The title of my message this
morning is Unstoppable Grace. Unstoppable Grace. When we read
the Old Testament, it is always important for us to remind ourselves,
as Paul says to the Corinthian church, all these things happen
to them for types and for instruction for us. All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof,
correction, and instruction that the man of God might be truly
furnished unto all good works. All the Old Testament teaches
us about the Lord Jesus Christ, about His work, and about the
people for whom the work Christ performed. In these two passages of scripture
I read this morning in the book of Numbers, we have a wonderful
display of the sovereign grace of God in the salvation of His
elect, or His chosen ones. The tribe of Levi is a type of
the elect of God, both as they are seen in Adam and as they
are seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. The tribe of Levi made up the
priesthood. And they picture, therefore,
the elect of God, who, according to Scripture, Christ has made
both kings and priests. Kings and priests. That's not
a future event. You are now kings and priests.
I know you might not think you're a king, and you certainly feel
like you don't act like a king, but you rule with Christ. You
rule with Christ. Scripture says that. In Revelation
chapter 1, it says, He loved us and washed us in His blood,
and has made us kings and priests unto our God. The song of Revelation
5 is the new song. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,
that has redeemed us by His blood out of every kindred, nation,
tongue, and people upon the face of the earth, and has made us
kings and priests unto our God. And being kings and priests,
that's simply a part of the blessed, predestinated conformity to Jesus
Christ, who is our King of Kings and our great High Priest. And
He is Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. These priests
are called a chosen generation. A chosen generation. Look over
at 1 Peter for a moment. 1 Peter. Chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9 says
you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a priesthood
that belongs to the king's palace, a royal priesthood, and holy
nation, that's not talking about personal holiness, that's talking
about Christ being our sanctification, A peculiar or a purchased people,
that's what the word peculiar means, a purchased people, that
you should show forth the praises of Him who called you out of
darkness into His marvelous light. These priests are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood. And as we look at God dealing
with Levi, we are viewing God dealing with a sinner whom He
saved by grace. whom he appointed to the lofty
place of service unto God to offer acceptable sacrifices by
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look back at 1 Peter 2 and verse
5. Ye also, as living stones, are
built up into a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by the Lord Jesus Christ. You're a priest. You're a priest. Now if the church is a priesthood
and Christ is the great high priest, there is no need for
any earthly priest as a mediator between us and God. Christ is
the man who is the mediator between God and men. But the first thing
I want us to look at this morning is to see that Levi was not always
a priest. He was made a priest. Levi must
be viewed first in nature just as you must be first viewed as
you were born into this world and what you came with. You were
born into this world a sinner. A sinner. You were condemned
in your father Adam. You were condemned by your personal
choices and practices. You came forth from the womb
as soon as you were born, speaking lies conceived in iniquity. By this we understand the kind
of people who make up the innumerable company
of God's elect priesthood. What kind of people are they?
Well, look at the characterization of Levi and his brother made
by Jacob in Genesis chapter 49. Listen to what Jacob says about
him. Now remember, Levi has been called
out in Numbers 3 and prepared for the priesthood in Numbers
chapter 8. And here's his character as he is born into this world
and as he acted as a grown-up human being. It says in verse
5 of Genesis 49, Simeon and Levi are brethren. They are instruments
of cruelty in their habitation. Instruments of cruelty. O my
soul, come not thou into their secret, unto their assembly. Mine honor be not thou united
with them. For in their anger they slew
a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it
was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide
them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." That's the kind of
people that Levi is. That's the kind of people that
make up the priesthood called the church or the elect of God. That's the kind of people they
are. Not like people think, is it?
Not like the world of religion thinks at all. But this is cruel
in their habitation. God said, it would be dishonored
for me to even be around them. Even be around them. Now Jacob
is here referring to the dreadful murderous actions that Levi took
against Shechem when Shechem stole Diana and fell in love
with her and then went and begged for Diana's hand and was allowed,
so he thought, by Levi and the brethren when they came and said
well you can have her, but you know we can't really let our
sister sister be married to an uncircumcised man So you're going
to have to go back to your land and and where the Sheikah mites
are and and and have every man circumcised And then we'll let
you have diet because this fellow really loved dying. He really
did and so they agreed and He went back and said listen. They
don't mean us any harm They're asking us just this one thing.
