Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family" podcast with Steve Demme.  I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How  are you today? 

Steve: I'm a little chilly, but other than that, I'm happy for a warm house. How are  you? 

Scott: The same. It's in single digits here, so I'm all bundled up in my basement. Steve: It's OK if it's just me, but I have to take these poor little pets outside to do their  business, and it's cold. 

Scott: Yep. 

Steve: All right. Now from the earthy to Exodus 33. We're going to finish up Exodus  today and get a good start in Leviticus. I hope everybody is with us and moving  through the Scriptures together and learning and growing and being edified. Father, we draw near to You now. We draw near to the mount, so to speak. We're  thankful that as You speak to us through Your word, like You spoke to the children of  Israel, that You'll wash our robes afresh today and fill us with Your spirit afresh, top  us off, so to speak, so that we can embrace You and not run away from You or not  send Moses up to represent us. 

Help us to embrace You and to come with open arms and open spirits and open ears  to hear. In Jesus' name. Amen. 

Scott: Amen. 

Steve: I'm not going to be your reader with a lovely voice that you hear on  YouVersion, but there are some passages that are edifying and need to be read. Exodus 33:7-11, "Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up  and each would stand at his tent door and watch Moses until he had gone into the  tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the  entrance of the tent, and Jehovah would speak with Moses. 

"And when all the people saw the pillar of clouds standing at the entrance of the tent,  all the people would rise up and worship each at his tent door. Thus Jehovah used to  speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again  

into the camp, his assistant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart  from the tent." 

I think it's worth noting that Joshua not only went up the mountain with Moses, he  was in the tent with Moses communicating with God, which uniquely qualified to fill  his role at the next leader of Israel when Moses passed. 

I heard a sermon by David Howard, who was Elisabeth Elliot's brother. He was the one  that introduced Jim Elliott to Elizabeth, his sister. He was preaching on Moses’ prayer in Exodus 33:13, "If I have found favor in Your sight, please show me now Your ways  that I may know You in order to find favor in Your sight." 

He wanted to know God's ways because as he observed God's ways, his hope was that  he would learn more about God Himself and find favor in His sight. That incredible  relationship the two of them had. I never forgot those words, "Show me Your ways  that I may know You." 

God says to him, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." There's the  promise. That's what Moses needed to hear. I'm going to go with you. My presence  will go with you. 

Later on in the chapter, when Moses wanted to see God, and he asked, please show  me Your glory. And God said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will  proclaim before you My name Jehovah or Yeshua or Yahweh, but it's His name.” This  name had everything wrapped up into it. 

He continued, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will show mercy on  whom I will show mercy. But you can't see my face and live," so He hid them there in  the cleft of the rock.” 

This is intimate stuff that we're observing, the relationship between Moses and God,  the desire to know God, the heart communication, the love that they had for each  other, and yet recognizing that God was God and Moses was man, and He had to  protect him. And so, He covered him with His hand until He passed him by, but then  in the 34:5-7, he tells us more about Himself. 

“Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name  of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a  God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth;  keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin;  and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the  children, and upon the children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth  generation.” 

We learn more about God in the 34th chapter, and sometimes I stop and think He's  merciful, He's gracious, He's patient, He's overflowing with loving kindness and truth,  wonderful stuff. 

Then in the 14th verse, it's tucked in there. He says, you shall worship no other god  for Jehovah, Whose name is Jealous. He's a jealous God, another insight into the  character of our God. 

Then in this same chapter, He reiterates, defines, describes and commands that they  keep three feasts. He makes another command about the Sabbath. These commands  are all through the "Old Testament". 

Then he talks about their firstborn, but because we've read Exodus from the  beginning, we know why the firstborn belong to God. Then at the end of this chapter,  Moses came down from Mount Sinai with two tables of the testimony, and he didn't  know that his face shone. 

Because he was speaking with God. It's a little puzzling to me. In one sense, He says,  you can't see My face and live, and so he only saw His back as he went by. But another  passage says, but God communicated with Him face to face. 

Then his skin is shining because of speaking with God, which in my mind, I picture  two beings communicating face to face, eye to eye. This is a mystery to me, but I  accept it.  

This shining face is referenced in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “If the ministry of death carved  in letters on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses'  face because of its glory, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?” Boy, when you read about the glory of God that came down when they finished  building the tabernacle, and when God is speaking to Moses and his face is shining,  he had to wear a veil, it makes us appreciate this ministry of the Spirit when He writes  not on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of our hearts. 

I encourage each of us to read 2 Corinthians, the whole 3rd chapter. Second  Corinthians 3, is built on this relationship between Moses and God on the mount. Exodus 35, the children of Israel are going to donate materials for the tabernacle and  the priest garments. I'm going to tuck in a little application story here. When I was having difficulty letting my family co-own Math-U-See, in other words, it  wasn't going to be my baby, it was going to be our family business. I read this  passage, it said he had filled Bezalel with the spirit of God, with skill, etc. Then it said  he also inspired him to teach, both he and Oholiab. 

