Will you turn this morning to the first
chapter of Leviticus, and we will just read
through that first chapter.
And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake
unto him out of the tabernacle of the
congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them, If any man of
you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye
shall bring your offering of the cattle, even
of the herd, or, revised standard version, of
the flock, herd or flock.
If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of
the herd, let him offer a male, without
blemish, and says the authorised, he shall offer
it of his own voluntary will at the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation before
the Lord.
But both the revised standard version, I'm sure
has it more accurately.
He shall offer it at the door of
the meeting of congregation, at the door of
meeting, that he may be accepted.
Very important.
This is the purpose of the burnt offering.
He offers it that he may be accepted.
And he shall put his hand upon the
head of the burnt offering, and, it is
inferred then, having put his hand upon its
head, it shall be accepted for him, to
make atonement for him.
And he shall kill the bullet before the
Lord.
And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the
blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon
the altar, that is by the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation.
And he shall flay the burnt offering, and
cut it into its pieces.
And the sons of Aaron, the priests shall
put fire upon the altar, and lay the
wood in order upon the fire.
And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the
pots, the head, and the fat, in order
upon the wood, that is on the fire,
which is upon the altar.
But his inwards and his legs shall he
wash in water, and the priests shall burn
all.
Revised version, and this is important, the priests
shall burn the whole, all, if you like,
but more emphatic, the priests shall burn the
whole on the altar, to be a burnt
sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a
sweet savour unto the Lord.
And if his offering be of the flocks,
namely of the sheep or of the goats,
for a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring it
a male, without blemish.
And he shall kill it on the side
of the altar, northward, before the Lord.
And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his
blood round about upon the altar.
And he shall cut it into his pieces,
with his head and his fat, and the
priests shall lay them in order on the
wood that is on the fire, which is
upon the altar.
But he shall wash the inwards and the
legs with water, and the priests shall bring
it all, the whole, and burn it upon
the altar.
It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made
by fire, of a sweet savour unto the
Lord.
And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering
to the Lord be of fowls, it can
be a herd, that's an ox, it could
be of the flocks, that is a sheep
or a goat, or if a man wasn't
wealthy enough to bring either of those beasts,
then he could bring fowls.
Then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves,
or of young pigeons, and the priests shall
bring it unto the altar, and wring off
his head, and burn it on the altar,
and the blood thereof shall he wring out
at the side of the altar.
And he shall pluck away his crop with
his feathers, and cast it beside the altar
on the east part, by the place of
the ashes.
And he shall cleave it with the wings
thereof, but shall not divide it asunder.
And the priests shall burn it upon the
altar, upon the wood that is upon the
fire.
It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made
by fowl, a sweet savour unto the Lord.
Well now, yesterday we spoke of the sin
offering, and this morning I want to think
with you about the burnt offering.
As I've mentioned, there are five prescribed offerings,
but the most important of the five are
the sin offering and the burnt offering, and
for that reason we're going to limit ourselves
to these two offerings before going further into
the book of Leviticus.
And of the two offerings, the sin offering
and the burnt offering, the burnt offering is
even more important, it would seem, than the
sin offering, for here the burnt offering stands
first.
And there were far more burnt offerings offered
than sin offerings.
Sin offerings were offered for sin, but burnt
offerings were offered when there was no particular
sin to be repented of, though there was
always man's innate sinfulness to acknowledge before God.
Why the first burnt offering was offered by
Abel, was it not?
And then Noah offered a burnt offering.
So this is the basic, the supreme offering
that you find offered in the Scriptures.
And I believe it has something wonderful to
show us of our Lord Jesus.
I felt so needy as I thought about
this, and I've been telling the Lord that
I haven't been seeing this myself, I can
see it with my head, but I need
the Holy Spirit to show up to me,
the inwardness, even as I speak, and you
need him to do the same for you.
Because be assured, the Holy Ghost has wonderful
revelations of the Lord Jesus to show us,
in this, the great offering of the Old
Testament, the burnt offering.
Now these two offerings, the sin offering and
the burnt offering, picture for us two very,
very important aspects of the work of the
Lord Jesus for us on the cross.
Not only do these two offerings represent these
two different aspects, which we shall look at
in a moment, but they also represent for
us two different exercises of heart that we
need to be going through pretty frequently, if
we are to go on with God and
enjoy fellowship with him.
There's a sin offering exercise of heart, but
things are not complete with us unless, in
addition to the sin offering exercise of heart,
we know something of a burnt offering exercise
of heart.
