A Living Sacrifice: God’s Standards

Transcript

JR 1
02/20/2022
A Living Sacrifice: God’s Standards
Leviticus 1:1-17
Jesse Randolph

There are many words in the English language that have been watered down and weakened in their meaning the more commonly they are used. One of those words is “awesome”, “awesome”. That’s the word that comes to mind immediately for me when I think of overused, tired words that have an expiration date on them. They no longer mean what they used to mean. That word “awesome” used to mean something that inspired awe. Like a sunset, or the design of a spiderweb or the crash of a wave, or the tumbling force of an avalanche.

Now though, “awesome” has a completely different meaning. The word can be used to refer to a viral video, or a buzzer-beating three-pointer, or the taste of an Omaha steak. Other words that fall into this category of being overused and detached from their original meaning include absolutely, totally, basically, and literally. These words have been stretched to the point in the common vernacular of our day. They actually have very little meaning anymore.

Another word that I would present to you is “sacrifice.” The word “sacrifice.” How much has that word “sacrifice” been watered down in our day? Think about it. The word “sacrifice” now can be used in baseball to describe the process of bunting and getting the next runner over to the next base. The word “sacrifice” is used by movie stars and athletes who sacrifice a few million dollars to work with a particular director or to play on a certain sports team. The word “sacrifice” can be used in our day to describe giving up coffee or sugar or carbs or Facebook.

With such depreciated uses being made of such a rich and meaningful word - sacrifice - it makes one wonder whether we truly know and appreciate what the word even means anymore. Well, even though in our world that world is being re-defined by society according to the cultural whims of our day I’m happy to report that the de facto, official definition of sacrifice given by the good folks at the Merriam-Webster dictionary is actually still pretty accurate. It still contains a ring of truth.

Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines sacrifice. “An act of offering to a deity something precious.” “An act of offering to a deity something precious.” That’s actually really close to a
biblical and, therefore accurate, definition of sacrifice. However, I would still make one change. I would change that loose, wishy-washy reference to “deity” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary to the word “God.” So, we would say a sacrifice is an act of offering to God something precious.

During this morning’s message and later in this evening’s message we are going to see that throughout redemptive history the God of the universe, the God revealed in Scripture, holy and transcendent, unrivalled in excellence, eternal and immutable, has always required some form of sacrifice. And not just any sacrifice, but a living sacrifice.

This morning, we’re going to spend some time looking at some of the original ways that God’s original covenant people were required to make living sacrifices to Him. And then this evening if you all come back… look at that, I already said, you all! We will see what the ultimate Living Sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, did for us. The effect it made on our behalf.

What we are going to see as we move from Old Testament to New Testament, this morning and this evening, is this theme of this consistently, unchangeably holy God who requires from sinful and unholy people like us a sacrifice. A living sacrifice, an act of offering something precious.

Now to get us started in our time for today we are going to be in the book of Leviticus, Leviticus.
Not the typical book of the Bible that your typical pastoral candidate turns a prospective church to. But we’re going to jump into this book this morning with zero hesitation or apology on my part. Why? Well, because don’t think there’s a church more ready than this church, Indian Hills Community Church to dive into a book like Leviticus.

Thanks to Pastor Gil’s faithful 52 year pulpit ministry, you are all very equipped to dive into this book with me this morning. But even more significantly, neither I nor any man who’s called to preach ever have to justify or apologize for preaching out of any text of the Holy Scriptures anymore than we would have to apologize for preaching out of a Psalm or a Gospel or one of Paul’s letters. And why is that? 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture [pas graphe] is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” It doesn’t say, “all Scripture…except Leviticus” does it? No.

See, Leviticus has received an unfairly bad rap over the course of church history. It’s been treated like the black sheep of the Bible in many ways. Pastors rarely preach on it. Relatively few commentaries are written on it and annual Bible study plans, admit it, frequently die in it.
Rather than appreciating and living in light of its major themes, what people tend to remember about Leviticus, even good, godly, Bible-believing Christians like the people in this room, we tend to focus on the seemingly and random and outdated facts that are laid in the pages of this text. We tend to walk into things like oxen and slaves and skin diseases and bodily discharges and dietary restrictions and the long lobe of the liver and mildew infested homes. And when Leviticus does get any airtime and it does get any publicity, it’s usually not positive publicity in our increasingly darkening age, as people tend to cherry-pick from it, ripping verses out of their context to score whatever political or social points they want to make. If that’s all you’ve ever gotten out of Leviticus, curiosities, oddities, fodder for jokes, political or social missiles, that’s really a shame. There are a number of reasons why the 21st century Christian should not only and can not only benefit from, but genuinely love the book of Leviticus. I’m going to lay out for you the world’s longest introduction, four reasons why you ought to love the book of Leviticus.

