If you will, open your Bible
tonight to the book of Leviticus, chapter 16. I'm sure that all of us here
this evening recognize that the scriptures testify of Christ,
the gospel of Christ, and it begins, the message of Christ
begins in the first book, the book of Genesis, and it runs
all the way through the scripture. In the law that was given to
Moses, There were three parts of that law, not three laws,
but three parts to that law. There was moral, ceremonial,
and the civil. And the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is especially contained in the ceremonial part of the
law. When God gave commandment to
Moses concerning the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices,
In many different ways, the gospel of Jesus Christ was pictured. And in this chapter, chapter
16, we have God's word concerning the great day of atonement. The great day of atonement. And
it contains many truths of the gospel. And as we read through
the chapter, we can see how it brings out the Lord Jesus Christ
and his work. Remember, this was the only day
in the year, the only day in the Jewish year, when the high
priest was to enter into that most holy part of the tabernacle. The tabernacle, of course, had
two parts, the holy place and the holy of holies. And only
on this day, every year, the high priest, only the high priest,
And, of course, Aaron was the first-time priest, so we read
about him in this chapter. But this is the only day in the
year that he could go into the most holy place, the Holy of
Holies, and sprinkle blood upon the mercy seed, which covered
the Ark of the Covenant and before the mercy seed. If you've got
your Bible open here to Chapter 16, look in Chapter 17 of Leviticus, And verse 11, where God told
Moses, chapter 17, verse 11, for the life of the flesh is
in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
makes an atonement for the soul, for the people of God. Now, in reading through this
chapter, we're going to look especially tonight at verses
20 through 22, but I want to point three things out to us.
Just reading through the chapters, I did this past week several
times, there's some things I want to bring out to us. They're just
too good to pass over. If you notice the first thing
in verse four, here in Leviticus 16 in verse 4. He shall put on
the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon
his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with
the linen mitre shall he be attired. These are holy garments, therefore
shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on. Now, you're
familiar with the fact that God commanded Moses to make garments
for the high priest that were to accomplish two things. They
were for beauty and for glory. And the high priest garments
were glorious, but on this day, Now this is the day when he's
going in to make an atonement, to sprinkle the blood upon the
mercy seat. On this day, he goes into the
tabernacle, washes his body with water, and he puts on linen clothes. He takes off that garment that
was for glory and for beauty and puts on this plain linen
outfit. linen breeches and linen coat
and a linen turban. What does that remind you of?
Doesn't it remind you of the fact that the eternal son of
God, who had always shared the glory, the beauty of heaven itself,
that in the fullness of the time, he was born of a woman, made
a man, came into this world, laid aside that glory and that
beauty that was his and had always been his as the eternal son of
God. But he laid that aside, veiled
that if you would, and came into this world as a man. was born
in the likeness, as I pointed out this morning, according to
Paul, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Though he had no sin,
but he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. And that speaks
to my heart, to think that the Lord God would do that for me,
that he would do that for you. That's amazing, isn't it? that God would love His people
so much that He would give His only begotten Son, and the only
begotten Son would give Himself, that He would come into this
world, be made a man, that He might have blood to shed. You
see, the atonement's made by blood, and as the eternal Son
of God, as the Spirit, He had no blood. But yet, as the God-man,
he has blood, blood to shed, and that blood, the value of
it, because of who he is, he's God, manifest in the flesh. The second thing that I thought
of in verse six, I wanted to mention this in verse six. Now
Aaron, the first high priest, notice, And Aaron shall offer
his bullock of the sin offering. Now, before he's going to offer
a sacrifice for the nation of Israel, for the atonement for
the nation of Israel, he's got to make, offer a sacrifice, offer
an atonement for himself, for himself. Why? Because Aaron was
just like you, just like me. He was one of Adam's descendants.
He was a sinner by nature. Now the Lord Jesus Christ, and
we're told this, aren't we, in Hebrews, he didn't have to offer
sacrifice for himself. Why? Because he had no sin. He did no sin, he knew no sin,
but this typical high priest, Before he offers a sacrifice
for the people, he's got to offer a sacrifice, a sin offering,
it says. And Aaron shall offer his book
of the sin offering. How different, our high priest. And then I want you to look down
to verse 29. This tells us what day of the
year it was. Verse 29, and this shall be a
statute forever unto you, that in the seventh month on the tenth
day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and notice this,
and do no work at all. You're not gonna help in this.
