Gooding, David: 5 - The Stain of Sin

Let's begin our study this evening, shall we, by reading from Leviticus chapter four. Leviticus chapter uh four. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If anyone shall sin unwittingly in any of the things which the Lord hath commanded not to be done, and shall do any one of them. If the anointed priest shall sin, so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer for his sin which he hath sinned a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering. And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand upon the head of the bullock and kill the bullock before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall take of the blood of the bullock and bring it to the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. The priest shall put of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tent of meeting. And all the blood of the bullock shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting. And all the fat of the bullock of the sin offering he shall take off from it, the fat that covereth the inwards and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the gall upon the liver with the kidneys shall he take away, as it is taken off from the ox of the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of burnt offering. And the skin of the bullock and all its flesh, with its head and with its legs and its inwards and its dung, even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out. Shall it be burned? And if the whole congregation of Israel shall err, verse twenty two, when a ruler sinneth and doeth unwittingly any one of all the things which the Lord his God hath commanded not to be done. Verse twenty seven. And if any one of the common people sin unwittingly. Chapter five, verse one. And if anyone sin, in that he heareth the voice of adoration. The attentive reader will notice the refrain that therefore rings through these two chapters of Holy Writ. If anyone sin. What happens if anyone sin? We have more than an academic interest in that question, have we not? It is one of life's main questions, particularly for a believer in the Lord Jesus. And so let us turn now just for a moment and read a scripture in the New Testament that raises that same question and answers it in Christian terms. The, uh, passage is in one John chapter two. One John chapter two. If any man sin. One John chapter two and verse one. m my little children, these things I write unto you that you may not sin. What now? We have an advocate, says John, with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. And hereby know we that we know him if we keep his commandments. While we are in the New Testament, it will help us to read one or two other scriptures. Let's turn back to the epistle to the Hebrews, please, for a few verses, first of all in chapter nine of that epistle. Chapter nine and verses thirteen and fourteen: For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Verse twenty two: And according to the law, I may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission. It was necessary, therefore, that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these, that is, with animal sacrifices. But the heavenly things themselves, they have to be cleansed with better sacrifices than these. And finally, from this same epistle and in chapter thirteen. Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter thirteen, beginning in verse ten. We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come. May God give us good understanding of his holy word. And so it is in the course of our study of the ancient Jewish sacrificial system, we come tonight to the fourth major sacrifice called in scripture the sin offering. And this one will perhaps be a little bit easier for us to follow and understand than the one with which we toiled last Thursday evening. For here is the sacrifice plainly told us, a sacrifice for sin. When if an Israelite sinned against the Lord, whoever he was, he could come and offer this sacrifice and so find cleansing of his sins. And it points us immediately to Jesus Christ, our Lord, who died for our sins according to the scripture, was buried and rose again the third day, according to the scripture, points us to him of whom it is said he bore our sins in his body on the tree, was made sin for us, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And from the very beginning, therefore, as we enter the main door of this particular chapter of scripture, it promise us, promises us all sorts of glorious things and things comfortable and encouraging. It tells us of our blessed Lord who died for our sins, died that we might be forgiven, died to make us good, that we at last might go to heaven saved by his precious blood. And if we had any doubt upon that as to whether it is legitimate to use these ancient sacrifices as pointers to the sacrifice of Christ, then of course that doubt would be removed for us tonight, wouldn't it, completely? Because the last passage we read from Hebrews chapter thirteen explicitly refers to the paragraph we read in Leviticus chapter four, where we were told that with certain sacrifices for sin, the high priest was to take the blood of the sacrifice and bring it into the holy place. Sprinkle it on the veil