Gooding, David: 3 - The Law of the Peace Offering

Pleasure to be back with you, and thank you for all the contributions that you made last week to our study, and for the even more numerous contributions you are going to make this week. Last week, before we came to the meeting, there'd been a lot of talk in the air about wild dogs, and it was understandable, therefore, that when people saw me standing up the front here, they couldn't immediately make up their mind whether I was a pit bull terrier or a comparatively mild Rottweiler, you'll see. In spite of that, numbers of people helped and took part, notably our good friends on my right here. And now, uh, I hear that nobody had a heart attack as a result of last week or anything like that, nor bad dreams, uh, so that this week, uh, with more courage and used to what we are doing and catching on the idea of what we're studying, we may look forward to a helpful time with the Lord, helping each other over his word. Now, what we have proposed to ourselves in these three short studies are three of the so-called laws of the offerings in the book of Leviticus. When we studied them last week, we reminded ourselves that these laws, these regulations for the offerings, are to be distinguished from the offerings themselves. The offerings themselves occupy the early chapters of Leviticus, and they are addressed to the people at large, telling them what sacrifices they had to bring according to their different needs. The general public had to know that. As we shall see tonight, if they sinned against God, then they needed to know what sacrifice they must bring for a sin offering, what kind of a sacrifice, so that they might be forgiven. But the, uh, laws that follow were not addressed to the general public, but to the priests. They were regulation for priests, laws for practicing priests, you'll see. They deal with the practicalities of keeping that elaborate system of rituals going. We reminded ourselves, of course, as Christians last week, that all the sin offerings and the burnt offerings in Israel could not put away sin. That was impossible. They were but tokens. They were like, uh, promissory notes, IOUs, toy money, if you like, by which God was teaching his people in their infancy the costliness of sin and teaching them some of the fundamental lessons and what is necessary for forgiveness. So when they brought their sacrifices, their sin offerings did not atone for sin. They were only tokens. Yet, on the other hand, if they brought them in true repentance and faith, they were forgiven. The cost of the actual forgiveness was paid by our blessed Lord Jesus at Calvary. He paid for them as he pays for us. Their sacrifices, however, as I say, were merely symbols. On the other hand, because they were God devised symbols and taught Israelites very important lessons, it was important that that whole array of symbols should be kept going and function properly. And to do that, to maintain that array of symbols and see that they function properly, that was the task of the priests, and it involved them in a lot of practical hard work, both when they were assisting the offerers and even when there were no offerers present. And we took our cue from that because we remembered that, whereas in Israel there was only a certain special family that was allowed the privilege of being priests, with us today as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are all priests. And therefore, we looked at some of these laws, we're looking at them now to see whether we ourselves in our day may learn lessons for our practical ministry and service as priests, from the practical duties that God placed upon those ancient priests. And our study last week encouraged us to think that that was so. There are lessons, practical lessons that we could learn. Last week, we studied the law, the regulations for the burnt offering. The burnt offering was first and foremost the offering that was offered every morning and every afternoon in Israel, uh, expressing the nation's devotion to God and acknowledging that they came par- par- short themselves in their devotion, and therefore they offered this sacrifice to make atonement for their shortcomings. Day by day, morning and evening, incessantly, this burnt offering called the perpetual offering, the Talmid in Hebrew, uh, that had to be offered. And we saw the injunctions, the regulations for the priests stress this particular fact. The fire on that altar was never to go out. It would have been a most serious thing in Israel if the priests, by some laxity or oversight or carelessness, had allowed that fire to go out. So then we came across last week to think of ourselves and our duties as priests, our privilege to enter the presence of God and offer sacrifices of praise and love and gratitude and devotion and worship, and similarly our duty as priests to go out to the public and instruct the public in our teaching and our preaching, pointing out to them the great sacrifice that can atone for sin and make peace with God for them. But in order to do that, it will require of us a similar devotion, if not a greater devotion. We're not only n- not responsible for keeping a literal fire alight, though I suspect somebody in this assembly is charged with keeping the central heating going, and that in itself is an important thing, is it not? So that we might meet in comfort. But we are responsible, are we not, to keep the fire of spiritual devotion to the Lord ablaze. If we let that fire go out in our own hearts, in our assembly, in our evangelism, if we lose the heat of zeal, the glow of spiritual devotion, then our worship and our evangelism will die down. And it will be useless to talk about past great years of blessing when the fires burn brightly. For the ashes of past experience, as we saw last week, will tend to put out the present fire. So we had, so we discovered last week, lessons to learn from these regulations for the priests. Tonight, then, we study another set of regulations, not this time the regulations for the burnt offering, but the regulation for the sin offering. And we are to apply the same approach here as we did last week, noting first the significance, the meaning of these practical regulations, these down to earth details of what was a required of the priests if they were to maintain this system of rituals, and in particular, this system of sin offerings for themselves and for the nation. And then we're going to apply those things to ourselves, and that largely with your help and contribution. So let's begin by reading the passage that we shall be studying. It is Leviticus chapter six, verses twenty four to thirty. Regulations for the priests, for the sin offerings. Now, last week we found another interesting little thing, that in these series of laws, these sets of regulations, the first phrase is similar every time. This is the law of, and then comes the name of the particular offering. This is the law of the burnt offering. This is the law of the meal offering. This is the law of the sin offering, and so forth. But then the very next phrase or phrases that follow immediately mention what is to be the leading thought, the main burden of the regulation. Last week, look back to verse nine of chapter six, It said, this is the law of the burnt offering, but what follows next set the tone of the whole regulation. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning therein. That set the tone. So now, as we read the law of the sin offering, verses twenty four to thirty, let's read it asking ourselves the question, what is the first phrase about this time after the introduction? This is the law of the sin offering. What are the first few phrases and clauses? And then let's see whether the idea expressed there repeats itself throughout the regulation. And then I shall be asking you, if you wouldn't mind, we'll say, um, that's a precaution in case anybody goes to sleep, uh, what you think the main idea or ideas behind this set of regulations is. So let's read verse twenty four. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his son, saying, This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is killed, shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord? It is most holy. The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it. In a holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof will be holy. And when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in a holy place. But the earthen vessel wherein it is soddened shall be broken, and if it be soddened in a brazen vessel, it shall be scarred and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests shall eat thereof. It is most. And no sin offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place shall be eaten. It shall be burnt with fire. Six brief verses then, and I wonder who would like to be the first. Don't, uh, don't lose time because there'll all be a rush on this, you see. Uh, uh, who would like to volunteer a suggestion, right or wrong, um, as to what the main emphasis in this law Or is? is. It is most holy. Yeah, yeah, it is most holy. Agreed, old chap? Yes. Yeah, yes, he's agreed to, you have a supporter here. It is most holy, yes. The holiness of Christ. The holiness of Christ, yes. You couldn't miss it, could you? How many times was it over? It is most holy. Any subsidiary idea? Anything that goes closely with the matter of holiness? The holy place. The holy place, yes. That's mentioned several times, isn't it? So two ideas we have to couple together right from the start here in this series of regulations. The fact that it is most holy. It's interesting, of course, that the other offerings were holy, but last week when we read the regulations for the burnt offering, no mention was made of holiness, was it? Do you see? Uh, uh, here it is the leading idea. And for some reason or other, that question of holiness is connected with the other matter of place. The place where the offering is killed, the place where the offering is eaten by the priests, and so forth and so on. So now let's, uh, ponder a moment, uh, that basic concept, and let me do a little hard work for you if you haven't had the time to do it. What does the Bible mean in this kind of context by the term holy or holiness? Because that's going to be one of the practical lessons for the priest and ultimately for us this evening. As priests, we have to maintain the sense of the holy. Last week it was maintaining our zeal, wasn't it? This week it is going to be our responsibility to maintain a sense of the holy in our ministry to God and to men. What is meant by holy, therefore? Well, one easy way to understand what is meant by the term holy is to look at the opposite of holiness as given us in scripture. The opposite of holiness in the Old Testament can be one of two things, or both of those two things. One opposite of holiness is uncleanness, dirtiness. So if the opposite is uncleanness, then the positive holiness will mean cleanness, purity. Yes? That's easy. What could escape us if we weren't thinking hard is the other opposite, uh, of the term holy, and that is the term common, common, ordinary, Ordinary. Secular. secular. And we shall find tonight that that concept is exceedingly important. You'll see in ancient Israel, God was very careful to teach his people the difference between what was holy and what was sacred. Sorry, I'm what was sorry, what was holy and what was common. What was sacred and what was secular. What was holy and what was just ordinary. Let's turn to a scripture, shall we, that will make that clear to us forthwith. Chapter ten of this book of Leviticus, chapter ten uh and verse ten. And here I better check your translations, you'll see, to make sure that you've got it translated right. So anybody bold, uh, could read verse, um, uh, ten of Leviticus ten in the bold and clarion voice that all may hear, and then we'll see if we got the translation right. Yes? Who has what? Leviticus ten ten. Somebody read it. And that he may put differences between holy and unholy and between unclean and clean. Ah, thank you, sir. Yes, that he may put the the difference between the holy and the unholy and between the unclean and the clean. Notice there are two pairs there, what is called the holy and the unholy, and then between the unclean and the clean. Yeah. Anybody else admits to having a slightly different translation of that verse? You must distinguish between the holy and the common, Ah. between the unclean and the clean. Now listen to that. Let's hear him again. Say that in a loud voice, my good man. You must distinguish between the holy and the common. And the common. Between the unclean and the clean. Yes, and I will vouch for the moment that that is, of course, a true and literal translation of the Hebrew, between the holy and the common. Now let's go over to the Acts of the Apostles for this same idea, and we'll see what people's translations have there. This time it is Acts chapter ten. Acts chapter ten, uh verse twenty eight. Somebody else be so bold as to read that verse for us. Acts ten twenty eight. And he said unto them, ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation. But God hath showed me that I should not call any man common. Ah. Or unclean. Yes, thank you very much. Did you notice that? I should not call any man, and here come the two terms, common or unclean. So we've got the two ideas, two opposites of holiness. One opposite of holiness is unclean, uncleanliness. The op- other opposite of holiness is being common or secular. Now, it doesn't mean, when the Bible uses that word common, it doesn't mean cheap. Someday, sometimes we talk about things, don't we? We say, oh, that's a common old looking thing, meaning it's a poor, cheap thing. No, the idea of common in Hebrew, uh, and in particular with the tabernacle, is this. Take the question of saucepans, for instance. That's a humble enough object. Saucepans. In this particular sacrifice, the priests were allowed to eat part of the flesh of the sin