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.
So we are looking at Numbers 28 tonight. I have to commend everyone for making it
out tonight. Wasn't that just a wet, nasty night cold? Although last night was a lot
colder. That was brutal, but I know. I said to Jill, there's not going to be many
people here tonight and it's far more attended than I thought it would be. So
praise the Lord. We can be quick. So probably some of you, or at least maybe
all of you know that my son Jesse yesterday went into the hospital with a
heart condition. He had knees, well we don't know, okay we don't know that
there's a connection, but he's had this knee infection which he had surgery about
three and a half weeks ago and was recovering and everything was doing
great. And yesterday, well the day before he started having arrhythmia and he
went into AFib yesterday, his heart was just going crazy. His heart rate was up
to like 180 and so he went into the hospital and he's been in there. He just
was released though today with some beta blockers like some medication that's
just slow, mellow his heart out. And so he's still in AFib but they expect him
to recover and he's gonna be closely monitored. So he got me tonight.
I'm filling in for Jesse and but God willing he's actually preaching on
Sunday so God willing he'll be fine for this Sunday. But so we could pray for him
and let's pray for the lesson tonight. Again Numbers 28 and these are about
offerings but really as I was reading these it just reminded me it's really all
picture of us being at offering a living sacrifice to the Lord, a living offering
you know as opposed to a dead offering as these animals were. So let's pray
and thank the Lord for being here tonight. Father God we thank you Lord
that we can be here together studying your word Lord and gleaning what we can
to impact our own lives. You know these are stories that are just hundreds of
you know over almost 2,000 years ago, 1,500 years ago and yet Lord they still
apply to us even though we don't follow the law. And Lord I want to lift up
Jesse to you Lord I just pray that you would heal him completely restore his
heart to the proper beat that it's supposed to operate in and just give him
full recovery. And for everyone here Lord God I just want to ask for a blessing
upon all of us because we made it out of our house to be here tonight to learn
from you to learn in your word Lord. And we thank you for everyone who is
here tonight and we ask you to really sharpen our mind and heart to think
like you and live like you. We ask this in Jesus name amen. Alright so we're
gonna dive in we're gonna read first the first eight verses which have to do
with daily offerings okay and I know some of this can get tedious as we read it
but I think it's I think it's just reading the word even sometimes we don't
fully understand every word of it I think it's it's showing dedication to
God and honoring his word but then we're gonna talk about what it means to us so
numbers 28 verse 1 now the Lord spoke to Moses saying command the children of
Israel say to them my offering my food for my offerings made by fire as a sweet
aroma to me you shall be careful to offer to me at their appointed time and you
shall say to them this is the offering made by fire which you shall offer to
the Lord two male lambs in their first year without blemish day by day as a
regular burnt offering the one lamb you shall offer in the morning the other
lamb you shall offer in the evening and one tenth of an ephah of fine flour as
a grain offering mixed with one fourth of a hen of pressed oil it is a regular
burnt offering which was ordained at Mount Sinai for a sweet aroma an
offering made by fire to the Lord and its drink offering shall be of one fourth
of a hen for each lamb in a holy place you shall pour out the drink to the
Lord as an offering the other lamb you shall offer in the evening as the
morning grain offering and its drink offering and you shall offer it as an
offering made by fire a sweet aroma to the Lord so here just kind of focusing
on this is a daily offering in the morning and in the at nighttime it's
routine it's regular and when the Israelites offered up these these animals
it was of course in place of them they're saying you know Lord the may this
animal represent my my sin and my inadequacies in ways that I haven't
necessarily followed every rule may this offering replace me in other words
this animals death represents my death so I don't have to die you know so it's
it's atoning for us and preventing God's wrath and so that was the picture in
the Old Testament and the Israelites realized that these animals were like an
extension of them you know in other words when they offer that animal up it
was it was a representation of themselves and we can see throughout Old
Testament scriptures and actually the the psalmist and the prophets they
realized that they were in a sense an offering as well and I want to show you
some cross-reference verses in Psalms these are Psalms of various people
including of course King David the sons of Korah and so forth so let's look at
Psalm 5 3 and Psalm 88 13 and here we see oh there you go my voice you shall
hear in the morning Oh Lord in the morning I will direct it to you and I
will look up and another verse but to you I have cried out Oh Lord and in the
morning my prayer comes before you so here this psalmist are saying every
morning I get up I am gonna offer myself to you as an offering you know just like
these offerings are offering animals really the Israelites realized that they
had to offer themselves up to the Lord as well and then we have a couple
reflecting the evening because it was the same thing in Psalm 63 6 and Psalm
141 2 this is all a picture of evening offerings when I remember you on my bed
I meditate on you in the night watches Psalm 141 to let my prayer be set before
you as incense the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice and we know in
the New Testament our prayers are seen really as incense to the Lord when we
pray to the Lord it's like him he in a sense he spiritually smells our prayers
like to him it's like a fragrance you know and then we see another Psalm where
the psalmist is saying I'm just offering myself up to you all the time morning
evening and noontime Psalm 55 17 evening and morning and at noon I will pray and