The first is this, Leviticus played a central role in Israel’s history. As you know, it’s centrally located, right in the middle of the Pentateuch, the five original books of the Old Testament, the Mosaic books. That means it’s right in the middle of those books that tell stories about Israel’s origins and experiences and existence. And as committed dispensationalists, we know that Israel’s story in turn plays a very significant role, both in the past and in the future as it relates to God’s redemptive plans in the world.

A second reason is that Leviticus was revered both among early Jews and early Christians. On the Jewish side, it was the first book of the Hebrew scriptures that the little children would have learned in the synagogue. Their Awana or Adventure Club verses, you could say, would have come out of Leviticus. On the Christian side, Leviticus is heavily quoted in the New Testament. In fact, only Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Psalms and Isaiah are quoted more in the New Testament than is the book of Leviticus. Also, Jesus’s favorite verse in the Hebrew scriptures, at least as measured by how often He has referenced it was from Leviticus 19:18 – “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Third reason, there is no book of the Bible in which we hear God speaking more directly to His people than in the book of Leviticus. Where He is directly quoted, quotation marks are put around His words, His speech. Especially in an age when we are encountering many people who are looking for an experience from God, or to hear from God, we ought to be pointing them to the book of Leviticus. They can hear Him speak directly on the pages of scripture.

Fourth, and I would say, most importantly, Leviticus addresses some of the most weighty issues and topics that mankind has ever faced. That includes topics such as: God’s nature, including His holiness. Topics like our sin and our uncleanness. And getting back to what I said at the beginning, the necessity of a sacrifice. These issues and topics are of immense importance and relevance to Christians of all ages, of all times. And thus, Leviticus is a book of towering, theological significance.

As you know, Leviticus has 27 chapters, but because I want to get you out of here by lunch this morning, we’re only going to cover one of those chapters this morning, Leviticus 1. Now as we go through this one chapter (feel free to turn there if you’re not there already) you’re going to see how incredibly detailed and meticulous and detail-oriented our God is. Especially as it relates to His standards for sacrifice. If you’re the notetaking type here this morning, the first heading for my sermon is this, “The Standards for Sacrifice.” “The Standards for Sacrifice.”

As we get ready to embark on our study of Leviticus 1, we need to spend a little time establishing the context of what we’re going to dig into. Where are we in time? Where are we geographically? Well, the Israelites, after 400+ years of slavery, as you know, had left Egypt in their exodus. They had crossed over the Red Sea. They had made their way to the peninsula at Sinai. And they had experienced that scene at Exodus 19, where God’s presence came down on Mount Sinai, causing the mountain to quake and smoke and the people to tremble. It was a very California type experience. After that, Moses went up the mountain and received what we all know as the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, which were given in Exodus 20. As he received the Ten Commandments, Moses also received a whole host of other instructions from God. Including instructions on how to build the Tabernacle, also known as the Tent of Meeting. Those instructions that God gave Moses, as to how to construct the Tabernacle, are given in Exodus 26-30. And then after that, we see in Exodus 36-39, the actual Tabernacle being built. And then when we get to Exodus 40, we have an account there, the Tabernacle finally being erected. And then at the very end of Exodus 40, in verses 44-38, we see the glory of the Lord filling the Tabernacle. God’s glory had now descended into this meeting place. Which means that God’s place for meeting with His people was now open and up and running and ready for business.

The Tabernacle was this rendezvous point between God where He would meet His people. Now God, in a very real way, dwelt always in the midst of His people. But He did so in a special way, in a unique way in the Tabernacle. The fullness of His presence was in the Tabernacle. And experience that way for those ancient Israelites. This is precisely where Leviticus picks up the story, Leviticus, because this is all part of one book that Moses put together under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Leviticus seamlessly picks up where Exodus leaves off.

Let’s look at Leviticus chapter 1 and start in verse 1. It says, “Then the LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, “When any man of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.” The word “LORD” there is in all caps (capital letters) in our NAS translation and of course that is a reference to God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but also the God of Lincoln, Nebraska in 2022. He’s the same God for all time. Here He is being referred to by His personal name, Yahweh. So, Yahweh is speaking personally and directly to Moses here, from within the Tabernacle immediately after it was set up.

