In Exodus, Moses instructed the Israelites where to worship, but Leviticus tells them how to worship. Exodus begins with enslaved sinners, but Leviticus begins with saved saints. In Leviticus, we encounter the doctrine of holiness: holy clothing, holy sacrifices, holy places, holy days, holy law, and a holy nation. There are two kinds of holiness: personal holiness relating to sin, illustrated by the sacrifice of animals for the forgiveness of sin, and personal holiness relating to lifestyle, illustrated by living differently from neighboring nations to signify their separateness as a chosen nation.

Let's pray. Lord, I praise You for giving us this great testimony of Your holiness and Your desire that human beings would be made holy, be brought near. Lord, I pray you'd help us to understand these things. Amen. Okay, so this is the third book in the Pentateuch, Leviticus.

You've got an outline in front of you. The first thing that you have to say about Leviticus is to declare its theme, and the theme is holiness. Remember Genesis, the focus is beginnings. Exodus, the focus is deliverance. And Leviticus, the focus is holiness.

And let's talk about the author for a minute. Leviticus has been a battleground book of the Bible, as has really every Old Testament book of the Bible. If you go to any college and find yourself in a religion class, they're going to tell you that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, that he didn't write Leviticus. You'll hear about the Grof-Wellhausen documentary hypothesis, which a bunch of German scholars created to say the Bible wasn't written by Moses. In fact, we don't even know who the Bible was written by, and it was probably written by all kinds of people.

Right now we're going through Isaiah. The German critical scholars said, well, there are at least two authors of Isaiah, and some say there are six or ten authors of Isaiah. So they have first Isaiah and second Isaiah well when it comes to Leviticus well the German scholars and the German theologians were questioning all the authorship of the books of the Old Testament, you know, let's make it really clear. Jesus said that Moses wrote Leviticus, okay? So if the German critics are correct, then Jesus is a liar.

It's pretty clear that way. So if you go to John chapter 1 verse 17, you go to Mark chapter 12 verse 19, you go to Romans 10 verse 5, you'll find that the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul believed that Leviticus was written by Moses. So either it's the German critics are right or Jesus is right. In Mark chapter 10, verses 3 through 8, the Lord Jesus says, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her.

And Jesus answered and said to them, because of the hardness of your heart, He wrote you this precept." In other words, Moses wrote that. So, who's the author of Leviticus? My perspective is that Jesus is right, and that Jesus Christ maintained that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Let's talk about the name of the book, the second item in your outline. The word Leviticus means pertaining to the Levites.

I think it's a title that doesn't really encapsulate the whole message of Leviticus, but while it does include instructions for the priests and the Levites, it ultimately explains how an ungodly and impure people live before a holy God and bring His kingdom down. There are two very significant points that Leviticus makes and that is that God draws near and He makes men holy by blood sacrifice. And secondly, that holy men live holy lives. Those are really the two principles that you find in Leviticus. The popularity of the book.

The book is really popular with the New Testament writers. In fact, there's 69 references to Leviticus in the New Testament. There are actually 107 texts in the New Testament that quote Leviticus. Jesus quotes Leviticus more than any other Old Testament verse. What's that?

Love your brother. Interestingly enough, Leviticus was popular enough in early American history that Leviticus 25 10 found its way onto the Liberty Bell. When the Liberty Bell was cast, it contained this phrase from Leviticus 25 10, proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. Well, Leviticus is popular with the New Testament writers while it was popular with our founding fathers. It's probably the book that has stopped people's reading through the Bible more than any other book.

You know, You get to Genesis, Exodus, and then you get to Leviticus, and then you stop your one year reading through the Bible. Leviticus, it's difficult in many ways. You have to understand, you know, what it's all about. But I think that Leviticus is a book that people despise. I did read of somebody, though, years ago, who was a church planter.

And his strategy for church planting was to preach through the book of Leviticus at the beginning of his church plant because he believed that Leviticus so clearly declared the holiness of God, the impurity of man, and man's only hope was for sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ. He launched his churches by preaching through the book of Leviticus. Just another note on popularity of Leviticus and its words. If Leviticus was a red-letter Bible and God's words, Yahweh's words were read in Leviticus, you're familiar with red-letter Bibles in the New Testament where they have the words of Jesus in red. Well, if Leviticus was a red-letter Bible of the words of God, it would be almost all read.

