Is there anything in here I can use as a Christian to make me stronger as a believer? Is there anything in here I can use to witness to lost souls? I think the answer is. Yes, absolutely. But you gotta see the benefits.
From hearing the voice of God, which Moses starts off with in his first chapter. The question also arises, has hardship knocked out of you, hardship in life. knocked out of you an appreciation. or passionate devotion. I'm sorry.
This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Leviticus. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, here's Pastor Rick in the book of Leviticus chapter 1 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio.
Leviticus chapter twenty. Chapter twenty, verse seven is the text Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.
Well, Leviticus continues where Exodus left off. It follows right after the. last chapter in Exodus. And there Israel is at Mount Sinai. Yahweh's presence is there.
That's where they receive the law, the law of the Lord. And they just finished. Um erecting the tabernacle. And Moses is summonsed by God to come and To the tabernacle, and this is where. Moses is going to receive the book of Leviticus.
Prior to the temple being established, Moses was called to the mount, a mount of God. And he's sure glad tabernacle's here now. You don't have to climb that mountain. This fact alone should stir the reader, at least gather the attention.
So, just looking over at verse 1 of Leviticus 1, now Yahweh called to Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting. And then he begins to lay out these sacrifices that the Jews are to bring. Uh the first three are willful. Free will offerings, and the other two are mandatory, based on one's behavior, the sin and the trespass offering. The question is.
Is this the book of Leviticus? to you. Disconnected from your Christian life. Is it disconnected for from the world? In other words, well, is there anything in here I can use as a Christian to make me stronger as a believer?
Is there anything in here I can use to witness to lost souls? I think the answer is. Yes, absolutely. But you got to see the benefits. From hearing the voice of God, which Moses starts off with in his first chapter.
The question also arises, has hardship knocked out of you hardship in life knocked out of you an appreciation for passionate devotion. And we all have our times when we're just low and got to work through that. But overall, the Christian life, his devotional time, should have passion. It should not be this dried up thing. David's brand of worship.
was hot. like Samuel's. Passionate. He had his downtimes too. In fact, what David did in his downtimes, it seems he wrote a psalm.
I'm feeling pretty bad today, and he writes a psalm. When I feel low-spirited, I write my prayers to the Lord. They don't become psalms. But I sure feel like I enjoy doing that. Rather than scraping my knuckles on the ground when I walk.
In 1 Samuel. When King Saul Sent to have David arrested so. Saul could kill him. We read about what happened. To the men that came to arrest David, Then Saul sent messengers to take David.
First Samuel nineteen, verse twenty. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, here it comes. and Samuel standing as leader over them. What a picture Samuel's an old timer at this point in history. The glory days between he and Saul are gone But he is investing himself in the school of the prophets.
And they're likely singing. That's what's going on. Prophecy is the word. We've covered that many times. There's different.
Parts to prophecy, not just telling the future, could be reading scripture, but likely here it is singing, because this is how it goes. And Samuel standing as leader over them. The Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, And they also prophesied. They were drawn in this passion. that belong to the Jewish worship.
Well, how many books of the Bible did Samuel have?
Well, he had the first five. He had Joshua. Judges was in motion. And he being the last of the judges. And yet, just with those books, Here we see him standing as leader Over the men as they are singing in song, that's how I'm going to approach it.
And those who came to arrest David. We're overcome. With the glory of the Lord. Saul's brand of worship, on the other hand, was cold. It was selfish and it was defective.
defective to the point of being deadly. not only for others, but ultimately for himself.
So When we consider passion in the believer, It's found in the book of Leviticus. There's nothing boring about the sacrifices that were brought before the Lord. If you were the one bringing them, they were, as I mentioned, three of them, free will. There were things taking place before you arrived at the temple in your own heart. That got you to the temple.
Absalom dismissed the passion of the Jews. And look at the life of Absalom. He was not It was not a sacrificial life. It was a wasted life.
So many lessons coming out of the characters in scripture. It's almost like God is saying, hey, stay in it. Look at this guy. Look at them. You can see yourself in this thing.
