[0:00] Leviticus chapter 27 is a very, really it's a unique chapter. In first reading it would seem as if it has very little application to us.
[0:10] It would seem that it was a Jewish thought and a Jewish passage that is kind of outdated and has no application. But hopefully after we read it and then we kind of begin to break it apart, we will see the application and we will see the relevance that it has towards us today as believers.
[0:27] So Leviticus 27 says this. I'll read the entire chapters, 34 verses, and then we'll get into it from there. Again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to the Lord.
[0:45] If your valuation is of the male from 20 years even to 60 years, then your valuation shall be 50 shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary. Or if it is a female, then your valuation shall be 30 shekels.
[0:57] If it be from 5 years, even to 20 years old, then your valuation for the male shall be 20 shekels, and for the female, 10 shekels. But if they are from a month, even up to 5 years, then your valuation shall be 5 shekels of silver for the male, and for the female, your valuation shall be 3 shekels of silver.
[1:16] If they are from 60 years old and upward, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be 15 shekels, and for the female, 10 shekels. shekels. But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be placed before the priest, and the priest shall value him according to the means of the one who vowed, the priest shall value him.
[1:33] Now if it is an animal of the kind which men can present as an offering to the Lord, any such that one gives to the Lord shall be holy. He shall not replace it or exchange it, a good for a bad or a bad for a good, or if he does exchange animal for animal, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. If, however, it is any unclean animal of the kind which men do not present as an offering to the Lord, then he shall place the animal before the priest. The priest shall value it as either good or bad, as you the priest value it, so it shall be. But if he should ever wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of it to your valuation. Now if a man consecrates his house as holy to the Lord, then the priest shall value it as either good or bad, as the priest values it, so it shall stand.
[2:18] Yet if the one who consecrates it should wish to redeem his house, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may be his. Again, if a man consecrates to the Lord part of his fields, or part of the fields of his property, then your valuation shall be proportionate to the seed needed for it, an omer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver. If he consecrates his field as of the year of jubilee according to your valuation, it shall stand. If he consecrates his field after the jubilee, however, then the priest shall calculate the price for him proportionate to the years that are left until the year of jubilee, and it shall be deducted from your valuation. If the one who consecrates it should ever wish to redeem the field, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may pass to him. Yet if he will not redeem the field, but has sold the field to another man, it may no longer be redeemed. And when it reverts in the year of jubilee, the field shall be holy to the Lord. Like a field set apart, it shall be for the priest as his property. Or if he consecrates to the Lord a field which he bought, which is not a part of the field from his own property, then the priest shall calculate for him the amount of your valuation up to the year of jubilee, and he shall be on that day, and he shall on that day give your valuation as holy to the Lord.
[3:32] In the year of jubilee, the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it, to whom the possession of the land belongs. Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be after the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty geras. However, a firstborn among animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may consecrate it, whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. But if it is among the unclean animals, then he shall redeem it according to your valuation, and add to it one-fifth of it, and if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation. Nevertheless, anything which a man sets apart to the Lord out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own property, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to the Lord. No one who may have been set apart among men shall be ransomed. He shall surely be put to death.
[4:30] Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord. If therefore a man wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he shall add to it one-fifth of it. For every tenth part of a herd or flock, whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the Lord. He is not to be concerned whether it is good or bad, nor shall he exchange it. Or if he does exchange it, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. It shall not be redeemed. These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai. Leviticus chapter 27. Leviticus 27 is a chapter really that is a great example of a chapter in which you really need to study it in its context. It is a chapter that really testifies to the fact that it is better to study it along with the book of Leviticus as a whole rather than attempting to pull Leviticus 27 out by itself and make really sense of it. Because really the only way that we can have any kind of determination, the application that it has to us today, and really for that matter, the application that it had to the Jewish people of that day, was to take it in light of its setting, and that is the book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus has the theme, and we have talked about it over and over again. The theme is, be holy as I am holy, says the Lord. So the theme of the book of
[5:54] Leviticus is holiness, and that is being properly clothed in our righteousness, or really in his righteousness, in his sight. And it is living a life of acceptability, if you will, before the Lord. Now, in the Old Testament time, that acceptability, or being acceptable before the Lord, was found in the sacrificial system. To be holy in the sight of God was to have offered the sacrifices, which he distinguished and set apart here in the early passages of Leviticus. Leviticus, we have said that if the Old Testament contained the red letters of God speaking, much as many New Testaments contain the red letters when Jesus spoke, just about all of Leviticus would be red letter. Because from beginning to end, it is God speaking to Moses at Mount Sinai. This is God's instructions to Moses for the nation of Israel as to how they should approach him, and how they should live in the fact, in light of the fact that they can approach him. It's much like the message which we saw today. By the way, the Bible is very big in that. We see that theme running consistently through scripture. It is a stated belief, and that belief is followed with a stated practice. You're always practicing what you believe.
