Sermon Tone Analysis

December 8, 1996 - OBC - AM

*BEHOLD THE LAMB*

*THE LAMB PRESENTED*

* *

*THE NEED FOR PRESENTATION *

*Leviticus 16:1-34*

/ /

/Lev 16:1-34/

/1              Now the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the LORD and died./

/2              And the LORD said to Moses, "Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat./

/3              "Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering./

/4              "He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash, and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments).

Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on./

/5              "And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering./

/6              "Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household./

/7              "And he shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the doorway of the tent of meeting./

/8              "And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat./

/9              "Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the LORD fell, and make it a sin offering./

/10           "But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat./

/11           "Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his household, and he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself./

/12           "And he shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring {it} inside the veil./

/13           "And he shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on {the ark of} the testimony, lest he die./

/14           "Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle {it} with his finger on the mercy seat on the east {side}  also in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times./

/15           "Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil, and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat./

/16           "And he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities./

/17           "When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of Israel./

/18           "Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides./

/19           "And with his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times, and cleanse it, and from the impurities of the sons of Israel consecrate it./

/20           "When he finishes atoning for the holy place, and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat./

/21           "Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send {it} away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who {stands} in readiness./

/22           "And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness./

/23           "Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting, and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there./

/24           "And he shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes, and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people, and make atonement for himself and for the people./

/25           "Then he shall offer up in smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar./

/26           "And the one who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water; then afterward he shall come into the camp./

/27           "But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire./

/28           "Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water, then afterward he shall come into the camp./

/29           "And {this} shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls, and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;/

/30           for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you shall be clean from all your sins before the LORD./

/31           "It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute./

/32           "So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father's place shall make atonement: he shall thus put on the linen garments, the holy garments,/

/33           and make atonement for the holy sanctuary; and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar.

He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly./

/34           "Now you shall have this as a permanent statute, to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once every year."

And just as the LORD had commanded Moses, {so} he did./

/(NAS)/

 

*INTRODUCTION*

 

The sixteenth chapter of Leviticus is the conclusion of the first great section of this book.

We have been looking at God's provisions to meet his people's needs.

How like a Heavenly Father he watches over us, his people, with tender,

compassionate care!

How intimately he is concerned with every detail of life, even the most trivial, even matters of diet and clothing and how to treat apparently rather insignificant diseases.

The fact that all this has counterparts in our spiritual life is a tremendous encouragement to us to walk in faith and to draw upon his resources.

If an earthly father sits down to figure out the budget to meet his family needs he usually puts aside so much for rent, for food, and for clothes, so much for education, for recreation, and for other essentials---Sports Illustrated, etc.

But God does it quite differently.

When he determined the essentials and made provision for them, as you notice he stresses through this book, he set aside so much to provide for love, for joy, for peace, and for forgiveness, so much for companionship, for understanding, and for guidance.

These are the essentials as God sees them.

You remember that in the Sermon on the Mount when our Lord Jesus is setting forth the secrets of life he goes through a list of things that men seek for, and he says to his own, "I don't want you to be anxious about what you shall eat or drink or how you are going to be clothed.

But," he says, "the essential thing is: seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness---these necessary things of the spirit," and then almost with a touch of disdain he adds, "and all these other

things will be added unto you."

How we have reversed that!

We spend our time and energy thinking about how to get money to provide food and clothing and education and so on, and we have just a little time left over for the essentials.

No wonder life often goes

awry!

No wonder so much of it is lived backward!

But once again, we are called by God to put life back in balance and to give attention to these relationships with one another, to the love and the peace and the joy of our lives, and then these other things will find adequate place without any struggle.

They will come not out of any automatic provision but out of the normal workings of life.

In the book of Leviticus God teaches us, first of all, *the need for a substitute*.

Despite all the accumulation of human knowledge we cannot handle life adequately by ourselves.

The offerings teach us that.

We need a substitute beyond humanity, a divine substitute, one who took our place.

And this we find in Jesus Christ.

And then, because we don't understand the mysteries of our existence apart from someone who can explain them and apply them to

us, *we need a great high priest*.

That too is met in Christ.

*Then we need a* *standard, *something to measure life by, to tell us the difference between what will hurt us and what will help us, what will advance us and what will destroy us.

We need God's gracious word to understand what confronts us in life and thus to be able to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil.

That is not easy to do, but God has provided a standard.

We come in this chapter to what the Jews to this day call Yom Kippur, the great Day of Atonement, the high point of the year in the life of Israel.

I have struggled for several weeks over what to title this message.

I have changed my mind several times because it is hard to focus precisely on what this chapter is driving at.

But finally as I worked this passage through I came to see that the great thing God is after here, *the ultimate end of all his working in our lives, is to bring us to a "presentation" of ourselves before him, to meet our need to appear in a face to face encounter with the living God, to come before his presence in a satisfying communion which fills every aching void of our lives.*

If I could read your hearts I am sure that deep within you I would find a hunger and a cry after that very thing.

That is what accounts for the restlessness of humanity.

It is the cry of the human spirit for the face of God.

Nothing is more

confirmatory of the fact that man is a creature flung from the hand and heart of God.

We can never forget the fact that one day long ago we humans were made to walk in daily fellowship in the cool of the garden with a living God.

We still long for that, and no human relationship can quite satisfy that yearning.

We have all found that even the nearest and dearest to us can go only so far in meeting that desire.

Then their efforts begin to fade and a void is left unfulfilled.

That void, that cry for something more than your dearest companion can give you, is the cry of your spirit for the face of God.

Remember how beautifully David puts this in the 27th Psalm.

He says to God,

/ Ps 27:8-9/

/8              {When Thou didst say,} "Seek My face," my heart said to Thee, "Thy face, O LORD, I shall seek."/

/9              Do not hide Thy face from me, do not turn Thy servant away in anger; Thou hast been my help; do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation!/

/(NAS)/

 

The difficulty we all have with this is the ease with which all the sin and evil and the shameful habits of our life cloud and veil us from the face of God, the ease by which the memory of what we have done and been comes back to haunt us and

to disturb our sense of boldness and confidence in coming to God.

In other words, we have a troubled conscience.

But the ultimate end of God's work with us is to give us a clear conscience.