If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Leviticus, chapter 4. Leviticus, the fourth chapter. Let me tell you what an honor
and a privilege it is for me to be here with you this evening. It's humbling. Somebody thanks
you for coming. I thank you for having me. I
look forward to seeing your faces and meeting together and worshiping
our Savior with you. Thank God for you. We in Ashland
think of you and pray for you often. I've titled the message
this evening, Christ the Sin Offering. Now we've just come
through the time of year where the world, at least in some way,
recognizes the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And I'm all for
that. Anything that forces the world
to think about the birth of our Lord Jesus, I'm all for it. I'm
a little sad when that time of season is over and I cannot turn
on my classic rock station and hear Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
The world does, even though the birth of our Lord did not happen
on December the 25th, the world at least in some way is forced
to recognize that a man, Jesus of Nazareth, was born in Bethlehem.
But I want you to think about this. If Jesus is not the Christ,
His birth is no big deal, really. I mean, the birth of Jesus is
no bigger deal than the birth of Washington or Lincoln, if
he's not the Christ. If all he is is a reformer, an
example, then I'd put his birth on line with Washington or Lincoln
or something, if he's not the Christ. If Jesus is not the Christ,
you and I are in big trouble. Our message of grace, salvation
by grace, is a lie if Jesus is not to Christ. If Jesus is not
to Christ, you and I had better give back to keeping all the
commandments and all the ceremony of the Law of Moses. Now people,
generally speaking, try to keep the law of Moses. And you know,
the law of Moses is more than 10 commandments. People will
hang on the wall. It's much more all-encompassing than that. But
generally speaking, people try not to lie. They try not to commit
adultery. They try not to murder. At least
they try not to get caught doing it. They don't want people to
think that they do those things. People in our society generally
recognize acknowledge God, even if it's the God of their imagination.
They don't know who God really is, but in some way they recognize
and give some lip service to saying that God is. They might
even try to keep some days, some religious days, Christmas and
Easter and so forth. People try to do those things,
but I tell you what nobody's doing, what nobody's doing. John,
nobody's sacrificing any lambs. Nobody's offering any bullocks,
are there? You know, this is a very nice building. You know
one thing I notice y'all don't have? An altar made of stone
to offer sacrifices on. Because we don't do it, do we?
Nobody's offering lambs or bullocks and shedding their blood and
burning their bodies on altars, are they? But if Jesus is not
the Christ, we'd better get busy doing it. If Jesus is not to
Christ, we better get busy. I don't even know how you sacrifice
a lamb or quarter a bullock and sacrifice it. But I'm telling
you what, we'd better learn if Jesus is not to Christ. Because
the law makes this clear. You and I need a blood sacrifice.
If we're gonna come to God and approach God in worship, we must
have a blood sacrifice. It's impossible without it. And if Jesus is not to Christ,
we need another sacrifice. Now don't all the Old Testament
scriptures make that plain to us? The Old Testament scriptures
are full of sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. Morning, noon,
and evening. Weekly sacrifices, monthly sacrifices,
yearly sacrifices. Sacrifices for every event of
life. The tabernacle and the temple
were bloody, messy, smelly places because of the nearly constant
bloodshed of animals and the sacrifices of the animals there.
Now that's what the Old Testament law required. Why don't we do
any of that today? Why don't you have a stone altar
here to offer sacrifices upon? Because Jesus is the Christ.
That's why. He is the Christ. All of those
animal sacrifices were just pictures of Christ's sacrifice. Christ
who would come and put away the sin of his people by his one
sacrifice for sin forever. And that makes it unnecessary
to offer any more sacrifices. And this evening, I want us to
look at one of those sacrifices, one of these pictures of Christ's
sacrifice in Leviticus chapter four. Look here at verse one.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against
any of the commandments of the Lord concerning these things
which ought not to be done, as shall do against any of them,
if the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of
the people, to let him bring for his sin which he hath sinned
a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering.
Now, the sacrifice that the Lord speaks of here specifically is
a sacrifice for sins of ignorance. Now, much of our sin is willful,
open rebellion against God. We know what we're supposed to
do. People know right from wrong, and yet we sin anyway, don't
we? But we also have sins of ignorance. You know, there's things, you
can't even stop yourself from thinking about sin, can you?
I mean, sitting here in a service like this, worshiping the Lord,
reading his word, we have sinful thoughts fly through our mind,
we can't even stop it. It's because of our sin nature.
