Leviticus — Zac Poonen

Approaching Leviticus Through the Heart of God

Okay, we've reached the book of Leviticus and I'd like you to turn there in Leviticus in chapter 1 and I might as well tell you that this is really one of the most difficult books to study and get something for the heart from.

But I believe that it is the inspired word of God and what I was praying was Lord help me to understand your heart. I want to understand what is in your heart when you wrote this book. See we can get so taken up with all the little details of things in the book and miss God's heart.

I don't want to miss that. God's word has been given to us to give us I believe a glimpse into the heart of God and if that is your desire to understand the heart of God, I remember when I was considering this whole period of Bible study through the Bible and I was trying to look into the heart of God to see what was God's intention in giving us his book and this is the verse that came to my mind.

This very well known verse, God so loved the world that he gave his son that whoever believes in him should never perish and I saw that was God's heart that no one should perish, no one should be lost, no one should be ruined by sin and he was willing to give his son for that and I want to keep that in mind as I look at this book and every book of scripture to see the heart of tremendous love and even if there are things here which I can't fully understand I want to say Lord I want to understand your heart even if I don't understand all the different verses here.

Leviticus and the Holiness of God

So Leviticus is a book that speaks about the holiness of God. It's a whole book in which the primary theme is holiness. Now holiness is a word a lot of believers are afraid of. I know people have accused me of preaching holiness and unattainable standards but I'm not afraid I'll continue doing that as long as the Lord gives me life because I believe that is the nature of God.

The spirit he gave us is a holy spirit and when Isaiah got a vision of God he saw him in his holiness and he considered himself an unclean man. Holiness is like health. How many of you are afraid of health?

How many of you are afraid of perfect health? We're not afraid of perfect health. We want perfect health. Why are you afraid of perfect holiness? Sin is like sickness and you see that in this book. The Lord gives rules concerning holiness and rules concerning health.

The two are similar. One is for the spirit and one is for the body. Holiness for the body is what we call health and health for the spirit and soul is what we call holiness. So we need to get rid of this fear of holiness and we must come to the place where we desire total holiness like we desire total health.

And just like I want to be free of every sickness in my body, I want to be free of every sin that defiles me in my life. We must not tolerate sin any more than we tolerate holiness. To tolerate dirty thoughts is like tolerating tuberculosis or leprosy.

To tolerate anger and say what to do brother I can't get rid of it and you allow it and make allowance for it is like making allowance for AIDS or some serious sexual disease. Sin and sickness are very similar.

And in the book of Leviticus we find some details concerning leprosy in one of the chapters. That's describing actually about what to do when people have got some type of skin disease but it's a picture of sin.

The word holiness appears in this book more than 150 times emphasizing that this is the theme of this book. A book with 27 chapters where 150 times the emphasis comes on holiness, holy, holy, must be an important book.

And yet there are no stories here like in all the other books of the Bible and there are not many interesting verses. But there's a lot of description of offerings and feasts and things like that and I want to try and take out some of the important parts from this book and try and show them to you and also to give you a brief understanding of the main offerings and feasts that the children of Israel had to offer or celebrate so that we can get an understanding of the Old Testament and see how they apply to us in this new covenant age.

We know that in Hebrews that God is finished with all offerings and sacrifices but those sacrifices pointed to Christ and to us and therefore it's good for us to see how these things apply and what they symbolize and picture.

The Five Offerings and Their Fulfillment in Christ

In the first seven chapters in the book of Leviticus he's basically describing five offerings and all of them in a sense were picturing Christ and his perfect life and his death. Not just his death but his perfect life as well.

We should not think only of his death because there are some offerings in these five offerings in which there is no blood. There's no animal and that's obviously not referring to Calvary, that's referring to Jesus' perfect life and that was also one of the offerings.

So when we look at Jesus a lot of people think only of that offering of himself on the cross but what we learn from Leviticus is the way he offered his life day by day to God without any blood being shed as an offering for us like on Calvary and now two of these offerings were compulsory, the sin offering and the guilt offering and three of the offerings were voluntary and they were called the burnt offering, the meal offering or the grain offering and the grain offering did not have any blood in it and the third was the peace offering.

