sermon – Page 9 – jeffersonvann

CALLING AND CREW

CALLING AND CREW

Numbers 18:1-5 NET.

¹ The LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your tribe with you must bear the iniquity of the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you must bear the iniquity of your priesthood. ² “Bring with you your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, so that they may join with you and minister to you while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony. ³They must be responsible to care for you and to care for the entire tabernacle. However, they must not come near the furnishings of the sanctuary and the altar, or both they and you will die. ⁴ They must join with you, and they will be responsible for the care of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent, but no unauthorized person may approach you. ⁵You will be responsible for the care of the sanctuary and the care of the altar, so that there will be no more wrath on the Israelites.

We are continuing our bunny-hop through the Bible. This week, we have landed on the Book of Numbers, chapters 18-19. Last week, we were still at Sinai preparing for launch into the wilderness and on the way to Canaan.

On Monday, we learned about the Nazarite vow. It was the consecration of a period during which a person could set himself apart for God. The others could look around and see visible examples of those who had chosen to dedicate themselves to the LORD, which would encourage the whole community to seek God’s purity and holiness.

Also, on Monday, we read the Aaronic blessing. The LORD dictated these words through Moses to Aaron, the high priest. Aaron and his sons—the priests—were instructed to say this prayer as a blessing from God upon the whole congregation.

They were to say, “Yahveh bless you and keep you; Yahveh make his face to light upon you and be gracious to you; Yahveh lift his face to you and give you peace.” They asked Yahveh to protect the people from outside enemies and evil within. They asked Yahveh to manifest his presence among the people, shining a joyful face of grace and lifting a face of favor. They asked Yahveh to bring wholeness, health, and peace to the people. We all need these blessings from God every day. We need his protection, his presence, and his peace.

On Tuesday, we learned some special instructions about lighting the lamps in the lampstand, the dedication of the priests, and the annual Passover.

On Wednesday, woo-hoo! The camp dismantled the Tabernacle and began marching toward their destination! But it did not take long for the people to start complaining. They complained that they didn’t have any meat to eat – just this Manna stuff. So, God gave them the quail. But while they were still chewing these birds, God struck them with a plague.

You would think that they would straighten up and fly right after this punishment, but on Thursday, it got worse. Miriam and Aaron, with words of criticism and if that had not been dealt with immediately, it would have resulted in rebellion. The LORD stepped in and defended Moses. Miriam was struck with leprosy, and Aaron confessed their sin and pleaded for Moses’ intercession. Moses prayed for them, and God took away their punishment. But she did have to be shut outside the camp for seven days.

Then the LORD instructed Moses to send 12 men to explore the land that they were heading to. One man from each tribe was chosen for this duty. When they returned, ten of the men said that conquering the land would be impossible.

On Friday, we learned that this majority report of the scouts led to the attempt at rebellion that Aaron and Miriam came close to. They even planned to stone Moses and return to Egypt. The two faithful scouts – Joshua and Caleb – pleaded for the larger community not to rebel. The LORD was ready to destroy them all and start over with just Moses. But Moses interceded and prayed for God’s mercy. The LORD agreed to spare the nation, but they did suffer for their disobedience.

Yesterday’s chapters tell of another rebellion—this one aimed at the priests. Another plague killed thousands, but God showed his approval for Aaron and his priests in an obvious way. He had each tribe contribute a wooden staff, and Levi’s staff had Aaron’s name written on it. Moses placed the staffs in the Tent of Meeting. The next day, Levi’s staff sprouted. Then all Israel knew that God himself had appointed Aaron and his family to serve as priests for the whole community.

Now we know why the action stops again at this point—in Chapter 18 —and the LORD gives instruction concerning the priests and Levites. There had been an attempted rebellion in the camp centered around who was qualified to speak to God on behalf of the people and administer the sacrifices at the Tabernacle.

Both the priests and the Levites were from the tribe of Levi. Why was that tribe set apart and chosen for this peculiar ministry? When the 12 tribes sent out scouts (you might have noticed from your reading) that one tribe was not included. The tribe of Joseph had been split into two, and both his sons became tribal leaders. So, there was a tribe of Ephraim and a tribe of Manasseh. Each of those tribes sent out a scout, so Levi’s tribe did not participate in the scouting party. So, Levi’s tribe was the only one that would not be punished for the attempted rebellion.

The priests: called and accountable.

The Lord told Aaron and his sons that they would bear the guilt of offenses connected with the sanctuary. They were called to a unique position, and that calling made them accountable before God for a unique ministry. They were allowed to minister within the Tabernacle, but when they did so, they would be coming on behalf of a stubborn, rebellious, and sinful people. It was their task to approach a holy God and plead for forgiveness for their nation. The sacrifices offered before God in the Tabernacle were symbols of the confession of those sins and the prayers for restoration and atonement. Without the ministry of the priest, the nation would have to perpetually suffer the wrath of God for their transgressions and violations of his law.

If this unique group of servants had not been there, no nation would have made it to the Promised Land. They were a gift from God. What they did on a regular basis was essential for the survival and success of the Israelite nation.

The Levites: called to assist.

A special group of holy soldiers from the tribe of Levi assisted them in meeting their practical needs. The Levites were God’s chosen partners in the ministry of the priests, and the whole tribe of Levi had a special calling to assist the priests with their unique calling. But there were limits to where the Levites could go and what ministry they could perform. Korah had been a Levite who overstepped the boundary of his function and tried to do the work of a priest. He and others dared to come near the articles in the sanctuary and the altar, and they all died as a result of their rebellion.

