Numbers chapter 3 and chapter
8 deal with the cleansing or rather the preparation of the
Levites for the priesthood. It's always important to remember
as we look at the Old Testament that it speaks of Christ and
His people. Aaron is the high priest, and those other priests
are us who minister to Him. Now, He didn't cater to minister
to, but to minister to give His life a ransom for many. But that
simply means that His children, His priesthood is in the ministry.
They're in His ministry, and they're there to honor and glorify
Him and bring praise to His name. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10,
it speaks of, specifically quoting from the book of Numbers, it
says, all these things happen for types or examples. All these
things happen for types or examples. We know that all the Old Testament
teaches of Christ and His work, and also is about the people
for whom He did the work, for whom He accomplished salvation.
Now in these two passages of the book of Numbers, we have
a picture of the sovereign grace of God and the salvation of the
elect. The priests are the elect of God. It's one of their names
in the New Testament. The church is called the priesthood. You are called a holy priesthood,
a royal priesthood, a holy generation. All who are in Christ are priests
under God. And because they are, God has
made it so that they can offer sacrifices under Him acceptable
by the Lord Jesus Christ according to 1 Peter. Now in these two
passages, we have a picture of God's sovereign grace. The priesthood,
those whom Christ died for, those whom Christ made righteous, kings
and priests unto God, they are those who are predestinated to
be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
King of kings and also the high priesthood of the Lord, and who
is our righteousness. Now these priests are called
a chosen generation, I said, a royal priesthood. So when we
look at God dealing with Levi in the Old Testament, we are
seeing God dealing with the sinner saved by grace, the sinner saved
by grace, appointed to the lofty place of service unto God to
offer acceptable sacrifices by Jesus Christ. Now the first thing
we must see if we're going to understand the concept and the
principle of grace that carries out from the beginning of life
to the end of life, as far as we're concerned, is that we have
to look at Levi as he is naturally, as he is set forth in Scripture
in nature. In doing so, we'll see the kind
of people who make up God's elect eternal elect or elect unto salvation,
this elect priesthood. Now, Levi is characterized because
of something he did in Genesis chapter 34 when he slew the Shechemites. It was an honor killing. He did
it because one of the Shechemites had taken
the daughter of Leah, Dinah, and had lain with her. Of course,
now he loved her and he wanted to marry her. He really liked
the girl, but because he did it and didn't go through the
process of courting her, dowry, setting forth a dowry, all that
stuff, the sons of Jacob, specifically Levi and Benjamin, took vengeance
upon them. They went and told him that he
could marry Diana and they would take him into the family and
everything that we have is yours. We'll share it all. But just
one thing, you guys had to be circumcised. And so because of
the love for Diana, this young man had, they all agreed to it.
And they were all circumcised. And the third day after, when
the pain was at its greatest, these are not circumcision of
children, these are grown-up people, grown-up men. Benjamin
and Levi went in and killed them all. And Jacob said, I can't
have anything to do with that. And so Jacob described them in
Genesis 49 this way. Genesis 49 verse 5 says, Simeon
and Levi are brethren, instruments of cruelty, are in
their habitations. Instruments of cruelty, that's
how they're described. Simeon and Levi are described
as wicked and cruel and deceitful and full of self-will. And Jacob
being set forth as a type of the Holy God and setting forth
the prophecy of his children, says that his honor could not
unite with theirs because they had no honor. Nobody enter into
their secret. He would not enter into what
they had done. He wouldn't even talk about it. This is the picture of the relationship
of the Holy God with sinful men in nature. In nature. There's another man in Scripture
that was known abroad for the fierceness of his cruelty. We've
been looking at him in the book of Timothy. He held the coats
of those that stoned Stephen to death. And he did it because he believed that Stephen
was an enemy because he preached Christ. And he was glad to hold
the thing. And Stephen was stoned to death because he preached
the gospel. Men gnashed on Him with their teeth when He told
them who God was. That's where you'll always get in trouble.
You won't get in any trouble if you talk about the niceties
of Christianity. If you talk about Jesus and His
miracles, they'll gather all around you. But tell them who
God is. Tell them who Christ is. And tell them how He saved
sinners. And pretty much you've lost the popularity contest right
off the bat. That man was Saul of Tarsus.
