Hello, teachers. We're in the session number 11 in our study in Exodus and Leviticus.
Today is not the first time we've looked at Leviticus at all, but it's the first time
we're where we are exclusively in Leviticus in this study. And this goes into chapter
number 9, verse 15, all the way to chapter 10, verse 3. It's really describing when the
priests were first in the tabernacle beginning to offer sacrifices to God. This is in and
around the first time that the priests, the Aaronic priesthood, the Aaron's sons and Aaron
himself, our first sacrificing to the Lord. Leviticus really is about, in a large part,
about the offerings that were offered to God. And really, it serves its main value, although it may
seem like a—it's the place so many people stop when they're going through the Bible. Reading the
Bible in a year, they get to Leviticus, and it's talking about grain offerings and peace offerings
and burn offerings and all these different things. It's going to talk about in today's text. But
what we're learning about God through these offerings is that there's a vast gulf separating us
from God, that we need atonement, we need cleansing, that we need to avoid being defiled by our sin,
that we need to be cleansed from our sin, and what we do to offer God proper worship when that takes
place. And so, we see that described today as they offer worship to God in this tabernacle through
these offerings. And so, it connects with us in terms of worship by seeing that if we want to
worship God, exceptively, several factors must be involved and must be related to. So,
the first thing we're going to see is that sin must be atoned. We're going to start to see that in
verse number 15. It says this, and he brought the people's offering and took the goat, which was
the sin offering for the people, and slew it and offered it for sin as the first. It goes on and
says, and he brought the burn offering and offered it according to the manner. That's a different
offering. The burn offering was the whole animal, whereas the sin offering wasn't necessary, the
whole animal, animal. Verse 17, and he brought the meat offering. Ironically, the meat offering is
the one bloodless offering. It was actually a grain offering. Meat here is the idea of food or
grain, and he took a handful there and burned it upon the altar beside the sacrifice of the morning.
He slew also the bullock in the ram for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which was for the
people. And Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled upon the altar round
about, and the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump, and that which covered the inwards and
the kidneys and the cow above the liver. And they put the fat upon the breast, and he burnt the
fat upon the altar, and the breast in the right shoulder, Aaron, waived for a waive offering
before the Lord as Moses commanded. So this would have been the first day of training, the first
kind of on-the-job training for Aaron's sons as they were serving as priests. They had this series
of offerings that they did. All of them prescribed by God, all of them laid out in order, and you
see their atonement offerings, peace offerings that are happening to make the worshipers right
before God. Then there's this, the meat offering, which reflected, it's the only bloodless offering,
it reflected the their attitude towards being thankful for what they had. And then, unlike the
whole burnt offering that was entirely consumed by the fire, the peace offerings were only partially
burnt. The burnt offerings were what was given wholly to God. Everything that was burnt was
represented as being given totally to God. The part that wasn't burnt, like in this peace offering,
is part that they would eat, the priests would eat, and even the priests that offered it would eat,
too. So all of this happened in an order, and the whole idea here is that people's sin had to be
atoned for. The sin had to be atoned, there's, there's, the people had to be covered. This is
what was being described. And the truth of the matter is, for us to worship God rightly, we
absolutely need to have our sins forgiven. We know as we studied in Hebrews as a church,
and we have studied in Hebrews in the past as we've gone through the Sunday School lessons,
we've learned that the priests, that blood was necessary for the atonement for sin,
and the blood of sheep and goats could never fully satisfy sin. So these offerings were offerings
that were made on a daily, seasonally, and yearly basis. That's something that had to be,
had to happen. And so our sin creates a barrier between us and God. As you teach this lesson,
you need to make sure that people understand what sin is, what atonement is, why atonement is
necessary. And ultimately, fully and finally, that has to come in Jesus Christ the Lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. And so we see that our sin had to be paid for. Number two,
we see that the offering, once you do that acceptably, the offering, it is then that it's
accepted. And here we see that in the ceremonial way, and in this incredible way with God's presence,
the resurrection in so many ways is this showing that Jesus' sacrifice was acceptable. And then
the Holy Spirit coming into us shows that we are sanctified and right with God. So we're gonna see
that in verse number 22. It says,
And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them and came down from the offering of the
sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the
tabernacle of the congregation and came out and blessed the people. Now look what happened. And
the glory of the Lord appeared into all the people and there came a fire from, a fire out from before
the Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat, which when all the people
saw, they shouted and fell on their faces. The fat and this burnt offering was something that
was to be offered to the Lord. That was holy, His. There's no part of it that they would consume
later. That was fully them, the blood, the fat that was never eaten. And so when God supernaturally
consumes this offering, in that moment, he was showing that he accepted that offering,
that that was the right way to do it. And that in that moment, why they were offering the sacrifices
was accepted by God. And literally it says here that the people, when they saw it, they shouted
and fell on their faces. There was this experience of the power and the presence of God that caused
on them. And they literally fell on their faces, which is a prostrate on the face is the, is the
right posture of worship. That is an incredible thing. And so we see that if we're going to worship
God the right way, our sin has to be atoned for and it has to be something that's accepted by God.