And we shall see what that means in
a moment or two.
Now let's see the differences between these two
offerings.
If you read it cursorily, it seems almost
the same, but that's a very cursory reading.
They are very important differences.
And these differences show us these two lovely
aspects of what this friend of sinners has
done for us sinners.
Now the big difference between the burnt offering
and almost every other offering, certainly from the
sin offering, is that the whole of the
beast was burnt on the altar.
It was cut up and flayed and certain
parts washed with water and then the whole
of it was put on that brazen altar
and consumed with fire.
In certain offerings, some part of the offering
was put on the altar and then the
other part was eaten by the priest and
the other part was eaten by the offerer.
That is in the case of the peace
offering, where God and man are seen to
be delighting in the same object of affection,
the Lord Jesus.
But that's not the case with the burnt
offering.
Man is not eating any part of this
at all.
And then of course you will remember what
happened in the case of the sin offering.
Certainly one little bit was put on the
altar, the fat, and there's a reason for
that.
But apart from that, the body of that
beast, whose blood was brought into the holy
place, was burnt outside the camp, among the
refuse, but not so the burnt offering.
In the burnt offering, everything is for God.
Now what is the significance of that?
Well, it means this, that from one point
of view, what we see in that dark
scene of Calvary was the removal of that
which was offensive to God in holy judgment.
Maybe we ought to look, of course, yesterday
we should have looked at Hebrew 13, and
here you have the sin offering referred to.
It shows you that the New Testament writers
take up these themes.
It isn't us Bible students of today who
love to see these pictures.
We get our cue from the writers of
the New Testament, and we don't want to
go beyond them.
We want to follow on the same theme.
You see this, verse 11, the bodies of
those beasts, whose blood is brought into the
sanctuary by the high priest for sin, that's
a sin offering, are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus, that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
He, bearing his cross, went forth.
Went forth to that place where the criminals
were put to death, where the rubbish was
burnt, where the lepers had to live.
Symbolic of the fact that he went into
that place of separation from God, which we
all deserve.
And there the holy fire of the judgment
of God, so to speak, fell on him.
And that in us which was so offensive
to God, this self-centeredness, this wretched pride,
with all its results of resentment and jealousy
and all sorts of other terrible things and
self-indulgences, that which was offensive to God
was removed in the Lord Jesus in holy
judgment.
That's a sin offering.
But the burnt offering gives us some other
aspect.
Here it's not that so much, it's what
God sees in that offering of the Lord
Jesus of himself to God.
God delights in what Jesus did because it
was an act of perfect obedience.
He humbled himself to the manger, and even
to Calvary's tree.
But I am so proud and unwilling, his
humble disciple to be, I'm no whole burnt
offering.
Very grudging is my surrender to him.
What my rights?
I don't want to surrender anything that I,
if I can possibly help it.
Not so, the Son of God.
He delighted to do the will of his
Father, even when the will of the Father
went that.
He yielded his will to the Father, and
chose to abide in the light.
But I prefer wrestling to resting, and try
by myself to do right.
This is the aspect you have in the
burnt offering, the perfect submission of the Son
to the Father.
To that will, even when that will meant
the offering of himself in shame and degradation.
Now this is an aspect that God sees.
It isn't always as present to us as
the other, but it's what pleases God in
what his Son did.
You can see that in John 14.31.
Calvary, the Son's act of obedience to the
Father.
And please remember this.
It isn't Jesus trying to persuade on the
cross an angry God to forgive us.
If there was any reluctance at all, which
there actually wasn't.
If there was any temptation to reluctance, it
wasn't the Father who was reluctant to save
the world.
It was the Son that had to be
made willing to offer himself to the Father
in this way for the redemption of the
world.
He had to say, not my will, nature
would have said, no Lord, spare me.
No, this is an act of obedience, it's
the Father's great love.
Never get that conception, that God had to
be persuaded to forgive man.
He had to have a righteous ground on
which to forgive man.
But it was he who provided in his
Son that ground.
This is the Father's great conception.
It's completely wrong to say that God had
to be reconciled to man.
There are those who say it's not scriptural.
God has never needed to be reconciled to
sinners.
His attitude to sinners has never changed.
He loves us in our sins.
Why, we were yet enemies.
We were reconciled to God by the death
of his Son.
A means by which we could be reconciled.
We are the ones that need to be
reconciled.
There's no enmity in God's heart toward the
sinner.
The most rebellious person in this tent this
morning, if there be such, has been utterly
unable to provoke any enmity in the heart
of God towards himself.