[7:10] And God always deals with the belief issue first, and then he moves to the practice. And Leviticus does the same thing. In the first half of Leviticus, we are told how we can approach, or how the nation of Israel could approach a holy God, how they could be holy in his sight. And we've seen the sacrifices which God called for, sacrifices of atonement, of forgiveness, of rejoicing, of worship, of celebration, of fellowship, all these sacrifices which we know find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So we see that God says, this is how you will approach me. And then the second half of Leviticus deals with how they would live since they were able to approach him. Because life looks different after you've been in the presence of a holy God. Because you can look at Moses and see that, the reflection of God's glory upon the face of Moses after he left his presence. And the life he lived looked very much different since he had been in the presence of a holy God. And since now the nation was welcomed into God's presence, their life would look different. They would deal differently with the poor. They would deal differently with their land. They would really, everything about them would be different. Now as we're reading this in context, you understand they are still in their wilderness wanderings, right? They're still in the school of consecration being set apart. God is preparing them for their entrance into the promised land and is giving them the instructions as to what they would do when they come into that promised land. But Leviticus 27 seems to be kind of out of context, even though in its setting it is in the exact right context. Because all through Leviticus, we have been told how man can approach God and God is instructing them and God is promising them and
[9:00] God is telling them. And then in Leviticus 27, he shifts and talks about what God says to him back. Or what man says back to God, not what God says to man. And now God has told man his promises and God has made his covenant. And now God is going to deal with what man says back to God. And I want you to see tonight really what he is saying to the nation here and what he says to us. So Leviticus chapter 27, I want you to see a cautious restraint to worship. A cautious restraint to worship. Because really what has happened in Leviticus, we have answered the problem that closes the book of Exodus. And the problem at the close of the book of Exodus is that the tabernacle, the represented manifested presence of God in the midst of his people has been completed. Then the Shekinah glory, that is God's manifested presence, right? Not that all of God dwelt in all of the tabernacle because all of God uses the world as a footstool. But God manifested his presence there. He was really there. Okay, we know he's always there, but now he's really there. He manifested his presence. And the problem that we find in the book of Exodus is that no man could go in the temple or the tabernacle. No man could go into the outer course, let alone the inner Holy of Holies. And Leviticus answers for us how man can now approach that. So what we have seen is God has opened the way to worship. God has not only opened the way to priesthood worship or to Levitical worship, he's also offered the way to national worship. The nation of Israel has been invited to worship him. They can worship probably the sacrifice that I like reading about the most. And one that it seems to be the most celebratory is the sacrifice that is really a fellowship meal with God. They've been invited to come to his presence. And it was a meal of rejoicing where they would give their sacrifice to the priest. The priest would put it on the altar, cooking it. I mean, let's just say what it is there and then bring it back. And they would have a fellowship meal right outside the door of the tabernacle. And this was to be a sacrifice of rejoicing. And so God is inviting the nation to worship him. My friends, we need to understand being invited into the presence of God is a high honor. And it bears with it a high responsibility.
