back to indexWed Bible Study - Lesson 7
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Alright, so hopefully you guys had some time to look through these passages and I'm sure 00:00:07.620 |
you've noticed there's a lot of similarities to the sin offering. 00:00:13.960 |
We talked about how, what the sin offering meant last week and one of the key factors 00:00:22.640 |
of the sin offering is to detail how God views sin and that not all sins were treated equally. 00:00:29.680 |
So we had the sin of the high priest, the sin of the community, sin of a leader or sin 00:00:33.880 |
of a regular congregation member and how the offering in each one of them were different 00:00:39.320 |
and there was a distinction between an intentional and an unintentional. 00:00:45.080 |
And intentional we looked at last week where it was a willful rebellion against God. 00:00:48.880 |
Even something as small as breaking the Sabbath in our view may not seem like a big deal but 00:00:54.720 |
in God's view it was very clearly stated how important Sabbath was and for someone to break 00:00:59.320 |
that was basically a willful rebellion against God. 00:01:03.120 |
And so sin offering kind of revealed all of that, it went through the intricate details. 00:01:08.160 |
This week's offering, the guilt offering, again in many ways it is very similar. 00:01:13.960 |
It's going to give us another aspect and detail of how God views sin and how again the penalty 00:01:21.640 |
of sin and how God in their repentance would restore whatever it was that was broken. 00:01:28.920 |
So as we jump right into it, guilt offering in other places or oftentimes it would be 00:01:38.920 |
called trespass offering or reparation offering and so there's about four or five different 00:01:43.080 |
names and all of them basically means the same thing. 00:01:48.120 |
It is a different aspect of the sin offering but it specifically deals with trespass, when 00:01:53.760 |
something was done against something or someone, that this was not a private sin, this was 00:01:58.560 |
not a sin simply your rebellion against God but it affected other people, other people's 00:02:04.040 |
property or something that you've done and so that's why it's called a trespass offering, 00:02:09.360 |
you trespass against somebody else or a reparation offering because it required a reparation, 00:02:20.000 |
A ram or male lamb without defect was the exclusive animals required for this offering. 00:02:26.560 |
All other offerings had different options for the type of animals used but this offering 00:02:30.680 |
was limited to these two particular animals, at least that's what we see. 00:02:38.440 |
If you had some time to look through these passages and you try to understand what he 00:02:43.000 |
required in this offering, why do you think that God didn't give them any options? 00:02:59.880 |
You don't have to say anything, I just want you to think about it. 00:03:02.680 |
You know maybe some of you guys already asked that question before you came. 00:03:07.080 |
Why in every other offering God gave different offerings that they could give, right, to 00:03:14.000 |
give this one or that one and based upon you know your wealth and what you couldn't or 00:03:18.240 |
could or couldn't afford, you know, male lamb or female lamb but this one is very specific, 00:03:35.680 |
It doesn't spell out why but we can understand why God wouldn't give them all these options 00:03:40.680 |
because the point of this offering wasn't the lamb itself. 00:03:45.480 |
The point of this offering was reparation, is to pay back. 00:03:51.440 |
So the goal of this offering was to repay back whatever it was that you defiled, whatever 00:03:56.400 |
you did against somebody else and to add on top of that. 00:04:01.500 |
So even though the offering was given, the main point of this was reparation. 00:04:06.440 |
So that's probably the main reason why there wasn't all these different alternatives in 00:04:15.400 |
There was a specific monetary compensation involved in this offering for the restitution 00:04:25.800 |
And just to kind of give you, again I want to go over this, after making the guilt offering 00:04:29.520 |
with the ram or lamb, it was required from the offender to add a fifth of the value to 00:04:36.360 |
So that's why, again, the idea is trespassing, reparation, and to pay back whatever it was 00:04:41.240 |
that you defiled and then on top of that, add 20%. 00:04:47.160 |
And the reason why it's 20%, at that particular time, 20% was a typical interest rate on all 00:04:55.200 |
So there was, today, you know, we have different interest rates, like we have home loans, right 00:04:59.640 |
now I think it's about 4.3, so if you happen to live in California, that's about what you 00:05:05.840 |
Car loans are different, you know, student loans are different, but at that particular 00:05:09.640 |
time it was well understood that if you gave a loan to somebody, that you would, they would 00:05:15.800 |
have an understanding that 20% would be given back. 00:05:18.480 |
So this 20% basically represented that whatever it was that you took, that you were kind of 00:05:26.540 |
Almost as if you took it for a loan and then you're paying them back. 00:05:29.940 |
So this offering is unique in that there was, there's no other animals that was, choices 00:05:38.800 |
that was given, it was specifically those particular animals and there was a compensation 00:05:45.120 |
There was actually money being exchanged in this offering. 00:05:49.240 |
So like all the other offerings, you would bring the animal to the priest and they would 00:05:56.760 |
see if it was acceptable, then after they received that it was acceptable, the priest 00:06:02.960 |
would take it and then the restitution would be made to the offended party. 00:06:09.760 |
It's not spelled out here, but numbers 5, 5 through 10, it says if the offended party 00:06:13.040 |
wasn't available to receive the property or money, the nearest relative who was available 00:06:20.680 |
So these are some of the unique qualities of this particular offering. 00:06:24.360 |
So some of it is very similar to the sin offering, right? 00:06:28.520 |