So these were the five offerings, two compulsory ones called the sin offering and the guilt offering and three voluntary ones called the burnt offering, the grain offering and the peace offering and all these pictured various aspects of Jesus' life and death and that's why they are applicable to us.

The Burnt Offering and Total Consecration

Now the first offering mentioned in Leviticus 1 is the burnt offering where it's a picture of a total presentation of everything to God like it says in Romans 12 .1 I beseech you brethren present your bodies a living sacrifice to God, all of it totally to God and the burnt offering was totally presented to God, it was cut into pieces to show that there was no defect in any part and it was offered.

You couldn't take a whole bullock and put it there. You know everybody didn't have to offer a bullock, some people were poor and God was very considerate, you could offer a bullock, you could offer a sheep or a goat or even a dove or a pigeon according to your ability and the offering was cut into pieces and put there to show because it had to be and there shouldn't be any defect in this offering.

The offering had to be without any blemish, perfect and therefore everything had to be cut and exposed and offered to God. Now in all these things there is meaning, you know take this matter of offering our bodies to God, I believe the burnt offering is a picture of the way Jesus presented his body right through his earthly life and finally on the cross.

Not just on the cross, all through his earthly life he kept his body perfectly pure and presented finally to God an offering that was perfectly pure. Now you need to see that because very often we think oh Jesus died for my sins but that death on Calvary would have been no use if that offering had not been absolutely perfect for 33 and a half years and that meant not just that Jesus didn't have dirty thoughts, it meant that when he was hungry he would not turn stones into bread if the father did not lead him.

That was the type of being perfect that we are talking about, where he would not do something without the father's prompting even if it was a good thing like turning stones into bread or in one place we read that he, there was a great revival we read in the last part of Luke chapter 4 and the people pressed on him to say why don't you stay here and continue this ministry but Jesus said no, before he met those people he had met his father alone in the wilderness and he had heard the voice of the father saying go somewhere else and he went and if he had not gone and he had stayed here conducting a revival it would have been sin.

Now how many of you believe that conducting a revival can be a sin? It would have been. That was the sensitivity with which Jesus lived. You see we think of sin as getting angry, yelling at people and dirty thoughts and jealousy and bitterness.

It's such a low level. It's kindergarten level. In Jesus case we're talking about sin at the PhD level. You know little things like even if you're going to conduct a revival if God's not told you to be here and wants you in another place you should go there.

If you stay here you're sinning. You see one gets and you don't get into the PhD overnight you sort of graduate over there and gradually as we progress we begin to find that a lot of things which we've never thought were sin become sin for us.

That's one mark of spiritual growth that certain things which I never thought were sin five years ago now I see to be sin which other people don't even think about. So when we look at Jesus life we don't think just of his death on Calvary but his whole life where he presented himself totally to the Father and said never do I want to do my will in this body.

That is the burnt offering. And this is this burnt offering is what is referred to in Romans 12 1. You also present yourself like that. We can't give ourselves for our sins on the cross but we can give ourselves to God just like Jesus gave himself.

So this burnt offering was completely offered to God and it was burnt totally. It says in the last in verse 17 you burn it on top of the wood fire on the altar it's a whole burnt offering made by fire very pleasing to the Lord and aroma to the Lord.

Paul speaks about our being an aroma of Christ in 2nd Corinthians 2. Totally pleasing to the Lord when it is presented totally to God. And that's how Jesus presented himself. Now when we give our bodies like that you know it's very easy to say Lord I give my body to you but hang on just a wait a minute.

We got to cut it up and when we cut it up we realize that we are not giving our bodies to God at all. What does it mean to say I give my body to God it means Lord here are my eyes. I'm cutting it out.

I mean metaphorically and here it is Lord. I have used these eyes for the devil and for myself for many many years but here I'm laying it on the altar. I never again want to use these eyes to look at or read anything that's dishonoring to you and I never want to use these eyes to sin anymore.

