Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church Podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
Welcome everyone to our Wednesday night study and we are creeping up on the end
of Leviticus, not quite there yet, but we're getting there. A few more chapters
and we'll be heading on to the next segment. So we are on Leviticus 22 tonight.
How about if we have a word of prayer to open things up? Ask God's blessing over us.
Lord, we just pause after our day, whatever our day was today,
whether it was work or leisure or around the home or whatever it was, God.
We just pause after that and we give you thanks for this day, Lord,
and we turn our hearts and minds towards you tonight, God.
And we pray for your spirit here among us, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and discernment
in your word, God. Give us a better understanding of you through your word, God.
We pray your Holy Spirit be here with us, God, in our conversation, Lord,
and with us that your presence just settle here amongst us, God.
We pray for those who can be here tonight, Lord.
Those who are at home tonight, we pray, God, your favor and blessing on them.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right. So Leviticus 22.
And this chapter focuses on, and there's been a lot of this in Leviticus,
which has been exciting to read about, the holiness and purity
required of priests and of the offerings.
So it emphasizes both priests and the offering that they must be free
from defilement or imperfection, just a reflection, really,
of the holiness and purity of God.
And this chapter just continues to build on this theme
throughout Leviticus, of reverence towards God,
the importance of approaching him with that reverence
and the honor and respect that's due, due him.
So what I'm going to do here tonight is I've got this broken down
into three sections.
Let me, before I go any further, let me find Leviticus here.
In my handy Bible.
Should have had that right.
22, here we go.
All right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read through,
I have four sections of Leviticus that I've identified.
Now I'm just going to read through it and I'm going to go over this highlight.
And then what I'd like to do is I would like to look at this
from two perspectives.
One, I would like to look at it from the Israelites
or the Jewish cultural or traditional perspective,
how they would have seen these various laws.
And then I'd like to take a shot at looking it through the eyes of Jesus,
how he saw that.
So let's start with one through nine.
And this is all about the priestly purity.
So the Lord spoke to Moses,
tell Aaron and his sons that they must deal respectfully
with the holy offerings of the Israelites,
which they consecrate to me,
so that they do not profane my holy name.
I am the Lord.
Say to them throughout your generations,
if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings,
which the Israelites consecrate to the Lord while he is impure,
that person must be cut off from before me.
I am the Lord.
No man from the descendants of Aaron who is diseased
or has a discharge may eat the holy offerings until they become clean.
The one who touches anything made unclean by contact with a dead person
or a man who has a seminal emission
or a man who touches the swarming thing by which he becomes unclean
or touches a person by which he becomes unclean.
Whatever that person's impurity,
the person who touches any of these will be unclean until evening
and must not eat from the holy offerings unless he has bathed his body in water.
When the sun goes down, he will be clean,
and afterward he may eat from the holy offerings because they are his food.
He must not eat an animal that has died of natural causes
or an animal that has been torn by beast, thus become unclean,
thus become unclean by it.
I am the Lord.
They must keep my charge so that they do not incur sin on account of it
and therefore die because they profane it.
I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
So there were some things in there that we've been talking about
in the previous chapters as to what is unclean
and what is not unclean and how to become pure from these things.
So he's just kind of highlighting them.
We're not going to go into all the detail of that again.
But this section is basically about priestly purity
and the priests are cautions not to handle sacred offerings
if they are ceremony unclean.
So doing so it says you will profane God's holy name,
reinforcing the idea that we must serve
in this spiritual purity.
He gets into these specifics.
So that section is all about cautioning the priests
of what they're doing.
The next section, 10-16, talks about restrictions
on who may actually eat these offerings.
So starting at 10, no lay person may eat anything holy.
Neither a priest's lodger nor a hired laborer
may eat anything holy,
but if a priest buys a person with his own money,
that person may eat the holy offerings
and those born in the priest's own house may eat his food.
If a priest's daughter marries a lay person,
she may not eat the holy contribution offerings,
but if a priest's daughter is a widow or divorced
and has no children so that she returns to live
in her father's house, as in her youth,
she may eat from her father's food,
but no lay person may eat it.
