I want to strongly encourage and remind you, both of you guys, all the people who are here and also the recordings, the people who are listening at home, to do your best to at least read it a few times before you come so that when we talk about certain things, at least you're aware of what they are.

Even if you didn't understand it, if you knew what the issues were, it wouldn't go over your head as much. So, again, I just want to strongly encourage you to do that because there's so many things that I'm talking about. Can this be lowered just a little bit? There's so many little nuances.

The benefit of studying the book of Leviticus is the details, the details and the significance of these things. So if you miss these details, again, what you're going to keep hearing over and over again is that the sin needs to be atoned for. We need to be cleansed. Don't eat this and eat that.

Don't touch this, but you can touch that. That's what you're going to get. Basically, you just studied the book of Leviticus. If you studied the book of Leviticus as just kind of a general overview. So the meaning behind the details of what he says is what the foundation, the understanding of salvation and the result of salvation that it points to.

So if you don't know the details and you're not catching the details, then yeah, I mean, the book of Leviticus is just, you're going to leave it with the same thing that you came in with it. It's a difficult book. It's hard to understand. Okay. So, again, it's just an encouragement to you to do your best to read it a few times, know the details, at least know the outline so that when I say that this offering is a bull offering and so what is the distinction between this bull offering and the goat offering and how is it different from the peace offering and the burnt offering?

Like what is the significance of the burnt offering? So again, that was just an encouragement. Let me pray for us and we'll jump right in. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. You are a gracious and patient God. Everything that you command us, we know that it has meaning.

It prepares us. It points to Christ. It gives us strength, Lord God, to live lives that are Godly. We desire to reflect who you are in how we think, what we do, what we pursue. I pray, Father God, that the washing of our regeneration will be more than just the general push, Lord, to heaven, that the more we understand who you are, that those are the very things that we would pursue with all our might.

We pray that you would bless the time that we have and that your word would have a powerful impact on our heart, that our fellowship would cause us, Lord God, to be spurred on toward you. Thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So if we were to look at Leviticus chapter 4, 5-13, obviously we're talking about the sin offering.

Generally speaking, what is the purpose of these sacrifices? Think about it. You don't have to answer it. It's a rhetorical question. I just want you to think about it. To atone for sins, to deal with the particular sins of God's people. But what is the purpose of that? You won't be judged.

Remember we talked about that in the very beginning, in introduction, how the book of Exodus ends, and then how Leviticus is introduced, and then how God speaks in the book of Numbers? You remember? Think carefully. Is it uncomfortable? I want you to review in your mind again. What is the purpose of the book of Leviticus?

What is the purpose of these sacrifices? Remember how we ended the book of Exodus? What was God doing at the end of Exodus? What is God doing in the book of Numbers? And so what is God doing in Leviticus? If you remember carefully, you'll probably remember it because I said it so many times in our introduction.

What was unique about the beginning of the book of Numbers? Where is God speaking from? Inside the tent, right? Where is God speaking from in Leviticus? From the tent, right? They weren't able to come in yet, right? He's speaking from the tent. And so the book of Exodus, he came down from the mountain, he's dwelling, right?

He's about to make his dwelling on the tent, in the tent, right? Leviticus begins where he's in the tent. Number tells us that he's in and he invites people to come into the tent, right? So you see this progression of a holy God who's drawing near to his people and he's preparing all of these sacrifices for what purpose?

To atone for our sins. But why is he atoning for our sins? Huh? To draw closer so that a holy God can dwell with sinful people. That's the whole reason why sins are being atoned for because a holy God and sinful people cannot be in the same place. So the only way that God could be with his people is through the atonement of their sins.

And so that's what all this is for, is so that God can dwell with us. Now, think about the purpose of salvation. If the purpose of atonement is so that he can dwell with us, what is the purpose of salvation? Why did Jesus atone for our sins? For atoning for our sins, to keep us from hell, so that the wrath of God may be covered, all of that is true, but what is the ultimate purpose?

To restore his presence in our lives, right? Because all the judgment that we know, hell, wrath of God, all of this came as a result of being separated from God because of our sins. Because sin and God cannot dwell together. And so there had to be an answer to the sin, and that's why God was atoning for our sins.

So this whole drama in the book of Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers, Deuteronomy, all of it is to deal with man's sin in order for the holy God to draw near to us. Right? Now I want you to keep that in mind because that gives you the overarching purpose of salvation.

So if you say that you are saved and your sins are atoned for and yet there is no evidence of your relationship with God, you know we say, cliche, it's not a religion, it's about relationship, all that is true, right? But where's the evidence, right? So if God atoned for sins and yet he never shows up, there's no need for atonement because if God is not there, there's no need for atonement.

Only reason why they need atonement is because God and sinful man can't be together. And the reason why there's hell is because the ultimate ramification of sin and holiness when we die is going to be separated permanently. As far as it can be separated from God's presence. That's what hell is, ultimately.

So the book of Leviticus is a detailed description of how he's going to deal with sin. So he doesn't just say, you know what, you're rebelling against God, God's going to cover you. He does do that, generally speaking, but he goes into detailed explanation of what sin and how he's going to cover this sin.