offering. But of course, they couldn't eat it raw. It had to be cooked. Ah yes, but when they had to cook it, they couldn't cook it in just any old saucepan. That wouldn't do. The saucepan had to be clean, of course, but that wasn't enough. In addition to being clean, a saucepan, if it wanted to help cook the sin offering, had to be holy, a holy saucepan, meaning a saucepan that was entirely dedicated to the Lord and his service. Holy to the Lord. So it was no longer common saucepan, it was a holy saucepan. Take Mrs. Brown, who lived down the, you know, the avenue of tents and the second one on the right, Josie, uh, she had a set of saucepans too. And being Mrs. Brown, they were as clean as anything, oh, beautifully shiny clean. Wasn't a speck of dirt on the saucepans, but they weren't allowed, you weren't allowed to cook sin offering in them. Why not? They were clean. Ah, yes, but they weren't holy. They were just ordinary sa- saucepans, everyday saucepans, common or garden saucepans, secular saucepans. To be a saucepan that could be used for cooking the sin offering, you had to be a saucepan that was given over to the Lord and his service. A lot of things like that in Israel. Time could be either holy or common, couldn't it? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. What do you mean? That all on the other days you can be unholy? Well, not quite. On the other days, you did your ordinary work. On those other days, of course, you weren't allowed to do anything unclean, of course not, uh, that was morally unclean. You just went about your ordinary secular work, common. The Sabbath day you had to keep as holy unto the Lord. So we've got to get across two ideas tonight in our thinking, have we not? As we're listening to God talk about these priests, talk to those priests, as they attend to the sin offering, and they have to go through all the practical work, ordinary toil, you might say, all the practical work to keep that set of symbols going. The thing, beyond all other things, says God, you will have to keep in view in your ministry, and that is maintaining a sense of the holy. What will that mean? Well, it will mean two things. One, they must see to it that they do not, by their behavior or by their practice, introduce uncleanliness of any sort. As God put it through a later prophet, be you clean that bear the vessels of the ministry. And of course, if we're going to engage in the work of the Lord, whether it is in the work of worship or it is the work of taking the gospel to the world and talking to them about the great sacrifice of Christ, it's obvious too, isn't it? That in that work, we must maintain the sense of the holy in the first sense of it. We must maintain cleanliness. Physical cleanliness, of course, if we can manage it, but, uh, more importantly than that, spiritual cleanliness. With the Israelite priest, that was moderately easily done, wasn't it? Because for him, cleanliness was largely ceremonial cleanliness. So he had to wash his hands, and he washed his feet, and and he mustn't touch bones and things, and all sorts of external rules and regulations. Moderately easy for them to keep it. But then, as we think about that, we shall remember the words of the Lord Jesus to the Pharisees. They took the matter of ceremonial cleanness to extremes, didn't they? They wouldn't even touch their ordinary bread without washing their wrists right up to the elbow, and all this kind of thing in ceremonial cleanliness. And gentlemen, he said, at best it's only a symbol, and at worst it's nonsense. Because he said, you know, it's not what goes into a man defiles him is eaten. It's what comes out of a man defiles him. For out of the heart proceeds. And then our Lord enumerated that ugly brood of evil tempers and evil thoughts, arising from our hearts, defile us. How easy such things can intrude upon our sacred ministry, can they not? We need to keep ourselves clean. Beware, said the writer to the Hebrews, lest there spring up among you a root of bitterness, and many be thereby defiled. We're very much concerned about atmospheric pollution these days, aren't we? And trying to purify it and give us decent air to breathe. But, you know, there's something more serious than physical pollution of the atmosphere, and that's moral and spiritual pollution of an atmosphere. You can sometimes go into a Christian church, and not this one, of course, not miles from here, but sometimes you can go into them, and you're not there long, but what you sense that the atmosphere is. There's been an almighty bust up. And folks aren't talking to folks. And they're getting at each other in their prayers. And all sorts of funny antics. And the atmosphere... Well, you wouldn't expect a sinner to come to Christ in it anyway, would you? How easily, if one may speak for another, can we allow uncleanness of spirit to enter into our sacred ministries of worship and evangelism. But yes, what about the other one? Not only maintaining cleanliness, but the other thing, holiness in the sense of not being common, ordinary, but devoted to the Lord. Mm. So I'm going to start now, if I may, pointing out what this would have meant to the priest. And then notice how the Lord laid down regulations that would ensure that the priest maintained his sense of sacredness in his ministry. Or say, imagine an Israelite, and he'd done some outrageous sin, and God had convicted him of it, and he came to bring his offering. And for him, it was a very serious time, a crisis time perhaps in his life. And full of repentance and broken-heartedness may be, under desire now to seek the Lord and to go on with the Lord. He comes and brings his offering. May have been a small offering, but the offering required. And he comes to the temple court and he seeks out a priest, you see. And says that he w- wants to offer a sacrifice for sin, and is this the right animal, you see, and he comes to the altar, you see, and he has to kill the thing. And of course, the man is taking his time. Yes, why shouldn't he? For him, it's a, it's an intensely spiritual, profound occasion. And he's taking such a long time killing this priest and saying his prayers and goodness knows what else, and the priest is getting impatient. You know, it might be the first time the man ever came, but the priest, well, take the first time he he offered a sin offering. He's been offering them this last twenty five years. He's offered thousands of them. And to him it's come become ordinary. It's his daily job anyway. And he's been on duty since nine o'clock this morning. Come on, man, he said, get on with it. How you got a wife and children at home, and I've got to get back there, and there's a program on the TV anyway. Come on, get through it. Oh. Oh. What's happened now? The man has lost the sense of the sacredness of divine things and the sacredness of his ministry. He's got so used to it, it's become an ordinary thing. Could it happen to us, my brethren and sisters? We get so used to turning out at the gospel meeting that it loses