[11:32] Because we are not just invited into the position or into the presence of some reigning monarch or even into the presence of the president of the United States. We are not invited into the presence of some amazing human being. God is inviting us into his presence in worship. And going into that presence is a great honor. But it bears with it a great responsibility. And the people as they go into his presence now need to pay attention how they worship. Remember as we've went through the book of Psalms. And we've looked at some of the Psalms of Ascent. And one of the things, the unique things about the Jewish people that we paid attention to was that as the nation of Israel was ascending the steps to the temple, later on Herod's temple, that they had built the steps of the temple in unproportionate manner. That some steps were taller than others. Some steps were short. And they did that intentionally. Not as bad construction. But they did it intentionally so that you would have to pay attention to each step you took going up to the temple. So that you wouldn't just run into the presence of God. You had to slow down going into the presence of God. And it is something that we need to pay attention to even though they were doing it in Jewish practice. They also had the proper mindset because God shows us that very thing here in Leviticus chapter 27. Going into the presence of
[12:58] God to worship is a very serious matter. And we need to be at least a little bit cautious. Even though the book of Hebrews tells us that we go boldly into the throne room by the blood of the Lamb, we still need to remember where we're going, right? It's the throne room. And the throne room, which we see in the book of Revelations, it has pills of thunder and flashes of lightning and all of these cherubim and seraphim and angels and everything proclaiming his holiness. That's where we're at in worship. And when the Bible says we're two or more gathered together, I am there as well. We are in the presence of that Holy One in our worship. So we see here the cautious restraint to worship. He is kind of slowing them down. So I've welcomed you into my presence. Now be careful what you do when you get there. The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that a man should not be quick to make a vow.
[13:50] You should not be quick to make a promise and slow to fulfill it. And this is exactly the principle we find in Leviticus. Jesus says that we shouldn't make, we shouldn't swear that our yes should be yes and our no should be no. We should never swear about anything or make any other promise or make any other thing that is above ourselves. We are told in the book of James that we need to be careful how we plan our future because we don't know what tomorrow may bring. We don't need to make vows that we will not fulfill. And this is the principle that we see because the temptation for the nation of Israel and even the temptation today would be to find the freedom in worship and to get lost in that freedom.
[14:30] So I want you to see just three great truths that we see that really cause us to be cautious, not to be scared, even though the Bible says that we are to fear the Lord our God. Right? Not to be scared. There's a big difference between being scared and to have a holy reverence of fear. Okay? Many people quote it and I think it bears quoting and C.S. Lewis in his writing of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, speaking of the Lion, or Anselm, who is a representation of God, one of the lines in that great, it's a movie now, but a great book. I haven't read it, but one of the lines in that is, is he safe? And C.S. Lewis writes, he is not safe, but he is good. Because the reality is this, God's not safe, but he is good. And you say, well, wait a minute, he is safe.
[15:20] I'm safe in the harms of the Savior. Right? But he also at times has led his people into some very unsafe by this world standards position. He leads them to take risk. He leads them to do things that don't make sense in this world, but he is good. So even in the danger that he puts his people in, it is good. So here we see the cautious restraint in worship. Number one, we see the binding nature of our vows. And this is where we are introduced. It says, again, the Lord says to Moses, so again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when a man makes a difficult vow, when a man makes a difficult vow, really he is making a declaration. And I'll show you examples of this or tell you examples of this in just a moment. But here he is speaking of the fact that when an individual would have such a excitement going into the presence of the Lord and such an excitement of being able to worship, that he begins to vow things rashly or really spontaneously. And God is saying, be careful what you vow. We see this later on when there's a woman who is barren, who begins to pray for a child. You know her name? Her name is Hannah. And she makes a vow and says that if you give me a male child, I will give him to the Lord. Remember that? Now he is given to the Lord. His name is
[16:35] Samuel. She actually fulfilled that vow when he was old enough, brought him back and left him at the temple and left him there to serve in the Lord's presence. The reality is, is that a lot of people being in the presence of God, God, I'm going to give myself to you. God, I'm going to give, I'm going to dedicate my family to you. God, I give my children to you. And what God is saying here is be careful about making that vow. Be careful about making that promise because here's the truth that he states. And we're not going to hash all of it out here in Leviticus 27. We just want to see this principle, what we vow or what we promise God holds us to. It is the binding nature of our vow. My friend, that is not an old Testament truth only. That is also a new Testament principle.
[17:23] And the reason it is, is because God had entered into a covenant with his people. God had entered into a covenant full of promises. And in Leviticus, he had already shared these promises that if you do this and I will do that. If you offer this sacrifice, I will forgive you.
[17:39] If you offer this offering, then I will cleanse you. I will atone for you. There'll be these days of rejoicing. All of these things were based upon the certainty of what God had promised. Think about this. The believer, the Israelite believer had to believe the fact that if he took this ram in on the day of atonement, that high priest had to know that when he took the blood of the bull, the blood of the ram on the day of atonement, he put it into the Holy of Holies, that God was going to accept that.
[18:08] And the only confidence he had is that God would keep his word. You as a New Testament believer, me as a New Testament believer, our only hope is this. God's going to keep his word. Because the reality is, even as many of us and all of us that have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, since we have accepted him, if we want to be completely honest, we have also failed him.