This is work. that only the Lord Jesus Christ
could do. He's talking to the people. You shall do no work at all. The Lord Jesus Christ presents
himself in Isaiah 63. When asked about his garments,
he said, I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there
was none with me. No, the Lord Jesus Christ by
himself redeemed his people. Nobody helped him. No man helped
him. He did this by himself. And that stood out to me again
as I read through the chapter. God commanded the nation of Israel,
you do no work at all. The work of redemption, the work
of salvation, It's Christ's work, isn't it? We don't add anything. We don't cooperate. No, it's
his work. It's his blood that he sheds.
Now, if you will look in verses 20 through 22. And when he hath made an end of reconciling
the holy place and the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar,
he shall bring the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his
hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all
the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,
and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and
shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon
him all the iniquities unto a land not inhabited and he shall let
go the goat in the wilderness. These verses that I've just read
here, these three verses, they tell us that to picture the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, his atoning work, there was the need
of two goats. There was a need of two goats.
And you look back to verses nine and 10, and I know you're familiar
with this, but look back to verse nine and 10. And Aaron shall
bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him
for a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot
fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the
Lord to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a
scapegoat into the wilderness. In other words, to picture the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ there was a need of two
goats. One goat to shed its blood, the
blood to make an atonement. But this second goat, which is
called a scapegoat, to picture what the atoning work accomplished. What the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
our Lord accomplished. And it pictures this by Aaron
confessing, laying his hands upon the head of the goat, and
confessing all the iniquities, transgressions, and all their
sins of the children of Israel. I want you to notice, this stands
out to me, there are three words, iniquities, transgressions, and
sins. Look at that again. in verse
21, and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the
live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins. So we see
these three words are used, but then in the next verse, they're
all combined into one word, iniquities. and the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited. Three words, iniquity, transgression,
and sin. Now we talk of sin, we just combine
them all like this scripture here does. Just combine all this
into one word and we speak about sin. And Christ shall save his
people from their sins. I want you to look with me in
Psalm. Turn with me to Psalm 51. Psalm 51, and this is a psalm
that was written by David in repenting after the sin he was
found guilty of. You know the title says, to the
chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came
unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Remember, Nathan
came to David, God sent Nathan the prophet to David the king
and told him, Thou art the man. You're guilty of adultery. You're
guilty of murder. Thou art the man. And David's heart smote him.
And he goes to the Lord in confession of his sin. And I want you to
notice he uses these same three words. Verses one and two. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly from mine iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. He uses those same three words. transgressions, iniquity, and
sin. As I said, we combine them all
into one word, sin. But if we look at them separately,
and that's what I want us to do for just a few minutes tonight,
as we look at them separately, we learn more about our problem,
my problem, your problem. What is that problem? Sin, iniquity,
transgression. We've got a problem. We've got
a problem. If we look at the first word,
iniquity, and I notice that three times in this Psalm, David speaks
of his iniquity. Verse two, wash me throughly
from my iniquity. And then down in verse nine,
he says, hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquity. But notice what he says in verse
five when he uses this word. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. Now, this word, this word iniquity
tells us that our problem is more than just what we do. Our
problem is much greater than just what we do, just acts that
we commit. Our problem is what we are. Much greater, this word iniquity
points this out to us, that our problem of sin is much greater
than just the acts that we have committed, telling a lie, taking
something that wasn't ours. Those are sinful acts, yes, but
our problem is greater than that. Our problem is what we are. What we are, and this word points
that out to us. In the prophecy of Jeremiah,
you're familiar with this word, the prophet asked, can the Ethiopian
change his skin? Are the leopards his spots? Then
may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil. If you
were to take a leopard and shave its hair, Do you know when the
hair grows back, when the fur grows back, it's still gonna
have spots? It's still gonna have spots. That's part of what we now, or
men now call DNA. Having spots is wired into the
DNA of a leopard. And no matter how many times
you were to wash that leopard, and the greatest detergent that
you can find, and no matter how many times you might shave that
fur off, when the fur grows back, there's going to be spots. Because
that's what it is. That's part of who a leopard
is, or what a leopard is. In the same way, Our problem,
our sin problem, it's not superficial. It's not our environment. That's
what the liberals would tell us. If we could just put man
in a good environment, then all of his problems would be ended.
