Gooding, David: 7 - Maintaining Zeal

And as you have heard, tonight we are to combine two comparatively short studies and consider together first the law of the sin offering, as the law of the burnt offering under the title of maintaining our zeal. And then we shall look at the law of the sin offering under the general title of a sense of the holy. On our last evening together on Thursday, if God will, we shall be looking finally at the law of the peace offering under the general title of practicing peace. So let's begin tonight by reading from chapter six and verse eight. Chapter six and verse eight. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak, command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning thereon. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and he shall put, and he shall take of the ashes whereto the fire hath consumed the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. And he shall put off his garments and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. And the fire upon the altar shall be kept burning thereon. It shall not go out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall lay the burnt offering in order upon it, and shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually. It shall not go out. Then in verse twenty four, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is killed, shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord. It is most holy. The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it in a holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy. And when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in a holy place. But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken. And if it be sodden in a brazen vessel, it shall be scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests shall eat thereof. It is most holy. And no sin offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place shall be eaten. It shall be burnt with fire. The Lord give us good understanding of his holy word. Hitherto in our study, we have been looking at the sacrifices that God gave his people in Old Testament days. Now tonight we come to a kindred but slightly different topic, the laws of the sacrifices that God gave to his priests. So that our first task tonight is to try and understand as best we can the difference between the instructions given to the people for the sacrifices and the instructions given to the priests that are here called the laws of the sacrifices. The sacrifices as given to the people, as we have been discovering in these past evenings, were sacrifices by which Israel might come to God, and as his redeemed people enjoy fellowship with him. That at his invitation they may- might come to his holy dwelling place, there to seek the Lord and to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire after the Lord and to perceive something of the awesomeness of his holiness, something of the beauty of his holiness. So that as they became aware of that holiness, they would then become aware of their own unholiness. God, in his mercy, would provide them with sacrifices that they might offer to cover their needs and make atonement for their souls, forgiveness for their sins, and cleansing for the stain of guilt, that they might continue to enjoy the fellowship with God and know themselves accepted in spite of their imperfections. And as we have been thinking of those things in our studies, they have pointed us to our great privilege that we too may come not to some earthly shrine, but to the most holy of all, the very presence of God in heaven, and in spirit enter that sublime abode and approach the awesome majesty of God, that we too might dwell in the house of the Lord to inquire after the Lord, to perceive the glory and awesomeness of his holiness and the beauty of it. And as we too, in that holy exercise, are made aware of our failings, even as God's people. It will drive us back again to that great sacrifice of Christ, offered once and for all, and never to be repeated, by which we draw near to God, by which we came at first as sinners seeking pardon, by which we come now as believers and as priests into the presence of God. And we have also noticed that when we become aware of our shortcomings, and the Holy Spirit reminds us again of the sacrifice of our Lord, here so beautifully typified in these Old Testament sacrifices, then our minds begin to shift. Our focus of attention goes from our own shortcomings and begins to concentrate on the loveliness of the Lord Jesus. And we begin to inquire how it was that he was able to act as a sacrifice for us, and we discover under the picture form of these sacrifices that where we are all so imperfect, he was absolutely spotless and stainless and positively good and wonderfully healthy. Our hearts are drawn out in admiration for his masterfully perfect living. God's great secret of making us holy begins to become apparent. For starting with our need, he has now transferred our attention to Christ, that his death meets that need, and then engaged our vision with the Lord, until we begin to forget ourselves in