The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E66 - Jesus On Every Page

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Hey, church family, it is Devo time. If you got your Bible, we're going to go to Leviticus chapter 16. That's right. I said Leviticus. So today and tomorrow, we're going to apply what we talked about yesterday, that Jesus is on the page of every page of our Bibles. And I want to show you how what seems like some weird Old Testament stuff is, is it matters so much in our understanding of who Jesus is as the Christ. the book of Leviticus is Moses giving the law to the people. And ultimately, what's happening here is that God called his people to be holy because he is holy. And holy doesn't mean perfect.

Holy means set apart. So God gives him 613 laws about what kind of clothes you can wear, what you can eat, what you can't eat, and where you can live, and how you've got to build your house, and there's all of this stuff. And in the middle of Leviticus-ish, Leviticus 16, that's called the Day of a Thurface, atonement. And I'm going to read a bunch of Bible and then unpack it for just a few minutes. It says this, the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died. You see, what happened is they approached God in an unholy way, and the righteousness, the holiness, the perfection of God, just wiped them out.

It'd be like not having your spacesuit on and getting too close to the sun. It just wiped them out. And the Lord said to Moses, so tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat that is on the ark so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. So what's happened at this point is they have built a tabernacle by which they could worship. It was set up, tear down. It was portable. And when they would set it up, there was an outer court, an inner court,

and then an inner court called the Holy of Holy. and inside the Holy of Holies, that represented the very presence of God. Didn't just represent it. That's where God resided here on the planet in the Old Covenant. And in that is an Ark of the Covenant. The Ark means a box, and the Covenant is the Ten Commandments. So there's this box that's got the Ten Commandments in it, and we break the commandments all the time,

and over it are these two angels, these cherubim with their wings facing each other, and it creates like a throne. and the covering of that thing was called the mercy seat. It's also known in Hebrew as the Hillisterium. That word actually translates propitiation. And then there's a curtain that separated the people of God from the presence of God. And if you just rolled up in the presence of God without doing this thing in God's way, you would stand in His Holiness and our sinfulness would just kill us.

And so he says, hey Moses, tell Aaron, don't just walk in here. here in the Holy of Holies, my presence will kill you. But in this way, Aaron shall come into the holy place. So now he's going to give him instruction how Aaron, the high priest, can come in to the presence of God, because sin separates us from the presence of God. With a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, he shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the linen undergarment on his body and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist and wear the linen turban these are the holy garments and he shall bathe his body in water and then put them on and he shall take from the congregation of the people of israel two male goats one for a sin offering

and one ram for a burnt offering Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house the word atonement in the Bible means payment. Aaron, you're a sinner. Sin must be paid for. So you are going to sacrifice this bull as payment for my sin, because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Now, at this point, it seems kind of random, like why do you kill them bulls and goats and all of this? It'll make more sense when you get to the new covenant. Verse seven, then he shall take two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one for the Lord, and the other lot for

Azazel. Now this part's crazy. Azazel is only mentioned in the scriptures in Leviticus chapter 16. In extra-biblical literature during this time, like apocryphal literature like the book of Enoch, which is not a part of the canon, there is this, I don't even know what you call it. I don't know what to call it a myth, but there is this story. There is this idea that Azazel is a fallen angel and leads people to sin. And so this is like the picture of a sinful being.

That's what Azazel is. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell for Azizal shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, and it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. So there are two goats. One, the blood is going to be shed. It will describe what happens there.

The other one is going to be set free, sort of. And Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement payment for himself. And for his house, he shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself. And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire. from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony so that he does not die.

And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat, on the east side and in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. So, again, you've got the Ark of the Covenant, you've got this box with the broken law of God in it, and when Aaron walks in, he's going to take some of the blood of the bull that gave his life for the atonement of Aaron's sin,

and seven times the number of completion, he's going to sprinkle some of it on the east side of this box. Then he shall call. kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so,