He wreaked havoc in the church and went about to rid the earth
of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was also arrested
in his career 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, this is a
faithful saying worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. He also said
of himself, I am less than the least of saints that this grace
is given to me to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus
Christ. Levi and Paul both are examples of what it takes to
say cruel, fierce, wicked men. Takes the power of God. As simple
as that. Takes the power of God. Only
the sovereign grace of God will suffice. Nothing short of that. By nature we all have been weighed
in the balance and found wanting, yet by the grace of God we have
been declared righteous priests, made fit for the service of God,
and all of that was done without us doing a thing. That was accomplished
for us. by the Lord Jesus Christ. All
the elect, that's us, those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
are by nature vile, God-hating, and God-despising rebels. Every
one of us by nature. Our old man is still Believing
the lie that was told in the garden, still trying to be God,
still trying to dethrone God, and doesn't want to hear anything
about God. Most believers will tell you, even sometimes when
they hear the gospel preached in power and strength, they themselves,
there's something, wrenches in them and they are offended by
it. And that's the flesh. That's the flesh reacting to
the gospel. As the description of these people that God has
saved, He says, destruction and misery are in their ways, with
their mouths they use deceit, they're liars. The poison of
asps is under their tongues, their words are poison. But glory
to His name, God has visited them in sovereign mercy and by
accomplishments of His Son has made them priests. To see the
glory of God's sovereign grace, you have to look at the difference
between the description of Levi's position in nature in Genesis
34 or in Genesis 49 and his position in grace in Numbers chapter 3.
There's a big difference between those two. Now the difference
is not that Levi had a reformation. The difference is that God showed
Levi grace. Levi did not change naturally. And no man will. His nature may
be subdued somewhat by his interest in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
it will be. It may change his character. It may change his
conduct. But that has nothing to do with his salvation. Nothing
to do with his salvation. If you are saved this morning,
and if you are kept this morning, and if you wind up in glory when
you die, it's all by grace. And what does that mean? Don't
ever, ever look to yourself for anything, because there's nothing
about you that will merit anything before God. You're saved by unmerited
favor. Nothing we do, no work we do,
no effort we make, and our efforts ought to be Godward. And I believe
the children of God are like Paul, with their mind they serve
the law of God, but with their flesh they serve the law of sin
and death. They want to be good people. They want to be righteous
people. They want to be the kind of people
that people would come to if they have a need or a need to
be helped. They want to be generous and
charitable people. They want to be holy people.
They want to be that, but they will never be that, except in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You never will be any better
than you are right now in nature. You haven't changed one whit
in nature. How is it that God brings such
a sinner from the dunghill to the seat of the dung princes?
For that we need to look at Numbers chapter 8 in the description
of the cleansing of the priests. Numbers chapter 8 and verses
5 through 7 it says this, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse
them. Cleanse them. Now who did He say this to? said
it to Moses, who in turn said it to Aaron, take the Levites
from among the children of men 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 flour
mingled with oil, and another young bullock shall he take for
a sin offering. The first offering mentioned
is a burn offering, the second is a sin offering. Now on what
ground can God be just and holy and bring such a one to such
an honored place as being the priest of God? I know well that
Levi did not volunteer for the job. God said to Moses, you take
him. You take him. You fetch him. You get him. Levi
had not made a move toward God. Remember how God has described
Levi in Genesis chapter 49. He's cruel and wicked. Instruments
of cruelty. Instruments of cruelty. He wanted to be as far from God
as he could be. Yet God had chosen him and brought him to himself. And that's how it happens. But
of God are you in Jesus Christ who has made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. How are all these
things possible? It's of God. All things are of
God. All things are of God. Levi's
self-will had no inclination toward God. He had no affinity
toward God. to cause him to want to approach
to God and neither does any man in nature. That's the mistake
of natural religion. They believe that somewhere there's
that sin man. That's that spark of something that would draw
him to God. Now I will admit to this that
everything empty about you is the lack of God. There's a huge
hole in the soul of man and only God will fill that hole. But
he doesn't know that and he doesn't want God to fill that hole and
so he pursues all other means to fill it. To fill it. But we
won't, by nature, approach unto God. And religions, believing
that there's a spark, invent things like the invitation system,
and pleading, and sad stories, and long repetitions of songs
of verses that call an invitation at the end of the thing, and
they pull, and they pull, and they pull, while they're hoping
somewhere down in yonder, down in the deep recesses, your dark
hellish dungeon of soul, there is a spark that will hear that. There is not. And what they're
really willing to do and what they're really doing in those
exercises of religion are believing that man can save himself. That there is something meritorious
in man that will respond to the message of God. And there is
not. There is nothing in nature that will ever respond positively
toward God. Man in nature at his best was
Adam. And some even, the one verse
of scripture indicates he might not even last an all day long
before he sinned against God. Man in nature will not and cannot
respond to God. So they had to be brought. Moses,
go get Levi and bring him over here. Go get Levi. That's what has to happen. That
has to happen. Blessed, happy, to be envied
is the man whom God chooses and calls us to approach unto Him. That's Psalm 64. And verse 7,
we have a clear portrayal of the principle of divine cleansing.
