Immanuel Sermon Audio
Leviticus (3:66)
That video, okay? Less than half. It's been viewed 30 million times on YouTube alone. And he put this little video out and got all these views. I think he had six million views in the first week. And became famous from this video, wrote a book about this video. No doubt the guy is really, really talented in what he's doing, in sharing truth and how he shares it. Without, we've got too many people to get into a big debate about the video. Just, you get to do like Roman Colosseum. Thumbs up, thumbs down, okay? No comments, thumbs up, thumbs down, sideways. Lots of ups, a few downs. Some of you kind of looking at me like I don't know. I'm kind of in here somewhere, maybe. Yeah, Gary's giving me this one right here. Something like that. Interesting little video. The reason it is controversial, and the reason it was so widely viewed and so many people saw it and so many thousands upon thousands of comments on YouTube, is that when people hear the word religion, they think of a lot of different things. And so when some people hear the word religion, they think, okay, religion is the self-righteous person, who thinks that they can be good enough to earn a relationship with God and earn a place in heaven. They're gonna stand before God because they are so religious and good and moral, and that's religion. And that's what he's talking about in, I think most of this video, if not all of the video, the idea that you can be good enough or put on enough of a front or a fake or whatever to earn your way before God. The problem is a lot of people hear the word religion, and they think about organized church, what we're doing tonight. They call this religion, and so you have a whole generation of people, mine, who like to say, I still don't really know exactly what this means, but they like to say, well, I'm spiritual, but not religious. Okay, and what they mean is, well, I believe in spiritual things, I'm not just a hardened atheist, but I'm not into the whole organized religion thing. I don't think I need to be there on Sundays, I don't think I need to be baptized, I don't think I need to participate in the Lord's Supper, I don't think I need to be involved in anything that the church has going on, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's just all man-made religious stuff. And so the reason the video was polarizing, and some of you say yes, and some of you say no, and some of you are like me, and you're kind of like, eh, I don't know. I think I know what he's saying, but there's some stuff in there I'm not crazy about, is that which version of religion are you thinking about? When he says Jesus came to abolish religion, and he says, I hate religion, I detest it, I resent it, which one is he talking about? And whichever one you have in your mind will color the way you think about the video. So here's some of my thoughts about the video. He misses the fact in that video that Jesus makes demands of people, okay? Jesus really does say to people, you must do this. And he's not saying to them, you must do it so you can be my friend or go to heaven someday, but he just looks at his friends and says, you're my friends if you do what I tell you to do, period. He talks in the video about sin very openly, and honestly, and that's a good thing, but maybe sometimes when we talk about our sin, we glorify our sin a little too much instead of focusing on Jesus a little bit more, maybe that may be fair and not fair on my part. At the beginning, I think the Republican stuff was just a cheap shot. I mean, that has nothing to do with the rest of the video at all. And I agree with what he said that Republican does not equal Christian, but what does that have to do really with the rest of what he's trying to say about religion? I thought that was just kind of a toss in there. He talked about the church and he came around at the end and said, let me be clear, I love the church. And I would just say, if you have to say that, if you have to clarify that you love the church, maybe there's a problem. Does anyone in here think that the church, any church, any denomination is perfect? Have bad things happened in the name of Jesus or in the name of religion? Absolutely, we would all agree with what he says in there. But can we also admit, which he doesn't mention in the video, that religion and churches and Christians have done immeasurable good in the world in meeting human needs and helping those who need help and education and hospitals and missions and all sorts of things. And then the last thing that really gets under my skin in the video is just because you say, I ain't judging, doesn't mean you ain't judging. That's kind of like the person who comes to you and says, I don't mean this to be offensive, but, and you know, whatever it is about to come out of their mouth is gonna be highly offensive. Doesn't take the edge off of it one bit. And so I think that about the video. Anyway, the guy's name is Jefferson Bethke, he's an evangelist, why I hate religion but love Jesus, there's the video. And the reason I showed that tonight is because the book of Leviticus is a very religious book. From beginning to end, it's about religion, organized religion, rules, all sorts of things like that. And my gut tells me that if somebody who knew nothing about the Bible, okay, no exposure to Christianity, then they watch that video, then they read Leviticus, would probably think, well, we can rip this thing out. Jesus isn't for anything in this book. This is crazy