Leviticus chapter one. Leviticus
teaches us something, something of the holiness of God. We don't
understand what holiness really is. We declare it and we believe
God is holy, but we can't enter into what holy is because we
are completely other. By definition, that's what holy
means is other than. He is other than we are. We are
other than him in every way. And everything that we think,
everything that we do is just opposite of what he is. And so
we can see here in Leviticus, some things of holiness, how
to worship the Lord or what is demanded for us to be able to
worship, how we're enabled to worship. The temple of the Lord
had been built at this particular time, just the previous chapter
of Exodus, the last chapter of Exodus, we find that the temple
was built. And so now the Lord's giving forth the ordinances necessary
for worship in order to teach the children of Israel how to
worship. We're not born in this world knowing how to worship
God. That's not something that we
have a knowledge of naturally. The Lord has to teach us how
to worship him. The Lord has to cause us to worship
Him, and He does cause His people to worship Him. Only the Lord's
people can worship Him. Only the Lord's people have the
spirit of the Lord, which enables them to worship Him. Christ told
Nicodemus, God is a spirit, and they that worship must worship
in spirit and in truth. So here in Leviticus, the Lord
is telling us some of the ordinances given forth in the Old Testament
as to how they were to approach God, how they were to come to
Him to worship Him. In verse one, it says, And the
Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle
of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel
and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto
the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of cattle, even of the
herd and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice
of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. And he shall
offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord. And 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 priests, Aaron's son, shall bring the
blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that
is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. These first
five verses tell us seven different things that was required for
them to make sacrifice. Number one, it had to be of the
flocks, the herds, or the cattle. The Lord's telling them it's
got to be by the blood. It's necessary for worship that
we approach by the blood of Christ alone. We do not come bearing
our own merits. We do not come bearing our own
confession of ourself. We confess that Christ is all
and we must come to him to worship him on his merits alone. So first
he tells us here that it's got to be of the flocks and of the
herd and verse three tells us that it's got to be a male without
blemish. So these are the qualifications
so far. It has to be of the flock. It has to be without blemish
and it must be a male. Now all of these are types and
pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that God required
in the Old Testament is the same as he requires in the New Testament
for him to be worshiped. We must approach him on his terms. He tells us it goes on to tell
us that it has to be of the voluntary will of the man that brought
it. He says that in verse three must be without blemish. He shall
offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle. So he tells us that it's at the
door, he can't go into the tabernacle whenever he wants to worship.
He can't enter in, he brings it to the priest at the door
of the tabernacle. And then in verse four, it says,
he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering and
it shall be accepted for him to make atonement. Lastly, he
kills him. Now this placing of hands is
what we're going to hear the next hour is a transfer of sin
is what it is. He's literally putting his sin
upon this animal and saying this animal is going to die in my
stead to appease the wrath of God for a time. Now we know that
the priest would offer up sacrifice every day unto the Lord, but
it never brought salvation. It only postponed the wrath of
God. It only appeased him for a season, so to speak. But Jesus
Christ, and we can see Christ in this. We know that he was
the lamb of God. He was of the flock, is what
the scripture says. He's the lamb of God. We know
that he was a male without spot and without blemish, but he himself,
being our high priest, was able to go into the tabernacle by
his own blood and achieve eternal redemption for his people. And
that's what he did. So all this that's telling us
what God demanded of the Levites in Leviticus, for them to worship,
for the children of Israel to worship, from the very beginning,
it's the exact same in the New Testament that Jesus Christ must
meet these qualifications in order for us to worship. The last thing we see that happens
is in verse five, he takes and sprinkles the blood round about
the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
The scripture tells us without the shedding of blood, there
is no remission of sin. The Lord is pleased only when
he sees the blood of the lamb covering his people. The Lord
does not look at our merits. He does not look at our good
works. He does not look at our attempts. He told the children
of Israel in Exodus, you remember whenever the Passover lamb was
to be offered up, Remember whenever the Lord called into Moses and
he said, I'm going to smite the firstborn of Egypt this night,
take a lamb and shed its blood and put the blood upon the lintel
and upon the doorpost. This is a door right here that
we're talking about at the tabernacle, the congregation. All of those
that were inside of that house, whenever they put the blood upon
the doorpost and the lintel, if you were inside that house,
he said, when I see the blood, I will pass by you. This is how
we worship the Lord, pleading the blood of Christ alone. This
is how we approach him. He's made it, and somebody said
the Lord made a way of salvation. Christ is the way. So he didn't
attempt to do anything, did he? He is the way. He's made the
way so that we can worship a holy God, the holy God. Let's continue
reading in verse six. It says, and he shall flay the
burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And the sons of Aaron
and priests shall put fire upon the altar and lay the wood in
order upon the fire. And the priests, Aaron's son,
shall lay the parts, the head and the fat in order upon the
wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But his inwards
and his legs shall he wash in water and the priest shall burn
all the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire of a
sweet savor unto the Lord. That's what I've titled this
message is a sweet savor, a sweet smelling savor. They took this lamb. This lamb
had to be killed. The blood had to be sprinkled.
