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So I’m pretty excited about today. Despite everything that’s happened this morning, I was in Saint George, as I said, for the beginning of the week, which was awesome. It was an excellent time. Uh, but because I was away, I had to prepare my sermon on the road. And then when I got back last night, the printer at the church here, when I typed everything up, was not working correctly. So I couldn’t print my sermon notes. So I had them typed, but I couldn’t have them in front of me. And then, uh, so as I go, that’s no problem. I’ll just save them to a flash drive, run it over to Stacey and Nathaniel and borrow their printer while they’re gone. They took the computers that are hooked up to the printer. The computer that’s there isn’t new enough to be connected to that printer, so I couldn’t print anything there. So I was running around like crazy today, this morning. So I’m a little, little frazzled, but I’m still excited. And it isn’t because I did spend the last four days in 70 degree weather and sunshine. And it’s not because I got to golf on the number six course in the nation, the best course in the state of Utah. And it’s not because I shot really good on that course. It’s not even because I already got to celebrate Thanksgiving early. So I’ve already had my my turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes and gravy and the rolls and pumpkin pie and all that before everybody else.
But that’s not why I’m excited. I’m really excited today, because today is the first week in a two week series that we’re going to be going over, and a two week series isn’t much to get excited about, but I’ve never got a chance to to teach for two weeks to do a two week series. So I got to find a topic that I wanted to spend more than 30 or 40 minutes going over. I got to spend a lot more time on. And so as I was studying and trying to figure out, okay, what do I want to spend two weeks in? I had ideas that, you know, I could spend a week here and a week there and they wouldn’t really relate. But then and I and then I got some some ideas. I really wanted to do a series on the Lord of the rings. I don’t know if anybody ever watched the Lord of the rings likes them, I love them. There’s tons of good spiritual analogies in there that you can make. But so I was said I was going to do that. And then I realized, you know, that’s not really where God wanted me to go with it. And so I started, started reading, and I realized, you know, God wanted me to just teach on what’s what’s been really important to me and what’s stood out in my life in the last few months.
And that’s why this starting this week, we’re going to start a two week series called Cross-Eyed. And I’m not talking about cross-eyed. When you cross your eyes and you look really funny, you can’t really see anything. I’m talking about cross-eyed, where we make the cross of Christ the entire focus of our life to where everything that we do in life, whether we’re going to the grocery store, talking to our friends or family, whatever we’re doing, we’re seeing it through the perspective of perspective of the cross of Christ. Um, and this week, in order to look through the perspective of the cross, we have to first understand why the cross. Um, have you ever thought about why the cross is so important to us? We hang it on our walls, on our doorways, on our cars, on our necklaces, on our earrings. Some people get it tattooed on their body. That’s what when I talk to my dad and find out if he’s okay with me getting a tattoo, that’s what I’m going to get on my arm. Um, but we get. Paul even says in Galatians, he goes so far as to say he’s not going to boast in anything. He’s not going to brag about anything, anything that he has of worth. The only thing that he has that’s of any worth is the cross of Christ. But why do we say that? Um, if you think about it, one of my favorite quotes John Piper says in his book, Don’t Waste Your Life.
He says something to the effect. The effect of reveling in the cross or glory. Glorying in the cross is like saying, I glory in the electric chair. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? But if you think about it in in Paul’s in Paul’s day when he says, I boast in nothing but the cross. The cross was a form of torture and execution for criminals. So for us to wear crosses around today and to have them on our walls would be like going back into Paul’s day and walking in someone’s home and seeing above the mantel there a nice sculpture of an electric chair or a lethal injection syringe. So why do we revel in something that brings pain and suffering and death? Why is that? It’s. It’s odd. It’s why Paul writes in First Corinthians and says that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who don’t believe, because it doesn’t make sense. This was something that was used to kill your leader. You Christians are crazy. This is what we use to kill them. And you’re excited about it. Why? But in order for us to really understand why the cross and why the cross is exciting to us, we need to turn back to the Old Testament and really understand a little bit of Jewish culture. Our main text is going to be Leviticus chapter 16. Today we’re going to jump around a little bit, but that’s going to be the bulk of it.
We’re going to look at the Day of Atonement okay. We’re going to start here in 16. But the day of. The Day of Atonement was is the most important date on the Jewish calendar. This was the day that all of the sins of the nation of Israel for the entire year would be atoned for, and they would be made right before God. It was the day that the high priest would offer sacrifices, first to cover his sins and atone for his own sins, so that he would be worthy to then offer sacrifices for the rest of the people and atone for their sins. So we’re going to read the whole chapter. It’s a lot, so bear with me. But it’s all important. And then we’ll break it down and look at some highlights here. So Leviticus chapter 16 and verse one says, now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat which is on the ark, or he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this, with a bull for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.
He shall put on the on the holy tunic, and the holy linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash, and attired with the linen turban. These are holy garments. Then he shall bathe his body in water, and put them on. He shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin offering, which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meetings. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it a sin offering. But the lot but the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his household. And he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. He shall take a firepan of full, full of coals of fire, from upon the altar before the Lord two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring it inside the Vail.