that sense, and being occupied with Christ and admiring Christ, our admiration deepens to worship. And presently, by God's grace, we begin to become like, and are transformed into the image of our blessed Lord Jesus himself. So far, then, it has been comparatively easy to translate into our Christian level of experience the lessons that God teaches through these ancient sacrifices. Now, as we come to the laws, we shall have to make one or two adjustments if we are to profit from them. And our first thing to notice is that they are not addressed to the people at large. These are addressed to the priests. The details of the sacrifices are addressed, we find, as I say, to the people at large. When a man wished to bring a gift to God, he needed to know what kind of gift would be acceptable. When a man needed to bring a sacrifice for sin or for a trespass, again he needed to be told what sacrifice God would find acceptable. But now we come to the priests, and we learn from these laws what we might have guessed, that the task of maintaining this ancient system of sacrifices was exceedingly complicated. You, I know, will say to me, but my good man, those sacrifices were only symbols. The blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer couldn't possibly cleanse the conscience of any sinner. They were only symbols at the best, and I know that. But though they were only symbols, it took quite a lot of zeal and care and attendance to maintain them, and that was the task of the priest. Allow me to use a familiar analogy, if I may. We Christian people, thank God, don't have to offer any sacrifices, literal sacrifices of animals to cover our sins. We do have some symbols, however, don't we? As we meet of a Lord's Day to remember the Lord Jesus, for instance, we have received to keep the two symbols of bread and wine by which we remember the Lord Jesus, how he gave his body for us, how he shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins. And once more, that bread is only bread, and the wine is only wine. But though they are only symbols, somebody has to give attendance to the practical side of affairs, surely. Someone had to bake the bread. Some kind Christian man or woman had to go and purchase it. Someone had to bring it. And there it lies now before us upon the table, that we might use it as a sacred symbol by which our memory shall be stirred of how the Lord loved us and gave himself for us. Be an embarrassing thing, wouldn't it, one of these Sunday mornings, if when the cover was removed from that plate, the congregation suddenly discovered that somebody had forgotten the bread wasn't there. What would you do? Suppose someone, uh, uh, removed, uh, the cover, and there was the bread, and he tried to bake it, but the, the baker had made a mistake, and the thing was as hard as concrete, and he couldn't even break it. What would you do? Let me give a public word of thanks for those who look after these things. Don't count them humdrum, my brother, my sister. Preparing those holy symbols is a sacred task, isn't it? Though they be only symbols. And your application of yourself to that duty week after week after week after week, God observes it, and we are grateful to you, and you shall have your reward. Imagine what it must have been like for the priests in Israel, with all that complicated system of sacrifices, burnt offerings, meal offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, and all sorts of subdivisions and permutations, and he had to know them all from A to Z, and what was the right thing to do when, and what to offer and what not to offer, and what to burn and what not to burn. A very complicated system it was, and took a great deal of devotion and care for him to discharge his practical responsibilities aright. Think for a min- for a minute, if you will, of that burnt offering of which we are now to think. That burnt offering we saw in one of our early studies was a gift that Israel brought to God to express their devotion to God. Morning and evening, every day of every week of every year. Morning and evening, incessantly and without fail, Israel as a nation had to offer her daily burnt sacrifice, that it might ascend to God and speak to God of Israel's devotion to him, that they should love him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, but had failed to do it, though they wanted to do it. And here was the sacrifice that God had allowed them to bring instead, that it might symbolize that devotion to God as the whole sacrifice was burned and ascended to God as a sweet smelling savor. This burnt offering was a sacrifice that a man might bring when he realized how deficient his own obedience had been, how poor his zeal and love for God had been, and he brought his sacrifice, laid his hands on the head of it, and then he slew it, and it was offered. Can you imagine a man coming like that with great spiritual exercise of heart, now bringing a bullock, costly as it was to him, and he comes into the court in all its solemnity. In the presence of God, he offers the bullet to God, and he slays it, and the blood is shed, and the thing is