Christ in the Sin Offering

Grace Covenant Reformed Church

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In recent weeks, as we have discussed the various articles of clothing, for the high priest and the ordinary priest, one of the great truths of Scripture that we have referred to frequently is the righteousness of Christ.

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We have talked about how the priest being clothed in these priestly garments points us forward in redemptive history to that imputed righteousness of Christ that we receive as believers.

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We have seen in the Word how after the instructions were given regarding the fabrication of the clothing that the priests were to wear,

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God begins to instruct Moses regarding how they were to be set apart and ordained to minister to God in the tabernacle.

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In many ways, as the priesthood is ultimately instituted, these priests would begin to represent the people before God, but most importantly, their task was to represent

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God before the people. This is one of the reasons why there is such great care taken to clothe them in such a detailed way, and even more so why the clothing of the great high priest or the high priest was given to us in such detail.

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Again, pointing forward to Christ as our great high priest and the work

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He continues to do on our behalf in the throne room of God.

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Last week, as we began looking at the ceremony in specifics that Moses was required to perform to do the work of consecrating and ordaining these men to service to the priesthood.

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Now those two words, consecrating and ordaining, oftentimes unfortunately are used interchangeably, but they are not the same.

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In fact, what we see in Scripture so far is yes, these men, these priests have been ordained.

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That was the very last thing that we read last week was that they were ordained by Moses.

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To ordain something simply means that their hands were filled. In other words, they were given the tasks that were to be done in the priesthood.

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So through the process that we saw, we saw the ritual cleansing, we saw the clothing and the vestments of the priesthood symbolically reminding us that the priests themselves had to have the taint of being unclean removed before the garments could be worn.

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However, as we will see this morning in moving forward in our text that although these men have been ritually cleansed, although they have been clothed in their priestly garments, the high priest has been anointed, and along with the others all ordained, they are not yet prepared to minister before God.

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They have not yet been consecrated.

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Now before we jump headfirst this morning,

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I want to pause for just a minute because we need to understand the enormity of that truth.

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These priests have been dressed in the finest garments. They've been fully cleansed with the water, so that the outward appearance is one of cleanliness, it's one of preparedness, it's one of readiness to do the work that they have been set apart for by God.

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But the reality is although they look the part, although they smell the part, they are certainly not ready for the part.

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Many years later, Jesus in some of his teaching would issue some scathing remarks to the

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Pharisees. These are the words that we would read in Matthew's Gospel in the 23rd chapter, beginning in verses 25 and following.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self -indulgence.

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You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

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In this way you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

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So you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

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Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents.

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You brood of vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell?

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Now, Jesus was speaking again to the

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Pharisees and the scribes and He was specifically talking about the way in which they interact with the law and how they seek to obey everything to the letter and put up a good front and appear as if they are being righteous.

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Aaron and his sons at this point in their life are not doing that, but to the casual onlooker who sees them in these garments, who sees that they have now been washed with this water, it can become real easy to see that they are prepared to serve.

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We stand here this morning 2 ,000 years later and we look at some of the people that are supposed to be leading the people of God according to the word of God.

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And what we see is that many of them look the part. Many of them smell the part.

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They act the part. They have been ordained into their roles, but there is something that they lack.

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That while on the outside they would appear righteous, their inside is filled with filth.

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Hebrews 9, verse 22 says, And according to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

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Now other translations change forgiveness into remission of sins. There is no forgiveness of sins.

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The point is, is that either way, apart from the shedding of blood, the outer clothing, the cleansing, the anointing, the ordaining, all of these things are in vain because the man on the inside is still filth.

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This brings us to our text this morning where we will see that it was necessary for blood to be shed, not only for Aaron and his sons, but for all who are to be

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God's people. So if you will, similar to what you did last week, take your copy of God's word, make your way to Leviticus chapter 8, put your finger there, and turn back to Exodus 29 as we read together

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God's word. And as soon as you have gotten your finger in place and you are prepared, stand as we together read

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God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, and complete word.

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We will begin in the 29th chapter of Exodus, beginning in the 10th verse.

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Then you shall bring the bull near before the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.

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You shall slaughter the bull before Yahweh at the doorway of the tent of meeting. You shall take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and you shall pour out all the blood at the base of the altar.

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You shall take all the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, and you shall offer them up and smoke on the altar.

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But the flesh of the bull and its hide and its refuse you shall burn with fire outside of the camp.

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It is a sin offering. And if you will turn over to Leviticus 8, we'll read verses 14 down through 17.

