the Lord will not hear me if I regard my sin. I know
I'm a sinner. I acknowledge that. But my hope
is not in my, not even my confession of sin. My hope is in Christ.
You see, that's what these offerings are all about. And he says, But
barely God hath heard me, he hath attended to the voice of
my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not
turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. Now, go back to
Leviticus 4. That's the attitude. You know,
all these offerings that we studied, and the last two here, you just
imagine this now, and you think about this, and talking about
the glory and the power of Christ, every one of these offerings
were fulfilled in one work by Jesus Christ our Lord. One work,
His death on the cross. That's our propitiation. That's
our blood offering which brought satisfaction to a holy God for
our sins and made us what we are in Him. Death of the sacrifice
that brings satisfaction. And here in Leviticus chapter
4, now this is the sin offering. In the sin offering, the emphasis
is on the person, the person or the persons who bring the
offering. In the trespass offering, the emphasis is on the sin itself,
the act itself, in other words, the individual sins. And this
is how the person brings the offering. And they're divided
up into different classes of people. The first one that's
mentioned is the high priest, when the high priest sins. Now
you know the high priest of Israel was just a sinful man like you
and me. Thank God that our great high
priest Christ was not a sinful man. He was a perfect man. The
God man. And sin was laid upon him. But
this shows you how no type is perfect now. And each part and
each facet of the type will not fit the anti-type which is Christ. So here's a sinful man who was
put in an awesome office, the great high priest, you see, the
high priest of Israel. But who is he? He's a sinner.
The book of Hebrews teaches that, that he had to go in offering
blood, not just for the sins of the people, but for his own
sins. Christ, when he went in to the Father, as he presented
himself, he went in not for himself, but for his people. And that's
the difference. So he deals with that in the
first 12 verses, and that really lays the groundwork of everything
the sin offering represents, and that's what we'll focus on
tonight. But after that, beginning at verse 13, he deals with the
sins of the whole congregation. What about the whole congregation?
What are they to do? What are they to bring when they
sin? And then the next set of verses
in chapter 4, he deals with the rulers, the civil leaders. when
they sin, and then lastly, the common people. And what is shown
there is that from the high priest of Israel down to the common
people, all are in need of grace. All are in need of mercy. All
are in need of Christ. Doesn't matter what station you
are, what class of people you are, doesn't matter what race,
It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter who your
daddy was or who your granddaddy was. You're a sinner in need
of salvation by God's grace. And that held true just as much
for the high priest of Israel under the old covenant as it
did to the lowest pauper that could be found in that nation
at that time, the lowest beggar. Because you see, we all have
one thing in common. We're all spiritual beggars.
You may have a big bank account, but you're still a spiritual
beggar. That's right, begging for mercy. We're all sinners,
ruined by the fall. We're all spiritual lepers, and
we need cleansing. That's right, that's what we
have in common. He says in verse 1, look here, he says, And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, verse 2, 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,
you remember last week I said the emphasis there is not excusing
sins of ignorance. If it would excuse it, there'd
be no blood offering required. There'd be no sin offering required.
But the emphasis here is on our sinful human nature. Sin of the
heart. Sins of omission. Sins we commit
we don't even know about. We're sinners every second of
the day. That's right. Where there's not
a moment that we can look up and say, we have kept the law
perfectly. We love God perfectly and love
our neighbors ourselves. Certainly sin is seen in what
I do. And sin is seen in what I don't
do. But my friend, if you've never
seen that sin is what we are, you've never seen the depravity
of the human heart. That's why we're in such need.
That's why it's impossible for us to be saved by our works. Somebody says, well, I'm going
to determine in my mind that today I'm not going to sin. Well,
what about sins of ignorance? We read that passage last week
out of the Psalms where he said, forgive me of my secret sins.
He's not talking about sins he did in secret. He's talking about
sins that were hidden from his view. And you think about that. This is the sin of the heart.
It's a heart matter. and it reaches to the heart.
And the first three offerings, as I said last week, they were
not required for each individual. They were voluntary, but here
this is required. It's required that when it comes
to the knowledge of an individual that he's a sinner, that he has
sinned, he must bring the sin offering. He must bring it. That's
why we must continually look to Christ. We must continually
rest in him and his blood and righteousness for our whole salvation.
