Shadow to Substance Conference (Day 1 Greg Moering Jr) THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

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SHADOW TO SUBSTANCE Conference by Open Air Theology February 16-18, 2023

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So I just hit the red button, right? Track it myself, maybe.
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All right, well, I think, thank you,
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Jeff, again, for allowing me this opportunity to be here. I count it a great blessing.
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But before I do get started, and I will, of course, include this in my time here, that I want to have a friend of mine in ministry by the name of Josh Miranda.
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His last name is M -E -R -I -A -N -D -A. He's a pastor of Open Door Church in Columbia, Missouri.
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He's a young gentleman, probably Braden's age or so, definitely younger than I am. Around Christmas time, he was actually, he went into the, he had a really high fever and had to be taken to the emergency room.
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And they thought, okay, just the flu, come to find out that he actually was diagnosed with leukemia of some sort.
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So over the last few months, he has been battling leukemia. He has a wife and two young boys and a church that he pastors.
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And so, as we know, God, in his providence and in his care and love, has brought these days to him.
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So if you would, please remember Josh Miranda in Open Door Church and his wife,
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Julie, and their boys in your prayers. I told him I would do that for him. He had no idea other than me saying that.
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So just please be in prayer for him. So it is with great pleasure this morning that I have the privilege of opening the preaching portion of this conference.
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I know originally I was supposed to do the introduction to the book of Ephesians, and then it became, we're doing from shadows to substance.
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Okay, so I get to throw the grenade and get it started. So I'm either going to really stink it up and be forgotten because I'm the first one, or hopefully
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I preach so well that I'm still forgotten and we're just basking in the glory of Jesus Christ. So I come to everyone here with the greetings from not only my wife and children, and my son
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Greg III is up here with me, but I also come with greetings from First Baptist Church of Coleman, where my wife and I have the great honor of being members, and that is where we get to take our beloved five children with us to church to sit under the faithful preaching of the word, and where they get to learn to love the
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Lord and his church. And I count it a great blessing to, after having left
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Valley Baptist Church where Brayden is currently pastor, to be able to now be at First Baptist Church of Coleman, at a church that just,
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I love them. I absolutely love them. So I come with their greetings to you.
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I count it also a great honor to be here amongst you with this holy responsibility of opening
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God's word to you and declaring his truth. But if I am to speak honestly,
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I believe myself to be the least of all the preachers here, and I wonder how by God's grace
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I am here. But the point of all this isn't about the preachers.
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It isn't about that at all. But it's about what is being preached these next two and a half days.
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This isn't a time to somehow try to show off our intellectual prowess or anything of that nature.
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Rather, the whole point of this, and it has been my prayer leading up to this day, is that it would be known that here in Tullahoma, Tennessee, from February 16th to February 18th, that Christ and him crucified will have been preached.
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That is my hope and that is my prayer. That has been my prayer for each and every one of the men that is going to be standing behind this holy desk.
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For the last several weeks in our family worship time, that has been my prayer. Not for myself alone, but for every man that has been gifted this holy task.
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So again, it's been my prayer for this in that this very task that the apostles handed down to us, this is what we are stepping into an apostolic tradition in looking back to the
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Old Testament and seeing where Jesus Christ can be found. That we are standing up and faithfully opening the
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Old Testament scriptures and declaring the Lord Jesus Christ from the very shadows that lead to his feet.
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And so it is my prayer that even at this very moment, the Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified. So this all said, as you are aware, as has been published online,
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I will be preaching on Christ in the Day of Atonement. I have titled today, Christ the
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Better Atoner and the Better Atonement. So I want to say preemptively, and I think
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I could say this preemptively for every preacher up here, is I'm not going to be able to fully and finally handle everything that's in these texts.
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Okay? So don't come up to me and go, well you missed this point. I know I did. You know,
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I, that everything, every point that points to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're friends with me on Facebook, you saw that I printed off two copies of this sermon because otherwise
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I would be making Elmer Fudd a noob when it comes to rabbit chasing. Because there's so much in this text.
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So again, I'm not going to be able to fully and finally handle all this, but it is my prayer that while it may not be full and final,
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I pray that it's faithful. Okay? Quite frankly, the depths and the beauty of the glory of the
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Lord Jesus Christ absolutely radiate from this morning's text. I have found myself, through my preparation,
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I found myself praising, I have found myself crying, I have found myself giving thanks, all the while, during, just preparation.
