Conditions for approach to God, Part 1

The book of Leviticus and chapter 7, we'll read together from verse number 11 of Leviticus chapter 7, and this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings which he shall offer unto the Lord. If he offer it for a thanksgiving then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil and unleavened wafers anointed with oil and cakes mingled with oil of fine flour fried. Besides the cakes he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.

Verse number 19, and the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten. It shall be burnt with fire and as for the flesh all that be clean shall eat thereof. But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings that pertain unto the Lord having his uncleanness upon him even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing as the uncleanness of man or any unclean beast or any abominable unclean thing and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which pertain unto the Lord even that soul shall be cut off from his people. And we thank God for the liberty to read his word publicly and we pray that he will bless it to us and our consideration of it. These scriptures came to mind as my brethren have been speaking to us and I want to think with you in the time that I have this morning of the conditions under which we as the people of God can enjoy feeding upon Christ and enjoying fellowship with God.

Sometimes I suppose when we read from the middle of a chapter in the book of Leviticus well the saints are too polite to groan outwardly but sometimes this may be a groan inwardly. We don't understand all this stuff in Leviticus. All this business of cutting up beasts and this kind of beast and that kind of beast and well we don't really understand it so we ignore it.

It's not really that important anyway is it? Well it is. It's very very important. Maybe as I found in my younger years when I was first taking an interest in my Bible and I began to read in the book of Leviticus because men told me as I'm telling you now that we needed to understand it and I would take a deep breath and I would take a run at the thing and by about chapter 3 or 4 or 5 I was getting bogged down again so I went and studied something else.

Let's just think why it's there. When you come to the end of the book of Exodus and most of the book of Exodus has been taken up certainly the last half of the book has been taken up with the first year of the experience of the children of Israel after God had brought them out of Egypt. And in that first year they were fairly static and most of that first year was taken up with the provision for and the preparation of the tabernacle.

So that in chapter 40 the close of the book of Exodus we read about the great occasion when the tabernacle was finished and Moses reared it up and the glory of the Lord came and dwelt in the tabernacle. Now you'll read in the end of the book of Exodus a clue as to why we have the book of Leviticus. Just turn if you would please back a few pages to Exodus chapter 40 and in that chapter we read of the setting up of the tabernacle of Moses setting everything in order and in verse number 17 we read and it came to pass in the first month in the second year on the first day of the month that the tabernacle was reared up.

Now as a little exercise please just look at me, not at your Bible, tell me what you just read in verse 17. Well don't tell me, ask yourself what did I just read in verse 17? Well you read a date. It's the kind of verse that you just gloss over but it's a time marker that the Spirit of God has put in scripture for us.

Look at it again please. Verse 17 Exodus 40. It came to pass in the first month in the second year on the first day of the month that the tabernacle was reared up.

For our purposes we could just say well it was New Year's Day on the second year. The second year after they had come out of Egypt. So one year had passed and now on the first day of the first month of the second year the tabernacle was finished.

So we've got that date in our minds. Come a little further down the chapter. Verse number 34.

Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation because the cloud abode thereon and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So God was in the house. His glory was there and Moses could not enter into the house.

He was not able because the glory of the Lord was there. There was this massive incompatibility between the glory of the Lord and a sinner like Moses. So though God was in the house and it was his desire you remember from the outset let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell with them.

So God is there in all the splendor of his glory and because of that Moses could not enter in. The first day of the first month of the second year. Now look how the book of Leviticus opens.

The first verse of the book says and the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation. God was inside. Moses was outside.

That's how it had to be. God spake to Moses out of the tabernacle of the congregation. First day, first month, second year.

Now come to the book that follows the book of Leviticus chapter one. Numbers chapter one and verse one. And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the tabernacle of the congregation.

Not out of, in it. God spoke unto Moses in the tabernacle of the congregation on the first day of the second month in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt. Can you see what has happened here? Something very tremendous has happened here.

