Leviticus chapter 2. We looked
last week at the burnt offering, and I didn't know really where
to go to this week. There's five offerings here in
the first five chapters of Leviticus, and I'm not for sure if we'll
cover all of them or not. But if you'd like to look at
them yourself, you can study them in these first five chapters.
We looked last week at the burnt offering. And one thing you'll
notice as you read these five chapters about these offerings,
the burnt offering was the only offering that was holy to God. It was directed towards God.
All the other offerings, the priest could eat a portion of
those offerings. They saved some of the meat,
not the fat, but some of the meat for themselves. But the
burnt offering was holy to God. We read there to you last week
in verse 9 of chapter 1, burn all on the altar. And that's
what Christ did. He offered himself to God. And
then in the one that we'll look at tonight is the meat offering
or the grain offering in chapter 2. And then if you go on in chapter
3 is the peace offering. And we won't look at that tonight,
but that's the offering if you want to look at that. Christ
made peace through the blood of His cross. And then chapter
4, the sin offering, that has to do with Christ bearing our
sin. And then the fifth offering is in chapter 5, the trespass
offering. And that has to do with Christ
making provisions for saints who sin. If we sin, we have an
advocate with the Father if we confess our sins. So it's just
different ways of looking at the offering of the Lord Jesus
Christ on our behalf. But tonight I want us to look
in chapter 2 at what I call the flour offering, or the meal offering,
whichever one you like to refer to. They call it a meat offering
here in verse 1. But look at it. And when any
will offer a meat offering, my margins here says grain offering. flower offering is what it is.
He goes on to tell us that in this verse. When any will offer
a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine
flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense
thereon, and he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priest. He
shall take thereof his handful of the flour, and of the oil
thereof with all the frankincense, and the priest shall burn the
memorial of it the remainder of it upon the altar, to being
an offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord." This offering
here is the only offering that was made without blood. The only offering of these five
offerings that had no blood. It was a bloodless sacrifice. This offering doesn't represent
to us the cross of Christ, but it represents to us His character,
His person. And the first thing here that's
said about it is, it's fine flour, or fine meal. I looked that word
up, and this fine, it represents Christ very well. It means smooth
and even, free from lump, ground small, and that evenness and
consistency free from foreign matters. Fine flower." I remember
that old Lester Flatt and Earl Stroud, some of you probably
don't remember them, but you remember that song, Martha White's
Self-Rising Flower, the one all-purpose flower. Martha White's Self-Rising
Flower. What is that? something plus,
had some kind of, but it was a smooth, it was a fine ground
flour. Some of us remember the old,
I think my dad and my mom may have had one in her kitchen,
a table, a cabinet, kitchen cabinet, and on the corner it had one
of those stranger sifters, and that's where they sifted their
flour, had an old crank on it and you put your meal or flour
in there and as you As you turned the crank, it sifted and got
the fine flour out. It went down in the bottom, and
it kept the lumps and the husk. Used to be when they probably
made those things, my dad said they'd go to the mill and get
mill or flour ground, and he said, come home, and sometimes
you'd almost break your tooth out by a big chunk of corn in
there. I choked on the husk. Well, they
didn't get all the husk out of it. But this was fine flour. fine ground flour. It was even and it was consistent. And fine flour sets forth the
perfect balance and evenness of our Lord Jesus Christ in His
humanity. His life, His doctrine, everything
about Him, His living was so consistent. It was so fine. It was so even. One of the things
that the Pharisees always tried to do in their dealings with
the Lord Jesus was try to make it appear that he was inconsistent
in his doctrine and in his life. Let me give you a couple of examples
of that. Remember one time they came to him and asked him, should
we pay taxes or not? Now, you can see how they laid
a snare for him. And that's what he said, why
tempt you me, you hypocrite? Should we pay taxes or not? What
if he'd have said yes? Then they would have said, you're
saying that we should pay taxes to a heathen nation to support
their ungodliness? There's nothing right about that.
