This sermon delves into the book of Leviticus, highlighting the importance of understanding God's heart behind the detailed instructions given. It emphasizes the themes of holiness, health, and the need for total surrender to God, drawing parallels between physical health and spiritual holiness. The sermon explores the significance of the five offerings in Leviticus, symbolizing different aspects of Jesus' life and death, and the need for confession, repentance, and restitution for sin. It also touches on the feasts of the Lord, showcasing spiritual meanings behind each feast and the importance of obedience to God's commands.

Okay, we've reached the book of Leviticus and I'd like you to turn there in Leviticus in chapter 1 and I might as well tell you that this is really one of the most difficult books to study and get something for the heart from. But I believe that it is the inspired word of God and what I was praying was, Lord, help me to understand your heart. I want to understand what is in your heart when you wrote this book. See, we can get so taken up with all the little details of things in the book and miss God's heart. I don't want to miss that. God's word has been given to us to give us, I believe, a glimpse into the heart of God and if that is your desire to understand the heart of God, I remember when I was considering this whole period of Bible study through the Bible and I was trying to look into the heart of God to see what was God's intention in giving us his book. And this is the verse that came to my mind, this very well-known verse, God so loved the world that he gave his son, that whoever believes in him should never perish. And I saw that was God's heart, that no one should perish, no one should be lost, no one should be ruined by sin. And he was willing to give his son for that. And I want to keep that in mind as I look at this book and every book of Scripture. You see, the heart of tremendous love and even if there are things here which I can't fully understand, I want to say, Lord, I want to understand your heart even if I don't understand all the different verses here. So Leviticus is a book that speaks about the holiness of God. It's a whole book in which the primary theme is holiness. Now, holiness is a word a lot of believers are afraid of. I know people have accused me of preaching holiness and unattainable standards, but I'm not afraid. I'll continue doing that as long as the Lord gives me life because I believe that is the nature of God. The Spirit who gave us is a Holy Spirit. And when Isaiah got a vision of God, he saw him in his holiness and he considered himself an unclean man. Holiness is like health. How many of you are afraid of health? How many of you are afraid of perfect health? We're not afraid of perfect health. We want perfect health. Why are you afraid of perfect holiness? Sin is like sickness. And you see that in this book. The Lord gives rules concerning holiness and rules concerning health. The two are similar. One is for the Spirit and one is for the body. Holiness for the body is what we call health. And health for the spirit and soul is what we call holiness. So we need to get rid of this fear of holiness. And we must come to the place where we desire total holiness like we desire total health. And just like I want to be free of every sickness in my body, I want to be free of every sin that defiles me in my life. To tolerate dirty thoughts is like tolerating tuberculosis or leprosy. To tolerate anger and say, what to do brother, I can't get rid of it. And you allow it and make allowance for it is like making allowance for AIDS or some serious sexual disease. Sin and sickness are very similar. And in the book of Leviticus we find some details concerning leprosy in one of the chapters. That's describing actually about what to do when people have got some type of skin disease. But it's a picture of sin. The word holiness appears in this book more than 150 times emphasizing that this is the theme of this book. A book with 27 chapters where 150 times the emphasis comes on holiness, holy, holy, must be an important book. And yet there are no stories here like in all the other books of the Bible and there are not many interesting verses. But there's a lot of description of offerings and peace and things like that. And I want to try and take out some of the important parts from this book and try and show them to you. And also to give you a brief understanding of the main offerings and feasts that the children of Israel had to offer or celebrate. So that we can get an understanding of the Old Testament and see how they apply to us in this new covenant age. We know that in Hebrews that God is finished with all offerings and sacrifices. But those sacrifices pointed to Christ and to us. And therefore it's good for us to see how these things apply and what they symbolize and picture. In the first seven chapters in the book of Leviticus, he is basically describing five offerings. And all of them in a sense were picturing Christ and his perfect life and his death. Not just his death, but his perfect life as well. We should not think only of his death. Because there are some offerings in these five offerings in which there is no blood. There's no animal. And that's obviously not referring to Calvary. That's referring to Jesus' perfect life. And that is also one of the offerings. So when we look at Jesus, a lot of people think only of that offering of himself on the cross. But what we learn from Leviticus is the way he offered his life day by day to God without any blood being shed as an offering for us like on Calvary. And now two of these offerings