[0:00] And we'll read the text and then we'll get into it together. Leviticus 24 says, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the sons of Israel that they bring to you clear oil from beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting.
[0:16] Aaron shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord continually. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord continually.
[0:30] Then you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord.
[0:41] You shall put pure frankincense on each row that it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to the Lord. Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before the Lord continually. It is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel.
[0:55] It shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place. For it is most holy to him from the Lord's offering by fire, his portion forever. Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel.
[1:07] And the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. Now his mother's name was Shalemith, the daughter of Debre, of the tribe of Dan.
[1:22] They put him in custody so that the command of the Lord might be made clear to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Bring the one who is cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
[1:35] You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him.
[1:46] The alien, as well as the native, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death. If a man takes the life of a human being, he shall surely be put to death. The one who takes the life of an animal shall make it good, life for life.
[1:57] If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he has injured the man, so it shall be inflicted on him. Thus the one who kills an animal shall make it good, but the one who kills a man shall be put to death.
[2:12] There shall be one standard for you. It shall be for the stranger as well as for the native, for I am the Lord your God. Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones.
[2:23] Thus the sons of Israel did, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity we have of reading your word. We thank you for the divine privilege we have of studying it together. Lord, realizing that we would never glean all of the truth which it contains.
[2:37] But Lord, hoping and praying that you would open our eyes this evening, that we may see the truth that applies to our life. Lord, we pray that the truth would captivate us, that it would draw us closer to you, Lord. That it would move us to be greater stewards of what you are entrusting to us, and that is the very word of God, so that we could serve you in a greater capacity for your glory and honor.
[2:55] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. The book of Leviticus is all about God's holiness, right? Be holy as I am holy, says the Lord. It is the theme of the book of Leviticus, and it is being holy.
[3:07] The book of Leviticus is also not only centered around the holiness of God, but it is centered around man's worship of a holy God. If you remember, it is very evident that Leviticus was put in place immediately following the events that happened in the book of Exodus.
[3:22] That is, to answer the problem that we have at the close of Exodus. At the close of Exodus, we have the completion of the tabernacle, where the tabernacle has been furnished, it has been erected, it has been built according to the plans which was shown them, and it is perfectly made, and in the presence of God fills the tabernacle.
[3:39] One thing we find is that when the Shekinah glory of God, that is, His manifest presence, is in the tabernacle, no one else is there. It is this realization that every time God manifests, He's present, because He is present everywhere, right?
[3:53] He is omnipresent, that is, He is all-present. But there are points in history where He manifests His presence, where He makes Himself known, where He reveals to you that He is there, where He reveals to you that He is near.
[4:08] Well, when He manifests His presence inside the tabernacle, through the indwelling of the Shekinah glory, it says that no man could go into the tent, and that's where the book of Exodus leaves us.
[4:19] Leviticus answers for us the question of how does man approach a holy God? And so we start the book of Leviticus with the opening chapters. We can divide Leviticus from chapters 1 through 15, and then the end of it from 17 on, with chapter 16 being the central theme.
[4:37] 1 through 15 talked to us about the sacrifices, the sacrificial system. Namely, there are five major sacrifices which God gives His people. And these sacrifices were for every aspect of worship.
[4:49] Some of it was to atone for sin. Some of it was to give thanksgiving. Some of it was as a result of fellowship. One of the greatest ones is the fellowship sacrifice, right? And it's a great one.
[5:01] It's because I have fellowship with God, I'm going to bring an offering to Him. And the reason that one's so good is because since God and I are in commune with one another, since my sins are forgiven, since I have been redeemed, I'm going to give back unto God a fellowship offering.
[5:19] And some of that would be presented on the offering altar, and then it would be given back. It would be like a great barbecue. I hate to say this, but I mean, we don't want to belittle it, but that's exactly what would happen, is you would bring your animal fellowship offering.
[5:31] Aaron and his sons would put it on the altar, roast it partially, and they'd give it back to you, and you and your kinsmen would sit at the door of the tabernacle and eat that meal.
