Keep sharing good news without ads.
Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/phil-coulson/conditions-for-approach-to-god-part-2/
Now we'll turn again, please, to the book of Leviticus and chapter 7. We looked this morning at something of the purpose of the book and its teaching and something of the significance of the offerings with which the book commences.
We're reading here about the peace offering, that central offering that was brought out of a spirit of thanksgiving for blessings obtained through those other offerings. And so we'll read something again of the law of the peace offerings, verse 11 of chapter 7.
This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings which he shall offer unto the Lord. If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil and unleavened wafers anointed with oil and cakes mingled with oil of fine flour fried.
Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings. Let's just pause there. You'll notice how there's a repeated theme, it's that of thanksgiving.
And Paul says to the Romans in his letter that it is a hallmark of the ungodly to be unthankful. And if ever there is a people who should be a thankful people, it's we who know the grace of God in salvation.
Thankfulness should mark every child of God. And you'll see that the first thought behind the bringing of a peace offering, bringing something for the honor and the delight of God, that the motive behind it is thankfulness.
And yet you know there's something that dwells in my heart and I suspect with respect it also dwells in yours because of that fallen nature that we have that it's not long before we can come to kind of believe and convince ourselves that really we were worth saving.
That there was something about me that attracted the love and the kindness and the goodness of God. And it does us very well to believe and to understand, brethren and sisters, that we really do owe everything, everything to the grace and the goodness of God.
We say, yeah, move on, brother, this is simple stuff, we believe all that. But you know we don't practice it because a true spirit of thankfulness would also bring with it a spirit of humility, a genuine recognition that I brought nothing to this myself.
Everything I have, everything I am, everything I will ever be in eternity, I owe to the grace of God. How then could I act in a haughty way toward my brethren? How then could I adopt a superior attitude to my brethren?
As though somehow I had got a greater claim upon divine goodness than somebody else did. Remember again, Paul speaking to the Romans would point out that if anything is deserved by merit, well it's only what we would be due, it would be like a wage.
But if we receive anything because we are due it, it's not grace. So the wonderful thing about the grace of God is that none of us, not me, not you, none of us were deserving of it at all, in any way, at any time.
There's a man here and he's to bring an offering and he's to bring it with a thankful spirit. When he brings that offering, he's to bring with it, we read in verse number 12, when he brings the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mingled with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, cakes mingled with oil of fine flour fried.
If you've read through these chapters at all, you would know that that's immediately taking you back to chapter 2. It's taking you back to the principle of the meal offering and when we think of the meal, that which speaks of the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus, and we think of it mingled with oil, we're thinking of one whose incarnation, whose conception was the work of the Holy Spirit.
And it's good to be reminded in days like this, that the conception of the Lord Jesus in the womb of Mary was by the Holy Spirit. It was miraculous, it was supernatural, it was divine. But that life having been conceived in the womb of Mary.
We speak very carefully and we speak most reverently, but the rest of the time in which the Lord Jesus was growing in the womb of his mother was as natural as yours and mine. There are some areas now where the belief is gaining traction amongst brethren.
They would base it on Hebrews chapter 10, a body hast thou prepared me, that in some way they feel they are preserving and protecting the truth of the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ by suggesting that a body was effectively implanted into Mary and it would reduce her to nothing more than a surrogate mother.
These things are essential, they are the very bedrock of our, not just our doctrine, but they are the bedrock of our salvation. It is essential that the Lord Jesus was truly human, that he was a real man and so his conception was from above.
His conception was by the Spirit of God. The fine flower mingled with the oil, but the rest of the process of bringing the Son of God into the world, incarnate, was as natural as yours and mine. The Lord Jesus was truly and purely a man.
He was a sinless man of course. He had no link with Adam, he didn't have the Adamic nature, he is and was God manifest in flesh and in taking perfect humanity he relinquished nothing of his essential deity.
How could he? God is who he is, but he was pleased in the language of Scripture to humble himself, take upon him the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the extent of death and that the death of the cross.
