The five offerings in Leviticus have almost become my daily prayer. It is like every day I wake and I remind myself that I have to offer these offerings in prayer. I can go to God in prayer because of the burnt offering of Jesus Christ. I offer that as a soothing aroma to God, realizing that it is because of His life and death, that in whatever state I am, I can come to God and enjoy His acceptance and love as His justified child. Then as a response to that, I offer a grain offering, offering myself to God in gratitude, and then I offer a peace offering. No matter what situation I may be facing, I for some time meditate on or feed on Christ’s “breast and thigh,” His infinite love for me and infinite power. It brings great peace. And then, I offer my sin offering, confessing and realizing we have sinned not only knowingly but also unknowingly in many ways. I confess my sins and I have to take the sin offering outside the camp and burn it. This indicates God’s wise way of dealing with sin. Not only forgiving our sins on the basis of Jesus’ work, but making us realize all those sins were put on Christ Jesus. We in a way put our hand on His head and transfer our sins to Him. We see the horror of what our sins did to Him, and that makes us sorrowful for sin, hate sin, and turn from sin, which makes us grow in sanctification. The amazing dynamics of the five offerings help us grow in our relationship with God. All that we need to grow in our relationship with God is covered in the details of those four offerings. You offer these four—the burnt, grain, peace, and sin offerings—daily, and you will see progress in your relationship with God. Our deepest spiritual needs—love, joy, peace, and forgiveness—are met.
In beautiful divine order, after dealing with our relationship with God, the fifth offering, called the trespass offering, or the guilt offering, primarily deals with guilt in a man’s relationship with another man. This offering shows how to maintain a peaceful, workable relationship with our neighbor, whether he be a member of our family or any other human being with whom we come in contact. We don’t realize how much we sin in our relationships with wives, husbands, children, and others. Because of regular sins, the relationship is broken. This is the offering which teaches us how to restore harmony to broken human relationships.
It comes last to teach us a very important lesson: only when we are regularly experiencing God’s love, joy, peace, and forgiveness can we live in harmonious relationships with other humans. You cannot get along with your neighbor until somehow you have learned to relate to your God. In God’s order, after talking about how to set right our relationship with God in the first four offerings, God gets around to talking about how we can get along with other humans. But you know, this is exactly the reverse of the way we humans usually go about it. We are concerned primarily about our human relationships: husband problems, wife problems, children problems, boss problems. In society, men are fighting. We have so many programs and plans to stop men from hurting one another, to stop family domestic violence, to stop divorce, to stop crime, to eliminate war, to correct injustices. We think if we educate people and teach them the importance and benefits of good manners and relationships, it will be more civilized, and all that will stop. But divorce is more common in educated countries. The more a man is educated, the more subtle his criminal acts against another man. There is so much cutthroat competition among educated people working in corporates and IT. We have so many conflict resolution programs, but the problem continues.
Here God shows the reason for all human relationship problems is that our relationship with our God is broken. That is why the first tablet of the law talks about our relationship with God first. Only when that is right will you love your neighbor, love your wife, not commit adultery and divorce your wife, not bear false witness, rob your neighbor, lie against, or covet anything of your neighbor. You see, it is the first tablet which provides the power to carry out the second tablet. If you have the right relationship with God, you can be a good husband, wife, parent, worker, and citizen. Mankind from the beginning has been trying to find a peaceful society by reversing that order. It is all a failure. Whatever developed civilizations, even though they had wealth and military might, they were trying to find a peaceful society, nevertheless, they crumbled and fought with each other because they had forgotten that simple relationship formula.
It is strange that we don’t understand this simple concept. Personally, the sin in us refuses to accept this truth. Without a proper relationship with God, you cannot have proper human relationships. In this guilt/trespass offering, we are dealing with sins that cause broken relationships with men. An amazing unique thing about the guilt offering is that all these are conscience-related. It is not someone who sins and faces the consequences and then repents. No, even though there are no outward consequences or terrible trouble, a man does something and sins, then his conscience later accuses him that it is wrong, and he feels guilty. So he comes and offers this so he can have peace of conscience. It is amazing. This chapter teaches us how important it is to maintain a clean conscience and how adding guilt destroys our peace.