The Levites were there to help and make it possible for the priests to do what only they could do. They were to be a gift to the priests, who were a gift to the nation.

Jesus saw hypocrisy in priests and Levites.

Jesus told the story of a man who robbers attacked on his way to Jericho. He said a priest was going down that road. When he saw the poor victim, he passed by on the other side. He was too busy to stop and help this injured man. Then he said a Levite was walking down the same road and saw the same victim. He also passed by on the other side. Why did Jesus use the priest and the Levite as examples in his story? Both the priests and the Levites in Jesus’s day were expected to be super-spiritual. They were called to unique positions in their community and were expected to be accountable to God for their actions. But in Jesus’s story, both of these individuals acted hypocritically. Instead of representing God’s love and compassion, they used their positions as religious professionals to ignore the hurt and the needy. By so doing, they testified that God did not care for the poor and needy. By contrast, the Samaritan had no unique position. No one expected this foreigner to care, but he did. He was the only example of someone who loved his neighbor as himself. He was the only one who obeyed the great commandment.

The New Testament priesthood.

Jesus did not command a special priestly class for his New Testament church or a Levitical class of assistants of the priests. He abolished the Aaronic priesthood and started a new priesthood. He, himself, serves as the high priest of that new order. The Old Testament had predicted that God would establish an eternal priest after the pattern of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4). The Book of Hebrews, chapters 5, 6, and 7, describe this new priesthood.

With Jesus as our High Priest, every believer is now a priest in this new pattern. Offering sacrifices at the Tabernacle of the temple is no longer necessary because Jesus’ death on the cross has once and for all time made atonement for sin. But the priestly role of intercession is still ours to accomplish. We still have a rebellious world that needs our prayers in order to give them access to God’s presence.

1 Peter 2:5 states that believers are living stones built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood and to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. There is no longer an exclusive priesthood of a single tribe or group. There is equality in the church. All Christians are equal in their ability to approach God directly, without needing a priest to intercede on their behalf. When you go to God in prayer, you don’t need a pastor or church leader to pave the way for you. Jesus spoke against the modern church’s tendency to create hierarchies. The priesthood belongs to all believers. We have different ministries depending on our gifting, but we are all gifted with the same Holy Spirit, so each of us can access God’s throne.

Under the new covenant, there are no Levites because they were excluded from service within the Tabernacle. Now, the veil has been torn by the blood of Christ. Access to God’s presence is available to all. New Testament priests also have a new ministry: building the body of Christ through evangelism and discipling. Not only can we bring people to God by intercession, but we can also bring God to people by sharing the gospel with them.

LORD, we accept your call to the privileged ministry of the New Testament priesthood. Use us to reconcile people to you and share the good news of salvation by grace.

A PURE WALK

A PURE WALK

Numbers 5:1-4 NET

¹ Then the LORD spoke to Moses: ² “Command the Israelites to expel from the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. ³ You must expel both men and women; you must put them outside the camp, so that they will not defile their camps, among which I live.” ⁴ So the Israelites did so, and expelled them outside the camp. As the LORD had spoken to Moses, so the Israelites did.

We are reading through the Bible sequentially, two chapters at a time. But our messages only touch on a portion of each Sunday’s text. That means that our preaching is like bunny hopping or taking the stairs two or three at a time. I need to set the stage for today’s message because anyone who has not been reading is liable to get lost.

We are now in the Book of Numbers. The children of Israel are at Sinai, getting ready for their long walk to the promised land. They have spent all of Leviticus in this exact spot. The people needed to prepare. They needed to get out of Egypt, but they also needed to get Egypt out of them.

The first part of Numbers is dedicated to the final preparations for the walk to destiny. That is why Numbers begins with a census and that is why it is called the Book of Numbers. But once they have established who is going to be taking the walk, the next thing to establish is what position the people are to be walking in. It helps to visualize what the march to Canaan was supposed to look like. At the center of the walk was the Tabernacle, carried by three clans of Levites who were specifically designated for the task. Surrounding them were the tribes of Israel, in groups, with a prominent tribe leading each group. At the front of the march would be the tribe of Judah, leading its group consisting of the tribes of Issachur and Zebulun. Then Reuben’s group which included the tribes of Gad and Simeon. Then the Tent of Meeting, surrounded by Priests and Levites. Behind them would be Ephraim’s group, including the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh. Finally, there would be Dan’s group, including the tribes of Asher and Naphtali.

All of these groups made up what was referred to as the camp as they traveled. When they were not marching, the groups would camp surrounding the tent of meeting. The tent of Meeting would be set up in the center, surrounded by groups of priests and Levites. The Judah group would surround them from the East, the Dan group from the North, the Ephraim group from the West, and the Reuben group from the South.

But these were not all the people who were traveling. These were just what was called the camp. Outside the camp, a large number of non-Israelites traveled with them. They had to obey the rules of the community, but they were not allowed to be part of the tribal encampment. They were allowed to come along, but they could not identify with the Jewish congregation.

Today’s text tells us that some of the Israelites were singled out and told that they were not allowed to join the tribal encampment. They would have to stay outside the camp. They were not being excommunicated—they were still Israelites—but they had to stay on the outer fringes of the camp along with the Gentile guests.