No, my friends, God put man in a good environment. And what
did man do? He broke God's law. It's not
our environment. That's not our problem. It's
not our diet. We could change our diet and
start eating healthier. Well, that might help our physical
well-being, but it has nothing to do with our spiritual problem. Our evil behavior, the reason
we told that lie, the reason we took that which was not ours,
is because we have an evil nature. A nature which the scriptures
tell us we have from our father, Adam. From our father, Adam. And all of us have the same father.
We all have the same father as far as men are concerned, and
that is Adam. Because mankind began with one couple,
Adam and Eve. And if you could trace your genealogy,
some of you love to work with genealogy, you could trace it
all the way back if you had the ability. Every one of us would
come to the same place. We'd all come to Adam and Eve. She's the mother. That's the
reason her name is Eve, right? She's the mother of all living. And we all inherited a sinful
nature from our father Adam. Our problem with sin is not just
what we do. We do something wrong. But our problem with sin is that
it's a part of our fallen nature. As I said a few minutes ago,
it's not just what we do, it's what we are. Iniquity. The second word is the word transgression. Now three times, this was interesting
to me, as I saw there were three times David spoke of iniquity,
so three times he mentions transgressions. Notice in verse one, he wrote,
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my transgressions. In verse three, for I acknowledge
my transgressions. In verse 13, Then will I teach
transgressors thy ways. Now the apostle John, in his
first letter, he wrote, whosoever committeth sin transgresses the
law, for sin is transgression of the law. Now, when I say that
word, that verse, transgresseth, transgresses the law, I don't
know why, But this goes back in my life a long time ago when
I asked my uncle, what does that word posted mean? You're driving
down the highway and you see on the fence post, posted, posted. And sometimes you'll see the
sign, no trespassing, no trespassing. And when I say that, that sin
is a transgression of the law, I think of a man who's a hunter,
let's say. He loves to hunt. He loves to
hunt deer. And he knows, he's well aware,
that on a certain piece of property, there's deer on that property. I know there's deer over there.
So he pulls his car off the side of the road, and goes up to the
barbed wire fence and he doesn't do it right where the sign is
maybe, but he knows the sign is there. No trespassing. Post it. Post it. And he takes
his rifle in one hand and he pulls up one wire of that barbed
wire and he puts himself through it and he goes off there in the
woods. What has he done at that time? He transgressed He transgressed
the law. He rejected the law. He rejected
authority. The authority is, you don't go
across this fence. You don't enter into that property.
It's not yours. But at that time, he sets himself
up above authority. He rewrites the law. He thinks
to himself, well, that law, you know, that's for others. It's
not for me. That's for other people. You
see it sometimes in the, in the parking lots at grocery stores. You say there's a, there's a
space there that has got a sign up there says, handicap parking,
got a big old thing painted there on the on the pavement, even
And you know that that is set apart for people that have special
needs. And here comes a man in, and
he whips in there. Oh, I've seen that happen many
times. What does he do? He violates.
He transgresses the law. He gets out of the car. He doesn't
have a tag on his car saying that he's permitted to park there. And you look at him, and like
I told Juan one day, maybe I shouldn't have said this, but I said his
handicap is his brain. He didn't beat me up, but he shouldn't have parked
there. He transgressed, and I'm not the law, but God's law. It's got a long arm, doesn't
it? We transgress God's law. We disobey God because at the
time, at the time there's something more important, more important
than obeying God, more important than loving God and serving God,
something we want to do. So we just take it into our own
hands and we transgress. We're guilty of that. We're guilty
of iniquity. We have a fallen nature and we're
guilty. That's the reason the scripture
says they go astray from the womb, speaking lies. That is
babies born into this world. We're guilty of transgressing. And then this third word. Sin,
and that's the word we just combine these other words together into
that word sin. And do you notice David uses
it three times in this psalm. Look in the second part of verse
two, cleanse me from my sin. The second part of verse three,
my sin is ever before me. And the second part of verse
five, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Now I suppose the
most common definition, we're all familiar with this, is missing
the mark. Missing the mark. That's what
the word sin means, missing the mark. And the word pitcher is
of an archer who has a target and in the center of that target,
I always refer to it as a bullseye, you know, he pulls his arrow
back and He lets it go, and it goes maybe a little to the right,
or maybe above, or maybe below. I was thinking about this this
afternoon. When I was a young boy, now I'm
thankful things have changed here in Houston, but I was raised
over what was called the East End of Houston at that time.
