(tape lead consumed beginning of talk)… whether we should be or not. We're gonna look at Leviticus 16 and 17 tonight. This is the primary focal point of the talk and it is basically the Torah portion of what we're looking at. It's actually relatively rare. Scott came up to me a little earlier this evening and said: "I noticed there's really no Torah portion. What do we do, forego the Torah portion for Passover?" Yes. Because most of the time Passover doesn't fall at a time when the scripture that we're gonna be studying deals with the same subject matter. This one does, so we're gonna go there, basically, and if you'll stay with me on this thing I plan to slam two thousand years of doctrine right in the eyeball. I guess that's kind of like poking the beehive in broad daylight. Yea, those of you that know if you need to take down a beehive you do it after the sunsets and they don't bother you but in broad daylight they're coming after you. So … what is this, asking for it? We shall see.
It was very interesting. Obviously this past week we did the Passover Seder and obviously Passover deals with the blood sacrifice; pretty resoundingly; pretty clearly, and Jesus being the fulfillment of that is what we really focus in on in our Passover Seder. John began the whole Seder by going through the introductory pages, the first couple of pages in the Haggadah are basically explanatory. They're saying this is what it is for people who are not exposed to this before. There were thirty-two different congregations that were represented by the approximately the two hundred people that were here and an awful lot of them had never experienced anything like that before. And that's hard for us to conceive 'cause most of us have been doing this for at least ten years. But for a lot of them that was their first exposure and so it was a new thing. And he started by saying, or going into a bit of an explanation concerning first Corinthians chapter 5 and the whole issue of the early church, the first century church keeping the feast of Passover, that they as congregations were taught to keep Passover, and he talked a bit about what the first century church did. Now I'm sitting there and my soul's being stirred, because I remember a time in my life where I had to step back from my pious Presbyterianism and say: "Wow! There's some things here I never considered before" and the whole perspective of "hasn't it always been this way" and "did things change somewhere along the way and if they did, who did that, and if they did that were they right?" I was taught that the church fathers did what they did in accordance with what was already a set pattern by the apostles. The apostles and the church fathers are not the same. For those of you that don't know that, I was sitting in a Presbyterian church listening to somebody talk about the church fathers and it was like three years later before I realized that they were not talking about Paul, and Peter, and John, and James, they were talking about some people who came along at least a hundred years later. And … (responding to a comment in the congregation) he was a little later even than that, but yes, Saint Augustine is a big one and Saint Augustine laid some things in concrete shall we say, at least in religious concrete, that are flat out unbiblical. No other word for it. And that was in the four hundreds A.D. and it's been perpetuated by religion for the last sixteen hundred years. And when something's gone on that long you step back and you go "hasn't it always been this way?" To most people if you say "Easter" comes from the Babylonian goddess "Ishtar" who was the goddess of fertility and that we use Easter bunnies and eggs to represent fertility and that they comes from the "rites of spring" and the rituals of all kinds of perverse sexuality: worshipping fertility. For most people that really twists your brain. Isn't Easter the resurrection of Jesus? No, it's not … no, it's not … because Easter actually is the recognition and the worshipping of the perpetuation of life. We're not looking to perpetuate the body that we're in, we're looking for a resurrection body made by the Father out of the new creation. It's a completely different spectrum all together. We're looking to be set free from this body and its tendency toward sin.
So let's take a look at this Torah portion because we're gonna see, specifically in what we're looking at here, the Lord kind of making a really concise picture of what he expects, especially of the priest. And we're called to be high priests, a nation of high priests, and so whatever was expected of Aaron and his sons, and grandsons, and great grandsons, surely that, at least in its perspective and in the foundational root of why it was instituted, is expected of us also. You got that. I wasn't saying the letter of the law, I was saying the purpose of the law, the meaning of the law. O.K. (Leviticus) 16:1
"Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died."
Now I'm not gonna go into detail on that. That's "Avi-hu" and his brother. "Abihu," it should be "Ah-vee-hoo." Anyway, they brought forth strange fire. They didn't do things according to the prescribed manner. John explained in detail a few weeks ago and so whoop, they died. Fire broke forth and they were dead. So, now there's a statement right there, and we have to go back five chapters to come to Nadab and Abihu. We really see God stepping forward right after that and saying: 'Listen, I don't want to see anybody die. That's not my goal. That's not my purpose. So let's clear up the issue and make some things really resoundingly clear.' Your really looking at the five chapters before this really going into detail about what it is for Israel as a nation to be sanctified before the Lord. So now we've come to Yom Kippur: the Day of Atonement. And there's a lot of obvious carry-overs here in God's expectation between Passover and Yom Kippur. O.K. There's a lot of correlation. So they approached the Lord and died because they did it on their own terms and not the way God said it was to be done. That clear.
"'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, least he die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.'" and that … did you catch that? There's a picture in your head. "'I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this …'" and he's, now he's specifically talking about Yom Kippur. This is The Day of Atonement. "'… with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with linen sash, and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments).' "
Aaron has to put on holy cloths to come before the presence of the Lord. You're not going in there in your blue jeans. You're not even going in there in your Sunday-best suit. This is His definition of how we are to come in. Now we understand what the righteous deeds of the saints are and that what we ought to be wearing. What Aaron's wearing here is a picture of that, a physical picture of that.
"'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. Then Aaron shall offer the bull for a sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household.'"
So, he goes in there on Yom Kippur and he has the responsibility of two entities on his shoulders, he and his household and the nation of Israel. And he is responsible to make atonement on behalf of them for both of them or he'll die.
"'And he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the'" … now, most translations say the 'scapegoat.' We prefer to use the terminology the 'goat of removal.' Somehow that word 'scapegoat' has a different connotation in our language now and it's really not accurate to what's happening here.
"Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the 'goat of removal' fell, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the 'goat of removal.''"
Now that's not just … see, the sin offering is a sin offering. The sin offering is a sin offering for the nation of Israel. The 'goat of removal' we often talk about it being removing from the midst of us even our tendency toward sin and believing in faith that the Lord is going to accomplish that in us.
"'Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his household, 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 the Lord, and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring it inside the veil.'"
That's into the "Most Holy Place," that's the "Holy of Holies," that's in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant and the Lord in that place. "'And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Ark of the Testimony lest he die. Moreover he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; also in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall slaughter the goat 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, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. And he shall make atonement for the holy place …'" See, it's like, how do you leave any of this out, 'cause it's so profound. Why on earth does the Holy Place, the very chamber; room, of the presence of God in the earth, need to be atoned for? He says so, right here. "'Because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities."
If Jesus referred to those who were about Him as 'an evil and adulterous generation,' what are we living in? What are we intermingling with at work at best? What's on that …idol … I hate the television. Scott … (statement from a congregation member) we will pray for you (laughter). O.K.
"'When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out …' " Clean the room out "'… that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of Israel. Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it, and 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. And with his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times, and cleanse it …' " that's also the altar is being cleansed, now this, again, this is once a year. This is not every day, this is not once a week, this is not once a month; this is once a year. This is sanctification of the Holy Place and of the altar.
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