There is a struggle in the soul
of every living man and woman in this world. It's a struggle
found in the most civilized, the most educated, the most refined
people in the highest societies in the world. It's a struggle
found in the hearts of derelicts, drunks, prostitutes. It's a struggle
found Among the greatest barbarians who ever lived, a struggle found
in the darkest, most remote tribes found anywhere in the world.
And the struggle is this. How can I come to God? You see, God has fixed it, so
you can't erase him from your mind. He's fixed it so that every man
by nature struggles continually throughout his days until the
struggle is resolved about eternity and meeting God in judgment.
And you know you're going to meet God in judgment. I don't
have to convince anybody of that. You're convinced of that. But
you know also that God Almighty is holy. You may not have any
idea of what His holiness is, but you know that God is holy.
He's pure. He's righteous. So pure, so righteous
that He's infinitely above our highest thoughts and imaginations. So holy that every man by nature
dreads facing Him. You see, we are sin. Not just
sinful, sin. Sin. How can I express this in
such a way that it can't be misunderstood? I do not mean to imply that you
are as wicked in your behavior as you could be. I rather doubt
that will ever happen. God won't let you outside of
hell live the way you're capable of living, or me. That's not
going to happen. But I do mean for you to understand
And this book clearly teaches that at the core of your being,
at the very heart of your heart, at the center of your life, you
are as base and vile and corrupt and abominable and shameful as
hell itself. Did you hear me? There is no
evil in the universe. No evil in the universe that
is not in the heart of the oldest woman and the youngest woman
here, the oldest man and the youngest man here, and all in
between. Out of the heart proceed all
the things you read about in the newspaper and pretend to
be shocked about. And I chose the word pretend
deliberately, Bob. We just pretend to be shocked. How could any mother do that?
You too, if God just turned you loose. How could any man do that? Me
too, if God just turned me loose. That's all. Well, how can such
a vile, abominable man, whose conscience screams guilty all
the time. Come to a holy, holy, holy God,
who is a purer eye than to behold iniquity, and find acceptance
with Him. Let's turn to Leviticus 22, see
if we can find out. The psalmist says 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. Leviticus 22 records
for us by divine inspiration the laws that God gave to the
households of the priest. Now, it is important that you
remember that these laws are specifically given not just to
the priest in their functions within the tabernacle or temple,
but these laws are given to the priest with regard to their entire
living in their households. These 33 verses specifically
detail for us the reverence that God requires of His people. You
see, reverence is not a show. Reverence is not a voice tone.
Reverence is not something that you just kind of pull together
when you get here on Sunday morning and you bow your head and look
reverent and all that stuff. That's all religious show. Reverence
has to do with where you live. Reverence has to do with life. God here shows us the reverence
He requires of His people. If we would worship Him, we must
reverence Him, reverencing Him in all the details of our lives. If we do not reverence Him and
worship Him in the privacy of our homes, even as we sit down
to breakfast, lunch, or supper at the dinner table, We cannot
reverence Him, and we will not reverence Him. We cannot worship
Him, and we will not worship Him when we come together here
on Sunday morning, Sunday night, or Tuesday night. In other words,
believers are men and women who worship and serve the Lord God
Almighty in the totality of their lives. Now I want us to see five
things clearly set before us in these 33 verses. Just hold
your Bibles open on your lap and listen carefully, and be
sure you listen carefully. Here's the first thing. If you
and I come to God and find acceptance of Him, if we believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, Everybody in the world talks about believing
on Jesus, and about everybody here, I'm sure, has said they've
believed in Him two or three times already. Most everybody
I know has been saved half a dozen times. They've been to the church,
been to the altar, prayed, got everything taken care of, and
the preacher told them, now you're saved and everything's all right.
Let me tell you something. Faith in Christ, faith in Christ,
involves total consecration to Him. Total consecration to Him. I don't mean by that, perfect
consecration. That's not going to happen while
we live here. I do mean by that, Bobby Estes, faith in Christ
involves the consecration of your whole life to Him. Your whole life. Your whole life. Family. Job, business, money,
time, energy, thoughts, behavior, everything. Christ Jesus will
never receive any sinner except that sinner bow to Him as Lord. Now let's see if we can get that
here. Look at verse 1. We read here in Leviticus chapter
22 and verse 1. And the Lord said to Moses, speak unto Aaron
and to his sons that they separate themselves from the holy things.