Another uniqueness of the guilt offering is that God also orders restitution in this to bring peace to the conscience. It is not enough that you confess your sins and say sorry. There was the need to go back and to straighten up the past, as far as it was possible. A broken relationship needs repair, whether something material needs to be restored, or simply whether a hurt emotional injury done to another needs to be admitted. That is why it is sometimes necessary in human affairs to go back and clear up problems of the past.
There were five different categories of sin which were covered by this offering. In the Hebrew Bible, all verses from Chapter 5 right through to 6:7 are one chapter. I wish we could see all together, but we have to split the guilt offering into two. We will see three today and two next week.
The first one can be called the guilt of silence. Verse 1 says, “If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath, and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter—if he does not tell it, he bears guilt.” This was a sin of omission. He has heard someone making an oath, and he refuses to testify. You know the truth, but you think, “Why trouble?”, and you keep quiet instead of speaking. What are you doing? You sin and incur guilt. Verse 1 says, “you will bear that guilt.” Do you know we can sin by “keeping quiet”? How often are we guilty of this sin today? We know the truth, but we keep quiet. It is the sin of not wanting to get involved! For example, “It might hurt our relationship!”, “They may not like me anymore!”, “Someone is saying something which is not correct.” We think, “Oh, it’s not right to interrupt a conversation or a discussion, or to meddle in someone else’s affairs. Someone else will deal with it!” and the list goes on. “Why should I witness for truth? They may get upset.” James says, “he who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.” How much do we sin against our neighbors by keeping quiet when we should speak? Not speaking when we have to speak is sin! This is the first sin: refusing to testify for truth. Will you commit tonight to dealing with it?
Think of the public damage such a person causes. This also talks about giving witness to something wrong they have seen. A crime has happened, and you have seen it. They call you to give an eyewitness account. But if you refuse to give testimony, you are guilty of this sin. You have committed a sin, and you bear the guilt. Think: Is there anything this week you are “keeping quiet” that God is telling you to deal with, but you’re scared? Leviticus 19:17, “Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.” 1 Timothy 5:20, “Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.” Not speaking when we have to speak is sin! First, sin by refusing to testify for truth. Will you commit tonight to dealing with it?
When you refuse to testify, you sin against your neighbor and even sin against your society. Think of what a horrible society it will become if everyone sees a crime and refuses to testify and says, “Why trouble for me?” A crime has happened, a criminal needs to be punished, and the police need testimony to take action. No one comes forward. By our silence, we make criminals brave to do more wrong and commit 100 more crimes. We are part of all those crimes by keeping quiet. We have injured society by withholding testimony. We have made government difficult. Society cannot be governed when evil is concealed.
Yes, it was very important when God’s people were one nation, but even now, we pray for the city and country that there should be peace. How important this is for our society. Why is it so bad? Even leaders are doing wrong, and crimes are growing. One of the reasons we have so many problems in our society and in administering justice today is that people do not want to get involved. People are afraid. So when crime and corruption take place in our society, people just hide it. They don’t say anything to the authorities and won’t even report a crime that is committed right before their eyes. Our police are throwing up their hands and saying, “Help us, please! How can we help you if you won’t help us?” And, way back here in the Old Testament, God declared that this kind of sin injures the whole social structure and makes government impossible. So we can sin by keeping quiet, failing to testify to the truth.
The second category is found in Verses 2-3: “Or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness—whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty.”
This is accidental ceremonial defilement. When such a person learns of their ceremonial uncleanness, he is expected to provide the appropriate sacrifice. That process will make sure he is more careful not to be defiled and does not repeat it again. This introduces the whole matter of unclean things, about which we will learn a good deal more as we go on in Leviticus. Briefly, to give you an idea, when the Old Testament set aside an object, an animal, an act, or a person as unclean, it was recognizing a fundamental law of what today scientists would call “ecology,” natural balance.