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Then he brought the bull of the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin offering.

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Next Moses slaughtered it and took the blood, and with his finger put some of it around on the horns of the altar and purified the altar.

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Then he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and set it apart as holy to make atonement for it.

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He also took all the fat that was on the entrails and the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys and their fat, and Moses offered it up in smoke on the altar.

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But the bull and its hide and its flesh and its refuse he burned in the camp, in the fire outside the camp, just as Yahweh had commanded

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Moses. Almighty God, to you and you alone do we give all glory, all honor, all praise.

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You are holy, holy, holy. As we stand in your presence this morning asking that our hearts are open and prepared for your truth,

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Lord, we pray that as we approach your word we do so with humility, with eagerness, with a desire to understand your word.

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Lord, I pray that as we are confronted with your truths this morning, your spirit would be about his work, illuminating the sin in our lives.

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Lord, that we would respond in repentance and faith, knowing that even as there is sin remaining in our flesh, that Christ's sacrifice on Calvary's cross paid our debt in full, that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are eternally saved.

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Father, we thank you for sending Christ. We are thankful that the

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Lord Jesus willfully took upon himself the full measurement of the wrath of God for us, and we are thankful to the

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Holy Spirit for his regenerating work whereby we are enabled to have faith.

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We ask now that this work of the Spirit continue guiding us into all truth, asking all of these things in the name of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. As we come to our text for this morning, it is necessary to understand the full ramifications of what is happening here that our thoughts be recalled to the circumstances surrounding the nature of humanity.

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In Genesis 2, the Lord God commanded Adam to cultivate the garden, to keep the garden.

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And then he commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it.

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For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

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Now, there are those out there who would take this verse and make the argument that because we did not die,

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God changed his mind, and therefore this holds no true weight.

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But to do so is a gross miscarriage of the truth of what

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Scripture says. In all reality, what we are seeing here is a command by God regarding the penalty for sin.

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In fact, when we get to Paul's letter to the church at Rome, in the 6th chapter of the 23rd verse, the verse that we're all familiar with the first part of, for the wages of sin is death.

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There is nothing different in the proclamation that Paul makes in Romans 6, verse 23, than what

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God makes in Genesis 2. You see, to disobey was to sin, and to sin was to be punished by death.

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Now, obviously, God was merciful, and he did not strike

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Adam and Eve with physical death. However, there is the matter of the punishment that they did receive, both the immediate and the future.

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God was very specific in his pronouncement, but the need for justice still remained.

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And as he pronounced the punishment on both Eve and Adam, immediately following that section, we read these words in Genesis 3, verse 21.

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What I want you to see here is that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, there was still a requirement that had to be met in the sense of justice.

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In order for God to see their sins as atoned for, blood had to be spilt.

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Now, it's simple to read chapter 3, verse 21, and go, well, I don't see any sacrifice.

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But remember, he provided skins for clothing.

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And in order to provide the skins, the animal paid with its life.

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And by doing so, paid the debt that Adam and Eve incurred.

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The fact that God clothes them points us forward to the clothing of righteousness that you and I receive because of Christ's work.

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You will also notice that in his pronouncement of judgment on both

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Adam and Eve, there are future ramifications, not just immediate consequences.

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First of all, instead of living for all time, because they had access to the tree of life, they were ushered out of the garden.

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Death was introduced, physical death, along with the spiritual death that had already occurred.

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Secondly, we see the results of the labor and the toil with which man would suffer.

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We see the pain and childbearing that the woman would endure.

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In Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, we read these words.

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

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For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

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For even though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.

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Paul, in Romans 3, verse 23, compacts this down to, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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A couple of weeks ago, I was asked a question because of one of an interaction that occurred.

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The question was this, and why is the rest of the world bad?

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And why is the rest of the world bad? Well, I believe this question strikes at the very heart of the issue that we face in our world today.

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Good and bad have become defined on our own basis, on our own terms, as it relates to human perception.

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We justify our actions with moral relativism. We think if we do more good things than we do bad things, then we're in the right, we're a good person.

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Scripture is clear, however, that is not the case. The problem comes in is that we have a fundamental lack of understanding of what it is that truly constitutes sin.

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Now, as we sit here this morning, believers gathered together as a body of Christ, this should come as no surprise if we're talking about the world.

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However, I would say that it's not the world that concerns me, but those who would call themselves

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Christians who do not understand what sin is.

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So, let's be clear. We like clarity.

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Sin, not according to the world, but according to God, is any lack of conformity to or transgression of the law of God in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of life, whether by omission or commission.

