Gracious Father, we just want to thank you so much for the opportunity for us to come together in fellowship and study your Word. I pray that as we wrestle through the difficult passages of Leviticus, give us insight as to your intention, what you were trying to do, Lord God, with the nation of Israel and ultimately for us.

Help us not to turn from it to the left or to the right, not to add meaning, and to be able to understand, Lord God, all that you've done and all the intricacies, Lord, of preparation for the coming of Christ, that we'd be able to understand it and to be convicted by it and be changed.

And so we just entrust this time to you, Lord, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, in my questions, I asked you guys to make sure that you read and prepare. So the questions I gave to you was to cover the first three chapters of Leviticus. But as I was studying, I realized it's just way too much material to go over in one day.

And so we're just going to be covering the burnt offering today, which is going to give us a good foundation for how to understand the rest of the passages. So next week, my intention is to go through chapter two and three, but chapter six and seven is really kind of an additional passages for the first five chapters.

So there is a possibility I may get to chapter two and then just end up doing chapter two as well. So just kind of give you a heads up. But for today, we're going to definitely only be covering chapter one, the book of Leviticus. Again, as I mentioned to you before, Leviticus is not a book that you can just casually sit and listen.

Whether you are a brand new Christian or you've been a Christian for a while, you really need to do your homework before you come. I really strongly encourage you. You don't need to understand all the material. All I'm asking you to do is if I say the gates or a tent of meeting and you have the basin and you have the three different offerings in the burnt offering, that at least you know what I'm referring to.

But if you're having to look it up and say, what is he referring to? Is he in chapter one or chapter six or what is he referring to? Then it's going to, I can guarantee it's going to go over your head. So I really want to encourage you at least know the content.

You don't have to understand it. That's why we're here trying to study it, but know what's in that passage. Okay. So it's chapter one, next week, chapter two and three. Okay. Okay. Let's just jump right in. I'm going to have to do. Okay. So the first part of it is just a brief review of what we talked about last time, how Leviticus is an instructional manual on how a sinner can have a relationship with a holy God.

So if you want to summarize what the intent of the book of Leviticus and why he's doing everything that he's doing is how can God's sinful people approach a holy God? That's the theme of the book of Leviticus. So we saw that Exodus, Exodus is the Lord coming to Israel and establish the tent of meeting.

So Israel is delivered from the nation of Egypt. They come out and God gives the law instructions and then the book of Exodus ends with the establishment of the tabernacle. Right. And again, if you haven't read, you may be saying, well, what is a tabernacle? And this is the very reason why I really need you guys to read before you come.

So if I have to explain to you what a tabernacle is, what the altar is and what incense is, and you know, if you have no idea, if it's the first time hearing it, then it's really going to go over your head. So I strongly encourage you. But I guarantee you, right, if you come prepared and you understand even 50% of what is being taught in Leviticus, it will open up the New Testament to you like it has never, never done before.

Because Leviticus is the preparation for understanding of fundamental doctrines of atonement, of propitiation, of blood sacrifice, laying on of hands, sacrifice without blemish, the Lamb of God, all these gospel terms are saturated in the book of Leviticus. And so it's not just somebody saying, oh, here comes the Lamb of God.

A Jew would have had a clear picture of that Lamb of God that's being slaughtered through this book. And so basically what this is, it gives you a physical illustration of the gospel itself to prepare for the coming of Christ. So again, if you just kind of come casually, I'm thankful that you come either way.

Because I know a lot of you guys come in after long days of work, so I know you guys are tired. But if you're going to come, make the most of it, take the time to study, and try to glean as much as you can. So I can't emphasize this enough.

This is not one of those studies you can just casually walk in and then walk out and think you're going to be able to follow along. So I really strongly encourage you to do that. Exodus is the study of the Lord calling or coming. Leviticus is the study of God calling.

So Exodus, he comes down. Leviticus, he calls to himself through a tent of meeting. And then the book of Numbers is him dwelling among us. And that's the whole point. The whole point of the sacrificial system is that a holy God would dwell among sinful people. And this is how he was going to do this.

And we see the same pattern also in the New Testament, where Israel serves as a model for the new covenant people. And so we also see in the New Testament how Jesus draws near. That's basically his birth, where he chooses to come off of his throne, and then he dwells among us.

He begins his ministry by calling his disciples to himself. He said, "I will make you fishers of men," to go to the people. And then his final result of his death and resurrection is that his Holy Spirit makes an indwelling in us. In fact, I don't have it here, but if you were to take some time to outline the Old Testament versus the New Testament, you'll see a lot of similarities.

You see kind of a parallel where Genesis begins with God creating Adam, and then Adam falls, and then the fall of man results in sin. And then as a result of that is a need for sacrifice. And so you'll see a parallel. In the New Testament, you see Christ coming, and then instead of falling, he actually succeeds, lives a sinless life.

And instead of needing sacrifice, he becomes a sacrifice. And instead of God dwelling in Israel, he dwells among his people, the church. And so we see a parallel in the New Testament where Paul says, "Do you not know that you now are the temple of God?" So we're studying now in Leviticus where God is establishing his presence through the tabernacle, which eventually becomes the temple, where in the New Testament where Christ, he gives, he himself is sacrificed, and as a result of that, he establishes church as the temple of God.