And then there's like two or three things that are very unique to them, but the most 00:06:31.780 |
unique part of this particular offering was the compensation, right? 00:06:38.400 |
And so what this offering, and we're going to talk about this later, what this offering 00:06:41.600 |
basically taught was that when your sin caused damage to someone else's property, God required 00:06:49.480 |
that not only that you come before God and say, "Oh, I'm sorry," and then, "Well, 00:06:52.720 |
me and God, we're okay," but it was required to pay back, right? 00:06:57.760 |
To pay reparation and restore whatever damage that you've committed. 00:07:04.860 |
So remember last week's, the sin offering taught that there's different degrees of sin, 00:07:11.900 |
And so that was the main teaching on that sin offering. 00:07:14.060 |
This one, that even though you may have sinned against God, damage that was done had to be 00:07:21.460 |
That's the main point of this particular offering. 00:07:26.760 |
The reason given that is required for this offering is twofold, okay? 00:07:33.180 |
So we have the large category one, and the second one I'll get to in a minute, but the 00:07:37.020 |
first category is when the sinner breached the holy things of God. 00:07:43.540 |
Breached, defiled, depending on what translation that you have, made impure, whatever was committed 00:07:54.020 |
to God, and you somehow breached it, you defiled it by touching it or whatever it is that you 00:08:00.100 |
did, you said this guilt offering was required. 00:08:06.660 |
Holy things that are described as anything dedicated by men to God, right? 00:08:12.620 |
So again, the first category of the things that was required for this offering is anything 00:08:22.400 |
It could have been an animal, it could have been a particular offering, it could have 00:08:25.520 |
been a house or land, anything that was dedicated to God, and somehow you either made it impure 00:08:32.100 |
or you took it or you defiled it in some way where that could no longer be used. 00:08:37.100 |
So they had to go through a purification ceremony in order for that to be pure again, right? 00:08:42.780 |
And that costs money, and it would require an animal sacrifice because the one who caused 00:08:47.660 |
the defilement was the one who was required to pay that amount, and on top of that, add 00:08:55.940 |
So this is just logistics, this is just what was required of them, right? 00:09:02.100 |
So anything related to the Lord was considered holy, right? 00:09:06.820 |
So it wasn't just the animals, it wasn't just a few things he said, anything that belonged 00:09:13.340 |
So the word holy itself means that anything that was set apart and said, "This is the 00:09:20.020 |
So the Bible talks about various things that was considered holy or set apart for the Lord. 00:09:29.420 |
One of the top things that the Jews were constantly concerned about was his name, who he is, his 00:09:36.780 |
The Lord's name was to be holy, so we are commanded not to misuse it and take it in 00:09:42.820 |
vain, swearing falsely by the name of the Lord violates and brings dishonor to the Lord 00:09:49.300 |
We pray for the sanctity of the Lord's name, right? 00:09:53.860 |
And we talked about this before, how the Israelites were so concerned that they would use the 00:09:59.060 |
Lord's name in vain, and by defiling his name by using it just frivolously, that they wouldn't 00:10:12.400 |
So that's part of the reason why we don't know if Yahweh is pronounced Yahweh or Yehoah, 00:10:19.840 |
because they didn't pronounce it for so long, and the Hebrew didn't have vowels, and so 00:10:24.900 |
later on, we look at it, and so in the Greek translation, they pronounce it one way, and 00:10:29.860 |
the Hebrew, some people think it should be pronounced Yahweh, but that's because the 00:10:36.880 |
So the thing that they were concerned about, the top thing, one of the top things that 00:10:40.320 |
they were concerned about was disrespecting God. 00:10:43.780 |
Now, I'm going to stop right there for a minute, because again, you and I live in a culture 00:10:51.560 |
where reverence, it's almost kind of like cruel to be irreverent, you know? 00:10:59.540 |
And when it comes to things of God, sometimes Christians are more insensitive to the things 00:11:07.700 |
Because non-Christians, even if they don't believe God, when they step into the church, 00:11:13.280 |
they have this innate understanding that they're entering into something sacred, right? 00:11:21.440 |
Christians who've been Christians for so long, it's kind of like, well, you know, what's 00:11:26.120 |
We don't have this, again, a lot of Christians, especially the ones who have been raised in 00:11:29.800 |
the church, don't have this sense of reverence toward the things of God. 00:11:32.960 |
The Jews were so concerned about being irreverent toward God. 00:11:37.040 |
And I'm going to say something that, you know, that you may disagree with me, but I see this 00:11:45.060 |
When I was growing up, nobody ever said, "Oh my God." 00:11:51.520 |
Nobody ever said that, because the previous generation told us that was irreverent, that 00:12:00.880 |
And I know that that's not the way people mean it when they say it, right? 00:12:06.580 |
I mean, in fact, I don't know too many people who don't use that term today. 00:12:11.300 |
But I'm just telling you that the previous generation, and for many generations prior 00:12:15.320 |
to that, that using the Lord's name, "Oh my God," was considered frivolous. 00:12:20.420 |
It was kind of like using God's name without any thought and kind of a joke and just like, 00:12:26.820 |
And so when I first started hearing that and started seeing that online, yeah, it did kind 00:12:36.280 |
And so I'm not here tonight saying like, you know, it's irreverent or you shouldn't be 00:12:41.320 |
But generally speaking, the idea of being reverent toward the things of God is a problem 00:12:52.340 |
So I don't want to get, again, legalistic and say, "Well, this is reverent or this is 00:12:57.080 |
So when you come to church, you need to wear a suit." 00:13:01.480 |
But the concept of being reverent, because this particular sin is about taking something 00:13:06.800 |