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The further up and further in, we go into a text like Leviticus 16, because for that this word will be, the further up and further in we go, that we cannot help but behold the magnanimous magnificence of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the better atoner.
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He is the better atonement. The shadows and types found in Leviticus 16 and in the day of atonement scream at us to behold the beauty of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. So, may it be this morning that even as we read, that you would behold the beauty of your
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Lord Jesus. If you haven't already, I've seen some already flipping that way, if you haven't already, please turn with me to Leviticus 16 and stand with me in the honor of the reading of the word of God.
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So, Leviticus 16, reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, because we're bougie like that, so Leviticus 16,
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Now Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they came near the presence of Yahweh and died.
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And Yahweh said to Moses, Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, so that he will not die.
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For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this, with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.
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He shall put on the holy linen tunic and the linen undergarments that shall be next to his body.
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And he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban. These are holy garments.
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Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering.
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Then Aaron shall bring near the bull for the sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household.
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He shall take the two goats and present them before Yahweh at the doorway of the tent of meeting.
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And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for the scapegoat.
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Then Aaron shall bring near the goat on which the lot for Yahweh fell, and he shall offer it as a sin offering.
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But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before Yahweh to make atonement upon it, to send it out into the wilderness as the scapegoat.
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Then Aaron shall bring near the bull of the sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his household.
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And he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. And he shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before Yahweh and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and bring it inside the veil.
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And he shall put the incense on the fire before Yahweh, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, so that he will not die.
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Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger and on the mercy seat on the east side.
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Also in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
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Then he shall slaughter the goat out of the sin offering which is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull.
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And he shall sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. So he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins.
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Thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their uncleanness.
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Now when he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of Israel.
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Then he shall go out to the altar that is before Yahweh and make atonement for it.
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And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides.
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With his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it and set it apart as holy from the uncleanness of the sons of Israel.
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And when he finishes making atonement for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring near the live goat.
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Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins.
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And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it out into the wilderness by the hand of a man ready to do this.
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And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an isolated land. And he shall send out the goat in the wilderness.
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Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place and he shall leave them there.
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And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his clothes and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.
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Then he shall offer up in smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar. And the one who sent the goat out as a scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water.
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Then afterward he shall come into the camp. But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place shall be taken outside the camp.
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And they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire. Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water.
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And afterward he shall come into the camp. And this shall be a perpetual statute for you in the seventh month on the tenth day of the month.
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You shall humble your souls and do not do any work, whether the native or the sojourner who sojourns among you.
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For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. You will be clean from all your sins before Israel.
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It is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you that you may humble your souls. It is a perpetual statute.
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So the priest who is anointed and ordained to minister as a priest in his father's place shall make atonement.
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He shall thus put on the linen garments, the holy garments, and make atonement for the holy sanctuary.
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And he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar. He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.
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Now you shall have this as a perpetual statute to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once every year.
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And just as Yahweh had commanded Moses, so he did. Beloved, if you have desired to hear from your
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God this morning, you have, for you have heard his word read to you. Please be seated. And let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you once again for your holy word. We thank you for the opportunity that we have to come before it.
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And I would ask that you would give us eyes that we would see and ears that we would hear, hands and feet to obey your word, that we would come with great joy and rejoicing in our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, I would be remiss if I do not as well pray for Josh Miranda and his wife and his church, his boys, or be with them.
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May this time of great trouble that has come forth from your hand, may it be a time in which holiness will abound, that they will look to you and rejoice in the great
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God of their salvation. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So, due to the nature of the size of this text,
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I will not be purely going verse by verse. I don't have enough time for that. Though certainly our eyes will be upon the text.
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Rather, let us look at this instruction given to the high priest by the Lord through the hand of his servant
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Moses by its types and shadows. We're going to look at this through the types and shadows that are there.
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But before we get into how these things point us to our Lord Jesus, we need to have a working grasp of what these things are.
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For us, this side of the cross, a passage such as this can seem wildly foreign.
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We're not used to this. It would be disgusting in here if we did what this thing says, because there would be too much blood everywhere.
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So nonetheless, when we look at these things in their context, we then begin to see how they direct our eyes and our hearts past themselves to the reality to which they point.
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In verses 1 and 2, we begin with a warning. Again, we read in verses 1 and 2,
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Now Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came near the presence of Yahweh and died.