These are things that disturb the ecological balance. Many past generations didn’t realize that. Now everyone is talking about ecology, saving nature. Everything is getting destroyed: global warming, floods, global pandemics, and increased diseases. In those old days, God set aside something as unclean and destructive to His beautiful nature and for our body and soul. He put some laws to preserve that. If such a law were broken, there might not be any immediate effect upon the individual who broke it. But if enough people broke it, the cumulative effect would soon be to disturb the delicate balance of nature and ultimately to wreak terrible havoc against the people. That, fundamentally, is what has happened to our society today. If anyone ought to understand this law of uncleanness, it is our generation, for we are reaping the results of the fact that people in the past have ignored the basic relationships of nature. We are the generation who has to pay the interest and principal. We pay money for water. All water needs to be cleaned because most water is unclean, the air is unclean. Because we didn’t care about clean and unclean, we suffer many diseases, we face many consequences.
Did it ever occur to you that all the things which we now regard as nature-destructive and threatening to our society were, when they were first introduced, welcomed as a big innovation and as benefits and blessings? Initially, when the motorbike or car came, people were so excited. What a tremendous advance this was on the horse or bicycle. But today, apart from causing all the traffic jams and choking our lungs, babies, as soon as they are born, go inside incubators to breathe properly, learning to breathe in dirty air. Hundreds of diseases, climate changes, global warming, and ozone destruction are all because of our cars and bikes. It is threatening our whole society. We don’t know what to do with it. We don’t know how to handle it. It has become a bigger problem than we can cope with. Most advanced research shows the best mode of transport not only for ecology but even for human health is what? A horse? No harm to nature. For us, a bumpy ride makes our body completely flexible, blood flow is so improved, no heart problems, no blood pressure problems, the mind becomes sharp, it is very relaxing, no tension like a car in traffic. That is why rich people always ride horses in their garden even now!
The same way with many other inventions: chemicals in soap powder, destroying water; chemicals in food, so many diseases; plastics’ effects on society. Farmers were first so happy with fertilizers. All worms would be destroyed, and they would have more crops. But now, not only is soil acidification food from that land becoming less nutrient, but the regular use of fertilizers is destroying the soil and will become useless in a few years and not grow any crop. Those chemical foods are causing 101 diseases which were not there 50 years ago. So the new greatest trend is clean organic food. Again, only rich people can buy that. We have to eat all inorganic food and suffer diseases.
Even a mobile phone is a wonderful gift. When it came out, for many years I didn’t buy one. I read somewhere that radiation will affect our brain. People made fun of me. I bought a Reliance Jio blue color, a 199 offer. Then people forced me to buy a smartphone. Now, it takes away more of my time. It has made me addicted. I don’t know what to do. Now, more than the benefits, a whole generation is glued to their mobile, from childhood to old age. How many health and mental problems have resulted?
This is the kind of problem which God, in His wisdom, is dealing with in this matter of unclean things. He is teaching man in that early age. “Man, there are clean things that will nurture your life, and there are unclean things which will destroy your happy life. Avoid them. Today you may think it is convenient, useful, or jolly, but these very things will not only spoil your relationship with me, but your relationship with nature, and ultimately destroy you, if you are permitted to continue, and thus constitute an offense against society.”
God shows in those old days the effect of that in these ritual laws. So when we are facing a desperate ecological crisis, we had better take careful notice of what the Bible calls unclean. These are sins we commit against one another, against our society. We are all part of that. We don’t even realize them as sins, they are never in our category of sins. Recognize it first.
Third is a third category in Verse 4: “Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.”
The reference is to an oath to do something uttered in recklessness or passion and forgotten as soon as it is uttered. The first one was not speaking when we should. This one is more like speaking thoughtlessly, rashly, and idly. Psalms 106:33.
An oath is a promise or a vow to accomplish something. A rash oath is one impossible to perform. It is a vow to do something you can’t do. And according to this stipulation, if a man uttered a rash oath—even if it were to do something good, let alone something evil—he was guilty before God. Why? Because in attempting the impossible, he was arrogantly pretending that he can do anything he wants like God and not depending on God as a man. He was forgetting that he was the creature and not the Creator. He was arrogantly talking, “I will do that and accomplish this,” as if he can control everything.