If a man eats a holy offering by mistake,
he must add a fifth to it
and give the holy offering to the priests.
They must not profane the holy offerings
which the Israelites contribute to the Lord,
and so calls them to incur a penalty for guilt
when they eat their holy offerings
for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
So it really comes down to only the priests
and their household could eat from these sacred offerings.
So no outsiders that came in could eat.
There was all kinds of exclusions in there
and they really kind of underscored this idea
of the sacredness of what is given over to God.
And it doesn't really get into this,
but it talks about this in some areas.
Some of these offerings that came in
really kind of worked as part of the compensation
for the priests, providing for them
and the food for their household.
So God's being very, very specific here.
So let's move on real quick.
I'm going to move through this first section
relatively quick because we've got a lot to cover
under these things.
So 17 through 30 talks about the unblemished offering.
So the Lord spoke to Moses,
speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites
and tell them when any man from the house of Israel
or from the foreigners in Israel present
presents his offerings for any of the votive
or free will offerings which they present to the Lord
as burnt offerings, if it is to be acceptable
for your benefit, it must be flawless,
a flawless male from the cattle, sheep, or goats.
You must not present anything that has a flaw
because it will not be acceptable for your benefit.
If a man presents a peace offering sacrifice
to the Lord for a special vote of offering
or for a free will offering from the herd
or the flock, it must be flawless to be acceptable.
It must have no flaw.
Double emphasis there.
You must not present to the Lord
something blind or with a broken bone
or mutilated or with a running sore
or with festering eruption or with feverish rash.
You must not give any of these as a gift
on the altar to the Lord.
As for an ox or a sheep with a limb too long
or stunted, you may present it as a free will offering
but it will not be acceptable for a votive offering.
You must not present to the Lord
something with testicles that are bruised,
crushed, torn, or cut off.
You must not do this in your land.
Even from the foreigner, you must not present
the food of your God from such animals as these
for they are ruined and flawed.
They will not be acceptable for your benefit.
The Lord spoke to Moses
when an ox, lamb, or goat is born.
It must be under the care of its mother seven days
but from the eighth day onward
it will be acceptable as an offering gift to the Lord.
You must not slaughter an ox or a sheep
and it's young on the same day.
When you sacrifice a Thanksgiving offering to the Lord
you must sacrifice it so that it is acceptable
for your benefit.
On the very day it must be eaten
you must not leave any parts of it over until morning.
I am the Lord.
So basically God is commanding that these offerings
have to be perfect.
So you're not going and picking out the ones
that are kind of lame and not serving your purpose
but you're getting the best.
It reflects God's holiness
and this idea of the standard of giving the best
and giving the first fruits
which the Bible has talked about.
So no leftovers,
no, okay well this animal served its purpose
or this one is this, it's got to be the best
and that's a mindset that was just born into the Israelites
and I think it's something too for us to think about
and keep near to our hearts in our lives
that first fruit, that best of best
whether it's our time, our talent or our treasure.
So let's wrap this up here.
This last section 31 to 33
talks about reverence for God's name.
You must be sure to do my commandments.
I am the Lord.
You must not profane my holy name
and I will be sanctified in the midst of the Israelites.
I am the Lord who sanctifies you,
the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt
to be your God.
I am the Lord.
So the chapter really concludes with
this call to obey God's commands,
not to profane his name
and a reminder to the Israelites
this is where I brought you from
and the God's identity is just tied
and intermittent with this holiness,
this worship, this obedience
and the fact that the Israelites
are set apart
and this is something that has stayed
with the Jewish culture to this day
that they are set apart for God
that they are different
and God is just continually reminding of that.
So now that's the whole chapter.
So let's take a look at this
from the Israelite cultural
or Jewish traditional perspective
as to how they would have viewed this.
There are some really, really deep insights
into the Israelite's worship tradition
and their theological mindset
when it comes to the reverence of God.
In the broader context of Torah
which we're still in
this chapter really emphasizes
that holiness
and we've read about this before
holiness is not just a personal thing
to the Israelites or to the Jews.
Chris and I were just talking a little bit about this
yesterday, but it's a communal thing.
