To Be Continued

To Be Continued

It was the season finale of “The Chrononauts of Tomorrow”, and the tension was unbearable. Commander Eva Rostova, marooned on a desolate moon, was racing against a solar flare that would wipe out all life. Back on Earth, her estranged brother, Dr. Aris Thorne, was frantically trying to repair the temporal beacon that could save her. The fate of humanity and the resolution of their bitter family feud all hung in the balance. The episode flew by in a blur of spectacular explosions and heartfelt confessions. With just two minutes left, Eva managed to send a desperate, coded message. Her brother's temporal beacon flared to life, but the signal was scrambled by the approaching flare. He screamed at the screen, pounding on his console, as Eva's moon began to crumble under the sun's intense heat. A single, tearful shot of Eva's face filled the screen as her world dissolved into static and the screen cut to black.

This reminds me of those three dreaded words at the end of a TV episode: TO BE CONTINUED…There’s nothing worse than reaching the end of an episode of one of your favorite shows and seeing those cruel words flash across the screen. Right when the action is mounting and the drama is intensifying and you thought you were about to get an answer to one of the riddles the show has been drawing out for what seems like forever, this message stops you dead in your tracks and ignites frustration, confusion, and disappointment.¹​​ Now you have to wait another whole week to find out what happened. Or imagine that happens on the last episode of the season, you now have to wait till the next season starts. Oh, and the one that really gets under my skin is the one where there is a cliffhanger on the last episode of the season and later you find out that the show has been cancelled.

Those words, “To Be Continued” also remind me of God’s Word. In John 5:39, Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures [Torah] because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me…” And in Luke 24:27 it says, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures [Torah].” What Jesus is saying is that the whole Old Testament bears witness of Him. Most people see the Bible as an interesting set of isolated stories, each story telling us something different about how to live. However, Jesus tells us the whole Bible is really only one story. While there are great stories in the Bible, it is possible to know Bible stories yet miss THE Bible story.

The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is ultimately about Jesus. It is about unfolding the grace that culminates in Jesus leaving the comfort and perfection of heaven to come down into our brokenness. Therefore, the Bible is not fundamentally about what we do FOR God but what God has done FOR us. Charles Spurgeon said, “I have never yet found a [Bible] text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it, I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savor of Christ in it.” God’s story comes to us as a redemptive drama in four acts, or, we might think of it as a classical symphony with four movements, Creation, Fall, Redemption and Fulfilment, that are building toward a grand crescendo.​​ ²

So far, we have studied the book of Genesis and have seen God’s redemptive plan and Jesus Christ who is the fulfilment of that plan. Genesis 3:15 says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and​​ you shall bruise his heel.” “Her offspring” who will “bruise Satan’s head” is Jesus Christ the Messiah. Then in Genesis 3:21 we see, “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” The penalty for sin is death, so an animal had to die to cover Adam and Eve’s sin. This act foreshadowed the coming of the future Messiah who would pay the penalty of sin and death so that those who repent of their sin and put their faith in him would be saved.” This was God's redemptive plan, his plan to bring human beings back into perfect fellowship with Himself.

We just finished studying the book of Exodus and we continued to see God’s redemptive plan and Jesus Christ in it. In Exodus 12:7, God is giving Moses instructions about The Passover, “Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.” And Exodus 12:12 says, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” This event foreshadowed Jesus Christ as our Passover lamb.

So, I want you to imagine that as we got to the end of Genesis, we saw those words, “to be continued” and then again at the end of Exodus we saw those same words. That is because God’s plan of redemption was not over. His plan was to reveal it gradually to His people. And so that brings us to the next book that we will study which is Leviticus. Again, we will see God’s redemptive plan continued to be revealed to His people and through His Son, Jesus Christ. The book of Leviticus points to Jesus through its sacrificial and priestly systems, which foreshadows him as the ultimate fulfillment of these practices. Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of the various offerings, the High Priest, and the true temple​​ or tabernacle where the people can meet God. Jesus' death is seen in the Day of Atonement rituals, particularly the two goats, that are a symbolic foreshadowing of his atoning for sins and for carrying them away.