Now mark that, it's important. Strange, isn't it? Looks like
he said separate yourselves to the holy things. He said that
all the way through this book. Till we get to chapter 22, every
time he speaks to them about holy things, he said separate
yourself to them. Separate yourself to them. Here he says, separate themselves
from the holy things of the children of Israel. And that they profane
not my name in those holy things which they hallow or sanctify
unto me. And this is the reason, I'm the
Lord. I'm the Lord. Now he's speaking
here of God's priest. And he's telling us that God's
priest are God's priest all the time. God's priest are God's
priest in every circumstance of life. God's priest are God's
priest whether they're sleeping in their beds, rising up, sitting
at their table, going about their daily duties, taking care of
the farm, whatever they're doing. God's priest are God's priest
all the time. Now when I'm speaking of God's
priest, I am not talking about some kind of a Romish idolatrous
notion of priestcraft. I'm not talking about the idea
that somehow a man serves as your priest or has you treat
him as a priest between you and God. We have but one sin-atoning,
mediating high priest, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. But the
Lord God speaks of His people as priests. He said it – turn
back to Exodus, if you will. Exodus, let me see, chapter 19. Exodus 19. When I'm talking about priests,
I'm talking about saved sinners. Men and women who are accepted
of God. Men and women who do business
with God all the time. Men and women who live in the
house of God all the time. Men and women who are accepted
and find intercourse with God on His throne all the time. Anointed,
consecrated servants of the Most High God. Accepted through the
merits and blood of Christ, God's High Priest. Look back here in
Exodus 19, verse 5. Way back here in Exodus 19, before
ever God gave the law, he says to his people, now therefore,
if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall
you be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all
the earth is mine. Now what did our Lord tell us
about ourselves? You are a peculiar people. a peculiar people. He redeemed to himself a peculiar
people, a people who distinctly belong to him. Read on, verse
6. And you shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation. A kingdom of priests. All God's
people are priests. All God's people are taught of
God. All God's people know the Lord. All God's people serve
Him in the holy place. All God's people are accepted
by the sacrifice. All of them. Thou hast made us
to our God kings and priests. Priests. To offer sacrifices
acceptable and well-pleasing to God. I'll write back here
in our text. Priests. He tells us here that God's priests
are to act like God's priests all the time. The requirement
given to separate ourselves from the holy things of the children
of Israel at first seems strange, but this is what it means. It
means that we are to keep ourselves aloof from such things. Keep ourselves aloof from the
holy things. Oh, they're very much part of
us, but we must keep ourselves aloof from them. And this is
what he's saying. He's saying, you see to it, Aaron
and sons of Aaron, Aaron and all the servants of his house,
Aaron and all his daughters, you see to it that you treat
holy things holy. You see to it that you don't
treat the things of God like you treat anything else. You
see to it that you deal with the things of God that you have
sanctified to me, the things by which I have been set apart
to be worshiped. You see to it that you deal with
these things with reverence. In other words, when you are
in your home, don't you carry the plates and the cups out of
the Lord's house to your house. Pagans might do that. Don't you
do it. A pagan king will do that and he'll die for it. Don't you
do it. Don't you take the things that belong distinctly to God
and use them for yourself. Don't you do it. Don't treat
holy things with familiarity. Don't do it. Well, Pastor, what
on earth does that have to do with us? I'm glad you asked. Children of God don't ever treat
the things of God with levity, with carnal familiarity, lightly. We who are God's priests ought
always to think and speak of our God and the things of God
with utmost reverence, sobriety, and worship. I had to correct Elder Grace pretty
firmly yesterday. She said something I've heard
a lot of preachers say. I heard one come in my office just a
few days ago, used exactly the same term, oh gosh. I stopped
and I said, honey, don't ever let me hear that again. Don't
ever let me hear it again. Don't ever let me hear that again.
That's taking God's name lightly. It's taking God's name lightly. I enjoy levity and joking. I enjoy
laughter. But I don't want to hear and
I'm not going to speak. anything lightly concerning the
things of God. Not my God, not my Savior, not
redemption, not eternal life. And God give me grace, I'm not
going to take His name lightly. He said, don't take my name in
vain. That's what this is all about.
Don't take my name in vain. Now this is what it is to take
God's name in vain. It is to speak of Him, to call
His name, speak about Him without the purposed intention of honoring
Him. That's what it is to take his
name in vain. It's not just to cuss with his name. It's to speak of him
lightly. He says, profane not my holy
name. Treat sacred things sacred because
I am the Lord. There's nobody and nothing like
me. Religion likes to compare God
to things. I don't keep up with this kind
of stuff. I shut my mind and ears to it
the best I can. When I was younger, I remember
Pepsi-Cola's real thing. Folks said, God's like Pepsi-Cola.
