All right, let me pray for us and then we'll start. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this evening. Help us, Lord God, to glean from your Word, especially, Lord God, in the book of Leviticus. There's so many things in here that are hard to understand at times, but we know, Father, from what we already have studied, just how important this is to our understanding of what you have been doing in preparing, Father God, for the coming of Christ.

Help us to know the depth of what it is that you have done, what it is that we have, that we may have a greater hope, Lord God, for what is coming. We pray that your Word would teach us. Pray, Father God, that you would help me not to speak of things, Lord God, that is not from you, that I would only be a vessel, Father, that you can use to let your words go out.

Help us to understand your Word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so today, again, in this second part of the chiasm, talking about the ritual holiness of the priests. So there's two parts to it. There's the first part that's talking about the general priest that's pertaining to all the priests, and then the second part of it starting from verse 10 to 15 is talking specifically for high priests.

And so the high calling of priesthood that is mentioned in this text. So again, the general subject here, obviously, is about the importance of leadership and how they are set apart for His service. So there are requirements for all people who are entering into the tabernacle, but it's specifically for people who have been called to represent God as priests and to high priests.

There's extra qualifications that they needed to be above reproach, according to the New Testament, in order for them to not defile themselves, to be able to be in service to God. I want to read a passage. Again, I think it is so important. It's a little bit smaller than I was hoping, but when you talk about the health of the church, before we look at the congregation, before we look at the generation or the method or anything else we look at, first we have to look at the leadership.

And again, as one of the leaders of the church, I know the weightiness of what it means to be called a pastor or an elder or any type of leadership in the church. This is not something that you should take lightly. A lot of times we don't consider the weightiness or what it means to be a leader until you actually become a leader, and then you begin to see the consequences of it.

The New Testament and the Old Testament warns very harshly that whenever Israel strayed away from God, the first people that God points out that was responsible for Israel's sin were always the leaders. Before they rebuke the idolatry, before they rebuke sexual immorality, they said all of this happened because the shepherds weren't shepherding.

The leaders were being selfish. There are people who are in the position that should not have been there. Jeremiah 14, 14, 15, it says, "Then the Lord said to me, 'The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them.

They are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, deception of their own minds.'" Okay. So you notice how it says all these false things are happening, and one of the things that they say is that they themselves are deceived, and that's why false teachings coming out. "Therefore, it says, 'The Lord concerned the prophets who were prophesying in my name.

Although it was not I who sent them, yet they keep saying, 'There will be no sword or famine in this land. By sword or famine, those prophets shall meet their end.'" So obviously the message that they were continuing to convey was that God is pleased with you, and so the reason why the false prophets are saying these things is because no one wants to hear that God is angry with Israel because He's calling them out to judgment.

He's calling them out to repentance. So if He is preaching not on behalf of God, but He's preaching in order to tickle man's ears to gain the favor of man, He has to say things that are favorable to the man that He is preaching to. And so again, in Jeremiah, again the rebuke first goes to the false prophet.

Jeremiah 23, 21, "I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have announced my words to my people and would have turned them back from their evil way and from evil of their own." So again, if these were my prophets, they would have spoken my words to my people, right?

Finally, Ezekiel 34, one through two, just a couple of verses. "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to these shepherds, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Woe, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?"'" So again, one of the problems with the shepherds were they were first concerned about themselves, concerned about themselves, their family, their children, and they weren't concerned enough about the nation of Israel.

So therefore, he says, the judgment is going to first come upon the nation. I can give you passage after passage in the Old Testament and the New Testament why the calling for leadership in the Old Testament and New Testament is a very, very high calling. Because the consequence of someone who is in leadership that is not speaking for God, that is not right with God, that is living self-centered instead of God-centered, is going to have dire consequence in the church.

And so before we look at the health of anything else, before we look at anything else that's going on in the church, we have to first and foremost make sure that if we want a healthy church we need to have healthy leadership. This principle is not a New Testament principle.

This is a principle that is embedded into Israel's culture. Again, so that's why for me, I understand the weight of being in a position where I have to preach every week because everything that I say, everything I do has more weight. And so when I am tempted to sin, I am burdened by the fact that my sins have greater consequence.

And it's not just me. Anybody who's in leadership. That's why it says in James that not many should seek to be in leadership. To be in leadership and not to be right with God, not only do you bring sin upon yourself, but you bring sin upon your family and the church.