Okay that's just one part of the body. Then we cut out our tongue and say Lord here's my tongue. This is the burnt offering. I say Lord I've used this tongue for the devil and for myself for many many many years but I never want to do that anymore.

Here it is. It's yours from this moment on but it's totally completely yours. You can have it. And here are my feet. Here are my heart. Here are my passions. I cut this bullock into pieces this offering and laid out and say Lord everything is yours.

Let your fire come and consume it and we read in the book of Leviticus how the fire of God came and fell upon the offering and consumed it. Let me show you that verse in Leviticus in chapter 9. When they put this whole burnt offering on the altar Leviticus in chapter 9 it says here Aaron slaughtered the bull down at the end of the chapter and it says in the last part of verse 21 Aaron lifted up the breasts and thighs as an offering to the Lord.

And Aaron raised his hands verse 22 and blessed the people and he presented the whole burnt offering and he stepped down from the altar and verse 24 fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar.

You know what that fire coming down is a picture of it's a picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire. And it came when every part of that burnt offering was on the altar. If one part was left out there would be no fire.

And when you don't have a fire then what do you do? And this is what we see in Christianity today. In chapter 10 of Leviticus the just couple of verses down immediately after that we read very next verse actually Nedab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took their respective firepans and put fire and placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord which he had not commanded them.

When we don't have the real fire of God and we want to join the club of those who have the real fire the danger is that we shall imitate in order to say yes we also got the fire a strange fire and God was so angry with these people who were imitating the baptism in the Holy Spirit who were imitating that genuine fire of God that it says a second time 10 to fire came out from the Lord and this time not to consume the offering but to consume these hypocrites.

So there are two fires that came out from the Lord once in chapter 9 verse 24 and one in chapter 10 verse 2 and they died before the Lord. Now if God were to do that in Christendom today a lot of people would die.

A lot of people are offering strange fire because they don't have the real fire and why don't they have the real fire because they don't lay everything on the altar. They want to get it cheap. Other people who got a real fire in their life they paid a price for it.

They put everything on the altar they put all their money all their bank account their eyes their tongue their hands everything on the altar they examined their life made sure that every part of the offering was there no small part was left out everything all their property all their money everything consecrated all their ambitions and desires and the fire came and you see the life of such a man anointed powerful and you say boy I want that but you're not willing to pay the price you're not willing to pay the price that man paid then what happens but you still want to show that you're also an anointed servant of God.

Then you fall into the danger of Nedaab and Abihu of trying to produce strange fire to work up your emotions and to imitate the genuine thing. And of course since more than ninety five percent of believers don't have much discernment they think that you got a real fire but you haven't got a real fire.

I want to tell you my dear brothers and sisters learn this from Leviticus. There's a lot of strange fire in Christendom today and the reason is because they have not presented a whole burnt offering to God.

That's the reason be willing to pay the price. Paul said I count everything as loss. That's how he came to know the Lord. Okay that's one offering the burnt offering that's mentioned in Leviticus chapter one.

The Grain Offering and Permanent Consecration

In Leviticus chapter two we read of another offering called the grain offering and this grain offering was there was no blood no animals in it. It was a flour and roasted grain and salt and oil. And one of the things that the Lord said there was in verse 11.

Don't use any leaven. Leviticus in chapter 2 verse 11 there should be no leaven in it. And leaven was a picture of sin. But salt had to be added. And salt is a picture of an eternal covenant. You know the Lord often spoke about having salt.

And I just want to show you a verse in the book of Numbers in chapter 18 where it says here it is an ever verse 19 it's an everlasting covenant of salt. Wherever you read about salt being offered in the Bible and Jesus using it in the New Testament to think of Numbers 18 19 it's as an everlasting covenant of salt.

You know we use salt to preserve things for a long time. And that is the picture used here of something everlasting. I give myself to God. And it's not just for two days. It's not just for a week. It's not just for five years.

It's not like people say I'll go and serve the Lord there for five years. There is no such thing like that. It's total permanent everlasting. It's like marriage. We don't get married to somebody for five years.

