as I read and study the book
of Leviticus in particular, and see all the requirements of God
in his law for worship. All the requirements of God for
men and women like you and me to come before him and be accepted
in our worship of him. The hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of sacrifices required to be offered to God daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly by the high priest in Israel. I try to get some
sense of how these sacrifices declare to us the great holiness,
purity, and righteousness of our God. So holy that he cannot
look upon sin. so pure that it cannot touch
the wicked, so righteous that it cannot embrace the defiled,
but by one sacrifice. And that one sacrifice, the Lord
Jesus Christ, our Savior, portrayed in all these other sacrifices. In all these ceremonies, all
the sacrifices could not put away one sin. All the ceremonies
could not make anyone clean. Only ceremonially were they pronounced
clean. Only ceremonially did they draw
near to God. Only by the sacrifice of God's
darling son, the Lord Jesus Christ, can God Almighty embrace and
look upon and accept such things as we are. Oh, what a horrid
evil my sin must be. It takes the life of God's own
son to put it away. The blood of God's darling to
wash it away. And in the light of all that,
the sacrifices continually announced to my soul, and I hope to yours,
how utterly, completely consecrated and devoted to God I ought to
be. Oh, Spirit of God, so compel
me So constrain me, so force me by the revelation of the love
of Christ that I withhold not a moment, not a particle of my
life from him who loved me and gave himself for me. Turn with
me, if you will, to Leviticus chapter six. And I want to talk
to you a little while about the sacrifice that could not be eaten. Our text will be verses 24 through
30. Here again, we are given specific
instructions concerning the sacrifice of the sin offering and the priest,
Aaron's sons, who were required of God to present the sacrifice
before the Lord. Now the regulations relating
to the sin offering insofar as the worshipers who came before
God were given in chapter 4. Here the regulations specifically
relate to God's priest, those men responsible to offer the
sacrifice, both the sacrifice and all the regulations concerning
it. All the regulations of divine worship in the legal Mosaic age
were designed to give us a type and picture of redemption and
grace by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I keep repeating that because
as we read the Old Testament, we need to keep this in mind.
This book, the laws and the ceremonies and the sacrifices and the history
recorded in this book, All are just meaningless riddles until
you understand that the whole thing speaks about redemption,
grace, and salvation by Christ. And when you read the book in
that light, it falls open and makes sense to you and has effect
upon your life. Now, as we look at these seven
verses here, Leviticus 6, 24 through 30, I want to call your
attention to four things. First, our minds are directed
to the place of sacrifice. Verse 24, The LORD spake unto
Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his son, saying, This
is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt
offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before
the LORD. It is most holy. Now understand this. And I could
spend a while talking about this. Matter of fact, I'm going to
spend a little while talking about it. Everything relating to the worship of God
in the Old Testament was marked by the utmost reverence. Everything in the worship of
God throughout the Old Testament is marked by the utmost reverence. During the Mosaic age, men and
women understood that the Holy Lord God was to be had in reverence
by those who drew near to him. Those who did not approach him
reverently, but dared to presume upon his goodness, incurred his
immediate wrath and displeasure. Nadab and Abihu in chapter 10
stand as prime examples of this. Nadab and Abihu are Aaron's son's
priest. who dared to come into the presence
of God with strange fire. Don't you find it strange that
God never gives us a hint what that strange fire was? He never
gives us a hint what it is. Lots of guesses have been made.
The guesses are all vain and meaningless. God never gives
a hint what it is. He simply says, they offered
me that which I commanded them not. Men presume they can come
to God in whatever way they want to, with whatever sacrifice they
bring Him. If you come to God, if you worship
God, you will come to God and worship God in exactly the way
He has required and prescribed, or you will not come to Him.
They have been by you brought strange fire, and God killed
them in the holy place. Uzziah, the mighty king, burned
incense in the house of the Lord, assuming to himself the office
of God's high priest. This man thought, if the priest
can come to God, I can come to God. And when he did, he was
stricken with leprosy and died under the curse of God. The Lord
God killed Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's sons, and took the priesthood
from the house of Eli because his sons did not honor him before
the people. Over and over again, God says,
this is the reason I've stricken you. This is the reason I've
slain men. This is the reason I had done
this because I will be sanctified of you. We repeat our Lord's
statement in the Lord's prayer and repeat it properly. Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. But it is an empty,
meaningless repetition if you make no effort to hallow his
name. David, you'll remember, after
God killed Uzzah for putting his hand on the ark. He said,
the Lord brought a breach upon him and the people. And this
is the reason, because we sought him not after the due order. If God demanded reverence in
that day, and that day of legal, ceremonial, typical worship,
how much more we in this age of spirit and light and gospel
ought to reverence the God of heaven. The psalmist said God
is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to
be had in reverence of all them that are about him. That which
men and women commonly refer to as contemporary worship is
nothing but the contempt of God pretending to worship God. Reverence
for God or the lack of it is seen in many things. Reverence
for God or the contempt of God is displayed in many ways. I
know I have a reputation for being kind of stiff and it's
not going to change. I don't Allow folks to run in
and out, go get water, and just move back in the services. Like
nothing important's going on here. There's a reason for it.