What is his view about this sin? What does he think about when you sin? What does he think about when he sins or she sins or they sin? What particular animal is going to be sacrificed for whose sin and for what purpose? And what area of the temple needs to be cleansed because of your sin?

So every one of these things is a detailed description, like a surgeon going in. He doesn't just cut in, it's like, oh is that where the cancer is? He just rips it open, just yanks it out. He's identifying like a surgeon. The detailed part of what sin is he dealing with.

So in each one of these sacrifices, it's like God is looking through a microscope and he's causing you to look through it and it is revelation of how God sees sin and what God is going to do to deal with that sin. You understand what I'm saying? So typically when we think of sin, we just think of sin or we've fallen short of God's glory, but the way that God describes sin is much more precise than that.

And I think part of the reason why there is this general just kind of brushing over sin and a general brushing over atonement and why our salvation and redemption, why a lot of people, it doesn't hit us like it ought to, is because we have a very elementary understanding of sin.

And we have a very elementary understanding of our salvation. God loved us unconditionally, Jesus died for our sins, the end. Only true, right? But that's just like saying one plus one equals two, so now I know math. That's the beginning. But the more detailed you look at it, you start building on top of that where God begins to reveal what he sees and his remedy for that.

So the end result of that, that you have a clear understanding of what Jesus did on the cross and what it is that exactly he accomplished. So all of this to say is that the details are important. And so I want you guys to wrestle with the details. Even if you don't have the answers, I want you to ask the details.

Because God didn't just give these details to confuse us. These details point to something. Some of it we are aware of, some of it is a guess, some of it may remain a mystery. But the more you ask, the more you search, the more you're going to be able to understand what God thinks of sin and how he remedies that.

The purpose of the sin offering. The purpose of the sin offering is atonement for sins, was for Holy God to dwell among sinful people. It was not simply to help people live a better life. And that is no different today, as I have already mentioned. The whole purpose of redemption is so that we can draw near to him.

He drew near to us because we couldn't draw near to him, so in order that we may draw near to him. That's the whole purpose of atonement. So if you enjoy your salvation from a distance, you don't really understand what you have in Christ. I summon a reasonable response when we understand what it is that we have in him is to make every effort to come to him if he really is our life and treasure.

So the purpose of all the sin offerings, all the offerings, was so that Holy God could deal with us. Specifically, sin is not only a breaking of the law, but also pollution. And I think this particular offering details that. It points to that. Sin is not just, I broke the law and so I should have gotten an A, but I got a B or got a C or got a D or got a F.

Sin actually ends up polluting. Part of the reason why there is attraction to sin is because we don't understand what sin is. We think, "Oh, we did something we shouldn't have done, so we did it. We confessed our sins and we're done with it." I used this illustration before, but part of sanctification is recognizing sin from God's perspective.

If you were eating something that you wouldn't normally eat, so I don't want to ruin your appetite, but let's say, I'm just going to, hot dog, right? Let's say as an hot dog, because this is the reality, there's a certain amount of excrement that they allow in these hot dogs.

And this is a reality, right? I think this is universal knowledge by now. They can't 100% clean it, so they allowed a certain amount, certain small, small percentage of rat excrement to enter into that. And it's not going to affect your health. It's sanitized, but it's in there. It's common knowledge now.

You can Google it. But imagine if that was increased to 10%. Let's not get carried away. 5%. Okay, let's be real. Let's say 1%. There's excrement in there. 1% of the hot dog that you're eating is excrement. How many of you would eat that hot dog? Some of you guys might.

It might not be a good illustration. Most of us will not eat it, because the thought of eating excrement is going to keep you away, unless you're starving to death, and the only way to survive is to eat this hot dog, right? The reason why he goes through this detail of describing these sins is because he's trying to show us the excrement of these sins.

And when our understanding of sin is from his perspective, it would be like running to sin is like running to dung. It's like, "Well, this is enjoyable." You know what I mean? Remember how James describes it? A man who repents and falls back is like what? It's like a dog returning to his vomit.

That's how God describes a man who runs back to his sin. But that vomit is the sin. So the whole point of all of this is to reveal to us that sin to a holy God and to holy people should look and smell and feel like vomit. So that's why he doesn't just describe sin as in rebelling against God or you just missed the mark.

He goes into the detailed description of what that is. So every little part of this, so think about if you were an Israelite and he said, "If you want to have a relationship with me, you got to go through these rituals and they have to kill these animals, you know, and they have to make these sacrifices and you see blood and your hand gets dirty, they sprinkle it everywhere.

It's like a slaughterhouse." And this is a part of a day-to-day scene in the nation of Israel. Do you think that made an impact on people on how they viewed sin? Yeah, it was because it was meant to be illustrated. God didn't just want them to hear about sin, he wanted them to see it.

He wanted them to smell it. He wanted them to touch it. He wanted them to experience this in every way. There's a reason why he kept all the tribes in equal distance from this tent because he wanted them to see what it is that you need to be atoned for, right?

So God, not only does he take it seriously, he wants his people to take it seriously, right? And that's why these details are here because he wants you to know beyond just it's dirty. You want me to tell you how dirty it is? There's excrement in there. You know what percentage?

A huge percentage. Rat excrement, human excrement. You know what I mean? Dog excrement. They drop it on the ground with all this hair. He's describing the filthiness of the sin that requires these sacrifices over and over and over and over again. This sin offering in particular is a description of that pollution.