cry aloud and he shall hear my voice so the idea here is to be offering ourselves
up all the time just as the Israelites did but for us it's it's it's it's
actually different isn't it because we truly are we because we now are the
righteousness of Christ we are the living sacrifice in fact Romans 12 1 says this
Paul writing to the Romans said I beseech you therefore brethren by the
mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy except
able to God which is your reasonable service so when we offer ourselves up in
the morning during the day and the evening we're saying Lord you are the
sacrifice and now because I am in you I can offer myself up not killing an
animal instead surrendering myself as a living sacrifice every morning every
nighttime so when we get into the small groups we're gonna we have
questions in each of these categories you'll see asking about what this means
to us as believers but one thing that struck me as I was thinking about this
you know that because we are the new creation we are the living sacrifices
Christ actually represented all of this himself because he would get up
early in the morning when it was still pitch blackout I was reading this this
morning getting prepared and it was about 5 or 4 in the morning and it's
pitch black outside and I love being up early I don't know about you guys but I
just love getting up really early I love just laying on my face and praying to
God and just you know preparing in the morning preparing whatever is gonna
happen and just dedicating that morning to the Lord I'm much better at the
mornings than the night times I don't know about you by the night time comes
I'm just like you know nodding off it's hard for me to be zealous to the Lord
late at night but though but Jesus he got up in the morning before the light
even came up but then he also prayed late at night sometimes right through the
night let's look at a couple of verses here we have here mark 135 now in the
morning having risen a long while before daylight he meaning Jesus went out and
departed to a solitary place and there he prayed another time now it came to
pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued all
night in prayer to God and the verse goes on the next verse goes on and then
he got and then he he got up during the day and started you know started his day
after all night praying now when you look at these verses it's interesting
because each time that he was up early in the morning or praying late at night
or praying through the night something significant would come right after that
moment in fact that last verse we read when he prayed right through the night
just after that he got up and he ended up finding and choosing his twelve
disciples I mean that's significant isn't I mean those were his twelve
disciples apostles that were were the key really to forming his the kingdom of
God he used them to spread the word and then of course more than just those twelve
also in Mark 14 23 25 he was praying right into the night and what did he
do he saw his disciples out in the Sea of Galilee trying to row through a storm
and he walked out to them on the water you know I don't know if I would love to
be able to have a powerful night of prayer and then just walk outside and
then just go find a nice pond and walk right across it I don't expect that to
happen but it would be pretty cool wouldn't it but you know the Lord when
he was just in trance and meditating to his father something amazing would
always happen just after that as if the Lord was preparing him for what he's
about to go into and what he's about to accomplish and then Matthew 26 36 to 44
he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest you
know again getting his heart and mind resolved to the will of his father not my
will but yours be done and then Luke 5 16 again just goes on to say that he was
always going off away from the crowds and praying by himself because he didn't
want to be persuaded by the crowds or even his own disciples remember what he
said to Peter when Peter is trying to convince him no you shouldn't go there
waiting there to kill you he said get behind me Satan when he was speaking to
Peter so so this is the idea that he always like set himself apart to his
father and prayed so when we break into small groups we're going to talk about
what that matters to us but in the meantime let's read on and these are the
Sabbath offerings verse 9 and on the Sabbath day two lambs in their first year
without blemish and two tenths of an ephah a fine flour as a grain offering
mixed with oil with its drink offering and this is the burnt offering for every
Sabbath besides the regular burnt offering with its drink offering so
here again this is every Sabbath they are to consecrate to the Lord because it
is the holy day of rest right now when we go into small groups we're going to
talk about well what is a day of rest mean to us as believers I'm sure you guys
have talked about you know should the Sabbath be a holy day for us and should
Sunday be a day now that we don't do any work or whatever so you could talk
about that in the small groups but next monthly offerings at the beginning of
your months you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord two young bowls
one ram and seven lambs in their first year without blemish three tenths of an
ephah a fine flour as a grain offering mixed with oil for each bowl two tenths
of an ephah a fine flour as a grain offering mixed with oil for for the one
ram and one tenth of an ephah a fine flour mixed with oil notice it's
always mixed with oil and for us of course the oil is a picture of the
Holy Spirit and the light of God as a grain offering for each lamb as a burnt
offering of sweet aroma and offering made by fire to the Lord and then a drink
offering shall be half of hen of wine for a bull one third of a hen of for a ram
and one fourth of a hen for a lamb this is the burnt offering for each month
throughout the months of the year also one kid of the goats as a sin offering to
the Lord shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink
offering now we've been going through over the past now couple years through
all the books of the Bible Exodus especially in Leviticus where we talked
a great deal about the offering so we're not going to dissect those because