And also atonement dominates this offering, the sin offering
and the trespass offering, a covering for sin. The psalmist wrote in
Psalm 32, verse 1, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. You see, this offering was a covering for the sin. Now
listen, let me tell you something about the Lord. He's our mercy
seat, and He not only covers our sin, He does away with our
sin. He's a better offering, a better
sacrifice. He's a propitiation. You know,
that's technically the word atonement in the Old Testament means a
covering for sin. And you don't really see that
word atonement in the New Testament. It's translated in Romans 5 as
atonement, but technically it's reconciliation in the book of
Romans. And what it's showing here is
all the atonements that were given in the Old Covenant were
inferior pictures to the full and complete satisfaction that
Christ, who made atonement for our sins, would bring. You see,
the type is always inferior to Christ, who is the reality. So don't get that confused. Now,
no type is perfect. Remember what I said now. All
these picture Christ, but every detail cannot be used perfectly. Christ is perfect, not the type. And sometimes the offering will
tell us something even about the offerer himself. For example,
one of the distinctions of the sin offering is that it provided
for both what we call public sin and private sin. And what
we mean by public sin is that when the whole congregation was
affected by the sin. And then the private sin would
be when just an individual was affected. There were offerings
available for those who had sinned as a group and those who had
sinned as individuals. And when it was offered for the
sin of a group, the whole congregation, or a public individual representing
a group, you see, when the high priest sinned, you know what?
He represented the people. Just like when Adam fell, he
fell as a representative. He brought the whole human race
down with him, Scripture says. You see, Adam didn't sin as an
individual. He sinned as a representative. For as in Adam, all die. Who are the all there? All whom
Adam represented. When he fell, I fell. You too.
You say, I wasn't born then. You were in Adam. Who said so? God did. And He's the judge of
all. And we were born in Adam. See,
that's why we're born in sin, because we fell in Adam. And
so when the high priest sinned, there was an offering for that
sin because he represented the people. And then when the whole
congregation sinned, that certainly brought sin upon everybody because
it was the whole congregation. And then even when a civil magistrate,
he was a representative of the people too when he sinned, there
was an offering for that. And then there were offerings
for individuals. When it was a representative
sin, a public sin that came upon the people, the offering had
to be a male, without blemish. And that picture is Christ, who
was born of men. He's the God-man, without blemish.
But when it was an individual sin, the animal could be a female,
representing subservience. That's what that was for. In
other words, an individual didn't represent the peoples on his
own. And in the offerings for the high priest and the whole
congregation and a ruler, representation was at the forefront. And they
had to be a male, picturing Christ, the symbol of the ruler or the
dominant one. And among the common people,
it was individual responsibility. They offered a female, which
represented an individual acting on her own, on his own. Now, you think about that back
in the garden. Who sinned first in the garden? Eve did. But her sin didn't bring
the whole congregation down. She was not the representative,
you see. Adam was. Eve was deceived, the Scripture
says. But Adam knew full well what he was doing. You know what
he did. He took sides with Eve against God. He took sides with
Satan against God. But he took sides with his wife.
And when Adam failed, the whole congregation, the whole human
race failed. Adam was the representative,
and that's the difference in these offerings here. Now, our
Savior had to be a male. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians
15, 21, for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
of the dead. Adam, the first Adam, fell. Christ,
the last Adam, he kept the law. He suffered, bled, and died.
He brought reconciliation. He's the Savior of his sheep.
But now listen. He not only saves males, He saves
females too. Aren't you ladies glad? He's
the Savior of His people out of every tribe and nation. And
in Christ, the Bible says, there is no male nor female. Now, that
doesn't mean that when you get in Christ, you become neuter.
It doesn't mean that you become, as they say, androgynous. You're
still a female and I'm still male. But what it means is, in
Christ, that distinction makes no difference. We're all sinners
in need of grace, and He saves sinners. Now, that's what that
means. There's also provision made for
people who could not afford animals, like the bull or the goat or
the lamb. Look over at chapter 5 and look at verse 7. If the person was not able to
afford such, he says in verse 7 of chapter 5, and if he be
not able to bring a lamb, then shall he bring for his trespass
which he hath committed two turtledoves or two young pigeons unto the
Lord, one for a sin offering and the other for a burn offering.
