Gooding, David: 1 - The Beauty of Holiness - Introduction

I confess it is altogether my fault that I haven't been with you for quite a long time. And I thank you now publicly for the persistence and patience with which you have pursued me, and I am delighted that at length I am able to come and visit you. And I thank you too for coming up towards the front. It makes it easier and cozier to speak to you. There have been times, I confess, and places where I have in a little way suffered, like the rich man, you know. We are told of him that he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off. I'm glad I can see you at near quarters this evening. As you have heard, we are in these eight sessions to think together about the sacrifices of which we read in the book of Leviticus and in its early chapters. We shall spend tonight on a very elementary introduction to that theme, and then in coming evenings, God willing, we shall consider the five sacrifices that are there detailed in these early chapters. And that done, we shall spend our last two evenings, God willing, dealing with two of the laws of those offerings. The offerings, as we know, were addressed to the people and told the people what they had to bring to God. The laws of the offerings were addressed to the priests and taught those priests the demands and responsibilities of their duties. Now, tonight then, let us begin our introduction by reading four passages from scripture, the first of them in our book of Leviticus in chapter one. Leviticus chapter one. I read from the English Revised Version. Verse one. um and the Lord spake- 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, ye shall offer your oblation of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock. Then in chapter nine, please, of that same book. And verse twenty two. And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting and came out and blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. And then, so that we may gauge a little bit of the emotional experience it was for people of ancient time to worship the Lord at this ancient shrine, let us read some verses from Psalm twenty seven. Psalm 27, verse 1. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh, even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then will I be confident. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For in the day of trouble he shall keep me secretly in his pavilion. In the covert of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall lift me up upon a rock, and now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. And then just a few well-known verses from the New Testament that will help us to keep on the right lines as we try to expound and understand these ancient sacrifices. Let's read again, shall we, from Hebrews chapter ten. Hebrews chapter ten, beginning in verse eleven. And every priest indeed standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins. But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us, for after he has said, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws on their heart, and upon their mind also will I write them. Then says he, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. And may God give us good understanding of his word. So then, as we have heard, we are tonight to embark upon a study of the ancient sacrifices of the nation of Israel. And we do so from the early chapters of the book of Leviticus. Now, I suppose it is a secret, but it's not a very well-kept secret, that the book of Leviticus is not every Christian's favorite book in the Bible. And were those who are to inhabit a desert island forced to choose one book out of all the books in the Bible to accompany them to the desert island, I fancy those who voted for Leviticus would be few indeed. You see, the book is full of curious and ancient things, isn't it? The early chapter's full of offerings, and worse than that, it's full of the insides of animals, cores and livers and hearts and entrails and dirty feet and other such things, which are not everybody's most engaging reading. And then when you go a little bit further, hey presto, you come across food laws, what ugly beast is that you are not to eat and what animals you may eat, all obviously very necessary, but not altogether attractive at first sight. And if you have persevered that far, as doubtless many of you have, then presently you come across other laws about all sorts of unmentionable diseases and fluxes and fluids and emissions and horrible things that can happen to the human body, till some people feel that Leviticus is a book that has to be taken, if at all, in small doses. It could possibly be in your mind, therefore, this evening, why should we study Leviticus? What are we to make of all these things that to us in these distant times might perhaps feel a little grotesque? The first answer, why we study these things is because they are in the inspired Word of God. And when we talk of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, we are not talking of some purple passages that, when we move, when we read them, move our hearts to their very foundations with