41. Beginner Bible Course: The book of Leviticus - God's sin repair reference manual

EPISODE 41  The simple Bible overview of…THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS – GOD’S ‘SIN REPAIR REFERENCE MANUAL’

We've been cruising along...

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...and it's been interesting. I mean, who doesn't want the answer to, how did we get here? How did we get messed up? What happened with the flood? Then we get to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. This is the genre of historical narrative. I mean, Hollywood loves this stuff who doesn't love a great story, especially when it's a true story. Sure. The description of how to build God's tent and its construction was a bit tedious, but it's been fun. Then we come to Leviticus. I would guess most Bible students have at least tried to read through the Bible in a year. Almost inevitably.

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That goes well until mid February. That's when people hit Leviticus I've got to warn you. Leviticus is tough. It's tough for several reasons. First, the Bible switches genres from historical narrative to something much more like reference manual, fine print language. Leviticus literally means of the Levi's notes. We discovered in God's tent, Aaron and his sons, Levi Heights would be God's first priests. God basically selected the line to become his priests, his worship ministers and support staff. We should just stop there for a moment and think about that.

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What do we know about Levi Levi and his brother Simeon murdered? The whole village of Shekem. Remember that Levi was part of selling Joseph op into slavery Levi and his brother Simeon were cursed at the end of Jacob's life for their blood thirstiness, not just to men, but to animals. And we learned in the last episode, Aaron <inaudible> was responsible for the golden calf. If that doesn't communicate our old Testament theme, guys and gals are gross, but God is gracious. I don't know what does Leviticus was written to the Levi Heights. It's their reference manual for how to do worship stuff, those reading through the Bible, not only bogged down in Leviticus because it turns from narrative story to reference manual, find print there's several other reasons.

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The first is it's highly repetitive, tedious, even frustrating. I tried to listen through the whole book yesterday and it was brutal. Another reason is nearly all of Leviticus is descriptive. Go back to episode 12 and listened to it. If you don't know what I'm talking about in the next minute description talks about something that was at some point in time, but is no longer relevant. Much of what's in Leviticus is just well dated. But, and this is a big bite. We cannot ignore Leviticus the new Testament sites at 90 times.

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So it's not simply description what's contained in tedious. Leviticus is a description of what happened then with deep, underlying significance about God about us, about the Stomper and what he would accomplish. So here it is, Leviticus tough to read, but essential to understand, maybe this word picture will help you buy a car from someone and he hands you. The Chilton repair manual for that model, the manual goes into every part of the car, how it works, what could go wrong and how to repair it. I doubt any of you would read that 800 page manual and try and master it before getting behind the wheel.

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But if you were a mechanic specializing in that model, you'd want to have that readily available to troubleshoot and repair that particular problem. If you were the driver, you'd want to know a few things about general maintenance, how often to change the oil and rotate the tires. I think that's a good way to approach Leviticus. It was written to the Levi. What's the mechanics, the worship experts, so that they could help the children of Israel, those driving on their journey to understand what was going wrong. When a dashboard light comes on in my car, I drive to a mechanic who pulls the code after reading the code, the mechanic can tell me what's wrong and begin the repair.

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What a chill and repair manual is to a mechanic. Leviticus was to the Levi's priests of Israel. I want to solve to slip behind the wheel and pretend where the driver, not the mechanic. Here's the big idea of Leviticus. God is Holy. We are not in here is How sinful. People can draw near to God. You can't miss the holiness of God. And Leviticus it's mentioned 87 times and you can't miss that. God's kids are sinners. The word sin is mentioned 80 times and the word unclean, another hundred and 20, I told you it was tedious and repetitive. God is Holy. We are not yet.

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God said he wanted to be with his people. How can we centers draw near to the Holy God the English term draw near is the Hebrew word offerings. Leviticus lists different offerings that will allow God sinful kids to draw near to a Holy God you'll read about burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and several more. When a person in the camp of Israel, sinned it's as if a dashboard light went off, he or she would go to the Levi's priest, the mechanic, and have them pull a repair code in Leviticus. The priest would consult the manual God's instructions until the Israelite, how it could be fixed.

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The Israelite was expected to do just that in order to draw near to the Holy God we've already stated there were probably four to 6 million Israelites in the desert. Let's just say they kept the Levi priests, the mechanics, plenty busy pulling repair codes. When the dashboard lights went off, I mentioned earlier, the word unclean is used the 120 times sometimes toward people, other times toward even inanimate objects, like the walls of your house, Leviticus addresses sinful things, but also things that occur because we live in a fallen world like disease, or even black mold on a wall God gave the Levi's its repair codes for even things in creation that had gone awry to other words, you'll run across often and Leviticus our blood and atonement.

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Blood is key in Leviticus, 17, 11 God States. The blood is what makes the tone meant for sin. I asked my students if they know what atonement means, I go to the white board and write atonement. Only. I write it at dash one dash mint. Atonement is at one mint. The state of being at one, how can a sinful person draw near to a Holy God? Well he or she can draw up with offerings, but to draw truly near required the shedding of blood, the blood of an innocent animal throughout Leviticus innocent animals were sacrificed and the blood in some way, applied to the sinful.

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One for those who like to count the word sacrifice again of an innocent animal is listed 42 times in Leviticus. And speaking of at one mint in the shedding of blood to atone for sin in Leviticus God proclaims, the second national holiday, it was to happen on the seventh month. The day of at one mint atonement, the nation was to come together for a corporate symbolic confession and atonement for sin. You'll read about two goats that were selected. One was sacrificed in the blood applied to a tone for the nation's sins. The priest would lay his hands on the other goat, confess the sins of God's people over that goat.

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And then that goat would get led off deeply into the wilderness and left, never to return. Please read chapter 16, the day of atonement. I'd also encourage you to read chapter 19, where God repeats the family rules. This is where Jesus gleaned his love your neighbor as yourself concept while you're at it. You may also want to read chapter 25. God's additional commands on the Sabbath, a Sabbath year and a once in a lifetime year called the year of Jubilee, where God releases the slave and returns all property to its original owner. Wow, that's a lot to grasp.

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So at least take away this Leviticus big idea. God is Holy we aren't, we can be begin to draw near to him through offerings, but we can only be brought to a state of at one mint through the shedding of blood. If you grind your way all the way through Leviticus I'm thinking you're probably going to feel like I did. After finishing, listening to it later last night I was ground down. I felt a bit like a guy who owns a car where the dash board lights are constantly going off. And it's almost always in the shot. I mean, thinking maybe I should just ride the bus in many ways. I think that might.

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Yeah. Ben God's most important reason for including Leviticus in scripture. There has to be a better way. There has to be a better way than innocent animals being sacrificed than blood all over, just for a band-aid. So we can draw nearer to a Holy God as we move forward in the world. The Testament, I think we'll realize that was God's plan exactly a better way. The text tells us the God gave the Levis, this manual for their worship stuff over a period of 50 days, starting the day God's tent was completed. The book of numbers tells us that during those same 50 days, Moses was working on another other project, a census God was ready to move the children of Israel toward the promise land.

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And he wanted an accurate headcount. That head count along with the journey toward the promise land is listed for us in the book of numbers. We'll get those census numbers and we'll watch the, the children of Israel head North from Mount Sinai to the promised land in our next wordpicture.