Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore

The book of Leviticus starts with the five great offerings, and we have seen three so far, with two more to go. I have tried to show that each of these offerings is given to fulfill the basic needs of us fallen human beings. The burnt offering fulfills the need for acceptance and love, the grain offering fulfills our need for joy that comes from expressing gratitude, and the peace offering fulfills our basic need for peace. Those are the basic needs of human life. Without them, you cannot function properly as a human being.

Now we come to the sin offering. This indicates that as fallen people who are committing sins, there is a great need for us to regularly realize the horror of our sins and confess them to God. The consequences of continual unconfessed sin are so terrible in a believer’s life. It grieves the Holy Spirit, quenches his graces and comforts. We don’t realize what joy and blessing we miss. Our hearts become defiled and get hardened, leading to pride, self-righteousness, and deadness in our Christian life. Even terrible chastisements from God come when we fail to confess sins. We see that in David’s life. Growth in grace in our heart happens when our heart is always wet with tears of repentance. The secret of all fruitful Christian life is how we deal with sin. This chapter makes us realize the horror of sin and our continual need to confess. That is the only way we can progress.

Now you’ll notice with me the grand theme of the sin offering is given in verse 2 of Chapter 4. “If a person sins unintentionally, through ignorance.” This is the occasion for a sin offering. If that occurs, what does God require? That’s what we’re going to address tonight. Let me give you a blueprint of this sermon. A sin offering is given for sins committed by four different categories of people. First, verses 1-12, a priest sins; second, verses 13-21, the whole congregation; third, verses 22-26, a tribal leader or judge sins; fourth, verses 27-35, any common Israelite sins.

First of all, I’m going to engage in a fast survey: four categories of people and the sin offering, and then three main lessons we can learn from this.

Survey of the Sin Offering

First of all then, to our fast survey exposition. The first sin offering is for the anointed priest, which is found in 4:3-12. We find in verse 3 that if the anointed priest sins, his sin brings guilt on the people. This religious leader, if he has sinned unintentionally and inadvertently, what happens? His sin does not go with him; it brings guilt on the people. The way he should give a sin offering, we’ve seen the three offerings, so by now, we know some of the methods of how an animal offering is given.

The priest would bring the bull to the entrance of the tent, lay his hands upon the head of the animal, state why he has brought the sacrifice, and then slay the animal by cutting its throat with a knife. Unlike all other offerings, which were done outside the tent near the altar, with blood sprinkled on the altar, there is a unique thing for the sin offering for the priest. The priest would see the bull suffering with its throat cut for his sin. The blood flowing from its throat would be caught in a basin. He will pass the burnt offering outside and enter the actual tent of the outer court. Remember, the temple had three sections: the outer court, the holy place, and then there was a big veil. You cross the veil, you go to the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, wherein dwells the Ark of the Covenant, with the ten tablets manifesting the moral character of the living God.

Now, this priest would take the basin of blood and go inside the outer court, and then even enter the tent into the holy place and go very close to the most holy and stand before that veil. He would dip his finger in that basin of blood, and then he would sprinkle that blood seven times on the curtain. That is the curtain that leads into the Holy of Holies. This is the curtain that was torn when the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross. This was the barrier between God and his people, and only the priest, once a year, with the blood, could enter in. But now, because of this inadvertent sin of the priest, he would sprinkle blood upon that curtain seven times. Imagine blood stains splashing on the beautiful screen of fine linen and blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, with cherubim skillfully worked into it.

Verse 7 says while coming back, he would take some blood. Then he would come out of that tent into the inner part of the court. Now, there were certain remaining gallons of blood that were left in that bull. And the remaining gallons of blood were to be poured out on the ground before the altar of burnt offering in the large court. Notice verse 7, “He shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering which is at the doorway of the tent of meeting.”

Verses 8-10 say, “He shall take from it all the fat of the bull as the sin offering. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat which is on the entrails, the two kidneys and the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys, he shall remove, as it was taken from the bull of the sacrifice of the peace offering; and the priest shall burn them on the altar of the burnt offering.”

Then something else unique we find in this sin offering. Verses 11-12 state, “But the bull’s hide and all its flesh, with its head and legs, its entrails and offal—the whole bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.” These things would be collected up and transported outside the camp along with all of the ashes of that which was burned up, and then outside of the camp, all these remaining portions would be burned completely there. So that is the sin offering for the anointed priests.