tremendous surges of emotion and of praise. There are such passages in Holy Writ, no doubt. They are not any more inspired than the book of Leviticus is inspired, for both are God-breathed, and every scripture, says the New Testament, is God-breathed and is profitable. And if it should be that we find the study of Leviticus a trifle more difficult than we find the study of Psalm twenty three, Then let us come at it as a tribute of our faith in the inspiration of God, persuaded in our hearts that God would have never have caused it to be written, were it not for our good and our profit. Let our very reading of it be, I say again, a tribute of our faith in God and in the faith of the inspiration of his word. But then, of course, there is another reason why we should study these ancient sacrifices, and that is because the New Testament tells us that they were prefigurement. They were pictures in advance to help us understand the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The New Testament, you see, tells us as follows. It says the gospel is this, that Christ died for our sins. That is glorious, but that isn't the end of the story. The gospel is not only that Christ died for our sins, but that he died for our sins according to the scriptures. And those last few words are exceedingly important. They tell us in the first place that the death of Jesus Christ our Lord was no horrific accident. He died according to the scripture, according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Oh, thank God that Jesus Christ died according to the scripture. When Christ died for you, my brother, my sister, it was no accident. It was not a case of God making the best of a bad job, trying to salvage something out of the wreck of Calvary. Our blessed Lord, though crucified by the hands of lawless men, died according to the scripture, as scripture said he would. When the hour was come, precisely upon the hour, as scripture had said, he came and he died, and he died for you. Ah, but those words that he died according to the scripture tell us something more, not merely that Jesus Christ's death was prepared of old and prophesied in Old Testament scripture. When it says he died according to the scriptures, it is telling us the significance of that death. Because in the Old Testament, and especially in this book of Leviticus, God has given in the Old Testament scriptures patterns that help us to perceive what it means when it says Christ died for our sins. You'll see in ancient Israel, when a man sinned, then according to God's holy law, he had to come before God with his sacrifice, confess his sin before God, lay his hands upon the head of that animal and all his weight, then solemnly in the presence of God, kill that beast so that the lamb or the bullock or whatever it was publicly was seen to die for his sins. God in his kindness had it done millions of times through hundreds of years, that we in our day might see now what the New Testament means when it says that Christ died for our sins. You see, it wasn't merely that in dying he gave us a good example and showed us how to resist the temptations of sin and resisted them to death. It wasn't merely that he gave us an example of how we should stand valiantly for God's truth, even though it cost us our lives. It is all that, but oh, thank God, it is more. The Old Testament has prepared our minds, if we've read it, to see that he died for our sins. We had sinned, deserved the penalty of God's holy law. And as we come, so to speak, in faith and lay our hand upon the head of Jesus Christ, our great sacrifice for sin, and we see him die at Calvary, then we are to know that just as the animals died for the Israelite, so Christ died for our sins, for my sins, that I may go free. Oh, that's why we study Leviticus. Difficult as some of the imagery may be for us in our modern world. We study it because of all the wealth it has to talk to us over something that lies immediately to our heart as believers. What is there more blessed or more dear to any one of us than this, that the Son of God, he loved me and gave himself for me? And if even a remote book like Leviticus can help me see a little bit more what it meant when he loved me and gave himself for me, then we shall labor at trying to understand it. And that's why it is, because those Old Testament sacrifices were prefigurements of our Lord, that we shall find the New Testament talking of the death of our Lord in phrases that it borrows from the Old Testament. Says John the Baptist, as he points to the Savior, behold the Lamb of God, choosing his term deliberately, in contradistinction to those thousands upon millions of lambs that had died in Old Testament as a token payment for sin. Now, says John, here is the lamb, the ideal, the true Lamb of God, come to take away the sin of the world. And then, of course, if you look further, you will see the Apostle Paul in one Corinthians chapter five speaking like this to his fellow Christians. He says, you know, Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. And now he's talking of the death of the Lord Jesus, but using an image from the Old Testament, an