In the sermon titled 'The Sacrifices and Praises of the Redeemed,' Scott Brown explores Deuteronomy 27, focusing on Moses' command to the Israelites to set up large stones inscribed with the law as they enter the Promised Land. This act symbolizes the centrality of the law and gospel in their consciousness. The sermon highlights the similarities between Old Testament sacrifices and New Testament practices, such as the Lord's Supper, emphasizing that both point towards the fulfillment in Christ. Brown discusses the importance of leadership within the church, drawing parallels between the Elders of Israel and church leaders today. He stresses the need for unity among leaders to present a unified message to the congregation. The sermon further delves into the significance of burnt offerings, which represent atonement for sin, and peace offerings, which celebrate the believer's reconciliation with God. The message calls believers to obey God’s commandments with all their heart and soul, recognizing their sinfulness and rejoicing in the peace that comes from Christ’s sacrifice.

Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 27 and join in with me as we read this together. Verses 1 through 10 will be the text today. Now Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you today. And it shall be, on the day when you cross over the Jordan, to the land which the Lord your God has given you, that you shall set up for yourselves large stones and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over, that you may enter the land which the Lord your God has given you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you.

Therefore it shall be, when you have crossed over the Jordan, that on Mount Ebal you shall Set up these stones which I command you today, and you shall whitewash them with lime. And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall not use an iron tool on them. You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. You shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there and rejoice before the Lord your God.

And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law." Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel saying, take heed and listen, O Israel. This day you have become the people of the Lord your God. Therefore you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God and observe His commandments and His statutes, which I command you today. Please join me in prayer. Oh God, as we come as a people today, Lord, let this book live to each one of us.

Let your Holy Spirit, Lord, be with all those, Father, who are worshiping you in spirit and in truth. Father, I pray for Pastor Brown, too, that you would give him the words he needs to speak to make this all live. And Father, let us humbly come before you in seeing what you would speak to us today. And we praise and thank your name. Amen.

Here we are back again to the book that Jesus loved, the book that Jesus quoted more than any other book in scripture, the book that helps us to understand how similar the instruction of the Lord Jesus Christ is to the instruction of Moses. When the Lord Jesus handles the law with precision, he goes back to give the heart and soul of the meaning of these laws as he teaches, particularly on the Sermon on the Mount. And what we find here in this passage of Scripture is a rite that really sums up so much of what God commanded His people to do in the rites of sacrifice for sin in the past. But it also prefigures the kind of rite that the New Testament Church is commanded to perform. The images are the same, the heart of it is the same, except fulfilled in Christ because there is a better covenant that the Lord Jesus Christ establishes for us.

So chapter 27, God calls the children of Israel to perform an act once they get into the promised land that makes both the law and the gospel central to their consciousness. And so as we've been walking through the book of Deuteronomy, we know that Deuteronomy is broken up into three sermons. The first, chapters one through four, which really speak of the mighty acts of God, and the theme of it is, I carry you. The second speech, which we've just concluded, runs from chapter five up to chapter 26. And here Moses gives the Ten Commandments, And then he dissects them and gives precise meanings of each one of the laws in sequence throughout that sermon, probably a three or four hour sermon.

And now, as we cross over into chapter 27, We're moving into his third sermon, which covers from chapter 27 to chapter 31. And then finally, in chapter 32 to 34, is really a vision for the future, the passing of leadership from Moses to Joshua. So after Moses now has given this long exposition on the Ten Commandments, he now begins to identify certain rituals that would remind the children of Israel about the things that should guide their whole lives. And if you're if you recall when we concluded chapter 26, Moses at the end there gives rituals as well. If you remember back to chapter 26, there was the command to, first of all, celebrate the first fruits when they get into the land, that people were to take whatever God had given them and give their first fruits to the Lord.

And then Secondly, to bring a tithe of celebration for the poor, and for the stranger, and for the fatherless. And that is the tithe that's taken in the third year. They'll arrive in the promised land, and then in the third year, they take this poor tithe in order to cover the needs of the poor. And then it ends with an oath in verses 16 through 19, where Moses says, This day the Lord commands you to observe these statutes and judgments. Therefore, be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.

So Moses has just ended this previous sermon and he's picking up again here in this next speech with another set of rites that they should perform one time as they go into the Promised Land. You have to understand, this is a one-time ceremony that they're asked to perform. But notice how it is so similar to previous rites, but also how similar it is to what we'll do in just a few minutes as we celebrate the Lord's Supper. It is so much like it. It is the Lord's Supper, I think, in so many of its images and its meanings.