And I can't emphasize this enough because that's how it's emphasized in the New Testament. If the church is going to be healthy, the leadership has to be healthy. That as a base, chapter 21 is the weightiness of the calling of the priests. Priests are held to a higher standard than other Israelites for two specific reasons.

One, the first, the Lord called them to serve in a special role, representing God to the people and people to God. Secondly, the priests were to model not only ritual purity, but also moral purity to the rest of Israel. Because a priest was meant to stand between God and man.

So if he is corrupted in any way, he's not going to be able to convey the holy God to the people. And neither will he be able to represent the people to God. Because he's not, how can a man represent people to God when he himself is not able to get to God?

So for those two reasons, the standard for the priest was above the rest of the congregation. In Luke chapter 12, 48, it says, "For everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And to whom they entrusted much of him, they will ask all the more." Again, in James 3, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur stricter judgment." So this is not just something that, you know, leadership in the church in any capacity, in particular people who are going to become elders or going into a full-time role as pastors, these are not something that you should just kind of think and say, "You know what?

I think I like teaching, so I'm going to become a pastor." It says, "Think very carefully, make sure confirmation is there, and look at and examine your own life, and to take it very, very seriously." Verses 1 through 9 is a requirement for the general priesthood. As we mentioned before, the meaning of holiness is not simply to be morally holy, but to be set apart.

So they are to be moral, obviously, they are to keep all the commandments of God that Moses gave, but they are also to be set apart in ritual cleansing, above and beyond. So he's already given instructions on what they are required to do, and more instructions are coming to the general congregation.

But before we even get to that, he qualifies specifically, these are qualifications that are extra specific to the priesthood. In the following verses, he talks about mourning. Now he's not talking about taking vacation, he's not talking about frivolous spending, he's talking about when a death occurs in the community, the death of an immediate family member could call him away from the duties only.

The priest, because if he spends any time in the presence of, again, someone who is dead, in Numbers chapter 19 through 11, he will be considered unclean for seven days. That means for seven days, he would not be able to carry out his duties. So the only exception that was given to him, the only exception given to him was only if it's a father, mother, son, daughter, or brother, or a virgin sister.

And those are the only ones, right? Only if one of them passed away that they were given a period to mourn. And then they would have to go through ritual cleansing and then come back. In any other case, they were not to participate in the ceremonies that would consider them unclean.

They are not to mourn like the pagans, by shaving their heads or the edges of their beards or make any cuts to their flesh. And all of these things were cultural things that represented signs of mourning. And they said, "You're not allowed to be like the rest of the people who can participate in the form of mourning, only if it is your immediate family," and those people that he made sure.

In other words, in every other instance, their duty as a priest takes priority. You can't be like everybody else. And that's basically what he is saying to these priests. You have to be set apart and make your duty your first priority. Verse six gives a reason for the call.

Why does he say that? And he repeats this several times in this text. The verse begins and ends to be holy. Verse six says, "They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they present the offerings by fire to the Lord, the food of their God, so they shall be holy." And you notice how many times he says that in verse six.

"You are to be holy, not to profane the name of God," and then it ends, "so that you may be holy." And the whole reason why is because they are on duty. Because they engage in presenting sacrifices to God, they must be kept holy as not to prevent them from their duties.

Not only are they called to be holy, he said, "The wife of the priest also affect the holy holiness of the priest, dedicated it to the Lord's work." Verse seven. The wife must also be holy by not having practiced harlotry in the past or have been divorced. So not only is not, it wasn't enough for the man himself to be kept ritually clean.

The wife that he chooses, again, there's qualifications for that. Because if he chooses the wrong wife, he may be disqualified for the priesthood. Again, in verse eight, it emphasizes again the reason for the special dedication. Again, he says basically the same thing he says in verse six. It's for the purpose so that he may be set apart to serve the Lord.

So not only does he need to be set apart, the wife that he chooses also needs to be in accordance to his calling. You can't have a husband who's called and said, "Well, that's my husband's duty, but that's not mine." Right? He says the ritual cleansing and the purity, his wife also affects the husband.

The daughter of the priest also affect the holiness of the priest, dedicated to the Lord. Verse nine, it says, "Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father. But because of her sin, her father is also defiled and shall be burned with fire." So her sins also affect the husband.

She must not profane herself by harlotry. The penalty for this violation, again, is burning with fire. Now, again, we see this reflected in the New Testament. We see the qualifications of an elder. We see it in First Timothy in Titus chapter one, verse six. In fact, I think I have these verses.

