Gooding, David: 2 - Obedience unto Death

And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When any man of you offereth an oblation unto the Lord, you shall offer your oblation of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock. If his oblation be a burnt offering of the herd, he shall offer it a male without blemish. He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Perhaps we could interrupt our reading to notice that phrase. It is important and sometimes overlooked. Of this offering, it is true, as of others, it was offered to make atonement for the offerer. Indeed, it was the chief sacrifice to pay the ransom price of sin. Whereas in consequent studies we shall come across a sin offering, we shall there find it has to do with the purification of sin. This has to do with the ransom price of sin. And because that is sometimes forgotten when people study this first sacrifice, let us pay, pay special attention to the phrase, this burnt offering was offered to make atonement for the offerer. And he that is the offerer shall kill the bullock before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall present the blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar and lay wood in order upon the fire. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall lay the pieces, the head and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But its inwards and its legs shall he wash with water, and the priests shall burn the whole on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his oblation be of the flock, of the sheep or of the goats for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle its blood upon the altar round about, and he shall cut it into its pieces with its head and its fat, and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar, but the inwards and the legs shall he wash with water, and the priest shall offer the whole and burn it upon the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his oblation to the Lord be a burnt offering of fowls, then he shall offer his oblation of turtledoves or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar and wring off its head and burn it upon the altar. And the blood thereof shall be drained out on the side of the altar. And he shall take away its crop with the filth thereof and cast it beside the altar on the east part in the place of the ashes. And he shall rend it by the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder. And the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And may the Lord give us good understanding of his holy word. On Tuesday night, when we introduced ourselves to this study, we noticed that the offerings that are described here in the early chapters of Leviticus were offerings used by Israel in their approach to God. For Israel, redeemed out of Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb, was subsequently invited by God to become a kingdom of priests and to minister to God's pleasure and satisfaction, as God himself came down and dwelt among them in the ancient tabernacle. So these offerings were used in that delightful occupation, as God Almighty came down and displayed before his people the wonder of his holiness, the awesomeness of that holiness, and the beauty of that holiness, and invited his people to come near and to enjoy him and enjoy his fellowship. And of course, as they came to enjoy the fellowship of God their Redeemer, they would feel it right and proper that they should not come empty-handed, but come bringing their gifts, sacrifices that might be pleasurable to God, their Redeemer. We saw likewise, of course, that as they came to have fellowship with God like that, and began to perceive something of the unimaginable holiness of God, then they, by contrast, could feel smitten in their conscience. And the nearer they came to God and all the glory and the beauty of his holiness, the more they would feel in themselves inadequate and abnormal and unclean and tated. And would feel need not merely to bring God gifts, but feel special need for some sacrifice that might cover their abysmal need, even as the redeemed people of God, sacrifices to cover their shortcomings and their abnormalities and unworthiness. And so it was that we as Christians began to see all kinds of parallels between that ancient institution of sacrifice and what our blessed Lord Jesus Christ has done and is doing for us. For we being redeemed, are like Israel, invited to approach God, not now in some earthly little tabernacle on the desert sand of Sinai. We are given grace and invitation to come into the very holiest of that true tabernacle that the Lord has pitched and not man. And the wonder is that every believer, cleansed by the blood of Christ, his body bathed with pure water of regeneration, and with a high priest over the house of God, may rise in spirit, and then to the very holiest of all in the presence of God. It is a fantastic wonder. God forbid that we should ever become over familiar with the opportunity that God gives us in that great privilege. And as we come, and God by his Holy Spirit begins to show some us something of his holiness, something of its awesomeness, something of its beauty, we shall find our hearts, so to speak, cut in two. The half of us will respond eagerly to see the glory of the Lord, and we shall say, like the psalmist, one thing have I desired, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. And our hearts will think forward to that glorious time when, free from all limitation and sin and defilement, we shall be able to go home to achieve the whole object for which we were created, that beatific vision, to be able to gaze without intermediary upon the very face of God. And now we see in a glass darkly. And oh, my brothers, my sisters, what will it be when at last we see him face to face? And yet, as our hearts respond eagerly, the other side of us will feel surely ashamed and inadequate. The more we perceive God's holiness, the more we shall realize how unholy we are. How twisted. What abnormalities there are about us. How unclean. We too shall feel a need for a sacrifice to cover our inadequacies, not merely now because we are afraid of the wrath of God. Indeed, in spite of the fact that we know that Christ's sacrifice has removed the penalty of sin from us forever, and there is no penalty, and yet to come and dwell amongst the everlasting burnings of the holiness of God will make us feel ashamed. We shall find the need