in the presence of God. Smear it on the horns of the altar of incense. Then the body of that animal that so died, whose blood was used to cleanse the tabernacle, the body of that animal was taken outside the gate of the tabernacle court, outside the camp of Israel's dwelling, outside to a clean place where the ashes are poured out. There the body was burned with fire outside the gate and outside the camp. And the Holy Spirit then in Hebrews chapter thirteen explicitly calls that, uh, sacrifice to our minds because he wishes to draw a very vivid comparison between it and the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. He says he, you know Jesus, our blessed Lord, he suffered likewise that he might sanctify the people with his blood. He suffered outside the gate and outside the camp of Israel's Judaism. So then we are going to come to take this sacrifice as a picture of our Lord Jesus and his sacrifice for sin. If we wanted just for a moment to sketch in a few more details and get ourselves orientated, we could observe that this sacrifice in Leviticus chapter four now introduces us to two sacrifices that many theologians call non-sweet savor sacrifices, and that sounds horribly off-putting, doesn't it? And what they mean is this: the first three sacrifices, the burnt offering sacrifice and the meal offering, and then the peace offering, it is explicitly said that when the priest offered them upon the altar or the appropriate parts, they went up to God as a soothing aroma that gratified the very heart of God. Therefore, the theologians tell us that we should see in those wonderful sacrifices a picture of the Lord Jesus, a thing that our selfish hearts forget sometimes. We are so absorbed with the fact that Christ died for me, it's so important to me. You must understand it is. It is so important to me to know that Christ died for me, that sometimes I forget that when he died, he wasn't just dying in my interest. He was dying in God's interest. He was offering himself to God, and that sacrifice of total and complete obedience on the part of Christ went up to God as something exceedingly and immeasurably delightful. It will never cease to charm the heart of God, and God this night is satisfied, as the old hymn writer put it. God is satisfied with Jesus, and in consequence I can add meaningfully, and I am satisfied as well. But when we come to this sin offering, say some of the theologians, now you will see a different emphasis. Now it is not said, so they say, that these sacrifices go up as a sweet smelling savor to God. For now these sacrifices are going to talk to us about that awful thing, the awful thing that happened when Christ was made sin on our behalf and was forsaken of God and cried in the desolation and dereliction of his heart, oh my God, I cry in the daytime and thou answerest not, and in the night season am I not silent. Why this awful silence and why the darkness? Here are sacrifices then, quite rightly they point us to that other side of the work of our blessed Lord. Shall we ever forget it, even when heaven proves more dazzling than we expected, amidst all the dazzling glories of that heavenly place? We shall not forget, shall we, the darkness that came across the whole earth when Jesus Christ, that he might sanctify us with his blood, suffered outside the gate of Jerusalem on Golgotha's hill. Here are two sacrifices, then. They are called technically the sin offering and then the trespass offering in our English translations. They deal with this other side of the work of Christ. Even so, we should just check upon, check up on the theologian, shouldn't we, just a little bit. It's always wise to do. They're not quite right, you know. Don't tell them I said so, or that I said so publicly, but they're not quite right to say that this sin offering has, was never a sweet sa- smell of a sacrifice and savor to God. For you look, if you will, in chapter four and verse thirty one, which is describing the sin offering for the common people. Note, if you will, what verse thirty one says, that all the fat thereof of this sin offering he shall take away, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offering, and the priest shall burn it upon the altar. Ha. Listen to what it says. For a sweet savor unto the Lord. Yes. Good to check up on the theologians. You see, it is the fact, let's grant them that, that there are these two major sides to the work of Christ. The one in which he offered himself without spot to God, to the very delight of God's heart, and the other when he bore our sin and the face of God had to be averted from him. It is true, isn't it, in general, if you look at the gospels in the New Testament. Two of those gospels, Matthew and Mark, record that when our Lord died, there came that great darkness, and he cried in the bitterness of his heart the cry of desolation, why hast thou forsaken me? Two other gospels record the story of the cross, but they don't mention the cry of dereliction. They are Luke, who's telling us about our Lord who made peace by his death, and John, who's telling us of him who did the will of God perfectly and offered himself as a burnt offering to God. That is in general true. The glorious thing, my dear brother and sister, is this, that even in those dark