that is sacred and defiling it by being irreverent toward it. 00:13:11.400 |
And so when you recognize that you are irreverent toward something that God considered sacred 00:13:15.840 |
and you realize that, that's when this offering was required, to come before the Lord and 00:13:21.420 |
recognize that and pay reparation on top of that. 00:13:25.120 |
So the first thing that the Israelites considered sacred among all things was his name. 00:13:30.140 |
And they would never even pronounce his name because they were always afraid that it would 00:13:37.280 |
So I think that's something that we need to consider and think about, that we don't use 00:13:54.040 |
Unintentional Sabbath violation would be one of the things that required a guilt offering. 00:14:00.200 |
Remember what happened to somebody who intentionally violated the Sabbath? 00:14:11.960 |
It was to take him out, outside the gate, and there was capital punishment for him because 00:14:19.560 |
And again, we talked about that last week, how we define something that is deserving 00:14:22.760 |
of capital punishment is the way it affects us. 00:14:26.080 |
The way God sees it is a person who looks at God and willfully says, "No, I'm going 00:14:33.180 |
So the willful sin against God was a much more serious offense. 00:14:38.520 |
And so the second thing that they were constantly concerned about is keeping the Sabbath holy. 00:14:42.560 |
And the reason why is because it's spelled out in his commandments. 00:14:47.840 |
If you look at the laws in Deuteronomy, a huge chunk of the law is about keeping the 00:14:57.640 |
All the laws in the Ten Commandments are the weightiest of all the commandments in Deuteronomy, 00:15:03.080 |
and keeping the Sabbath holy was one of them. 00:15:05.400 |
So the Israelites understood how weighty this particular commandment was, whether they understood 00:15:12.680 |
But the Sabbath was a day that was set apart to revere God. 00:15:18.220 |
So to break the Sabbath is to basically willfully say, "We're not going to set this day apart." 00:15:23.640 |
Again, it was a form of rebellion against God to break the Sabbath. 00:15:29.160 |
So if you inadvertently did something that you weren't supposed to do on the Sabbath, 00:15:33.200 |
that was a requirement that they needed to bring the guilt offering to God. 00:15:41.060 |
The offerings in the temple rites were considered holy. 00:15:44.160 |
Anything that was set apart and that was dedicated to the temple that belonged to God became 00:15:51.040 |
So if there was an article, it was a particular animal, it could be even the priests. 00:15:57.040 |
Remember King David, how he wouldn't touch Saul because he said he was the anointed of 00:16:02.360 |
God, even though he was trying to kill him and he refused to lay any harm on him because 00:16:08.480 |
he realized that because he was a king set apart for God's use, even though he may have 00:16:14.880 |
been rebellion, he said he wouldn't touch that because he understood that he was sacred 00:16:20.500 |
So anything that was set apart for God's use was considered sacred. 00:16:26.280 |
So if you've damaged that, if you touched it or if you defiled it in any way through 00:16:31.600 |
speech or through action, it would require the guilt offering before God. 00:16:41.520 |
The Israelites were to be holy just as the Lord God was holy, not maintaining purity 00:16:46.780 |
in their worship of one true God and by their intermarrying, they violated the Lord's holy 00:16:52.280 |
So again, God wanted to keep the nation of Israel holy so he forbid them to intermarry 00:16:57.540 |
with the Canaanites because he considered the nation of Israel as a whole holy and by 00:17:03.480 |
bringing non-Israelites or pagan worshipers into the nation of Israel, it would defile 00:17:13.080 |
And then finally, failing to fulfill a dedicatory vow or to present a tithe. 00:17:22.240 |
A tithe again was something that was meant to be set apart for God's use so that tithe 00:17:30.080 |
So anytime you touched that, it was considered a violation of what was sacred. 00:17:36.240 |
So anything that was dedicated to the Lord and you somehow take back or you don't do 00:17:41.960 |
what you intended to do, you're supposed to do, it was considered a violation. 00:17:47.640 |
Again that's all spelled out in Leviticus chapter 22. 00:17:50.800 |
When we get there, we'll talk a little bit more about that. 00:17:52.680 |
So this is not comprehensive but these are the major things that required Israel to give 00:18:03.560 |
Now every one of these things has a reflection in the New Testament. 00:18:08.360 |
It may not be letter by letter specifically but every one of these things have some sort 00:18:14.640 |
of reflection in the New Testament which we'll get to when we get there. 00:18:18.780 |
The second category was a direct sin against the neighbor. 00:18:24.160 |
So the first one was a defiling of anything that was set apart that belonged to God, whether 00:18:29.280 |
it was his name, whether it was the Sabbath, whether it was a particular offering or articles 00:18:35.160 |
or a person, whether it was the nation as a whole or anything that was dedicated, right? 00:18:40.880 |
So anything that belonged to God that was defiled, that was the first category. 00:18:44.700 |
The second category was anything that violated or when you sinned against a particular neighbor 00:18:52.200 |
and then he kind of spells out and makes a list of things, right? 00:18:56.840 |
Deceiving a neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, in other words that you're kind 00:19:01.480 |
of in this business transaction and then you end up deceiving them or robbery. 00:19:18.020 |
We're going to stop here for a minute before we go on. 00:19:22.260 |
Now remember, in the first case concerning God, defiling God, what was the requirement? 00:19:38.640 |
It was not a deliberate breaking of the Sabbath. 00:19:41.480 |
It wasn't deliberately defiling the name of the Lord, right? 00:19:50.440 |
But the second category is robbery unintentional? 00:20:04.000 |
So if you look at the sins listed here, it's very intentional. 00:20:07.540 |
