And we'll open the Bibles tonight
with me to the book of Leviticus once again. And let's turn to
chapter 4. Leviticus chapter 4. The title of my message that
saves it is, A Message With Nine Texts. A Message With Nine Texts. Don't let that scare you. Let's begin, and we're going
to read nine verses. They're not one after the other,
but the first one here is Leviticus 4, verse 20. And he shall do what the bullock
has he done. and the priest shall make an
atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. Now down to
verse 26. And he shall burn all his fat
upon the altar as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings,
and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning
his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. Verse 31. And he shall take away all the
fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from all the sacrifice and
peace offerings. And the praise shall burn it
upon the altar for a sweet savor unto the Lord. And it shall be forgiven him."
Now, if you will, in chapter 5, verse 10, Leviticus chapter
5, verse 10, And he shall offer the second for a burn forgiven him. Verse 13, And the
priest shall make an atonement for him as touching his sin,
that he has sinned in one of these, and it shall be forgiven
him, and the remnant shall be the priest as a legal offering. Verse 16 of chapter 5, And the priest shall make an
atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and
it shall be forgiven him. Verse 18. And he shall bring
a ram without blemish out of the cloth, without estimation,
for a trespass offering unto the priest. And the priest shall
make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance. and the ninth text in chapter
6 and verse 7. And the priest shall make an
atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven
him for anything of all that he hath done in trespasses therein. There are four words that are
common in each one of these verses which we've read. Four words
are found in each one of these verses, these nine texts. In each of the texts that we
read, we read the word forgiven. Be forgiven him. In preparing this message, I
noticed that the word forgiven is used more in the book of Leviticus
than in any other book in the New Testament. It's used ten
times. There's one other text here in
Leviticus where we have the word forgiven. But this makes me confident
in saying that the God of the Bible, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ is a God of forgiveness. I'm confident
in saying that, that the God that we worship of God and forgiveness. It made
the psalmist David say the same thing. In Psalm 130, verses 3
and 4, he wrote, If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, if the
Lord kept a record of all the iniquities, all the sins that
you and I have committed, that all men have committed, if thou,
Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, Who shall stand? Who shall stand in God's presence
if God marks a new place? But there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mightest be feared. Forgiveness. God is a God of
forgiveness. There's forgiveness with thee,
David wrote, that thou mightest be feared. David knew something
about God's forgiveness. He knew something about God's
forgiveness as a lost sinner when he first came to Christ
and God forgave him. And he knew something about God's
forgiveness as a believer when he disobeyed God and fell into
such awful sin, the sin of adultery and the sin of murder. And he
was not even aware of it. When God sent a prophet to him,
we all love that parable, that prophet Nathan told to King David. He was very wise, the prophet
was very wise. He was giving that parable to
the king, who could with one word have the prophet's head
cut off. Nathan said there was a rich
man that had many flocks. And the rich man had a visitor
come, and rather than take one lamb or one sheep from his flock,
he took the poor man's lamb. I mean, he laid the law down.