And people diminish the importance and the interest that they have in Leviticus because it is, you know, different kind of reading, but let's acknowledge every word of the Bible is a word of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ wrote Leviticus, and so it would be appropriate to make Leviticus a red letter Bible in one sense, because the words of God are there. It's not just the words of Jesus that are important. The words of Jesus are important, but the words of Jesus are throughout the whole Bible from the New and the Old Testament. So The words of God are so prominent in this book.

Leviticus should be more popular. One of the reasons it's not popular is because there's a view of the Old Testament that the modern church has embraced that rejects the ceremonial law and things like that misunderstands the proper use of the ceremonial law. The position that we take in our church is really a minority position. The Baptist Confession of 1689 really presents a minority view of Leviticus. I'll just read you a couple of quick sections out of chapter 19 in the Baptist Confession.

Paragraph 3 reads, besides this law commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits. And the Baptist Confession, as all Reformed Confessions do, they separate the moral from the ceremonial from the judicial law, and you find all those three in Leviticus. Primarily though, it's the ceremonial law that you find in Leviticus. The ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ. That means that all of what you read about the ceremonial law in Leviticus is a picture of Christ.

So it's valuable to help you understand Christ. A person that doesn't understand Leviticus can't understand Christ as completely as he could. So Leviticus is important. While Leviticus is not all that popular, it's a very important book. Let's talk about the time of writing.

This is an interesting thing. As you read through Leviticus, recognize that Leviticus was given to the children of Israel in a really narrow window of time. So just as you're reading it, picture sort of the timeframe that Leviticus was delivered. It was delivered when the children of Israel had stopped at Mount Sinai during the wilderness wanderings and so it reflects the wanderings of the children of Israel in the wilderness and you have all this language in Leviticus that is so clearly the result of their experience where they were. Like, for example, lepers are to be put outside of the camp.

Well, the children of Israel only had camps, you know, when they were wandering in the wilderness, like we don't have camps. You know, most of us aren't camping for 40 years right now. But Leviticus pictures this time in the history of the children of Israel where they were camping. They were mobile. And you'll find lots of things in Leviticus that are tied to that very time frame and you have to ask yourself what does that mean what does this cultural element mean for us today putting someone outside the camp actually does have meaning but when they were in the wilderness they applied it in a particular way If you look at the very end of Exodus, in Exodus 40, what you read is this, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, on the first day of the month you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.

So in the last chapter of Exodus, there is this command to set up the tabernacle. And then the next thing that happens is the setting up of the tabernacle and the establishment of the rules of worship that take place in that tabernacle and that's why when you get to Leviticus 1 1 you learn that Leviticus was delivered to Moses in 240 day and 40 night visits to Mount Sinai got that 240 day and 40 night visits to Mount Sinai That is the time in which Leviticus was written. In Leviticus 1, 1 you read, Now the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting saying speak to the children of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord you shall bring your offering of the livestock of the herd and of the flock and from there on is this revelation from God about how He desires His people to worship Him. So that's the time. The fifth item in your outline is the theme.

I opened with one word that declares the theme, and of course the word is holiness. The word holy occurs 87 times in Leviticus. And what you find in Leviticus is the holiness of everything. Every moment, every thing in life is for the holiness of God. Nothing ought to be untouched by the holiness of God.

And so you have holy clothing of the priests, you have holy sacrifices, you have the holy place, you have holy days, you have a holy law, you have a holy nation. You know, in this whole mix of declarations of holiness, Exodus tells us where to worship, and Leviticus tells us how to worship. Do you got that? Exodus tells us where to worship, the tabernacle. Leviticus tells us how to worship in holiness in the tabernacle.

So it's the where and the how between these two books. Just to contrast Exodus and Leviticus again just so you can see the progression. Exodus begins with enslaved sinners and Leviticus begins with saved saints who are before the throne of God. In Leviticus, God gets Egypt out of His people. In Exodus, God gets His people out of Egypt.

God is making His people holy in Leviticus. You have different words in Leviticus for holy. There's holy, there's sanctified. Now, there are two kinds of holiness. And the first kind is personal holiness relating to sin.

And that has to do with the forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of animals so this is being made holy being declared holy And the second kind is personal holiness that relates to your lifestyle. So in Leviticus, you have this state of your life. You've been made holy. And you also have the practices of your life which are holy. God never separates the two.

They're always together. The person made holy is becoming more holy in his life. You find that in every book of the Bible. If you go to the New Testament, you see the pattern all over the place. You see it in Romans.