of a sacrifice that will cover our need as believers who still fall short of the glory of God. And as we so come, and as we so feel, God will point us to our blessed Lord. Not that we have to keep on offering his offering. Thank God he has offered it once and for all. But my brother, my sister, there is infinitely more in that sacrifice of Christ than ever we thought of the first day we came as sinners to the Savior. Then we rejoiced in the fact that his sacrifice took away the penalty of sin. That was glorious and remains true. As life goes on, we shall see there was more in his sacrifice than that, enough to cover all our need, not only as sinners, but as saints, and not only as saints, but as servants of God. And then we noticed on Tuesday that not only will the Lord point us to the sacrifice of Christ, that thus enables us to come into the presence of God without fear. As we do that, the Holy Spirit will begin to point us to another thing, to the beauty of the life of the Lord Jesus that qualified him to die as a sacrifice for our sins. For a moment's thought will remind us that in order to be able to act as a sacrifice for us, our Lord had to be perfectly qualified in his life. And so another thing will happen. As we come to God and we begin to worship him, and then we sense how far we come short of his divine perfection, and we turn once more eagerly to the great sacrifice of Christ that covers us in the presence of God. Then we shall begin to think again of how perfect Christ must have been when he lived here in order to become a sacrifice. And by very contrast with our own shortcomings, our admiration of the Lord Jesus will increase. Oh, you know, when you've been struggling at the piano, doing your level best, and two fingers of, you know, at once have been difficult enough, and you've been trying to work a third, three fingers at once, and you're feeling almost like an expert until you come to a dead halt, and then the real expert comes and says, shall I play it for you? Ooh. Now, because you've tried it yourself and come all unstuck, and the notes have jarred, and you've got it all bungled. Now, when the expert sits down and plays it for you, now you see what you wouldn't have seen if you hadn't tried yourself. You know the difficulty of playing that confoundedly complicated bit of Tchaikovsky, and he does it, and oh, he makes it look so easy. And you admire it, don't you? And when we'd done our best to live as we should to the praise of God and got it all wrong and muddled up and bungled. And then the Lord points us to the Lord Jesus, and we see what we wouldn't have seen without life's experience. Oh, what a past master at living he was. And because we know the difficulty, the more are our hearts filled with the admiration of the Savior. And little by little, perhaps without our knowing it, as our hearts are carried away with admiration of him, the Holy Spirit is doing his job and beginning to change us into the likeness of the Savior. So let's take then this first offering now and see what it shall tell us about the Lord Jesus. But perhaps as we do so, I better a- answer one more possible objection to the use of these sacrifices as pictures of the Lord Jesus. I suspect most of you, at any rate, will agree with me readily. Yes, of course, in some general way, we may expect these sacrifices to picture the Lord Jesus. But you're hoping in your heart of hearts, maybe, that the preacher doesn't go too far. Hope he doesn't start taking corns and livers and kidneys and things and saying there's some particular significance in them, because isn't that taking things a wee bit too far? And isn't it a little bit grotesque to think an odd kidney here and a gall there and a liver somewhere else could ever illustrate anything about the Lord Jesus? Well, I know how you feel, and I shall seek to respect your feelings as much as I can and restrain my imagination as I ought. But just one thing it seems to me we should remember that may help us in our study and our use of these, uh, pictures, and that is this, that unlike ourselves, the ancient Israelites, when they came to describe psychological states, states of mind and heart and emotion within the human being, you have probably noticed that when they came to describe and speak of such psychological things, they often used not scientific terms like we do, they used simple, humble little terms, physical terms of the body, in fact. They used physical, bodily terms to speak about psychological and emotional phenomena. You've noticed that in your reading of the New Testament, haven't you? And we shan't call the New Testament fanciful. Of course we shan't. Paul says in Ephesians chapter one, doesn't he? And verse eighteen, like this, says he, I pray to the Father that he might give you a spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, the eyes of your... And if you've got a modern translation, it probably says the eyes of your mind or something being illuminated, where the Greek says the eyes of your heart. Because when the a- ancient Israelites thought of our understanding, that deep understanding that goes deeper than mere logic or IQ, that profound understanding that involves the whole man. Then they talk of a man understanding with his heart, not just with his head. So does the apostle pray that the eyes of your heart, he isn't beginning to think that if you could only see our heart inside our chests here, you'd see some eyes in it. It's become a metaphor, hasn't it? A s- a psychological idea based on a physical term, the eyes of your heart. Or if you care to remember how Po- Paul talks in Philippians chapter one verse eighteen, he is assuring his fellow believers in Philippi how much he feels for them. And he says, I would like you to know how much I long after you in the... Now, excuse the language, it doesn't sound very drawing room, but never mind, I didn't write it. I long after you, he says, in the bowels of Jesus Christ. You refined folks in Bangor don't talk like that nowadays, do you? You say something, how tenderly affectionate I am for you. The ancient Hebrew spoke in a very simple and direct way when he wanted to indicate that, uh, tender, almost emotional, but tender heart of love and affection that makes us moved for somebody, glad at their joy, disturbed and moved at their sorrow and pain. They said they called it their bowels, and if one might hazard a guess why they did so, I think it was just this, don't