What it does to them, what it does to the nation of Israel. It's not simply a personal affair, but corporate. The offering also reveals a degree of sin based upon the individual knowledge of the sin and the individual position of standing in the nation of Israel. So not only is it sin, he says there's different degrees of sin based upon who you are.

If you're a priest, if you're a leader of Israel, a common person, or if it was a collective sin, God required different sacrifices. And if you read it, you would have noticed that based upon your standing in the nation of Israel and before God, the sin offering that you needed to give was larger.

It was a bull offering without blemish, it was a bull, it was a goat without blemish, or a lamb without blemish, a female. So there was different degrees of this. All of it for what purpose? Sin is not all the same sin. Some sins are worse than others. It doesn't mean that there's some sins that God doesn't mind.

Any sin needed to be atoned for. But there's these degrees of sin where it required more. So again, this particular offering, it helps us to understand sin from God's perspective. The ritual of sin offering. So there's three parts of this, and before we get into it, I'm just going to give you a brief outline.

The ritual of the sin, it highlights whose sin is atoning for, what animal is going to be sacrificed for that purpose, and where the purification needs to take place. So these three. I didn't put that up there, but those are the three outlined. Who sin is atoning for, what animal is being sacrificed to atone for their sins, and where the purification needed to take place.

So the first one, this offering is the most detailed as to whose sin is being sanctified for. The anointed priest most likely is referring to the high priest, not simply any priest. And again, there is some discussion on this, but most commentators believe that this is not in reference to just an average priest.

It's talking about the high priest. And that's the reason why he is on the top. Even above the whole congregation, he's the number one. So if this high priest sins, these are the things. And his sin is much more serious, because he's a high priest who was chosen to represent God and the people.

Ultimately, the high priest was an office that Jesus himself was going to fulfill in the book of Hebrews. The second is the whole congregation. Third were the leaders of Israel. But let me explain briefly, just in case you think the leaders may only refer to just the major leaders, a few of the leaders.

Anybody who's in any kind of leadership is under this category, whether it's a large group or a small group. So you could be a leader of your tribe, you could be a leader of a particular family, you could be a leader of a small group. Anybody who has any kind of leadership where you're representing God to the people and people to God, whether you are a priest or you're a deacon or any kind of leadership, would fall into that kind of category, where people are looking to you for guidance of any kind, that would fall into that category.

And then the final one would be the common people of Israel. It would be a layperson, an individual. This is the different categories that are listed out for us. The type of animals differ based upon who it's being sacrificed for, and obviously in decreasing order, you have the bull without blemish for the anointed priest, which would have been the most expensive sacrifice, would have been the bull.

An average person probably would not even be able to afford this. This is something that would require a great deal of money. So when a high priest, when he makes, he needs to be, his sins need to be atoned for, they require the greatest of sacrifice. A bull is also offered for the whole congregation, again, because of the sheer size and number.

A leader sinned, a male goat without blemish. Remember we talked about that before, the male goat was, anything male was considered of more value than the females, at least in the sacrificial system. And then the last thing for the common people sin, a female goat or lamb without blemish was also required.

So you can see in almost a decreasing order of value, going from the priest, the congregation, to leaders of any kind, and then a lay person. And all of this to teach what? Even sin, there's degrees of sin. Is this taught in the New Testament? Degrees of sin, is it taught in the New Testament?

Or are all sins the same in the New Testament? Okay, all right. Absolutely, the New Testament does talk about different degrees of sin. We'll talk about that at the end, later on. So this is not only in the Old Testament. The New Testament describes that there are degrees of sin.

We'll talk about that later. So this is reflective of how God sees sin. God doesn't just see sins as one blanket statement of immorality. He's very precise. If they were poor, he permitted them to bring two turtle doves or two pigeons. And even if that was too much, he gave an allowance to give a tenth of an effa, basically flour.

So again, like all of these little details, it's God making provision for everybody. I remember the first time going through this, thinking to myself, "Why does this holy God even care?" I mean, it's one thing for him to go and atone for the sins of sinners. I mean, you know in the New Testament, he says that he counts the hair on our head?

That's basically what he's doing, right? He's not just atoning for sins. He's concerned about the poor. That if you can't afford this, then bring this. And if that's not enough, and if you're financially strapped, and you can't do that. So he made provision for the poorest of the poor people to be able to come and atone for their sins, so that everyone would be able to have access for him.

And I remember the first time thinking through this, it's like, "Why does he care?" The fact that he would even care for a king, somebody noble and moral, but just the poorest of the poor person, he's concerned about them? That he would go through this trouble to make provisions?

And then later on, he talks about how the foreigners are traveling through their land, and they can't eat. Make sure you leave the corners of when you harvest, just leave that alone for them to eat. I mean, you're talking about, you know when the Bible talks about how God cares for us like a nursing mother, and even if they forget, I will not forget you, right?

I mean, his love is so intricate and so detailed, and he's caring for the people that you would never even think about. Foreigners are traveling through the land, these Gentiles are going to come defile the land? They're poor people, they can't afford anything? And he said he made provisions for them, right?