Then they burn it with fire and it had to be laid upon the altar
of the Lord before the Lord. And this is what the Lord smelled
as a sweet smelling saver. What can we learn by this passage? Do we learn that whenever we
approach the Lord, we must do something or bring something?
Certainly not. We come clinging to the Lamb
of God for all of our hope and salvation. We come only speaking
of his merits, only speaking of his goodness, because he was
laid upon the altar of God. He was consumed by the fire of
God, but yet he was not burnt up, the scripture says. He endured
the wrath of God so that you and I, his people, his people
could be set free from the law of sin and from the law of death. There's a good example of being
laid upon the altar that we see in verse eight here. If you want
to turn with me to Genesis chapter 22, the Lord had appeared unto
Abraham. And you know, you know, the account
of Abraham already, whenever the Lord had promised, Abraham
was going to have a son. Now, Abraham, the scripture says,
believe God. And it was counted unto him for
righteousness sake. But Abraham, just like you and I were, he
was so full of unbelief. He decided to take matters into
his own hands, didn't he? He said, well, my wife's not
of age. She's too old to have a child
and I'm old, well-stricken in years. So they decided to take
matters into their own hands. And his wife, Sarah, gave him
her handmaiden. And he had a son named Ishmael
by that, but that was not the promised seed that the Lord's
told Abraham. It was not the promise. The promise
was Isaac. And Isaac came forth in Abraham's
old age, well-stricken in years, almost a hundred years old, he
has a son. Now the Lord's given him a son. We're not sure of
the age of Isaac at this particular time, but he calls him a lad.
And they also refer in the scripture, they refer to David. If you remember
when David faced Goliath, he was a lad at that time, which
is somewhere around 14, 16 years old, something like that. So
we can assume that Isaac's about the same. Doesn't necessarily
tell us that, but it's necessary for us to understand what's going
on. Time had passed by and Isaac now was of age to be able to
help his father with what was about to transpire. God appears
unto Abraham and he tells him, I want you to take your son,
your only son, Isaac, and offer him up as a burnt sacrifice unto
the Lord. Think about that. If the Lord
appeared unto you and told you to offer up your child as a burnt
sacrifice, and we truly don't understand anything about this
offering that was taking place, even in Leviticus, because we've
never practiced it. All we can do is read it and try to understand
what they're saying, but we've never really seen it firsthand. It was a bloody sacrifice. It was gruesome. It wasn't something
pretty or something attractive to the eye. This is literally
blood being shed. And so he's telling Isaac, he's
telling Abraham, take your son and offer him up to me as a burnt
sacrifice. And they travel for three days.
