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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/scott-macleod/the-day-of-atonement/
Let's turn our Bibles to Leviticus chapter 23, please. Leviticus 23, a few more thoughts on the Lord Jesus, the one that we're going to soon meet. Now, a tremendous event happened a month ago, happens every year in Israel, end of September, September the 29th.
It's called the Day of Atonement. Of course, they're a little late and a little early. With the celebration of it, Yom Kippur, sometimes it's referred to as the Day or the Day of Atonement. But we're going to read about it in its biblical sense.
It does look forward, in a biblical sense, to when the nation will be born in a day after the seven-year tribulation. But there's a lot of events that took place on that day that really bring before the Lord Jesus and His work of atonement.
And they're just very thrilling to our hearts. So in Leviticus 23, you have the rules associated with the different feasts of Jehovah. And we'll just pick up quickly at verse number 26, Leviticus 23, verse 26.
And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, also on the 10th day of this seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls. Now, notice how many times that appears.
Personal reflection, afflicting your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Notice how many times this appears, verse 28. And ye shall do no work in that same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.
For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted, there it comes again, in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work, there comes the idea of work again, in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
Ye shall do no manner of work. There it is again. It shall be a statue forever throughout your generations, in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest. So we're often familiar with the Sabbath that fell on the traditional Saturday, but if this particular day fell on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or a Sunday, it actually became like a Sabbath, a Sabbath of rest.
And ye shall, here it is again, afflict your souls in the ninth day of the month at even. From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath. Now let's go to chapter 16, which details for us. We're not gonna read the whole day.
There's just a few pieces of it that I want to pick up and apply to the Lord Jesus. And the reason I read in Leviticus 23 was really to pick up the idea that no one was to do any work but one person. Now that is quite significant for us because if you are familiar with the children of Israel, there were 12 tribes.
And you know that the tabernacle structure sat right in the midst of the 12 tribes. And then the 12 tribes were divided into four groups of three. And they were positioned around the tabernacle system.
But right around the tabernacle, God gave the Levites to sort of position their tent. And of those 12 tribes, God took the entire tribe of Levi to function on behalf of the other 11 as a go-between to their God.
And they did all this work and everything was divided up into 24 courses. And there's all different sorts of studies that you can enjoy from that. So you're looking at, I have no idea how many people were in the tribe of Levi, but you're looking at thousands upon thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.
And you can just imagine if you allow the different feasts to go through your mind, the different offerings to go through your mind, the amount of sin offerings that had to take place on a day by day, the amount of trespass offerings that had to go every single day.
You can just imagine this tabernacle system, just priests coming in and out. And there was the one high priest moving all in through that structure. And people were coming up to the outer gate with their animals.
And it was just like a beehive of activity. But on this one day, 360 days in the calendar year of a Hebrew, this one particular day, all the Levites stayed home. And there was just one lone Levite, the high priest, just moving in that tabernacle system.
Tremendous to think. Now, really, what is the spirit of God doing for us? Isn't it marvelous? I know we had a wonderful time here by the spirit of God as we met with our Savior this morning and lovely, lovely worship.
Brethren, let us never take that for granted. That is why God saved us, is for worship. Sometimes I wish we could sit on that little hymn book and we could just, all we are allowed to do is get up and worship.
Give God what's on your heart. That is thrilling to God. Isn't it wonderful that every single person that worshiped and all the hymns, our minds were just occupied with one person, Christ. Dear child of God, that is what heaven will be.
One person alone. No one or nothing will ever eclipse Him. This is what God was picturing on this day with all of the activity for 359 days of the year on this one day. And this is the only place in the Bible where we read about the day of atonement.
We don't read it being done in any other place that I can find. You go through the book of Hebrews, you get many references to it. You get the Passover referred to a number of times actually being done.
But I don't read of the children of Israel doing this anywhere else other than Leviticus 16. So there's something very unique about what is gonna take place on this particular day. So have a look at what, one thing I want you to notice, this is gonna pick up a thought from yesterday and what our brother Duncan mentioned to us.
Look at verse number three. Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place with a young bullock for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put off the holy linen coat and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh and shall be girded with a linen girdle and with a linen mitre shall he be attired.