Now I know the prospect of studying Leviticus can be daunting or even boring, but I believe God put it in His Holy Bible for a reason. Paul in Acts 20:27 says, “For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will (or counsel) of God.” And in Acts 20:32, Paul says, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” So my prayer is that we will come each Sunday, calling upon the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds, not to what I say, but to what God is saying to each one of us through our study of the book of Leviticus. That brings us to the big idea this morning which is​​ God desires His people to learn or know the whole counsel of God. That also brings us to our first next step which is​​ I will ask the​​ Holy Spirit​​ to​​ illuminate​​ my heart and mind about​​ Jesus​​ and my redemption through the study of Leviticus.

Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, you are so good and gracious as you have given us your Word so we can abide and grow in you. We come into your glorious presence humbly asking for your Holy Spirit to fill each heart and mind as we open your holy Bible, wherein we find the words of eternal life. Help us to put all other thoughts away in this moment and focus our hearts, minds and thoughts on you. May all we say, think, and do here be honoring and glorifying to you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

So, this morning. I want to give some background of Leviticus, share the themes that run through the book and give you an overview and big picture of the book. First, Leviticus is the third book of the Bible and was written by Moses. The English name for the book came from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT. It was translated as​​ Leviticus meaning, “relating to the Levites.” But the Hebrew people named the books of the OT by its first word. In Hebrew the first word in Leviticus literally means “and called.” We will hit this much more in-depth next week, but when we see the word “and” we need to look at what came before it. And what came before was the last section of Exodus 40 where we saw God’s glory enter the tabernacle and where something unexpected happened: Moses was not allowed to enter the tabernacle and come into the presence of God. Again, we will come back to that, but my point is that Leviticus is a continuation of Exodus. In Leviticus we will see that God continues to flesh out His redemptive plan, and he speaks directly to His people through the mediator Moses. Hence Leviticus contains the most words spoken by God in the entire Bible.

God spoke the book of Leviticus to Moses over about fifty days. We see this in Exodus 40:2 says, “On the first day of the first month you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.” And Numbers 10:11 says, “Now it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle of the Testimony.” The Israelites arrived at the base of Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19:1 and will remain there until the cloud, God’s presence, leaves the tabernacle in Numbers 10:11. The Israelites will then finally continue their journey to the Promised Land. The book of Genesis covered over two thousand years of human history, the book of Exodus covered less that one hundred years and Leviticus will cover less than two full months.

There are a number of themes that run through the book. The first and the most important theme is Holiness which is why I preached on “holiness” last Sunday. The root word for “holy” occurs more than one hundred and fifty times just in the book of Leviticus. “Holy” means “set apart”, “unique” and “whole” or “complete. Leviticus will teach us that​​ God is holy, “set apart” and “unique” from the world, and whole or complete. And God demands his people to be holy as He is holy. ​​ His people are to be “set apart” and “unique” from the world in order to be whole and complete in Him. Leviticus contains the instructions for how the Israelites could be holy and whole and also contains the instructions for how we as God’s people today can be holy and whole. You may think that Leviticus was given only for the priests, but it wasn’t, it was for every Israelite and so it is also for every Christ-follower.

The second theme is “sacrifice.” The offering of sacrifices would have been the main act of Israelite worship. We will learn that there were five offerings, three were voluntary and two were mandatory. This theme of sacrifice is super important and a close second to “holiness.” I found something fascinating from Jonathan Parnell. He notes how “sacrifice” is actually at the center of Leviticus. But he also notes how the first five books of the Bible create a chiastic structure with Leviticus right in the middle. A chiastic structure arranges elements in an inverted parallel pattern, often represented as A-B-C-B-A. Book one, Genesis, and book five, Deuteronomy, are the bookends and both end the same way. Genesis ends with Jacob, on his deathbed, making a speech to his sons and blessing them. Deuteronomy ends with Moses, on his deathbed, making a speech to the tribes of Israel and blessing them. Then we see book two, Exodus, and book four, Numbers are also alike. Exodus is about the people being set free from Egypt, coming to Mount Sinai, and building the tabernacle. And Numbers is about the people leaving Mount Sinai and preparing to move the tabernacle.