So you see a parallel between what God is doing in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the whole purpose of this is so that God would draw near to us, because we cannot go to him by our own effort. If you see here, I'm going to see if I can do this.

You see the picture? There's a tabernacle. Let's see if it works. You see it? Okay. So that's the tabernacle. That's what we're going to be studying in the sacrificial system. Who are these right here? Anybody know? These are the Levites. So you have four distinct tribes of the Levites, and if you, again, if we get to study the book of Numbers, it'll basically list God's plan of how he wants each of the tribes to be located, all centered around the tabernacle.

So the tabernacle, where it represents the presence of God, is right in the middle of the camp, and then the Levites, who are priests, who represent the people, are in between, who are these? The 12 tribes of Israel. And this is how God wanted Israel to camp every time they sat down.

So every time they picked up, God had specific orders, which tribe goes first, and they have to march in order. It's kind of like a military, like basic training. And then whenever they stop, they have to stop in this order. And then there was never any variation. They always, for 40 years, as long as they march, this is how their camp looked like.

And there's a purpose for that, because no matter where they were at, at any given time, they were at, again, a short distance to the tabernacle, every single one of these tribes. So when we're talking about God's presence dwelling in the midst of Israel, it was literally right in the center.

And this is how God designed it. So what we're studying through the book of Leviticus is, if God is dwelling here, how do these people get to him? That's what Leviticus is. And so today, and for the next few days, we're going to be talking about the establishment of the sacrificial system, and then chapter 8 and on, if you remember the outline, it's about the priests.

So the first part of it is about the sacrifices. The second part of it is the priests. And then there's a third part, but we'll talk about that later. Did I turn it? I have some pictures for you guys to look at. I actually went to a, what do you call it?

Saddleback actually had a ministry that actually sets up a literal tabernacle in the life-size version, and so I thought that would be interesting, so I actually went and took a look at it. And the first thing that struck me about the tabernacle was how small it was. Because I was expecting for a million people out in the desert, all having access to God and the sacrifice, I thought that it would be humongous, like at least a football field length.

Actuality, it's somewhere between about 75 feet to about 150 feet. So I'm not exactly sure of the dimensions of this room. So from here to back of that room would be about 100 feet, right? Did it go dark? Oh, you couldn't see. And then from here to here, it's about 130, I think, right?

So basically the size of the tabernacle is about the size of this room, maybe a little bit longer, a little bit narrower. So no, it would be narrower. So it would be something like this, more of a rectangle. So it's not that huge. And this sat right in the middle of the camp.

And so if you look at it, this, let me see. So this right here would be the holies, and it's divided into two parts. And when we talk about the details of this, we'll talk about it at another time. But this is where usually the person who's getting sacrificed is never allowed to go in here.

The sacrifices all took place right here. So that's a version of outside picture, and this is the inside picture. So the dimensions of this is pretty accurate. I don't know if they built this to size, but it's pretty accurate. So if you can notice, and then here's more of a close-up picture.

So this would be the altar. This would be the leaven where they would wash the animal parts. So if you read chapter one, you'll know they'll take the intestines and different parts of the body, and they would put it here, and they would wash it. But the sacrifice would actually be offered here.

The dimensions of the altar itself. So if you look in the bottom, 8.6 times 8.6 by 5 point something. So the altar itself is not that huge. It would be the size of that baptismal, but maybe a little bit wider. So it's not huge either. So think about the size of this.

I mean, considering that it's making regular sacrifices morning and night, and we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of animals being sacrificed for the various sins of Israel, and it was all taking place on that one particular altar for 40 years. So I'm going to warn you ahead of time.

I have some pictures on here that are going to be pretty gruesome, and I did it on purpose. And some of you guys who are eating may want to finish it up. It's not coming up anytime soon, so you have about three minutes to finish your food. I'm just kidding.

It's coming up at the end. And I did it on purpose. The reason why I did it is because this is what Israel saw. God didn't say, "Oh, this is gruesome. I'm going to spare my people from this." God deliberately made this gruesome image of blood spilling everywhere. And so can you imagine, we're not talking about blood being spread out in the size of a football field.

We're talking about on that particular altar, there's an animal being sacrificed every single day. And when they're sacrificed, they would take the blood and sprinkle it all over. So can you imagine hundreds of animals being sacrificed on that one particular altar, what that altar looked like? Can you imagine?

So you have all this dried blood from years of blood just being, you know, and there's no instructions on cleaning that thing. It was constantly in use. And so there's dry blood and new blood on that thing constantly. Animals' blood being spilled on that ground, hundreds and hundreds of them.

So you could probably imagine if you've ever seen a picture of a slaughterhouse, it would probably look like that, but not messier. Because they don't have a neat way to dispose of this. It was just being burned, right? And so the reason why, you know, at the end of it, I'm going to show you some pictures, is because this is God deliberately left this image in the nation of Israel.

So when God talked about the sacrifice of the lamb, it wasn't just something that they imagined. This was something that they smelled, they touched, and they saw on a regular basis, right? And it's a picture of sacrifice that God deliberately left with the nation of Israel, right? So Leviticus is kind of like, you know, when you sing songs when you were kids, you know, for those of you who are teachers or have parents, you know, when you would sing songs, you would do body motions, you know, this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.