If he'd have said yes, if he'd have said no, we shouldn't pay
taxes, they'd have ran the pilot and they'd have said, you've
got a guy worth trying to overthrow the government. He's advocating not
paying taxes. What did the Lord Jesus do? You
remember how he handled that? He said, show me a piece of money. And he looked at it and said,
who's this inscription on you? And they said, that's Caesar.
He said, render to Caesar the things of Caesar's, and render
to God the things that's God's. They couldn't catch him because
he was so consistent. He never got one-sided. He never
got off in the ditch. Give to Caesar the things that's
Caesar's, and give to God the things that's God's. They brought
a woman to him. They tried to take him in a snare
with this. And they said, we've caught this woman in adultery
in the very act, and Moses said she should be stoned to death.
What do you say? You going to set up a law here?
You want us to go ahead and stone her to death? You tell us to
do that? Well, he'd have gotten in trouble better than that,
wouldn't he? You know what he did? Remember what he did? He
said, yeah, she's been taken into adultery. I'll take your
word for it. You want to stone her? Let him that hath no sin
be the first one to cast a stone. What did they do? They bowed
their heads and left him. They could not catch him in any
inconsistencies in his doctrine or in his life. They came to
him one day and they said, why do you break the Sabbath by healing
this man? That's not right. You're a Sabbath
breaker. Another time they got on to him
because he didn't rebuke his disciples for pulling some wheat
and getting the husk and eating it on the Sabbath day. And this
is the way he answered those fellows. He said, don't you know
the priests, they work in the temple on the Sabbath day and
they don't profane the Sabbath? You can do things on the Sabbath
day. There's works of necessity, there's
works of mercy that you can do. And he said, besides, which one
of you fellows did not go out the last Sabbath day and get
your little donkey out of the stall and take him down to water
and give him a drink of water? Well, he got them again. Every
one of them that did that. They got mad at him for healing
this man with a lame arm on the Sabbath day, but they wouldn't
even let their little donkey or ox go thirsty on the Sabbath.
They can't catch him in anything. Not in his lifestyle, not in
his doctrine. Why? He's like this fine flower. There's no lumps in him any place. There's no extremes in him any
place. There's no husks in him. He's
so consistent. Look here in Mark. chapter 7,
Olavidicus chapter 2, and look in Mark chapter 7 and verse 33. There's something said here about
the Lord that has never been said and could never be said
about any of us or any man that ever lived. Look here in Mark
chapter 7, look in verse 33. In verse 33, he took him aside.
He healed this man that was deaf and had an impediment in his
speech. And in verse 33, he took him
aside from the multitude. He put his fingers in his ears,
into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue. Now, this is amazing. How the
Lord did things is absolutely amazing. He probably spit on
his finger and touched his tongue with his spittle. You know, it
was a shame in the Old Testament if you spit on somebody. Here,
it helped him. That's amazing, that. And in
verse 34, And he looked up to heaven, and he sighed and said
unto him, Ephphate, that is, be open. And straightway his
ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loose, and
he spake plainly, And He charged them that they should tell no
man, but the more He charged them, so much the more a great
deal they published it, and were beyond measure astonished, saying,
look at this, He hath done all things well. Not He hath done some things
well and messed up on other things. It's not that he has said some
things well and erred in other things, but everything he said,
everything he did was done well. Everything, everything. He had
no lumps in his doctrine, no inconsistencies in his life. He did all things well. Can that be said about any of
us? It was said of Moses that he was learned. and all the wisdom
of Egypt. But you know what Moses said
about himself? I can't talk. I can't talk. You can be smart
in here and not be able to tell anybody about it here. You can
have a lot of sense in here and be able to write great speeches
and get up in front of a crowd and pass out with fear. There's
a lot of people good at some things and can't do anything
else right. I was reading a story about Albert
Einstein, what a genius he was. If you ever read anything about
geniuses, I'll tell you something about a genius. They're so unbalanced
in their life. They're just all out of proportion. They're not even. Einstein was
a genius. Steve, I'm not talking about
you. I figured. They said Einstein was a genius. He was a deep thinker. But often he got sick and they
got in the habit of asking him if he had ate in the last couple
of days. And that was his problem. He
had forgot to eat. Sometimes he would go across
the campus with his shirt tail all sticking out and barefooted. He forgot to dress properly.