And so they did. Every man was circumcised. And
it says after three days they were sore. They were hurting. Couldn't hardly move. Shechem
came in, or rather Levi and his brother and the men came in with
their swords drawn and killed every man in that town while
he was sore. That's what James is referring
to. This is the kind of wrath and anger. Cruelty. Cruelty. Listen to what Jacob
said over in Genesis chapter 34 after this deed was done. Verse 30, we'll just read the
first part. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have troubled
me to make me stink. among the inhabitants of the
land and among the Canaanites. You've troubled me to make me
stand. That's the kind of people that
make up the priesthood. That's the kind of people you
and I are by nature as we are born into this world. There's
another man in Scripture that was known abroad for his fierceness
and his cruelty and his anger and his wrath. The record says
he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death. He gave
okay to the fact that he was stoned to death when Stephen
was stoned to death for the gospel's sake. This man wreaked havoc
in the church, went about, spent his life to rid the earth of
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he too was arrested in his
career and put out of business and put in the business of minding
the tabernacle of God. His name was Saul of Tarsus.
And after the grace of God came upon him, he wrote things like
this. This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. In another place he wrote, Unto
me who am less than the least of saints is this grace given
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches
of Jesus Christ. Levi and Paul are both examples
of what it takes to save cruel, fierce, wicked men. Only the unstoppable grace of
God can save a sinner. Only the grace of God. And the
grace of God is not going to be stopped. Not going to be stopped. Not going to be frustrated. Not
going to be thwarted. Whatever course God has set His
grace on, it will have its day. By nature we all have been weighed
into balance and found wanting, yet by grace We have been declared
righteous priests, made fit for the kingdom of God. He has made
us meet, it says in Colossians 1.12, or suitable, suitable to
be counted among the inherited saints of light. He has made
us suitable to that. I am unworthy in myself for God
to pay any attention to me at all. I am unworthy, but Christ
made me worthy. That's what He said. He made
us suitable. He has made me worthy to be standing in the presence
of God. I didn't make me, and what I do don't make me, and
what I don't do don't make me. Christ has done for me and makes
me worthy. We are priests. All the elect are by nature vile,
God-hating rebels. Destruction and misery are in
their way, saith the Scripture. With their mouth they've used
to seat the poison of ashes under their lips. But glory to His
name, God has visited us in sovereign mercy. He's visited us in sovereign
mercy and by the accomplishments of His Son has made us kings
and priests as we live in this world right now. He's made us
kings and priests. We have to look to understand
this to the difference between the description of Levi's position
in nature as we found in Genesis 34 and repeated Illuminated in Genesis 49 in
his position We find him in in grace in Numbers chapter 3 Because
God says of this cruel angry wicked mean individual and his
descendants Bring them here I'm gonna make them priests And they
gonna serve the tabernacle of the Most High God and they're
gonna do Aaron's bidding the high priest bidding I'm going
to do that for them. That's the grace of God for sinners. How is it that God brings such
a sinner from the dunghill to be seated among princes? For that we need to look back
at Numbers chapter 8. Numbers 3 was the appointment
of Levi. Numbers chapter 8 is the fitting
of Levi for this great service unto God. On what ground Can
God, being just and holy, bring such in one to be an honored
priest? Look at chapter 8, verse 5. The
Lord spake to Moses, saying, Take the Levites from among the
children of Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do
unto them, to cleanse them, sprinkle water of purifying upon them,
and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their
clothes, and so make themselves clean. Then let them take a young
bullock with his meat offering, even fine-floured mingle with
oil, and another young bullock shalt thou take for a sin offering."
That's how these fellows are made to be suitable. appointed to the job, which pictures
election and predestination. We're appointed to salvation.
We're chosen to salvation. But it's God, by the work of
Jesus Christ, who makes us fit for salvation. Makes us fit for
the job that he has given his people to do. Note well that
Levi did not volunteer for this job. He did not make a move toward
God. In nature, he wanted to be as
far from God, just as you and I desire, as he could be. He was chosen by God. Out of
all the other tribes, he was chosen by God and brought to
God. Bring him to me. Bring me the
sons of Levi. And that's the way it always
works. But of God, Are you in Christ
Jesus? That's how you got that. Of God
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Levi's self-will
had no inclination toward God, and neither do you. Now you have
an inclination toward religion. You're born to serve. You understand
that? By nature you ain't no king.
And you certainly ain't no priest, but you're born to serve. Adam
was made to serve God, to honor God. And when we came into this
world, we're going to serve. Old Bob Dylan said, we're going
to serve somebody. Everybody's going to serve somebody. We're going to serve the Lord.
We're going to serve the devil. We're going to serve somebody
because we're made to serve. We're all servants. We're all
slaves by nature. He who committed sin is a slave
to sin, saith the Scripture. We're in bondage to that slavery.