The first part of the book is salvation. The second part of the book is walking with God. Ephesians, Ephesians 1 through 4, it's about the riches that are in Christ. Ephesians 5 to the end of the book is how you walk in the light. The books of the Bible are very many of them arranged like that and Leviticus declares that twofold kind of holiness.

Let's talk about...let's open up to Leviticus 20 verse 26. This is a key verse. Leviticus 20, verse 26. Let's start in verse 25. You shall therefore distinguish between clean animals and unclean between unclean birds and clean you shall not make for yourselves abominable by beast or by bird or by any kind of living thing that creeps on the ground which I have separated from you as unclean, and you shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine." That really forms the whole argument that you find in Leviticus and that is, you shall be holy for I am holy.

Now turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 13. If you want to hear a sermon on this, listen to Jason Domes' sermon on this. He preached on this recently. 1st Peter 1-13, therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance but as He who called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct Because it is written be holy for I am holy and of course That's a direct quote from Leviticus 20 verse 26, And if you call on the Father without partiality, the Father who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

You know, here we have Peter is connecting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ with Leviticus and the blood sacrifice that we see there. The Hebrews really, you know, could not understand Christ without Leviticus. The theme of Leviticus is holiness. Now, There's some interesting things about Leviticus that we should note. When you read it, you're going to read about some ritual states of purity and impurity.

For example, you'll find you have unclean and impure, you'll have clean and pure, and you'll have holy. Those are ritual states. And what are those about? There's cleansing that's necessary when you touch a corpse, when there's a birth of a baby, when there is sexual intercourse, when there's menstruation, and when there's a discharge of semen, and some other things. These are ritual states of uncleanness, and why is that?

I don't know if you've ever wondered why do you have to have a sacrifice for having a baby is there anything wrong with having a baby no is there anything wrong with touching a corpse no is it sinful to menstruate no it's not sinful So why is there a sacrifice for these things that are not sinful? And these ritual states really declare it. What Moses is getting at is that in everything in life, you divide all of your activities as holy or unholy. And it declares the truth that there's no situation in life where you do not need the holiness of God, where you do not need reconciliation with God. And even something that's not sinful is to be seen in the whole light of holiness.

When you have a baby, think of the holiness of God and His mercy. Even when you're menstruating, if you touch a dead body, probably not that many people, I've touched a few dead bodies myself, recognize that every single part of life is designed to be made holy. So in the normal course of life, you should always be looking to the Lord, that He would cleanse your mind and your thoughts about everything that you do. I think he's talking about every part of life, and I don't want to trivialize this too much, but God has designed his people to be holy in everything. Holy as you brush your teeth.

Holy as you look in the mirror, holy as you greet your family in the morning, holy when you eat your breakfast, holy when you go to work, holy in everything, holy when you have a baby, holy you know when you touch a dead body Here in Exodus 20 we read God says all these things are mine God wants you he wants every part of you. And so you have these ritual cleansings of things that are not sin in and of themselves. There's more to this, and that is this. Everything is affected by the fall. Every part of life has been infected by the fall.

We have this original sin that is in us, and that sin, it affects all of our speech, all of our work, everything we've ever written, it affects our whole schedule. You cannot be alive in this world and not be affected by the fall, and every word that you've ever spoken is affected by the fall. You've never spoken a perfectly pure word or had a perfectly pure thought. And so the ritual cleansing has to do with these things that we normally don't think are really necessary for us to look to God. But God is saying, no, look to me for everything.

People have the idea, well these are the holy things and these are the not holy things. Like you're holy when you go to church. It's holy when you read the Bible. Leviticus says no. Holiness is required when you're having a baby, just as much as it is, you know, when you're holding a baby in church.

Leviticus is teaching us to always be making a distinction between the pure and the impure, so that we look to God for pure thoughts, for pure ways. I'll read you a short quote from a book on Leviticus that I really like. Jay Skylaw wrote a book. It's a commentary on Leviticus. I highly recommend it.

And he quotes another author by saying this about ritual cleanness. Ritual cleanness from the kitchen to the sanctuary was meant to symbolize God's greater requirement of moral integrity, social justice, and covenant loyalty. In fact, as the prophets and Jesus vigorously pointed out, if these latter things were lacking, then ritual cleanness of the most scrupulous kind at every level was worthless. If Christians were serious about moral distinctiveness as Israel was about ritual cleanness, then our salt and light might have greater power in the world. In this whole scheme of holiness that you see in Leviticus, you can't forget about the ritual cleanness.