So the distinction that he's making here are intentional sins that you voluntarily confess. 00:20:18.320 |
Because if you look at Exodus chapter 22, 1 through 4, he describes a penalty for an 00:20:33.060 |
So this guilt offering that he makes a reparation for are sins that he recognized that he did 00:20:40.840 |
and he's confessing and he wants to make things right, right? 00:20:45.240 |
And in that case, he says to give whatever you took and then you add a fifth as a compensation, 00:20:53.560 |
But if you go to Exodus chapter 22, which let me get there real quick, right? 00:20:59.560 |
He says, "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills or sells it, he shall repay," how 00:21:05.520 |
"Five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep." 00:21:10.360 |
And then all the way down to verse 4, "If the stolen beast is found alive in his possession, 00:21:14.480 |
whether it is an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double." 00:21:22.600 |
So this is a description of somebody who gets caught doing this. 00:21:32.160 |
So what we're dealing with here is somebody who commits these crimes, commits these sins, 00:21:43.500 |
So the way he deals with the guilt is to confess it before God and make things right. 00:21:53.600 |
So this is not just talking about, well, you went out and robbed somebody and then you 00:21:56.320 |
got caught and you say, okay, now you got to pay whatever you robbed and the fifth. 00:22:00.680 |
This is only in the case that you voluntarily are dealing with your guilt. 00:22:07.600 |
Otherwise the reparation would have been much more severe. 00:22:15.100 |
And let me just expand on this just a little bit. 00:22:20.300 |
The reason why this is called a guilt offering is because of this. 00:22:24.620 |
Not simply because you're guilty, because all sins make you guilty. 00:22:28.260 |
This is a guilt offering because there's a guilt on your conscience. 00:22:33.480 |
Because you did something and you violated God's law and then you've taken something 00:22:38.200 |
that didn't belong to you and so you deal with this guilt by confessing and then you're 00:22:45.300 |
We have a, again, I think I mentioned this last Sunday, I think in the first service, 00:22:49.820 |
where there's this confusion in the church that any guilt is not from God. 00:23:00.740 |
It is not, because Paul in 1 Corinthians spells out the sins of the Corinthians. 00:23:08.900 |
In fact, he's so angry with these people, he says, "Shall I come to you with a whip 00:23:15.640 |
I mean, he's talking as a father who's disciplining his kids and he uses the harshest language 00:23:22.580 |
And then when he writes the 2 Corinthians, he begins by saying that, "I regretted it 00:23:28.300 |
a little bit because I was so harsh with you, but I did not regret it because your guilt 00:23:33.380 |
In other words, he brought guilt on them on purpose to reveal their sin. 00:23:40.220 |
And he says, "Godly sorrow leads to repentance. 00:23:49.820 |
So if you take that guilt and whatever you do with that guilt will either lead to salvation 00:23:57.980 |
So we make the mistake to think that when there is guilt and we don't want to deal with 00:24:03.500 |
the sin that is causing the guilt because the way that God told the nation of Israel 00:24:07.020 |
to deal with that guilt is to repent and make things right. 00:24:11.940 |
But the way that people want to make it, when guilt is upon us, we can't live with that 00:24:20.180 |
Because guilt is, I mean, it'll ruin your appetite. 00:24:25.540 |
And there is deep-seated heaviness upon us when there's guilt that the sin that we're 00:24:34.260 |
So that will either lead us to repentance and make things right or you change your theology 00:24:47.180 |
So you start to change your theology to accommodate the sin that you want in your life. 00:24:54.980 |
But the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do that. 00:24:58.020 |
The Holy Spirit that is dwelling in us will bring the guilt upon us to bring us to repentance. 00:25:04.640 |
So guilt in itself is necessary to bring us to repentance. 00:25:31.180 |
That's the gospel message, to repent and be baptized, right? 00:25:34.960 |
So the reason why this particular offering is called the guilt offering is how do you 00:25:48.340 |
If someone found something that somebody lost and they kept it and lied about it, and then 00:25:54.820 |
the guilt weighs heavy on his heart, and then he wants to make things right and he wants 00:26:06.620 |
He said, "You need to give it back and then you add 20% as if it was loaned to you." 00:26:15.380 |
Because if that's the money that he would have gotten, if he lent it to somebody else, 00:26:20.820 |
So basically if you're going to restore, you have to restore like you borrowed it from 00:26:37.860 |
Things that are considered sacred or holy in the New Testament. 00:26:46.100 |
Remember what Jesus says in the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come," or he begins by saying, 00:26:56.860 |
And that was the first thing that the Jews were concerned about in the Old Testament. 00:27:01.660 |
They would never say his name in vain because it was considered so sacred. 00:27:07.220 |
It revered him, anything that was attached to him. 00:27:12.100 |
So the first thing in the New Testament, again we see the reflection in the New Testament, 00:27:16.140 |
is that his name, anything that is attached to God, there ought to be among Christians 00:27:24.760 |
And there is nothing more sacred than the gathering of his people for the purpose of 00:27:33.460 |
So our corporate worship shouldn't be casual, right? 00:27:39.020 |
Again, I'm not going to spell out what that means. 00:27:41.980 |
I'm not going to say, "Therefore, you need to buy a tie," or any of this. 00:27:44.540 |
I'm not saying all of that because I read somewhere that more than 70% of the people 00:27:49.780 |
in the United States, like 7% of the men don't own a suit. 00:27:54.140 |
So it doesn't make sense to go buy a suit just to attend church, right? 00:28:00.260 |
But in our hearts, when we approach that, this is not, you're not coming to a theater. 00:28:05.740 |
And that's why we say on Sunday morning not to come in here with boba, okay? 00:28:10.260 |