skinned, and the priest cuts up the parts, and they're put on the altar, and the man stands there. What an experience, as the flame begins to catch hold, and it burns, and the man is warm within, glowing with the warm of that fire, and seeing the smoke ascend to God, accepted for him, and a sense of the holiness of God and the wonder of being accepted with God begins to burn in the very man's soul. And presently, the offering begins to splutter, and the smoke stop, and the whole thing goes out. The priest hasn't done it properly. What a disaster. And so God gave these regulations to the priest. And with this particular sacrifice, says God to the priest, now my good man, three times over he says it, because of what this sacrifice symbolizes, the fire must never be allowed to go out. There shall be fire on the altar continually. The fire shall never go out. Here then are instructions to the priest that will help him perform that sacred responsibility and ensure that the fire shall never go out. How should we apply it to ourselves? Here too, of course, we've been thinking of ourselves largely as, uh, believers, haven't we, who, who need the sacrifice of Christ to cover their sins and shortcomings. Who, even when they come to worship God and offer him the gift of thanksgiving and praise, realize how far short it comes and have to have recourse to the merits of the Lord Jesus. But you know, as well as being ordinary, uh, people that come to get forgiveness, we are priests. We are priests, aren't we? And we too have the task that was given to the ancient priest. The ancient priest had the delightful duty that when men and women came in their need to find forgiveness, to find God, the priest was there to point him the way, to diagnose the man's need and point him to the appropriate sacrifice. When the man came to worship the Lord, there again the priest had the duty of leading the man's worship and leading him into the presence of God. And we too are priests, aren't we? And around us there are millions of men and women that know not Christ, lost in their sins. When in God's mercy, God's spirit begins to work in their hearts, and they find a longing for God, you and I have the delightful privilege of being allowed to point them to Christ, to point them to that great sacrifice that can take away their sins, and explain to them some of the wonders of it and some of the details of it. How it can give us cleansing from the stain of sin. How it can deal with the damage that sin has done. How it can make peace with God, and what are the terms of having fellowship with God. How it is our great burnt offering to cover our disobedience. We are priests. We are priests too with the responsibility of worshiping the Lord, are we not? To maintain the glow of spiritual devotion to the Lord. While all believers are priests, you older folk, some of you, what a delightful thing is yours to lead the Lord's people in their devotions to God, and if I might put it thus, to see that the fire doesn't go out. So let's come and look at some of these, um, practical details that God asked of the Levites. How keep the fire going? And some of you are going to be at a big disadvantage, you see. You live in such modern homes that you've forgotten how to light a coal fire, and forgotten even more what a business it is, and and all the bother of keeping it going. Wow, for you it's easy, isn't it? Coming down in the morning, all you do is put a switch on, and there's a beautiful electric fire. You don't know anything compared with what us old age pensioners used to have to do in days gone by, keeping the household fire going. What a duty it was. And here says God to the priest, now in this particular sacrifice, the fire shall never go out, my man. So first of all, you will deal in the morning when you come to the altar, you will take away the ashes, and then you will lay wood on it, and then you will cut, put the sacrifice in order upon the wood that's on the fire, and finally you will offer all the fat of all the offerings on that fire. Let's go over it one by one. The burnt offering shall be upon the hearth all night. There it burned even when nobody was there. All night long it burned to the glory of God. But now in the morning, a new morning, a new day, the priest comes to attend this altar, and he's got to keep the fire burning. Of course, it's burned low, and the red ashes have turned a bit to gray, haven't they? What shall he do? Oh, I know what the temptation would have been to just explode a bit, got a pair of bellows and try to put it up. Were you never tempted like that, my good sir, in your youth? You came down in the morning, and there had been a beautiful, cozy fire last night, and you had roasted your toes around it, and a few friends had gathered, and the glow of the fire helped the glow of the conversation, and oh, wasn't it delightful as you sat around that fire, and then you went to bed, and you come down in the morning and it's all gray and cold, uninviting looking. You wouldn't want to sit round it. And before the good wife comes downstairs, it's your charge, my good sir, to to get