As you read it, kind of slow down in those sections. You might be tempted to think, well what does that have to do with me? You know, I'm not a woman. I'm not going to have a baby. But those things are symbolic for everything that God desires for you.

And when we talk about holiness, the word atonement is very important to consider. This word atonement appears in Leviticus in one of the towering days in the Hebrew calendar. Atonement is emphasized. You've heard of the Day of Atonement. You'll read about the Day of Atonement in the book of Leviticus.

The word atonement comes from the Hebrew word kippur. This is why you have, you know, if you're a Jew you celebrate Yom Kippur so Kippur is atonement day of atonement Yom Kippur atonement implies a payment The payment is made and the sinner is rescued from punishment. But get this, it's a lesser punishment than was expected. And the payment appeases the wrath of the offended party. It's a payment for ransom, and that payment purifies and cleanses from the pollution of sin.

This is the beginning of the whole idea of the shed blood of Jesus Christ that atones for your sins. The blood of Christ appeases the wrath of God. The word in the New Testament is the word propitiation, where the wrath of God is quieted, it's quelled by the blood of Jesus Christ. God's wrath toward you is not atoned, is not quelled by your righteous behavior. It's not because you clean up a couple things in your life.

His wrath is stayed because of the blood shed by His Son. And the Day of Atonement, which you read about in Leviticus chapter 16 verses 11 through 16 speak of that and in that chapter you'll see how blood is actually presented as a cleansing agent so blood sacrifice is a cleansing agent and a ransom payment. Blood sacrifice is a cleansing agent and a ransom payment. And that's what the Day of Atonement was all about. And you know, you'll read about the Day of Atonement.

What happens is that the priest takes an animal and he puts his hand on the head of the animal and he slits its throat and it dies and he symbolically is transferring the sin from his hand from his life to the animal and that's atonement that an animal dies in the place of the human being. And it's interesting to think about the purpose of animals. I think there are lots of purposes of animals, but one of the primary purposes of animals in Scripture is that they are symbolic of the death of an animal for a man. In other words, there's a substitution, and this is substitutionary atonement. Jesus Christ takes your place, and He dies, and you live.

So the Day of Atonement brings out this whole world of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. And this is why we find in Matthew 26, Jesus took the cup and He gave thanks, and He said, Take, eat, this is the blood of the covenant. And he says, take eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and he gave thanks and he gave it to them saying, drink from it all of you. This is the blood of the new covenant, which was shed for many for the remission of sins." That's what the Lord's Supper is all about.

It's a picture of the Day of Atonement. So when you take the Lord's Supper, you're demonstrating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice for us. Okay, that's the whole discussion of the significance of the ritual states and the blood sacrifice. The next item in your outline is sin. When you read through Leviticus, you're going to read a lot about sin, and you need to understand sin, your own sin.

In dealing with sin in Leviticus, Moses gives you three categories of sin. You need to know this if you're a member of a family. You need to know this if you work in a company. You need to know this if you have a wife or husband. This is really important that you understand this, the three categories of sin.

The first category of sin is unintentional sin. Yeah, there's a category for unintentional sin, and there's a sacrifice for unintentional sin. And while there's a sacrifice for unintentional sin, the lack of intentionality doesn't make it any less sinful. And you can read about this in Leviticus 4, verse 20. Remember that when you pass it by.

Second, there's what's called high-handed sin. Full-scale rebellion against God. They would be cut off, they would be excommunicated, and you can read about it in Leviticus 16, 11 through 16. And then the third kind of sin is intentional but not high-handed sin and That's in Leviticus 5 1 and Leviticus 6 1 through 7 like in Leviticus 6 1 through 7 It's the giving of a false oath now. I Don't know if you've ever heard anybody say all sins are equal all sins are the same and they deserve equal punishment well that's not actually what the Bible teaches the Bible does teach that they're escalating categories of sin And God makes that very clear in the book of Exodus.

Like, for example, sodomy is a worse sin than making a false oath, as you find in Leviticus 6, 1 through 7. Some things are worse than others. The apostle Paul said, some sins are against the body. And this is a long discussion about the categories of severity of sin, but know this, there are categories of severity of sin, and you know there are people that want to level the playing field on all sin, and the Bible doesn't really do that. So, Leviticus focuses in on dealing with sin, these three categories of sin, and they all have the same solution, blood sacrifice, or sacrifice of something.