stuff. Why do we need this in here anymore? I'm just gonna stick with the Gospel of John. It sounds a lot more like this Christianity than Leviticus does. And I'm saying to you, we don't need to rip Leviticus out. Okay, it needs to stay in there. There are some interesting things in there and maybe some quote unquote boring things, if I can just say that out loud. But it needs to be in here. Jesus didn't wanna rip it out. Jesus quoted from it. We're gonna talk about that a little bit later. And if you think about Jesus, how many of you would describe Jesus as a religious person? Was he for self righteousness and work salvation? No, did he do a lot of religious things in his life? Went to the temple and he celebrated Jewish feasts and he taught his followers how to pray and how to tithe and how to fast. Those are all very religious things. He started a church. The one thing he left behind was an organization, a religious group of people. And so Jesus is not against religion per se, again, depending on your definition. He's not against the book of Leviticus. So take your Bible, find Leviticus. And if you didn't, if you came in late, you didn't get an outline, there's some at the front, some in the back. And we're just gonna kind of trudge through this book tonight. Find Leviticus 1-1. We're gonna read the first verse in Leviticus. And then we're gonna go and read the last verse in Leviticus. And it really frames the entire book to help you understand what it's about. So Leviticus 1-1 says, the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying, okay? That's how it begins. God speaks to Moses from the tent of meeting or from the tabernacle. So you understand where this is at in the storyline, right? God's people end up as slaves in Egypt. God sends Moses to bring them out of Egypt. All sorts of crazy stuff happens grumbling, complaining, miracles out in the wilderness. They end up getting the 10 commandments, the law of God at Mount Sinai. In the order of that matters, first God saves them. Then He gives them the rules, not the other way around. First He saves them, then He gives them the rules. Then He says, I want you to build a tent. 'Cause I'm gonna live with you guys right in the middle of the camp. And the book of Exodus says, this is how you make it. And then it says, this is how they made it. And at the end of it, God comes and He lives with the folks in the middle of the camp at the tabernacle. We're gonna talk about the tabernacle in just a little bit. So the book of Leviticus starts and it says, they're at the tent, God calls to Moses and He's talking to Moses. Now look at the last verse in Leviticus. Leviticus 27 verse 34 says, these are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. So at the beginning, it sort of gives us the indication they're at the tent. And at the end, it says they're at Mount Sinai. And some people would look at that and say, aha, mistake. They can't even get the story straight or where this is taking place. They don't even remember the first verse in the book. It said it happened at the tent. That was way after Sinai. Then this says, it happened at Sinai. Which one is it? And the level headed person would probably just say both. At Sinai, Moses gets the law. And they go and they build the tabernacle and they do the stuff. And then God comes down to the tabernacle and He talks to Moses again. And He gives them these commandments again. And so that's what's taking place in the book of Leviticus. Let me give you an outline for Leviticus. Chapters one to nine, laws about sacrifice. Okay, chapters 11 to 15, laws about purity or holiness. Chapters 16 to 27, laws. There's no category, there's no overarching theme. Just a bunch of laws there at the end of the book. So that's the outline, that's how it breaks down. The problem with that outline is what? Is what? Well, there's a lot of laws. We've got two chapters missing. And my outline is incorrect up there. It should be 17 to 27, various laws. I butchered my own outline. Butchered it, butchered it, botched it. It's right on the paper. That makes me feel a little bit better. So chapter 10 does not belong in there. And chapter 16 does not belong in there. And those are the main two chapters we're gonna talk about. Chapters 10 and 16. But first we're gonna talk about laws, okay? Because when you read through Leviticus, any of you try to just sit down and plow through it this week, okay, a couple of you tried to sit down. There's a bunch of laws, right? You look at the outline, laws, part one. Part two, laws. Part three, laws. And you get through that and you think, man, these people had to do a lot to have a relationship with God. And when you start thinking that, you gotta hit timeout. And you gotta go back and you gotta say, wait a minute, the exodus already happened. God already brought these people out. God already made a covenant with them. God already entered into a relationship with them. He didn't give them these rules so that they could be tight with him. God came to these sinful people and said, we are gonna be tight. I am your God. Put away all those other gods. You don't need any of those idols. I am your God. We have a relationship. Then he gives them the laws. And as you read through Leviticus, when you find yourself thinking, oh man, these poor folks, they had to do so many things to earn God's favor, that's not the point. That's never the point. God gave them his favor as a gift of grace. And then he said to them, here are some rules for living. And so this is