Leviticus 11

Leviticus 11 discusses the clean and unclean food that the Israelites are allowed to eat. Instead of discussing the types of food I want to consider the why more than the what. Why were there laws about the foods to be eaten or not eaten?

These laws have probably been more debated and discussed than any of the other laws. Many people have adjusted their diet to more resemble these foods. The assumption is that by holding to these original food laws I am going to be closer to God and healthier. It can be debated about being healthier or not. We know that through modern science that many of these animals can be dangerous if not handled correctly. Shell fish are scavengers and pigs if not slaughtered and handled correctly can cause poison to be released throughout the pig and thus be harmful to us.

With modern science also comes knowledge on how to safely prepare some of these foods that were once forbidden. We can see in the New Testament that some of the forbidden foods in the Old Testament were presented to Peter by God in a dream. Peter said he could not eat that food it was unclean. God said that what he has made unclean he can make clean.

The next place to look at concerning the food is that possibly that some of the foods were used by other in that region for sacrifices and pagan worship. It is true that some of these were used in rituals by other groups in that region but not all.

So if it was not so much about the safety and healthiness of the food, and it was not completely about the rituals of other nations why separate the food. How about being set a apart as a people as holy, to show a distinction between the Israelites and others in the world. It is a matter of being willing to do as God has requested to be called his children. It was symbolic to show that Israel was to be holy in an unclean world.

The Application

Since we are not bound by the dietary laws found in chapter 11 the question remains how we set ourselves a part as holy in an unclean world. There are other ways that we set ourselves apart as holy to God. By what we do, say, places we go all ways that we set ourselves apart. Can the world tell the difference between you and them?

Leviticus 10

We see in Leviticus 10 the importance of doing what God says to do. In the first part of this chapter we see two of Aaron’s sons took it upon themselves to offer incense to the Lord. They did not follow the instructions that were given concerning offering incense. The immediate result was that they were killed instantly by fire from God.

The bodies were removed from the tent and Aaron and his remaining sons were instructed to not grieve the death of these two sons. The Israelites were allowed to grieve but Aaron and his sons were not.

We see in verse 8 and following we see the first instructions to priests being the teachers of God’s word. Aaron and his sons were to teach the Israelites concerning all the laws that God had given. We also see here that no wine or liquor were to be drank when they went into the tent of meeting.

The chapter closes with Moses being upset with Aaron for not offering a goat for the sin offering. Moses found out it was burned instead of eating it in the holy place. Moses questions Aaron and his sons and Aaron responds to Moses with, “If I had eaten the offering for sin today, would the LORD have approved?” Aaron was essentially telling Moses that I am taking responsibility for what my sons did earlier today and since the sin offering was already offered for the day I am not clear to eat of this other offering. God would disapprove.

The Application

This chapter shows the importance of following God’s direction. We may not die immediately as Aaron’s sons did but we do die spiritually. As men we need to also need to consider Aaron’s example and take responsibility for what takes place in our household.

I was watching Dr. Phil (insert laugh track here) the other day where he was speaking to the family of a 14 year old young lady (use the term loosely) who refused to wear anything that was not sexy and somewhat revealing. As I read this chapter I cannot help but compare this father to Aaron. The father on Dr. Phil blamed everyone but himself. Aaron’s sons were grown and yet he took responsibility for their actions.

Men we will be held accountable for what happens in our home. Each individual will be held accountable also but you have the responsibility.

Leviticus 9

In chapter 9 we have Aaron performing his first sacrifices. In reading in through this chapter we see somewhat of an on the job training taking place for Aaron and his sons and Moses walks them through the steps required for each type of sacrifice.

When these sacrifices are done they are done with the whole congregation in place observing for the sacrifices were also in order to cover their sins.

Probably the most important thing in this chapter is at the end. In verse 23 Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meetings then came out and blessed the people. At the end of this verse we see that the LORD’s glory appeared to all the people. We see in verse 24 that fire came out from the LORD’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar. When all the people saw this they bowed before the LORD.