It really is about
their community,
even the whole of Israel
like the things that they did
and didn't do
impacted the community
not just the individual
and they really saw it that way
and that was kind of a weight
that they carried with them.
It's not just me.
We're kind of all in this together.
So the first thing is
holiness to the Jews
is contagious.
So when you're holy
and you're just kind of living that life
for them it was something that
everyone kind of participated in
and called on, but so is
defilement or sin.
They're both contagious
in their own ways.
When you're with a group of people
that are just following hard
after God, it's like,
man, we are in this together.
And it's just awesome
and we're doing this thing
but I've seen the same thing
happen with sin.
So in ancient Israel,
holiness was not something
that was taken for granted.
It was protected and preserved
and it was approached with
this intentionality.
As you can see how we've read through
Exodus and Leviticus,
this attention to detail
and the things and the systems
that were in place
that was such intentionality behind it.
And this chapter just sets
these very clear boundaries
and identifies very clearly
the risk that's associated with it.
Bringing guilt not just
upon themselves but upon
the community as a whole.
So they took this approach to God
like super serious
and the word of God
and everything was just,
it was ingrained in their kids
from when they were so small,
kind of growing up,
they were taught all of this stuff.
I remember reading a story
about the Jews when they were
in captivity.
So if you think,
this Leviticus was coming
forth about 1400 years
before the time of Jesus
and they came into captivity
with Babylon
at around 586 BC.
And I was listening to this
rabbi teacher talk
and he said,
this was most of their laws
and how they wrote
and the scriptures
and all these things.
Most of it was oral tradition.
And these rabbis
as they were in captivity,
they said,
we got away from God
and His holiness
and we got away from
the word of God
and we can never let that happen again
and that's when they started
having the scribes
kind of write all of this stuff down
and they kind of went into this idea
we have to get back
to this teaching
and we have to really take this holiness
like super serious
like we used to
because that's why we're here now
because we got away from it.
So all of those years
this idea of this holiness
was like super, super serious to them
and they had it in their hearts.
Worship wasn't a casual thing.
Sometimes I approach worship
kind of just flippantly
just come in
and just kind of start worship
and I don't prepare my heart
and I don't think deeply about it
but when you think about being
in the presence of God
the way Leviticus presents it
it's a holy thing.
Now we have differences
we're cleansed by the blood Jesus
a little bit of a difference thing
but the reverence of that to me
is something that really, really caught me.
Second thing, only the worthy
may serve and partake
ones that were set apart
specifically the priests.
So God sets limits on
who can eat the offering
the priests and their household
not the ass.
This preserved the sanctity
of the sacrifices
and reinforces this idea.
Hey, the priests are in this special role
and their role is to guide us
and this idea of access
to God through the temple
through what the priests are sustaining.
It was something when you think about
it's easy to
I've said this many times as we're going through these
it's easy to look at these things
and say, wow, this is just too much.
It's just too much.
All this process
and all of this sacrifice
and all this I can do this
and I can't do that.
But at the end of the day
worship has to cost us something, doesn't it?
Even us today,
worship has to cost us something
or we're not really giving up
our full worship to God
and that's how the Jews looked at this.
And you talked to some,
I've talked to Orthodox Jews
present-day friends
and I said, man, isn't it?
Don't you hate doing this
and not eating this and not doing that?
And he said this, his name was milk wine stock
and he said, no, no I don't.
This is my offering to God.
This is what I give him.
I don't look at it as, you know,
hurdle for me or something that's,
you know, I gotta do this again.
He said, I look at it with joy in my heart
to say I can give this thing to God.
That really touched me when he said that.
So, number three,
God deserves the best, not the leftovers.
So the animals offered,
they had to be perfect.
God demands excellence
in worship and perfection.
So in Jewish mindset,
there's this word called Kavad,
which means honor.
You know, and God is worthy of the finest
to honor God, just like you would honor
anyone of royalty or any of that.
You know, you look up to someone and say,
wow, look at them and the space that they're in,
but God is so much beyond us.
This idea of Kavad and honoring them
was something that was sacred to them.
Not what's convenient,
not what's expendable,
not what there's excess of,
but the first, the finest.
So sad sacrifices were this expression,
you know, to God of purity.