It might be a grain offering, it might be an offering of incense or something like that, but it's something that is yours, something that belongs to you that you give. And then the eighth item, as you read the Leviticus, you should consider is the matter of separation. And this has to do with God is making a holy people, a holy people, a holy nation, and God is making a difference between his people. The children of Israel learned this when they were in bondage in Egypt when the plagues came, that God did not treat his people exactly the same that he treated the Egyptians. He really favored his people.

You know, like for example, the hailstones didn't come and destroy the Hebrews houses, but they did destroy the houses of the Egyptians. Think of a terrifying thing like that. In Leviticus, God is separating His people from the rest of the people of the world in order to declare the glory of the outworking of His justice and His mercy. And this is the essence of Jesus' prayer in Matthew 6, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The holy will of God, the holiness of his kingdom is designed to be displayed on earth through his people.

So we are a different people. If people look at the church and they say, wow, they're really different, that's good. Well, hopefully it's good. If they're a bitter, angry, rebellious, self-righteous people, then that's not so good. That's not really a demonstration of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

But if the people of God are obedient, and if the people of God are focused on doing the will of God, then you have a right kind of separation. But separation is a critical matter in Leviticus. In Leviticus, God is always separating the holy from the unholy. He's atoning for what is unholy, He is judging for impenitent unholiness, and He is providing a sacrifice for the unholy. Okay, number nine.

There's a really critical doctrine here. I've talked around it a couple of times. I'd like to just give it a name as a heading, and that is substitutionary atonement. This critical doctrine here is substitutionary atonement, and substitutionary atonement is the basis of our fellowship with God. Now Moses uses quite a number of means to communicate substitutionary atonement, and he does it in the offerings.

Atonement comes through an offering. There are five offerings in the first chapters of Leviticus. And the first is the burn offering. The second is the grain offering. The third is the peace offering.

The fourth is the sin offering. And the fifth is the guilt offering. And these offerings just explain the importance of the death of a substitute for forgiveness of sins, and that you can only have a relationship with God on His terms. The burnt offerings were brought on three occasions. They were brought first daily as a morning and evening sacrifice and then secondly on special days and then thirdly when you're cleansed from sin like in Leviticus 12 6 where you have the bodily discharge and when a child is born and when a disease is cleared up.

In Leviticus 12, verse 6, those are the ritual states of impurity. So, burnt offerings are to be brought in three occasions, daily, in the morning and evening sacrifice, secondly on special days, and thirdly, any time you're cleansed from sin. Those are the three times. So you notice there's regularity about it, morning and evening. You know, God gives a morning and evening as a regular rhythm for you to deal with your sin.

You should meet with the Lord in the morning. You should meet with the Lord in the evening and cry out to Him. This is one way of dealing with your sin. You recognize how you've sinned. At the beginning of the day, you cry out, you say, you know, Lord keep us from temptation, deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

In the evening you say, you know, I lift up my hands to you in the evening. Lord, is there anything that I did that I need to repent of? And you give thanks for His mercy. So this doctrine of the substitutionary atonement is very critical. And when you read through Leviticus, you'll read about burnt offerings over and over again.

You'll say, boy, he's just saying the same thing again. Why would he say the same thing over and over again? To emphasize its importance. Because remember he's really prefiguring Christ and Christ's sacrifice. The tenth item on your list.

Remember this when you read Leviticus. Worship is costly. The animal is a male. Male animals do more work and they actually are more valuable. Bring your most valuable sacrifice.

In Leviticus, you bring a sacrifice. It might be a bull, it might be a bird. You might be poor and can only bring a bird. Remember, Jesus' family was poor. They brought what was consistent with their economic status.

You bring the most you can bring. And so, true worship is costly. It comes out of your field. It comes out of the labor of your hands. You know, you have a field and you cultivate it, and you bring a grain offering out of the field.

You have animals, you have cows, and you feed them, you nurture them, and you bring your best male animal, your most expensive, valuable, most helpful animal, and you bring that, you bring your best to God. That's why we read in the book of Malachi where God chastises his people because they're bringing their lame animals they're bringing their crummy animals to God and they're cutting corners so instead of bringing their strong vigorous animals they're bringing their crippled animals to the Lord and Malachi says to them why are you bringing this to me? You know, God is saying, why are you bringing this to me? And God says through Malachi to the people, you come with your sacrifices and you say, my, how tiresome it is. It was just tiresome.