Our fallen nature is so sinful, we can have sins of ignorance
where we've sinned, we don't even realize we've done it. We're
so used to sin, we're just so numb to it, we don't even realize
that we've done it. We may truly not mean to sin
and do it anyway. It's a sin of ignorance. But
if you look over at chapter five in verse 17, that's no excuse. And if a soul sinned and committed
any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments
of the Lord, though he wished it not, he didn't even know it.
It's a sin of ignorance. Yet he's guilty. He is still
guilty and shall bear his iniquity. See, ignorance of the law, ignorance
of your sin is no excuse. We're still guilty. We still
bear the guilt of our sin, and there still must be a sacrifice,
even though we didn't even realize we did it. Look at verse 18.
And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock with
thy estimation for a trespass offering unto the priest. And
the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance,
wherein he erred and wished it not. And it shall be forgiven
him. See, it shall be forgiven him
through the sacrifice. It's a trespass offering. He
has certainly trespassed against the Lord. And the only way he
can be forgiven is through the sacrifice. Now this sacrifice
has to be a sacrifice that a holy, just God will accept as payment
for sin. It has to satisfy God's justice
because our sin is sin against God. It's a sacrifice that He
must accept. And the only sacrifice that God
will accept is the sacrifice that He provided, His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. You'll notice here that the Lord
says that the priest has to offer this sacrifice for the sin of
the people. Our God has provided both the
sacrifice and the high priest. They're the same person, our
Lord Jesus Christ. He's our great high priest and
he is the sacrifice for the sin of his people. Now I want us
to see six pictures here of the sacrifice of Christ in our text.
These six things make the sacrifice of Christ the sacrifice that
we must have for our sin. The first thing is this, the
sacrifice must be perfect. It has to be a young bullock
without blemish, just like the Passover lamb had to be a lamb
at the prime of life, three years old, without blemish. And it
had to be without blemish because both of those sacrifices are
pictures of Christ. He's the perfect man. He obeyed
God's law perfectly. In thought, word, and deed. In
action, in motive, in thought. He never had a sin of ignorance.
He never had a willing sin. He never knowingly sinned. He's
the perfect man. Peter described our Lord Jesus
as the one who did no sin. Neither was any guile found in
his mouth. The writer to the Hebrews describes him as holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heavens. Now that makes Christ the perfect
sacrifice, the sacrifice that we must have. Now I'll tell you
another way this bullock is sacrificed as a type of Christ. The bullock
is valuable. You know, a bull is more valuable
than a cow, because a bull can produce a lot more cattle. You
have to have a bull. And a young bull, in the prime
and strength of life, he's even more valuable. He's powerful,
he's feral, he's got a long time to produce more cattle. He's
a valuable animal. That's the animal to be sacrificed,
a valuable animal. Because he's a picture of Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is God's prized bull. His
blood is so valuable, it gives life to millions. His blood is
so precious, it cleanses God's elect from all of their sin.
It pays for all of the sin of all of God's elect, a number
that no man can number, that one man's blood put away all
that sin. Oh, he's valuable. His blood is precious. And just
like this young bullock, The Savior is eternally young. He has the strength of youth.
Jonathan and I were driving up here tonight. We passed a high
school. It was down over the hill. Look
down over the hill. I don't know if it was a girls track team
or what it was, but they were just sprinting. I mean, just
sprinting around that track. Like it was nothing. I kind of
didn't like any of them. I mean, they just looked like
it was nothing. The strength of youth. The strength of youth. Christ our Savior is eternally
young. Sacrificed in the prime of His
life to show us Christ our sacrifice is able. He has the power to
save. The power to save. He's perfect
and He has the power to save. The sacrifice must be perfect.
That's the sacrifice we need in it. The only place you'll
find that sacrifice is in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
number two, the sacrifice must die. Verse four, and he should
bring the bullock under the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
before the Lord and should lay his hand upon the bullock's head
and kill the bullock before the Lord. Now, why did the priest,
when they bring this young bullock to him, why did the priest lay
his hands on the head of this bullock? Well, it was a symbolic
thing, to symbolically transfer the guilt of the sinner to the
sacrifice. You know, that's what happened
to Calvary. God the Father made his son sin for his people. He transferred the sin of his
elect to his son, and made his son guilty of that sin. Not symbolically. Literally. Literally. Now the
Lord Jesus Christ never sinned. He never sinned. He's holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners. He did no sin, neither was any
guile found in His mouth, yet He was made to be guilty of the
sin of His people. When the Father made Him sin,
the sin of His people became His sin. He called it mine iniquity. He suffered the guilt of it.