And it's not because we're concerned about the chairs. 00:28:17.100 |
So even if you spill things, we can clean it up. 00:28:21.580 |
It's not because it distracts me when I see you drinking something. 00:28:25.460 |
It's to teach you that the time that we're coming here is a sacred time. 00:28:32.540 |
You didn't come here and just sip in your sip. 00:28:34.740 |
It's like, "Okay, let me see what you're going to do today," right? 00:28:37.580 |
We're asking you to come with a sense of reverence when you come approach the throne of God. 00:28:42.620 |
That's why another reason why we're asking you to come a bit early, right, and ready 00:28:47.800 |
Instead of just casually walking in, come and prepare your hearts, okay? 00:28:51.100 |
Some of you guys are thinking, "Egalism, egalism," right? 00:28:57.180 |
Again, I didn't understand that when I was younger either. 00:29:00.620 |
When my dad would tell me to do certain things or not do certain things in the church when 00:29:04.780 |
I was younger, I said, "Man, what does that have to do with worshipping God?" 00:29:11.780 |
What he told me was so much more stricter than even what I'm saying to you. 00:29:15.620 |
But I didn't understand that when I was younger. 00:29:18.020 |
I don't necessarily agree with all of the things that I was taught, but I understand 00:29:24.180 |
I understand it now because the more I study the Scriptures, the more I understand why 00:29:29.660 |
he wants us to have reverence and to revere the things of God because it reveals the attitude 00:29:38.620 |
And when our attitude of our hearts toward God is nonchalant, his word is going to be 00:29:47.540 |
If somebody you revere tells you something, you're going to pay attention to it a lot 00:29:52.580 |
more closely than somebody that you're just really casual about, right? 00:29:59.220 |
And ultimately, it really isn't even about you. 00:30:03.260 |
If honoring and glorifying him is the primary purpose of my life, that's something that 00:30:08.620 |
we should consider and think about, think through, right, whenever it has to deal with 00:30:21.300 |
The gospel itself is the foundation upon which everything rises and falls. 00:30:25.100 |
So if there's anything that we need to consider sacred, it's the gospel, that we are not to 00:30:29.580 |
turn from it to the left or to the right, that we don't tweak it, we don't change it, 00:30:35.940 |
When we talk about grace and not holiness, right, we talk about holiness but not grace, 00:30:41.420 |
we need to preach the full gospel, like all of it, and we need to pay very close attention 00:30:48.020 |
to it because all of the false doctrines and heresies are a small, tiny tweak of the gospel, 00:30:55.740 |
It is not an outright, like we don't believe that he, you know, he wasn't resurrected, 00:30:59.620 |
I mean, there are some outright heresies but most of the stuff that affects the church 00:31:04.460 |
and divides the church are a slight tweak of the gospel. 00:31:07.660 |
And that's why Paul says, right, in Galatians 1, 8 and 9, if anybody preaches a different 00:31:13.300 |
gospel, now, when he says anybody preaches a different gospel, let him be anathema, let 00:31:19.020 |
him be accursed, understand a different gospel that he was dealing with. 00:31:24.380 |
The Judaizers, they recognized Jesus' resurrection, they recognized his lordship, right? 00:31:31.380 |
So the core doctrines of the gospel, they believe, they just wanted to add circumcision, 00:31:41.540 |
And so when Paul says anathema, he's not talking to people who are saying that Jesus Christ 00:31:45.620 |
isn't God, that he wasn't resurrected from the dead, that his blood didn't atone for 00:31:49.820 |
our sins, he's talking about people who accepted that and then they added more things. 00:31:55.380 |
And he said that perversion causes the gospel to no longer be the gospel and he said, "Let 00:32:04.260 |
So if there's anything that you and I, that we need to study and know front and back, 00:32:12.060 |
Not about Lakers and the statistics and not about, you know, like where's the best to 00:32:16.540 |
travel and the best Yelp, I mean, all of that stuff are things that we have privilege to 00:32:22.060 |
But if you know more about the Lakers than the gospel, you have priority issues, right? 00:32:30.900 |
If you know more about the politics than you do the gospel, you know, we have to take a 00:32:36.940 |
step back and ask ourselves, like, what is it that we're doing? 00:32:42.560 |
And when I say know the gospel, I'm not just talking about, you know, like what you heard 00:32:50.180 |
You know, it surprises me, I can sit down and ask a Christian who's been a Christian 00:32:56.400 |
for 10 plus years and explain if a non-Christian came to you and asked you, right, why was 00:33:14.640 |
Why go through all that trauma of going to the cross, right? 00:33:20.380 |
When we're in our insulated bubble, when nobody is challenging us, we just accept it. 00:33:27.580 |
So when you go witnessing and talk to non-Christians or a liberal Christian, they start asking 00:33:32.300 |
you these questions, you realize you really don't know the gospel, right? 00:33:36.560 |
Or you know the very elementary aspects of the gospel. 00:33:39.580 |
So if there's anything that you need to master is the gospel. 00:33:43.300 |
If you've been a Christian for more than a couple years, if somebody asks you a question 00:33:46.660 |
about the gospel, you shouldn't say, "Go talk to my pastor," right? 00:33:51.740 |
I'm not saying I don't want to talk to them, but Christians should be able to, any Christian 00:33:57.220 |
should be able to answer those questions, right? 00:34:05.380 |
Ask a pastor, take a class, read a book, right, because the information is more than readily 00:34:11.260 |
So again, second thing, if there's anything that we need to get right and we need to consider 00:34:26.020 |
The gospel is sacred, the church is sacred because the avenue in which the gospel, what 00:34:30.460 |
God designed the gospel to be spread, is the church. 00:34:34.980 |
So if anybody who is divisive in the church, or undermines the church, right, is also guilty 00:34:41.100 |
