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Dr. Irwin "Rocky" Freeman
Forget it. You could be at Laurel Land, perhaps Restland, Sparkman Hillcrest, Lying in State. Isn't this much better at the least at this moment? Well I'll tell you what, maybe some of you already visited over there today and got your shot and now you back over here, you know.
I don't know what you take for vitamins, maybe formaldehyde, you know or something. I thought I might just read something that was given to me. You've probably already heard it, but I don't know that you have so therefore I want to read it.
And just kind of, I want to use it to let you know that the Word of God is too important for you and me to take people's word for it. It's too important for you to take my word for it. We ought to be diligently studying the Word of God every day.
Diligently delving into its truths, trying to digest everything we can from it. Because if somebody tells you, you don't know for sure that they've told you already all of it, or if they've told you rightly, I mean, you know, listen to this.
It's just called Operation Halley's Comet. I'm sure you've heard it. A colonel issued the following directive to his executive officer in the military. Tomorrow evening at approximately 2 ,000 hours, Halley's Comet will be visible in this area, an event which occurs only once in every 75 years.
Have the men fall out in the battalion area in fatigues. And I will explain this rare phenomenon to them. In case of rain, we will not be able to see anything, so assemble the men in the theater, and I'll show them some films on it.
So the executive officer comes along and he relays the same command to the company commander. By order of the colonel, tomorrow at 2 ,000 hours, Halley's Comet will appear above the battalion area. If it rains, fall the men out in fatigues.
Then march to the theater where the rare phenomenon will take place, something which occurs only once in every 75 years. So the company commander goes to the lieutenant. He says, by order of the colonel in fatigues at 2 ,000 hours, tomorrow evening the phenomenal Halley's Comet will appear in the theater.
In case of rain in the battalion area, the colonel will give another order, something which occurs once every 75 years. So the lieutenant goes and passes this message to the sergeant. Tomorrow at 2 ,000 hours, the colonel will appear in the theater with Halley's Comet, something which happens every 75 years, and if it rains, the colonel will order the comet into the battalion area.
So the sergeant turns to his men, beloved as they are. When it rains tomorrow at 2 ,000 hours, the phenomenal 75-year-old General Halley, accompanied by the colonel, will drive his comet through the battalion area theater in fatigues.
Now, that's about the way it goes, isn't it? You know, you just pass it around and it'll change, you know, so like the little game that they play, you know, whispering in someone's ear. Well, we don't want to do that.
We want to study the Word of the Lord. Would you look at Romans 321? Romans 321, we're talking about the tabernacle, talking about Christ, Mike's song about the Lord being foretold, and we want to ask ourselves this pertinent question as we talk about the tabernacle.
Is it really all God-like? Is it God-like? So that's our thought for tonight. Is it God-like? The gospel is God-like, isn't it? The good news. Jesus said, as I've given you early in the week, and you know it well, Jesus said, Moses, first five books of the Bible, and the prophets, rest of the Old Testament, they wrote about me, and Paul said something very interesting in the book of Galatians.
He said, God preached the gospel to Abraham in Galatians chapter 3 and following. I believe it's somewhere around 6 and the verses following that. He said, God preached the gospel to Abraham. Now, if he did, is it really God-like, this gospel?
All right, first of all, for those of you taking notes, you might say that it is God-like in kind, K-I-N-D. It is God-like in kind. In Romans 3 verse 21, But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is manifested in Christ.
Now, we see it. We see the righteousness of God, that is apart from keeping the law, as Mike just saw, the works. We don't do it by works. It is now manifested, you can see it, but being witnessed by the law, the whole Word of God, the Old Testament, witnesses to the fact, he says, to the manifestation of the gospel in Jesus Christ, because that's what he's talking about in Romans the third chapter, and he's putting men under sin.
Romans the first chapter, he puts Gentiles under sin. Romans 2, he puts Jews under sin. Romans 3 said, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and they need to meet Jesus Christ for the rectifying of that situation.
So the gospel is God-like in kind. It is the righteousness of God that you and I receive. Not righteousness that we could manufacture, but the righteousness which he himself is. And you get his righteousness given to you simply by the grace of God, when you trust him in believing faith.
And the blood of Christ does not restore us to the original stature of innocence, which Adam and Eve had before the fall. It does infinitely more than that. The blood of Christ does not merely make us what we might have been before the fall.
We are actually made kings and priests unto God, heirs and joint heirs with Christ. And that is far better, far better. In 1st John 3, 2, it's a well-known verse. You don't have to look at it. Just mark it down and read it later.
It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Now in Revelation 1, if you want to look at this, Revelation chapter 1, verse 5 and 6, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins, that's the last book in the Bible, the first chapter, Revelation 1, 5 and 6, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be the glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen. So the gospel is God-like. It is God-like in kind and it also God-like in length. Length. It is God-like in length. By the grace of God, you and I are given what is called eternal life. Not merely life from now on, but life that never began and never end.
And I'm going to indicate some of this, but it's utterly amazing. Whenever, in one of our Bible studies, and many of you have done these Bible studies, and we have three major Bible studies that we try to get people to complete for us, and one of the questions that's asked in the basic one is, what is eternal life?
Look it up in a dictionary. And what it says is, eternal life, it says it is life that never ends. That doesn't tell you what it is, that just tells you what it isn't. It never explains to you what it is.
