Hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hey, we are back on Thursday. It's Thursday and hopefully you're having a great Thursday right now. It's supposed to be really cold here in Texas again. I mean, it was in the 80s last week and now we're back in the, I saw some projected highs of like, 36, 37 for today, which is nuts. This is Texas though. This is what it is. You get this fake spring. I mean, I feel bad for the trees and the plants because sometimes it'll get warm for like a week and they're like, Oh, okay, we're done. And the flowers will come out and it'll be all nice. And then the freeze hits again and they just die again. And yeah, I don't feel bad for the wasps. The wasps and the bugs though, why does it take them so long to die when the cold comes and yet the first sign of warmth, the flies are back? Unreal to me. They're just immediately ready to just attack. At the first sign of warmth, it's insane. I don't think I've experienced that. I don't know what you're talking about. We were in the backyard last week, and it was in the upper 70s. And there were wasps that were out flying around, like, ready to build new houses for the summer. I didn't see that. Thank God. What are you doing? I stay inside mostly, I think. That's probably what I'm doing. That's probably fair. Yeah, but yeah, February was The month they got snowmageddon a few years ago, before we moved out, when everything shut down and the power grid failed and everything, that was February. So it's still possible for us to get some nasty weather between now and the end of the winter. Well, the weather guy I follow says that it's supposed to be cold for the foreseeable future. Ponder on weather. That's the one. POW. He's good. Anyways. Yep. So it is it's Thursday. I trespass around that you had a fantastic, amazing, wonderful birthday yesterday. It was so memorable. I can't even tell you how memorable it was. Well, the video of you riding the bowl last night at youth group was pretty amazing. Unexpected. Unexpected. Indeed. Yeah. But man, I wrote it for that. It was 20 minutes. It was a world record. And then we slaughtered it and ate it. It was amazing. Because of what we're reading about, right? Because of the Old Testament law? Did you, you were practicing that? Well, yeah, half, halfsies. Cause we didn't, it wasn't a burnt offering. We ate it. It was a peace offering. It was a fellowship offering. Did you eat the fat? Cause the fat belongs to the Lord. Well, I have to admit, I do like some fat on my meat. So, I did have a little bit. I think the Lord wanted me to have some. Fair. I mean, it was your birthday. That's fair. Anyways enough with the ridiculous googly, we'll jump in to what you're really all here for, which is Leviticus one through four. Yeah, Leviticus one through four. We start a brand new book and as we jump into the book of Leviticus, it's a, it's helpful to kind of set the stage for what we're doing and what this book is really about. This book breaks down this way. The first seven chapters dealing with the sacrifice, sacrificial system chapters eight through 10 dealing really with the high priesthood. Chapters 11 through 16 dealing with the uncleanness of the people and chapters 17 through 27 dealing with practical matters of holiness. So this is really the law being laid out here. Leviticus has to do with the priestly tribe, Levi. Is the tribe of the priest, Leviticus being the book of the priests here. And so another way to break it down, chapters one through 16, you've got the priest to the people, and then chapters 17 through 27, the Holiness of the Nation. And so that's kind of what we have here. And this is one of those books that gets. Difficult. So let me just encourage you on the front end. Don't give up. Don't slow down. Don't get into Leviticus and be like, okay, we're talking about which sacrifice and there's repetition. And then the priest should make atonement in the, okay, wait a minute. He's making atonement again. Stay focused. Stay with us. Keep going. Hopefully these podcast episodes will help you along those lines to try to understand what's going on with each of these chapters. We'll do our best to shed our light on that, but. Just know that, that hit Leviticus, there's good things in Leviticus. Leviticus is good. In fact, Pastor Rod you pointed out that one of the churches in the area is actually preaching through Leviticus right now, which is quite the undertaking. And and I was pleasantly surprised by that myself. Yeah, it's such an important book. I think as New Testament Christians, we often fail to appreciate it because there's so much regulation and there's so many details there, but what it shows us is something fascinating and it's how we get close to God. God desires. Communion and fellowship with his people and we can't just presume upon him and show up to his living room as it were we have to have Ritual and I guess cultic purity and the way that we do that is in some way connected to these things They obviously don't take away our sin. That's what the book of Hebrews teaches us We could never be right with God through the blood of bulls and goats But they do show us what's necessary for us to have a relationship with God because right now it's defiled. It needs to be remedied because of our sin and Leviticus really lays it out for us in graphic detail what needs to take place for that chasm to be cleared by God and so it's helpful for that regard because when Jesus comes he takes all of this away. But in the meantime, it's important for us to realize because of how important it is. In fact, some people have noticed that because Leviticus sits in the middle of the Pentateuch that it might be one of the most important books in the Pentateuch. If you're thinking chiastically, A, B, C, B, A, C would be the emphatic point and it's specifically