Bible Text: Leviticus 23 - 24:9 | Preacher: Pastor Arnold | Series: Leviticus | Leviticus 23 - 24:9 Lord’s Solemn Feasts
Have you ever applied for a job and then were told you weren’t qualified for that position? Maybe you tried out to make the school team, and you didn’t make it. Or maybe you did make the team, and you were in the game and then you did something that disqualified you, and you were kicked out of the game. Sometimes we try and follow the rules and yet we can still end up in the situation where you’re asked to sit out. When I was in high school I was quite a good trombonist; not bragging, just giving contextual background information. I made the district band, district orchestra, area band and area orchestra. But I never made it to the states. That was just beyond my ability. I never qualified for that elite group of talented musicians. Sometimes you reach your limit. In 7th grade I played linebacker for the school team. Then in 8th grade everyone grew a foot and 30 lbs and all of a sudden I was not qualified to make the team. Sometimes we are qualified, sometimes not, and sometimes we are disqualified. This is life. This also is true for spiritual life. Wouldn’t we all want to be qualified to go to heaven and not hell? But how do you qualify? And is it really something you can do on your own effort? Desire alone does not qualify you. We just remembered the anniversary of 9/11. There were many in that tragedy who desired to live, desired to escape, and yet perished. There’s more to qualifying for eternal life than mere desire. And there’s more to it than mere profession. Jesus was teaching and someone asked him, “And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.(DESIRE) When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ (CLAIMED TO KNOW HIM, CALLED HIM LORD) Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ (WE EVEN HUNG OUT WHERE YOU WERE, WE ATE AND DRANK IN YOUR PRESENCE, WE WENT TO CHURCH FROM TIME TO TIME) But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” (Luke 13:23–27) You see they were disqualified, they were sinners, workers of iniquity, of sin. So it’s not desire, it’s not professing or proclaiming to be a Christian, and it’s not even doing things, Christian things. Jesus taught that many, MANY, would try to claim they did sufficient good deeds to get into heaven. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matt. 7:21–23) Even though they claimed to be doing God’s work, prophesying in the name of Jesus, casting out demons and lots of other powerful things, like feeding the poor, digging wells, volunteering in the soup kitchen, dropping some money into the red kettle, saying merry Christmas instead of happy holidays, all are good things, but none make you a Christian, none qualify you for the heavenly reward of eternal life and spending eternity with Jesus. You and I cannot qualify ourselves. And this can be unnerving, unsettling. Because if you think your life has been really good til now, you’ve been mostly a good person, mostly doing good instead of bad, then you might be lulled into thinking you are safe with the Big Man upstairs, when in reality you could be dangerously close to your final breath, being disqualified and spending an eternity in hell. If being qualified for the reward of eternal life is your aim, let’s get into the text and hear from God together this morning.
A ubiquitous gripe, frequent complaint against Christianity and the Bible is the misperception that it’s all about do’s and don’ts. You have to do this and you can’t do that. It is seen as a limitation on their ability to have fun, to call the shots, to do whatever they please. And they don’t want anyone telling them what they can or cannot do. It is natural to resist authority when you think that you are the supreme authority and the supreme ethic is “I’ll do whatever I darn well please.” Who’s heard that before or known someone like that? Who has been someone like that? But you see that is to fundamentally misunderstand the point of the Bible. God did not supernaturally pass down his Word to us so that he would be the ultimate killjoy. God in his infinite wisdom has given us everything we need in his word to faithfully live for him, to please Him, and for what is truly in our best interest, even when we don’t see the immediate benefit before us. God has called his people to be holy which means we need to possess and reflect His holy character. We need to be godly people. We need to possess godly characters, godly traits. While our text this morning was initially directed towards the priests, I hope you will see an abundance of application in God’s word which is highly relevant to each one of us. Does it matter that God’s people possess godly characters? Does your character matter? Indeed it matters. Will you be described by the adjective godly?
Has anyone here had the special joy of being pulled over for speeding? Yes, I’m sue you have. Maybe you were caught off guard, your mind was somewhere else and you just weren’t paying attention. It’s ok, I’m not judging you. Or maybe you knew you were going a bit faster than the posted limit and you just got busted. As the officer makes his way over to the car, you diligently put your hands on the steering wheel, hoping you remembered to put your seat belt on, and also hoping that they will be in a good mood, and praying that you might get off with a warning. But no. He’s in a bad mood. He had an argument with his wife that morning. His coffee was cold. He didn’t get to finish his donut before having to respond to a call. And he’s pretty sure the girl at the counter Was giving him the evil eye because he didn’t give her the now obligatory 20% tip for handing him his overpriced donut and coffee. And now there you are, with your silly pout trying to look all innocent and frail. It ain’t working. You find out he has you clocked at 15 over the limit. He writes you up and you get to take home a ticket and need to figure out how much this is going to hurt your pocketbook. You see, you broke the law, whether ignorantly or knowingly, you broke the law and you got caught. And now it’s time to pay the piper. Penalties are incurred for these violations. That ticket will set you back close to $100 and if you get busted in a school zone then fines can be as much a $500. Now just as with our traffic laws, God had prescribed just punishment for breaking his laws. And it is to these we will focus our attention to in CH20.