The Tabernacle was this holy place of worship where the Israelite community would take it from place to place as they were on the move throughout the Sinaitic Peninsula. God directed the people as to where they were to take the Tabernacle. Where they were to transport the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, either by a pillar of cloud during the day or a pillar of fire during the night. The Tabernacle was not very large. It was not very big. It would have only been about 15 feet wide, 15 feet high, and 45 feet depth which is like taking two railway cars off the train tracks and placing them side by side and then placing two more railway cars on top of those two and that cube of four railway cars would be the Tabernacle’s size.

It was from this Tabernacle that God instructed Moses on how the people of Israel were to interact with Him. They were to do so through this system of sacrifice and offering. We see the burnt offering in Leviticus 1. You can just jot some of these down. We see the grain offering in Leviticus 2. We see the peace offering in Leviticus 3. We see the sin offering in Leviticus 4 into 5:13. Then last we see the guilt offering in Leviticus 5 all the way to Leviticus 6:7. Now the most common of these offerings, the offering that was foundational and therefore listed first here in the book was the offering that we will be going through this morning. The burnt offering.

Now, in Hebrew, that word for “burnt offering” is olah. It kind of sounds like the Spanish word for “hi.” Right? “Hola.” But it’s not spelled that way. If we were to translate the Hebrew word for burn offering here, olah, it would look like o-l-a-h. That would be the English transliterated spelling of the word for burnt offering. That word olah derives from a Hebrew verb that means “to ascend” or “go up” and you can see why, as these offerings, and specifically, the aroma that they would give off, would go up to God. Now an interesting side note about this burnt offering idea and the word “olah” is that when the Hebrew Scriptures were later translated into Greek, between the third and first centuries B.C, in what we call the Septuagint, that word “olah” was rendered in the Greek “holokautoma.” That’s the Hebrew word for the Greek word for burnt offering, “holokautoma,” which is where we get our English word, and you can kind of hear it, “holocaust,” “holocaust.” In fact, if you were to look at some of the older commentaries on Leviticus, the ones that predate the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, you would see the burnt offering sometimes referred to as the holocaust offering. Now of course, when we think of the twentieth-century event in Nazi German, the Holocaust, we think of an entire people being consumed and tragically, as they were wiped out of existence nearly. That’s the idea of this offering. Being totally consumed on the altar, obliterated, with the result being smoke going up, the aroma ascending to the Lord.

Now, as we work our way through this text we are going to see that there were three ways the Israelite worshipper could provide a burnt offering. He could offer an animal from the herd. meaning a cow or a bull. He could offer an animal from the flock, meaning a lamb or a goat. Or he could offer a bird, meaning a turtledove or a pigeon.

Let’s look at what would happen in that first instance if the offering was an animal from the herd, a bull or a cow. Look at verse 3 of Leviticus 1. It says, “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect. He shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the LORD.” The setting here is there has been some form of transgression. Some form of offense. Some type of sin that has separated this sinning Israelite from his God. The words given by the prophet Isaiah several centuries later in Isaiah 59:2 would have rung true here. That their iniquity had “made a separation between” them and their God, so that their sin had hidden His face from them. But though the sin isn’t specified here, the sin’s effect is clear. It has resulted in the Israelite’s separation from God, his rejection by God, his disapproval from God. So, this early worshiper is now coming to the Tabernacle to have his sin addressed and to gain, at least in some sense, Yahweh’s acceptance.

And to begin that process we see he would do something. He would start in verse 4 by laying his hands on his animal. Look at Leviticus 1, verse 4. “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering.” Many believe, and later Scriptural evidence would support, that at this point in the process that the worshiper would have lifted some sort of prayer to Yahweh in later centuries, maybe even have recited one of the Psalms that we see. You can jot down Psalm 20:3 where it says “May He remember all your meal offerings and find your burnt offering acceptable!” Or Psalm 66, verses 13 through 15: “I shall come into Your house with burnt offerings… I shall offer to You burnt offerings of fat beasts, with the smoke of rams; I shall make an offering of bulls with male goats.” But then look at what the rest of verse 4 says going back to Leviticus 1. We’ve already seen it says that “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering.” But then look at the second part, it says, “that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.”