Why is this significant? It shows to the people first God’s acceptance of the offering. Secondly it shows that these requirements were not just Moses coming up with them but it was what God expected to take place. It gave legitimacy to the sacrifices.

The Application

When we allow God in our lives we become a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to him. God consumes us with his fire and the power of the Holy Spirit. He sets us on fire for his purpose our lives should be a sweet smelling savor to him.

Leviticus 8

Chapter 8 is the dedication/ordination ceremony for Aaron and his sons as priests of the Israelites. The thing to see as you look at this chapter is the significance of the preparation and the ceremonial cleaning. This is an in-depth process that began with Moses washing Aaron and his sons. Once washed they were then clothed in the white linen robes. After this cleaning the animals were slaughtered for the sacrifice for sins, a burnt offering and finally for the ordination offering. The final step of this process was that Moses sprinkled some of the blood on the priests dedicating them and their clothes to the Lord. He also took some of the blood and put it on the right ear lobe, right thumb and the big toe of the right foot.

After all of this they cooked the meat and at it and the bread from the ordination offering. The priests were than instructed not to leave the tent of meeting for 7 days for it will take 7 days to complete the ordination process. They were to serve night and day during that time as the Lord directed so that they would not die.

The Application

Moses is acting in the place of Jesus. Jesus is our advocate he washes and covers our sins with his blood and ordains us for his purpose and stands between us and the Father and says we are acceptable to him. Moses did the same for Aaron and his sons through the washing of them and the sacrifices he then stood before God and says they are acceptable to you. Through Jesus we are a royal priest hood set aside for God’s purpose. We should not take our responsibilities lightly.

I am going to forgo the study on Leviticus today. What I want to talk about today is relationships, specifically marriage. I may have spoke about this before but it is heavy upon my heart again. De’Dee and I are involved in a study on Wednesday evenings where we are working through the study based on the movie, “Fireproof”. Tonight we watch the movie. What a powerful well made movie. If you have not seen it I recommend it to you.

Based on that fact I wanted to talk to you today about marriage. Ephesians 5 says the following:

21 Place yourselves under each other's authority out of respect for Christ. 22 Wives, place yourselves under your husbands' authority as you have placed yourselves under the Lord's authority. 23 The husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. It is his body, and he is its Savior. 24 As the church is under Christ's authority, so wives are under their husbands' authority in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. 26 He did this to make the church holy by cleansing it, washing it using water along with spoken words. 27 Then he could present it to himself as a glorious church, without any kind of stain or wrinkle--holy and without faults. 28 So husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies. A man who loves his wife loves himself. 29 No one ever hated his own body. Instead, he feeds and takes care of it, as Christ takes care of the church. 30 We are parts of his body. 31 That's why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will be one. 32 This is a great mystery. (I'm talking about Christ's relationship to the church.) 33 But every husband must love his wife as he loves himself, and wives should respect their husbands.

Many of us skip over verse 21 and jump right on to verse 22 and yet leaves the rest of the verses alone. What we get is not a marriage but a dictatorship. We claim to be Christian husbands yet we don’t do what scripture says. We allow the world to crowd out what God says about marriage.

The first thing to notice is that there is a mutual submission of one to another. That makes it a partnership. The second things is wives submitting. Now this is not intended to give men the right to sit around their home ruling with an iron fist like a dictator. The fact that the wives are to submit to the husband should humble the husband not make him proud and a dictator. You see by having the wives submit that means those of us as husbands are responsible for what happens and will be held accountable for what we do and how our home is.

More important than either of the above is the verses of 25 – 33. In these verses it commands the husband to love his wife and it says how that love is to be demonstrated.

1. Love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.
2. He did this to make the church holy, washing it using water and spoken words.
3. Husband love must love their wives as they love their own bodies.
4. No one ever hated his own body. Instead he feeds and takes care of it.
5. Every husband must love their wife as he loves himself.