its sense of the sacred. The Lord's Supper, just another routine meeting, hoping it will soon be over so we can get to more interesting things. Losing the sense of the sacred. If it should ever happen, it would reduce our ministry to mere ashes, wouldn't it? There's something worse than that even. You'll see, or two things worse, maybe. Not only had the priest, if he were an older priest, done it thousands of times, and therefore it was becoming routine and ordinary, but he earned his living by it. You'll see when it gives directions for how he was to cook the meat and where he was to eat it, it reminds us, doesn't it, that the part of the food, the wages, if you like, of the priest was that the meat he got from these various offerings. The danger was that because it was the way he made his living, it became just like a business to him. He's a mere professional. He lost the sense of the sacred. Could happen, couldn't it? They who give themselves a great deal to the ministry of God's word and to preaching are in danger here sometimes, aren't we? Become so ordinary, just another meeting. We in particular could lose the sense of the sacred. Did you ever hear about a couple of priests named Hophni and Phineas? Yeah? Anybody remember who the father was? No. Who? Eli. Eli, good man, yes, Eli, yes. And he wasn't such a bad stick, was he? Eli wasn't, but his sons, they were utterly despicable. We all say, let alone their immoralities that defiled the very tabernacle of God. But their greed. They lived, you see, on their sacrifices. And when anybody came to offer a sacrifice, then the priest would send their servant with a three-pronged fork, and they would plunge the fork into the, uh, sacrifice and take up a big piece of it, and the worshipper would say, no, no, no, you mustn't do that. Offer God his bit first, and then you can have your bit. Ah, get out of the way, they said, we're having ours first. So that the sacrifice was for them merely a matter of satisfying themselves. And as for God, they scarce entered into it. What a disaster in priests, isn't it? Now, we're not going to go to those extremes, are we? But, um, what lessons could we learn tonight? God will call upon us to be humble, to examine our hearts, to ask ourselves whether we have slipped time past, or are slipping now, or could be in danger of slipping in the future. So let's look, in turn, at the four or five major regulations that were given. You'll say for the, um, uh, sin offering and what had to be done. I'll mention them in a list, and then we can go over them, and I shall need your help. That's what I'm reminding you of. First of all, Leviticus six and, uh, verse 25, there was the place of slaughter. Number one. In the place where the burnt offering is killed, shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord. It is most holy. There is the place where the priest who ate the flesh ate it. Verse twenty six: the priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it in a holy place it shall be eaten. Then verse twenty seven: is the regulation, whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be, will be holy. The reminder that contact with that flesh would automatically involve total consecration to God's service. Thirdly, the value and sacredness of the blood of that sin offering. So holy and sacred was it that they had the regulation, when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in a holy place. Idea being, lest that garment should be spattered, be be bespattered with some of the blood, and then in a careless moment, that garment should be taken outside and be treated like something common. So if a garment became spattered with the blood, it had to be washed in the holy place before it could be removed outside. The sacredness, the value and sacredness of the blood. Then there was in the fifth place, the treatment of the vessels in which the meat was cooked, verse twenty eight. And finally, perhaps, the special regulation concerning sin offerings whose blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place. The regulation now is that that shall not, the flesh shall not be eaten at all. It shall be burnt with fire. So sacred, so valuable, so significant, that even the priest was not allowed to eat it. It was burnt with fire. So what I, I suggest now is that we look at those, the place of slaughter, the place of eating, the regulation that anything that touched the flesh became holy, consecrated to God, the value and sacredness of the blood, treatment of the vessels in which the offering was cooked, and finally the burning of the sacrifice on occasion with fire, that we look at those things, six things, briefly, and ask ourselves, what did it mean to the priest in those days? What was the point of the regulation? How did it help the priest to maintain a sense of the holy? And then ask ourselves, what lesson would this have for us. So we start with the place where the burnt offering had to be killed. Sorry, the sin offering had to be killed, not just any place. The sin offering had to be killed in the place where the burnt offering is killed. And secondly, further described as before the Lord. Why? What did it matter where the burnt, uh, the sin offering was killed, so long as it was killed? Why had it to be where the burnt offering was killed? Why had it to be before the Lord? How did that maintain in the priest a sense of the holy? Anybody got any suggestions? Let's take the easy one. Why before the Lord? Why not just anyone where? Sin was against the Lord. First, sin was against the Lord, that to start with. Yes. So why was the solemn act of slaughtering the sin offering to be done before the Lord? Ha. Why couldn't you do it at home, all chapitry, in your backyard, and then bring the beast to the temple. Because it won't be a holy place. It wouldn't be a holy place, no. This has got to be done in a holy place, you see, not in your backyard. This isn't just an ordinary thing. This isn't like killing the sheep for your, your Sunday lunch. This is a sacred thing, and before the Lord. Anything else? Where the Lord has placed his name. Yes, in the place where the Lord has placed his name, in that, uh, tabernacle was his name. And placing his name means his gracious presence, doesn't it? In all his holiness. Yes? And the sin offering has to be killed before the law? Suppose you had been a priest in those far off days, uh, uh, and this is the first time you'd done it. I don't know how you'd feel. I should feel all fingers and thumbs, I think, wouldn't you, if this is the first time you've done this and how you had to cut it up and offer it, and that would be bad enough. I should hope the high priest wasn't looking when I did it, in case I did it a bit wrong or something like that, you see. Uh, would it have helped me or, or to know that I was doing it before the Lord and the Lord was looking on? What kind of a mood would that have produced in, in you? What? Fear, this chap says. Yes, fear. Let's hold that one. Anybody want to dispute that