[18:29] We stumble. We mess up. We sin. And we are standing in the confidence that God is going to keep his word. That God says, whosoever believes in them shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus says, whoever believes in me, I love this past tense expression. And he says it in the book of John, that whoever has believed in me has passed out of death and entered into life. I love that. But you know the only confidence I have for the fact that I am no longer living a life that is dying, I'm rather living a life that is living, that I have already passed from death to life, is because Jesus promised it to me. And he's going to keep his word. And the faith and the celebration and the worship which I extend to him is based on the fact that he is a God who keeps his word.
[19:20] And his word is certain and sure. But friend, listen to me. Because of that, he also pays very close attention to our words.
[19:34] He says, be careful what you vow. When we go before this, listen, he is a holy God. Remember how I said this morning, I used to have people sign covenants to, I remember there was one particular, we had watch night service, we would meet on New Year's Eve night. And there was one particular one I had drawn up, two covenants. I only did it once. One was a covenant to the church, and the other was a covenant to the word. And I didn't force anybody to do it. I gave an invitation, gave an invitation. And I explained it as very clearly as I could, and I read it.
[20:13] And for those who wanted to sign a year-long covenant to be committed to the church, and to be committed to be present, to be active, and to be involved as much as they could in the body. And then for those who wanted to be committed to the word, not everybody signed it. And that was fine.
[20:27] I didn't hold anybody to that. There was no legalist there. But there were a number who signed the covenant to the word and failed to keep that. We need to be careful with that. Why?
[20:40] Because God saw that, right? And I was the guy who invited them into that, so I bore a little bit of responsibility with that as well. I have this same discussion every time I talk with a couple in pre-marriage counseling, and I share with them. And unfortunately, I've had a couple of them, now that I've known over the last few years. There's been at least two in which I have stood up and officiated their wedding, and they didn't last. They didn't make it. And neither one of them did the very thing that I encouraged them to do, I encouraged them very first to be, I said, listen, I'm going to stand before you two, and I'm going to officiate your ceremony. Anybody that's ever went through this can testify to this, and I'll tell you this, and I'll tell them, if you have marital problems, the first person you come see is me. And they looked at me and said, why? I said, because I am invested in this, and it doesn't really matter when I stand before any couple. I am leading in a religious ceremony. I have to put that on the state of Tennessee's paperwork. And I am officiating and leading a couple to make a covenant with one another and to state a vow before God and before man, and those vows are taken very seriously. And I encourage people, come back and talk to me. Let's see if we can work it out. I've had a number of them come back and talk to me. And we go back through it. We do the counseling all over again, and that's fine. But the reality is this. Any time we get to be invited into God's presence and worship, we must pay very, very, very close attention to what we promise and vow to Him. Because those things are binding. They are binding. God, I promise
[22:15] I'll do this, or I promise I'll do that, or God, I make this vow to you. I'm not, we're going to get to the redemption part in just a moment, but we understand this. What we say back to God, He pays attention to. And He takes note of. It blows my mind that the Creator of all the universe, that He who's spoken into existence, holds everything by the palm of His hands, holds everything.
[22:39] We're going to read in Colossians, He is the fullness of the Godhead and bodily form that He created all things and by Him, and all things were created through Him and for Him. We're going to get to that probably next week. It blows my mind that He hears me as well. And He pays a special attention to what I said. And He takes notes of it. Because we need to approach Him cautiously in worship. I wonder how many. I used to do this when Carrie and I were just solely working with the teenagers. We would take the teenagers and we would always take them to an evangelism conference. And at this evangelism conference, there would always be a call to invitation. And the invitation would always kind of follow something like this. You know, if you want to stand up and repeat this prayer after me, then repeat this prayer for me. And they would do that. And then they would say, well, I want to welcome you to the family of God. You're a believer. And there was always this invitation. And those things were great. And I would always know the night that that was going to happen. And I would stop. Before we went in, I'd talk to the teenagers. And I'd talk to them. I'd give the gospel, right? Not a prayer, not a repeated prayer. I'd share the gospel with them. Then we would go in. And then after they came out, we'd share the gospel again.