He was a genius. But that's all he was. He couldn't
hardly do anything else. I remember Todd and Ivor told
me about what Henry said about him one time, he said, all Todd
can do is preach. He can't do anything else but
preach. There's a lot of people that
can do many good things, but they can't hardly do anything
else. I remember Arthur Pink, bless his heart, we love his
writings, but you know he was so inconsistent in his writings.
You read about him one time, he was a strong pre-millennialist,
And the next time he was denied that he ever believed that. He
was so inconsistent in his character, not morally speaking he wasn't
weak, but nobody could fellowship with a man. He finally had to
move over to Wales, and he had a few friends that would come
by just for an hour or so every week, but nobody could be around
him. He wasn't fit to keep company
with. He was a great writer, but he couldn't preach a lick. It can't be said about any of
us, can it? We did all things well. But here was a man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, He was so consistent. He was so even in His life. Every word He spoke was consistent. Every deed He did was consistent. He was even in all His life. One fellow said it like this,
Christ spoke the right word and did the right thing All at the
same time, and he did it well. Fine, fine flower. He kept the law, and yet he was
full of grace. He never sinned, and yet he preached
forgiveness. He preached forgiveness and a
righteous lifestyle at the same time. That's how consistent he
was and even he was. Neither do I condemn thee. That's
forgiveness, ain't it? Go and sin no more. Boy, that's how he was. You could
find no fault with his words or with his life. Fine, fine
flour. Smooth. Consistent. No kernels. No kernels. No husks to get choked on. The
second thing about this, look back at our text again. Back in our text again in verse
1, they were to offer fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it. That was the second thing about
this offering, was to pour oil upon it. Oil is a symbol of the
Holy Spirit. We read that in the Scriptures
in several places. Israel had three offices, and
if you were invested in one of those offices, you had to be
anointed. They had the prophets. The prophets
had to be anointed with oil. They had the priests. The priests
had to be anointed with oil. And the kings all had to be anointed
with oil. Jesus Christ is called the anointed
of God. Listen to Psalms chapter 2, verse
2. The kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers take counsel
together against the Lord and against His anointed. List Isaiah 61-1. You remember
this one. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, Christ said, because He hath anointed me to preach
good tidings to the meek, to the humble, to the poor. The
anointed. Look what He was anointed with.
Look over in Acts chapter 10 and verse 38. I'm giving you
some facts here. You'll have to get them in your
heart by faith yourself. But I've noticed my faith lays
hold of facts. Your faith's got to lay hold
of something, don't it? You first see these facts, and then you
begin to reach out and lay hold of these facts by faith. And you pull these things in
your heart. And that's when it means something.
But we've got to have the facts first. We've got to have the
words for our faith to see and get a hold of. So when he says
here this fine flower had oil poured on it, it was anointed
with oil, that teaches us that the human nature of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this fine flower, was anointed. He had something
poured on Him. And what was it? Acts chapter
13, and look here in verse Verse 38. Did I say 13? I'm sorry, 10.
Acts chapter 10 and verse 38. This is Peter's message to Carnelius
the Gentile. Now God anointed Jesus of Nazareth,
look at this, with the Holy Ghost. That's not oil, eh? He was fine
flour. He was anointed with the Holy
Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, healing all
that was oppressed of the devil, for God was with him." Listen
to John 6.34, "...he whom God hath sent speaks the words of
God, for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him." In other
words, you and I have the Spirit in a measure, don't we? A very
small measure, we'll admit that. We have the anointed, but it's
a very small anointed. It's called a damn payment. But Jesus Christ had the fullness
of the Spirit. You know, that's the way He was
born, wasn't it? By the Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and then
when He was born, from there until His death upon the cross,
He had not the Spirit by measure, He was filled with the Spirit. That's how He could do these
things. That's how He could speak the Word. That's how He could
live as He did. He was anointed with the Holy
Ghost. Remember when the Jews told Him one day when He had
healed somebody, you're casting out devils by the prince of devils.
