Most everyone involved in religion
in any way at all speaks a good bit about holiness. There are
denominations that wear the name holiness. There are conferences
all over the world about holiness. In preparing this message, looking
for what I could on the subject yesterday, I ran across a brochure
for a conference on holiness. good many of the men preaching
in the conference. They are all men who at least give lip service
to believe in the Gospel of God's free grace. But I dare say, though
I didn't listen to the sermons, I dare say not one of them said
anything accurate with regard to holiness. Holiness, that's
my subject tonight. Brother Scott Richardson wrote
this a long time ago. I just saw it again last week. Listen carefully. If I am uneasy
in reference to the settlement of the question of sin, I cannot
worship, I cannot enjoy fellowship either with God or his people,
nor can I be an intelligent or effective witness for the Lord
Jesus. The heart must rest perfect as
to the perfect remission of sin before we can worship God in
spirit and in truth. If there be any guilt on the
conscience, there must be terror in the heart. A heart filled
with terror cannot be happy or a worshiping heart. It's only
from a heart filled with Christ is our sacrifice for sin that
true and acceptable worship can ascend to the Father. The hearts
must be at rest before God with the knowledge that sin is forgiven
and we are accepted of God in the perfection of holiness. Oh, we cannot be at peace with
God. We cannot worship God. God demands
holiness. The Holy Lord God cannot and
will not accept anything less than perfect holiness. But how
can people like you and me, who know our sin and confess our
sin, how can we come before God Almighty with a free conscience,
a conscience clear of guilt, in the confidence of perfect
holiness, accepted with God? That's what the book of Leviticus
is all about. And tonight I want, as we begin
going through the book of Leviticus again, I want to give you a overall
message of the whole book. So open your Bibles with me to
Leviticus and just hold them there. If you've not done so,
I suggest that you, at least in your notes, if not at the
top of the first page of the book of Leviticus, write these
words, Moses wrote of me. Our Lord Jesus said plainly,
Moses spoke of me. And when you read Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, remember in these books, Moses
is talking about Christ. That's the subject of those five
books as it is of the entire book of God. Moses spoke concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. we understand that, we will not
understand the book of Leviticus or any other portion of Holy
Scripture. The book of Exodus concluded
with the setting up of the tabernacle for the worship of God. This
was the place, this tabernacle that God commanded Moses to make
was the place where God met with His people. where God gave out
his word, where God was worshiped by his people. He said, I will
meet you upon the mercy seat, on the place of sacrifice, representing
our Redeemer. Everything concerned with that
tabernacle and the worship and services of the tabernacle spoke
of, foreshadowed, and typified the Lord Jesus Christ, redemption
by him, and salvation in and with him. So the book of Exodus
describes that tabernacle in great detail, gives the instructions
for the making of the tabernacle, and God inspired Moses to do
this, showing him a pattern. He said, now you do it exactly
according to the pattern showed thee in the mount. And Moses
made the tabernacle after the picture God gave him of redemption
and grace and salvation in Jesus Christ the Lord. The book of
Leviticus describes for us the ordinances and ceremonies of
divine worship in the tabernacle and in the temple of the Old
Testament. It was written about 2,500 years after the creation,
about 1,500 years before the coming of our Lord Jesus. And
the sacrifices, the rites, the ceremonies made here described
the work of our Savior as well. They too foreshadowed, typified,
represented, pictured redemption, grace, and salvation by Christ. Now when you read the book of
Leviticus, unlike most of the Old Testament books, There are
only three historic events described here. Three things that are marked
out as historic events. The first is described in chapters
8 and 9, and that's talking about the consecration of Aaron and
his sons as God's priests. There's a two-fold picture here.