were compulsory. The sin offering and the guilt offering. And three of the offerings were voluntary. And they were called the burnt offering, the meal offering, or the grain offering. And the grain offering did not have any blood in it. And the third was the peace offering. So these were the five offerings. Two compulsory ones called the sin offering and the guilt offering. And three voluntary ones called the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the peace offering. And all these pictured various aspects of Jesus' life and death. And that's why they are applicable to us. Now the first offering mentioned in Leviticus 1 is the burnt offering where it's a picture of a total presentation of everything to God. Like it says in Romans 12 1, I beseech you brethren present your bodies a living sacrifice to God. All of it totally to God. And the burnt offering was totally presented to God. It was cut into pieces to show that there was no defect in any part and it was offered. You couldn't take a whole bullock and put it there. You know everybody didn't have to offer a bullock. Some people were poor and God was very considerate. You could offer a bullock, you could offer a sheep or a goat or even a dove or a pigeon according to your ability. And the offering was cut into pieces and put there to show because it had to be and there shouldn't be any defect in this offering. The offering had to be without any blemish, perfect, and therefore everything had to be cut and exposed and offered to God. Now in all these things there is meaning. You know take this matter of offering our bodies to God. I believe the burnt offering is a picture of the way Jesus presented his body right through his earthly life and finally on the cross. Not just on the cross, all through his earthly life. He kept his body perfectly pure and presented finally to God an offering that was perfectly pure. Now you need to see that because very often we think, oh Jesus died for my sins. But that death on Calvary would have been no use if that offering had not been absolutely perfect for 33 and a half years. And that meant not just that Jesus didn't have dirty thoughts, it meant that when he was hungry he would not turn stones into bread if the father did not lead him. That was the type of being perfect that we are talking about. Where he would not do something without the father's prompting. Even if it is a good thing like turning stones into bread. Or in one place we read that he, there was a great revival we read in the last part of Luke chapter 4 and the people pressed on him to say why don't you stay here and continue this ministry. But Jesus said no. Before he met those people he had met his father alone in the wilderness and he had heard the voice of the father saying go somewhere else and he went. And if he had not gone and he had stayed here conducting a revival, it would have been sin. Now how many of you believe that conducting a revival can be a sin? It would have been. That was the sensitivity with which Jesus lived. You see we think of sin as getting angry, yelling at people and dirty thoughts and jealousy and bitterness. It's such a low level. It's kindergarten level. In Jesus case we're talking about sin at the PhD level. You know little things like even if you're going to conduct a revival if God's not told you to be here once you another place you should go there. If you stay here you're sinning. You see one gets it you don't get into the PhD overnight. You sort of graduate over there and gradually as we progress we begin to find that a lot of things which we never thought were sin become sin for us. That's one mark of spiritual growth. That certain things which I never thought were sin five years ago now I see to be sin which other people don't even think about. So when we look at Jesus life we don't think just of his death on Calvary but his whole life where he presented himself totally to the father and said never do I want to do my will in this body. That is the burnt offering and this is this burnt offering is what is referred to in Romans 12 1. You also present yourself like that. We can't give ourselves for our sins on the cross but we can give ourselves to God just like Jesus gave himself. So this burnt offering was completely offered to God and it was burnt totally. It says in the last in verse 17 you burn it on top of the wood fire on the altar. It's a whole burnt offering made by fire very pleasing to the Lord. An aroma to the Lord. Paul speaks about our being an aroma of Christ in 2nd Corinthians 2. Totally pleasing to the Lord when it is presented totally to God and that's how Jesus presented himself. Now when we give our bodies like that you know it's very easy to say Lord I give my body to you but hang on just a wait a minute we've got to cut it up and when we cut it up we realize that we are not giving our bodies to God at all. What does it mean to say I give my body to God? It means Lord here are my eyes. I'm cutting it out I mean metaphorically and here it is Lord I have used these eyes for the devil and for myself for many many years but here I'm laying it on the altar. I never again want to use these eyes to look at or read anything that's dishonoring to you and I never want to use these eyes to sin anymore. Okay that's just one part of the body. Then we cut out our tongue and say Lord here's my tongue. This is the burnt offering. I say Lord I've used this tongue for the devil and for myself for many many many years but I never want to do that anymore. Here it is. It's yours from this moment on but it's totally completely yours. You can have it and here are my feet. Here are my