[23:49] And I would share the ramifications for the gospel that if you have claimed that prayer, and if you are saying that, then you are making a vow and a promise before God, then you should live this way. Rather than just making a checkbox going on and everything being okay. You know why? Because there was a time in history in which I was 15 years old. Somebody told me I needed to do this and I wouldn't go to hell. So I put a checkbox. I put a checkmark beside that box. And then I went and lived my life however I wanted to. I made a vow that I did not fulfill. And when I read the word of God, it tells us those vows are binding. And that is a biblical principle, not just an Old Testament principle. That's why God says, be careful. When you make a difficult vow, it's more than just making an empty promise. This is saying, God, this is what I'm going to do. So we are reminded to be constrained. We need to remember who it is that we are speaking to in worship. We are reminded to have a cautious approach to our vows. Secondly, we see here the high price of redemption because God knows the nature of man. I love John 3. And I love how John 3 is introduced for us. Because Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. You remember that in John 3 and then you have John 3 16. But do you know how
[25:06] John 3 starts? It says that Jesus didn't need anybody to tell him about man because he understood the nature of all men? Jesus knew the nature of man, right? So when Nicodemus came to him by night and Nicodemus asked him a question, and it's also the woman at the well in Samaria. You understand?
[25:21] It's really wild. It's one of these things that really just drive us nuts. Jesus never really directly answered the question that people asked him. Because he would go beyond the question and get to the heart. And he would know that man was asking a question trying to find an answer that they really didn't need. Nicodemus came and Jesus went straight to it. The woman at the well came and Jesus went straight to it. She said, I'm thirsty and I want something to drink. And he went way beyond that into worship, right? He used those questions as doorways.
[25:55] And we understand that. They were transition points. But Jesus knew the nature of all men. And we understand that because God knows our nature. And that's why we get to the second part, the high price of redemption. Because God says, man, when he makes a difficult vow, let him understand this. Therefore, he's going to give us a way to redeem that vow. And this is where we get the valuation of the man, right? So let's say that I get caught up in worship.
[26:22] And I say, Lord, I give myself to you. And I'm caught up in this worship and this practice in Leviticus here. And I go, God, I'm going to give my life to you. And then I'll wake up in the morning. I'm like, but I've got all this other stuff to do. I really can't give my life to the sanctuary. I can't just go hang out at the temple all day long. I've got a family I've got to provide for. God says, that's okay. Because you can redeem that promise you made me. This is the valuation. By the way, you notice the valuation are set by the priest, right? It's by the priest. Whatever the priest sets the value at, that's what it is. Why?
[26:54] Because this is a religious exercise. This is a spiritual exercise, not a political exercise. And for an individual who was from 25 to 60, and we'll just use that. By the way, the numerical value put in here was not the value of a person's life. It was based upon the amount of work that you could expect from that person. So it's not saying that men are worth more than women. Don't go there, okay? So let's just say this. Let's just take that male from the age of 25 to 60.
[27:19] The valuation for him would be 50 shekels. We want to bring that in today's time, okay? A shekel is about a month's wages. So essentially what he said is that person is worth four years salary.
[27:31] Whatever you make in four years, if you made a haste promise and said, I give myself to you in order to redeem yourself, you had to give over four years of your salary. Makes you kind of pump the breaks a little bit, right? Or if you say, Lord, I give my child to you. Well, we're told what the value of that child is. If Hannah saw Samuel and said, well, I really want to keep Samuel, then we see here the numerical value that her and her husband would have had to come up with to give Eli, who was a priest at that time, in order to redeem this child, which they had just given to the Lord. There's the value of it. It's the high price of redemption.
[28:07] Redemption is expensive. And then we say, okay, well, see, you get carried away in your worship. God, I give all my livestock to you. I give all these animals to you. God says, that's fine. If there are animals that you can present to me, you can't redeem them. We'll get to that in just a moment. But I've said there are some animals that are not acceptable as sacrifices, right? So they're unclean. Not necessarily unclean to touch, but they're just not those that are usually given for sacrifices. Maybe it's an ox, because usually you don't offer up an ox on the altar and say, God, I'm going to give my whole oxen to you. God says, okay, you want to buy those back, depending upon the value which the priest said. You can redeem them, but you will pay me 20% plus whatever he said there was. Or God, I give my house to you. That's fine. Whatever the priest values your house at, you will give me that plus 20%.