idea, a metaphor, a type, a picture, a symbol to help us understand that just as that sacrifice was slain at Passover time and its blood put upon the doorpost, so that all who sheltered behind that blood-sprinkled door were saved from the wrath of the angel of God's vengeance. So Christ has died for us, to provide for us the security and refuge from the angel of God's wrath and judgment, and all who shelter behind that blood-sprinkled door, behind Jesus Christ, the great Passover Lamb, are safe and secure forever. Yes, but, uh, when Paul is in a different mood and talking to different believers in the epistle to the Ephesians chapter five, he says, you know, we ought to love one another like the Lord Jesus loved us. And how did he love us? Well, he loved us and gave himself for us an offering of a sweet smell acceptable to God. And in those terms, he is in fact using the technical language of the Old Testament. For in those Old Testament sacrifices, there were some sacrifices that were put upon the altar, and then when the fire began to burn them, the smell of it went up, so to speak, towards heaven. The Old Testament, using its, uh, simple and direct language, says that God smelled a smell of rest. Of course, anybody knew it was only picturesque language. The faraway Israelites in those ancient times didn't imagine that God somehow sat upon a throne in heaven, and when he smelled the smell of the gravy, he said, cool, that smells nice. No, of course not. It was only a symbol. But a symbol this time of gratification and pleasure and rest and enjoyment. And oh, what a lovely figure it is. And we must always remember it as we draw near to the dark shades of Calvary. Yes, indeed. As we see the clouds gather around Calvary and the darkness descend, we are to understand that in those terrible moments, when God must forsake his son, there was something hideous done, something awful, something indescribably terrible. When Christ was made sin for us, and all the fearful, dark, evil sin of the world was laid upon him. And in that moment, how will you reconcile such opposites? In that moment, they came up to God such an aroma of delight and glory and satisfaction, I tell you how it was. In a world where for centuries, ever since man was, there had never been anyone fully to do God's will. At last, God some- found somebody that was prepared to do God's will, even though it cost him such a hideous death, the death of the cross. There came up to God from Calvary, as Christ bore your sin and mine, quite apart from the benefit we got out of it, as something that delighted God's heart and will never cease to delight God's heart forever. Of course, we're not surprised when in another passage we hear Paul say those words that put the other side of the story. Christ's death was an offering of a sweet smell acceptable to God. Yes, but two Corinthians five and thirty will tell us that he was made sin for us, or if you like so to translate it, made a sin offering for us. He who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So here is our second big reason for studying these ancient sacrifices, that they prefigure for us the sacrifice of Christ and provide thought forms, ways of thinking, mental images and pictures that we can use so as to grasp the meaning of his death the more clearly, so that our, not only our minds be informed, but our imaginations enriched, and therefore our hearts reached the more profoundly. So that even here we might pause a moment, just to take one little advantage of this ancient book of Leviticus. Did you notice that descriptive passage we read, where on the first occasion, the offerings having been ordained and the priesthood prepared, then came that public occasion when now the priest and the people gathered and they brought their sacrifices. The priest brought his sacrifices, for he too was a sinful man, and Israel the nation brought theirs, and they did with them appropriately as they had been told. And then as each sacrifice had been offered at last, now here was the burnt offering and the fat upon the altar. And the priests lifted up their hand to bless the people, and then Aaron and Moses went in to meet God and came out again to bless the people. And in that moment, says Leviticus, the glory of the Lord appeared, a wonder beyond explanation, the very fire of God came out, says Leviticus, and burned that burnt offering and consumed it to ashes upon the altar. And when the people saw it, can you picture them all there? When they actually saw the very fire of God come and consume that sacrifice, they shouted. In automatic reaction of wonder, to see the very glory of God come and the fire of God come and before their very eyes accept their sacrifice, so to speak. Oh, what a thing. To have brought a sacrifice, yes, but now to be made conscious that the living God was there, and the living God had actually accepted your sacrifice. What a thing it was. And the people shouted as the reality of it gripped their hearts, and in that split second, then they fell upon their faces. Those days have long since gone by. We do not now think in terms of literal fire, not even