What is eternal life? Friends, eternal life is a life that never began and it never ends. It is the always-present. That is what eternal life is. Because God is eternal, he never had a beginning, he never has an ending.
And he gives us the life of God. And eternal life is not a life with a beginning. It is not a life that has an ending. It is the ever-eternal present. Present life. Life now, and it cannot change. It cannot be altered.
It is God-like in length. By the grace of God, he gives it to us, and not life from now on, but life that never began and a life that will never end. And the gospel is God-like in thoroughness. In completeness.
Thoroughness. As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. It is no wonder to me that the learned theologians have never been able to make a theory of the atonement.
They've got theories for everything else, but there is no theory for the atonement. My thoughts are not your thoughts, God says. Neither are my ways your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
And you can't think like God and neither can I. And a lot of people get frustrated trying. People say, you ought to think like God. You can't think like God. That'll frustrate you. Frustrate you and get you discouraged.
All you and I are required to do is to walk in obedience to God's Word. You're not trying to figure out the mind of God. You're not ever going to figure it out. God has revealed himself in the Word of God, and being filled with the Holy Spirit is nothing more than having your sins confessed and walking in obedience to God's Word.
And my friend, the only alternative there is that you are filled with God's Spirit, and you need to walk in that attitude. Because the only thing that stops the filling is sin. Once you confess your sins and walk in obedience to God's Word, then you are filled with the Holy Spirit, whether you feel it or not.
You are. The Bible just teaches it. That's just what it says. And so we have to have that attitude, and we walk on and then we see the manifestation and the fruit of it in our lives. Theologians have tried in vain to explain this wonderful atonement that was revealed in the tabernacle and is revealed and manifested completely in the New Testament, but I believe it is a mystery that is only understood by the Creator.
Only God knows what went on during those three hours of darkness when Christ hung on Golgotha. Only God knows what went on in those three hours, and in some way the Creator was creating this eternal life for doomed, lost sinners and making it available for us.
Now the definitions of the word life as I've indicated in the biology books and the dictionaries are almost humorous in their inadequacy. But the author of the definitions seems to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that they have not defined the term at all.
They usually tell us what it isn't, but they never define the term life. The popular definition of life in most dictionaries is this, life is existence between birth and death. Life is existence between birth and death.
But this definition tells the duration of life or what someone thinks life's duration is, but it does not even give a suggestion of what life is. It gives direction to what it is. Vegetable life, animal life, any kind of life is beyond the reach of our senses.
You cannot smell life, you cannot see life, you cannot feel life, you can't hear life or taste life in its essence. What is a rose seed? When you plant a beautiful little rose seed, do you really know what happens?
Does anyone know the modus operandus? Do you, me, or anyone else know what takes place when that rose seed is transformed into glorious roses on a rose bush? Nobody can explain it. There's not a scientist in the world that can.
They don't even understand it. Since God guards so carefully the secrets of life in the vegetable world, one can see that the Creator will guard even more closely his secret of eternal life. Do not try to make a theory of the atonement.
Pull and fall on your knees before the sacred cross and weep your heart out in tears of gratitude and thank God for it and stop trying to figure it out and stop trying to figure it out. You cannot and probably never will see behind the scenes of Calvary.
You may hear the weeping and the crying and the screaming that was going on around it. You may even hear the rattling of the dice of the soldiers as they gambled for the seamless cloak of the blessed Christ.
You may even hear the thunder and you may even feel the earthquake, but behind the scenes you can never ever go. Only God has that sacred privilege. It is godlike. The gospel is godlike in cost. Also, we're talking about the gospel that we've been reading in the tabernacle.
We're writing in the tabernacle. We're not venturing off from it. I'll be very honest with you. I would not leave the city of gold to walk the dirty road of Calvary. I wouldn't do it. I would not exchange the diadem of the universe for a crown of thorns.
I would not leave the songs and praises of angels and seraphim for the howling and hissing of the scribes and the Pharisees. I would not stretch out my arms to a lost world if my hands had to be held in place by Roman nails.
I would not have a way open back to my heart if it had to be opened by the point of a Roman spear. I wouldn't do it and you wouldn't either if you're honest about it. But God would and God did. The gospel is godlike in cost and it is also godlike in presentation.
It is a gift. How it grieves my heart as I travel from place to place to place and even in Baptist churches and find people who are trying to work for their salvation. It's the most piteous thing I've ever seen in my life.
It is the height of egotism and self-centeredness to think that you and I could do anything to earn eternal life. What in your frail life, ma 'am, could you ever do that would warrant you entering the portals of glory?
What could you ever muster in your lifetime that would cause you to be able to enter that gate? And if you believe you can work for it, ladies and gentlemen, wire the cross. Wire the cross. But everywhere you go, and I hasten to say this, Southern Baptists have a lot of problems, and I don't agree with everything Southern Baptists do.
But the Southern Baptist Convention, now listen to my words, is the only major denomination in this country that doesn't teach salvation by works. Every major denomination in this country teaches a salvation by works.
As I said again, I repeat myself, for your edification, if you don't believe in the eternal security of the believer, or if you want to use common language, once saved, always saved, then you've got some kind of a concept of salvation by works.