Now why is that thought introduced here in Leviticus chapter 7? Does it not again take us as those worshippers who would seek to return now to give something to God? We are coming to present a sacrifice of thanksgiving to him and as this man brings his sacrifice of thanksgiving he is bringing in type, he is bringing in picture that which speaks of Christ in his wonderful incarnation, the wafers anointed with oil as the spirit of God came down and abode upon him at the public commencement of his public ministry.
So we think of one in his coming into the world, his ministry here in the days of his flesh and of ultimately that fine flour fried, the heat, the fires of Calvary. And so in wonderful and simple picture this offer is being taught now if you are going to bring acceptable thanksgiving to God it cannot be separate from a deep soul's appreciation of all the merit and the worthiness and the glories of Christ.
It's a recognition that the very ground upon which we can approach God at all with thanksgiving is because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And yet the next verse is sometimes a bit of a puzzle.
Verse 13 says beside the cakes he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offering. Leavened bread? Doesn't leaven in scripture always speak of sin and its permeating character?
Yes it does. And doesn't chapter 2 the meal offering state specifically that in the meal offering there is to be no leaven, no honey? Yes, that's dead right. So how then in this verse when the offerer comes with his sacrifice of thanksgiving does he bring leavened bread with the sacrifice?
Well is this not teaching us in a very precious way that because of the sufficiency of Christ in the sight of God, in verse 12, because we come accepted in the beloved, God recognizes that all the time we are here in the body leaven is going to be a part of us.
This is not leaven to do with Christ, this is leaven to do with you and me. That we still have that old nature, that though we are justified and though the old man has been judicially dealt with and we have died with Christ, we know that we're still subject to sin.
We know that there can still be and is leaven in the life. And yet wonderfully God is prepared to accept a thankful worshiper coming to him and bringing leavened cakes. All the limitations of our appreciation, all the limitations of our understanding of the greatness and the glory and the worth of Christ, and yet God is prepared to take leavened cakes.
But lest we should think, lest we should think that we can be careless about sin in the sight and the presence of God, then we have these caveats that come afterwards. Verse 14, we're just moving quickly down here to these verses that we read earlier this morning.
But verse 14 says, now of it, that is of his offering, and of these cakes he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for a heave offering unto the Lord, and it shall be the priests that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
So there is a portion now for the priest. The man is bringing a gift to God, but out of that gift for God there's going to come something for the priest. The flesh of his sacrifice, of his peace offerings for thanksgiving, shall be eaten the same day that it is offered.
He shall not leave any of it until the morning, but if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice, and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten, but the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
What's it telling us? He's bringing an offering to God. God in kindness, mercy, and in an expression of fellowship is going to share that same thing with the offerer, true fellowship. The priest is going to get something also, but says God now, when the man brings his offering he can eat of it the same day that he offered it, but not the next day, unless if he should bring an offering, not now just out of thanksgiving, but he brings it because of a certain vow.
He has vowed a vow before the Lord, there is some particular transaction between this man and his God, then in that case, says God, you can eat it on the morning that you offered it, you can eat it on the next day as well, or if you have brought it simply as an act of devotion, you may do the same.
But the principle is this, the man could only feed upon that which speaks of Christ, that which God is feeding upon, the man can only feed upon it insofar as it is freshly linked to the altar. The man has been at the altar very recently, and as one who has been at the altar of sacrifice very recently, he is morally fitted to appreciate that that he is feeding upon with God.
Now what does it teach us practically? It means that to have fellowship with God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in a practical way, a way that will leave us feeling fulfilled and contented as believers.
It means that I must never, in my experience, be very, very far from Calvary. If worship, if thanksgiving becomes purely a mechanical form of words, and the heart is left untouched, God says there's nothing in it for me, there's nothing in it for you.
When you have time, in this connection, read Psalm number 50. And in Psalm number 50, God calls upon heaven and earth, he calls upon the four points of the compass. He calls them together to bear witness that he has a cause against his people.
Gather my people together unto me, said God. And he's gathering his people because he's got a case against them. And in the language of Psalm 50, it seems they come together a little bemused. Why would God have a case against us?
So God tells them, first of all, in that Psalm, what his case is not. He said, I haven't called you together to rebuke you for the frequency of your sacrifices. Spot on. I haven't called you together to rebuke you for the quality of your sacrifices.