He's so precise. He tells the fat portions were to be burned and was to be a soothing aroma for the Lord, right? So every time these sacrifices are made, this aroma that kind of went throughout the camp, right? This atonement that was taking place because of these sacrifices, they didn't just see it, they smelled it.

This smell was a sweet aroma, right? To God and to the nation of Israel, that God is able to draw near because of this. And it says the rest of the animals, including its skin, flesh, head, legs, entrails, and dung was taken outside the camp and burned beside the ash sheep.

Even that, even something that seems like if you just read this without really thinking through and it's like, well, he took these things and he threw it outside in the camp and they just didn't want it. You know, if you didn't understand where it was, I think some of you guys already know you know what this ultimately points to because you probably studied it before.

But if you didn't know that and you were just reading through it, you would think like, oh, okay, you know, he, you know, all these details, what does this, any of this mean? But even in that detail, right, it's revealed. I'm going to come back to that. Okay. I got the wrong one up here.

Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Verses 11 to 13. Something that seems so, you know, insignificant, but when you understand redemptive history, that little statement here where he says take this and burn it outside the camp had significance. In verse 11 to 13, it says, "For the blood, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp." So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

"Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured." So even this thing that seems as trivial as just something passing by and it says make sure you, after you do all of this and take all of this and take it outside the camp, it was a foreshadowing of Jesus coming, right?

That he was going to be crucified outside the camp. He's calling his people to come out and join him outside the camp, right? So nothing, even the things that we may not fully understand, there's meaning behind it. We just don't get it, some of it, right? And this is the reason why I encourage you to look at the details.

All of these details have meaning. We may not be Bible scholars to be able to catch everything, but what little that you catch is amazing, right? That there's nothing that he said that's wasted. That even in that, it was pointing and preparing for Christ. We're going to come back to the tabernacle.

The sprinkling of the blood was different based upon who they were cleansing. So he would say to take the blood and to sprinkle it in different places based upon the different degree, right? He said the anointed priest and the whole congregation, the priest will take some blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting.

And then the second part of where it says the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in from the veil of the sanctuary. Sorry if that's too small. Sprinkling the blood with the holy place indicates that the pollution caused by the priest or the whole congregation was more serious than a layman's sin because he didn't require this of the leader and the congregation.

He only required this where they need to go in, sprinkle the veil. I'm going to come back to this. So remember the tabernacle? Remember the tent of meeting? So that's basically the outline. You have a picture of this is what a tabernacle would look like. And it's not that big, right?

It may stretch from maybe one side of our building to the X and maybe from this stage back there. It's a huge, huge structure. But in the middle of that, so this is kind of like what you would see from the top and this is the outline. So if you look at it, you see, you can't see it now.

Okay. Anyway, you see where the arc, can you see the arc? You see that box within the box, the rectangle? And within that rectangle, there's a outside squiggle line and inside squiggle line. The inside squiggle line is the veil that he's talking about. And that inside squiggle line divides between the Holy of Holies and the Holy place.

So the Holy of Holies is where the arc of the covenant is, right? And that was where the mercy seat was. And it was supposed to be a symbolic presence of God's throne seated on that seat. And so only on the day of atonement, once a year, the high priest comes into the Holy of Holies, only once a year.

And then he drenches the place in blood. And so it was meant to atone for sins, right? So this particular sin, if it was a sin from the high priest or the congregation as a whole, that veil inside had to be cleansed. And this was only required of if it was the high priest or the congregation.

Meaning that their sin was more significant. It had a bigger impact on the presence of God in the nation of Israel than if a lay person did it, right? So again, all of this to point to God's preciseness over sin. The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar.

And then a leader of Israel and the common people, the priest shall take some of the blood, sin offering, and they'll put it on the altar of burnt offering. Where's the burnt offering altar? It's on the outside, right? It's not within that second rectangle. It's on the outside. So their sins also needed to be atoned for, but it wasn't as serious because they didn't have to go in and sprinkle the veil.

And that veil was what? What happened with that veil when Jesus was crucified? It was torn in half. And what did that symbolize? Access to God was open, right? So the sprinkling of the blood on that veil basically meant that the presence of God, where people would enter even once a year, had to be cleansed.

Their sin tainted access to God. Do you understand? Their sins was more significant because their sins tainted access to God. So that veil had to be sprinkled with blood to be purified, right? So sin is sin. Sin still needed to be atoned for, but again, all of this is to kind of reveal to us how God views sin.

And the remaining blood for all the different sacrifices were poured out at the foot of the altar of burnt offering, right? And then Hebrews 13, 11, 13, "The bodies of the animals whose blood has brought into the holy places." Yeah, I already read this. I put it in the wrong place.

Every thing that God called for this offering to be made. And this is the part that is mentioned over and over again, right? Inadvertent sin or unintentional sin. So this is not like you can go and sin willfully and come before God and just make some sacrifices and you're good, right?

That's not what the atonement was for. And if we're not careful, we can see our sins that way. We just, "Oh, we just commit sin because God is so gracious and loving. I just come and repent. God forgive me of my sins and then I'm free," right? Because God's so merciful.

We just don't see the weight of the sin because we don't understand how God views sin. And so we hear this blanket statement, "God is so loving. He's so patient. He's, you know, he's unconditional. There's nothing you can do for God to love you any more than he already does." And so you hear these cliches.