How many times daily do we promise someone something and then say, “I forgot”? Timekeeping. We say for a meeting at 10, then we go there at 10:30. It has all become usual, but we need to realize those are sins. So the guilt of silence, failing to testify, failing to speak when we should, is sin. Defilement by uncleanness is sin. The third is a rash oath and a word that I will do and not do it. All these are sins and need atonement and cleansing and forgiveness.
There are two steps of atonement.
First is confession. Verse 5 says, “And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing.” See, first realize and acknowledge these as sins. That itself requires grace. We just live a dodging life without realizing the thousands of things we do that have become a lifestyle and are sins. First, realize these are sins and confess these are sins. Only then do you have to bring an offering (verses 5, 6); and the offering was not accepted unless it was accompanied by a penitential confession and a humble prayer for pardon.
Observe, the confession must be particular: “that he has sinned in that thing”; not general. Deceit lies in generals. Many will own in general they have sinned so that it does not affect or shame them. No, you should feel sorrow, hate, and shame for that particular sin. That is the kind of particular confession that will help you avoid and make you well armed against that sin in the future.
Second, bring a trespass offering. Verse 6, “and he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.” As the atonement was not accepted without his repentance, so his repentance would not justify him without the atonement.
This was to be a female animal, which is very cheap, because here we are dealing with man in his weakness, in his submission to the laws of nature. Therefore, the female is the appropriate symbol. Verses 7-13, you see God’s great mercy. A provision was made for all economic classes. If a person couldn’t afford a lamb, he could bring turtledoves. And if he couldn’t afford turtledoves, verse 11 says he could bring just a handful of fine flour and offer that. So even the poorest were allowed to come to God and receive forgiveness and reconciliation from God. This shows that the forgiving mercy of God is available for all kinds of people. Provision is here made for the poor of God’s people, and for the pacifying of their consciences under the sense of guilt. No man’s poverty shall ever be a bar in the way of his pardon.
But the one inflexible requirement was that all persons must admit the offense. That meant that he had to see what was wrong. That was essential to the obtaining of forgiveness in the offering of the animal.
The truth that we are dealing with here is reflected in the New Testament in First John where we are told, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9). God insists upon our admitting and our confessing not because he is trying to humiliate us, but because that is necessary in order for us to receive the forgiveness which he has already provided. It isn’t that God forgives us at that moment. He has already forgiven us. But we can’t accept that forgiveness until we see and understand the truth about what has happened. That is why it is necessary to admit wrong.
The secret in human relationships is to realize what wrong we have done. We dodge, avoid that, and do everything else. We see the other person is hurt, so we say, “sorry.” But that doesn’t admit that we are wrong! But what God wants is for us to come to the place where we say, “Yes, I am wrong. I did it, and it was wrong.” It is at that point that a relationship is restored. In most broken human relationships, it is necessary for both parties to say that. And each one must start with himself, as Jesus said. “First remove the beam that is in your own eye; then you will see clearly how to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).
Notice how the offering is given. A female goat, though not described in the passage, it will be like the sin offering in the last chapter. He will lay his hand on it, kill it, the priest will take the blood, sprinkle it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour all the remaining blood at the base of the altar. Verse 31, “He shall remove all its fat, as fat is removed from the sacrifice of the peace offering; and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a sweet aroma to the Lord,” and take the remaining parts outside the camp and burn it.
Verse 7, “If he is not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord, for his trespass which he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. And he shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first, and wring off its head from its neck, but shall not divide it completely. Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering. And he shall offer the second as a burnt offering according to the prescribed manner. So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed, and it shall be forgiven him.”
Verse 11, “But if he is not able to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he who sinned shall bring for his offering one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering. Then he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as a memorial portion, and burn it on the altar according to the offerings made by fire to the Lord. It is a sin offering. The priest shall make atonement for him, for his sin that he has committed in any of these matters; and it shall be forgiven him. The rest shall be the priest’s as a grain offering.”
The horror of sin and the glory of Christ’s atonement.
