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Now, let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Would you turn in your Bibles to the book of? Leviticus, you know, and Stephen said that he said, "How many of you are excited about being in Leviticus?" And you all cheered. I don't know how many churches that would happen in, so I'm just so happy to be a part of this church, and I love that you love the Word. And so we are in the book of Leviticus in the Bible from thirty thousand feet.
I'm guessing that if you ask the average Christian what's your favorite book in the Bible, they're not going to say Leviticus.
So, so let's just take a quick random poll, if you don't mind. How many of you, your favorite book in the Bible is the Book of Psalms? I want to see hands. Hands raised up. Psalms, your favorite book.
Okay, let's say the Gospel of John. Gospel of John. Wow, a lot of them. Ephesians, Romans. Wow.
Some of you are like voting three or four times. No, I'm just kidding. Hebrews, the Book of Hebrews. Leviticus. Yeah, see what I mean.
So it's just not. There's probably not a lot of underlines and yellow highlights in the Book of Leviticus in your Bible. If you do that to your Bible, I'm guessing your life verse is probably not found in the Book of Leviticus. In fact. I would say the book of Leviticus is sort of like the graveyard of good intentions.
What I mean by that is, we make a New Year's resolution this year. I'm going to read through the Bible. We make it through Genesis. That's awesome, cool stories. Exodus, again, miraculous stories.
Then you get to Leviticus, and you start slowing down, or you just sort of push the pause button altogether. Go, ah, maybe next year I'll chug my way through this thing. The Bible does say, however, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.
So that means this book, because it's part of the Scripture, is part of that promise. Little known fact: the ancient Jews began training their children in the law of God. By using the book of Leviticus, so a child began his study of the Scripture, not in Genesis, not in Psalms, certainly not in the New Testament. It wasn't around, but it was in the book of Leviticus.
Now, why is that?
Well, there is a commentary called the Midrash, Jewish comments on the Old Testament, and it says in that set of books. Children are pure, and the sacrifices are pure.
So let those who are pure come and occupy themselves with pure things. They just believed that this was sort of like. the the hub the center of their of their life their community life their spiritual life the laws that are given in this book something else you should know the New Testament quotes the book of Leviticus more than one hundred times so this is part of the all Scripture that is profitable I contend that you will not be able to understand the book of Hebrews. Unless you at least have a working knowledge of the Book of Leviticus, the Book of Hebrews opens. God, who at different times and in different ways spoke to our fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.
The things that God spoke in the past that that book occupies itself with, the Book of Hebrews primarily, are the sacrifices and the analogies that are found in the Book of Leviticus.
Now, as you open the Book of Leviticus, and again, we're just soaring over this. We'll bend the plane down to a scripture here and there, and look at it, and get a little closer a couple of times. But they are camped. In the wilderness. As you open this book, it's a wilderness setting.
In fact, they are in front of a mountain called Mount Sinai. It's in the middle of the wilderness. I have been there once in my life. I had the opportunity of climbing it up to the top and back. Jabal Musa, the Arabs call that mountain.
So they are camped before this mountain, and the book opens and closes at the same geographical point. They begin the beginning of Leviticus, the end of Leviticus. It's all instruction that God gives while they are camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. They're there for about a month, and during that time, they're going to school as God instructs them.
Now let's divide the book up. I'm going to cut it into two sections: chapters one through seventeen, section one; chapters eighteen through twenty-seven. Section two, the first seventeen chapters, are about the way to God through sacrifice. That's the key word in those seventeen chapters: sacrifice. The way to God through sacrifice, beginning in chapters eighteen all the way to chapters twenty-seven.
It's a walk with God. Through sanctification. Don't worry, I'm going to explain what that means in a little bit.
So, the way to God through sacrifice, and then a walk with God through sanctification.
So, those two words, you could say, if you wanted a nutshell version of this book, those two words sum it up: sacrifice and sanctification. Sacrifice is an event. In the case of the Old Testament, they took an animal and slaughtered it. That's an event. That's the sacrifice.
Sanctification is not an event; it's a process. It's over a long period of time. A walk with God is a lifetime.
So, that sums up your testimony, doesn't it? The sacrifice at Calvary through Jesus Christ, your Lord, He died for your sins on your behalf. That's the event. But then a walk with God through sanctification—that's the rest of your Christian life after the event.
Now we discover in the book of Leviticus that the major issue is how to get close to God and how to stay close to God.
Now I think everybody would agree that God is good, right? We say that God is good all the time, and we would say, you know, it's good to be in the presence of the Lord, right? That's what we say. Man, we've been in the presence of the Lord tonight. It is good to be in the presence of God.
Can you say that? It is good to be in the presence of God. However, it's also dangerous to be in the presence of God. We discover that in the book of Leviticus. We kind of in the New Testament take for granted what it takes to get us into God's presence.
So we just think, "Ah, we're here." Gee, I know Jesus died on a cross. It's good to be in God's presence. We we open the Old Testament and we discover it's good, but it's also very dangerous. We're going to see how dangerous. Animals are killed to get people into God's presence.
Blood is shed. For that to happen, a high priest represents the rest of the nation, and he approaches very, very carefully the presence of God, lest he himself is killed.