The Aaronic priesthood represents the priesthood of our Lord Jesus,
as Ruth just said. We have a priest forever at the
right hand of God, who by one offering has perfected forever
them that are sanctified, and because he is accepted and lives
forever, this high priest, the Lord Jesus, through his blood
and righteousness, by the power of his grace, is able to save
unto the uttermost. all who come to God by Him. He
is able to make you both free from sin and perfectly righteous
before God. That's what salvation is. It
is complete deliverance from sin and perfect holiness before
God all by Him. And those priests who were Aaron's
sons represent the church and kingdom of God. The priest family
lived about the holy place. They lived always in the holy
place. They fed on holy things. The sacrifices brought by the
children of Israel to God's tabernacle, sacrifice to God, the priest
took those sacrifices and lived upon them. You and I, who are
God's people, are described as a royal priesthood. We are, with
Christ, priests unto God. We do not have, we refuse to
recognize any earthly priest. We will not call a man a priest,
and we will not treat a man as a priest. We have one great high
priest, Jesus Christ the Lord. And we, as sons and daughters
of God Almighty, are priests unto God. That means, Mark Daniel,
we have constant, unfailing access to God with Christ the Lord.
We live continually in heaven, in the holy place, and live continually
upon God's sacrifice, feasting upon the blood and righteousness
of God's dear Son, our Lord Jesus. Then in chapter 10, I read with
interest again today about the death of Aaron's sons, Nadab
and Abihu. who offered strange fire before
the Lord, and they were killed. God killed
them in the holy place because they offered strange fire before
the Lord. Now, men have tried in lots of
ways to try to figure out what the strange fire was. God didn't
tell us for a reason. What was this strange fire? It
was some fire other than the fire that God gave and God required. It was some other fire they brought
in, something of their own, something they brought to God, presuming
that if they came, they would be accepted of God, bringing
their fire, whatever it was. Be warned, my friends. The Lord
God still slays sinners. dare to approach him with anything
other than the sacrifice that he requires and he gives Christ
Jesus the Lord. Mix anything with the merit of
Christ's blood and Christ's righteousness and you have denied Christ and
denied God and denied the gospel of God altogether. We must come
to God only trusting the Savior. not bringing our works, not bringing
our feelings, not bringing our resolutions, not bringing our
duties, but only Jesus Christ, our Savior, who alone is the
sacrifice by which we are accepted of God. Then in chapter 24, we
read about the stoning of Shelemeth's son because of his blasphemy. And we're told that those who
blaspheme the name of God, Curse him, denying that he is God alone,
and they shall be destroyed. You see, to blaspheme God is
not simply to speak God's name with an oath. It is not just
cussing and using God's name and swearing. That's not it.
That's blaspheming his name, but that's not all. To blaspheme
God is to deny that he alone is God. He alone is God and you
will either worship him as God alone or God will slay you just
as he did this unnamed wretch who though he had an Israelite
mother, he had an Egyptian father and he preferred the gods of
Egypt and the ways of Egypt to the God of Christ or the God
of glory and the way Christ Jesus our Lord. All the rest of the
book of Leviticus is taken up with ceremonial laws. Law after
law after law, sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, services
after services after services, and they're often repeated as
you read through these 27 chapters. These ceremonies, these sacrifices,
these rites, these washings, all of them are the means by
which God gives us a picture of how he sets apart a people
for himself. It means by which God distinguishes
his elect from the rest of the world, by which God calls out
his people and says, these are mine. These distinct things are
spoken of in the book of Leviticus, speaking of the Levitical priesthood,
you and I who are God's priests. Now with that in mind, let's
turn to what I think is a key chapter in the book, chapter
20 and verse 26, a key verse in the book. Here is the central
dominant message of the entire book of Leviticus. and ye shall
be holy unto me. For I, the Lord, am holy, and
have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine. Now this is the message of Leviticus.