Right? First Timothy three, four, it says, "He, an elder, must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity." Okay, this is one of the qualifications of an elder. Again, Titus one, six, "Namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion." Okay?

So again, this is not a New Testament concept. We see this even in the Old Testament. That, again, we live in a very individualistic society, like my sin is my sin. It doesn't affect anybody else. So we don't have this concept of community. Right? I mean, we do, but it's not like the New Testament.

If you go to Japan or some of the Asian countries, there is a very strong sense that what I do affect my parents, it affects my brothers, it affects my family, maybe even my company. There's a very strong sense of community, that my action is not private, it is not alone.

We just happen to live in a society where we're at the other extreme. We're individual, it's just us, it doesn't affect anybody else. But that is not the culture we see in the Old Testament or the New Testament. And so I'm not going to get into the details of this because I know some questions may come up.

I know elders who have unbelieving children, and so there are some churches that will say, if you have unbelieving children, you know, who are adults and they don't believe that that disqualifies you as an elder, and then obviously there are arguments. I'm not going to get into that. We may talk about that maybe in private if you have questions about that.

But that idea of believing children or obedient children who are submissive as a quality of an elder, again, is not a New Testament concept. It's an Old Testament. That the daughter's sin affects the father. Verses 10 through 15 is a call to complete dedication to the high priest. How many high priests are there?

One at a time, right? There's only one at a time. So this whole section, five verses, is dedicated to that one man, right? So he is the leader among the priests. He's the one who represents all the other priests. So the quality that he is called for is even beyond the regular priest, right?

Uncovering his head or tearing his clothes signified great sorrow and anguish. So there was nothing sinful about it. But he was not allowed to do that because, remember in the earlier chapters of Leviticus, that God went into detail about the clothing of the priest and specific for the high priest?

So whenever you see the language in the New Testament about tearing clothes or putting new garments on, all of this is related to the high priest's garments, right? It's being set apart and taking your old garments off, putting new garments on for the purpose of worshiping, right? So that imagery is given in the book of Leviticus.

So when he says not to take off your, to uncover yourself to be bald and not to rip your clothes, he's basically talking about keeping your garments on for the purpose of service, right? As a high priest, he is never to do that. He is not to mourn like everybody else.

They were not to approach any dead person with no exception, even for father or mother, verse 11, right? So the priests were actually, they're given stipulation only for father, mother, daughter, son, and virgin sister. But for the high priest, verse 11, nor shall he approach any dead person nor defile himself, even for his father or his mother.

He couldn't even go to his mother or father's funeral, right? I mean, that's how high of a calling the high priesthood was, right? Once he put on the garment, he was not allowed to function like everybody else, right? He said, "Well, I'm just human," right? I mean, maybe they can protest that, but that's how high this calling was.

However, he spent the whole section in the first part of Leviticus to demonstrate and to teach how holy God is. First two priests who come to him, they don't follow the rules and offer up strange fire. They are immediately put to death. He wanted the nation of Israel to know you cannot approach God by your standards, on your terms.

So the priest who represented mankind must come to him also on his terms. And the priest who represented all the other priests must absolutely submit to his terms with no exception. He said, "Not even for father and mother." That's how high of a calling this was. All of this is to convey how far God is to us.

All of this is to convey his holiness, right? They're not to leave the sanctuary and by doing so profane or defile it. He's not saying that they can never leave the sanctuary. It's not like the high priest would never be out of the sanctuary. He's saying for the purpose of mourning, right?

Even father or mother, he had to be on duty, right? He is not to defile himself for any reason. So verse... The priest must be dedicated even in the way he chooses his wife. So look at verse 13 through 15 and then look at verse... I think it was verse 8.

No. Read verse 7 and read verse 13 to 15. Tell me if you can notice a difference. Verse 7 is qualification for the wife of the priest and then verse 13 to 15 is qualification for the wife of the high priest. What do you notice? What is an extra command that's given to the high priest?

Okay, so all the things are the same but he added on top of that, she had to be a widow. Oh, she couldn't be a widow. So anyone who's been married for any reason, even if she was widowed, the high priest, again, talk about one man, he could not marry her, right?

She must not be a widow or divorce or have practiced harlotry at any time. So the other two qualities were also told to the priest but for the high priest, she can't even be a widow, right? Maybe she has sympathy for her and falls in love with somebody who's husband has died.