And the prophet says, David, you are the man. And when David
confessed his sin, immediately the prophet says, the Lord put
away thy sin. In other words, God has forgiven
you. And then the prophet Michael,
David said that, there's forgiveness with thee that thou mightest
be feared. But I'm always amazed at these words of the prophet
Michael because it seems that he speaks in amazement and wonderment
when he asks this question, who is a God like unto thee? Who is a God like unto thee that
pardons iniquity? Amazing! This made the Lord Jesus
Christ say the same thing to that paraplegic who was brought
to him on that stretcher, you remember, and led through the
roof of the house before the Lord. And the Lord Jesus said,
Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. So in every one of these texts,
we have the word forgiven. That makes me confident to stand
before men and women, guilty men and women like myself, and
proclaim that God is a God of forgiveness. Now, if a man picked
up a copy of the Bible and just began reading in the book of
Leviticus, he would soon see as he reads through He's a God of forgiveness. There's
another word, a second word, I want us to think about in every
one of these nine verses, and it's a little word, two-letter
word, IT. IT. What does it stand for? That
word can stand for a lot of things, can't it? Well, in every one it stands
for sin or for a trespass. And in one of them, in chapter
5, the it is a trespass or sin which was committed through ignorance. A person just ignorantly sinned
against God, trespassed against the Word of God, the Law of God,
and in doing so he became unclean. You know, to touch the bone of
a dead man. And you could easily do that,
I imagine, out in the field. You could touch a bone, maybe
plowing or something like that, and not even realize you'd done
that. You could hear someone swearing
and not reporting that. There was many ways that a person
could stand through ignorance. But this makes me confident in
saying that This should surely interest every one of us tonight. It should surely be of interest
to all of us here tonight. When it stands for sin, for trespass,
for iniquity, then all of us should be interested, because
we're all guilty, because we've all transgressed God's holy law,
because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. I'm confident we should all be
interested in it. The third word is the word atonement. In every one of these verses
we see the word atonement. Now, this makes me say if a person
picked up the Bible and all he had was the book of Not without an atonement. Not without an atonement. Yes, he was forgiven. Thank God. He's a God of forgiveness. But
never, ever without an atonement. What is the word, what does the
word atonement mean? Well, it easily breaks down in
English into those three words, at one minute. And that's really
a good definition. That's really an excellent definition,
at one minute. It is the bringing together of
two, bringing together of two parties who have, for some reason,
fallen out, for some reason, have become enemies. And this
atonement brings these two who have fallen out into a relationship
of peace and acceptance at home. You know, it's only used once
in the New Testament. Romans chapter 5. For if while we were enemies,
were we ever enemies to God? Absolutely. Absolutely. We came into this world alien enemies to God. For if while we were enemies,
we were reckoned We shall be saved by his life,
and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the at-one-with. Through Christ we have received
the reconciliation. In each of these verses, each
of these nine are atonement. And in every one
of them, except one, every one of these nine verses except one,
we read that the atonement, the reconciliation, was made by the
shedding of blood. Look in chapter 17 of Leviticus. This is reason that in the New
Testament, the Apostle wrote, without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. In Leviticus 17, in verse 11,
God said, For the life of the flesh is in the blood. It's amazing to me how much the
doctors and nurses and medical people can tell about you just
from taking a sample of your blood. Isn't it? It shouldn't
amaze us, because it's been written here all along. The life of the
flesh is in the blood. 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 make
it an atonement for the souls. It is blood or the life of a
substitute that makes an atonement. Now, we all know from Hebrews
that it's not possible, as the those animals could not take
away sin, but it could and it did picture how God takes away
sin. Under the Law of Moses, it did
picture that for many hundreds, thousands of years. It pictured
how, in the fullness of the time, God would send his a substitute for his people,
he would make an atonement through shedding his blood for his people. It is, sir, the vicarious substitutionary
death of Christ. Now, I said that in all of these
verses, all of We are told that the atonement
was made by blood. I want you to look at the one
exception, chapter 5, chapter 5, and we'll read verses 11 through
13. But if he be not able to bring
two turtledoves, now here's a poor man. He can't afford a lamb,
he can't afford two pigeons. What's he going to do? If he
is not able to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he
that sins shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an
ephod of fine flour for his sin offering. And he shall put no
oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon. memorial thereof, and burn it
on the altar according to the offerings made by fire unto the
Lord. It is a sin offering, and the
priest shall make an atonement," this is one of the texts, verse
13, "...and the priest shall make an atonement for him as
touching his sin, that he has sinned in one of these, and it
shall be forgiven him, and the remnant shall be the priest as
a neat offering." We see in this example a lamb, he cannot afford two
pigeons either, but he brings an effort of flour, fine flour,
sifted flour. Now this is called a meat offering.