On the first day of the first month, God was in the house and Moses was debarred. He could not go in. God spoke to him out of the tabernacle of the congregation.

But now on the first day of the second month, God is communing with Moses in the tabernacle of the congregation. So these verses are teaching us that something has happened, something tremendous has happened in one calendar month of Israel's history that has enabled the man who is outside of the presence of God on account of him being a sinner. And yet one month later, that man is found in the presence of God.

Something huge, something wonderful has happened in one month that has allowed the man who was outside now to be inside. What has happened in that one month? Well, the book of Leviticus has happened in that one month. That which you read in the book of Leviticus has happened in one month of Israel's history and the principles in that book will explain to us how that the man who is outside can be brought inside.

That's why the brethren used to teach us, didn't they, that the book of Leviticus was the book of approach unto God. The book whose principles would teach us how an unworthy sinner can be found enjoying fellowship with God in a sanctuary. Now that's a great subject, isn't it? It's the subject of the book of Leviticus.

Its New Testament counterpart is the letter to the Hebrews. You can't understand that epistle unless you have read and spent a little time in the book of Leviticus. It opens with those great five offerings.

And those offerings all bring before us something of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know from New Testament truth, don't we, that the way of approach unto God, the way of access into the presence of God, is through the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. John 14 and 6. So the only way for a sinner to know access into the presence of God is through Christ and by being in Christ. So far, so good.

What though of all this detail? Why do we need the kind of verses which we have just been reading together? Well, we have read of something of the law, of the peace offering. It was the central one of the five. Chapter 1, the burnt offering.

Chapter 2, the meal offering. Chapter 3 is the peace offering. Chapter 4, principally the sin offering.

Chapter 5, the trespass offering. But if you stop there, you won't get the picture. Chapters 6 and 7 give us the laws of these offerings, and it's in chapter 7 that we've read.

After those offerings, there's a priesthood. That priesthood is inaugurated. That priesthood consecrated unto God.

And then it's through the administration of those sacrifices and offerings, and the functioning of the priesthood, and various commands on the part of God to his people, to be a holy people, that the conditions are set for men not only to come into the presence of God, but to enjoy being there. Do you remember in Psalm 113? There's a lovely statement there concerning God and his greatness. He's the God of great glory, and yet he's the God who humbles himself to be, hold the things that are upon the earth.

And he takes the poor out of the dust, and he takes the needy from the dunghill. And he does so, so that he might set him among princes, even among the princes of my people. What a wonderful work that would be, wouldn't it? To take a needy, destitute, filthy beggar, and to so change that beggar, that he can be found among the princes, even among the princes of my people.

Think for a moment with me. Visualize that kind of beggar. Visualize somebody who is so filthy, so destitute, so hopeless that he hasn't got a friend in the world.

He's an object of scorn. He's an object of revulsion. There's nobody, but nobody wants anything to do with this man.

Now think, if you would, of the process that would be necessary to take that man and to set him in the royal court. You say, well, you would, you'd need to clean him. You would need to scrub him so well, and so often, and so hard, that all the traces of his vileness and the filthiness of the gutter had gone.

All right, so you clean him. Clean him till he's spotless externally. Then what? You put his rags back on him.

Send him back to the dung heap. Oh, no, you say, no, no, no, you would need to give him new clothes. You would need to give him new accommodation.

All right, so you put this man in a lovely house, and give him a room of his own, and everything's fine. You give him a new suit of clothes. So he's all scrubbed up, and he's freshly dressed, and is he ready for the royal court? That's the worst place you could possibly put him.

The only language he knows is the language of the gutter. The only voices he's ever heard addressed to him were voices with malice, and scorn, and swearing. He has no education.

He has no knowledge of the things that princes speak about. To take a man, and dress him up, and just put him into the royal court, you would do him no favors at all. He would be so uncomfortable, so out of place.