[5:42] You are fellowshipping in the presence of God with others. Let me just stop right here and give an unashamed plug. This is one of the things that they did in the book of Acts, right? The early church gave themselves to the apostles' teaching, to prayer and to fasting and to fellowshipping from house to house.
[5:57] This is why these things are important. You can go eat at your house all day long, but you can eat at your house with other people all day long. But there's something special, I think, to God's people gathering together in his presence and eating with one another.
[6:07] Because you're fellowshipping with one another and fellowshipping with the Lord. And we see this in one of these sacrifices. Didn't mean to get on a tangent there. But what we see is that God gives a sacrifice for every aspect of life.
[6:18] You mess up, there's a sacrifice. And God, what he's doing, he's opening up the way into his presence. The thing we see, though, in these five sacrifices is that every one of them's ultimate fulfillment is in Jesus Christ.
[6:31] Every sacrifice points to Jesus Christ. Because everything in Scripture is pointing to Jesus Christ. It's pointing to one purpose. It is pointing to one person. And in Leviticus 16, we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, right?
[6:45] That's why it's central theme to the book of Leviticus. It is that one day a year in which God has ordained or God has set aside so that the nation would be redeemed.
[6:56] There would be the Day of Atonement. The Atonement Lamb would be slain. The blood would be put there. It was on this day that the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies. That one day, one person, one time for one thing, and that is to put blood over the Ark of the Covenant.
[7:11] Now, I'm trying to catch this up because it's been some time since we've been together on Sunday nights. What does the Ark of the Covenant contain? The Ark of the Covenant contains the law of God, right? We know that it has the Ten Commandments.
[7:24] And then it has Aaron's rod that budded and the jar full of manna. At this point, later on, it's only going to have the Ten Commandments. We don't know what happened to the jar. We don't know what happened to the rod. But the Ark of the Covenant was to be that which held the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, the Ten Great Sayings.
[7:39] Now, what are the Decalogue, the Ten Great Sayings? It is God's standard of holiness, right? To be honest, it wouldn't take us very long. If we sat down and had a conversation with one another and we just started going through the Ten Commandments.
[7:54] I read a book recently, and I can't even remember which one it was, that spoke of an editor of a newspaper in a small town.
[8:05] And he had some space in his newspaper that he needed to fill. So all he did was he published, now this was some time ago, so it was before it became really, really, you know, unpolitical, so politically incorrect.
[8:16] So he published the Ten Commandments in this space. He just needed to fill it. He had so many responses that next week. Some people saying they were leaving town. Other people said they're canceling their subscription because he became too invasive in their private lives.
[8:27] He began meddling. All he did was publish without comment, without commentary, just the Ten Commandments. Because the reality is that if we were to sit down and have a conversation with one another just going over the Ten Commandments, we would realize we don't make it.
[8:42] Right? We fall short. So it only took God ten great sayings to tell us we fall short because all men are sinful, right? None are righteous, no, not one. Every heart is desperately wicked.
[8:53] So the covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, contains the Ten Commandments. And above the Ark of the Covenant is the Shekinah glory. That is the manifest presence. God manifests his presence in his standard.
[9:05] Right? We want to be in the presence of God. We have to meet the standard of God. That's the realization. Now, there's something between the two. You remember that? The cherubim with their wings stretched out and they're touching in the middle and they're so far along and that was called what?
[9:20] The mercy seat. Thank you. Or the seat of propitiation. And the mercy seat or the propitiation seat is where he would go in in Yom Kippur and put the blood because blood covered the mercy seat.
[9:32] And the mercy seat was what God allowed man to approach him because his standard had not changed. His presence was real. But because of mercy, man can approach. And we saw the reality that Jesus is our propitiation.
[9:45] That's what it says in the New Testament. Jesus is our mercy seat. Right? So if we come to God and we take away the mercy seat, then all of a sudden all we have is the law. And we can't live according to the law.