These are holy garments. Therefore shall he wash his flesh in water and so put them off. Now there were typical, you probably have seen pictures of the high priest and you've probably seen pictures of his garments and the beauty, the four different colors and the gold woven into the breastplate and those 12 gems and the gems here and the hat, holiness to the Lord.
You probably have a picture of that. He wasn't gonna wear all this on this day. All of that dazzling beauty was to be taken off and put to the side. He wore that for the 359 days of the year. But on this one day, this man is gonna be an all white, pure white.
And there's gonna be four items. I don't mean to be irreverent when I say this, but breeches, that's really the idea of boxer shorts, long almost to the knee. That's really what the idea is. So that, pure white.
Then there was the robe, the outer robe right down to the ankles. And then there was the girdle, the belt that he tied to hold the thing together. And then there was the bonnet on his head. Four things.
Now we heard Mr. Harold Paisley. I remember Mr. Harold Paisley as a young believer telling us, whenever you see four, think the gospels. Whenever you read about three, think about the three offices of the Lord Jesus Christ, prophet, priest, and king.
So whenever I see four, and I'm not gonna do it for you, but you can sit and meditate and you can line up the bonnet with a gospel, the robe with a gospel, the belt with a gospel, and the breeches with a gospel.
Here's what it speaks of. It speaks of the absolute sinless purity, perfection of the Lord Jesus. That's what it speaks of. Now here's my little tiny thing that I've appreciated about this. Just picking up from what my brother said yesterday and what I started out with yesterday is this.
Listen, everyone could see the white bonnet. You could see the white robe. You could see the belt, but no one saw the breeches. That was all covered. Now, when it comes to the sinless perfection of the Lord Jesus, you and I can only go so far.
We might have a desire to try to comprehend the whole thing, but we can't. Only God can. So there's an aspect just in the clothes that this man wore. I think we're being taught a lesson. There is an aspect that we can only apprehend so much.
And don't we enjoy it? We do. It's thrilling. Even though I don't understand it. Even though I know that I will never be able to fully comprehend the Lord Jesus, yet I never get discouraged thinking about him.
Isn't that tremendous? Like if you put something natural in front of me, like if you want to frustrate and put a puzzle in front of me, a thousand piece puzzle, I'll give you about five minutes and I'll throw the thing off the table.
I get so frustrated with puzzles. I can't understand how people find those things interesting. But anyway, but listen, the Lord Jesus, isn't there something that just draws you to him? Isn't there? My, if there's not, you need to be saved.
He's a wonderful person. And just to give him time, like my brother mentioned, study this book. Don't treat this book as if it's like, well, I just want to be able to raise my hand and say, I read the Bible this year.
Big deal. Find something about Christ. Learn something about God. It's not a race. No, it's a lifestyle. Learn them, find them, study them, everything you can. Take time, dear child of God, you will be rewarded.
So here's this priest. Just think of it for a minute. And you know what I find amazing? Pure white, pure white, pure white, pure white. You're gonna be amazed at how many animals he had to kill. Now they had to catch blood.
And if I read Leviticus 23 the right way, he's doing this by himself. He's got to kill a bullock. That's a big animal to kill by yourself. He's got to kill one of these goats. I mean, that would be a little easier because I could get my arms around that thing.
But he's got to kill a bullock and he's got to catch this blood because he's going to do something with it. Can you imagine the sight of this man at the end of this day? That pure white stained in red.
My, if your mind is not going to our blessed savior hanging on that tree, what a sight. What a sight that is to think upon. Absolute sinless humanity marred, marked by wicked humanity. That's tremendous to think of, dear child of God.
Just let it ponder, ponder it as you think on it. Now, come ahead. Before he could take anything into the Holy Spirit, you know that the tabernacle structure consisted of the outer court and that's where the brazen altar was and the laver and that's where the animals were brought in.
Then you came to the actual structure itself and you had the holy place and the holies of holies and we all know that veil that hung between them. I'm thinking of the holies of holies. I'm actually building it at home on a six to one scale on a 4BHC plywood.
But it's fascinating when you actually build it to ratio, you're gonna get a perspective that you never got before. I always used to think that Aaron could go in there and almost reach up and touch the coverings.
