Welcome back to the Christians on College Campuses podcast. My name is Hayden Faught, and today I am going to be talking about Leviticus 16. And so something really cool about the book of Leviticus. A lot of people make a bunch of assumptions around it that it's just a book full of laws and full of rules. And it is, it does have laws and rules involved in it, and that is definitely a major part of this book. But I think there are some really cool things that we can learn and take from this book. And so Leviticus 16 is probably my favorite chapter throughout this entire book of the Bible, just because this is a perfect parallel of Jesus. This is basically what we see Jesus do before Jesus does it. We see this all throughout the Bible of that something happens in the Old Testament and then it's replicated. Andor it's a prophecy from the Old Testament and it's done in the New Testament. So Leviticus 16 explains the Day of Atonement. So Israel's sins were dealt with once a year. There was a priest and there was a temple. They would do this large ritual with sacrificing an animal, and it would basically take care of Israel's sins. And this was a yearly thing. This was something that would happen more than once just in general in somebody's life, but uh once a year. And we do see people making sacrifices on a weekly basis, but this is something that just covers all of Israel. And so what would happen is a high priest would enter God's presence and offers sacrifices for his own sins and also the people's sins. And so there was this high priest named Aaron, who we find throughout this book of Leviticus, and Aaron is somebody that God, I believe that God gives a lot of favor towards. And so Aaron has two goats that he sacrifices on this day of atonement. One goose, one goat is sacrificed for the people's sin. All the people's sin. The other goat is called a scapegoat. Symbolically, this goat was sent out into the wilderness and basically was symbolizing that Israel's sins were carried away and sent out into the wilderness. And this parallels, as like Jesus says, I cast your sins as far as the east is from the west. This is just really cool to me. Obviously, there was one sacrifice on the cross. It wasn't even a good, it was a we refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And I think that's a really interesting phrase, takes away, as this scapegoat in Leviticus 16 is basically cast away from where they are and sent into the wilderness. It's just an interesting phrase. I don't think it is crazy deep, but I think it's definitely a factor in what we talk about with this book of and also the phrase alone that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That he paid for that. He paid for our sins. He is the sacrifice, he was the perfect lamb. He lived a perfect life for us that we couldn't live. And then he took that sin that we weren't able to pay for. And like it says, he casts it as far as the east is from the west, and that it is sacrificed and paid for because God is a just God. Leviticus is not just a book about rules and a book about laws that you have to follow, but it's that showing God is just. He's a king of justice, but he's also the most loving king. This king finds out that somebody in his kingdom is stealing from him, and he has people sent out to go look for whoever is stealing from him, and he basically sets out this punishment for whomever is the one stealing from him, and he sets it out at ten whippings, and then even longer into the search, it goes to twenty, and eventually it gets to forty. 40 was pretty much a death sentence. Forty lashings would kill a person. Well, the king finally finds that the person who has been stealing from him and who would face this punishment was his daughter. And so the king, being a just king who has to carry out this justice and this righteousness, but also as a loving king, the most loving king there is. And so the people high up in his palace go to him and ask, What should we do? And he tells them that the sentence must be carried out because he's a just king. And so they take his daughter, they take her over to where they would basically perform these lashings and bent her over the table, and the executioner raised the whip to start. The king said, wait. And he went, knelt over his daughter, put his arms around her, and shielded her. And he said to the executioner, now go. Because the king was a just king, the punishment that he had said, the price for what had happened, must be carried out. But because he's loving, he decides he's gonna take the beating to himself. And this is what Jesus does for us. Leviticus is a fantastic book, and it shares the heart of God and a lot of his morals of doing right, of how just things should be. But I don't think we can have it without the part where we see the loving God, the loving Jesus, how he sacrificed himself. Leviticus is fantastic. I suggest you read it, but it's a beautiful picture into the future of Jesus taking the punishment that was meant for us. Jesus dies, but he's raised again through the power of the Father. And so I just want this chapter. I would hope you would go read this chapter yourself, but I would hope that this is not just laws preached at you that you're you're told that you're doing wrong or that you are having to follow this strict list and that you can't ever do it because it's a list basically requiring perfection, and that's true. The requirement for heaven is perfection, and God knows that. But he also loves us so much that he would be perfection for us, and he would take the punishment that we deserve. And so let me pray for us real quick. Lord, thank you so much for everything that you have done for us, for the sacrifice that you made in this great act of love, where you took our sins, the sins of the world, and you crucified them on the cross. You died, and three days later you rose again. Let us never forget this, Jesus. Thank you so much for your word that points us towards you, points us to live a life that is good, that is pleasing to you. But that we put our life in your hands, that we recognize that we cannot do it on our own, but that you are who we should live our life through and for. And it is your name we pray. Amen.