[9:56] So what happens after Leviticus 16 and 17 and following is we begin to see how man worships because this is what we're supposed to do. So now let's put it into practical reality.
[10:07] Right? Because truth without practice is useless knowledge. God told them how to approach them. And then he gave them a day to make them worthy of approaching them. And now he says, now approach me.
[10:19] So what we see in the latter part of Leviticus is man living this truth out. We can worship him. In Leviticus 24, I want you to see the daily activity of sacred worship.
[10:29] I know that was a very long introduction to get us to this. But it was the daily activity of sacred worship. Friend, we need to understand this, that all worship of holy God is sacred.
[10:43] And God sets the standard here in Leviticus 24 of what that sacred worship looks like and what we should be reminded of on a daily basis. Number one, we see this daily activity is a result of corporate responsibility.
[10:58] It is a result of corporate responsibility. That means everybody had a part in it. If there was one place in history in which we could say that a nation or a group of people worshiped God as a direct result of somebody else's activity, we would probably point to the Old Testament.
[11:18] Because we would point to what we would call the Levitical worship and we would say, see, there is the tabernacle. Or we go forward a little bit later, see, there is the temple. The Levites and the priests are doing all of the work.
[11:31] Aaron and his sons are doing all of the work, right? The nation's worship of God is a direct result of all of their work. All they have to do is bring their animals and they're doing all of the work. And everybody else has no part to do in it.
[11:44] But what we see here in Leviticus 24 says, then the Lord spoke to Moses. So again, it's this great comment that we read on Leviticus that if God's words were in red letter, as much as in the New Testament, Jesus's words are in red letter, most of Leviticus would be red letter.
[11:59] God is speaking all throughout the book of Leviticus because man has no thought process on how to approach him. So God has to tell them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, command the sons of Israel that they bring to you clear oil from beaten olives for the light to make a lamp burn continually.
[12:17] So here we see the command is not for the priests. The command is not for the Levites. The command is for the sons. That is the ordinary everyday people. Now, what he is speaking in reference to, first of all, is the lamp.
[12:29] In the tabernacle, you had three chambers. Remember that? You always entered from the east. So the door was on the westward side and it was faced towards the east. And that was because man was coming back into the presence of God.
[12:42] But when you entered the door of the tabernacle, you have what is referred to as the outer court. In the outer court, you had the bronze laver where the priests would wash and prepare themselves.
[12:52] Then you had the bronze altar, which was the big altar where they would offer their daily sacrifices. And this was a court of just curtained walls all the way around. And inside that court was another portion, some distance in, that was covered.
[13:07] And it had hide that was covering it. And it was in that veil which you entered into what was called the holy place. In the holy place, there were three sets of furniture. There was the altar of incense, the golden altar of incense.
[13:20] This is where Zechariah was when the angel spoke to him about the coming of John the Baptist, the altar of incense. There was also, if you're standing at the altar of incense, on the left, there would have been a candelabra or a lamp of seven fluted lamps.
[13:36] This is something that is very familiar to us. Menorah is what we would really refer to it as. It's something that the nation of Israel has used as representation throughout the ages. It was in the tabernacle, it was in the temple, it was in the refurbished temple, it was in Herod's temple.
[13:50] In every temple, there was a menorah. Actually, when Jerusalem fell in AD 70, there are images in the empire of Rome, still to this day evident on the wall, depicting the soldiers carrying away the menorah from the temple.
[14:05] It's something that the nation of Israel still has on their coins because this light was very important to them. We'll get to that in just a minute. So you had the menorah, you had the altar of incense, and then you had the table of showbread. That was inside the holy.
[14:17] This is where the priests did all of their work. They would go in there and they would offer the incense, they would light the candles, they would have the table of showbread. And then, when you went a little bit further into it, you would enter the final veil, and that was the holy of holies.
[14:32] And in there, the Ark of the Covenant. The high priest went into that place one time a year. But what we see here is that God has given command, now pay attention to this, of some things that were essential on the daily basis for national worship that nobody else saw.