It says, And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them,
sprinkle water of purifying upon them. Purifying water. Purifying water. Now some would
take this to be baptism, some would take this to be sprinkling
or whatever. It's not what it's talking about. It's talking about
washing by the renewal and regeneration by the renewal and washing the
water of the Word. of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
uses two things in the means of grace. These two things represent
the Word of God, the work of grace, purifying. I'm looking
at, if you're believing this morning, I'm looking at a pure
people. A pure people. before God. Why? Because they've been purified.
Now, there's two things mentioned here. First of all, they're purified
with cleansed water. Look over, hold your place there
at Numbers, look over to Ezekiel chapter 36. The Lord says this in verse 25
concerning those who have profaned His name and did not sanctify
His name and did not honor Him, yet He says, I'm going to fix
that. I'm going to take care of that. He says, verse 24, For
I will take you from among the heathen, that's election, out
of the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will
bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water
upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and
from your idols will I cleanse you. David said, How can a young
man cleanse his way? By taking heed unto the Word
of God. That's how we're cleansed, and
that's that principle that's set forth. There's also another
principle set forth here. Let them shave all their flesh,
and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean. So you have purifying, which
is washing of the water of the word, and shaving, which pictures
the work of Christ in cleansing the sinner by his precious blood
through his word, and cutting off that which grows by nature. Our nature does not die until
we die, but our nature is subdued by the Spirit of God through
the Word of God, and that's what this shaving is all about. It
was done to the Nazarite, and it's also done to this. The shaving
of the hair so accurately depicts man's nature. Even though he's
been shaved by grace, nature still grows. It grows back, just
like hair on your face does. The shaving of the hair teaches
us that nature is never involved in the service of God. Why? Because it's shaved off. It's
not involved. Old men will try to grow it back
and put it back in the service of God, but it's never been in
the service of God. teaches that nature cannot be reformed, because
it just keeps on growing. It keeps on getting worse and
worse. It must be cut off in that by
the razor of God's Spirit, the double-edged sword of the Word
of God, which pierces even to the dividing asunder of the soul
and spirit, the joints and marrows, and is the discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. I wish I could get this through
my own mind and put it in a matter, put it in a way where everybody
would fully understand it. I know that'll never happen because
we by nature can't understand anything spiritually fully. But
nature, our nature, the old man, will never, never, never improve. It just never will. Only the
razor will keep it in check. It has to be shaved. It'll grow
back. It'll grow back, but it has to be shaved. Nature will
never improve. See, sin shall no longer have
dominion over you because you are not under the law but under
grace. But what that means, sin shall not rule you or does not
have the right to rule you. How come? Because it's shaved.
It's shaved. One of the first lessons that
the Spirit of the Lord teaches us is that your nature is judged
and condemned and sentenced to death. That's what will happen
to your nature. Know this, that whatever is produced
by nature is condemned by God, no matter how it might look.
Whatever is produced by nature is condemned by God and will
never be used in the service of the priesthood. Is this not
the initial declaration of the believer's baptism? You died
with Christ. You died with Christ. You are
purified by the blood of Christ. That's the washing of the water
of the Word, the application of the blood of Christ. You are
made righteous by the divine act of imputation. God imputes
righteousness to you. And that's the righteousness
by which we stand before God. And the only righteousness by
which we stand before God is Christ, our righteousness. Because that's the only one that's
sufficient. But there remains in every one
of us a disgusting principle. Disgusting, and that's the right
word. That worry not for God's razor would grow to a full length
of its depravity. Thank God he shaves the hair. Thank God. The washing of the
clothes is representative of self-judgment or condemnation
of our nature from our own heart. We have to continue to remind
ourselves that the old man is dead. Reckon that the old man
is dead. Reckon it. Why do we have to reckon it?