Parnell then says, “that leaves Leviticus right in the middle — which is different from the rest. It’s this bloody book full of sacrifices.” He breaks Leviticus down into three parts. The first section, chapters 1-7, answers the question: How can we draw near to God? The third section, chapters 17-27, answers the question: How can we stay near to God?​​ And that leaves the second part, the central part, which answers the question: How can we be made pure before God? And right at the end of that central section we will learn about the Day of Atonement. It was the sacrifice of all sacrifices, and it is right in the middle of the book of Leviticus. The center of the Torah is Leviticus, and the center section of Leviticus is about how we can be pure before God, and the answer is through sacrifice and atonement. The big question of Genesis and Exodus was: How can a holy God be near and accessible to sinful people? Leviticus answers that question and says: “Somebody has to die in your place.”³​​ And of course, we know that someone was Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

The third theme is “atonement.” The verb form of the word occurs fifty times in Leviticus. This book says more about “atonement” than any other book in the Bible. You could say it this way: “at onement” meaning there is a need for reconciliation in our broken relationships with God because of our sin. There needed to be a way for us to be at one with God and in the offering of the sacrifices, there was expiation, the removal of sin's guilt and penalty, and the forgiveness of sin. The Israelites couldn’t remove or deal with their sin on their own; they needed a Savior. We also can’t remove or deal with our sin on our own and are in need of a Savior. So why are “sacrifice” and “atonement” so important for us today? The sacrificial system that God set up before time began was to demonstrate that “the wages of sin is death” as we see in Romans 3:23. And the OT sacrificial laws foreshadowed what Jesus would accomplish on the cross. Matthew 5:17 says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus was the “substitutionary”​​ sacrifice freely given for each one of us so that we could be at one or reconciled to God. As we studied Exodus, we referred to the book of Hebrews and that won’t stop as we study Leviticus. We could actually see Hebrews as the NT book of Leviticus. Three of the major concepts of Hebrews, the sacrificial system, the Day of Atonement and the priesthood, all find their foundation in the book of Leviticus. Without Leviticus, we could not understand the person and work of Jesus as seen in Hebrews.

The fourth theme is “blood.” The blood played a crucial role in the sacrifices. Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” The blood of the sacrifice was freely offered in the worshipper’s place which is why the concept of a “substitutionary” sacrifice is critical in understanding the sacrificial system that God set up for Israel. Interestingly, this concept of shedding blood was unique to the Israelites.

The fifth theme is “repentance.” Just bringing your sacrifice to the tabernacle area did not automatically produce forgiveness. There also needed to be a change in the attitude of the heart for forgiveness and atonement to occur. Proverbs 21:27 says, “The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable, how much more so when brought with evil intent.” To approach God while not walking in obedience to his commands is as Ecclesiastes 5:1 says, “to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong.” Rooker says, “It was necessary for the guilty sinner to come before God with an attitude of contrition and repentance.”

Now I am going to give an overview, a big picture of Leviticus. First, the purpose of Leviticus is to teach us how and what it means to draw near to God and how this is accomplished. How can we know God? How can we live our lives in a personal relationship with Jesus?​​ Leviticus will show us how. Second, God wants His people to draw near to Him and to be in relationship to Him but there is a problem. His people were sinful as seen not that long ago as they worshipped the golden calf. We are in the same boat. Our problem is that we are sinful human beings and because of the holiness of God he can’t tolerate sin and so we can’t draw near to Him.