[14:49] Nobody of the common man ever saw the light. Nobody saw the lamp because it was covered, right? There were a number of hides covering this, a number of skins covering this.
[15:01] It was darkened out from the world. And he commanded the people of the nation to bring the oil so that the priest could do the work inside the secret place.
[15:12] This shows us that the priest couldn't do what they were commanded to do unless the people did what they were told to do. See, worship was a direct result of everyone's service, not just a result of one man's activity.
[15:26] The priest was charged to light the candle each and every day. But in order for the candle to be lit, there had to be oil. In order for there to be oil, there had to be people who would bring that oil.
[15:39] And then every Sabbath, he had to put out 12 loaves of bread. And these loaves on the showbread, again, inside that holy place where nobody else would go into, right? Nobody else saw it but the priest and Aaron and his sons.
[15:50] But there were 12 loaves. And every Sabbath, they were made of what? Fine flour. Well, guess what? The priests weren't growing wheat fields, right? So they were dependent upon the harvest of the first fruits.
[16:01] So they were dependent upon the people of the land bringing in the fine flour. All I want you to see is that the daily activity of the people's sacred worship was dependent upon everyone doing their part.
[16:17] No one could say, well, worship is the priest's job. Or worship is Aaron and his descendants' job. Because then the oil would run out and the flour would run out.
[16:29] And guess what? Worship would stop. That candle, by the way, is very important. It is important. We just kind of have a side note here. Because during the time of Christ, that candle was seen as a representation of God's leading of the nation of Israel out of Egypt.
[16:43] It was seen as, remember, the light that went before them or the cloud of day and the pillar of fire by night? So there was a time during the time of Christ, and you've read this, that they were called the Festival of Lights, in which they would take that menorah and they would light it and they would walk through the town of the city of Jerusalem, leading the people, signifying God's presence leading them.
[17:03] And they would go up to Temple Mount and put it back into the temple. Now, you know this happened because it was at that time when Jesus stood up and said, I am the true light of the world. As everybody was watching this candle going by, Jesus said, that light, that points to me.
[17:17] I am the light which leads you from the captivity of sin. If you follow me, not a candle, then you will be set free. Much as the nation of Israel was set free from enslavement in Egypt, he says, I am the light of the world.
[17:31] The Festival of Hanukkah was something that was being really celebrated during the time of Christ, and that was where we got the Festival of Lights. Anybody know what happened during the Festival of Hanukkah, how we get Hanukkah?
[17:43] It is in that intertestament time, that time when we have between Malachi and Matthew. If you read apocryphal books, which we do not in Southern Baptist life, that is okay, because they do not have the same authority as the rest of Scripture, but they are somewhat historically accurate.
[17:59] Now, some of it is kind of allegorized. It is kind of, you know, the Jewish people kind of seem to make it a little bit better. But one of the things that the Jewish people really saw happen during the Maccabean time, there is 1 and 2 Maccabees, maybe you have heard of that.
[18:11] If you ever pick up a Scripture that has all these extra books in it, usually it will have 1 and 2 Maccabees, and it has a number of other intertestament times. We do not read it as we would the Word of God, but we can read it to find out what was going on, what happened, what Jesus walked into in His world.
[18:27] And what happened during the Maccabean Revolt is this is where Jerusalem found their about 120, 130-year reign of freedom. They were being suppressed by the Greece Empire because Alexander the Great came in, and Alexander the Great looked up the nation of Israel and saw it in prophecy as being a people favorable to him, so he gave them a little bit of leniency.
[18:49] And I know it is Sunday night, and I am throwing a lot of information at you, but this is good stuff. We need to learn this, right? Because Alexander the Great, he died a sudden death because, by the way, it talks about that in the Old Testament, that there would be a ruler of the Grecian Empire who would come in and conquer the world, and then he would pass away very quickly, and that he would pass away without having divided his kingdom, and his kingdom would be divided into four parts.