It's permanent total and say Lord I've decided to serve you when I get to heaven. I'm just going to continue that. It's everlasting. There's salt in my sacrifice. So the grain offering is the second offering that we see here and that was without any blood in it.

It was a picture of that perfect life of Jesus. And we acknowledge when we give this that all that we have belongs to the Lord permanently. The third offering mentioned in Leviticus chapter 3 is the peace offering.

The Peace Offering and Peace with God

It's called the peace offering here in the Leviticus chapter 3 and this he had to lay his hand verse 2 on the head of the animal. It was an animal and he would present it to God. And it was as the word says an expression of the fact that through this offering I have come to peace with God like it says in Romans chapter 5 verse 1.

Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God. This is a very important requirement of the Christian life that I am absolutely convinced in my life one that my sins are all forgiven. Peace no sense of guilt Jesus Christ.

I put my hand just like this man who's had to lay his hand. It says in Leviticus 3 2 on the offering I say Lord Jesus I lay my hand on you on Calvary. You took all my sin and I have no more consciousness of sin.

It's finished the promises your sins and iniquities. I'll remember no more peace. A lot of believers don't have peace even though Christ died. I want you to know that the will of God for you is that you might have perfect peace perfect peace total assurance that all the guilt of your past is removed at rest.

The New Testament speaks about rest in our heart. Peace because my sins are forgiven and peace because I know God has accepted me just as I am not after I change but just as I am. Do you have that peace.

That is what is symbolized in this peace offering which I make before God. And then the fourth offering is in chapter 4 which is the sin offering. And it's very interesting to see here that again and again it's spoken about unintentional sin.

The Sin Offering, Leaders, and Unintentional Sin

Notice in verse 2 speak to the sons of Israel saying if a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded. If it may be anointed priest who sins it could be the priest. He has also got to bring to the Lord a sin offering.

Sometimes leaders Christian leaders act as though they don't sin. That's a word for Christian leaders when a priest and it starts with the priest. When God judges sin he always starts with the leaders.

If a priest sins he has to bring an offering. And can you picture this in Israel. If you were one of the ordinary Israelites and you saw a priest one day bringing an offering you'd say boy this fellow is our leader but he has sinned too.

Don't we sin. Is there a man on earth who does not sin. Don't give the impression to people that you are perfect when you're not. You know one of the wonderful things that encourages me about the stories of godly men in the Bible we saw that about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was the Bible reveals their mistakes openly.

The mistakes that the Apostle Paul made that he shaved his head as an offering and he circumcised Timothy he had a quarrel with Barnabas and separated from him he shouted at the high priest towards the end of his life.

Those are written in the Acts of the Apostles. And they are an encouragement to me that this man was an ordinary man who made mistakes. Whereas a lot of biographies that I read nowadays of godly men I read I mean it looks as if they never made any mistakes in their life.

And they don't encourage me as much as Scripture which tells me honestly that these leaders made mistakes. And I want to encourage all of you who are Christian leaders I'm not asking you to confess your sins in public.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is don't give people the impression that you never make a mistake that you never sin that you never have to apologize to anybody. I've had to apologize numerous times to my wife to my children and to people in the church to young people to people who are much younger than my youngest son because of one reason I am NOT God.

There's only one person who never needs to apologize and that's God. Humble yourself. If a priest an anointed priest verse 3 sins he has to bring an offering and let people see it. This man coming with a bull and he shall bring the bull to the doorway of the tent.

He can't do it in secret because he's I'm an anointed priest. My reputation will go down. Lord let me do it in secret. No no no no no no right in front of everybody the doorway of the tent of meeting lay your hands upon the bull and admit that you have sinned and take some of the blood of the bull and dip his finger and then offer it before the Lord.

Now the interesting thing I I want you to notice here is that if you turn to verse 14 and verse 13 if the whole congregation of Israel commits a sin and it has escaped the notice of the assembly and they commit any other things they also must bring a bull.

Now the you know there were different offerings made here for example verse 20 22 when a leader sins and verse 27 if a common person sins. And when a common person sins he only had to bring a goat verse 28 a female goat which was supposed to be less in value than a male goat.