So he had three days to dwell upon this. He knows exactly what's
going to happen to his son when he gets there. But Abraham believed
God. He believed that God would resurrect
his son from the dead if he obeyed God, or he would give him another
seed that would bear the blessing, be the one that would bring the
Messiah, as he said. He believed God. So after a three
days journey, they go to Moriah and the scripture says, he tells
the servants, abide ye here with the asses, abide here with the
donkeys. I and the lad are going to go yonder and do what? Worship, we're going to go worship. And so look with me. At verse
6. Genesis 22. Verse 6 and Abraham. Took the
wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son,
and he took the fire in his hand and a knife and they went both
of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father and said, my father, and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And
Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
burnt offering. So they went both of them together
and they came to the place which God had told him of, And Abraham
built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound
Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And
Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his
son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven
and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he
said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only
son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, behind him, a ram caught in the thicket
by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son." The first thing that we see here is what is required
for a sacrifice. He took the wood, he took the
fire, he took the knife, But there has to be a sacrifice,
a lamb, in order for there to be a sacrifice. And there must
be a priest, a priest that would kill the lamb. Now, I want us
to notice that the only thing that Isaac carried to this event,
this really happened. It's not just a story. This really
took place. The only thing that Isaac carried
was the wood. Is that not our Lord Jesus Christ
going to Mount Calvary in our stead, carrying the wood, carrying
the cross, the place the altar would be built or the thing the
altar would be built by? He had to carry that himself,
did he not? This is what we're seeing a type and picture of
here is the father and the son doing business with each other,
and it wasn't just a business transaction. It was so much more
than that. Whenever Christ died upon the
tree, but he carried the wood for the burnt offering and he
was the sacrifice. and he is our high priest. So
we see this picture here that the father takes the sword, the
knife, as we've seen Abraham about to do, and he does indeed
kill his only son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for his people. Abraham
was spared that. a horrific experience, if I could
call it that. But he looks up and what does
he see? He learned something of substitution, don't he? He
sees now, if we're gonna worship God, they still are there to
worship. That's the purpose of them being there. He sees the
ram caught in the thicket back behind him. Now, what does the
horns represent? It represents the strength, doesn't
it? He had to become entangled in the thicket. Now, if you remember
back in Genesis chapter three, whenever the Lord gave forth
judgment upon Adam and Eve, What does he tell Adam that the earth
is gonna bring forth? It brings forth thorns and thistles,
doesn't it? That's the thicket that he's
talking about there, catching the ram by its horns. Our Lord
Jesus Christ, as our substitute ram, had to be called up in our
sin, sin had to be placed upon him. He had to lay down, and
people would not see anything of the cross as being something
of strength, but he was in strength right then, obeying the Lord.
obedient unto death. That was his strength. He laid
down his strength, the horns, as I mentioned before, and became
sin, became surety for us. And the Lord executed him for
our sins so that we could be made the righteousness of God
in him. When he was offered up, it went
up as a sweet smelling savor unto the Lord. The Lord was satisfied
with his son. Now go with me back to our text
in Leviticus chapter one. I want you to look at verse number
9 with me. But his inwards and his legs
shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn all on the
altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire of a
sweet savor unto the Lord. The Scripture likens the Word
of God unto the water. And we know that whenever the
Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross, the Roman soldier pierced
his side and forthwith come blood and water. I find this interesting
because as we see here, this animal must be washed in order
to be clean enough to be sacrificed unto the Lord. But that's not
the case with the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not have to be
washed. He was the sinless lamb of God. Yet forthwith him came
blood and came water for his people. Now, I find that interesting
because the side is very close to the thigh, and I would imagine
the blood and water would have ran down upon his thigh, would
it not? The legs. Now, as I thought about the legs,
I realized that that is what we stand on. That's literally
how we stand, how we walk. So what is this a type and picture
of here? If you are standing upon any other foundation other
than the Lord Jesus Christ, it is sinking sand. If you're standing
on any other merit other than what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
for his people, then it will not do when you stand before
the Lord. We must stand on the rock. You remember whenever I
mentioned this Wednesday night, whenever Moses was going to be
put into the cleft of the rock, he says, I'm going to place you
and you're going to stand upon the rock. I have a place nigh
unto me. I will put you in. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. We stand upon. the Lord Jesus
Christ and His righteousness alone, knowing that we have been
washed by water, the water of His word in the precious blood
of His Son, the Lamb. Psalm 24 tells us, who shall
ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in His holy
place? He, this is the qualifications. If you want to know how to stand
in the holy place of God, if you want to know how to worship
God, here are the qualifications. He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart. Now, do we have clean hands and
a pure heart? You do if you're in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You're perfectly righteous if the Lord puts you
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have a pure heart and clean
hands. Why? Because He's washed you.