We've come to hear from God. We've come to worship God, and
that's too important to be disturbed by triviality and nonsense. We
don't have entertainment of any kind. We're not gonna have it.
Why? We didn't come to be entertained. We came to worship God. That's the purpose. Our attitude
toward his word and ordinances ought to always reflect reverence. I don't mean a pretense of reverence.
I don't mean a show of reverence. I mean when we come to hear God,
we ought to come here seeking to hear God speak. As Brother
Mark just prayed, God give us a message for our hearts this
hour. We ought to come seeking a word
from God for ourselves. A word from God for our brethren. A word from God for sinners standing
on the brink of eternity. And we ought to reverence the
preaching of God's word and the ordinance of God. Prayer. The blessed privilege of singing
the praise of God. the blessed privilege of baptism,
the Lord's table. These things ought to always
be approached with reverent hearts. We display reverence or the lack
of it by our preparation or carelessness when we prepare to come to worship,
by punctuality or just don't care when we get here. By our
attire. I know we live in this age and
everybody dresses any way they want to. I'm getting sick and
tired, I go places, and I know some of the folks listening to
this message tonight will take offense by this. That's all right,
you just have to be offended. I'm sick and tired of seeing
men and women come to church like they were going out to a
ball game. Come to the house of God to worship
God. I see men coming in T-shirts and shorts. And women doing the
same thing. It's absurd. It's utterly contemptible
of God. You wouldn't do it anywhere else.
You wouldn't do it anywhere else. I actually had this happen once.
A fellow who got upset with me making just that kind of statement.
Well, this is a day when folks are casual about everything.
He got invited to go to an important dinner. He came to ask me if
he could borrow some cufflinks so he could dress properly. What absurdity! What absurdity! Well, get dressed to go to a
dinner, get dressed to go to a dance, get dressed to go to
anything, but to come worship God? Well, it don't matter how
you come to worship God. Yes, it does. Ask God about it. I don't mean by that God's impressed
with the way you dress. I mean by that men are. You treat
things contemptibly, others will. You and I who worship God ought
to display reverence for him. And our attitude while we're
in the house of God ought to reflect such reverence as well.
It was required that the sacrifice brought to God be brought to
and slain at the place God required. It wasn't enough that the right
sacrifice be brought. It had to be brought to the specific
place and slain in the specific place God required. Turn back
to chapter one, Leviticus one. The sacrifice had to be brought
before the Lord to the door of the tabernacle at the altar and
slain on the north side of the altar. That's pretty specific.
Look at verse 3, chapter 1. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice
of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. He shall offer
it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord. Verse 5. And he shall kill
the bullock before the Lord. And the priest Aaron's sons shall
bring the blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the
altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Verse 11. And he shall kill it on the side
of the altar northward before the Lord. Why all this fuss? Surely it would be acceptable
so long as the person was sincere. I'd ask us about that. If we're
sincere in worshiping God, we will reverently worship God exactly
as he teaches us to worship him in his word. Why all the fuss? Why all the bother? Why such
close attention to detail? Read the last line of verse 25
in Leviticus 6. It is most holy. The sin offering, like the burnt
offering, pointed to the great sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom God has redeemed and saved his people. It had to be
brought to the same place, killed at the same spot, on the north
side of the altar, because it was most holy. It was most holy
because it pointed to Christ, not because the sacrifice was.
It was only so ceremonially. It was only so as it pointed
to Christ, our great sin-atoning sacrifice, and pointed to His
death at Calvary, which is most holy indeed. The sacrifice was
killed on the very spot of ground where the Lord Jesus Christ was
sacrificed for us at Mount Calvary which is on the north side of
Jerusalem. How beautiful for situation.