It's one of the five great offerings in the first part of the book
of Leviticus that we read about, a meat offering. That always
confused me when I first started reading the Bible. It's called
a meat offering, but there's no meat. when I think of meat. But no,
it's a meat offering, but it is of flour. And not just any
kind of flour, it's fine flour. It's flour that's been ground
down and sifted and it's very, very fine. And the sin offering, it must
be perfectly accepted. And this meat offering pictured
the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man would bring
it because that's all he could afford. That's how God fed the priests,
wasn't it? By part of the offerings, the sacrifices, the animals,
part of those sacrifices, not all of them, not the sin sacrifice,
no, all of that must be burned outside the camp, every part
of it except the fat which is burned upon the altar. But there
were parts of those animals that pertained to the priest after
he offered the He could take home part of that
animal, and that was His. God took care of His priests,
didn't He? Those that did the work of the
Lord, God made sure they would pay it. God said in the law, thou shalt
not keep the cow from eating the
corn. a halter on him so he can't open
his mouth. He's there working, I guess going
round and round and over. And lo and behold, the Apostle
Paul used that in the New Testament to tell the church how they were
to maintain the ministers of the Gospels. How a minister was
to be supported by the people who ate the food. partake of material things of
yours. But how did I get off on that? Oh, let's get back on the text
here. The beat-offer. It pictured Christ as the perfect
man. You see, the atonement could
only be made by blood, but it had to be the blood of a sinless
man, didn't it? It couldn't just be the blood
of any man. No, it had to be the blood because he had none. Now, the
fourth word, the fourth word in every one of these verses
is the word PRECIOUS. In each of these nine verses,
we read THE PRECIOUS SHALL. We read the word FORGIVEN, the
word IT, the word of these verses. And I said in
reading these verses, I'm confident in proclaiming that God is a
God of forgiveness. I'm confident in proclaiming
that God forgives sin. I'm confident in proclaiming
that God has made an atonement. And I'm confident in proclaiming
that we have a priest. For without a priest, an atonement
was never made. It makes me confident in saying
that we must have a priest, and we must have one who's had no
sin of his own. And that brings us tonight to
this ordinance of the Lord's Supper. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
priest that we all need. The one and only one who was
sinless, who's had no deed The only day the high priest
went into the Holy of Holies to make an atonement. Before
he took the blood of that goat, which was considered the Lord's
goat, into that Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the mercy
seat. And before the mercy seat, remember the first thing he did?
He took the blood of the bullock and he went in there and made
an atonement for himself. for his sin. He was a priest
like you and I who had sinned. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he
didn't even make an atonement for himself, for he had no sin. He reconciled us to God by his
death, and it is his death that we show forth here tonight. The
life of the flesh is in the blood, that which represents the flesh,
that which represents the blood separated, in other words, that
life was given. Substitutionary, vicarious sacrifice
of our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
we're picturing here tonight, isn't it? Amen. One of the Hebrew
words in And that's such a wonderful way
of explaining how our sins are forgiven us. Just as I lift up
this Bible here tonight, you see we lift it up. So the Lord
God lifted the sins of His people off of us and laid them on Himself. made to we on him the iniquity
of us all, so that the Apostle Paul wrote, For he hath made
him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. Lifted that sin off of us, off
of his elect people, and laid our sins upon the sacrifice,
the head of Christ. And that is so beautifully pictured
in that sacrifice or that great day of atonement I mentioned
just now about the high priest going into the most holy place.
When he came back out, remember what he did. After he had put
the blood of the goat in there, which was the Lord's goat, He
came back out in that second go, laid his hands on his head,
confessed the sins, the iniquities, the trespasses of the nation
of Israel. And then the scripture says a
just man, a fit man, a fit man. takes that gold and leaves it
all where it's never to be seen again. That's what he did with
our sins. That's what he did with your
sins. If you're one of his people, you're not. He removed them from
you as far as the east is from the west. In fact, he's removed
them so far that if search is made for them, they can't be
found. They cannot be found. What a
wonderful, wonderful Savior. What a wonderful book is the Bible. No matter
where you go and say, Leviticus, who thinks about preaching from
Leviticus? Numbers, Exodus, any book in
the Bible, we're going to see Christ, aren't we? We're going
to look for Him. He's the key. When we can see him, that's how
we learn and grow in grace and knowledge. I'll ask the men if
they will come at this time.