We're in bondage to our nature. We're in bondage to self and
to Satan and to the law and to nature in general. We're in bondage
to these things. We're slaves. We're born to serve.
We're going to serve somebody. We don't come forth from this
womb irreligious. We come forth from the womb liars. But our unbelief is a belief
in ourself or in some form of religion. And that form of religion,
no matter what it is, you see there's only one true religion
and a billion false ones. There are. There are millions
of false religions, but all of them are the same. They all believe
that somehow you do something to make yourself fit to stand
in the presence of God. No matter whether it's You're
a Baptist, or a Fundamentalist, or a Presbyterian, or a Catholic,
or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu. It doesn't matter. Every religion
except for one believes that you have a part in your acceptance
with God. Every one of them. And as far
as the domination goes, there's not a dime's worth of difference
between the two. It's just different wording. You remember when Jim
Baker had that fun part down there on the border of South
Carolina and North Carolina outside of Charlotte? I forget what it
was called now. PTL or something. Pass the Loot. No, that wasn't it. It was something
like that. But anyway, when his ministry
extended past spiritual things to carnal things and he got Deposed
of his title and his lovely wife's mascara ran down to her skirt Jerry Falwell Said I'll take
over that outfit now you think about this now here was a man
who is a charismatic Believer he believed in That the gifts
of the the apostles still were going on today though the scripture
declares they stopped And they will return. They will return
as an evidence of demon worship, not worship of the Lord. Falwell
spoke against these things all his life. I heard him preach
messages against them. He says, I'll take over that outfit down
there. I'll do it and I'll help around.
Why? Why can he do that? Because there's no difference between
what he believed and what Jim Baker believed. There's no real
difference. No real difference. Both of them believe that salvation
was by you deciding for Jesus, you doing something, that your
holiness was because of what you did in this world and not
because of Jesus Christ. So they can assume it. That's
why our president, who claims to be a Christian, can say, go
over and talk about Islam and say, what is it, I can't remember
what it was. But anyways, and say praise be
to Allah. That's why you can do what? Because
in the world's religions, they're all the same. Their gods might
have different names, but the way they get to their gods and
are accepted by the gods is all the same, except for one. There's
one religion in this world that says you have nothing to do with
salvation. If you are saved, it is God alone
who saves you, and that by the merits of Jesus Christ alone.
You have nothing to do with starting it. You have nothing to do with
carrying it on. You have nothing to do with finishing
it. You have nothing to do with the consummation of it. You have
nothing to do with it. You are not a participant. You are an empty vessel in which
God pours in His grace and mercy. And God made you the vessel to
receive the mercy, because he makes some vessels not to receive
mercy. Salvation is of the Lord. Levi didn't choose this. Levi
was drafted into this army. And according to Ecclesiastes,
there's no discharge from this army. Once you're drafted, you're
in it, bud, and you're going to die in it. You're going to
die in it. Levi had no inclination toward
God whatsoever. It was God's self-will, God's
will that caused Levi to approach unto Him. It was God's will who
caused Levi to come to Him. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee. That's blessedness. If God has chosen you and caused
you to approach unto Him. Back in our text in Numbers chapter
8 and verse 7 we have a clear portrayal of the principle of
how God makes men suitable to be found in His presence. He
does it by cleansing them. By cleansing them. And thou shalt
do this to them to cleanse them, sprinkle water of purifying upon
them, and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash
their clothes, and so make themselves clean. You have three basic things
that's going on here. God employs, however, two things
as a means of accomplishment of His grace. The last two kind
of go together. These two things represent the
work of grace. First of all, there's purifying.
