Introduction to Five Glimpses of Grace - June 13th, 2021

Introduction:

Sometimes in planning for preaching, as in life, we attempt to make the best plans we can with as much foresight as possible down the road, but then the Lord directs our more immediate steps. As the servant of Abraham testified, “I being in the way, the LORD led me.”

I love to watch the Lord at work. If you would have said last September that I would be preaching a series in Leviticus, during Summer in the Sonshine of all seasons, I would have thought you had too much pizza too late at night or something. But I cannot help but notice how the Lord has guided our steps since Resurrection Sunday. I began a series entitled, “Into the Wilderness” with a focus on the Shechinah glory and the presence of Jehovah with man for three messages. Then, we continued with three more messages surrounding the Tabernacle as God’s Ground Plan for Salvation. Just when I felt we might be shifting, the Lord intervened again, and confirmed in my heart that now we are to move into a series entitled “Five Glimpses of Grace in the Levitical Offerings.” Either I’m crazy, or the Lord must know more than me, so I humbly defer to His Spirit’s leading. Tonight, I plan to provide a brief introduction to the series which, Lord willing, will carry us through the end of August, just before “Round-Up Sunday” when we have Evangelist Gary Gillmore coming to be with us. Mark your calendars, and get out there and bring some folks into God’s house that week (Sept. 12-15, 2021)!

I mention that because I think it no coincidence that Wednesday, Sept. 15th just so happens to be Yom Kippur for our Jewish friends. I’m so thankful for Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, my personal Savior who washed me from my sins in His own blood! As we look at these five glimpses of grace in the Levitical offerings, I hope you will come to love Him even more as you consider how Jesus is pictured in each of these five offerings. Next time, we will begin our journey with the Burnt Offering as described in Leviticus 1:1-17, but,

Before we consider the offerings individually let us take a look at them generally.

A general overview of the offerings will help us to understand their purpose and interrelationship.

They are separate offerings but they cannot be separated from each other.

They are closely connected and they teach vital principles of New Testament truth.

In this general survey of the sacrifices there are seven things to which we should give our attention.

Transition: The first thing we should consider in the sacrifices of worship is:

God’s People Needed Instructions in Worship that Pleases God

In spiritual matters there is a necessity for divine directions.

Sinful man has absolutely no idea of what it takes to please God until he has a word from God that tells him.

God’s people needed instructions in the ways of worship.

They needed divine details so that their worship would have no guesswork about what was required for sinful man to approach a holy God.

In meticulous detail God spelled out the letters of His laws.

God provided heavenly revelation and left no room for human reasoning.

The attempts of worldly wisdom have never been able to discover the person of God or His purpose (compare 1 Corinthians 1:21), The knowledge of God’s plans comes only as He reveals them.

So many today have compromised when it comes to worship in the House of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, they gave the world, and may I say, the devil a toe-hold generations ago, and now our so-called sanctuaries are littered with worldliness so much that you cannot tell if you are even in church or not at all. Nadab & Abihu felt the severe consequences of trying worship their own way while disregarding God’s clear instructions.

Compromise Kills

Income Tax

When the federal income tax was signed into law in 1913, a senator speaking in opposition to the bill stated: “If we allow this 1 percent foot-in-the-door, at some future date it might rise to 5 percent.”

~Bits & Pieces, March 2, 1995, p. 1

The Hunter and the Bear

Winter was coming on and a hunter went out into the forest to shoot a bear out of which he planned to make a warm coat. By and by he saw a bear coming toward him and raised his gun and took aim.

“Wait,” said the bear, “why do you want to shoot me?”

“Because I am cold,” said the hunter.

“But I am hungry,” the bear replied, “so maybe we can reach an agreement.”

In the end, the hunter was well enveloped with the bear’s fur and the bear had eaten his dinner. We always lose out when we try to compromise with sin. It will consume us in the end.

~Source unknown

[Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002)]

God told His people what He wanted and how to do what He wanted.

The plans were plain and were not subject to questioning minds.

Knowing exactly what God desired, all His people had to do was obediently follow the plans God prescribed.

Man’s failure in his relationship with the Lord is responding to God’s instructions with the insertion of his own ideas.

Transition: The second thing that should claim our attention in the sacrifices of worship is

God Instructed Israel on Five Old Testament Offerings

The offerings used for the services of worship in the tabernacle are numbered at five.

Five is the number of grace, and it speaks of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin. As one poet put it so beautifully,

He ever lives above

For me to intercede.

His all-redeeming love,

His precious blood to plead;

His blood atoned for all our race,

And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bore,

Received on Calvary,

They pour effectual prayers,

They strongly plead for me:

“Forgive him, oh, forgive,” they cry,

“Nor let that ransomed sinner die.”

[Herbert Lockyer, All the Teachings of Jesus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), 147.]