God has always called His people to love them with all of their hearts, with all of their souls, and that as part of their love, they have certain practices that they perform in the land that they're living in. Christian people have different practices. They do different things in their lives. They're very specific things that they do in order to remind themselves of who they are, and we'll see that in this one, how what desperate sinners they're reminded of, and then secondly, how much hope there is as they rejoice before the Lord. So that's kind of a thumbnail sketch.

You have to draw a connection between the end of chapter 26 and the beginning of 27 because he's talking about the same matter of the kinds of rites. What do the people of God do in the land? God's people do something in the lands in which they are called to live in. We don't just sort of go through life any old way we want, creating whatever sort of life we might desire. No, God gives us a way to think about ourselves and our presence in these lands.

And that's what these instructions and rites are all about. So in this new section, which stretches across four chapters, we begin here in verse 1 after concluding this detailed elaboration of the law. So the first thing that we see, and you can see it in your outline if you have one in front of you, that Moses and the elders in this new speech deliver a command to the people. Now notice who's speaking. It's Moses and the elders.

And that's a distinctive identification here in this first verse. When we get to 9 and 10, we find that it's Moses, the priests, and the Levites. So you have different people speaking. I just want you to understand who's talking and how it's all working because it's important. So here, Moses is with the elders.

We bump into the elders in the book of Deuteronomy and in the book of Exodus. In Exodus 3.16, we see that there's a command, go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them. So elders have existed at least during this time of the wilderness wanderings. In Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 13, Moses is found commanding the people to choose wise and understanding and knowledgeable men among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you." So there's this whole matter of leadership. You see the same thing in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 23 where Moses says, So it was when you heard the voice of the Lord from the midst of the fire, in the midst of darkness, in the mountain burning with fire, that you came to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders." So there's this matter of the leadership of the children of Israel.

And God establishes in all of his iterations of dealing with his people representative heads, leaders, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, that type of thing. And here we find again that God works through leadership. There's a popular idea that's washing through the church today and I'm confident it's washed through the church many other times and that says that only Christ is the leader, the church doesn't need leaders. And so you have what we're going to call leaderless house churches where people get together and everyone is equal in terms of leadership. Of course, they're trying to really capture the body life that we find in scripture, where each member of the body builds one another up in love, this kind of wonderful life that's there.

But they strip it away of this other category that God has always established leaders for his people. He has always done it, and he's done it in the New Testament era as well. So this aversion to leadership is common, but it's not a biblical idea. And so what you find here is Moses and the elders of Israel seem to be standing with one mind and one heart and one voice to speak to the people about some one-time act that they will do once they enter the promised land. And so, you know, in God's economy, there must be some kind of leadership.

The New Testament church is commanded to provide for congregations elders and deacons. Those are the two offices of the church that you find in scripture for the New Testament church. And, you know, it's so important that the church understands this. Here, it seems like as Moses is standing addressing two million people and all of their children, he's standing with one voice with the elders of Israel. Just a point before we leave this first verse, it's so important that elders present to a congregation a unified voice, and that's what we see here.

It's an obligation of elders to be unified together in the Lord and to communicate the things that God has led them into in a unified manner. And so I think of Christ's answer to the claims that he was casting out demons by the power of Satan, where he said, a house divided cannot stand. And of course, a house divided has torn down so many churches that I'm aware of. But here what we find is that this unified voice of Moses and the elders of Israel is a singular message, and you see it at the end of verse 1. Look at it with me.

Keep all the commandments which I command you today. That's their message to the people. And of course, this has always been and always ought to be the message of the church and that is keep the commandments of the Lord and you find this as the Lord Jesus you know explains how one keeps these commandments from the heart they're not just wooden commandments that that are carried out by by sort of a robotic fulfillment of the commandments, but actually they flow from the heart and they affect every area of life. So look at the Sermon on the Mountain, you can see exactly how Jesus proves that. So in the first verse, there is an establishment of the authority of Moses and the elders of Israel.

Then secondly you see there's an instruction further not only to obey all the commandments that have been spoken in the past but also to build an altar. So he comes with something new here in verse 2. And in verse 2, he says, set up large stones. And then in verse 3, you write on the stones. And then there's an identification of the location of where those stones should be set up.