It is one or the other. And every major denomination, that's where they stay. And I just can't correlate it with the Word of God myself. I just can't see it. Sweet and kind and lovely though they be, they're just wrong.
They're just wrong. You may quote me freely. It is a gift. If it were wages that we received, the gospel would be business-like, but it wouldn't be God-like. It would be business-like, but not God-like.
It is utter nonsense for any person to imagine that he could buy a few billion years with anything that he could possibly do in 78 years on the planet Earth. There are only four ways in which anything can be acquired in this world.
Four ways. You and I can only acquire anything in one of those four ways. You can acquire a thing if it can be acquired at all. First of all, by earning it honestly. You can earn it honestly. Or you can by dishonestly steal it.
Or you can buy it, or you can receive it as a gift. Now, what about acquiring eternal life? There is nothing you can do to earn it. There is nothing you can do. All of our righteousness is as filth ragged, but my Bible goes further.
It says that we are dead in trespasses and sin, and a dead man can't do anything to help himself. Dead unto God. Separated from God. No, you can't steal it. That's certain. Because the Bible says that robbers can't break in up there and steal.
As for buying it, you don't have the price. Neither does anybody else to buy it. So that only leaves the other possible way to acquire it, and that is by gift, and the gift of God is eternal life. I don't understand how people get around that.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. It's a gift of God, and why they walk around that, I don't understand it. How clear can you get? Well, he doesn't really mean that. Listen, God's got a vocabulary.
God knows how to talk. God knows how to speak, and when God put it down in the Word of God, he knew what he was saying. He didn't need us to interpret it for him. Well, you got to interpret it. You don't have to interpret anything in the Word of God.
Just say what it says. You gonna tell me you and I are smart enough that we're gonna interpret God? We're gonna translate it for God? God knows how to speak to man, and he says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
What more do you need? Friends, that's enough to run through the world waving it. Put it on a banner and say we believe this, and they say well, and even Baptists have trouble with it. You let a deacon get saved.
Oh, he had to be saved because he'd been deacon 20 years. He had to be saved because he did this. Salvation by works. We got it. We believe it, most of us. We say we don't, but we do. Well, let me ask you a question.
How much did it cost? The first thing almost anybody wants to know about a gift. Somebody gives you a gift. What goes through your mind? Wonder how much they paid for that? Get something for Christmas.
You know what happens when you give them to kids. Yeah, it costs more than mine. Look here. Look here. Huh? Yeah, that's what we usually want to, even about a gift. We want to know how much it cost. Well, precious friends, ask God Almighty how much the gift of eternal life cost.
Ask the angels who look down from the battlements of heaven how much it cost. Ask the Virgin Mary as she stands beneath the cross with hot salty tears streaming down her lovely face. Ask her as she looked at her son dying.
Ask her how much it cost. Ask the great God as with his own strong arms he holds back the legions of angels who stand ready to move at a moment's notice to sweep them all into hell with that cross and to rescue Christ.
The legions of the angels of heaven were ready to come forth and the strong arm of God held them back. Ask that God how much it cost for him to hold them back whenever his son was in such an awful spectacle of suffering.
Ask the blessed Christ as he cries out in that darkness. Eloi, Eloi, lama shabbat b 'nai. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Ask him how much it cost and then tell me you can go work for it. That's where you want to go find out how much it cost.
You don't want to read some book on doctrine. From the word of God. Well, what's the most important feature in the tabernacle? I don't know. But the beautiful wilderness tabernacle with its golden walls, its golden furniture, its magnificent blue, its precious purple, beautiful scarlet, and white fine linen.
Every single one of them was covered with blood. All the beauty spattered with blood. All the beautiful part of that tabernacle marred with blood. This becomes even a more perfect type, doesn't it? Isaiah 52 14 says what?
His visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. Here was this portable tabernacle, God in the flesh. God became flesh and tabernacled amongst men and here he is. Beautiful Lord Jesus, marred.
His countenance, you couldn't even see who he was. Friends, his visage, his countenance, was so beaten and blungeoned by those people you could not recognize him as the Word of God tells us. Martin Luther, the start or at least the precursor to the Great Reformation.
This Roman Catholic monk who went through everything trying to find peace with God. He beat himself. He went on fast. He went deprivation and everything. He did everything that was available to him and he couldn't find peace until he ran across a little verse that says the just shall live by faith.
But you know, he said that as he was a monk in the monastery, he knelt on that stone-cold floor and he held the crucifix before his eyes and as he looked at the bleeding form of his master he cried out for make and he began to weep.
How much it cost for me, for me, for me! And you and I walk in church service after service after service after service and we just go through the routine of it and it never registers with you and me how much it costs for you and for me.
I believe our whole attitude would be different on Sunday morning if we would just understand the price that it cost to redeem our precious souls. Talking about redeemed. Dr. A .J. Gordon, the princely preacher of Boston in another particular time, not in this particular day.
He met a young boy. You've heard the story, but let me give it to you. It helps me, encourages me. A young boy who had a cage full of birds and he owned all kinds of birds in there and Dr. Gordon said, where did you get them?
The little boy said, I trapped some of them. I snared some. I caught some. He said, well what are you gonna do with them? He said, well, I'll play with them for a while and then I'll feed them to my cat.
And Dr. Gordon said, would you sell them to me? I know birds. I studied birds. I'm what you call a bird watcher. I spend much of my leisure time in relaxation just watching the birds and he said, I would like to buy them.