Notice in the above there is no room for a husbands selfish demanding for servitude from his wife. In fact it requires a humble caring for his wife. You see men the fact is that it is not about you. It is about your bride. I will guarantee that if you give to your bride you won’t have to worry about your needs being met.

I recommend that you rent, buy or borrow the movie and sit and honestly watch it. I also recommend that you pick up the book “Every Man’s Marriage”. These two resources will have an impact in your life. Above all else take a true look at what scripture says about marriage. Don’t allow the influence of society or the world to impact how you interpret scripture.

Leviticus 6 -7

I have to admit that I have not actually looked at Leviticus in my life time as close as I am looking at now. There are some powerful things that we miss out on when we choose to skip through the book of Leviticus. Some things that I found in chapter 6:

1. Sinning against God by failing to do your duty

2. Lying to your neighbor about something you were supposed to take care of or lying about something that was stolen or seized from your neighbor is a sin.

3. Finding something that someone lost and lie about it under oath, or commit any other sin like this.

Aside from instructions of taking care of the fire on the altar which was to never go out, the rest of chapter 6 and 7 deals with aspects of the various offerings that we already discussed from other chapters. Don’t take that to mean they have little values or importance for discussion or understanding to the offerings and sacrifices as a whole. They provide greater emphasis in the purpose and the care for the offerings. In going through this devotional study I don’t see the need to rehash what has already been discussed in this setting.

That said I encourage you to look at the two chapters and make sure for yourself that I am not missing something. If you have questions please ask so that we all can benefit and learn from the questions you may ask.

The Application

We all too often through aside the Old Testament as not being relevant to us today, the reality is that it is very relevant in what it has to say. No we don’t sacrifice offerings but consider the first part of chapter 6. In this chapter it talks about doing our duty, not lying under oath or for that matter at all. And also it answers the question of what to do when you find something that someone lost.

We are to do our duty. Whatever that duty is to not do our duty we are committing a sin against God. We are not to lie under oath or any other time for that matter. Finally it is not finder keepers, losers weepers. We are to take the effort to locate and return what we found. For to fail to do so based on what I see here it is a sin and you are stealing.

Leviticus 4 and 5

The more that I look at this book what I realize is how blessed that we are that we don’t have to bring an animal sacrifice for the various reasons. I have come to appreciate the old Hymn that said Jesus paid it all. This book has a sacrifice for just about anything and everything.

Chapter 4 deals with the offerings for unintentional wrong doings. What grasps me in this chapter is the realization that whether you intended to commit a sin or not you are still guilty. Many times people will simply say I did not mean to as if that is supposed to mean that they are not guilty and thus forgiveness from those they sinned against and from God is not needed because it was unintentional. As we see in this chapter the intent is not as important as the fact that a sin has been committed and forgiveness needs to be sought after.

Chapter 5 deals with other sin offerings. I think what is interesting in this chapter is not the sins offerings but what the sins are.

1. Verse 1: “…if you are a witness under oath and won’t tell what you saw or what you know, you are sinning…"
2. Verse 3: If someone touches a human uncleanness of any kind and then ignore it
3. Verse 4: “If you hastily take a vow about what you will or will not and then ignore it…”
4. Verse 15: “If any of you fail to do your duty by unintentionally doing something wrong with any of the Lord’s holy things…”
5. Verse 17: “If any of you do wrong – even one thing that forbidden by any of the Lord’s commands, but you didn’t know it – when you realize your guilt, you must be punished.

The Application

Though we do not bring animal sacrifices anymore that does not change the fact that these are still sins. We are still responsible for our actions. The difference is that Jesus paid the price for our sins. We still have the responsibility to seek God’s forgiveness.

Leviticus 3

Chapter 3 deals with fellowship offerings also known as peace offerings. The fellowship offering was an optional offering that could be used as an offering of thanksgiving, to fulfill a special vow, or as a freewill offering.