Well, what else? You say, well, now we think of that, you'd need an education program. You'd need to teach him manners. You would need to teach him etiquette.

You would need to teach him about all these kind of subjects that these princes would discuss. Well, let's say you did all that. How long do you think it might take? A couple years? Five years? Ten years? Let's give it 15 years.

So now he's clean, and he's dressed, and he's educated, and we've given him all kinds of advice. So he goes into the royal court, in amongst the princes. They start to speak with him.

Where are you from? What's your family? And within just a few moments, they would say, he's not one of us. We were all born into royalty. We would say in our country, they've got blue blood flowing in their veins, you know.

So in spite of all we've done for this man, and all we've tried to drill into him, the moment he's amongst true royalty, they know he's not one of them. We've done him no favors at all, have we? Think of it. Psalm 113.

He takes the poor and the needy out of the dust and from the dunghill, that he may set them among princes, even among the princes of my people. You couldn't do that. Neither could I. All of us together couldn't do that for that man, but what we can't do, God can.

And in picture at least, God has done that for every one of us, saved by his grace today. How does God do that? Well, he doesn't just take a person and clean them up and give them a new suit of clothes and an education and put them in the palace. He doesn't do that.

The way in which God has dealt with it, he has judicially terminated the life of the beggar and that man has been born again into the royal family. He's got blue blood. So have you.

So have I. We haven't been grafted in to the royal family of heaven. We've been born into it. What a wonderful work God did for us in Christ at Calvary.

What a great thing it is to be saved, isn't it? That spiritually, we were just like that beggar in all his destitution and filth and God has wonderfully brought us by right, by right of new birth into the royal family of heaven. It's where we belong. What's that got to do with the book of Leviticus? Well, it's got quite a lot to do with it.

Because when you approach those five offerings at the beginning of the book, the purpose of the offerings for sin, we can perhaps easily understand. Those offerings for sin, a sin offering and a trespass offering. Well, the reason why there are two is that the trespass offering deals with the guilt of what a man has done.

The deeds that were wrong. And interestingly, in the context of those things, you will see as you read through that the language changes. Not if a man, not if he, if a soul.

If a soul, sin. It's bringing in the thought that our brother has so helpfully taught us this morning of conscience. It's a spiritual matter.

It's to do with the soul. It's not just a man following a code, but it is a soul. A person who has the necessary ability, God-given, to know the mind of God about something.

So that the man's sin is exposed to his own heart, not just because there's a book of words that says you mustn't do this, but because of conviction in his own soul. If a soul do something. So we can understand, can't we, the need for a man, if he's to be right with God and enjoy fellowship with God, the things that he has done and the guilt associated with them, it needs to be dealt with.

Good, that's the trespass offering. But that's not the only problem he has. It's not just a question of what he's done, there's the question of what he is.

He is a sinner. And I don't need to teach an audience like this, that the man is a sinner, not because of anything he's done, he's a sinner because of his relationship with Adam. He's a sinner by nature, it's what he is.

So if he's going to enjoy fellowship with God, then not only what he's done needs to be dealt with, but what he is in himself, that needs to be dealt with as well. So we have a trespass offering, we also have a sin offering. In the sin offering, it's not so much what the man has done that's in view, it's the person that is in view.

What is he? Now what that would teach us practically in relation to your salvation and mine, is that in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can readily understand the thought, though not the full extent of it, of course, but we can readily understand the thought that in a wonderful way, the Lord Jesus Christ bore the penalty for my sins, for your sins, he bore the penalty of our sins there at Calvary. Peter says, who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He suffered and he was punished under the righteous hand of God for the things that we had done.

Punishment was exacted. And therefore, the penalty for our sins was righteously removed. But that wasn't the only problem we had.

Not only as guilty sinners before God, did we need to have the penalty of our sins dealt with, but we needed the power of sin as our master to be broken. Not what we had done only, but what we were. What I was in my relationship to Adam.