miraculous fire coming down from heaven. But it is given to God's people to know a far more wonderful thing. To stand in spirit, in memory, in heart, by the great sacrifice of Christ. Until God's Holy Spirit makes it as vivid to you as he could possibly make it. That God, the living God, has accepted that sacrifice on your behalf. What a wonder it is when our blessed Lord in his redeeming office, by his sacrifice, brings us in touch with the living God, and you know his reality, and you know that Christ's sacrifice has been accepted for you. Oh, what shouts of triumph, even if nobody else hears them, come up from our hearts. And how, without any ostentatious pretence, we fall upon our faces in adoring worship. But now, perhaps by this time, you have a second question a-boiling up in your, in your mind. You say, all that's very good, Mr. Preacher. All right. But, um, what in particular have these sacrifices in the beginning of Leviticus got to say to us? At least, what have they got anything more to say than, for instance, that Passover lamb that you mentioned earlier. Did I hear somebody argue like that? You say, I, I understand the Passover lamb, and I don't only merely understand it as a bit of history, I understand its modern spiritual meaning. You say, yes, I too woke up to the fact that I was exposed to the wrath of God. I too saw the point, and the illustration helped me, that Christ had died as my Passover lamb, and I could shelter behind him. I too have the assurance that the destroying angel of God will never reach me nor find me, not to the remotest bound of eternity, will he? I am safe, sheltered beneath that blood. What do I need anymore? What possibly more could there be for me in these sacrifices? Well, I suppose the short answer to that is this, that these sacrifices at the beginning of Leviticus are what we call offerings of approach. That is to say, they weren't the offerings by which Israel escaped the wrath of God in Egypt and were delivered from bondage to Pharaoh. These were sacrifices that the Israelites made as they responded to God's call to come near to him in his dwelling place. As they approached him, God instructed them to bring these offerings. It is on that aspect of them that we shall concentrate in these weeks. So allow me now, in some detail, to try and express their function as I see it. For that, I ask you then to notice exactly how Leviticus begins. The Lord called unto Moses. He not merely said unto Moses, he called unto Moses. This was a divine summons, God summoning his people. And he called unto Moses, and notice wherefrom, and spake unto him out of the tent of meeting. It is interesting that in the first three books of the Bible, you will hear God speak very early on and call very early on. In the book of Genesis, we read that God called unto Adam. Where art thou, Adam? Calling to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as Adam was busy trying to hide himself behind the wonders of creation, hide himself from creation's Lord. Cry to a man guilty, fallen, now running away from God, trying to hide behind creation, to hide from God. And the call of the merciful Creator, urging Adam to come and stand before God and let his sin be exposed, to stop running away and find the beginnings of the way back to God. The book of Exodus very early on in chapter three to be precise, represents God calling again. This time, how different the scene is. No longer the luscious trees of the beautiful Garden of Eden with all its greenery and fruit and delight. Our sin has had some centuries to get working. Now, when God calls, he calls out of the midst of a thorn bush burning with fire. Ah, what things sin can do. How it has transformed our world from a Garden of Eden to a weary old desert full of thorn bushes whose end is to be cursed. Moses had fled from all the complicated politics of Egypt, where both the oppressed and the oppressor were found to be unreasonable men. And he fled away from it all into a desert, solitary and cursed. There he heard God calling out of life's thorn bushes. A God who had not forsaken his people. A God who had come down to stand with his people. A God in the very thorn bush, which explained why it burned but was not consumed. Oh, how wonderful. Give history some more centuries to wreak worse havoc. You will find at last a figure on a cross crowned with twisted thorns. That's the kind of thing sin does. Yet from that crowned... figure crowned with thorns, God calls yet... to men and women whose lives deserve the curse and tells of somebody who's been made a curse for them, and how the tangled thorns can be undone and woven into a veritable crown of glory. Ah, but history moves on now. And this time God calls in our book of Leviticus not from the splendor of nature in the Garden of Eden, nor from the wonder of the thorn bush, burning with fire but not consumed. Now from something more glorious, from the tent of meeting, the tabernacle. Glorious indeed, but not now with the glory of nature, but by the glory of art and grace and redemption. It's gold and it's silver and it's purple and it's cherubim, all beautiful indeed. I