She has every right to remarry. He has every right to marry her under the Jewish law but the high priest could not. She must be a virgin in order not to profane his offering among his people. He wanted to make sure that one high priest, that there was no confusion as to his ancestry, where he came from.

So he wanted to keep that line pure. So as a result of that, he said the qualification for a high priest, that it must be a virgin so there's absolutely no question as to his ancestry. This is because the next generation of priests would come from the offspring of this marriage, as I already mentioned.

So up to this point, he's talking about the very high calling of priests, very very high calling of the high priest and then he said these are the qualities starting from verse 16 to 24 that will disqualify you. Now if you'll notice, none of these qualities are moral qualities.

In fact, every one of these qualities are qualities that we would show sympathy for. If in our generation, we discriminated against somebody who was handicapped, was born with, you know, shorter legs or for whatever the reason, have some kind of deformity, we are called in the New Testament to highlight that and show special favor, to be merciful and gracious.

But starting from verse 16 and 24, he says no man with any defect can be set apart as a priest. So if you have a child and the child is born blind, he's disqualified. He can't serve as a priest. If he has one leg, has a disfigured face, so here's all the things that are mentioned.

I mean, think about how hard life would be just being blind, but because he's blind, he can't be a priest. He's lame. Whether you were lame by birth or lame because you got in an accident, in either case, this is not who is lame by choice. There's a horrible accident happened or it was a tragic thing that happened when he was born, but as a result of that, he can't be a priest.

He can't serve, even if he is born a Levite. A disfigured face, a deformed limb, a broken foot or hand, a hunchback or dwarf, or one who has defect in his eye or even eczema. You have skin disease and that's considered a defect enough to disqualify you as a priest.

Or, crushed testicles. Very specific. I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking, "Man, this guy has hard enough life as it is." On top of that, he's disqualified. I mean, think about how cruel this may seem. Especially, I mean, I don't know any culture, at least that I know of, that wouldn't show sympathy to people.

Yet, in the Old Testament, in the Levitical law, it says they are disqualified because they are defective. Now, these are not moral qualities. It's not because they sinned. It's not because their parents sinned. It's just unfortunate. They're all born sinners and yet these people have extra consequences because of their deformity of some kind.

So the natural question, or before that, so this is not saying that he can't participate in giving worship to God. They're just saying that this disqualifies him as a priest to serve in the tabernacle. So the natural question that you should be asking, if you read this and you say, "Oh, of course, chrostesical, they shouldn't be priests." I don't think anybody sitting here is thinking that.

If you are, you're a weirdo. Your natural response should be, which I believe it probably is, "That doesn't sound fair. Why would that be added on top of the hardship that they were born with?" Why did these things disqualify someone? So you have to understand, again, the larger picture, he is not saying that these people sinned and because of their sins, they're being punished.

That's not what the scripture is saying. He's talking about ritual cleansing. I mean, what is wrong with the high priest visiting his mom at her funeral? But he said you couldn't do that. I mean, priest trying to comfort those who are mourning at the funeral, who's not their family.

What is morally wrong with that? Obviously not. All of it had to do with ritual cleansing. So if you remember, in the other parts of it, even the sacrifices, remember? You could not give any sacrifice to God with any kind of defect. It had to be a male goat, had to be a male bull.

And God gives very specific rules. Now why does he give these specific rules? Are they in and of itself? Do they have specific powers that if you come in and you had some eczema, that somehow that disqualifies and it somehow morally taints that animal because the priest has one limb shorter than the other or he has a crushed face or broken arm?

How does that affect the quality of the sacrifice? So we know that none of these things morally corrupts it. Everything that God is doing in the book of Leviticus is what, according to the New Testament? Shadow. There are shadows to point to something else. So when God tells Israel that your sacrifice need to be perfect, what is that a shadow of?

The perfect sacrifice of Christ, right? You can't bring anything defective. You can't come to God on your own terms. All of that is to point to and to reveal what the reality is in heaven. So why these things? There were shadows that pointed to the reality. The tabernacle and the things of God were to teach us about the perfection that is found in Christ and the perfection he will bring when he comes in his full glory.

All of this points to something. It is not to punish the priest. It is not to say that one animal has more power over the other. All of this points to the necessity of a perfect savior or perfect salvation to be reconciled to a perfect God. First Corinthians 13, 8-10, it says, "Love never fails, but if there is gift of profit, they will be done away with.

If they are a tongue, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with." I think in the NIV, in the other translation, it says "imperfect." When the perfect comes, the imperfect shall pass away.