That which the Bible calls the old man. My relationship by birth with Adam. That means that the moment I was conceived, I was a sinner.

It's what I was. And the work of Christ on my behalf at Calvary, not only dealt with what I had done, he died for me that the penalty of my sins might be righteously dealt with and the guilt of my sins forgiven. But in order that what I am by nature, by my link with Adam, in order that that might be dealt with, it was not only necessary for Christ to die for me, it was necessary for me to die with Christ.

Do you understand that? The one is Romans chapters 1 to 5 verse 11. The next is Romans chapter 6. Christ died for me. That delivered me from sin's penalty.

I died with Christ. That delivered me from sin's power. The old man judicially dealt with at Calvary.

I died to the old order of things in Christ and I was born again into the family of God. The head of which is Christ. Before I was saved, I was in Adam.

Now that I'm saved, I'm in Christ. These things happened for you the very moment in genuine repentance and faith in Christ, you got saved. The two things were dealt with.

What we had done and what we were. Christ's death for me, my death with Christ. Was that enough then to bring me into fellowship with God? Was that enough to bring me into a position where I could share divine thoughts and divine fellowship in the person of Christ? No.

Those offerings for sin, Leviticus 4 and 5. They are there to teach us how that which is offensive to God. That which ought never to have been in my life. Those chapters teach me in picture how God has taken everything away from me that ought not to have been there.

Everything that was offensive to God, righteously removed. But why are chapters 1 and 2 there? The burnt offering of chapter 1. Essentially what the death of Christ was for God. The meal offering of chapter 2. Essentially what the Lord Jesus Christ was for the pleasure of God in his life.

Why are they there? Well, in the same way as that beggar of Psalm 113. In the same way as he needed everything offensive to be removed. He also needed everything that he lacked to be provided.

He needed the gracious provision of things that he simply did not have of himself. So in order to bring that beggar into the palace. Everything that ought not to have been there needed to be removed.

And everything that he was lacking needed to be provided. And that was done for you in Christ as well. So if the offerings for sin teach me in picture how that the work of Christ for me at Calvary has removed everything that was offensive to God.

So that I now stand justified before God. Then chapters 1 and 2 teach me something of the gracious provision that God has made for me in Christ. That enables me to be accepted in the beloved.

We're into the Ephesian epistle now. I'm accepted in the beloved. Because in Christ there has been provided for me everything which I lacked.

A robe of righteousness we would sometimes describe it as. The spiritual garments necessary. The spiritual character necessary.

The new birth that was necessary. Everything provided for me in Christ. So that the beggar died.

And a prince was born. Who has got the birthright to stand in the royal courts and be accepted. What a tremendous work was done for us.

The moment we got saved. And I judge that probably if you are anything like me. You hadn't the faintest clue about any of these things when the Lord saved you.

You just knew this. You were a sinner on the on the path to hell. And that the Lord Jesus Christ in wonderful love had died.

So that a sinner like you could be saved. And you repented. And you put your faith in Christ for salvation.

But the very moment you did that a transaction took place between you and God. God who knew all the fullness and the sufficiency of the work of Christ. And all his purpose for you the sinner.

And you were wonderfully saved. But you would understand it wasn't just to save your soul from hell. It was so that you might be again to quote the Ephesian letter.

For the praise of his glory. That no longer we live unto ourselves but unto him. And the pinnacle.

The pinnacle of Christian experience down here. Is to know fellowship with God. And that fellowship.

To be centered in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God wants for you now he saved you. That's what's pictured in the peace offering.

In the peace offering a man comes with his offering for God. And he's bringing it not to make peace with God. He's bringing it out of the enjoyment of peace with God.

He's got an appreciation. Of what the offerings of chapters 1 and 2 and 4 and 5 have done for him. He has an appreciation that all.

That was necessary to bring an exiled sinner into fellowship with God. All that was necessary had been provided by the grace of God. He brought nothing to the thing at all.