you? That if you really get moved in sympathy for folks, you'll feel sometimes a kind of a sympathetic nervous reaction down in the lower quarters of the body. Isn't that true? So that's why the Hebrews talked of tender sympathy and love under the term of the bowels. What about kidneys? There is a famous verse, isn't there, in the book of the Revelation. It is chapter two and twenty three, where the Lord himself, no less, says, and you shall know that I am the Lord that searches the kidneys. Might ask if he searched your kidneys just recently. Kidneys, you say? What's the Lord interested in my kidneys for? Well, not literal kidneys, of course not. But then, just as the ancients realized that in the human frame or in the animal body, there are deep-seated organs working mysteriously, and to the ancients very mysteriously, but purging out all the tainted things and keeping the body pure and healthy and holy. So they thought of our psychological mechanism, that deep within us there are all sorts of profound motives going on, aren't there? And in those dark recesses where our deepest motives run, that control our action and our outlook, I, the Lord, search those deep motivations of the heart, says he. Those profound thoughts, those things that we don't normally tell anybody else, our ambitions and our envies and our machinations. I, the Lord, search the kidneys. And of course, the modern translations have got over that for you, and they say something like, I, the Lord, search the heart or something, or the mind, or if you've got an authorized version, I the Lord search the reins, which is a very polite English word based on an even politer Latin word, which simply means kidneys. You will remember maybe in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew records in chapter twenty verse fifteen a parable that our Lord spoke about the workmen that were hired at different times in the day, and then they came to receive their wages at the end of the day, and those that had worked only an hour got a full penny. Then came those that had worked all twelve hours, and they thought they were going to get twelve times as much, but they only got a penny, and they were sorely upset. Said the Lord of the vineyard, but you have no reason to get upset, gentlemen. You covenanted with me to work the whole day for a penny, and I've given you a penny, look. I know these other folks have only worked an hour, but that wasn't their fault. Nobody hired them before. So I'm going to give them a penny, just as I give you. I'm choosing to be not merely just, I'm choosing to be positively good and generous. Then said the lord of the vineyard to the other men, and is your eye evil because I am good? Your eye evil. Didn't mean their literal eyes, did he? But you see, when the Hebrews talked of an evil eye, they weren't talking of witchcraft, they were talking of jealousy and envy. Have you seen two youngsters at a birthday party, and one has been dished out with a whole lot of cake, and the other one thinks he hasn't got as much cake as the first one, and and, as we say in English, he eyes the other one, doesn't he? Oh, look what he's got. And the ancients, in their simplicity, picked that up, you'll see, and they talked about an evil eye to describe and to denote what we mean as envy. If we can bring ourselves to that kind of humble way of thinking, we shall see how perhaps for an Israelite it was much easier, as he realized that the inner workings of his own heart, his own psychology, were unworthy and abnormal, perhaps, and tainted. When he brought his sacrifice, he was concerned to see not only that it looked perfect from the outside, but when the thing was cut up and its inward parts were exposed, they too were found healthy and in order. So we shall take leave from time to time, not excessively, I hope, to think about these details of sacrifices. They shall point us to our own inner states and point us also to the Lord Jesus. So with that, let's come to this first sacrifice. What does it particularly represent? And we may take our start once more by noticing its name. It was a burnt offering, and in the Hebrew language it means an offering that went up to God as it burned on the altar. The smoke, so to speak, the smell, the fragrance of it ascended to God for God's enjoyment and satisfaction. And then we shall notice that this particular offering had this special feature. This was the offering alone amongst all of them that was offered, all of it, in its entirety, the whole of it was offered to God. That is to say, with the exception of the skin, which was reserved for the priest, the rest of the animal offered wholly to God. Then we shall notice in the third place, it was offered to make atonement for sin. And finally, we shall notice that of these particular offerings, it stands as the first one. Let's put that together. An offering that was for God, the whole of it. Standing first, obviously standing first, because God comes first and must come first. And if we're coming to his presence to look upon the glory of his holiness, first it must be, thy name be hallowed, thy will be done. God first must be satisfied. And in that connection, let us observe again, it not only went up to God for God's satisfaction, but the whole of it went up, all of it. I can imagine an ignorant man from Galilee in later years, can't you, coming down, and he got his offerings a bit mistaken. He wanted to give an offering to the Lord, and he meant to give a peace offering, you see, and he comes to the priest with his, uh, little goat or something, and he says to the priest, I want to offer a burnt offering. And he really meant, but he got it all muddled up, a peace offering. But he said a burnt offering. And as he stood there, and the burnt animal was carved up, and there were the pieces, and, uh, he was expecting the priest to take one bit and put that on the altar, and then to get the rest of it and give it back to him. And to his amazement, as he stood there with the bits on the ground, the priest took the first bit and put that on, uh, and then the priest got the next bit, put that on as well. Ooh. And then the priest got the third bit, and that went on. Oh, says the member, wait a minute, wait a minute, uh, where's my bit coming? Oh no, my son, says the priest, that all has to go. No, no, no, no, no, not all of it. I didn't mean to give it all. What do you mean, my man? You said a burnt offering, but don't I get part of it