He said, oh, you don't want them? Sorry, he said, they aren't worth anything. Send those little birds. He said, could I have them? I'll give you $10 for them. And the little boy said, why, I'll give them to you for $10.
He said, well, could I buy the cage too? And so he bought the cage and the little boy walked off and Dr. Gordon says that he placed that little cage down and opened the gate and the frightened little creatures began to flounder around in there.
But one by one they made their way to the gate and they soared out into the sky and he says as they soared out a song burst from within them and he said, I knew the song that every one of them was singing.
He said, it is redeemed, redeemed, redeemed and I knew that song because I've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. You and I sing it, but we don't know much about it. Talking about the tabernacle, Jesus, the Son of God.
Well, in order to understand it, I've mentioned many things to you. I want to share with you a thought or two about it. We want to stay with it and we're right where we ought to be. We're talking about redemption.
Well, how did they get redemption in this tabernacle? They had offerings, the Levitical offerings and you're about to get a quick education in about 10 minutes on the book of Leviticus. All right, the Levitical offerings.
Now listen to me carefully. Genesis is the book of election. Exodus is the book of redemption. Leviticus is the book of atonement and worship, numbers of walk and wandering, Deuteronomy of remembrance and if you just remember those words, my friends, you can understand.
They are the keys to understanding the first five books of the Bible. The first five books of the Bible receive their name from chapter 1 verse 1, each one of them. They get their name from chapter 1 verse 1.
You say, well, I already know all that. Well, why did they number the book of Numbers, numbers? Why is it named numbers? Someone, why? Does anyone know why the book of Numbers was named numbers? Because they numbered the tribes, but that's what some Gentile says, you know, in the Hebrew Bible, it doesn't say numbers.
In the Hebrew Bible is the Midbar and you know what that means? In the wilderness. Because the book of Numbers is about wandering, wandering, wandering. Now you've learned something about that already, haven't you?
All right, good. So perhaps there's something else down in here that I might share with you to stimulate your mind. Genesis, you see man ruined and Exodus redeemed and Leviticus cleansed worshiping and serving.
Now in Leviticus, strangely, there are five offerings. There are five offerings that say get right with God. Now there are seven feasts that say keep right with God. The offerings say get right and the feasts say keep right.
Now Leviticus is the book of holiness. In it God says be ye holy as I am holy. The basis of holiness as set forth in the book is by sacrifice and separation. Most Christians accept the sacrifice of Christ and they stop short of separating.
Most Christians will not separate themselves from the world. Most Christians refuse to do it. They are determined in rebellion against God for it. They are not about to separate themselves from this world, but they want that sacrifice.
But in the book of Leviticus both of them are necessary and the offerings all portray Jesus as our sacrifice for sin. And each one prefigures his person and his work. So let me share with you that the fundamental idea to the Hebrew worshiper was that the sacrifices were a means of his approach to God.
Sacrifice to him meant to draw near or approach God. Now sinful guilty man needed some way to draw back to a holy God with assurance of acceptance. This was divinely provided in a sacrificial system presided over by the Levitical priesthood.
Now besides the necessity of sacrifice in approach to God there are other matters involved in the sacrifices, and this is what we miss. First of all the burnt offering there had to be self dedication to God.
Totally devoted to God, that's Leviticus chapter 1. Generosity and giving which was the cereal offering or the meal offering the King James translates at meat offering. It is the meal offering, M-E-A-L, or the cereal offering is in Leviticus chapter 2.
And it followed immediately after the burnt offering and it featured the donation of material substance in the fruit of one's labor as the natural result of dedication of oneself to God, and that's why you bring your tithes and offerings into the church.
You bring as God has prospered you the New Testament teaches us. The New Testament says you come as God has prospered you. Why? It is the natural result of getting right with the Lord. It's the natural result of self dedication to God.
Thirdly you have thanksgiving, praise, fellowship, and communion of the worshiper because God has accepted his offering of gratitude, devotion, or his vow in the peace offering. And that is in Leviticus chapter 3.
Now also satisfaction, you know that five is the number of grace, and so you get five offerings. Satisfaction by substitution in the sin offering when the sin was against God, but no restitution was involved.
That's in Leviticus chapter 4. And then the fifth and last one expiation and restitution in the guilt offering where sin and injury demanded restitution, and that's in Leviticus 5. So you immediately detect, do you not, that the sacrifices were all split up into two sections.
They were those that were used to approach God for the purpose of restoring broken fellowship. And that is the sin offering in Leviticus 4 and the restitution offering or that which is called the trespass offering in Leviticus 5.
Those were used to approach God for the purpose of restoring broken fellowship. Now sacrifices used to approach God for the maintenance or the maintaining of fellowship were the burnt offering in Leviticus 1, the meal offering in Leviticus 2, and the peace offering in Leviticus 3.
Now here's something that's amazing, a little bit of information for you. Do you know that John, the gospel of John, the book of Hebrews, and the book of Revelation are based and built upon the tabernacle and the sacrifices?
The gospel according to John and the book of Hebrews and the book of Revelation. Now have you ever said, well that's hard for me to understand the book of Revelation. I can't understand it. Could it be that you've never studied the sacrificial system in the Old Testament upon which it is based?