[19:10] And guess what? Historically, it happened just like that. Because Alexander the Great went on such a campaign, and he was young. He was still in his 30s, I believe it was, and he was at the height of his career, and he had, because of this prophecy which he read or heard about in the Old Testament, he kind of had mercy on the nation of Israel, and he kind of let them be and let them do their own thing.
[19:29] And then he died suddenly, and when he died suddenly, his leaders or his commanders under him said, who's going to take rule? Who's going to take over this great empire which he has built? So they began to divide the kingdom into four parts, right?
[19:42] Two primary parts, which in turn led to the Roman Empire. But before the Romans really came in and took over Jerusalem, Jerusalem and the nation of Israel said, we want to gain our own freedom.
[19:53] And the reason they, or the way they gained their own freedom is there's this man named Antigonus Epiphanes who came in and said, we're going to worship pigs on the altar in the temple. And they said, we're not doing that. That's going to desecrate our temple.
[20:04] That's not kosher. Not at all, right? Swine weren't kosher. So they were going around and wanting everyone to blaspheme the name of God and wanting to blaspheme this world. So Judas Maccabees in the northern portion of Israel, who was just this quiet little priest, when one of the leaders of that empire came up, he said, that's not going to happen.
[20:22] And he killed the man. He said, I'll trust God more than I trust you. And that started what is referred to as the Maccabean Revolt. So this little tribe, stay with me. It gets good, okay?
[20:34] This little tribe revolted and pushed back and they finally made their way to Jerusalem and they locked themselves in the temple, the temple in Jerusalem. And they began to purify that temple.
[20:45] Well, there was something inside that temple that says it had to stay lit all day long every day and that is the candle. The problem is when they locked themselves in that temple, they didn't have any oil because nobody could bring anything in and nobody could go out.
[20:58] They were locked in the temple. The reason you have Hanukkah today and the Jewish people celebrate it is because they have the testimony that even though they had no oil, the oil never ran out. God manifested his presence in that temple because of their faithfulness.
[21:15] And they gained their freedom for a number of years, for 100 plus years, for a short window there. I'm not saying that they were righteous. I'm not saying that. But these are things that God used to pave the way that when Jesus came, they were celebrating a candle and he says, you've missed it.
[21:30] You're supposed to be celebrating me. But what we see here when God first set it up was that worship was determined or based upon everyone doing their part in corporate responsibility.
[21:42] Number two, there was a consistent standard. There was a consistent standard. The daily worship could not be good one day and bad the next day, right? It had to be perfect each and every day.
[21:53] And we'll understand why when we get to the end. There was this consistent standard. It says here that they were to bring clear oil from beaten olives for the light. This, by the way, is the best oil.
[22:05] There was another way of extracting oil from olives and that was to heat it. But it was really just an understood thing that the best oil from olives was that which was beaten and wasn't gained from heating.
[22:16] It was gained from beating. It was a little bit more labor intensive, but it was a better pure oil and it was to be clear. And I think about this just for a moment. God says, I want you to give me the best so that we can take it and put it somewhere nobody will ever see it.
[22:32] You'll never see the light from this candle, but you're going to know it's burning there because you provide it your best. Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will ever witness it.
[22:42] Nobody will ever say, oh man, that oil you brought is doing a fantastic job over there. But you will know that you have provided the best of the oil so that the manifest presence of God can be put on display through the lighting of the candle.
[22:56] It was this consistent standard and it was fine flour. Don't just bring any flour. Bring fine flour. Some of you are much better bakers than me.
[23:07] I used to when I ate a lot of bread and I still do eat more than I should, but I used to eat a whole lot more. I used to like making bread. I don't know why and I'm not the only guy, right? So don't pick and don't judge. Something about watching it grow.
[23:17] I like making cinnamon rolls pretty much because I like cinnamon rolls. But I just like watching it. But you always read these bread recipes. They always talk about getting this bread flour and this real good flour. Well, not me. I just want whatever the cheapest flour I can find.