The five offerings are found in the first five chapters of Leviticus.

In chapter one we read about the burnt offering.

In chapter two we read about the meal offering.

In chapter three we read about the peace offering.

In chapter four we read about the sin offering.

In chapter five we read about the trespass offering.

You see, just one Levitical offering would never be enough to tell the story of God’s redeeming grace.

Five were required to completely reveal the person and work of Christ as an offering for sin.

Spurgeon once related a story that illustrates what Jesus has to offer us poor sinners:

Jesus Has, and Offers, as Much as We Need

There was a sailor, who, if I remember the story rightly, once called at Lubbock’s bank to cash his paycheck. I think he was to draw £50, [$70.54 USD today] so he said to the clerk, “I don’t like to be hard on anybody. Since you have to pay out all this money, I will take ten pounds now, and I will call again another day for some more, since I don’t want to break you up.” Of course, you may imagine how they smiled at the simplicity of the man who thought that he might break the bank by drawing out such an enormous sum of money as fifty pounds all at once!

You smile at the illustration, yet that is just exactly how many sinners treat the Lord Jesus Christ. They seem to think it is too much to expect to receive from him the full and free forgiveness of all their sins; they imagine that it is too much for Christ to give all at once. But they do not know that the Lord Jesus Christ has already pardoned enough sinners to make heaven as bright with redeemed spirits as the sky is with stars, and still that he has as much pardoning mercy left as ever he had. After you draw from a perennial fountain as much water as you need, it still springs up as copiously as ever. So is it with the living water that is stored up in Christ, and you may have it, poor thirsty soul, as much as you need.166

[166 C. H. Spurgeon, “The Source,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 50 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1904), 405–6.]

[Charles Spurgeon, 300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon, ed. Elliot Ritzema and Lynnea Smoyer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017).]

Jesus is the one offering but it took five offerings to portray the wondrous grace of our loving Lord.

Transition: The third thing that should be brought before us in the sacrifices of worship is that,

Offerings Are Characterized by Sacrifice

The singular characteristic of the offerings was sacrifice.

Each of the offerings with only one exception demanded the shedding of blood.

The lone exception was the Meal Offering.

The way to God was a blood-sprinkled path.

In Hebrews 9:22 we read these words:

Hebrews 9:22 KJV 1900

22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Abel’s offering was acceptable because he came before God with the blood of the lamb.

The offerings were not only sacrificial but also typical.

The offerings were a type and Christ is the fulfillment of what they typified.

They are the shadow and Jesus Christ is the substance who cast their shadow.

Paul spoke of the ceremonies of the Old Testament as,

Colossians 2:17 (KJV 1900)

17 ...a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Sufficiency of God’s Grace

A man stood up in a meeting and facing the preacher who had spoken about the sufficiency of God’s grace, said: “You can talk like that about Christ—that He is dear to you, that He helps you—but if your wife were dead as my wife is, and you had some babies crying for their mother who would never come back, you could not say what you are saying.” A little later the preacher lost his wife in an accident. After others had conducted the funeral service, he stood by the casket, looked down into the face of the silent wife and mother and said, “The other day when I was preaching, a man said I could not say Christ was sufficient if my wife were dead and my children were crying for their mother. If that man is here, I want to tell him that Christ is sufficient. My heart is broken, my heart is crushed, my heart is bleeding, but there is a song in my heart, and Christ put it there. And if that man is here, I tell him though my wife is gone and my children are motherless, Christ comforts me today.” That man was there, and down the aisle he came and stood beside the casket and said, “Truly, if Christ can help in a time like this, I surrender to Him.”

[AMG Bible Illustrations, Bible Illustrations Series (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2000).]

The Levitical offerings were not enough to remove the guilt of sin, but they pointed to the sufficiency of God’s anointed to take away the sins of the world.

Transition: The fourth thing that should guide our thinking about the sacrifices of worship is

We Serve a God of Perfect Order

The order of the offerings underline the fact that God is a God of order and His order is nothing less than perfect.

God’s order is seen in His creation.

All inanimate creation follows the order God has ordained.

The heavens and the earth display His perfect precision and nothing deviates from His imposed order.

God has a reason for His order and when there is is a difference in that order He has a reason for that change.

The law of the offerings is found in the sixth and seventh chapters of Leviticus, but they are not in the same order as those assigned in chapters one through five.

In chapters one through five the peace offering is placed between the two voluntary offerings and the two compulsory offerings.

The first two offerings were optional.

The last two were an obligation.

God required a sin offering and a trespass offering.

The burnt offering and the meal offering are called “sweet savor” offerings.

Because the peace offering is also a sweet savor offering it is logically grouped with them.

However, in chapters six and seven the peace offering is removed from the middle position and listed as the last of the offerings.

The reason for this should immediately become obvious.