Why is that? Remember that the people of Israel had been slaves for 4 centuries. God had to communicate spiritual truths to them with simple concrete methods. The spiritual truth God wanted to teach was:

God wanted the Israelites to have a pure walk in his presence.

He told them that they must sanctify themselves and be holy because he is their God (Leviticus 20:7). He said that he had set them apart from other peoples to be his alone (Leviticus 20:26).

He did not tell them that they could wait until they got into the promised land and then live the set-apart life. No, they were to begin that set-apart life while on the way to Canaan. So, God uses a symbol that they are sure to understand. Some of their own friends and family members would be taken away from them. They would have to live outside the tribal encampments. Those in the camp would miss their friends. They would miss their brothers and sisters. But they would know that God wanted them to have a pure walk in his presence.

God commanded the expulsion of everything that defiles from the Israelite camp.

Three particular types of defilement are mentioned: disease, discharge, and death.

Many other things defiled people spiritually, but they were not mentioned in this particular command. These three are mentioned because they each involve obvious, visible defilement.

I must also point out that each of these expulsions could be temporary. There were Levitical rules concerning how long someone had to be segregated from the camp if a skin disease, a discharge of fluid, or a death in the family defiled them. If a person were restored to the camp, it would be a cause for celebration for that family and tribe. But it would also be another opportunity to drive home the principle that God’s people are to be a set-apart and holy people.

Jesus is the ultimate answer for everything that defiles.

It is no coincidence that during Jesus’ personal ministry, he encountered people with all these defilements. He did not shun them. He came to them. He touched them. He demonstrated God’s perfect will in regard to the things that defile because he cleansed the lepers, healed the woman with a discharge, and raised the dead.

The principle we learn from today’s passage is that God requires that his people demonstrate purity in their walk. We are not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with Good. We are to live holy and righteous lives as proof that we are following a holy and righteous Savior. If there is visible sin among us, we must separate ourselves from that sin and allow the Lord to bring that sinner to repentance and restoration. We must not allow visible sin in the encampment.

But the goal is always restoration. Our savior taught us never to give up on even the most sinful and the most visibly defiled. He ministered to those who were unclean and so should we.

God’s plan is to bring us back into his presence by removing the things that defile from us.

The ultimate lesson we learn from today’s passage is not that we should separate ourselves from others but that God wants us to come apart from everything sinful and be separate from what defiles. We are to walk a pure walk. But there is even more to the lesson. We must remember that God was leading his people to a destination. He is doing the same thing for us. Only, instead of a destination, we are on our way to a destiny.

Listen to these words from Revelation 21:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. And I saw the holy city — the new Jerusalem — descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more — or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.” And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.” He also said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life. The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But to the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.”

There are two destinies, and both are permanent. Jesus is making all things new, but there are those who will not experience the new life he will give. They will experience permanent death instead. We must walk in purity today because only the pure will inherit the new universe. We must separate from everything that defiles us today because God, in his love, wants us to experience the joy of eternal life tomorrow.

Communion meditation:

“For the bodies of those animals whose blood the high priest brings into the sanctuary as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, to sanctify the people by his own blood, Jesus also suffered outside the camp. We must go out to him, then, outside the camp, bearing the abuse he experienced. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:11-14).

What did the author of Hebrews mean when he said that Jesus suffered outside the camp? Those who were expelled from the camp were considered impure and defiled. Jesus was treated the same way when they crucified him. Paul said, “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” We were all outsiders, and Jesus was the only insider. So he went outside to bring us back. By his death on the cross, he made it possible for all of us outsiders to come back inside. We celebrate that victory as we remember what he did for us on the cross.

“Devotions from Numbers” is 236 pages long and was released on November 1, 2024.

FAILURE OFFERING

Leviticus 4:1-2, 35.

¹ Then the LORD spoke to Moses: ² “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a person sins by straying unintentionally from any of the Lord’s commandments which must not be violated, and violates any one of them — ³⁵ Then the one who brought the offering must remove all its fat (just as the fat of the sheep is removed from the peace offering sacrifice) and the priest must offer them up in smoke on the altar on top of the other gifts of the LORD. So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed and he will be forgiven.

As Christians, we believe that God inspired the Bible, and it is therefore worthwhile to read, learn, teach, preach, and know. Our congregation is in the middle of an experiment to test that belief. We have decided to eat the whole elephant – one bite at a time. We determined to read the whole Bible over eighteen months. Some of the passages will be pretty easy to read. The stories of the history of God’s dealings with his people – the biblical narratives – are easier to read. A reader can imagine being in the story and experiencing the event. Doctrinal texts are easy, too, because we all have questions about what God wants us to believe and how we should act. Wisdom literature is practical because we all want to make the right choices – to please God and live his way.

But we have come to a section of Scripture that most people find more challenging to read, and some find it hopeless to understand. If you started our little experiment on January 1, you probably felt this way about midway through Exodus. Now that you are in Leviticus, you might find your daily reading a bit of a challenge. Every day, you encounter a fresh set of rules and regulations about the Tabernacle – which you have never seen, and sacrifices that you will have never participated in – and will never join in. You are going to be tempted to skip over the “irrelevant parts.” As much as you might want to believe that the whole Bible is God’s word, you might be tempted to consider these difficult parts as beyond your ability to comprehend. You are not alone.