Now in our rapid survey, come with me. Secondly, to the sin offering for congregational sin. This is found in 4:13-21. Now what’s envisioned here is a sin that has originated in the congregation. They become guilty. It could be a leader’s sin that leads the whole nation in that sin. We see in Joshua 9 the congregation committing an unintentional sin, not knowing the Gibeonites were part of the Canaanites, but made a covenant with them, transgressing God’s law. What should they do if they sin as a congregation? It’s time for a sin offering. A bull needs to be taken to the tent.

Verse 15: “And the elders as representatives of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord.” Then the bull shall be killed before the Lord and they are to go through the same activity as the high priest. There is a basin of blood that is collected in the outer court, blood is taken into the holy place, sprinkled upon the veil of the most holy place, blood is smeared upon the altar of incense, and all the remaining blood of the bull is poured out before the altar of burnt offering. And then what happens to the remains? The same thing. The remains are to be transported and burned outside of the camp. And remember, we’re talking about a place beyond the orbit of God’s covenantal protection and mercy, beyond the sphere of God’s grace and loving kindness, outside the camp. The remains are to be consumed. So we’ve seen the sin offering for the anointed priest and the sin offering for congregational sin.

Now, thirdly, the sin offering for the leader. And that is in 4:22-26. This is the sin offering for a tribal leader. We find it says in 4:22, “If a ruler sins and unintentionally does any one of the things that by the commandments of the Lord his God ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt.” This leader in the Hebrew means a lifted-up one. It can be a tribal leader, as each tribe had a leader representing them. It is an important civil position for the upholding of basic order in the tribes. When a political leader has sinned, he has to offer a sin offering. We notice some differences here.

We detect concerning this leader that there is a clear descending graduation downward in the seriousness of his sin. The reason why is, look at what kind of an animal he’s to bring. Is he to bring a bull? No. He is to bring a male goat instead, as per verse 23. Instead of a great and expensive bull. One male bull, I was asking my uncle in the village, he was saying 1.5 to 2 lakhs. In those days it had more value because they used it for so many purposes. That was an expensive sacrifice at that time. But you see, this man was not a religious leader, a high priest or the whole congregation, who would spiritually represent the people of God. This man was merely a political, civil leader, and therefore he did not bring the great bull of staggering price, but rather there is a lower demand for the tribal leader. It is merely a male goat without defect.

Secondly, we find in verse 25 that this basin of blood is not taken into the Holy Place at all, or sprinkled on the veil of the most holy, but just outside. “The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour its blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering.” Again we see a more descending graduation here. It seems that the sin of this tribal leader is not as serious in its import as the sin of the high priest or of the congregation. We find that the offense seemingly is not as heinous or as weighty or as aggravated in the eyes of God. For one, he does not need to go so near to God with the cleansing and sprinkling blood. We assume, as in the other cases, all of the remains are transported outside the camp, beyond all the tribes into the outer area beyond the camp, and there it is burned.

We’ve seen the sin offering of the anointed priests, for congregational sin, for the tribal leader, and now for the common people in 4:27-5:13. Fourthly, and finally, to the sin offering for the common people in 4:27-5:13. Here we are speaking of when a layman in Israel commits a sin. Notice what it says in 4:27, “Now if anyone of the common people sins unintentionally.” This is not a priest, a congregation, or a tribal leader. An ordinary Israelite. There is a descending guilt degree and graduation in the import as we’re going downward now. No bull needs to be offered. Not even a male goat needs to be offered, but rather we find this common man can bring a female goat or a lamb, as per verse 28, both being of considerably less value than the male goat.

You also notice here the priest does not go into the holy Place. He does not sprinkle the blood upon the curtain. Rather, he stays in the outer court. He smears blood on the horns of that burnt offering altar in the outer courts. He pours out the blood of the beast before that altar. And then we see that he takes the rest of it and takes it to the outside of the camp. Again, we see that this is an offense that is less penetrating and less heinous in the eyes of God. Verses 27-31 tell how to offer a female goat, and verses 32-35 at the end of the chapter tell how to offer a lamb.

So that then is our summary survey exposition of the passage. Now let’s use three main lessons for application. I want to put my face and your faces under mud before God.