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And Yahweh said to Moses, Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, so that he will not die.
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For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. What we read here in verses 1 and 2 sets the stage for our understanding not only of the day of atonement, but also the atonement that our
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Lord Jesus accomplished for His people. Before the Lord gives Moses the instruction that he is to pass on to Aaron and all subsequent high priests, we are told this happens after the death of Nadab in Abihu.
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Just a few chapters earlier we read this in Leviticus 10, 1 and 2, That then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans and put fire in them.
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They placed incense on it and offered strange fire before Yahweh, which He had not commanded them.
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And fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them, and they died before Yahweh.
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Now, we are not told if there is anything different about this fire that they presented before the
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Lord. Was it green instead of orange? Was it huge? Or was it because it was too big for their firepans?
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We're not told any of that. None of that stuff is told to us, and quite frankly, none of that information even matters.
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But why is this? Well, it's because what is meant by strange fire is clearly defined for us in the text when it is written that it was something that the
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Lord had not commanded them. So before we begin to try and figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a needle, let us pay attention to what
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God has expressly stated in His word and learn from that. And what is it that we are to learn?
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When we compare Leviticus 10 .1 and 2 and Leviticus 16 .2, we find that the only way by which any sinner can enter into the presence of God is by the way in which
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God Himself commands. Aaron the high priest was told, he shall not enter at any time so that he will not die.
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God was kind to him in this. And now why did Nadab and Abihu die? Because they offered strange fire before Yahweh, which
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He had not commanded them. So beloved, to approach God, to come into His presence without facing death requires that you come before Him in the way and only in the way that He commands.
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As one commentator notes, we are not to approach God in a haphazard way or in the way that suits us at the moment.
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We submit to what God says in His word about how to approach Him. See, you don't get to blithely waltz into the presence of God as if you own the place.
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Or that you are owed a visit with the King and not expect His fury against your petulance.
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Now while what we are considering here has its ultimate implications relating to matters of eternal salvation,
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I want to stop for a second and ask, how often do we treat the worship of our
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Lord in the manner that Nadab and Abihu did? How often do our churches do things as we see fit, rather than asking, are we doing that what we are doing, did
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God command this? It is quite obvious along the American church's landscape that we too often don't give two hoots about what
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God expects. Instead, we care about what we want or what is tantalizing to our flesh or what will get people in the doors or meet people's felt needs.
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Beloved, don't let this be said of you. Care more about what God says and what
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He has commanded when it comes to worship than what makes you feel right. Again, I'm passionate about this because I read
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Nadab and Abihu and I don't want to be Nadab and Abihu. This all said, what we find in the instructions regarding how the
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Day of Atonement was to be observed is the expectation that all that has been commanded will be obeyed as it has been commanded to be observed.
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He doesn't get to move one way to the left or one way to the right. He has to do exactly what
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God says, otherwise, he's dead. So what then has been commanded?
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Well, there are commands that are given here concerning the priest, there are commands given concerning the sacrifices, and there are commands actually even given concerning the people as a whole.
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Now as a side note, I'm going to chase a rabbit for one second, I promise, notice that Aaron only offers sacrifices for the people of God.
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That the atonement is only made for the people of God, not those outside of God's people.
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So even in Leviticus 16 there is particular redemption. Just saying that. Now first, the first thing that the high priest had to do was, it was not only, did he have to, let me read this again, so first the high priest had to not only enter with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burn offering, but he also, so he's not just going in with sacrifices and blood, but he also has to set aside his normal, ornate, glorious vestment.
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Go to C. Exodus 28, there is something special about the high priest and his clothing. So he has to take off his normal clothing, put on his humble linen garments, and then take a bath, and put on himself, again, his holy garments.
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Then, he was to take the two goats that were the centerpiece in this festival from among the congregation of Israel, and was supposed to cast lots so that the
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Lord would make it clear what goat was his and what goat was the scapegoat. But before he could make the atonement, the high priest would have to sacrifice the bull for himself and his household, because though he was the high priest, he was still himself a sinner.
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He was defiled by a heart that drinks iniquity like water. He was then to take his firepan, fill it with incense, and take that smoking incense into the veil of the
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Holy of Holies in order that the smoke would fill the Holy of Holies, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the
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Ark of the Testimony, so that he will not die. Then, he was to bring the blood of the bull into the
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Holy of Holies and sprinkle it all about. I mean, it's just, it's a blood bath. It's going everywhere. And once this was done, his sins were covered in order that he could slaughter the goat of the sin offering for the people.