I'm sure if you grew up in the time of Leviticus, you're like, why are we killing all these goats and stuff? And so they shed the blood of this goat and they sprinkle the blood of the goat over the mercy seat. And under the mercy seat is the broken law of God. And so shall he do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one may be in the tent of meeting from the time he enters to make atonement in the holy place until he comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. And then he shall go out before the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and put some of the blood of the goat

and put it on the horns of the altar all around. And he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his fingers seven times and cleanse it and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the people of Israel. So for year after year after year after year, there is bloodshed to show the people and symbolize the atonement of their sin by the shedding of blood. And when he is made the end of the atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat and Aaron shall lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their

transgressions, all their sins, he shall put on them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all the iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. So Aaron the high priest stands in front of the nation of Israel. They confess their sins out loud. He transfers the confessed sins of his people to the head of this. goat, it's literally called the scapegoat, and then he takes that goat carrying the sins of the people as far as the east is from the west. He sends it out into the wilderness. And when he has made an end of atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live

goat and Aaron shall have both hands on the head of the glive goat and confess over at all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions and their sins and he shall put them on the head of the goat and send them out and he goes. Think about this. The people confess their sins and they tangibly physically watch God take their sins away from them. Verse 23. And then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments that he put on when he went into the holy place and shall leave them there. And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his garments and come out and offer his burnt offering

and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement payment for himself and the people. And the fat of the sin offering, he shall burn on the altar, and he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and afterwards he may come into the camp and the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering

whose blood was brought into make atonement in the holy place shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin, their flesh, and their dung shall be burned up with the fire. And he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he may come into the camp. And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, and on the seventh day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and you shall do no work, neither the native nor the stranger or whose sojourns among you, for on this day

shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all of your sins. It is the Sabbath of solemn rest of you, and you shall afflict yourselves. It is a statute forever. And the priest who is anointed

and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement wearing the holy linen garments. He shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary. He shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar,

and he shall make atonement for the priest and for all of the people in the assembly, and this shall be a statute forever for you that atonement may be made for the people of Israel once in the year because of all of their sins. And Erid did as the Lord come in. And you say, what in the world does that have to do with being a Christian? It has everything to do with being a Christian. You see, what God was preparing his people to know and what God is showing us here is that all sin must be paid for, that if we, like the sons of Aaron, just try to go rolling into the very presence of God with sin on us, then we are dead men. We are dead men. And so God makes a way

for people to be able, at this point, it's only one people. It's only Aaron. He makes a way for Aaron to be able to be in his very presence and not be consumed by His holiness and righteousness. and he also makes a way for the sins of the people to be atoned for every year. So again, once a year they come together, they confess their sins, the priest transfers, the confess sins of the people to the head of this scapegoat, sends it out to the wilderness to die. He takes the other goat, he sheds the blood of the lamb. He takes that blood into, like, through the curtain that separated the inner sanctuary

from the Holy of Holies, and he sprinkles that blood over the Ark of the Covenant. the way I like to think about it is this. So when God looked down, he did not see his broken law, but he saw a covering by the blood of a lamb. And so when Jesus shows up on the scene, now they did this every year. You heard it about five times,

that you do this every year, every year, every year. And then one day, John the Baptist is baptizing people out in the Jordan, and he says these words, behold, there he is, the Lamb of God. who comes to take away the sin of the entire world. Not another Lamb of God who covers over the sin of the Jewish people for one year. But Jesus is the lamb that was slain.

And so when Jesus on the cross pushes up on his nail-pierced feet and he says, to Telestai, it is finished. It means that the final and full substitutionary atonement has been made. And for anybody that would believe in that atonement that when Jesus died on the cross, that counted for me, then the temple system now is a old system, and we don't need it anymore,

because we now have a new system. It is not by the blood of goats and lambs and bulls that we access God Almighty, but it is by the blood of the lamb, his only begotten son, that all sin must be paid for. And because of God's mercy, he delayed the payment bill.

of his justice, he made the payment on our behalf. Paul will say in the book of Romans that he is just and the justifier. And on that day when Jesus dialed on the cross and he says, it is finished, the Bible tells us that a earthquake hit Jerusalem and it tore the veil that separated the holy place, the holy of holies from the inner court. It separated the presence of God from the people of God and that veil was torn from the top to the bottom so that whoever has faith in Jesus Christ has all access to God himself. And the reason that we are not burn up because of his righteousness is because for anybody that trusts Jesus, the blood of Jesus cleanses our sin and God sees us as righteous because God credits Christ's righteousness to us.

And the only way we can know all that stuff is because of what we learn in Leviticus chapter 16. The whole Bible is about one thing. And it ain't you. God is for you. It's just not about you. It's all about Jesus. And that's good news for you and me.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you for the example of the temple. Lord, we thank you that as our heavenly father, you call us into your presence. but you don't call us into your presence with sacrifice and pomp and circumstance. You call us into your presence through the blood of Jesus Christ. And it is by his blood and his blood alone that we are healed and forgiven and adopted and made righteous so that we could know you. And Lord, we thank you for this good, good news.

And we thank you for the gift of the scriptures that on every page point us to that good news. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.