This is actually a more accurate translation because perfect and imperfect are not Greek words with a different beginning. The meaning is that when the perfect comes, now there is a debate as to what the perfect is. Some people, like a few, very few people will say that is the Bible, which I don't think that is the case.

I don't think you can make a grammatical contextual argument for that being the Bible. The word perfect means that whatever God intended for our salvation, when God brings it to perfection, he who began a good work will carry it on to perfection until the day of Christ, meaning what he has intended in our salvation, you and I have not fully experienced that yet.

We're only seeing it in part. We've only experienced it in part. We are worshipping God much closer than we were able to. We were outside the gate. We came into the court and we were worshipping God, but yet we are still distant until we are glorified and he comes to bring us.

Until we are glorified with him, we're only experiencing part. So that's why the Bible describes our salvation as being saved. We are saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. Justification, sanctification, glorification. So when the perfect comes, when God's intended goal of salvation comes, all that is imperfect shall pass away.

All that is imperfect in an animal, all that is imperfect in a human being was not intended by God. Even if it was not a direct result of the sin of that man. God made Adam and Eve perfect and every imperfection of the man or of the woman was a reflection of the imperfection of mankind at the fall.

So when he disqualifies a priest, again symbolically, as a shadow, it is the point to a perfect God, to a perfect sacrifice, to make us perfect in him. Now this does not mean, just because they kept these laws doesn't mean that they were really pure. Just because a man was born perfect and everything was right and ritually he was clean, he married the right woman, his children were not in rebellion, doesn't mean that he was righteous before God.

All of these things pointed because they were a shadow of the reality that was to come. It was only to teach Israel and ultimately the world to reflect God's perfection and ultimately need for man to be made whole in Christ. So when we're reading chapter 21, to not to be caught up in thinking, "Well, that's not fair," or "This is right," or "This is wrong." What does this teach about God?

What does this teach about our sin? What does this teach about our salvation? What does this teach about God's intended purpose of salvation? I want to wrap up all of this to show you that God is a merciful God. God is not picking on these people who have these defections and say, "You know what?

I don't want anything to do with that." If you look at Isaiah 56, 3-5, he describes salvation and at some point when he brings perfection, it's described this way, "Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely separate me from his people,' nor let the eunuch," right?

And this eunuch is a man who is described here as a man who is defected. "Let the eunuch say, 'Behold, I am a dry tree.' For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath and choose what pleases me and hold fast my commandment. To them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons of the daughters, and I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off." Remember the Ethiopian eunuch?

When Philip is caught up in the Holy Spirit and he runs into him and Eunuch says, "What prevents me from being baptized?" And he gets baptized and then he disappears? There's a point to that story. The door was being opened to the eunuchs because of what Christ has done, right?

The defected people, the sins, right? The misfits, the broken. So the gospel and the perfect sacrifice, the perfect Lamb of God made us perfect in Christ. So even the eunuch became perfect because of Christ's sacrifice. All of this points to the reality we find in Christ, right? So it has significance, right?

So sometimes we read the book of Leviticus and we get caught up in these details and we see the bigger picture of what Christ is doing. So when you really see God's heart and what God is doing in the big picture, Leviticus chapter 21 is really beautiful because he's going to make all of this right.

All of these defects, right? All that went wrong because of the fall, he's going to make it right in Christ. All right. So we have the four questions. Okay, again, because we're talking about leadership, why is leadership so important in the health of the church? And then there's three passages that you can take a look at for references.

What is the difference between calling out sins of an elder versus regular member of the congregation? In the New Testament, you see the distinction. Matthew 18, 15 to 20 talks about dealing with sin in the congregation. And then first Timothy 5, 19, calling out an elder. So take a look at those passages and see what's different.

What will the leaders be accountable for according to Hebrews 13, 17? And why this is such a high calling that you shouldn't just kind of like drift into. And so as a result of that, it says to submit to your elders because they watch over your souls, right? So take a look at that passage and say, what higher accountability is there for leadership?

And then four, should a leader who has fallen be given an opportunity to be stored back into a leadership? Again, you may not have time to get to that, but I just threw that in there just in case you run out of time and you want something controversial to talk about.

All right. So let me pray for us and then I'll let you guys get into your small groups. Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you so much for seeing our defects, but loving us. That Christ's perfection covers our imperfections. We thank you. I pray, Father God, that our worship may be a reasonable response to the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.