That's 15 feet high. I'm six foot. So try to imagine another nine feet on top of me. 15 feet high and 15 feet wide. It was a perfect cube, the holies of holies. I used to think that when the Ark of the Covenant was in the midst, Aaron almost, he almost had to walk around it like this because it was so big and it was so small.
But no, there's a lot of room in there. And before Aaron could even go in there, something had to happen before he could bring blood in. This is what had to happen. Look at verse number 12. And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar.
That's out there where the animal, well, no, that's the altar. The altar of incense hanging before the veil, before the Lord and his hands. Notice that, his hands full of sweet incense. You'll never get that anywhere else in the Bible.
His hands full of sweet incense. You go back to the Levitical offerings of chapter two of Leviticus. There you're only gonna read about a handful of frankincense, like just a handful. Here you've got hands full.
Listen, I really have small hands for a man. I shook the hands here of a brother and he's a worker in my land. And you feel all the little muscles, big, strong hand. Listen, doesn't matter how small or big your hand is, whatever you grasp of Christ will satisfy.
It'll thrill you. I wanna encourage my younger brother, and sometimes maybe you're afraid to worship in the presence of preachers. God forbid. We're all just men. It's all we are. Sometimes as preachers, we can become very professional in our praying.
And words go on and on and on and on. Filler. Oh, it might impress you, but it doesn't impress God. You know what impresses God? And you know what will feed me? Just give me what you've been handling of Christ.
That's all. I don't care how small it is. I don't care if it only takes five seconds. Just give it to me. Don't rob me. Because there are things that I learn when I sit and listen to brethren pray. I learned, I keep a notebook in my Bible bag.
People are always teasing me about the size of my Bible bag. God, go on, you're just jealous. I got a lot of stuff in there. One thing is a pad and a pen. Because guess what? Truth hasn't ended with me.
I'm a learner. And I'm writing down stuff that I never even thought of. Praise God. So we as preachers don't come just to give. I come to get. I love getting things from brethren. Wonderful, thrills me.
So listen, dear young one, just give God what you have. And the sisters as well. We know it's not audible. It's not according to the word of God. But please, in the silence of your heart, you just offer up to God a little bit of incense.
It'll thrill his heart. Anyways, we need to get back to this. Before the Lord, his hands full of sweet incense, beaten small. Notice that. Just lodge that in your brain for a minute. And bring it within the veil.
And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord. And the cloud of the incense, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony that he die not. Now listen, come back to the holies of holies.
That 15 by 15 foot cube. There's the ark. There's those angelic beings stretching over the mercy seat. We all have the picture in our mind. God said, right above that mercy seat, God said, I will be there.
Think of the Shekinah glory. That's my understanding of it. Think of when the tabernacle was first built, all according to the pattern and God's glory. God himself came down, filled it. It couldn't go into it.
It was so full. And God must've done something to that glory to restrict it or limit it or bring it to a certain size. I'm not quite sure what it all meant. But here's what had to happen. Aaron would take those four unique spices.
You get them in Exodus 30. And they had to be beaten small. And then they had to be blended. And if anyone else made a similar concoction, God would, that's it, they're done. Nobody was to duplicate this because we are looking at a picture here of Christ.
Four, I'm going to the Gospels again. Isn't that marvelous? I can enjoy the Gospels just individually. My wife grows a lot of herbs at home and I love it when the time comes. She just happened at home.
She took it in the spearmint and the mint. And she puts them in bundles. And we have this beam in our kitchen and she's all these nails on it. And as soon as I walk in the door, I have no trouble realizing what she's been doing.
When it's spearmint day, it's like, whoa, did a piece of spearmint gum blow up in here or what? And I go into the kitchen and there's all these things hanging in bunches. And then, now that's marvelous.
Then comes the day after how many weeks? Then they're all dry. Then you know what she does? She puts them on the table and she starts to pull them all off the stem. Man, the house is even more full of spearmint.
Why? Because now it's starting to get smaller. You take then those leaves that come off and you put them in a, what is it, pestle and mortar and you grind her down smaller. What are you doing? The more you grind it, the more the smell, the fragrance comes out of it.
Listen, it didn't matter how much pressure they put on Christ. The only result was more fragrance to God. It's not the idea that we're reading about the temptation as we're looking at yesterday or whatever it might be, the devil, and we're just waiting back with almost like, bated breath, like, when's he gonna break?