In my most unbroken moments I am loved.
It's me who needs to be reconciled.
And the Father has provided a righteous ground
on which we can be reconciled.
And it was the Son who had to
be willing.
And that is what God sees.
This is the burnt offering, the whole burnt
offering, on that altar of brass.
There.
One of the scriptures that teach that is
John 14.31. John 14.31 says, Jesus,
but that the world may know that I
love the Father.
And as the Father gave me commandment, even
so I do.
And on he goes to that place called
Calvary, as the Father gave him commandment.
Turn back to John 17.18. And this
is what gives the Father such delight in
the Son.
He says so.
Therefore doth my Father love me because I
lay down my life that I may take
it again.
It touched the Father, the submission, the humility
of the Son to go to the bottom
for us.
And then in Philippians 2 you have again
Calvary mentioned as the Son's obedience to the
Father.
Philippians 2.8. And being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death.
This is the one thing none of us
want to do, to be obedient.
Adam was obedient at first.
And his obedience was enacted in perfect ease.
It was so simple for him.
He could eat of every tree, only refrain
from one.
But the obedience with which the first man
failed to give the Father, the second man
has.
But whereas the first man's obedience was enacted
in such ease, not so the obedience of
the second man.
The obedience of the second man invoked him
in all the toil and pain and degradation
of the cross.
And so this is why it's put first.
This is an offering for God.
This is an offering for God's pleasure on
behalf of man truly and because of his
sin.
But this is the great emphasis.
And we shall see how basic this is
for our salvation and fellowship with God.
Now the second point in which the burnt
offering differs from the sin offering is this,
that it is said to be a sweet
savour offering.
Actually the first, second and third are all
said to be sweet savour offerings.
The sin offering is not said to be
a sweet savour offering at all.
Both burnt offering and sin offering are subjected
to fire.
But whereas in the case of the sin
offering, the fire destroys.
In the second, in the case of the
burnt offering, it brings out a sweet savour.
And so we see those fires of the
wrath of God that fell on the son
of God for us at Calvary, whereas they
destroyed that which was offensive to God and
brought his son to death.
There's another aspect in which those very fires
that put away my sin in holy judgment
have brought out the inner excellences of the
one who hung there and that to the
infinite delight, pleasure and satisfaction of God.
Up from Calvary there went a sweet savour
offering and God found pleasure in what happened
there.
Leave your own need aside for the moment.
We'll come to that.
Let's contemplate this.
It's not only that the Lord Jesus bore
my sin in his body on the tree
and in that judgment bearing it has been
removed.
Thank God for that.
But it is more.
It is that in doing that, the way
in which he did it, the manner in
which he did it, the disposition which he
expressed in so doing, brought infinite satisfaction to
God.
God had ceased to get a sweet savour
from man, only an evil step.
When at last his son came, he said,
this is my beloved son, in whom I
at last may be well pleased.
Here is the man in whom I delight.
And never were those inner excellences of the
son of God, that inner disposition that pleased
God so much, never was it so revealed
as when he yielded his will to the
Father and chose to go that way, taking
blame that wasn't his, being looked upon as
a criminal because there was a criminal either
side and they all thought that he must
be, and he was willing even for that.
If that was what the Father willed, if
that was secure, the redemption of men.
If you want to see these two aspects,
the sin offering and the burnt offering, you've
got them in two simple verses in the
New Testament.
The sin offering aspect you see in 2
Corinthians 5.
2 Corinthians 5.
Here you have that picture of that sin
offering being burnt without the cap, as a
thing of abhorrence, amongst the refugees.
2 Corinthians 5 verse 21.
For God hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in
him.
That's the sin offering.
But there's another verse which gives us this
other fuller aspect, perhaps a little less appreciated
by us, by me certainly, but oh I
want to enter into it.
We'll see the blessing of it in a
moment.
And this is in Ephesians 5.
Ephesians 5 verse 1 and 2.
Be ye therefore followers of God as dear
children, now listen to this, and walk in
love as Christ also hath loved us and
given himself for us an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.
Paul is taking up this thing.
He used to give Bible readings on Leviticus
and he's just an allusion to a great
Bible reading.
Maybe he was giving one of those Bible
readings at Troas when Eutychus fell out of
the window because he went to sleep.
Here it is.
How wonderful.
Jesus gave himself to God for me as
a sweet-smelling savour to God on my
behalf.
And so we have scriptural ground for that.
And what do we mean about his inner
excellences that came out as the fire consumed
him?