moments, when God, as the universal judge of all mankind, had to bruise him and put him to grief for our sins, and turned his holy face away from that terrible scene, and yet, and yet, all the magnificence of it, you'd scarce believe it unless God told you, that when Jesus Christ died for my sin, then God was pleased with it. Therefore does my Father love me, that I lay down my life for the sheep. Oh, my brother, just for a moment, take it in if you possibly can. Say to yourself, why I, I, Josephine Smith, and Jesus Christ lay down his life for me. That's magnificent. Just you imagine it. That God loves him for doing it. And will love him for eternity. That he laid down his life for you, Josephine Smith. Magnificent, isn't it? Mm-hmm. And then, of course, if we check up on these theologians a little bit more, we shall observe that when they say that the burnt offering is the chiefest of all the offerings, they're perfectly correct, and it went up to God for an offering of a sweet smelling savor, so it did. But as we saw in our second study, that great burnt offering sacrifice, Leviticus chapter one, was offered to make atonement. It was an offering for sin. And therefore, of course, we are obliged tonight to say, aren't we, to ourselves, well, now wait a minute, just let's get this square. We're going to deal tonight with the sin offering, and it points to the fact that the Lord Jesus died for our sins. But wait a minute, if the burnt offering also was offered to make atonement for sin, and the chapter says it explicitly, there's get it no getting rounded. Offered as a ransom for sin. What is the difference between the burnt offering and this sin offering? Why do we need two offerings to effect a ransom for sin? As far as our sin offering tonight is concerned, then we shall notice this, that it is concerned with the stain of sin, this is the sacrifice that preeminently above all sacrifices concentrates our thought on the blood of the sacrifice. We noticed as one means of checking on our understanding of these sacrifices that the occurrence of that little word all in these sundry sacrifices is exceedingly significant. In the first sacrifice, the burnt offering, here it comes, you shall offer all of it on the altar without reserve. It speaks of the devotion of Christ who loved the Lord his God with all his mind, soul, and strength, and his neighbor as himself. And then in the meal offering, the priest was to take a handful of the oil and a handful of the flour and offer it on the altar with all the incense. The incense was regarded as being totally for God, whereas the rest of the sacrifice was given back to the priest, telling us that there are things about the person of our Lord Jesus that are solely understood by God and for God only. No man knows the Son, says Holy Scripture, save the Father. In the peace offering we were reading last week, it was not the whole offering offered, nor all the frankincense. What we noticed last week was that when they offered the peace offering, all the fat had to go to God. The fat was the very best of that sacrifice. And we saw all sorts of significance in the parts of the body from which that fat was taken. Tonight we come to the sin offering, and where will it place the little word all? Why, just here. You shall take the blood, you shall sprinkle some before the veil and on it, some you shall smear on the horns of the altar of incense, and you shall come out to the big altar, and you shall pour all the blood. All the blood. Tonight, therefore, we are to think very, very much about the blood of this sacrifice and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice that the blood of Jesus Christ, what does it do? It cleanses from all sin. And with inspired insight into the accuracy of the Old Testament, the writer to the Hebrews picks up the idea. He says, my fellow Christians, have you not noticed that under the law, I may almost say that all things are cleansed by blood? That under the law, the very tabernacle of God had to be cleansed. It was cleansed by blood. As the priest took the blood of the sacrifice into the holy place, and he sprinkled it on the veil, and he sprinkled it and smeared it on the horns of the altar. Why was he doing that? Leviticus chapter sixteen, where it describes the great sacrifices of Day of Atonement, where they were in their central parts sin offerings, tells you, says, God, you must burn these, you, you must offer these sin offerings, you must bring the blood into the holy place on the day of atonement, into the holiest of all. You must make atonement for the tabernacle, and you shall cleanse the tabernacle that remains among my people in all their uncleanness. Now the Holy Spirit is beginning to set the practical scene. Why did they need a sin offering? Oh, they needed a sin offering to deal with this particular aspect of sin, the fact that sin stains. Does, doesn't it? I don't know how you felt as we read that constantly repeated fray- refrain in chapter four, the beginning of chapter five. Speak unto Israel and say unto them, if any man sin, ah, if a ruler sin, yes, if the priest that is anointed sin, yes, if any one of the common people sin, if the whole congregation sin, ah, what a plague the whole business is. We prick up our ears, we