And then so you have this vague understanding of sin. And so a lot of people commit sin not understanding the consequences of this and how the Bible describes this sin and thinking that, "Well, if I said the right things, you know, I just and I feel it right here, then we're good.

Being God is good." I want you to understand, like, this is the reason why this book of Leviticus is so important because it reveals God's heart and how he sees sins. He specifically mentions five separate times here and it's six separate times in this that it is for unintentional sin, right?

Unintentional sin. I know some of you guys are thinking, "A lot of my sins are intentional," right? How many of you have not sinned ever intentionally? Does that mean that any sin that you sinned, knowing that it was sin, there is no forgiveness? I hope you ask yourself that question.

Because this is crucial. Isn't it? It's crucial. If you read this, it's like, "Oh, it's for unintentional sin." And you just moved on. You didn't really understand the gospel. You didn't understand God. You didn't understand forgiveness, but you just moved on. And that's very dangerous. You can live your whole life not understanding who God is and what he has done and how our sins are atoned for, why it's atoned for, what he accomplished in his atonement, if we don't carefully ask these questions.

You can live all your life not knowing Christ, assuming you know Christ, because you never asked. You just assumed because you went to church, right? So I keep saying the same thing over and over again because it's true. Because it's true. Because there's a lot of people born and raised in the church who serve, give, sacrifice, go to missions, and are not Christians all the time.

So, again, these are questions that we need to ask. If he says these are sins for inadvertent sin, unintentional sin, what does he mean by unintentional sin? The repeated phrase "unintentional sins" means not that sinners were ignorant of the law, but that they were ignorant of having violated the law.

If ignorance of the law was not an excuse, if we define sin as a violation of known law, the more ignorant you are of the law, the God-dear you would be. True? If somebody wanted to say, "We're only guilty of the things that we know of." And then when it gets revealed to us, then we're guilty.

That's what it seems to say. So let's stay ignorant. Obviously that's not what the Bible teaches. If you apply that in a wrong way, you would completely get a false gospel. Can you imagine that being applied to the gospel today? How would that be applied if you understood that wrongly?

As long as you stay ignorant, you're innocent. That's one. "I didn't know. Are these people starving? I didn't know. Oh, that's sin? God didn't want me to do that? I didn't know." As long as you stay ignorant, you're innocent. This blows that out of the water because we're going to look into that.

Another way that this could falsely be applied is people who've never heard the gospel. They're ignorant. They didn't know. Right? If they didn't know, they should be innocent because they were never exposed to it. Again, my encouragement to you to really study the details because the details revealed to us, it's a shadow.

The reality is explained in the New Testament, but these kind of point to that to help us to see. Right? Again, you know, I have a few verses just to kind of highlight. It says, "For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse." Right? He said there is nobody who is absolutely ignorant because God made it plain to them.

There's no innocent person because of ignorance. Right? We are ignorant because we choose to be ignorant. That's what the scripture says. Right? They suppress the truth because they delight in the darkness rather than the light. Again, Psalm 139, 23-24, this man's repentance is, "Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." He's asking God, "Are there sins that I'm unaware of? Are there unintentional, ignorant sins?" And yet God calls them sin. Right? Even when it is unintentional, even when it is ignorant, sin, there is a subjective aspect of sin, there is a objective aspect of sin.

Right? Sin is not just when you feel dirty. Sin is whatever God says is sin. Right? I want you to really, like, let that sink in. There is a subjective aspect of sin where your knowledge made that sin more sinful. But there is an objective aspect of sin where anything that violates who he is and anything that violates his law, whether you did it intentionally, unintentionally, is still sin.

And this is what this sin offering covers. Did you understand that? We typically think that sin is only sin if it is of our heart. Right? When our heart is engaged, obviously, it makes it more serious. But let's go dig a bit further. Number 15, 28 through 31, it contrasts between unintentional sin and then intentional sin.

And the intentional sin, they call it high hand. I think I have the verse here. I'm going to have to come back to all of this. So Numbers 15, 28 through 31, he makes a distinction between intentional and unintentional. And he describes it high hand. It says, "And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who makes a mistake when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.

You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with high hand," and that means it was willful, it was deliberate, "whether he is native or a sojourner reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people.

Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be on him." So he makes a distinction between an unintentional sin where it was not premeditated, it was not calculated, and he may have been even ignorant of it, and then when that becomes known to him, then he repents and he comes and gives a sacrifice.

But he said a man who commits a high hand sin, meaning it was intentional, calculated sin, that there is no forgiveness. Hope that makes you nervous, because we're not done. You should be asking, if you stop here, you should be asking, "Oh no, we're all in trouble." I don't know if this is the, oh no, this is not the verse we want to get to.

The sinner who sins with high hand intentionally will not be forgiven, cut off. And so an example that he gives us in Numbers 15, 32-35 is a man who breaks the Sabbath and gathering sticks. How many of you knew that breaking the Sabbath was a capital punishment? You knew, some of you guys are tired.

A lot of you guys knew, right? Breaking the Sabbath was a capital punishment. And this comes right after when he says, "Unintentional sins are forgiven, intentional sin won't be forgiven and he shall be cut off." And cut off meaning that he's going to, there's capital punishment, right? And that's exactly what happened.

