Leviticus chapter 1. Leviticus
the first chapter. We have before us the picture
of a guilty sinner in Israel during the days of the Levitical
priesthood. The man was a sinner before God
and an atonement must be made according to God's prescription
and God's order and God's law. Atonement must be made for his
sins in a way that God had appointed. And so he goes to the fields
and selects a calf or a kid, and he brings it before the priest
at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the
Lord. And we read in verse 4, he shall put his hand upon the
head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him. to make atonement for him. 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." Now all
of these offerings given in the book of Leviticus as well as
in other passages in the Old Testament point to the Lord Jesus
Christ and his great sacrifice for sin. Please understand this. Everything written in the law
of God, everything written in the law of God, was intended
and designed to show us our utter inability to serve, honor, and
please him, our utter inability to do that which is right and
good before him, and drive us into the arms of Jesus Christ,
our crucified substitute. Whenever the priests in Israel
and the worshipers in Israel bore in mind what the sacrifices
signified, they came before God and brought the lamb or the calf
and they worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing sin, looking
to him who is the Lamb of God who was to come. When they failed
to do this, as was the case in Isaiah's day, When they simply
looked upon these services as being a religious ritual by which
they were made to feel spiritual, by which they were made to feel
good about themselves, by which they thought they drew near to
God, the Lord God said, you just as well take a hog, kill it,
and offer swine's blood on my altar. He said this is an abomination. This is an abomination. Understand
then the message of the book. Religion without Christ. Service
without Christ. Worship without Christ. Sacrifice
without Christ is an abomination to God. It's an abomination to
God. Jesus Christ is the sum, substance,
essence, indeed He is all in all in this book. Now here in
the text before us this morning we have two things. Two things
which are of utmost importance. God helped me always to deal
with what's of utmost importance. I look at you as I prepare to
preach and I generally have you sitting where you sit usually
in the congregation before my mind and I recognize I may be
speaking to you for the last time this side of eternity. No
time for drivel. No time for religious nonsense.
No time for religious tomfoolery. But only those things that are
of utmost importance. Preaching to you as a dying man
to dying men. That's what preaching is. Two
things of utmost importance. These things I want to bring
before your heart now and constantly. Without these two things you'll
perish and me too. the precious blood of Christ
and faith in that blood. Boil it all down, Ron, that's
where it all is. The blood of Christ and faith in him whose
blood was shed at Calvary. These are the two essential elements
of the sacrifices in the law. You have them both in our text.
We read, he shall put his hand upon the head of the offering.
That's a sinner. displaying faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, expressing faith in the sin-atoning blood of God's
appointed sacrifice. And then we're told he shall
kill the bullock before the Lord. The priest, Aaron's sons, shall
kill the bullock before the Lord. That's a picture of the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ, God's sacrifice for sin. God will never
receive. God will never accept. any man
except through the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. God Almighty requires blood. He always has and He always will. Either yours or the blood of
a sacrifice, a substitute, someone to stand in your stead to make
atonement for your sin. God Almighty here shows us the
marvel of His wondrous grace in picture. God has provided
himself a lamb for Burdolph. God has provided himself a sacrifice
for sin. Behold, the Lamb of God, Jesus
Christ, God's own well-beloved Son, is he who has come here
to be the sacrifice for sin and for sinners. Christ is the sacrifice
God appointed. In this first chapter of Leviticus,
the Lord told Moses that if you're going to have a sacrifice, this
is the kind of sacrifice it must be. It must be a male. It must
be the first year. It must be without blemish. Sacrifice
that I have ordained. Thus properly portraying the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb of God ordained,
chosen, found by God himself to be a sacrifice for sin. He
proved himself to be holy, unblameable, and unreprovable both in the
sight of God and in the sight of men. And the Lamb had to be
slain. You'll notice in the text that
the man himself, the guilty sinner, kills the Lamb. He kills the
Lamb. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Lamb of God, while he was put to death by the hand of his Father,
by the sword of divine justice. Bob Pontzer, he was put to death. by the hands of men for whom
he came to die. We with our wicked hands crucified
the Lord of Glory. He was put to death, our substitute,
by our hands as well as by the hands of our God and our Father. And being put to death, he is
accepted by God himself as a sweet-smelling savor. The sacrifice was provided. He was slain under the penalty
of the law, and God has accepted him. And yet there's something
else required. There is one more essential thing
remaining. Without this one added thing,
you can never be saved. Listen to me now. Listen to me.