heart. Here are my passions. I cut this bullock into pieces this offering and laid out and say Lord everything is yours. Let your fire come and consume it and we read in the book of Leviticus how the fire of God came and fell upon the offering and consumed it. Let me show you that verse in Leviticus in chapter 9 when they put this whole burnt offering on the altar Leviticus in chapter 9 it says here Aaron slaughtered the bull. We're down at the end of the chapter and it says in the last part of verse 21 Aaron lifted up the breasts and thighs as an offering to the Lord and Aaron raised his hands verse 22 and blessed the people and he presented the whole burnt offering and he stepped down from the altar and verse 24 fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. You know what that fire coming down is a picture of it's a picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire and it came when every part of that burnt offering was on the altar. If one part was left out there would be no fire and when you don't have a fire then what do you do and this is what we see in Christianity today. In chapter 10 of Leviticus the just couple of verses down immediately after that we read very next verse actually Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took their respective firepans and put fire and placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord which he had not commanded them. When we don't have the real fire of God and we want to join the club of those who have the real fire the danger is that we shall imitate in order to say yes we also got the fire a strange fire and God was so angry with these people who were imitating the baptism in the Holy Spirit who were imitating that genuine fire of God that it says a second time 10 to fire came out from the Lord and this time not to consume the offering but to consume these hypocrites. So there are two fires that came out from the Lord once in chapter 9 verse 24 and one in chapter 10 verse 2 and they died before the Lord. Now if God were to do that in Christendom today a lot of people would die. A lot of people are offering strange fire because they don't have the real fire and why don't they have the real fire because they don't lay everything on the altar they want to get it cheap. Other people who got a real fire in their life they paid a price for it they put everything on the altar they put all their money all their bank account their eyes their tongue their hands everything on the altar they examined their life made sure that every part of the offering was there no small part was left out everything all that property all their money everything consecrated all their ambitions and desires and the fire came and you see the life of such a man anointed powerful and you say boy I want that but you're not willing to pay the price you're not willing to pay the price that man paid then what happened but you still want to show that you're also an anointed servant of God then you fall into the danger of Nadab and Abihu of trying to produce strange fire to work up your emotions and to imitate the genuine thing and of course since more than 95% of believers don't have much discernment they think that you got a real fire but you haven't got a real fire I want to tell you my dear brothers and sisters learned this from Leviticus there's a lot of strange fire in Christendom today and the reason is because they have not presented a whole burnt offering to God that's the reason be willing to pay the price Paul said I count everything as loss that's how he came to know the Lord okay that's one offering the burnt offering that's mentioned in Leviticus chapter 1 in Leviticus chapter 2 we read of another offering called the grain offering and this grain offering was there was no blood no animals in it it was of flour and roasted grain and salt and oil and one of the things that the Lord said there was in verse 11 don't use any leaven Leviticus in chapter 2 verse 11 there should be no leaven in it and leaven was a picture of sin but salt had to be added and salt is a picture of an eternal covenant you know the Lord often spoke about having salt and I just want to show you a verse in the book of Numbers in chapter 18 where it says here it is an ever verse 19 it's an everlasting covenant of salt wherever you read about salt being offered in the Bible and Jesus using it in the New Testament to think of Numbers 18 19 it says an everlasting covenant of salt you know we use salt to preserve things for a long time and that is the picture used here of something everlasting I give myself to God and it's not just for two days it's not just for a week it's not just for five years it's not like people say I'll go and serve the Lord there for five years there is no such thing like that it's total permanent everlasting it's like marriage we don't get married to somebody for five years it's permanent total and say Lord I've decided to serve you when I get to heaven I'm just going to continue that it's everlasting there's salt in my sacrifice so the grain offering is the second offering that we see here and that was without any blood in it it was a picture of that perfect life of Jesus and we acknowledge when we give this that all that we have belongs to the Lord permanently the third offering mentioned in revelate in Leviticus chapter 3 is the peace offering it's called the peace offering here in the Leviticus chapter 3 and this he had to lay his hand verse 2 on the head of the animal it was an animal and he would present it to God and it was as the word says an expression of the fact that through this offering I have come to peace with God like it says in