[23:29] And some of you are going to get upset and say, well, if you had the bread flour, it'd be better. And I said, you're probably right. But it costs more, right? And I'm just going to make something I'm going to eat. And I'm okay with that. But what we understand is we couldn't treat worship of God like that.
[23:42] Because God says, I want the fine flour. I want the pure oil. And I want, did you see this, what they put on top of that bread? Pure frankincense. Everything consistently, because it's a pure golden lampstand and a pure golden table, everything, when it comes to the worship of God, is consistently perfect.
[24:06] God demands that we come to him with the best. And then we come to him with the best that we could offer him. Only the best could be used in the daily worship of the Lord. This was a daily activity.
[24:18] It was not just a sporadic activity. God was calling his people to offer him the best each and every day. Third, we see a continuous reminder. There is this continuous reminder of the ongoing worship.
[24:30] Because we see this repeated phrase continuously or evermore, ongoing. It is with the light. The light was to be lit each and every day, even though no one saw it. We read the timetable from evening to morning, which seems to be opposite from us, because Jewish reckoning of time was from sundown to sunup, right?
[24:47] It was evening to morning, not morning to evening. And we see here that they were to keep it going. It was a perpetual statute throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order on the pure gold lamp stands before the Lord continually.
[25:00] And the showbread was to be on the table for six days. And then on the seventh day, on the Sabbath, he was to replenish it. He was to take off that which had been there and put on the new. So each and every Sabbath, he was to put new bread.
[25:11] What we see is that on a daily basis, they would be reminded of their worship. True, sincere, sacred worship of God is a worship that daily remembers who he is and where he is.
[25:22] What we see with the lit candle is that the candle was there to represent that God's presence was inside that tabernacle, right? They couldn't go in there inside the Holy of Holies except for one time a year.
[25:34] But each and every day, they would see the candle being lit, and it was to represent to them the light of God's presence. He was there. And the bread, the twelve loaves of bread, many believe, and I think rightfully so, that these loaves were to be a reminder that the nation of Israel was always before him.
[25:50] That the twelve tribes were represented not only on the breastplate of the high priest, but also between the twelve loaves. And it was a reminder that daily, God was in their presence, and he was in their presence, and they were in his presence.
[26:01] And also, bread was the most basic of necessities for the people. It was also a reminder that they would find their most basic necessities in his presence. Right?
[26:12] That each and every day, because you know the high priestly prayer, right? The Lord's prayer is John 17, that's where the Lord prayed. But the model prayer, give us this day our, what, daily bread.
[26:22] Because the most basic of necessities are found in God's presence, because God is present with us each and every day. What we see is, it is a reminder of his continuous presence among us.
[26:34] The candle was not to go out, the bread was not to fail to be present. Everything was there to remind the people that God was near, and he was ready to accept, and he was there to be worshipped.
[26:46] This is what we find throughout the Old Testament, where God is urging his people to always remember that he is near. He is always urging them to remember that he is near. He manifested through the tabernacle, he manifested through the sacrificial system, and he manifested through these aspects.
[27:02] True worship is born out of remembering he is here. The reason that we often fail to worship is because we fail to realize that he is present.
[27:12] Because one thing we find in Scripture, that when God's people knew he was present, they acted different. They just did. They either couldn't be there.
[27:24] They said, woe is me. They fell on their face. They could not stand up. Daniel was weak and sick. Had to be strengthened. They would tremble and fall down.
[27:36] And they always worshipped. And we remember continuously that God is present. It leads to a sacred worship. All of this to point us to this last and final thing. Because worship is a great thing that God has called us to.
[27:49] Worship is the avenue which God has opened up for us to come before him. But we must come with this last thing, which seems, starting in verse 10 through 23, seems kind of out of place. But really it is in perfect place.
[28:01] And it is a cautious approach. While we are called to worship God, and I know the book of Hebrews tells us we come boldly before the throne through the blood of the Lamb. Which means we run into his presence with boldness.