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Now, to our 20th century ears, that sounds harsh.

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If you take that definition into the world, it sounds ridiculous to them, because, again, this sounds as if we are promoting some type of legalism, but understanding the definition of sin is the first step in recognizing that it is impossible for us to live without sinning, especially if the

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Holy Spirit has not regenerated our life.

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We simply are not capable of maintaining this by our own strength or our own power.

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Listen to the definition again. It is any lack of conformity to.

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Conformity is another word for obedience. So, it is any lack of obedience to or transgression of.

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Transgression is a violation. The law of God. The law of God here is the moral law that was given to mankind at creation.

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That any of these, a lack of conformity to or a violation of this moral law in the inward state, who we are at our core, and the habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of life, whether it is by omission, which means that we did not do what was commanded, or by commission, which is a deliberate violation.

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If we take that definition and we are truthful with ourselves, this is who we are.

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By nature, sinful creatures. If we honestly assess ourselves, just think about the last 24 hours.

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How quickly would we lose count of the sins that we have committed? Even you and I as believers, those who have the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, who are able, because of the Spirit's work in our life, to not sin, how many have we committed?

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And the reality is, is what we see is that it is not in our ability, it is not on our strength that this happens.

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And so what drives this is that there is this definition, this understanding that sin and the cost of sin, and the truth regarding the cost of sin, that there is a high price to be paid.

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The wages of sin are death. It's a high price.

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It's a price that we are not truly capable of paying.

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So with that understanding, let's look at this ceremony that God is leading

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Moses through here in Exodus. Now before we dive into this again,

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I keep repeating this as we're working through this because it is the tendency of some out there to think that because it commands them to do thus in this particular place, that we're supposed to go out, kill an ox, and that's supposed to take care of everything.

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That's not what Scripture teaches. These commands are not commands for us to obey. They are pictures to help us understand the

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Word of God. The situation is different, but because it is God's Word, it still is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that we would be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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So Moses is now commanded, having completed the steps of the process of cleansing and dressing and ordaining the priest and anointing the high priest, to bring near the bull to the doorway of the tent of meeting.

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Now you may remember that all of this process began at the doorway to the tent of meeting.

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And so there was a line that could not yet be crossed. Aaron and his sons, those called and set apart by God as priests, could not yet cross this line into the holy place.

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And so all of these things occurred at that line in an effort to bring them into right standing with God so that they could minister.

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The command to bring near the bull is the same command as it was to bring Aaron and his sons to present as for an offering or a sacrifice to give over to God in its entirety.

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And so as this bull is brought near, Aaron and his sons are required to lay their hands on the head of the bull.

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Now, there is nothing magical that's occurring here.

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But there is much that is symbolic that is happening.

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First, it is symbolizing personal identification with this animal.

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In other words, it is recognizing that what we deserve, because of our sin, is death.

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Aaron and his sons standing before the doorway to the tent of meeting in the tabernacle were confronted with the reality that their sin, their sin was deserving of death.

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And the fact that this animal was about to be sacrificed in their place.

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Now, for us, in today's world, this may not make a very big impression because, quite honestly, the slaughter of animals in our culture is commonplace for food.

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We don't even typically get involved in that part. We go get our stuff from the grocery store, so we don't even have to see all of that.

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But if you'll remember from verse 1 of chapter 29, this wasn't just any bull.

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This bull was without blemish. A bull without blemish would have made it a prized possession.

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We talked last week about the cost that would be associated with the sacrifice. A cost has to be associated with it.

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Secondly, this laying on of hands symbolized a substitutionary nature of the death of this animal.

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We touched on this briefly a moment ago. It was nothing that the animal had done. After all, it acted the way a bull is supposed to act.

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Very similar to the problem that Uzzah faced as he prevented the

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Ark of the Covenant from touching the ground because his fault was the ground was more unclean than he, although the ground was simply doing what the ground does.

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The idea here is that the bull itself had done nothing in its nature, had done nothing that required it to be put to death.

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Yet as these men lay their hands upon it, had to look into the eyes of this bull, think about what was about to occur with this bull, to know that it was not because of what the bull had done, but because of what they had done.

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I can only imagine the range of emotions that may have gone through these men's eyes.

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But just for a moment, let's think about Aaron. Because you see, by the time that this is being instituted,

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Aaron has fabricated the golden calf for the people to worship. We read in Exodus 32 verses 1 through 6, it says,

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Then the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain. So the people assembled about Aaron and said to him,

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Arise, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

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And Aaron said to them, No, that's not the right way. That's not what he did. Aaron said, Bring me your gold.