Romans chapter 5 verse 1 therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God is a very important requirement of the Christian life that I'm absolutely convinced in my life one that my sins are all forgiven peace no sense of guilt Jesus Christ I put my hand just like this man you had to lay his hand it says in Leviticus 3 2 on the offering I say Lord Jesus I lay my hand on you on Calvary you took all my sin and I have no more consciousness of sin it's finished the promises your sins and iniquities I'll remember no more peace a lot of believers don't have peace even though Christ died I want you to know that the will of God for you is that you might have perfect peace perfect peace total assurance that all the guilt of your past is removed at rest the New Testament speaks about rest in our heart peace because my sins are forgiven and peace because I know God has accepted me just as I am not after I change but just as I am do you have that peace that is what is symbolized in this peace offering which I make before God and then the fourth offering is in chapter 4 which is the sin offering and it's very interesting to see here that again and again it's spoken about unintentional sin notice in verse 2 speak to the sons of Israel saying if a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded if it may be anointed priest who sins it could be the priest he has also got to bring to the Lord a sin offering sometimes leaders Christian leaders act as though they don't sin that's a word for Christian leaders when a priest and it starts with the priest when God judges sin he always starts with the leaders if a priest sins he has to bring an offering and can you picture this in Israel if you were one of the ordinary Israelites and you saw a priest one day bringing an offering you'd say boy as well as our leader but he has sinned too don't we sin is there a man on earth who does not sin don't give the impression to people that you are perfect when you're not you know one of the wonderful things that encourages me about the stories of godly men in the Bible we saw that about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was the Bible reveals their mistakes openly the mistakes that the Apostle Paul made that he shaved his head as an offering and they circumcised Timothy he had a quarrel with Barnabas and separated from him he shouted at the high priest towards the end of his life those are written in the Acts of the Apostles and they are an encouragement to me that this man was an ordinary man who made mistakes whereas a lot of biographies that I read nowadays of godly men I read I'm it looks as if they never made any mistakes in their life and they don't encourage me as much as Scripture which tells me honestly that these leaders made mistakes and I want to encourage all of you who are Christian leaders I'm not asking you to confess your sins in public that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is don't give people the impression that you never make a mistake that you never sin that you never have to apologize to anybody I've had to apologize numerous times to my wife to my children and to people in the church to young people the people who are much younger than my youngest son because of one reason I am NOT God there's only one person who never needs to apologize humble yourself if a priest an anointed priest verse 3 sin he has to bring an offer and let people see it this man coming with a bull and he shall bring the bull to the doorway of the tent he can't do it in secret because he's I'm an anointed priest my reputation will go down Lord let me do it in secret no no no no no no right in front of everybody the doorway of the tent of meeting lay your hands upon the bull and admit that you have sinned and take some of the blood of the bull and dip his finger and then offer it before the Lord now the interesting thing I want you to notice here is that if you turn to verse 14 and verse 13 if the whole congregation of Israel commits a sin and it has escaped the notice of the assembly and they commit any other things they also must bring a bull now the you know there were different offerings made here for example verse 22 when a leader sins and verse 27 if a common person sins and when a common person sinned he only had to bring a goat verse 28 a female goat which was supposed to be less in value than a male goat and but when the whole congregation sinned verse 14 they had to bring a bull and when the priest sinned he also had to bring a bull now the point I want you to notice here is that God put the priest and the congregation on the same level one anointed priest sinning is equal to a whole congregation sinning that's not the same as a common man sinning you see a lot of people don't realize this that God's does not see the same sins in the same way if it's an anointed leader who sins and a common person who sins doing exactly the same thing what the anointed first priest sins is far more serious he has to bring a bullet this man's only got to bring a female goat these are the lessons we learn from Leviticus that the more responsibility we have the more anointed we have the anointed priest verse 3 is different from one of the common people verse 27 his sin is far more serious to whom more is given more will be required the other thing I mentioned is this matter of four times it says unintentionally verse 2 verse 13 without knowing it unintentionally and verse 22 unintentionally verse 27 unintentionally what about intentional sin you know there is sacrifice for intentional sin but I want to read you a verse in this connection in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 