I can use you. But I need you. to have your heart in it. Who wants servants in the house of God whose heart is not in it. You want a house of God, you say, Boy, people, their heart is in this ministry.
Just today, I had a visitor come in. And when he was leaving, he said, Boy, this place is so clean.
Well, you can thank the servants for that. I was napping when all that took place. I don't get any of the credit. But it shows. And there was somebody who pointed it out.
and it's my delight to be able to share the story. Daniel's passion for the family. For God? was hot. There he is in Babylon surrounded by Temptations to leave the law of God behind, and he did not waver.
We know the story. He did not defile himself, the scripture says, with a portion of the king's delicacies. Because he purposed in his heart. Where did that purpose come from? It did not come from not reading scripture.
It came from being a man of the word. And that's why if you go through the scripture and you count how many times the word of God is stressed to you, you'll lose count. It's just too much. The sacrificial approach. The offerings, the worship of the godly Jews was built upon the foundation of this book of Leviticus, and I hope to point that out.
And I hope as we go through that we don't lose any of it.
Well, that was a good start. but we didn't seem to keep the pace. I hope that's not the way it's going to be. The word sacrifice is found twice as much In the book of Leviticus, Believe it or not, than the book of Exodus. There was passion in these offerings to God from the people who brought them.
Nothing ho-hum about bringing a whole burnt offering to God. Are those ancient Jews supposed to out serve us? Are they supposed to be more passionate? In the ministry of the word that they had. Than we are?
You know, you hear somebody say, Well, do I really have to give a tenth? No, you don't. You can let those Jews outdo you if you want. God won't say anything to you.
So out of this passion comes hope. The goodness of God leads to repentance, Paul said. That character of God inspires hope in the recipient of the Of that goodness. And the book is is about hope for the sinner. In the presence of God, a sinner, someone who doesn't deserve to be in His presence, there's hope.
That's what the sacrifices say: there's hope for you. You can come to me. You gotta do it my way. And it's going to be bloody. In this book of Leviticus, We read, I am the Lord, or I am Yahweh.
Not Adonai? Lord, but Yahweh 45 times. The word holy 78 times in the book of Leviticus. The second runner-up is the book of Acts, with 51. The Holy Spirit.
But Leviticus, the word appears more than any other book in the scripture. It is saying God is pure, and his door is still open to the impure. There's hope in that. And that hope. It's based on this passion for God.
The Psalms celebrate this very thing. Celebrate Yahweh. I will honor my word above my name. And then it celebrates the holiness of God. and his character.
And that's why I I I believe the Psalms are better read. Then taught. You really don't have to teach the believer too much about the Psalms because it's right there. Easy pickings. It's like manna.
on the surface of the ground. God could have barred fallen man from having any relationship with him. And this is what we need to tell the world. You know why you're running around rejecting Christ. You're trampling the opportunity to not reject Christ.
Who truly is, spending all your energy looking for a reason not to believe, and there is none. Except the ones in your own mind.
So, God could have barred man from his presence. It's a story of Adam and Eve being put out of the Garden of Eden. God very serious about them not coming back in, so he put a cherubim there. to guard the way. They were banished from the garden, but they weren't banished from God.
Try to remember that the next time you feel mean-spirited towards someone. Very easy, especially if you feel wronged. Feel like, you know, I've got to stand up for myself because if I don't, they're going to walk all over me. I need to learn that lesson too. Just trust God.
Instead of the we have these rules. From the Lord on how to approach him. Instead of banishing us. But there are no nonsense rules. They're not casual.
They're like if you're in the mood.
Well, the free will has something to do with mood, but it's a mood that's based on. or relationship with God to begin with. God does not lower his standards. And he does not apologize for them. But he does call For those out of Egypt those Jews To raise their standards, And he calls for us out of sin to raise ours too.
You come to Christ and you think you're going to really blow the doors off of serving Him because you love Him so much.
So grateful for my salvation. Watch me serve. And then you start running into the resistance. And then we're going to find out how that perseverance is going to work itself out in your life. Leviticus is a presentation.
Of holiness. Versus Unholiness. Or else what's the point? The clean. are received The unclean are rejected.