or agree with it? True, true repentance. True repentance, yes. Yes, anything further? You just imagine, if you had maintained any sense at all of what was going on, here is a man that had sinned against the Lord, and the penalty... solemn, isn't it? Yeah. When we sin ourselves, we don't have to offer a sacrifice, do we? Because the sacrifice of Christ has been offered on our behalf, yes? Yet when I come to the Lord as a believer for forgiveness, confess my sin, and the Bible says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. What will stop that from becoming just a sort of routine thing? Lord, sin today, forgive me sins, and get on with it. Could happen, couldn't it? Oh, sin today, so I confess my sin, I'm forgiven, and away we go. One thing that would help to stop that careless attitude would be to remember that we stand before the Lord. Yes? You just imagine it. We have sinned against the Lord, and that cost the death not of some mere animal, that cost the death of God's Son. And with my eye of the, with the eye of the Lord upon us, and aware we stand in the presence of God, we have to admit, before thrice holiness itself, that our sin murdered God's God's Son. son. How does that make you feel, my brother and sister? That's no common thing, is it? The celebration of the Lord's Supper, the memory that he died for us, is not meant to be lugubrious, is it? But what a practical help that is, isn't it? If we're prepared to take things seriously as the priest was, to maintain in us a sense of the sacred and the holy, to bear stand in the presence of the Father and realize that my sin murdered his son. So what about the other bit then? Any suggestions here? We've had the first one before the Lord. And now the other thing, where the burnt offering is burnt, where the burnt offering, it says, where the burnt offering is killed, shall the sin offering be killed? Anybody like to volunteer? Any notion about that? Don't be afraid to say, uh... The man that made, never made a mistake, never m- made a mistake, never made anything, you know. Mm. Any suggestions? Mm. Because it was the place where God revealed the sin, just the way Calvary was. Yes, that's a very good answer, sir. That is an exceedingly good answer. And the sin offering, therefore, was killed in the same place where the burnt offering was killed, and the two, therefore, are associated, aren't they? Sin offering is associated with the burnt offering. And what did you say the burnt burnt offering represents, what? Devotion? Yes. Let's put those two things together and bring the lesson over to us immediately. If I think of our Lord Jesus as the burnt offering, I'm thinking of him as the one who devoted himself absolutely and entirely to God, am I not? He came to do God's will, by the which will we are... What does it say? Sanctified, my brother, thank you very much. Do you get the idea? Made holy. By the which will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ once for all. All my brothers, my sisters, let's ponder a moment what it took to make us holy. Are you a saint? Well, of course you are, if you're a believer. We're all saints. And pray, what did it cost to make us saints? Was it an easy job as far as you're aware, or what? No, indeed it wasn't, was it? It took the infinite devotion of the Son of God in the offering of his body to do the will of God to its last full stop. That's what it took to make us holy. And that's what it took, you know, to put sin away. I'm going to take you now, if you'll allow me, to the place where the burnt offering was offered and then killed, so that our sin might be put away. And I ask you to read with me, did I get somebody to read it for me? It's the gospel by Mark. The gospel by Mark. Our Lord had just instituted the Lord's Supper, given them the cup containing the blood shed, uh, symbol of the blood shed for the forgiveness of sins. Now came the actual work of putting away sin. This is what it's going to cost. And we go not first to Calvary, where the actual sacrifice, the death took place, but the preparations that our Lord made for Calvary as he faced this task of putting away sin. Let's come to the place, and somebody read, please, with you for me, will you, um, Mark chapter fourteen, uh, verses thirty four to thirty six. And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Tarry ye here and watch. They went forward a little, fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from them. And he said, Abba Father, all things are possible unto thee. Take away this cup from me, nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. Ah, yes. We're coming to the place, brothers and sisters, where the burnt offering was killed, that sin might be put away. And the Holy Spirit contrasts the attitude of two men. Just a very few verses earlier, Peter said to the Lord, although all I, all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, verily I say unto thee, that thou today, even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. Oh, nonsense is Peter. No, no, no, nonsense. Not at all, Lord. You got that wrong. Why, said he? He spoke exceedingly vehemently. If I must die with thee, I will not deny thee. Oh no. Peter felt very confident about that. He certainly wouldn't deny the Lord. Oh, so it's going to be easy, is it, Peter? You You can't contrast try. that. The man hadn't thought it through, had he? I sure believe he meant what he said, but he had never thought it through. If I must dive with thee, he said. Well, in the end he found he didn't have to, didn't he? He was able to get out of it. He meant it, but he hadn't thought it through. How very different it was to our Lord. He didn't come into the garden saying, oh, I'm delighted, you know, marvelous Father, to have this opportunity. I've been looking for this, to this opportunity. Oh, what a delight. Of course he did not. Exceeding sorrowful, he bowed on the ground and he prayed. And it was honest, wasn't it? Abba Father, let this cup pass from me. You know, ladies and gentlemen, that was not said insincerely, just to heighten the effect when he said, but nevertheless. Our Lord didn't go in for gimmicks like that. He meant what he said. Do you notice how skillfully he prayed, according to Mark? Abba Father, he said. And they've kept the original Aramaic word that he used, Abba. The son's word talking to a father, appealing to the very love of God. Abba, Father. In other words, you love me. Let this cup pass. By your very love, I plead with you. And then he said, all things are possible. By your infinite power, I plead with you, let it pass. You'll say to me, perhaps you make it sound as if our Lord didn't want to drink that cup. Well, of course he didn't, did he? Do you remember what the cup was? The cup was the sorrows of being made sin for us. He who knew no sin and did no sin, nor guile ever found in his mouth. Being made sin. Do you suppose he wanted to be it? And enjoyed being made sin. And he who had been never anything short of one hundred percent devoted to God now must be separated. I don't want to do it, he said. What man in his senses would welcome being separated from God, and for the thrice holy Son of God to face being separated from his Father, and to be made sin for us. He didn't turn around and say, oh well, if I must do it, you know, I'm quite happy to do that if I must do it, and what will be the thing after that? No, indeed not. Please let it pass, except for this. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And I don't know about you, but I sin so easily, you know. So easily. And my zeal blows hot one day and cold the next. And to put away the sin of it. Oh, let me never forget it. Let me never forget it. That my sin was put away by Christ, but only because he came to the place where the burnt offering was killed. Peter said, if I must die, I'll prepare for that. He found he didn't have to die, did he? You could get out of it. And he got out of it. Our Lord wanted to be relieved of the cup, but the thing that kept him was not mere circumstance. If I can't get out of it, I'll do it. It was not my will, but thine be done. Matthew tells us he could have got out of it, doesn't he? Think you not, I could call to my father, and this very moment he will give me twelve legions of angels. He could have got out of it. But it was the will of God. For him, there was no escape. Mind me asking you a very personal question. Why do you come to worship the Lord? Why do you engage in his service? Teach your Sunday school? To show that we're sinners saved by grace. Yes, so you do. Yes. Well, see, sometimes we can say to ourselves, can't we? Must I do it? What do you want me to do? Well, isn't there anybody else? Um, must I do this? Oh, well, if I must, then, well, I must. Well, well, I'll turn up and do it then. I wonder how that sounds before the Lord. So, regulation number one. The reminder to that priest, not only to the offerer, the reminder to the priest. Every time he officiated at the killing of a sin offering, he must take it where the burnt offering was killed and do it before the Lord. It speaks to our hearts. In our ministry, in our work for the Lord. Oh God, never let us forget. That to put away sin, not only the sinner, as we're liable to call him out there that we're preaching to, but to put, to put away our sin. It cost the infinite devotion of the Son of God. And I must remember before the Lord what my sin did to his son. First step in maintaining the sacredness of our priestly ministry, to prevent it becoming just ordinary. Second step was the place of eating, yes? Chapter uh six, this, verse twenty six: the priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it. In a holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. So let's come right back to the priest in ancient Israel. He, as I say, was allowed to eat parts of the sacrifice. They were his living, in part. But this offering had to be eaten, not anywhere he liked. He couldn't take the stuff home, eat it as a Sabbath day roast, you know, with his apple tart. No, this had to be eaten in a holy place. This was a holy meal in that sense for the priest. If he'd have just taken it home, it would have, could have become just ordinary, couldn't it? It wouldn't have been unclean because he took it home. He'd still keep the stuff clean. He wouldn't roll it in the dirt or anything like this. He'll be clean. Nothing wrong in eating beef or lamb, is there? But just an ordinary meal, and then it wouldn't have been sacred. So that was for the priest. Anybody like to venture? It's a different one, this isn't it? Any lesson for us? Difficult one, this isn't it. You say, Mr. Preacher, can't I enjoy thinking about the Lord, my sin offering, in my bedroom if I wanted to? Well, so you could. So. And we don't have a temple, do we, where we have to go and offer sacrifice? We don't have a temple. Uh, they seek the dark farm, and every place is hallowed ground. We don't. I mean, this is just a building to keep the rain off, but uh, we don't have a sacred temple like the Israelites, do we? So you can enjoy Christ and you can feed on the Lord, as they say, any way you like, aren't you? But where you do it is holy ground, yes? So now this chap's got a suggestion. Our bodies are temples. Yeah, they are. For it. They are. Yes, they are. And therefore, we have to keep them pure for the Lord, don't we? Mm-hmm. Do you remember anybody here, although you'll think this is a, this is a far-fetched one, but anybody here remember any place in the New Testament where the believers are rebuked for mixing up the Lord's Supper with an ordinary meal? Yes, do you not have spices to eat and drink? Ah, yeah, my good man, where is that now? Tell us where that is. 1 Corinthians 10 or 11. Yeah, well, we'll go hunting for it, and he that gets there first will read the same to us. Pardon? Corinthians 13. Well, it's Corinthians anyway. It's the part where Paul complains that in Corinth... they were confusing the eating of the Lord's Supper. First Monday. Where? First Monday onwards, I think. Of what? First Corinthians 11. Of eleven. You're the first one to get it, sir, so read it to us, would you? Verse twenty. I hope it's right, of course. Yeah, yeah, it is, yes, yes, I thought it is. When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to the Lord's supper. For in eating everyone taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken. But have ye not houses to eat and drink in? Or despise you the church of God? And shame them that have not. What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. Ah, thank you very much indeed. Josie, thank you very much. We're not not likely to make the same mistake, are we? But in those early days, Josie, when they had what some people call a love feast in the church, and it was a meal, a fellowship meal where the believers got together, uh, that was a lovely thing, an express fellowship. But it would appear that then they tacked onto that, or tacked the this meal, this fellowship meal, onto the celebration of the Lord's Supper. And the inevitable happened, you know. You never knew where one left off and the other began. And instead of the celebration of the Lord's Supper being surrounded with a sense of the holy and the sacred, it became part of a ordinary meal. I hear when you come together, it's impossible, or you do not eat the Lord's Supper. Why don't you? Well, each one is had a big good meal together, you see. And the rich were well fed and well drunk, by the account- sound of it, and and the poor hadn't got anything and felt ashamed. And the whole thing became confused. Well, now says Paul, you'll stop doing that. If you're hungry, you eat at home. There's nothing wrong in being hungry, and if you're very hungry, have a very good meal like I did before coming here. Jose, but um, we must not, may we, confuse the ordinary with that sacred occasion. I'm not saying that the bread is the literal flesh of Christ or the wine, his blood. They are only symbols, like the sin offering was only symbols, but they're sacred symbols and solemn, aren't they? And if ever the Lord's Supper became just a routine thing, just like any ordinary affair, when we come to it with no more thought than we come to our date breakfast when we're scurrying off to work, what an immense loss that would be, wouldn't it? Yeah. So the remembrance of the Lord for us believers is a sacred thing and must be kept sacred. Let's go on, move on to the next one, shall we? Uh, the next regulation, Leviticus six once more, Josie. And this is the first sentence in verse twenty seven. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy. And here we've got to do a little rigorous thinking, because the English, if you have that English in front of you, everybody got that English, whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy? Everybody got that? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Anybody got anything different? Shall become. Shall, ah, say that again. You've got what? Shall become. Yeah, shall become holy. Yes? Anybody else got shall become holy? Hmm. This is important, actually, because what does the verse mean? Does it mean this or that? Now, which one does it mean? Does it mean whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof has got to be holy before it touches the flesh? And if it's not holy, it mustn't come and touch the flesh. Is that what it means? Or does it mean whatever touches the flesh shall become holy? It will be, in the sense of will become holy. What does that mean in ancient Israel? Forget ourselves for the moment. I'm going to suggest to you that it means the second. It is not saying that in order to touch this flesh, you must first be holy. It is saying that anything that touched that flesh would become holy. Contact with that flesh would make whatever it was holy. Let's give an example. Suppose somebody took a clean pot, and it touched that flesh. Suppose Mrs. Brown down the road had heard that the Levites and the priests were hard up for a pot to cook the flesh of the sin offering in, and she said, I'll tell you what, you can have my pot to do it with for this weekend. And they said, right ho, and they took the pot and cleaned it, and then they used it in that pot touched that flesh. Well, Mrs. Mrs. Brown would never get it back again. No, not on your life, should she. As soon as that pot touched that flesh, it will become holy in the sense of utterly consecrated to the Lord. You'll never get it back again. Touching that flesh, I repeat, would make that pot become holy, not in the sense of becoming clean, it had to be clean anyway, but the Lord would claim it. It would never go back to Mrs. Brown's kitchen. Let me try and demonstrate to you that principle elsewhere in scripture. Exodus this time, Exodus 29. nine verse thirty seven. Somebody of the kindness of their heart read aloud for us. Exodus twenty nine verse thirty seven. Seven days they shall make an atonement for the altar and sanctify it, and it shall be an altar most holy. Whatsoever touches the altar shall be. Yes, yes, here it comes. Yes, anything that touched that altar, forever thereafter consecrated to the Lord. In the book of Ezekiel, you'll read instructions to the priests. Their garments that they had for officiating on in the most holy place were holy garments. Before you go out, says God, take those garments off and leave them in the holy place, put on other garments. Why? Because, says God in Ezekiel, if you kept your holy garments on, the garments consecrated for the official service of the Lord in the tabernacle, if you kept that on and walked outside and somebody touched those garments, that chap would be consecrated to the Lord. You would consecrate the people if you did that, says Ezekiel. So don't run the risk of that. The man would never be able to, to carry on his secular work, be consecrated to the Lord. There is one passage that might seem to contradict that. It is in Malachi chapter two and verse eleven. It doesn't actually contradict it, but I commend it to you. You might care to think about it when you go home tonight and look up the commentaries if you have to, and if you still have a question about it, raise it next week, uh, uh, in the discussions, yes? Ah. I'm suggesting, therefore, this plain, straightforward reading. What it means is this: anything, vessel, anything, person that touches the flesh of that sin offering will become holy in the sense of consecrated to the Lord. No longer his own, so to speak. Excuse me, was it Malachi or Haggai? Haggai, sorry. Haggai. Oh, there's a man that's looked up the difficulty. Yes. Yeah, you better expound it to us. What the, I know you've found it. No? We'll expect an answer from you next week, sir. Put that on the list. Yes, it's Haggai. Sorry, thank you for the correction. Haggai two eleven. Uh, it might appear to contradict what I'm now saying. It doesn't actually, but we can talk about it next week. Let me get the point across now. For the priest therefore is reminded that whatever touches that flesh is now holiness to the Lord. Is there any sense about that with us? Is there any kind of suggestion in the New Testament that if you come anywhere near the sacrifice of Christ, so to speak, if you lay your hands on the sacrifice of Christ, you become absolutely consecrated to the Lord? Or am I exaggerating things? Ephesians Questions and twenty Yeah, what, yes, that is, uh, what, please? You're not your own, you're bought with a price. And the price being? Yes, that's right. That's right. Talking to the Corinthians, like this chap said here about our bodies. Paul says, don't you take your body and make it a member of a harlot. Don't you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and you are not, not your own. How is that then? Well, like Leslie says, you have been bought with a prize. You have touched the Son of God, haven't you? Metaphorically speaking, you have laid your hands on his dear head. You have, um, received the Savior. And you've claimed the benefits of his sacrifice for sin. On a Sunday, you're taking the symbol of his very body that he gave for you, and yet the symbol, haven't you? You see what it means? You can't just go home and be your own anymore, you know. You must be holy, says God. I bought you. You are mine. For this cause, says Paul, two Corinthians five, Christ died and rose again. So you say, if one died for all, then all died, that they which live should not live for themselves. And if it is true, because I have part in the sacrifice of Christ, I'm not my own, then to take what belongs now to somebody else without his permission. And use it just for myself. There's a word for that in English that isn't a very nice word. When you, you know, somebody takes something that isn't theirs, belongs to somebody else, and makes off with it. There's a nasty word that describes that. Yes. Maintaining a sense of the sacred. What it means to have touched, so to speak, the great sin offering and claimed its benefits. I must be I am. You are holy in the sense I'm not my own. Doesn't