Now, what Moses is doing here is he's commanding the people of Israel to set up a monument of remembrance and to give that monument a voice, literally the voice of the Word of God, as the words are written on stones. Now, you know, the building of monuments is a godly thing to do, and that's what they're doing right here, that this monument that would remind them of godly ordered worship, of the importance of obedience, of the desperate sinfulness of man, and also just the refreshing Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and the peace that one can have with God in spite of being so fallen in in spirit and So it's appropriate to build monuments to these kinds of things And here the law is written on stones. It's appearing in a conspicuous place. Imagine they're coming into the land. Here what we find later is they get into a battle.

But they establish this monument right at the beginning of their entry into the land. And it's with a white background. The words come out in contrast to it. And it's written very plainly. You can see in verse 8, they're instructed to write them very plainly.

So it was very careful writing. You know, God is not a father of confusion, but he establishes distinctive words that would guide his people that are clearly discerned in that sense. And this is part of his care for his children, that he gives them a way to live, a way to think, a way to relate to one another. And it's clear, just as it was supposed to be very clear here. And you just can see, again, the heart of God, such a good Father, to communicate so clearly.

He's not waffling. He's not changing his mind. He's giving very clear ways that we might walk in. And it's such a blessing. Children know this, how helpful it is when parents give clear direction.

They know that parents often don't give clear direction and sometimes they get punished often for their parents' lack of clear direction because they don't communicate what is required of them and they don't help them understand what the will of the father is and so they get into trouble over and over again. Sometimes it's because parents just aren't clear. Here God is being very clear. He's saying set these stones up right on them, right on them carefully. We don't know exactly what was written.

Was it the entire Pentateuch? I doubt it. Was it all of, was it the Shema, or was it just the Ten Commandments itself? We don't really know. Probably it was something of the shorter version rather than the whole narrative sections of the Pentateuch.

So that these stones were brought out and were established there. It reminds of what Moses said in chapter 6, write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You know, God has asked his people to remember his law by writing it down. He even has kings writing the law in his own hand and holding it with him to guide him. So God is a God who would have us write his law for remembrance to keep it before us in a critical place, in this case right before, you know, as they enter in the promised land.

Interesting, just an interesting side point here. These laws are written in Hebrew. You know, when I was in college, you know, all of the religious studies department, you know, instructors were saying that, well, during the Mosaic period, no one could read. Everyone was illiterate. That is absolutely ridiculous.

Why in the world would you write these things if no one could read? And of course, they reject the historicity of all these things. But here we find, yes, God, yes, there were literate people. People weren't stupid back then. They weren't in the Stone Age, OK?

They were reading and writing. They were doing important things. But he's having them write in Hebrew these things so that they can actually read them with their eyes, and they're not illiterate. People think, oh, yes, scripture is passed down through oral tradition. That is absolutely not true.

It was passed down in words and letters in the way that this is communicated here. That's what the Bible says. Now, if you think it was just passed down by oral tradition, then you'll just have to take your Bible and throw it over the wall, because the Bible says that it was actually recorded in words. So here they're writing these things down for their remembrance to teach them how to be a wise and understanding people. We learned that back in the first sermon for the purpose of all this.

Now, where is all this happening? It's identified right here. It's on Mount Ebal. And Mount Ebal, as we already know from our previous studies, it's juxtaposed right next to Mount Gerizine. So there are these two mountains, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizine.

And they're actually very close together. They come down in a valley very close together. One is 2, 900 feet, and the other one is 2, 900 feet and 3, 100 feet. So they're pretty close in elevation to one another. But they just come right down in a valley.

And it's interesting, because this whole scene is being set up now, where the children of Israel are going to be speaking to one another. Six tribes on Mount Ebal, six tribes on Mount Gerizim. On Mount Ebal, they're pronouncing the curses that happen to those who disobey God. On Mount Gerizim, the blessings of God. And so you're bringing these back and forth to one another to proclaim, really, the goodness of God.

And if you go to Google Earth, Mount Gerizine, Mount Ebal, And you'll find just amazing pictures of what this looks like. How could they hear at such a distance? Well, it's easy to see if you just Google Earth this thing. So these mountains were sort of carved out in the middle. As the mountains come up like this.

They're carved out and then they break out into a valley like this. They're actually two stone amphitheaters on each side. And So this is how they could hear. I ran across an entry into the journal of W. Garvey, who made a trip to the Holy Land in 1879.