of this sin, was divisive in the church, right? 00:34:47.100 |
In 1 Timothy 3.15, it said the church is the foundation, the pillar and foundation of the 00:34:55.260 |
And then, you know this passage, 1 Corinthians 3.16, "Do you not know that you are God's 00:34:58.940 |
temple and it is used in the plural form, you, referring to the church, and that God's 00:35:06.020 |
The church is a sacred place that replaced the sacred temple of the Old Testament. 00:35:10.060 |
So when you come into the temple and you take the things that are sacred and you defile 00:35:16.140 |
it, he said it's no different than in the church in the New Testament. 00:35:21.220 |
So all these things that they were tolerating in the church, they were defiling the church. 00:35:25.220 |
So a Jew would have understood exactly what Paul was saying, right? 00:35:32.060 |
You need to take the church seriously because this is God's design. 00:35:36.020 |
So going against the church, and again, we're not talking about like whatever the leaders 00:35:40.580 |
say, everybody needs to submit, but undermining and defiling the church and dividing the church 00:35:58.980 |
The scripture says that we have been purchased by Christ, so we belong to him. 00:36:06.860 |
So for us to use our bodies to do whatever we want with it is a violation of that, again, 00:36:13.560 |
Every single Christian has been set apart for God's use. 00:36:17.320 |
It is no longer us who lives, but Christ who lives in us, right? 00:36:23.480 |
That's why again, Romans 12.1, which says to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice 00:36:30.880 |
Again, so therefore, Paul calls our individual bodies also as a temple of God. 00:36:40.680 |
It's almost verbatim, the same passage in 1 Corinthians 3, 16, except there it's used 00:36:44.720 |
in the singular, and he's referring to sexual immorality, right? 00:36:50.640 |
Where in 1 Corinthians 3, 16, he warns the church in the context of being divisive. 00:36:56.760 |
You know, I prefer this guy, and I follow Paul, and this divisiveness was causing all 00:37:02.320 |
this chaos in the church, and he's saying, "Do you not know that you are the temple of 00:37:06.920 |
So he's talking to the church and people who are being divisive. 00:37:09.600 |
Here in 1 Corinthians 6, 19, he's talking about sexual immorality, how they're using 00:37:13.400 |
their bodies in a way that defiles what belongs to God. 00:37:17.760 |
It is not your body to use the way you want, okay? 00:37:22.720 |
And then the last thing is the sacrament, right? 00:37:26.240 |
The Lord's Supper, and why this is so sacred. 00:37:31.800 |
First Corinthians 10, 14 to 21, and for the sake of time, I'm not going to read it. 00:37:41.640 |
In the end, basically, he talks about the Lord's Supper as being most holy, right? 00:37:48.200 |
And it is a replacement of the offerings in Leviticus. 00:37:51.440 |
And that's why in chapter 11, he said those people who weren't taking the Lord's Supper 00:37:59.200 |
What was happening to people who were not taking the Lord's Supper seriously? 00:38:09.360 |
They said, well, they called it they fell asleep, but fell asleep basically means that 00:38:13.680 |
And this is the New Testament, the new covenant, right? 00:38:18.280 |
So it's not like we come, well, in the New Testament, so God doesn't care. 00:38:22.080 |
Actually, right, the first sin where they lie to the Holy Spirit, remember we talked 00:38:31.640 |
They were lying to the Holy Spirit, lying to the church, and as a result of that, the 00:38:39.440 |
And the people who are not taking the Lord's Supper seriously, the consequence was very 00:38:44.120 |
Now, it doesn't mean that God says, well, if you break this commandment, you do it in 00:38:49.040 |
But it does teach us how God views these things, how God views the church, right? 00:38:56.840 |
That's why it says not to participate in an unworthy manner. 00:39:00.320 |
So every time we take communion, it's an opportunity for us to take a deep look at where we are. 00:39:05.120 |
If we have deliberate, unconfessed sin, that you can't come up and participate in the communion 00:39:12.960 |
And then some people think that, well, then I'm not going to participate. 00:39:17.480 |
To not participate in the communion table means that you are outside the church, right? 00:39:37.840 |
That's what the communion table was meant to do, is for the church to realize that to 00:39:42.640 |
participate in this sacred event, that you needed to continually confess your sins and 00:39:47.680 |
recognize that the only redemption you have is in His blood. 00:39:56.160 |
It is an opportunity for the church to be restored. 00:39:58.680 |
And it's an opportunity for us to look forward for the consummation of what He started at 00:40:06.420 |
That's why the communion is so important to the church, right? 00:40:11.160 |
And some people say, well, then why don't we do it every week? 00:40:17.320 |
We don't believe that there is a real presence of Christ, meaning that there's some dynamic 00:40:21.800 |
presence of Christ that's there physically, like the Catholics or the Lutherans. 00:40:28.640 |
But just because it's symbolic doesn't mean it's not sacred, because the Lord said it 00:40:41.440 |
The trespass offering illustrates the costs of sin that are committed. 00:40:46.120 |
That's not just something you say, oh, I feel bad, Lord, forgive me, and then you just move 00:40:50.780 |
This particular offering reminds us that there is, in any sin, there's always consequences. 00:41:03.840 |
We confess it, just like a broken arm, it can be healed, but that arm may not always 00:41:12.380 |
So this commandment, this particular offering, reminds us of that. 00:41:17.280 |
So though forgiveness is given through atonement, there always is a price to pay for sins that 00:41:25.900 |
True repentance requires restoration, as John told the Pharisees to bear fruit in accordance 00:41:37.480 |
So in Matthew 5, 23 to 24, it says, so if you are offering your gift at the altar and 00:41:42.060 |
there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before 00:41:47.260 |
First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. 00:41:52.820 |