26 so you need you can understand Hebrews 10 26 only when you understand Leviticus chapter 4 those four times where it says unintentional in Levitic in Hebrews in chapter 10 and verse 26 it says that if we go on sinning intentionally then there will be no more sacrifice for sin you understand that when you go to Leviticus 4 that the sacrifice was for unintentional sin in other words once you have turned to the Lord and you have become one of God's children we should not want to sin if you're really born again you don't want to sin anymore it's one of the marks of being born again you may sin we will all sin but you don't want to you're not taking advantage of God you're not doing something wrong getting some benefit out of that and then confessing it to the Lord and say Lord forgive me I don't think such a person is born again at all he tries his best to avoid it he may fall that's the type of sin for which God was talking about sacrifice in the Old Testament please keep that in mind now we have all sinned deliberately even after we are born again we got to admit it we have done it and God's been merciful but what we read in Hebrews 10 is if you go on sinning willfully that means you take advantage of that there would be no more sacrifice for sin that would be no forgiveness and the fifth offering is what we read in Leviticus 5 which is a guilt offering and here it's talks about not only sin against God but against man as well you know there are certain sins which are only against God when I have a dirty thought I don't harm anybody else I harm only I sin against God there are many sins which are inward motives where I sin against God but there are other sins which involve other people too for example it says here if any of the people are called to testify about something their witness but they refuse to testify they'll be held responsible and be subject to punishment you know what God's law was that if you're called to testify by God's servant about something that you have witnessed and you refuse to testify because the tap is your friend you will be held responsible and like that it talks about various types of sins or verse 4 if they make a rash Wow of any kind whether purpose is good or bad they'll be considered guilty even if they were not fully aware of what they were doing at that time and when they become aware of their guilt they must confess their sin and bring their offering to the Lord this is obvious in offering and we read here again in verse 15 of chapter 5 if any of the people sinned by unintentionally defiling the Lord's sacred property they must bring to the Lord a ram now here it speaks also about restitution that's the point I want you to do notice it says in verse 16 they must make restitution for whatever holy things they have defiled and they shall add one-fifth 20% and give it to the Lord if it's against the Lord and that principle applies even in numbers where we are told that when we make restitution to some person if we have cheated him or robbed him we are to give back 20% more that was the law whenever you make restitution you don't just give back the exact amount you give back 20% more so that you it cost you something if I stole a hundred rupees I don't give a hundred rupees back I give a hundred and twenty so that I'll be a little more careful so here the Lord speaks about restitution and a guilt offering it speaks about concealing truth and rash vows and sins like that now the Lord says one more thing which I want you to point out I want you to notice here in chapter 7 about the guilt offering chapter 7 verse 30 you must present it to the Lord with your own hands as an offering given to the Lord by fire give it to the Lord yourself admit it acknowledge it those are the five offerings okay the burnt offering the grain offering the peace offering the sin offering and the guilt offering now we come to a number of other chapters here which deal with various laws on holiness laws concerning health and I don't want to go into all those details but it just shows God's intense interest in little little things in a person's life sometimes we think God is not interested in these small small things in my life one of the things I find from the book of Leviticus is God is interested in the little little details of my life it speaks about if a lizard falls into a pot now if a lizard falls into a pot in your kitchen you think Almighty God in heaven is bothered about that you read the book of Leviticus and you find he is bothered about that he wants to tell you that that's not good for you to eat that is an example of the care with which God gave instructions he gave them instructions on taking a bath is God interested in your taking a bath you believe God's interest in things like that you know the number of times it speaks about such things he must cleanse himself when he's defiled himself in some way read some of those chapters it talks a lot about sexual purity there's a lot about sexual purity let me just show you one or two things here first of all chapter 10 and verse 8 here for leaders the Lord spoke to Aaron saying don't ever drink wine or strong drink neither you nor your sons with you when you come into the tent of the meeting so you shall not die that's how you make a distinction verse 10 between the holy and the profane so as to teach verse 11 the sons of Israel all the statutes through the Lord don't allow yourself to consume something that will pollute your body if you're a leader you need to have a much higher standard in everything compared to other people in chapter 11 God speaks here about clean and unclean animals the type of animals you can