And here's what he says, it is interesting to know the spot chosen by God for this reading. It is a vast natural amphitheater in which the human voice can be heard to a surprising distance. About halfway between Shackham and the mouth of the valley in which it stands is a deep semi-circular recess in the face of Mount Ebal and a corresponding one precisely opposite to it in Mount Gerizim. No man with his eyes can ride along the valley without being struck with this singular formation." then he tells the story of how he was with some Baptist missionaries there in Palestine and they set, they actually tried to reenact it and they could hear, they could actually hear. At least one of them could be heard very well, the other guy didn't have quite as a lot of voice.

And so he couldn't be heard as well. So he was saying, well, probably these guys have the priests and the Levites and the speakers there had loud voices, because you could hear. But they were saying you actually can hear because of this natural acoustically designed by God, amphitheater, that God was calling his people to come and do this. So the altar here is being built on Mount Eval, probably in the lower part of the slope, maybe down near the bottom of it. The city of Sychar is right there on that slope where the woman at the well was from and met the Lord Jesus in that area.

This was the area right there. When you think about the woman at the well, think of these two concave, acoustic amphitheaters that are there, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. It's just a wonderful blessing to have this geographical location where this thing could be carried out here. And it was the place where the woman came to Jesus and said, give me water. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink.

And he spoke to her, of course, about the blessings, the great blessings of having living water and relief from her sins. So what we find here is there's this altar that's being built on Mount Ebal. So that's what we learn there in verse two, and two through eight here. Now, we find Joshua obeying this, recorded in Joshua chapter eight. And so, Moses, he passes the leadership to Joshua.

Joshua moves into the promised land. They get into a war in Ai, and they conquer there. And then right after that, after Joshua obeys the Lord in a number of very specific points, he then reenacts this scene that was commanded by Moses in this sermon and he does it as was specified there. So the first thing that God calls the children of Israel to do when they come into the land is to worship Him in this way. And it's paradigmatic.

It is a pattern. It shows what God's people do, really, in every generation, that he has gathered his people together. They come and they worship and they remember two things that are spoken of right here. Now this is not the first time obviously that sacrifices you know have been given. You find of course you know Cain and Abel offering sacrifices in Genesis chapter 4.

You see something so similar to this in Genesis 8 where Noah sacrifices when he comes off the ark. And he has clean animals there on the ark. He brings them off, and then he makes a sacrifice. He drives a stake in the ground about these particular issues that are really symbolized here in this rite that Moses is commanding to as well. You see Abraham over and over making sacrifices in his journeys.

This is such a wonderful and godly pattern that one, when they're going from place to place, to remember these kinds of things here. Remember who you are and remember what God has done and to stop and make sacrifices. This is what God's people did. You see it with Isaac, you see it with Jacob. You know, while Abraham is stopping and he's worshiping the Lord in the places that he goes, There's a dramatic contrast with Lot, his nephew.

What does Lot do? You don't see Lot sacrificing. When Lot shows up in Sodom, instead of worshipping, instead of stopping and remembering who he is, he's networking. He's making his way up through the social structure and he ends up losing everything and he loses everything because he does not have a life of worship of God. And yet he is called a righteous man in the New Testament, But he suffered much and his family was devastated because he refused to be a man who when he went from one place to the next to worship God, to stop everything and to make an enormous investment in the gathering of whatever it might be to worship God.

And even our gathering here today is part of that. We've stopped everything. We've put aside all of our economic activity. We've said we're going to give a day to worship God, to stop and make a remembrance. And the remembrance that we're making today is so much like what this one remembrance was here that Moses was calling for.

So he commands that Moses and the elders of Israel command to build and alter, and again, we find the same critical principle about worship, and that is that worship is governed by God. Now you've heard us say this a number of times and we'll say it again. Only God is qualified to order worship. Man, when he orders worship, creates something in his own image. And so God is the one who orders worship.

And you always have to ask how will worship be governed? How will you decide what you will do when you gather together? Well the church has ended up adopting a bankrupt and defiling principle that worship is governed by man, that man can do whatever he wants in the worship of God. And so what happens in a scenario like that, when you believe that, what you end up with is a church that's really governed by the next creative guy that shows up. So will worship be governed by God, or will it be governed by man?

If it's not governed by God, then who will it be governed by? Well, then the brain of man. This is why the reformers rose up in the days of the Protestant Reformation and they said that all worship from the brain of man is idolatry. That sounds very strong to our ears, but that's true. You are either governed by your own brain and what creative and fantastical things that you might develop in order to worship God or you are governed by God and God alone.