Their worship was tiresome. It was just something to get by. A little bit like the passage of Scripture we're reading today in Isaiah chapter 48, where the people, they were just going through the motions. In Malachi, they were saying, oh, this is so tiring. Why do I have to go through these routines all the time?

But in Leviticus, what you'll find is that worship is costly It's designed to cost you money and labor and effort and sweat And you bring that before the Lord and that's what offerings ought to be The 11th thing on your outline Christ the mediator You'll see many types of Christ in Leviticus. Look for them. I'll give you three types of Christ that are in Leviticus. First of all, the high priest. The high priest is a type of Christ.

He's a mediator. Secondly, the five sacrifices that I read. You know, the burnt offering, the grain offering, all this. All of those offerings are types of Christ. And then thirdly, the feasts.

The feasts are actually types of Christ. There's the Passover that you actually read about in Exodus 12. There's the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the First Fruits, the Day of Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Day of Dedication, the Day of Lights, Purim, the Day of Lots, which you find in Esther 9, 18 through 32. You have these different feasts. All the feasts are types of Christ.

You know Ephesians 5 1 & 2, I think clarifies this a little bit in terms of the New Testament Christian, where we read, Therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling aroma. So the Apostle Paul brings forth the language of Leviticus. Sweet-smelling aroma, offering, you know, an offering that is given. All of this is reflective of Christ. So look for the types of Christ in Leviticus.

And then let's talk about the structure of Leviticus. Chapter 1 through 17 verse 16 speaks about how one has fellowship with God. And what you find here in these chapters is that the sinner's guilt is atoned for by the shedding of blood. Write down Hebrews 9 22. You'll see how that works out.

But in the first seven chapters there are laws of offerings. The burnt offering and all these other... The priest lays his hand on the head of the goat and transfers guilt. The grain offering is for a gift of God. The peace offering is food for the people.

The sin offering in chapter 4 is for unintentional sins and in chapter 5 there's a trespass offering and then in chapters 8 through 10, there's the whole matter of the mediator. And here we see worship in the tabernacle begins. 8-1 says, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments and the anointing oil, a bull as the sin offering two rams and a basket of unleavened bread, and gather all the congregation together at the door of the tabernacle of meeting." So this is the beginning of Christ as the mediator as figured in chapters 8 through 10. In chapter 10 you get the story of Nadab and Abihu. I'd like you to open to Leviticus 10 and we'll read the first six verses.

Nadab and Abihu are critical points of remembrance for us regarding the whole doctrine of the worship of God. Because Nadab and Abihu wanted to do their own thing in worship. And God killed them for it. Let's read it. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them." Do you get that?

They did something that God did not command them to do. They made something up, because the whole point of this, only do in worship what God has commanded you to do. This is the Regulator Principle of worship. We are only allowed to do what God has commanded and we should not be doing what He has not commanded. I don't think any church does this perfectly.

In our church we're trying to do it by doing the things that seem to be clear in Scripture for what He has commanded us to do. That's why we sing, that's why we pray, that's why we preach, that's why we take the Lord's Supper. We're trying to do what God has commanded us to do. You know, we're not going to have a bunch of shows, we're not going to have plays in our church, because God didn't command us to do plays. He did command us to preach.

He did command us to pray. He did command us to read Scripture. So we're gonna try to do what we're commanded to do. Again, there can be no boasting of a church that's saying, yes, we are just so right, we've got our worship down so right I don't think that's what I'm saying but Nadab and Abihu felt very free to do whatever they wanted outside of God's commands but just remember this phrase which he had not commanded them that's really critical So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me I must be regarded as holy and before all the people I must be glorified." So Aaron held his peace.

Now remember, these are Aaron's sons. God just killed Aaron's sons. And Moses explains that this was about the holiness of God and God glorifying Himself. Verse 4, And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan the sons of Uzziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp so they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp as Moses had said And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his sons, Do not uncover your hands nor tear your clothes, lest you die. And wrath come upon all the people.

But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled." So the worship is a very serious matter. And when you worship Him in spirit and in truth, there are two parts to worshiping in spirit and truth. The first is that you worship from your heart It's real. It's genuine in you and The second thing is that you do what God commanded? It's genuine and it's ordered by God.