So if they couldn't afford, see, a provision was made by God for
the poorest of the people, and then it goes even further, and
this also applies to the trespass offering. Look at verse 11 of
that same chapter. Now listen to this. It says,
but if he be not able to bring two turtledoves, or two young
pigeons, if he's so poor that he can't even afford turtledoves
and pigeons, which were common back in that day, then he that
sins shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah, a
fine flower, for his sin offering. He shall put no oil upon it.
See, he's bringing this for an offering, and the oil represents
the Holy Spirit. You see, this represents someone
who has sinned against God coming. And he says, neither shall he
put any frankincense thereon, for it is a sin offering. Now,
that may seem strange in light of the basic command and the
basic tenet of our gospel, which says this, without shedding of
blood there is no remission of sin. But you see, you've got
to recall the burnt offering. Now, the burnt offering had to
be a slain animal. Blood must flow. Life had to
be taken. Now, why? Well, God said it to
Adam before Adam fell. He said, in the day that ye eatest
thereof, what? Thou shalt what? Surely what?
Die. You must surely die. And when
Adam and Eve fell and they tried to cover their nakedness with
fig leaf aprons, no blood, what'd God do? He removed the fig leaf
aprons and he slew animals. He shed blood. And he made coats
of skin. And the first example that we
read in the scriptures of two men approaching God on the basis
of offering, one was accepted, one wasn't. What was the difference?
The blood. Cain didn't bring blood. See,
he followed his daddy, Adam, in rebellion against God. But
Abel brought blood, representing Christ. The Bible says, the soul
that sinneth, it shall surely die, and without the shedding
of blood. So how does this offering here
go by that? Well, again, you've got to recall
the burn offering. The burn offering's already been
given. The blood's already been shed. The sacrifice was the groundwork
of all the rest, and it must show forth death. So for the
poor man, who couldn't even afford a turtle dove or a young pigeon,
He had this provision of fine flour to show forth his need
of Christ and faith in Christ. But you know what he had to do?
He had to look back to the burnt offering for the blood atonement. And he had to look forward to
the day of atonement when the high priest would go into the
holiest of all to take care of the sin matter before God. God
still must be just, even though this provision was made. And
he had to see the whole picture of God justifying the ungodly
in Christ. Now, as I said, look back at
Leviticus 4. Now, this sin offering emphasizes what we are by nature,
emphasizes our relationship with God, what we need for communion
with God. Look at verse 3. It's speaking
of the priest. He said, if the priest that is
anointed, now that's the high priest. The anointed priest,
that word anointed is the same word that is sometimes translated
Messiah. And what it means is this man
is a picture of Christ, our high priest. And he says, if he do
sin according to the sin of the people, and that he sins such
a sin that it affects the whole congregation, that's what that
means. He's a representative, you say. Then let him bring for
his sin, which he hath sinned a young bolick without blemish
unto the Lord for a sin offering. Here's this man who was divinely
appointed the representative of the people. When he sent,
it affected everybody. You see, the gospel is a message
of representation. It's a message of substitution.
It's a message of satisfaction. And this man had to bring a young
bullock, and it was a male bullock, unto the Lord without blemish.
Now, that represents Christ. It's a symbol of Christ, our
perfect sacrifice, our perfect sin-bearer. What we offer to
God cannot be in itself corrupt. That's so. And, of course, we're
going to see how sin is only laid upon the offering by imputation,
by account, by charging. And what a perfect picture of
our Savior who was made sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, Christ
who did no sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. So He took our sins as they were
laid to His charge and He gives us in return His righteousness
which is laid to our charge so that we can honestly before God
and men say, yes, we are righteous in Christ. And this man himself, the high
priest, represents our Savior. Look at the last part of Young
Bullock. This is the substitute without blemish, and he offered
it unto the Lord. This is a male ox without blemish,
the perfection in Christ, and it's offered unto the Lord. This
offering is not offered unto men. This offering is not offered
unto Satan. This offering is offered unto
the Lord, for it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Christ offered
himself without spot, the scripture says, where? Or to whom? To God. God had to be satisfied. Somebody
said Satan had to be satisfied. Well, Satan was never satisfied,
and he's certainly not satisfied with the death of Christ. That
was his defeat. But God had to be satisfied.
