back to indexWed Bible Study - Leviticus Part 2 Overview
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After all the commandments are given about the sacrifice and being clean and what to 00:00:20.040 |
do, what not to do, the first sacrifice is made in Leviticus chapter 10 and what happens? 00:00:26.160 |
When they've made up a Nebihu, Aaron's two sons give the first sacrifice, what happens? 00:00:32.240 |
They gave, right, unauthorized fire and then as a result of that, God says, God punishes 00:00:39.600 |
Fire comes down from heaven and consumes both of them. 00:00:41.840 |
And then it's in that context, God says, Moses said to Aaron, it is what the Lord spoke, 00:00:47.040 |
saying, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy and before all people, 00:00:52.840 |
So basically God says to the nation of Israel, you can't just approach me any way you desire, 00:01:00.120 |
So they approached God in a manner that God didn't tell them. 00:01:05.600 |
It was just something that God did not authorize. 00:01:08.280 |
They put it up on the altar and as a result of that, they die. 00:01:11.700 |
And so that verse is kind of like the theme verse of the book of Leviticus because the 00:01:16.960 |
whole point of book of Leviticus is teaching a sinful people how to have a relationship 00:01:25.560 |
And so they needed to recognize what holiness is and holiness because of God's holiness, 00:01:32.120 |
So book of Leviticus is kind of a microcosm of the whole totality of redemptive history. 00:01:38.960 |
God is trying to teach the nation of Israel, God's trying to teach all of mankind that 00:01:45.400 |
there needs to be a blood atonement that covers over the sins of mankind in order for that 00:01:51.880 |
And basically Leviticus is kind of like a play playing out in human history, showing 00:01:59.680 |
Ultimately, obviously this is preparing for the coming of Christ. 00:02:04.800 |
I didn't have notes for you because again, if you've been here for the study of all of 00:02:10.880 |
book of Leviticus, you've gotten this review twice, so I don't have it for you. 00:02:16.560 |
But those of you who want to have these slides, just email me and I'll forward it to you. 00:02:21.400 |
Actually, we're probably going to put it up on the Facebook page. 00:02:40.840 |
Can you take the dongle out and put it back in? 00:02:51.880 |
So the title of the book Leviticus, it's appropriate considering that whole book of Leviticus is 00:03:01.240 |
About how to approach him, what kind of sacrifices, what are acceptable, what are not acceptable, 00:03:06.320 |
who can handle the sacrifices, where do they need to sacrifice, what do you do with the 00:03:10.240 |
blood, what kind of clothes do you need to wear, what makes you clean, what makes you 00:03:16.040 |
So the whole book of Leviticus is basically a book of regulations and how to worship God. 00:03:25.940 |
How many of you have ever studied the book of Leviticus before, other than those who've 00:03:34.560 |
Book of Leviticus is probably one of those books that you probably read a couple pages 00:03:39.440 |
and then if you don't get it, you're going to flip through and then you just kind of 00:03:43.800 |
If you've been, if you're faithful in your Bible reading, you might've read it before, 00:03:49.760 |
I can't emphasize enough how important this book is. 00:03:55.800 |
Everything that we've been studying in the book of Romans is founded upon the principles 00:04:03.520 |
So can you understand the gospel without Leviticus? 00:04:07.320 |
But Leviticus is the precursor that prepared the nation of Israel to understand why the 00:04:18.860 |
So if you've never studied it or you didn't understand it before, Leviticus is really 00:04:27.060 |
There's a lot of phrases and words and concepts that you probably already know, but may have 00:04:33.200 |
attached your own understanding to it without realizing that it's not what the Bible says, 00:04:39.680 |
The idea of inheritance, the idea of punishment, the idea of atonement, holiness, all of these 00:04:45.120 |
things are things that a lot of times you receive from sermons or maybe movies that 00:04:49.560 |
you've watched or maybe bits and pieces of Bible studies that you've heard. 00:04:53.800 |
Leviticus is what sets the foundation, the behind the scenes stories that set up for 00:05:00.040 |
So again, I can't emphasize just how important this is in understanding our faith. 00:05:08.180 |
The key to understanding the book of Leviticus is to do our best to decipher what it is a 00:05:17.640 |