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The blood of this goat was then taken into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled all about. And lest we forget, while the high priest was making atonement for himself and the people, he was doing all of this by himself.
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I read one thing where you even talk about that he may have even been offering the normal daily sacrifices that had to be offered every single day, that he was doing everything, all the worship that was taking place, all the sacrifices that were supposed to be taking place daily, he was doing all that himself, too.
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So this one day a year, he's doing everything. The full weight of the atonement of the sacrifice for God's people is on his shoulders.
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Again, because he alone was appointed to make atonement for the people of God. He was also to take the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat and sprinkle it all about the
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Ten of Meeting and later the temple and the altar to make atonement for the defilement that God's dwelling place experienced because it was dwelling among God's people who were sinners.
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So he's not just atoning for the people. He's not just atoning for himself. He's atoning for the very dwelling place of God on earth.
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Because sin was so rampant that atonement has to be made. And once this was done, he was to take the scapegoat and confess all the sins of God's people upon the head of the goat and then have it sent out, as the old
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King James says, by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. I like that language a little better than the one who was appointed for it.
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Fit man, it just sounds better. So this fit man was to take this goat that bore
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God's people's sins away, you know, that it would never, ever come back because he had become, you know, that it would ever come back.
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And when this fit man returned, he was supposed to bathe himself before he came back in to the camp because him just taking that out made him ceremonially unclean, that this thing has got all the sins of all of God's people upon it.
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And him just touching it and taking it out yonder made him defiled. And so he had to take a bath before he came back.
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And so while the fit man was out, the high priest was then to take off the clothes of his humility and set them aside, bathe and then re -clothe himself with his glorious robes and then offer up his and the people's burnt offerings on the altar and then take the carcasses of the bull and the goat of the sin offering outside the camp and burn them up.
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This was all to be done once a year on an appointed date in an appointed manner.
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It was to be observed with humility, contrition over sin and as a Sabbath. This was a big deal.
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And it was even said that the weeks leading up to this, that the high priest was supposed to even like he was supposed to be in this and know exactly what he was supposed to do because he's alone in this.
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Now, beloved, as arduous as this instruction is to consider, the reason for such specificity is that each one of these points is intended to direct our eyes to something, no, someone much, much greater.
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In Hebrews 10, 14, this is, it is written for the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.
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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have consciousness of sins.
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But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
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Beloved, did you, you catch the argument here? Are you picking up what he's putting down?
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The fact that these offerings happened year in and year out, and specifically that the day of atonement was observed at the same time every year, these continual observations pointed to the reality that they in and of themselves couldn't actually do anything.
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Okay? Yes, these were things that God, by His grace, gave to His people to observe.
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And yes, there was some efficaciousness in it if it was received by faith, but it didn't actually, that wasn't what was taking away sins.
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They were there as a constant reminder of the sinner's sin and the sinner's need of someone who could once and for all truly atone for the sinner.
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And like every good shadow that is cast by a greater object, the day of atonement in all its prescriptive behavior was a long shadow that was being cast from the cross on Golgotha's hill.
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From the very outset of Leviticus 16, we have before us a bloody and brutal object lesson that is teaching us of the wickedness of our sin and our need of forgiveness and cleansing, and how it is that in and through the
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Lord Jesus Christ, that our God would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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Now, when we are told of how Aaron could not go into the presence of God without following strict orders, this reminds us how we are not permitted to go into the presence of the
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High King of Heaven without following His commanded prescription for such entry. No man can see
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Him and live. This God, He dwells in unapproachable light, and we are fools to think that we who were cast east of Eden would be able to bring ourselves back westward into His holy place.
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And if you actually notice, if you pay attention to your Old Testament, and you see how the temple was constructed, the priest would come from the east into the west.
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Every time that he's making atonement, he's going from the east to the west, which is pointing back to how, again, we were kicked to the east from the garden.
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So every bit of this is pointing to how the high priest, God's appointed high priest, would bring
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God's people back into His very presence. No, see, beloved, we need the high priest who will go ahead of us, as Deuteronomy 31 .8
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will point out, and that this high priest will enter through the greater and more perfect tabernacle and lead us out of the wilderness of the east and bring us into the fruitful promised land of the west.