So again, in restoration, that this is not just like, I confess before God, and forgive 00:42:00.980 |
He said, whatever it is that you wronged with your brother, he says to deal with that before 00:42:07.500 |
If you remember Zacchaeus, Luke 19, 8, Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, 00:42:12.060 |
the half of my goods I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, anything, 00:42:21.860 |
Because he was a Jew, he understood the Jewish law. 00:42:38.620 |
It's just like Peter saying, how many times do you want me to forgive? 00:42:44.260 |
He was trying to say he's going to be more righteous than the average person. 00:42:48.380 |
So Zacchaeus, when he says I'm going to give fourfold, is basically saying this is how 00:43:04.100 |
And then God gives provision for restoration when we volunteer in repentance. 00:43:11.780 |
There's a big difference between a sin that gets exposed versus a sin that you expose. 00:43:17.980 |
And God gives restoration when we volunteer that. 00:43:25.500 |
And so Isaiah 53.10 says, "Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, and he has 00:43:33.820 |
When his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offering, he shall prolong his 00:43:41.900 |
So the word for here for offering, I think it's the NASB and maybe the NIV also says 00:43:51.460 |
It's the same word that is used in this passage in Leviticus 5.16, guilt offering. 00:43:57.040 |
So I'm not sure why the ESV just translated offering. 00:44:03.380 |
My guess is they're assuming that you don't know the difference. 00:44:11.300 |
And it's part of the reason why I'm not a big fan of the ESV, even though I use the 00:44:17.060 |
I think they did too much of this kind of stuff to make it a little bit easier to read, 00:44:22.300 |
but I think this is important enough that they should have put it in there. 00:44:25.840 |
But in the Hebrew, it actually has the word guilt offering on there. 00:44:32.100 |
Same word that is being used here in Leviticus 5. 00:44:41.540 |
And then finally 1 John 1, 8-9, it says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves 00:44:49.300 |
And that's the first part of deception, when we don't recognize our sin or we don't see 00:44:57.900 |
And so all these five offerings, the purpose of all these five offerings is to recognize 00:45:12.700 |
How can a holy God be in the midst of sinful people? 00:45:17.340 |
And so every one of these things, that the offering that was given from morning and nighttime, 00:45:21.640 |
the blood that was shed, the sprinkling of the blood, and the money, the compensation, 00:45:26.580 |
the fifth of it, and then if you were a leader versus a layperson versus a priest. 00:45:32.540 |
And so every one of these offerings was God was detailing. 00:45:39.340 |
Like if you're going to build a house, you have an architect. 00:45:41.700 |
I don't know if you've ever seen the architect's blueprint. 00:45:45.540 |
I was surprised how many pages of drawings go into a church like this. 00:45:57.060 |
Because when I first found out how much it cost to hire an architect, as high as 10% 00:46:05.540 |
So if a project is a million dollars, they project about $100,000 for the architect. 00:46:14.620 |
Now we didn't pay that, but that's what they project. 00:46:21.860 |
Because every little thing, even the nail that you use, like on these walls, the nails 00:46:27.340 |
that we use, it had to be a certain kind of galvanized nail, a certain length, and that 00:46:33.620 |
you can only get in a certain width and certain head that was used only for concrete. 00:46:40.060 |
And so when the inspector came, he made us go up and pull these nails out because he 00:46:51.820 |
So imagine if they were that detailed about the nail, how crazy it was around the building. 00:46:57.860 |
We had to take out a certain part of the entrance because the grade on the entrance was 1.2%. 00:47:03.780 |
And he said, 2% or something, but it had to fall in line with like 1% to 2%. 00:47:10.980 |
If anything above that, we had to take the whole thing out and repave the whole thing 00:47:19.140 |
Now I share all of this because we don't realize all the little details and the things 00:47:24.380 |
that they made us do, and all for the purpose of making the building safe. 00:47:30.300 |
And especially in Irvine, they don't cut corners. 00:47:36.380 |
And everybody's afraid to come to Irvine for that reason, but they're doing it because 00:47:40.820 |
they want to make sure that all the buildings in Irvine are safe. 00:47:46.140 |
So when you look at the offerings that God is giving, all the little intricate details, 00:47:53.380 |
And every one of these things that we may not understand, why do you have to have that 00:48:03.580 |
And so all these little things that you and I may not understand, but the architect knows, 00:48:11.460 |
Because he's building a house that maybe you and I don't fully understand. 00:48:14.700 |
And every single one of these things that he did in these offerings, it built toward 00:48:21.940 |
It built toward pointing to what Jesus was going to do on the cross. 00:48:26.980 |
So when you look at the intricate details of these offerings, what did it teach us? 00:48:31.180 |
Like, generally, structurally, what did it teach us? 00:48:42.860 |
And if we don't recognize sin as utterly sinful, we don't really understand what Christ 00:48:50.860 |
We can sing about his love and his grace, but it just doesn't have the same impact as 00:48:58.980 |
So he said all of this was given to us for what purpose? 00:49:07.260 |
Orderly sinful, not just sinful, but orderly sinful, as sinful as you can possibly understand 00:49:13.300 |
Because until you recognize it as orderly sinful, the grace of God doesn't change you, 00:49:21.260 |
Until you realize that you are on the verge of death or you were dead in your trespasses. 00:49:32.940 |
It doesn't change the way you use your money. 00:49:37.700 |
It's just precious, but just not as precious. 00:49:42.020 |
Again, so I want you guys to really think through what you guys are studying. 00:49:50.220 |
This is God's architectural design, and every single one of these things are there for a 00:49:59.620 |