Very simple. No nonsense. But God does not present these things without offering solutions. Invitations. Influence.
And he did it to the Jews, he'll do it to us. Every Gentile has a right to say, if he did it for them, he'll do it for me, because that's who he is. That makes him a god of love. Otherwise he'd he'd be something other. And so this passion, this hope, It's come to us through two lawgivers.
Two lawgivers in the scripture. God sent to Israel, These two men separated by about fifteen hundred years. The first one, of course, is the easy one. Second one is probably easy too. The first one comes from the tribe of Levi, Moses by name.
He is known as the Great Law Giver. The second is from the tribe of Judah. We've got to answer these questions now because we have some conflicts going on. He comes from Judah. But it was announced be long before Levi was singled out.
to be the priestly tribe. This lawgiver is going to be the ultimate lawgiver. There will not be one after him. It shows up in Genesis 49. Here's Jacob on his proverbial deathbed.
He's handing out the blessings to his sons. He gets to Judah. The fourth of his sons, fourth eldest, And he says the scepter shall not depart from Judah. nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people.
Only Christ can satisfy that, and only Christ has satisfied that. And the part about until Shiloh comes doesn't mean, okay, then it all stops. It means. Shadow will fulfil this. That is the application.
The scepter is the ruler. The ruler writes the laws. That's what the ruler does. And then he has those who will enforce his laws. The scepter shall not depart from Judah.
nor a law gi giver from between his feet. But Shiloh's going to be the one to do it. That's the idea of what's being said. But that part to him shall be the obedience of the people. That matches what.
Moses prophesied. Another prophet will come, him you shall listen to, and if you don't, it's going to be trouble for you.
So the two laws. The Old Testament under Moses. And this lawgiver, the New Testament of Christ, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. They're not opposed to each other. is one has just developed.
beyond the other, as a tree does an acorn.
Some twice in Psalms actually. Psalm 60 verse 7 and Psalm 108. Verse 8. We read the psalmists say, Judah is my lawgiver.
Now that has to be prophetic. The Jew in those days knew that it was Levi. Through Levi, through Moses, the law was given. they knew this was hope on the horizon. for the Jewish people.
We know it extended beyond them. A new lawgiver was promised. He would make a new covenant. He would mature the Mosaic law, which is what Jesus meant when he said, Don't think I've come to destroy it, I have come to fulfill it. To develop it.
to put it where it was headed. And that's what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 31. There's going to be a new covenant. Paul dials it into the New Testament in Hebrews 8, verse 8. I'm not going to read these verses because it just chews up time and you can reference them.
But I'll read this one from Hebrews 7:14. For it is. Evident that our Lord arose from Judah. Of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. And then of course Paul develops how Christ is our high priest.
From the tribe of Judah.
So all of these Detailed rituals in the Old Testament. Testament, particularly in Exodus and in Leviticus. They served as shadows. of something greater. Uh what was behind the shadow?
Well, Paul tells us in Colossians 2:17 that all these laws and rights of the Jews. He says, are a shadow of things to come, Colossians 2.17. but the substances of Christ, the real thing, The very thing, it is Christ, they were pointing to him.
So the scribe shows up. At one of the Lord's teachings, They're in the book of Marks, Mark's Gospel. in the 12th chapter. And he says to the Lord, What is the first commandment? The greatest of all.
And Christ quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4, from the Shema. Listen, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. There's no two gods, there's no other God, there's only one. And then Christ adds to that. And you shall love him.
With all your heart, soul, mind, strength. And the second law, see, you know, he asked for one, he asked one question. The Lord says, I'm going to give this guy. all that he can handle. The second one is: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Now they press Christ on that later, who is my neighbor? He says, You know the Samaritans that you hate?
So watch out for those who tell you that Christ didn't die for the world. He died. We are to love the world. Not the world system, but the people in the world. Or imagine if he said don't love him.
Then we would Pick and choose who we give the gospel to. But anyway, that's a sidetrack. Coming back to this event. In Mark's Gospel chapter 12, After Jesus quoted those Three sections of Scripture. 'Cause he condenses the answer, takes different parts of Deuteronomy.