So in Colossians 2, 16-17 it says, "Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to 00:05:22.660 |
food or drink or in respect to festivals or new moon or the Sabbath day, things which 00:05:27.920 |
are mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." 00:05:32.200 |
So everything that's mentioned in the book of Leviticus is a shadow, meaning the more 00:05:37.480 |
you study the shadow, it builds anticipation for the reality, right? 00:05:42.160 |
There used to be a game show a long time ago where somebody would stand behind and then 00:05:45.660 |
you would see their shadow and the whole game show was trying to match the shadow with the 00:05:51.720 |
And so basically that's what book of Leviticus is. 00:05:54.120 |
It's giving the outline of the necessity of Christ so that when Christ came, you can match 00:05:59.960 |
what you're seeing in Leviticus with what Christ did and who he is. 00:06:06.800 |
So the benefit of the study of the book of Leviticus, it points us to a deeper understanding 00:06:22.880 |
If you don't learn how to connect that to the reality found in Christ, because it was 00:06:31.920 |
So if you study that this animal is clean, this animal is unclean, the end result is 00:06:41.280 |
We talked about menstrual cycle of women, right? 00:06:44.640 |
Like they have to be isolated for seven days. 00:06:46.640 |
If it happens to be a female child that is born, they have to be isolated for 14 days. 00:06:51.960 |
And you have all these strange laws that make absolutely no sense until you begin to realize 00:07:00.040 |
What does it teach about the gospel, about redemptive history, about sin, about God, 00:07:06.220 |
And so as we're studying through the book of Leviticus, our job is going to try to find 00:07:12.000 |
what do these strange laws to us in and of itself, what does it point to in Christ? 00:07:19.320 |
So whenever you're reading through the book of Leviticus, you have to ask yourself, "How 00:07:27.840 |
To give you a broad outline, the book of Exodus is the beginning of the relationship with 00:07:38.560 |
So Exodus concluded with the tabernacle constructed and glory of the Lord filling it. 00:07:42.320 |
So if you remember in Exodus 40, 34 to 38, I'm not going to read all of it, but it says, 00:07:47.080 |
"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 00:07:51.040 |
Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory 00:07:58.160 |
Now the picture I have for you there is not the tabernacle, obviously. 00:08:03.500 |
But the whole point of the book of Leviticus is God is trying to come near Israel, but 00:08:10.000 |
the whole story in the book of Exodus is telling people what? 00:08:17.600 |
If they come, they're going to be destroyed." 00:08:20.080 |
So the whole book of Exodus, God gives the law up in the mountain and they're not even 00:08:25.360 |
allowed to come and touch the mountain until he communicates with Moses. 00:08:30.600 |
And then at the end, all throughout the book of Exodus, if you remember the content, God 00:08:36.480 |
is giving instructions to set up the tabernacle. 00:08:41.760 |
He appoints the people who are able to make it. 00:08:45.160 |
How long, how big, where, what, what kind of poles to use, what kind of materials to 00:08:51.440 |
So all these details of how to establish a tabernacle happens in the book of Exodus. 00:08:56.880 |
So at the end of Exodus, the tabernacle is established, right? 00:09:01.520 |
And then the glory of the Lord begins to come off the mountain to the tabernacle, and that's 00:09:10.120 |
The glory of God moves from the mountain onto the tabernacle. 00:09:14.740 |
And then in Leviticus chapter, in the beginning of Leviticus, it begins with the Lord speaking 00:09:23.160 |
So Leviticus 1.1, it says, "Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the 00:09:33.520 |
The very word of the book in Leviticus, "waikra," which means, "and he called," and that's the 00:09:42.280 |
very first word that is used in the Hebrew Bible, right? 00:09:54.080 |
Leviticus begins by saying, "And he called," right? 00:09:57.600 |
And he's beginning to talk to them from the 10th, but they're not allowed to enter the 00:10:00.760 |
10th yet because the sacrifices haven't started, okay? 00:10:05.500 |
So that's the picture of the tabernacle with the glory of God through the cloud hovering 00:10:10.320 |
over it, and God is beginning to come drawn near, right? 00:10:16.100 |
Book of Numbers, 1.1, it says, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai 00:10:27.720 |