And I got on a Houston city bus. and rode downtown to Main Street,
Oshman's on Main, and bought a .22 single-shot rifle. Got back on the bus and took
it home. One of my uncles, he saw what
I had, and he said, David, he said, I'll adjust the sights
on it. I'll sight that in for you. Sure. He said, we'll go down
to this bridge. And the bridge was nailed together. He said, you see that little
nail head there? I'm going to sight this in on
that nail head. And he did. He did. That's the
picture. We've got a target, and we missed
the mark. But I read this and we think
of it as the arrow hitting to the right or left or somewhere
close or maybe just hitting the target. But I read this past
week and I agree with this. The brother said it may be a
better way to understand this is to see an archer and he strings
his bow, puts the arrow in it, pulls it back and lets it go
and it It doesn't even make it to the
target. Misses the mark. You say, what
is the mark? The mark is the glory of God.
The glory of God. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Sin has left us, all of us, morally
weak, unable. Unable to be, unable to do that
for which God created us. You say, what was that? For His
glory. God created all of creation,
not just because He was, He just needed something to do. No, all
of creation is the work of God and it is all for His glory. Man was created for the glory
of God, but we come short. We miss the mark. We're all falling. And that doesn't mean, listen,
that doesn't mean when we talk, we use the term total depravity
a lot, and that's a good term, but that doesn't mean that we
all are as evil as we possibly could be. I doubt if anyone has
ever been as evil as He possibly could be. But what it means is
that sin has corrupted every part of us. And when I say every
part of us, I'm thinking about our mind, our understanding. It's darkened. A lost man cannot understand
the things of the Spirit of God. Not only his understanding, but
his affections. He doesn't love God, he loves
himself and his will, his volition. Every part of man, volition,
affections, understanding was and is affected by the fall,
by sin. We're not what Adam was before
Adam fell. Now, physically, we may look
like he did, but Adam was a highly, and I'm not saying you're not,
but he was a highly intelligent man. I don't think any of us
fully appreciate that, what sin has done to God's creation, to
man, as well as everything else. Well, so we have iniquity, transgression,
and sin. Now here comes the good part.
Here comes the good part. What was pictured to us in the
law concerning the Day of Atonement? Remember the high priest, after
he'd offered the blood, then he comes out and confesses the
the transgressions, the iniquity, and the sin of the nation of
Israel, and that scapegoat is led away into a land uninhabited,
and the picture is they're gone. Our sin is gone. All these things
that I've spoken about that are true of us, the blood of Jesus
Christ takes all that away, redeems us. The angel told Joseph, thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. John wrote, the blood of Jesus
Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. And nothing else
can. We sing that hymn sometime, what
can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Let me call us to Revelation
chapter one and I'll finish. Revelation chapter one and verse
five. and from Jesus Christ who is
the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and
the prince of the kings of the earth unto him that loved us
and washed us from our sins in his own blood. What was pictured
on the great day of atonement the Lord Jesus Christ actually
accomplished. He loved us and He washed us
from our sins, our transgressions, our iniquities. He washed us
from our sins in His own blood. I preached a message years ago,
I still remember. It had three points. Loved, He
loved us. Lathed, He washed us. And the third point was loathed,
L-O-A-T-H-E-D, loathed. You say, where'd you find that?
I'd have to get my concordance. But I remember it was in the
new covenant. And after God gave the covenant,
it was either in Ezekiel or Jeremiah, all the wonderful things that
God would do for his people. and his people, what would we
do? We would loathe ourselves. Loathe ourselves. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that
do mourn, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that mourn.
And blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled. Amen. Amen. Has God ever made you poor in
spirit? God ever cause you to loathe
and mourn over what you are, not just what you've done, but
what you are. Thank God for the gospel, right?
Thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and washed
us from our sins in his own blood.