Never. I tell you that, you could do that to me. You could start to pick on me and you could stand back with a notepad and a stopwatch and go, okay, how much can he, how much can he handle? I can't handle too much.
And there will come a point where you will just push me far enough and bang, I will blow, guaranteed, because it's in my heart. I'll do everything in my power to cover it up, but it's there. But the more they ground him, just the fragrance, just came up to his father.
Now you can enjoy them all individually, but then God said, now you put them all together. There's now a blending. There was a bruising. There was a blending. Isn't it nice? Sometimes you bring this spice, this spice, you put it together, and now you've got a multiplication of fragrance.
My, what he is to God. I often think sometimes, sometimes you ever find yourself in a morning meeting, a worship meeting, and someone is praying, you never thought of that, and another one's praying, it seems like it's amplifying.
And sometimes you ever sit there, sometimes you just wonder, like, Lord, how much higher can this thing get? And then someone else gives you something. And are you not enjoying it? And I often think to myself, my, if I'm enjoying that of Christ with all of my limitations, what must God be enjoying?
An infinite God. If it thrills me, what must it do to God? Tremendous to think. We can enjoy that this side of heaven. What will heaven be like, brothers and sisters? What a place. But this is interesting.
Do you know what really brought out those, the smell of those spices? It's when they came in contact with that fire. That's when it really amplified. I tell you, he is the only person that the hotter the flame, the more the fragrance ascended up.
Only person. That's why we insist full dogmatism. The absolute sinless perfection of Christ. This is who we're looking at. And you know what this man had to do, Aaron? He had to put those spices on top of those burning coals in that fire, in that censer thing.
And he had to go into the holies of holies. Now there's this kind of glory. Now I'm sure there was a tremendous amount of fear in this man's heart. Because we could read earlier in Leviticus where two boys offered strange fire and they were destroyed.
Two of his own boys. And there was a tremendous fear. This is the only day he's allowed in here. This is gonna be one of number three that he goes in. And he would take that censer and he would go around the altar, the ark.
And the cloud of incense would fill that room. Do you know what was happening there when that took place? Think of it. These spices speak of the life of Christ. Right above that mercy seat is the Shekinah glory.
Do you know what happened? The life of Christ pictured in that cloud of fragrance, perfectly blended. The Shekinah glory. Absolute holiness. That is what the life of Christ is to God. No, nothing out of rhythm.
Nothing. Nothing clashing. I hear, I'm thinking of these spices. I've just enjoyed it last night. It was just before I was slipping off to sleep. All those four are an equal portion. I actually heard a preacher amongst us.
I couldn't believe it from a platform say that the predominant characteristic of the Lord Jesus is love. That is wrong. That is wrong. All of his characteristics, all of his attributes flow at 100%. Nothing, it's not like one is up and the other is down.
They're all the fruit of the spirit, the nine that we could go through. They're all, they couldn't be in any higher capacity. And what a feast to God in heaven. And there's that man. But here's what I thought.
There he is, there's no blood yet on those linen garments, right? And he went in there and he went around and he got out. Because I think there was a lot of fear in his heart of not staying too long in there because of what happened previously.
But you see, God enjoyed the full fragrance of that cloud. I don't know what, how much he got of it. And I'm sure there was still a lot left on his garments as he came out. But linen tends to pick up fragrances fairly quickly.
But what little he was left with. Thank God, God left him with something. But I'll tell you who enjoyed the full fragrance of that. It was his father in heaven. So we look at it, don't we marvel at his life?
Don't we marvel at his miracles, his words? Don't we marvel at all of that? How perfectly, as my brother was saying, he dealt with individuals, rich, poor, all the different hypocrisies. Can you imagine the range of people?
Sometimes I like dealing with people that are like me because they don't irritate me. But put someone in front of me that is not like me. I can only tolerate it so long. You ever talk to those people and you're like, you're just trying to get away from them.
Like, will you please, you're like a Klingon man, like get off me. I'm just being honest because my personality is clashing with their personality. Think of the Lord, think of the multiplicity of personalities he dealt with.
No one went away offended. If they had to listen properly to his words, there was always blessing there for them. I often think of it, what a thing, eh? The father in heaven, so in tune was the Lord Jesus with his father, as we know.
