back to index2018-11-28: Wed Bible Study - Lesson 28 Review
00:00:00.000 |
Let me pray for us and then we'll jump into the overview. 00:00:15.700 |
We pray, Father, that your word that we've studied would continue to resonate in our 00:00:22.860 |
Help us, Lord, that it would be more than just knowledge to be able to say that we know 00:00:28.260 |
But we ask, Lord God, that your very heart, your redemptive plan, Father, that you've 00:00:33.860 |
been preparing the nation of Israel to establish a foundation that would cause them to yearn 00:00:39.060 |
and long for Christ, that that would have the same effect in our hearts, that there 00:00:43.300 |
would be a burning and greater desire for him as a result of all that we know. 00:00:47.900 |
And so we ask, Lord God, that you would help us to review and that this review would cause 00:00:58.700 |
All right, so as you guys know, as we were studying the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 00:01:03.780 |
is one of those books that my guess is if you were to meet other, you know, friends 00:01:09.380 |
who are Christians, I mean, very few people have any knowledge about what's in this book. 00:01:14.060 |
But I think most of you will agree if you were with us for the duration of the study 00:01:18.700 |
that not only is it important, it is essential. 00:01:22.180 |
It is essential for us to understand the things that are taught in the New Testament. 00:01:26.180 |
If you have a vague knowledge of what Christ was doing through the book of Leviticus, when 00:01:30.580 |
Christ shows a lot of the terminology, whether it's atonement, cleansing, pure, impure, tabernacle, 00:01:38.380 |
like all of these stuff, atonement, all of these things are embedded in the book of Leviticus. 00:01:43.380 |
And so without it, we start to add our own understanding, our own meaning behind it. 00:01:51.420 |
Part of the reason why I'm going to be jumping into the book of Hebrews is for that reason. 00:01:56.740 |
I think once we're done with Romans, probably at the end of this year and sometime next 00:02:02.380 |
year, early next year, we're going to jump into the book of Hebrews. 00:02:05.580 |
And Hebrews is what connects the Old Testament and the New Testament. 00:02:08.760 |
And so much of the teaching of Hebrews is the fulfillment of Christ, all of this stuff. 00:02:14.900 |
It's not going to go into all the details, but so much of what's taught in the book of 00:02:18.220 |
Leviticus and how ultimately it was pointing to Christ and how it was fulfilled in Christ. 00:02:25.460 |
And so we're going to jump into that on Sundays. 00:02:28.060 |
And then most likely on weekdays, we're going to be doing inductive Bible studies. 00:02:32.460 |
So some of you guys who are new to the church, has only been here for maybe last, maybe two 00:02:39.140 |
You may or may not have done that, but that's sort of what we've been doing in the church. 00:02:43.340 |
And we're going to be jumping back into that to kind of, and it's going to require a lot 00:02:51.260 |
It's not going to be just me standing up here teaching you what it says. 00:02:56.260 |
We're going to kind of work through passage to passage, asking you guys to go and do your 00:03:00.780 |
study and you're going to do a lot of time discussing what you studied in your small 00:03:05.700 |
And then I'm going to be guiding that process. 00:03:11.100 |
I said Thessalonians last time, but I'm leaning toward Colossians. 00:03:16.660 |
If tomorrow something happens and then, you know, supernaturally I'm directed toward another 00:03:21.380 |
path I might, but I'm leaning toward Colossians just to give you a heads up. 00:03:24.940 |
And so in our next Bible study session, it was going to start second week of January, 00:03:29.300 |
I believe most likely we're going to get into that. 00:03:31.700 |
And again, the format is going to be a little bit different because I'm not just going to 00:03:36.220 |
I'm going to give you study questions and show you how to do that kind of study so that 00:03:40.660 |
you can do that and then participate in your small group. 00:03:45.100 |
Just to kind of give us a introduction, Hebrews 8, 3 to 5, it says, "For every high priest 00:03:49.740 |
is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. 00:03:52.620 |
So it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer." 00:03:57.100 |
And again, part of the Leviticus study teaches us that the priests themselves have to be 00:04:05.580 |
And they constantly had to be consecrated, you know, for them to even serve. 00:04:11.060 |
Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all since there are those who 00:04:15.140 |
offer the gifts according to the law, referring to Christ, who serve a copy of the shadow 00:04:20.900 |