So if you go back, it says, "They were not able to enter," oops, and then Leviticus 1.1, 00:10:44.240 |
God speaks from the 10th, and then in Numbers 1.1, he speaks from in the 10th, okay? 00:10:50.440 |
So that's the progression, those three books, right? 00:10:56.080 |
You know, Genesis begins with the fall, and then mankind rebelling against God, and as 00:11:01.760 |
a result in Chapter 12, God makes a promise to Abraham and then his descendants, and his 00:11:07.400 |
descendants begin to grow in number, and then we go to Exodus, and they begin, and they 00:11:16.160 |
As soon as he delivers them, right, he says, "Let my people go that they may," do what? 00:11:22.880 |
That's what God says to tell Pharaoh to deliver them for the purpose of worship. 00:11:29.440 |
So as soon as they come out, God gives them these patterns of what to do in worship. 00:11:33.600 |
So the whole book of Leviticus is to establish how sinful people are going to worship God 00:11:38.040 |
through the tabernacle, and then God draws near. 00:11:41.320 |
Leviticus teaches them what specifically to do, and then so Leviticus is the beginning 00:11:47.940 |
And then numbers is when, is the actual practice of that. 00:11:56.640 |
The tabernacle in the camp of Israel is established right in the middle, okay? 00:12:03.300 |
The four blocks that you see are the four different Levitical tribes, and then the 12 00:12:09.820 |
tribes, 3, 3, 3, 3, are the 12 tribes of Israel, and if you look at the way God tells them 00:12:16.020 |
to be established, every single one of them are equal distance to the tabernacle, okay? 00:12:29.220 |
So the tabernacle wasn't some far distant thing where they established up in the mountain 00:12:34.060 |
and then the nation of Israel lived far off, right? 00:12:38.060 |
God's presence was at the center, the tabernacle worship, just like any group of people, even 00:12:45.980 |
The central part of any saved Christian is the worship of God. 00:12:52.060 |
And so that's what God was establishing in the nation of Israel, through this tabernacle 00:12:55.620 |
to teach the nation of Israel that God is at their center, right? 00:13:01.540 |
And the only way that God can be in their presence is through blood sacrifice, okay? 00:13:07.660 |
And all of this is a shadow that was going to ultimately point to Christ. 00:13:11.500 |
So when we were going through the different offerings, we talked about how bloody the 00:13:18.220 |
There was an animal being sacrificed morning and night, and they were being burned. 00:13:22.780 |
So there's two things that they probably saw, right? 00:13:31.900 |
So if you were an Israelite, the smell of burnt animals was probably constant. 00:13:41.780 |
It was like every day, morning and night, you smelled the animals being burned. 00:13:45.740 |
And then if you were near the tent, you probably saw blood just constantly. 00:13:49.260 |
No matter how much you cleaned it, it was given morning and night, all the time. 00:13:57.840 |
And so you smelled it, you saw it, you probably heard the animals being slaughtered. 00:14:02.240 |
And so this is right at the middle of the camp, constantly reminding them that a holy 00:14:07.320 |
God is in their presence, and sacrifice needs to be made. 00:14:18.800 |
The ultimate goal of Leviticus is to reveal the extent of God's holiness and the need 00:14:22.580 |
for a perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins. 00:14:28.080 |
Leviticus is the foundation upon which all the explanation of the gospel and the new 00:14:34.400 |
So some of you guys who were with us through the 17 chapters of Leviticus, what are some 00:14:39.440 |
terms that are related to the gospel that are found in Leviticus that you remember? 00:16:05.440 |
The depth of sin, the devastation of sin, remember? 00:16:21.360 |
Remember we talked about the degree of sin, the devastation of sin? 00:16:41.360 |
Everything about the gospel message is embedded into the book of Leviticus, and it is that 00:16:48.000 |
It's like if you understand the gospel only from the New Testament, it's kind of like 00:16:53.600 |
It's like 30 chapters and you started in chapter maybe 20. 00:16:58.040 |
And so you got the gist of it, because you got the tail end of it, and you know how it 00:17:02.040 |
ended, and you know the main characters, and you know all of that, but you missed 20 chapters, 00:17:08.280 |
Two-thirds of the Bible is the Old Testament. 00:17:10.800 |
So if you have a very loose understanding of what God did to prepare the nation of Israel, 00:17:16.480 |