I just made that up. But I'm just saying, like, you would put motions to these songs to help you to memorize what these songs are, right? And it's to help with the children. Well, Leviticus is kind of like that. Leviticus is a physical action where every part of what you're doing, it points to something.

It's to teach us something. It's not meaningless. Everything that God is doing, He's restricting certain things and He's commanding certain things and He's prohibiting certain things and He's telling you to touch it. And so every aspect of what He is saying and what He's doing is by having them act it out, He's trying to teach them something.

So our job is, as we are studying it, to try to figure out what is He trying to implant to the people who are sacrificing? How does this relate to and how does this help them to understand their need for sacrifice? What was He trying to teach them? So every physical act, right?

Every spreading of the blood, every sprinkling, everything that they saw, smelled, and touched had a specific purpose. So that's the thing that I want you guys to pay attention to as you're reading it. Instead of just understanding, "I wonder what that means," think of it as a Jew who actually had to act this out.

What they were seeing, what they were smelling, what they were feeling, and all of it to prepare them for the need for Christ. So just to give you an outline. This is basically the outline of the tabernacle. This is the entrance. This is the altar. This is the water basin where they washed.

This is the outer court where the sacrifices usually took place. The inner court is beyond this line, right? And usually God had very strict restrictions on who can come to the outer court and who can come to the inner court. So later on when the temple is built, right, where would have been the outer court where the Gentiles were coming?

It would have been on this side. So the Holy of Holies, like this area, was restricted. And then the Holy of Holies, within this, the tabernacle, you had the holy place and then you had the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, right? So this is a basic outline.

So when you're reading through Leviticus and it says, "Make sure you take the animal to the outer court or bring them into the inner court or bring them to the Holy of Holies or the holy place," hopefully you have a visual picture of what he's referring to. So the tabernacle is really not that complicated.

It doesn't have tons of articles. He had very few articles that he placed in there and every single one of them had very specific purposes. But sometimes because we're not familiar with what they are, the reason why we get lost is because we think that the tabernacle has like hundreds of things and hundreds of articles and hundreds of these things and then we get lost in it.

But again, if you look at the picture of the tabernacle, it's pretty simple. You have the altar, you have the wash basin, you have the outer court, you have the inner court, you have the tabernacle, and then that's split in two. And within the tabernacle, within this room, there are specific articles that's in there.

And we'll get to it when we get to that. But what we're talking about the sacrifice is most of it is taking place out here. Okay? So, okay, this is just a quick outline. You had this last time I was up here. Remember we talked about that? You had the, what do we call this type of outline?

Starts with a key, kiastic, right? So kiastic outline, basically it has .123 and then it has a middle point and then the second part has the same mirroring the other points but in an opposite order. And the reason why the kiastic form is interesting is because you know exactly where the main point is.

It's right in the center. So what's the main point of this? The Day of Atonement, right? So all of it culminates to the teaching of the Day of Atonement in chapter 16 and 17. And then, so remember we talked about how the first part of the outline, the sacrifices, chapter 1 through 7, and then chapter 8 through 10 is about the cleansing of the priesthood and their preparation and then the last part of it is what is considered clean and unclean.

And all of it is for who? Mostly for the work being done at the tabernacle, right? Making sacrifices and for the priest. The second part of it mirrors it but who is that for? For the most part. For the people, right? So the first part of it, you have the priest, you have the sacrifices, the priesthood, and clean and unclean, and then you have the Day of Atonement, and then the second part of it is in the reverse order.

What is clean and unclean for the people? Not specifically sacrifices but for people. And then you have the priesthood, right? Where again the people of God and then finally the sacrifices specifically. And it kind of mirrors. So this is, I've talked about this before but this is just kind of as a reminder.

If you can memorize this outline, it'll help you tremendously when you're reading through Leviticus but even when you're lost, at least you know where you're lost. Do you know what I'm saying? You can get lost in Irvine but if you know you're in Irvine, you're not too bad. But if you're lost in Irvine and you don't know you're in the United States, then you're going to be really lost.

You understand what I'm saying? So if you know this outline, if you're reading and it's like, "Oh, I don't understand it," but you at least know that the theme is the same in chapter 6 and 7. You understand what I'm saying? So if you're going to memorize anything, you don't have Bible memory for this session, I strongly encourage you to memorize this, right?

And the chapters that fit in with that because that'll help you to read through, at least outline-wise, understand what's going on. The five major offerings that we know, I'm not going to go through all of them, but you have the burnt offering which we're going to be covering today, the grain offering, peace offering, sin offering, guilt offering.

And each of these offerings met some need of the worshiper. We're going to be talking about the burnt offering today. So I won't go too much into that. The grain offering is a dedication offering. So the idea of tithing, presenting the first fruits, it all comes from this idea of the grain offering.

So this is not the only passage that teaches this, but this is where this is introduced to the nation of Israel. The peace offering, again, the significance of that is peace with God leads to peace with man, right? And so this is an offering where they would give an offering and most of the offering that they gave to God, the parts that you can eat, they would keep it separate and they would actually have a picnic with it, and that's the peace offering.