God demands holiness. And what God demands, God gives. Oh, find sweet rest here. God
demands holiness, and what God demands, God gives. All the types,
ceremonies, and sacrifices of the law, the priest and the holy
things spoken of in these chapters show us that our only way of
access to God is Christ. But blessed be his name, By Christ,
because we are one with Christ, we have access with God and we
have that holiness which God demands in him by his obedience
and by his blood, by his grace and by his work. We come to God
with confident peace. When we come to God, believe
in Christ. We come to God with confidence
of acceptance. When we come to God, trusting
his son. We come to God with ease of access. When we come to God with that
holiness, which God alone performs and God alone gives. When I was
younger, like most folks in Bible college, we got carried away
with one thing and then another. And I heard a great deal about
folks who were serious. Some of the fellows were really
serious. They talk about prayer and approaching
God. And I heard sermons and read
books on how you ought to spend time getting ready and prepared
to pray, getting yourself in a right position to pray. But
somehow that just didn't jive with what I read in the book
of God. or with what I experienced myself. As you prepare yourself
to come to God, you're preparing yourself to be shut out from
God. As you prepare yourself to be accepted of God, you're
preparing yourself to be denied of God. How do we come to God? We come to God trusting Christ,
trusting Christ alone. So that our feelings, our doings,
our duties have nothing to do with our confidence before God.
Our confidence before God is in his son. Now, this is both
the command of God and the promise of God to his people. ye shall
be holy unto me. For I am the Lord, I the Lord
am holy and have severed you from among other people that
you should be mine. Look at chapter 19, chapter 19
verse one. The Lord spake unto Moses saying,
speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel and
say unto them, ye shall be holy. For I, the Lord your God, am
holy. You're familiar with that passage
I've referred to many times in the last several weeks in Hebrews
12, verse 14. We are urged to follow peace
with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
That means you've got to be holy or you can't be accepted of God.
You've got to be holy or you can't be accepted of God. The
Lord God declares to his chosen covenant people, they shall be
holy, not partially holy, not morally holy, but entirely holy. This is not a recommendation.
It is a declaration, a declaration of grace made to a specific people. The word holy really has two
distinct meanings. Both definitions of the word
must be understood and applied here in Leviticus and in the
scriptures as a whole. To be holy, first, is to be separate,
distinct, peculiar, separated, and severed from all others.
You have a hundred glasses here, and you pull one glass out and
set it over here, that one's holy. Now that's what the word
essentially means. separated, distinct, peculiar. To be holy secondly means to
be pure or purified, clean. That which is holy then is that
which God has separated from fallen humanity in his sovereign
grace and that which God has made pure and clean by that same
free and sovereign grace. God declares here to his Israel
and to all who stand before him as his covenant people. You shall
be separate, distinct, peculiar, separated and severed from all
others, pure and purified before me. We know that is the intent
and meaning of this statement by comparing scripture with scripture. Over and over and over again,
the Lord God declares, you shall be holy. You shall be holy. Perfect or you cannot be accepted. The Lord God Almighty, by the
work of his free and sovereign grace, takes such things as we
are. Sinners, found in the dung heap
of fallen humanity, and makes them holy." Washed, sanctified,
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God. By the precious blood of His
Son, He put away our sins, removed all guilt from us, By divine
regeneration, he puts a new nature in us, Christ in you, the hope
of glory, that new man created in righteousness, and he says
specifically, true holiness. So that means, Mark Medley, if
you're born of God, there's somebody in you that wasn't in you before.
There is a man in you created by God in righteousness and true
holiness. And that man is Christ Jesus
the Lord. That's what the new birth is.
It is being made partaker of the divine nature. And finally,
in resurrection glory, this work shall be complete when we have
dropped this robe of flesh. Let's look at it a little more
carefully. God requires holiness. And God
gives holiness to his people. But what is this holiness? I've
got to address it a little bit from the negative side because
we're so universally inundated with thoughts, free will, works,
religion from our youth up that we commonly think that holiness
has something to do with austerity or weird behavior. We tend to
think that holy people are people who look and act as if they were
weaned on a dill pickle and bathed in embalming fluid. We tend to
think that holy folks, we don't really, you and I here, you know,
we wear modern clothes for the most part and we don't dress
funny for the most part and we kind of look at the Amish folks
and the Amish community and say, you know, they dress funny because
they think that makes them holy. But we think just like them.
We think just like them. When we think that by doing or
not doing something, we make ourselves holy. We're a little
bit like that little girl we've all heard about who on her first
trip to the country, she had never seen a mule before and
she saw a mule looking over the fence and she was just standing
there looking at it and she said, I don't know what you are, but
you must be a Christian because you look just like grandpa. And
we think that somehow that Severe, sour attitude and look and behavior
has something to do with godliness. Holiness is commonly associated
with grimness, strangeness, oddity, something ugly, something unappealing,
anything distasteful, anything that's distasteful to our nature.
