Why Christians don't have priests, part 1

[0:00] If you would, open your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 8. Leviticus chapter 8. We're walking through the book of Leviticus for a couple of reasons.

[0:12] One, because it'll help us to get a better picture of the work of Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. But two, there are these questions that we often have where if we say something about, I don't know, something about the sin of homosexuality and we revert back and look back to Leviticus and then we have questions asked about, well, you know, what about the rest of these things?

[0:37] Why don't you do those things? We want to try to lay a good foundation for why it is one is true and the other is not. Or why we participate and think of one and we do something different with the other.

[0:52] And there are good reasons for that. And so part of being able to do that is just to sort of see what we have here. And here in Leviticus 8, we have the shifting of the work.

[1:06] Verses chapters 1 through 7 is sort of a listing of and a thinking about what the sacrifices are and what to do for those sacrifices. So it's strictly law. But when you get to chapter 8, it shifts to narrative and something is happening in the story.

[1:23] There's something going on. There's action taking place. And I want to set it up this way. In 2014, Michelle and I went to Tanzania or Tanzania, however you want to say that.

[1:35] And I had become friends with a pastor, a native pastor there, back several years before. And we went to go do a training for pastors. And one of the things that he was doing, he had planted a new church in this city called Oringa.

[1:50] And he was trying to meet various people to see about building relationships and having good relationships between the church and the different functions of the city. And one of the people that he wanted to go see was the chief of police.

[2:04] Now, he had sort of met the chief of police once, but he really needed to get a good introduction to him. And the only way he could do so is if I, as the crazy Texan, came and had a gift for them.

[2:20] And so by using me as that opportunity, he was able to build a deeper relationship with the chief police. What he needed is he needed someone to take him there.

[2:31] He needed someone to bring him there. And when we think about a priest, we think about the priest there in Leviticus, and then we think about who Christ is, that is what we're after.

[2:44] We all have sin. Like it or not, we all have sin. We have sin that we ourselves have committed.

[2:54] We have things where we have broken God's law. That's how he defines sin, by the way. Sin's not a mistake. Sin is not just an oopsie. Sin is not just some sort of unfortunate thing.

[3:07] Sin is a violation of the law of God. When he says to do something or not do something, and we do the opposite, we sin. And the truth of the matter is, every one of us are sinners all the time.

[3:24] We're sinners all the time. Even as Christians, right? Even when we become a Christian, we don't stop sinning. We still sin.

[3:35] And what are we going to do with that? What are we going to do with that sin? We need someone to take us to God.

[3:46] And that's a priest. But it's not just our own sin that we deal with. We have the sin of other people that gets loaded onto our burden. Because other people sin against us, whether it's our children, whether it's our spouse, whether it's our parents, whether it's a co-worker.

[4:02] Other people sin against us. And when they do, 90% of the time, because you know that 90% of all statistics are made up on the spot, right?

[4:13] 90% of the time, we respond sinfully to being sinned against. And so even as we encounter the sin of other people, we're still loading up our burden, even as Christians.

[4:26] And how are we going to ever come to a holy God? How are we going to come into the presence of a holy God when even we as Christians still sin and have this burden on our back?

[4:41] And I say to you, we need to understand who Christ is as He is typified, as He's foreshadowed here in Leviticus 8.

[4:54] Remember, I told you that the way that we understand these things is through shadow and substance. The Old Testament is the shadow. Christ is the substance. It pointed forward. It's like taking children and using some sort of object to teach them an object lesson.

[5:10] This priesthood and these sacrifices were object lessons for Israel, for the world, so that they were tutored in who Christ would be until the time that He came.

[5:23] And so we want to look at this in order for us to appreciate what it is that Christ has done for us. In order to trust in Christ, we need to see how great He is.

[5:33] And so with that said, let's pray, and then we will look at three things about the priest. Father, we praise You because You are worthy of praise.

[5:43] And right now as we go into Your Word, as we read it, we know that Your Word is stronger than a two-edged sword, that it can pierce all the way to the division of soul and spirit, joint and marrow.

[5:56] And Father, we need that examining scriptures in our lives to expose our own thoughts and intentions to ourselves.

[6:08] Lord, we're thinking the wrong thing. We need that exposed in our minds. We need the conviction of Your Spirit. And we pray, Father, that You would do that even now through Your Word, that we would come to trust Christ for all that He's done for us.

[6:24] And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. This passage, Leviticus 8, is the ordination of the priest or the priesthood, the Aaronic priesthood.

[6:37] You like that? That's taking the guy's name and putting IC on it, Aaronic. Anyway, you'll get it. This is ordination, and three things happen here, and that's how we're going to look at this.

[6:47] He's called, He's cleansed, and He's consecrated. Let's look at the call. This is verses 1 through 13, and let's just read it.