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Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, and bring them to me. Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in the ears and brought them to Aaron.

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And he took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf.

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And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

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And Aaron looked and built an altar before it.

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And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.

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You need to understand here, Aaron's not really throwing a feast to the

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Lord God Almighty. Even though that's the name he uses, Aaron's throwing a feast to the golden calf, the idol that he has created to stand in the place of the

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Lord God Almighty. It seems as if there may be a commandment. I don't know something about having no idols before him, worshiping no other gods but him, that may be being broken here.

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And now here we are, Aaron, standing before the doorway of the tent of meeting his hand resting on a bull, being confronted with his sins, not the least of which, obviously, was this episode with the golden calf, knowing that this animal now has to die for his transgressions.

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And so the next thing that Scripture tells us is Moses slaughtered the bull.

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Now I think it's interesting to note, and this is just something that I picked up and just thought about, we never see their hands being removed, so I would be curious to know if they had to keep their hands on this animal while the lifeblood was drained out of it.

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It certainly would make an impression upon them. But nevertheless, Scripture does not teach us one way or the other regarding this.

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But what we do see is that this animal is slaughtered, and they have acknowledged their sin, they have symbolically transferred their sin to this creature, and they were forced now to watch as it paid the ultimate price and died for their sins.

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And I am struck. I am struck at how anyone could read this passage and not be forced to deal with the vicarious substitutionary death of Christ on Calvary's cross for the sins of his people.

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Moses is commanded by God to take some of the blood, to put it on the horns of the altar.

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You may recall from our study of the altar that the horns were symbolic of both the power and strength of God, but they were also symbolic in the taking of refuge, the finding of refuge in him.

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The action of putting the blood on the horns purified the altar.

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The rest of the blood was to be poured out at his base. These actions symbolized that the altar was set apart as holy.

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Leviticus 8, 15. Next, Moses slaughtered it and took the blood with his finger, put some of it on the horns of the altar and purified the altar.

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Then he poured the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and set it apart as holy to make atonement for the altar.

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You remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about even the holy things needing to be made holy.

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This is part of that action. The altar of God needed to be purified. The taint of sin that had touched it from the unclean hands of the people who had fabricated it needed to be purified before anything else could be done.

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Having that done, having these altars purified, having it set so that God would accept the sacrifice, that it would be acceptable to God as payment for the sins of the people.

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Moses then commanded to place the choices pieces on the altar. Now that's kind of foreign language to us because we don't necessarily think about the kidneys and the liver as being the choices pieces.

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But in that day and time, these were the delicacies that they would eat. These were the choices pieces and they were being offered up to Almighty God.

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In surrounding cultures, they were also used in the act of divination. So one of the thoughts coming out of this passage is that God chose these choices pieces not only because they were the choice pieces and the offering would have been right to give him the best, but also to show that he was greater than this stuff that was going on around him.

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Symbolically, after the burning of the choices pieces on the offering, on the altar as an offering to God, the rest of the bull was to be taken outside of the camp and to be completely burned.

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Now this is different than when the priest began offering sin offerings on behalf of the people.

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When that happens, the priest retained the meat and ate it. But here, what we see is this picture of the rest of this carcass being taken outside of the camp, symbolically removing and destroying anything that is unclean in the midst of the people of God.

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Curid writes, even though this is the first time that this action is mentioned,

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Curid writes these words, it becomes an idiomatic way of referring to the place of the defiled and the unclean.

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For example, Leviticus 13, 46, we're told that the leper must reside outside the camp all the days he has the infection because he is unclean.

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In Leviticus 24, 14, the man who blasphemed the name of Yahweh is stoned to death, but that takes place outside of the camp.

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Numbers 15, 35, the man found gathering wood on the Sabbath was to be executed, but it was to take place outside of the camp.

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It was a place of refuge where it was to be thrown. It is the cursed place.

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Christ's vicarious sacrifice on our behalf occurred outside of the camp, in the cursed place.

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So as we look at this picture, these short few verses that paint this massive picture for us in the

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Old Testament, we are forced to see that this points forward in redemptive history to the work of the

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Lord Jesus in His death on the cross in our place.

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Again, we want to make sure that we are crystal clear, so we want to press into this reality for just a few minutes for the remainder of our time together this morning.

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Because at the end of the day, this substitutionary death, this atonement made by Christ on Calvary's cross is at the heart of the gospel.