What is it that says somewhere in Peter
about a meek and quiet spirit which in
the sight of God are of great price?
He sees all too little of that in
me and in you, doesn't he?
But he saw it in Jesus, of great
price.
You see that, those inner excellences, that sweet
savour coming out in 1 Peter 2.23.
1 Peter 2.23, verse 23, who when
he was reviled, reviled not again.
When he suffered, he didn't threaten, but committed
himself to him that judgeth righteously.
He didn't revile again.
He didn't say, you wait till I get
back to the glory.
How dare you treat me the way you
do?
I insist you treat me with respect due
to my position.
That's how you and I react at the
slightest thing, not him.
He said, the cup that the Father hath
given me, even it means this terrible injustice,
shall I not drink it?
Ah, there was the sweet savour.
And every one of his inner susceptibilities he
was willing to have opened up as the
burnt offering was cut in pieces.
I remember the first time I found myself
battling with something I've often battled with when
I'm away from this country on some tour,
being possessed with an awful longing to be
home, and with one's wife and family and
so on.
And I remember the first time I battled
with this, I was in Africa.
And I remember how God helped me.
He took me to the first chapter of
Leviticus.
And I saw Jesus, the knife going through
all his susceptibilities.
What about his sensitiveness and being stripped naked?
I mean to say, take another case.
Take a pure, innocent girl.
And by some extraordinary circumstance, she gets rounded
up with a lot of other prostitutes and
taken to the police station, and has to
be in the jail with them for a
night.
Oh, what an agony.
That's nothing to consider compared with the agony
of the Son of God who was numbered,
with transgressors and classed as one.
And everybody thought he must be one.
Only transgressors, only criminals are put on crosses.
And he was willing for the knife.
It was an offering of himself to God.
His was the disposition of the lamb.
The difference between taking a pig to the
slaughter, I'm told, and a lamb.
I don't think they do it in the
old-fashioned way.
It's all done electrically now, I think, or
ought to be.
But in the old days, they told me
it was an awful business taking a pig
to the slaughter.
He seemed to know what was coming.
He could smell the blood of the other
victims, and it fought and grunted.
But not a lamb.
Apparently, it's just too easy to take a
lamb to the slaughter.
It just lets you take it.
It looks up into your eyes with its
great big eyes, and it lets you put
the knife in.
That was the lamb.
That was the very last thing that Adam
would do, or I would do.
And all such resistance to even, to the
will of God, as it may come to
us, is sin, and provokes from us self
-pity, resentment, complaining, rebellion, an evil stench.
But not so the lamb of God.
And the fires of Calvary brought out the
sweet savour.
Of course, it was quite a sweet savour,
really.
Just think of those daily burnt offerings.
Every morning, every evening, from the tabernacle would
come the smell of roast lamb.
Quite a smell.
Now, I think I wouldn't appreciate it too
much for breakfast, but by the time of
the evening meal, it would make my mouth
water.
Ah, but it was a sweet savour to
God.
And an old writer, listen to this phrase.
I can't claim it to be something I've
thought of, but just let me think of
it.
The infinite fragrance of that that went up
from Calvary gave God more delight than all
the sin of man gave him grief.
My beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased.
But the lovely thing is, all this sweetness
came out to God on his path of
doing this great act of redemption for man.
So God and man secure something in that
cross.
And so that's the second point in which
they differ.
There was no sweet savour from the sin
offering was all judgment, except of course one
little hint.
Did you notice that the fat was burnt
on the altar?
And that did give a sweet savour.
And even in the most solemn aspect of
the judgment bearing of our Lord Jesus, you
can never exclude that God is getting something
of pleasure and satisfaction in the obedience of
the Son.
But anyway, the emphasis in the sin offering
is judgment, an evil stench.
That reminds me of an illustration.
I remember years ago, visiting, I was in
Leicester, a certain woman with my dear friend
Eric Roberts, who is now in the glory,
and he took me to one of some
contact of his that was linked with his
church a little bit on the edge.
She was a Christian.
Indeed, I think she was a minister's widow
or something.
And as we talked, she began to get
very free and she told us how she
knew she was out of touch with God
and had been for quite a time.
She became very frank and free with us.
And she said, you know, it all began,
and she mentioned a certain incident when there
was a deep quarrel and ensuing resentment.
And she'd never really seen there was any
real connection.
I put it this way.
It's obvious to me as I see it
and to you as I speak.
There was a connection.
But as she put it, she didn't see
there was any connection.