So. I heard an analogy the last couple weeks that really helped me. It's sort of like the sun. I think all of us would say the sun is good. That's why we live here.
You know, we like sunshine. We live in the great Southwest, copious sunshine, most year most year round. It is good, but if you get too close to the blazing glory of the sun. You will die. In fact, if you get within three million miles of the sun, the temperature, the ambient air temperature, will be two hundred and forty-eight degrees.
You will die. You will burn up.
So it's sort of like that with God. God's pure holiness is awesome, but you get too close to that, you can't handle it. Moses said, "Show me your glory." Remember that last time. God said, "You know what, Mo? You'll die if you behold my full, unfiltered, undiminished glory.
I'm going to pass by, guard you with my hand, and at the appropriate moment, as I pass by, I'm going to let you see the afterglow, and that's about all you can handle." So we can't behold him face to face yet. We're not equipped to do so. One day we will be, and we will have that privilege.
So Leviticus provides the solution to that. What's the solution? You need sacrifices. You need somebody offering the sacrifices. In this case, the priesthood, and then you need purity laws so that the nation can stay close to God's presence.
Now, just another note. Leviticus speaks more about holiness than any other book in the Bible. The word holy, the word blood, the word priest, and the word sacrifice—those four words are repeated in this book more than any other book in the entire Bible. One of the key themes is the word I just mentioned: blood. Blood will be mentioned in this book alone 88 times.
Now there's a key lesson there. When you see blood, in the case of Leviticus, animals who shed their blood, it is meant to teach us a lesson. It was meant to teach them a lesson. A lesson. What's the lesson?
Sin is awful. That's what sin does. It it is destructive. It destroys life. The wages of sin is death.
So sin makes a bloody mess of things, and that's what we notice when we see the sacrifices. Blood must be shed; a victim must be slain to atone for sin.
Now the people will bring the offerings. In the book of Leviticus, the priest will take the offerings. And will slaughter and make the sacrifice for the people.
So the priest business is the business of the tabernacle. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. The Bible is a big book, 66 books filled with history, poetry, prophecy, letters, laws, and more. It's easy to lose sight of how it all fits together. That's why Pastor Skip Heitzig wrote his new one-year devotional, Soaring Above It All.
It gives you a panoramic view of Scripture, helping you understand the key people, events, and themes from Genesis to Revelation, while deepening your walk with God. Request soaring above it all as our thanks when you give fifty dollars or more today to help connect with Skip, share clear verse-by-verse Bible teaching with people everywhere. Give now at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer, or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight.
Now, here is more from Pastor Skip.
Now, a quick note: if you want to serve as a priest, you can't just say, "You know, I I feel called to the priesthood. I'd I'd like to be a priest." You have to have the right genes. You have to have Levi genes, right? And I mean, G E N E S—the right genetic makeup. You have to be of that tribe and of that lineage.
So you have to have Levitical genes. Hence, Leviticus means pertaining to the Levites. Chapters one through seven. Give us laws of personal proximity. If you're taking notes, write that down.
Laws of personal proximity. What do I mean by that? These seven chapters answer the question: How can I get close to God? How can I come into God's presence? Answer only by sacrifice.
Now, the sacrifices that are mentioned in the first seven chapters.
Some of the sacrifices are in effect the people saying, "I'm sorry, God, I've sinned. Please forgive me." Other sacrifices are saying, "Thank you, God, you're awesome. I just wanted to tell you that and give you this." They're voluntary and not compulsory. In verse one of the book, it says, "Now the Lord called to Moses." And spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock, of the herd, and of the flock." If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. He shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord.
Then he will put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He shall kill the bull before the Lord, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar. That is by the door of the tabernacle of meeting. What's going on here?
Well, man has a huge problem. And that is, if if mankind wants to get close to God, who is holy, wants to hang out with God, he has to deal with an issue. What's the issue? Sin.
So we have a we have a sin problem. We are all sin positive. We're born that way. It's part of our genetic makeup. We were born fallen because of what Adam has done, but then we ourselves we do things that are disobedient to God as well.
So that has to be taken care of. Sin is the great divider. One John chapter. One verse eight to nine. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So we have to admit it. We have to confess it. And the word confess means that we agree with God. We we agree with God about sin. We say the same thing about it as God says about it.
It's funny how some people will will pray, you know, without kind of admitting that they're sinners. It's like, well, God, if I have sinned, would you please forgive me? Stop right there, buddy. If you're not quite sure about it, why are you even praying about it? You see, if if you try to hide it, the Bible says you will not prosper.
If you confess and forsake your sin, you will find mercy.
So we should call sin what God calls sin.
Okay, so I'm kind of big about this. I've noticed that over the years, the church sort of likes to soft pedal things and say things differently, and you know, don't use that word. People are offended by the word sin. Good, be offended by it. Be so offended that you hate it like God hates it, and you want to forsake it like God wants you to forsake it.
So we need to confess our sin. You know, if we call it something differently, it does no one any good. If you take a bottle of poison. And you decide to re-label it like, I don't know, winter green mouthwash. Is that helpful?