Number four, the priests were guardians
of the sacred order.
So the priests were not just
these ritual performers.
I mean, they weren't just, you know,
the people around the temple
that were here to just execute these things.
They were mediators of holiness,
and they were guides to this access
to God that he was providing.
Because remember, this is all about God
wanting to be with his people
and providing access.
And the priest's role was to guide
the people through this.
And this was a weighty role for the priests.
It was not something that they took lightly.
So the role of leadership and worship
was not about status,
but responsibility to preserve
this spiritual integrity as a nation.
Now, later, we're going to read
that it eventually did become about status,
but we're not there yet.
So, and last, worship was a whole community.
It was a covenant-based act,
and we talked just a little bit about this,
but the entire community or nation
really benefited or suffered
on how faithful this system was upheld.
So improper offerings or mishandling
of these rituals could defile
the entire sacrificial process
and bring shame on the person and the community.
So worship to them, to the early Jews,
it was not just this vertical thing
between the individual and God,
but a deeply communal, covenantal thing.
So everything that Israel did
reflected the character of God.
So that's kind of looking at this chapter
and this grouping of scripture
from a Jewish cultural perspective
and how they would have seen it.
So let's take a look at how Jesus looked at this.
So by the time Jesus, you know,
it was time it would have been
roughly 1400 years later, you know.
And the religious leaders,
particularly the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin,
had developed this new system over the years,
which really just emptied out,
you know, what God was doing here in Leviticus.
It just hollowed out the principles
of sacrifice and purity and holiness
and just turned it into this mess.
And we're going to talk about that.
So external ritual took precedence
over the internal reality
in the time Jesus was there.
So the religious rulers,
they were known,
they were known for their strict observance to the law.
They had added over the years
thousands and thousands and thousands
and thousands of laws
around what God had done in the beginning.
I forget the numbers, but it's like somewhere,
I think there's somewhere around
600 and some odd laws in Torah.
I'm not that right,
it can somewhere 600,
613 laws in Torah.
So think about this.
These were the laws.
This is what they were following.
So what the Jews did over time,
this didn't happen right away in Leviticus.
I mean, this happened over, you know,
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
They built fences around that.
1,000 more laws,
1,000 more, 1,000 more,
grouping of like 3,000 laws.
And then another grouping of 2,
3,000 more laws.
So they had upwards of 5 to 6,000
additional laws
that surrounded this 613
laws in Torah.
So they had built this structure
that God never intended for it to be there.
I always say this, I say, you know,
God gives us a good thing
and then man has just this way of rowing it.
You know, it's just like this, you know,
it's just what we do.
I hate to say it, but, you know,
man just has this way of
taking these good things and just doing it.
So they had added these layers and layers of law
and oral tradition
that became in their minds
and what they were teaching to the people
equal or even above the laws
that were in Scripture and in practice.
They emphasized ceremonial purity
like washing of hands
and avoiding contact with sinners
while neglecting the heart,
the heart of the command.
And that's what Jesus was constantly
correcting the people on
is you are missing the heart of this.
Matthew 23, 25, he says,
you clean the outside of the dish
but the inside, but they are full of greed
and self-indulgence.
23, 27, you are like whitewashed tombs
which look beautiful on the outside
but the inside are full of bones
and of the dead.
That would have been a crushing insult
to the Sadducees and Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.
I mean, the thought of touching,
you know, something dead
was just like, oh, you know, can't do that
because of all this just nonsense.
So he calls them basically
your whitewashed tombs inside.
You're dead and defiled but on the outside
you look just real nice, nice and clean
is basically what he was saying.
So they turned God's call for holiness
and reverence into performance-based religion
focusing on the appearance
rather than the transformation of the hearts.
Next, corrupting the sacrificial system for profit.
So the Sadducees who controlled the temple
and the priesthood were largely this elite class
and they collaborated closely with the Roman authorities.
There's a lot you could read about
the histories of the Sadducees.
They really, throughout years of captivity,
they were just indoctrinated with this
Hellenistic culture and mindset
and what they did is they took this Hellenism
which they liked because of the stuff
that goes along with Hellenism
and they merged it with their Jewish faith
and they brought it together into this mishmash
of things that just don't work together.
