We may have bitterness in our heart. We may have bad Doctrine. Oversight. Because we have imperfect knowledge. There could be a lot of things that we offer up prayers to God that we may look back at later and say, you know, that.
I wasn't mature then, or that wasn't right. And yet God doesn't shove us away. He may not answer the prayer. But he does not shove us away.
So I wanna say that again, peace with God does not depend on my attaining sinless perfection. Because in that while we were still sinners, he died for us. 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. And now here's Pastor Rick as he continues teaching through the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today, he'll be in chapter 7 on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Satan has always tried to get men to not be distinct from women. God was so clear about this.
In the law of the Jews, a woman was not supposed to wear a man's garment, and a man was not supposed to wear a woman's garment. Very significant. For us today, is it not? The feminization of men is always, without exception, all through history, a direct satanic attack on humanity. Every single time, Genesis 5:2, he created them male and female.
There were no priestesses in Yahweh's house. The other temples had their the pagans of course did whatever they wanted to do Now, if you are a female and you are offended by this prohibition. Then you're looking at it. From The flesh, the carnal view. Here's an example.
King David wanted to build God a house. It was the highest thing he could do for God, he felt. And God told him no. That was a prohibition.
Now David could have salt. kicked the dirt and fussed at God. But instead he looked for what his role should then be. And he wrote in Chronicles that He prepared for the house of God with all of his might. Fine, can't build a temple, but I can sponsor it.
I can support it. I can get behind it. I can give things that nobody else on earth could give, as far as volume goes. Who had as much wealth as David to give? And God used every bit of it.
So, when you come across a prohibition in Scripture, You're in the flesh if you're offended. But you're in the spirit. If you begin to see, okay, then what is my role? All right, as a woman, if I cannot be a pastor, I can give birth to pastors. Or I I can support the pastorate.
There's plenty to do. And Satan knows it. He's going to do what he can to get you to stop doing that. And one of the ways he's going to do is have you take your instructions from the world. That is strange fire.
That is 11 you do not want to have Part of your any of your meals.
So every male among the priests may eat it. That's it. No explanation, no apology, no protest. This would have been when Miriam could have jumped up and said, objection. She knew better.
And one time she did object, she got in big trouble for it. She never did that again. And we're all better because of it. Don't listen to Satan. Telling you that it's Better to be One of the opposites that be what you have been made in Christ.
There's nothing like it. Verse 7. Satan knows that you should know it. Verse 7: The trespass offering is like the sin offering. There is one law for them, both the priest who makes atonement.
With it shall have it.
Well He's not supposed to have the hide. Of this particular offering. We get that in earlier chapters. We get some of this here.
So here's well, let me finish. Verse 8. And the priest who offers anyone's burnt offering, that priest shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering which he has offered. Also, every grain offering that is baked in the oven. and all that is prepared in the covered pan or in a pan, Shall be the priest who offers it.
In verse 10, every grain offering, whether mixed with oil or dry, shall belong to all the sons of Aaron. to one as much as the other. Incidentally, verse 10: the dry without the oil was for the part of the offering for the poorer people who couldn't afford the oil. They could still bring an offering. They could still Fine.
Grain to press into mill into flour.
Well, anyway, uh the trespass offering, the sin offering, the skins could not go to the priest, but the burnt offering, he could get the skin for that.
Well, how come we didn't get that in earlier chapters? I wish I had the answer. I wish the Lord I would like to ask the same question.
So here we have a summary of the earlier offerings with notes for the priest. Which again can make hard reading for us because of the repetition. You know, you talk to somebody who repeats themselves. Hey, you said that. You said, Clint, come on, give me a break.
You're repeating yourself.
Well Again, Leviticus one through five gave the instructions. to the offerer.
Now the priests were getting His side of The offering And the Bible is loaded with additional comments like this in latter verses, latter chapters, latter books, sometimes separated by thousands of years. You just consider what we went over in Romans. You have this Jacob and Esau. in Genesis, and Malachi makes this incredible statement over a thousand years later, and then Paul comes along about four hundred years later and he comments on Malachi's comment about what happened in Genesis.