Some of you here are yet without Christ. You're yet without God's
salvation. You're yet without faith in Him.
Salvation is not, listen now, it is not election alone. Salvation is not election and
redemption alone. Salvation is not even election,
redemption, and the new birth alone. Without faith in Christ,
you'll go to hell. Without you personally believing
on the Son of God, you will perish in your sins. I don't believe
any man who's chosen of God, redeemed by Christ and called
by the Spirit will go to hell, neither do I. But I'm telling
you, without faith in Him, you'll perish in your sins. Faith is
essential, as essential as blood atonement, as essential as the
divine call, as essential as God's electing love. You must
lay your hands upon the head of God's sacrifice. That's a
picture of what faith is. Isaac Watts put it this way.
My faith doth lay her hand on that dear head of thine, while
like a penitent I stand and there confess my sin. My soul looks
back to see the burdens thou didst bear when hanging on the
cursed tree and hopes her guilt was there. Believing, we rejoice
to see the curse removed. We bless the Lamb with cheerful
voice and sing redeeming love. You see, faith in Christ is what's
symbolized in this Old Testament picture of a man bringing a calf
or kid and laying his hands upon the head of the sacrifice. This
is the one thing we must do. But preacher, you've told us
we can't do that. God tells us we can't do that.
No man can come to me. No man can believe on the Son
of God. With men, faith is impossible.
It doesn't lie within the realm of possibility that you who are
dead in sins will believe on the Son of God. But you must
believe on Him. You must believe on Him. And
if God, by His grace, enables you to believe on Him, your faith
in Christ is the evidence of God's grace in you. When a man
came and laid his hands upon the head of the sacrifice, he
did four things. Now, this is what I'm calling
for you. You who have never believed the
Son of God. You who are yet under the wrath
of God. You who are yet under the curse
of God's holy law. I'm calling for you to lay your
hands on Christ. I'm calling for you to believe
on him. And I'm calling for you who have
for many years been believing Him to come to Him again and
lay your hands upon Him. Believe the Son of God. As you
received Him, walk in Him. All right, here are the four
things. Number one, confession. Confession. Picture the man. He's standing beside the sacrifice.
He's standing at the door of the tabernacle with God's high
priest before him. He's standing before the Lord.
And he brings his sacrifice to the Lord and lays his hands upon
the head of that innocent animal. What does that mean? First it
means this. He is making a solemn, sincere,
public confession before God and before men. Confession. Confession. This is what we do when we come
to God, leaning on Christ. We make a confession to him first
of sin. If we confess our sins, he's
faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. This was the first foremost thing
in the mind of the ancient Jew when he brought his sacrifice
to the Lord. Hold your hands here and turn to chapter 16 of
Leviticus. The only reason I need a sacrifice
is because of my sin. The only reason, if I weren't
a sinner, I wouldn't have any reason for a sacrifice. Here
in Leviticus 16.21, the Lord is giving the laws concerning
the Paschal Lamb. And Aaron shall lay both his
hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him the
iniquities of the children of Israel. So when this man comes
and brings his goat, he brings his calf, he lays his hands upon
the head of the goat and thereby confesses on that goat his sins,
his iniquities. Confession. This is what I'm
saying. We must come to God confessing
our sins. Those who lay their hands upon
Christ must acknowledge their utter sinfulness. Not just confessing
things we've done. That's not a problem. That's
not a problem. Confessing what we are. Sin and
sins. God be merciful to me, the sinner. I've said this so many times.
