to what many people have been led to believe, the killing of the sacrifice was carried out not by the priest, but by the offerer. It would be the responsibility of the one bringing the offering to make the incision, usually on the neck, bleed the sacrifice out, and then cut this sacrifice into pieces, which would then be rearranged on the altar by the priest according to his own instructions. But the killing would be done by the one offering the sacrifice. Now, why is that important? It's important because The sacrifice itself represents a personal confession and repentance. This is something that's very personal. You bring your offering, you kill it. If we're to be forgiven for our sins, we must bring them before the Lord and put them to death ourselves. I'm reminded of one of John Owen's most famous sayings. This is captured in his classic, The Mortification of Sin. He said, be killing sin or it will be killing you. And this comes, of course, from Romans 8, 13, where Paul writes, if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. When we confess our sins, we are effectively bringing those sins, leaving them on the altar, and killing them as a way of conveying our intention and desire to live sinlessly. Every time we repent of sins, it's as if we were laying those sins on the altar, mortifying those sins, killing those sins, and striving with every fiber of our being to live from that point forward in sinlessness, especially as it regards the sin that we have just confessed. Now, do we do this perfectly? No, we don't. Do we do this nearly often enough? I would suggest, no, we don't. We don't repent nearly enough. We don't really even think nearly enough or often enough about the sins that we commit every moment of every day. But there it is. This is the picture of what it means to lay our sins before the Lord on the altar, as it were, and put those sins to death. Now you may be wondering at this point, If these animals symbolized sin, and they did, then how is it that these same animals were to be offered and examined beforehand to be without defect? I mean, that would seem to me like a pretty poor representation of sin if you're taking a spotless animal and offering it to the Lord as representative of your own sin. Sounds kind of contradictory. Why wouldn't the Lord tell us to bring unclean animals? I mean, that would seem more fitting. Why not bring the nastiest animal you have as a sign that you understand the heinousness of your sin, and then offer that nasty animal on the altar. You ever wonder why that is? And again, if man had written the scriptures, I think that's probably the way this would have been understood. Okay, if this animal's representing me, I am a wretch. I need absolution from my sin every moment of every day. I'm going to find the nastiest, most contorted animal I can find, and I'm going to lay that on the altar because that is a better representation of me. But here's the thing. While the offering was a representation of you and your sinfulness, more importantly, it was a representation of Christ himself. The reason a spotless animal was to be offered is because the ultimate fulfillment of this sacrificial system would be made by a spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so again, I think this is something very unusual to appear, especially at this stage of the opening of God's aperture of scriptural truth. I think this is proof that this is God's doing and not man's doing. I think this perfectly pictures what Paul said to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians 521. Remember what he said there when he said he, talking about God the Father, made him who knew no sin, the son, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That makes this much clearer, does it not? Or as Peter said in 1 Peter 2 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds we are healed. It's only because of the substitutionary work of Christ in all of his perfection that you and I have any hope of standing before the Lord completely absolved of our own sins. Think about that. And think about the beauty of this picture. This is the only plausible explanation for how a spotless sacrifice would at the same time be representative of your sin and mine. As I mentioned last week, when the one offering the sacrifice was instructed to place their hand on the head of the animal, this was intended to symbolize the transference. I'm taking my sin, I'm laying it on this animal, which itself being sinless, this alone is able to meet God's righteous requirements. The point here in prescribing that the offerer do the killing and the cutting up of the animal is simply that no one can do this for us. And again, I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but this is really one of the more egregious things about Roman Catholic theology. You know, in any sacerdotal system, that is a system which involves the intercessory work of a priest, a go-between, in any system like that, what we have is not individual accountability for sin. We actually have the transference of our sins onto another mere mortal who then is somehow mysteriously qualified in and of himself to make intercession for us before God the Father. It just doesn't make sense. And the same thing is true of the veneration of saints. The same thing is true of the veneration of Mary. Mary doesn't need to help you because she can't help you. Mary was as sinful as anyone in this room. Mary is our sister in Christ, not our co-redemptrix. She does not enjoy some special status as a co-redeemer with Christ himself. To suggest that, to even suggest that, is to rob Christ of his own glory. And I don't know why people don't see this. To elevate Mary beyond the status of mere mortality is to rob God Himself of that which belongs to Him alone. To insist that we need any saints after all, who are the saints? We're the saints. to suggest that we need these beatified