back? Sorry, no, you don't. Oh, but I thought there was a sacrifice when you got some back to serve. There is, my son, there's a peace offering, but you said a burnt offering. You just imagine Zedekiah's amazement, poor old farmer Zedekiah, as he has to stand there and see the whole of it go up for God, and not one little bit left over for him. What a standard for God to erect. All for God. It carries its lesson on its surface, doesn't it? As we come to God, his law will tell us what he requires of us. You may sum it up like this, says the Lord Jesus. The first and the greatest commandment of all is this: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy strength, and all thy soul. And in that moment, we begin to see how far we've come short, don't we? We just haven't done it. We still don't do it, do we? Oh, one day we try to love him with all our hearts, and we do well, and then we find that we haven't been loving him with our minds. We've grown lazy in our minds. We don't study his word much. The difficult bits we leave because it's hard. So we'd like to love the Lord our God with all our minds, but hearts, but we haven't been loving him with our minds. Here come the theologians, and they've been trying to love the Lord their God with all their mind till their head bulges with the understanding of Old Testament and new, and they wake up to the fact that they haven't been loving him with all their strength. For what requirements? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength. And now we begin to see something of the holiness of God, and therefore what sin is. You know, when we live a long way off the Lord, in our unconverted days, maybe, our idea of sin, what is sin? Well, sin is sort of murdering your mother-in-law, perhaps, or or perhaps cheating the income tax inspector. Might even be swearing too much or something. That's what we call sin. And you know, sometimes as believers, those ideas, uh, remain with us so long as I haven't beaten up a policeman or robbed a bank or been rude to my maiden aunts, then I'm okay. Oh, but wait a minute, my brother, have you loved the Lord your God, loved him with all your heart? For if we haven't, that's the biggest sin that you could possibly commit. You see, sin is not merely not doing bad things. Sin is failing to do the good things. Nothing but one hundred percent zeal for the Lord is good enough for God. Not to love him with all our hearts, not to love him with all our minds, soul, and strength. That is to be guilty of the first, of breaking the first and the greatest commandment. That is to be guilty of the biggest sin. Oh, my brother, my sister, if that's God's standards, whatever shall I do? Do you know the second commandment? That is to love your neighbor as yourself. No good, says Saint John, stroking his patriarchal beard. No good, my man, to say I love God, whom you've not seen, if you don't love your neighbor, who you have seen. That's empty words. For the man or woman that really loves the Lord his God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength will show the genuineness of their love to God in that they love their neighbor as themselves. Oh, why ever did I come near to God? If this is his standard. Would you see it illustrated in Israel's history? Why, let me take you to one of the early examples of a burnt offering in scripture. It will be familiar to you. I do not need to spend much time on it. There came a point, says Genesis twenty two, when God said to Abram, come now, Abram, and take your son, your Isaac, your only Isaac, and offer him up as a... as a burnt offering to God. For Abram, that was everything he had. And all his future bound up with Isaac, says God, Abraham, I want it all. The ancient rabbis, if you read the Talmud and the Midrashim, they don't know whether the, the devotion of Abraham was the biggest thing, or whether it was the obedience of Isaac, now a youngest man, allowing himself to be bound and placed upon the wood that was on the altar, ready to be sacrificed utterly, totally for God. Or you may consider the idea of this sacrifice from the, uh, constant use of it in Israel for what is called the continual burnt offering. For when at length the tabernacle and then the temple was established, then it was a right in Israel given by God that every morning and every afternoon, day after day, without intermission, there was to be offered on the altar in the temple court, the continual burnt offering. Day after day, as regularly as the sun rose and set, they had to offer on behalf of the nation a burnt offering to God. Well, this was Israel saying, yes, that is what God expects of us. That is our reasonable purpose, and we don't come up to it. And God, in his mercy, allows us to offer a sacrifice instead of us. As we think of those things, of course, the matter interprets itself for us, doesn't it? As believers, we come near to God, and the Holy Spirit begins to awaken in us what God's standards and requirements are. And as we come short, then the Holy Spirit points us to the Lord Jesus. For what a relief it is. Let's go that way just now and turn from ourselves and look at him. He gave himself a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God. Obedience? Why, here now we see that this sacrifice was the chiefest of the sacrifices that made atonement for sin. Of course it was, because this matter of our coming short is very serious. We have broken and constantly fall short of the very chiefest of the commandments. Left to ourselves, we must perish. Ah, but it is written like this, that by one man's disobedience sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. But then, as by one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the many be constituted righteous. Oh, come with me a moment again to that sacred scene of Gethsemane. When the king himself, who a day or two before had come riding into Jerusalem city, and they strewed his way with their clothes, and they waved their palm branches, here was the king of Israel come, Zion's king, prophesied of for centuries, coming at last, and they shouted in their gladness to his disciples, blessed is the king that comes in the name of the Lord. And even as the king rode into Jerusalem, he found Jerusalem and the very temple in the hands of thieves and robbers that were using the very temple services to make money for themselves and had no time for God's king. Whatever should he do? However would he bring back a world lost