The only animal that could be eaten by the Israelites was one that was offered as a fellowship offering. We see in other places in scripture that if an animal was slaughtered but was not offered as a fellowship offering it at the tent of meeting was guilty of shedding blood. (Leviticus 17). Blood and the fat was God’s. So if anyone wanted to have meat for dinner they were to first offer the animal as a sacrifice to the LORD. We see twice in this chapter that it says about these offerings of being food.

There are animals that were offered for fellowship offerings, cattle, sheep, and goat. There were slight differences in each but the general offering was of throwing the blood against the altar and removing the fat, the two kidneys and the lobe of the liver as the burnt offering. In verse 17 we see it says that the Israelites were not to eat any fat or blood.

The Application

When we look at the various offerings and sacrifices that there are it took all those sacrifices to equal the one offering of Jesus. The Israelites maintained fellowship with God because of this sacrifice. They make peace with God through this sacrifice. We have Jesus that through his death and resurrection is our peace offering. We have fellowship with the God the father because Jesus is our advocate.

Leviticus 1 and 2

Leviticus, to many of us we skip over this book. For many lawyers and people that are about rules this book is intriguing. For most of us we just simply want to know why should we be concerned about a book on the law because Jesus came to fulfill the law? The fact is that the Bible says that all scripture is important for us. That said as we go through Leviticus the greatest challenge we will have is to avoid getting bogged down in the weed of this book. To avoid being bogged down we will consider larger chunks as we go through this book.

Leviticus Chapter 1 and 2

In these chapters we are going to look at the burnt offering of cattle, sheep or goats, and birds along with uncooked grain offerings, cooked grain offerings, other ingredients, and offering of the first grain harvested.

The thing to realize is that each of these offerings were treated differently, the bold areas are the major difference between the animal offerings.

Burnt Offering of Cattle
1. Male with no defects
2. Offered at the entrance to the tent
3. Place hand on animals head and make peace with the LORD
4. Slaughter the bull in the LORD’s presence
5. Offer the blood by throwing it against all sides of the alter
6. Skin the bull and cut into pieces
7. Start a fire and lay wood on the fire.
8. Lay the pieces along with the head and the fat on the wood.
9. Wash the internal organs and legs and burn all of it on the alter.

Burnt Offering of Sheep or Goat
1. Male with no defects
2. Slaughter it on the north side of the alter
3. Throw the blood against all sides
4. Cut it into pieces
5. Lay head and fat on alter
6. Wash internal organs and legs then burn it all.

Burnt Offerings of Birds
1. Mourning Dove or Pigeon
2. Priest bring it to the alter
3. Break its neck
4. Drain the blood against the side of the alter
5. Remove the gizzards with its filth and throw them on the east side on the place for the ashes
6. Pull the birds wings to tear the bird open without pulling the wings off
7. Burn it on the alter

Grain Offerings: Of the grain offerings the requirements were generally the same, unleavened, olive oil and incense. The differences tended to be in the way that it was or was not prepared and how much if any was the priests allowed to take of the offering. In general there is no difference between the cooked and the uncooked grain offerings. It was to be a burnt offering to God

We see that there is a mandate from God that said neither honey or yeast were to be burnt before God. They were allowed to be brought as an offering of first fruits but never placed on the alter.

The other mandate of the other ingredients for the grain offerings is that salt was to be put on the grain offerings. It was to never be left out of the grain offerings. It was considered the salt of God’s promise.

Offering the first Grain Harvested: The grain was to be roasted over fire and have olive oil and incense added. The priest were than suppose to burn it as an offering to God.

The Application: Just like these offerings we are to be prepared as an offering to God. Not to be literally burnt but as a living sacrifice. We should be making sure that we are doing what we can not to be unworthy to God. Our salt is Jesus in us. Scripture says we are the salt of the earth. We make the earth acceptable to God.