So everything that we studied in the book of Leviticus, he calls it a shadow. 00:04:25.300 |
It's a reflection of what is actually happening up in heaven, right? 00:04:30.680 |
And so Moses, he goes up and he sees the heavenly things and God tells them in the book of Exodus 00:04:38.620 |
So everything that we're doing here in the book of Leviticus was, again, a shadow of 00:04:46.740 |
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1, "For the law, since it has only shadowed the good things 00:04:50.000 |
to come and not the very form of things," right? 00:04:53.940 |
The law was never intended to be the end in and of itself. 00:04:58.460 |
The law ultimately pointed to something, which is obviously fulfilled in Christ. 00:05:03.140 |
It can never, by the same sacrifices, offer continually year after year, make perfect 00:05:08.120 |
So God's intent was never through these sacrifices to bring them any closer to God in reality, 00:05:14.460 |
because it was just a shadow that was going to point to Christ. 00:05:16.900 |
So that is made very clear in the book of Hebrews, right? 00:05:22.380 |
And then finally, Colossians 2, 16 to 17, "Therefore, no one is to act as your judge 00:05:26.940 |
in regard to food or drink or in respect to festivals or new moon or Sabbath day." 00:05:31.820 |
He's referring to Jews who couldn't let go of the Levitical teachings, because they didn't 00:05:38.520 |
understand that Christ came and fulfilled all of that. 00:05:42.600 |
Even though this is the way you were taught, now we're in a new covenant." 00:05:47.520 |
And he said, "The things which are mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs 00:05:52.140 |
So now that Christ is here, all that is fulfilled. 00:05:59.120 |
So if we don't understand that, we said that from the very beginning, if you study the 00:06:04.480 |
book of Leviticus detached from how it is fulfilled in Christ, you can't understand 00:06:13.580 |
The teaching of certain kind of animals and women in menstrual cycles and the value of 00:06:20.400 |
a human being, all of these things aren't going to make sense if you don't understand 00:06:27.100 |
How it points to him, how it points to eternity, how it points to the gospel. 00:06:31.240 |
And so that's what we've been doing through the studies, right? 00:06:33.880 |
So some of you who jumped in in the middle, if you were confused as to what we were doing 00:06:38.680 |
in this study, all of it, ultimately, every study, like what does this teach us about 00:06:48.720 |
Exodus concluded the tabernacles constructed in glory of the Lord. 00:06:53.320 |
So if you look at that, Moses goes up the mountain and the teaching is don't let the 00:07:00.080 |
So in the book of Exodus, when God draws near, the immediate teaching is they cannot come. 00:07:07.120 |
If they come, they will surely die because this is a holy mountain. 00:07:11.120 |
So in verse 35, Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had 00:07:16.320 |
And so again, so Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers is three consecutive sections of Israel's 00:07:26.440 |
Exodus is the beginning of Israel's relationship as a nation to God. 00:07:31.560 |
And so Exodus begins by establishing that God wants to draw near, but he can't draw 00:07:38.040 |
So Exodus 20, 19, "Then they said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen, 00:07:44.720 |
but let not God speak to us or we will die.'" 00:07:47.760 |
So not only did God tell them to stay, but people understood that even just hearing his 00:07:58.480 |
So they're begging Moses that don't let him speak to us. 00:08:04.600 |
So there was an understanding of his holiness that people just didn't run to God. 00:08:08.520 |
You know, here's our living water and we want to be restored to the Father. 00:08:13.280 |
And that's the first thing that we understand about our relationship with God. 00:08:19.120 |
The beginning of our relationship with God always begins with a deeper, more sensitive 00:08:28.400 |
There's nobody that can come to God until he genuinely and actually repents of his sins. 00:08:38.780 |
Repentance isn't just, "Yeah, yeah, you know, there's things that I've done that 00:08:43.160 |
That real encounter with God causes that individual to recognize his sins. 00:08:51.680 |
It's everything that you recognized before you met Christ was sinful. 00:08:56.920 |
God draws near, they recognize he's holy, and terror falls upon them. 00:09:06.640 |
So Leviticus, the book that we're studying, God draws near, "Then the Lord called to 00:09:11.360 |
Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting." 00:09:14.160 |
In other words, he didn't just come in their midst. 00:09:17.120 |