not on your outline, but if you want to, you could jot this down. When you read Leviticus, you need to remember that the law has four jobs, okay? There's four things the law is supposed to do. Number one, it's supposed to be a judge, a judge. In other words, when you go through these rules, the people realize we have messed this up big time. We were messing this stuff up while you were giving it to Moses up on the mountain. It reveals their sin. So number one, it's a judge. Number two, it's a boundary, a boundary. And it's a boundary between Jew and Gentile. And so sometimes you read through Leviticus and you think, what is the point of that? Why would God make such an arbitrary rule? And a lot of times if you go back and you dig in about cultures and the ancient religions in that part of the world, you realize he's trying to keep his people separate from all these pagans around him. So he says, don't work on Saturday. There's some good reasons that he gives him for not doing that. Part of the reason is he knows, if you're not working on Saturday, that's gonna keep you separate from all the other people who are. You're not gonna be able to go in their rhythm of life. There were no weekends back then. Nobody was taking the whole weekend off. This was bizarre that these people would not work one day of the week. It set them apart and it made a boundary. The food laws, you think, who cares about the food laws? What does it matter? And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, well, it's healthy. It's healthy or God knew it would be baloney. Doesn't have anything to do with health. It has to do with God saying, look, if you don't eat these things that everyone else is eating, it's gonna keep you separate. You're not gonna be able to participate in all the things they participate in. And it's gonna keep you distinct. So it's number one, a judge, number two, a boundary, number three, a guardian, a guardian. And you can look in the book of Galatians, Paul talks about this. He says, the law was our guardian until Jesus came. And you can look it up in Galatians and see more about what Paul has to say about that. But it was a guardian. And number four, it's a teacher. The law is a teacher. And it teaches the people about God. So when you're reading Leviticus and you're bogged down in all these laws, remember, some of these things are there to reveal sin as a judge. Some of them are there to keep the people separate, to be a boundary. Some of them are there as a guardian until Jesus comes. And then some of these things are there to teach them about God. And some of them do all four of those things, but that's the function of the law. Now, let's talk about the overall theme of the book. This is in your outline. Leviticus is about holiness. From beginning to end, the book of Leviticus is a book about holiness. That's the big idea, that's the theme. And holiness is not just one of God's attributes, it is God's defining attribute. If you know one thing about God, this is the one thing you need to know. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago in Isaiah 6, that holiness is the only attribute of God raised to the third degree. He's holy, holy, holy, Isaiah 6. You see it in the book of Revelation. The angels sing the same thing. He's holy, holy, holy. And here's some ideas about holiness. You can't sum it up in one word. It means that God is other. He's different than us. He's not like us. He's different. He's set apart. That's down at the bottom. It means that he's whole. He's complete. You and I are not. We're broken. We're lacking. We are finite. God is none of those things. He is completely whole. He's unique. There's no one else like him. One of a kind. He's perfect. He's pure. He's set apart. He's sanctified. All of those words summing up what it means that God is holy. And so the whole book is about holiness. And here's the two things that you learn about holiness from Leviticus. One, obviously, God is holy. And number two, we should be holy. Over and over and over again in Leviticus. God is holy, and that means all those things we just put up there. And number two, we should be holy. And so look at Leviticus 10. And this is one of the stories that points this out to us in the book of Leviticus. Great story. Leviticus 10. Look at verse one. Says, "Now nadab and abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censor and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came from before the Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord." Then Moses said to Aaron, remember, this is the dead. Moses, the uncle, says to Aaron, his brother and the boy's father, this is what the Lord has said. Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. Or maybe your version says, I will be holy. And before all the people, I will be glorified. And then the last verse is so fascinating to me. It says, "And Aaron held his peace. The sons just got blown up. Moses says, God will be sanctified. And he will be glorified." And Aaron doesn't say anything. And you read that story, does that just not stand out to you as you're reading through Leviticus? Don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this. Then there was two guys who did one thing God told them not to do. And God blows them up out in front of the tent and they die and their dad doesn't say anything. Then it jumps right back in almost immediately. Don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this. If you're reading it and you've not read any of the rest of the Bible, you read that story and you, what do you think? Temper tantrum, unfair, overreaction. Are you kidding me? They bring unauthorized fire to worship you. It's not like they brought unauthorized fire to worship an idol. They brought unauthorized fire to worship Yahweh the Lord and He strikes out and He kills them. If it seems unfair, flip back to the left and look at Exodus 24. Sometimes the things that we struggle to understand are a result of the fact that we haven't read the Bible enough. Look at Exodus 24 starting in verse one. It says, "Then He said to Moses, 'Come up to the Lord.'" You and Aaron and look who else? Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel. Does that strike you as interesting? The only people singled out by name. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, 70 other guys. And you come up and do what? You worship Him from afar. Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but the others shall not come near and the people shall not come up with Him. Look at verse three. I mean, jump down to verse nine, I'm sorry. Skip that paragraph and go to Exodus 24.9. It says, "Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel." They saw Him. "There was under His feet, as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness." And He did not lay His hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God in eight and drank. I would like some more explanation there. What do you mean they ate and drank? They had potluck up on the mountain. Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 others, 74 guys go up the mountain. No one else comes, you 74. And they go up and they see God and they behold Him. And they talk to Him and they eat with Him and they drink with Him. You just want to say, how can you move on to verse 12? Tell us more about that, that's all it says. They go up and they see God in this amazing, amazing experience. And here's one thing you see, you see it in Moses' life, in Aaron's life, in Nadab's life, and Abihu's life. These guys experienced a special revelation of God and they were held to a higher standard than everyone else. Moses, we're going to talk about this in a couple of weeks. Moses messes up one time with the folks when they needed water and God says what? You're dead, not now, but before the people go in, you're dead, you're not going. Nadab and Abihu, they come after having seen God and eaten with God and drank with God on the mountain and they do something, you can keep reading in Exodus. God says, here you do this for the tabernacle, you do this, you do this, and He gets to the incense and He says, you make it exactly like this. And He says it over and over, don't make it any other way. Don't bring something that I didn't tell you to bring. You bring this and you bring this only. There's Nadab and Abihu sitting around the dinner table, listening to God say all this stuff. Then they come down and a few weeks later, however much later they say, hey, brother, let's bring something different. This stuff's getting old. Let's mix it up a little bit. Let's change it up a little bit. God had said don't and they had the gall to go before God and to do exactly what He said not to do. And it says God strikes out in fire and kills him. Here's some pictures from church history of what maybe that looked like. I know our projectors are not the greatest, but you can see lightning and fire and some sort of weird sun on the bottom right and a bunch of smoke on the bottom left. It's interesting to read Bible commentators who don't believe in miracles. Do you know what they say about this? Any ideas? They cut it on fire? There are people who say these idiots accidentally made gunpowder. (congregation laughing) And they brought this big bowl of gunpowder and they lit the thing on fire, boom! They got blown up. It's a shame. Everybody saw that and they thought God blew 'em up. Big misunderstanding. Other people say these guys knew they were not supposed to do it. They knew what they were doing was wrong. They did it anyways and they were just so scared and anxious about doing it that when they did it and it lit on fire and whatever, they just died. They just had a heart attack, a stroke and they just fell out dead and the fire stuff, they added that later for effect to scare all the kids into behaving and that was just an extra detail. Really, they were just so anxious about it. They just had a heart attack and they died. I don't know about you, but I'm just gonna take it at face value in Leviticus 10 and it says they did it verse two, fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord. Working man's translation, God killed 'em. It's a bottom line. I don't know if you can handle that kind of statement about God, some people could not, but the bottom line is God killed these guys for doing what he had commanded them not to do. So you say, well, man, is that just a one time thing? We'll look at Leviticus 24. Leviticus 24. Verse 10. An Israelite woman son whose father was an Egyptian. Remember that when the people left, Bible says they were a mixed multitude, right? And the idea there is the Egyptians could go out if they wanted to. If the Egyptians wanted to become Jews and worship the Lord, they were free to go along with everybody else. And so here's the Israelite woman married to an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. The Israelite woman son and a man of Israel fought in the camp. The Israelite woman son blasphemed the name and cursed. They brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shilomath, the