Read: Leviticus 16

When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites — all their sins — and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry all their sins on itself, to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. Lev 16:20-22

All the iniquities, all the transgressions, all the sins were placed upon the head of this goat. The goat is a picture of Jesus: He is represented as satisfying the heart of God for us and rendering God free to love us without any restraint at all by his justice. God’s justice has been satisfied. He is free to forgive us at any time and to love us. Christ also bears the whole weight and load of our guilt, all that which the Devil tries to use as a basis upon which to ground his accusations against us. All this is to be sent back to him from whence it comes. When our Lord died he went into the wilderness of death like this goat, and returned to Satan all the accusations which he has against any believer at any time.

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Read: Leviticus 15

When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. Lev 15:13-14

The unavoidable diseases, afflictions, and discharges mentioned in this chapter are of a much less serious nature than the leprosy with which we have been dealing in previous chapters. You remember that when the leper was cleansed he had to go through a much more rigorous ceremony which included several offerings. But here the very simplest of the offerings is prescribed — two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one for a sin offering, one for a burnt offering — the cheapest, the most available of the offerings. Yet God never once sets aside the requirement for the blood of an innocent substitute to be shed in the place of one who is defiled for any reason whatsoever. By this means he underscores the great fact that human nature needs to be dealt with by blood. It is a deep and complicated problem. It cannot be solved by a mere rearrangement of surface symptoms. God is constantly underscoring that for us in these offerings.

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Read: Leviticus 14

The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease, the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. Lev 14:3-4

In Chapter 14 we move into a further development of this whole matter of handling leprosy. Here we have the cleansing of the leper. Notice that the leper does not go through all the ritual which follows in order to be healed; he does it in order to be cleansed. He is already healed. Healing is something only God can do. It is the sovereign act of God and it takes place in the inner life of a believer. His cleansing of a person allows the one who is healed to understand God’s basis and purpose for the healing. God wants the inner cleansing to be reflected in the outward life and actions of the person who is healed. That is the picture which is drawn here.

You and I can’t heal our leprous hearts. If there is some wrongful attitude within us, if we burn with envy or jealousy or resentment toward one another, if we are impatient and upset and angry at heart — we seldom see these things in ourselves until God puts us into circumstances where they are brought out — and then the only thing we can do is take them to him because we are helpless victims caught up in these dangerous attitudes. When you finally see yourself like that, then you can say, Lord, heal me! And God does! With a touch of his grace he changes our attitude. We stop being defensive about it and we admit it. And then the leprosy is arrested, its action is stopped, and we are healed.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Need for Cleansing →

Read: Leviticus 13

When anyone has a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to the priest. Lev 13:9

The purpose of this chapter is to enable the detection of leprosy. When the Bible uses this term, it is not merely referring to the disease that we call leprosy today, Hansen’s disease. That is included in the term, but the Hebrew word translated leprosy here also includes other contagious and infectious skin diseases. They all were recognized to be dangerous and damaging, a serious threat not only to the individual but to the whole camp of Israel, and so they were to be detected. The process of detection was prolonged and careful inspection. The priest was to look at the symptoms, then shut the diseased person up for seven days, examine him again, and shut him up for another seven days. At the end of that time he could determine whether it was leprosy or something less serious.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – Dealing with the Leprosy of Life →

Read: Leviticus 11

I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. Lev 11:45

In this section we face the need for a standard, a measuring stick by which we can distinguish between good and evil. That is not easy to do. Modern philosophies tell us that there is really nothing harmful, that it is only our perverted thinking which makes things wrong, and that if we would but change our thinking then anything and everything is right. But you don’t find anything like that in Scripture. The Bible tells us that we are living in a world where truth and error are inextricably mixed and that you cannot easily tell one from the other. How do you tell the difference before it is too late, before you have to learn through sorrows and sadness?

With these Israelites, his concern was expressed on the physical level — he actually regulated their diet. In this chapter, you have dietary laws distinguishing clean animals from unclean, and various sanitary practices are included as well. Many of these practices have a commonsense basis in staying healthy. God kept his people physically whole through many of these regulations.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Need for a Standard →

Read: Leviticus 10:1-10

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Lev 10:1-2

The very same Shekinah which had consumed the sacrifice now flashes out again to destroy these two priests. What a shock this must have been to Aaron, to his remaining two sons, and to the whole camp of Israel.

