I'm calling today for something
radical, something that's nearly unheard
of in our day. I'm calling for something from
you and from me that's very costly. I'm calling for consecration
to our God. It's a word that I'm sure in the minds
of most conjures up ideas of super piety, super spirituality,
great heights, soaring experience. That's because there's little
known today about this thing of consecration. It is the devotion
of our hearts, of our lives, of our beings to one thing and
one person. Now pastor, that's costly. That's radical. You mean the
devotion of our entire being to one thing, to one person. That's right. And that one thing,
that one person is the Lord Jesus Christ who consecrated himself
to us from eternity and has never turned back. Now, as the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus and his great works on our behalf could never
be typified or pictured by any single thing. So the life of
the believer devoted to Christ and all things involved in that
devotion cannot be typified or pictured by any single thing. And so in Leviticus chapters
one through seven, the Holy Spirit gave us five distinct pictures
of our Savior's sacrifice. But these are also pictures of
our own sacrifice of consecration to him. And we see that clearly
in verses 37 and 38 of Leviticus chapter 7. If you're taking notes,
the title of the message is The Law of the Consecrations. Look at it with me. Leviticus
chapter Verse 37. This is the law of the burnt
offering, and of the meat offering, and of the sin offering, and
of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations. Seems strange. He should throw that in. He hadn't
said anything about it before. But this is what all these offerings
are speaking of. The Lord God was about to give
us, as we will see in chapter 8 when we get there, the consecration
of the priest in their priesthood. And he is also describing for
us the acts of public worship whereby we who are his priest
come to God to worship him. All worship, all faith, all true
faith, all true worship involves the consecration of our beings
to Jesus Christ. You see, faith in Christ, please
hear me, Faith in Christ is not deciding to believe in Jesus.
Faith in Christ is not saying a little prayer, going through
a little ceremony, and saying, now I'm a Christian. Faith in
Christ is not coming to a choice whereby you decide, well, I believe
the Bible's true rather than false. That's not it. It may
involve, it certainly involves all those things, but faith in
Christ is the surrender of our lives to his dominion. It is the devotion of our lives
to his glory. It is the submission of our beings
to his will. It is bringing all things lame
at his feet. It's losing your life to him.
That's what it is to trust him. You just give it over to him.
You just trust him. You say to your children, now
just trust me, I'll take care of others. That means turn it
over to me. Trust me sufficiently that you don't fret about this
anymore. I'll take care of it. Faith in Christ, Rex, is turning
it over to him. It's turning it over to him.
Everything. Everything. All right, read on.
And of consecrations and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings,
which the Lord commanded Moses in Mount Sinai in the day that
he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations
unto the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai. Now the instructions
given in this portion of Leviticus 7 are really a recapitulation
of what was given in chapter 3 with regard to the peace offerings. The Holy Spirit here gives us
an inspired restatement of all those things involved in the
sacrifice of the peace offerings. And yet there are several things
that are given additionally here in verses 11 through 36. And
I want us to look at those, and then we will look at these things
that are summarized in verses 37 and 38. Go back to verse 11
then. This is the law of the sacrifice
of the peace offerings. Remember we had this in chapter
three, when we studied the peace offering in that chapter, which
he shall offer unto the Lord. These peace offerings were offerings
that were made voluntarily. They were made as the result
of some special deliverance. I deliberately read Psalm 116
to you earlier because it spoke of special deliverance and paying
vows, one who has been delivered from destruction, been delivered
from sickness, been delivered from death, one who's been delivered
from some enemy or some captor. Then he says, Lord God, I will
pay my vows. I'll offer praise and thanksgiving
to you. That's what the peace offering
is. It's something that was not constrained except by the constraint
of gratitude. It was not constrained by law.