daughter of debris, the tribe of Dan, and they put him in custody till the will of the Lord should be clear to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, bring out of the camp the one who cursed, let all who hurt him lay their hands on his head and let all the congregation stone him and speak to the people of Israel saying, whoever curses his God shall bear his sin, whoever blasphems the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death, all the congregation shall stone him, the sojourner as well as the native. When he blasphems the name shall be put to death. And you read that and you say again, that sounds like a little bit of an overreaction. Are you kidding me? They get in a fight and he cusses and takes God's name in vain and now you're gonna kill him. And if you just read it right there, you say, oh man, I don't know about that. But if you think about the fact that his father was an Egyptian, his mother was an Israelite. At some point they hooked up in Egypt. Okay, not very much time has gone by since the Exodus. So it's not like this guy was born after the Exodus. He was alive when it happened, he was part of it. He walked through the Red Sea with his mom and his dad. And his dad made the decision to leave Egypt and to follow the Lord, to trust in Yahweh. And the commandments that God gives them from Sinai. This young guy looks up at Sinai and he sees the mountain shaking and lightning and the whole thing. And he hears the thundering of the Lord and he knows what the commandment is and he breaks it and the point of this story is, God is holy and he expects his people to be holy. And when he's given them a special revelation, a special experience of who he is, he holds them to a high standard. And here's the problem. You see it in these two stories. We really see it when we get to the book of Numbers. We're not holy. Nadab and Abihu, not holy. Aaron, not holy. Moses, not holy. The Egyptian and Israelite half-breed kid, not holy. We are not holy. And that's a giant problem in the Bible when you bump up against God who is holy, holy, holy, and us who are sinners. In Leviticus, it even talks about unintentional sin. Sins that you didn't even mean to commit. And guess what? Leviticus doesn't say, look, some of this stuff you're just gonna do, you're not gonna set out to do it. It's okay, don't worry about it. Leviticus says you're on the hook for that stuff too. It doesn't matter if you plan to do it, if you accidentally did it, if you sin against the Lord, you're responsible because he is holy, holy, holy, and you are not. Jesus is asked, what is the most important law? And what does he say? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Quoting what? Deuteronomy six. And then he says what? Second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Quoting, anybody know? Leviticus 19, 18. You say, whoa, I thought Jesus just made that one up on the fly. That love your neighbor, golden rule stuff, that's pretty good. I thought that started with Jesus, is right here in Leviticus. It's nothing new. Jesus says, number one, you love God. Number two, you love other people. And the guy who heard Jesus say that should have walked away scratching his head saying, okay, those are the top two. I haven't done either of those. You haven't done either of those perfectly. I haven't done either of those perfectly. And so Leviticus recognizes that and it puts this tension in your heart like, oh man. God got Nadab in Abihu for their sin. What about my sin? So here's the solution. Leviticus 16. The chapter that was up on the screen that was not supposed to be on the screen. Leviticus 16. And you gotta note that Leviticus 16 is connected to Leviticus 10. 'Cause look at verse one, 16-1. The Lord spoke to Moses when, after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they drew near before the Lord and died. Okay, you see when this has taken place? These two guys draw near before God. They're killed for their rebellion. And everyone in the camp is thinking what you would be thinking. I'm not going close to that thing. I don't even know if I should be within 100 yards of it. Are you kidding me? The two guys who got to go up the mountain get lightning bolted by God? I'm staying away. And so God says, look, after that happened, here's what you need to know. And he starts to tell them about the day of atonement. And everything in Leviticus 16, we're not gonna read it. You can read it later for yourself if you didn't read it this week. Everything in Leviticus 16 takes place at the tabernacle. So here's a picture of the tabernacle, right? You got the fence around the outside and you can see the dark portion down in the front, okay? That's where you entered the whole compound. You've got this place where they burn offerings right here in the front. And you see there's poles, put poles in this altar so they can carry it, no one's supposed to touch it. Then there's a little basin they wash in and then there's the inner sanctum, so to speak. And here's another picture looking straight down on it. You can see west, north, east, south. So we're kind of flipped of that, but you get the idea of the direction they were supposed to lay it out, the bronze altar, the lava where they wash. The little rectangle in the middle is the holy place and the back square on the left is the holy of holies. And what Leviticus 16 is talking about takes place, a lot of it, in this whole area, all of it, in the holy place and even in the holy of holies. And