Even if you don't understand now, file it away somewhere, and it may trigger it at some 00:50:06.860 |
Often, would one particular family give this offering? 00:50:44.980 |
It was done on a daily basis at the tabernacle, but this doesn't mean that every family was 00:50:52.220 |
I have a feeling, again, that's a good question, but I have a feeling that there was a long 00:51:00.700 |
Yeah, so my guess is that the Israelites probably were not very faithful with it either. 00:51:17.980 |
Israelites, even while they're in the desert, they were going after idols, constantly grumbling 00:51:29.140 |
So do you think that they were faithful in giving in their sacrifices that cost them 00:51:36.020 |
So my guess is that a lot of them did the minimum, and then there were periods of revival 00:51:43.020 |
when the temple was established and there was more giving and more of that being established, 00:51:48.060 |
but even then, they were just doing that like the rich people were doing that. 00:51:52.620 |
Remember, like if you look at Isaiah and Jeremiah, there's a rebuke, and they say, "You're coming 00:51:57.340 |
to the temple, but it's a trampling of my court," and he said that the fast that he 00:52:02.180 |
desire is to look after the orphans and the oppressed, and who is he rebuking? 00:52:11.000 |
The rich people who had the money and the sacrifice, they're coming to the temple and 00:52:14.140 |
giving all of these things, and so because they were able to do that, they thought that 00:52:20.340 |
But he says, "They're a burden to him," right? 00:52:25.740 |
So people who didn't have money may have made that as an excuse and not come to God because 00:52:30.460 |
they didn't have money for these animals, and the rich people were just kind of giving 00:52:35.380 |
meaningless offerings, and so God says, "No, that's not what I wanted either," right? 00:52:41.420 |
So I don't know how frequent, I mean, even if it's just a small portion of them came, 00:52:45.060 |
I would think that it would have been a really bloody scene, and it was done all the time, 00:52:50.780 |
morning and night constantly, but again, it doesn't mean that, you know, like every time 00:52:57.140 |
My guess is they probably waited once a year, or it was something that kind of rose up to 00:53:02.700 |
that point, and maybe a few faithful, really faithful Jews did it on a regular basis. 00:53:10.260 |
But again, remember, Israelites were not faithful, right? 00:53:20.700 |
So the discussion questions, other than feeling of guilt, how does sin damage the sinner? 00:53:27.660 |
Okay, number two, in what way does our private sins affect the church as a whole? 00:53:32.340 |
Sometimes we don't realize that if we're the temple of God, we're the body of Christ, and 00:53:37.420 |
if your arm gets hurt, right, we all hurt, the scripture says, but we don't necessarily 00:53:44.020 |
And so how does our private sins affect the whole church? 00:53:51.300 |
Number three, how do you balance between overcoming sin through accountability and discipleship 00:53:56.940 |
while creating an atmosphere of transparency and grace? 00:53:59.460 |
Okay, so this is the constant challenge, and even when you're raising kids, like you want 00:54:05.260 |
to disciple them and discipline them when they're wrong, but then you don't want to 00:54:08.180 |
discipline to the point where they're afraid of you, and they'll never come to you, and 00:54:13.700 |
And so that balance is a challenge even in the church where you kind of like, well, we 00:54:18.380 |
want to be gracious, and we want people to feel safe where they can confess their sins, 00:54:22.300 |
and the next thing you know, everybody's like, well, you're a sinner, I'm a sinner, and then 00:54:26.100 |
you create an environment where sin is okay because everybody's sinning together, right? 00:54:31.300 |
Or you go to the other extreme where you put fear and trembling that we're watching, we're 00:54:35.460 |
constantly asking each other, are you sinning, are you doing this, are you doing that, and 00:54:39.260 |
you're almost afraid to come to church, and we don't want that either, right? 00:54:45.420 |
That's a constant challenge because we always tend to err one way or the other, or you kind 00:54:57.980 |
Because God is holy and God is love at the same time all the time. 00:55:01.580 |
There's not a time when, okay, we're not going to talk about holiness now because we want 00:55:05.380 |
to focus on God's love, or we're going to focus on His holiness, not His love. 00:55:09.260 |
There's never a time when His holiness and His love shouldn't be present at all times 00:55:16.880 |
So the question is, how do we balance that, right, without neglecting the other? 00:55:21.180 |
Four, do you have a tendency to keep sin private or do you regularly confess your sins to others 00:55:27.300 |
And again, you know, we can easily hold things back, right, and just keep it to ourselves, 00:55:33.140 |
but when we do that, the sin tends to fester and it becomes bigger, right, as we saw. 00:55:39.060 |
And so God always gives opportunity for us to, that's why the scripture says in James 00:55:42.480 |
to confess your sins to one another, right, to bring it out. 00:55:46.260 |
So if we bring it out, it has a lesser impact, but if we are waiting for it to get exposed, 00:55:51.580 |
we get humiliated and the damage is much bigger, right? 00:55:55.100 |
So again, that question is, is there a pattern in your life where you're willing to confess, 00:56:03.000 |
So that's, again, question number four, okay? 00:56:05.580 |
So let me pray for us and then I'll have you guys get into your groups. 00:56:14.660 |
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would anoint a time with a small group. 00:56:19.060 |
Lord, as we continue to wrestle, Lord God, of what it means to be holy and at the same 00:56:24.980 |
time being gracious and loving, help us, Lord, to be obedient and faithful to you in all 00:56:38.460 |
If we have accepted sin, Lord God, and just been in the habit of making light of holiness, 00:56:44.500 |
I pray that you would reveal that to us as well. 00:56:48.820 |
I pray that you would be with us in our discussion, that it would lead to greater sanctification