He's washed you in His blood. He's washed you, the Scripture
says, the washing of water by the Word, the Word of God. As
the Gospel goes forth, He calls unto His people, sends His Spirit,
births them into the family of God, makes them born again, completely
righteous before God. So you have a pure heart and
clean hands if you are in Christ alone. That's our hope. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the one That is clean. He's the One that had
a pure heart. He didn't have to be washed. He's a pure High Priest. He's a holy High Priest. He's
the Good Shepherd. The Shepherd of His sheep. He
brought salvation for His people. Turn over a few pages to Leviticus
16. Leviticus 16 and verse 11. And we're gonna be looking in
this passage both hours this morning, but I want us to see
something here about the priest being pure. Verse 11 says, and
Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is
for himself. Now understand what he just said
there. Aaron had to offer a sacrifice for himself before he could offer
a sacrifice for the Lord's people. The priest couldn't just go in
and offer a sacrifice unless he was had offered it for himself
already. He had to be pure in the eyes
of the Lord prior to offering up a sacrifice for the people.
He says, to make an atonement for himself and for his house
and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering, which is for
himself. And he shall take a censer full
of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord
and his hands full of a sweet incense, beaten small, and bring
it within the veil. And he shall put the incense
upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense
may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony that he
die not. And he shall take of the blood of the bullock and
sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward. And
before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his
finger seven times." accounts that are given, these rules,
these commandments is what they are of the Lord, is telling us
we have no hope in approaching the Holy God if we're going to
come on our own merits. These are ordinations given forth
in the Old Testament to show us something of His holiness,
something of how high He is, and how we cannot approach unto
him. We must have a lamb. We must have a substitute. This
ordinance that's taken place right here tells us that Aaron
was the high priest ordained of God. And yet he, he had to
offer a sacrifice for himself before he could ever offer a
sacrifice for others. The Lord Jesus Christ. was the
sacrifice for his people. The Lord Jesus Christ was pure
in the eyes of God, so he did not have to offer a sacrifice
for himself, did he? This censer is something I wanted
to speak on for a moment, is the censer. The shape of it would
be round, and you've probably seen it in ceremonies where the
Catholics still kind of carry one around. It has a chain that
comes off of it, and it's kind of round, and they would take
the coals, as we saw right here, they would take the hot coals
from off the altar, and they would put incense to it for it
to burn. And the purpose of that was to take it and put it upon
the mercy seat as they would worship God, as the blood was
being applied to the mercy seat. Well, the smoke that would come
forth of that would cover the mercy seat, would cover around
about the mercy seat. So what is the Lord teaching
us here in all of this? Is this just a, indication of
something that took place, just a history that the Lord has given
forth? No, this is the Lord Jesus Christ
that's being taught to us here. The Lord Jesus Christ, this censer
represents the wrath of God. and the darkness that fell upon
the cross of Calvary, whenever the Lord Jesus Christ was offered
up for his people, the thick cloud of smoke that came over
Mount Calvary, when God was dealing with sin, the sin of the elect,
when he was dealing with that, nobody knows. what took place
there, but we know that God poured out his eternal wrath upon his
son in those hours. And whenever it was all over,
whenever the wrath of God was completely consumed, whenever
the judgment of God was satisfied, whenever he was pleased, Christ
cried forth with a loud voice, it is finished. And all of those
who he died for at that moment, all of those, whenever he lifted
up his voice, yielded up the ghost, they were presented to
the father as perfectly righteous. Even before the foundation of
the world, the scripture says, yet it had to take place in time. And it did. The Lord saved his
people from their sin. This is what we're being taught
here by this censor. We're being taught that it was
the smoke that would rise. Smoke does rise, doesn't it?
But as the Lord Jesus Christ was offered up, he was the sweet-smelling
savor unto the father. Why does he say it's a sweet-smelling
savor? Because it satisfied him. It pleased the father to bruise
his only son for his people. You notice that Aaron here sprinkled
the blood seven times. That's the number of perfection,
isn't it? The number of completion. What is he saying? The blood
of Christ is perfect and the Lord was satisfied with it. All
of these are a beautiful picture of what the Lord has done for
his people. If we could ever enter into the
thought that we are holy. There's no way I can enter into
that. I mean, I just, I don't see it. I can't understand it.
I don't even know what it means to be holy. But God said that
we are holy before him. We're unblameable, unreprovable. Think about what the, think about
the work that the Lord brought in salvation in presenting his
people unto him as holy. I don't know what, I don't understand
that, but I believe it because he said it. How holy are we is
the question. because we have to be as holy
as He is. In order to please God, we have to be as holy as
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is what He did in the
substitution on the cross of Calvary. He took our sin and
He gave us His righteousness. He took our guilt and made us
guiltless before the Father. He took, He became the unclean
thing. We are the unclean thing, brethren.