individuals, these mere mortals who, by the way, to be beatified, you need to prove that there was a bona fide miracle done by you or in your name. To suggest that we have other mere mortals that we are to put on pedestals and use as intercessors between us and God the Father, again, is to rob Christ of His position, a position that He alone holds, a distinction that He alone holds, which is our Redeemer, our intercessor, our advocate before the Father. And again, I understand people believe these things because they're not taught any different. But we, as those who do know, should make it a point to train up people who don't. To help them understand things that they don't understand. Even those in other religions that we might find so detestable. Especially those in those situations. The point here in prescribing that the offerer do the killing and cutting up of the animal, again, is that no one can do this for us. We must do this ourselves. Yes, the Lord is our substitutionary sacrifice. Yes, he is our mediator before God the Father. But we're commanded to confess and repent of our sins. Remember, he was made to be sin. He knew no sin, but he was made to be sin on our behalf because the sin is ours. The sin belongs to us. And this is why we see in this passage that the offerer brings the sacrifice and kills it, while the priests are responsible for sprinkling the blood around the altar. The offers to then cut that sacrifice, as I said, into pieces. The priest would then arrange those pieces on the wood that's to be set ablaze. The offer is to wash the entrails, as you'll recall, wash the legs that might have been sullied as a result of They're just land mammals and you have to wash them in order to make them spotless as well. But all of this is a beautiful picture of our responsibility to confess and the Lord's intercessory work on our behalf from that point forward. Well, this brings us to verse 14. We've talked about the offerings from the herd. We've talked about the offerings from the flock. Now we're talking about the offering of birds. Note here that not any bird would do. For this particular offering, only turtle doves or young pigeons were acceptable. Moses writes, but if his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering from the turtle doves or from the young pigeons. The priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and offer it up in smoke on the altar. And its blood is to be drained out the side of the altar. He shall also take away its crop and its feathers and cast it beside the altar eastward to the place of the ashes. Then he shall tear it by its wings, but shall not sever it. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar on the wood, which is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord." As I mentioned a minute ago, this option for sacrificing birds was reserved exclusively for those who were too poor to have their own flocks or their herds. Now, this was also common for people who later on might be visiting Jerusalem. They might have had herds or flocks back where they were from, but they couldn't bring those with them. And so when they would go to sacrifice animals, they would just purchase the necessary birds from the marketplace where they sold such things, where birds had been raised for that particular purpose. So, what would happen if someone did have a herd or flock, especially in this particular time frame, but they chose to bring a bird instead as a cheaper alternative to the larger sacrifices? And don't tell me that's never crossed your mind. I mean, if there's, look, most people alive today are going to take the cheapest option in any regard, right? We have, I was reading an article, I think it was on Consumer Reports or something where, you know, they rack and stack all the things that are sold by good, better, and best, right? Do you realize the biggest sellers with regard to anything, are not the best, not even the better. People buy the good. Why? Because people are cheap. Now, also there's poverty. People can't afford the best or the better, so they buy the good. But by and large, a lot of people, especially depending on what it is, if it's not that important, we're going to see if good works. And if good doesn't work, we're going to go to better. And if better doesn't work, maybe we'll go to best. But most of the time, we're going to go with the good. People just want a cheap way out if they can get it. And again, that's just logic 101. That's just the way of life. In this case, though, that wasn't an option. You couldn't say, yeah, I've got a massive herd. I've got a massive flock. But you know, nobody knows that but me. I can just go get a bird. and all for a bird, but guess who does know it? The Lord knows it, right? And the Lord cares very much for the kind of sacrifices that we offer. When, for example, in Romans 12, 1, we're told in consideration of the mercies of God to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto the Lord, because that's the least that we can do for the one who has done so much for us, God's not demanding our least, he's demanding our best. He's demanding the most that we can give with a cheerful heart, not only in terms of money, but in terms of time, talent, and treasures. We're to give God our best. God understands what that is. He knows what our best is. And so to attempt to shortchange God or to deal with God on the cheap is neither safe nor wise. We should not do that. God knows, and God certainly would have known in this particular case. And before we talk about that anymore, let's just talk about. this sacrifice of the birds, just like the sacrifices from the herd or the flock, the birds that were to be offered were to be dismembered before being placed on the altar. There is something really interesting, though, about verse 17, where the Lord says, then he, that's the offer again, shall tear it by its wings, but shall not