Why, Pastor, are you preaching Leviticus? Do you know what Leviticus will do? It will point up the seriousness of sin. Why, Pastor, are you always talking about the seriousness of sin? Though our flesh hates it, it is so very important for us to realize the seriousness of sin. J. C. Ryle’s book, “Holiness,” says, “He who would make great strides in holiness must first uncover the depths of his sin.” Unless you realize the seriousness of sin, you will never grow in holiness. So true. That’s the issue. Sin is serious.
What lessons can we learn from these three categories of sins? Sin, however small it may appear to us, however ignorant, it is no light evil.
First: If you think these are smaller sins, do we realize it is because of the first sin of failing to give an eyewitness account, that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by the Sanhedrin? How many times do we sin by not giving testimony for truth, and are quiet when we should be speaking? How much guilt is incurred?
Second, defilement makes us realize we live in a sea of sins in our society, and we may not know. But all these things defile us before God. We should receive confession and cleansing. We may not know many of them. As soon as ever God by His Spirit convinces our consciences of any sin or duty, we must immediately confess and ask God’s grace to cleanse us and do something about it.
Thirdly, we speak rashly so much and even take oaths. Think of it, in bargaining, how much we lie. “It is naught, it is naught, says the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasts” of the good purchase he has made. Proverbs 20:14. We would not rob or steal, but will yet run into debt, when they know that they have not the means of satisfying their creditors. In filing taxes, how much we lie. In paying tithes in church, yet we would be very indignant to be called thieves and liars.
How many sins are committed by being silent, in speaking, or unknowingly harming society with unclean things? None of us can think that his ignorance is any excuse for him before God: those are sins. Do we at least know these are wrong? Yet where are the consciences that are burdened with guilt? Where are the penitents applying to the blood of atonement? Most of us are praising themselves as having but little, if any, occasion to repent? In the gospel, does God give us license to ignore those sins? If sins of ignorance were not pardoned without an atonement, much less will bold, presumptuous sins be pardoned. We should pray like David, “Lord, who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from my secret faults.” Psalms 19:12. As soon as the fault or error was discovered under the law, the proper offering (whether sin or trespass offering) was to be brought; and, if the offender refused to bring his offering, his sin became presumptuous; he bears the guilt. So we should, as soon as we know, learn to confess our sins and seek cleansing from Christ’s blood. The declaration of God is this: “He that covers his sins, shall not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.” Proverbs 28:13.
We should not be satisfied with general acknowledgments that we are sinners. We do so many sins. But instead of searching out our particular sins and humbling ourselves for them, we should know the whole state of our souls is sinful. He who never has seen any individual evils to lament will have but very faint conceptions of his general depravity. We should therefore “search and try our ways.” And not only say with Achan, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel,” but proceed with him to add, “Thus and thus have I done.” Joshua 7:20. This is the particular instruction given in our text: the person who had transgressed any law of God, whether ceremonial or moral, was, as soon as he discovered it, to “confess, that he had sinned in that particular thing.” Oh that we were more ready to humble ourselves thus! But we love not the work of self-examination. And the evils which we cannot altogether hide from ourselves, we endeavor to banish from our minds. Hence it is that so many of us are “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
The glory of Christ’s suffering is two things. Remember Isaiah 53 is Jesus Christ offered himself as a guilt offering for us. His one sacrifice atoned for all kinds of sins. All these offerings—burnt, grain, peace, sin, and guilt offerings—depended on the sin and guilt of the condition of the worshipper. There were different offerings for a priest, different for a ruler, and different for common people. It met different spiritual needs and atoned for varied kinds of sins. The victims varied from a bullock or a lamb down to a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. We will study more of the different offerings. These were given for atonement for sins that are innumerable, known and unknown.
Do we see the glory of Christ’s one great sacrifice? Because all these varied needs are fulfilled by His one great sacrifice. All the different needs of atonement for us through varied sacrifices, for different people, for innumerable different sins and guilt, all was perfectly atoned for and fulfilled by one great sacrifice of Christ. When we read this, we understand as the writer of Hebrews says, one great sacrifice of Christ is so glorious that it can atone for any sins. Any sins, any guilt anyone can incur, now one sacrifice of Christ is enough. We take different views of the sacrifice of Christ according to our guilt, sins, and need to see it. That one is can atone for all sins.