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First of all, it begins by referring back to what we spoke about a few minutes ago regarding an understanding of what sin truly is.

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You see, we have to get past the notion that it has to do with how we define terms.

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We have to see how God defines term. Again, this lack of conformity or transgression to the law, whether it be in our inward state or whether it be in our outward state, whether it be because we didn't do something or because we chose to do something wrong.

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In our world, we want to change that. We want it to be, well, we didn't do it, that was an accident. We accidentally didn't do it.

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What the Word of God does is remove that from the equation. Because even if you accidentally, if you want to use today's terminology, did it, you're still guilty.

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You're still guilty. We look around at our world, we see that it is a larger problem.

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So when we understand this, we need to understand again that we're talking about the moral law of God.

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And just as people in Jesus' day were guilty of misunderstanding the law, we do it today.

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I mean, think about Jesus' sermon on the Mount, where he spends so much time laboring to get the people to see and understand that this rigid obedience to the law, to the letter, loses the real nature of the law.

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It loses what's really important, that it becomes a symptom and is a symptom of a larger problem that we are sinful in the core of our beating.

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Take any commandment. Take any commandment. Study it.

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I would invite you to go home this week and take the commandment that when you read, you can say,

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I've never done that, and study it, and come back next week and tell me how many ways you truly have done it.

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Because at the end of the day, we are guilty of all. Even if you can only find where you're guilty of one,

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I would say you're not being honest with yourself. But secondly, the word says if you're guilty of one, you're guilty of all.

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When we look around us, we see this guilt being manifested in people.

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And listen, I'm not talking about church people who are sorrowful for their actions. I'm talking about everyone. Everyone carries the weight of this guilt.

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They may not understand it. I'm not saying that they acknowledge where it comes from. I'm saying that the things that they are struggling with, the things that they are dealing with, whether they want to admit that it's true or real, whether they want to admit that they actually feel it or not, they are under a burden of this guilt.

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And it drives people to do the things that they do.

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But it is also necessary for us that we fully understand that there is a penalty for sin.

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You see, even those today who acknowledge and may say that there's sin, they don't have a fear of a penalty.

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Listen, our churches are full of people who will quickly tell you absolutely the wages of sin are death, but they fail to acknowledge the sin in their life.

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They refuse to repent from the sin in their life.

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Listen, this price that had to be paid was true in the garden. It began in the garden.

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The price had to be paid. It was true of Job's friends.

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You remember at the end of the book of Job, Job has to actually perform an offering for the sins of his friends so that God would forgive.

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A sacrifice, again, had to be made. It was true of the men that God had set apart as his priesthood in Aaron and his sons, and it's true today.

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This is not an idea that began when Moses jotted down the

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Ten Commandments given to him by God. This is not something that started once the law was implemented.

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It began in Eden. It was the first command literally spelled out the wages of sin.

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For the Israelites, this payment was done through the sacrifices that were repeated.

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We'll come to that more towards the end of Exodus 29 when we talk about the daily sacrifices that would happen, but Hebrews 7, 27 records for us that it was a daily thing, daily, like those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people.

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That was what the priest had to do every day, offer a sacrifice for his own sins before he could offer sacrifices for the sins of the people.

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But here's the beauty of the gospel. You see that verse, Hebrews 7, verse 25, is surrounded by some other verses, and in those other verses we find such beauty, excuse me,

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Hebrews 7, 27, surrounded by 26 and 28. We read these words,

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For it was fitting for us, us being believers, to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens,

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Christ, who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

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For the law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

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He did once for all when he offered up himself. Once for all here applies to all the sins of all of God's people for all time.

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Christ's death, the only acceptable sacrifice.

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Consider the words of God in Hebrews 10, verse 14, For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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By his sacrifice, by his atoning work, our sin debt is paid. God's wrath against his people is fully, totally, and completely satisfied.

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Listen, we have spoken at length, as we've talked about these priestly clothing, about the imputation of righteousness that is given to us, this gift of righteousness that we are clothed in, the righteousness of Christ imputed, given, counted to us.

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But what we need to understand, what we cannot miss, is that in Christ's death on Calvary's cross, there is a double imputation that occurs.

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There is a second thing that happens. For you see, just as much as his righteousness is imputed to us, our sins are imputed to him.

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They are placed on him. They are imparted to him. They were counted to him.

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This is why 2 Corinthians 5 .21 says that he became sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Our sins counted to him. His righteousness counted to us.