Because experimentally, experientially, we know he ain't dead yet. He's
dying. He's nailed to the cross. But
it's a long death that this thing will not die. So we have to personally
reckon. And that word reckon actually
comes from the same word as impute. We have to impute him dead. We
have to charge him with death. Say, well, but he's so alive
in me. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. If your heart condemn
you, greater is God, greater is He that is in you, that is
He that is in the world. It's a personal continual reckoning
that the old man is dead. We are priests, Levites, and
we must cross the line drawn in the sand and find ourselves
at the Lord's side, and then we must put on our swords on
our sides and go out and slay everything about us that would
worship the golden calf. That's what this is talking about.
Who is on the Lord's side? These idols are manufactured
by our own flesh and our own nature and they are all through
our mind. It is the water and the razor,
the blood and the word. It is to purify yourself even
as you are pure. How do you purify yourself? By
attending there unto the things of God, the Word of God. 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 me with oil, and another young bullock shall he take for
a sin offering." Here both a sin offering and a birth offering
symbolize the life of the priest. Both represented the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. Yet each had a different
distinction as to the believer's confession of faith. The burnt
offering pictured Christ fulfilling the will of God. That was the
first offering. And the voluntary sacrifice He
made for His people, that was between Christ and God. You weren't
involved. That burnt offering was delivered
up by the priest, a picture of Christ. Because Christ was the
offering. Christ is God. He's the offerer,
the offering, and He bore the offense. He's all of that, and
that represented what Christ had done for you when He was
made to be sin. His death had accomplished God's
will and the salvation of the elect. He fulfilled God's will.
He was a voluntary sacrifice for His people. This work was
between God and His Son. One man said before Christ ever
does something for you, He had to do something for God. He had
to do something for the Father before He could ever do anything
for you. And what he had to do with the father was satisfy God's
law for our sins. That had to be done. That's how
God then could be just and justify them to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. God was fully satisfied. And Christ being accepted, the
fire representing the justice satisfied. It is followed that
all who were in him were accepted by God also. That was the offering. The believer therefore placed
his hands on the head of the offering, but not to confess
his sin, not in the burnt offering. The act of placing his hands
on the head of the sacrifice was identifying with the accomplishment
of the acceptance, or the acceptance of Jesus Christ. He was saying
that the merits of the sacrifice, the merits of the person, are
transferred to him. But he didn't speak. Why? Because
it's not about him. This is about Christ and God.
He was by this act saying that he was accepted before God. Why?
Because this sacrifice was accepted before God. He was confessing
that he was accepted. And that's the confession, the
initial confession of the gospel. It's not a confession of sin.
It's a confession of acceptance. It's to believe that God has
accepted you based on the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
sin offering is the confession of sin. The burnt offering is
a confession of acceptance. Before you ever see your sin,
you'll see Christ. And you won't see your sin until
you see Christ. You won't know you're a sinner
until you see Christ. Did Isaiah read the first five
chapters? Isaiah is a pretty tough prophet.
He wore them out. Whipped them good. Took them
to the woodshed every chance he gets. Woe is you, you drunkard.
Woe is you, woe is you, and woe is you. And in verse 6, something
wondrous happened. And the year the king of Uzziah
died, I saw also the Lord high and lifted up. His train filled
the temple, and smoke filled the place, and everything shook. And I said, woe is me, for I
am undone, and I dwell among a people that's undone. I have
unclean lips. That was a reference to leprosy.
He used that reference a lot in his writing. Cover my mouth,
because my breath is so foul, it'll make you sick. I'm dying
and dead and ruined, and I'm a leper. When did he find that
out? When he saw Christ high and lifted
up. You won't see your sin until
you see Christ. And that's why the burnt offering
comes first. It's a confession. Christ died being made sin for
me. He didn't know any sin. That
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It's a confession. Did you understand that? When
you hear the gospel, your first confession is, oh, not that I'm
a sinner. You know you are because you've seen Christ. But your
first confession is a confession of joy and peace. Christ has
died for me and in my room instead. And the sin offering also represented
the death of Christ. It did differ in that it represents
the sins of the believer being put away by the sacrifice of
Christ. Here the believer puts his hands on the head of the
sacrifice to symbolize his sins being transferred to the victim.
Remember, before it was he put his hands on the head of the
sacrifice to show that the righteousness of the sacrifice was transferred
to him. Now he puts his hands on the
head of the sacrifice, the sin offering, and he confesses his
sin, saying that his sins were put on Christ. Why does that happen that way?