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That's again, when you see, look at Joshua bringing God's people out, you know, it wasn't Moses who could bring
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God's people into the promised land. It was Yeshua. It was Joshua who could do it, which again,
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Jesus, only Jesus can bring God's people into the promised land. And Moses couldn't do that, and Moses knew it.
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And again, how they came in, from the east to the west, it's like there's a single author running throughout all 66 books of the
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Bible. So again, we must have this high priest who will bring us from the wilderness that is in the east to bring us into that promised land of the west, to the very presence of God.
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And just as the hopes of the entire nation were upon Aaron and his descendants to properly execute this picture, because he has to execute a picture.
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The hopes of God's people are entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ to execute the reality of restoring us into God's presence.
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Just as there was only one way and one man to enter into the
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Holy of Holies, there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
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For there is salvation in no one else. Therefore, there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.
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Beloved, any attempt to enter into the presence of God on your own merit or by your own way will do nothing for you, but spell your eternal doom.
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For the Lord Jesus Christ alone is the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the
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Father but through him. Now one of the orders that Aaron and all the subsequent high priests were to follow was another one was the changing of his clothes.
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Now you may sit there and go, what? We're talking a wardrobe change? Yes, a wardrobe change.
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Remember Exodus 28, I'm not going to take us to Exodus 28 because I don't have time for that.
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But remember Exodus 28 and look and see the description given about the high priest and what he was supposed to wear.
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Look at the description of the colors. These are royal colors given to a priest.
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So there's a kingly priest. Hmm. Hmm. There's a shadow there.
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I'm smelling something. It's pointing me to something greater than this. So Exodus 28 clearly details the beauty and the glory by which the high priest was to be robed.
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But here in Leviticus 16, he was to humble himself by taking on a different vestment to make atonement before he could return to the glorious robes.
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Hmm. This seems strangely familiar. And quite frankly, if he had failed to do this, not only would he jeopardize and nullify the atonement he was making and lose his own life again.
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If he doesn't change his clothes, he's dead. Because he didn't do what God said and learn from Nadab and Abihu.
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So that's a big point. But I would say that the reason why he dies isn't just merely because he forgot to obey
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God. It's because that if not, if he doesn't do it, that he's actually blaspheming the very one he was typifying by his wardrobe change.
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In John 17, 5, Jesus speaks of a glory which he had with the Father before the world was.
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And then if we look to Philippians 2, this is what Paul writes, writes of how Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man.
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He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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Therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. You see, the command given to the high priest to humble himself and take on the clean linen clothing, again, he couldn't take dirty clothes, he had to have clean clothes, clean, pure spotless white linen.
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This command is there to point to the incarnation of our blessed Lord Jesus. While the high priest, who was dressed in glorious garb, would once a year humble himself by a change in his attire for the purpose of making atonement, the king of glory himself stepped down out of heaven in the fullness of time and humbled himself by taking on human flesh and a human nature in order to make atonement for his people and has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
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And so, here he is, he's got to take on clean clothes, why? Because Jesus would come and be clean, perfect, holy, spotless.
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And while the high priest would return to his glorious clothing after he made atonement only to have to do this all over again the next year, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, having accomplished cleansing for sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
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And if you know this, you know your Bible well, you know there was no seat in the temple or in the tabernacle because their work was never done.
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But Jesus, he was done, he sat, and he sits even today as king of kings and lord of lords.
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Now key to this day were the sacrifices being made because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.
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I mean, again, this didn't take away sins, it didn't. Because it couldn't, because as we saw there in Hebrews 10, if it could, it wouldn't have carried on.
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But there was something about that, you couldn't have forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. But one of the great deficiencies in the day of atonement was that before the high priest could even make atonement for God's people, he had to sacrifice for his own sins.
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Now although the Lord Jesus had to be made like his brothers in all things so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God and to make propitiation for their sins, yet in his being made like us in all things, he was without sin.
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He didn't need to sacrifice a bull or a goat for himself. He was the sacrifice.
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For our high priest, unlike the high priest of old, our high priest is holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
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So when he goes about making the atonement for his people, he does it perfectly because he's perfect.
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And as has been said before, after the high priest made sacrifice for his own sin, he went about the work of making atonement for God's people.
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He would offer the blood of the goat upon whom the lot had been cast for the Lord upon the mercy seat in the
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Holy of Holies, and would then cleanse the defiled dwelling place of God.