This is what the scribe says. It's quite insightful. He understands the law. Many of the Pharisees didn't get it. Sadducees, of course, they were outside the whole thing.
But anyway, Mark Gospel chapter 32.
So the scribes said to him, Well said, teacher. You have spoken the truth. For there is one God, and there is no other but He. You can hear the love in that, can you not? I don't know.
My heart.
Wells up with joy when I think about. The exclusivity of God, how He is just alone, He is God Almighty, the Godhead. He continues. He says, and to love him. With all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your soul.
And with all the strength And to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Here's a Jew. In the days of Christ, when there were so many of these knowledgeable Pharisees, teachers of the law, who are rejecting him. Here's an unnamed one that says, yes, that's right. The law is about God.
And the sacrifices are about him. And what happens in the life of the individual that loves him? that knows him.
Well, that's the Law of in Leviticus. All of these Sacrifices and offerings that we're going to read about. They're pointing to something greater than the sacrifices themselves. The rituals are secondary. The meaning, the spirit of them, that's the most important part.
And that's when he says that to know the Lord and to love the neighbor is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices, all of them.
So Leviticus Deals with temporary solutions for the Jewish people regarding separation from God because of sin. But the New Testament believers are delivered from Old Testament rituals. but were not delivered from their meanings. We don't have to take a bull. We better not, actually, that's the whole letter of Hebrews.
You better not take a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice. That's done by Christ. But the meaning, that part, is very much active for us. That's not gone anywhere. It's the same idea, as I mentioned a few times before, that the Sabbath, yeah, we don't have to Saturday, I've got to wait for Saturday, we do nothing.
No, the idea of devotion is daily for us. We don't wait for Saturday, it's a daily event.
So, in that sense, the spirit of the Sabbath was downtime before the Lord is uptime for the individual. And so we have now a deeper understanding. understanding of these things than the first Jews. Uh those that uh were not far removed from Jacob, and who were the first recipients of the law some 400 years after Jacob. Romans chapter 3.
The righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Paul is saying, we've got more to understand the law and the prophets.
So, Mosaic. Law. teaches us countless lessons. about Judah's lawgiver. The Christ Shiloh but one of peace.
Putting these things together. And this is an important point because I've noticed over the, and I'm one, two. We Christians We can connect dots or we can disconnect them. It's better to connect dots. To disconnect them is to undo the work of God.
Whether it is in a church, In a private setting. wherever it is. to connect the dots. was what our Bible teaches The Apostles did for us. Connecting the Old Testament to the New.
When Paul makes this statement in Romans, You have to know he understood the Levitical offerings. Therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, That you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. That means based on God. Which is your reasonable service? Not asking too much.
Certainly not of the Spirit.
So, all the sacrificial features of Leviticus point to their ultimate one-time fulfillment in the Lord Jesus, his substitutionary death. You know, that's a theological word. It means he died in my place. Uh he he was a substitute for Barabbas. Substitute for me.
His death is what all these things are pointing to as Hebrews chapter nine Verses 11 through 22 really point out, which while we're in the New Testament, the New Testament clearly. modifies or redacts The Old Testament Ceremonial Law. Again, not not the moral code, but the ceremonial code. Acts chapter 10. Colossians chapter 2.
I just Two places where these things are clearly put in their place for us New Testament Christians. The Levitical priesthood is has been upgraded. to include Gentiles.
Now the Pharisees would consider that a downgrade. Peter talks about it in 1 Peter chapter 2. John talks about it in Revelation 1, verse 6, and there are other places. The veil was torn in two. at the crucifixion of Christ.
Mm. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is currently going through the book of Leviticus. We're glad you joined us.
We trust that you're gaining some valuable insights into God's Word as we go through this Old Testament book. Cross-Reference Radio comes to you from Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. If you'd like to subscribe to our podcast, you can do so by going to your favorite app store and downloading from there. For any additional information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreference radio.com. Make sure to come back again for the upcoming edition in the book of Leviticus, as Pastor Rick has much more to share.
We thank you for being with us right here on Cross Reference Radio. Yeah.