in particular the book of Leviticus, you can still understand the gospel, but it's going 00:17:25.400 |
The word "holy" is mentioned over 93 times in the book of Leviticus. 00:17:29.960 |
When something is repeated that many times, you have to pay attention, right? 00:17:35.360 |
And not only is God holy, everything related to God is holy. 00:17:39.300 |
And then He's trying to make His people holy, and everything that relates to God's holy 00:17:46.180 |
So the whole point of this is holy people became unholy because of their sins, and by 00:17:50.640 |
this blood sacrifice, He's trying to make them holy again. 00:17:57.160 |
And here's a word that reveals the meaning of holiness, the restoration of holiness that 00:18:06.120 |
oftentimes we don't talk about, because typically when we think of holiness, we think of something 00:18:10.360 |
pure or moral or something that's set apart, right? 00:18:14.320 |
And that's the typical understanding of holy. 00:18:16.600 |
The English word for holy, it comes from an old English word, "halig," which means "whole" 00:18:22.980 |
Oftentimes, you'll see in the New Testament, when it talks about sound doctrine, it means 00:18:32.820 |
So the word for right or healthy or whole is related to the word "holy" that we understand. 00:18:40.300 |
And so as a theme, to be made holy means to be made whole, something that went wrong, 00:18:48.500 |
to restore it back to what it was meant to be. 00:18:53.900 |
So the whole point of holiness is not to simply separate from sin. 00:18:58.540 |
But the whole point of holiness is to be set apart from what went wrong so that God can 00:19:06.820 |
So for human beings to become holy is to go back to the state that God desired when He 00:19:14.720 |
So everything that God is doing in redemptive history is to bring us back to what He originally 00:19:19.200 |
intended, what He intended in marriage, what He intended in human relationship, what He 00:19:25.180 |
intended for work, what He intended for women, what He intended for man. 00:19:33.900 |
And so that's why He's making us holy, not simply to keep us away from sin, but by doing 00:19:41.580 |
so bring us back to what He intended, to be made whole. 00:19:45.940 |
And so that's what it means, these five basic themes that are related in the book of Leviticus, 00:19:54.860 |
He's always been the standard of what is right, right? 00:20:03.800 |
When people have a preconceived idea of what love is and then they go to God and God doesn't 00:20:09.100 |
fit the idea of love in this world, what do they do? 00:20:13.780 |
God is unfair or He's unloving because He did this, this, and this. 00:20:17.940 |
Well, the scripture says God's love is holy, right? 00:20:33.420 |
We don't have a sense of right and wrong and then we come to God and measure Him to see 00:20:42.700 |
So whatever doesn't fit His idea of right, whatever doesn't fit His idea of righteousness 00:20:48.180 |
and love, something, we're the one who strayed, not Him. 00:20:55.220 |
So if you approach the Bible and you begin to study God and say, "Well, you know, this 00:20:59.620 |
is what I understand, fairness," and then you go back to God and then begin to measure 00:21:03.260 |
Him by our standard, we get into all kinds of problems, right? 00:21:14.500 |
He's holy and so when we approach scripture, we're learning, right? 00:21:19.300 |
That's what it means not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing 00:21:22.780 |
of our mind because God is the standard of everything." 00:21:29.220 |
And as a result of that, He makes His priesthood holy. 00:21:33.540 |
The people who are going to be the first of the ones who are going to represent Him to 00:21:38.460 |
the world and world to God also need to be whole, right? 00:21:43.900 |
So you can't have an ambassador for a holy God and Him give a different message, right? 00:21:49.780 |
He needs to represent God properly so that's why after He gives sacrifices, the first thing 00:21:54.540 |
that He teaches is the priesthood needs to properly represent God so they needed to be 00:21:59.740 |
holy and all for the purpose of making the people holy, right? 00:22:07.720 |
Making them whole, making them what God intended to begin with. 00:22:13.740 |
I'm not going to get into this theology much. 00:22:15.500 |
We're going to get into this later on as we started Leviticus but the scripture does 00:22:19.980 |
not just talk about God being holy, priest, man, but even the land being holy and there's 00:22:27.460 |
I'm going to get to that not too much in Leviticus but at some point it's going to come up, right? 00:22:32.820 |