As I read that, God made me know that my, I don't know what you call it, my skill to  communicate math concepts to children on our videos was a gift. It was from the  Spirit of God because He inspired me to teach. 

At that point, I realized this was not Steve's business. This was God's business, and I  was able to sign the papers and avert a huge problem in our family. I haven't walked  back from that, but it was the scriptures that spoke to my heart. He inspired him to  teach. It was the spirit of God that gave me this gift. 

Exodus 36, they're building the tabernacle. Exodus 37, now they're working not only  on the building but the furniture, everything, the ark, the atonement cover, the table  for the showbread, the altar, etc. 

Then in the 38th chapter, we read about the altar, the basin, it's now the court and  the materials. Then in the 39th chapter, they have this incredible scarlet, purple, and  blue yarn. They made finely woven garments for ministering. These garments were for  Aaron and for his sons. 

In the 40th chapter, they set up and assembled the tabernacle. They anointed the  priest, which means to set them apart, to consecrate them. They anointed not only  the priest, but they anointed the property. They anointed the furniture. They anointed  every part of the tabernacle. 

Always in the back of our mind when I read the word anoint, I remember Jesus was  the Anointed One, the Messiah. Then the final chunk of Exodus 40, verses 34-38,  which wraps it all up, "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of  Jehovah filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting  because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.  “Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the  tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then  they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of Jehovah was on  the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel  throughout all their journeys.” 

Reading this makes my heart burn. Wouldn't that have been something to see God  come down? Moses, who had been with God for 80 days on the mountain and for  countless days in the tent of meeting, couldn't even enter in because the glory of  Jehovah was so strong. 

Now we begin Leviticus, instructions to the Levites. I confess that oftentimes when I  finish Exodus, there's a little bit of a sigh because I'm going to start reading about a  lot of things that I don't understand, and don't seem practical to me. Years ago, I thought, I'm going to pray, and so, before I read Leviticus chapter 1, I  prayed, "Father, help me by Your Spirit to see Jesus in Leviticus," and I began to read.  It talked about the lamb without blemish and sinless and a year old. I basically said to  God, I already knew this. I'm glad God has lots of patience, is long suffering, and full  of loving kindness. 

I basically said, "I got that. I need something new," and for the first time I saw  something. It says in the 4th verse that when the man offers up his lamb to be  offered, he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be  accepted for him to make atonement for him. 

I had never noticed that before. I thought that the you walked up, gave your animal to  the priest, and they made a sign or something, and you walk away. Then they have to  kill the animal, etc. No. I have to stand there with my hand on his head watching this  animal take my sin. 

I'm starting to cry telling you this. All I could think of was Thomas putting his hand on  the wound on Jesus' hand, on the hole where the nails had been, and it all came together. If I hadn't prayed, I wouldn't have seen it, but I saw something that day, and  I've never gotten over it. 

Now, there are a bunch of offerings. And, I'm thankful for this podcast series because  I finally had a chance to study what I've been reading over and over for years. I'm  going to jump to the end of the 7th chapter as a summation, and then we'll go back  because this is what I did. 

By the time I read the seven chapters of Leviticus and I was making notes on all the  different offerings, I thought, well, look at that 37th verse of the 7th chapter. I looked  it up on Bible Hub. I typed in Leviticus 7:37. 

"This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the  guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering." One verse  captured all the different kinds of offerings. Then I clicked on each one of those and  made notes and studied scriptures that had to reinforce it. Leviticus 7:37, you might  say is the compilation of all the offerings. 

Let's go back now and see what we can learn from them. The first one that is  mentioned is the burnt offering, which is olah in Hebrew. It means total surrender to  God. Olah means to go up, to ascend. As the offering is being burnt, the smoke is  ascending. 

It says, a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to Jehovah, it's atonement for the  worshiper, and yet it's different from the sin offering, because this signifies complete  consecration. I'm going to bring in the "New Testament" later, but hold that thought  that burnt offering, olah, it means to ascend. 

It's smoke in my mind. I picture this. It's a pleasing aroma. Everything is burned up.  It's a complete sacrifice. I can't hold it back. Romans 12, "Offer your bodies as a living  sacrifice." We're supposed to do that. We're supposed to offer ourselves  unequivocally, completely, as we consecrate ourselves in service to God. Then in the second chapter, you have grain offerings, which is minkhah. There's no  lamb being killed. This is grain. It's a tribute. It's a meal offering. It's a present. It's a  gift, expressing gratitude for what God has given you. This is what a grain offering is. Right in the middle of the second chapter, we read about the salt of the covenant. I  thought, wow, where did that come from? All of a sudden, it popped right up in there.  I'm going to read 2:13, because it's mentioned three times in there. "You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the  covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering. With all your offerings,  you shall offer salt." Jumping ahead, in 2 Chronicles 13:5, Abijah was making his case  to the other kingdom. They were about to go to war. 