What we are experiencing is all too common for any generation. We are in the middle of a section of Scripture that most people skip reading. It is a section with the most pages stuck together because it is so infrequently visited. It isn’t that we think this section does not belong to God’s word. It is mostly because we have no clue as to why it is in God’s word.

What we need is to crack the code. Some documents are impossible to understand until you find the code that they are written in – the knowledge that helps us to make sense of what otherwise would remain a hopeless jumble of words and phrases. When we were reading the narratives of Genesis and the first part of Exodus, we found the code to help us decipher that text in the historical background. When we were studying the commands of Christ in the Gospels, we found the code in the personal application of those commands to our everyday lives. But what is the code that can help us read and understand the regulations of the Old Testament sacrificial system?

I believe there is a code. What’s more – I want to assure you that you will not have to go back to college and learn a lot of new things in order to understand it. You already know the code that will help you master the reading and comprehension of Leviticus. Once you apply the code to what you read on these pages, you will see that every rule is relevant to you personally, every statute and ordinance and judgment and regulation.

What is this code? It is theology. The trick to understanding all these complex passages of Scripture is what the rest of Scripture teaches about God, Jesus Christ, sin, and salvation. Unless we see the truths about God from Scripture in these obscure texts, we will always get hopelessly stuck in these pages. But once we start seeing the code at work, we will find that we have a new Bible in our hands.

So, today, I want to crack the code of Leviticus 4, which is all about the sin offerings. You will notice from the title of this morning’s sermon that I call them failure offerings. In my translation of the Bible, I use the word “failure” to translate the Hebrew and Greek words that are usually translated as “sin.” My reason for doing this is that sin is one of those words that we have assigned a religious meaning and that religious meaning can keep us from understanding the word’s biblical meaning. There are lots of words like this in the Bible. In my translation, I try to use other words for these religious-sounding words that everybody seems to understand but nobody can explain. The word I use for the concept of sin is failure. Sin is missing the mark. It is trying to do the right thing but ending up doing the wrong thing. When we use the word sin, we usually think of intentional transgression – rebellion against God’s commands. But every one of the regulations in Leviticus 4 have to do with unintentional sins.

We are used to thinking of unintentional failures as mistakes. We don’t hold people accountable for their mistakes. We might give someone an “F” on the test that they failed, but we don’t punish them for failing. We don’t consider it a personal affront to us if someone makes a mistake. But the sin offerings of Leviticus 4 are all about getting forgiveness for things done wrong that were inadvertant – unintentional. We cannot crack the code of Leviticus 4 until we answer the question of why God requires atonement for unintentional failures.

Our failures offend God’s holiness.

Look at verses 16-17. They say, “Then the high priest must bring some of the blood of the bull to the Meeting Tent, and that priest must dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the LORD toward the front of the veil-canopy.” We are familiar with this part of the Tabernacle. It is a curtain that separates the holy places where God resides from the mundane places where just anybody can go. We know that when Jesus was crucified, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, signifying access to the Father. This veil represented the holiness of God contrasted with the corruption and sinfulness of all humanity.

The blood of the failure offering was to be sprinkled on the veil. On one side of the veil were defilement, depravity, and sin. On the other side were holiness, purity, and sinlessness. On one side of the veil were mortal and temporary beings. On the other side was the immortal and infinite God. In between, the blood was sprinkled. The blood of the sacrificial animal symbolized the atonement.

Why does human failure need to be atoned for? Why do our unintentional sins need forgiveness? Why can’t God say, “They’re just human after all? They are going to make mistakes. They’re not perfect like I am.”

We say those kinds of things all the time. We make a mistake, and we don’t run to the altar and throw ourselves on it. We say, “Nobody’s perfect.” We say, “I’m only human,” and go on with our lives. It was a mistake! We don’t make a federal case out of it. We shrug it off. At most, we say, “I’ll try to do better next time.

But failures under the Mosaic covenant cost the life of a precious animal. They could not be overlooked. From the priests to the leaders to the commoner, everyone had to seek forgiveness for sins—all sins, not just intentional transgressions. Why? Because we serve a holy God, and he does not compromise his holiness. He is different from us. Every time we fail to measure up to his perfection, we incur guilt, and that guilt must be atoned for.

Every sin. Every day – that is why the blood must be sprinkled seven times. We can’t say, “I went to church on Sunday, so I’m good for another week. We can’t say, “I went to church last Christmas, so I’m good. We need God’s forgiveness for every sin, every day, every hour. We are sinful creatures. We are constantly in need of God’s forgiveness. The sin offering was a way of seeking that forgiveness. It was a way to reconcile with God in spite of our constantly failing him.

Our failures affect our prayer lives.

The first part of verse 7 says, “The priest must put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the LORD in the Meeting Tent.” Incense in the Bible is frequently used to accompany prayer. Some of the blood of the sacrifice of the sin offering was put on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense to symbolize the fact that when we fail God, we sever the connection between ourselves and our creator. The lines of communication are broken. Everyone who has ever tried to pray with a guilty conscience knows about this fact. We can’t seem to reach God because there is a barrier to our prayers.