You can't understand Hebrews nor the gospel of John nor can you understand the book of the Revelation until you understand the tabernacle in the wilderness and the sacrificial system because it is built upon and based upon there.
Now the gospel of John, you know it as well as I do of course, which particularly outlines the deity of Christ and sets him forth as the Son of God. Where does he begin? Well, he starts out in his gospel.
John follows every item in the tabernacle destiny. He begins at the brazen altar and he says behold the Lamb of God. The brazen altar was where the Lamb died. And then he says except a man be born of water and of the spirit.
That's at the laver. He comes right on into the brazen laver. And then he moves on into the altar or to the great table of showbread and he says I am the bread of life in the gospel of John. And that leads to the altar of incense when Jesus said if you ask in my name intercession, intercession that goes on in the gospel of John.
And as you move towards the back of the book of the gospel of John towards chapter 20, towards the end of the book, you give a get a glimpse of the things beyond the veil. And he says my father and your father, my God and your God.
And then he breathed on them and said receive you the Holy Ghost. And then by the descent and indwelling the believer himself becomes a holy temple or a shrine unto the Lord. And John follows every item of that tabernacle into the very presence of God.
Well, let's look at the offerings very quickly in the few moments that we have. First of all the burnt offering that's in Leviticus chapter 1. All right, what creatures? Let me give them to you quickly.
The creatures that were acceptable for the burnt offering and it's very symbolic of Christ. Remember we're seeing Jesus Christ in all of this. There was the bullock or the oxen. The bullock or the oxen or a sheep or lamb, a goat, a turtle dove or a pigeon.
The bullock or the oxen, a sheep or lamb, goat, turtle dove or the pigeon. Could be a part of the burnt offering. All right, the bullock or the oxen is a picture of Christ the patient enduring servant.
Obedient always. Obedient always. The sheep is a picture of Christ in unresisting self-surrender to the death of the cross. The goat typifies the sinner sacrificially Christ as he became sin for us. And he was numbered with the transgressors and made sin a curse.
The sinner substitute for it is written cursed is everyone that hangs on the tree. The turtle dove mourning mourning, mourning that mournful cry and innocence. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
The Prophet Isaiah tells us. The pigeon, poverty. It has no place of its own. It just roosts anywhere it can. Poverty. He became poor that we might become rich. He had no place to lay his head with perfect peace.
The offerings that we bring to God must always be according what to our ability and they must be brought willingly. Now the burnt offering meant this. I'm going to give you what constitutes the offering.
I'll tell you what the offering meant and then I'll tell you the law governing that particular offering quickly. The offering meant this. Christ offered himself without spot to die for our sins voluntarily.
Verse 3 on Leviticus chapter 1. The burnt offering typified Christ as atoning for our sins. Verse 4 Leviticus 1. And it was substitutionary. He laid his hand upon the head of the burnt offering. Verse 4.
And Christ is the way for us to be accepted of God. Verse 5 in Leviticus 1. Now what is the law of the burnt offering? That is in Leviticus 6, 8 through 13 that you find the law governing the burnt offering.
This continual burnt offering with fire that never went out. It was a miraculous fire. It just sprung up. It never went out. God kept the fire going. Portrays Christ constantly offering himself in God's presence on our behalf as the one in whom all believers have a guarantee of full acceptance and the ever-burning fire expresses the undying devotedness of Christ.
When the offerer laid his hand on the sacrifice's head, he identified himself with that offering. So he identified himself with Christ. The fire is a symbol of God's holiness. In Leviticus, fire manifests the sweet savor of the burnt, the meal, and the peace offerings wholly consumed.
The sin offering as the fire moved. All right, in chapter 2 of Leviticus, let's look at the meal offering. The King James says meat. That is a mistranslation. It is the meal offering, the cereal offering.
It is the one bloodless offering. It is the one that is bloodless in these five. This offering was made of four ingredients, was it not? Fine flour, olive oil, frankincense, and salt. Fine flour spoke of the unspotted humanity of Christ.
No unevenness, no impurities, no curdles, no lumps. It spoke of his perfect humanity. Olive oil typifies the Holy Spirit and declares that he was anointed of the Holy Spirit of God. It was poured on the flower.
Here he was in humanity and the Holy Spirit like a dove descending. Frankincense, that sweet perfume, represented the fragrance of his marvelous life, Godward. God said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
God saw pleasure and he grew in favor with God and man. The meal offering, what does it mean? Means this, this offering represented the perfect life of our Lord. The olive oil was mingled with flour. This combination spoke of his incarnation.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon him at John's baptism. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit with power and he was raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit and there was no leaven or natural honey, none at all in the meal offering.
Leaven is always a picture of sin in the Bible. Honey has natural sweetness, but it is not divine sweetness. Leaven is the corrupting and self-inflating principle of self-importance and this was foreign to the character of Christ.
What is the law of the meal offering? You find it in Leviticus 6, 14 through 18. A handful of meal offering was offered upon the altar and the rest was to be eaten by Aaron and his sons. The balance of that, the meal offering, was to be baked in an oven which signified the unseen sufferings of Christ.
They put it in and closed it up. Or they baked it in a pan or a gridiron. This indicated his intense sufferings. Or it was baked in a frying pan, which was the visible sufferings of Christ pictured for us there.