[28:56] Or my land. If I give my land to you, remember the year of Jubilee where everything reverts back to its owner? Well, you give me whatever your land is worth based on the number of crops that the priest has assessed it in. That's essentially what all that was, because your land's value was depending upon how much crop you could get off of it, right? You would give me that plus 20%. And if you don't, in the year of Jubilee, you don't keep it. It goes to the Levites. And if you try to sell it before you redeem it, then in the year of Jubilee, it doesn't go back to you. It goes to the Levites.
[29:27] What he's showing us here is if we make a hate promise, there's a redemption available, but that redemption will not be cheap. You will pay either a high price of redeeming the mankind that you have valued to the Lord, or you will pay whatever that thing is worth plus 20%. It's like playing Monopoly. I don't know if you ever play Monopoly. We play Monopoly around our house a little bit. It's one of those games that we don't like playing with my wife. Carrie, don't play Monopoly with her. And if you do, make sure you have a good person on the other side of the board to help you conspire against her. And yes, we do that in our house, okay? She likes to get all those cheap properties that are right past go. You know, the brown ones, the blue ones, the ones that you buy for like $6 and you put a house on and rent $6 until she puts hotels on them. And then it goes up to like 800. It's like a theft of a thousand cuts, right? So you have to, whatever you land on, you must buy if you're playing it with my wife. Well, this last time, Ethan beat all of us. He didn't just beat us. He annihilated us and he rubbed it in. He's one of those, I don't know if you've ever seen the Cosby show where they talk about playing Monopoly with Cosby and say how he throws the money on the ground and would roll around in it saying, you lose, you lose, you lose. Well, that's
[30:37] Ethan. But that's okay. He had earned it. We had been beat so much by his mom that we needed to do that. But when you get to that point, and not often you get through the game, and you have to give all of your properties over to the bank, and you see that amount on the back to redeem that or to buy that back, you have to pay more than you paid originally for it, right? And at that point again, for me, it's not worth it. I've already lost. Well, what God is saying is when you make a pledge or a promise to me, you can redeem it, but it's going to cost you. Because here's the principle we're seeing in the Bible and biblical theology. Redemption is expensive.
[31:16] Redemption is expensive. Redemption is expensive. You remember one of those positions we saw in the book of Colossians for the believers? We have been redeemed. Jesus paid more for us than we were worth.
[31:33] much, much, much, much more than we were worth. Redeemed us. Because we have been handed over to the domain of darkness, given over to the realm of Satan.
[31:49] We were already given up. We were not created for that. We were created in a fellowship with God. I'm reading Genesis again. That's what we were created for. To be in intimate fellowship with God on a daily basis.
[32:03] And in order to get us back, he redeemed us. Redemption costs a lot. That's what God was showing his people. And this is what he's showing us. There's a way out, but that way out is through redemption.
[32:20] Friend, we couldn't pay that price. We would have a hard time coming up with four years' salary to redeem ourselves for time, let alone enough money.
[32:32] We would never come up with enough money to redeem ourselves for eternity. But Jesus paid the price of our redemption, and redemption comes at a very, very high price.
[32:42] So here we see the binding nature of our vows. We see the high price of redemption. Third and finally, and we wrap up with this, because Leviticus is all about being holy as I am holy, and that holiness is really what leads us to worship.
[32:58] It is the unavoidable obligations of worship. There are some things that are unavoidable. And we approach with a cautious restraint, because there are some things that are simply unavoidable.
[33:12] If we dedicate to God an animal that is normally, we're here in this chapter, right? If an individual was to dedicate to God an animal which was normally offered as a sacrifice.
[33:25] Say in worship, they say, God, I give you my best ram. And then they walk out and say, man, I really don't want to give that ram. He's my best. But rams were usually given to sacrifice.
[33:37] That individual did not have the right to replace that ram. I like how God handles this. God says, so you want to swap him out, right? Well, God, I'll give you this ram instead of that ram. Then God says, now both of them belong to me.
[33:53] Because that which is always offered to me will be mine once it is offered to me. And you can't replace it. That's what got the people in trouble in the book of Malachi. They were replacing their sacrifices.
[34:05] Or say we offered to God something and said, God, I give you this ram over here. And then later on we realize that that ram had a blemish in it. Because he said, you can't even replace the bad for the good.
[34:16] So he can't say, well, God, I found a better one for you over here. God says, once you have given me that, it's mine. You can't replace it. It's mine. Because if you try to replace it, they both belong to me.