And frankly, as I've often heard it described from the pulpit
and read it in the writings of men, I would have to agree with
the thoughts that they have. But that's not what holiness
is. That's just religious self-righteousness,
nothing else. The Corinthian era, they thought
that by separating themselves from things, they could make
themselves holy. The same as the Papists. You
have read a little bit of history, maybe, maybe seen some things
in a movie, maybe had some experience with it, but Papists go and they
send their fellows who are training for the ministry and their monks
and their priests into convents so they can live in isolation
and treat themselves with severity. and sacrifice, so they sometimes
will take an oath of silence or an oath of poverty, one thing
or another, to show their holiness to God. Same thing with their
nuns. It's just a pretense of religious self-righteousness.
The Puritan forefathers were just as guilty, just as guilty. It is the era of all works religion. to presume that somehow by eating
this or not eating that, drinking this or not drinking that, wearing
this or not wearing that, is going to make you holy. It doesn't
work. It doesn't work. The Word of
God speaks of holiness in a different way. The Bible speaks of holiness
repeatedly as a beautiful thing. Four times in the Word of God
we're commanded to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. And let me repeat it again because
I want you to hear it and hear it well. Holiness has something
to do with wholeness, entirety, completion, perfection. God is holy. Now, sometimes you'll
hear fellows preach like this, God is so holy. Well, you're not so holy. You're
either holy or you're unholy. Holiness is the wholeness of
God's being. So that all that God is in the
totality of his being, his wholeness as God sets him apart from all
who are called gods. That's God's holiness. And God
in his grace comes to sinners who are fallen in Adam. broken
and un-whole. If I can use that word, I'll
make up a word, un-whole. We are by nature un-whole. God created Adam in the garden
and created our race in the garden whole. Whole. Body, soul, and spirit. When we sinned in our father
Adam in the garden, we sinned against God and we died spiritually,
so that every man since Adam is born not body, soul, and spirit,
but body and soul, dead spiritually. When God the Holy Ghost comes
in regenerating grace, he puts life in you. And that life in
you is called spirit. So that now the sinner is made
whole by God's grace. He's given a holy nature and
his body, soul and spirit by the grace of God. I do not suggest
or imply in any way That holiness doesn't involve separation, distinctness,
and peculiarity. It certainly does. What I am
saying is this, wholeness is that which separates God's elect
from a ruined race. Wholeness, the blessed wholeness
of grace and righteousness in Christ is our separateness, our
distinctness, our peculiarity. We're told in Titus chapter two,
verse 14, that the Lord Jesus gave himself for us, that he
might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works. Nothing is more desirable, nothing
is more beautiful, and nothing more rare than this wholeness. We long to be a whole people. The whole book of Leviticus,
indeed the whole word of God, tells us how that God demands
holiness and God gives holiness. So that lost, ruined, helpless,
broken sinners. who have no way by which they
can come to God Almighty because their consciences cry guilty,
guilty, guilty. God found a way to make guilty
sinners guiltless, whole, righteous, and holy before him in Jesus
Christ the Lord. I am the Lord that healeth thee,
he says. It is written with his stripes,
we are healed. God Almighty heals the broken,
ruined state and condition of his people by five things set
before us in Leviticus. Let me give them to you just
briefly. In chapters one through seven, he speaks of sacrifices. Those seven chapters are taken
up with sacrifices. The sacrifices echoed and spoke
of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. God says, be ye
holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. And the word appears
most often right here in the book of Leviticus. Of all places,
this book about laws and ceremonies and sacrifices and washings and
purifications and separations and cleanness and uncleanness,
Leviticus uses that word holy more than any other place in
scripture. The book calls God's people holy
and shows us in type and picture how God makes his people holy. He gives us a picture in chapter
one of the burnt offering, showing us the way to God. We must come
to God by faith in Christ, the burnt offering. Our Lord Jesus
is that sacrifice offered to God as our substitute, as a burnt
offering. But unlike all the other burnt
offerings, when he was burned to death under the fire of God's
wrath, he consumed the fire of God's wrath so that justice is
fully satisfied in him. The meat offering in chapter
two portrays the character of Christ, the God-man, our substitute,
who is most holy unto the Lord. It also speaks of our consecration
to God by faith in Christ. Coming to God, we bring Christ
Jesus the Lord and we are consecrating ourselves to him. The scriptures
speak over and over here about how that we must sanctify ourselves,
purify ourselves. But you can't make yourself holy.