How can I say it? So that you understand what I'm
talking about. Don't play the hypocrite with
God Almighty. Don't try to hide from God. It's a useless game. Quit trying to pretend you are
what you are not. Rather like the publican rip
open your heart before God Almighty and confess your sin. Fully. Fully. I'm a sinner by birth. I'm a sinner by nature. I'm a
sinner by choice. I'm a sinner by practice. That's
what I am. Sin. That's it. So preaching,
that doesn't give, that doesn't give man much hope. Oh, that
don't give you any hope. Christ died for sinners, Larry.
He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. You
see, your sin will never keep you from God. It's not going
to happen. Your righteousness will keep you from God. Your corruption will never keep
you from Christ. Your goodness will keep you from
Christ. It's the man, the woman who imagines that they have something
in themselves with which to separate themselves from others that keeps
them from coming to Christ. The thing that keeps you from
Christ is you presume you don't need Him. Confess your sin fully. Confess it sincerely. Sin with
the believer is more than a theory. It's more than a doctrine. Bob, we've tasted the bitterness
of what we are. Sin. Sin. God's Lamb was given
as a sacrifice for sin. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. of whom I'm chief. I had a call
late the other night. I forgot what night it was now.
Doesn't matter. Had a call from someone who talked
to me from another town. He said, he said, I don't see
in the Bible where God's people come to him as sinners. I said,
you what? We're not sinners anymore. I
said, Paul said he was the chief of sinners. The only hope you've
got before God is your sinfulness. Christ died for sinners. God
receives sinners for Christ's sake. He's merciful to sinners.
God's Lamb was given as a sacrifice for sin. But not only does this
man come and confess his sin, not only do we, by looking to
Christ, confess our sin, we confess our impotence. I come before God trusting his
Son for all my righteousness. for all my sanctification, for
all my redemption, for all my acceptance with God, because
I recognize I am utterly impotent before God. I'm a sinner and
I can't do anything about it. I'm a sinner. I can't change
my nature. I'm a sinner. I cannot change what I have done.
I'm a sinner. I cannot put away my sin. I'm
a sinner. I cannot atone for sin. I'm a sinner. I cannot do
righteousness. I must have a substitute. And
I bring Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Not only that, laying
our hands upon God's sacrifice, we acknowledge the righteousness
and justice of God. Turn to Psalm 51. When a man brought his calf or
goat or lamb and put his hands upon the head, he knew that the
poor creature must die. And by this act he confesses
that he deserves to die. The innocent lamb fell in the
dust in pain, struggling, bleeding, dying. And the man confessed,
this is what I deserve. This is what I deserve. Death is my deal. Hell is what we deserve, Skip
Glenfelter. Hell itself. And if God sent
us to hell, he'd be doing right. This religious generation presumes
Most everybody I know, most everybody I run into, family, friends,
neighbors, relatives, most everybody, most everybody presumes they're
better than God and know better than God and more righteous than
God. And I just, I couldn't believe
in a God to send my son to hell. I couldn't believe in a God to
send my daddy to hell. Your son and your daddy, your mama, your
brother, your sister, you and I deserve hell. And anybody who
escapes, escapes purely by the goodness of God. If ever you
come to acknowledge your sin, you'll acknowledge God's justice
in punishing sin. It's right for God to punish
sin. Look here in Psalm 51. David calls upon God after Nathan
has exposed his sin, and this is how he prays. Have mercy upon
me, O God. What a plea. Mercy. God, I come to you today as a
sinner looking to the blood of Christ and ask for mercy. Mercy
according to thy loving kindness. Not according to my desert, it
wouldn't be mercy. Not according to my repentance, that wouldn't
be mercy. Not according to my faith, that wouldn't be mercy.
According to your loving kindness. Look at it now. According to
the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash
me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Rexy
uses three words. The three words commonly used
in the Old Testament to describe sin. Sin. God wash me inside
and out from what I am. Wash away my iniquities. God said be holy if I'm holy. And I can't, I can't reach the
mark. God forgive that. And blot out
my transgressions. God says don't cross this barrier. And I knock down the fence and
say I'll have my way. I walk as I want to walk, go
where I want to go, do what I want to do. I will not have God to
rule over me until it shows you your sin. And then you acknowledge
your transgression and your iniquity and your sin. Now look at this.