She happened to mention this other incident.
And then it came out.
It was more or less from that time
that she got into the wilderness away from
God.
I said, well, there's the answer.
That was a very precious time.
I think she was helped.
That evening she came to the meeting.
And I think we were speaking on this
passage in Hebrews 13 about Jesus going without
the cap, where the smoke went up, and
the smell of the stuff that was being
burnt out there, the refuse.
And it says there the way to go
forth unto Jesus without the cap, bearing his
reproach.
And I think the sort of message that
came out that we must be willing as
we repent to let the smoke go up.
Please turn the cassette over now.
Do not fast wind it in either direction.
And it says there the way to go
forth unto Jesus without the cap, bearing his
reproach.
And I think the sort of message that
came out that we must be willing as
we repent to let the smoke go up.
Willing to be known for what we were.
He.
For that must Jesus bear the cross alone
and all the world go free.
Glad for him to take the shame, but
don't let me bear any.
But if we're really getting right with God
and getting peace, what does it matter?
Let the smoke go up.
Let's give our testimonies and give Jesus the
glory.
Something along that line.
And then she told us afterwards, she said,
you know, after you'd left, I went through
agonies.
I said to myself, what have I said
to those men?
Whatever will they think of me?
A minister's widow, owning up to this.
I went through agonies.
Wish I'd kept my mouth shut.
And then I went to that meeting and
I bowed at Calvary saying, Lord, I'm willing
for the smoke to go up.
That is what more or less happens in
the sin offering.
Sin offering exercise of heart, if you will.
But the burnt offering exercise is something of
pleasure to the Father that he sees in
the Lord Jesus on our behalf.
And the infinite fragrance of that gives God
more delight than all the sin of man
gives him grief.
Now the third point in which the burnt
offering differs from the sin offering is the
results ensuing to the offerer.
If you turn to Leviticus 4, you will
see what came to the offerer as he
offered his sin offering.
Verse 26 of chapter 4, last half, and
the priest shall make an atonement for him
as concerning his sin, and listen, it shall
be forgiven him.
Wonderful thing to be forgiven.
To know the thing's not held against you
any longer.
And that was the relief that came to
the sinner as he offered his sin offering.
But what is it that ensues to the
offerer from the burnt offering?
Turn to chapter 1.
And here I give you the revised version
reading of verse 3 which we've mentioned.
If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of
the herd, let him offer it a male
without blemish at the door of the tent
of meeting, that he may be accepted.
And the authorized version gives you the same
thought without any reference to a revised version
in verse 4.
He shall put his hand upon the head
of the burnt offering and it shall be
accepted for him.
What you've got here is something, I think,
rather more than forgiveness.
It's acceptance, being accepted by God.
And we heard in last night's testimony the
difference.
Our dear brother Peter Elford felt when he
was so convicted of sin that even if
he was forgiven, even if he was permitted
to enter heaven, he'd have to walk the
golden streets for the whole of eternity with
a hanging head, with the shame, not really
enjoying the fact that he was accepted as
he was and for what he was.
But the work of the Lord Jesus, as
we heard, does more.
Not only forgiveness, but acceptance.
And that by the only person who matters.
The psychiatrists talk a lot about the need
of people for acceptance.
I'm just a little bit slow on these
things, I'm just catching up.
I realize this was the current thing just
now because Billy Graham kept on talking about
it when he spoke to the young people.
Young people's desire for acceptance.
And when I thought of it, I think,
well that's true.
We want to be accepted by our fellows,
we don't want to be wallflowers, we don't
want to be left out.
We want to be accepted for what we
are.
And when we feel we're not, we do
all sorts of funny things to attract attention
to ourselves and make ourselves conspicuous.
I think Billy Graham suggested that the extreme
fashions amongst certain types of young people were
due for this desire for acceptance, to be
noticed.
Of course they get noticed by certain people
in the wrong way, they don't get much
approval.
But amongst their colleagues of the same age,
apparently, certain types of dress, it gains them
acceptance, they're with it.
There is, it's true, I'm sure it's true.
The more I think of it, there is
an innate desire to be accepted.
You don't want to really be accepted for
more than what you are, but you want
to be accepted for what you are, and
loved for what you are, and brought in
for what you are.
What's the answer?
The grace of God offers the worst sinner
a perfect and unassailable acceptance with the only
one who matters.
And I want to tell you, if you
know you're loved of God, if you know
you're accepted for what you are by God,
other people's estimate of you doesn't matter.
And of course you're free from that funny
self-consciousness, and of course they do begin
to accept you.