Wash them with pure water. Wash them with pure water. Now
there ain't no such thing. earthly pure water this was symbolic
it was language that represented a purifying and that purifying
is done by the Word of God water represents the Word of God that's
what the scripture declares that we're purified by the Word of
God and it also represents the precious blood spoken of through
His Word and here also is a means another means of cutting off
that which grows by nature It's called the circumcision of the
heart in another place, but here it's called shaving the hair
off your body. Shaving the hair off your body. The shaving of the hair accurately
explains the obstinacy of the carnal nature. It really does. Even though Levi was shaved, his hair grew back. Isn't that
right? Hair grows back. It grows back. The shaving of the hair teaches
us that nature, the flesh, is never involved in the service
of God. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. Galatians 5.16 says that the
flesh is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit contrary to the
flesh, and they're always against each other. You can't ever do
what you would. It also says, they that walk
in the Spirit are not going to please the flesh. They that walk
in the Spirit are not going to apply to the flesh. What does
the flesh mean? Generally speaking, it can mean
your epidermis. It can talk about that, but generally
speaking, especially in Paul's epistles and all throughout the
New Testament, the flesh generally means this, the carnal nature. That's what it means, your carnality,
that which you are born with. This also teaches us that nature
cannot be saved. It cannot be saved, it cannot
be reformed, it cannot be refined, it cannot be improved, because
it keeps growing back. You can shave it off, but it's
going to grow back. It must be cut off by the razor
of the Spirit, the double-edged sword of the Lord, which pierces
even to the dividing of the Son, the Soul, and the Spirit, the
joints and marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart. But nature will never ever improved. What religion is trying to do
in this world today is make Adam better. That's what they're trying
to do. They're trying to make Adam better. He's not going to get better.
I've got an old 71 Ford pickup out there. And it's a rattle
trap. A rust bucket. I just love it
to death. Love my old 71 Ford pickup. I
took it and had some work done on it. brakes and such, and it
needed a new air cleaner. I told that mechanic, I said,
go out and buy me a 12 inch chrome air cleaner. That on top of that old 302 that's
covered in grease. The fella said, why don't you
wash it? I said, I'm afraid to. I think it'll start leaking real
bad if I do, because all that dirt and grease is stopping up
those holes. But you can lift the hood under there, Rusty under
the hood, rusty here, rusty firewall, rusty fenders, rusty everything.
Black gummy engine and a beautiful 12 inch chrome air cleaner. That's
putting a bow on a pig. And that's what religions try
to do to Adam. Try to put a bow on a pig. Still a pig. Still a pig. Adam, and you know,
when I finally figured this out, it helped me so much. Adam, your
old nature, your flesh, will never, ever be better. It will not get one bit better,
ever. It must be destroyed. That's all it's fit for. That's
all it's fit for. Now a razor, in this scenario,
will keep it in check. It's going to grow back. It's
going to show up again. But a razor will keep it in check
for a little while. Sin, it says in Scripture, shall
no longer have dominion over you. It doesn't mean it won't
affect you. It doesn't mean it won't have
power with you. Don't mean it won't affect you. But sin will
not rule over you because you're not under the law, but you're
under grace. What does that mean? The Holy
Spirit is that razor taking this Word of God, the knife, and shaving
you. Shaving you. That's how He Sin
no longer has dominion over you. One of the first lessons that
the Spirit of the Lord teaches us is that your carnal nature,
your flesh, is judged, condemned, and sentenced to death. And know
this, that whatever is produced by nature, no matter how pretty
it might be, is condemned by God and will never be used in
the service of this priesthood. This is a holy priesthood. This
is a royal generation chosen of God, cleansed by God. Shamed by God. Is this not the initial declaration
of the believers? Baptism. When you go into those
baptismal waters, that's what you're saying. I died. I died with Christ. I died with
Christ. Rose again with Him. You're purified by the blood
of Christ. And that means exactly what it
says. You're purified. That means if you're a believer
this morning before our God Almighty, you're pure. You're pure. In fact, you're a chaste virgin,
a spouse to the Lord Jesus Christ. You follow the Lamb. All who
follow the Lamb are virgins, it says in Revelation chapter
14. It means you're pure. You're pure. You're made righteous
by the divine act of imputation. But there remains in you a disgusting
principle that were it not for God's razor would grow to the
full length of its own depravity. If God by His grace did not check
your nature and hold it down and hold it back, you don't want
to know where you'd go. You might think you know, but
you don't even know where you'd go if God didn't keep you. Don't go mistaking The fact that
you ain't in the penitentiary. Don't go mistaking and thinking
that's because you're a good person. It ain't the truth. The reason you ain't in the penitentiary
is because God ain't let you go to the penitentiary. That's
where you belong. By nature. You belong in the penitentiary.
By nature you should be punished for your sins. Christ took your punishment.
The washing of the clothes here is representative of self-judgment.
The condemnation of our nature from our own heart. It somewhat
has to do with temperance and moderation. It is a personal,
continual reckoning that the old man is dead. And we have
to do that. Because by experience we don't
feel that. By experience we know that we
struggle with the old man every day, every hour that we live.
That's our experience in life. So that's why the Lord says,
reckon him to be dead. This is an act of faith. An act
of the will, if you will. We reckon that the old man dead.