The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the
north, the city of the great king. It is as if the priest
and the worshiper were standing at the foot of the cross where
those holy women stood watching the Savior die in their stead. Would to God every time you come
to this place, you came just like that. As those women watching
the Savior, stood by and watched what went on as he suffered in
their stead. It was as if they stood at the
door of heaven when the heavenly host saw the Lord of glory returning
as a man with his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. It's as if they stood in the
very presence of God himself. all his holy angels, all the
ransomed in heaven, and heard the Son of God say, it is finished,
they stood here at the place God prescribed on the sides of
the north and brought a sacrifice, as if they had seen the Lord
God himself revealed. In fact, that's exactly what
the believing worshiper saw when he brought a sacrifice. He saw
that one whom God had promised, portrayed in the sacrifice, in
whom God would show the brightness of his glory, shining in the
face of Jesus Christ. Never was there such an hour,
never such an event, never such a place as that which is here
portrayed. The sacrifice of God's darling
son at Calvary. Truly, it is most holy. He is
the sacrifice God required. He is the sacrifice God offered. He is the sacrifice God accepted. That's what Isaiah saw. That's
what every believer sees when he receives Christ by faith,
and by faith receives the blessedness of this redemption accomplished.
This is the thing that makes us and our sacrifices, our worship,
our service, our lives acceptable and most holy before God. We
are accepted of God only through, by, with, and in Jesus Christ
our Lord. By His sacrifice, God accepts
us. Look at verses 26 and 29. These two verses describe the
eating of this sacrifice. Verse 26, the priest that offereth
it for sin shall eat it. In the holy place shall it be
eaten. In the court of the tabernacle
of the congregation. Verse 29, all the males among
the priest shall eat thereof. It is most holy. Now these three
things are presented in these two verses. First, substitution. Substitution is portrayed in
the offering made by the priest. The opening words of verse 26,
the priest shall offer it for sin, might be more properly translated,
the priest that makes it sin. By receiving the sacrifice from
the man, the sinner who brings it. who laid his hands upon the
head of the sacrifice. And then the priest laying his
hands upon the head of that sacrifice. Ceremonially, the priest as well
as the worshiper transfer the sin from the sinner to the sacrifice. That's exactly what happened
when God made his son sin for us. He died the just for the
unjust that he might bring us to God. But when he died under
the wrath of God, he was reckoned unjust, reckoned deserving of
death, reckoned worthy of hell. How come? Because he was. He was justly reckoned worthy
of death because our sins were made his sins, and being made
his, they were justly imputed to him. Second, the eating of
this sacrifice by God's priest is a picture of faith. Faith
feeding upon Christ the bread of life, thereby drawing life
from him. That's the picture our Lord gives
in John chapter six when he talks about eating his flesh and drinking
his blood. By faith we take all that he
is, all his obedience, all his sacrifice, all his death, all
his life, all his blood, all his being, and feed upon him. And feeding upon him. We draw
life from him. Life is sustained by him and
we live in him. And third, this portrays communion. Sweet, sweet communion. The communion
saved sinners have with the Holy Lord Christ by faith. The Lord
Jesus, our God, our great Savior, who by himself purged our sins
away. intimate, sweet communion. With those whose sins He purged
away as we feed upon His sacrifice. The sacrifice was not eaten by
one man, but rather it was eaten by all the priests, all of those
who ministered in the holy place, all the sons of Aaron, and all
God's priests, all God's people, feeding upon the same sacrifice,
have sweet communion with Christ. And all have the same abundant
provision of grace and mercy in Christ the Lord. The provision
is Christ himself. So that, as says Jonathan Holbrook,
my friend, all that God has given me in Christ, he's given you. from everlasting. All that God
gave to Abraham in Christ, he's given to you. All that God gave
to the apostle Paul in Christ, he's given to you, each of you
who are Christ. And as the Lord Jesus walked
with his saints of old, even in the flesh, even now he walks
with his saints on this earth and declares, I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee. He comes and takes up his residence
in his people permanently. When we're aware of it, and when
we're not aware of it. When we sense His presence, and
when we sense the absence of His presence. When we enjoy sweet
communion with Him, and when the heavens seem as brass, still
all the while He is with us. The sacrifice was to be eaten
in the tabernacle, in the holy place. in the court of the tabernacle
of the congregation. You see, Aaron and his sons feeding
on that sacrifice represent God's royal priesthood, the priesthood
of God's people in Christ. feeding upon and finding nourishment
for our souls in the house of God, the church of the living
God, by the gospel of God's grace. This is how and where God feeds
his children. This is the temple of God. This
is where God says, I will meet with you. This is where God says,
where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the
midst of them. This is the place where God spreads
the gospel feast And by the hand of men, gifted by His grace to
preach the gospel, feeds you with knowledge and with understanding. Number three, verses 27 and 28. And let's see what the book says
here about the demands of this sacrifice. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh
thereof shall be holy. When there is sprinkled of the
blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon
it was sprinkled in the holy place. But the earthen vessel,
the clay pot wherein it is sodden, the word sodden means boiled,
the clay pot wherein it is boiled shall be broken. And if it be
sodden, if it be boiled in a brazen pot, a pot of brass, shall be
both scoured and rinsed in water." What an awesome sight the blood
of the sacrifice must have been. What an awesome sight the blood
of Christ, God's true sacrifice for sin is. As this blood represented
the sin offering, Even those lifeless, inanimate things that
came into contact with the sacrifice were revered as holy, sacred
things, because blood was on them. Just a clay pot, just a
clay pot. God says that's holy. Just a
brass pot, a little more expensive, but just a brass pot. God says
that's holy. The garments of the priest were
blood splattered on them. God says those garments are holy.