But the regulation for the sin offering shows us that it is not just our intentional rebellion that does this. Even the mistakes we make can sever the chord and disrupt the signal to heaven – and from heaven. The phone lines are down. The telegraph wire is cut. The wifi signal is lost. We cannot even ask for forgiveness because it seems like there is no way to reach God. But the good news of the sin offering is that the blood can make a difference. The life’s blood of the innocent sacrifice can atone for the sin and reestablish the connection.

Our failures hinder our influence.

There is not just one rule for the sin offering. There is a set of requirements for the priest, starting in verse 3. There is another list of requirements for when the whole congregation fails, starting in verse 13. When a leader fails, the requirements are outlined starting in verse 22. When a common person fails, the regulations start in verse 27. Every person can fail, and every person needs to make atonement for that failure. However, there are different requirements depending on the sphere of influence that the sinner has. We hold our leaders to a higher standard than we do ordinary citizens. The reason is that our leaders are more likely to cause others to fail by their example.

When a leader fails, they need atonement for their sins. They also need to show that they confess their sins and seek forgiveness visually. There will be no cover-ups. There are to be no special circumstances where people look away and refuse to acknowledge the sins of the priest or the elder because of their status. If atonement is not accomplished, the sins will trickle down to the whole congregation.

Our failures affect our worship.

The final part of verse 7 reads, “and all the rest of the bull’s blood he must pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the Meeting Tent.” The altar of burnt offering was where sacrifices were made that were consumed by fire so that the entire sacrifice would ascend into the sky to be enjoyed by God himself. They were a symbol of reconciliation with God. They were a means of worship.

The reason that sin offerings involved this altar is that sin servers the connection between God and man. We saw that this breech in communication affects our prayer life with the mention of the fragrant incense altar. The same is true with the altar of burnt offering. Not only does sin disrupt our prayers to God, but it also disrupts our worship of God. This is wrong because God created us to show our appreciation for him. Some people deserve praise because of the good things they do. God deserves worship because of who he is.

The thing that is most wrong with the world today is not climate change, the immigration crisis, drug abuse, or gender dysphoria. The thing that is most wrong in the world today is that God is not worshiped as he deserves to be worshiped. Sin has separated us from our heavenly Father.

The sin offering gave the believers in God an opportunity to confess their failures before God. It offered them a means of consenting to God’s plan to provide a substitute to pay for those sins by a blood sacrifice. The sinners were told to place their hands on the head of the sacrificial animal. We see this repeated throughout the chapter (verses 4, 15, 24, 29 and 33). Placing their hand on the head was a way of identifying with the victim and letting the victim take the punishment of death in their place. By putting their hands on the victim, they transferred their sin to the sin offering. In fact, the language suggested that each person would lean on the victim, symbolizing the fact that they were depending on the victim to atone for their sins, failures, and inadequacies.

Now, here is the theology that cracks the code of Leviticus 4. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul writes, “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” Jesus Christ is the sin offering. He is God’s ultimate and eternal solution to the problem of human failure. He fulfills every aspect of the Levitical regulations concerning the failure offering.

I should say … every aspect but one. There is one aspect of the regulations that Jesus does not fulfill by his sacrificial death on the cross. That is the fact that the failure offering was voluntary. Once discovering his sin, the sinner had to come to the Tabernacle and confess his sin by means of the sin-offering ritual. God did not perform this sacrifice for the sinner. For the same reason, our instructions in the New Testament are as follows:

“If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

The one thing Jesus did not do for you on the cross was confess your sins. He cannot do that for you. If you go your whole life, never acknowledging your failures before God, he is obligated to make you pay for those sins. All of your sins can keep you from eternal life—even the ones you don’t recognize as sins, even the ones you don’t know you are committing.

The more we know about what God wants of us, the more we realize that we need his forgiveness constantly, consistently, and perpetually. But the blood of Christ already shed on Calvary’s cross is the one sin offering for all people and all time.

The “Devotions from Leviticus” book is 204 pages long and was released on September 15, 2024.

TWO LAMBS

TWO LAMBS

Exodus 29:38-46 NET.

³⁸ “Now this is what you are to prepare on the altar every day continually: two lambs a year old. ³⁹ The first lamb you are to prepare in the morning, and the second lamb you are to prepare around sundown. ⁴⁰ With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of oil from pressed olives, and a fourth of a hin of wine as a drink offering. ⁴¹ The second lamb you are to offer around sundown; you are to prepare for it the same meal offering as for the morning and the same drink offering, for a soothing aroma, an offering made by fire to the LORD. ⁴² “This will be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet with you to speak to you there. ⁴³ There I will meet with the Israelites, and it will be set apart as holy by my glory. ⁴⁴ “So I will set apart as holy the tent of meeting and the altar, and I will set apart as holy Aaron and his sons, that they may minister as priests to me. ⁴⁵ I will reside among the Israelites, and I will be their God, ⁴⁶ and they will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out from the land of Egypt, so that I may reside among them. I am the LORD their God.

We need to do some things regularly.

The Lord instructs the children of Israel here that when they set up the Tabernacle they are to prepare a particular offering to him every day, continually. Every morning they were to sacrifice a lamb and every evening another lamb. Most of us are creatures of habit. We have things that we do every day. Nobody has to check up on us and make sure we are doing those things. We get into the habit of doing those things perpetually so that they are instinctual.

For me, Bible study is like that. For years now, I have followed a regular ritual that begins with translating a biblical text each day, followed by a devotional from that text. I have gone through the Bible several times that way. People wonder how I can publish so many books every year, and that habit is the reason. Because I have studied and written so many articles, devotionals, and theological posts, it is relatively easy to put them together in book form.