That's why He said, I can't even look up because of the guilt
of it. Christ didn't do that for the sin of the whole wide
world. He didn't do that for every son of Adam, so every son
of Adam had a chance to be saved. This sacrifice, this young bullet
that was brought to the priest, was sacrificed for a specific
exact person, wasn't it? This person who committed the
sin of ignorance. Christ our Savior died for a specific exact
people. God's elect, the people that
the Father gave Him to save. That's who He was made guilty
for. That's who He suffered and died for. Now, mercy and grace
and unspeakable love and the kind of love you and I cannot
understand this side of glory. I don't even know if we'll understand
it on the other side of glory. But in love that we cannot understand,
a holy God set His love on a sinful people. And he chose to save
those people. He chose to be merciful to those
people. He always saw those people in
his son. And he saw those people in Christ,
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The Father is gonna
be merciful to those people. But let me tell you what, they're
sinners and their sin must be paid for. The bill must be paid. The wages of sin is death. That
sin is going to be put away. Somebody's got to die. My death
and your death won't amount to a hill of beans. Won't pay for
any sin. That's why the sacrifice must die in our place. That's
why Christ the Savior must die. You know why Christ died? Because
the Father made him guilty of the sin of his elect, and then
the Father put him to death. You know, people argue. I love
to hear people argue about this. Well, did the Jews put Jesus
to death or did the Romans put Jesus to death? Both wrong. The Father put him to death.
The Father did it. Now, I don't understand that.
I don't understand how God could do that. I don't have to understand. I love the things that I don't
have to understand. Just believe. Just believe. I do know this, the father who
is holy could never have put an innocent man to death. Could
he? That'd be unjust. He's the just
judge. The father put his son to death
because he made him guilty. See, this is how God provides
for his people everything that he requires of them. God took
the sin of his people away from them and put it on Christ our
substitute. and then substitute, die the
death that his people deserve so that they go free. And they
go free because their sins paid for, because the sacrifice died.
Now it says here that the sacrifice, it must die, and it must die
to satisfy God, because we've sinned against God. And the key
phrase in this verse is, before the Lord. before the Lord. The sacrifice must be killed
before the Lord to satisfy God's holy justice. Now this phrase,
before the Lord, is used in the book of Leviticus 61 times. I don't know how many other times
in the rest of the scriptures, but just in this one book, 61
times it talks about before the Lord. Now that tells me something's
going on here. Something's important. We might
want to look into this. The blood has to be offered before
the Lord. Because God must be appeased.
God must be appeased. You know, people in false religion
talk about this offering for sin, the sacrifice of Christ,
the offering of Christ, they call it, being offered to us.
And that's not so. The blood of Christ is not offered
to you. His sacrifice is not offered
to you, up to you to see if you'll decide to accept Him or reject
Him. The sacrifice is offered to God. Because God's the offended
party. You know what I mean? Aren't
you offended party? We're the offenders. God's the offended
party. The blood must be offered before
the Lord. Just like on the night of the
Passover, that Passover lamb was killed. His body was roasted
with fires. His blood was caught in a basin.
And before they went and ate that lamb, what did the father
of that house do? At the first point of that house going to
live, I'll tell you what the father did. He put the blood on the door.
and went inside and closed the door and sat down and ate that
lamb with his family. The blood had to be on the outside
of the door. The blood wasn't on the inside of the door so
the father could keep saying, look, there's the blood, there's
the blood. The blood was on the outside of the door. So when
the Lord passed through Egypt that night, he saw the blood
on the door. You know what that said? I don't
need to go in there and kill the firstborn. There's already
been death in this home tonight. The death of the substitute.
The blood must be offered before the Lord. It must be offered
to appease the holy anger of an offended God, and the blood
of Christ is gonna get the job done. What does scripture say? It's the blood. It's the blood. It's the blood. It's the blood.
It's the blood. It's the blood to make atonement
for the soul. And that blood is offered to
God. And we use the word offered,
but now, don't be mistaken. There was never a moment of doubt
whether or not the sacrifice of Christ would be accepted.
Never doubt. Of course it's gonna be accepted. Before he ever went to the cross,
before he ever suffered, before he was nailed to the cross, before
he was beaten, before any of that took place, the Savior,
thank God, the sacrifice was accepted. He thanked his Father,
the sacrifice was, this thing's done. Of course the sacrifice
is gonna be accepted. The perfect Lamb of God is being
sacrificed. The one with perfect, precious
blood is being sacrificed. This is the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sin of the world. When he began his public ministry,
that's how John the Baptist introduced him in. The Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. And buddy, his blood's gonna
do just that. Take away the sin of his people.