And the Lord Jesus said, you better be careful because you're
on the border of sinning against the Holy Ghost. because I'm casting
out devils by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God was in him,
anointing him, and upholding him. So when we see this fine
flower here, anointed or oil poured on it, that's Jesus Christ
in His humanity was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was anointed
of God's Spirit. I don't know of anything else
that helps me to understand how the Lord Jesus in His humanity
could have known what he knowed and could have did what he did.
He was upheld by the power of God's Spirit. Something else
right quickly back over in our text, if you've got it marked,
look at this. This is something. In verse 1,
look at this. If he bring his offering of fine
flour, it has to be fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it
and put frankincense thereon. frankincense. This is a sweet
gum. I had a big piece of frankincense
a person gave me one time, but I kept wanting to smell it. And
so I put it in a pan and heated it up. And I just kept getting
the fragrance off of that until I finally burned it all up. But
all it is, if you've ever seen a pine tree where the juice is
running out of it, it looks something like that. But when you put fire
to it, it has this sweet smelling aroma. that comes off of it. This was frankincense. And you
couldn't smell it unless you put fire to it. But when you
put fire to it, boy, it emitted this beautiful, sweet aroma.
Those kings that came from the east to the Lord Jesus, one of
the things they brought to offer unto Him was frankincense. I
wonder if they had been reading this passage of Scripture. Frankincense. Sweet-smelling, The Scripture
teaches us this about the Lord Jesus Christ. It says that He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered. In other words,
He experienced obedience. In His suffering, He was obedient. He experienced that obedience.
He learned it. He never was obedient, but He
experienced obedience by the things which he suffered. Every
trial, every temptation, every affliction that he suffered,
he was obedient in it. He never drew back. He never
failed in his obedience. The Scripture even says that
he was obedient unto death. I can imagine during the Garden
of Gethsemane when he was apprehending that cup, when He said, Father,
if it be Your will, let this cup pass from Me. I can't imagine
what an aroma that must have came from His utter being up
to the Father when He said, Father, not My will, but Thy will be
done. Obedience under fire, under affliction. Aren't you and I proud in our
hearts? Don't we rejoice when we hear one of our children has
been tempted to do something But He had the character, He
had the fortitude not to do it. Don't that just bless our hearts?
Don't you know it just blessed the Father's heart? During all
these trials, during the temptations, when the devil came in that fire
trial and tempted Him to worship the devil, and every time He
said, it's written. Oh, the sweet incense that went
up to the Father. His obedience unto fire. I do
always those things that are pleasing in His sight." If you
ever get a chance to smell some frankincense, smell it and you
see how pleasing it is in your nostrils. That's the way the
life of Jesus Christ was. His living was that way to the
Father. Fourthly, about this sacrifice, look here in chapter
2 and turn over in verse 13. Chapter 2, verse 13. Speaking
about the same sacrifice, verse 11, the meat offering. He says
here in verse 13, In every oblation of thy meat offering, every sacrifice
of your meal offering, shalt thou season with salt, neither
shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be
likened from thy meat offering. With all thine offerings thou
shalt offer salt. It was offered with salt. And
salt has always been a barrier to corruption. It's a preserver
as well as a seasoner. When my dad used to kill hogs,
and some of you probably remember this yourself, we used to kill
hogs and my dad would take a whole side of the hog and he would
just load it with salt and lay it out. We had an old house and
he'd lay it down on the table in that old house and there it
would lay. Nothing would bother it because that salt preserved
it. It wouldn't rot because that
salt preserved it. And you could go there and take
you a good sharp knife. And Glenn, I bet you've done
this. And boy, you could cut a slice of that off. Wash the
salt off of it. Maybe if you didn't like it salty,
you could boil it. But boy, that was so good. That was so good. Salt preserved from any corruption. It was a barrier against corruption. And in the Scripture, often connected
with speech. Listen to Colossians chapter
4 verse 6. Let your speech be always with
grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to
answer every man. Your speech be seasoned with
salt. This has to do with the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen His character, His
doctrine and his lifestyle, how even it was. We saw that he was
anointed with the Holy Spirit, went about doing good. Now, here's
his words. Here's another aspect of his
life. Words. How critical are they, brothers
and sisters? How critical is our speech? It's so critical,
the Lord Himself said, every idle word that men speak, they
shall give account thereof in the dead judgment. idle words. By your words you shall be justified,
by your words you shall be condemned. Jude said the Lord is coming
to convict all the ungodly of all their hard speeches which
ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Every word is so important. James said, if a man offend not
in word, if he don't unjustly offend in word, he's a perfect
man. Isn't that what he said? Why? Because of this tongue. He said
the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is our tongue
among our members that it defiles the whole body and it set on
fire It sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire
of hell. The tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of
deadly poison. That's why he went on to make
the statement, let every man be swift to hear, and slow to
speak, and slow to wrath. Slow to speak, because words
often cause us to sin. I tell you, wars have been started
with words, haven't they? People's been killed because
of words. Words have separated chief friends.
What is it that's probably got us in more trouble? Caused us
more heartaches? Caused us some anxiety in our
conscience? What organ has done that more
than any other? Ain't it this time? The flapping
of this little mandrel. It's so small. But I tell you
what, it can do great harm, or it can do great good. If a man
has never misspoken, you mark it down, that's a perfect man.
You know anybody like that? That has never misspoken? There
is nobody like that, is there? Jesus Christ our Lord dwelt upon
this earth for thirty-three and one-half years in our humanity. And for 2,000 years now, we've
been looking back and examining every word that He told us. And not one word that He spoke
needs to be forgiven. Not one word that He spoke needs
to be forgotten or modified or corrected or erased. Every word
He spoke was perfectly seasoned. Now, that's amazing, eh? That's
amazing. in our humanity, every word he
spoke was God-honored, was edified, was correct, was just, was good,
and was gracious. He told them one day, he said,
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life. Now, he didn't say they're spiritual.
They are. They were. He didn't say they
were life-given. They're that too. But he said
they are Spirit and they are life. And His words are so pure. His words are so holy. They enter
unto the human soul and they give life. They enter unto the
conscience and they cleanse. And they enter unto the heart
and they preserve it from corruption. That's His words. That's His
words. They're seasoned. with salt. Peter said, Lord, the words that
you speak, they're eternal life. They're life. That's why Paul
instructs us to do this. Let the words of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, in all wisdom. Lastly, here about the ingredients,
because I want to go on to something else right quickly, and I'll
hurry right quickly. Marcia asked me about verse 11
last week, and I did some studying, but I don't know much more now
than I did then. Two ingredients that were not to be mixed with
this meal offered. There in verse 11, no leaven,
no yeast, and no honey. I know what leaven means. It
often means malice, wickedness, hypocrisy, sin of this flesh,
sin in the flesh. We know why that shouldn't have
been added with this sacrifice. The Lord Jesus had no such things. Why no honey was to be offered
with this burnt offering, I really don't know. The commentators
speculate that it could very well be talking about the pleasures
of this world. That the Lord Jesus was a man
of sorrow. I don't know. But I don't have to comment on
this because it wasn't in the ingredients. So I don't have
to deal with it. You believe that, would you? But I wanted
to say this. Here in verse 2 and then in chapter
6, we are told that Aaron's sons, they were to take a handful of
this fine flour with this frankincense on it and this oil. They were
to take a big handful out of this offering for themselves.
They were to eat this offering. Then they were to burn the rest
upon the fire for a burnt offering unto the Lord. Now, we know how
we are to eat Jesus Christ crucified. We know what to drink is blood.
My blood is meat indeed. My broken body. My blood is drink
indeed. My broken body is meat indeed.