the fire going. And there were mornings when you were tempted to cheat, weren't there? Eh, what you should have done is relentlessly to have rolled up your sleeves and very carefully got the ashes away. Because if you don't take the ashes away, yesterday's ashes choke today's fire, do you see? You'll have an awful job getting it going, even if you've got a backseat. If you keep the ashes in too long, do you see? They'll choke the flame, it won't burn. And you had the temptation, didn't you, of saying, well, why bother? That's too much bother taking the ashes away. Let's see what we can do and poke it a bit and put some more wood on than the coal. Well, it might work one night, but it one day, but it wouldn't work very many. Now you've got to take the ashes away. Mm. If you can't be fanciful, well then you'll give me a pardon, won't you? You are so kind. You came to Christ first and found in him your great sacrifice. You saw you were accepted with God, standing, so to speak, by the very cross of Christ. Oh, how your heart was warm. And you realized you had forgiveness and acceptance with God. Oh, what a glow in your heart. Tremendous, wasn't it? And the days went by. Did it happen with you? That the fire burned down a little bit. And the feelings of warmth and wonder began to die away. I know it happened to one man because he wrote to him about it. Said he, where was the blessedness I knew when first I found the Lord? That blessedness when first I felt my heart melt with contrition and tears. Now gone. Where's it gone to? And you know, many of us, when first we had those experiences, the initial glow of the sense of acceptance with God and the wonder of the sacrifice of Christ, it seemed to die down on us a bit. Then you know what we did? We, we, we tried to fan it up again. And here came an exhorter of a preacher, and he got the poker out and poked us. Do you know that's a dangerous thing to do when the fire is running low? Poke it sometimes if there's a lot of coal on, and it will burst out into new flame. Poke it when it hasn't got much to burn but ash, and all you'll do is get a few sparks and then make it worse than it was before. Oh, my brother, when you find me with the glow gone and I'm sort of looking dull and gray and the ashes are there, don't poke me too hard, will you? Make me despair. What you got to do? Take the ashes away and put some new material on the altar. Ah, you say, ah, ah, ah, but wait a minute. You see, it isn't very warm now, but if I go and get the side of a bullet and put that on, that'll put the temperature down worse than ever. Haven't you noticed that when you've been entertaining your friends and you've been a bit lazy instead of putting the coal on when you should have done, you've let it burn too far? It's a beautiful red roaring great. Now you put the coal on, woof, the temperature has gone down. It'll be a while before it comes again. If I'm not wrong, something like that happens with spiritual life, you know. You've enjoyed all that delightful verse, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanseth us from all sin. You read it the other day. It meant tremendous amount to you. It fired your very heart, yes? And you read it the next day, and the next day, ooh, it lasted for three months. Now you read it and... doesn't quite produce the same feeling as it did. And as for brother, brother, uh, you know, Mephibosheth, you know, when you first heard him pray, it was delightful, and the second time wasn't bad. Now you've heard him one thousand five hundred and sixty seven times, and you know, he keeps on saying the same thing, and uh, well, somehow it doesn't quite move you as they originally used to move you. What's to be done? Not try to recapture the old glow. Not try and recapture the old feeling. How did you get the first lot of feelings? Well, you say, I, I be- I, I woke up to the value of the sacrifice of Christ. That's what happened, and I found Christ died as my personal savior. He died for my sin, and all the wonder of forgiveness of sins. And you lived on it for a long while. All right, all right, now it's died down a bit. Let the ashes come away. Don't try and work yourself up into a glow such as you had last week. No, no. Accept the fact that the feelings have gone. Take the ashes away and put some new material on. What do you mean by new material? Oh, well, the sacrifice of Christ is inexhaustible, you know. How did you find him? You say it's my sacrifice for sin. All right. Have a go now at the burnt offering, if you like. Christ as your great burnt offering. You say, I don't know what that means. And goodness me, Leviticus scares me stiff. Anybody starts talking about Leviticus and the temperature goes down tremendous in the congregation. Difficult stuff, isn't it? What? Yes, it's like putting a lot of coal on a fire, isn't it? And the temperature goes down, but it's the only way to get another glow. New material, my brother. And if you've read one verse from the New Testament, try another. Well, what about him who has procured for us justification? But I don't know what that means. You don't? Oh, well, that's