And I love this, the sacrifice of Christ. did not change God's
character. It didn't change God's mind to
make him start loving his people. Christ came as an atonement for
sin. He was born to die. He shed his blood on Calvary's
tree, not in order to make God love his people, but because
God already loved his people. See, that's why God sent his
son into the world, to be the propitiation for sin. He did
it because he loves his people. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but He loved us. How do you know He loved His
people? He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin.
So the result of the sacrifice was never in doubt, was it? It
couldn't be in doubt because of the holy character of God.
It couldn't be in doubt, it's gonna be accepted because of
the perfect character of the high priest. And no doubt it's
gonna be successful because of the perfect character of the
sacrifice. Now look at verse five. And the
priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood and
bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation. Now this blood
here doesn't just mean, when we talk about there's blood,
there's blood that's gonna be taken into the tabernacle of
the congregation. It doesn't just mean that there's
been suffering. I mean, if there's blood, obviously
there's been suffering. But you know, it could be a big
gash. It could be there was a lot of blood lost, you know, but
the person could be revived. This blood means there was suffering
and death. Suffering and death. The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. The sacrifice must die. And his
blood being taken into the tabernacle before the Lord means there's
been death for sin. Now, in this ceremony that's
taking place here for the sin of ignorance, this is just the
blood of bulls. The blood of bulls can't take
away sin. The blood of bulls can't pay for my sin or your
sin. It's got a different nature. It's got a different kind of
blood. These animal sacrifices were useful only in this way.
They are pictures of Christ. This bullock's blood was accepted,
was important because it gives us a picture of the blood of
Christ. Now we make much of the blood
of Christ. We who preach the gospel, we who believe the gospel,
we who look to Christ, we make much of the blood. Brother Henry
used to talk about never getting so refined that we don't have
a bloody, bloody gospel. We don't have a gospel to preach
without the blood. We don't have a gospel to believe. We don't have a savior to cling
to without the blood. The blood of Christ is sin-atoning
blood. It pays for the sin of God's
elect. And quickly, let me give you
four things here. You go back and look at these
later. It's a message all in itself, but look at John chapter
six. The blood of Christ is quickening. Life-giving blood. Here's why
we make so much of the blood. It's sin-atoning blood. It's
life-giving blood. There's life in the blood. John
6, verse 53. Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. The blood of Christ is life-giving
blood. It's the only way we can have
spiritual life. It's through the blood of Christ. Now look
at Colossians chapter one. For the Rex read this for us
back in the study before the service. Number two, the blood
of Christ is reconciling blood. Reconciling. Look at verse 20. and having made peace through
the blood of His cross, by Him, to reconcile all things unto
Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in the earth or things in heaven, and you, and I always
like to read that when I'm reading to myself, and Frank, even you. Even you that were sometime alienated,
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. How? In the body of his flesh
through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreprovable
in his sight. Oh, the blood of Christ is reconciling
blood, reconciling us to the Father. Now look at Hebrews chapter
10, here's the third thing about this blood. The blood of Christ
is sin atoning blood. It's life-giving, it's reconciling
blood. Thirdly, the blood of Christ
satisfies both God and the sinner. Satisfies God and clears the
sinner's conscience. Hebrews 10, verse 22. Let us
draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Full assurance that we'll be
accepted. How? Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Having
our hearts sprinkled there talks about having the hyssop dipped
in the blood and sprinkled. When the blood of Christ is applied
to our hearts, God's satisfied. He's satisfied with that blood.
He said it's enough. It's enough. That same blood
clears the sinner's conscience. I'm guilty, but have nothing
to feel guilty about. I'm guilty, but have a clear
conscience. How is that possible? Because
the blood of Christ paid for my guilt. Gives me, lets me approach
God in full assurance of faith. And then last, the blood of Christ
is cleansing blood. First John, chapter one. It's
cleansing blood. Sin is not just a, An error in
judgment. It's not just a breaking of the
rules. Sin is defiling. Sin is a disease. We need to be cleansed. The blood
of Christ is cleansing blood. 1 John 1 verse 7. But if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin, all sin. See, that's why we make much
of the blood of Christ. His blood is everything a sinner
needs, and that's why he must die. He must die to shed his
blood to pay for the sin of his people and to wash them white
as snow. All right, number three, look
back in our text, Leviticus chapter four. The sacrifice of Christ
enables sinners like you and me to come into the very presence
of God himself. Verse five, and the priest and
his anointed shall take of the bullock's blood and bring it
into the tabernacle of the congregation, and the priest shall dip his
finger in the blood and sprinkle of the blood seven times before
the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. Now the veil he's
talking about here is the veil in the tabernacle. It hung there,
it hung from the ceiling down to the wall, or floor, from wall
to wall, separating the holy place from the holy of holies,
where God dwelt. God dwelt there in his Shekinah
glory above the mercy seat. But now you can't come to that
holy of holies just any time. No, you only come one day a year,
and you gotta be the high priest, and what do you gotta bring with
you? Blood. That's the only way to come into
the presence of God is through the blood of the sacrifice. And
in Christ, I can just imagine, can you imagine that high priest?