if you studied this, you know that only one man got to go into the holy of holies and he only got to go one time a year. That's just a bizarre thing to think about. I think as New Testament people, we have a hard time imagining the reverence that the people would have had for this and the importance of it. When one man, the high priest, got to go in there and he only went in there one time of year. And so basically Leviticus 16 breaks out like this. You see Nadab in Abihu, you're just like them. You're not holy, that's a problem. So here's what we're gonna do. There's all sorts of offerings, sacrifices are gonna take place, but once a year, we're gonna have something called Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. And the high priest is going to start by cleansing himself because Aaron and his successors, Eliezer and the rest of them, they're no better than Nadab and Abihu. So they're gonna take a bowl, cut its throat, take some of the blood and take it in through the holy place, into the holy of holies and sprinkle it on the ark, okay? Couple of pictures of what the ark may be looked like. That bottom one in the middle, if it looks familiar, that's from Indiana Jones. So if you're an Indiana Jones fan, you know all about this. And the top one on the right is probably a little squatty looking, but you get the general idea. They take it in there, what was inside that box? Ten command, at this point, the ten commandments. Later, they added two more things. Jaramanna and Aaron's staff that budded, okay? All three reminders that the people were sinners, right? The manna, they grumbled, they complained, they whined. Aaron's staff budded to prove who side God was on a rebellion, and then the ten commandments, obviously the people had broken when Moses brought them down. So in there, the ten commandments and the priest brings the blood in and the high priest is saying, I need blood to be spilled because I have broken your law. This is your throne, right? Between the cherubim, between the angels, the law is here, I'm guilty of breaking it, I need blood to be spilled for me. So first he does it for himself. Then he goes out and they take two animals and one is the sacrifice, right? They cast lots for these two and one is the scapegoat, right? So they take the first one and he puts his head on the head like he did with the bull, confesses the sins of the people this time, 'cause he has confessed his, confess the sins of the people, kill that animal, take the blood, do the same thing in the holy of holies. Then they take the scapegoat, right? Confess the sins on this goat and drive it out into the wilderness, right? And it's a picture on two levels for the people to see. Number one, blood has to be spilled for your sins to be forgiven. And number two, as a sinful person trying to relate to a holy God, you desperately need your sin to be taken away. It has to be removed from you. You can't keep it yourself and expect to come before God and there be no consequences. Your sin needs to be taken away and blood needs to be spilled. And so they do this thing, the day of atonement. Every year they go through this ritual and you go all the way through the Old Testament and you come up to the New Testament and Jesus, unlike the video, did not come to abolish the law. He says that very clearly in Matthew five. I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets. I came to fulfill them. So take your Bible, go to the New Testament, we're gonna read a few verses from the book of Hebrews. In addition to reading Leviticus 16, if you've never read through that, you need to read it and then when you're done, you need to flip over and read all of Hebrews nine and 10. We're just gonna read part of it. Hebrews nine, starting in verse one and we're just gonna go to 14. Hebrews nine one. Even the first covenant had regulations for worship in an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared. The first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, having the golden altar of incense in the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that butted and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties but into the second only the high priest goes and he but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. Verse 11, "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctified for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Goes on and it talks about in more detail how all of these things we're talking about in Leviticus point forward to Jesus. And so tonight, there's your homework, no quiz tonight but Leviticus 16 and Hebrews nine and 10. Now, one question before we wrap up, okay? You're thinking about Leviticus and all these rules and you say, okay, now Jesus has come and Jesus has died and he has fulfilled these things and the law is now seeing its completion in Christ and some people have this question at this point saying, do we need to obey now? Are we done with all the rule stuff because Jesus has died for us and so the rule stuff is kind of old religion that we push back into the old covenant we don't have to worry about that stuff so much now. And I would say no, remember that the law number four is your teacher. And so we go back to Leviticus and we say, what does Leviticus teach us about obeying that may still be true for us today? So a couple of thoughts here. Why should you obey God? All from the book of Leviticus. Number one, so life will go well and I'm gonna let you look these up on your own later but Leviticus says, look, if