For I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is right here all the time. It's right here all the time. And this I recognize against
thee and thee only. Now wait a minute. He committed
adultery with Bathsheba. He lied to Israel. He had Uriah
murdered against thee. You see all sins against God. All sins against him. Man is
just the nearest thing you can get to. All sins against God. Against thee, thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. And David makes this
confession, say this, that thou mightest be justified when thou
speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. God had told him, Ron,
the sword will not depart from your house. Your family is going
to suffer because of what you've done. And David said, Lord, I've
done the sin and you're just. You can't do wrong. If God had
been pleased to send me to hell, it would be no more than I deserve.
He would have been both righteous and just in doing it. But instead
he poured out my hail upon his darling son. The chastisement
of my peace was upon him, and with his stripes I'm healed.
All right, secondly, when a man laid his hands upon the head
of the sacrifice, he was saying, I accept and bow to God's remedy
for sin, I repent. Laying the hands upon the head
of the sacrifice is an act of confession and it is a symbolic
act of repentance. You see, repentance, I've said this to you so many
times but it will bear repetition. Whatever you naturally think,
whatever you naturally think, whatever your neighbor thinks,
whatever your mom and daddy think, Whatever people naturally think
about anything spiritual is dead wrong. Folks say, well, repentance,
that means you quit wearing shorts and quit going to the movies
and you quit drinking and quit chewing and all that stuff. Dead wrong. What's repentance?
Repentance is taking sides with God about everything. That's
what repentance is. Repentance is ceasing to fight
against God. Repentance is acknowledging that
God must be just, even in the forgiveness of sin. It is turning
from my thoughts to his thoughts, from my ways to his ways, from
my self-righteousness to his given righteousness in Christ
the Lord. Repentance lays the hand of faith
upon Christ and says, I believe God. And I bow to God's way of
salvation and grace in a substitute. What is his way? Turn to Romans
chapter 5, let me show you. Romans chapter 5, verse 19. This has been God's purpose from
the beginning. The reason he made Adam in the garden, and
made Adam to be a covenant head of all the race, was so that
Adam might be a representative of the second Adam, who is the
covenant head of an elect race. Romans 5.19, for as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Folks say, well I don't like
that. Man, I'm tickled to death that's the way it is. We fell
by a substitute. Just suppose man had fallen like
the angels. The angels fell without a representative,
each one following Satan into perdition without mercy, without
a hope of mercy. But we fell in a substitute,
in a representative man. Maybe, maybe there's hope that
we might have life in a representative man. Read on. Moreover the law
entered, that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. that as sin has reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace reigns in everything, everywhere,
and it reigns in righteousness by justice being satisfied, righteousness
maintained in Jesus Christ the Lord. But believing that doctrine is not salvation. Now listen carefully. You cannot
know God and believe a false gospel. That's not possible.
But you can certainly believe the correct doctrine of the gospel
and not know God. Knowing doctrine is not knowing
Christ. Knowing the right creed is not
knowing Christ. Salvation is Christ himself. It's not in a plan, it's in a
person. Only those who receive Christ are saved. Receive him. I turn to God and receive his
son. Turn to John chapter 1, let me
show you this. We're told here in John 1, verse
11, Our Lord Jesus came unto his own, and his own received
him not. Now this is what it means. His
own did not lay hold of him. His own, as he came by, did not
reach out and take him. Like that woman who said, if
I could just touch the hem of his garment, I'd be made whole.
His own, while he passed by, they said, we don't have anything
to do with him. But as many as received him. Now the two words
used in the Greek language for receive. One word means to receive,
just like this glass received that water this morning. It didn't
do anything. Something was done to it. It
was empty. Shelby came along, poured water
in it, and it received the water. That's how we receive life. Believers
are dead, and the Lord God comes along by His grace and pours
in the oil and wine of His grace, and we receive life passively
as dead sinners. But having received life, the
other word means to receive like this. That's willful, deliberate, purposeful. Reach out and take him. Now you can argue about that
all you want to, but if you ever get thirsty, you say give me a drink.