eat and the type of animals you should not eat and he gives a big list now what I get from all this is God's intense interest even in what I'm eating I mean forget about the list I'm not going through this list of what you need what you need what I the essential message I get from this is God is interested in my eating habits the Bible says 1 Corinthians 10 31 whatever you do whether you eat or you drink do all to the glory of God and it mentions eating and drinking so there he gives a whole lot of things he says these are things which are not good for your body don't eat those things the essential message there in a nutshell is don't eat those things which are not good for your body there are rules on hygiene here it is in verse 33 if an animal dies and falls into a clay pot everything in that pot is defiled and the pot must be smashed and if water used to cleanse an unclean object touches any food all of that food will be defiled he's talking about water if the water is not clean and that water is poured upon some food that food is defiled he's talking to them about hygiene about cleanliness you know it's one thing to disobey all the rules of the human body and then say Lord I want you to heal me a lot of people are stupid like that if you disobey the laws which God has made for the human body laws of hygiene and what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat what's good for you and what's not good for you and then you get sick you got nobody to blame but yourself what we read in Exodus 15 26 the Lord says you obey my laws and I will be your healer yes he will he will give me help but I need to obey those laws and you see in the book of Leviticus how keen the Lord was to teach his children rules on hygiene now when you come to chapter 13 I want you to see some interesting things here first of all chapter 11 verse 44 see what God says here I am the Lord your God consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am holy that is the essential message of the book of Leviticus which comes right in the middle of the book you consecrate yourself if you take the Lord's name upon you because I am holy you must be holy that's what Peter quotes in 1 1 we have to be holy because the one who has called us is holy now when you come to chapter 13 I want you to notice something here it says here chapter 13 is concerning the test for leprosy if a man verse 2 has on the skin of his body a swelling or a scab or a bright spot and becomes an infection of leprosy he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priest and the priest shall look at the mark on the skin of the body and if the hair has turned white and it's an infection of leprosy the priest has looked at him he shall pronounce him unclean but if the bright spot is white and it does not appear to be deeper than the skin the priest shall keep him isolated verse 4 for seven days and look at him again now I want you to apply this not to leprosy but to sin when you see what you think is sin in a brother a spot it's a very precious passage on judging other people this passage when you see a spot in another brother or sister what should you do what were the Israelites supposed to do don't pass judgment yourself you may be wrong it may not be leprosy it may not be what you think it is take him to the priest take him to the Lord to Aaron who symbolizes Christ or to one of his sons symbolizing the elders in the church if you follow this principle I believe you can be saved from so much which destroys Christendom today the simple principle in Leviticus 13 if you see a skin a swelling a swelling or a scab or a bright spot or an infection or anything that you suspect is sin verse 2 take him to the Lord or take him to the elders and say please examine this brother I'm not a priest I'm not an elder I don't know how to handle this but here's something and the priest he doesn't immediately pass a judgment on the basis of what he heard some stupid elders are like that as soon as they hear there's something they've already passed a judgment the priest says no bring him here and he must look examine talk to the person find out is it really sin just think what a lot of salvation there would be in the church if elders follow these rules and then the Lord says be very careful it may not be as serious as you think or it may be more serious than you think examine it carefully make full allowance and then you may have to pronounce him unclean he's unclean he has got to be put out of the church or the priest may say verse 4 well I'm not very sure I'm not very sure whether this is so serious but let me wait put him aside for seven days and wait we don't like to wait sometimes when we see some brothers the whole purpose of the priest is to somehow bring him back into the and that's what we learn in Leviticus 13 to bring the person back is always his hope is for healing verse 6 the priest will look at him on the seventh day and the infection if the infection has faded and the mark has not spread on the skin the priest says praise the Lord it wasn't as serious as I thought it's not leprosy he's clean it was only a scab it's fallen off he can wash his clothes and be a part of the brotherhood again see the whole attitude of the priest is so different from what I see in a lot of Christians today who are only out to tear up other believers and pull them down this is so different and if you want to be a priest of God this is how you must treat sin that you find in another person this is the mature way to deal with sin in the church and I want you to notice further down in a number of places it says again in verse 26 isolate him seven days verse 31 