sever it. This simply means that you would Take the wings, and I don't mean to be too graphic here, but in order to get the bird to lay down flat, you would have to break the wings. Anybody cut up your own chickens when you cook fried chicken and stuff? There's bone breaking going on, right? This is similar. You would break the wings, lay it flat, and then you would sever it down the middle. You would cut it down the middle. But you would not cut it in such a way as to separate it from itself. Now what does that mean? Is there some deep, dark, mysterious meaning here? Well, not if we're not told. And we're not told that there's any deep, dark, mysterious meaning here. There have been scholars, though, I have to giggle sometimes when I read people who, bless their hearts, they mean well, but they launch off into these conjectures and these speculations that The hermeneutical process just doesn't allow us to do that. I've told you before about that in various studies. Don't go beyond what the scriptures themselves teach you unless you're going in a practical direction. If you're going in a practical application direction, there are all kinds of applications of any given scripture, but there's only one interpretation. There's only one translation of that scripture, and we dare not stray beyond that, especially when it concerns a process that God has so meticulously outlined. He doesn't want them to split the bird. Why? Nobody knows, except God. Again, I read a couple of commentators who were, you know what this is? This is a picture of the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ being 100% God and 100% man. You can't divide the two, and so they weren't to divide the bird. Well, that doesn't make any sense because the other animals were divided and cut up into pieces, right? So why is the bird? Well, because the bird, you see, is representative of the Holy Spirit and no, no, the bird is just a third option to be sacrificed. And I would dare say a lot of this had more to do with the practical concern. The bird is not going to take up as much space on the altar as the cow. You can break a little bird's wings and lay him on the altar and cut him down the middle for whatever purpose, because God said so, and leave it there. You can't do that with a cow. The altar's not that big. And so, in the case of cattle and even smaller livestock, you would have to cut them into pieces so that you could get all of it on the altar so it could be burned. That's really all that's going on here. In short, don't make more of what you're reading than is allowed, especially when it concerns meticulous processes that God has put into place. Gotta be very careful that we don't stray from those particular things. Now, why was it significant that these birds be only one of two kinds at this point? Well, again, because God is a God of detail. There was nothing inherently valuable about a turtle dove over a pigeon or a pigeon over even a sparrow. Later on, we'll see that God does in fact accept the sparrows The really, really dirt poor couldn't even afford some of the finer birds to offer, and so they began offering. There were sparrow salesmen in the marketplace who would sell little tiny birds that could be offered. What does that signify? Well, it signifies that the only thing God's really interested in is the heart. God doesn't need your sacrifices of your finest big bovines. He doesn't need your sacrifices of your wooliest sheep. He's not impressed by anything that you could offer him. What he's impressed with is the heart, the willingness to give our best, whatever our best might be. Now consider that when you come to worship every Lord's Day, you know the same thing applies. God wants you to give your best. He wants you to be at your best, which requires some preparation, right? It means you don't stay up till 1, 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday evening, Sunday morning, and then expect to come here all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to receive what the Lord has to give us. You just can't do it. You can't come here having not prayed sufficiently for God to illumine your mind and open your heart to receive what's being taught from the word. You can't come here worried about all the other things that you've dealt with throughout the week. You need to let go of those things so that you can be a blank canvas upon which God can paint the most beautiful picture. How often do we think about those things though? Again, I would dare say that we don't think about those things nearly enough. Gil did offer one of these explanations, and I only bring Gil into this because this is an example of how even the most astute, even the most respected among theologians, and Gil is certainly up there, can kind of be guilty of launching out on these sorts of flights of fancy, no pun intended. But listen to what Gil said. He said, Talking about the wings not being separated from the body of the bird, he said, this denoted that though by the death of Christ, his soul and body were separated from each other, yet the human nature was not separated from his divine. I had to let the cat out of the bag. That was Gil who said that. He said though he was forsaken by God, yet he was still in union with him as the son of God. The spirit was not severed either by which he offered himself up to God and by which he was quickened. This can also be a picture of the church not being separate from the people of the church or from Christ himself and so on and so forth. No. Not so much. Now, applicationally, are there parallels that we can draw? Yeah. Yeah, and here's the beauty of that. If that makes you think about the unity of the body of Christ, if that makes you think about the indissoluble unity between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, okay. But you can't be dogmatic and say, nope, that's why they did it, that's what this passage means. Because, again, it doesn't apply to the other animals. Well, anyway, this brings us to chapter two. Chapter two, now we're talking about a different kind of offering. We've moved from the offering of big animals, not so big animals, and birds, all serving the same purpose as burnt offerings. Now we begin to look at the grain offering. The grain offering. Continuing with the Lord's instructions regarding such things, Moses writes, his handful of its fine flour, and of its oil with all its frankincense. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke as a memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. The remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire." Now, before we talk about this any further, let me clear something up for those of you reading from the King James Version. The King James Version has this as a meat offering, right? And you might think, well, wait a minute. There's a difference between meat and grain. I mean, the food pyramid tells me that, right? So what's the discrepancy here? Well, it's simple. In the 17th century, when the King James Version was being assembled by those learned men who translated from the Greek and the Hebrew, You've got to admit, Middle English, which would have been the language of the realm at the time, Middle English is much different than modern English. Meat could refer to anything that's a part of a meal. anything, including grains, cereals, vegetables. It was all categorized as meat, that which is to be consumed at a meal. And so when they use the word meat offering, they're simply talking about an offering of food, which they thought was more generally appropriate than just a grain offering. So, you might be wondering, what does the word mean in the Hebrew? Well, it means just that. It means a meal offering. Now, when I say the word meal, even the word meal is kind of suspect, right? Well, meal in some people's minds means oatmeal, right? Cream of wheat, cereal. A meal in other people's minds means something entirely different. That's because we've allowed this larger definition of a meal to include almost anything. That's the way they would have used this word meat. But anyway, in the translation I'm reading from, it's a grain offering. So what's the difference between a grain offering and a burn offering? Well, again, that's fairly easy to understand when you understand that with a grain offering, there's no bloodshed. Meaning that the grain offering, since there was no blood involved, the grain offering had no implications of atonement. The grain offering was not made to atone for anything. Only blood could do that. Only blood sacrifices were capable And then, according to Hebrews 10, 4, only in a representative way, only blood offerings were sufficient to make atonement. And if you've ever wondered why back in Genesis chapter 4, the Lord accepted Abel's offering but not Cain's, it was for this very reason. Now again, before you disagree with that, there is an element also of attitude. in the offering that was given. But it was also because of the contents of the offering. The Lord accepted Abel's offering but not Cain's because Abel no doubt understood that only blood could signify the atoning work of the one to come. Abel would have been representative of a man of faith, just like Abraham, he would have understood how, I don't know, especially in Genesis 4. And we talked about that. The sacrificial system had not yet formally been introduced. That's what we're talking about here in Leviticus. But there was a prototypical sacrificial system even in place after Genesis 3. And it's obvious, because Abel and Cain brought their offerings, it's obvious that they had received some instruction in that regard. What kind of instruction? We don't know. Again, we just don't have enough data in our Bibles to understand when that happened, how that happened, what were the parameters. But we do know that Abel no doubt understood the importance of a blood sacrifice. And he reacted by bringing the best portions of the firstborn of his flock, while Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the ground, a bloodless offering with no connection to the atonement. Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying, because Cain's offering was also no doubt rejected because of his attitude, as I said. Not only did he not offer the right kind of sacrifice, but the sacrifice he did offer was not given in the proper spirit. Now, how do we know that? Well, the Lord says to him, you'll recall there in Genesis 4, why are you angry? Ah, there's a clue right there. Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, that is, if your offering is of the right kind and given in the right spirit, if you do well, will you not be accepted? And what's the answer to that question? Of course. If you do what the Lord has prescribed and you do it with the right heart attitude, you're going to be accepted. Praise God, right? And if you do not do well, the Lord says, sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Now, let me just add there was in chapter five of Genesis, a gracious exception to this provision in which God would receive a grain offering as a sin offering. But again, this was an exception and not the norm. In fact, look over there, Genesis 5, verses 11 through 13. Here, having just spoken once again about the process governing the sin or guilt offering that was to be made in the form of a lamb, a goat, or two turtle doves, or young pigeons, the Lord indicates that he will also receive a grain offering. This grain offering, I meant to say Leviticus 5, not Genesis 5. As I'm reading this, I'm like, no, that's not in Genesis 5. Steve's looking at me like, you've lost your mind. That's okay. See how quickly I found it again. The grain offering, although it's similar to the one we're discussing here in Chapter 2, It's different in that it did not require the oil or the