1457 - "The Levitical Sacrifices & Offerings" Leviticus 1,2,3,4, & 5

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp. Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1457. Today we're going to look at the sacrifices of Leviticus chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Each chapter has an offering that God said, I want you to bring. Now these offerings could never take away sin. They were not meant to take away sin. They were offered in faith, in trust that one day God would provide a sacrifice that would take away sin once and for all. But these were shadows, they were types. They were given by God to remind the people day by day, month by month, year by year, that only God can forgive sin, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. And so there were various sorts of offerings. There were animal sacrifices, there were grain offerings of choice grain, flour, baked breads, oil, frankincense, salt, all of those various ingredients. There were peace offerings that was of any animal from the flock or herd along with these various elements of wheat and barley, breads and so forth, the sin offering. That was a sacrifice of animals with no physical defects, and then the guilt offering or the trespass offering. And so I want to go through these and just make mention of them so that you will understand a little bit more about what happened. The number one offering was the whole burnt offering. It was an atoning sacrifice. That means it was made as an atonement for sin to cleanse and restore the worshiper to fellowship with God. You see, when we sin, fellowship with God is broken. And of course, when a person comes to Jesus and is cleansed from their sin, a relationship is formed forever because Jesus once for all paid the penalty for sin. And so the moment that you and I come to Jesus and we give our lives to him, we repent of our own selfishness, our own rebellion, and we turn to him and trust his sacrifice as an atonement for our sins. In other words, he died as a substitute for us, that's called propitiation. He died to pay the penalty for us and to allay the wrath of God, that's called expitiation. And so when he died, he paid the penalty for sin, and he died as our substitute. And the whole burnt offering was to help the people to remember that God would provide a way for atonement. Now the whole burnt offering was the only offering that was not cut up, that was not split up. All of the offerings, whether they were grain offerings, whether they were peace offerings, whatever, all but the whole burnt offering were apportioned in three pieces. Three portions. The first portion, which was the best portion, went to God. God asked Aaron and his sons to place the best portion of the offerings to be burnt on the brazen altar. And so that was a sweet smelling aroma to God. All except the whole burnt offering, which it was all, the entire carcass was put on the brazen altar. It was cut up, it was filleted a certain way, and then it was all burnt. But all of the other offerings, God got the first portion and the best portion. Then the priest got the second portion. And that was their living. And that's the way that they survived. That's what they ate. And then you had the offer got a portion. And usually they would have a fellowship, a meal that was built around that, and the family could have a great meal of consecration of this offering. It was sacred. It was a sacred meal. So that was every other offering except the whole burnt offering. And that's when the entire sacrifice was consumed. The smoke and the aroma went upward. And God said that is a sweet smelling sacrifice to me. Why? Because it represented the atonement that one day Jesus, the Messiah, would make. And so these are the offerings, that whole burnt offering. Then there was the grain offering that was made to honor God with a gift, a worshipful gift. And so it was a way to say to God, I worship you, Almighty God. There is none like you. You are the one who provides everything. And I just want to say thank you for your provision toward me. The peace offering. The purpose of it was to give thanks, express thanks to God, gratitude through this act of worship. And it was bringing a goat or a lamb from the flock or a bull from the herd. And many times the offerers would bring with that baked goods, and they would give that unto God. And you can read about that in chapter three of the book of Leviticus, the grain offering in chapter two, the burnt offering in chapter one, and the sin offering in chapter four. And it was an offering. It had to be an animal with no defects whatsoever. It was one where the offer came, and in both the sin offering and the guilt offering, it also had to do with restitution as to whether restitution could be made or whether it couldn't be made. And so the guilt offering, the trespass offering, dealt with that very same thing. And so people, when there was no restitution that could be made, they offered this particular offering to God. When restitution could be made, then it was offered in another way. But these were the sacrifices before God. Now what I want you to understand is that these could not save, but they were expressions of faith. This is so important because I think that sometimes as I have taught these things and spoken to people, that somehow they believed that the people in the Old Testament were saved through the blood of the sacrifices. They were not. They were symbols of their faith. Just like in the New Testament, I have discovered five sacrifices of the New Testament, and we'll go over those in the days ahead. That's right. And the first one that is mentioned is the whole burnt offering, likened to the whole burnt offering. That's in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, where the apostle Paul says, I beseech you, I urge you, I exhort you, brethren, based upon all that God has done for us, the great mercies that he talked about in the first 11 chapters. He said, I implore you, I beg you, based upon all that God has graced us with in Jesus, based upon all that God in his great mercy has withheld his wrath from us, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, a whole burnt offering. You say, Well, how do you know it's the whole burnt offering? Because you read that passage and he clearly says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies an offering to the Lord. What does that mean? To be totally consumed. And this is God's will for your life. It's acceptable to God that you be consumed with Him, that there's nothing left for you. There's nothing left for anyone, because you are consumed on the altar. And your life, your living life, your obedience, your walk with God, and your commitment to him is a living sacrifice. It is a sweet smelling aroma that makes its way to the very nostrils of God. And so he says that you present your body a living sacrifice, not part of it, not part of your life, but the totality of your being. The body represents the person, the totality of your being. And as you do that, stop being pressed into the world's mold, into the world's thinking. But be metamorphosized, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, because as you do that, you walk with God and you live out that sacrifice that you laid upon the altar. And so all of these various sacrifices that we read about in the New Testament have a counterpart of thanksgiving, of worship, of praise, of commitment. All of those. These are expressions of faith. They don't save us, we do those things because we are saved. And that is the same idea of those who brought these sacrifices. And I know what people say. Well, all of those weren't sincere, neither are all sincere today who say they are. Not all who come to church and who give. Giving is another sacrifice. And we'll look at that again in future podcasts. But praise, everybody that's singing, there some singing no doubt to just be heard because they love to sing. It doesn't mean that they're worshiping God. You can sing and play music and have expressions of worship without true worship. In other words, everything we say about those in the Old Testament, as they brought those sacrifices to the place of worship, you could say the same thing today. Some people give just for a tax write-off, not because they want to honor God. And it would be very difficult for some people to give if they didn't get a tax write-off. But the reality is we don't give because we live in the United States of America and we're part of a nonprofit organization that the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, lets us write things off. If you're doing it for that reason, I mean that's between you and God, but I want to tell you, that's not worship. That is somewhat selfish to say the only reason I'm doing this is just to get a tax write-off. I would say just like anything else, Jesus would say, truly you have your reward. You're going to get a write-off, and that's going to be it because it's not for the right reason. Yes, God in his great mercies let us be able to write things off, but that's not what giving's all about. It's not about getting something, it's about giving. All the way through, all of these offerings have that same concept to them. That is, it's about Him, it's not about us. And so as you read through these sacrifices in Leviticus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, just know that this is part of what God was doing to teach his people that there is a way that is pleasing to God that we live, and part of that is walking in obedient faith. And that's what they were doing when they were sacrificing. I hope this helps. As you walk on the way, I'm Tony Crisp. Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.