Now this worship is consistent with all the other worship experiences that we see in Scripture. And that is that God gives specific instructions for how it should be engaged. And so here we come to what some people call the regular principle of worship, at least in spirit, that God is now regulating this worship. He's carefully defining what should and should not be done in this particular worship experience. Now, you know, this, you know, every one of the details of these, you know, we're not obligated to repeat, but the spirit and the heart of them reflects the heart of God.

And one aspect of this is that God has determined that he would regulate worship. We see this in Exodus chapter 25 in the building of the tabernacle and how to build the ark. In Exodus 25, 40 we read, See that you make them according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain." So here, whatever it is that God is doing in worship, He is commanding it. He did it with the tabernacle, and now with this one-time rite that he's asking the children of Israel to perform, he is governing it and very carefully explaining how it should be. And you can see right here what he's asking them to do, to take uncut stones.

In other words, unlike the crafting of the temple, which did involve cut stones that were pre-cut, so that the sound of tools were not heard as it was being pieced together, here it's different, because there are no cuttings of the stone. Here they're just left to be as they are found. And he is asking them to take the uncut stones and then to paint them with lime, and then to write the words on them. And why no cutting tools? Why just natural stones?

And this is a tremendous and wonderful study to engage which we don't have time to really pursue but let me just try to summarize it by this is that God is asking his people not to pollute His worship with their own hands by crafting it themselves. And that God alone defines it and God alone is able to make the worship what it ought to be. That it is God who is sovereign, who makes our worship profitable or not profitable. That it is Him and Him alone who can make worship come from stones. If you look across Scripture and see the use of stones, there is a kind of consistency that helps us to understand this matter.

People are always thinking, how can I make myself better? How can I get, how can I, you know, how creatively can I make the worship experience for the people of God work better? And how can we improve the worship of God? Here God is saying, you cannot improve it. You cannot improve what I am able to do.

You know, how cool can you make this altar? God says I make the worship what it ought to be. And so don't tamper with it with your own coolness idolatry, which so often is the governing factor of modern worship today. There's such a desire to do something so powerful that the power of God is not needed at all. Here, the power of God in worship is so explained by this.

The Lord Jesus is the rock. He is the stone not cut with hands in Daniel chapter 2. So there's this principle of the uncut stone that should teach us about the power of God, that God is able to work without all of our creativity, without all of our human endeavor, but that only He and He alone is the one that can govern worship. You know, here today, here we are. What will determine whether we will get anything from this time today?

God's sovereign hand choosing to open our hearts to show us His glory, to help us to see our need for Him, to identify the particular sins. There's no way any one of us can identify one another's sins with some level of protection, but God can. He pierces the hearts. We're completely dependent upon Him. If you get anything out of our gathered time together, it will be because God is so kind to you.

It won't be because of you, we're so smart and figured out the system and we're able to rig it so it just works with everybody that walks in the door. That's not how God works. God is sovereign. In the blessing of His people, with salvation, He opens up their hearts and reveals their sinfulness and in sanctification. We are totally dependent upon God for either one of those, and the Lord Jesus is the one who teaches this.

Now we're told here that it should be whitewashed. This is kind of a strange command to me at first. We discussed it quite a bit on Tuesday morning. Why would God move first of all with permanence and write with his finger in stone that would endure, but now you're writing it on a whitewash. It's going to wash off in time.

Interestingly enough, I was reading this last week, I believe it was in 1983, 1989, there was some significant money invested in excavating here and they believe they found these, they found what seems to be an altar of uncut stones right there in the location that that that's identified here but why the whitewash you know what because they will be you know defeated over time and there there we're not exactly told but we can we can we can we can at least we can at least learn something from it. We know that God writes the Word in our hearts, not just on tablets of stone, but he writes them on our hearts. And even in Psalm 119, David says, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. We know that the Apostle Paul said that we are living stones, and we are fit together. And as living stones, we edify one another, and we build one another up in love.

So we know that there are many ways that this can be understood. We know that we are living epistles. In other words, the Word of God is in our hearts. We find love and affection for it, and then it comes out in the way that we live. And we are living epistles.

In other words, we are like those words written on living stones. And our lives are actually just pictures of the words that were carved in stone or written on whitewash that washed away. Because we're always declaring the laws of God in everything that we do. We can't help it. We're always declaring whether that law is in our hearts or not by the way that we live.

I do it by the way that I talk to my wife, either well or poorly, the way that I instruct my children. You can tell whether I'm operating with the law written in my heart. It's working in me. Yes, the words were there. I read the words.

But then they became part of me. Like the prophet said, I ate them, and they were sweet to me. And then they were part of my life and they came out. Tony was speaking about how important it is for us to be obedient. How does that happen?