This highlights the main function of the burnt offering. Its main purpose was to atone for sins and guilt through an act of substitution. As this worshiper entered into the tent of meeting with his bull or his cow, guilt was resting way heavily on his shoulders. But now that weight and guilt was being transferred to the living sacrifice he had brought with him. More on that later.

Now note, I want you to note, that up to this point, the one doing all the work in this process of offering a living sacrifice was the individual, sinning Israelite himself. He was the one with guilt on his record. So he was not going to be able to phone it in. He was not going to be able to delegate this task. He was going to have to get his hands dirty in this process. And we see this happening in verse 5. “He shall slay,” that’s really dirty, “the young bull before the LORD.” If you’re squeamish, my apologies in advance, because what this likely would happened would have involved slitting the animal’s throat to allow the maximum drainage of blood from the animal’s body which would then be caught in a bucket or vessel underneath.

It was at this point that one of the priests of the Tabernacle would jump in. Who were these priests? Up to this point it was the sinning, individual Israelite. Now in verse 5 we have the priest getting ready to jump in. And who were these priests? These were the priests of the tribe of Levi.
And specifically, they were sons of Aaron, the brother of Moses, who as we know, came from the tribe of Levi. These were Levitical priests. That’s where the book of Leviticus gets its name. And these priests were charged with the task of keeping and operating the Tabernacle, keeping things going all day and all night. While the worshiper did play a role in providing the burnt offering, bringing the burnt offering, the overall administration of the burnt offering was under the care and supervision of these Levitical priests. A non-priest could not just walk in to the Tabernacle and offer a burnt offering on his own. In fact, if you jotted down 1 Samuel 13 you would see that King Saul, in fact, was punished by offering the burnt offering on his own, in an unauthorized manner later in Israel’s history.

And that’s the reason why it was consecrated. This was a consecrated process. There was an altar on which the burnt offering was offered. The altar was this hollow box, made of acacia wood, and overlaid with bronze. It was holy to the Lord and consecrated for His purposes. So the worshiper, the mere Israelite could not just walk in there and touch the altar on his own or lay anything on that consecrated space.

So, after the worshiper, verse 5, had killed his bull or his cow, the second half of verse 5, after the bull is slain, gives us more of what the priests were doing. It says: “and Aaron’s sons the priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the doorway of the tent of meeting.” This was a messy job. The worshiper killed the animal, but the priest gathered the blood of the animal and placed it on the altar. Now you’ll see here in the NAS translation it says that the blood was sprinkled against the side of the altar. I actually think a more accurate translation of the Hebrew here would be that the blood was actually tossed or splashed against the side of the altar. The point is, this was a gory scene. But not unnecessarily so because when the priest was taking the blood of that animal and splashing it against the side of the altar He was doing so as a public witness that the necessary sacrifice for this sin in question had been provided.

After the blood of the sacrifice was splashed against the altar, now attention would shift back to the individual worshiper. Look at verse 6. It says “He”, this is now the individual, “shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces.” If there are any hunters in the room you know exactly what is being described here. The skin, or the hide, of the animal was separated from its flesh with some sort of sharp instrument. Then it’s being cut into pieces it says, which is just the way it sounds. That animal you brought in with you, that you made eye contact with as you walked into the tabernacle. That beloved bull, or that hearty cow, that valuable source of meat and other resources, you were now skinning and chopping up in the Tabernacle like the butcher at Hy-Vee. And you were doing so, all of that process, to make sure that your offering could be more easily burned and consumed in full on the altar.

Now, the priests would get involved again here, in verse 7. It says, “The sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire.” Putting it in our terms, they were lighting the flame. And then they were arranging the wood on the fire to make sure, if I can say it this way, that there were no hot spots on the grill so that there was an even burn so the whole thing could be consumed.

And then look at verse 8. “Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head and the suet over the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar.” The head is just what it sounds like,“ros,” the head of the animal. The suet, “chelev” in Hebrew, is a reference to the fatty portions of the animal. That white, chewy substance that attaches to steaks that most of us make sure we take off before we eat the steak. The main idea here, though, is that the worshiper is cutting up the animal, killing the animal, and then the priest is the one cooking the animal.

Then, verse 9 “Its entrails, however, and its legs he shall wash with water.” The entrails is a reference to the intestines. Legs here could refer to its rump or backside. It was all to be washed in the Tabernacle with water in the laver in the courtyard of the Tabernacle to remove any traces of excrement because nothing unclean could be offered in the presence of a holy God.
And then, finally, the second part of verse 9, the priest would set it all on fire. It says, “And the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the LORD.”