in such rank disobedience, such perversion of religion. How would he bring back a world like that to God? I'll see him, my brother. See him get off his donkey. No palms now. No clothes now on the ground to cushion his knees against the flinty stones of the Mount of Olives. As the king gets off his royal mount, and the king kneels. Oh, what a sight it was for Gabriel and Michael. How heaven stood still to watch this amazing sight. The king of eternity on a rebel planet, where every other man and woman was tainted by stark disobedience. And the king kneeled, and he said, not my will, but thine be done. We're saved through that tonight. Though I come, said he through the language of the Psalm, I come to do thy will, O my God, by the which will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once and for all. The answer to this world's disobedience. And therefore, an atonement for our sin. And therefore, the means of our forgiveness and our acceptance with God. Or would you like to think of it in the terms of Philippians chapter two? Philippians chapter two, as you may remember, quotes the famous passage in Isaiah chapter forty five and verse twenty three. where God, the transcendent Lord, speaks as follows: As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue confess to me the uniqueness of God. As we hear God talking like that in the old prophet, we should probably say, yes, but that is God right. He is the unique Lord. He is the transcendent Lord. He is the creator and source of all, upholds everything in life. Of course he's got the right to command that every knee shall bow to him. Oh, my brother, my sister, you must bow, for he is your creator. Did I hear you say, but what kind of a creator is he? Do I detect a little bit of the tyrant in it that he says my knee must bow? Oh no, my brother, listen. Oh, give God chance, give him a century or two, and he'll show you what kind of a God he is that asks you to bow your knee in his name. And so it happened that he who was in the form of God, really God, thought it not a thing to be grasped at to be on equal terms with God, but poured himself out and became a servant. And being found in fashion as a man, then he humbled himself and became obedient. Oh, you've not forgotten, have you? This is he who was in the very form of God, never ceased to be God, but for our salvation, for your redemption, my fellow Christian, became a servant and was obedient unto death. And there, the death of the cross, when it proved to be the unalterable will of God that the likes of you and me should be redeemed from our sin, and the Son of God was asked to do the redeeming. Then God, a very God though he was, he became obedient unto death, and that, the death of the cross. Wherefore God has excite- exalted him, and God has given him a name which is above every name. Now listen, that that Old Testament demand should be fulfilled, that old demand that said that in the name of God every knee shall bow, it shall be fulfilled. Ah, but the name of God turns out to be the name of Jesus. That in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. The Jesus that became obedient unto death. And if I've got it wrong, God will forgive me, but there are times in my devotions at the Lord's Supper sometimes, and in my heart of hearts I tell the Father, yes, I gladly bow. But Father, I tell you, I'm bowing in the name of Jesus, for he tells me what God is like. He became obedient unto death for my sake. Let us therefore now, if we are on the right track, supplement, supplement our observation by considering some of the details. You will have noticed from our reading that there are three possible divisions, three subclasses of this first offer. Or if you wish, you could come and you could offer a sheep or a goat. Or again, if you so pleased, you could come and offer a bird. And it is out as true, as is explicitly said in connection with other offerings, that this was a condescension of Almighty God to the financial circumstances of his people. Rich people, the nation as a whole, could bring a bullock. A poor widow woman could not afford a bullock, maybe. The best she could bring would be a turtledove. Well, God allowed her to bring the turtledove. And people of middle income, well, perhaps they could manage a sheep, even if they couldn't manage a bullock. So at one level, it was practical financial considerations that determined what kind of an offering you brought. Tonight, however, we shall not be concerning ourselves so much with financial and practical things. Let us think of these things as they may help us typically to picture the Lord Jesus to ourselves. As we do so, I'm going to remind you of three successive verses from different parts of the Gospel of John, where John records for us three times in the course of that gospel that our Lord was one who did the will of God and finished his work. So our first, uh, class of offering is when they brought a bullock. If you know anything about ancient Israel and their agricultural methods, you will remember, of course, that the bullock was the work animal on every farm. They didn't plow with horses, they plowed with bullocks. Their carts were not pulled by horses, their carts were pulled by bullocks. When they thrashed the corn, the old corn sleigh was pulled around the threshing floor, not by a horse, but by a bull. The bullock was the work animal on the farm, as in Ireland the horse used to be. That is what gave rise, of course, to the ancient legislation, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. For as the ox pulled the threshing sleigh round over the top of the corn on the threshing floor, and uh, thrashed out the kernels of the wheat or the barley. The ox had to be allowed every now and again to dip its old head and munch up a bit of the corn that it was itself threshing, and so the ox lived on the work it was doing. And God, in his kindness, had that regulation put in for oxen. Yes, but when you come to the New Testament, Paul says, and is God only concerned for oxen, my brothers? Of course not. In that, uh, bit of regulation about oxen, you will see a principle that will guide us in the way we treat those of our brethren and sisters who work for us in the gospel or in the ministry of the word. For when God's regulation says, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn, you can apply the principle to the Christian worker. If he preaches the gospel and gives his whole time to the preaching