Sin offering deals with an inadvertent sin, right? And then the guilt offering is an offense that you've wronged somebody else and how to compensate when you've wronged somebody else. So burnt offering, in a sense, is repenting with God. Guilt offering, all of this is a repentance before God, but guilt offering has to do with offense that you've committed against somebody else.

So all of these things are different kinds of offerings that relate to your personal relationship or a corporate relationship with God. And every one of these were necessary in order to have the holy God be in the midst of the community, right? He's not going to just show up and just sit anywhere.

That sin needed to be dealt with, and this was God's remedy of how sin was going to be dealt with. So the burnt offering, or oftentimes it's called the whole offering, and the reason why it's called whole offering is because all of it is burnt up. There's not a—only part that's not presented to God is the skin.

They would use the skin for, you know, obviously for various reasons, but the offering as a whole was offered up to God. And we'll talk about the significance of that, okay? The purpose of this offering, it was the most important of the five offerings because of its significance. It was the most important.

It was most often offered. Every day, morning and night, the burnt offering was offered. Not only was the burnt offering offered every single day, it was offered when other offerings were offered. In other words, because this was the sacrifice that represented general atonement for sin, you couldn't get to God to offer the other sacrifices until this was given.

Does that make any sense? Remember when Jesus says to the disciples, he says that, "If you do not allow me to wash your feet, I have no relationship with you," and Peter says, "Then wash my whole body," and says, "He who has bathed does not need to bathe again," right?

What was he referring to? He's talking about the general atonement, right? "He who has repented and sins have been justified does not need justification over and over and over again." He's talking about bathing. But because you walk on this earth, your feet's going to get dirty, so you need to continue to wash.

What is he talking about? Sanctification, right? To constantly live in repentance and forgiveness. So this burnt offering represented the general atonement for the nation of Israel, and it had to be given repeatedly over and over again. Even the sins that you were not aware of, it's just constantly coming before God, recognizing that my sins needed to be atoned for.

These sins that you knew of, sins that you didn't know of. So oftentimes if somebody wanted to come and give a peace offering, they would give this offering first, to get right with God, and then they would give a peace offering. So if they want to give a guilt offering, they would give this offering, and then they would give the guilt offering, right?

So this was the most prominent and the most important of all the offerings, because of its frequency and because of its meaning, okay? Now I want you to remember all of this, because so much of the language in the New Testament about Christ's sacrifice is specifically referring to this offering, okay?

It was a general offering given to establish peace with God for the atonement for sins. So if you have your Bibles open, turn to Leviticus chapter 1. Can somebody with a loud voice read verse 3 and 4? Nobody? If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish, he shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.

Okay, so remember that. This offering is to be given in order for him to be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. So the idea of this, the meaning behind this offering is so that God would be able to accept him in his presence.

How is he going to do that? To atone for his sins, right? So when we talk about the idea of atonement, obviously the bigger idea comes from the day of atonement. But the sacrifice that the nation of Israel would have immediately thought of when they thought of atonement is probably this sacrifice, right?

So when you and I think of atonement, we think of like propitiation, we think of all these different words and try to save somebody. Maybe you watched a movie of somebody going rescuing somebody, you know what I mean? So we have these imageries of somebody who is lost or maybe a ship that's lost in the ocean and a lifeboat going out and getting the life, you know what I mean?

Lifeguards going and jumping into the water, saving them, strapping them. So when we think of rescue, we have our own idea of what rescue means because of images that we've seen, the illustrations and the stories that we've heard. Israelites, when they thought of atonement, sacrifice, immediately this was the picture that was in their mind 24/7.

This is, they had no TV, they had no Facebook. This is, in some sense, this is a form of entertainment, right? Maybe that's a crude way to put it, but that's basically their stimulus was God deliberately gave the whole nation of Israel front row seats. Now it is tented, but this tent does not go that high.

I don't know the exact height, but basically if you put somebody on your shoulder and they sat on your shoulder and looked over, you could actually see the sacrifices. So this tent, the outer walls aren't that high. So if you wanted to, not that you should, the nation of Israel, this was not like a fortress where they went into a cave where no one could see, right?

This was right at the center and God gave every single tribe front row seats to what was happening. This was happening for 40 years before they went into the temple. So a Jew would have thought at that time, atonement, this is the sacrifice, right? And so we're going to go over exactly what they did because every part of that teaches us what happened with Christ and what it means for us, okay?

Even the word atonement itself in Hebrew, kippur, I'm probably not saying that right, but has two different meanings. One of the meanings is to wipe clean and the other is to pay a ransom, right? So in this context, which one is he referring to, to wipe clean or to pay a ransom?

It's most likely both because you can't have one without the other. You can't ransom, you can't pay for someone's sins until the sins are wiped clean. So the idea of atonement has a sense of cleansing and ransoming, right? So in the New Testament, when the word ransom is used, again, this is the sacrifice and the imagery that they probably had more than any other sacrifice outside of the yearly day of atonement and the sacrifices that happened once a year.

And he says all of this is a pleasing aroma to the Lord. So all of this was a pleasing aroma to the Lord. You know, Genesis 8, 20 through 21, if you know the context, you know, this is after the flood happens, the world is wiped out and only Noah's family exists.