It happens when the law is read, when Moses is read as Paul said, and then we're transformed, if we're converted, into the image of Christ as we behold Him face to face. So this whole matter of living stones, uncut stones, has vast, it really has vast meaning, unpackable really in the amount of time remaining. But just know that here what we find is a beautiful right given to the children of Israel to remind them of eternal truths. And what you find here also is this command to deliver two kinds of offerings. And I've listed those two kinds that are mentioned here.

There's first of all the burnt offerings, and then there are the peace offerings. And this is really, I believe, the heart of the text. This is sort of the pulsating center of it. This thing that's happening here is declaring something of eternal nature. It's declaring, it's really, it's declaring forward for what will come as Jesus Christ brings a better covenant and it casts us back to every sacrifice that God commanded men to do from the very beginning of time.

It brings it all together in this one rite here. And of course, the offerings that God caused people to engage in were more than just these two. There were six offerings that were part of the temple or the worship in the tabernacle. There was the burnt offering first, the meal offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the peace offering, and then finally the drink offering. These were all particular offerings.

Every single one of them was a prefigurement of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Every single one of them is summed up in Christ. And he comes and he explains in clearer form each one of them. But of these two offerings, he says, and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord, your God. So we'll speak for a few moments about the burnt offering.

What was a burnt offering? Well, it was an animal that was consumed completely on a fire and It was to speak of the atonement for sin. It was to speak of propitiation, that God's wrath was propitiated by a sacrifice. As the hand of the priest was put on the head of the animal and the sins of the people are transferred figuratively to that animal. It was about the turning of the wrath of God to a sacrifice so that God's people would have the ability to have peace with God.

It's an astonishing, remarkable, unfair judgment on a sacrifice, as it was on the Lord Jesus Christ. Who deserved to be sacrificed? The Lord Jesus? I don't think so. And yet God saw that He would be the sacrifice for sin.

He would be this animal on the fire, completely consumed. It speaks of God's wrath so great that He would completely consume the offering. That sin is so horrible that it would require complete incineration as God took His Son and poured out the cup of His wrath on His Son, which we deserved. It was the total destruction of the body, which prefigured the destruction of the body of Christ and Christ saying, this is my body which was given for you. This was my body.

That's why this is a picture of what we'll do here in just a few minutes as the Lord Jesus says, this is my body which was broken for you. It also illustrates the total dedication of the believer to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It speaks of this dual calling of God. One, to repent of sins, to trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and then to present your own body as an offering, to regard your body as nothing, to care nothing for this world, to care nothing for man, but to care only for the will and the law of God, and to fulfill it in your lifetime.

Leviticus chapter 1, the entire chapter, explains this. Please turn to Leviticus 1. I just want us to read the first five verses, because it gives you such a sense of how this is fulfilled in Christ. Verse 2, Leviticus 1. 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.

If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. He shall offer it of his own free will. What does this sound like? The Lamb of God, without blemish, freely giving his life at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord. Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.

He shall kill the bull before the Lord and the priests. Heir and sons shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood all around the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of meeting." And then in verse 10 he says it can be of the flock, like the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It can be of sacrifice of birds. But when you get to verse 17, you see what it means before the Lord. It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.

So here is a picture of the atoning sacrifice of the blood of Christ, where He absorbed all the wrath of God for my sins and your sins. We find these offerings made in many places. It's interesting when you go to Genesis chapter 8 and read what is described there when Noah gets off the ark, that the language is so similar. He's commanded to take their clean animals in Genesis 8, 20. In Genesis 8, 20.

And it's a soothing aroma in verse 21. And so the similarities are very clear. These sacrifices have within them the same message revealed progressively, finally being fulfilled and summed up in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what we read in Hebrews through him, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. And Philippians, do not neglect to do good to those and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

The sacrifice here is a prefigurement of Christ's sacrifice, and it's also to tell a story of your sacrifice and mine. And what it means to be a true Christian, and what it means to be a true Christian. And what it means to be a true Christian is that you have laid your whole body in sacrifice for God. And you say The same thing that the Lord Jesus said, not my will, but thine be done, which is the watchword of all true sacrifices before God. It's given freely and willingly because you desire it.