But now that he has had the way open. Through the sufficiency of those offerings of chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5. Now the man is in the enjoyment of peace with God. He brings a voluntary offering.

He's come to say thank you. He's come to bring his thanks and his worship to God. He's in fellowship with him.

And so now that offering that he brings. Is unique amongst the others because. It is the one offering in which all the participants are going to share something.

There's going to be a portion for God. There always is. In chapter 1 the burnt offering the whole offering was for God.

With the exception of the skin which was for the priest. In chapter 2 all the frankincense was for God. In chapters 4 and 5 all the blood is for God.

And in chapter 3 the peace offering all the inward fat was going to be for God. There will always be a portion that is uniquely for God. But then in wonderful grace God says to the offerer.

Now before you go away. You have brought an offering out of thanksgiving to me. But listen we're going to share it together.

You and I are going to feed upon the same thing. God. And man.

Feeding upon the same thing. As fellowship. We come amongst believers whom we don't know sometimes.

On this occasion yesterday my wife Rachel and I. We arrived at John and Esther's long time since we'd seen them. When we last saw them they were having a meal in our home in Scotland. Then yesterday evening as soon as we arrived we're having a meal with them.

In their home in Garneville. Wherever you go in the world. It is an expression.

Of genuine fellowship. When people say. Come and feed with us.

Share a meal with us. It doesn't matter what the culture what the country. However much or little they have.

It's the same thing. I've been in Burma. Where a dear sister in the Christ.

Says come into my home. Have some soup. The soup was made out of grass.

Not lemongrass. Just grass grass. You know the stuff you would feed your beasts on.

That's all the dear woman had. No spices nothing. Grass cooked in water.

But the expression of fellowship is. Share it. But look at the riches of God's mercy.

Look at the riches of God's provision. And God says to formerly exiled sinners. Who now have been brought near to him in Christ.

He says stay a while. Feed with me. And feed upon the person of Christ.

That's something of what we were hearing from Brother Shad wasn't it? The sufficiency and the fullness of Christ. A little grass in water doesn't fill you up very much. But then there's times we've sat around tables that have been absolutely groaning.

And you couldn't possibly have eaten everything that was there. Ah but if we can spread tables like that. What is that table like that God has spread for us? Where that which we're going to feed upon with him.

Is all the fullness of Christ. But there are conditions. There are conditions.

And we read some of those very practical conditions. In those verses in chapter 7. And God willing after the lunch break we'll read those verses again. And we'll come back to the subject again.

Because God's desire my brother my sister is for you to be genuinely. Feeding with him upon Christ. A satisfaction for the soul.

That is the answer to any problems we might have. With separation from the things of this world. You see if you've just had a really first class excellent meal.

And immediately afterwards somebody comes and offers you a bowl of junk food. You don't want it. You're satisfied.

The answer to separation and consecration in a very practical and real way in the life of the Christian. It's not a big long list of regulations. Do's and don'ts about what you can have and where you can go and all this kind of stuff.

That is not it. The answer to it all is having a heart that is genuinely in reality satisfied with Christ. Feeding with God in fellowship upon Christ.

It's not theory. It's fact. And that's how our Christian life should be.

But there are conditions. We fail to meet the conditions. We fail to enjoy the fellowship.

We fail to enjoy the fellowship. We don't enjoy that spiritual repast that God would have us enjoy. And it leaves a void.

And we often say to the sinner in the gospel don't we. You're trying to fill that void in your soul with all the empty things of this world. And what you need is Christ.

And we preach it to the sinner and we all say amen. But I'm preaching it to the saint. Young brother, young sister, older brother, older sister.

The mere formality and procedures of assembly fellowship will leave your heart and your life absolutely cold and barren if you're not feeding upon Christ. And many Christians today are not feeding upon Christ. And the reason they're not doing it is because they're not fulfilling the conditions which God says.

After lunch, God willing, we'll think about them. May God bless us all.