Leviticus 16, which is the center of Leviticus, which is the Day of Atonement. So, this is an important book. Moses saw it as important. Israel saw it as important. We ought to see it as important as well. Yeah. Super helpful description of that. Yeah. It really does help us to understand and grasp the gospel so much better. And when we understand the book of Leviticus, well, let's get into a chapter one. These are the rules and regulations for the various burnt offerings that are going to be given. And so in verses one through two, Moses again, is identified as God's mediator. He's the one that the Lord calls. He calls Moses to talk to him and sends Moses to go speak to the people. It's interesting that. Again, Moses was the one that said I'm not good with my words. And yet he's not now saying, Lord, please send Aaron. Please send somebody else. Please give me another spokesperson. It seems that Moses has overcome that that fear or that that reticence, and now he's God's spokesman. And so Moses is going to talk about the various burnt offerings. And so in verses three through nine, you've got cattle, all of the different cattle that are going to be offered and how to go about that versus 10 through 13, the sheep and the goats that are going to be offered as burnt offerings and versus 14 through 17, all of the different birds which were offerings that were for the poorer people, the people that couldn't afford to bring a lamb or a goat or bull or anything like that they would bring the birds instead. But the burnt offerings were to be perpetually offered. They were always to be offered. And that's why the fire on the burnt altar was to be perpetually kindled. It was never to go out. In fact, the text says that the fire was to be always at the ready because the people needed to be able to come and bring the burnt offering to the Lord. The reason being for what the text says, that these offerings would make atonement for the people. Now. That word atonement is one that we think of when it comes to Jesus in the cross. In fact, we will often talk about penal substitutionary atonement, meaning penal punishment substitutionary. He took our place in atonement, meaning he made us at peace with God. He satisfied the wrath of God. And so he did that through his death on the cross. These animals were meant to point to that. And so for the. The priests, they were making these offerings. They were bringing these offerings and burning them in the altar and thereby bringing atonement, making atonement for the sins of the people. Now that's why the altar needed to be at the ready at all times. If somebody brought their sacrifice, they need to be ready. The priesthood to take it, to process it, and to offer it before the Lord. Notice also here it says a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Sorry, bro. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, you're good. It's this is a pleasing aroma to the Lord. What's interesting about that is that the burnt offering was burnt to a crisp, minus the hide. So you can imagine it smelling good for at least a few moments until it got to the point where it started burning and becoming crispy. That doesn't smell so good. But for the Lord, it was a pleasing aroma, not because it was he, God doesn't have a nose, first of all, so it's metaphoric and it's application, but the pleasing aroma was that justice had been satisfied, not completely, not fully, but on that bull, on that goat, on that animal, God's wrath was being poured out upon them. This is what we deserve, but the bull, the goat stands in substitution for us. That sacrifice is pleasing to God, and that eventually points to His justice placed upon Christ. Chapter 2 then, we get into the grain offerings, which is another category of offering. And these were going to be presented as a means of gratitude, thanksgiving for the Lord's provision of food in the land. And so they're bringing these grain offerings, which would have been sometimes baked into wafers, or offered sometimes just a handful of flour. But this had to do with the Lord's provision of food in the land. And the salt was added to the offering. And that salt was symbolic of the preservative of the covenant, that this was the way that they were going to preserve and maintain the Mosaic covenant, not the Abrahamic covenant necessarily, but the Mosaic covenant, the conditional covenant, which was rooted in and founded upon and conditioned upon the people's obedience, even in this sacrificial system. So in chapter two, the grain offerings, you've got uncooked green offerings in the first three verses. You've got cooked grain offerings in verses four through 10 there. And then 11 through 16 kind of just miscellaneous grain offerings as they're addressed in in chapter two here. But this is where we begin to see a portion of the offering is going to go to Aaron and his sons to supply their food needs. Now, remember we're going to see this when they get to the promised land itself, that the tribe of Levi doesn't have its own. Portion of land. The tribe of Levi is going to be supported by and taken care of by the people. And part of the way that God is going to do that is beginning to be seen here. Their food is going to come from the sacrifices that are brought by the people to be offered by the Levitical priests. And so here are some of the grain offering. They're taking some of those wafers and they're eating those while the rest of it is offered before the Lord. Chapter three, then we get into the third category that we find here, at least of offering, which is the fellowship offering or the peace offerings. Unlike the grain and the burnt offerings, this was an optional offering. And so this was what we call a free will offering. This was not something that was mandated or obligatory, but something that was encouraged as a