I've read how they listen for those bells on the bottom of
the priest's robe. I've read that they also tied
a rope around his foot so he went in there. If they quit hearing
the bells ringing, they thought, he's dead. We better drag him
out. They thought, I'm not going in there. If the priest died,
I'm not. And they'd want to tie this rope around his foot to
drag him out. That wasn't a lot of faith in that, was it? But
I've read that's what they did anyway. I would imagine that
priest, before that day of atonement, that day before he'd go into
the Holy of Holies, You reckon he went over the steps, what
he was supposed to do about 150 times before he went in there?
I don't want to mess up on those steps. God will kill me. That's
pretty timid, isn't it? Be scared to come to God's presence
that way. I won't be very reverent, but
what I'm about to say is true. In Christ, through the blood
of his sacrifice, we don't come sneaking into God's presence.
real timid like, afraid to show our face because he could just,
you know, wipe us out any time. In Christ, the writer to the
Hebrews says what? We come boldly. Boldly. Confidently. Confidently. Because we're confident in the
blood of Christ. We're confident that in Christ,
I'm accepting. I'm not confident because of
anything I've done or I haven't done. I'm confident in Christ.
Who he is. What he's accomplished. I'm confident
that his blood has taken away that which makes God angry at
me. And he'll accept me. The blood was sprinkled before
the veil seven times. giving us the number of perfection,
showing us that we're made perfect in the blood of Christ and we
can come into his presence with boldness. One of the best illustrations
I've ever heard of this boldness from Brother Mike Walker. Mike
is a lot like me, like a lot of our preacher brethren. When I'm in the study and the
door's closed, I just, you know, don't be coming in there. Just
don't be coming in there. And that's the way it is with
Mike. Don't be coming in there when I'm studying. But his little granddaughter
got to the house one day. He's got the door closed studying.
And she just walked right up to that door. And somebody said,
ah, ah. She said, that don't mean me. And she walked right
in. And you know what Mike did? Come
here, honey. Just come up here on my lap.
Because of the blood of Christ, we can come boldly before the
throne of grace, when? At all times, that we might find
mercy and grace to help in time of need. The father will always
open his arms to his children and say, come on. Because of
the blood of Christ, because of his blood. Number four, the
sacrifice of Christ gives power to the intercession of Christ.
It's the blood of Christ that enables him to make intercession
for the transgressors. Look here at verse seven. And
the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the
altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle
of the congregation. And shall pour all the blood
of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering,
which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now the
altar of incense he's talking about here is the altar that
was just outside the veil of the entrance into the Holy of
Holies. And that altar of incense gives us a picture of the prayers
of Christ. The high priest would take coals
from the brazen altar where the sin offering was burned. He'd
take those coals and he'd put them in that altar of incense
and he'd take Incense, beaten very small. Incense was made
according to the recipe that God gave, a specific incense. He put that incense on those
hot coals and that smoke would go up, a sweet smell that would
fill the place. And that smoke is a picture of
the prayers of Christ ascending up to the Father. Notice where
it all began, the coals from the brazen altar. See, the prayers
of Christ are gonna be accepted because of the sacrifice. That's
where the coals came from, all because of the sacrifice. And
the high priest is to put blood on the horns of this altar. The
four horns, one on each corner. Horns in scripture always represent
power. And when the high priest put
that blood on the horns of that altar, it shows us it's the blood
of Christ that gives power to his intercession for his people.
You know, we read in Scripture that the Savior ever lives making
intercession for His people. As Christ the Savior makes intercession
for His people, He's not asking His Father for a favor when He
says, Father, forgive them. He's not asking for a favor.