Three Lessons

First lesson: Sin of ignorance.

This whole sin offering is for sins of ignorance. Isn’t that amazing? It reveals a shocking truth that even inadvertent sins of ignorance, even these sins, defile us and therefore require purification. All these sacrifices are for sins of ignorance. But doesn’t that strike you? What’s going on there?

God has an entire class of sacrifices appointed in the book of Leviticus for unintentional sin! Our intentional sins are enough, surely! But He sees the impurity that is brought about by inadvertent, ignorant sin, and points out to His people that that too needs purification. These are not high-handed, presumptuous sins, or premeditated sins. There can be humanly explainable reasons and excuses for these sins, and still they defile the people of God, and so they need purification.

We all thought have been thinking sins of ignorance are mistakes. How we excuse ourselves when we do wrong in the family and outside. “Oh, I did it ignorantly.” “But I didn’t mean to!” And God has a whole sacrificial class for the sins done ignorantly, because they defile us.

Oh, do we see the depth of God’s law? It shows all sin defiles us. All sin needs cleansing. And by the way, listen to that language. It’s not simply that we need forgiveness; it is that we need cleansing. We have been made impure and defiled by sin, and that sin needs to be cleansed.

Think of how differently we see a lot of things with this truth. On the Day of Judgment, will sins be excused because they were done without knowing? Sins of people who do not know, gentiles and all their idolatry. They all fall under sins of ignorance. “Oh, he doesn’t know the law of God. How can he be held accountable for the law of God?” Punished for those sins? Let me ask you a question, brethren. Does God ever suspend his physical laws for the ignorant? I mean, a little child maybe eight months old who crawls out a three-story window. He was ignorant of the law of gravity, but does God suspend the law of gravity? No, he falls just like the wise professor of physics. God does not suspend his physical laws for the ignorant, nor does he suspend his moral laws for the ignorant. If a man who has never seen one word in the Bible and is living in some remote village, all his idolatry and immoral lifestyle is an abomination before the Lord, and it will all defile him. The degree of his sin may be equal to a man who sins like him knowing God’s word, nevertheless, it is a great sin.

Think of all those people who are being led astray by a false religious leader or a false teaching. We spoke today about how so many thousands go to false churches. So many know that traditional church committees and priests are robbers, but they follow tradition and go. So many go because of a grand stage and a crowd. Maybe they are thinking a man is preaching God’s word, but he is a false teacher. Because you don’t know, you are ignorant of Bible truths, you believed him. You thought he was teaching the truth, and that false teaching leads you the wrong way. Well, whose sin is it? Well, it’s the religious leader’s sin, but you sinned ignorantly and followed along with it. God will judge and punish you even though you didn’t know the truth. Those sins affect and curse you and will take you to hell.

There are women preachers. They may be doing it with a good conscience, but conscience is not the standard. They think they are pleasing God, but it is an abomination in God’s eyes because the Lord has spoken clearly in 1 Timothy Chapter 2 that a woman is not to have authority over a man and 1 Corinthians 14 that women are to be silent in the churches. This isn’t my opinion. I know it doesn’t conform with the cultural trends of our day, but this is the word of God. See, consciences are in many ways neutral. They need to be educated by God’s word, otherwise we pile up sin to heaven.

We have to understand the humiliating truth that we sin far more than we know. See, we need to confess our sins regularly to God for a healthy spiritual life. We don’t do that because we don’t realize this truth. We have to allow this truth to affect our conscience and humble us, which will regularly make us confess our sins daily to God.

Can I bring this to our own consciences in our church, our personal lives, and our families? Will you allow me to touch your conscience with this truth?