mean I'm sinless, does it? But I am, as far as God counts it, his. He's bought me. I- I'm not my own anymore. That's why he calls me a saint. Pretty poor specimen of a saint, you might think, but a saint. Because I belong to him. Ah, if I could remember that, you know, as a busy priest. It would take the ordinaryness out of it, wouldn't it? It would help to maintain the sense of the sacred. Two things I shall have to go over very quickly. The treatment of the vessels in which that flesh was cooked. Uh, Leviticus six, there do you see the second part of verse twenty seven. When there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that thereon which was sprinkled in a holy place, but the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken, and if it shall be sodden in a brazen vessel, it shall be scarred and rinsed with water. So, first, any garment sprinkled with the blood had to be washed in a holy place before it went outside. Why? Because the blood was holy. You mustn't take that blood, even if it only be a splash on your garment, and go out into the world and that come into contact with common things or unclean things. Why? Because that blood, of all things in the ancient, uh, system of rituals, that blood was right sacred to God for what it spoke of. And of course, it speaks immediately to our hearts, doesn't it? How would you rate the blood of Christ? How would you rate the sacredness of the blood of Christ? Precious. Precious, yes, sir. You got the word. Costly. Infinitely precious. There is a man described, he's an apostate, he never was a true believer, he's an apostate. Hebrews chapter ten, of how much sore a punishment shall, do you think he should be counted worthy of, who has trodden underfoot the Son of God? That means he deliberately and knowingly, with his eyes open, denies the deity of the Lord Jesus. And having done that, he does the next thing. He counts the blood of the covenant a... Yes, unholy things are. Yes, but you see, that's where we began the meeting with, isn't it? Unholy in what sense? The Greek word translated unholy there is common. You see, if you deny the deity of the Lord Jesus, then you say that Lord Jesus was an ordinary man. Well, if Jesus was an ordinary man, then his blood is common, as common as my blood and your blood. How much sore a punishment shall that man be found worthy who, with his eyes open, denies the deity of the Lord Jesus and counts his blood common, ordinary. Oh, precious is that flow that washes me white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Careful how you live your pilgrimage, says Peter, knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. I remember, says Peter, that the Father judges us each according to our works, having in view that he redeemed us with the blood of Christ. He redeemed our lives by his blood. And if we take those lives bought by that indescribably valuable blood of Christ, and we fritter them away, you'll understand, won't you, that the Father will be exceedingly critical. Oh God, preserve in us the sense of the sacredness of the blood of Jesus. And then the thing had to be cooked. Well, of course, the priest couldn't eat it raw, could he? So he had to cook it or boil it or what have you. It had to be processed, yes. But though it was a process very much like the process that went on in Mrs. Brown's kitchen, she cooked her meat for the family when she had any. Do you see? There's nothing wrong with that, but uh, ah, but there was a difference here. This wasn't just any old meat. This wasn't just any old cookery. This was the sacred symbol of the sacrifice for sin. And you know, when it comes to us as priests, and we enjoy, don't we, spiritually we live on, so to speak, the blessed Lord Jesus. And to understand what he did for us at Calvary, why the theologians have written whole libraries about it, haven't they? Marvelous the topic, eternity itself will not exhaust it. The significance of the great sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. It will test your heart's devotion, of course. It will test every little atom of gray matter you've got in your brain to think it through. And rightly, we give every diligence we can of heart and mind to understand the significance of the death of Christ. But I tell you what, one thing we shall have to be very careful with, and that is so that the study of the death of Christ doesn't become a mere subject, like electricity or flower arranging. Can happen, you know. Can happen sometimes in theological departments in universities, where scripture and the atonement are discussed in the most secular fashion, as though they were just one more topic, like engineering, and it loses its sacredness. Ah. Ah. When we come to read God's word in the Bible reading, we shan't forget where we are, shall we, and chop each other's heads off and get nearly to blows and come out with red faces or something like that, as though it were a political meeting and where the conservatives were arguing with the Labour Party or something. What? That would be an unholy thing to do when you are handling the sacred things of God and the sacredness of the doctrine of the atonement. So that being so, if you, if you cooked this in an earthen vessel, where because it was an earthen vessel, the blood and the juices of the wheat could get into the pores of the earthenware thing, and you'd never get them out however hard you scrubbed it, then, oh right, then you smashed the vessel. So it never went out anywhere to get contact with what was mere secular. If it was a brazen pot, then you scrubbed it. You'll say they were rather arbitrary and external rules, weren't they? Yes, they were. But they were children in those days, weren't they? God's care with them to respect those rituals comes with added force to us, surely. And in all our thinking about and enjoying the great sacrifice of Christ, we maintain the sense of its sacredness. And finally, there were some sacrifices so sacred that the priests weren't even allowed to eat them. They were burned in fire. That was good, wasn't it, for practical reason. Here's a priest, and he sinned. When he sinned, he brought a sacrifice, and he killed it and offered it, huh? And they net the flesh. Well, you see what the temptation would be for the priest, wouldn't you? It wouldn't matter if he sinned tomorrow. If he sinned tomorrow, he had brought another sacrifice and he got another meal out of it. What? Ah, the more sin, the better. No, you won't, says God. Sacrifices for the priest and for the people. The blood is brought into the holy place. The priest may not eat that flesh. The priest for himself, or the priest as one of the people involved in the sin. He must not profit from eating the flesh. It is burned for God. Lest the priest should come round to thinking that the more sin, the more meals he got. Taking advantage of God's mercy to keep on sinning. Well, anyway, they are my, uh, thinkings and meditations upon this sacred topic. Thank you for your help, my good brethren.