This is biblically ordered worship. Only God can order worship. And the story of Nadab and Abihu is an illustration of that. And then, as we're moving our way here through Leviticus, the matters of purification, their laws on ritual, impurity, You'll read about those from chapter 11 to the end of chapter 15. And Then there's consecration in chapter 11, verse 44.

For I am the LORD your God, therefore you shall consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy, for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourself with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth. For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God you shall therefore be holy for I am holy this is the law of the animals and of the birds and every living creature that moves in the waters and every creature that creeps on the earth, to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten. Again, Leviticus is about distinguishing between the clean and the unclean, and to atone for the unclean. And then in chapter 16 we get to this matter of propitiation, the day of atonement.

You can read about it there. And then in chapter 17, verses 11 through 14, there's the blood sacrifice. In 1711, we find a really critical matter regarding the ceremony of law and the sacrifice of Christ. 1711 reads, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement for your soul.

Therefore I said to the children of Israel eat no one among you shall Nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood? So the life is in the blood In verse 14 there we read that it's blood that sustains life. So that's the first part. Chapters 1 through 17 speak of the purification or the sacrifice for sin. And then in the following chapters, chapters 18 through 27, is sanctification.

So the first 17 chapters are about how one has a relationship with God through blood sacrifice. The only way you can have a relationship with God is to believe in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and trust in His substitutionary atonement. Now in chapter 18 on, it's sanctification. Same outline in Romans, same outline in Ephesians, same outline in almost every New Testament book we encounter laws on living as a holy people in chapter 18 through chapter 20 and in chapter 19 verse 2 in that section we read this and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and father, and keep my Sabbaths.

I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molded gods. I am the Lord your God. And if you offer a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord, you shall offer it of your own free will. It shall be eaten the same time of day you offer it, and on the next day.

And if any remains until the third day it shall be burned with fire and if it is eaten at all on the third day it is an abomination it shall not be accepted so this has to do with holy living you know honoring your father and mother, keeping the Sabbath, turning from idols, all these things. This section is all about sanctification. And then there are laws showing reverence for holy things in chapter 21 through 24. And then there are laws anticipating life in the Promised Land. And you find that in chapter 25, verse one to the end of the book.

And you read here about the year of Jubilee. That's something that only can happen in the Promised Land. And let's talk about the connection of Leviticus with the New Testament. So that's the outline. You know, as you read through Leviticus, you'll find those basic categories in the outline.

It might help you as you read it to have the outline in front of you so you can see the contours. You need to know how it's broken out. At least at minimum recognize the first part is about purification and The second part is about sanctification. See at least those two divisions, how they're broken out. And then finally, the connection with the New Testament.

Jesus on the cross, shedding His blood, cannot be understood without Leviticus. You know, if you begin with the Gospels, you won't understand the story of the narrative, of the flow of justification by faith. You know, these themes arise in the Pentateuch, where you have a people who are rescued from bondage, and they go into the wilderness and they have a tabernacle. The tabernacle was a place where God came near, And sacrifices were made in the tabernacle while they were in their wilderness wanderings. Think of your life kind of like a wilderness wandering in a way, you're making your way, you know, on your heavenly journey.

God is dwelling among them. And Leviticus tells you how to have God dwell in your midst, and that is that you bring a sacrifice of praise. Romans chapter 12 speaks of a living sacrifice, That you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God Romans 12 1 & 2 is directly hardwired to the whole book of Leviticus And the backdrop of Romans 12 1 & 2 of presenting your body's a living holy sacrifice is in the book of Leviticus. The net of it is this. God is holy.

We are not. We cannot earn our salvation by our works. But salvation is accomplished through an atoning, substitutionary sacrifice. It comes from the shedding of blood, for without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. That's what the writer of Hebrews says Leviticus shows you what it means to be holy before God and it shows you the lifestyle of Being holy in the world So there it is We're an unholy people and our only hope is a holy God.

You know, I've said this in church a few times It's such a good thing that God is holy Your only hope is that God is holy. If God was not holy, there would be no hope for you. There would be no hope for your cleansing or your sanctification. It is good that He's holy because He takes His Holiness and He lays it upon you. He declares you holy and righteous and then He commands you to walk in holiness.

But it all flows from His own holiness and that's why the great theme of the book of Leviticus is holiness. Okay, so that's the book of Leviticus.