You're bringing the best. Remember, there were times when God had to send prophets and rebuke them because they were bringing the sick and the mangy and the lame, and they were thinking that was good enough for God.
But that's not there in Psalm 50. God said, no, your ritual is spot on. You're bringing the prescribed sacrifice. You're bringing it in the right way. You're bringing it at the right time. And so his people are saying to him, we don't understand what the problem is.
If we've got all this right, then what have we got wrong? God says, I'll tell you what you've got wrong. You're bringing me all these beasts as sacrifices and offerings. You're bringing them as though you think I need them.
He says in that Psalm, do you suppose if I was hungry, I would tell you the cattle on a thousand hills are mine. If I want cattle, I've got them in abundance. If I want sheep, I've got millions of them.
I don't need you to bring me these things. I only want you to bring these sacrifices if they are a genuine reflection of a heart that is thankful and devoted and humble before me. If these things do not reflect a heart that is like that, then I'm not interested, said God.
Does it have a familiar ring at all? There's something in us that loves to boast about outward conformity to things. In fact, very often, let's be honest, let's be brutal about it. Very often we will make judgments about individuals or companies based on externals.
And so we will see something from the outside. We will see it from the outside looking on. We will say, yes, we approve of that. No, we don't approve of that. But do we ever pause and say, what does God think about it when he looks on?
Is he looking upon us and seeing purely external adherence to New Testament church truth? You know, it is possible, brethren, for us eventually to come to a state where we love the assembly more than we love the Lord.
You say, but we do love God's assembly. We do. Thank God for that. I see nothing else in the New Testament scriptures. I want nothing else. And yes, we do love God's assembly, but we must never forget who's Lord of the assembly.
The idea that we gather unto him and unto the name of the Lord Jesus should never become simply a mantra. It shouldn't just be a concept. It should be something very, very real. And it's easy for us to move away from that, isn't it?
So that we have all the externals, and it's, well, the church at Ephesus was like it. Everything outside was right. God says to them, you've left your first love. So now this is very practical, isn't it?
That if a man is going to bring a thanksgiving offering, and if a man is going to present something acceptable to God, the heart has got to be right. Otherwise it's meaningless to God. And it's of no benefit to him.
And the way in which the heart is kept right for this man is to remember that he can partake of this same thing as God is feeding upon, but only insofar as he has been very recently at the altar. So now I must ask myself the question, maybe you should too, how much do I seek before God to regulate my Christian life by disciplining myself to come back time and time again to Calvary, to see that in my reading of the scriptures, in my meditation, in my thanksgiving, in my prayers, that as God gives me help, I never allow Calvary to disappear from view.
Because as I gaze upon Calvary, I don't only see there that blessed man who gave his life to save me, but I see there God's judicial statement upon me after the flesh. I see God's judgment upon me, upon the old man.
And the person who is in the good of the truth of all that transpired at Calvary is a person who like Paul would say, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Are some Christians just born humble?
No, humility is a wonderful grace and it can't be affected and it can't be pretended, but if we're going to know anything about it, it will come through being frequently in the shadow of Calvary. And never in our mind or our hearts, allowing us to stray far from it.
Now, you know, my brother, my sister, I know that when we cease to be moved by the tremendous transactions that took place at Calvary, we become increasingly cold in heart, the conscience instead of being tender becomes dulled, things are allowed to intrude into our lives and before long, we can still be going through the external motions of things, we can still be taking part, I could still be preaching at a meeting and yet my heart far, far from God.
And I would suggest if we're all brutally honest, we know that that capability is there in every one of us. Bring the offering of thanksgiving, yes, but see that it is brought always as it were in the shadow of the cross.
Now, verse 18, if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it, it shall be an abomination and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.
That's tremendous, isn't it? Something that speaks expressly of Christ, something that is the offerer's portion to feed upon and yet it is possible for it to become an abomination because he's allowed it to grow stale.
God would never have his priestly people feeding upon stale bread. Remember the bread that was on the table of showbread, it was wonderful, that bread kept fresh for a week, it was replaced every Sabbath and the bread that had been there for a week, the priest would take it and they would eat it.