All right, the peace offering, Leviticus chapter 3, Leviticus 7, 11 and 38. This offering could be a bullock or an oxen, a lamb or a goat, male or female, didn't make any difference about the goat. It was led to the door of the tabernacle, laid his hand upon it, killed it, opened it up, took out the fat and the coil, the kidneys, and gave these to the priest to be burned on the altar.
The priest caught and sprinkled the blood, waved the breast and the right shoulder before the Lord. This is the peace offering. The breast of the offering, speaking of the affections of Christ, isn't it interesting that John, the beloved disciple, laid his head over on what?
On his breast. Yes, over on his breast, yes. Well, this speaks of the affections of Christ and it was given to Aaron and his sons. The right shoulder was given to the officiating priest and the rest of the sacrifice was taken away by the offerer himself and he and his family and friends ate it together before the Lord with great thanksgiving.
Now the meaning of the peace offering is simply this, the entire work of Christ in relation to the believers peace is right there in time. He made peace, Colossians 1 20. Colossians 1 20. He proclaimed peace, Ephesians 2 17, and he is our peace, Ephesians 2 14.
He made peace by the blood of the cross, Colossians 1 20 tells us. He proclaimed peace, Ephesians 2 17, and he is our peace, Ephesians 2 14. In Christ, God and the sinner meet in peace. God is propitiated, the sinner is reconciled, and both become satisfied with what Christ has done.
All of this is at the cost of blood and fire and the underlying precept and all of this is that of peace, our fellowship with God is only through blood and fire through Christ. The peace offering provided food for the priest.
They fed upon the shoulder and the breast. We as believer priests feed upon the breast affections and the shoulder strength in fellowship with the Father, remembering always that Jesus Christ is our peace offering.
There is no peace except through the blood of the cross and the believer is justified by faith and as peace with God, Romans 5 verse 1. Our next one is the sin offering, Leviticus 4 and Leviticus chapter 6 24 through 30.
This again was a bullock or an ox, a goat, a dove, or young pigeons, male or female, according to the ability of the offerer, whatever he could offer. The same procedure was used that was in the peace offering except instead of the offerer eating his portion, it had to be burned where?
Without the camp. They couldn't even burn it in the camp of Israel. They had to take it out. Where was Jesus crucified? Outside the city, outside the city. The blood was sprinkled seven times before the veil.
It was put on the horns of the incense altar and the balance was poured at the foot of the brazen altar. The offerer brought his offering to the door of the tabernacle. He laid his hands upon the sacrifice's head, then he killed the bullock.
The fat was burned, signifying the best portion for the Lord. The priest received their portion, then the blood was sprinkled in the sanctuary. The blood was poured at the foot of the brazen altar and the remainder of the sacrifice was burned outside the camp.
The offering had to be without any blemish. It was the ceremonial substitute for the sinner himself who should have died. The blood had to be poured out at the bottom of the altar. The victim had to be taken outside the camp and burned to ashes and the blood was in the holy place and the ashes was outside the camp.
Christ outside the camp, our sins consumed to ashes on the cross. Christ within the veil, his blood therein testifying to our sins that were consumed outside. Christ outside the camp, dead for us. Christ inside the veil, alive for us.
Christ outside the camp, our suffering substitute. Christ inside the veil, our living priest. Ashes outside the camp, blood within the veil. Judgment at the end, salvation secure. And it's just that simple.
All in Christ. All in Christ. Well, what's the next one? The fifth one is the trespass offering, the last one. Chapter 5, Leviticus 7, 1 through 10. This is about our practice. This is our daily living.
This offering could be of a female lamb or a goat, kid, two turtle doves or young pigeons or this one could be one-tenth the ephah of flour or no oil, and it could have no frankincense. No oil or frankincense could be involved.
It could be a female lamb or a kid, two turtle doves or pigeons, or one-tenth of an ephah of flour. Now the procedures in the trespass offering were the same as the sin offering, but there is a marked difference between the sin offering and the trespass offering.
In the sin offering, you have a sacrifice for the nature of sin. Now don't miss me here. For the nature of sin. In the trespass offering, you have a sacrifice for the sins that are a result of that sin nature.
In the sin offering, you have an offering for the root of sin, but in the trespass offering, for the fruit of sin. The two offerings declare that Christ's blood takes care of the root and the fruit of sin.
The trespass offering portrays Christ atoning for the harmful effects of sin, that is, the injury that is done, the stain of sin in the life. In either injury to God or man, restitution had to be made with the trespass offering.
Now if against God, the priest was awarded one-fifth of the sacrifice. If against man, it was given to the man who was defrauded. This offering was most holy, like the sin offering, and depended upon shed blood.
In the sin offering, Christ died for us. In the trespass offering, he died for our sins. Three kinds of sins were involved in this offering. They were sins of ignorance, sins of breaking the law, or sins of deceit against their fellow man.
Leviticus 5 verses 10 and verse 18, you might read those, just simply God's Word says, and it shall be forgiven him. Sin is the root. Sins, plural, are the fruit of that root. Christian character is what you are in the dark.
Christian conduct is a result of Christian character. You can fake conduct and can't fake character. Though mountains would cover us, we cannot hide from God. Now, he offered one sacrifice for sins. He appeared to put away sin.