He says, "God has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by  a covenant of salt." I think salt has to do with not only the commonplace application which makes your food taste better, but it communicates preservation. It preserves  the food. It preserves things. These covenants are going to be preserved from  generation to generation. They're going to be loyally kept. 

A covenant of salt, I think, has to do with not only the covenant of salt in 2  Chronicles, but anytime salt is mixed with an offering, it's bringing to mind that we  have a covenant with God. We are loyal to God. We are being preserved by God. Then in the 3rd chapter, we have peace offerings, or some translations call it the  fellowship offering. I have a funny story to go with this one. The Hebrew word is  Zabach, which means sacrifice, offering, feasting, sacrifice, slaughter. There is  sacrifice involved in this. This is not a grain offering, this is a peace offering. I got this from Bible Hub, "The peace offering occupies a unique place in the sacrificial  system because it's the only blood sacrifice in which the worshiper, the priest, and  God all receive a portion which conveys restoration. It conveys fellowship. It conveys  communion with the covenant community. It means it worked, and we're all together  now." 

In the 16th verse, there's an expression. It says, all the fat is Jehovah's. I probably  have told this story before. When Isaac was about four, and Ethan was about two, my  wife and I had finished eating. We were up doing stuff. We were always pretty busy. The two boys were sitting there eating, and we heard a little altercation going on. The  best part of being a parent, you can peek around the corner. We wanted to see what  was transpiring. 

There was Ethan with some roast beef and gravy on his plate, finishing up, and Isaac  was across the table from him watching him, and he said, "Don't eat that." Ethan  looked up with his little blue eyes, and said, "Why not?" Isaac said,”Because the fat is  Jehovah’s." 

I was astounded. We do not teach that in our home. Yet somehow Isaac had been in a  situation where the word of God was being read. He took it in that the fat belongs to  Jehovah, and we were not supposed to eat it. And he was not only understanding that  

passage, he was then applying it to his little brother to keep him from violating  something. 

I'm telling you, that made a huge impression on me. We have no idea what our kids  are taking in as we read the word of God as a family. We then had to have a little talk  with them, about how God made all meats clean, etc., etc., but big impression. I think  of that every time I read that. 

In the 4th chapter, we have sin offerings, and we have a new expression,  unintentional sins. This is not for people that intentionally chose to sin. These were  people that sinned and didn't know it. But then God revealed it to them, and they had  to offer a sin offering, which is Khatat and it means take away sin. 

We know from Hebrews 9, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. So,  blood has to be shed when somebody sins. That's the whole purpose of these  sacrifices. The sin offering obviously points us to Jesus Who will for once and for all  offer Himself for our sin. 

In the 5th chapter, we have more unintentional sins, but we also have this word called  public adjuration. In other words, if you see something and you don't report it, that's  not right, and you have to offer a sin offering. 

In this 6th chapter, it begins with talking about restitution. If you steal something or  you're responsible for something you can read it, it's right there, you not only restore  it, you add a fifth. 

When I really committed my life to Christ, I was in seminary and attending a local  church, and one night...I don't know when it was. I think it was an evening bible  study. We were reading Leviticus 6, and the pastor was talking about how when you  have stolen something, you have to not only restore it, you have to add 20 percent,  add a fifth. 

During the next semester break, I went back home from Massachusetts to Pittsburgh,  I girded up my loins and I thought of the candy I had stolen when I used to go to play  little league baseball. We would hide it in our gloves and I figured out as best I could  how much I had stolen. 

I went back and I asked the pharmacist, the guy that owned the little drugstore there,  I said, I'm sorry, I stole this when I was a teenager, and I'm restoring to you what I  stole plus 20 percent. He thanked me, took my money, and I did that in several  different places. I had stolen some clothes. I hate to tell everybody this, but I did and I  needed to make it right. 

When I was in college, we loved what we called jock tape. It was this cloth tape that  we used to tape our ankles with and our arms and fingers if we broke them, stuff like  that. It was nice to have because that was before duct tape, and that jock tape fixed  anything, and so we took extra rolls. 

It didn't make any difference what anybody else did. I did it and I was convicted. God  brought it to mind. I wrote a letter and sent a check to the athletic director at my  college, apologized, asked for forgiveness, and made restitution. I take these things  literally, but sadly, I wish I didn't have these experiences, but I did. Then here you have something called the grain offering. "This is the law of the grain  offering. One shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and its oil and all the  frankincense that is on the grain offering, and burn this as a memorial portion on the  altar a pleasing aroma to Jehovah. And the rest of it, Aaron and his son shall eat; it  shall be eaten unleavened in a holy place." 