He was hidden at the tent of meeting, behind the veil. 00:09:21.980 |
So his intent was, "I'm going to come live among you, but the only way that you can come 00:09:31.520 |
So he's inviting them to come, but before they come, all these sacrifices needed to 00:09:38.120 |
They need to be able to distinguish between what is and isn't from God, what is clean, 00:09:44.200 |
Basically, the whole system had to be set up to teach them that as a sinner, that you'd 00:09:51.120 |
have to go through this system to come to me. 00:09:53.320 |
Now, all of this ultimately is to point to what Christ was going to do in reality. 00:09:58.440 |
So the very beginning of the book of Leviticus, the very first word, "Wakra," which means 00:10:03.840 |
"he called," that's the very first word in Leviticus is "he called." 00:10:09.000 |
And that's the whole theme of the book of Leviticus. 00:10:12.400 |
It's about his holiness, but it's him calling his people to himself. 00:10:20.600 |
And then the book of Numbers, where after the sacrificial system is started, it's going, 00:10:26.560 |
and then now he begins to meet people in the tent. 00:10:30.080 |
So the theme of the book of Numbers is God dwelling in their midst. 00:10:37.280 |
This is kind of like the picture of the tabernacle. 00:10:39.320 |
Remember I shared with you, I think it was at, it was a church nearby here where they 00:10:45.040 |
actually set up a life-size version of the tabernacle. 00:10:49.580 |
And I was expecting a much bigger, I thought it was going to be maybe a couple football 00:10:53.480 |
field length, and considering how much sacrifice and how many people it served. 00:10:58.320 |
And when I actually went and saw the actual size, it was pretty darn small. 00:11:04.720 |
The size would have been probably maybe from pole to pole, maybe about that length, and 00:11:11.760 |
And then I thought, "Wow, this served over a million people?" 00:11:17.360 |
But you could see the wisdom behind that because this was not meant to be permanent. 00:11:21.500 |
Every time that they needed to move, they needed to tear it down and put it back up. 00:11:25.200 |
So imagine if it was the size of two football fields and they had to carry that around. 00:11:29.760 |
So practically speaking, God wanted the tabernacle to be like a tent that they could tear down 00:11:43.520 |
I don't know if you can see it, but the color here is supposed to be bright red. 00:11:47.360 |
We don't have good, you know, you can't see it well, but this bright red. 00:11:52.540 |
So in that tabernacle, if you look at the previous picture, it's all pristine and clean, 00:11:56.640 |
but you can imagine if there was sacrifice taking place morning and night, every single 00:12:01.300 |
day, all the time, you can imagine how bloody this place was. 00:12:06.480 |
They probably dried it up and cleaned it up when they were moving out, but when they set 00:12:09.440 |
up and it was actually working, you could probably smell the sacrifice and see the blood 00:12:16.680 |
Because remember, they didn't just sacrifice, they took the blood and they sprinkled it 00:12:19.880 |
all over the altar, all over the curtain, all the time. 00:12:23.320 |
So you could imagine how bloody this scene was, right? 00:12:28.200 |
Because scripture clearly teaches us without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness 00:12:33.880 |
And we learned that later in the book of Hebrews. 00:12:36.560 |
And so Israelite had a visual presentation of that constantly in their myths. 00:12:43.080 |
That in order for us to be in the midst of a holy God, there must be shedding of blood. 00:12:47.840 |
So there was a visual presentation of this blood and the sacrifice constantly in their 00:12:55.760 |
And this is the only way that they can get to God. 00:13:03.240 |
This is the picture of the way that the tabernacle would have been set up. 00:13:10.560 |
These four are the tribes of Levites who kind of stood in between. 00:13:15.760 |
And this is how God tells them in the book of Numbers to set up. 00:13:19.840 |
Meaning that the tabernacle was at the center of the camp. 00:13:22.840 |
It wasn't like at the bottom of the mountain and then everybody else camped on the other 00:13:28.640 |
God's holy presence was in their myths constantly. 00:13:33.640 |
So the sacrifice, the smell, the dying animals was a constant part of this society. 00:13:44.480 |
Because the beginning of Leviticus is, "Come. 00:13:46.880 |
In order for you to come, sinful people, to come to me, this must take place." 00:13:56.920 |
We've gone through this several times, so I'm not going to go through it in too detail. 00:14:00.200 |
But the book of Leviticus, again, remember it's divided into a chiasm. 00:14:10.280 |
So if you were writing a paper, you want to say, "This is my thesis and here's my five 00:14:15.520 |