Because the Bible talks about land being holy all the time. 00:22:37.580 |
I might get into it a little bit next week, okay? 00:22:44.460 |
And ultimately that leads to a holy Savior, right? 00:22:50.100 |
And so this is the theme all throughout the book of Leviticus. 00:22:55.380 |
Leviticus is divided into, this is the general outline to your left, okay? 00:23:03.940 |
Chapter 1 through 15 is about the priestly holiness which gives instructions about sacrifices, 00:23:11.300 |
And then chapter 17 to 27, the bottom part, deal with more of a practical holiness which 00:23:17.060 |
worked out in the daily lives of the people, okay? 00:23:21.180 |
So holiness of the priest in the tabernacle and worship and then 17 to 27, holiness in 00:23:30.200 |
So this, if you look at this outline, it has an introduction and then starting from the 00:23:35.980 |
priesthood, chapter 8 through chapter 10, priesthood and then 11 through 15, laws of 00:23:41.860 |
clean and unclean things and then at the center is the day of atonement, chapter 16. 00:23:46.460 |
So if you remember the video, like, do you remember how they divided it? 00:23:59.420 |
And the reason why they put it together was because chapter 17 describes what? 00:24:06.260 |
And so they connect that to that day of atonement that God allowed cleansing to happen because 00:24:17.340 |
We're 17, the clean and unclean and how to handle the blood and the purpose of it. 00:24:23.700 |
But 17 to 20, again, it mirrors the other side where law of clean and unclean things, 00:24:28.860 |
law of clean and unclean things as it pertains to God's people in their daily life and then 00:24:39.300 |
It's a kiastic outline where the outline from the first part, right, goes and then the main 00:24:45.220 |
point is at the center and then it mirrors it backwards. 00:24:49.740 |
So when you see a kiastic outline, you're supposed to read the main point where? 00:24:55.460 |
Not in the beginning, not at the end, at the center. 00:24:57.420 |
So the center of the book of Leviticus is chapter 16 and 17, which is the day of atonement. 00:25:05.460 |
Okay, let me wrap up with the five major sacrifices. 00:25:09.940 |
And I'm just going to put it up there for sake of time. 00:25:14.660 |
These five offerings gives a presentation or teaching of how God views sin and how to 00:25:26.140 |
And so much of this is reflected upon our Christian lives. 00:25:30.500 |
Burnt offering was the most important and the most frequent. 00:25:33.200 |
This was basically, remember we talked about that? 00:25:44.700 |
It needs to be given repeatedly for general atonement for every sin. 00:25:49.720 |
And so they had to give that morning and night. 00:25:51.700 |
So in order to give the other sacrifices, their general sins needed to be atoned for. 00:25:56.820 |
So oftentimes before they gave grain offering, they would give the burnt offering first. 00:26:01.280 |
Before they gave thank offering, they would give the burnt offering first. 00:26:04.440 |
Because without the burnt offering, your sins aren't atoned for. 00:26:07.060 |
So you have to have your sins atoned for before you can approach God and give the other offerings. 00:26:12.700 |
So burnt offering was the most important offering, which represented justification, right, in 00:26:20.140 |
And then the grain offering was given for dedication and thank offering. 00:26:24.140 |
And that's where the tithe offering was given, a tenth, right? 00:26:30.580 |
In the New Testament, again, the offering is a freewill offering that we give to God 00:26:35.740 |
in dedication, right, confessing His Lord and Savior. 00:26:39.980 |
Third offering, the peace offering, it was for reconciliation and celebration. 00:26:43.460 |
Remember what was unique about that offering? 00:26:46.380 |
That was the only offering where the offerer actually ate. 00:26:52.940 |
So for our references, it's basically a picnic offering, right? 00:26:58.500 |
They would give the offering, and then whoever came with them would sit on the side and eat 00:27:08.780 |
They didn't eat meat like we eat meat, right? 00:27:11.820 |
They say, "Oh, I haven't had meat in a while. 00:27:18.860 |
So none of us are in a situation where you're starving for meat and you've never had meat. 00:27:26.500 |
In Israelites, it was a very, very, very rare occasion that they were able to eat meat. 00:27:32.100 |
So that offering basically meant that because of peace with God, they were able to have 00:27:40.060 |