you know Jamie John Kratz Jesse and Danny did a great job already you know
pulling those apart but what we can just say is these were monthly offerings
otherwise known as the new moon offering and of course you know there's a new
cycle of the moon every year and every month and so these are the new moon
offerings but it's interesting in Israel's history that these new moon
offerings actually became a time of corruption and a time where people just
took the Lord for granted and actually they became like partying times hey it's
the new moon it's time to get rekt or it's time to party down the new moon you
know festival and so Isaiah writes about this in Isaiah 114 your new moons and
your appointed feasts my soul hates they are a trouble to me I am weary of
bearing them and it goes on from there as far as you know how they it became
ritual it became habitual it just became something that we do but our heart is
not in it I can remember going to church for years and just being there and not
have any like not have heard one word said by a priest or or sung just
totally daydream in the entire time and thinking like you know this is this is
kind of I'm sort of corrupting my time with the Lord because I'm not giving it
any significance into my own heart and mind you know and so that's that's what
the Israelites turned these rules and regulations and rituals into so next is
the offerings at Passover and this of course we're not going to read these
verses but we're just going to mention that the Passover of course was a time
to remember when the Israelites were in Egypt and it was the tenth plague and
the Lord sent the destroyer over every home and the firstborn in every home
was it was destroyed was killed except any home that had the Passover lambs blood
painted over the doorposts and lentil lentil lentil there you go lentil right
isn't there any carpenters in the house lentil or lentil lentils a bean type
thing lentil okay right the top beam how about that but um but anyway they
painted over the doorway and that blood was to tell the destroyer no this is
covered by the Passover lamb and of course you know Jesus is our Passover
lamb John the Baptist said behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of
the world so this Passover always represents for us Christ and that's why
he had to die at Passover for this reason and then and so they would
celebrate this again with offerings with sacrifices and then finally the last one
is Pentecost let's read this one this is verse 26 to the end of the chapter
also on the day of the firstfruits now this feast is called several things first
of all it's called the firstfruits when you bring a new grain offering to the
Lord at your feast of weeks which is another name for it you shall have a holy
convocation you shall do no customary work and you shall present a burnt
offering as a sweet aroma to the Lord two young bulls one ram and seven lambs
in their first year with their grain offerings a fine flour mixed with oil
three tenths of an ephah for each bull two tenths for each for the one ram and
one tenth for each of the seven lambs also one kid of the goats to make
atonement for you verse 31 be sure they are without blemish and you shall
present them with their drink offerings besides the regular burnt offering with
its grain offering so it was always important to be choosing a sacrifice
that wasn't like the runt of the litter you know it was it was a prime perfect
offering that was like beautiful compared to its siblings in the flock
you know because really it was you were supposed to be giving something to God
that was precious to you that you would have otherwise wanted to keep as
a pet or eat you know but instead you're offering it up to the Lord and of
course again it's a picture of Christ because he was without blemish he was
perfect you know he was without sin so this Pentecost celebrated when the law
was given the law was given 50 days after the Passover when they reached
Mount Sinai and that's when the Lord began to speak to Moses at the top of
Mount Sinai the Ten Commandments the Israelites heard it at the base of the
mountain now of course Moses stayed up there 40 days and nights
committing with God okay but at the end of all that okay if you can recall what
happened the Israelites sinned against the first four commandments of the Ten
Commandments you know they said to Moses you go up and whatever you tell us to do
we will do and the first four that all had to do with God they broke all four
of them by that presenting that golden calf and so that was the when the law
was given but this Pentecost in in contrast would be when the Holy Spirit
was given to the church and 3000 lived it's it's a it's a mirror you ever hear
of in Scripture at Chiasm it's where like there's all kinds of different
equations but you know you could see like ABC and then CBA you know there's
like it's like an inversion well in a sense Pentecost really is like the
center point you could see an inversion of the law bringing 3000 to their death
because of disobedience and yet Pentecost bringing new life to people
through Pentecost through the Holy Spirit so the difference between the law
and grace and so so this is what they offered and again when we break into
small groups we're going to talk about that what Pentecost means to the
so so you're ready to break into small groups we have a lot of questions we have
nine questions and I think they're pretty intriguing that we're going to want to
really dive into and um so let's do that let's pray and then we'll break up
and then this side why don't we go to the prayer room right and you guys
can stay here does that sound good okay so Father God thank you for this
time we had together thank you for this picture of offerings and sacrifices Lord
that we do not have to abide by any longer because this is the old law and
all of it was pointing to Jesus Christ being the ultimate sacrifice for our
sins so as we go into small groups Lord we ask your Holy Spirit
to waken us up Lord God that you would sharpen us Lord
and that your wisdom and knowledge would just be pouring out from us Lord
and we would be able to edify one another with things that you are showing
us through your scriptures so we thank you for all of that in Jesus name amen
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