Or sometimes you would give the story and say, "This is the main point." 00:14:27.680 |
So the whole point of a chiasm is to highlight what they're trying to say. 00:14:32.900 |
So up to chapter 16, it builds up to the Day of Atonement. 00:14:37.720 |
You are in need of these sacrifices, that you need to have blood sacrificed, the priest 00:14:41.680 |
needs to be this way, and then they give the first sacrifice and then the two men die because 00:14:48.360 |
And then it points to the Day of Atonement, meaning that you can't come to the holy God 00:14:58.680 |
And then the other part of it is, again, to point back to that. 00:15:05.960 |
The Bible kind of prepares us to the New Testament, the Gospels. 00:15:10.120 |
And then we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then the rest of the New Testament 00:15:15.840 |
So you can kind of say that four Gospels is kind of like the Day of Atonement. 00:15:20.680 |
So the whole Bible is in this chiastic form, right? 00:15:26.480 |
But that's how human redemptive history is organized. 00:15:30.880 |
Everything leads up to the Gospel, and everything points back to the Gospel. 00:15:36.040 |
So the difference between the first chiastic structure and the second chiastic structure 00:15:40.440 |
is, the first chiastic structure is about the tabernacle, the system, the priesthood, 00:15:49.000 |
The second part of it points to the life of the believers in the camp, right? 00:15:54.860 |
So holiness in the tabernacle, which leads to the holiness in the camp. 00:16:00.000 |
And that's the two big divisions in Leviticus. 00:16:03.240 |
And all of it possible because of what the Day of Atonement represents. 00:16:16.520 |
So one gets sacrificed, the other one, called the scapegoat, where the priest would put 00:16:22.080 |
his hand, the high priest, representing the sins of the nations, to be cast out. 00:16:26.440 |
And that was something that they did every year. 00:16:29.520 |
Now, why did they do this when they were constantly sacrificing all year? 00:16:37.520 |
I mean, they had those five major sacrifices every single day. 00:16:43.240 |
The burnt offering was happening morning and night every single day. 00:16:50.440 |
Remember what it taught the nation of Israel? 00:16:53.480 |
That even with the sacrifices, the sins of Israel would pile up. 00:17:00.320 |
So in other words, that even with the daily rituals, that the sin would never depart from 00:17:11.320 |
It was a constant reminder of need for atonement. 00:17:36.360 |
Right, because the whole thing is burnt, right? 00:17:40.520 |
And so it signified, right, and that was the most common, most important of the offerings 00:17:48.220 |
And so that was the offering that was burnt morning and night all the time, constantly, 00:17:59.000 |
It was for dedication, for tithing, the first fruits, right? 00:18:18.520 |
So that's the offering where they burnt up the parts that they wouldn't eat and the parts 00:18:22.520 |
that were edible, they kept and then they had a picnic. 00:18:26.200 |
And symbolizing that peace with God established peace with man. 00:18:38.480 |
Sin offering is when you defiled something, right? 00:18:43.080 |
It was set apart for God, you shouldn't have touched it, or it was an offering that was 00:18:46.760 |
his and you shouldn't have, or you became defiled, right? 00:18:51.480 |
Because you touched something you shouldn't have or you ate something you shouldn't have 00:18:54.240 |
eaten and so you gave the sin offering for that. 00:19:05.940 |
When you wrong somebody, maybe somebody was giving an offering and you touch it and you 00:19:10.280 |
defile it and as a result of that you pay them back plus, right, one fifth, right? 00:19:19.000 |
So remember when I was starting to, Leviticus, where they would often, God would require 00:19:26.400 |
That was all pointing back to the guilt offering, okay? 00:19:29.600 |
The reason why these five major offerings are important is because it's the fundamental 00:19:33.960 |
teaching in the New Testament how we understand offering, right? 00:19:39.300 |
Like when we talk about worship, right, when we're talking about atonement, tithing, giving, 00:19:46.360 |
sacrifice, like what does it point to in the book of Leviticus? 00:19:51.040 |
So a lot of these things that when we study Hebrews and other parts of the New Testament 00:19:55.200 |
and Jesus' teaching, when you understand these five offerings, you'll oftentimes be 00:20:00.040 |
doing quiet times like, "Oh, this sounds a lot like the peace offering." 00:20:04.040 |
Or you'll be doing quiet times like, "Oh, this sounds a lot like the guilt offering." 00:20:08.360 |
So when you damage someone else or you wrong somebody, you don't just say, "Hey, I'm 00:20:15.440 |