So, you wonder why it takes time to study the Word of God if you're going to. Handle the word of God. You don't have to. The Bible will yield its fruit to lesser studying, but it will yield more fruit to more studying. I would love to spend my time in some hobby or down at the gym or something like that, but.
It's like, man, I should be reading right now. I should be studying. And anyway, in verse 10, There would be enough skins to go around so that no priests would be slighted. And this was a practical blessing to take care of the priests.
Something they could put to use, they could sell the skins, they could make leather products out of it, they could make blankets, they could do a lot of things with. With the skins.
So to God, supporting the priesthood was not something to be neglected. And it was factored into the worship of the people. He knew the people would worship him, and he knew that he could sustain the priesthood through the offerings of the people. In verse 11, This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offering which he shall offer to the Lord.
Now, maintaining ritual purity is an Old Testament. Primary And um This is going on with these offerings, also, but the peace offering. It had three parts to it. And you really got to work to find it. Within the peace offering is the thanksgiving offering.
The peace off the the vow offering. The willful offering, the free will offering, these are different parts of one offering that were arbitrary. You didn't have to do them all. Here he's combining the Thanksgiving offering with the peace offering, which is a grain offering. The longest discussion in this chapter is devoted to this grain offering, which is the fellowship offering.
It's not good that man should dwell alone. He should dwell with God. he should have companions. You left to yourself too long, you begin to get cuckoo. You know, can't live with people, can't live without them.
Well, you live better with them, even if you can't. get along as well as you'd like to, it's still better than trying to Uh go live on an island. Uh isolated. Anyway. There is, again, a variety of situations in life that would.
call for these expressions Verse 12 is the thanks offering. Verse 16 is the peace offering for a vow. As an act of worship. I pledge this to the Lord and I go down to the temple with my offering and give it to the Lord. and it would be received.
There was meat involved in some of them. The meat was for the worshipper to be eaten within a set period of time. More rules.
Well, for every rule. Or for everyone that wants to stop a rule, there's a rule it takes to stop the rule. If you say, we say, well, okay, one of the rules here is no water in the sanctuary.
Well, if you come along and say, well, we want to have water in the sanctuary, so you want to replace our rule with your rule. And That ain't gonna happen. Any more than it happened in the days of the priest. You couldn't go down to the temple and say, well, you know, I really wanted to offer this instead of that. Yeah, but that's not the protocol, and we're going to follow what the Lord has been given to us.
The only part of the peace offering offerings that belong to the priests As far as the meat goes, Was the breast And the right thigh or the shoulder. We'll get back to that in a little bit, just giving an overview of these things. Uh this here in verse eleven And uh part of Yeah, verse the verse 11 part.
Well, let's just go to verse. Twelve. Because as I mentioned, there are three kinds Or three. parts to the peace offering, The thank offering, the pledge offering, and the free will. Verse 12: if he offers it for a thanksgiving, see that subtle distinction?
He shall offer it with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened. Cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil. Besides the cakes of his offering, he shall offer leavened bread. with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offering.
So within the Thanksgiving Or within the peace offering, here's this thanksgiving offering. is gratitude to God.
So, in verse 12, where the leaven is offered, this is the Godwood side of the offering. There's no leaven with God. There's nothing added to him. Good or bad. The verse thirteen is the manward side, and that part contains the leaven.
Leaven is an external influence. It is an additive. Doesn't belong, it was put in there. As far as Bible types go, Levin is. An emblem of corruption.
Now, some may protest.
Well, there is an exception, some think. And you can't be too dogmatic about this. Matthew chapter 13, verse 33. Another parable he spoke to them The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.
Now some would like to take that and say, Well, that's a good thing. In that use. that uh symbolic usage or metaphor of of leaven. But it's not. 11 uh To introduce something from the outside to the inside with adverse.