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However, when the Lord Jesus became flesh and he tabernacled among us, he was never defiled by the world.
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Not even when he touched the leper and healed him. You couldn't do that. A high priest couldn't do that because he'd be defiled.
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What does Jesus do? Touches him. Doesn't get defiled. In fact, heals the man. Makes that man clean.
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Without himself becoming unclean. And then when he had the son of the widow who's being carried around in his casket,
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Jesus what'd he do? Touches him. Raises the dead. A priest couldn't do that. If the high priest had done that before the day of atonement, he's unclean.
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Couldn't do the job. What does Jesus do? Raises the dead. Without being defiled.
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That the true and better tabernacle himself isn't being defiled by a leper, being defiled by the dead.
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Or when he was touched by the woman with the issue of blood. Was he defiled then?
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No. All things that would have made the high priest of old unclean,
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Jesus still remains spotless. On the day when our
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Lord Jesus would give his life as a ransom for many, we read of how from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.
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I believe that it is at this time that this is when our blessed Lord Jesus was making the atonement.
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I believe that the land went dark because the true and better high priest of our souls was at this moment doing, that he was doing his great high priestly work in the true and better Holy of Holies.
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If we remember, the Holy of Holies has no light. It has no candle stand.
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It's dark. So why does it go dark in the land, in the place of God's dwelling?
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Because the high priest is doing his job. So it has to go dark.
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And it was here he was left alone. The high priest could only make the atonement by himself.
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He's abandoned. The Lord Jesus is abandoned by all to do his saving work.
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And while the goat upon whom the Lord's lot fell was slain as a temporary recovering in type pointing to a greater sacrifice, the
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Lord Jesus Christ was pierced through for our transgressions and he was crushed for our iniquities.
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It was here, it was here where it pleased the father to crush him.
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Why? Because he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
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And recall that blood that was taken into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled all around the mercy seat.
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Well, beloved, I'm here to tell you based on John 20 verse 12, Jesus himself is the mercy seat. He is the sacrifice.
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He's the mercy seat. He is the tabernacle. He's everything that is in here in the day of atonement. Oh, but let us not forget the blessed picture of the scapegoat.
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The high priest of old would confess upon this scapegoat the sin of the people of God and he would send it out to a forsaken place where it would never be able to return from.
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However, beloved, consider Jesus Christ because it is written, all of us have like sheep have gone astray.
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Each one of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.
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Our sin was imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. It was there that he bore the full weight of the wrath of God that was due to his people for all eternity.
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And he squelches it in three hours. Have you considered this, that all that is due to you for all of eternity, you're a billion years into hell undergoing the weight of the wrath of God.
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And there it is above the doors, I know Spurgeon had said, it shall be damned. Not one drop of your sin of the wrath and God's wrath against that will have been paid a billion years into hell.
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But Jesus squelches in three hours and not just for you, for all of his people, all of them.
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Does your heart not rejoice? Is your heart not glory in Jesus Christ?
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Because if it doesn't, I don't know what to sell you. And again, it's during these three hours that he makes full atonement for his people.
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Full final total atonement. It was during this time where he would cry out, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But because he was forsaken, because he was cast out into the wilderness during this time, we are forgiven.
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We get to, and it was because of his being forsaken and that he took our sin into the wilderness and he removes it from us fully and completely.
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So that now when God looks at us, he sees us through Jesus Christ and praise
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God for that. Because I have no other hope outside of Jesus Christ. And because of the
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Lord Jesus, having our sin imputed to him and his righteousness imputed to us, it can truly be said that he has cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.
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In Jesus Christ, we can say with the psalmist, he has not dealt with us according to our sins and that he has not rewarded us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the earth.
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So great is his loving kindness towards those who fear him. Oh, what a savior.
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And as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Praise be to his name.
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You may get bored with Leviticus, but I'm going to tell you, look to Jesus and then you'll see
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Leviticus in a whole new light. Because as I said, there are rabbits I could chase and I want to so bad.
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Because there's so much to this, but I've only got an hour and I'm 43 minutes and 20 seconds into it.
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But recall also this, recall the final stage of sin, of the sin offerings and how their carcasses were taken outside the camp to be burned.
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And why was this? It was to show that the atonement was made. The high priest was done.
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So the carcasses have to be fully and completely and totally burned up to show it's done.
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It is finished. But in Hebrews 13, 11 and 12, we read this, the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.