God made it so that in the sacrifice, you have to compensate, right? 00:20:21.320 |
So again, this is kind of embedded into Israel's history. 00:20:26.600 |
Chapter eight and nine is the ordination of Aaron and his children to prepare them to 00:20:34.320 |
begin to offer sacrifices, and then what happens in chapter 10? 00:20:40.680 |
Very first offering that's given after the instruction, they didn't follow the rules. 00:20:49.880 |
It wasn't like they gave some, you know, like did idol worship. 00:20:53.280 |
They gave strange, they didn't follow instruction, and it was enough to get them consumed, capital 00:20:59.960 |
So what do you think this taught the nation of Israel? 00:21:12.440 |
When I say to put on the proper garment, put on the proper garment, because God is holy, 00:21:19.480 |
God is holy, and so whatever he says is very, very weighty. 00:21:24.560 |
That's why he says repeatedly over and over to the nation of Israel, "Do not turn from 00:21:37.280 |
So the nation of Israel, they were already afraid of God, right? 00:21:40.520 |
Remember, they were telling Moses like, "Don't have him speak to us directly because we're 00:21:45.400 |
So imagine how afraid they were after this, right? 00:21:48.940 |
So Nadab and Nevih, who through their example, saying, "Exact, follow exactly as I say because 00:21:54.540 |
you cannot come to a holy God on your own terms," right? 00:22:01.800 |
Chapter 11, we had the distinction between clean and unclean. 00:22:05.680 |
I'm not going to ask you to remember all of it. 00:22:09.560 |
There's different theories as to why these distinctions were made, but the one that I 00:22:14.080 |
thought made the most sense, and this is probably the most popular view, some have like a hygienic 00:22:23.160 |
So if you talk to, I think, the Seventh-day Adventists, they'll say, you know, the things 00:22:27.120 |
that God said was unclean is because it's not healthy for us. 00:22:37.420 |
Maybe that it pointed to something pagan that we don't know of. 00:22:45.600 |
The view that made the most sense, there were four views, I gave two, but the view that 00:22:49.520 |
made the most sense is that every animal that he points out is some kind of a deviance of 00:23:03.920 |
In other words, everything that he considered clean or unclean was directly linked to what 00:23:08.400 |
God originally intended and what kind of went astray. 00:23:14.800 |
And so that applies even to human beings, even to land, even to the use of land. 00:23:21.220 |
Everything that God intended, that's been tainted, and it's not being used the way God 00:23:26.520 |
So that's why a human being who was defected in any way was considered unclean. 00:23:36.720 |
All of that was to teach that sin has caused all these deviance. 00:23:42.780 |
Even if it is not a moral failure, physically it wasn't what God intended and considered 00:23:48.040 |
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back to your notes and look it up. 00:23:55.280 |
Remember the purification law for the childbearing? 00:23:59.320 |
What we would consider probably the most sacred time between a mother and son in the book 00:24:08.280 |
And then if she has a daughter, she becomes twice unclean. 00:24:12.920 |
There's a lot of things that would very much offend the world if they don't understand. 00:24:20.960 |
All of this again points to the original sin. 00:24:25.240 |
So all of this, again, like if you don't understand it in the larger context of the 00:24:32.960 |
But again, all of this is to point to the fulfillment ultimately in Christ. 00:24:38.200 |
So the childbirth represents not a beautiful life coming into the world, but another sinner 00:24:57.400 |
Now there's nothing in the Bible that says leprosy equals sin, but it is often referred 00:25:07.200 |
And so it went into the details of the devastation of sin or leprosy and how they were isolated, 00:25:15.160 |
They were just put outside and then the priest would come to check to see if they get healed. 00:25:20.920 |
The majority of the time it was not, but that's all, they just had to wait for God's mercy. 00:25:33.760 |
All of this is a setup for the day of atonement. 00:25:40.800 |
Then after that, chapter 17 is where it says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no 00:25:46.460 |
And then so chapter 17 is again for the sacredness of the blood. 00:25:50.520 |
So chapter 16 and 17 oftentimes is lumped together in the outline. 00:25:57.720 |
Remember what chapter 18 was and why those two figurines are up there? 00:26:07.160 |
Those are pictures of Baal and Asherah, and they both represent what kind of fertility. 00:26:21.340 |
Baal is the male and Asherah is the female of the fertility idols. 00:26:31.620 |