And so the first example that he gives, to give an example of a high hand sin, is breaking of the Sabbath. Why do you think the breaking of the Sabbath was considered a high hand sin? You don't have to answer. I want you to think these things through, right?

Because from our perspective, it doesn't seem that big of a deal, right? It doesn't, I mean, he's breaking it, he didn't kill anybody. By the way, intentional murder comes up next, right? Premeditated murder. So premeditated murder, breaking the Sabbath, has equal punishment. Why would these two sins have equal punishment?

Clearly premeditated murder deserves capital punishment. Breaking of the Sabbath. So we have to understand what he means by high hand then, right? What he means by intentional. The reason why the breaking of the Sabbath and premeditated murder, he didn't say killing, he said premeditate, it was intentional. Breaking of the Sabbath where he said over and over and over again, the significance of the Sabbath, right?

Sin is not, the gravity of sin isn't what it does to us. The gravity of sin increases based upon what it does to him. True or not? If you murdered an adult, it would be a grievous sin. If you murdered many children, it would be much more grievous, right?

So even within us, we have different degrees of what we would consider to be heinous. So if there are degrees of heinousness, the greatest of sin is the one that directly offends God. Not us, but him. Breaking of the Sabbath was a willful rebellion against God. It was not a mistake.

Nobody else is out there doing it. You are willfully choosing. I'm not going to obey you. It was not a mistake, right? Now I want you to understand in the context of what sin caused the fall of mankind. Eating a fruit, right? Eating a fruit that God told them not to eat was what brought the condemnation of mankind where sin reigned, death and reign.

All mankind died because they ate the fruit. If you take that and then you apply it here, it's like eating a fruit. How we understand sin is from our perspective. It's from our perspective. So I hear people say foolish, foolish things. It doesn't bother me. As if sin is determined by a fallen heart that the Bible tells us not to trust because it is corrupt.

And to determine whether a sin is heinous or not, or it is acceptable or not, based upon if it bothers me or doesn't bother me, in and of itself is supreme arrogance. It's supreme arrogance because the core of human rebellion is to say, "I'm at the center. God serves me." We may never articulate that, but that statement of describing sin as with me at the center and other human beings is at the core of human rebellion.

That's not how God sees sin, and that's not how sin is. Sin is from his perspective. So a heinous sin is a sin that looks to God and says, "No." Whether it's eating of a fruit, whether it is gathering sticks or premeditated murder, is when you look at God and say, "No." I'm going to determine what is right.

I'm going to determine what is wrong. So these details matter because it reveals to us what sin is. And until we recognize what sin is, there is no repentance. Because if you look at it, "So it doesn't bother me." If it doesn't bother you, you don't need to repent.

You can't repent. How can you repent of something that you're not sorrowful about? How can you repent of something you do not see? There's a reason why when David repents, remember what he says? Who did he sin against? "You, and you alone have I sinned." To God. We look at that and say, "He sinned against Bathsheba.

He sinned against her husband." How can he possibly say? It seems unfair and unrighteous for him to say, "To you and you alone have I sinned." Because we look at it from our perspective, because he wronged people. We're more offended by what he did to another human being than what he did to God.

Because of our skewed, sinful perspective of how we view sin. That's not how God views sin. That's not how it ought to be viewed. So this offering, it gives the basis of us understanding what he came to atone for and what the atonement did. It's very precise. The defiant sin is done willfully and without repentance.

It is a willful rejection of the Lord, Lord God, and his law. So it's not simply that, "Oh, you didn't know and all of a sudden it came to knowledge." It was a willful rebellion. And so when you recognize that you sinned and you become aware of it, God gives a provision for repentance.

But it leads to true repentance. The defiant sin is done willfully without repentance. It is settled rejection of the Lord, God, and his law. The unintentional sin, when brought to knowledge, causes a deep sorrow in the believer's heart. It is followed by true repentance. And that's the passage, Hebrews 10, 26-29.

"For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin." Once it has been revealed and you refuse to repent, there is no other way of salvation. Basically you're rejecting Christ's atonement because you're refusing to repent. "But a fearful expectation of judgment, a fury of fire that will consume the adversary." And here, before I even read that, here's a problem that we have in our generation where we want our repentance to be taken seriously when we really haven't repented.

Let me say that again. We are bothered when people question our repentance when oftentimes we really never repented. We have no intention to turn away from our sin. We just want forgiveness. There's a willful rebellion happening in our heart. And because we said, "Forgive us," you should take it seriously.

There's a reason why there's a distinction. True repentance is when you recognize that there's a rebellion in my heart against God saying, "I'm going to do this my way. I refuse to obey you." That's intentional. That's willful. Unintentional sin is you're trying to conquer it. There is sorrow in our hearts.

We have every intention to flee from this sin. And so you come before God and there is provision made for us, but an intentional willful sin where there is no changing of heart, there is no changing of life, he says there is no repentance because that's not real repentance.

"Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy and the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he has sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace?" Is this concept of free grace, right?

We're saved by grace alone. So therefore don't make me feel guilty is absolute heresy and is not new. If any of you struggle with that, it is not new. It has always existed in the church because the primary work of the devil is to pervert the gospel because if you pervert the gospel, you pervert entrance into the throne of grace.