And but when the whole congregation sinned verse 14 they had to bring a bull. And when the priest sinned he also had to bring a bull. Now the point I want you to notice here is that God put the priest in the congregation in the same level.

One anointed priest sinning is equal to a whole congregation sinning. That's not the same as a common man sinning. You see a lot of people don't realize this that God does not see the same sins in the same way if it's an anointed leader who sins and a common person who sins doing exactly the same thing.

What the anointed person priest sins is far more serious. He has to bring a bullock. This man's only got to bring a female goat. These are the lessons we learned from Leviticus that the more responsibility we have the more anointed we have.

The anointed priest verse 3 is different from one of the common people verse 27 his sin is far more serious. To whom more is given more will be required. The other thing I mentioned is this matter of four times.

Willful Sin and the Warning of Hebrews 10

It says unintentionally verse 2 verse 13 without knowing it unintentionally and verse 22 unintentionally verse 27 unintentionally. What about intentional sin. You know there is sacrifice for intentional sin.

But I want to read you a verse in this connection in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 26 so you need you can understand Hebrews 10 26 only when you understand Leviticus chapter 4 those four times where it says unintentional in Levitic in Hebrews and chapter 10 and verse 26 it says that if we go on sinning intentionally then there will be no more sacrifice for sin.

You understand that when you go to Leviticus 4 that the sacrifice was for unintentional sin. In other words once you have turned to the Lord and you have become one of God's children we should not want to sin.

If you're really born again you don't want to sin anymore. It's one of the marks of being born again. You may sin. We will all sin but you don't want to. You're not taking advantage of God. You're not doing something wrong getting some benefit out of that and then confessing it to the Lord and say Lord forgive me.

I don't think such a person is born again at all. He tries his best to avoid it he may fall. That's the type of sin for which God was talking about sacrifice in the Old Testament. Please keep that in mind.

Now we have all sinned deliberately even after we are born again we've got to admit it we have done it and God's been merciful. But what we read in Hebrews 10 is if you go on sinning willfully that means you take advantage of that.

There would be no more sacrifice for sin. There would be no forgiveness. And the fifth offering is what we read in Leviticus 5 which is a guilt offering. And here it's talks about not only sin against God but against man as well.

The Guilt Offering, Restitution, and Personal Responsibility

You know there are certain sins which are only against God. When I have a dirty thought I don't harm anybody else. I harm only I sin against God. There are many sins which are inward motives where I sin against God.

But there are other sins which involve other people too. For example it says here if any of the people are called to testify about something they're witnessed but they refuse to testify they'll be held responsible and be subject to punishment.

You know what God's law was that if you're called to testify by God's servant about something that you have witnessed and you refuse to testify because the chap is your friend you will be held responsible.

And like that it talks about various types of sins. Or verse 4 if they make a rash Wow of any kind whether purpose is good or bad they'll be considered guilty even if they were not fully aware of what they were doing at that time.

And when they become aware of their guilt they must confess their sin and bring their offering to the Lord. This is how it was in offering. And we read here again in verse 15 of chapter 5 if any of the people sin by unintentionally defiling the Lord's sacred property they must bring to the Lord a ram.

Now here it speaks also about restitution. That's the point I want you to do notice. It says in verse 16 they must make restitution for whatever holy things they have defiled and they shall add one fifth 20 and give it to the Lord if it's against the Lord.

And that principle applies even in numbers where we are told that when we make restitution to some person if we have cheated him or robbed him we are to give back 20 more. That was a law. Whenever you make restitution you don't just give back the exact amount.

You give back 20 more so that you it cost you something. If I stole a hundred rupees I don't give a hundred rupees back. I give a hundred and twenty so that I'll be a little more careful. So here the Lord speaks about restitution and a guilt offering.

It speaks about concealing truth and rash vows and sins like that. Now the Lord says one more thing which I want you to point out. I want you to notice here in chapter 7 about the guilt offering. Chapter 7 verse 30 you must present it to the Lord with your own hands as an offering given to the Lord by fire.