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That's the beauty of the gospel. We use a term in theology called penal substitutionary atonement, meaning that he paid the full price for our sins in our place, for all time, for all his people, to the individual who hears and who understands the truths that we confess, or to the individual that hears this message regarding Christ's death on the cross, one of two things will happen.

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Every person who hears the gospel message, one of two things will happen. First, the

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Holy Spirit may move upon your heart, regenerating you, allowing you to actually hear the truth, convicting you of your need for repentance, guiding you into faith which leads ultimately to salvation.

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Or secondly, the words of the gospel fall on the ears that are dead, hearts that are made of stone, and you are still in your sin.

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For those who hear this message, for those who hear the gospel, and you are regenerated, there are two impacts upon you.

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So this is believers. Believers, there should be two things happening in your life as a result of understanding the gospel.

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First, you will break forth in true praise and worship. Listen, your heart will literally burst with the reality of Christ's work.

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You can't help but to sing. You can't help but to have joy. You can't help but to have peace with God.

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You can't help but to respond in worship and adoration. Secondly, you also can't be quiet.

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You have to speak the truth. I literally mean there, speak.

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This is not an empty placard of, well, share the gospel.

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If necessary, use words. No, it's necessary. Use words. And no place in Scripture do we find evidence of that statement.

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In fact, what we find is the opposite. What he says is preach the

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Word. Your actions should prove what you preach, but you've got to preach the

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Word. That doesn't mean that you necessarily have to be a preacher, stand at a pulpit and give a lecture, but it does mean that you share the truth of Christ, the good news of the gospel with those.

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Listen, absolutely, it can be one of the most terrifying things in your life, but I will promise you it is also one of the most rewarding.

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To stand firm. To stand true because of what

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Christ has done in your life. To not be afraid to talk about sin.

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To not be afraid to point out lovingly by the

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Word our need for repentance from our sin.

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Listen, as a group of brothers and sisters in Christ, we're still called to do the same thing, to lovingly go to each other.

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That's what the Word is for. It is my prayer that as we have witnessed this graphic and glorious reality of this substitutionary sacrifice, how the blood of the bull was required before the priest, even though they were washed, even though they were clothed, even though they were ordained, even though the high priest was anointed, that apart from the blood, they would never be prepared.

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Every detail in the sacrificial system again points us forward ever towards the greater and final sacrifice of Christ.

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Christ, that spotless lamb who died through no reason of his own doing, but because of the sins of you and I, who paid the price on Calvary's cross, who shed his blood for our sins, who satisfied the wrath of God.

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Listen, if you're sitting here this morning and you appear outwardly religious, you're dressed rightly, you've got a nice big fat study

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Bible, you've got your notebook, you've got all of the trappings, you've got cool stickers, great clothing, but no faith, no faith in the work that Christ did, then your outward religion is in vain.

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Your worship in this place is hollow. Your service is empty.

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Appearance is deceiving. The truth of Scripture is plain.

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There is no amount of cleansing. There is no robe that we can put on no matter how splendidly we are dressed.

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We can go to the highest quality clothing store. There's no position that we can obtain, no righteousness of our own outward appearance that can substitute for the blood.

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It is only by Christ's atoning death that cleanses us from the inside out, makes us fit to serve the living

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God. So the question before you is, have you truly laid your hands upon the head of the substitute?

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In other words, have you placed your faith in the substitutionary atoning work of Christ?

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Have you confessed and repented of your sins? Have you cast yourself upon his mercy?

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Have you trusted wholly in his finished work? Or are you content to simply look the part while continuing to be a whitewashed tomb that is dead and unclean within?

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There is only one sacrifice that God accepts.

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Come to Christ. Come by faith to Christ alone and be truly, eternally cleansed from your sin.

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Let us pray. Gracious and merciful

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Heavenly Father, Lord, we bow before you acknowledging our deepest need.

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Lord, we ask that your spirit would help us to see our sins, not as the world defines them, but as you do, as your word does.

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Lord, we ask that you would open our eyes to the hidden faults, grant our hearts to be tender and broken over our transgressions.

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Lord, teach us to submit ourselves wholly to your word.

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Lord, that we would not lean on our own understanding and our own efforts, but that we would trust in your wisdom and your righteousness.

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Father, cause us to lay down every effort of self -justification and place our faith, our full faith in Christ alone, the only perfect substitute in our great

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High Priest. Father, we thank you again that his blood is accepted on our behalf and his righteousness clothes us completely.

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Strengthen us by your spirit to walk in humble obedience with lives that reflect the glory of your grace.

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Father, we ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.