God had miraculously kept that bread fresh all through the week. He would never have his priestly people feeding upon that which is stale and he won't have his thankful offerers feeding upon that which is stale.
It's one of the things that we who stand publicly before the people of God must ever be aware of, is that the truth we seek to present, now whether it's in teaching the gospel, it may well be a subject we've spoken on before, it may well be a verse we've taken up in the gospel before, but if it's done in a mechanical sense, if it's done without that freshness that comes from having spent a little time again at the foot of the cross, then that which was once blessed maybe can become an abomination.
See what God wants from his people? It's a disciplined life, the Christian life. The matter of thankfulness, of returning to God with something for him out of appreciation for what he's done for me, it takes a discipline.
Discipline of mind, discipline of reading, discipline of thought, so that our prayers do not simply become mechanical, those kind of prayers that bore the saints to sleep sometimes in the weekly prayer meeting.
The same things just trotted out again and again, but without a freshness. Now it doesn't have to be new, but it does have to be fresh. Preparation of heart, time spent in the sanctuary with God, time spent viewing myself and Christ in the light of Calvary.
It will make us true thankful people, true worshippers. But look at verse 19,. And the flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten, it shall be burnt with fire. And as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof.
But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people. Moreover, the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which pertain unto the Lord, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
Do you see the repetition of soul? It's not just the man, it's the soul. That which can answer to God, that tenderness of conscience before God. And so here's a man now, he's about to partake of that portion of the gift which he has given to God, and which God has graciously returned to him.
God has said, I'll keep my portion, now here's a portion for you. But, if you let that portion come into contact with anything unclean, that is, anything from an external source, it's not to be eaten.
Or if that which you're going to feed upon becomes contaminated from an internal source, not to be eaten. Great lesson this, great principle. What God is teaching his people, is that if you take something which is holy, that which has been set apart for God, here's the injunction now, that the one who feeds upon this, must be clean.
As for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof. God says, I demand a practical holiness. So that if you, through neglect, allow your portion to come into contact with something which is profane, or you allow it to be contaminated by uncleanness from within, you must discard it, says God, it's not fit for consumption.
Things to do with Christ, not fit for consumption. What's the great lesson? It's right through scripture. If you take something that's holy, and you bring it into contact with something which is profane, it doesn't make the profane thing holy, it makes the holy thing profane.
Profane. Now that's very practical, you see, because sometimes when we take our eyes off New Testament scripture, and we start to apply human logic and human reasoning to assembly life, and we might say, well, you know, we haven't seen folk coming in for the gospel meeting.
And maybe we should do something to bring these folk in for the gospel meeting. And we should maybe try and make the assembly more attractive to the ungodly. There's a kind of a logical and rational appeal to all of that.
Mind you, you could look into the scriptures and find that God never intended the local assembly to be attractive to the ungodly. In fact, they should look upon it as a fearful thing. That's how it was at the very beginning, when God set his stamp of holiness upon the church at Jerusalem, when Ananias and Sapphira were carried out feet first and buried for lying to the spirit of God.
And the Bible says that of the rest durst no man join himself unto them. People didn't dare come near that assembly of Christians in Jerusalem if they were ungodly. You say, but that's not the way we would do things.
Precisely. Our ways aren't God's ways. Our thoughts are not his thoughts. Yet there can be a great clamor, let's make the local assembly more attractive. How do we do that? Well, there's all kinds of things we can do.
We can kind of dress down, and we can dumb down, and we can make things. You know, we won't preach to these people. We'll put a few cozy chairs around, and they can come in and drink coffee, and we'll talk to them about the gospel.
Well, that's great if you're trying to sell timeshares or washing machines. But that's not the divine method of proclaiming the gospel of the grace of God. The divine method for the declaration of the gospel is that it is preached.
And to follow up our example, if people aren't coming in to hear the gospel, well, what scripture would we go to to say that somehow either God is failing us, or the thing isn't working, because I don't find any scripture that says we're entitled to expect the ungodly to come to us.
I find the New Testament order is that we go out and preach to them. We take the gospel to them. And whether it's in the workplace, or whether it's at school, or whether we're able to preach publicly, we take the gospel to the people.