He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat, that is, that is on the ark of the testimony. Otherwise he will die. Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side, also in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil, and do not and do with its blood, as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and in front of the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins. And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting, which abides with them in the midst of their impurities. When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel. Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord, and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull, and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides with his finger.
He shall sprinkle some of the blood on on it seven times, and cleanse it from the impurities of the sons of Israel. Consecrate it. When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting, and the altar, he shall he shall offer the live goat. Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins. And he shall lay them on the head of the goat, and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. I’m just going to stop there and say, just be thankful that you don’t live in Old Testament times, because a lot of times this is what their Sunday was, is they would just have somebody stand up here and they would just read like this for a long time, for like hours. So just be thankful. I’m only reading like 30 some verses, okay? Verse 22, the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a to a solitary land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meetings and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place.
And he shall leave them there. He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place, and put on his clothes, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people, and make atonement for himself and for the people. Then he shall offer up and smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar. The one who released the goat is as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then after he shall come into the camp. But, but the bull of the sin offering, and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp. And they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire. Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward he shall come into the camp. This shall be a permanent statute for you in the seventh month, on the 10th day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native or the alien who sojourns among you. For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you. You shall be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls. It is a permanent statute.
So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priests in his father’s place shall make atonement. He shall thus put on the linen garments the holy garments, and make atonement for the holy sanctuary. And he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting, and for the altar. He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. Now you shall have this as a permanent statute to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once every year. And just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so he did. All right. So now you have a huge, giant, broad view of what the Day of Atonement was. Um, but here in the book of Leviticus, and this is the whole book of Leviticus, is when God gave Moses, Moses, all of the law, all of the rules, um, ranging from what to do if you have an infection, to what offerings to offer, for what sins, what sacrifices to offer for those sins. Um, the the main part that I want to focus on right now is going to be verses five through ten. And this, this shows us, um, that there are two goats. There’s two sacrifices that are described here. Um, and the two goats are very significant because they both serve very different purposes, but were both required for atonement to be made. Excuse me. So after Aaron deals with his own sin, then he takes the two goats and one goat is to be offered as a sin offering, and then the other is to be released into the wilderness as a scapegoat to make atonement.
Now, as you read through Leviticus here in the 16th chapter, the word atonement is the Hebrew word kafir. It means it’s means to expiate or to cancel, to appease, cleanse, forgive, pacify, pardon or reconcile. And I do apologize. I had planned on underlining all of the fill in the blanks for your notes. Um, but with the printer difficulties, I edited the PowerPoint and then edited the notes and forgot to save the edited version of the notes before I printed them again. So the notes don’t quite match up, but they’re pretty close. Um, so I apologize for that. You can do your best to fill in the blanks. Okay. But it says that kafir is the word that we get the word atonement. Basically, it means atonement is when we’re put or made one with God. Um, that’s that’s what atonement is. You see, when when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. There’s a disconnect. There became a disconnect. Before Adam and Eve sinned, God would come down and he would walk in the garden with Adam, and they would fellowship together every day. And there was that that communion, that fellowship. Once Adam and Eve sinned, that fellowship was broken and that there was a disconnect. There was a sin disconnect that we couldn’t we couldn’t overcome.
What atonement is, is when that disconnect becomes connected. So you can see, I kind of tried to give you a little bit of an illustration. There’s a disconnect. We don’t quite line up with God because sin is in the way. Now, throughout the year, the people of Israel would offer sacrifices and they would they would cover up their sins with the blood of the animals that they would sacrifice and the different things that they would sacrifice. But it was still a disconnect. It still wasn’t atonement. It still wasn’t completely satisfied. But what the scapegoat did when they completely released this the sin. When you’re atoned, it’s a solid connection. It’s straight across. It’s solid fellowship between you and God, between the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, and God. When the Day of Atonement happened, that connection was finally made. That’s why it was such an important holiday, because without this, they couldn’t be in fellowship with God. If atonement wasn’t made for their sins, they could not enjoy fellowship with God. They couldn’t have that time where they they were in line with God’s will. And if you’ve ever had that time where you’ve you’ve been where God wants you to do, doing what God wants you to do, it’s an awesome experience because you have that fellowship and you experience that fellowship and you just feel really great. But the times when you’re you stop doing what God wants you to do and being where he wants you to be, and you start doing what you want to do, where you want to do it, you start to feel that disconnect, and life can start to get a little hectic and a little bit stressed, and you snap a little bit quicker.
But when you’re in that fellowship with God, it’s an amazing thing. Um, but we see that there’s two goats required for the atonement the blood of one and the life of another. The next section in Leviticus, and this is it, kind of breaks down the actual process of what was going to happen for you. Verse 21, it says that the high priest is to lay both his hands on the head of the goat, and he would take his hands, and he would hold it on the goat, and he would confess all the sins of the nation of Israel for the entire year. He would confess them and thus transfer the sins of the people to that goat. So that goat became sin. That goat represented all that was wrong, all that God was displeased with in the nation of Israel for the entire year. That goat became that. And when you when you read passages that talk about God’s wrath against sin and his his hate and disgust towards sin, it is not good to be that goat. Um, and all of the sins of the people are put on that goat. And after all the sins have been transferred, they take that goat and they release it into the wilderness.