That is the sin offering. There is a trespass offering for one who fails to speak or witness. There's a trespass offering for the one who fails to separate himself from the world. There is a trespass offering for the one who fails in self-control.
Wrongs done to self, chapter 5, 1 through 13. The wrong done to God, chapter 5, 14 to 19, and then the wrong done to your neighbor, chapter 6, 1 through 7 in Leviticus. Now, forgiveness comes after a sacrifice.
If there is no sacrifice, there is no forgiveness. God forgives our sins because Christ gave himself first for our sacrifice. In Ephesians 4, I believe it's verse 32, it says, Be ye kind. Be ye kind one to another.
Tenderhearted, loving, it says, forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. God didn't forgive us because we asked him to. God didn't forgive us because we exercised this, that, or nothing else.
God forgave you and me because Christ asked him to. It is for Christ that God forgives you and me. He said, All that my father gives to me comes to me. My father's greater than all. He said, My father gave you to me.
You didn't choose me. He said, I chose you. No man hunts after God. No man comes to the Father. Say, the Spirit draws him. Nobody goes around looking for God. The Holy Spirit of God has to draw that particular person.
Well, we can go on and on and on and on about it, but forgiveness does. Leviticus 5, 5,. And it shall be when he shall be guilty in one of these things that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing.
Isn't that what 1 John 1, 9 tells us? If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just. God says in this offering, if you confess that thing, you make this offering, it's all right. We confess it because the sacrifice has already been made and therefore we can approach for forgiveness.
All right, let me conclude with this. Would you not agree with me that sin is lightly regarded by people? Very lightly regarded by mankind, but these aspects of sin are cared for in God's plan of redemption.
Let me give them to you. Sin is transgression and transgression demands penalty. Sin is guilt and guilt demands expiation or satisfaction, atonement. Sin is character and character demands a new birth.
Sin is slavery and slavery demands emancipation. Sin is ruin and demands rebuilding. Sin is war against Almighty God and this demands the vindication of God's honor and holiness. I think I gave you my definition one time of sin.
Sin is premeditated determined rebellion against God. Sin is premeditated determined rebellion against God. You think about it. Think about it, and that's exactly what it is, but we think so lightly of it.
Well, our Lord Jesus Christ had to die on the cross. Law is a broken code, had to be honored and magnified by due infliction of penalty. He took it. Guilt as guilt must be exhibited in its enormity and deformity.
The sanctions of government must be so upheld that none may sin with impunity. So far as is possible, forgiven offenders must be reclaimed and reformed. Other offenders must be deterred from similar offenses.
God himself has to be vindicated because he's absolutely holy and the Word of God must be proven to be infallible in his precepts, prophecies, and proclamations. All right, let me close with this one thought.
We're right on schedule. In the burnt offering, you have Christ giving himself unto God as a sweet-smelling savor, making us acceptable to God. In the sin offering, we have Christ giving himself for us.
In the peace offering, we have Christ reconciling us and bringing us to God. In the trespass offering, you have Christ making provision in his death for our failures, by the way, receiving our confessions, bringing us absolution, complete forgiveness, and cleansing is ours.
The meal offering pictures the perfect humanity of Christ and it represents his life and not his death. All right, let me give you the New Testament correlation, just the verses. The burnt offering, Leviticus 1, corresponds with Hebrews 9 14.
Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot unto God. We are accepted of God because of that offering. The meal offering, the cereal offering, chapter 2 Leviticus, corresponds with 1 Timothy 2 5.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The only bloodless offering, representing our Lord in his life, but not in his death. The other four were blood offerings, giving us a fourfold picture of his death on the cross.
The peace offering, Leviticus 3, corresponds with himself by Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 20, having made peace through the blood of his cross. So we have the peace offering in Leviticus chapter 3, corresponding 2 Corinthians 5 18, Colossians 1 20.
And then the sin offering, Leviticus 4, corresponds with 2 Corinthians 5 21. He has made him to be sin for us. John 1 30 is another one. Hebrews 9 27 is another one. 1 Peter 2 24 is another one. 1 Corinthians 15 3 is another one.
And Hebrews 9 28. I'll give you those again. John 1 30. Hebrews 9 27 and 28. 1 Peter 2 24 and 1 Corinthians 15 3 correspond with Leviticus chapter 4, the sin offering. And the last one is the trespass offering, chapter 5.
It corresponds, of course, with 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now friends, you know, we've been together night after night after night, and we've got tomorrow night, and then I hope that you'll be with us Sunday morning in Sunday school.
I hope you'll call the members of your class, whether you're a teacher or not. I hope you'll call. I don't want you to miss it. I'm going to share some things with you about the beloved sacrifice of the Old Testament, and I'm going to show you some things I'll guarantee you didn't know were there, and I'll promise you I'll show you some things that is the first time it happens in the Word of God.
And it is such a beautiful, beautiful picture of Jesus back in the Old Testament that corresponds with each one of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And there are some things that the first time it happens back there, and the first time it happens in the New Testament, and they correlate perfectly together.
And I don't know why I didn't see it a long time ago. I have a complete study of that particular chapter, and I don't have basically any of that in it. And I don't know why I didn't see it. But as you go back through things, you see them, don't you?
Sure you do. But now, if God has gone to the trouble, of describing the wilderness tabernacle, and as I may mention you the first night, that there is more chapter space in the Bible. God spends more chapters in the Bible discussing the wilderness tabernacle than he does any other subject.