Well, he don't feel dead, but he's dead. He died with Christ. He's dead. I'm still struggling
with him. I know. How do I deal with that?
Say he's dead. What if you sin? Don't be silly. You're going to sin. That's all
you're going to do. What am I going to do when I
do that? Am I going to condemn myself and say, oh, I'm going
to go to hell? No. Reckon the old man to be
dead. To have died with Jesus Christ.
To have been punished in the substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Reckon that to be so. The only
thing to keep you alive in this world. If you don't, you're going
to turn your eyes inward and you're going to be the most miserable
creatures that walk this earth. Reckon the old man to be dead. The old man was crucified with
Jesus Christ. And what has happened? You've
been purified. You've been cleansed. You've
been shaved. You're being shaved. And you're a priest. You're a
priest. The lion has been drawn in the
sand. Your old nature is worshiping
that golden calf. You've taken off your earrings
and throwed it into the pot. And now the Lord has written
his law condemning your actions. What you're going to do? The
lion's gone in the sand. If you want to be his priest,
you know what you're going to do? You're going to stand on the side with
Moses. You're going to take out your sword and you're going to
go hack him. You're going to spiritually hack at the old man
every day. That's what you're going to do.
I'm going to try to slay everything in us that would worship a golden
calf, the idols manufactured in our own flesh with the mind
of the old man in the hands of the old man. This house is going
to be the word and the razor. One man said, God ain't got but
two things in his pottery house, a house of pottery. He's got
a wheel and a knife. He said, He puts you on that
wheel, and if you marred, He takes that knife and cuts that
chunk out. And there's plenty of those chunks for Him to cut
out of you. The water and the razor. It's purifying yourself
even as you are pure. You're already pure. It's hating even the garment
spotted with the flesh. Now look at verse 8. Then let
them take a young bullock with his meat offering, even fine
flour mingled with oil, and another young bullock shalt thou take
for a sin offering." Here two offerings are set forth, the
sin offering and the burnt offering. They symbolize the life of the
priest, why he is alive, why he is a priest, how he is made
to be a priest. Both represented the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the Lamb of God, the taker of away the sin of the world.
Yet each had a different distinction as to the believer's confession
of faith, but both of them had to do with believing. The priest
is a believer. All those sacrifices had to do
with a confession of faith. The burnt offering pictured Christ
fulfilling the will of God in the voluntary sacrifice he accomplished
for his people. It showed that Christ worked
when He was made to be seen. His death had accomplished God's
will in the salvation of the elect. When were you redeemed? When were you truly saved? When? When Christ was made sin for
you. You weren't saved when you come to church. You weren't saved
when you made a profession of faith because you were professing
that you believed. Well, what did you believe? I
believe in everything. Bless your heart. I was in a hospital one time. A friend of mine had a heart
attack, and I went to see him. His wife was there. And I was
talking to him, and he's a believer. His wife is too, but not in the
truth and a whole lot of other things. I was talking to him
about belief and faith. She said, well, I believe all
you've got to do is believe something, and you're alright. And she actually
said that to him, and I said, well, let me ask you this. If
you believe that God is that commode, do you think that'll save you? She
said, of course not. I said, so it doesn't matter
what you believe, does it? It doesn't matter. A confession
of faith is faith in the object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's trusting Him and Him alone for your salvation. So these
burnt offerings, not only represented God's work for us, it represented
the fact that we trusted that work and that person who did
that work. And that work of your salvation
was between God and His Son. Before God ever did anything
for you, He did something for Himself. He satisfied Himself
for your sins by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
resulted in your full acceptance because Christ was accepted in
His sacrifice to the full satisfaction of God. Christ being accepted,
and that was pictured by the fire representing satisfied justice,
it followed that all who were in Him were accepted by God also.
And this offering pictured acceptance before God that was wholly accomplished
by someone else. Everybody wants to be saved.