Results. Paul used it that way. when he said a little leaven leavens the whole lump The toleration of an unwelcomed Additive.
Well Only two Levitical offerings allowed leaven.
Now, as I mentioned, it's an additive from the outside. I believe. Most of the time. It's in the negative.
However, there are some illustrations to draw from this that make it supremely positive, and this is one of them. Of the two Levitical offerings that allowed it. The priest's share of the thanksgiving offering was one that we're reading here. and the other was the feast of Pentecost, or first fruits. Leaven was allowed there also, but So you could say God says I'll take it.
I'll take the leaven. When you're grateful. And I'll take it when you're fruitful. See, if you look at the, again, to look back at the two times that leaven is allowed in the offerings, at the Thanksgiving offering. At the first fruits offering.
Those two times leaven could be brought as part of the sacrifice or the offering to God. But sacrifice doesn't always involve blood. in in the rituals. It's part of the offering, it's part of the sacrifice. And so if you look at it that way.
The thanksgiving offering, God says, I'll take the leaven. When you're grateful, I'll take the imperfections. And I'll take it when you're fruitful also.
Well, the New Testament comes along in Romans chapter 3. I already mentioned Romans 5, in that we were still sinners. Christ died for us.
Well, how 11 were we when we were sinners? We were absolutely leavened. Leavened. But we should take Romans 3. Verses twenty and twenty one And There we read Therefore, By the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe, For there is no difference, for all have sinned. and fallen short of the glory of God.
So, peace with God does not depend on my attaining sinless perfection. That's the point. That's the point of these two offerings having leaven. I can come to God even though I cannot be. Perfect.
even though I cannot achieve sinless perfection. With all my defects. You know, sometimes when we pray, our prayers are leavened. We may have bitterness in our heart, We may have bad doctrine. Oversight.
Because we have imperfect knowledge. There could be a lot of things that we offer up prayers to God that we may look back at later and say, you know, that. I wasn't mature then, or that wasn't right. And yet God doesn't shove us away. He may not answer the prayer.
But he does not shove us away.
So, I want to say that again, peace with God does not depend on my attaining sinless perfection, because in that, while we were still sinners, He died for us.
Well, that doesn't mean that later on, if we sin, he's going to throw us out. And the legalist has a problem with that. Because the legalist really believes that they are going to, if not already, Achieve sinless perfection. Paul himself says, not that I have attained or am already perfected, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God. It'll let my Mess ups.
Keep me from God? They're supposed to bring me to him. That's what these sacrifices are all about. You're unfit. That's why you're allowed to bring an offering.
To make that confession known, Jesus said, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Luke chapter 13.
Well, coming back to this, verse 14, and from it, He shall offer one cake from each offering as a heave offering to Yahweh. It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering.
Well, the heave and the wave offerings were not offered by fire. Part of the priest's portion on these, he would consecrate them to the Lord by waving them from left to right or heaving them from up to down, saying, This is your Lord's, but Lord, would you let me keep this? And he could take portions. of these sacrifices Home and bake them, barbecue them, fry them, however, he wanted to do. He didn't have to eat it there at the temple.
the thanksgiving grain offerings with the sacrifice Belonged to the priest who officiated over these offerings, who the one that sprinkled the blood. around the altar. He could take the cakes and the flour and the things like that.
So again, in the context of religions, of religious ritual, the blood. made whatever it touched pure. pure.
Well, that's Christianity. That is the cross of Christ. Everything has blood on it because everything has guilt on it. in a fallen world.
So the Old Testament sacrifices and the cross of Christ are all bloody. They're all blood stained. They all have to do with our guilt. Being dealt with by God because nobody else can. And we tell this to the unbeliever: you're dead in your sins.
Christ is the way, the truth, and life. There is no other way to the Father. It is either the blood of Christ or the blood of the blood. or you are dead in your sin. The flesh, verse 15, the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving.