the last part isolate him seven days repeatedly again and again and again and again isolate him seven days and there's one interesting verse here one very interesting verse verse 12 if the leprosy breaks out further on the skin and the leprosy covers all the skin from his head to his foot then the priest shall look and if the skin disease has covered all his body what's he gonna pronounce unclean unclean clean how's that you can't understand it's all white he is clean but if the raw flesh appears again verse 14 then he's unclean what is the meaning of this if a man acknowledges I am a sinner from head to foot I am a sinner there is nothing good in me the Lord says he's clean but if he says no but I think I'm not all that bad you know how people are when they you try to point out something wrong in them you say well I mean I did something wrong but I'm not all that bad he's unclean but if he says oh it's absolutely right brother what he said I must have had a bad motive in doing that I did it wrong in other words this man is not justifying himself at all this bit of raw skin that makes him raw flesh that makes him unclean is a bit of self justification God says he's unclean but from head to foot it's totally covered he's clean that's amazing it really has an application for our time now in chapter 14 I want you to notice it speaks here about the cleansing of this leper and this leper when he is cleansed there's an amazing thing that we see here in verse 14 and 17 when the leper is cleansed finally he's got the priest has to take some of the guilt offering 1414 and put a drop of the blood on the lobe of his right here on the thumb of his right hand and the big toe of his right foot now the thing I want you to notice this is that if you read Leviticus 8 23 that was exactly the thing that was done to Aaron and what I want you to notice is the privilege of the high priest was given to the leper exactly like Moses put a drop of blood on the right ear of Aaron and the right thumb of Aaron and the right toe the leper also gets the same thing it's wonderful this gospel here that I'm such a rotten filthy sinner have been lifted up to the highest place equal to the greatest and then here is a picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and then after you put the blood then verse 15 you must take some of the oil and put that oil and dip his right hand verse 16 in the oil and sprinkle some of the oil seven times before the Lord and the remaining oil on top of the blood he must put it on top of the right ear on top of the right thumb there's already blood there and he puts the oil there and the oil on top of the right foot and the rest of the oil here's the baptism in the Holy Spirit verse 18 he'll pour it on the head of the one to be cleansed who is this a leper a leper who's cleansed gets a cleansing from head to foot and gets the Holy Spirit not only the Holy Spirit coming in but poured out upon him and here in this Old Testament picture is you find these two ministries of the Holy Spirit first bringing us to new birth and then the outpouring of the Holy Spirit it's all pictured there in this book of Leviticus now I don't have time to go all it's getting so interesting this what we thought was a boring book we could go on and on but I want to tell you something about the feasts of the Lord mentioned here in Leviticus there are a lot of laws concerning little little things how you must respect older people how you must treat strangers with consideration many many things it's really worth reading that you should not have anything to do with fortune-telling and witchcraft and the standards for God's servants out those who were to be priests should have no defects in them you read that in Leviticus 21 16 to 24 no defects any defect would disqualify a man to be a priest very high standards God had very high standards for the priest just like even today God has very high standards for those who are called to stand before the people as his servants now I want to come to chapter 23 in chapter 23 we read about the seven feasts now we saw the five offerings in the beginning and God wanted to show his people that religion is not a boring long-faced affair it's an exciting thing it's a time for rejoicing and he ordained feasts when they were to have holidays national holidays they were to travel to Jerusalem as a family like a picnic and have a great time and those feasts were first of all the feast of Passover where they remembered the time when God saved them their forefathers from Egypt throughout the generations they were to celebrate number one the Passover feast and then secondly see all these were between April and October you know God selected a particular time when it was clear and the farmers were not busy in their fields and they could move to Jerusalem for these feasts and the first one was the feast of the Passover with Jesus celebrated with the Apostles to celebrating the redemption from Egypt the second one was the feast of unleavened bread which immediately followed the Passover for seven days and that was you know they ate unleavened bread in Egypt he's talking about their deliverance it reminded people about leaving that leavened bread behind leaving the old life behind the Passover reminded us about being redeemed from Egypt reminded the people and the other was we have left an old life behind we've got a new life in front of us by God's the third one was the feast of the first fruits that you read they're all in Leviticus 23 it all it's all described there in the feast of the first fruits and that was when they gathered in the harvest and they offered the first fruits to God