Give me a drink. And if you ever need Christ,
you'll take him. You'll reach out for him. You'll
cry like that woman if I could just touch him. Oh, if I could
just touch him. I know I'd be made whole. And
you'll touch him. To as many as received him, to
them gave he the authority, the power to become the sons of God. Who are they? Even to them that
believe on his name. Well, how did they do that? They
were dead. which were born not of blood, nor the will of the
flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. That's how they did it.
God gave them faith. All right, thirdly, this act
of laying hands upon the head of this goat implied a transaction,
a transference, a transference of guilt to the goat, and a transference
of righteousness to the man. Salvation comes to sinners by
imputation. By imputation. That's a big word,
but it's not near as big as it sounds. It simply means by being
charged to them. You go down to Walmart, pick
up some stuff at Walmart, now you don't even have to give them
your credit card. You just slide it through the thing, punch in the numbers,
and next month you get a bill. You get a bill for what you purchased.
Hopefully for what you purchased what you signed for and the charge
has been imputed to you It is that for which you are legally
responsible and that's exactly what God does in saving sinners
the Lord God Almighty took his darling son and Laid on him the
iniquity of his people So that Jesus Christ the Son of God is
became responsible before the holy law of God for our sins. That's what Abram did. Remember
we read in Leviticus 16? He laid his hands on that goat
and thus transferred sin from the nation of Israel to the goat. That man, by faith, lays his
hands upon his sacrifice. And he lays on that innocent
lamb his guilt, his sin. Now, faith does not make Christ
to be sin. Our faith has nothing to do with
imputation, but it receives it and it experiences it. And by
faith we look to him and lay our hands on him and say, yes,
bless God, he took my sin. He became responsible for it
and he paid for it to the full satisfaction of divine justice.
And just as God made his son to be sin for us, he has made
us to be the very righteousness of God in his son. Exactly the
same way. Christ didn't do anything wrong.
He didn't commit any sin. He was made to be sinned by a
transfer, by a transaction, by our sin being put on Him. And
we are made righteous not by what we do, but by a transaction
of grace that took place back under Calvary 2,000 years ago
when God made His righteousness ours. Oh, bless God, here I am. With his holy garments on. Look at me now. I am as holy
as God's own son. It's called imputation. I have
been made the righteousness of God in Christ. All right now,
one more thing. For that man would come and lay
his hands upon the head of that goat. He was making an identification. He was identifying himself with
the goat. and the goat with him. And the
believer comes to Christ by faith. And when you come to Christ by
faith, you judge what no other man can judge. You understand
what no other man can understand. You understand? Oh yes. Now I see it. When he died, I
died in him. You see that my heart? When he
died, I died in him. When he suffered the wrath of
God, I suffered the wrath of God in him. When he was buried,
I was buried in him. When he arose, I rose in him.
When he sat down in heaven, I sat down with him in heavenly places.
And now I'm one with him. This sacrifice stands in my stead before the
Lord, before the altar, before the congregation of the Lord,
before the tabernacle. The Lamb of God yonder seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high. in my stand before the
Lord from old eternity he stood in my stand while he lived in
this world he walked on the earth in righteousness as the Lord
my righteousness when he died at Calvary he stood in my stand
when he cried it's finished he cried it's finished in my stand
when he gave up the ghost he gave up the ghost in my stand
When he arose and took his seat in heaven's glory, he arose and
took his seat in heaven's glory in my stead. And he stands in
my stead now and shall stand in my stead forever. He's Christ,
the Lamb of God, who's taken away my sins. Now I bid you come
to him. Come lay your hands of faith
upon him. Confess your sin. Repent. Turn to God, trusting His Son. Confessing your sin, repenting
before God, believe on the Son of God. Acknowledge what God
did in Christ 2,000 years ago. Acknowledge it. Confess your
faith in His blood. And enjoy. Identify yourself
with Him. Thank God this is my sacrifice,
my substitute, my sin offering and God smells him a sweet smelling
savor and smells me in him a sweet smelling savor. Amen. Alright, you can listen to him
please.