But in their hearts they were Hellenistic.
Make no mistake about it.
There's a lot you could research and read there
and it's super interesting to do.
But the temple system had become commercialized.
So people were forced to buy approved animals
at inflated prices and exchange their money
at unfair rates.
So this was just like a system that they developed
to profit themselves.
So we all know the story of Jesus coming in
cleansing the temple, clearing the temple
and he said my house will be called a house of prayer
for all nations but you have made it a den of robbers.
So instead of guarding the sanctity of sacrifices
and leading the people to God,
they turned worship into a business,
exploiting people by it.
My little sidebar is
are we that different as a culture?
It's just that it's no work.
What's that?
It's just that it's no work.
We have monetized every aspect of Christianity.
Monetized it.
We are not that different than this
and it's something we have to guard.
Guard our hearts against
and really try to press through to that purity
and that devotional aspect that God calls us to.
Legalism replaced mercy and justice.
So in their zeal to obey the law,
all of these rules and regulations that they had put
around it, these leaders missed the heart of God.
Jesus said in Matthew 23, 23,
woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees,
you hypocrites.
You give a tenth of your spices,
mint, dill and cumin,
but you have neglected the more important matters of law.
Justice, mercy and faithfulness.
You should have practiced the latter
without neglecting the former.
So in other words, they had weaponized the law
using it to condemn, exclude and shame
rather than to lead people towards restoration.
And I can tell you, I used to do that all the time.
I used to weaponize scripture in a way
that it would just cut people
and just criticize people and say,
you shouldn't be doing it this way.
You should be doing it this way because of this
and just putting it and using it kind of as a weapon
instead of a venue of love
and instead of drawing people in with it,
I would use it to kind of, really kind of divide in a way.
And it was something that God really,
really delivered me from years and years
and years and years ago.
But they had weaponized the law.
Matthew 9, 13 says,
go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
So they had forgotten the purpose of purity and sacrifice.
It was to bring people into relationship with God.
It was to draw people in to God,
not create barriers through social and spiritual hierarchies.
That's not what it was about
and that's not what it's about today.
God wants us to use his word
and to be impacted by the spirit to draw people in,
not create these barriers.
Pride and hypocrisy had replaced humility.
These religious leaders loved the recognition
and the titles and the public displays of righteousness
while ignoring the humility and fear of God
that Leviticus called us to.
Remember we read about Aaron?
They were humbled to be in the position
where they weren't touting that above and saying,
look at me, look at me.
Matthew 23, 5, everything they do is done
for people to see.
They make their philocrities wide
and their tassels on their garments long.
The philocrities with the scriptures that they had
in the boxes that they carried around with them.
Matthew 23, 6, they love the place of honor
at the banquets and the most important seats
in the synagogues.
They loved that, that people would see that
instead of that place of humility.
Holiness that God is talking about in Leviticus
is about this reverence towards God.
And in Jesus' day with the Pharisees
and with the leaders and the religious leaders,
it had become this stage of self-promotion, basically.
So the principles here in Leviticus 22,
honor, holiness, sacrifice and purity
were meant to point the Israelites
to a deep covenantal relationship with God.
But it had gotten twisted into a system of control
and profit and status in the generations to come.
So Jesus never rejected the law.
He participated in all of these festivals.
He said he came to fulfill the law.
What he rejected was this distortion and this intent
and this perversion that the people had brought into the law.
His ministry was all about this radical return
to the true heart of God, the true heart of worship,
mercy, humility, authentic relationship with God.
This chapter, again, like so many chapters in Leviticus
just reminded me about this idea of approaching God
with reverence, intentionality, integrity, humility.
So we don't live under this burden of these,
I shouldn't call it a burden because some of the Jews
didn't call it a burden, but we don't live under that system.
But God still deserves our best, right?
He still deserves the sacrifice that we should bring
from worship and our hearts should honor him
with that purity and that gratitude.
So that's 22.
You guys have your handouts.
I think we probably have enough here
for why don't we break down into two groups
and kind of have that wrestle through some of this stuff.
Sound good?
All right.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Live Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day.