You can't make yourself pure. We come to God, bringing Christ
the Lord, who's made us holy, who's made us pure. And by faith
in him, consecrate ourselves to him. Come to God now, my brother. Come to God now, preacher. This
minute, afresh with the meat offering, Christ Jesus the Lord,
and give yourself utterly to him. The peace offering in chapter
three, speaks of our Lord Jesus, who alone is our peace. He made
peace for us by his blood on the cross. He gives peace to
us by revealing himself to us, speaking peace in the soul, and
he gives us peace amongst ourselves. The sin offering in chapter four,
of course, represents Christ our substitute. When thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin, He who knew no sin was made
sin for us. And when he was made sin for
us by his obedience unto death, we're made the righteousness
of God in him. The trespass offering in chapter
five speaks to us as a picture of Christ atonement. He made
atonement for our sins by paying our debt to the full satisfaction
of divine justice. When you think of that word atonement,
think of it this way. At one meant. At one meant. At one with God. That's what atonement is. The
Lord Jesus, by his blood, takes sinners alienated from God and
reconciles us to God, making us to be at one with him. Only the blood of Christ can
do that. The blood of him who by his sacrifice
satisfied the justice of God. Then in chapters 8, 9, and 10,
we see a picture of the priesthood. Sin separated us from God. We're
broken. We lack wholeness. We can't come
to God. We can't approach Him. We can't
come to God and find acceptance with Him. We must have a priest,
a mediator, a daysman, an advocate who can bring us to God. One
whom God has appointed and accepted. One who is worthy of God. who is a man, and he is portrayed
for us in Aaron, the great high priest of Israel. Oh, the garments,
everything about this priest, all his services, speaking of
our blessed Redeemer, who, wearing that golden emblem on the on
his effort right in the forefront of his garments holiness to the
Lord is our holiness before God and we in Jesus Christ our priest
are perpetually accepted of God and we can hardly we can hardly
get any sense of this we can hardly get any sense of it Our acceptance with God is perpetual
and permanent. Sometimes, Sam, God appears to
frown at us, and we need that. But God's acceptance of us never
varies. We are accepted in the Beloved,
our Great High Priest. The Lord God accepts our advocate
in heaven, and it never varies as he accepts him, and accepting
him, he accepts us. Our priest and we are one, and
we are priests of God, accepted at the holy place continually.
Near, so very near to God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person
of his Son, I am as near as he. Another work I've already mentioned
by which he makes us holy is atonement. In chapters 11 through
16, we see a picture of this atonement. Christ, our high priest,
would be useless without a sacrifice. And he who is our priest is also
our sacrifice, our sin atoning sacrifice, by whom we are made
the very righteousness of God. When Christ died for us, as He
was made sin for us, justice rightly rewarded Him for sin. Justice punished Him for sin
because He deserved to be punished for sin. Sin, we're never told
in scripture, was imputed to him. It was indeed imputed to
him, but we're never told that in scripture. It is a matter
of just understanding the scriptures. When he was made sin, sin was
rightly imputed to him, and he was punished for sin. We are
told that righteousness is imputed to us. Christ, the object of
our faith, in His righteousness is imputed to us, so that we,
being made the righteousness of God in Him, God declares us
righteous, righteous in His Son, and rewards us justly with righteousness,
so that in the last day we will stand accepted before God and
the Lord God Himself will speak to every one of you
who believe on the Son of God. And he will say to you, well
done, thou good and faithful servant. There are some things that I
want desperately as a man. I leave alone natural things.