of the gospel, then you'll not muzzle him. He has a right to be supported financially by those to whom he preaches the gospel, for the worker has a right to live of his work. And we go further still. For if it's a principle that can be applied to Christian workers, shall it not be applied to the Lord Jesus? The worker? Oh, let me record you what is written in John chapter four. There our Lord Jesus, we are told, he came in his journeys to the well of Sychar, and he sat tired out with his journey on the well side, and hungry too, for God's work can be exhausting. And the disciples were gone away to fetch food. Meanwhile, there came a woman of Samaria, and presently our Lord got talking to her. It must have gone on some time, because presently the disciples came, and they didn't like to interrupt, though they were a bit surprised to see their Lord talking to a woman in public, and about theology as well. Jewish rabbis didn't do that kind of thing. And he was a man. However, they didn't interrupt until the conversation was over and the woman was gone. And then they came saying, Lord, you'll be very hungry, won't you? Here's some food. And he said, ah, but I have food to eat that you know nothing about, gentlemen. They said, has anybody bought him lamps in? No, no, he said, you see, my food is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. Oh, what a delightful insight into the heart of the Savior. He came wearied, sat tired and worn out on the well. And then there came the opportunity to talk to a woman in all her dissatisfaction, and he talked to her about God and the lovely gift of God's Holy Spirit and the eternal satisfactions of eternal life, and in the doing of it was fed himself. You know, working for God was his food. I don't mean he earned his money by that. But that deeper satisfaction of working for God, of loving his neighbor, of bringing men and women to the Lord, all that he lived on it. And when I think that he not only sought me and saved me, but somehow or other he got satisfaction out of doing it. And it makes me hold my head in shame. How often I've gone about the Lord's work as a cumbersome duty. And got tired in it, not so much because it was rigorous. I didn't want to do it. Have you noticed when you don't want to do things, how soon you get tired? You do know what? Here's a chap in a factory all day long pulling a lever. Well, I shall get bored stiff the first five minutes, then he manages to stick it for eight hours. Cool. Wow, he's tired. He rushes home, gets his tea. He's got a chance for a game of football. You know he isn't tired anymore. The next hour and a half, no, he isn't tired. Why? Because it's interesting. He goes out his tea to get there. Sometimes we find the Lord's work tired because, because, because... we're not all that interested. Of course, it can be hard. Oh, but God give us the grace to be more like the Savior, that we shall not only work hard for the Lord, but find in his work our spiritual satisfaction. The second division was that of a sheep. And sheep, they're so often used as symbols in Old Testament, aren't they, and figures and metaphors, that we'll have no difficulty here, first of all, recognizing ourselves as sheep. For is that, there is that unforgettable verse in Isaiah fifty three that says that we are all like sheep, in this unfortunate particular. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. Yes. Not Christ. In John chapter five, he says, I judge, and I judge justly, because I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me. One day our Lord shall have the awesome task of being the judge of all mankind, when he sits finally on the great white throne of God. What a task. And his judgment will be perfectly just, because in his life he sought solely not his own will, but the will of God. Finally, you could offer a sacrifice of a bird. In John chapter six, our Lord once more and finally talked of his doing the will of God, and he put it like this: I have come down from heaven to do the will of him that sent me. Would you allow me finally to use that picture of a bird to illustrate the point? Says the regulation to the priest, you shall take the bird and bring it to the altar. And I say to myself, as I watch the priest doing it, there he's got the bird in his hand, look, he's going to take it to the altar, he's about to wrench it in two by the wings. And I say to myself, Mr. Priest, sir, you'd have never got that bird to the altar unless it had first come down, would you? Oh, I said, Birdie, why ever did you stay up in the heavens? I think of our Lord at Calvary. Why did he come? I came down from heaven, he said, to do the will of God, to do the will of him that sent me. And his will is this, that of all that he has given me, I should lose nothing. I watch, therefore, with the greater interest. It is God's will that I, who have seen the Son and I believe on him, is it God's will that the blessed Savior should save me and all the other millions that have trusted in him and lose not one of them. Is that God's will? It is indeed. How well will the Savior do it, I say? Will he do it perfectly? For if he does it perfectly, I shall be saved too, and I shall never be lost. I draw near to the altar. And there's the bird, and the priest has stretched out its wings and pulled it in true, and it's lying on the altar now. I like to think I can see those wings. Oh, those lovely wings, so balanced, that brought it down to the altar. And I look at Christ. You know, there are some folks that say our Lord could have gone straight home to heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration. I know what they mean, but I sincerely doubt it. He need never have come, you know. He came voluntarily, but when he came to our house, he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. That was the one wing of it. How could he go home and leave this world to rebel against God? Ah, he loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. And having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them like he loved himself. He loved them to the uttermost. And that was the other wing of it. All wings of love came down and wept and bled and died. What he endured, no tongue can tell, to save our souls from death and hell. By that man's disobedience, we the many are constituted righteous. How does it make you feel, my brother, my sister? Well, it fills you with joy that for his sake you are accepted with God and able