And after the flood dies down, they come out and Noah gives a sacrifice. And this is what he says. "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar." So let me stop right here.

We're in Genesis, we're not in Leviticus. Yet Noah is giving the burnt offering, right? So the sacrifices were already given. People already knew to give sacrifices. So then why is he introducing it in Leviticus, right? It was already innately understood that sacrifices needed to be made in order to atone for their sins.

But the book of Leviticus is specifically pointing to the coming of Christ, right? So the general understanding of sacrifice already existed. And we see that even with Cain and Abel, right? So the sacrifice was not introduced in Leviticus. It was there from the very beginning of the fall. But what's happening is as time goes by, God is basically honing in, right?

Basically this, what do you call it, the shadow is becoming a bit more clearer. Understand? No? You can see a shadow where the outline is not clear, but you clearly see it's a human being. But as the shadow draws closer to the screen, you can see that the outline isn't just, it's not a blurry blob, but now you can kind of see the hair.

And then as he comes and he puts his face right up on it, and you say, "Oh, okay, I know who that is." So that's basically what's happening in the Old Testament. You see a fuzzy picture, right, of the sacrifice. And then as time goes by, God gives more instructions, and the more instruction he gives is becoming clearer and clearer.

Do you understand what I'm saying? So Leviticus is basically that sacrificial sacrifice that was needed is coming closer and closer. And we're beginning to see what he's pointing to, eventually. So what's interesting here is it says, "When the Lord smelled," what? "The pleasing aroma." It was because of Noah's sacrifice, and it was pleasing to him.

The Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again strike down every living creature as I have done." So God makes a covenant with Noah that he's never going to do this again.

But why did he do that? He did it in response to what? To this burnt offering. Because it was a pleasing offering to God, right? So this burnt offering in Leviticus chapter 1 was an offering that the nation of Israel was to come for what purpose? To please him, to be in his presence, to appease his wrath, right?

And eventually, this offering was going to be replaced by the ultimate sacrifice, which is Christ. Okay? Okay, I'm going to... Ephesians 5, 2, it's like, "Walk in love. Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." So again, so much of the language of the New Testament about not only the sacrifice of God, sacrifices of the sacrificial system, but even the language of calling us to live righteous lives, again, all of these vocabularies are all coming from the sacrificial system.

Philippians 4, 13, "I have received full payment and more, and I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, fragrant offering, pleasing offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God." Okay, so this is just to show you how much Leviticus is saturated in the New Testament.

Okay, this is the part I really want you guys to pay attention. Not that I want you to not pay attention to the other stuff, but... Okay. So how the burnt offering was offered. First of all, the animal must be brought by its owner into the outer court of the tabernacle.

So here's the outer court. Okay, so step one. Okay. So when he comes to the outer court of the tabernacle entrance to the Tent of Meeting, right, this is where he brings it, and this is where it is determined if the worshiper and the animal brought for sacrifice was to be inspected, if they were acceptable to enter.

Now, the complete instruction of what was necessary is not mentioned here, right? Because this only refers to the sacrifice itself. If you look at the complete instruction, there's regulations on not only defect for the animal, but on the human being, right? So if you had any kind of defect, or if you had any kind of disease, or not only did the sacrifice need to be perfect, but the sacrificer also had to be perfect, because he...

Or certain things would disqualify him from entering into the tabernacle, right? Which was, again, I'm not going to go too deep into this, but remember in the Book of Acts, you had the eunuch from Ethiopia, how he was a God-fearer, and he was in Jerusalem, he's coming back, and Philip, right?

Philip the evangelist, he runs into him, and he says he was coming back from his worshipping Yahweh in Jerusalem, and then remember he says, "If somebody doesn't explain to me Isaiah 53, how am I going to understand?" And he explains, and he hears about Christ, and then he converts and he gets baptized, right?

Random. Because in the narrative of what's happening with the gospel, Ethiopian just comes out of nowhere, and then he disappears, and never appears again. There's significance behind that, because the scripture says he would have been disqualified, one because he's an Ethiopian, he's not a Jew. And so he probably went all the way to the temple, and he was never allowed to go into the inner parts of the temple.

He couldn't. And so the fact that he converts, and he gets baptized, the hostility that caused him to be separated from God and his people would have been broken. So the significance of that event, of the Ethiopian's conversion, is that the door is now being opened to everyone who was considered to be unclean.

Gentile, people who had diseases, who were maimed or blind, women, it was the door got kicked wide open, right? And so again, that's the significance of the Ethiopian conversion, and so what he's describing here is not comprehensive, it's specific for the animals, but he was to come to the outer court, and at the outer court the priests would come, they would inspect the animal to see if the animal is acceptable.

And he had to be, what, without blemish, it had to be perfect. Now where does that, how does that help us in our imagery of God, of Christ's sacrifice? He had to be perfect, sinless, right? He who knew no sin became sin so that we may become the righteousness of God.

So he was the perfect sacrifice without defect, the Lamb of God. That's where this imagery, the idea comes from. That's why when Jesus went to, remember when he went to the wilderness and he was tested by the devil, the significance of that was if he failed, he would have been disqualified as a perfect sacrifice, right?