Here's the rub. Are you willing to stand before
God wholly and completely and entirely on the merits of someone
else and what they did? Because if you're not, you're
not ever going to be saved. You're not ever going to know
God. Everybody wants to be saved. Not many people want to be saved
based on what somebody else did. That that is salvation. The believer
placed his head or his hands on the head of the burnt offering,
but on the burnt offering he did not confess his sin. On the burnt offering he put
his hands on the head of the burnt offering, but he did not
confess his sin. The head of the lamb that was
to be burnt But he did not confess his sin. Why? Because the act
of placing his hands on the head of that sacrifice was identifying
with the accomplishment or the acceptance of Jesus Christ as
that sacrifice. What he was saying by placing
his hands on the head of the burnt offering was that the merits
of the sacrifice were transferred to him. I, by placing my hands on that
lamb, the merits of that sacrifice, pleasing God, is transferred
to me. You're talking about faith. That's
faith. Believing that your salvation
is accomplished by someone else completely. He was saying that
that sacrifice was accounted as His. He was by that act saying
that He was accepted before God. He was in faith confessing that
He was accepted on the marriage of somebody else. That's what
that burnt sacrifice was about. That's what that burnt offering
was about. The sin offering was different, however. Still, it
was a burnt offering, but it was done a different way. The
sin offering represented the death of Christ, but different
in that it represented the sins of the believer being put away
by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here the believer
puts his hands on the head of the sacrifice to symbolize something
else. To symbolize his sins being transferred
to Christ. In the burnt offering, a finished
work, he puts his hands on the sacrifice saying, that work was
transferred to me. When he put his hands on the
sin offering, he said, my sins were transferred to the victim. to the victim of the sacrifice. The sin offering was a confession
of sin with the knowledge that God was just to forgive us our
sins based upon the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The sin offering was for those who were already accepted based
on the merits of another. Only those who are trusting the
merits of Christ. Now listen very carefully. Only
those who are trusting the merits of Christ alone for their salvation,
trusting Christ alone for their salvation, believing they are
accepted wholly upon the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, are
qualified to confess their sin to God, who is just to forgive
them. A lot of people believe that
if they confess their sins, then God will save them. Isn't that
what whole religion says? You can't confess your sins unless
you confess your sins upon the fact that you're already accepted.
You confess your sins because you are accepted by God. That's
why you do it. And you're qualified to do so.
You can confess your sin all day, but if you don't believe
you're accepted on the merits of Christ, you're wasting your
time. And you're not qualified to do so. First, the burnt offering. That merit, that offering is
transferred to me. Then the sin offering is a confession,
my sins were transferred to Him and are transferred to Him. So
only those who are trusting in the merits of Christ, believing
that He accepted holy in His merits can confess sin. And finally
note the order of the sacrifice as set forth here in verse 12
of chapter 8 of Numbers. The Levites shall lay their hands
upon the heads of the bullocks, and thou shalt offer the one
for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering unto the
Lord, to make an atonement for the Levites. Now, these seem
to be in reverse order, don't they? Here they have the sin
offering first, and the burnt offering mentioned second. It's
the reverse of how they were revealed in Scripture. In Leviticus
we find the burnt offering in chapter 1, the sin offering in
chapter 4. And this is a sweet reminder
that all salvation wherever it's at, is accomplished by Christ
alone. Think on this order. First a
burnt offering, or rather first a sin offering, then a burnt
offering. Didn't think of 2 Corinthians 5.21. He was made to be sin for us. That's our sin transferred to
Him. that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
His righteousness transferred to us. So the order is not wrong
at all in Numbers. That's the way it's spoken of
in the New Testament. That's the way it's spoken of in the
New Testament. This is a sweet reminder that salvation is accomplished
by Christ. Our sin transferred to Christ,
His righteousness, our acceptance transferred to us. Ye sons of
Levi, rejoice. Why? You were cruel. God couldn't have anything to
do with you. You made him stink by your actions
before other people. You did. What's he going to do
with somebody like you? Call you. Choose you. bring you to Himself, cause you
to approach, wash you, purify you, make it
so sin no longer have dominion over you, all because the offering of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what He done for sinners.
He didn't do it for good folks. And He has made you, Julie, Bill A. He made you a king and a priest. And not just to the world. The
world will never see you as a king and a priest. He made you a king
and a priest unto God. Unto God Almighty. You a believer? What you believe? Who do you
believe? You want salvation? Do you desire
it? I figure if you do, you probably
have it. You probably already got it, just don't know it. You
need the gospel to remind you of it. But, you want it. You
can't have it except you have it on Christ's merits and not
your own. You sons of God, you Levites,
are kings and priests unto God. all by the mercy and grace of
God's unstoppable power. God got on your trail one day.
And if He gets on your trail, He's going to have you. He'll
have you. If He's fixed His affections
on you, He'll have you. You can't get away. You might
not even want it until He jiggles your wanter, jiggles your heart,
messes with your head. brainwashes you. That's the word
indoctrinate means. But when He does that, He'll
have you. He'll have you. What if I don't
want to? Oh, you will. And you'll be glad
you did. He's God. He's God. And He's the one that accepts
you. You don't accept Him. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name.