According to the flesh, we are unclean, unworthy, unable to
come to God, nothing but sinners, He became sin for us so that
we would become the righteousness of God in Him. That's what we're
seeing here throughout all this. That's how we have been made
right, been made one with Him, is by all of these types and
all of these shadows, the things that we're seeing here. Whenever
the Lord sees us because of his work, because of what he done,
when he sees us, he does not see Caleb Hickman. That's my
hope. I don't want him to see me. If he sees me, then justice
must be satisfied and I must die because I'm a sinner. When
he sees us, Our hope is that he sees the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our hope is that he sees the
spotless lamb. Our hope is that he does not
see me, the chief of sinners, that he sees me as righteous
in Christ, that he sees Christ alone. Do you remember the covenant
that David and Jonathan entered into that said they'd look after
each other's household as long as they live? And they went to
it. There was a blood covenant that they entered into a pack.
David remembers this covenant that he made with Jonathan after
Jonathan and Saul died, and you know this account very well,
I'm certain. But he goes and he says, is there
any left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness
for Jonathan's sake? And the servant says, yeah, there's
one, his name's Mephibosheth, and he's lame on both of his
feet. And David said, go fetch him, go bring him to me. Now
that's a picture of our Lord sending his spirit to where we
are and bringing us unto Christ. That's what that picture is right
there. But he goes and fetches Mephibosheth and Mephibosheth
brought in before the king. Now he's lame, so he had to be
carried in. There's no doubt about that. You and I are lame
from birth because of our father, Adam. We are nothing but sin.
We have no hope of getting to the king because we're crippled.
We're lame on both of our feet. So we are brought to a knowledge
of God by the preaching of the gospel. He sends his spirit and
arrests us and brings us to him. And we're like Mephibosheth,
as soon as we go enter into the King's presence, we fall flat
on our face. And I love what David says unto Mephibosheth. The first words that he says
to him is, fear not. That is what I want to hear when
I stand before the Lord. Fear not, for surely, that means
truly, I will show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake.
That's our hope. Do you know what David saw when
he looked at Mephibosheth? He did not see Mephibosheth.
He had to have the likeness of Jonathan, did he not? It was
Jonathan's son. He saw Jonathan's face when he
saw Mephibosheth. That's my hope, is that when
the Lord looks at me, he does not see me, but he sees the resemblance. He sees Jesus Christ, not the
resemblance. He sees the person, Jesus Christ,
when he looks at me. That's what salvation is, brethren,
is being found in Christ. Being found in Christ. He says
to Mephibosheth, fear not, for surely I will show thee kindness.
for Jonathan thy father's sake. And you know what happened to
Mephibosheth? He got a ring on his finger, he got a robe on
his back, and he ate at the king's table continually. He ate of
the king's bread continually. I find it interesting that it
was at a table, the scripture says, because he was lame. And
it says it, the very last thing it says about him, and he was
lame on both of his feet. But as he was sitting there under
that table, think about this, nobody could see that he was
lame, could they? Nobody could notice that he was lame on his
feet because he had a covering. The king's table was a covering
from a pivot shelf. That's what he's done for his
people. He's covered us in the blood of Christ. He's put a robe
on our back and a ring on our finger, and he's presented us
as perfectly righteous to the father. That's our hope. Is there
anything sweeter? Anything sweeter to a sinner
than the sweet smelling savor of Christ? Not say no. If you've
been made a sinner, He's the sweetest thing you'll ever smell.
He's the sweetest thing you'll ever know, you'll ever taste.