Why? Because the sacrifice touched
those things. Anything that the blood touched,
anything the sacrifice touched, could never again be used for
any other purpose. It remained in the holy place,
in the service of God. If not, it was smashed to pieces. Anything and anyone that touched
the sacrifice was by that sacrifice made holy. We were made holy. by the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ, not by our touching Him by faith,
but by Him touching us in covenant grace. This chapter does not
declare that men would be made holy by touching the sacrifice. Rather, it declares that they
must be holy because they touched the sacrifice, because the sacrifice
touched them, rather. Only those who had been sanctified
could touch it. And all those that were touched
by it were sanctified. So it is today. Only those who
have been made holy by God's own work of grace can lay hold
of Christ. Those who are sanctified by God
the Father in eternal election. Sanctified by God the Son through
blood redemption. and sanctified by God the Holy
Ghost in regeneration. We are manifestly made holy.
We experience the blessedness of this sanctification, this
holiness in Christ when we lay hold of him. But our laying hold
of him is not what makes us holy. Our holding him is not what sanctifies
us. Rather, it is him having made
us holy that causes us to lay hold on him. Our faith simply
receives the work he has done. And the faith by which we receive
him is the result of his sacrifice. We enjoy peace with God when
we touch the sacrifice. We enjoy the assurance of righteousness
and justification when we touch the sacrifice. But our touching
the sacrifice is because the sacrifice has touched us. That
woman with the issue of blood came and said, if I could just
touch the hem of his garment, I would be made whole. And she,
touching the hem of his garment, drew virtue, life out of him
to herself. Well, that's saving faith. It
is indeed. But the efficacy of the faith didn't come from the
woman. It came from the sacrifice. It
is the sacrifice of Christ our Redeemer that makes our faith
effectual before God, being united to Christ, being consecrated
to God, having touched and having been touched by God's sacrifice. We now, henceforth forever, have
no other use but to serve Him. No other purpose. The priest's
garments, when splattered with blood, had to be washed in the
holy place. That tells me that the blood
of Christ is precious beyond our highest thought. It is to
be reverenced above all things, never treated as something common,
ordinary, spoken of casually. And the blood must be sprinkled
upon God's altar. sprinkled toward the veil, sprinkled
then upon our consciences to purge the conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. The vessels that carried the
sacrifice and the blood, just pots in which the sacrifice sat,
had to either be smashed to pieces or scoured. There's much instruction
here. I can only scratch the surface,
and if I had a lot of time, I could still just scratch the surface,
because I don't pretend to know everything's implied here. But
these things, this much at least is certain. First, there was
a deficiency in the sacrifices here in Leviticus 6. Paul tells
us in Hebrews 10, they could never take away sin. But blessed
be God, there's no deficiency. in our sacrifice. He has, by
his blood, completely purged away our sins. Second, the breaking
of the earthen vessel which carried the sacrifice certainly spoke
of our Lord's holy humanity crushed under the wrath of God for us.