to draw near. And it makes you feel now that, oh, that's lovely, and now I'm free to go out and live just as I like, for I could... No, you say, God forbid! How I thought so. But now you don't want to go and live as you like to. You say, if that's what Christ did for me, then I want to be like him and give my all to God. I thought so. That's God's way, my brother, my sister, of making. Chapter one, I read from the English Revised Version. And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When any man of you offereth an oblation unto the Lord, you shall offer your oblation of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock. If his oblation be a burnt offering of the herd, he shall offer it a male without blemish. He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him. Perhaps we could interrupt our reading to notice that phrase. It is important and sometimes overlooked. Of this offering, it is true, as of others, it was offered to make atonement for the offerer. Indeed, it was the chief sacrifice to pay the ransom price of sin. Whereas in consequent studies we shall come across a sin offering, we shall there find it has to do with the purification of sin. This has to do with the ransom price of sin. And because that is sometimes forgotten when people study this first sacrifice, let us pay, pay special attention to the phrase, this burnt offering was offered to make atonement for the offerer. And he that is the offerer shall kill the bullock before the Lord, and Aaron's sons the priests shall present the blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar and lay wood in order upon the fire. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall lay the pieces, the head and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But its inwards and its legs shall he wash with water, and the priest shall burn the whole on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his oblation be of the flock, of the sheep or of the goats for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle its blood upon the altar round about, and he shall cut it into its pieces with its head and its fat, and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But the inwards and the legs shall he wash with water, and the priest shall offer the whole and burn it upon the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his oblation to the Lord be a burnt offering of fowls, then he shall offer his oblation of turtledoves or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar and wring off its head and burn it upon the altar. And the blood thereof shall be drained out on the side of the altar, and he shall take away its crop with the filth thereof and cast it beside the altar on the east part in the place of the ashes, and he shall rend it by the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder, and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And may the Lord give us good understanding of his holy word. On Tuesday night, when we introduced ourselves to this study, we noticed that the offerings that are described here in the early chapters of Leviticus were offerings used by Israel in their approach to God. For Israel, redeemed out of Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb, was subsequently invited by God to become a kingdom of priests and to minister to God's pleasure and satisfaction, as God himself came down and dwelt among them in the ancient tabernacle. So these offerings were used in that delightful occupation, as God Almighty came down and displayed before his people the wonder of his holiness, the awesomeness of that holiness, and the beauty of that holiness, and invited his people to come near and to enjoy him and enjoy his fellowship. And of course, as they came to enjoy the fellowship of God, their redeemer, they would feel it right and proper that they should not come empty-handed, but come bringing their gifts, sacrifices that might be pleasurable to God their Redeemer. We saw likewise, of course, that as they came to have fellowship with God like that, and began to perceive something of the unimaginable holiness of God, then they, by contrast, could feel smitten in their conscience. And the nearer they came to God and all the glory and the beauty of his holiness, the more they would feel in themselves inadequate and abnormal and unclean and tainted. And would feel need not merely to bring God gifts, but feel special need for some sacrifice that might cover their abysmal need, even as the redeemed people of God. Sacrifices to cover their shortcomings and their abnormalities and unworthiness. And so it was that we as Christians began to see all kinds of parallels between that ancient institution of sacrifice and what our blessed Lord Jesus Christ has done and is doing for us. For we, being redeemed, are like Israel, invited to approach God, not now in some earthly little tabernacle on the desert sand of Sinai. We are given grace and invitation to come into the very holiest of that true tabernacle that the Lord has pitched and not man. And the wonder is that every believer, cleansed by the blood of Christ, his body bathed with pure water of regeneration, and with the high priest over the house of God, may rise in spirit, and then to the very holiest of all in the presence of God. It is a fantastic wonder. God forbid that we should ever become over familiar with the opportunity that God gives us in that great privilege. And as we come, and God by his Holy Spirit begins to show some us something of his holiness, something of its awesomeness, something of its beauty, we shall find our hearts, so to speak, cut in two. The half of us will respond eagerly to see the glory of the Lord, and we shall say, like the psalmist, one thing have I desired, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. And our hearts will sink forward to that glorious time when, free from all limitation and sin and defilement, we shall be able to go home to achieve the whole object for which we were created. That beatific vision, to be able to gaze without intermediary upon the very face of God. But now we see in a glass darkly. And oh, my brothers, my sisters, what will it be when at last we see him face to face? And yet, as our hearts respond eagerly, the other side of us will feel surely ashamed and inadequate. The more we perceive God's holiness, the more we shall realize how unholy we are. How twisted. What abnormalities there are about us. How unclean. We