Give it to the Lord yourself. Admit it acknowledge it. Those are the five offerings. Okay the burnt offering the grain offering the peace offering the sin offering and the guilt offering. Now we come to a number of other chapters here which deal with various laws on holiness laws concerning health.

Holiness, Health, Hygiene, and Sexual Purity

And I don't want to go into all those details. But it just shows God's intense interest in little little things in a person's life. Sometimes we think God is not interested in these small small things in my life.

One of the things I find from the book of Leviticus is God is interested in the little little details of my life. It speaks about if a lizard falls into a pot. Now if a lizard falls into a pot in your kitchen you think Almighty God in heaven is bothered about that.

You read the book of Leviticus and you find he is bothered about that. He wants to tell you that that's not good for you to eat. That is an example of the care with which God gave instructions. He gave them instructions on taking a bath.

Is God interested in your taking a bath. Do you believe God's interest in things like that. Do you know the number of times it speaks about such things. He must cleanse himself when he's defiled himself in some way.

Read some of those chapters. It talks a lot about sexual purity. There's a lot about sexual purity. Let me just show you one or two things here. First of all chapter 10 and verse 8 here for leaders the Lord spoke to Aaron saying don't ever drink wine or strong drink.

Neither you know your sons with you when you come into the tent of the meeting so you shall not die. That's how you make a distinction verse 10 between the holy and the profane so as to teach verse 11 the sons of Israel all the statutes through the Lord don't allow yourself to consume something that will pollute your body.

If you're a leader you need to have a much higher standard in everything compared to other people. In chapter 11 God speaks here about clean and unclean animals the type of animals you can eat and the type of animals you should not eat.

And he gives a big list. Now what I get from all this is God's intense interest even in what I'm eating. I mean forget about the list. I'm not going through this list of what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat what I the essential message I get from this is God is interested in my eating habits.

The Bible says 1 Corinthians 10 31 whatever you do whether you eat or you drink do all to the glory of God. And it mentions eating and drinking. So there he gives a whole lot of things. He said these are things which are not good for your body.

Don't eat those things. The essential message there in a nutshell is don't eat those things which are not good for your body. There are rules on hygiene. Here it is in verse 33 if an animal dies and falls into a clay pot everything in that pot is defiled and the pot must be smashed.

And if water used to cleanse an unclean object touches any food all of that food will be defiled. He's talking about water. If the water is not clean and that water is poured upon some food that food is defiled.

He's talking to them about hygiene about cleanliness. You know it's one thing to disobey all the rules of the human body and then say Lord I want you to heal me. A lot of people are stupid like that. If you disobey the laws which God has made for the human body laws of hygiene and what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat what's good for you and what's not good for you.

And then you get sick. You got nobody to blame but yourself. What we read in Exodus 15 26 the Lord says you obey my laws and I will be your healer. Yes he will he will give me help. But I need to obey those laws.

Consecration, Discernment, and Leprosy as a Picture of Sin

And you see in the book of Leviticus how keen the Lord was to teach his children rules on hygiene. Now when you come to chapter 13 I want you to see some interesting things here. First of all chapter 11 verse 44 see what God says here I am the Lord your God.

Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy. For I am holy. That is the essential message of the book of Leviticus which comes right in the middle of the book. You consecrate yourself. If you take the Lord's name upon you because I am holy you must be holy.

That's what Peter quotes in 1 Peter 1 we have to be holy because the one who has called us is holy. Now when you come to chapter 13 I want you to notice something here. It says here. Chapter 13 is concerning the test for leprosy.

If a man verse 2 has on the skin of his body a swelling or a scab or a bright spot and becomes an infection of leprosy he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priest. And the priest shall look at the mark on the skin of the body.

And if the hair has turned white and it's an infection of leprosy the priest has looked at him he shall pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white and it does not appear to be deeper than the skin the priest shall keep him isolated verse 4 for seven days and look at him again.

Now I want you to apply this not to leprosy but to sin. When you see what you think is sin in a brother a spot. It's a very precious passage on judging other people. This passage when you see a spot in another brother or sister what should you do.