free expression of just the gratitude for the intimacy, the peace that the Israelites enjoyed with God. Leviticus chapter seven describes an occasion that might be appropriate, such as confession, confessing sin or fulfilling a vow or just again, as I was just implying, just of your own free accord and desire. Another difference between this type of offering and the other offerings was that the worshiper in the free will offering of the peace offering was Entitled or permitted to eat some of the animal as well. And so this could be cattle versus 1 through 5. This could be sheep 6 through 11. This could be goats in 12 through 17. But the worshiper was entitled or allowed to participate in the feast here. So this is kind of a fun one for everybody to participate in together with the free will offerings here. And this is where we have that famous phrase, all fat is the Lord's in verse 16. Why is that a big deal? The richness that is is was part of the fact that the delicacy, the choice portions, and those are offered to the Lord rather than kept back for the worshiper. Now, if you want to experience this, what you do is you go to Hutchins and you get a beef rib. Those are really fatty cuts of meat, but they are delicious. Let me just encourage you to do that as an application to your Bible reading today. Go to Hutchins, get a beef rib. And you know what you could do? You could sever off some of the fat portions and bring it to Pastor Rod No. Believe. Don't do that. I want the whole rib. I It all has to come together. Yeah. Yeah. All fat is the Lord. Some people I'll leave it there. Yeah. all fat is the Lord. Good. Now finish, finish that sentence, pastor pj, you were gonna say it. Go ahead. I used a joke with people that I wanted that to be my life verse. So don't judge me when I eat my my Christmas tree cakes. Yeah. Thanks Dan, by the way. Yeah. Thank you for those in the brownies. Yeah. Delicious. Hey, Leviticus four sin offerings. Now this is where we get into the nitty gritty. And this chapter's purpose was to teach Israel what to do in response to their inadvertent or unintentional sins, which implies that there are sins that are intentional and we'll get to those, but these are the sins that people commit without realizing that they're sinning. They're not high handed, high handedly sinning, which is what we'll get to later. And so Yahweh, the Lord makes a way for their sins to be forgiven and for them to be restored to the community. And so in this, we get what to do when a sin, when a priest sins unintentionally, verses three through 12. What to do when the corporate body sins unintentionally versus 13 to 21 when the nation how to go about making an atonement for that. And then versus 22 to 26, what about when a leader of the people sins unintentionally? What are they supposed to do there? And then finally versus 27 to 35, just when your average Joe, just your normal person sins unintentionally, how do they go about offering these? These sacrifices. So God is thorough in these instructions. And that's something that stuck out to me this time is he's covering all the bases here. He's going, you're not going to sit back and wonder, well, what am I supposed to do? Where do I fit in this? He's giving it for everybody saying, this is my desire. This is what you're supposed to do. Everybody would fit into one of those categories. Yeah. I think it's especially fascinating that someone who sins unintentionally, you might. Think in your head. Oh, well, they're not guilty of that sin. Then they're free from the guilt of that sin And because they were ignorant, they're not held accountable Now what you see here in Leviticus 4 is that's just not true God still holds us accountable for the sins that we commit even if they're done in ignorance That is a powerful thought and one that carries over to the New Testament A lot of people think, well, if the gospel doesn't go to such and such a tribe and such a remote location, then certainly God's not going to judge them. And that's not true entirely. What will happen is that God will judge them differently according to their knowledge, but they'll still be judged. And so what you see in Leviticus here, in chapter 4 in particular, and really throughout the whole book, is that God is a just God. He demands payment for sin. There is no such thing as God just overlooking sin, lest his justice be compromised. That's an important feature of who God is. This is one of the reasons why when we present the Gospel, we say God is creator, he's holy, and he's just. He's a just God who cannot be simply pushed aside to say, well, God, you could just overlook this. Well, no, he doesn't do that. God demands justice to be served, and this is true even for those who don't know that they're sinning against God. What a powerful thought to consider. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, let me pray for us and we will be done with this episode. God, we are grateful for the atonement that we have in Christ that we have our sins covered as Christians, those that are intentional, unintentional, and albeit, we certainly want to guard ourselves, especially against any Intentional sins, any high handed sins, but God, we're so grateful that we have atonement in Christ that covers it all, that there is not a sin that we have committed or will commit in the future that will fall outside of the reach of the blood of Christ. And that is such a gift for us to remember, even as we read through these things, to help us not to be presumptuous in that, but to be grateful for it. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right, you guys keep reading your Bible and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. We'll see you then.

Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a like, leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.