Doesn't the scripture says, taste and see that the Lord is good,
doesn't it? The first mention of sweet smelling
savor is in Genesis. And I was gonna have us turn
there, but I'll just give you the account. Noah had come off
the ark with his family, his six, there was eight of them
total that came off of the ark. It was his three sons and their
wives and Noah's wife. The Lord spared them in the ark,
which we know that that's Christ, our ark. That word pitch that
he says he used, putting pitch on the outside of the ark, that's
the word for atonement. So everyone that was in the ark,
in the atoning work of Christ, when the wrath of God fell down,
were saved from the wrath of God. That's what the picture
is of the ark. After the waters had abated, they get off the
ark. And the first thing Noah does is he builds an altar. He
builds an altar and he says, Noah built an altar unto the
Lord and took every clean beast and every clean fowl and offered
a burnt offering to the altar. And you know what the Lord says
after that? The Lord smelled a sweet savor and the Lord said
in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for
man's sake. This is our hope, brethren, that
when Christ was offered up as the sweet-smelling savor unto
the Father, that the Lord says, I will not see sin upon my people
anymore. I've put it away. I've put it
away by my own death. My son hath put away the sin
of the Lord's people. The sweet-smelling savor of God
satisfied the Father. There is no more wrath because
of this. This is the only fragrance that pleases the Father. You
and I must come before Him looking just like Him, smelling just
like Him. I'm reminded when Jacob and Esau,
you know the account where Isaac was on his deathbed and he was
blind, he couldn't see, and it's a beautiful picture of the Lord
being blind unto us because he doesn't, scripture says he no
longer sees sin upon us. He's blinded to our sin because
they've been put away. He's forgotten them, it says, cast them as far
as the east is from the west. But you know the account when
Jacob goes in in order to trick their father, to trick Esau and
Jacob's father, Isaac, It says he was wearing the garments of
Esau. He was wearing his garments,
and he had the wool on his arm from the goat. So he said, well,
he said, I smell Esau, and you feel like Esau, but I hear Jacob. That's what Isaac said. Is that
not our hope? Is that not our hope before the
Lord, that whenever he's blind to our sin because he's put them
away, that we smell just like the Lord Jesus Christ when we
enter into his presence, that we feel just like the Lord Jesus
Christ whenever he touches us, if I can say it that way. This
is our hope, that we are in Christ alone. Christ is the only one
that satisfied all the senses of the Father. I want us to think
about this lastly. He offered up himself the sweet
smelling savor unto the Father. That was the smell. That's one
sense. There's five senses, we know
that, right? Five senses, smell, taste, touch, hear, and sight. So we know that he was offered
up a sweet smelling savor. And I've already mentioned to
us that the Scripture says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is
good. The Lord satisfied his father's
demands in every way. He was satisfied with the way
that the Lord tasted. If I can put it that way. His sight pleased the father.
Also, he said when I see the blood, I will pass by you. The
Lord Jesus Christ pleased the father in in smell and taste
in sight. What about touch? Did the Lord
not unsheath the sword of justice and pierce it in the heart of
his son by his own hand? He was satisfied with everything
that Christ touched. But when he became sin for us,
the Lord executed his son on our behalf. He satisfied the
Lord, the Lord's touch. Everything that the Lord spoke,
even the hearing of the father was satisfied in the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ and every thought In every word and in
every deed, Christ had a perfect confession before the Father
in everything. This is our hope, brethren, that
we are in Him, that we are found in Him. You're still in Leviticus 1.
Look at verse 8 quickly with me. Leviticus 1 verse 8 says, And
the priest Aaron's son shall lay the parts, the head and the
fat in order upon the wood that is on the fire, which is upon
the altar. But his inwards and his legs
shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn all on the
altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire of a
sweet savor unto the Lord. Everything was laid in order. That's what he just told us here.
Everything was laid in order prior to this sacrifice taking
place. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross, everything was laid in
order for the salvation of the Lord's people. Everything that
was necessary for our salvation was accomplished. He was laid
upon the altar and he was burned with fire, the fire of God's
wrath. His feet was pierced. for His
people so that we can stand upon the solid rock, so that we can
walk into the presence of God. We're no longer lame on our feet
in His eyes. His hands were pierced so that His work would be presented
to the Father on our behalf so that there is no more work that
we need to do. His side was pierced, exposing His heart to us and
to His Father, and forthwith came blood and water, which is
our salvation, the blood of the Lamb. This is our hope. He was
an offering made by fire unto his father, a sweet smelling
savor. Is that your hope? That he did
that for you? That's my hope. Amen. Father, we come before thee now
asking that you would take your words, cause us to be satisfied
with your son as you were. Forgive us of our unbelief. Save
us, we pray in Christ's name, amen.