good, because now you've got a whole host, a whole heap of new material to be put onto the fire of your worship, yes. And when you discover what that means, it looks a bit dark now, I know, and a bit heavy, but when, by God's spirit, you've discovered what it means, and the fire of God begins to take it up for you. Oh, what a glow justification will cause, let alone reconciliation and redemption and atonement. And what about a little drop of Ezekiel? My fire isn't ready for Ezekiel yet. Oh, I see, good, I see. I understand exactly what you mean. Yeah, don't forget it's there, though, will you, in the storehouse? All the material God has given us. And all calculated under God's spirit, when he makes it meaningful to us, to show us the wonder of Christ who died for us, and as we see it, to ignite the fire of devotion within. Practical point number one, don't go trying reviving yesterday's glow. Accept the feelings of gone. Take the ashes away. Put some new material on. Ah, so here's the priest. Now he's learned to behave. He's done his job properly. He's taken the ashes away. Now he's going to put some new material on. Wait a minute, says God. Before you put any of that bullock on there, I'd like you to put some wood on the fire first. Oh, why's that? Well, any Boy Scout will know. I mean, here's a fire. It's gone down low. Yes, it's still alight, but be careful. You're going to put a whole side of a bullock on it. But not just yet, I hope, because it'll put the thing right out. Great big wadge of wet meat with all the juices and everything else under the sun. Woof, it will put the fire out. It couldn't, it couldn't stand it. So says God, before you put the fire on, my good man, I want you first to put some wood on. Well, any Boy Scout knows that. You have to put the wood on first so that that catches light easily, and then as that catches light, then it can take the big bits. Yes. You say, wait a minute, now wait a minute. Mm. The sacrifice was the thing that gained them peace with God and forgiveness of sins, yes. It speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, yes, then it's a very precious symbol. The wood, what did that do? Well, that simply got the fire going, brother. Did that atone for anybody? Certainly not. You say, why have it then? Simply so that you would have the symbol of a bullock offered to God, that's why. And now we come to make a very important distinction. Here's you, and you're a priest, and you have the chance to address your Sunday school or an evangelistic meeting and point them to the sacrifice of Christ, and you're hoping God will use it to enlighten their minds and, and bring them to Christ in faith. Good man. And you say to yourself, now, now look here, Giles, it's not my eloquence that's going to save them. That's a good thing to remember. And it isn't my knowledge that goes to save them. Jolly good. And it isn't my great theological study that will save them. No. What is it that will save them? The sacrifice of Christ will save them. But what does that mean? You say my eloquence couldn't save anybody, my learning couldn't save them, so I shan't need to be eloquent. And I shan't need to learn anything. And I shan't need to put any effort into it at all. I can just get up and God will give me the word, you know, on the technique of open thy mouth and God will fill it. You wish it worked, because I should know all about Ezekiel forthwith on those terms. Is that so? And you've nothing to do? Oh, my brother, my sister, I know what we do can't save anybody. If you're going to put across two preeps to explain the sacrifice of Christ to your five-year-olds in the Sunday school class, to your workmates, to whoever it is, to five thousand in public. You add nothing to the merit and value of God's sacrifice. It will take you every ounce of sweat you've got. Every ounce of energy. Long hours of the study of God's holy word. Burning yourself out. That God may use you to make the gospel, to make the sacrifice of Christ real to other folks. There was no magic in how that fire kept burning, you know. Fire originally came from God, but to keep it going, the priest had to find the wood, and all Israel had to offer wood, and it was stored to be used. I don't know how you regard your good, your gifts. Mine are pretty cheap old orange boxwood, you know, that kind of wood, and yours the beautiful pine and that, but never mind. We're going to be active and useful for Christ, pointing others to the Savior. You'll have to burn your wood. Why is it that sometimes when we come to worship the Lord, there is a dearth and a dullness and a deadness? The sacrifice of Christ is wonderful, immeasurably glorious. Why hasn't it enthused our hearts? Why can't I lead the Lord's people in warm and powerful worship? Well, because I haven't been preparing the wood. I haven't studied his word. I don't know much about the sacrifice of Christ. And I suppose when I come to the meeting, God is going to do a miracle, pull down the switch, and woo, the glory is going to come. No, sir. You shall first burn the wood. We've got to do a lot of work then, and burning