• Church: Sins you commit by not fulfilling church responsibilities. The constitution is according to the Bible, and we all agreed. When you don’t obey, you may not realize it as sin, but it is sin. It adds guilt. It defiles you. It stands as a sin in God’s sight. It needs to be confessed and repented of. What about breaking the Sabbath? We break the Sabbath in so many ways. It may not bother our conscience, but that does not mean we are without guilt. When we break the Sabbath, we have done an abominable thing before the living God. Very practically, the Bible says you need to ensure you dress neatly and beautifully, but never allow that to be a temptation to others. The tightness of a dress, a tight chudidhar, and no dupatta. Some even expose themselves. “Pastor, you cannot talk like this. That is how I dress.” See, you may be ignorant. You may dress with a good conscience, never meaning anything. But what sins you are committing without ignorance. You don’t realize what temptations you are causing. A woman can sin because of naivete, yet those are sins.
• Family: Parenting like Eli. Knowing his sons were rogues, he shouldn’t have allowed them to be priests. When he saw them committing adultery in the temple and eating God’s sacrifices, he should have removed them and actually given them the death penalty for their treasonous crime. But instead he only came and said, “This is not a good report I hear of you, my sons.” He should have come not with a rod, but with a sword, instead of soft advice and nice talking. He thought he was doing a good job, a very kind father. You know what judgment they brought on the nation. This is a sin of ignorance. We as parents here think that they are being faithful with their children. Loving parents. When they rebel and speak things they shouldn’t speak, instead of using a firm rod and punishment, we keep giving smooth talks. We are not aware of what wrongs we are doing in parenting because we have no experience. We may be doing it in ignorance. Our love may blind us. We really believe we are trying to be a good daddy with compassion. Others may observe how wrong we are, sinning ignorantly. You see unwitting sin in parenting. Oh, we need to ask one another, “Do you see anything wrong in my parenting? If you see something, please tell us. We are all struggling.” In preaching, I tell them, “Generally they say pastors’ children are the most naughty. If you see anything, where I am going, I may not know, please help me.”
• The same is true with husband and wife relationships. We fail in our duties. We may be sinning daily, not loving wives, wives not submitting. It may not bother us at all. We are used to living like that. Those are sins in God’s sight. What about trusting God’s providence? We have gotten so much into worrying and murmuring against providence. We may not know that sin at all, but it is a sin against God’s love, redemption, and providence.

Think of this truth. James 2:10, where James says, “he who keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of it all.” You want poverty of spirit. You meditate on that. What a debt. What a staggering moral debt we have to the living God.

Realizing all this, David prays in Psalm 19:12, “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” This truth is a death knell to perfectionism. If we examine ourselves like David about our unknown sins, we will find an abyss of sins so great as to have neither bottom nor shore. That’s how deep and broad and far and wide our sin is before the living God.

“Pastor, you’re really pushing our faces down on the earth.” Yes, the word of God is doing that tonight. That’s a good place for us to be, with our faces prostrate before our God. Embracing the humiliating truth that we sin far more than we know.

Second lesson: Degrees of sin.

In God’s kingdom, for some because of their high position and privilege, like a high priest and the whole congregation, their sin is seen as very severe compared to the sins of a normal Israelite. The high priest has to offer a bull and blood has to go inside the holy place and be sprinkled on the veil of the most holy, a dangerous place to be close to the moral holiness of the living God, and also smeared on the incense altar. In contrast, an ordinary Israelite can bring a female sheep, and all his sin offering can be done outside the holy place.

The passages show that sin found in the spiritual leaders of God’s people are far more serious than those sins found in the normal people of God. And why is this highlighted in this passage? Well, I believe it’s because of the far-reaching influence and the high profile of the spiritual leaders of God’s people and the danger potentially in their sins. Verse 3: It says the high priest’s sin brings guilt on the whole nation. The priest sins and the people become guilty. What’s going on? The priest is the representative of God’s people. He is Israel boiled down to one person representing Israel before God. He is the agent that God has appointed to deal ritually with the defilement of Israel and to bring about purification. And if he is defiled, how will he serve that purpose for Israel?

You think of Eli. He was a priest, and he made his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, as priests, which was a mistake. He should never have made them priests. 1 Samuel Chapter 2, they were spiritual leaders of the people of God. Remember what they did in the temple? Not only adultery, but when people were offering up peace offerings, they would put them in a boiling pot because the fat was to go to whom? The fat was to go to God, but Hophni and Phinehas would take a three-pronged pitchfork and drive it in and pull out the fat for themselves and eat it for themselves. They were an abomination to the worship of the living God. They were bringing guilt on the people.

Because of their continual sin, what happened to Israel? Ichabod. The glory of the Lord departed from the people of God. Remember the Ark was taken by the Philistines off to Ashkelon. God’s symbol of presence went away from those people because of the leaders’ sin.