say again, not the beauty of nature anymore. The beauty of art put to use by redemption. And this is God's home, and he's calling his people to come near. You see, after all, this is the goal of redemption, isn't it? Will you remember with me the story in the book of Exodus, how that when God redeemed his people and they were free now from the wrath of the avenging angel, he brought them across the desert and he came till they came to Mount Sinai, and there God called a halt. Oh, wonder of wonders. Then we are told that God came down and stood upon Mount Sinai. You should stay perhaps a moment to perceive how wonderful that is. For the ancient Israelites who record this story, they were not some primitive animists, you know, inclined to see spirits in trees and rivers, in hyenas and mountains and anything else. No, no, no, no. Israel weren't primitive animists. Israel were monotheists who believed in a God who created the whole world. Israel at that time didn't indulge in our modern terminology of space and time, but they did believe in a God who existed before creation was, a God who created all things. What we would call in our language the Creator, the Lord transcendent, above all space and time. Space and time are but his creatures. Wonder of wonders that when he got this redeemed people out as far as Sinai, see it happened before your eyes, that the transcendent Lord came into time and into space. Why, when it happened, creation rocked on its heels. Mount Sinai could scarce endure it and was all of a fire with the glory of God, the transcendent Lord, come within space and time. What a thing it was. And when the people saw it, they were so exceedingly afeared. They pleaded with Moses to allow them to stand back and only Moses go to meet God. Such was the awesomeness when a God who is completely other comes from his domain into ours. And he came to tell them the whole purpose why he had redeemed them. You've seen, he says, how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. That is what redemption is about. It wasn't primarily about getting Israel to Canaan, though that was involved with all the milk and honey, three acres of grass and a cow. Ha. Even in those far off days, redemption was more than that. Redemption was so that the people could come and meet God, their creator. And the trumpet blew! Moses had to go, whether he wanted it or not, up into the mountain. Said God to the Israelite, now I've redeemed you, I make you a proposal. Well, if you'll keep my covenant, then you shall be a treasure to me. I propose, in fact, that you shall be a kingdom of priests to serve me, to fellowship with me. And the people said yes. Said God, then let me do this thing. And then he did an even greater marvel. How could it be that the transcendent Lord, and all the vast universes that whirl in space are not big enough to contain him, volunteered to come and presence himself in that tabernacle so that his people could come near and know him and discover at close quarters what God was like, the awesomeness of his holiness, and yet could come unafraid and see the beauty of his holiness. Oh, what a marvel God is. He's done the same for us, you know. Not waiting till we get home at last to heaven. Though even there, for God to be in heaven is a condescension for God, you know. He's prepared to come down here, has come down in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord, making himself such that men might come and retaining their awe of him, yet be unafraid and come near enough to see his beauty. I know they had no concepts like you have. Oh, blessed are your eyes, for they see what prophets and kings longed to see and never saw. But even then, in those far-off days, something of the beauty of God got through to them. Did you, did you recognize those lovely words from Psalm twenty seven, Written by a man who knew life's troubles thick and fast. Enemies galore on every side, threatening to eat his very flesh. And he comforts himself with this. Through life, through thick, through thin, through good, through ill, this I have made my one ambition in life, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord. Some of you would spend a whole holiday's, uh, uh, uh, money, wouldn't you, uh, to go to Naples or Florence, that you might see the masterpieces of beauty that men have contrived in this world. Why shouldn't you go? Oh, my friend, the God who made beauty, who is beauty. He has not only redeemed us, he invites us to come near, that we might see the beauty of his holiness. And if you respond to his invitation, it will while away many an otherwise dreary day. Many a difficult patch in life, when in business, in politics, even in the home, when difficulties come and life all seems tangled and at cross purposes. There is an escape, my brother, my sister, not from reality, oh, thank God, no, into reality. Into that reality, which is, in the last analysis, the whole reason why we were made. Little bits of human clay given eternal life by God. What for? That we might be able to come and see the beauty of God and enjoy our Creator, who has become Father and Redeemer. That's what life