So, to recap. You would bring your animal. You would kill your animal. You would drain the blood of your animal. You would cut the animal into pieces. You would wash and clean certain unclean parts of the animal. And then you would put the whole animal, except for the skin, back on the altar and you would burn it up. Those are the instructions for how a burnt offering would work if the animal was from the herd, meaning a bull or a cow.

And now look at verses 10 through 13. We’re now going to see the instructions for the burnt offering if the animal was from the flock, meaning a sheep or a goat. Look at verse 10. It says, “But if his offering is from the flock, of the sheep or of the goats, for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without defect. He shall slay it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle its blood around the altar. He shall then cut it into its pieces with its head and its suet, and the priest shall arrange them on the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar. The entrails, however, and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it and offer it up in smoke on the altar; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the LORD.”

So, if the offering was from the flock, a sheep or a goat, you pretty much had the same set of instructions. Kill the animal. Throw blood against the altar. Cut it into pieces. Wash and clean certain parts of the animal. Burn it up. Same idea.

Then we get to the last set of instructions, the third set of instructions which take us to the end of the passage, verses 14 through 17. It says “But if his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering from the turtledoves or from young pigeons. The priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and offer it up in smoke on the altar; and its blood is to be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall also take away its crop with its feathers and cast it beside the altar eastward, to the place of the ashes. Then he shall tear it by its wings but shall not sever it. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar on the wood which is on the fire; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the LORD.”

Now the burnt offering of birds had some similarities, as well as some differences, from the first two forms of burnt offering. One difference is that it was the priest, not the worshiper, would kill the bird, if the bird was the burnt offering. We saw the priest would “wring off its head and offer it up in smoke on the altar.” The priest would drain its blood on the side of the altar and the priest would remove the bird’s crop and throw it on a nearby ash heap. Last we see the priest would tear open the bird, verse 17, by by its wings before burning it up on the altar.

So why were these three different sets of instructions given for this one type of offering, the burnt offering? The reason is actually fairly simple. It was a matter of economy. Not all Israelites could afford a cow or a bull so, if you couldn’t afford a cow or a bull you could offer a sheep or a goat. And if you couldn’t afford a sheep or a goat you could offer a bird. It was God’s way of accommodating His required system of sacrifices to the economic realities that then existed in Israel. Like the widow who gave her two coins in Jesus’ day. The requirement was that you were to give all that you had whether you had much or little or somewhere in between.

So we’ve covered the how of the burnt offering. Now let’s talk a little bit and look into the when.
When were the burnt offerings offered? Well, there were three major occasions on which burnt offering would be offered. First, would be during daily offerings and as the name suggests, these would be offered every single day. Twice a day, morning and evening. You could jot down Numbers 28, verses 1-6 to see how these daily offerings would have worked.

Second, burnt offerings were made during special offerings. So in addition to the daily offerings there were monthly offerings, Sabbath offerings, Passover offerings, and offerings for various annual feasts and festivals. The Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Booths, and the Day of Atonement. So, the altar was being used for burnt offerings twice a day, every day for daily offerings, but on top of that for these special occasions as well.

The third circumstance under which burnt offerings were offered was when one of those situations arose where a person needed to be ritually purified because of their ceremonial uncleanness. That did not always mean sinfulness. Instead, it represented that broader category of circumstances where a person was, under the Law, deemed ritually impure and thus, needed ritually to be made clean. Those would include those instances like childbearing and leprosy. Male discharges and female cycles and touching a dead body. You would need to offer a burnt offering to be cleansed in those situations.

The point of all this is, why have I spent most of my time this morning laying all of this out for you? The point of all of this is to highlight the reality that the Tabernacle was an incredibly busy place, and it was an incredibly bloody place. The Tabernacle, if you could just picture yourself there, was filled with sounds and bleeps and the shrieks of dying animals. The Tabernacle was filled with the competing odors of carcasses, excrement, and cooking meat. The Tabernacle was filled with graphic visuals of intestines, splattered blood, and animals being cut open and ripped apart.

And don’t miss this. The Tabernacle was filled with sinners like you and me seeking to make sacrifices in order to pay for their sins. And all of it, to be made right with, albeit temporarily, with a just and holy God. All of it. The sounds, the shrieks, the smells, the sights was made necessary by the reality of sin.