recognize how practical the problem is. What happens if a man sin? Is that a problem to you? Well, thank God it is. Hm. For all I know, it didn't used to be. There were days when some of you didn't care tuppence what happened if a man sinned. What made the difference? Yeah, curious. Precisely because you trusted the Savior, and you say, I have eternal forgiveness of sins in Christ. Marvelous. Well, what are you worried about then? Oh yes, you say, but you know, believers shouldn't sin, should they? Well, no, they shouldn't. And alas, I've gone and sinned. Ah? Well, you say, what now happens if as a believer I sin? Well, that's a very big point, isn't it? I am delighted to see that that worries you. And a very healthy sign on the whole. It will be a bad day, my brother, my sister, if you weren't concerned to know what the answer to that question is. What happens if a believer sins? Oh, you already know the answer. What happens? Ah, you say, how do I live and die by this marvelous, marvelous truth? The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You say to me, I shall go home to glory at last, forgetting a lot of my o- my theology and all about Ezekiel as I lie on my deathbed, and I shall be saying to myself, ah, herein is all my hope, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses me from all sin. And you say, I'm glad as a Christian because, you see, when I sin, I don't have to bring another sacrifice like those Israelites brought. When they sinned, oh, the thing was endless. They always had to keep bringing another sacrifice. We'll say, I as a Christian, oh, how favored I am. I don't have to bring another sacrifice when I sin. Christ offered himself once and for all to cover my sin. And as Hebrews ten puts it, there's not only now no longer any more sacrifice, there is no more offering. You don't have to keep offering another sacrifice. So it's all finished, you think? Well, that's rather easy, isn't it? Have you had anybody object to you to that? It is rather easy as Christians, after all, it doesn't amount to much then if you sin. I mean, it's already been paid for, it doesn't really matter much, and so I suppose you go out and, uh, carry on sinning on the whole, because I mean, if you sin, what does it matter much really, because it's all been paid for. How do you explain that kind of thing to your non-Christian friend? And say, ah, ah, wait a minute, my dear friend, no, it doesn't work that way round. The fact that I know my sins are forgiven doesn't mean that I grow careless about sin. How do you explain it all? It's true, isn't it? As I repeat, you sit here tonight knowing that all your sins are forgiven and that you are right with God. You shall never come into the wrath of God, and yet when you sin, my brother and my sister, you are concerned, aren't you? What happens if I sin as a believer? I can tell you what happens. It stains you. Am I not talking sense? It defiles your conscience. Listen to Paul discussing with his fellow believers at Corinth the question of what foods they should eat or not eat, and whether you could eat things sacrificed to idols or not. And Paul is learnedly explaining all the technical information that lies behind the answer, and he says, but you'll be have to go very carefully with some of your fellow believers because they haven't got all the knowledge that you have, and if you were to persuade them to eat something offered to idols, they do it because you made them do it, but they still have a bad conscience about it, you know. And if they do something with a bad conscience, then what happens? Their conscience, being weak, he says, is defiled. Yeah. The stain of it. Here was the transcendent Lord come down to dwell amongst his people. He'd redeemed them out of Egypt. He'd come to dwell among them. Here he was inviting them to approach his presence and come and serve him, come and get to know him and see the marvels of his glory and the glitter and the gold and the blue and the purple, telling us of the beauty of his holiness and the awesomeness of his holiness, and inviting them to come and get to know him. And here's an Israelite, and he's on his way of a Sabbath, maybe, to come with the rest of the congregation to the tent of meeting to have fellowship with God. And at breakfast time, you know how these things, well, you wouldn't, but in some families they do. Ah, he had a little tiff with his wife over the cornflakes or something, he'd forgotten the milk or something, and before you know where you were, there was a angry words over the table, and uh, and uh, then followed by that uncomfortable kind of a feeling. I was wrong there, lost my temper again, and selfish man that I am, and uh, oh, oh, oh, now, now I've got to go and praise the Lord. What's wrong? Well, you can be who you like. It's defiled your conscience, hasn't it? And as a believer, you don't feel too good about it. You wouldn't mind going and uh, digging the garden for the Lord, digging up a few carrots and doing a little penance in the garden, but to come into the divine presence and devote a hymn and sing. Sin has... stained. Yes? What then? All listen to the exact phraseology of Hebrews chapter nine. He's talking to believers, you see. He's not now urging unregenerate men and women living wild, loose lives to flee from the wrath to come. He's talking to his fellow believers, or at least those who profess to be fellow believers, and he says, you know, if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer sanctify to the cleansing of the flesh. How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works? So that I can go to heaven. No, no. Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. We are under obligation, my brother, my sister, to serve the living God, to serve him in our worship, in our praise, to serve him in our actions, yes. He has called us, he has summoned us to come and worship. Oh, thank God for the provision he has made for his failing people whose consciences get stained. Listen to it, if the blood of bulls sanctified to the cleansing of the flesh, pray, notice those next words, how much, how much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? This is not to make light of sin, as we shall see in a moment, but here is gospel message. Oh, remember the other, other Sunday? You, you didn't pull out your wife over the cornflakes. You were back when you came to worship the Lord with his people, you were jolly good. Uh, in fact, feeling that, uh, yesterday you had witnessed for the Lord very courageously. You were being pretty pleased with yourself. What ho. And, uh, in fact, this morning you'd been solemnly reading a Bible. That ought to count for something. And as you came into the presence of the Lord, the Lord, uh, said, I'm lovely to see you. I accept you because you are such a sterling good witness. Did he? Oh, my brother, my sister, so you might have felt. Oh, could you see yourself as God sees? In the very best of our service, stained still with sin. And in the moment of our greatest spiritual success, we come to serve God in his presence solely on the basis of the blood of Christ, isn't it? We come as our Lord exhorted us after we have done all our toil and the best we can do, and we cry we are unprofitable servants. What can we say? We've left undone the things we should have done and done things that we shouldn't have done. At best, we've only done our duty. We can always and never otherwise and solely on the basis of the blood of Christ. But see its value, how much more. Cleansing us to serve. But now you will observe that when the priest bought his sacrifice, and here we might, uh, pause to notice that there were several grades of this sacrifice, according to whether the man who had sinned was a priest or a commoner or a ruler, or that was the whole congregation. We tonight are going to confine ourselves to the offering that was offered by the priest. If the anointed priest do sin. Now, it is true in Israel that all priests were anointed. It is conceivable that on this occasion, the priest concerned was the high priest, and therefore is dignified with his title, the anointed priest. That won't serve us very well because our high priest, he never did sin. That's the difference between him and Israel's high priest. It'll do very well for us who are ordinary priests, and of course every believer is a priest. Aren't you an anointed priest? Why, of course you are. All believers are anointed priests, so we're going to follow what happened in Israel when an anointed priest did sin. And we shall notice this. It involved that man in a journey, in a pilgrimage. Let me go over its stages briefly. He was told he had to bring his sacrifice to the door of tent of meeting and kill it by the altar. So there he was. Can you imagine the tabernacle? There is the big court with its linen curtains around, and there standing out prominent is the big altar, and then there's the laver, and he comes here and brings his sacrifice, and there it is killed. Then he is told he's to take the blood, the very next thing he is to do is to take the blood and go into the tabernacle, into the holy place, right up to the veil, and sprinkle the blood on that veil. That's quite a journey in itself, isn't it? And having done that, he turns around and begins to come out again, and this time, as he comes out, he takes of the blood and he smears it on the horns of the incense altar that is standing in front of that veil. Now he's begun his journey back. And then, says the Holy Spirit, and when you get outside now, you shall take all the blood, that is all the rest of the blood, and you shall pour it at the base of the altar. So now he's come back to where he started from. Not a bad thing to do sometimes. Even so, his journey isn't finished. And now, says God, you should carry the, the beast itself, its body, apart from the fat, you should carry the beast outside the gate, outside the camp, to a clean place where the ashes are poured out, and there shall you bury it. It involved the priest in a journey. Let's follow him in his journey very briefly and see what he saw. See whether it means anything to us, if any man sin. Ah, you say I'm covered by the blood of Christ. How much more shall that blood cleanse my conscience, and I come now into the presence of God? So you do, my brother. Oh, so you do. You're welcome to come, and God takes your hand, says, come with me, my child. Come and stand here a moment. Come and stand by this altar. And here comes, half skipping, half reluctant, a young bullock. Interesting, isn't