I’m also methodical about the medicines I take. I know which meds to take in the morning and which to take in the evening. I take them first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I label my medicine bottles with a big “M” for my morning meds and a big “E” for my evening meds.

My sermon preparation follows a pattern as well. I usually do my research for the next week’s message on Monday, write the sermon presentation, and record the video on Tuesday. That leaves Wednesday for visitation, Thursday for Food Bank, and Friday and Saturday for my weekends. It’s all habitual. It’s how I function. The pattern helps me get everything accomplished that is important to me.

I’m not one of these “last minute” people. If I came to a Saturday night and had done no preparation for my sermon, I would be a basket case. In fact, if I had to wait until Wednesday to write my sermon, I would be nervous and anxious. I don’t mind deadlines, but I feel better if I can finish a project a month before the deadline.

Now, I am saying all this to clue you in on how I do things. But it seems to me from today’s text that God wanted to establish some habits for the children of Israel, too. He wanted them to get used to doing certain things at certain times every day, to doing the things that really matter on a regular schedule.

We need to worship God regularly.

According to today’s passage, the most important thing on God’s list for his people to do regularly was worship him. The offerings that he prescribed for them were the way they would show their appreciation for God, and he told them to sacrifice those offerings every morning and every evening at sundown. That is why he told them to offer two lambs every day. These were not family offerings. These were not for individuals. They were national offerings. The priests would offer them for the whole nation.

But notice the nature of these morning and evening sacrifices. They consisted of the meat of a lamb, oil, flour, wine… everything that would be part of a fine meal. Why did God want them to prepare a meal for him twice a day? He did not need to consume any food. That is not it. But in every tent, every family would prepare a meal for themselves every day. They did this to sustain themselves, but it was also a way of coming together and enjoying each other’s company. It was a time of fellowship for each family.

The sacrifices that God prescribed for his people were to take place at a place called the tent of meeting. They symbolized God’s desire to get together with his people regularly, consistently, and habitually. From the standpoint of what God wanted, he was prescribing a unique form of worship: a symbolic meal shared with the Almighty twice a day.

In the Book of Revelation, Jesus tells the church in Laodicea, “Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me” (3:20). That is what God wants of his people. He wants them to worship him by showing their appreciation for him the same way they would do for a family member.

It makes sense if you remember that these are all former slaves. They were not used to being able to show their appreciation for anyone. The only way they knew how to commune with anyone was over a nice meal. That was the height of their gift-giving. Now, they have been rescued from Egypt, but they have not been automatically transformed culturally. They still have minimal experience with divine worship. But they do know how to show their appreciation by sharing a meal. That is what God asks of them.

He gave them their freedom. He could have asked for much more, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay close to them. When he smelled the aroma of those meals cooking, it was soothing for him. He could overlook many offenses as long as his people wanted to please him. Just two meals a day was all it took for that.

God will meet with us regularly.

Today’s passage also tells us about the other side of the bargain. It outlines what the Israelites are going to get for regularly communing with the LORD. He promises to meet with the people and speak with them at the entrance to the tent of the meeting. The pagans all around them had their rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices that they used to manipulate their gods. But the worship of the Israelites was not to be like that. They were not trying to appease an angry God. They were trying to stay close to a compassionate God. He was not just going to be there for the meal. He was going to be there for the people themselves. He was going to speak to them there.

He was also going to share himself. He would pass on his holiness to the place, to the priests, and to the people. They would become different people because God himself would transfer his holiness to them. He would be their God, and they would be his people. Ten chapters earlier, he told them that they were to him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (19:6).

That is what New Testament Christianity is supposed to be as well. Peter tells believers, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Just as the Israelites were called out of slavery into holiness, so we—the church—are called out of the darkness of sin into the marvelous light of God’s holiness.

Now, the point is not that we have to be holy in order to experience God’s presence. It is the other way around. We become holy as we experience God’s presence in our lives through regular, consistent, perpetual worship. We don’t change for him. We change by staying close to him. Once we are saved by grace through the shed blood of Christ, we can come into the presence of God and commune with him regularly. Nothing we can do for him comes close to what his regular presence can do for us.

Devotions from Exodus:

The book is 296 pages long and was released on May 17, 2024.

MARAH

MARAH

Exodus 15:22-27 NET.

²² Then Moses led Israel to journey away from the Red Sea. They went out to the Desert of Shur, walked for three days into the desert, and found no water. ²³ Then they came to Marah, but they were not able to drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter. (That is why its name was Marah.) ²⁴ So the people murmured against Moses, saying, “What can we drink?” ²⁵ He cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When Moses threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink. There the Lord made for them a binding ordinance, and there he tested them. ²⁶ He said, “If you will diligently obey the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the LORD, am your healer.” ²⁷ Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water.

We have been reading about the miraculous way God rescued the Israelites from Egypt, removing all obstacles to their freedom and defeating their enemies by drowning them in the Red Sea. The first thing the children of Israel did was worship – joining Moses in a song of triumph and praise. All the women joined in the worship with hand drums and dances. Miriam sang in response to them “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.”