He's the real thing. Blasphemy. Blasphemy. Well, the man upstairs, he is
not the old man upstairs. He's God everywhere. You understand
what I'm saying? Speak reverently of God. In the
totality of your being, treat Him referently. He's the Lord. All that I am belongs to Him. And He has the right to tell
me to do with it what He will. Number two, if we would come
to God and be accepted of Him, God demands perfect holiness. Only those who are holy can approach
the Holy Lord God. Look at verse 3. saying to them,
these sons of Aaron, whosoever he be of all your seed among
your generations that goeth unto the holy things, which the children
of Israel hallow are holy are sanctified unto me, unto the
Lord. Having his uncleanness upon him,
that soul shall be cut off from my presence. Don't forget, I'm
God. I'm the Lord. What man soever
of the seed of Aaron be a leper, or hath a running issue, he shall
not eat of the holy things, until he be clean. And whoso toucheth
anything that is unclean by the dead, or a man whose seed goeth
from him, or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he
may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness,
whatsoever uncleanness he has, the soul which hath touched Any
such shall be unclean until the evening, and shall not eat of
the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water. And when
the sun is down, he shall be clean. He shall afterward eat
the holy things, because it is his food. That which dieth of
itself, or is torn with beast, he shall not eat to defile himself
therewith. Don't forget now, I keep telling
you, I'm the Lord. and the Lord. In verse 3, he
tells us that these priests were required never to be careless,
especially with regard to the worship of God. If one went into
the tabernacle in a careless state, in his uncleanness, even
though his uncleanness was just a ceremonial pollution, Even
though his uncleanness was an uncleanness that seemed to be
insignificant, he's sitting at the table in the morning and
he's already put on his work clothes, and before he gets ready
to go into the tabernacle to do business with God, a roach
runs across his toe. Nobody knows that. Nobody's seen
that. Just an unclean, creeping thing
ran across his toe. Don't you dare come in here. If you do, I'll kill you. That's
what God said here. Why? Verses 4, 5, 6, and 7. God's object in giving these
laws was to keep the priesthood from the very appearance of even
evil in their houses. The causes of defilement, many
of them were defilements known only to the man himself and God,
and might not even be known to the man without being brought
to his attention. Well, what's God saying here?
These priests represent two things. Number one, they represent the
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, who has no defilement. And he
who enters in by his own merit into the holy place to do business
with God as a representative man for other men must himself
be perfect altogether without uncleanness. And that's who Christ
is. That's who they represent. But
more than that, They also represent us. Now watch this. Those holy things were the portions
of the priest's sacrifice. Man would bring his beans or
his lambs, and he'd bring them to the priest and make an offering
to the Lord. The priest would take this part
or that part. That was his portion. They were pledges of God's communion
and God's fellowship with his people. But because he is holy,
the Lord God cannot allow even a ceremonial uncleanness to come
to him. He cannot allow even a man who
is ceremonially defiled to approach him. Before the priest could
eat the dainties of divine fellowship, even these ceremonial dainties
of divine fellowship, he must wash his flesh in water and wait
for the setting of the sun. Listen to me, my friends. You and I cannot come to God
except first we be washed by the washing of regeneration and
the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Turn to Zechariah chapter 12,
if you will. Let me show you this. Zechariah 12. It is not
our experience of grace, it is not our experience of regeneration
that gives us acceptance with God, but the experience of grace
is that which declares that we are now clean. We have been made
clean by the sacrifice of God's Son, but nobody knows anything
about that cleanness until he's experienced the grace of God
and has been regenerated by God the Holy Spirit. Zechariah 12,
verse 10, are you there? And I will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and of supplications. And they shall look upon me,
whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one
that is in bitterness for his firstborn. Now read on. In that
day, he's talking about the day of God's grace, when God comes
to you in saving power. In that day there shall be a
great mourning in Jerusalem. It's not talking about that city
across the water, it's talking about the church of God, among
God's elect. As the mourning of Hadadimim
in the valley of Megiddo, and the land shall mourn every family
apart. The family of the house of David,
you are the sons of David. And their wives apart, the family
of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart. Christ
is our prophet, Nathan's a prophet, we're his children. the house
of the family of Levi apart and their wives apart, God's priest,
and the family of Shimei apart and their wives apart. All the families that remain,
every family apart and their wives apart. Now look at verse
1 of chapter 13. In that day, when God pours out
His Spirit on you, causes you to mourn for Him, causes you
to see that you've pierced Him, causes you to weep because of
the bitterness of your sin in you, in that day there shall
be a fountain opened to the house of David. Opened. Opened. And to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
For what? just exactly what I need, sin
and uncleanness. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners who climb beneath
that flood lose all their guilty stains. Now, it is not our plunging
into the fountain that takes our sins away. That was done
long ago. But it is our plunging by faith
into that fountain that takes our sins away, insofar as our
knowledge and experience is concerned, when guilt is gone. When guilt
is gone. A man sits in a courthouse on
trial for his life, and the jury is back there, and they come
in with a verdict. They may come in with the verdict at 3 o'clock
in the morning, but nobody is going to call that judge and
get him out of bed. And that fellow may be pacing the floor,
terrified about what might happen. But not until 9 or 10 o'clock
the next morning does he walk into the courthouse and hear
the jury form and read, not guilty! The verdict was already taken
care of long before, but he knew nothing about it until it came
to him. And then once the son of God's
wrath and fury has said, we can and will enjoy sweet communion
with Him. There was a day in the middle
of the day 2,000 years ago when God poured out His wrath to the
full satisfaction of justice on His darling Son. And for three
hours in the middle of the day, the Son sat. The Son went down. because God's wrath is gone. Will you hear me? I now come to God and have sweet
access to Him and fellowship with Him because the sun of His
wrath has set never to rise again. Now learn this third thing. Look at verse 9. They shall therefore keep, that
is guard, not just observe, but guard, protect, mine ordinance,
this ordinance of divine worship, this ordinance by which sinners
ceremonially come to God, lest they bear sin for it and die. Therefore, if they profane it, again, remember, I'm the Lord.