And third, there seems an obvious reference to me, at least, to
gospel preachers. God's servants are just earthen
vessels, frail, broken pieces of clay that carry God's sacrifice. And fourth, the treatment of
these vessels portrayed and intimated the complete restoration of all
things at last to our God. The very blood that soaked up
the very ground that soaked up the blood of our Savior's sacrifice
is by that blood sanctified to God and the day will soon come
when he who shall restore all things to God will make the very
earth itself new and on God's earth there shall be nothing
but righteousness and peace and joy. On God's earth, nothing
but righteousness from sea to sea and from the river to the
ends of the earth. As the brazen vessel had to be
scoured and scrubbed, so God will purge this earth with fire
in the last day. These are all demands of the
sacrifice. All who touch it must be holy. The vessels carrying it must
be God's alone. The earth itself touched by the
blood must be restored to God. As the earthen vessel Touched
by the sacrifice must be broken. So everyone touched by this sacrifice
is broken before God. Broken before God. God dwells
with men and women of a broken heart. And it is he who breaks
the heart. As the priest's garment stained
with blood had to be washed, and the vessel of brass had to
be scoured, so all who are redeemed by the blood of Christ must be
washed by God the Holy Spirit in the washing of regeneration
and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And as those vessels sanctified
by the sacrifice could never be used for any other purpose,
So you and I, saved by God's grace, are utterly consecrated
to him by the sacrifice. Jimmy Bowman, you're bought with
a price. You're not your own. I'll tell you what you ought
to expect of that. You ought to expect yourself to live like
that. You're not your own. You've been
bought with a price. You have no claim. over anything
you hold in your hands, you're not your own. You're bought with
a price. I wrote to a preacher today several
times by email. I do a lot of writing, sometimes
too much, but he talked about pastoring. And I asked him about
some things. He said, well, I can't be expected
to sell my house, give up my job, go past the church, not
know what they're gonna do. And I wrote him back and I said,
I fully understand. I fully understand where you're
coming from. If you prefer that security, the wondrous, glorious,
high privilege of preaching the gospel of God's free grace, if
I were you, I'd say right where you are. I'd say right where you are. I'm not my own, and you're not
your own. That dear lady there is not mine
nor hers. We bought with a price! Christ
has the rightful claim over everything. Everything. That's just your reasonable service. That's just your reasonable service.
Now, let's look at the other sacrifice in verse 30. Here's
a sacrifice that God says cannot be eaten. No sin offering whereof
any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation
to reconcile with all in the holy place shall be eaten. It
shall be burnt in the fire. Again, everything spoken of here,
everything treated here is spoken of and treated with the highest
reverence. The blood of the sacrifice of the sin offering has expiated
the transgression. The flesh of the animal sacrifice
is gold, but by virtue of its sacrifice, it's holy. Just as our risen Redeemer was
justified in the Spirit. As such, the sacrifice has been
eaten in the holy place. But there's another offering.
a sin offering, a burnt offering, by which reconciliation was made
between the Holy Lord God and His sinful people. This sacrifice
was to be eaten by the priest in the court of the tabernacle.
By this they identified themselves with the sacrifice. But the sacrifice
spoken of here in verse 30, this is for God alone. The blood of
this offering on the great holy day in Israel, the day of atonement,
spoken of over in chapter 16, was sprinkled on the mercy seat.
The carcass of this sacrifice was not eaten by the priest or
anyone else. Rather, it was burned outside
the camp in its entirety, totally consumed by the fire of God. Why so? Because the sacrifice
to make atonement is atonement made to God alone. And nothing makes the sacrifice,
makes the atonement except Christ, God's sacrifice. Only this lamb
for a burnt offering can make atonement for our sin. And the
Lord Jesus Christ with His blood entered in once into the holy
place and obtained eternal redemption for us. Now, let's wrap this
up. Turn to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13. Why was the sacrifice not to
be eaten by any man? Why this prohibition? Hebrews
13 verse 10. We have an altar. whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies
of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by
the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus
also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood,
suffered without the gate. And now, in Christ, because he
suffered all the wrath of God in our stead, because justice
is fully satisfied on our behalf by Christ, our propitiation,
now listen to me, listen to me, now we have the right, that's the word
I wanted, Lindsay, we have the right to come into the holiest
of all. by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Not just permission, the right. What right? Blood right. God has accepted the sacrifice
and he calls us to come within the holy of holies, within the
veil, with full assurance of faith through the blood of his
son. And I make you this promise.
When you come to God, trusting Christ alone, you come to God
with full assurance of faith. Any lack of assurance comes from
trusting something or somebody else. You come to God with the
sacrifice God has consumed, and God has accepted the sacrifice
that God gives. Look at chapter 13 again, verse
13. Let us go forth, therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach. For here we have no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. By him, therefore, let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit
of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Let us therefore, because of
Christ, our sacrifice that God has consumed and God has accepted. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Amen. Let's stand together and
pray.