So it wouldn't have mattered what he did the 30 years up to that point or the next three years, no matter how powerful he was, if he failed that test, he would have been disqualified. Instead of failing that test, what does he do? He comes out of that, and though all of mankind failed, right?

It was lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, lust of pride of life, every human being has failed that test. Jesus comes out of there in flying colors, and he puts the devil to shame. And the significance of that was to testify that Jesus was the perfect Lamb.

So that was his credential that qualified him for the sacrifice for mankind. That's why that testing in the wilderness is so significant. Okay? I hope you guys are getting this. I hope it really sings sin because this is so rich. What you understood about Christ, like it was all in Leviticus already.

It could have been a cattle, sheep, or goat, or birds, and why were there three separate sacrifices? It's not mentioned here, but it's God made provision for the rich, the middle class, and the poor, right? So if you happen to be a sojourner, if you didn't have as much money, God made provision so you can give birds, right?

And you have to understand that in the Old Testament time, this period, that Israelites did not regularly eat meat. So for them to offer up a sacrifice of these animals, financially, it was a huge burden. So this was not just something that they had thousands of, and they just went out and picked one and offered it to God.

It was not out of convenience. This is something that, you know, this peace offering that they actually had a meal was probably a huge, huge deal for them, right? So every one of these sacrifices they offered up to God was a big hit in their finances. So these are sacrifices that actually meant something.

It actually was a sacrifice. Not only was it a physical sacrifice, it was a financial sacrifice. The most common offering, and understandably, was the male goat or the sheep. The bull would have been very expensive, right? And then you had the chicken that was provisioned for the poor, and so that was only, if you couldn't afford anything, that's only the poor.

So the majority of the people would have been the middle class. And the middle class, even in the desert, there would have been some people who had more than others. And so the most common offering would have been the middle offering, right? So the male sheep without blemish, which is Jesus Christ, right?

That's why he's called not the bull or the bird, but the Lamb of God, right? Because this was the image that the Israelites saw and smelled and tasted and touched on a regular basis. The sight of a lamb being slaughtered and blood being gushed out for the atonement of your sins was a daily routine that they saw, right?

Every Jewish child would have seen it, touched it, and had some experience killing an animal, especially for the purpose of sacrifice. When he reaches the entrance of the tent of the meeting, he would lay hands, okay? So right here, and that would be the acceptance. He would lay hands on the animal, and the laying on of hands signify union with the animal, that I am one with this animal.

And it signified that animals would be sacrificed on behalf of the worshippers. So when this animal sacrifices, vicariously, I am being sacrificed for this animal. So basically, this animal represents me in this system. And that's so he would lay his hands, so once the priest says it's acceptable, right, that animal would take his place for his sins.

Again, all of this, right, is clearly pointing to Christ. Laying of hands, that's why in the New Testament it says in ordination to not to be hasty, because when you lay hands on somebody, it means you're uniting with that person. So the idea of laying on of hands in the New Testament isn't somebody in authority giving power.

I have power, and I'm asserting power and giving some of it to you. That's not the idea of laying hands. Laying hands basically means that we are becoming one. And that's why, I'm not sure if I have that passage here. Okay, so I don't have it. All right, so can somebody turn to 1 Timothy chapter 5, 22?

Nobody? Wait, who's? Sorry, go ahead. I thought it was reading here, and I... Okay, go ahead, sorry. Okay, good. Verse 22 is, "Do not be hasty in laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others." So if you lay hands hastily, that person's sin, because you're uniting with that person, it basically means that if he sins, you sin.

So the idea of laying on of hands is not, at least in the biblical sense, isn't I have this power that I'm imparting to you. Only God has that power, and we're not kings. It basically is saying we watched their life, we tested them, and we're united with that person.

So we lay hands when we pray, and we're sending missionaries off, we lay hands on them saying that we're going to, in spirit and in prayer, we're going with you. That's what that means. When we ordain people into ministry, we're saying that we're basically inviting him to be one of us.

That's what ordination ultimately means. And so if you do this hastily, you're going to sin along with his sins. So that's why he's saying be careful not to do that hastily. And so the idea of laying on of hands in the Old Testament, in the sacrifice, is I lay my hands on this animal, and him and I are one, but then this animal is going to take my place as a sacrifice.

So the person offering the sacrifice is commanded to kill the animal. So in this particular, this is not true of all the sacrifices, but in the burnt offering, the offerer himself kills the animal. He doesn't just come and lay hands and then shoves and then he disappears. He actually has to pick up the knife, and he has to slit the throat.

He has to watch the blood being drained. And then after that happens, he has to cut the animal into pieces, and he has to do all of this, all for the purpose of the sacrifice. The word for kill, shahad, is not the typical word for killing. This is a specific Levitical term that's reserved for sacrificial offering.

So again, a Jew who would have read this in Hebrew would have clearly been able to understand that he wasn't just killing the animal, he was sacrificing the animal, specifically for this. So in all purposes, he is killing this animal, but it was specifically for the purpose of sacrifice, and it was reserved for sacrificial slaughter.