And all of it still highlights for us today our need to embrace God’s exacting standards for sacrifice. Not because in our age, in the dispensation in which we live, that we’re required to make these types of sacrifices. I saw nobody here with a goat draped over your shoulders when you walked in here this morning. But we need to zero in on is what these rules about sacrifice tell us about the seriousness of sin, in the eyes of our eternally-holy God.

There’s another thing though, that we need to note about this sacrificial system described in the book of Leviticus. Not only were God’s standards for sacrifice both detailed and exacting but the sacrifice that God required was costly. It was a costly sacrifice. Again, if you’re taking notes, that’s going to be the second heading for this morning’s sermon, “The Cost of the Sacrifice.”

As we’ve run rather quickly through this first form of offering, the burnt offering, it might be easy to soak in all these graphic details while missing out on some key theological truths that these details reveal.

One of those is the cost of the sacrifice. The cost of sacrifice that God requires. For instance, notice how both in the offering from the herd in verse 3 and the offering from the flock in verse 5, the animal that was being offered for sacrifice had to be male. Why is that? The answer is that under Israelite law, male animals were considered to be more valuable than female animals. We don’t need here this morning to engage in sociological or philosophical debate as to why that was so. We don’t need to appeal to modern-day cultural and societal mores to justify why that was so. We simply need to embrace that, that was so in this culture, in this time.

Notice also how the male animal to be sacrificed had to be without blemish. He not only needed to be male, he needed to be without blemish. Just as you wouldn’t bring a bird if you couldn’t bring a sheep. And just as you wouldn’t bring a sheep if you were able to provide a bull, you wouldn’t bring an old, weak, and diseased bull if you had a young and strong bull at the ready. The basic idea is that you were expected to bring the very best that you could bring.

See, God always knows and always has known the hearts of man. Even those who claim to be His worshipers. God cannot be fooled. God cannot be tricked, or duped, or conned, or deceived. So in the context of these ancient Israelites God knew that, in their fallen flesh, His people would be tempted to bring Him their weakest and least costly form of sacrifice. So He deemed it necessary to make it explicit here that the Israelites needed to bring to Him their best, costliest, most choice animal. Not only were they required to bring their best animal for sacrifice that had to be a male, they were to give God all of it. The whole animal, not merely a part of it, not merely a limb. The whole thing was going to be completely burned up on the altar.
No one was going to be eating of the burnt offering later that night. No one was going to be having steak or lamb shank or pigeon wings for dinner after the burnt offering was offered. The whole thing was consumed, totally burned up, ascended and given to the Lord. And by giving that whole animal to the Lord the worshiper was acknowledging that their sinfulness before a holy God was so great that only a full and costly payment would suffice. So they needed to give God their first and their best and their whole.

Now, there’s always a risk in making a super, jagged transition from the book of Leviticus that we are learning from today to how we are to live lives as believers, followers of Christ, today. So, it can be risky to bring application out of Leviticus to the modern-day church. I can see that. But I do believe that our text this morning has meaning for us today. All scripture is profitable, right? I think this scripture, allows me, this morning legitimately as the man preaching this text to ask everybody here this question. Are you giving God your very best? Are you giving God your very best? Does it show in what you are, as it were, putting on the altar? How about time? What kind of time are you giving to God? Are you giving to God only that time that’s leftover after you devote the lion’s share of your time to what’s actually most important to you? Or instead, do you devote and consecrate sacrificially and with forethought significant portions of time to God and His purposes? What about your attitude or your attention? Are you giving God only the scraps of your attention and attitude? When you have time to squeeze Him in? Is the attention you give Him undivided or is it divided? Do you prioritize and protect your relationship with God, in the way you would protect and prioritize any other relationship in your life? What about financially? Are you giving from the bottom or giving from the top? Are you giving only when you’ll receive a tax break or are you giving when you know you are to give cheerfully and sacrificially knowing that whatever resources God has blessed you with are not yours in the first place?

I could ask you a million more diagnostic questions like these, but the over-arching question is this. What are you putting on the altar? What are you putting on the altar? Does your life show that God, and your relationship with Him, is your greatest priority? We know, because God’s character is unchanging, that He wants our best when it relates to how we engage with Him and how we worship Him. And yet sadly, so many of us want to get away with a life of minimal obedience. We don’t think in terms of how much can I give or sacrifice in order to maximize my dependence on and love for God. We instead think in terms of, if we’re not careful, how much we can get away with while still being OK with God. If I stole just a little bit of company time, would that be so wrong? If I watched just a few extra minutes of that video that I know I shouldn’t watch, would God be upset with me? If I thought just a few wicked thoughts, would that be alright? How can I serve God in the least costly means possible? How can I cut as many corners as possible and still be a Christian? But cutting corners with God never pays.