I the Lord do sanctify them. Men and women all over the world
today are gathered in buildings just like this one, fancier most
of them, bigger many of them, with a Bible on their lap just
like you have, hymn book to pick up and sing from, prayers they
will repeat and say. who profane God's name with every
breath. Because they dare to presume
they can come to God on their own merit, with their own worth
as they are. And for that God sends folks
to hell. Now you and I have profaned his
holy name. Here's the struggle in the souls
of men right now who struggle at all. It is not a matter of
whether or not you'll believe in Jesus. That's not it. It's
a matter of you insisting on maintaining control of your own
life. And it is a matter of daring
to presume that somehow if you look hard enough and deep enough
and long enough inside you, you'll find something that you can use
to commend yourself to God. We did it all our lives, didn't
we? Constantly profaning His name. You spent your life doing
it. Me too. Constantly profaning
His name. We're all guilty. More than that, we would still profane His name. Our efforts now would profane
His name, except for one thing. He says, I, the Lord, do sanctify
them. I make them clean. I make them
pure. I chose them. I said they shall
be mine. I redeemed them. I put my spirit
in them. I sanctified them. Now, therefore,
they can come to me. Now look at this fourth thing. Verses 10 through 16. All who are sanctified, made
holy by God's grace, can and do come to Him, worship Him and
serve Him. He says in verse 10, no stranger,
no sojourner, no hired servant can come. And he goes on and
says, now if it's Aaron's daughter and she's left him and she's
married to a man, married to a stranger, she can't come and
eat at this table. She's not allowed to eat at these
holy things. If, on the other hand, she's a widow and has no
children of her own, she's come back to her father's house and
she's worshiping her father's God, now she's under his table
again. She can sit there and eat. But
the strangers, none who were not priests, were allowed to
eat of the holy things. They couldn't partake of them.
The unconverted dare not assume that they're converted and partake
of the things of God. One of the reasons we never...
You men and women may wonder sometimes why I don't jump at
the chance to talk your children into a profession of faith. Not
only don't jump at the chance of it, I ain't going to. I'm
not going to try to talk them into something that they haven't
experienced. Not about to. The worst thing on this earth
I could do for those boys and girls. Worst thing on this earth
I could do for them. is to convince them that they
know God when they don't. Nothing could be worse. The unconverted
dare not partake of the holy things. All, however, who are
members of the priest family, all who are born of God, God
says, this is their right. This is theirs. It's right for
them to think of it. Well, what's this got to do with
us? Turn to Ephesians 2, let me show you. I'll wrap this up.
Ephesians 2. Paul's talking about God's grace
and mercy to us in Christ. He says in verse 11, Remember,
in time past you were Gentiles in the flesh, who were called
uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the
flesh made with hands. that at that time you were without
Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God
in the world. But now, oh, things are different
now. In Christ Jesus, you who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Verse 19,
now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners. But you've got a right to be
here, your fellow citizens, with the saints, and of the household
of faith. One last thing. Verses 17 through
33, and I'll just give you a couple of highlights here, and we'll
come back to this another time. God will only be worshiped in
the way God has prescribed. Verse 17. The Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons and to the children of Israel. Say to them, Whatsoever he be
of the house of Israel are the strangers in Israel that will
offer his oblation for all his vows and for all his freewill
offerings, which they will offer unto the Lord for burnt offering.