God's holy, and that shines through all these offerings. He goes
on in verse 4, he says, He shall bring the bullock unto the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. That's the place
where God said he would meet with sinners. You see, this blood
that was shed, all of it, it had to be shed before the Lord,
under the congregation, before the Lord. And the priest shall
lay his hand upon the bullock's head. That's a picture of imputation. Sin being laid upon the sacrifice. And it's a picture of the sinner's
faith in the Lord, coming by faith, looking unto Christ, saying,
I'm a sinner, but my hope is in God's appointed substitute
and sin offering. And he had to kill the bullock
before the Lord. The blood had to be shed, because without the
shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Look at verse
5. He says, And the priest that is anointed shall take of the
bullock's blood and 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." Now, that seven, you know, represents completion,
perfection. This is a perfect, complete sacrifice. That's why we don't have to bring
anything else. That's why we're forbidden to bring anything else.
My friend, do not come before God with anything but Christ
and Him crucified. All right? Don't bring your works. Don't bring your efforts. Don't
bring your experiences. Don't bring your pedigree. Don't
bring anything. But Christ and Him crucified. You see that? And that's what
this means. It's blood seven times. His sacrifice was the
complete sacrifice for all our sins. The book of Hebrews in
chapter 10, I believe it's verse 18, says, where remission of
these are, there is no more offering for sin. Why? Because Christ
did it all. His is complete. His is perfect. The only reason any sinner would
bring anything plus Christ is because he sees Christ as insufficient. And that's blasphemy, isn't it?
That's unbelief. But he's not insufficient. Seven
times before the Lord and before the veil of the sanctuary. You
see, this blood had special relationship to the one behind that veil in
the Holy of Holies. that complete sacrifice. And
it says in verse 7, the priest shall put some of the blood upon
the horns of the altar of the sweet incense before the Lord
which is in the tabernacle of the congregation. You remember
that incense altar? It was right before the curtain,
the inner curtain that separated the holy place from the holiest
of all. And it had those horns on the
four corners, representing the four corners of the earth. Remember,
that's where the incense would go up, representing the prayers
of the saints and the intercession of Christ, which goes up through
him to God for all his people, north, south, east, west. A nation,
a people out of every tribe and nation, redeemed by the Lord.
And this altar, some of the blood, the priest would put some of
the blood on the horns of the altar. That smearing some of
the, and that's what it literally is, he would smear it. It wasn't
just like he'd dot it, he'd smear it on the horns of the altar
of incense. And that signifies the fellowship of the people
of God through communion with Christ. Right there. We're all
one in him. And the rest of the blood, look
at in verse seven, he said, it shall pour all the blood of the
bullock at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering, which
is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. So the rest
of the blood was poured at the bottom, and these issues of offering
for sin show that there is absolutely no interruption in the communion
that God's people have with Him through Christ. Even our sins
cannot cut us off from God. That's right. Somebody says,
well, it can sure destroy your joy. Well, it can harm it quite
a bit. You remember when David prayed
in Psalm 51. He said, restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation. Yeah, we can lose sight of it,
but I want to tell you something, God never does. And we better
thank God every day for that fact. You hear me? We can lose sight of it. We can
get so caught up in ourselves and in our world and in our pity
and in our anger and everything, we can lose sight of it. But
thank God, God never does. And that's our hope. Somebody
said it this way, it's not our hold upon Christ that saves us,
it's his hold upon us. And that's another thing, that
these things. Somebody said, well, sin sometimes
will interrupt the believer's communion with God, not his union.