What do you think your reaction would have been if you had been part of this scene? Many of us reading stories like this have come up with the idea that God, especially the God of the Old Testament, is a God of vengeful judgment. But God is acting here just as much as a God of love as he is in any other part of the Bible. His nature is love. And he never deviates from what he has revealed himself to be. So this action must be in line with his nature and character of love.

There are several features in this passage which help us: The first is that this sin on the part of these two priests was not a sin of ignorance but one of presumption. They knew better. It wasn’t that they were simply doing something at which they had no idea God would be offended. They had been told emphatically that he would be offended. In Exodus 30:7-9 God had precisely said, Be careful; do not offer the wrong kind of incense. So this was a violation of the direct command of God. God never visits with judgment anybody who is struggling in ignorance to try to find him.

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Read: Leviticus 7

The meat of their fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; they must leave none of it till morning. Lev 7:15

Isn’t that strange? You could eat the flesh on the day you offered it if it was an offering of thanksgiving for some particular thing. Or if it was just a general expression of your gratitude toward God you could save some of it for the second day. But under no circumstances were you ever to eat of the flesh of that peace offering on the third day. It had to be burned with fire. If you tried to eat any of it, that was an abomination unto God.

Now, what is God saying here? Well, it is a very practical truth. He is saying that there must be no separation between the peace that you feel and the source of that peace, the sacrifice which provided it. You must not separate the two. In other words, you must not depend upon the feelings of peace that are given to you. Don’t try to live on those. Once peace is given as a result of trusting the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf don’t just say, Ah, now I feel much better! I think I can go on now, and tomorrow I’ll just expect this peace still to be here and I’ll reckon on that. Don’t shift your dependence from the One who gives peace, to the feeling that is produced.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Secret of Peace →

Read: Leviticus 4

Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. Lev 4:30

In the book of Leviticus, the five great offerings specified there set forth for us so clearly and helpfully the basic needs of our humanity, needs which God has built into every one of us, and how these needs can be met — the only way in which they can be met. Here we come to the fourth of these offerings, the sin offering.

Remember that in the previous offerings, just as in the sin offering, blood had to be shed, and a death had to occur. But all the blood of the animal was poured out at the foot of the altar. But with the blood of the sin offering something unusual was always done. The blood had to be sprinkled seven times before the LORD. Then, in the case of the offering for the anointed priest as we see here, it had to be put on the horns of the altar of incense which stood in the holy place, right in front of the veil which guarded the holy of holies — i.e., right before the presence of the LORD.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Need to Confess →

Read: Leviticus 3

If your offering is a fellowship offering, and you offer an animal from the herd, whether male or female, you are to present before the Lord an animal without defect. Lev 3:1

Now we come to the fellowship offering, which is better rendered the peace offering. In the peace offering we are recognizing another basic, fundamental need of the human heart. No proper life is possible without peace.

I am not referring here to the peace of forgiveness. That will come in the next two offerings: the sin and the trespass offerings. It is not peace with God; it is the peace of God we are talking about here. It is peace not in the sense of hostility ceased but in the sense of emotional stability, of an untroubled heart. That is what we need — a sense of security, of well-being, of confidence that things are under control and that it is all going to work out. That is the kind of peace this offering represents.

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Read: Leviticus 1

The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting. He said, Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When anyone among you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. Lev 1:1-2

There are five offerings in Leviticus: the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the trespass offering and the sin offering. All five represent aspects of the work of Jesus Christ. The first offering is the burnt offering. The most important characteristic of the burnt offering is that it had to involve a death. Death in these offerings is always a picture of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. So when these Israelites offered this sacrifice they were learning the great truth that only by means of the death of an acceptable substitute can man ever satisfy this great longing to belong. Only in the recognition of the death of Jesus Christ for you, can you ever satisfy that longing. He is the expression of the love of God. So we must give ourselves to God through Christ, acknowledging that he owns us, that we belong to him: You are not your own; you are bought with a price, (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a RSV). God does not and will not exploit you and run you like a robot or a slave. He loves you and wants to fulfill you and set you free. But you do belong to him. That is the most basic truth of all.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Need to Belong →