This is not bringing community church. This is scripture. And this is not just in Hebrews. This is how God revealed himself, the nation of Israel. There is atonement for true repentance. There is no atonement for fake repentance. The specific sins that would require the sacrifice are fourfold, at least mentioned in chapter five.

If anyone sins in that he hears a public adoration, meaning a specific thing that they need to testify against and they do not do so, he says that is a sin. If anyone touches an unclean thing, whether a carcass or unclean wild animal or carcass of unclean livestock or carcass of unclean swarming things, that is a sin.

If he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort of uncleanness, maybe with which one becomes unclean, that is also sin. And this is the reason why Peter was so afraid to touch the unclean animals. We didn't get there yet. He's going to give a description of what makes a man unclean, what animals are unclean, what fish are unclean.

So he tells them you can't touch any of that. So we're going to get into that later. So I'm not going to get too deep into it today. But he says whatever God says is unclean is unclean. If you touch that, you become unclean. And then when you become unclean, your access to God becomes unclean, needs to be purified.

And if you happen to be a priest, high priest, if you happen to be a congregation, then the very access to God gets tainted. That's exactly what happens. If a pastor or the leaders, if we live in sin, whether you think or not, God sees it because you've taken on that position, there is a greater weightiness of that position because it taints their access to God.

So it is a tremendous, tremendous sin for somebody who represents God in any capacity, especially from the pulpit, to misrepresent God. And I always think about Moses at the end of his life where he's just sick and tired of their complaining. He didn't even want this job to begin with.

And he's like there sometimes he's pleading on their behalf, "Lord, how can you send us without your presence? You know, everybody's going to be laughing at us. You know, we would be unprotected." And so he pleads on God's behalf for mercy. And then at the end of his life, he's just had it.

There's like more water, more. And then he's like, and God says, "Give him the water." Like he's so patient. Just give him the water. He comes and he's like, "Here's your darn water." I'm not exactly sure what he did, but later on God says he's punished because he didn't present God as holy.

He didn't represent God accurately. And as a result of that, he doesn't get into the promised land. So it was a great sin. And Moses wanted so much to see the promised land. And he pleads with God, "Look at that beautiful land. Look at all that land that you promised." And he says, "Enough.

I don't want to hear it." And then he banishes him because it was such a great sin for him to misrepresent God. All of this is embedded into this particular offering. Anyone who makes a rash oath, either to do evil or to good, if you made a vow and you don't fulfill it, he said it was also considered sin.

And let me rush through the last part. Not everyone, clearly the scripture says, should presume to be a teacher. That servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved the beating will receive a light beating.

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand more. By the nature of who we are, the fact that you are here studying the book of Leviticus, this is not something that majority of the people around the world have access to.

They don't. You have pastors in India, all they were given was the Bible and some of them just the New Testament. Some of them can't read. And they're taking the literal knowledge that they have and they're risking their lives and the health of their families to go and spread the gospel.

You and I, the fact that you are at a church where the Bible is being taught, you have access to the internet, you have fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are able to come to a building where your children are taken care of, and you have enough money to be able to live that you're not sacrificing your family or your job or your comfort to be at church and yet to be fed week after week after week after week.

All of these things are responsibilities that God has given us. Because you have more knowledge, more access, more freedom, more encouragement. Every once in a while I hear somebody say, "I can't grow because I don't have enough." Enough of what? What is it that you do not have enough of that you're going to come before God and say, "I couldn't grow." In light of where you are, how can we possibly, how can we possibly with a straight face come before God and say, "I didn't have enough." Whatever it is that you think.

Right? James 3, 1, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." This is the reason why we don't actively say we're raising up leaders. Now obviously there are people who will lead, there are people we ask to lead.

We don't ask, we don't deliberately say we're raising up leaders. Because the Bible says not many of you should presume to be leaders. Because there's stricter judgment that's coming upon you. So when we appoint leaders, we're not doing them any favor. Because the scripture says that the weight of their sin is much greater if we're taking on that task.

So it's better not to be a leader. So to covet leadership in any capacity is to not to know the weight of what it means to be a leader. Because that's what the scripture says. So what we try to do in the church, we're trying to raise up servants.

People who will serve, sacrificially serve, people who will mimic who Christ is. And in that, if you are leading in serving, you will become a leader. I hope that makes sense. We're not raising leaders, we don't see leadership as somebody who's articulate and who has a lot of knowledge and who's charismatic.

That's not how we see leadership. Because that's formula for danger. We see leadership as people, first and foremost, who are humble, who's willing to serve and sacrifice. And if they are leading in serving, then they could also lead. Again, all because the scripture designed leadership that way. There's a reason why the last thing Jesus did before he went was to get on his knees.

Because he knows that our natural human nature is not to serve, but to be served. So he's telling his apostles, "I'm going to send you out to preach the gospel, but don't forget this. Get on your knees and serve." And that's probably the greatest advice that I remember from my father going into ministry.

He said, "Don't forget, you are Tom." That's what he said. That's what he said to me. You are Tom. So if they treat you like Tom, it's because you signed up for it. That's the greatest advice he gave me. And that's a man who was in ministry for 40, 50 years.