[28:12] But there is a big difference between coming boldly and coming foolishly. Psalms 111 verse 10. The first part of Psalms 111 verse 10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[28:25] To really fear him. To have an awe of reverence for him. Is just to begin to learn something of him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[28:37] And while Hebrews says we can come boldly before his throne. We must not come lightly before his throne. And this is something that I think as an individual and even as a church. And especially in the church and our world today.
[28:48] We need to be reminded of that he who we worship must be approached with great caution. He who we worship must not be taken lightly. Because he is king of kings and lord of lords.
[29:01] He is our savior and our messiah. But he is also the one with the flaming eyes and the sword of the Lord and the white hair. He is the one with the burnished feet of bronze. He is the one who is coming in all of authority.
[29:11] But friend listen to me. The one who is welcoming us to come into his presence is God almighty on the throne. And look at what it says. It says now the son of an Israelite woman whose father was an Egyptian.
[29:23] Now he is not full Israelite. We understand that. Went out among the sons of Israel. An Israelite woman's son and the man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the name and cursed.
[29:34] Now we know that it says you should not use the name of the Lord your God in vain. But he did more than that. He didn't just use his name in vain. He cursed him. Literally the wording is that he cursed the name.
[29:46] As a matter of fact the Jewish people had such a reverence for the name that they would not say Jehovah. They always called him Adonai. When they were reading scripture or quoting scripture they failed to say the name Jehovah.
[29:57] They would say Adonai out of reverence and respect that they might mispronounce the name of God. One of the greatest testimonies we have to the accuracy of scripture is because so much of it was hand copied by scribes.
[30:11] Is that there was such great caution by the nation of Israel not to smear or mess up the name of God. That when they were hand transcribing portions of the Old Testament. And they were copying them word for word.
[30:23] And they would come to the name of God. That they would put the pen down and pick up a new pen and a new ink well. In case that pen put an ink blot on it. And they would write very carefully the name of God.
[30:33] And if they smeared his name the whole transcript had to be destroyed and they had to start all over again. There was such great reverence for the name of God because the name represented him.
[30:45] It represents his personality. It represents his position. It represents his deity. And it represents accurately who he is. To know his name and to proclaim his name is to speak of him in all of his actuality.
[30:58] And to speak of him as he really is. And they understood that when they called on the name of the Lord their God on Yahweh, Adonai, Jehovah. That they were doing much more than calling upon a name.
[31:10] They were calling upon the fullness of God and they were going into his presence. And here we meet a man who cursed that name. By the way, just a side note here. Do you understand what tribe he was from?
[31:21] The tribe of Dan, right? His mother was from the tribe of Dan. Do you remember that there was a certain particular tribe in the book of Revelations which was excluded? It was the tribe of Dan.
[31:31] And if you remember why I told you the tribe of Dan was excluded. It was because it was the tribe of Dan that introduced idolatrous worship to the nation of Israel. All you got to do is go read the book of Judges to that, right?
[31:43] The tribe of Dan was the seat of idolatry in the nation of Israel. And we see it even all the way back to here before they even get to the promised land. Because here we have one from the tribe of Dan.
[31:55] Not fully from the tribe. I get it. His father was an Egyptian. We're not going to speak very long on that. But we understand it in accuracy. He curses the name of God. Now, this is something new.
[32:07] Moses and the people don't know what to do because they know you can't use his name in vain. But to curse God, what do we do with this? So they take him into custody and they wait. They do a very good thing because when God has not given us clear directives, we are to wait and to hear a word from him, right?
[32:21] So they pause and they say, we know there is a consequence for this, God. What must we do? So they pause and they wait and they listen to what the Lord God is telling them. And the Lord tells Moses to take this man and everyone that heard it, lay their hands.
[32:33] That means you're going to own it, right? But this is one of the great things is you can't just make a false claim or false accusation against anyone. This is on the testimony of two or more witnesses. A matter shall be settled. And you had to own it.
[32:44] But yes, I did hear it. You lay your head on the individual and then you cast on. He said he will die. And then we get into this principle of the punishment fitting the crime. Something that is very familiar to us where it says, if a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.