In fact, turn with me to Malachi. Let’s go from the earlier chapters of the Old Testament over to Malachi, in the Old Testament. Look at Malachi chapter 1. Here, God of course is still speaking in the Israelite context but here it is many centuries after Leviticus. In fact about a thousand years after Leviticus was written the Israelites returned from their time of exile, their latest exile. And here’s what God says to them in Malachi 1:6. I’ll read down to verse 8. “ ‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’ ” The answer is given down in verse 7. “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the LORD is to be despised.’ But when you present the blind,” he’s referring to animals there, “for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?’ says the LORD of hosts.” See, that is the corner-cutting mentality that never pays! Instead of adopting the corner-cutting mentality of the priests of Malachi’s day, a mentality that God clearly despises here, we need to be thinking how can I love God more? How can I serve more? How can I seek to know Him more? How can I seek His face more? How can I pursue His glory more? How can I be a part of His church more? Or put back into the words of Leviticus, how can I offer Him my choicest, best animal from the flock?

There’s one last thing we need to note about the book of Leviticus and the sacrificial system that we’ve been outlining so far this morning. It’s one we’ve briefly previewed already. We’ve seen that God’s standards for sacrifice were both detailed and exacting. That was my first preaching idea. We’ve seen that the sacrifice He required was costly. That was our second idea. The third one is this. The effect of the sacrifice was atoning.

If you’re still taking notes, if you’re still with me that will be our third point for this morning. The atoning purpose of sacrifice. The atoning purpose of sacrifice. You see the sacrificial system that we see laid out here in Leviticus was put in place by God at this specific point in redemptive history to offer for His people at that time a temporary solution for their sins. God does not and does not today give out hall passes for sin. God did not and does not today give mulligans for sin. God did not and does not today give out get-out-of-jail-free cards for sin.

And why? Because God is holy. He is separate from us. He’s altogether unlike us. He’s in a class of His own. He is the definition of perfection and purity. In fact, God’s holiness is the central theme of Leviticus. The Hebrew word “holy,” in Hebrew “qadosh,” is mentioned 87 times in this book alone. At three different places in Leviticus, we will see God calling on His people to be holy as He is holy. But this book also shows us that while God is holy we are not! That’s why there are punishments and curses. This is why God’s people need sacrifices. This is why there was a holy people, the priests, who needed to wear holy clothes in a holy land ministering in a holy place using holy utensils and holy objects. That’s why there were holy days and holy feasts and that’s why there was a holy law. And that holy law would show us and show them that in light of our sin before this holy God we need reconciliation. We need reconciliation that only comes through sacrifice and blood.

In the Old Covenant, God gave very specific, exacting directions as to how those sacrifices were to look. And how that blood was to be shed. That’s what we have looking at this morning in Leviticus 1 as it lays out all the regulations for just one type of offering, the burnt offering. But why was a burnt offering needed in the first place? It was required because of what the Apostle Paul would say many centuries later in Romans 6:23, that “the wages of sin is death.” The worshiper’s sin required punishment. And not just any punishment. The punishment that God had already pronounced. Death.

But as we have seen in Leviticus 1 and specifically the second half of verse 4, God provided a means of relief. A means by which the animal that the worshiper brought with him could “make atonement on his behalf.” Let’s look at verse 4 again. Leviticus 1:4, “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.” See, throughout this cycle of offering and sacrifice the worshiper would recognize over and over that he is a sinner. He would recognize over and over that God is holy and be forced to recognize over and over that he deserved to die. And forced to recognize over and over that he required a substitute in order to gain any sort of acceptance or standing before God. So when the Israelite worshiper here would present the burnt offering as he put his hand on that beloved animal’s head it was signifying two things. Identification: this animal, with my guilt on its head, will be my substitute. And transfer: may my guilt be on its head. So, when the animal was sacrificed and burnt up the worshiper was gaining acceptance with God through the death of this substitute. His sin was dealt with, covered, paid for, atoned for. Something with life in the blood was slaughtered so that the sinner might live. Through death came life as the burnt offering satisfied God, abating His judgment, giving off that “soothing [or pleasing] aroma to the Lord,” that we see in verse 9.