He said that to me, one, because it's biblical, second, because that's what he experienced. The leadership is not something that we covet. If you covet that, it's because you don't know how God views this. Sin affects more than just us. It affects the community. So whenever God puts us together, we're a body of Christ.

If one sins, it doesn't just affect us. It affects everybody. If your finger hurts, it's not just isolated, your whole body hurts. 1 Corinthians 3.16, the "you" in this passage is plural. It's talking to the church. "Do you not know that you are God's temple? God's spirit dwells in you.

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." And the reason why Paul is able to say that, because the Jew would have understood this, and he would have immediately seen this picture in Leviticus chapter 4 and 5. Because when they sin, it was embedded in them that there was a defilement in the tabernacle.

It wasn't just them. Their sin affected the whole community. That's what Paul is referring to here. Again, two more passages, then we'll wrap up for today. Hebrews 9.12-14. Again, these passages, again, point to this sacrifice. "He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls, and with ashes of hyphor sanctifies for the purification of the flesh," clearly this isn't pointing to this sacrifice. "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" So the book of Hebrews is the bridge from the Old Testament to the New.

It's saying Christ fulfilled this sacrifice. Hebrews 10.19-22. "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with true heart full of assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Clearly, again, this is in reference to this sacrifice.

Sprinkling for the purpose of cleansing. Right? And so all of this, all the details that are mentioned here, it helps us to understand this, like what Christ has done. Every single one of this, kind of like Jesus is crucified, it's almost like every one of these things are different spotlights.

The Leviticus is kind of pointing to the bottom. The gospel points at the center. The epistles point from the top. And so every aspect of it is a different spotlight on the cross. And the more you dig into it, you see different glimpses of what is that we've seen from a distance but we get to see it displayed, his glory displayed through the book of Leviticus, through Hebrews, through every one of these sacrifices.

All for the purpose of what? To destroy our pride. Destroy our rebellion. That we would come in awe of who he is and what he has done. So that we may worship him in spirit and in truth. The discussion questions is, again, is applicational. In what ways does a private sin affect the whole church?

Does knowing that others are struggling with the same sins help you to be more bold in fighting the sin or does it cause you to be more relaxed in accepting sin? What causes either to happen and how should we strive for the former and not the latter? And this is a constant struggle in discipling the church where we don't want to get to a point where everybody's living in fear and afraid to be honest with their sins and then we don't want to get to the other point where people are so honest that sin doesn't seem like sin anymore.

Where it's just acceptable, we're just a bunch of people who keep sinning and we're okay because God loves us. How do we balance these two things? Where we take holiness seriously but at the same time we understand we're sinners in need of the grace of God. Where we don't compromise grace or holiness.

Third, why is it important to confess our sins to one another? James 5.16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed." The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So one of the tools that we are given is the body of Christ to pursue Christ together.

There's not a single individual who can say, "I don't need these people." That's again, that's human pride. That is also sin. And so the scripture says that in our struggle against sin that he gave us the body of Christ to confess. And so one of the things that I'm asking you to do today in Bible study or in your small group to as you're discussing that you would end the small group with honest confession.

Now don't make things up. Don't say, "I need something to confess." So don't try to say something that's actually not there. But I know that there's enough of us that if we're honest that there's a lot of things that you've been sweeping under the rug. You've been just kind of sweeping under the rug and you just kind of like generically is covering with the blood of Christ.

Thank God he's merciful. Maybe you're struggling with pornography. Maybe you're making some compromises at work. Maybe you're getting physical with your girlfriend or somebody that you shouldn't be. Whatever it is, you know it's wrong, but the way that you've been dealing with it is you just been kind of sweeping under the rug and you've been asking for forgiveness, but you really weren't coming to God and seeking to flee.

And so I'm encouraging you this evening when you come to your groups to be honest, right? And if there has been anything willful in your heart saying like, "I'm just going to deal with this on my own." And you haven't really confessed that before God. You didn't really repent.

You just kind of swept it under the rug saying like, "Oh, since God is merciful," and you just kind of skimmed over it. If that's been the case, come before our group and be honest and openly confess because we're all in the same boat. And we don't want to normalize sin.

We don't want to say sin is okay, but at the same time, pursuit of holiness can't be an option. It can't be enough. We want to be used for noble purposes. If we want to do that, he says to get rid of the ignoble, right? Let's do this together, right?

So I'm going to pray for us and I'm going to dismiss you to your groups and take some time to discuss these things. And I'm going to pray that the Lord will lead you to fruitful discussion. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank you so much. Lord, the more we look at ourself and our inner being, could you have loved us?

Why didn't you turn away? What is man? Who are we? That you would go through all this drama for us. Why would you send your son? Lord, we don't understand. We don't understand. Help us. Help us to recognize what it is that we have in you so that our lives would truly be a reasonable response, a logical response of worship to you.

That we would live in celebration, in joy, in thankfulness. That as you loved us, that we would love. Lord, I pray this evening that you would help us to be open. That we would hate sin more than our pride, more than our reputation. That we would desire you, Father God.

And I pray for honest discussion, open confession. That we would not give the devil even an inch to cause us to hide, to live in shame and guilt. Knowing Father God that we have your son's blood to atone for our sin. Help us Lord God not to hide, but to come forth that we may be free and to be free in you.

Help us this evening. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right.