Third, our sin is the problem, but God has made provision for us so our sin could be dealt with, so that we could draw near to Him. For Israel, the book of Leviticus, showed the priests, those set apart by God to serve Him and the people in the Tabernacle, how the people could be reconciled to God. This was to happen through sacrifices and purifications performed by the priests on behalf of the people. We also see God’s provision in the Day of Atonement, which was one day a year that the high priest would make atonement for himself and the entire nation. This was the only time anyone could enter the Holy of Holies. Fourth, Leviticus is a picture. The work of the priests was never ending because they had to repeat the sacrifices over and over again. This communicated that Israel’s sin was not completely dealt with. They were covered over but not completely taken away. The priesthood of Leviticus was a picture or foreshadowing of someone better to come. And that someone would permanently take our sin away. That picture and foreshadowing was the person of Jesus Christ.⁴

Through the themes in Leviticus, we see that the storyline of the book is worship. Rooker says, “Exodus ends with where God is to be worshiped—in the tabernacle. Leviticus focuses on how God is to be worshiped.” When God is calling us to a relationship with himself, He is calling us to worship the one true and living God. So, Leviticus can be​​ seen as our worship manual. God called the Israelites to worship Him because of His grace. We will see that atonement was necessary for everyone, even Moses, to gain access to the presence of God in the tabernacle. Not allowing Moses to come into the tabernacle exhibited God’s grace in that he would have been killed if he did without atonement.

God also called the Israelites to worship Him because of his glory. God’s glory inhabited the tabernacle. His glory was dwelling in the midst of His people for the express purpose of making God’s glory known among the pagan nations around them. We are also called to display Jesus’ grace and glory and make His grace and glory known to the lost world around us. We are to do this because Jesus delivered us from darkness into the light. Colossians 1:13-14 says, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That brings us to our second next step which is​​ I will display the​​ grace​​ and​​ glory​​ of Jesus to the​​ lost​​ world around me. ​​ 

God’s call to worship was also countercultural. God’s call for His people to worship Him alone went against the pagan and idolatrous culture of their day. This is still the case today. Our society and culture is one that rejects the authority of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Lastly, God’s call to worship is all about Jesus Christ. Leviticus is filled with the good news of Jesus and that it is the means by which we will be different from the world but also make a difference in the world. As we study Leviticus, we will see Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior on every page.

If you accidentally drop a quarter into a garbage disposal while it is running that quarter will get hacked and nicked and possibly bent. Turn​​ off the disposal and retrieve the quarter and you'll be able to tell that it is quarter. You'll be able to recognize the image of George Washington that is stamped upon it, but that quarter will no longer be what it once was. It will be marred and damaged. That is what has happened to the image of God that is stamped on you and me. We were made in the image and likeness of God, and we still have his image, but we have lost his likeness. There's a semblance of God but the completeness, the wholeness and holiness of God has been lost.

The reason we have lost his likeness and are so broken is because we have been infected by a broken and sin-ridden world. Our attitudes are wrong, our view of life is twisted and distorted, and we mistake illusions for truth. But Leviticus will show us that God stepped into the broken mess we have made of our lives and promised to make us holy and whole again just as he is holy and whole. He will do this, as Leviticus 20:26 says, “by calling us to holiness and setting us apart from the nations to be his very own.” So, God must set us apart, he must break us loose from conformity to the thought patterns and attitudes of Satan and this world. He must deliver us from this world, straighten out our thinking, set our minds and our hearts right, and untangle our fouled relationships. But we all have to make a choice. God is not going to force you into anything.⁵​​ If you are happy being that hacked, nicked and bent quarter, God will allow you to go your own way, but He will always be there when and if you change your mind. Of course, what our Heavenly Father wholehearted wants for you is to be complete in Him and be restored to wholeness and holiness. That brings us to our third next step which is​​ I will allow the Lord to​​ restore​​ me to​​ wholeness​​ and​​ holiness​​ as I study the book of Leviticus.

As Gene and Roxey come to lead us in a final hymn and the ushers prepare to collect the tithes and offerings, let’s pray: Heavenly Father, give a desire to learn your whole counsel given to us in your Word. We ask that your Holy Spirit illuminate our hearts and minds about your son, Jesus, and our redemption. Help us to display your grace and glory to the lost world around us and restore us to wholeness and holiness as we study the book of Leviticus. In Jesus’ name, Amen.