And it detailed all kinds of sexual deviance, right? 00:26:36.600 |
Between mother and child, between aunt and uncle, between sisters. 00:26:40.220 |
I mean, it just goes into perversion after perversion. 00:26:43.380 |
And so it's interesting that after the day of atonement, in application, the very first 00:26:49.000 |
thing that it mentions about deviance in our sins is sexual morality, right? 00:26:59.840 |
There's one sin where we are told not to fight. 00:27:08.640 |
So if you look at all the different sins that are listed, almost always the first on that 00:27:17.080 |
So it is not by accident that after the day of atonement, in application, that you need 00:27:21.720 |
to be holy, and the first thing that comes out is sexual morality. 00:27:26.260 |
That if we practice sexuality by our own standards, and we justify sexual morality by what we 00:27:36.960 |
think is right or by the standard of this world, that's the first thing that the Bible 00:27:45.840 |
What God intended between husband and wife, when that gets perverted, it perverts everything 00:27:51.320 |
It perverts every other relationship when the marriage is perverted. 00:28:00.760 |
Remember we talked about that in verse, chapter 19? 00:28:05.180 |
He says to be holy and then not practice sexual morality, and then chapter 19, he talks about 00:28:10.560 |
being holy, but what does that holiness look like in verse chapter 19? 00:28:20.320 |
Remember we talked about that, how we typically think of holiness as refraining from something 00:28:25.240 |
that is filthy, but in chapter 19, holiness means to practice godliness. 00:28:39.360 |
That's what it means to be holy, to be like God. 00:28:41.680 |
And so God has two things that was represented on the cross, his righteousness and his compassion. 00:28:50.480 |
And so holiness isn't simply refraining, so it's not like, "Oh, you guys emphasize holiness, 00:29:00.540 |
You practice one without the other, you don't have the cross. 00:29:04.240 |
If you're righteous without grace, what are you? 00:29:12.040 |
If you practice grace without righteousness, what are you? 00:29:28.640 |
And that's what the cross represents, where the perfect union of God's righteousness and 00:29:32.920 |
God's mercy was displayed for the world to see. 00:29:39.520 |
That wrath that should have gone onto that animal, God placed on him and then cast out. 00:29:44.640 |
So God's holy judgment and God's holy compassion displayed at the day of atonement, which is 00:29:54.520 |
And then it goes into the regulations, who can and cannot serve as a priest. 00:29:58.040 |
Just like prior, it's about clean and unclean animals, and then we come to this side of 00:30:03.520 |
the kiosk about who can and cannot serve as a priest, and that happens... 00:30:11.120 |
The chapter, I think, 20, and then chapter 21. 00:30:15.000 |
Chapter 23 is about the different Jewish feasts and all of these, right? 00:30:19.800 |
We're going to spend time with every single one of them and how it ultimately is fulfilled 00:30:25.280 |
So if you know these festivals well, it'll help you to understand the gospels much better. 00:30:33.320 |
The Feast of Booth, when Jesus says, "I am the light," it is connected to that because 00:30:39.160 |
he says that in the context of the Feast of Booth. 00:30:42.680 |
And the Feast of Booth was in the context of waiting for the Messiah to come and deliver 00:30:49.200 |
Thinking that the light is going to come into the world, and Jesus looks at that and he 00:30:56.640 |
The light that you're waiting for, he's here. 00:30:58.360 |
So when you understand these feasts, it helps you to understand what Jesus was saying in 00:31:08.240 |
Chapter 24 is where the Israelites make a commitment. 00:31:14.080 |
And then, remember, this is in the holy of... 00:31:19.360 |
Right before the room, the holy room, they lit a candle, which represented the prayers. 00:31:26.800 |
Again, this is as far as they were able to go before they entered. 00:31:32.840 |
So this was a constant reminder to them of the presence of God, chapter 24. 00:31:37.440 |
Chapter 25, if you remember, about the year of Jubilee, right? 00:31:43.320 |
Remember we talked about that, so you guys may remember how God punished the nation of 00:31:48.960 |
Israel for not practicing the Sabbath year, right? 00:31:54.440 |
Every seventh year that they were supposed to give the land rest. 00:31:57.920 |
And as a result of that, later on in Israel's history, that they are taken into captivity 00:32:09.320 |
It was supposed to happen every seventh year. 00:32:15.800 |
Where was that brought up in the New Testament? 00:32:20.880 |
When Peter asked, "How many times should I forgive my brother?" 00:32:23.840 |