And it pointed to the Old Testament in the book of Genesis when they sinned against God, 00:27:48.540 |
Fellowship between husband and wife was broken. 00:27:51.060 |
And as a result of that, all human beings were tainted because of sin. 00:27:55.320 |
So our relationship, human relationship, is directly connected to reconciling with God, 00:28:05.860 |
Sin offering was for cleansing of what we considered unclean. 00:28:10.460 |
So if you touch something that you shouldn't have touched. 00:28:13.340 |
So if you remember, if we were going through the purification laws, all of it pointed to 00:28:19.100 |
you have to give a burnt offering and then you have to give a sin offering, right, to 00:28:24.260 |
Guilt offering for restoration and restitution. 00:28:26.400 |
So if you took something that didn't belong to you, right, by accident, or somebody was 00:28:30.580 |
offering something, you touched it and defiled it, you would have to give that offering. 00:28:41.360 |
So the guilt offering was for the purpose of restoration and restitution. 00:28:45.940 |
So all of these offerings, the five major offerings, these are not all of the offering. 00:28:53.220 |
But the five major offerings give us an outline of our relationship with God, what God desires, 00:29:00.620 |
not only in justification, but also in sanctification, right? 00:29:05.380 |
Those of you who are married and who've gone through marriage counseling, you know, one 00:29:10.540 |
of the things that I mention all the time is, you know, your priority first and foremost 00:29:17.140 |
If as a Christian, if your walk with God is not right, and then you're trying to like, 00:29:23.940 |
All these things are necessary and important. 00:29:26.960 |
But the scripture clearly tells us that our peace with one another is directly linked 00:29:34.380 |
So our priority is first and foremost, make peace with God, because until you make peace 00:29:38.340 |
with God, you can have all the tools to do the right things and then not do it. 00:29:42.340 |
You say, you know, if I say this, my wife is going to be pleased, but then she didn't 00:29:50.580 |
So you know what to do, but you don't want to do it, right? 00:29:56.180 |
It's like, you know, proper communication is not rocket science necessarily, but the 00:30:07.820 |
And so the scripture tells us it's reconciling with God. 00:30:10.620 |
When we are compelled by the love of Christ, God gives us the fuel to be able to love sinners, 00:30:17.360 |
So all of this have direct application to our Christian life, justification and sanctification, 00:30:31.940 |
I don't have a handout for you, so if you can take a picture of it, this is for study 00:30:38.080 |
Next week's study is on sexual immorality, okay? 00:30:41.620 |
So those of you who are jumping in, you jumped in at the right time. 00:30:48.020 |
We're going to be talking about homosexuality. 00:30:49.820 |
We're going to be talking about incest, all kinds of stuff, okay? 00:30:57.580 |
So these are all questions that are related to that. 00:31:01.380 |
And I think this is, again, sexual immorality is probably one of the biggest issues that 00:31:08.960 |
are eroding the fellowship of the church today. 00:31:12.320 |
And so this goes into, again, how God feels about it. 00:31:17.980 |
And clearly it was not just an issue of today, right? 00:31:24.780 |
And yet they had all kinds of, so they say, "What? 00:31:35.180 |
Every sexual deviance that came, we think, because of internet was never because of internet. 00:31:42.300 |
Internet was just gave a, made the access easier. 00:31:45.520 |
This was always a sin issue of the heart, okay? 00:31:49.260 |
So that's what we're going to be looking at next week. 00:31:52.380 |
And if you can come, just at least do your best to answer these questions. 00:31:56.340 |
For the rest of the time, I'm going to ask you guys to get into your small group. 00:31:59.200 |
So Pastor Mark is going to come and he's going to help us break up into small group. 00:32:03.920 |
But the questions that I've asked, a couple of them are related to the retreat. 00:32:08.740 |
And I know not all of you went to the retreat. 00:32:11.140 |
And even if you didn't go to the retreat, you can still participate because the questions 00:32:15.180 |
are broad enough that you're going to be able to participate. 00:32:23.300 |
So today, since it's the first session, we're going to ask you guys to take some time to 00:32:27.100 |
get to know one another and then try to go through these questions together. 00:32:30.660 |
So Pastor Mark is going to divide us up, okay?