I want to be a good husband, a good father, a good grandfather,
a good friend. I leave those things alone. I
want to be like Christ as I live in this
world, in every relationship, in every thought, in every word,
in every day. Lindsey Campbell, if I could
have anything on this earth I want, that's what I want. And I'm either telling you the
truth or I'm just lying to you. There's no in-between ground.
That's what I want. But that which I want, I most
miserably fail at. I'm better at everything else
I do. I'm better at everything else
I do. But hear me, I'm just like Him. God has made me the righteousness
of God in Him. And He's given me His nature.
He's given me His nature. And then in chapter 17 through
24, he makes us holy by restoration. To be made whole is to be restored
by God. Restored by God. The Lord God
says in verse 24, chapter 20, I am the Lord your God, which
have separated you from other people. He says, I'm yours and
you're mine. Even now, he owns us as his. And in the last day, we'll own
us as his in the perfection of resurrection glory. That's the
last thing. Liberty. Chapters 25, 26, and
27. The chapters begin in chapter 25 with the blowing of the jubilee
trumpet. This is one of those things required
by the law in Israel, required from Israel at Mount Sinai when
God first gave them His law. But there's no record anywhere
in Jewish history, not in the Bible or in history, that the
Jews ever made any attempt to keep the year of Jubilee. No
indication of it. But blessed be God, there is
a keeping of the Jubilee Feast. Liberty. the time of Jubilee,
every debtor, every prisoner, every captive, everyone who had
sold himself into bondage, everybody who owed anything was set free. And everything he had lost, even
if he lost it by his own foolishness, by his own iniquity, everything
that was lost was fully restored. That's what Christ does for His
That's what Christ does for his people. If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, a new creature. When God gives life in Christ,
when God gives faith in Christ, I don't know of a better way
to illustrate it than as we used to do with audiotapes and videotapes
when you wanted to start all over. You'd hit the rewind button.
Start all over again. Bill Raleigh, when God gave you
faith in Christ, he hit the rewind button and you start a new life. Only a new life that you can't
mess up. Oh, wonderful grace! He's given us life we can't mess
up. New life, liberty. But preacher,
we still have sin. You tell us about it all the
time, we know it. Like Paul, old wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death. We carry about
this horrible thing, sin. Sin in our members. And that
must be removed. And bless God it shall be. A
long time ago, I read an incident, read about an incident, a true
story that illustrates what I'm trying to communicate. The writer
told of a children's service at a rescue mission in one of
the Midwestern cities a long time back, and the children were
putting on a program. One of the little boys was to
give a recitation, just a very, very brief recitation. He was
only five or six years old, and he had a bad deformity. It made
him real bashful. He was humpback. He walked across
the stage because his mom and dad talked him into it and he
was getting ready to give his recitation. It was obvious he
was shy and terrified and very much aware of that hump on his
back. In fact, he just stood there for just a little bit,
shaking. And two older boys would come
in the back just to make trouble, to ridicule the service. And
one of them saw this boy and called out to him as he walked
across the stage and he said, where you go with that pack on
your back. And the boy was just devastated. He just stood there
and cried. The man got up out of the audience
and stepped up on the stage, knelt down beside him, wrapped
that boy up in his arms, and he turned and spoke to the audience,
and he said, I must, it must take a very callous person to
do what you've done. This little boy here, my boy,
And he's out here just because I ask him to do it. Just because
I ask him to do it. And he was trying for the first
time to venture out and do something, say something, just to please
me. And I want you to know, and I
want him to know, I'm proud of him. I'm proud of him, and I
love him just like he is. That's sweet. Oh, God almighty
embraces Don Fortner just like he is in his son and says, I'm
yours and you're mine. And that gives me peace and freedom
of access to him. But soon Christ is coming again
and this deformity this hump on my back called sin, this old
man that dwells in me called sin, this corruption of my nature
called sin, shall cease to be. And the Son of God, who is my
righteousness, my holiness, my redemption, will present me faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Blessed be
His name. Amen.