is about, you know. This is reality. And as they came to draw near to God, they were to be allowed to bring their gifts. That was an awesome privilege, but what gifts should they bring? And therefore God, in his mercy, supplied them with a high priest that could, um, tell them as they came what things the, the, the, uh, the Lord would find acceptable. I guarantee that if you had it in your heart one of these days, one Wednesday morning you woke up and said, I'd like to give the Queen a gift, then you might scratch your head a little bit, mightn't you? You know, well, I wonder, hmm, what I could possibly think of, whether Woolworths would have it or Marks and Spencer's the better, that I could get such as, I mean, the Queen would find acceptable. She is a little bit difficult to please, you know, for the simple reason that she, as they say, she has everything. And to be allowed to bring gifts to Almighty God, but you say he has everything. What can I bring? They were humble gifts that God allowed his people, the Israelites, to bring. Even then they needed a priest to help them, didn't they? You imagine old Zedekiah, uh, sort of a clodhopper from Galilee, coming down with a pig under his arm. He meant it well. And a horrified priest grabs him just as he's about to come into the gate of the tabernacle and said, hey, wait a minute, you can't come in there with this. What's wrong with this? It's a beautiful pig. Well, yes, so it might be, and your intention, my man, was very good, really, but I'm afraid God doesn't like pigs, not as gifts. Oh, but my Gentile neighbors, I know, I know, yes, my man, yes, Athenians and everybody else, they bring pigs, I know, but God doesn't like pigs. Oh. Have you ever felt that difficulty coming to worship the Lord and bring your gifts? And what shall you say, or what shall you do? Where will you begin and where will you stop? Oh, thank God he's given us a great high priest. If you find worship difficult and you don't know what to say, oh, come to your high priest, my dear brother, my sister, and tell him you, you find this too, too big a thing to do, and please will he help you. That's what he's for. Yes. Of course, as they came to God to bring their gifts, then they discovered another thing, that it wasn't enough to bring beautiful gifts. If the gifts were going to be acceptable, they had to be beautiful people that brought them. So when the high priest went in with his gift of incense, for instance, he didn't just go off in his garden corduroys, you know, with mud on his boots. Oh God, I just found this around the place, little incense. Would you like it? I should think not. Why, if you were going ahead with your scheme to give Her Majesty a gift, suppose even you were chosen to be Bangor's representative, to bring the gift of the city to the Queen. You wouldn't go in a corduroy either, would you? No, you'd say, if Her Majesty's going to find this exceptional, it's not only the gift has got to be beautiful, but I'm going to be as beautiful as I can be. I guarantee the ladies would have little difficulty. It's us menfolk that find it difficult. How do you look beautiful enough? In those far off days, therefore, the priest, when he went in, was clothed with the most delightful garments of color and beauty and glory and dignity. He was going in to meet uncreated beauty. Oh, what drab people we can be sometimes, can't we? What drab, colorless people we can be. God invites us to come to a fellowship with uncreated beauty. He wants us to be beautiful people as well. That's why this book of Leviticus at first sight seems odd, you know. It's a book about making people beautiful. Or if you like, a book about making people holy, but then holiness is beautiful. Eh. The beauty of holiness, as the psalmist put it. No dirt, of course. I mean, that's fundamental. No filth. No literal filth, no moral filth, no spiritual filth. Of course not. No dirty appetites. No eating unclean food. Ah, more than that. No abnormalities. A lot of chapters in Leviticus are given over to rules and regulations that say, now look here, if you have something abnormal about you, that must be put right if it can. We find it a little difficult reading sometimes when we read that people with a hunchback were not allowed into the presence of God as priests. You say that's unfair, they couldn't help it, could they? Isn't God being unkind? Did he, does he discriminate against people if they have some physical abnormality? No, not really. But in those far off days, ah, take comfort in it, my brother. God was saying that nothing but perfect beauty is, is acceptable to him. I'm glad God took that stand, you know. And the older I get, the, the more glad I am. For as I feel the old spondylitis and a bit of arthritis and all the rest of it begin to twist me out of shape, I say, thank God, God is against that, and one of these days I'm going to have a beautiful body. Ah, yes, I am indeed. But then, of course, God is concerned not only with beautiful bodies. He's concerned about abnormalities in our personalities, isn't he? And we who read those ancient directions about physical abnormalities, we turn