After this tremendous offering of praise and worship, the Israelites set out for the open country – what today’s text calls the Desert of Shur. There, the LORD tested them with the bitter water of Marah. We will examine this passage closely this morning because it reveals several key principles that can help us all as we live our lives. In order to give some structure to today’s message, I will ask and answer three questions. First, why did the Israelites go to Marah? Second, what did they learn there? Third, what happened afterward?

Why did the Israelites go to Marah? (22-25).

You might recall from your reading that when Moses first confronted Pharaoh, he did not immediately demand that all the slaves be set free so they could go to the promised land. No, his first request was that his people be allowed merely to go out into the wilderness three days’ journey so that they could worship the LORD with their sacrifices and offerings. Pharaoh did not want to allow them to leave. After all, they were his slaves, and they should stay with him to serve him. At first, he offered another option. He said that the Hebrews could perform their sacrifices to Yahveh in Egypt instead of traveling three days into the wilderness. But Moses rejected that offer. “Moses said, “That would not be the right thing to do, for the sacrifices we make to the LORD our God would be an abomination to the Egyptians. If we make sacrifices that are an abomination to the Egyptians right before their eyes, will they not stone us? We must go on a three-day journey into the desert and sacrifice to the LORD our God, just as he is telling us.” (8:26-27).

Moses indicates something here that not everyone notices. The Hebrews couldn’t worship God the way he wanted them to. Even the sacrifices that the Hebrews made to God were repulsive to the Egyptians. That is what the word abomination means. For over 400 years, the Israelites were limited in what they could do to worship the LORD. Their loyalty to Pharaoh had checked their devotion to God. But God was setting them free. That freedom was not so that they could do whatever they wanted to do. That freedom was so that they could now do what God wanted them to do.

I am not suggesting that all the Israelites knew this. In fact, today’s text indicates that the main body of the Hebrews would be constantly in need of correction in this regard. They probably thought that now they were free from Pharaoh and the threat of his armies, they could do whatever they wanted.

Our text says that Moses led Israel from the Red Sea into the Desert of Shur. But the word for “led” is not the usual one for leading. The verb נָסַע means to pull something up—like to uproot a plant. The people wanted to stay by the Red Sea and keep celebrating their victory, but Moses had to force them to pull up and set out into the unknown. Moses had a mission, and most of the people he led had no idea what that mission was. In fact, even Moses did not clearly understand the reasons he was leading his people into the wilderness.

We can imagine the reason partly if we take a good look at what the Hebrews were doing at the beach of the Red Sea. They were celebrating their deliverance from a great enemy, rejoicing at what God had done for them. For some people, that is all that worship entails. But worship only begins there. True worship moves from celebration of what God has done to adoration of who God is.

Why is this so? Well, imagine it snowed again, and you were out in your car when a massive snowstorm hit. It forced you to stop, and before long, your vehicle was trapped in ice. What if some people come along and rescue you from that? You would be grateful. You would tell everyone about your rescue from the danger. But when they asked you about your rescuer, what could you say? You might not even know their names, much less anything substantial about them.

The wilderness journey of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan was their chance to get to know the God who rescued them. It was their opportunity to learn about and identify with the God of their ancestors. Marah would be the first lesson for them.

When I was in college, I took many classes in biblical languages. My professor always began each class with a vocabulary test. That is what God is doing for the Hebrews. Every lesson starts with a test. The three-day journey into the Desert of Shur was not a mistake. God was intentionally bringing his people into a desperate situation. “Then they came to Marah, but they were not able to drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter. (That is why its name was Marah.)” Why did Moses deliberately put them in such a situation? Why head to Marah first? Marah means bitter. Miriam’s name comes from the same word. She was born in bitter captivity. The bitter herbs the Hebrews ate during Passover were a reminder of that time of bitterness. Most of the Israelites were scratching their heads when they arrived in Marah. Some might have wondered why they left Egypt if they were going to encounter bitterness and hardship here.

The “people murmured against Moses, saying, “What can we drink?” After three days of travel, whatever water they had brought with them was exhausted. Their canteens were empty. So, they come to a place with water, but it seems a cruel joke. The water is undrinkable.

The notes to the NET text say, “The verb וַיִּלֹנוּ (vayyillonu) from לוּן (lun) is a much stronger word than “to grumble” or “to complain.” It is used almost exclusively in the wilderness wandering stories to describe the Israelites’ rebellion against God …. They were not merely complaining—they were questioning God’s abilities and motives. The action is something like a parliamentary vote of no confidence.

The Psalms are filled with great poets like David and Asaph pouring out their hearts to God. God encourages us to do that. It might seem like complaining, but it is anything but that. It is crying out to the only one who sees the problem and has the power to intervene. Instead of that, the people focused their complaints on God himself and the leader he had appointed. Instead of paying attention when God was testing them, they chose to test him and try his patience, even though they had seen his work (See Psalm 95:8-9; Hebrews 3:8-9).

So, in three days, the Hebrews went from celebrating God’s salvation to rebelling against him. All it took was one incident where it seemed that their needs were not being met, and they turned against God, their Savior. This event revealed a profound immaturity and lack of trust in the Hebrew people. If they had been thinking with maturity, they would have remembered the number of times in Egypt when they discovered they were not able, and then God showed that he was able. The people could have responded in faith to this crisis. They could have come to Moses and said, “We cannot drink the water, but we trust God for a solution to this problem.”