it? Because in the other sacrifices, they were bullocks. Whether they were male or female was important, and of course they had to be without blemish. And now for the first time we read, it had to be a young bullock. And says, God, you shall kill it, not offer it, kill it. What a vivid picture. I was a farmer's boy at one stage in my career. For four years, that is my sum total of knowledge about these things. I used to watch the young bucks when they were let out. What crazy things they were, huh? They jumped and they pranced, they couldn't keep still two seconds at a time for the sheer joy of living, you know. They were comical objects, all legs, you might think, but when they got out on the meadows, oh, just the thought they were alive, and they were jumping all over the place, full of vim and life and kicking up the legs and wow. Not like us old codgers, you know, really full of life and energy. Mm, not always knowing what to do with it, but there you are, very much alive. We shall take a young bullock and kill him. When an elderly person comes to ninety three and a half and death comes, well, of course, in one sense it's a sad result of the fall, isn't it? But then in another sense, as the Bible will put it, they're like a sheaf of ripe corn, and in a sense, well, it's an end to their aches and pains and their troubles and their trials. We're not always altogether sorry, certainly not for them, that they go. Take a young man, a young woman of seventeen, full of life, and some terrible thug, some maniac takes a knife and plunges it in her jugular vein, and you're horrified that that life, that young life, so thrown away. Come and stand here, says God, and see him whom your sin. He who would love long life and see good days, let him keep his mouth from speaking guile. And our Lord had done it. They tell us he was about thirty three when he died, in the full bloom of sinless manhood. Oh, what a ghastly murder a sin is. It took that lovely young life and killed it. You know, there is a temptation that assails us sometimes, particularly as younger folks, that a little bit of sin, as long as you're discriminating, can add a little zest to life. What? Make life a bit more interesting. Help you to get more out of life. Ah, but that's a lie and a delusion. Sin, when it is finished, it brings forth death. Stand there. Kill it, says God, before the Lord. The eye of God consciously upon you. And you confessing yourself that you're responsible for this thing. Before the Lord. I had a distant relative at one stage. He was out on the farm, shooting with his young friend. He didn't intend to do it, but accidentally the gun went off because he mishandled it, and it shot his young friend. You imagine what the boy felt like when he had to come and stand in front of the parents whose child he had killed. What do you say? Who say if any man sin, yes, we have an advocate. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. So it does, says God, my child. Come, come now, come and stand with me, and stand by Calvary a while, and stand with my eye and see your sin kill my son. After that, we don't sin quite so readily again. And when it is done, take the blood, says God, and come bring it into the holy place and sprinkle it on the veil. Now that's a lovely thing. For do you see the priest any ordinary day of the week, except on the Day of Atonement once a year, the priest couldn't go into the Most Holy. The most innermost part of the tabernacle he could go to on ordinary days in the year was up to and as far as the veil. That's as near as God as he was allowed to come in those far off days. Do you see what God is saying? Come, my man. Fresh from the altar. Come. Right into my presence, as near as me as you can ever possibly be allowed to come on earth. Come and stand by the very bed. Do you know that little fact? I have r- taken comfort over many years. I don't know about you, uh, but I'm among friends, let me confess the worst. When I have sinned on times, and you know what sin does to a believer, it smudges his conscience and makes him feel bad, yes. And I have sort of had the feeling, I don't know about you, but, well, look, perhaps I'd better stay at a little distance for a while, and it wouldn't be too good to come right into the presence of God just too quickly. You know how it is. I said, what a ga- how stupid I am. You don't, but some people do. When they've fallen out with somebody, you see. Here's a chappy, and he's fallen out with his brother, and they've had loud words and called each- each other everything under the sun, and there's been a great explosion, and they've gone off on a path. And then after it's died down, they've felt better about it, but uh, they don't immediately and forthwith say, well, shall we go out for a walk together? They sort of feel, well, perhaps I'll keep away for a week or two, and then uh, perhaps we'll just meet him casually, perhaps at a church, and uh, and then uh, gradually we'll, we'll come back gradually to see when the old feeling has gone all off a bit. Do you know I used to feel like that about God, how stupid I was? I sinned against God. Well, I better keep at a distance for a while. It wouldn't be good to come into the Lord's presence too far, you know, too near just