Christ’s atonement is many-sided and operates in many directions. The mercy is that the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus is suitable to you, and equally suitable to me, and to all that come to Him by faith. The rich, the poor, the brave, the timid, the amiable, and the immoral, all find in Jesus that which fits their individual case. Each man shall find his case perfectly met by the Savior’s atonement, as much so as if Jesus were prepared for that man only, as if that man were the only sinner under heaven, or Jesus a Redeemer sent to him alone of all the family of man. Oh, the depth of the wisdom and of the grace of God in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Secondly, when you think of the sacrifice of Christ, it not only atoned for the few, maybe 1 or 2% of sins you know and realize, but the glory of the cross is that it atoned for all the infinite oceans of unknown sins you and I committed in the past, commit daily, and will commit daily. That is what God shows in this passage. Even sins of ignorance are sins that defile and need an atonement if God has to accept. Then if God accepts us as perfect in Christ, then Christ should have atoned for all sins we commit all our life unknowingly. Do we see how glorious the cross of Christ is?
What good news! How our heart should rejoice in the cross. To know that the Lord Jesus has made atonement for your sins before you knew them to be sins. Nowadays, I remember Paul. For everything, we have to follow him right? Paul persecuted the saints ignorantly. Does he call them lesser sins? But all his life he was mourning for those sins committed in ignorance. That is what made Christ’s cross so precious to him. “I will not boast in anything but the cross of Christ.”
Now, if the precious blood of Jesus only atoned for sins we realize and confess, we are undone. Its glory is beyond what I can ever realize in this life and even for all eternity. The atonement acts according to God’s sight of sin and not according to our sight of it, for we only see it in part, less than 1%. But God sees it all, mountains and oceans of our sins, and blots it all out because of one sacrifice of Christ. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Those unknown sufferings of Christ have put away from us those infinite unknown sins which we may never realize all our life. Blessed be God for a sacrifice which cleanses away forever not only our glaring faults, but those offenses which the most minute self-examination has not yet uncovered.
“O Jehovah lifted up His rod for all our sins, O Christ, it fell on Thee. Thou wast sore stricken of my God. There’s not one stroke for me.” “Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe. Sin made me fully crimson stained. He washed me white as snow.” “A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing.” We don’t bring rams or goats, the ashes of a heifer. We come with the blood of Jesus and look to that, to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ shed for me. No matter what the sin, my friend, no matter how great the sin, there is forgiveness in Jesus because of the glory of the cross. Praise God, there is. Praise God, there is.
Today we can come to God and offer praise and prayer because of Him. You notice what the priest does with the blood. He puts blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord. This sets forth the influence of the blood upon our prayers. It is because of the blood of Christ that God hears our prayers. “He shall pour all (the rest) of the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering.”
All liters of blood were poured under the base of the burnt offering, creating a full sea of blood there. The first object that the Israelite saw when he entered the sacred precincts was the great altar of brass upon which burnt offerings were burned. It was at the foot of this bronze altar that the bowls of blood were continually poured out, so that the altar was crimsoned with it, and the soil around was soaked with the sanguine flood.
This displays the influence of the blood of Christ on all our service for the Lord. God hears us, accepts our praise, worship, services, and life, all because the blood of Christ supports them. All this blood is meant to give us very great encouragement and assurance whenever we come to God in prayer. Whatever state we are in, there is enough blood to cleanse us.
Lord Jesus presented Himself to God as an acceptable sacrifice; all our Lord’s service is tinged by His atoning death.
Let us learn that whenever we come to offer any sacrifice to the Lord, we must take care that we present it by virtue of the precious blood of Christ. God knows our hearts in the worship of this morning. He knows how many have really adored Him, and out of those who worship, how many of us have presented our sacrifice, thinking only of the merit of Jesus as the reason why it should be received.
In your every morning prayer, have you really pleaded the precious blood? Your petitions will not otherwise be acceptable to God. When you are praying at eventide and speaking with your heavenly Father, do you have your eyes upon Christ? If not, your devotion will be rejected.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 