And certainly it's true of the saints.
Oh, to be accepted by my fellow Christians,
where you get the assurance of your acceptance
by God.
And you start giving a sinner's testimony.
If you like, share with them your funny
quirks, how you always wanted to get a
little bit of acceptance from them, and now
you've given it up, you've got it in
Christ.
And you'll find they're wanting to praise the
Lord, and sing glory, glory.
You're one of them at last.
You're accepted.
But basically it's acceptance with God.
And that's what's pictured for us here.
And how do we become accepted by God?
Listen.
It shall be accepted for him.
That one from whom that sweet savour has
gone up.
Those sweet inner excellences which came out in
the fire of Calvary are to form the
basis of my acceptance with the Father.
So that sweet savour is all on my
behalf.
Christ accepted for me.
It's just as simple as that.
Christ accepted for me.
This isn't only salvation, it's the way in
which you're to live.
You see, you can repent, and you can
know some forgiveness, and yet be blaming yourself,
and feeling bad about yourself.
Get reconciled to what you are, and see
that God accepts his beloved Son, and all
those sweet merits of his, for you.
I stand upon his merits.
I know no other stand, not in where
glory dwelleth, in Emmanuel's land.
Turn to Ephesians 1, and you see again
this matter of acceptance.
Ephesians 1.
We have to break into a sentence.
In fact, if you don't break into a
sentence in Ephesians 1, you don't break into
one at all, because it's the whole chapter,
it's about one long sentence.
Phrase after phrase.
Verse 6.
To the praise of the glory of his
grace, wherein, in that grace, he has made
us accepted in the beloved.
Who is the beloved?
The Lord Jesus.
And who is he beloved to?
To the Father.
The love wherewith he loves the Son, such
is his love to me.
I remember some time ago, I wept.
I was so conscious of my failure and
sin, I'd been such a failure, and I
had to speak at a certain meeting.
And I went feeling that I needed that
meeting.
It's lovely when you go to a meeting
not to give, but to get, although you
have to preach.
And I sat in that meeting at the
WEC headquarters.
And as I sat there, they sang, just
before I had to talk, a hymn.
And it so touched me I had difficulty
even beginning to speak.
I thought I was going to make a
fool of myself.
It was grace meeting me in my need.
A mind with perfect peace with God.
Oh, what a word is this?
I said, am I at perfect peace with
God?
And I wasn't quite over something.
And as we sang, I said, all right,
Lord, I'll agree with you.
I'm wrong on that.
It's the only way to be at peace
with God.
Did you know that?
If you're not quite at peace with God,
it's because you haven't said, all right, Lord,
I'm wrong on that matter.
Some matter.
Well, in that first verse, I was unable
to say, all right, Lord, I'm wrong.
But back of that was so much other
failure.
A sinner reconciled through blood.
This, this indeed is peace.
And then the remaining verses, it was God's
word to me.
By nature and by practice far.
How very far from God.
Yet now by grace brought nigh to him
through faith in Jesus' blood.
And this is what touched me.
So nigh, so very nigh to God.
I cannot nearer be.
For in the person of his son, I
am as near as he.
And then what finished me off was that
fourth verse, so dear.
So very dear to God.
You've been feeling other people didn't love you,
that you're being left out.
So dear.
So very dear to God.
More dear I cannot be.
The love wherewith he loves the son, such
is his love to me.
Do you believe it?
You are given the same standing with God
as Jesus has.
All that he did for Christ, for you
on the cross, was for you.
The ground on which is before the Father
is that of his blood.
He took the sins of the world.
How could then a man who had more
sins than me, he had the world's sin,
get back to God and be in perfect
relationship by the blood, which paid the debt
so fully that even the son was raised
from the dead, as it says, by the
blood of the everlasting covenant, and went back
to the holiest by the blood.
And that's my ground too.
And so it's true.
So dear.
So very dear to God.
Someone who's so offensive in so many ways,
from whom such an evil stench has come.
But you've repented.
You've come to Jesus.
And now the love wherewith he loves the
son, such is his love and acceptance of
you and me.
How important this is.
So this is something gloriously positive, much more
positive than even the sin offering.
Praise the Lord for the two that we
can't do without one or the other.
Well now, what did the offer have to
do on his side?
Well first of all, in bringing the offering
at all, he had to acknowledge that was
no sweet odor coming from him.
That was inferred, surely, wasn't it?
If he brought an offering at all, it
was because he knew there'd be the evil
stench.