When Jesus said on the cross, it is finished. When Christ was raised from the dead, those are
things that show us that Christ sacrificed for sin was accepted. And so this is part of worshiping
God. Except, except, exceptively, we have to come to him having God accepts worship from us when we
rightly recognize the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sin. And that's an incredible thing
too. The last thing we see is that worship should be acceptable. Worship should be acceptable. Even
after we're saved, we still have to be obedient in the way that we worship God. And God is giving
an important lesson here in this next section to show that he has a say in how he's going to be
worshiped. We'll see that in chapter 10 verses one through three. We see this. It says, and they
dab and abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his sensor and put fire there and put incense
there on and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. So we see a
couple of things. These are made abida by who these are Aaron's sons. He had four sons that were
serving as priests here. Two of them decide they're going to take these implements of worship that
they were using before this sensor and they're going to put incense. And it says literally
strange fire. This word for strange in the Hebrew is an understanding of unauthorized or not accepted
incense. This strange fire, he literally says in the verse, which he commanded them not, talking
about the Lord, this is instances that he commanded them not to do. And it says that, you know,
previously the fire that came out from the Lord consumed the offering that was acceptable, right?
That's what that's what ended up happening. And this time fire comes out again. Verse two,
there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said
to Aaron, this is it. That the Lord spake saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me.
And before all the people, I will be glorified. And so he's saying, this is what God said,
you're going to do this and you're going to be holy in the way that you do this because I'm
accepting, you have to be right with me. This part of that sin has to be atoned. Worship has to be
done the way God prescribes. It has to be acceptable. And it literally says, and Aaron held
this peace. And if I saw two of my kids consumed in that moment, it would be hard for me to hold
my peace. And on the one hand, yeah, I'm saddened that my sons have died. On the other hand,
I want to be acceptable before the Lord and not do anything I ought not do in worship. I think
where that hits us today is that we need to take very seriously things that we offer to God in
worship. Paul says that what do you not know that your body is a living sacrifice? Do you not know
that your body is a temple of the Lord that you have from God? You're not your own. You're bought
with a price glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are gods. And so we are in our
worship corporately in our worship through our lives individually. We need to understand that
there's a right way to worship God and a wrong way to do it. And we don't get to make up what
needs to happen there. Man, there's a lot that could be said in this lesson. Leviticus is really
rich in so many ways when you take it slowly, when you read it, when you think through what it means,
not just in its context and who it's talking to, but also when you understand it in light of Christ
and who he is and that these things are shadows and pictures of the real things that are to come.
And so I pray that I'm praying for you as you go through this. I hope that this helps you. As you
think about how to teach this to your class, let's offer our lives purely to the Lord. Let's make
sure that people know that their sins need to be atoned for, that they need to be saved. And then
let's take even what happens on Sunday and our worship services seriously that we offer God
acceptable worship. I hope that helped you and have a great week.