So you'll understand that salvation is not because you confess your
sins. You confess your sins because you're saved. That comes first. The sin offering
was a confession of sin with the knowledge that God was just
to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. The sin
offering was for those who already were accepted on the merits of
the burnt offering. And only those who were trusting in the
merits of Christ believed that they were accepted. holy upon
his merits, and fully understood because of the sacrifice that
he had made, the sinfulness of their sin. How bad was my sin? It was so bad that God had to
come down here and die in my room instead. That's pretty bad. Nothing else on earth would do
anything about it. no amount of blood sacrifices,
no amount of law keeping, no amount of money, no amount of
social status, no amount of anything would do anything. My sin was
so vile that God Almighty had to bust open heaven and come
down here to this world of God-hating sinners and die in the room instead
of sinners being made sin for them. If God had not intervened, I
would have perished. Because my sin, when did I find
that out? When I saw Christ on the cross
in that burnt offering. I saw this is what God does with
sin. This is how bad sin is. That
God had turned His back on His darling child. That God would
pour out His wrath that it took our Savior to voluntarily say,
I now die so the law can be satisfied for you. That's how bad my sin
was. And I didn't see it until I saw
the burnt offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only those who
are trusting in the merits of Christ, believing that they are
accepted, holy upon their merits, are qualified to confess their
sin to God and know that He is just to forgive them. That's
true. I used to confess a lot of sins.
They weren't before God, because I didn't know Christ. I knew
religion. I had the religion. Had it since I was a baby. Walked
down the aisle, used to cry, go down the aisle to every revival.
They were used to seeing me there. But it has always made me feel
better to confess my sin. It does. It kind of cleanses
everything. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to go right back
to it, but just for a minute I felt so good. But you're not
qualified to confess sin until you know Christ has died in your
room instead. You can talk about all your meanness
all you want to, and that's what these braggamony meetings most
of the time are about. They call them testimony meetings,
but people get to brag about how bad they are. I mean, they're
bragging about it. Listen to them. They're bragging about it. But
you don't understand sin until you see Christ. That burnt offering
comes first, and you say, oh, I'm accepted in that. And then
we offer the sin offering, and we say, I confess our sin. Finally
note the order of the sacrifices in verse 12 of this text. It says, And the Levites shall
lay their hands upon the heads of the bullocks, and thou shalt
offer one for the sin offering and the other for burn offering
unto the Lord, to make an atonement for sin. Here they're in reverse,
or at least spoken of here in reverse. The sin offering is
mentioned and then the burnt offering. This is the reverse
of the revelation. In Leviticus, we always find
the burnt offering offered verses in chapter 1, the sin offering
in chapter 4. This is a sweet reminder that all of salvation
was accomplished by Christ alone. Thinking on this order, we find
that's the way it's set forth in Scripture. He was made to be sin for us.
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. Our sins were transferred to Christ. You say, how is that
done? God did it. You want to try to
figure that out? It's like trying to figure out
the Trinity. How did God transfer our sins
to Jesus Christ? How did even Petey charge them
with it? And His righteousness, our acceptance was transferred
to us. God's righteousness, the very righteousness of God. Sons
of Levi can rejoice by nature. We're exactly the same as every
other human being that walks upon the face of the earth. There
is absolutely no difference. And there never will be while we
live here. I know people talk about the Christian life. They
talk about, oh, they're so different. No, they're not. Religions, religionists
are different. They're really different. They're
angry. ticked off because you get to
do stuff they don't and they don't like it. They walk around
with a sad countenance, always trying to straighten out people's
lives. Believers aren't like that. Believers won't let people
live and want them to be free. You would like to see religion
cut free, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like to see it cut?
Of course, they'd close down about 95% of the churches. If it happened
before, wouldn't it be great? I've seen people set free. It's one
of the most marvelous things. I've seen people, I've had relatives
come out of jail and have a happy day. Never seen one of them ever
want to go back either. I've never seen one of them stand
outside, stand inside the jail and say, well, I'm going to have
to decide on this. Oh, when they opened up the cell
door, they come out of flying. Glad to be out. You sons of Levi rejoice. You've
been cleansed and shaved. and grace will keep on shaving
you. But you're already clean every whit. You're already clean
every whit. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
salvation. And that by the sovereign grace of God. He hath made us
unto our God kings and priests. By washing us in His blood and
subduing our old nature. Keeping it in check. Thank God
for His grace. Father bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.