But you see, the point is this. In many places, and I'm speaking principally about my home country, we're seeing in various places, the error being made, the trap being fallen into, that by applying human reasoning and human thought to this, we say, well, let's make everything more attractive.
Let's bring this in. Let's bring that in. And we're taking the methods and the ways of an ungodly world, and we're bringing them in to God's assembly. But by bringing them into the assembly, we're not sanctifying that which belongs to the world.
We're making profane that which belongs to the assembly. Do you see that? The profane will always hurt that which is holy. And so, God says, if these people are coming with a spirit of thanksgiving, and with an offering, God will give them a portion to enjoy.
He wants us to feed upon Christ with him. But now he says, if there is uncorrected, undealt with, contamination, either from outside or from within, it can't work, says God. You cannot feed upon Christ with me, with uncorrected, unconfessed, unsorted, wrong ways in my life.
That's why God demands holiness. Not sinlessness. We've seen that. He allows the leaven. But he demands holiness. So now, again, being very practical, if perhaps there is some wrong relationship, Christian boy, you're going with a girl who's not saved.
A young sister, and you're going with a young man, and he's not saved. Listen, look at the principle. The holy never sanctifies the profane. The profane spoils that which is holy. Don't fall into that trap of thinking, well, you know, I'll go with this boy, I'll go with this girl, and if I pray really hard, God will save them.
Well, maybe in God's rich goodness, he might save them, but let him save them first. You pray. You see that that friend of yours knows the gospel, but keep your distance. You are not to be yoked together with an unbeliever.
Straightforward. No wriggle room. It's not to happen. And God is saying, through the lessons of this offering, don't think that you can enjoy practical fellowship with me, if in your life you are allowing the holy and the profane to mix.
That's why a worldly Christian, that's why a careless Christian, someone who is not seeking to mortify the deeds of the flesh, that Christian will never have anything meaningful to give to God privately or publicly.
They can go through the motions. You can pray in the prayer meeting, you can take part on the Lord's Day morning, you can preach. But if there isn't that conscious and deliberate desire in the heart and the life to be rid of everything which is contrary to God and his ways, then that practical fellowship with God will not be richly enjoyed.
My time is up in a minute. We've dwelt a fair bit on the negative side of things, I accept that. But if you were to look in your own time perhaps, from verse 28 onwards, you will find the blessing that's attached to a person who brings their thanksgiving peace offering in a way that's acceptable to God.
And you'll find there that there's a portion for Aaron and his sons. It's the breast. That which speaks of love and devotion. Aaron and his sons together, a picture of Christ in the church, just a picture.
But it means this, my brother, my sister, that if we are privately determined before God to give him his portion, to feed with him upon Christ, the blessing will not only be mine, but it will be felt by the assembly as well.
Other believers will prosper and benefit because of my fellowship with God. Not just in preaching, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a local assembly of Christians, and some local assemblies are as cold as ice.
Mere formality. And in some there's a great warmth of fellowship. What makes the difference? It's not the routine. It's all about individuals being in touch with God. In practical fellowship with God.
Feeding upon Christ with God. Actively seeking to put away those things in the life that could easily come in that would detract from that fellowship. And what our brother said this morning concerning the fullness of Christ, we could not endorse more.
That as we seek to fill our hearts with him, as the little chorus says, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will become strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
I must first of all examine my life and before God seek to put out everything that would spoil fellowship with God, feeding upon Christ. And as I do that, as I learn to feed upon him, I will see more that can be put out in my life.
And I will enjoy more of Christ. And I will see something else that can go out of my life. And I will enjoy more of Christ. And it's a process that turns Christians into real men and women of God. And there's a blessing for them.
And there's a blessing for the assembly. And there'll be a blessing for the lost. How can you reach people who need to be saved if you're living with one foot in the world yourself? There's also the heave shoulder.
The shoulder is the place of government, speaks of the acknowledgement of the lordship of Christ. The local assembly where you meet, the local assembly where I meet, would be marvelously blessed if Christians like you and me were determined before God today that we will go in for this precious truth of the peace offering.
Fellowship with God. Feeding together upon Christ. And seeking to put out of the life everything that would spoil that. Trust that God will bless his word.