[34:29] Because God will take that which is his right for you. The second thing that was unavoidable is the firstborn. We couldn't dedicate the firstborn.
[34:42] An individual could not dedicate the firstborn to God because the firstborn already belonged to God. Remember the Passover? The firstborn of every animal belonged to God. It was already his.
[34:52] So you couldn't say, God, the firstborn that that animal over there has, I'm giving to you. God says, don't offer that to me. That's empty pledges and empty vows because that's already mine. The only thing firstborn that could be redeemed was the firstborn male child.
[35:06] We see that. That's what they were doing. Mary and Joseph were doing when they took the turtle doves into the temple for Jesus. The redemption of the firstborn child. God had provided a way for a sacrifice to be given in the place of the firstborn child.
[35:18] But every firstborn animal belonged to God. It was his already. So we couldn't offer it to God which was his. Listen, friends, some things in your life are already his. They're already his.
[35:31] And you can't say, God, I'm going to give you my time. That time is already his. God, I'm going to give you my heart and my love. That's already his. There are some things which already belong to him that we can't give him.
[35:42] The third principle that we see here in this Leviticus 27 passage, which is not repeated in the New Testament, even though I think the heart of it is repeated in the New Testament, is that that is a matter of a tithe.
[35:54] God says we can't even talk about the tithe because he says, thus, all the tithe of the land. By the way, the Jewish people, many people believe, and I think rightfully so, many Bible scholars would agree that there was a three-part tithe for the Jewish people.
[36:10] Okay? They would tithe of their gain, and then the Levites would in turn tithe that back to the priests, and then they would tithe of their produce. They didn't just tithe a little bit. Everything they had, a tenth of it went back to God.
[36:22] Right? A tenth of it. He says, all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord. He says, so don't come to me and tell me you're going to worship me by giving me back what is already mine.
[36:39] The tithe was an underlying principle that had both, you know, practical realities. That's how God's system of worship was maintained. That's how the temple, how the tabernacle, the Levites and the priests, and their livelihood came from that.
[36:53] This is how, you know, they didn't have any, they didn't possess any land. They didn't own any houses, or they can own houses inside walled cities, but they didn't have any land to grow crops and therefore to gain financial gain.
[37:05] So they always found their gain through the temple and worship and tabernacle worship. So there was a physical thing there as well, but it was also a spiritual practice so that the individual could understand.
[37:16] We were told later on in Scripture to be careful to think that our gain comes by the sweat of our brow and the work of our hands. Because it is God who gives us the energy to work.
[37:26] So there's the spiritual principle of reminding ourselves that anything we gain is a gift to us because God gave us the ability to gain it.
[37:39] God says those things are already mine. This is why I think the principle of that flows into the New Testament, though we do not have the practice of that being stated in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament.
[37:50] It's not something that we have being reiterated, but I think the principle is there. These are unavoidable obligations of worship. The fact that what is God's is already God's, and we cannot vainly offer it back to Him because it already belongs to Him.
[38:04] And those things which we should already be doing are things that are just expected of us, and not something that we should say are some astronomical forms of worship because God says that is already mine.
[38:16] Everything you have belongs to me. These are just the things that I'm calling from you. So here we see the cautious restraint to worship. What we say matters. What we offer to God matters.
[38:30] And the price of redemption is higher than could ever be paid. But He has already paid it. And it would be so that we may worship Him. And yes, we come boldly before His throne through the blood of the Lamb.
[38:42] But my friend, may we always remember whose throne we are standing before when we worship. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you so much for this day and this night.
[38:55] God, what a privilege it has been to go through the book of Leviticus. Lord, I thank you for these brothers and sisters who have went through it along with me. God, we pray that the theme of that book would be the theme of our lives, to be holy as you are holy, to be welcomed into your presence.
[39:15] And as we worship in your presence, may we be reminded of the great privilege we have of being there through the blood of the Lamb. But also, Lord, the wondrous amazement it is to be before He who holds it all in the palm of His hand.
[39:32] May our worship be sincere. May it be intentional. And Lord, may those promises and vows we make in worship be the things we live out for your glory and yours alone.
[39:44] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
[40:44] Amen. Amen.
[41:44] Amen. Amen.
[42:44] Amen. Amen.
[43:44] Amen. Amen.
[44:44] Amen. Amen.
[45:44] Amen. Amen.
[46:15] Amen.