And when I, that's my first step, the
acknowledgement of what I am.
No sweet odor, no pleasure of the Father
coming from me, especially as it's been evidenced
in this, that and the other, which has
recently happened and brought me so low and
humbled me so much.
That's the first step.
The obvious acknowledgement.
You know, when a person in a prayer
meet talks about the blood of Jesus, I
say, hello, there's sin there.
The blood isn't a talisman.
It's for sin.
And if someone says cleanse us in thy
blood, I think he means cleanse me in
thy blood.
We ought to say me perhaps more often.
The blood implies need and sin.
Let's be honest.
And if I veil myself with a cross
at all, it's because I admit there's been
no sweet odor coming from me.
The very reverse.
And others have had to smell what's come.
Secondly, he was to lay his hand upon
the head of his burnt offering, as in
the sin offering.
And here too it means the same.
This, what was happening to this burnt offering,
this ox or goat or lamb, is happening
to me.
This death is really mine.
This is what I deserve.
That brings us always low.
But thank God he's doing it for me.
We needn't amplify that because we have already
done so in the other offering.
And then we're told, it shall be accepted
for him.
In fact, in my Bible, I've added the
word, little word then in Leviticus 1 verse
4.
And he shall put his hand upon the
head of the burnt offering, and I've added,
and then it shall be accepted for him.
And my friend, you've got to believe it.
You've got to begin to praise for it.
And to go on chastening yourself is to
dishonor the Lord Jesus and what he's offered
there for you.
And you know, I believe one of the
things that God has used, if not in
England, I think he has in England, but
certainly out in East Africa where there's been
revival.
I had the privilege of going out there
for a short while years ago, and we've
had so many of them in this country.
One of the things God has used to
get people through into praise has been a
funny little chorus.
In fact, it simply irritates you.
You hear it once, you hear it a
thousand times.
We don't sing it quite so much in
England because in case people don't understand, you
get irritated.
We were always singing, glory, glory, hallelujah.
You say, oh, these people.
But they aren't so inhibited out there.
It's took a tender esser, hundred times a
day, every time a man repents and gives
his testimony, it's took a tender esser.
And I've seen a man, both in England
and in Africa, God's just dealt him over
something, he's been to the cross over it,
and he shares as a testimony this matter,
but he's still a bit sad.
He's terribly humbled about to have to admit
that Jesus had to cleanse him of that
thing that went wrong in his home.
But he's hardly finished his testimony before everybody
sings, took a tender esser, all in England,
glory, glory, hallelujah.
Oh, the cleansing blood has reached me.
Glory, glory to the Lamb.
And before it's over, he's shouting and praising
with the rest.
The cleansing blood has reached me, has reached
me.
But of course it has.
Why aren't I praising?
And he's free.
He's emerged from a sin offering exercise of
heart, of judging himself and seeing the cost
of Jesus, into a praising attitude, a burnt
offering exercise of heart.
And I would suggest the thing that impedes
us doing that is sometimes hurt pride.
Why am I not praising?
Well, you see, I've fallen.
It looks very humble to remain not rejoicing.
But it may be that I'm hurt that
I, at this late hour in my Christian
experience, should fail in that way.
I thought by now I would have grown
wings.
But they aren't there at all.
And it's very humbling.
Maybe that's something further to repent of.
I often tell the story of how Josiah
went up to Berta Riff one day in
Gahini in Rwanda.
And Josiah Kanuka, some of you will know
him, he said, Well, sister, praising the Lord
today?
And she paused and said, No.
And he said, Why?
The truth is I lost my temper badly
in my bungalow this morning.
And all Josiah said was this, Has the
blood of Jesus lost its power?
And walked away.
Has it lost its power?
She says, It hasn't lost its power.
It's reached me!
And he ran after her and said, I'm
praising.
It's as simple as that.
Repentance and faith that God is satisfied that
I stand in those precious merits.
Christ is accepted for me.
And are you willing to have that the
basis of your acceptance with your brothers?
Naturally we want to be accepted because there's
something in us.
Am I willing for Christ to be accepted
for me in fellowship with others?
That is, am I willing to admit what
I am and give a sinner's testimony and
know that Christ is accepted with me, for
me before God, and I find my brothers
accept Christ for me.
They rejoice.
He's another one who's finding Jesus precious and
finding this lovely way of release.
One last thought, and it's this.
You notice, did you not, the differing offerings?
Once again, a feature similar to what we
saw in the sin offering.