Well, the burnt offering we’ve been looking at today certainly is explained most thoroughly in the book of Leviticus. The reality is that burnt offerings and sacrifices like these were being made long before Moses ever wrote Leviticus. You might recall how, in Genesis chapter 8, Noah offered burnt offerings to the Lord after the waters of the flood had receded. The aroma pleased the Lord, it says there in Genesis 8, and He made His covenant with Noah at that point. And burnt offerings were being offered for many centuries, well over a thousand years, after Moses wrote Leviticus. We saw that just a few moments ago in our reference to Malachi chapter 1.


Can you imagine how many animals must have been slaughtered and killed during this time? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? We don’t know. Can you imagine how many gallons of blood of bulls and goats must have been spilled as people were thinking that this was their solution to get right with God? But here’s the thing. Though the casualties were incredibly high in terms of animal sacrifice and blood, the results were remarkably short-lived.
Because after sacrificing that animal the worshiper would still be a sinner. Would still sin and would still need the ultimate solution for his sin. He would have to sacrifice yet another animal the next day as he had done the previous day and would have to sacrifice another animal at a different time.

But then a man entered the scene 2,000 years ago, clothed in camel hair and eating locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed amongst his people, those same people who unto that point had been making these types of burnt offerings, and he proclaimed to them “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”.

Maybe we’ve been in church for awhile or been raised in the church… it’s possible we’ve grown a little numb to these words if we’re not careful. Maybe they’ve grown familiar to us, over-familiar to us. Maybe like that word “sacrifice” that I mentioned at the beginning. Maybe it’s become kind of watered down and not as significant and meaningful as it truly is. If that’s the case, my charge to you this morning, under the authority of God’s word, is to slow down and appreciate the nature, the cost, the effect, the purpose, the reality of sacrifice. Because those words, “Behold, the Lamb of God who” came to take “away the sin of the world” are loaded with theological weight and significance. They are words that certainly would not have been lost on the average Israelite that John the Baptist happened upon because John the Baptist’s words in John 1:29 are really roughly paraphrasing Leviticus!

Behold, your Burnt Offering, which has been accepted by God to make atonement for you.

Later this evening, we will explore what this sacrificial system of Leviticus points to. The ultimate living sacrifice, Jesus Christ. The eternally-existing God who created all things and upholds all things and entered His creation. Who put on flesh and who lived, dwelled, tabernacled among His people and who died. Jesus Christ was, of course, the one John the Baptist spoke of in the wilderness. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. He was a male without blemish. He did shed His blood voluntarily and He did so as an act of substitutionary atonement. Hebrews 10:12, He offered “one sacrifice for sins for all time.”

I’ll close our time this morning with a hymn from Isaac Watts, the famed hymn-writer of the 1700s. Surely you have heard many of his hymns before. “Joy to the World,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “Jesus Shall Reign” are some of the greatest hits of Isaac Watts. But Isaac Watts also wrote a lesser-known hymn called “Faith in Christ, Our Sacrifice.” It also has gone by the name “Not All the Blood of Beasts” which I think perfectly straddles where we’ve been this morning and where we’ll go this evening.

Here are the lyrics to Watts’ hymn. It says:

1 Not all the blood of beasts
on Jewish altars slain,
could give the guilty conscience peace,
or wash away the stain.
2 But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb,
takes all our sins away,
a sacrifice of nobler name
and richer blood than they.
3 My faith would lay her hand
on that dear head of thine,
while like a penitent I stand,
and there confess my sin.
4 My soul looks back to see
the burdens thou didst bear,
when hanging on the cursed tree,
and knows her guilt was there.
5 Believing, we rejoice
to see the curse remove;
we bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
and sing his bleeding love.
All glory be to Jesus Christ, the heavenly Lamb.

I can’t wait to proclaim His excellencies this evening as we dive into God’s word again.

Will you join me in prayer? Our great God, thank you for this morning and the time that we have been privileged to study Your word. We praise You our God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the God of the year 2022 in the middle of the United States of America. You are eternal and unchanging and holy, and we praise Your name. We praise You for the ultimate living sacrifice, Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who came and died a sinners death on our behalf so that we would have any chance, any hope of having a right standing before You. We praise You Lord Jesus, praise Your holy Name. We ask that You be glorified in Your church for the remainder of today and ask that You be glorified as the word is preached this evening. We ask and pray in Jesus name. Amen.