The father could look at every word and every deed and every interaction. And you know what the father did? That's just how I would have done it. That's exactly what I would have said. That's how I would have handled that person.
Never was there a difference. Oh, why did he do that? No, never. And the closer it got to the fire. So now we're, we do see pressure mounting in the life of the Lord, don't we? The persecution. And the fragrance is just increasing.
And then we come to the cross of Calvary. Now, man ceases, as the wrath of God for our sin fell in all of its fury upon the sacrifice. Do you know what came back up to his father? What a fragrance. What a joy.
That's why, dear child of God, when you read in Isaiah 53, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. We can't understand that. There was pleasure. There was a joy in it. Don't ever think for a minute that the Lord Jesus going to cross, there was ever a second of hesitation.
In lacrosse here, I was telling them, I try to understand things because I'm a visual person. I put my fist against my hand and I press as hard as I can. As the Lord Jesus neared Calvary, the pressure never let up.
And when they brought that cross member of that cross to him, do you know what I can see him doing? Give it to me. It's mine. Jesus bearing his cross went forth. Don't think that the brethren are some sanctified imagination.
When they laid him on the ground and his hand was waiting for the nail, I don't think that's sanctified imagination. The feet were already in position. Never had they... I can see the soldiers almost stunned for a minute.
Like my brother mentioned this morning about the reed. How many times they took that fake reed out of his hand, smashed him on the head and put it back. Guess what they discovered each time? The hand was there to receive it, to hold it again.
This is our savior. My, don't we feel like just pausing right now and just worshiping? That's what heaven will be like. Quickly, I need to end because we want to get to the gospel message. Look at what we have.
We could quickly touch this. Verse 14, and he shall take the blood of the bullock. Now, even before he could take the blood of the goat, he had to take the bullock, which is for himself and his family.
Lord Jesus never had to do that because he's sinless. But then he does the same thing, verse 15, with the blood of the goat. And I could have read earlier in the chapter, there's two goats, but it's one offering.
I always remember that. So full is the offering of Christ. You got multiple animals just trying to picture the one offering. But quickly, go down to verse number 20. And when he has made an end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle, the congregation, the altar, he shall bring the live goat.
And Aaron, now only this you're going to read twice or in the Bible here once. And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities onto a land not inhabited. And he shall let go the goat in the wilderness and Aaron shall come in and so on. What do I enjoy about that? Listen, when it comes to the sinless perfection of Christ, there's an aspect of it that only God the Father can enjoy.
When it comes to the perfections of his life, once again, only the Father can enjoy the whole thing, the whole fragrance. When it comes to the work of Christ on the cross, only the Father can enjoy it in his fullness.
I see that here. You know what? Can you imagine how sweet it was for the children of Israel to be listening? Here he is, his hands are pressed hard upon that goat and all their sins are being figuratively laid upon that goat.
And then they watch as their sins are being carried away. Oh, isn't that great? Look at that. Their sins are going away. And then they watched and they watched and all of a sudden that little animal and that man became a dot on the horizon.
They're gone. But God says, that's not far enough. Even though they're out of your sight, God says that man goes even further to a place uninhabited. Then he unties the goat. And he lets the goat go again.
And it goes out of sight of the fit man. Gone. We do our best to try to comprehend the depth to which our Savior stooped at Calvary, don't we? Don't you just wish you had a mind to comprehend it? Even in eternity, you'll never comprehend it.
It's without measure. But I'll tell you this, the Father can measure it. You know what I thought for the first time? I will not truly begin to appreciate the depth to which he stooped until the first second I step into heaven.
And for the first time, I get a sight of where he came from. I think I know a little about heaven today, but I don't know much. And when I see that place for the first time, I'll only then begin to understand the lower parts of the earth.
What a Savior, right? May our hearts be thrilled. May my ministry or the ministry of the entire conference provoke you to give. Could I, I feel like being an auctioneer right now. Five more minutes of study a day?
Six, can someone give me six, six, seven, seven, seven, eight, eight, nine, 10, 15 minutes? Do you think he's worth it? Give him 15 more minutes a day. Hey, you know what you'll find? Your spiritual temperature will rise and you won't be as depressed and cranky.
You'll be happy. People will say, my, they're a pleasant to be with, pleasant person to be with. That's what happens when you feed on Christ.