It was not something he was forced to do. But it is an offering
made to God simply because of gratitude, of love to Him. A heart overflowing comes to
the Lord God with a peace offering by which he brings himself to
God. And with his offering in his
hand, he says, Lord, I come to you now and give myself to you
in this gift, This offering is but a token of the sacrifice
of myself. I hereby give myself again to
you. I hereby devote myself again
to you. I make it a point several times
in a day to tell my wife I love her. Sometimes I make her stop
and listen. I love you. And in doing so,
I am giving myself to her all over again. Not so many words,
not so many statements. Now, this is not a restatement
of vows, not going through the silly games people play of, let's
get married again. No, no, no, no. It's giving myself
to her in sincerity and truth. And the believer comes to God,
and we call on him. And as we worship him, Merle,
we just give ourselves to him, and give ourselves to him, and
give ourselves to him continually because we want to. Because we
want to. We've been delivered from captivity. We've been delivered from death. We've been delivered from our
soul's great troubles. We've been brought up out of
the pit of destruction. And the Lord God has set our
feet upon the rock. And now we being delivered come
to the Lord and we say, Here, Lord, is my sacrifice of praise. I give myself to you." Now the
first thing then to recognize is that the peace offerings were
sacrifices made by redeemed sinners as redeemed sinners, as those
who are reconciled to God. They were not sacrifices of men
and women who were seeking peace with God. They were not sacrifices
by which men sought to get God to be favorable to them. You
see, that's what most people do in religion. They find themselves
terrified by the wrath of God, and they try to find out a way
to take away God's anger. They find themselves under the
judgment of God, and they try to find a way to take away judgment. They find themselves staring,
facing God, and they try to find a way to cause God to smile at
them. And so they bring their resolutions, and they bring their
sacrifices, and they bring their deeds, and they bring their dedications. This is not the way we approach
God. This peace offering is the sacrifice of one who is already
accepted of God, one who already has peace with God, one who already
is reconciled to God. You see, the Lord God, back yonder
at Calvary 2,000 years ago, was in Christ, reconciling the world
of his elect unto himself, not imputing our trespasses unto
us, but rather imputing them to Christ. And when Christ died
for the satisfaction of justice, when Christ put away our sins,
God's people, all his elect, were then and there judicially
reconciled to God, so that God has no reason ever to be angry
with his own, because Christ has satisfied justice. But we
came forth from the womb speaking lies. We were by nature children
of wrath, even as others. We lived all the days of our
lives, David, with our fists shove square in God's face, rebels
hating God, until one day he came by his almighty grace and
conquered us with his love and caused us gladly to lay down
our little arms of rebellion against him and surrender. And
now we're reconciled to God. in our hearts. We have been made
willing in the day of his power to bow to him in great joy and
reconciliation. Being reconciled to God, we come
now and pay our vows. We give ourselves to our God
and Savior. All right, look at Leviticus
7 again, verse 12. If he offer it for a thanksgiving,
then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened
cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and
cakes mingled with oil of fine flour fried. Now look at verse
13. Look at verse 13. Besides the
cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread. What a strange command. Offer leavened bread? In the
Feast of the Passover, no leavens to be in the house. In the sacrifices
brought to the altar, no leavens to be found. But as we come bringing
these sacrifices at Thanksgiving, we're required to offer cakes
of leavened bread with the sacrifice at Thanksgiving of the peace
offerings. And of it, he shall offer one out of the whole oblation
for a heave offering to lift it up before God. And it shall
be the priest that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offering."
Why? The leaven. The leaven represents
sin. The leaven represents corruption.
The leaven represents evil. It always does, all the way through
the Scriptures. Why then does God require in
His law that as we come to worship Him as sinners reconciled to
God, we bring leaven? Because the reconciled sinner
recognizes that he's a sinner still. And you can't worship
God in the other way. You can't do it. You can't do
it. The whole of religion teaches
men to cover up their sin and pretend it doesn't exist. The
whole of religion teaches men to think themselves better than
they are. But the whole of the gospel of
God's grace, the whole of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the
whole of the worship of God demands that we acknowledge and confess
our sins. Always. Always. You remember
in chapter 2 verse 13? The last clause of the verse,
the Lord said, with all your sacrifices, with all your offerings,
offer salt. Salt being a constant reminder
of grace. Salt being a constant reminder
of God's faithfulness. Salt being a constant reminder
of God's covenant mercy. The leaven is a constant reminder
of our sin. So this is how we come to God,
David. We come to God on the footing of blood atonement. trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ as sinners. Sinners. Sinners. Hold your hands here and turn
to first John chapter one. You remember what Isaiah said?
He said, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Filthy rags. Our righteousnesses appear before God Almighty with
all the appeal and all the fragrance and all the beauty and all the
attractiveness of a discarded, rotting mistress cloth. That's your goodness and mine
too. Now, how are you going to win
God's favor? Our righteousnesses are filthy rags. Look at that,
1 John chapter 1, verse 8. If we say we have no sin, now
preachers don't tell me I'm a sinner. You better hope somebody does. Nobody but sinners ever enter
into glory. Nobody but sinners ever find the Savior. Nobody
but sinners obtain grace. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Verse 9, if we
confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Driving down the road the other
day, Doug and I were talking about the Psalms, how pleasant it is
to read the Psalms and just open the Psalms up anywhere and you
open them up and you're reading. You just, well, how fit that? That's me. How come? Because
in the Psalms, we go with a man after God's own heart into his
closet. He opens up his heart to God.