It's given out of love and genuineness of heart, and that's the only way that anybody in the Old Testament or the New Testament has ever entered in to fellowship with the Lord, is with a heart like that. When we come to the burnt sacrifice, we also have to acknowledge something that's here, And that is the terrible, warped, poisoned soul that we have from sin. And how dangerous it is to play with sin. Because it causes the wrath of God to be poured out and to encourage us to make an irreconcilable war with sin. Because of what it does, and how devastating it is, to turn away from it.

To quit making friends with the enemies of God. To quit patting on the back and bringing them into our homes, to let no abominations enter into our houses, to deal with sin because it will be dealt with with such fury. So here in this sacrifice, the burnt offering sacrifice, is a summation of the sinfulness of man and how desperate it is and how it will be punished, it will be vanquished by a terrible judgment. We've been reading the Song of Moses weekly, and every time I read it, I'm struck by the fury of God towards sin. You know, this was a song that God commanded the children of Israel to learn, so that they would remember the fury, that their foot will slip in due time, that He will bring out His glittering sword, that He will cast into hell all those that do not repent, and He will wipe them away, and He will take all those who have not repented of their sins, and He will cast them into outer darkness for all eternity." And after Moses is done with explaining this, he begins to talk about the curses, both the temporal and the eternal curses, that those who don't repent will suffer.

If you've not repented, just know you will suffer. You will be so disfigured. You will be not annihilated from pain, but you will be completely destroyed. But you'll know, you will feel the pain of your destruction for all eternity. And that's what Moses is giving a vision of.

Sin is so bad, It requires an offering to be made on your behalf. That offering is Christ. And you cannot trust in anything of yourself for your salvation. It's that sacrifice and that sacrifice alone. So the children of Israel are to remind themselves of their desperate sinfulness and of the great sacrifice for sins.

So that's the first offering. Now the second offering, the peace offerings that are given here, verse 7, you shall offer peace offerings. And shall eat there and rejoice before the Lord your God. And you shall write very plainly on the stones. Now, this peace offering is dramatically different from the burnt offering.

The peace offering is wonderful. Here, here the sun comes out. Here, the love of God is poured out within our hearts. Here, the cleansing flood comes. Here, the living water gets poured out on the soul of man.

Because this sacrifice is not to make peace with God, but it's just to enjoy it. It's to celebrate it. It's to find its sweetness. And then actually to eat of it, to make a celebration meal. God's people are always celebrating with a meal.

This is not just a Baptist thing. This is something that God's people do and have done from time immemorial. They gather and they eat because of the blessing of the Lord, because of the kindnesses of God. In Psalm 131, verse 2, the psalmist says, Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." That's what this is celebrating. It's celebrating the peace of God that passes all understanding.

It's about God making your soul fat. It's about God making you happy. It's about God relieving you from all of your fears. It's about pouring out His living water and giving you His living bread. It's about His rod and His staff that comfort you.

It's about His leading you beside the still waters and restoring your soul and taking you to the only good pasture nearby. It's the green pastures. That's what this offering is about. It's not to make peace with God, but it's just to soak in the peace of God, to just so be relieved in soul, recognizing your sinfulness, but the great abundance of God's mercy. And you read about this offering in Leviticus chapter 3.

And it is for food. It is for food. And it's a perpetual offering, says Leviticus chapter 3. To be offered throughout your generation and in all your dwellings. It's a perpetual offering and we're going to do it again today.

We're going to do that same thing. In the communion service, we do the exact same thing. First of all, we examine ourselves and we repent. We mortify the flesh. We ask God to show us our sin, and we repent.

And if we've not repented, we even leave our offering and we go and be reconciled to our brother. As so much of our sinfulness has to do with our hearts, dispositions toward our brothers and sisters. And so the Lord tells us to leave our offering because we have to acknowledge the greatness of our sins and then we take the cup of blessing. We eat the bread. We do acknowledge the broken body as we break the bread, how He was the burnt offering for our sins, but we never stay there.

We go to the celebration of the table of the Lord, so that we who are far off, you know, would be brought near, so that we having been justified by faith, by the sprinkling of the blood from the offering of the altar, that we might have peace with God, as Paul told us in Romans 5.1. That we would enter into the fellowship of his sufferings and be conformed to his death. Now, 1 Corinthians 10 tells us how to interpret the sacrifice, where Paul tells us how you interpret the Old Testament. And here's what he says. He says, when the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, It was baptism.

When they drank of the rock, they were drinking of Christ. When everything they did, it was to commemorate Christ. And now He is speaking of the offering and the peace that's here. And then there's eating and rejoicing. You eat the peace offering with gladness and sincerity of heart like they did in Acts chapter 2.