So brothers, I speak with trembling here. Do you see we find the New Covenant significance to such a thing? You think of how the unholiness of life in a pastor and deacon can lead hundreds astray. How it can bring guilt on the whole church. A pastor who lives in continual sin, with a broken fellowship with God, can bring a chill to the whole congregation. His preaching has no life, no Holy Spirit anointing. His sinful life will show itself in a careless attitude, talking carelessly about sin, and his careless example can spread like leaven within the church. Do you see that the people of God are severely endangered? Very soon, Ichabod can be written over the door of that church. Glory has departed. It is a dead synagogue of Satan because of the sin of that leader. Do you see the high responsibility for spiritual leaders? James says that not many of you ought to be teachers, for you shall be judged with the greater strictness.

When I read such things, I feel like running away somewhere. Like Paul, I wring my hands, “Who is sufficient for such things?” To put it in the vernacular, what in the world am I doing here? “Leave me Lord, let me run away.” Let me just bring two requests as we focus on this theme.

1. Pray for me. Even Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:25 says, “Pray for us.” Your pastor’s holy life is a lifeline for the spiritual life of the church. If he sins, there is greater influence and punishment, not only on him, but guilt comes on the whole church. I feel very inadequate for this great responsibility. It is not just preaching, but the life we live. We are not adequate in ourselves. I have temptations like you, the same passions like you. If we have any adequacy, it comes from God as a result of prayers. Please pray for us, that we would have measures from God of this provision of adequacy.
2. Secondly, Brethren, 1 Timothy 5:22, “lay hands on no man hastily.” Meaning, don’t make anyone a pastor in a hurry. Yes, we want a plurality of elders, we want more pastors. But when we select a pastor, if we don’t want to destroy this church and make it Ichabod, it is everyone’s responsibility to make sure you we don’t select anyone in a hurry, by impatience. He has to be a man Christ appointed to be an elder. How do we recognize him? It’s not merely because he’s a man who is one who preaches and teaches in a dynamic fashion. Those individuals may be very common. Yes, he must be a man who is qualified in 1 Timothy Chapter 3 and Titus 1. He is a godly man. He is a blameless man. He rules his own household well. He is not a strong striker. He is a man who is a one-woman man. He is a godly individual. That’s what we need.

When your and my faces are humbled by our sins, we should adore the God of all holiness for his super-abounding mercy. If we ourselves, with the blindness of sin and self-love, just looking at some sins, cannot stand and fall prostrate, cannot even see our face in the mirror, imagine that is just less than 1% we see. This God of pure holiness and inflexible justice who can see all sins, how much greater evils he must know about us. He would know the infinite depth of our sins. Yet how patient he must be with us, like a scorpion always biting, but you are holding and protecting and feeding it. Not only patient, but what a marvelous way he has made us to be not only forgiven, but justified and even adopted as his children and to come to him boldly.

Think of it, if we are allowed to come to God and be accepted by God on the basis of not even our righteousness, but the realization of all our sins. Confess all your sins, known and unknown. How impossible even to come to God by confessing! If acceptance with God and a relationship with God is based on confessing and renouncing every sin, nobody would ever be saved and have fellowship with God. None of us could draw nigh to the living God when we consider the height and the depth and the breadth of the ocean of our sins.

We see God is so super-abounding in his mercy that he saved and made a way of acceptance with him by the redemption and atoning death of Jesus Christ alone. Do you see how vast, unmeasured, boundless, and free is the atoning love of the God in Lord Jesus Christ? Was every Israelite aware of all unknown sins? Maybe only a fraction he would know. But God made a provision for them to cleanse all known and unknown sins, a complete cleansing once a year, for all these sins. And that was the Day of Atonement. When once a year the priest, having slain the bull, he wouldn’t just go into the holy Place, he wouldn’t just sprinkle on the curtain, but he would go into the very Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood of the bull on the mercy seat, and that would mop up all of the sins which were left unconfessed by the people of God for the entirety of the year.