[32:59] And the one who takes the life of an animal shall make good for it, life for life. If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, just as he injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.
[33:11] This is an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. But we need to be careful here in our interpretation of this. We'll say this, number one, God ordained this so that there would not be unjust penalty rendered for a particular crime.
[33:25] This was a very gracious law. Because during this day, the survival of the fittest. If you took my animal and I wanted to kill you, you couldn't do anything about it. That's what was going on around the other nations, right?
[33:37] If I'm stronger than you, if you broke my arm, then I'm going to take your life. And that's okay. But God says, no, that's not okay. We're not going to give unjust penalty for any crime.
[33:51] Secondly, we understand the fact here, we see this from the New Testament. This responsibility was not given to individuals. Jesus said, whoever slaps you on one sheet, turn to him and also the other. Right?
[34:02] This responsibility was given to governing and ruling authorities. This is why Paul says we ought to respect those who rule over us. And pray for those who lead. Because they have the responsibility of giving due justice for every crime.
[34:15] This is even what our court systems are based upon now. That the penalty will always fit the crime and not vice versa. As much as we may agree or disagree with this, we understand that God's standard is perfect and gracious.
[34:27] And it is just. But what we get from this is, listen. He tells us this to show us this one truth. No matter how great the crime and severe the crime, blaspheming the name of God is far greater.
[34:42] That punishment was death immediately. And it's given to us here to remind us, the one we're running into the presence of worshiping is the one who must be held in great reverence and fear and awe.
[34:56] We must be reminded, friend, we approach cautiously. We are coming by the blood of the Lamb. But it's only by the blood of the Lamb.
[35:08] We dare not run into his presence in our own works. We dare not run into his presence boasting in our own ability. We dare not run into his presence boasting in our own worthiness. We dare not run into his presence based upon our own knowledge.
[35:21] We come cautiously running into his presence because the blood of the Lamb has led us into the one to be feared and to be worshipped.
[35:36] We can worship him and adore him and fear him all at the same time. He is the giver and the sustainer of life. He is the one that spoke all things into existence.
[35:48] He is the one that says in the book of Job where Job said, I wish I could speak to God. I wish I could speak to God. I wish I could speak to God all through the book of Job. And then God shows up and Job says, I take it back. I don't want to talk to you. You're too much.
[36:00] You're too other than me. Oh God, I do not want to be in your presence. He is the one in which Job says that if he was to call his spirit back unto himself, that all men would perish. He is the one who hung the world on nothing, told it to stay there, and it has stayed there.
[36:13] He is the one who created it all for his purposes, for his glory. He is the one that will call it all back to himself one day and call all mankind to stand before him and give an account of their life, both believers and unbelievers.
[36:25] He is the great sustainer and the uplifter of all that we see, and he is the one that has called us to worship him. And may our worship of him be fitting to the cautious approach we have to him.
[36:36] May we come before him adoring him and loving him and praising him only because he has given us the way and the opportunity. Friend, may we not run into his presence and take lightly the fact that we are in the presence of a holy God.
[36:49] May we be reminded that he is holy and he has called us to be holy. And as we stand in his presence, we better be holy. And the only way we can be is because the blood that covers us is holy.
[36:59] And we come before him in a cautious approach, rejoicing in the Savior and praising he who sits on the throne. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you so much for this day.
[37:13] Thank you for your goodness and your kindness and your mercy for you. Oh God, may we never take lightly the fact that we get to worship you. Because that worship ought to be a daily activity of solemn, holy worship.
[37:29] Lord, realizing that we come into your presence standing before the creator and sustainer of all of the earth. And we say, you are worthy of me.
[37:40] You are worthy. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving us the ability to approach you. Lord, may our lives be a direct reflection of the privilege that we have in Christ's name.
[37:53] Amen. Amen.
[38:16] Amen.
[38:46] Amen.
[39:16] Amen.
[39:46] Amen. Thank you.
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