Seven times, and then he said, "Seven times 70," meaning 490 years. 00:32:31.160 |
This was how long God was patient with the nation of Israel. 00:32:42.040 |
The blessings were, the curses were twice as long. 00:32:47.640 |
In the book of Deuteronomy, it's actually even longer than that. 00:32:50.000 |
So if you don't obey my commandment, these things are going to happen. 00:32:53.840 |
And so this was foretelling of the nation of Israel and all sinners, right? 00:32:59.040 |
So if you were careful and you were paying attention, by the time you get to the end 00:33:04.160 |
of the book of Malachi, all of these curses that are mentioned have been piled up year 00:33:08.680 |
after year, king after king, generation after generation, right? 00:33:12.680 |
So when Paul says in Romans chapter 7, "Oh, what a wretched sinner I am. 00:33:20.880 |
That that's what it was supposed to lead the Jew to, to that point, right? 00:33:28.360 |
Because it wasn't, the law wasn't going to make them righteous. 00:33:32.480 |
The law was going to reveal their unrighteousness. 00:33:35.360 |
So what I do, I want, you know, I don't do what I don't want to do. 00:33:39.120 |
I keep on doing, "Oh, what a wretched man that I am." 00:33:46.400 |
And remember, we talked about it and I mentioned it last Sunday, the blessings, all the blessings 00:33:51.320 |
of God is just to restore what God originally intended, right? 00:33:57.120 |
Or at least we think it's supernatural, but it's what God intended from the beginning 00:34:03.240 |
And then it ended with chapter 27, chapter 27, evaluation and all of this pointing to 00:34:11.000 |
So we can easily get caught up into the details, but the whole point of all of this is God 00:34:17.040 |
It is an assumption that man is sinful and in his need of redemption, right? 00:34:24.120 |
So it doesn't end with, you know, "God is so gracious, he's going to deliver us." 00:34:28.800 |
It ends with, you're going to make a vow and you're not going to be able to keep it. 00:34:34.440 |
And then when you don't keep it, this is what you need to do. 00:34:38.240 |
God's going to give you an opportunity to be redeemed and that's how it ends. 00:34:42.240 |
And it points to the one who's going to come who's going to redeem, okay? 00:34:49.400 |
My hope is, even if you don't know every detail of the book of Leviticus, when you read the 00:34:54.080 |
New Testament, that certain things that you'll read is going to be highlighted and you're 00:34:59.840 |
going to remember and at least go back to this chapter and read because it'll help you 00:35:04.520 |
to really understand at another level what God was doing through the nation of Israel, 00:35:11.200 |
All right, so the rest of the time, I'm going to have you guys...these are the study questions 00:35:16.520 |
And you're not bound to this in your small group. 00:35:20.240 |
If you want to take some time more to pray, that's up to you. 00:35:25.520 |
And you've already discussed this before, but since today is an overview study, if you 00:35:30.400 |
can take some time to just ask, you know, what did you learn about God in the study 00:35:34.880 |
This is something that you should be asking in every study, right? 00:35:37.820 |
But since this is kind of an end summary study, what did it reveal about yourself? 00:35:45.400 |
And my hope is that every study you do, that you would be reflective and ask, like, what 00:35:51.480 |
is it that I need to be changing in my thought, in my life, right? 00:35:58.680 |
We don't just become hearers of the Word, but doers, okay? 00:36:01.840 |
So take some time to discuss these questions and take some time to pray. 00:36:06.240 |
And then, again, right after I pray, Pastor Mark, do you have an announcement? 00:36:15.640 |
So let me pray for us, and then Pastor Mark's going to do that. 00:36:18.440 |
And then if some of you, okay, can help us out, just take the chairs and put these chairs 00:36:30.840 |
Gracious Father, we want to thank you, Lord God, for our study in the book of Leviticus. 00:36:39.800 |
And we pray, Father, that the insights that we were able to glean, and we know there's 00:36:45.880 |
still so much in there, Lord God, that we still don't fully understand. 00:36:51.280 |
Help us, Lord, that the study of Leviticus would open up the New Testament for us. 00:36:56.160 |
And let me understand the depth of your love, the depth of your grace, Lord God, that you've 00:37:01.160 |
prepared for so many years, that we would see the gospel in a completely different light, 00:37:08.080 |
that we would understand, Lord, not only your word, but your very heart. 00:37:12.520 |
So we pray for your blessing over the time of our study, and we pray, Father God, that 00:37:19.660 |
Help us to truly experience fellowship during this time.