We're continuing to rejoice with one another from house to house. We come and we celebrate the Lord's table. This concept of rejoicing is not new in Deuteronomy either. It's all over the place. In chapter 12 verse 7 we read that God's people are commanded to eat and rejoice before the Lord.

The same thing in chapter 14, the same thing in chapter 16, the same thing in chapter 26, and now in chapter 27, verse 7, the same thing. This whole matter of rejoicing from the heart is before us again. And that's what the peace offering is. It's not to make peace, but it's just to rejoice in it and to find rest for your soul. And so a time like this when the people of God gather, it must be a time of resting in your soul.

Are you resting in your soul? Perhaps God would just so help us this morning. When I was sitting before the service, I was reminded of Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. Who forgives all your inequities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all those who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in mercy, He has not dealt with us according to our sin, nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so he has removed your sins and your transgressions. Your sins and your transgressions. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For the Lord knows our frame, and he remembers that we are but dust that's the essence of the peace offering right there that God comes in wrath towards sin substituting a sacrifice and then opening up the windows of heaven towards sinners.

What an amazing thing it is. I pray that we have that from the heart this morning. And then in verses 9 and 10, the significance of the day is given. Then Moses and the priests, remember, now there's a change of who's talking. It's Moses and the priests and the Levites spoke to all Israel saying, take heed and listen.

Now, take heed, it's an interesting Hebrew word. It's actually equivalent to the modern term shut up okay it's very it's very strong I know I know there are gonna be children who are gonna be saying shut up and parents are gonna say you're not supposed to say shut up well so I'm not meaning that children should say, shut up. But God here is using a very strong term that's sort of equivalent to be silent. Stop all the other, stop your brain from thinking about anything else but this and then he tells what it is Take heed and listen this day you become the people of the Lord your God now that doesn't mean that on that day They finally became the people of the Lord their God. We know that God declares this many times.

But it's the whole principle that God is creating a people, a chosen possession, a holy people, a peculiar people that are His, who keep His commandments. So he's just driving that home that they are the people of God. They're not living like the Gentiles. They are distinct. They cannot be the same.

They will be belittled in the world. They are different. They are the people of God. God owns them. And they own Him in their hearts.

So there's this significance of the day. It's actually just an identification of national identity, and that they are one together in the world, in the same way that we are. We are one, we are a people, we go out into the world, we preach the gospel, we fulfill the commands of God in our generation, we are the people of God. Regardless of how the culture changes, we have the commandments and the statutes and the judgments, we live by them. And that's what Moses is saying here.

And then finally, the reason for the ritual is finally explained in verse 10. Therefore, you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God and observe His commandments and His statutes, which I command you today." And then after this ends, Moses explains what they are to say in terms of the cursings. The observation was made on Tuesday, I think it's a very important one. The cursings that come in the remaining part of this chapter, are mostly about things done in secret. They're secret sins.

And they have to do with matters of the heart first. Moses is always dealing with the heart. He never only deals with outward performance. He's constantly defaulting to the heart of the matter, which is exactly how the Lord Jesus did it, because He and Moses were prophets like unto one another. So He's dealing with secret idols.

So here we come now, this morning, as we have. We're here to celebrate the power of the gospel. We're here to remember our sinfulness, to come before God, to repent of our sins, and then to experience the joy of the Lord. That's why we are here. Let it be a day of rejoicing.

Let me just say a couple things about coming before the Lord together. We ought to have this divine balance in us, that our pride is destroyed by our consciousness of our sins, so that we are not a prideful people for anything that we have done. We have no reason for it. We've broken one, we've broken them all. So on the one hand, we're a humbled people.

We are ashamed people. We have done things, said things, thought things, had meditations that were so defiling, and we can be at least thankful that they've not all been broadcast for everyone to see on a screen. So we recognize who we are. We are not up. We are brothers together.

That's what we are. There's none righteous, no not one. So there's this one aspect that the burnt offering so clearly shows us. And then there's the other, that we're set free. And we are truly set free.

If you know the truth, you shall be free, and you shall be free indeed." So we are, we've been made happy by the blood sacrifice of Jesus, because he has, he has completely exonerated his repentant sinful children. And he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So here in this ritual, we find the people rising up and saying, Amen, Amen, Amen. And I pray that's what it is for us today. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we desire truth in the inward parts, humility, and the only happiness with which the soul of man can be happy, a Savior, a good Shepherd, a well of living water, living bread, so that we might be living stones fitted together. For your own glory, amen.