They did not do that. Instead, they rebelled against God and criticized Moses. At the first sign of difficulty, they attacked the leader that they had chosen to follow. It seems ridiculous, but it is actually human nature. The flesh always causes us to turn against our leaders rather than turn toward God.

But Moses did not follow their example. He chose to cry out to God. A prayer is always a better alternative to a critical word or complaint. As soon as Moses prayed, God showed him the solution. He had not only brought them to the place of testing but also given them the answer to the test. Some teachers make their questions so hard that students are unable to find the answer. God is not like that. If we have a need, he has an answer – already on his tongue.

The “LORD showed him a tree. When Moses threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink.” The bitter water became sweet. It had been unsafe to drink at first. That is a real problem if you are walking a long distance. I remember when Penny and I were on our thru-hike. There was one night we were camping out on the trail and needed water badly. I could not find a spring or stream. I found some deer and followed them to a puddle, so I filled up our water bottles from the puddle. But the water was yellow, and as badly as I wanted a drink, I could not bring myself to drink it. We finally decided to pour our deer urine and hope to find a better water source the next day. Obviously, we did.

For the Hebrews, the answer was a tree. God had already caused a particular tree to grow in that place. We don’t know whether the water changed because of the tree or just because Moses was obedient and used the tree. The point was that God already had a solution to the crisis, and he was waiting for his people to ask.

There, God tested them. He wanted them to come to a problem that they could not solve. The text says that there, the LORD “made for them a binding ordinance.” The binding ordinance is actually two words in Hebrew: the word for prescription and the word for judgment. God was prescribing for them the correct action to take when being tested. He was offering his judgment in place of their own. In fact, the word “showed” in verse 25 is the verbal root of the noun תּוֹרָה. This incident is the beginning of the Law of God for the people of God.

God focused on the law in the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy because the Law served as the link between the salvation God brought and the people he wanted to testify to that salvation to the next generation. Walking according to God’s Law would be their way of testifying that God had saved them. In later generations, people exchanged the Law for salvation itself. They thought obeying the Law was their means of saving themselves. That is never the case. The Law is God’s way of walking. The deliverance always comes from him.

What did the Israelites learn at Marah? (26).

The big lesson of Marah is not to “stop complaining, or God is going to get mad at you.” Moses lays out the lesson plan in verse 26. He said: “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

Moses describes a standard “IF-THEN” relationship: God is the teacher, and the Israelites are his learners. As learners, they are responsible for diligently listening to his voice and not for following their instincts. God is their teacher, so he promises to reveal to them specific commandments and statutes to help them walk appropriately. It is no surprise that the main action in the last four books of Moses is walking. While walking to Canaan, they were learning how to walk. To the extent that they learned the lessons and walked appropriately, God guaranteed that he would prove to be more than a teacher. He would also be their healer, preventing all judgment diseases that he had put on the Egyptians.

To summarize the principle: WALK GOD’S WALK, AND HE WILL BE OUR TEACHER AND HEALER.

What happened to the Israelites afterward? (27).

“Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water.” When they arrived at the next oasis, they found that it did not need to be cleaned. The water was already pure. God was showing them that every day would not be a test. But they should be prepared to seek his instruction when the times of testing come. Likewise, you and I will not be undergoing constant trials. But we should count it all joy when the times of testing do come. They are not proof that God has abandoned us. They are chances for us to grow and opportunities for us to display our confidence in God our Savior.

Holy Communion

“You cannot serve God and money. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?” (Matthew 6:24-25).

The Hebrews had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and escorted out of that place of oppression. They were on their way to the Promised Land—a land flowing with milk and honey. But before they got there, they had to learn a few lessons about how to walk God’s way. Some of the very first lessons dealt with worrying about what they would eat and drink.

Today, as we remember what our Lord did for us on Calvary’s cross, he invites us to re-examine our life’s priorities. He has promised to be our teacher and healer. But there is something that might prevent that. We can let worry steal our relationship with Christ. He surrendered himself for us. We can show our faith in him by releasing our hold on our self-preservation. He wants to be our master. We cannot have two.

LORD, we celebrate what you did for us for our deliverance and promise to walk your walk and let you be our Teacher and Healer.

Here is a quote from Devotions from Exodus:

“Nuisance

The frog was also a deity in the Egyptian pantheon. Heqet was a goddess who represented fertility. To have the territory overrun by these creatures was more than an annoyance. It was another reminder to Pharaoh that his worldview was erroneous. It was an embarrassment. And even though his magicians were able to duplicate the same thing on a smaller scale (because they were illusionists) he was perturbed, so he appealed to Moses to have Yahveh stop the plague. He was starting to take Yahveh seriously. Moses even gives Pharaoh the honor of choosing the day for the pestilence to stop. But when the break came, Pharaoh still stubbornly refused to comply with Yahveh’s demand.

I wonder if we are any better than Pharaoh was. We regularly experience nuisances in our lives, and they sometimes are so bad that we appeal to Yahveh to rescue us. But do we ever stop to ask if Yahveh wants to change us? Maybe an annoying event might be his way of getting our attention. Perhaps we should not be so quick to return to business as usual when the nuisance is over.

LORD, forgive us for ignoring you when you remind us of our need to change. Help us to see the possible significance of the annoying interruptions in our lives. Keep us sensitive to your guidance” (p. 40);

The book is 296 pages long and was released on May 17, 2024.