You shall offer at your own will a male without blemish of the
bees, of the sheep, or of the goats. The one essential condition
was that the sinner come to God by holy, harmless, undefiled
sacrifice. He tells us we must come to God
by Christ alone. You can't come any other way.
You can't come. No blemish can be found in the
offering because that offering represents Christ. Now look at
verse 23. This will do you some good. Verse
23. One of the reasons I sat on this
for so long is verse 23 kept giving me trouble. I just couldn't
figure out what was going on. But I got it. In verse 21, it says it must
be perfect to be accepted. It's got to be perfect to be
accepted. But now we get down to verse
23. And it says, either a bullock or a lamb that hath anything
superfluous, got too many toes, got an extra spur on its ear,
are lacking any of his parts, that mayest thou offer for a
freewill offering, but for a vow it shall not be accepted." Why
on earth does he do that? Why does he do it? Why did he
say it? Now, if you bring a freewill offering and you've got a sacrifice
that is not perfect, it's not perfect. Kind of ugly. It's deformed. You can bring
that, and I'll take it. Why on earth would you do that? 2 Peter, or 1 Peter 2, verse
5 has got the answer for us. You see, if the sacrifice was
for a vow, to pay a vow or to make atonement, the sacrifice
represents God's view of the sacrifice. And it must be perfect. But if it's a sacrifice of a
freewill offering, something that a man looks and says, look
what God's done for me. He brought me out of Egypt. He
brought my fathers out of Egypt. Look what God's done for me.
And just with a busting heart, he's going to worship God. God
says you can bring that sacrifice that's got Doesn't have enough
eyes or got too many toes. Got something superfluous or
something lacking. Because that sacrifice, Bob,
represents your view of the sacrifice. It represents your weakness,
your frailty, your failure, your corruption on this earth. Second, 1 Peter 2.5. You also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, watch this,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus. You remember the message Brother
Todd brought the first night of conference, last Friday night? She hath done what she could. What did she do? She came and
did something nobody else thought about doing, did something just
for the Master, made a sacrifice for Him, anointed Him, believed Him, bathed
His feet with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head,
kissed His feet. And the Lord said, she hath wrought a good
work on thee. Now wait a minute, this is the
work of a sinner. Yep. This is the work of a fallen
woman. Yep. This is the work of one whose hands are polluted.
Yep. This is the work of one who's corrupt and defiled. Yep. She could not possibly bring
a perfect sacrifice, but she brought what she could. She did
what she could. And it's not that God bends His
law and His holiness and justice to accept our imperfect sacrifices. Oh, no. So thorough is the bathing
of Christ's blood. So thorough is the cleansing
of His grace. So perfect and of infinite value
is the merit of His righteousness that He has forgiven even the
sin of our holy things. and accepts them as perfect obedience
to Him. Let me tell you the story one
more time. When Faith was just a little
girl, about the age of Audrey Grace, three or four years old, I came home from a meeting, called
and told Shelby what time I'd be there. Faith was sitting on
the front stoop of the house. She always did. She knew I was
coming. waiting on Daddy to come home.
And when I drove up, she had something behind her back. Got
up and came running to me. She had a fistful of dandelions. Those fuzzy-topped weeds that
you pay men to come kill because you don't want any in your yard.
Ugly things. Ugly things. And by the time
she got to me, they were even uglier because all the fuzz had
blown off and all the wood were dandelion stems. And she came
running up to me and stuck those things out, and she started to
cry because they were so ugly. And I started to cry because
they were so pretty. Prettiest flowers I've ever seen in my
life. I'd give most anything if I still
had them. Beautiful. Those ugly things? Ugly from the way she looked
at it, because she saw nothing but the ugliness. Kind of like
this sermon I preach, that prayer you pray, the song we sing, ugly, ugly. Oh, but when I looked at her,
beautiful, beautiful. How come? Because she did what
she could just for me. Because she loved me. That's it. So go ahead and bring
your superfluous calf and your blinded beef and your maimed
goat and your Lamb with a crooked foot to Him. Everything. And He accepts our deformed, ugly, sinful failures
in our eyes. through the merits of His own
blood and righteousness. God says that's beautiful. That's
beautiful. Come then. Come to God by faith
in Christ. By faith in the perfect sacrifice. Come to God by faith in Him and
plunge into that fountain drawn from Emmanuel's veins, wash in
that blood and stand before God this day. Perfectly, holy, sanctified,
accepted forever. Amen. Now let's stand together
and turn to number 242. Number 242. I believe this would
be a good hymn to close the message with. Number 242. Jesus, I come.