Obey the laws. Sounds simple enough, but why does it seem so hard? Why do we think that they don’t apply? Why do we think that we are more special and can exempt ourselves? We operate as if we have ‘diplomatic immunity’? Are we really above the law? We are tempted to think we can get away with it. We hear Jesus teach about the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law, yet some of us operate way outside the realm of the spirit and just disregard it altogether! Surely there are immoral laws on the books by which we are divinely instructed to not follow. It is legal to abort a baby, but that does not make it right. It is legal to divorce for any reason or no reason at all, and still that is not a law we can support. Our highest calling is to obey God rather than man, in such situations. But when God gives us his laws, his moral laws, we are told in no uncertain terms to keep his statutes, or commands. The Ten Commandments are moral laws. Yes they were given to the people of Israel, but they transcend the nation state. They are moral laws obligatory, and written on our hearts. “My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you; keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye; bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”(Proverbs 7:1-3) We ought to study God’s law, obey them and put them into practice. Because it’s not just about writing them on the doorposts of our house, but it needs to be a heart thing. “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord God."” (Ezekiel 11:19-21) God has given us his word, his instructions, his laws, and ours is not to question but to obey. God says plainly, keep my statutes.
Bible Text: Leviticus 19:9-18 | Preacher: Pastor Arnold | Series: Leviticus | Leviticus 19:9-18 Good Neighboring
I want to read an illustration I came across. “a coin dealer, John Feigenbaum, who purchased a rare 1894 dime for 1.9 million dollars in 2007. In transporting it by plane cross-country from Oakland to New York City, he carried the rare coin in his pants pocket. After he wondered if the dime might fall out of his pocket, he stuck it in his briefcase. Repeatedly through the flight, he checked the briefcase to ensure that the coin had not vanished.” This little vignette reminds me of the JRR Tolkien series of the LOTR and Hobbit. The Dark Lord Sauron created one ring to rule other rings of power. One character who came to possess this ring, Gollum, grows especially fond and attached to the ring and calls it “my precious.” Other characters in the series do the same. And when they fear they have misplaced or lost the ring they freak out, searching for it frantically, high and low to find it again. Such highly valued is the ring. I wonder if we value any possessions in such a way? I wonder if we could value holiness in that way? Do we prize our call to holiness in this way? Do we recognize that He who calls us to holiness is Holy Holy Holy? Maybe this morning we can come to appreciate and value the extraordinary call to holy obedience.
Sex is big business. And it’s everywhere. It’s all over the tv, it’s what entertains us in movies, it’s in our schools, it’s on social media, there are dating apps, hookup apps, well I think I’ve made my point. It’s everywhere, because sex sells. What used to be taboo, is now commonplace. What used to be shameful is now see. A badge of honor. Sex out of wedlock, well that’s just normal. Everyone sleeps around long before marriage is even discussed, or even enters the mind. If you don’t well you’re regard ed as just strange. The blights on society from pornography, which used to be sold in magazines behind the counter, like cigarettes, now is everywhere, and I mean everywhere. That little gadget you think is a phone, and you thought Jr. should have at 12 so he can stay in touch with you, is a gateway that leads to corruption. And this is what the world has to offer, a corrupted view of sex. What God created, and indeed made beautiful, the world has taken and perverted and twisted and repackaged to entice you to sin. The world says if it feels good then it must be alright. The world would have you believe that you, are the final arbiter, you are the ultimate judge as to what is right and what is wrong. And where has the church been? Largely absent, largely quiet. The church has been dismissed, cast aside, disregarded as prudes. When will we bring God’s word to bear, well we will do it today. Yes boys and girls, we are going to talk about sex. What God has to say is very important. And it’s very important that we do not yield any ground on the subject because God is the ultimate authority on the subject. He made us, and He created us as sexual beings and He made sex, and it is a wonderful and beautiful creation within the bounds it was ordained for. We are moral creatures and He has given us a moral code by which we know what is right and what is wrong.
The drinking blood is a ritual of pagan worship. It has been a part of cultures all around the world. And you know what? It is still occurs in these modern times. A story from October 2015 entitled ‘The people who drink human blood’ open’s with the following sentence: “In most major cities around the world, communities of ordinary people – nurses, bar staff, secretaries – are drinking human blood on a regular basis.” In another article from January 2020 is headlined, “Goat blood-drinking white nationalist who ran for Senate arrested in Melbourne, Florida” and again in June 10, 2020 a story out of the UK, a satanic cult leader abused kids and forced them to drink blood. This apparently has been an issue down through the ages. Surely God did not want his people participating in anything that looked like pagan worship. But what about in our days? Does this prohibition against eating blood still apply to us? Do we need to put down that medium rare steak? And is our worship still regulated or is it in danger of looking more and more like what the world has to offer?
Today we will consider the laws regarding the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. What made this day so significant? Why was it so restrictive? What preparations had to be made in order for this day to be properly observed? And do the Jews still offer the animal sacrifices on this day? Interestingly, I found an article in 2017 which reported that there are still orthodox Jews who attempt to bring goats for sacrifice to the Temple Mount on Jerusalem. While animal sacrifices were largely discontinued after the Temple destruction in 70 AD, Yom Kippur is still celebrated but instead of sacrifices, prayers are offered. The article cited the example of the Federman family who for the prior 10 years would load up a male goat in their car and make their way to the Temple mount. “But each year, police prevent the Federmans and others from slaughtering goats on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. They fear such an act on this site, sacred to Jews for once housing the ancient Jewish temples but also home to Islam's third holiest site, could ignite tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.” So beyond this small group, most other Jews celebrate the Day of Atonement, even nominal Jews. Which is like those nominal Christians who show up for Christmas or Easter services. So is the Day of Atonement still relevant for Christians today? Is this something we, the church, ought to observe as well? Let’s find out.