The word denotes a specific ritual killing and ensured the blood was drained out of the animal's body, which then the blood was offered to God. And then the priest would take the blood and sprinkle the sides of the altar. And in a nutshell, this is what happens. He would come into the court, wait for the priest to come.

The priest examines the animal, examines the person, and is acceptable. When it's accepted, he would lay his hands on the animal, ready to be slaughtered. And once that happens, he would pick up his knife and he would go to the north side of the altar, and then he would kill the animal.

And he would drain the animal of its blood, this ritual killing. And he would wait until the life of the animal was completely out of him, and when it was lifeless and limp, he would take that animal, cut off its head, open up its intestines, take all of these things out, cut off its limbs, take it to, remember, that basin, and wash it all out, all of it out.

And then he would skin the animal, and then the priest would take the blood, and then you see that altar, and he would take this blood. Imagine if it was a goat, I mean, how much blood there would be. This is not a small chicken, right? Imagine how much blood there would be if it was a bull.

He would take all that blood, and then he would carry it with him and just sprinkle all over. And that sprinkling signifies cleansing, ritual cleansing, getting prepared. And then once he would do that, he would take all of the sacrifice, put it on the altar, and he would burn everything.

So you have to understand that Israelites were not normally eating meat because it was too expensive. But none of this was to be touched. And I'm sure they may have been tempted. I mean, this is a sheep or goat that, you know, if you normally slaughtered it and brought it into a dinner table, it would have been delicious.

But they weren't allowed to touch any of that in this ritual. All of it was burnt up. The only thing that they were able to preserve was the skin, and that was offered to the priest for them to use for maybe tents or whatever it is that they were going to use it for.

And that's why this is called the whole offering. And so the significance of this whole offering for the atonement is that every single part of this animal is under condemnation. One hand is laid. There's nothing to be salvaged. That's why this represents most closely to the sacrifice of Christ, that He didn't just offer up His blood.

He didn't just offer up a period. He offered up His whole life. And it signifies, even for our own salvation, that when we repent, our repentance isn't just compartmental, like, "I repent because I did this on Saturday, so I did this, and I shouldn't have done that." This repentance justification, when we come before God and we repent, we don't repent because we lied, because our sin's much deeper than that.

We don't just repent because we have purity issues or we have the... This offering basically signified that this sin is so deep, there's nothing to be salvaged. There's nothing in our lives. That's why when we convert, He says, "You must be born again." That whatever it is that you were before is crucified and is gone.

You have to become a new creature. That's what this offering signifies. All of it, all of it is crucified with Christ, and all of it is redeemed by the blood of Christ. Again, the significance of it being the whole offering. Now I'm going to show you the bloody part, okay?

And let me explain to you why I want you to see it. Because God deliberately left this imprint on the Israelites. And so I think it's helpful for us to see. Can you dim the light so we can have even a better picture? If you haven't eaten, I want you to really see it.

Okay? Just dim it as much as you need to so that you can see it. Hey, turn it all off right here. Yeah. I want you to see a 3D version. Yeah, maybe even turn me off. Okay. All right. I wish you could see it better, but this is the best that we can do for now.

Okay? All right, that's it. I just want you to let it sink in. Okay, can you turn the lights back on? That's blood on the ground. Okay? Now, this probably, this is a tame version, right? If you came in and actually sacrificed, this was not something that you just came into.

You did this. That, you know, I heard some of you guys gasping when you saw the head of that goat. You did that. If you came to sacrifice, you would have done that and you would have put that on the floor. I mean, obviously, we don't live on farms.

And, you know, remember Dr. Proud? He actually used to be a butcher. So, you know, for somebody like him who butchers for a living, I'm sure he doesn't get shocked by this image. But for most of us who didn't grow, you know, grow on farms or animals, I mean, it's kind of a gruesome scene.

But every single Israelite had a front row seat to this sacrifice. And every single one of them probably stepped in a pool of blood on a regular basis. And why did he do that? Why did he leave this bloody scene that's so gruesome? In fact, what you're seeing is probably on a daily basis.

Can you imagine what the temple of God, temple looked like during the Passover? They said that somewhere around 70,000 lambs were offered during the Passover at the temple. And so can you imagine just slaughtering 70,000 animals all for the purpose of just sacrifice? So all of this, so all of these sacrifices, the priests and the order, all of that culminated to the Day of Atonement.

And at the Day of Atonement is this for every single person in Israel. So can you imagine what that slaughter would have looked like? And then they have to take this blood, not only sprinkle it around the altar, the priests have to take that and enter into the Holy of Holies and then make it a bloody scene.

So typically when you see the tabernacle, inside of the tabernacle, you see nice, clean, shined furniture with golden lamp stands, because that's probably what it looked like when they first made it. Imagine just one use in one year, after the blood is sprinkled all over for the sins of Israel against the curtains, against the curtains of the tabernacle, everything, right?

The Ark of the Covenant, it was just saturated with blood. It was a bloody, bloody scene. All of this was basically to give a physical image of our sins. It was a physical image of our sins. And it was a physical illustration of the need for this atonement. So when a Jew thought about the sacrifice, he basically was schooled for thousands of years of what was needed for his sin.