Lord, this is what I am. If we confess our sins, not come
down here to the preacher and say, I did this, I did that,
I did the other thing. Folks tell me a lot of things
I wish they'd keep to themselves. I don't want to know. I don't
need to know. I'm not your priest. You don't need to talk to me
about what you've done. You don't need to talk to this church about
what you've done or what you thought. My folks, keep it to
yourself. Except when you come before God.
Now, that's another business. It's easy enough, Bob Duff, for
you to talk to me about your sin because I'm one of you. But
to talk to God about your sin. Nobody will ever do it except
one who's convinced of his sin by God and convinced of his pardon
by his blood. Confess our sin. He's faithful
and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. But I didn't. I
did that. I know that was good. Oh no,
we make him a liar. I just gave, I just went, I just
sacrificed, that was good. Oh no, oh no. That song you just
sang, prayer I just prayed, the sermon I'm preaching, the hearing
you're doing is so chock full of sin, Lindsey Campbell is worthy
of nothing but God's wrath. If we say we have not sinned,
we make God a liar, his word is not in us. We come to him
then, with leavened bread. Lord, here I come, bringing the
unleavened bread of your perfect, perfect righteousness, your perfect,
perfect atonement, your perfect, perfect sacrifice to the Lord
Jesus Christ. I bring him, and bringing him,
here I come. As I just said, washed in his
blood, robed in his righteousness. I have no other hope. Then in
verses 15 through 18, Leviticus chapter 7, we're told that the sacrifice,
in verse 15, these cakes were to be eaten the same day that
they were brought, along with the heave and the wave offering.
Some might be left over to the second day, they were to be eaten
then, eaten by all the But on the third day, anything that
had not been eaten was to be burned with fire, we're told
in verse 17. You see, the offering being eaten
in the holy place by the priest on the day that it was offered
is itself very instructive. Certainly, as the Apostle Paul
tells us in 1 Corinthians 9, this was given as a statute in
Israel because they that preach the gospel are to live by the
gospel. But this statute also gave that
person who brought his unleavened cakes and brought his heave offering,
he brings them to the priest with his leavened cakes. He comes
to God's holy place. He comes to the house of God,
to the altar of God, to the priest of God, to find acceptance of
God, worship him. He comes, however, as a sinner
with his leavened bread, and he offers it. And the sacrifice
is taken immediately by the priest and eaten right there in the
holy place. So that that man goes his way
of rejoicing immediately, visibly assured of God's acceptance and
God's approval. He comes and there's no waiting.
The Lord God has received his sacrifice and he goes his way
rejoicing. The Lord has accepted me, sinner
though I am. The Lord has pardoned me, sinner
though I am. The Lord has received me, sinner
though I am. The Lord has taken my sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ and he
accepts me. And then the eating of those
sacrifices. so that nothing was left to see
corruption, certainly portrayed our Lord Jesus Christ in his
great sacrifice for us. You remember in Psalm 16, the
Lord Jesus says, Thou will not leave my soul in hell. Thou shalt
not suffer. Thou holy one to see corruption.
And David in Acts, or rather Peter in Acts chapter two, tells
us plainly that that 16th Psalm was a reference to the resurrection
of Christ. So that the eating of these sacrifices and nothing
being left over to the third day, so that there's no possibility
of corruption in any part of the sacrifice, points to the
Lord Jesus again in his resurrection glory. He is raised up in the
perfection of righteousness as our substitute. All right, now
look at Leviticus chapter 7 verse 19. And the flesh that toucheth any
unclean thing shall not be eaten, it shall be burned with fire.
And as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof. But
the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings
that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even
that soul shall be cut off from the people. the soul that shall
touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or uncleanness
of beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of
the sacrifice of the peace offerings which pertain to the Lord, even
that soul shall be cut off from his people." What on earth does
all that mean? It means this, only those who are clean before
God can serve Him. Only those who are clean before
God can serve Him. He won't accept the gifts of
the unclean. He won't accept the worship of
the unclean. He won't accept the services
of the unclean. Only those who are clean before
God, washed in the blood of Christ, robed in His righteousness, sanctified
by His Spirit. We come to God bringing our gifts,
our services, our prayers, our songs of praise. We come to God
bringing ourselves to Him and all that we have to Him on the
basis of Christ's finished work. We bring it to Him, recognizing
that He doesn't need it. It's our privilege to give it,
and God accepts it only for Christ's sake. so that our prayers and
sacrifices are acceptable to God by Christ Jesus. Do you remember
how Paul received the gift from the Philippian believers when
he was in prison? He said, I received from Epaphroditus
those things you sent to me. And he said, these are an odor
of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing
to God by Christ Jesus. In this place, we do things a
little different than most churches do. Most churches, I mean most
pretend churches because people do things the same everywhere.