In the sin offering, the priest and the
congregation had a large offering, an ox, whereas
the ruler and the common people had progressively
smaller offerings.
And we saw in that case, it pictured
the fact of differing responsibilities.
The very nature of responsibility sometimes makes you
feel your guilt more.
And the devil can give you a bad
time unless the spirit gives you an appreciation
of Jesus, commensurate with this sense of guilt,
and then you're free.
Well now here, it isn't quite the same.
It's just the fact that differing Christians do
have a differing appreciation of Jesus.
And the message is this, it doesn't matter
if you're, I appreciate Jesus so little.
This way is just adorning on me.
I have such a little appreciation of his
blood and the excellences of Calvary.
It doesn't matter if it's an appreciation of
Jesus that you bring to God.
It's accepted.
Yours may be, mine may be, the two
turtledoves and not the ox.
It's enough for peace.
And God is pleased with Jesus even though
our appreciation of him may be feeble.
And so in thinking of these offerings, don't
think you've got to bring an offering.
You've got to bring Christ to God.
You haven't.
He's there already before the throne.
My surety stands.
My name is graven on his hands.
But these offerings, bringing the offering is bringing
your appreciation as you repent.
But not only when you repent, when you're
worshipping, when you're praising.
Because the burnt offering was offered continually, even
apart from any specific acts of sin.
From this tent, I believe, a burnt offering's
often arisen.
As we've sung the praises of the Lord,
we've meant every word, we've adored him.
We've seen how precious he is.
We've seen the sight of peerless worth.
And God's been pleased.
He inhabits the praises of Israel.
But get this, when you have a sin
offering exercise of heart, when that's necessary, don't
remain there.
The sin offering was never, never, never offered
by itself.
It was always coupled with a burnt offering.
Tell me a case where it's otherwise.
I may be wrong, but I can't think
of one.
All these ceremonies, they're full of them, in
Numbers, Exodus and Leviticus.
Sin offering, burnt offering.
The burnt offering may be by itself, but
never the sin offering.
God wants us to go right through it
with praise and liberty.
And I just want to quote to you
someone that wrote along this line.
Restoration to God, restoration to full liberty with
God is not complete until there's an apprehension
of how the offering of Christ for sin
has brought delight to God.
And all is well, if you don't think
it's only because you did want to have
your own righteousness.
Are we not content to have this and
this alone before God and our brothers and
begin to accept one another on that basis?
What freedom of fellowship.
Some people find a fellowship meeting an agony.
Oh, look at these things these people are
saying.
Have I got to say the same?
My dear friend, you aren't seeing Jesus when
you are.
You're praising him.
You're standing in his righteousness and you're glad
to give him glory where that righteousness has
covered something that was so obnoxious.
And so we see these differing appreciations.
And I believe we've not got to be
content with only having a small appreciation.
Let's grow.
Let's grow in grace.
Let's seek to move on from the two
turtledoves to the sheep or the goats.
Let's go on from there to the ox.
And how do we?
By having these exercises of heart as God
deals with us.
And as he shows you more of the
efficiency of Jesus and of grace to cover
it and set you free and bring you
into full praising victory again.
And as we go on this way, your
appreciation of the Lord Jesus will increase.
And when you sing a hymn, it'll mean
a thousand times more to you now than
it did years ago.
Your heart will be full of Christ.
You'll long its glorious matter to declare.
Of him whom you make your nobler songs,
you cannot from his praise forbear.
My ready tongue delights to sing the glories
of my God and King.
Lord Jesus, we want to thank thee that's
not only given thyself but has given us
thy spirit.
That we might know the things that are
freely given us of God.
And so Lord we say thank you.
Thank you for this wonderful salvation.
And what we've thought about is only a
tiny aspect, oceans, that we've never yet dreamed
of.
Forgive us Lord for not bringing our sin
offering.
Forgive us Lord for going on in unjudged
sin.
But then Lord we need forgiveness for only
seeing so little of our redemption.
Going on may be feeling forgiven up to
a point but still not free with thee.
Still not free with one another.
Still not conscious of our acceptance by thee
or one another.
Oh we want to thank thee for this
perfect ground of acceptance for everybody indiscriminately who
repents.
Lord Jesus thou art accepted for us.
We stand upon thy dear merits that came
out at such cost.
We know no other stand not in where
glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.
Help us to begin to rejoice.
Help us again to praise.
Help us be able to be free with
one another and help us to accept one
another as thou hast accepted us in the
Lord Jesus.
And now may the grace of our Lord
Jesus and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us
all evermore.
Amen.