When I read this, I think of a couple things. We've studied this before when we went  through the tabernacle, but when I think of oil, I think of this olive oil as the oil of the  spirit. I think of frankincense, that smell, it's to bring to memory. 

He even uses the word, it's memorial portion. The memory is triggered with this  frankincense, which if you know anything about essential oils, frankincense is good  for a lot of stuff. 

You have this really fine threshed flour, and there's so much in the Bible to do with  bread and Jesus being the bread of life and the first temple being built on the  threshing floor. There's a lot to this fine flour, but this is really special stuff that's  been finely ground. 

When I think this language, I think about communion because it makes us do this in  memory of Jesus, the frankincense. Then you have the oil mixed with the fine flour,  and it's an offering, and you're going to burn it up. It's also for the priests, which is  

us, and his sons to eat. We're supposed to eat it in the holy place. Generally, we share  communion with a group of believers, which makes it a holy place. It says, "It shall not be baked with leaven, no sin. I've given it as their portion for my  food offerings. It is a thing most holy, like the sin offering and the guilt offering."  These are holy things, and we're supposed to treat them as holy. One of the  comments later in the Old Testament, it'll say that the priests were to teach the  children the difference between what's common and what's holy. 

Now we're to the 7th chapter. We're going to talk about the guilt offering. I'm taking  this right from the Strong's reference. "Leviticus distinguishes the guilt offering from  the sin offering. While the sin offering deals primarily with purification from  defilement, the guilt offering focuses on specific acts that have violated God's  holiness or injured fellow humans." 

The guilt offering, asham, is the Hebrew word. It's for a specific trespass or offense,  and we're going to offer this up. 

In the 13th century Stephen Langton decided which was in what chapter and where  the verses go. It's pretty clear that the first chapter is the burnt offering, second  chapter grain, third chapter peace or fellowship offering, fourth chapter sin offering,  and then in the sixth chapter you have more on the grain offering and its  components, and then you have the guilt offering in the seventh chapter. I'm going to read a couple verses, a couple phrases from the New Testament to show  that this is so important to understanding. I think 29 times in the New Testament, the  word sacrifice is used, and 14 of them, almost half, are in the book of Hebrews. I've  already read this one, "Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God." 

1 Peter 2:5, we are to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  Romans 12:1, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.  Hebrews 13:16, "With such sacrifices, God is pleased." 

Paul receives a gift from the Philippians, and he calls it a fragrant offering, an  acceptable sacrifice. Being familiar with this language of sacrifice prepares us to fully  embrace the New Testament. OK, Scott, I got a little windy there. What do you think? Scott: Well, I'd like to recommend once again listening to all the podcast episodes  about the tabernacle because there was so much rich stuff in there. That leads me to  my next point, which is that all these rules for how they do everything, all the  different types of sacrifices. 

When you really slow down and read this stuff, and you're not blazing through it to  get to the interesting things. 

Steve: Yes. Good point. 

Scott: It's really extraordinary. I mean, their whole lives were being reoriented around  all of this. It makes me feel like maybe more than merely saying the Lord's prayer in  the morning and a quick bedtime prayer at night. 

Maybe more of my life ought to be involved in my relationship with God. Maybe  there's a lot more to life than just getting saved. I'm not saying we should all be doing  sacrifices and whatever. Thankfully, Jesus took care of that, and we don't have to. But  it is extraordinary how much of life was oriented around all of this. Steve: Amen. There are things that we can offer up. That's why I like Hebrews 13:15,  "Through Him, then us let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God." We can  do things. We don't have to sit back and, like you said, let Jesus do everything. We can  offer things up, and we can also take our sin seriously. We can take our guilt  seriously. We can take our communion seriously. 

There's something about sacrifice, and Jesus made the point several times. I'm not  looking for sacrifices. I'm looking for mercy. The more we understand the concept of  sacrifice, the more all these other scriptures that reference it take on a whole deeper  hue, if I can put it that way. 

Scott: When you look at all of this, consider, OK, aside from the fact that you're still  condemned without Jesus, look at all the stuff you'd have to do to try to get right with  God. To me, it makes me more filled with gratitude for what Jesus has done for me.  There's a lot more. Like, I'm saved from my sins. I'm also saved from having to  perform all this stuff myself trying to get to God somehow. 

Steve: Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You for the weight, the weightiness of  it. Thank You for the practicality of it. Thank You for what You as God says, a whole  new way of life revolving around the tabernacle that they were being brought into. I pray that You help us to grasp the gravity of it and apply it in our daily lives as well. In  Jesus' name, amen. 

Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the  Building Faith and Family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the  show, email Steve at sbdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.