We're not going to have any bake sales, rummage sales, yard sales
to raise money for the church. We're not going to go out and
beg door to door to raise money to send missionaries to a foreign
land. We're not going to ask unbelieving
men and women to do or give anything. You and me go to some place of
business and we want to buy something or buy
some services, don't ever ask somebody to cut us a deal because
we're church. Let them cut those places a deal. Don't ever ask. How come? God won't have it and
we don't want it. God's cause is supported by God's
people through their free gifts, voluntarily giving of themselves
in worship and praise to him. And the Lord God Almighty receives
our loaves and fishes. Look what it does with them. He takes them for Christ's sake
and blesses them for much good. All right, look at Leviticus
7 again, verse 22. Let's skip down to verse 30.
I want to get through this. his own hands shall bring the
offerings. The offerings of the Lord made
by fire, with the fat, with the breast it shall he bring, that
the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord. And
the priests shall burn the fat upon the altar, But the breast
shall be Aaron's and his son's, and the right shoulder shall
he give to the priest for an heave offering of sacrifices
of your peace offerings. He among the sons of Aaron that
offereth the blood of the peace offering and the fat shall have
the right shoulder for his part. For the way breast and the healing
shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel off the sacrifices
of their peace offerings and have given them unto Aaron and
the priest and to his sons by statute forever among the children
of Israel." Now try to get a picture. This is the teaching. The Lord
says in this matter of worship, in this matter of worship, in
this business of faith, In this business of serving God, everything
is intensely personal. Personal. You can't believe God
for your wife, and you can't believe God for your children.
You can't believe God for your neighbor, you believe God for
yourself. You can't serve him for your
wife or your children, you serve him yourself alone. We come and
bring our sacrifices. And the man must bring the sacrifice
with his own hands. And he comes to the priest and
he brings him the breast and the heave shoulder, the strong
part, and the part reflecting his heart. And with the priest,
he lifts the heave offering up. publicly before the congregation
of Israel. And he waves it before the Lord. And he says, God, I'm yours.
With his own hands, joining with the priest, because he believes
God. Now then, look at verse 37. In these last two verses, the
Holy Spirit lumps all the sacrifices together, as if to declare that
all these sacrifices of divine worship, and all the instructions
concerning these sacrifices, are for one great purpose. The
sacrifices were given to point centers to Christ. They were
all typical of Christ, and they've all been fulfilled by Christ.
This is the law of the burnt offering. Of the meat offering, chapter
2, offering the firstfruits. Of the sin offering, chapter
3, of the trespass offering and the consecrations of the sacrifice
of the peace offerings, which the Lord commanded Moses in Mount
Sinai in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer
their oblations to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai. The
Lord Jesus Christ by his one great sacrifice. has done everything
portrayed here. He is our true burnt offering,
an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Christ is our true meat offering,
our offering of first fruits. He is the first fruits under
God, the first fruits of the resurrection. He is that one
who gives testimony that more is to follow. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our true peace offering. Being justified by his blood,
we have peace with God through faith in him. For when we were
yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.
Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And
not only so, but with joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we have now received the atonement. God Almighty is at peace with me and I'm at
peace with God. What would you give for that? God's at peace with me. God has
no reason to quarrel with me. God has no reason to be angry
with me. have no reason to be afraid of
Him. How come? Because Christ has
put away my sin and given me perfect righteousness, peace,
peace, sweet peace. The Lord Jesus is our one and
only sin offering. He hath made Him to be sin for
us. who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. And he, the son of
God himself in human flesh, is our only trespass offering. Prophet
Isaiah puts it this way. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He put our sins on His Son and
made them to be His, and punished His Son in our room and stand
to the full satisfaction of justice, and with His stripes we are healed. Now I call for you, come now
to Christ. Come to God by Him. There's no
other way but Him. And He is the sure way. Come
to God by Him. And as surely as that priest
ate the sacrifice on the day that it was offered in the holy
place, and the sinner went his way rejoicing of his acceptance
with God, come to God right where you are right now, believing
on his son, and go home rejoicing that your sins are forgiven and
you're accepted of God in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.