The peace offering in its place at the end teaches us that peace is the outcome of obedience in the other offerings.

Transition: The fifth thing worthy of notice in the sacrifices of worship is

The Sounds of Worship

These foundational chapters in Leviticus dealing with the offerings lay emphasis on sacrifice as the heart of worship.

The scene of sacrifice was a noisy place.

There were the noises of lowing cattle, bleating sheep, slaughtering cries, continual activity, and loud conversation.

The services at the brazen altar of the tabernacle were noisy events and the participants in these holy times had to be deeply touched by what they saw and heard in their experience of worship.

The countenance of the church today is pale in comparison to the face of worship on those ancient and noisy occasions.

Evil makes a loud noise.

The noise of evil men ought to be drowned out by the noise of good men completely sold out to God.

Job made reference to the “noise of his tabernacle” (Job 36:29).

It is significant that the presence of the Holy Spirit is associated with noise.

When the day of Pentecost came and the people of God were in one place with one accord, there came suddenly “a sound from heaven” (Acts 2:2).

The time of revival is associated with noise. In the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel the prophet tells us that as he prophesied “… there was a noise, and behold a shaking …” (Ezekiel 37:7).

In Psalm 33:3 we are told to “sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.”

In Psalm 66:1 we are told to “make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands.”

In Psalm 98:4 we are told to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.”

The noise of praise, of prayer, of preaching and of pardon ought to resound throughout the holy place, causing the noise of repentance and revival. It is only when we hear the noise of weeping that we can hear the noise of joy.

Transition: The sixth thing that should be counted is the comparison to the sacrifices of worship. Think for a few moments about

We Serve a God of Separation

There was a difference between the offerings and the feasts, and the distinction between them was their focus.

The offerings were sacrificial but the feasts were ceremonial.

The attention of the offerings was upward and directed to God.

The concentration of the feasts was outward and aimed at men.

The emphasis of the offerings was sacrifice.

The feasts stressed separation.

The way to God is by sacrifice.

The walk with God is by separation.

Separation and Fellowship go hand in hand:

Separation from the Unclean Thing

The doctrine of separation from “the unclean thing” is neglected today by professing Christians, but it is still here in God’s Word. The context indicates that Paul is warning against Christians being “unequally yoked together with unbelievers” and urging us to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (II Cor. 6:14, 7:1).Such separation does not mean having no contact at all with unbelievers, “for then must ye needs go out of the world” (I Cor. 5:10), whereas Jesus commanded: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). He also prayed to the Father “not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15).

He does demand, however, that we not compromise with unbelief or with the unclean thing. We are “born again” into the family of God through simple faith in the person and saving work of Christ, but the full manifestation and fellowship of our relation with the heavenly Father as His spiritual sons and daughters is evidently, in this passage, conditioned on the vital principle of separation from all unbelief and filthiness of the flesh, with Jesus as our example (Heb. 7:16).

We are specially warned to “turn away” from those who, “having a form of godliness,” yet attempt to accommodate the naturalistic viewpoint of modern scientism within the Scriptures, thus “denying the power thereof” (II Tim. 3.5). “Be ye separate, saith the Lord.”

Source unknown

[Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002).]

The offerings are favor before God and the feasts are fellowship before men.

Transition: The seventh thing that should be clear in our thoughts about the sacrifices of worship is

That Which Is Seen Reveals to Us That Which Is Unseen

The offerings had a special significance. They were more than earthly substance.

In Leviticus 21:6 we are told what these offerings were. God said,

Leviticus 21:6 KJV 1900

6 They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.

The offerings were the bread of God.

They were heavenly portions which were set on the dinner table of the Lord.

They were the food on which God feasted.

Of course God did not feed on the sacrifices offered to Him.

They were material things which spoke of spiritual reality.

God’s nourishment is on what the offerings symbolized.

Because God’s people missed the meaning of His offerings God plainly stated in Psalm 50:8–13 what they signified. Listen and learn about what God calls His bread. He said,

Psalm 50:8–13 KJV 1900

8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices Or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: And the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats?

Conclusion:

God told His people that His bread was not the flesh and blood of slaughtered animals but what these Levitical sacrifices represented.

God finds His nourishment in thanksgiving, fulfillment of our promises to Him, and calling on Him in times of trouble.

Man is physical and he feeds on the material.

God is spirit and He feeds on the spiritual.

God feeds on the loving response of the praise in our voice, the payment of our vows, and the prayers for our victory.

God is love and He finds nourishment in the love returned to Him by our sacrifices of praise.

Let us pray, then, let us enjoy some fellowship together.

[Outline Adapted in large part from: Dean Weaver, Five Glimpses of Grace: The Levitical Offerings, Dean M. Weaver Sermon Outlines (Wordsearch, 2016), 1–19.]