Shall be eaten the same day it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow or a voluntary offering, and see there's the pledge offering baked into the No pun intended peace offering. And then there's also the vow offering the free will offering.
So again, verse 16: For if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offers his sacrifice, but on the next day, the remainder. A bit. Also may be eaten.
So it's going to put a limit on that. Verse 17: the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day must be burned with fire. And so, an appeal to the individual's conscience to do what they're supposed to do, to abide. by this offering. And uh We're going to get to some other Things about that, the appeal to the conscience.
Well, I'll get ahead of myself a little bit. When Paul says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are edifying, there's an appeal there to the conscience. As we're seeing. Here, you're either going to sneak and eat the meat on the third day, Or your conscience won't allow you to violate the commandment of the Lord, and you will burn whatever's left on the third day if there's anything left. Verse 18, and if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten.
At all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, nor shall it be imputed to him. It shall be an abomination to him who offers it. And the person who eats it shall bear the Guilt. Yeah.
Well, uh the priest could eat the meat. the same day or the next also. But eating it on the third day brought punishment. The idea is not a casual meal. Verse 19: The flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten, it shall be burned with fire.
And as for the clean flesh, all who are clean may eat of it.
Well, Haggai, the prophet, talks about this. Can something That is Ritually unclean. Brush up against something. and make it clean? No, it's going to make it unclean.
The defile will defile. But can something clean touch up against something?
So it gets into that whole thing in Haggai 12 and 13. And I think it's it's worth reading, but not right now. Verse 20 But the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offering that belongs to the Lord. While he is unclean, that person shall be cut off from his people. Moreover, verse 21: the person who touches any unclean thing, such as human uncleanness, an unclean animal, or any abominable unclean thing, and who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offerings that belongs to Yahweh, that person shall be cut off from his people.
So there are the rules, and he gives you a few examples, but it's not an exhaustive list. For instance, if you touched a dead body, you're ceremonially unclean. You have to go through a process to be made ceremonially clean, and there was some waiting involved. And so again, looking for the Levitical laws to be precise, it's not always going to happen. But what we have here at the bottom of verse 21 is um that person shall be cut off from his people.
Now a legalistic mind without even trying, is just always trying to get people into hell. You're going to hell, you're going to hell. Just like, I can't believe you did that. You're going to hell. They may not be as.
I'm exaggerating a little bit, but in their thinking. And they look at doctrine. And this is a good example. Whereas, someone who just looks for the grace of God that has been on their life is saying, well, Maybe there's a solution here. I mean The call is on God's side, but I'm not eager to damn souls.
Well, here's one of them: that person shall be cut off from his people. Does that mean? It's a capital crime and they are to be killed. Stoned.
Well, the phrase is used for both. Throughout the Old Testament.
Sometimes it does mean capital punishment, sometimes it does not. And so there's an example. Which way do you lean? I read this, I say, well, I sure hope. that the person is not stoned for this.
There are bigger crimes, you know. But although this would be, you know, if it's blatantly violating the law, maybe it was left up to the priest to decide. Because again, there are these little areas in here, we just don't have all the information. Either way, it's not good. I would not want to be that guilty person.
Maybe God leaves it out and kind of says, It's for me to know, for you to find out if you mess it up. But again, Moses and the priests. We don't find them. Perplexed about these things. They conducted their business like they knew everything.
that belong to these sacrifices. And um I'm very satisfied with that. I do not feel like I've got to try to memorize these sacrifices. Verse twenty two. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, You shall not eat any fat of ox or sheep or goat.
Verse twenty four. And the fat of an animal that dies naturally and the fat of what is torn by wild beasts may be used in any other way, but you shall by no means eat it.
Well that's mostly clear. What gets a little foggy was That in uh previous Offerings Uh well let me let me put it I'll get back to that. The unslaughtered animals that died naturally or from another beast or something like that. They could only be used for practical reasons. You could take their fat and use it to grease things.
You could take their skins. You couldn't eat any of the meat. None of it was for consumption. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. 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.
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