They let it out in the woods so the sins would then, being on that goat, leave the camp of Israel, and the kids would be taken away. So they didn’t. They no longer had sin in the camp. The sin had all left. Many times the people not wanting the goat to wander back home would take sticks and rocks and throw them at the goat and chase the goat, literally chase the goat out of out of the tents, out of the out of their village, out of the town. They would chase it so it wouldn’t come back. So it wouldn’t want to come back, because they did not want the sin to come back, because they just this one day finally made that atonement where they could be right with God in a right standing with God. And they didn’t want that to come back and interrupt that. And then verse 24 tells us then that the the high priest was to bathe his entire body. Um, and this is his this is significant because when he, um, he has to bathe his entire body because he just confessed all of the sin of the nation and put that on the goat. And being in contact with that goat made him unclean. He still had sin, so he had to symbolically wash him, wash himself completely to to remove that sin completely and to to remove the sin from himself.
And then after cleaning himself, the high priest then offers the burnt sacrifice for his sins, and then the sins of the people. The scapegoat was not enough of a sacrifice. A blood sacrifice had to be made. The blood of the goat had to be put on the mercy seat and covered. Hebrews 522 tells us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. There’s no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. The first thing that happened in the Garden of Eden, the first thing that God did when Adam and Eve sinned, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to make clothes for themselves so they wouldn’t be naked. But God said, look, that’s not going to do it. Doing this on your own and trying to cover up yourself isn’t going to work. And he kills a lion and he makes some skins from a lion, and blood had to be made to appease God. And that started the pattern of a blood sacrifice being required to cover sin and take away sin. So they couldn’t just send the sin out into the wilderness. They had to make this blood sacrifice that would completely appease God and completely cover their sins and take them away. Um. After the priest offers the burnt offerings, the man who released the goat, the guy that was in charge of. Okay, take this goat outside of the village and get rid of him. He has to then come back and completely wash himself and bathe himself.
And so anybody that’s come in contact with this goat or these sin offerings has to completely wash themselves and bathe themselves. And if you if you read through this, you can see the importance of sin, the, the, the importance of cleansing yourself of sin. These people didn’t want anything to be associated with sin. Okay. When they came in contact with this goat that represented all of the evil that they had done, they had to wash themselves. They had to remove themselves from that goat, and they washed themselves. Oftentimes today we kind of take sin lightly and we just say, oh yeah, shouldn’t have done that, but oh, well, it’s okay and keep going on. But these people took sin seriously. They they didn’t want any part of it. They wanted to get rid of it completely. They didn’t want to be associated with it. So it wasn’t enough for them to not sin. It was they didn’t even want to be associated with sin. They wanted to get rid of it completely and not have it come back on them. But today, because we live under a different, a different system, a different law, we tend to take sin a lot lighter. But your sins still required a sacrifice. Your sins still required blood. And it’s still a terrible thing that God hates. And just because you don’t have to offer sacrifices today doesn’t make it any less serious.
You should want nothing to do with it, to cleanse your hands of it, to wash yourself, and to not even be associated with what sin is. So after all the sacrifices were offered, the remains would then be taken out and burned. So they would they would take the blood of the goat for the sin offering, and they would put it on the mercy seat, and they would make atonement, and then they would there were some specific guidelines that they had for different parts of the goat, how they were to be offered. But what was left over was to be taken out and burned completely, so that there was nothing left to just get rid of all of it, because that goat represented their sin, and the man that had to take the goat the remains and to burn it, then had to wash himself completely, and not just himself, but his clothes, because the ashes from the fire and the soot would get on his clothes. And since they typically had one, maybe two pairs of clothes total, if he had one pair of clothes that had a little bit of soot of this sin offering on them, whenever he wore that, he would have that sin on him. So he had to wash his clothes and completely get rid of that soot and that ash so that sin was gone. They could not have that come back on them. And again, it shows us the importance of cleansing ourselves and getting away from sin and not having anything to do with sin, and disassociating ourselves with sin and sin.
Just in its simplest definition, in case there’s any confusion, is any time you disobey God, anything that displeases God. Easiest way to remember it is if you think it might be wrong, it probably is. Just don’t do it. At the Day of Atonement, not only was it a very important date to the people of Israel, but it still is to this day. If you’ve ever heard of the holiday y’all rapport confer is is another word for mature, which is atonement. There’s another synonymous. Confer has has a more of a more of a broader meaning. Um, but the when they were translating the Bible into English from the from the Hebrew, they chose to use the word atonement because they thought it best described it. But Kapoor and Kapoor are the same thing. So Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, and they still celebrate its day a lot of times as you go to the store and buy a calendar, you’ll see a little marked out that says This is Yom Kippur. And the the Jewish people still celebrate that to this day. The ceremonies have changed a little bit throughout the time. Um, they’re a little bit more animal friendly because I don’t know if Peta would be too pleased with them, uh, murdering goats and chasing them with sticks and stones. Um, but. So they’ve changed.