yet. I better keep at a distance a while. What a stupid notion. No, my brother, if you've sinned, you're not safe to stay at a distance. Says God, you come here, my boy, come right in, come as near to me as you can get, that's the safest place for you, come stand here. If you sinned just this afternoon, and in genuine repentance you have confessed it to the Lord all this very moment, you don't have to wave. Come and stand. You can come and stand in the very holiest of all. It's the safest place you could possibly come to stand. Don't stay away, will you? Men and women have made grievous mistakes there. They've failed, they've fallen down, they've blotted their copy book, and they feel so ashamed of themselves that they've gone away from the Lord. They didn't feel good enough to stay, and being away from the Lord, they've lost their Christian joy, and losing their Christian joy, they've lost heart, and they say, well, what's the good of me pretending to be anything? And they've gone further into sin. Oh, dear friend, the opposite is true. Because of the blood of Christ, the moment you confess that sin, you come right in, bad as you might think. Ah, but notice what it means. For to come to that veil, you've got to come into the holy place, and there in that holy place, in all its quiet, is shining that seven-branched golden lampstand. I say. So here comes a priest, full of the feeling he's a feeling bad over his sin, and now he's got to come and walk in the light. Very clear, isn't it? That's what John says too, doesn't he? Do you know, my brothers and sisters, he says, we are sinners, you know, but this is what we're meant to do. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from sin. If we, notice the verb, not if we come to the light, if we walk in it. You see, that's a serious matter, isn't it? To walk in the light, I tell you straight, it will expose you. As we see from the stories recorded in John chapter eight, where our Lord Jesus says, I am the light of this world. And there came some evil men bringing a woman taken in adultery, and they said, Master, what do you say? Moses said that she ought to be stoned. What do you say, Master? And he said, Right, old gentleman, you that are without sin, cast the first stone at her. Now they found out it was true, he was the light of the world. And with a few moments' thought, they turned round and walked out. You say that proclaims they're sinners. It does indeed. Stupid men. Why didn't they stay? They knew without being told that had they dared stay, they would have exposed them. So they went off. There was a woman left. Oh, poor woman. Couldn't hide anything now. Standing in the blaze of the light of incarnate. What a thing. Everything exposed. But it's a blessed thing to do. Or if we're prepared to come and walk in the light and be extra, we too shall know the comfort that our Lord gave to that dear woman when he said, neither do I condemn. But we must come and walk in it, that that light might constantly show us up and penetrate our conscience and penetrate our minds and expose what is wrong and bring us to confession. This is the mark of the true believer. This is why forgiveness is no cheap thing. This is why when a person is forgiven, really forgiven, they don't go out and live carelessly, because these are the conditions. If you walk in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. It is for men and women that are prepared not only to come to Christ, to to stick with Christ. If you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples, really. That's what it means to be a believer, to walk with Christ, to walk in the light, and as we do it, the light exposes us, and as it exposes us, there is forgiveness of course, and the beginnings of forsaking of sin. Come and stand here, says God, and stand by that veil. Ooh. Ooh. You would have been interested to do it, of course, wouldn't you? You ladies would. I see you going in. I think I can now. Go up to that veil. Mm. More even than the, than the lampstand, perhaps. Oh, you'll say, look at that thread. I wonder how, oh, I wonder how the women in those days managed that embroidery. Look at those cherubins. Oh, ah, yes, and they're shaded under the eyes, aren't they? And cool, that almost looks real, that. Oh, they're beautiful colors. Yeah. As you stood there by that lovely veil, you might even have been saying to yourself, how lovely God must be. We can't see him direct, but there he is behind that veil, and this veil conveys to us something of the glory of God. It does that. So do those cherubim. They pronounce something about the holiness of God that kept our fallen mother and father, Adam and Eve, out of the garden, didn't they? Oh, the holiness of God. And the Bible tells us that that veil is a picture of the flesh of our Lord Jesus, that is, of our Lord Jesus in the day of his humanity. And here I come fresh from my mistake and failure and my miserable, tainted conscience, forgiven, and God says, you better come and stand and look at my lovely son. You say, God, I'm not worthy to come and associate. No, says God, I know that, but would you mind now stopping now talking about yourself? You know, you talk about yourself too much. Some of us, when we have sinned, are hard-hearted, we need to be