Our union is in Christ, but our communion. Well, that may be
true, but I'm going to tell you something, the only remedy for
that is the blood. The only remedy for that is to
bring the sin offering. Somebody said, well, if that's
true, then why don't we have to do that every day? We do. Don't you look to Christ every
day? I mean, do you just look to Him on Sunday or on Wednesday? What about in between? We bring
the sin offering every day. Huh? When we look to Christ and
rest in Him. Look over at verse 8. He says,
and he shall take off from it all of the fat of the bullock
for the sin offering, the fat that covereth the inwards, and
all the fat that is upon the inwards, the two kidneys, and
the fat that is upon them which is by the flanks, and the call
above the liver with the two kidneys, it shall he take away. And as it was taken off from
the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings, you remember
that when we studied the peace offering, that fat was taken
off. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt
offering." It means the same thing as it did in the peace
offering. It was burned in the sense of the smoke of incense
going up unto the Lord as sweet savor. The fat represents the
best, you see. The best that went up to God,
that was given to God. The best that can be offered.
And that burning there, that burnt there, it literally means
the burning of a sweet savor. Like the sweet incense. When
we come to God for forgiveness for our sins, what do we do?
We bring the best. We bring Christ. We bring the
sweet sacrifice of His Son, and anything less is unacceptable,
and anything more is unnecessary. We bring Him. So that's the burning
of the sweet savor. on the altar of incense. But
look at verse 11. He says, "...and the skin of
the bullock, and all his flesh with his head, and with his legs,
and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock shall
he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the
ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire, where
the ashes are poured out shall he be burned." Now that's burning
the uncomely parts. The dirt, the filth, you see. And that was burned outside the
camp. And this word burnt here is another
word. And it's burnt in the sense of
burning it up so as to destroy it to where it's gone. It's gone. Like ashes. Like ashes. You ever been over a campfire?
Some of you have fireplaces in your homes and you got ashes.
Pick up a big bunch of ashes. Pick up a handful of them and
squeeze them. What happens? It's like nothing, isn't it?
It's like air, isn't it? They're gone. Maybe a little
dust on your hand. And that's it. And that's what
he's showing here, that this is burnt up, totally, outside
the camp, under God's judgment, bearing the judgment of sin.
You see, these uncomely parts were brought to a clean place
outside the camp, outside the fellowship of the Lord and His
people. What does he teach in here? He says, when God deals
with our sins, you know what happens? When He deals with our
sins through Christ, listen to me, they're gone. They are gone. You say, well,
I still see them. Well, I know you do. And I know
I do. But you know what now? You're
not really the one that counts in this matter. God is. Isn't that right? God's the one
who really counts here. You see, the problem of man in
Adam is that he's guilty before God. Right? I mean, he can be
out free, roaming the country, doing anything he wants to before
men. But in Adam, he's what? He's guilty before God. And the blessedness of the man
in Christ is that it is God who justifies him. Now, he may be
down in the lowest jail cell on earth, but he's still justified
before a holy God in Christ. Somebody says, well, that's strange.
Yes, it is. But it's also the glory of God's
grace. And, you know, this speaks of
our Savior. Look over at John chapter 19. This thing about
being burned outside the camp. You know, that's a direct reference
to our Lord. Let me show you that. Look over at John chapter
19. This is his crucifixion. And it says, when they crucified
our Lord, Verse 16 of John 19 says, Then delivered he him therefore
unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and they led
him away. And he bearing his cross went
forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called
in the Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him. That was
outside of their holy city. You see, they looked upon him
as a malefactor, a criminal, a blasphemer, a wicked man. That's the way we looked upon
our Lord. So that he had to be carried outside the city bearing
our sins. That's what this, in the sin
offering, represents. Christ bearing our sins. And
he was crucified between two others with him, two thieves
on either side. And then look at Hebrews 13. You see, he wasn't good enough
in the view of sinful man to be in their presence. That's a good description of
man by nature, isn't it? Look at Hebrews 13, verse 10. He says, We have an
altar where they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.