you guys will do this life will be a lot better for you. We talked about this last week. If you're not killing each other, it's gonna be better. If you're not sleeping around with each other, it's gonna be better. If you're not taking my name in vain and dishonoring me and worshiping statues, I promise you, it's all gonna be better for you. So life will go well. Number two, because God dwells with us. He dwells with us. And if you've ever read Exodus, I know this is last week, but you've read Exodus and you've just wanted to pound your head saying, why do we have to know how to build the tabernacle and then how they actually built it? Why does that need to be repeated? This is a monumental thing that God is gonna live with His people. These are not holy people. These are sinful people and it is earth shattering, mind blowing that God says, I'm gonna come down the holy one and live in your midst. And so from time to time, when God's giving these rules in Leviticus, He says, look, I'm right here, don't do that. I'm right in the middle of you. And I hope you see the application for us today is believers, right? Jesus says, I'm leaving, but I'll be with you always. My spirit will be with you. And it's Jesus saying to us, hey, I'm right here with you. I live with you. Paul is saying to the Corinthians what? Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Knock it off. Quit getting drunk, quit suing each other, quit fighting about everything. God is right here with you. Don't you realize that? And you see that same idea back in Leviticus. Obey because God is with us. Number three, we obey because we fear God. And Leviticus talks about that. And I think the story of Nadab and Abai who illustrates that, that we obey because we fear God. Proverbs talks about that. You read through the book of Proverbs. Fear the Lord. It's the beginning of wisdom. Follow the Lord, fear God. Number four, we obey because we belong to God. It goes back to what we keep talking about that the Exodus comes before Mount Sinai. And God keeps saying to his people when he's giving him these laws. Look, I brought you out of there, you're mine. Now you gotta do what I say. It's not the basis of our relationship. We already have a relationship. I brought you out with all the signs, all the wonders, all the miracles. But now this is what you do. Paul says the exact same thing to the Corinthians. You are not your own. You were what? Bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. You belong to him, he bought you. So now you obey him. Number five, I think we're on number five, why obey God to reflect his character. And so when God is giving these laws, he's saying to his people, these laws teach you what I'm like. And if you would do this stuff, you reflect me, you mirror me. And then lastly, number six, why should you obey God to be a light? And he talks to his people in Leviticus and says, look, I want the nations to look at you and see something different in you. And I want them to see me through you. So you're gonna be a light to all the nations in your obedience to me. So there's Leviticus, a great book, a book about holiness, a book that confronts us with our sinfulness and a book that reminds us about God's grace. And you've gotta remember, when you're going through all these rules and you're just thinking, man, this is just a lot of stuff to do. Don't forget Leviticus 16. 'Cause right there in the middle of all the rules, God is saying, okay, time out. You're not gonna do this perfectly. You are gonna foul it up. So here's what we do to fix it when you foul it up. And we read Leviticus 16 and you see God's grace that points you straight forward to Hebrews 9 and 10 and you say, that's about Jesus. The whole thing's about Jesus. God wants to be with us. He wants to save us despite our sinfulness and his holiness and he did that through Jesus and Leviticus points us to all those things. So we've sung about the blood. We will pray about the blood and thank God for the blood of Christ. And then we'll share prayer requests together. So let's pray. Father, we're grateful for the book of Leviticus. There's some things in this book that are hard for us to wrap our minds around. And there's some individual things that just sometimes don't seem to make sense to us. But we pray tonight that you would help us to understand the overall picture of what you're telling us in this book of rules in this book of laws, that we would understand why you gave these laws and why you didn't give these laws. The things that sometimes we impose on your word and the idea that we have to keep these rules to earn a relationship with you, Father. That is so foreign to the book of Leviticus. So we pray that you would help us to understand that. We pray that you would guard us from the kind of religion that tries to do good things so that we can merit a relationship with you. We pray for the kind of faith to trust in Jesus who is the fulfillment of all of these things we've looked at tonight. Faith to trust him, faith to believe him, faith to apply his blood to our sin and to believe that the blood of Christ is powerful enough to cleanse us of any sin and any stain and any uncleanness and any unholyness. So Father, we thank you for the blood of Christ. We thank you for folks who write songs about the blood of Christ that help us express our hearts to you in worship. And again, we're grateful for the time to be together to study this book, to sing about the blood of Jesus. And we pray all of these things in his name.