He takes two chapters to discuss the entire creation of God, and he spends way up there around 45 chapters dealing with the tabernacle. If God puts that much of it in the Word of God, I believe you and I ought to know something about it.
I believe that there's something in there for us, or God wouldn't put it in there. And I can never escape. People say, why come you always studying stuff like that? How come you don't ever get over into 1st and 2nd Corinthians?
How come you don't hang around the book of Acts? Because Jesus said, Moses and the prophets, they wrote about me, and I want to figure out how they did it. I want to know what they had to say about him, because I was schooled in it, and I didn't see him.
But since I've become a Christian, I now have the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in my life, and I can see a lot of things in that Old Testament I couldn't see as a lost Jew. Obviously so. And my friends, if Jesus is down in there, I want to know everything I can, don't you?
I mean, listen, how can you understand the New Testament? Wasn't it written by Jews? Uh-huh. What were they trained in? The Old. Well, if you're gonna understand something about them, you ought to understand something, you know, yeah.
Seems to me like so. Where'd Jesus come from? Tribe of Judah. Who were they? Tribe and nation of Israel. Who were they? Where'd they come from? Could you stand where you are and name me the tribes of Israel?
Good. One, two. Huh? Who was Moses? Could we name his parents? Could we name Abraham's parents? Could we really get out into the genealogy of Christ and understand a little bit about what God's telling us?
I wonder. I wonder. Well, it's there, and it's a magnificent story, and we're gonna continue it. I hope you'll be here tomorrow evening. I know it's Saturday evening, but you're gonna miss the two good ones.
We've been coming in this direction, and we're trying to build and are building towards Sunday morning, and it's gonna be a good day in the house of the Lord, Sunday morning. I'm excited already about Sunday school and the morning worship service, the morning worship service.
It's gonna be such a delight, because it's gonna fit right in with what you know, and what you believe, and what you see it, and even what you're gonna be doing in your church life. It's gonna fit right in, and I believe, again, you'll pick up some little tidbits of information.
Now, I understand that you can't remember everything that I say. I can't remember it either. That's why I got my notes in front of me, but friends, if you will just take and write down the highlights of it, and go back and study it.
God will reveal to you what's in there. I don't have any secret with it, but you've got to have a discipline of study, and if you're not disciplined to study, you're not ever going to be a student of God's Word, and people find time to read everything else.
I believe you ought to find time to read God's Word. Don't you? Amen? It's the most precious thing in the world, this wonderful, wonderful book. Wouldn't take anything for it, would you? What happens if the Lord doesn't come?
One day, we might not have it. We might not have it, so I close with this thought. I know a boy who came from a communist country, and he cut his wrist right here, and opened that skid up, and took one verse of Scripture, and rolled it up, and put it in a little piece of plastic, and put it on that layer of skin, and fold it down, and sewed it with a needle and thread, and wrapped a little piece of gauze around it, and walked from one side of the city all the way to another side of the city, walked inside a little dingy room, and they was afraid to even turn the light on, afraid they would, somebody would sit and be arrested, and two by two the couples came all through the night, and under the guided light, as he took it out with a flashlight, he would turn it on, and each couple would read one verse of Scripture.
That's all they had, and then they would leave their hearts rejoicing, because they'd had some of God's precious Word. You and I have it, and it stays on your coffee table, and some never touch it. It stays on the bookshelf.
Oh, friends, there's difference in reading and studying. If you just read through the Bible, you are not a student of God's Word. There's a difference in just reading it, and studying it, word for word for word, because that's where the meat is.
Words are verbalized thoughts, and thoughts come from your heart. The words come from the mind and the heart of God, and they have been written for you and I to read. I challenge you to read through God's Word, but I challenge you to study through God's Word as you read through it, and they're two different things.
Let's pray. Father, this inexhaustible book that lies before us is the wonder of the ages. Lord, it is just slightly lower in miraculous endeavor than the Son of God himself. Controlled and dominated by the Holy Spirit were the men who wrote it, and Father, we believe, and the evidence is in the book itself.
Here it stands, the test of time. The great agnostics have tried to laugh it out of the world. The critics have tried to criticize it out. There are those who've even tried to burn it out of their country, and yet the all-time bestseller, there it stands, the Word of God.
Holy Scriptures, the Holy Bible. There are those who believe it's a holy Bible, but say it's full of error. Contradiction, of course, but Lord we pray that this book will come more precious to us as days come and go.
That Lord, it'll become a part of our life, our thinking. We thank you that you've divinely energized it, that if we would just read it and study it. Father, you would teach us those things you want us to know from it.
Father, I pray that we would understand that we are to study to show ourselves approved unto God, not man, not anyone else, but we are to study in order to become approved of you. God, you approve of our studying your Word.
God, make every one of us here tonight students of thy Word, and then take what we learn and make it applicable and usable in our daily living process, building within us that hope of the future, when Lord we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
What a day of rejoicing, what an expectancy, that any moment the clouds may split asunder and the Lord Jesus Christ may split the blue and call us home to be with him forever. God, what a hope, and only Christians have it.
Bless these people here tonight, bless every home and life as they're obedient to you, and we thank you for the privilege of serving you. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Thank you so much.