We know how we partake of that. But how do we partake of a living
Christ? This represents Christ and His
humanity living. It has no blood in it. How do
we partake of His life lived out? Well, let me give you three
or four ways right quickly. First of all, by remembering.
We, like Aaron's son, partake of this offering. We do it by
faith, by remembering what God required of Jesus Christ as a
sacrifice. And what did He require? It must
be perfect to be accepted. This is something you and I should
always be taking in our hearts, brothers and sisters. Never lose
this thing that Jesus Christ offered Himself without spot
to God. He was a perfect man. He was
without blemish. Never forget that. Somebody said
the other day they didn't know Christ with virgin barn. Well,
let's don't be ignorant of that truth, and let's don't be ignorant
of the necessity of it. He had to be without spot. Always
taking this into our heart. Without spot, without blemish. That's why His blood can cleanse
us from our sins. And we can eat of Him this way
by faith. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
2, the Apostle said there, Consider Him that endeared such contradiction
of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
mind. Consider the humanity of Jesus
Christ. Consider Him as this fine flower
anointed with the Holy Spirit, going about doing good, speaking
the truth, never erring in His Word. Consider Him endearing
such contradiction, such hatred, such malice of sinners against
Himself. And look how He endeared it,
with all patience, with all kindness, with all grace. Consider that. When you look to Him and consider
how He endeared in His holy character, it will help you. It will help
you. When you are ready to faint and say, I just can't go on,
look to Jesus. Look unto Him. Look how he endured
it, and look at the character that he had. Thirdly, do it in
this way, as our example. This is 1 Peter 2, verse 20. He said, When you do well, and
you suffer for it, and you take it patiently, this is acceptable
with God. For even here unto were you called,
because Christ also suffered for us in His life He suffered. Leaving us an example that we
should follow His steps, who did no sin, neither was any gall
found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He reviled
not again. When He suffered, He threatened
not. He is our example. Take this
fine flower with this frankincense and use Jesus Christ as your
example. Be as He is in this world. If we say we are His and we profess
Him, the Bible says we ought to walk even as He walked. Be
gracious like He was gracious. When you're tempted, endure the
temptation, just as He did. Glorify God in your suffering.
He's an example. But lastly, and I think this
gets more to it, it's like this. Not just His life on this earth
that you and I need to remember. that he was holy and harmless
in this earth, but his life in heaven, his life in heaven. Listen to Romans chapter 5 and
verse 10. If when we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being now
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. You and I have an
interest in His death, a vital interest. But Paul said we have
an interest in His life too. We have an interest in His life
while He was upon this earth because He was holy and without
any God. But he said we have an interest
in His life in heaven. Why do we have an interest in
His life in heaven? Because He ever lives there at God's right
hand to plead for us what He accomplished here in this world. Remember what John said, brethren,
see that none of you sin. I write unto you that you sin
not. But if you sin, we have an advocate, we have a lawyer
with the Father, Jesus Christ, and He's the propitiation. He's
there as a lamb slain, and He pleads His blood, He pleads His
merit. But look who He is that does the pleading. Who did John
say he was? Jesus Christ, the righteous. See, he was righteous when he
was here on this earth. He's righteous in heaven. He
offered himself without spot to God, and he died that way,
and in heaven, living at God's right hand, he's the righteous
one. Paul said, such a high priest
becomes us who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from
sinners, and made higher than the heavens. And to thank the
merit of His blood, the power of His blood in His death, and
Him there at the right hand of the Father in His righteous,
glorified humanity, to plead that? Isn't that wonderful? I mean, if His blood was discerned,
He wasn't. That would be enough. But when
you take Him there, in His glorious and holy person, to plead what
He's done, I'm telling you, that'll save a man, and that'll keep
a man. And we're to eat of Christ, living
now at the right hand of God. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea, brother, that rose again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. That's why this offering year
is so important. The others deal with the blood
of Christ, the death of Christ, and that's what reconciles us.
But here is the person that offered himself, and here is the person
that pleads that blood and that pleads that death on the Father's
right hand. May God bless you.