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Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered outside the gate.
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Those animals' bodies were burned outside the camp to point to the full and final sanctifying work that the
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Lord Jesus would accomplish on Calvary's cross, where he would declare that it was finished, that the work of atonement was done.
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But how are we to respond to this? Beloved, Leviticus 16 tells us how to do that too.
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Remember that the day of atonement was to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls.
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Again, this happened once a year. It kind of spoke of a finality, even though it happened every single year. But the reason it happened every single year is because it was an appointed time, that it was teaching year in and year out there was going to come a day when this would fully and finally be done, that it would be one day, one day.
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And how are you supposed to respond on this day? If it was true of the type that it was to be a
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Sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls, how much more is this true regarding the antitype, the substance to which the shadow pointed?
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Beloved, you cannot atone for your sin, for there is only one atonement made by one high priest.
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You didn't get to go into the Holy of Holies and offer up blood. You didn't get to do the things that the high priest did.
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If you did, you're murked. You're gone. Okay? I mean, you've got,
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Uzzah merely touches the Ark. Gone. Nadab and Abihu, who were priests.
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One of them was in the line to be the high priest. God said, nope, you didn't do what
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I said, you're dead. You cannot atone. It's not just that you don't get to, you just can't.
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You can't atone for your sin. Because there's only one atonement made by one high priest, and this is what
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Leviticus teaches us. See, you cannot work to earn salvation, for that work has already been done.
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Rather, you must enter into the rest that has already been won. You must cease striving.
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You must cease laboring in hopes that you will somehow appease
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God by your righteous deeds, because truth be told, all your righteous deeds are like a filthy garment anyway.
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I heard Joseph Alleyne had said this, that when we go and we present to God all our righteous deeds, and then we wonder why
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He's not accepting all our righteousness. It's equivalent to somebody coming up to you and offering you a gift, but that gift happens to be a bowl of vomit.
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You're going to be rightly appalled. That is us trying to offer our righteousness before a holy
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God. You can't appease Him. You can't do it.
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No. What does he say you must do? No, you must humble yourself, trusting in the great high priest, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. The people of Israel had to trust that what the high priest was doing would do something.
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They had to trust that, because it's a rather, in our minds, maybe a rather ridiculous thing to do.
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But what do they have to do? They have to trust. They have to trust in God's word. They have to take
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God at His word, which is the very thing Adam did not do. So you must humble yourself.
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You must find your rest in Jesus Christ. You must, by faith, believe the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Your soul must find rest in Him and in Him alone. And if this day you find yourself looking to any other save the
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Lord Jesus Christ, I beg of you, turn your eyes upon Jesus.
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Look to Him for your salvation. Trust Him. Abide in Him. Love Him. For there is no other atonement to be found or any other atoner to be sought.
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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. This is the testimony of Leviticus 16.
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As I said, there's so much more to be there. But it is my prayer and has been for weeks that you will hear this.
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And as we carry on through the rest of this conference, these next, you know, little bit, that your heart would be riveted with the glory of the
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Lord Jesus. That you would remember not, I mean,
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I guess the good thing is most of us are so bearded that you won't even remember our faces. That, okay, so, that, you know, may it be that you won't remember a single one of us, but that your heart will sing for joy at the great
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God of your salvation. That as we sing these psalms, these hymns and spiritual songs, that we will be instructing one another about what
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Jesus Christ has done. And that when we return home, whether you're haps and having to drive all across the country, again,
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Lord bless you, brother. And bless your wife for having to deal with you. So, you know, or, you know, wherever we call home, that we would go and we would declare the sufficiency, the beauty, and the glory and grandeur of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And that as we look to these types and shadows that we, like the Bereans, would go, yes, that is exactly what this is telling me about.
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And that we would rejoice in Jesus Christ this time. Let us pray. Our Father and our
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God, we thank you for today. We thank you for your word. You are wonderful and you are good.
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May it be said, again, that here and during this time, that Jesus Christ will have been lifted high, that Christ in him crucified will have been preached.
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And may it be that we would go home and testify of the greatness of our
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Lord. Lord Jesus, we look forward to seeing you on that day face to face.
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That we will behold the one who died in our place, who took upon himself our sin and made full atonement.
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And can it be, may it be,
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Lord Jesus, that you would come quickly. We long to see you and hear your voice in our ears and not just in our heart.
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You are good. Praise be your name. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.