You know what He's doing? If He is asking for a favor,
I don't know if I'll get it or not. He's not asking for a favor. He's praying for justice. Justice,
the blood's already been shed. The blood's been shed before
the Lord. Sin's gone. Brother, there's power in the
blood. There's power in the blood to atone for sin. And when Christ
makes intercession for his people, that's why he always gets what
he prays for. Always. Because there's power
in the blood. You think what it must have meant
to Peter. to have the Savior say, Peter, I prayed for you. And I venture to say, since the
Savior makes intercession for all of his people, you can put
your name in Peter's place. That'll blow your mind, won't
it? The human mind can't contain that. The Son of God prays for
you. Then all's well, isn't it? All's
well. and the rest of the blood was
poured out at the bottom of the brazen altar where the burnt
offering was made. That was poured out, poured out.
The blood of Christ was not spilt. That makes it sound like it was
an accident. The blood of Christ was shed on purpose to pay for
the sin of a specific people, and not a drop was wasted, not
a drop. The blood of Christ was voluntarily
poured out for the sin of God's elect, and that offering was
accepted. And that's why the intercession
of Christ is always effectual. 5. The sacrifice of Christ was the
real suffering of a real man. And he shall take off from it
all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering, and the fat
that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the
inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them,
which is by the flanks, and the call above the liver with the
kidneys, it shall he take away, as it was taken off from the
bullock of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. And the priest
shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering. There's
a lot going on there, but I know this, cutting up all the inwards
of that animal, cutting them up and pulling them off and burning
them, all that gives us a picture of real horrible inward suffering,
inward suffering. Salvation of our souls does not
come from the physical sufferings of Christ. Those physical sufferings
of Christ were horrible, and I never want to be guilty of
making light of them, because I'm not. Those physical sufferings
had to happen. They prophesied, they had to
happen, they had to happen, or our salvation never would have
happened. But those sufferings were before me, weren't they? They were before me, and they
were just the tip of the iceberg. These verses I just read give
us a picture of the soul suffering, the inward suffering of Christ.
The suffering that put away sin from before the Lord. The offering
that was before the Lord was his soul. Isaiah said he should
make his soul an offering for sin. See, it's the soul suffering
of the Savior that saved the souls of God's elect. There's
no help for this body flesh. That's all right. Christ made
atonement for the soul. And when it's time, he'll give
us a new body too. He'll give us a new body. See,
God wasn't playing games at Calvary. Like I said, the sacrifice of
this bullet, that's just a picture. That's just a picture. God wasn't
playing games at Calvary. He didn't give us a picture.
He didn't give us a type. At Calvary, God's holy justice
was satisfied because the wrath of God Almighty was poured out
upon Christ, our sin offering, until Christ suffered everything
that sin deserved. Christ, our substitute, suffered.
He suffered untold, unmitigated agony until the sin that caused
God's wrath was gone under his blood. Now that thought ought
to fill us with humble thanksgiving. Oh, what the Savior suffered
to put away our sin. And here's the last thing. The
sacrifice of Christ completely removed the sin of his people.
So it's taken out of God's sight. Verse 11. And the skin of the
bullock and all his flesh with his head and 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 the carcass of that animal
after the sacrifice had to be taken outside the camp. Why? Because it had been made symbolically
unclean when sin was transferred to it. The Lord Jesus Christ
had to suffer outside the gate. He couldn't go inside the wall
of Jerusalem and suffer. He had to suffer outside the
gate, outside the wall of the city. Why? Why couldn't he go
in and suffer right outside the temple where people were gathered?
No, he couldn't do that. because he'd been made unclean when he
was made sin for his people. And he had to suffer outside
the camp. He had to suffer outside the presence of his father because
he'd been made guilty of the sin of his elect. And the father's
presence was there as Christ suffered, wasn't it? I mean,
we say he suffered outside the presence of his father. He cried,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But the father was
there. Christ felt his father there. He felt his wrath. He
felt his justice. The Father could not look on
him with any love at that time. But Christ was made unclean. You know why? So that by his
sacrifice he could make his people clean. And it's that sacrifice,
it's that sacrifice that draws everyone for whom Christ died
to Him. It's His sacrifice that makes
us without sin. Now if that don't draw you to
Christ, it's because you're dead. And I pray the Lord will give
you eyes of faith to see Him. If you'll see Him, if you see
Him lifted up. You know why we always preach
Christ crucified? Because the Savior said when I'm lifted up
from the earth, I'll draw all. unto me, all my people. That's why we keep lifting up
this sacrifice. If God ever lets you see Him,
you'll come to Him. You'll come to Him, and you'll find He's
just the sacrifice that you need. All right, I pray God bless that
to you. I appreciate you having me.