saying Lord we acknowledge that this is not the result of our cleverness it's your goodness that's given us this harvest and we want to offer to you the first fruits and the fourth was the feast of Pentecost that was 50 days after that and the weather piece of unleavened bread began and after seven weeks 50th day Pentecost means 50 days and that was a time at the end of one harvest in the beginning of another harvest they were again showing their expression their joy to God for the bountiful harvest they you see they had to harvest of barley harvest a week and they were expressing their joy to God at that time and that was the time on the in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out and the fifth feast was the feast of trumpets but this is the beginning of the seventh month and they use trumpets in Israel to gather people for worship or for war and here was a time of worship or sometimes in the wilderness when they had to move on and go a trumpet time to move and there was a feast of trumpets where they celebrated before God expressing their joy and thanksgiving to God a time of singing and praise and then the most important feast of all was the day of atonement it's called the day of atonement once in a year the high priest could go into the most holy place and offer the blood upon the altar Aaron looked forward to that day he prepared himself for many hours we saw earlier in the morning he was for that white dress once in a year he could go into the most holy place he could never go there any other time of the year with blood and he was making an atonement for all the people of Israel and that expresses Calvary which has brought us back into fellowship with God and the last one is what is called the feast of tabernacles or the feast of shelters or the feast of boots where the children of Israel lived for seven days in little shelters and they reminded themselves of how our forefathers wandered in the wilderness and they did not live in comfortable houses like we are living in so they made little boots and they expressed themselves in thanksgiving to God now these all these feasts have got a spiritual meaning for us you know Passover speaks about the death of Christ the unleavened bread speaks of our fellowship with God without any sin the first fruits speak of our offering ourselves to God in gratitude for all that he's done for us Pentecost speaks of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the feast of trumpets speak about the coming of the Lord when the sound of the trumpet the Lord will come again a total atonement will be done for all our sin the benefits of Calvary will be completely realized at that time and the feast of tabernacles speaks about eternal time when we're going to be with the Lord forever and ever where each man figuratively it says in the Old Testament he live under his wine sit under his own wine and fig tree now apart from these feasts there were many Sabbaths every seventh year was supposed to be a sabbatical year the Lord told the people you know that you must not till your ground on the seventh year I wanted to just see one verse here in Leviticus chapter 25 26 sorry verse 34 and 35 it says here that if you don't keep the Sabbath years for the land because you want to make more money by making your land producing land for me the seventh year also I will punish you and I will send you into captivity for disobeying my commandment and the reason why the children of Israel went for 70 years to captivity in the land of Babylon was because for 490 years they did not give the land arrest they did not obey this commandment and so God's promised punishment came upon and that's just for your information God gives his word and if we don't take it seriously we suffer the consequences in Leviticus chapter 27 we read about someone giving a voluntary gift to the Lord if someone makes a special vow worse to to dedicate something to the Lord you know the Lord of has given the opportunity not only to make specific offerings which are commanded but voluntary offerings free will offering somebody just wants to give something to the Lord he says go right ahead and give it and if you dedicate a house to the Lord verse 14 or you dedicated verse 16 a piece of your ancestral property to the Lord or verse 22 you dedicate a field that you have purchased to the Lord or anything like that you could perhaps dedicate 10% of your animals to the Lord but if you want to redeem them also he gives us instructions now there's just one thing I want to say here in closing and that is supposing a man is dedicated it says here I want to read verse 32 onwards the Lord owns every tenth animal counted off from your herds and flocks they are set apart as holy and the animal verse 33 must not be selected on the basis of whether it is good or bad that means you count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 this is the Lord's and you say hey this is a good one let me exchange it the Lord says no if you exchange it for something else then you've got to give that one and the original one to the Lord no cheating see one of the things I see in the book of Leviticus is that the Lord was telling these people how important it was to be holy how important it was to keep your word how wonderful it is to give to the Lord how wonderful it is to make a free will offering to the Lord don't be calculating that's that closing words of a Leviticus don't be calculating that you gave something to the Lord maybe a piece of your ancestral property or something I say oh I wish I hadn't given that now give it be cheerful happily give because the Lord will give back to you much more let's pray