incense. Anyway, Moses writes there, but if his means are insufficient for two turtle doves or two young pigeons, that is, even if you're so poor that you can't even afford a bird or two, then for his offering, for that which he has sinned, he shall bring the tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall not put oil on it or place incense on it. Why? Because those things were too expensive. You're not going to be required to provide what you can't provide, but you can at least come up with a little bit of flour. How gracious. Does that register with you? Just how gracious, how good God is to demand one thing in the form of a blood sacrifice and yet bear in mind that there were some who couldn't even afford anything but a cup of flour. Think about that. He shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as a memorial portion and offer it up in smoke on the altar with the offerings of the Lord by fire. It is a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin, which he has committed from one of these, and it will be forgiven him from the rest. That shall be given to the priests like the grain offering. So going back to our text, This particular grain offering that was to be offered, according to verses one through three, this falls in the category of uncooked offerings, right? Usually consisting of flour, which was made from crushed wheat or barley, oil, which was most certainly olive oil, and frankincense. If you're not sure what frankincense is, It's a hardened tree sap. It's the best way to describe it. It's pale yellow, almost white. They would scrape it from various trees that grew up in Arabia and once they reached a certain growth, they would harvest the frankincense and it was something very, very sweet smelling. Now one thing about frankincense you need to know, you can't eat it. It's not advisable to eat the frankincense. So what was going on here? Well, the frankincense was offered like any other incense to the Lord. It signified the finished work of Christ being a sweet aroma to the Lord. And so when the frankincense would burn, how many of you are hippies from back in the day and you burned incense? Man. Ron, we're getting old, man. Nobody burned incense? Come on. Okay. But incense is very, very soothing. It's a sweet aroma. And to burn that before the Lord again signified the sweet aroma that Christ was to the Lord. But when they prepared these sacrifices, that was the only time you would add the incense is when you're going to burn it. And you would burn the whole thing. So then, what are we to make of this fact that the priests were to get the leftovers, that anything left over the priests were to get? Well, this didn't include the incense. The incense was for one purpose, but they could have the oil and the flour. For what? For their own sustenance. This was the oil and the flour from which the showbread would be made also. They would make the showbread, place it on the table in the tabernacle, and then whatever's left over, they were free to consume. You'll remember David himself was called out for having eaten the showbread. Jesus uses this example. David ate the showbread. Why? Because he was allowed to. Once the religious service had been conducted, once it was over, anything left over could be eaten, generally by the priests. But David himself being king and also being a priest of sorts in his own right, the Lord made a provision for that as well. Well, in addition to these uncooked offerings, In verses four through 10, we learn about the cooked grain offering. And you'll note here again, this has no frankincense. Frankincense, from what I understand, frankincense would be like taking a bite out of a bar of soap. Anybody ever done that, by the way? Parents, no, I'm not gonna go there. You asked my son today, one of the greatest lessons he ever learned was not to talk back. Because what happened when you talked back? We had liquid soap. Open your mouth, toot toot, couple of pumps on the tongue, no more talking back. You think I'm kidding. The kid never talked back again. Because that was such a wretch-inducing thing. I mean, we thought we'd killed him at one point. It was that bad. I mean, take my word for it. Don't take my word for it. Go home this afternoon. Go in the bathroom, lock the door, and just put a little dot on your tongue. You'll thank me later for the parental advice. Kids, don't talk back, right? The threat has been issued. Now, parents don't be surprised when you get home and you find that all your liquid soap's gone. Kids are also smart like that, right? But anyway, if you'll read here, you'll note that the frankincense is not included because this is a cooked offering, verses 4 through 10. Now, when you bring an offering of a grain offering baked in an oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, of unleavened wafers spread with oil. If your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, That's a little pancake, little Johnny cake, right? It shall be a fine flour unleavened mixed with oil. You shall break it into bits and pour oil on it. It is a grain offering. Now, if your offering is a grain offering made in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil. When you bring in the grain offering, which is made of these things to the Lord, it shall be presented to the priest and he shall bring it to the altar. The priest shall then take up from the grain offering its memorial portion and shall offer it up in smoke on the altar as an offering by fire and a soothing aroma to the Lord. The remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire." Now, why is there a difference between a cooked offering and an uncooked offering? Come back next week. You'll have more cooking with Pastor Tim. Look at that, right at 1030. I'm getting the hang of this thing after 32 years. Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Father, once again, we are astonished at