We who are in Christ, and Christ is our altar. Those who still
serve that earthly tabernacle, trying to keep that old covenant,
in effect, have no right to our altar. In other words, they rejected
our altar. They rejected Christ. So he says, for the bodies of
those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high
priest for sin are burned without the camp. That's a direct reference
to Leviticus 4. Wherefore, now listen, for this
reason, now here's the fulfillment of the type. Jesus also, that
he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate, outside the camp. That's where he went, bearing
our sins on Golgotha's hill, giving himself up unto the justice
of his Father to save us from our sins, bearing our filth,
bearing our wickedness. Think about that, the wickedness
and the filth. of all his people, laying his
life down for the sheep. And he says in verse 13, now,
where do we go? Well, we go to him. Let us go
forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach.
We follow him. We look to him on the cross as
our sin bearer, as our propitiation. And we follow him in opposition
to the world. And you know how they look upon
us? Well, Paul said it this way, he said, after the way which
they call heresy, that's the way I worship God. They look
upon believers as being the filth of the world. That's why Satan
and his followers look upon the true church, not the false church,
but the true church as the filth of the world, the scourge of
the earth. And yet God says in Hebrews chapter 11 that the world's
not even worthy of his people, his redeemed people. Go back
to Leviticus 4, and I'll close with this. Now, look at verse 13. Now, the other
offerings are basically the same, except that the individual was
limited, and even the whole congregation. But it says, look at verse 13.
And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance,
and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, They have
done somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord
concerning things which should not be done, which are guilty.
When the sin which they have sinned against it is known, when
it is brought to their attention, then the congregation shall offer
a young bullock for the sin and bring him before the tabernacle
of the congregation. So when the whole thing is known,
then they are to bring the offering. Well, that's a good picture of
man by nature because by nature we don't even know our sinfulness
do until God the Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse of it. Paul
called that the exceeding sinfulness of sin in Romans chapter 7. He
said, before the law came, I thought I was okay. I thought I was all
right. But when the law came, sin revived
and I died. I saw how much of a sinner I
was. I saw that I needed a blood offering. I saw I needed Christ. I saw I was a miserable wretch
without hope, without God, and without salvation, except that
God have mercy upon me." That's right, isn't it? Well, look down
at verse 25 of chapter 4. Here he's talking about when
a ruler sinned. He said, "...and the priest shall take of the
blood of the sin offering with his finger, put it upon the horns
of the altar of burnt offering." Now there, instead of going into
the holiest, going into the holy place and putting it on the curtain
and on the incense, he puts it on the horns of the altar of
burnt offering and he says, and shall pour out his blood at the
bottom of the altar of burnt offering. Saw that before. And
then look down at verse 30. This is the common people. And
the priest shall take up the blood thereof with his finger
and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering and
shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the
altar. So we see there's a variation
here in the congregation and the rulers and the people as
far as the priest and where he put the blood. For them, he put
it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and not on
the curtain. Now, why is that different? Well,
I believe it's to emphasize this point, that under that old covenant,
the law of Moses, that nation was very limited in their approach
to God. You see, they could not go into
the Holy of Holies. Only one man could do that, and
that's the high priest. They had no access to the holy
place individually, and it was limited. It was inferior. But what does that say for us?
Well, turn to Hebrews 10. What about us in the New Covenant? Well, the New Covenant. And what
we have in Christ is far superior than what they had under the
old covenant. How so? Look at verse 19. Now
this is speaking of the new covenant. We have free, open access. into the holiest of all by the
blood of Jesus, who is our High Priest. They didn't have that
physically. They could, no, listen, if anybody
back then, that tabernacle was standing, if anybody went into
that holiest of all, who was not the appointed High Priest,
at the appointed time, in the appointed way, by the appointed
means, what would happen to them? Death. I said, he didn't really go into
the holiest of all. He just went into the holy blood and burned
strange fire. You'll see that in Leviticus.
You see, only the, but our great high priest who went in one time
and he's made us a kingdom of priests. We have that word bold
there means liberty, confident, free access into the holiest
of all by the blood of Jesus. A new and living way, he calls
it. A new way. No man cometh unto the Lord by
him, which he hath made it for us. See there? He's the one who
made it. He made it and he did it for
us. Through the veil, that is to
say, his flesh, he offered his humanity as the God-man. And he said, And having an high
priest over the house of God, let's draw near with a true heart
in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil, guilty, legal conscience, and our bodies washed with pure
water, clean, clean, clean, in Christ our sinner.