ourselves out, if you like, if you care for the phrase, according to our abilities. And then, says God, when you've got wood alight, you will put the pieces of the sacrifice in order upon the wood that's on the fire. And again, any farmer will know that if ever you've tried to get a fire going out the doors. You've got to be very careful the way you put the stuff on, even the wood for that matter. If you just pitch it on and it's a small fire, it won't catch, it will burn in the middle, and all the sides won't burn. If you want the thing to burn, you've got to put the pieces on carefully in order so that the flame can get at the pieces and it can take hold, and beginning with the little pieces will then go to the big pieces. You imagine the task of burning great sides of a bullock, legs, thighs, inwards. You'd need not only to cut them up, you'd need to put them in very careful order on that fire. And you know, I think it is, isn't it, with the sacrifice of Christ, if as a priest, so to speak, a Christian priest, you are wanting to point somebody to the great sacrifice of Christ and how it is it atones for your sins and what it can do. Must you not do it in order? Here's a bright spark. Do you know he hadn't got a clue about the gospel? And he started to get interested in spiritual things. His consciences are beginning to work, and here I come along to preach him the gospel. I say, my man, you need, you need to be saved. You need the great saving work of Christ, you know, because you're all dead in sins, like Babylon the Great. Men and women are defiled in the sight of God, you see, like Ezekiel says, and what you need is the red cord in your window, like Rahab the harlot, you see. And the man looks at me and says, what on earth is he talking about? A red cord in my window? Well, yes, some preachers have used it, haven't they? The illustration of Rahab and the cord in her window and used it very effectively in the gospel. But here's me, I've got it all out of context, and here's a man who knows absolutely nothing. What's the good of me talking to him about types and shadows and all complicated things? I've got to get the very simplicity of the gospel and put it on, so to speak, haven't I? And I've got to put it in order. You say I shall have to know my details. You will, yes. It will mean knowing what's suitable for this person and what's suitable for that person, and under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, to be able to present the Lord Jesus and his great sacrifice in proper order, so that it makes sense. You say, what a lot of work you're making at sound. Yes, of course, yes. What did you think? The office of priest in Israel wasn't a sinecure, was it? It was hard, hard, constant. Finally, says God to the priest, when you've taken the ashes away, you'll put new material there, ready to go on, and then you'll put the wood on, and then you'll put the pieces of the sacrifice in order so that they catch life. Then what? Says God, you shall take the fat, the fat out of every sacrifice. Priest, let me tell you again, you must not eat any of the fat. Many of the parts of the animals were given to the priest to eat, but not the fat, never the fat. For, says God, the fat is the fire, uh, the food of thy offerings made by fire. And yes, you may see some deep spiritual significance in it, and rightly perhaps. For the moment, I want to see its practical point. All that fat? What do you have it for? Well, you think of me way back in the dark ages, coming downstairs in the morning to keep the fire going, and at last I got the ashes away, and I put the wood on, and I thought it was a light, and I put some coal on, and now it isn't going to take. And then I cheat. Well, don't you, never you do it, but uh, you see, men, you know what men are. They're liable to cheat. This thing isn't going to catch light. So where they go out in the backyard, get a little paraffin, and whoom, standing back and ready for in case anything amiss happens, and ooh, the thing comes up, and that gets going, doesn't it? Yes, says God. And when you've got that mighty great beast all in parts upon that wood, then take all the fat and put it under so it'll blaze. All that practicality for keeping that sent those symbols going. We deal with infinitely more important things, used by God's spirit to make the sacrifice of Christ meaningful to men and women. My brother, my sister, says God, you'll give me the fat. As we saw the other night, when the Hebrews speak of the fat, metaphorically they mean the very best. Says God, you'll give me all of that. You know, we must serve the Lord in different capacities. Many of us have our secular tasks to do. God forgive us if ever we thought that we could, uh, serve the Lord and teach his word and point others to Christ as a kind of hobby. We do it if we had have an odd moment free from other things. Oh, so you won't. If you would be used of God as a royal priest to show forth the glories of God to men and women around, to lead his people in their worship, you'll find it will demand the very best of thought, of mind, of energy, of time for God.