perhaps the more easily to think about our psychological personality abnormalities. Mm. As we draw near to God, and we begin to see the wonder of his holiness, its awesomeness, the beauty of it. One thing I guarantee will happen eventually, we shall become the more painfully aware of our unholiness, our maladjustment, our abnormalities. Oh, then it will come home to us, the wonder of what Leviticus is saying, what it said to those ancient people, and now what it says to us through its New Testament interpretation. As we come as God's people to bring our gifts of worship and praise to God and have fellowship with him, and are made aware in those holy moments of our inadequacies, our twistedness, our abnormalities. All thank God God has a sacrifice for us that can cover our need and make us, broken men and women that we are, acceptable, accepted with God. So that we may come even now, nor wait till we get home to heaven, we may come now and approach the very presence of God and worship the Lord and know ourselves accepted for his sake. We shall find another thing as we think about these sacrifices. They will remind us of our Christian, uh, privilege of drawing near not merely to some earthly tabernacle, but to the heavenly tabernacle, the presence of God in heaven. They will remind us of our privilege to come and behold the beauty of the Lord, and to come and bring our offerings of thanksgiving and praise and worship. As we discover our inadequacies, our Lord will point us to the sacrifice of Christ, offered not continually, but once and for all, on behalf of us, God's people. Not merely to deliver us from the wrath of God in the past, but to make it possible for us in all our failings to come near to God and worship him now. It will do more. And with this final point, I leave you for this evening. When God's ancient people brought their sacrifices of one kind and another to the Lord to cover for their shortcomings, their sins, their abnormalities, their impurities, their trespasses. Then God very frequently made them cut the animal into pieces and offer the sundry pieces in order. You say, why did he do that? Well, there were practical reasons, of course. You try and burn a whole bullock all at once. You'll find it very difficult if you do it solid. Easier to do it if you cut it out. Ah, yes, but they cut them up also so that they could see that there was no, uh, imperfection, no blemish inside that animal. You'll see, to be acceptable even as a token sacrifice, and that's all it was, only a symbol, but to be acceptable to God as a token and a symbol, the animal had to be as perfect as it could be. And as we think of that, that will speak to us of our Lord, not merely that he died for us, ah, but this too, that he had to be perfect in order to die for us. When God has made us at home in his presence on the basis that Christ died for us to cover our inadequacy. Then God's spirit will say, pause a minute, pause a minute. Will you not look at Christ now? How did it come that he was fit to die for you? And you say, Lord, I begin to see it now, where I have been so abnormal. He was perfect. Where I have been so sinful and tainted, he was pure and sinless. Where my devotion has been so unmentionably inadequate, his devotion all his life was perfect. It was because he was a master of living that he could be a sacrifice in his dying. And God will say to the likes of you and me, will he not? As he points us to that lovely life that was given for us, God will say, now have you seen anything more beautiful than that, I wonder? You who have found it so difficult to live as you should, pray consider him for a moment and watch that master of living. How extraordinarily beautiful. God's Holy Spirit will seek by any image he can use, by any metaphor, by any picture, to engage our hearts with the Lord Jesus, until presently, you know, we begin to forget how horrible we are. And instead of being obsessed with our own shortcomings until they weigh us down and blot out the sky and fill our minds and push us to despair, instead of being obsessed with our own shortcomings. Our minds and hearts get taken up with Christ, and we begin to admire him, and then we turn to worshiping him, and before we know where we are, we find a desire growing within us. We want to be like him. Isn't that how you find it? Yes, because here is one of holiness's secrets, that you become like what you worship. And as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. We shall find, I suspect, as we come to consider these ancient sacrifices and the pictures of Christ they present, far from being impractical or unrelated, we shall find them now and again probing some maladjustments and abnormalities, some sore spots in our own personalities. Yes. We shall find more. We shall find welcome with God and acceptance with God on the basis of Christ's sacrifice. We shall find even more. We shall find that in Christ God has given us some glorious, beautiful Savior to fill our hearts, so that thinking about him and worshiping him, we may become like him. The Lord deign to use these humble studies to their glorious end for his name's sake.