No, that's harmful. In fact, the more you dress up the label, the more dangerous the contents become. We need to label it what it is—that it's poisonous, that it's harmful.
So, the first seven chapters are all about fixing that. Without the shedding of blood, Hebrews nine tells us, referring to Leviticus, without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sin.
So, if you were to go to the tabernacle back then on any given day, you know what it would look like to you—a slaughterhouse, like a meat packing company, like a carnesería. Right, it's like animals being butchered and blood being let in cotton basins and removed, and more animals being slain. It was like a slaughterhouse. Enormous amounts of blood. This bothers some people.
They say, you know, the Bible is sort of a bloody thing, and Christianity is a bloody religion. You bet your sweet bippy, it is. (Laughter) Boy, that's an old term. That's like the nineteen sixty s or seventy s.
So listen, blood circulates throughout the Book of Leviticus, and did you know that blood is circulating throughout the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation? And scholars have noted this as the scarlet thread of redemption. It's woven through all the different books of the Bible, and it leads right to Calvary, right to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Now, offering the word offering and the word sacrifice; those two words appear 192 times in the Book of Leviticus. Why? Because where sin exists. There must be a payment, and the payment that God accepts is blood.
So the blood of animals was used to cover sin in those days. Think of it this way: the essence of a sacrifice was like a drama, a stage drama, and when somebody would bring an animal and blood would be spilled and the animal would be killed and offered up, everybody saw that.
So. The sacrifices expressed truths visually, rather than verbally. I'm expressing verbal truths tonight. It would be quite different if I had a little animal that you could hear it bleat, and I slit its throat in front of you. See, just me saying that makes you grossed up.
So the Old Testament sacrifice was that drama played out. It was like ancient television, only they saw it. It happened in front of them.
Now, what does this tell us? Leviticus, and you start going through these sacrifices, you discover the fallacy of the idea that people have about religion. They say, "Well, you know, all religions are basically the same, and all religions lead to God." And we discover as we go just through the book of Leviticus that that ain't so, that it's very narrow, and that God is very exclusive. If you want to hang out in God's presence, you have to bring an animal that will be killed, and that blood will be shed. These sacrifices, by the way, are not just.
Reparatory—that is to repair things, to fix the problem of sin. They're also anticipatory; that is, the sacrifices speak of better things. That's what Hebrew said. Hebrew says the sacrifices of Leviticus speak of a better sacrifice, a better high priest, a better altar. In other words, they're fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why Jesus said to the Pharisees, "If you would have believed Moses, you would believe me, for Moses wrote about me." Which begs the question: Well, where did Moses write about you?
Well, Leviticus is one of them. Blood that is shed, a lamb that is slain, an innocent victim in the place of the people who have sinned. And I always have wished that Luke chapter twenty four would be expanded. You know, the road to Emmaus when Jesus walks alongside those guys incognito; they don't know it's Jesus. And he said, "It says that beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the things concerning Himself." I'm sure he opened their Jewish eyes to the meaning of the Levitical sacrifice as part of that discourse.
So, chapters one through seven are the laws of personal proximity. Five offerings are given: five offerings, burnt offering, grain offering, the peace offering, a sin offering, and the trespass offering. Those five offerings. The first three. When they're made, God says, "That's a sweet-smelling aroma to me.
I like the smell of that. I do too, by the way." When somebody takes meat and puts it on a fire and grills it, like barbecue lamb, I love that. God is saying, "I love it too, but for different reasons. You like the barbecue smell. I love the idea that you are doing it to worship me.
My heart is glad that you come to worship me." So, the first three—the burnt, the grain, and the peace offering—are called a sweet aroma to the Lord. They're optional; you don't have to bring them. They're not obligatory; they are optional. The last two—the sin offering and the trespass. Are reversed.
They are obligatory; they are not discretionary. You have to do it. Why? Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And so to fix the sin problem.
And by the way, a sin is different than a trespass. Everybody sins because they fall short of the mark. But then there's the trespass, which is crossing the line deliberately. Like, don't cross the line.
Okay.
So that's a trespass. I know I shouldn't do it, but I do it anyway. That had to be paid for, so those are the five offerings.
Now, chapter six and chapter seven are laws for the priests who would administrate those offerings that were brought, that are enumerated in the first few chapters.
So it's like office protocol for the priests. When we get to chapter eight, nine, and ten, I call these laws of professional activity. Laws of professional activity. Why? Because we're dealing with priests now.
It's the priesthood. It's their profession to take yours and my sacrifices, if we lived back then, and offer them for us.
So this answers the question: Who can approach God for me? First question that the first few chapters. Ask and answer is how can I approach God? Answer by sacrifice. Chapters eight through ten answer the question: Who can approach God for me?
Answer: Only a priest can. Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share clear verse-by-verse Bible teaching with people everywhere, helping them know God more deeply and live out His truth. And this month, when you give fifty dollars or more, we'll send you Pastor Skip's brand new devotional, Soaring Above It All, as our thanks. This one-year journey through the Bible will help you see how Scripture fits together, understand its key people, events, and themes, and grow deeper in God's Word each day.
Give today at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