The Lord Jesus Christ was slain on Golgotha outside the camp to cleanse us of all our sins. Do you see how the Lord Jesus’ work fulfills all these rituals? Why was the veil sprinkled with blood and the horns of the altar smeared with blood when a priest or nation sinned? When sin is in the temple or among all God’s people, the Tabernacle is defiled. We find that took place with Hophni and Phinehas because they had sinned. The Tabernacle had been defiled, and what did the Lord do? He left the Tabernacle because it was defiled. Sin makes a moral stench. And when that takes place, Jehovah departs from among the people of God. We find then that sprinkling is for purifying and for cleansing the tent of any defilement, so that it would ensure that God would not depart. To preserve the presence of God within the camp among the 12 tribes, it needs to be sprinkled with blood and cleansed. God would not dwell where there was defilement. The altar of incense represents our prayers to God. When that is defiled with sin, God will not hear our prayers, so blood is smeared there to cleanse the altar. Then what happens to the animal sacrificed? It is taken outside of the camp, outside the temple, outside the camp of the 12 tribes, outside covenant protection, and burned with ashes.

See how our Lord fulfills it for us. Hebrews 13:11, “For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.” See, he’s referring to this sin offering we’ve been discussing tonight. How is it fulfilled now? Verse 12: “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.” See the infinite glory of Jesus’ work outside the camp in Golgotha. He forever atoned for all our sins, known and unknown sins. His powerful blood not only sprinkled temporarily on the veil, but his blood tore the veil and allowed us access to go to God on the basis of his suffering and death.

Oh, praise God for Jesus Christ! But people, this should stop with us rejoicing in our justification, in our standing with God. This should lead to sanctification. We should feel sorrow for sin. This truth should create a sorrow and hatred for sin in us. You think of it in your mind’s eye. A man has sinned, but an innocent bull. He transfers guilt by laying hands on it and cuts the throat. Its blood is sprinkled, and he takes the dead parts of the animal outside the camp and completely burns it beyond the sphere of God’s covenant under protection. It was a horrible sight. Why did God want him to go outside the camp and see this? I believe we have a lesson to create in him a sorrow for sin.

See when we sin, when we confess our sins, you know we receive our cleansing. We place our hands on the sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever that sin, covetous, adulterous lust, or murderous anger, is considered as Lord Jesus Christ committed, the guilt is transferred to him. We have a cleansing secured because he suffered outside that camp, outside God’s presence, rejected by man and God, heaven and earth, and burning under the wrath of God. Oh that sight, how it should make us sorrow for sin and hate sin.

If we just superficially confess, “Oh God forgives when we confess,” and go on happily, what a horrible attitude. It’s important that we weigh the gravity and the just deserts of our sin. We actually place our hands upon the head of the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in his cross work alone for our salvation. But then we are not to skip away merrily. But we are also to have this dimension to our spiritual lives. We are to transport our minds, to go outside of the camp, as it were. To a place of alienation beyond the orbit of God’s protection and grace to a place where there is fire outside the camp, outside the camp, a place of fire. It was called Gehenna. A place of burning, a type of hell. Beyond the sphere of God’s protection. Outer darkness, where there are tons of fire and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Brethren, that is our desert. And we have had our sins forgiven. It’s appropriate even at that point to meditate upon what we deserve. See even that is God making the Israelites realize. Verse 20, “So the priest shall make atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. Then he shall carry the bull outside the camp, and burn it as he burned the first bull. It is a sin offering for the assembly.” Why after forgiveness take the animal and burn? This is intended to impress a horror of sin on the soul. Even after it is forgiven. The forgiven man is most capable of seeing the horror of sin. And therefore the people are first pardoned and then led out to see the last part.

It’s only the forgiven man who understands the heinousness and the just deserts of his sins.

And brethren, that ought to be a dimension of our lives. Blessed are those who mourn, because that is the kind of individual who will be comforted.

So when you confess your sins, remember in your meditation to go outside the camp and think of yourself laying your hands on the Lord Jesus Christ’s head. See his suffering in the privacy of your meditation. Just stroll outside the camp and meditate upon what you deserve. Meditate on hot fire. Meditate on being outside the camp, beyond the sphere of God’s compassion. It ought to make you sweat with trembling. You will see the horror of sin on one side, and you will grow in holiness, and you will bless God with tears for Jesus Christ and how his work gives you access to God. We can come not only into the Tabernacle, but with the blood of Christ sprinkled upon us, we can come not into the holy place, but the curtain is removed, so we can come into the presence of the living God and even call him “Abba, Father,” because of what we have in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just like Jesus opened the eyes of the two men on the road to Emmaus by showing them his glory from the Old Testament, oh, may God open our eyes to see the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We go home with burning hearts thinking about this.