too shall feel a need for a sacrifice to cover our inadequacies. Not merely now because we are afraid of the wrath of God. Indeed, in spite of the fact that we know that Christ's sacrifice has removed the penalty of sin from us forever, and there is no penalty, and yet to come and dwell amongst the everlasting burnings of the holiness of God will make us feel ashamed. We shall find the need of a sacrifice that will cover our need as believers who still fall short of the glory of God. And as we so come, and as we so feel, God will point us to our blessed Lord. Not that we have to keep on offering his offering. Thank God he has offered it once and for all. But my brother, my sister, there is infinitely more in that sacrifice of Christ than ever we thought of the first day we came as sinners to the Savior. Then we rejoiced in the fact that his sacrifice took away the penalty of sin. That was glorious and remains true as life goes on, we shall see there was more in his sacrifice than that, enough to cover all our need, not only as sinners, but as saints, and not only as saints, but as servants of God. And then we noticed on Tuesday that not only will the Lord point us to the sacrifice of Christ, that thus enables us to come into the presence of God without fear. As we do that, the Holy Spirit will begin to point us to another thing, to the beauty of the life of the Lord Jesus that qualified him to die as a sacrifice for our sins. For a moment's thought will remind us that in order to be able to act as a sacrifice for us, our Lord had to be perfectly qualified in his life. And so another thing will happen as we come to God and we begin to worship him, and then we sense how far we come short of his divine perfection, and we turn once more eagerly to the great sacrifice of Christ that covers us in the presence of God. Then we shall begin to think again of how perfect Christ must have been when he lived here in order to become a sacrifice. And by very contrast with our own shortcomings, our admiration of the Lord Jesus will increase. Oh, you know, when you've been struggling at the piano, doing your level best, and two fingers of, you know, at once have been difficult enough, and you've been trying to work a third, three fingers at once, and and you're feeling almost like an expert until you come to a dead halt, and then the real expert comes and says, shall I play it for you? Who? Now, because you've tried it yourself and come all unstuck, and the notes have jarred, and you've got it all bungled. Now, when the expert sits down and plays it for you, now you see what you wouldn't have seen if you hadn't tried yourself. You know the difficulty of playing that confoundedly complicated bit of Tchaikovsky, and he does it, and oh, he makes it look so easy. And you admire it, don't you? And when we've done our best to live as we should to the praise of God and got it all wrong and muddled up and bungled, and then the Lord points us to the Lord Jesus, and we see what we wouldn't have seen without life's experience. Oh, what a past master at living he was. And because we know the difficulty, the more are our hearts filled with the admiration of the Savior. And little by little, perhaps without our knowing it, as our hearts are carried away with admiration of him, the Holy Spirit is doing his job and beginning to change us into the likeness of the Savior. So let's take then this first offering now and see what it shall tell us about the Lord Jesus. But perhaps as we do so, I better a- answer one more possible objection to the use of these sacrifices as pictures of the Lord Jesus. I suspect most of you, at any rate, will agree with me readily. Yes, of course, in some general way, we may expect these sacrifices to picture the Lord Jesus. But you're hoping in your heart of hearts maybe, that the preacher doesn't go too far. Hope he doesn't start taking corns and livers and kidneys and things and saying there's some particular significance in them, because isn't that taking things a wee bit too far? And isn't it a little bit grotesque to think an odd kidney here or a gall there and a liver somewhere else could ever illustrate anything about the Lord Jesus? Well, I know how you feel, and I shall seek to respect your feelings as much as I can, and restrain my imagination as I ought. But just one thing it seems to me we should remember that may help us in our study and our use of these, uh, pictures, and that is this, that unlike ourselves, the ancient Israelites, when they came to describe psychological states, states of mind and heart and emotion within the human being, you have probably noticed that when they came to describe and speak of such psychological things, they often used not scientific terms like we do, they used simple, humble little terms, physical terms of the body, in fact. They use physical, bodily terms to speak about psychological and emotional phenomena. You've noticed that in your reading of the New Testament, haven't you? And we shan't call the New Testament fanciful. Of course we shan't. Paul says in Ephesians chapter one, doesn't he, and verse eighteen, like this, says he, I pray to the Father that he might give you a spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, the eyes of your... And if you've got a modern translation, it probably says the eyes of your mind or something being illuminated. Where the Greek says the eyes of your heart. Because when the a- ancient Israelites thought of our understanding, that deep understanding that goes deeper than mere logic or IQ, that profound understanding that involves the whole man, then they talk of a man understanding with his heart, not just with his head. So does the apostle pray that the eyes of your heart, he isn't beginning to think that if you could only see our heart inside our chests here, you'd see some eyes in it. It's become a metaphor, hasn't it? A s- a psychological idea based on a physical term, the eyes of your heart. Or if you care to remember how Paul talks in Philippians chapter one verse eighteen, he is assuring his fellow believers in Philippi how much he feels for them. And he says, I would like you to know how much I long after you in the... Now, excuse the language, it doesn't sound very drawing room, but never mind, I didn't write it. I long after you, he says, in the bowels of Jesus Christ. You refined folks in Bangor don't talk like that nowadays, do you? You say something how tenderly affectionate I am.