When we come into the New Testament, we talk about atonement, sacrifice, the Lamb of God, we all kind of project our own idea and we kind of water it down to make it palatable for you and I. But God did not do that. God deliberately made it gruesome. Because again, every part of this reveals the gruesomeness of our sins and the necessity of what was needed, what this multiply million by million to atone for our sins.

So I think it is extremely important that you and I grasp the gravity of our sins because it was illustrated to the nation of Israel. Hebrews chapter 9, 18-26, "Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. But when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, the water and scarlet wool in his sip, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, 'This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.' And in the same way, he sprinkled with blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.

Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood." Meaning everything. It was just everything in the tabernacle was saturated with blood. "And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, not to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.

For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." So all of this bloody scene was simply a shadow of the reality that Jesus was going to fulfill in reality with his blood, with his body, with his life, all of it.

And so after the killing, he would chop up the animals and then the priest would burn it and all of it. The worshipers was to wash the hind legs and the internal organs in the basin. And then the priest burned everything, all of it. Usually it was men. Well the children were considered men after the age of 13.

But typically it was the men represented the families. And I think the passage in Romans chapter 12, "I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship." And again, a Jew hearing this would have probably, you know, same words, but with him would have been coupled with that imagery of his complete sacrifice, a dead animal, right?

And so finally, burnt offering is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Fulfilled in Christ. And I just have a few verses to, 1 Peter 1, 18, 19, "Knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." Mark 10, 45, "For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." 1 Peter 2, 5, "You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." So again, all of the language in the New Testament, it has its origination in the specific teachings of the sacrifices in the Old Testament.

So again, how important is Leviticus? Extremely important, right? Just going into New Testament is kind of like, you know, you have, you know, let's say you have, I don't know, English 101 or History 101, 201, 301, 401. Is that how it's divided still? Just go with me, okay? So you have to take it in order, but if you jump in and only know the New Testament, it's kind of like jumping into the 301, 401 class without taking the foundation.

The foundations are necessary, right? You need to know how the plus and minuses work before you get the calculus. And so New Testament is kind of like the building that was built upon the foundation, but the foundation is in the Old Testament. This is part of the reason why I wanted you to come into the book of Leviticus is because it really opens up the New Testament to help you to understand, right?

It's not, it may not change, but it'll make your understanding of the gospel and Jesus' sacrifices so much richer if you really understood where it came from. Okay. So the discussion question fourfold today. In school, and this is related to, again, how God is using illustration to teach Israel about sacrifice and atonement.

In school, what lesson do you remember the most and why? Was it visual, oral, or written? What made the lesson so memorable? And I remember the lesson about photosynthesis during a period that I could care less what photosynthesis was. And to this day, I remember that lesson because our, my biology teacher in 10th grade dressed up as a crazy professor, and he was also our baseball coach.

And so he dressed up as a professor and he laid down photosynthesis on the ground and with his thick German accent, and he spent the whole hour jumping around showing us. And again, this is during a period where I could care less. I'm not even sure why I was in class that day.

I'm not sure. But I remember so distinctly that lesson, that particular lesson. If he sat there and he shared with me, like, talked about photosynthesis, I probably wouldn't have even remembered that day. But I remember that day because he illustrated. He went out of his way to illustrate with pictures and being dressed up and with his accent running around animated for over an hour.

That's Leviticus, right? This was so important that God made the priest dress up and he set up this system because he wanted to make sure, he wanted to make sure that his people understood what was coming and what was needed, right? So what do you remember? So read Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 along with it.

In what way do you think the burnt offerings appeared, prepared the Israelites for the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins on the cross? Be as specific as possible. And then third, what is one thing you would be willing to sacrifice everything to have? And be honest. You're willing to sacrifice everything to have.

What is this one thing? Four, God calls us to be a living sacrifice as an act of worship in light of Jesus' sacrifice for us. Is your life a burnt offering, whole offering given to the Lord's use, or are you holding back parts of it for your use? Would a partial sacrifice of the Lord been accepted in the Old Testament?

You think any part of that offering would have been accepted if they said, "You know what? This back meat, ribs is so delicious. What if I gave 90% of it and I held this back and took it home and ate it? I haven't eaten meat in a while." God would understand.

Would that sacrifice would have been accepted? Obviously not, right? This sacrifice represented all of us, every part of us. So Romans chapter 12, when it says, "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice," He's not saying your legs, your mouth, your head. He's talking about all of it, right? So that's the question, right?

So let me pray for us, and then again, I'll break you guys off and take some time in your small group for discussion, okay? Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you. There's so much in your Word, Lord, that we have yet to discover. So much, Lord God, that we've just kind of gleaned through because we didn't understand that it was difficult.

Help us, Lord God, to uncover these treasures. If your sacrifice of your Son in any way has become trivial to us, old news, something that we've heard so often that it's hard for us to even muster up any emotions, I pray that the study of Leviticus would help us to visually see what it is that you've done for us, that we may be moved, impacted, stirred, and convicted, Lord God, that you would renew in us true worship in spirit and in truth.

I pray that you would bless our time of discussion, help us to be honest and open in our weaknesses, that we would truly be able to partner together, covering over our weaknesses and sharpening as brothers one for another. So we ask for your grace over this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.