brought to confess it. And some of us, when we've sinned, we get so preoccupied with our sin that every time we come into God's presence, we're telling God we are a lot, a horrible lot, a horrible lot, a horrible... I am a horrible lot, Lord. I fancy the Lord might be saying, who knows? I wish you'd keep quiet. I knew that before. You told me that ten thousand times. I know you're horrible. Stop talking about yourself, man. Talk about something beautiful. Talk about my son and all the beauty of his life, and get your mind engrossed with every stitch in his life. The very beauty of it makes you forget yourself. And as a man thinks in his heart, so is he, and gazing on the glory of God, says Paul, in the face of Jesus Christ, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Isn't that so? Even as by the Lord, the Spirit. This is God's way of both forgiving us, ah, but making us holy. Holy. And see that lovely life. Go on, splash the blood right across it. So that spoils it. And then once more it's born into my content, yes, that lovely life. For For me. Christ in life was for me, and he gave his life for me. Blood on the bed. I gather that Peter is saying the same kind of thing, isn't he? He says, my brethren, you know God is very critical about the way you live. He's the judge that judges righteously. He's very critical. Why is he critical of the way you live, Peter? Because of this. Your lives, you know, were very vain, empty before you got converted. But God has redeemed your life by the precious blood of Christ, the blood of a lamb without blemish and without spot. God gave that blood for you. Turn round, says God, put the, uh, blood now, priest man, put the blood on the horns of that incense altar. And he didn't stay long, but we can enjoy the wonder of it. For the incense altar was the altar of prayer, where daily intercessions were made upon for the people of God by the trees. And it points us to what John says. If any man sin, he is an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. He it is that maintains our fellowship with God, and that uncleanliness that would have defiled the very presence of God and made it impossible for God to keep with us. His blessed blood, as the propitiation for our sins, deals with the uncleanliness and makes it possible for God to continue with his failing. Christ in life for me, the veil for me. Christ risen, interceding for me. Oh, what a God this is. You can't move a finger and a foot, but what he's got some, some part of his great salvation ready to save you, isn't it so? Christ in life, the veil, his flesh for me a ransom for all. Christ risen, interceding for me. Right, says God, and now you'll come back to where you start. Where you started was that altar. Come back, priest, take the blood, pour it all, all of it, every drop of it. Oh, but God, I've only done one sin just now. The mind says, God, all of that. My brothers, my sisters, it's a good thing to come back where we started, isn't it? However far we've advanced on the road of spiritual improvement. Methinks that's why our blessed Lord had us at least once a week come and remember him under the form of bread and wine, and we come back to where our salvation started. Ah, but I see some of you with silvery hair. Ah, my brother, my sister, when you come, you're different from us youngsters. We've learned that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and why grateful we are. Ah, but you come with sixty years experience of the Savior, and the Holy Spirit has so very often shown you his superlative glories, the magnificence of his life, and when you come and take that humble loaf of bread, it tells you of a Savior, and you've seen so much more in him than I ever have seen. And then you see how God, his son, not sparing, gave him to die. The glory increases as the weeks of life go by. And we're not finished with the journey. Now says God, my dear priest man, the blood brought you into my presence. But so that you could come into the presence, the sacrifice had to go out. Come, take the body of the animal, take it outside the gate, outside the camp, unto the clean place. Burn it in the fire where the ashes are poured out. When the fire has burnt the sacrifice and you come to the ashes, there's nothing left to burn. Thou hast brought me, says the prophetic word, thou hast brought me to the dust of death. To our ancient Jewish brethren, it was a stone work brought up in a temple with all its glories, God-given ritual, and its constant offering of sacrifices. Now, says God, but if you want my son as your savior, you will have to leave it and come out. You cannot both have those continual sacrifices in the temple constantly offered, and the sacrifice of my son. You cannot stand with a Jerusalem that murdered the Lord Jesus and have the Jesus as your savior. You want him as your sin offering. He suffered outside camp and gate. You must come forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. Still today we must do it. Christendom has not always got it clear what the gospel really is. If we depend on Christ our Savior and his sacrifice, we must stand with him and stand clear of anything that would compromise the basics of the gospel and the efficacy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.