[6:59] Beginning in verse 1, And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and the congregation was assembled at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

[7:20] And Moses said to the congregation, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded to be done. And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. He put the coat on him and tied the sash around his waist and clothed him with the robe and put the ephod on him and tied the skillfully woven band of ephod around him, binding it to him with the band.

[7:45] And he placed the breast piece on him, and in the breast piece he put the urim and the thuman, and he set the turban on his head, and on the turban in front he set the gold plate, the holy crown, as the Lord commanded Moses.

[8:02] Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and all that was in it, and consecrated them. And he sprinkled some of it on the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all its utensils and the basin and its stand to consecrate them.

[8:19] He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him. And Moses brought Aaron's sons and clothed them with the coats and tied sashes around their waists and bound caps on them as the Lord God had commanded.

[8:34] So what we see first of all here is that God commands Moses to go ahead and start this ordination of Aaron and his sons, and you kind of get this feel as you read it that he's listing off all of these pieces that need to be a part of it, and you kind of wonder, well, how did he know?

[8:52] Well, the reason he knew is because back in the book of Exodus, he's already been told the things that are going to be a part of this ordination. He's been told about the different sacrifices and the oil.

[9:06] As a matter of fact, you can go read about the oil, and it had certain ingredients that had to be in the oil. It was super expensive to do, but that's how he knew it. And so now he's got all the pieces together, and they're going to ordain Aaron and his sons to this priesthood.

[9:22] Now, one of the things that sticks out is the clothes that he's going to wear. And it's kind of interesting because you get two pictures from the clothes. You see that he's washed first.

[9:34] He's got to be cleansed. Also, then he has some sort of coat kind of thing, kind of like a robe that's got a sash that ties it up, right? And then he's wearing a robe on top of that, a little bit like a vest, right?

[9:47] So you can kind of see like an undergarment tied on and then a vest type thing on top of that. That's actually very typical for all the men of that time period to have the two kinds of clothing together, right?

[9:58] What becomes different is that he gets this ephod. Ephod. Like, what is a strange word? But this thing is highly ornate, right?

[10:10] It's made of gold. It's got all kinds of things embroidered all through it. It's got a place of gold filigree for 12 gemstones to be put on it.

[10:22] It had sardis, topaz, carbuncle, emerald, sapphire, diamond, jansinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper.

[10:34] That's the stone, not the town in Texas, okay? And so he's got all of these stones, and on each one is written one of the tribes of Israel. Their names are written on that, right?

[10:45] It's all set in gold, and then in the breastplate there is the urim and the thuman. Now, one of these words means to destroy or to judge, and the other means to be perfected.

[10:59] What this is is that this is sort of the way that they understood the will of God for the people. You can think of it like you can look later in parts of the Old Testament, and you'll see this idea of casting lots.

[11:14] Or let me give you the example of the disciples in the book of Acts. Judas is no longer with them, so they need to pick another person to be in his place. So they cast lots, and it falls to this one particular guy, that this is the guy who's going to be the replacement for Judas, right?

[11:34] So it's a way of understanding God's will by casting some sort of lot. You could think of it like just something that's like a yes-no type thing, and they throw it down, and it gives them the idea.

[11:48] What happens, though, is that as the prophetic office begins to take up and pick up more steam in the Old Testament, they stop using this entirely, because the prophetic office replaces the Urim and the Thumen.

[12:04] But then he's also got a turban. It's got a gold plate. It's his crown. It's even called a crown. But the next thing that happens is that you notice that there's this anointing that happens, right?

[12:16] This anointing is done with this special oil, and the tabernacle and all the furniture in the tabernacle are anointed. It's sprinkled seven times.

[12:28] Then the altar and all of its utensils, those things are anointed. And finally, Aaron is anointed. Now, not his sons, but just Aaron, because Aaron is the high priest, or at least he's taking that role at the moment.

[12:44] So when you look at all of this, what are some things that we need to understand from this? What was the meaning? If you're an Israelite listening to this and watching this unfold in front of you, what were some of the things that you should have picked up on as you watched this?

[13:00] You should have picked up on this, that the priest is someone who both represents God and man. He represents man because he looks like a man, because he's dressed like a man, except he's also very opulent, right?

[13:15] He's very luxuriously clothed. It's very expensive, all the things that he has. And not only that, but he has the names of Israel on him, so that as he goes before God, he takes the names of God's people before him.

[13:33] In other words, he represents God's people to him. But also, this anointing oil in the Old Testament, and we could trace lots of passages for this, but I'm just going to give you one.

[13:45] When you anoint something with oil, that was a symbol, an emblem, of the Holy Spirit being poured out on, the Holy Spirit anointing something.

[13:57] So let me give you an example. In Isaiah chapter 61, verse 1, a passage that Jesus quotes in the New Testament, he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.

[14:09] Now, we don't have to read the rest of it. You can just see that what he's saying here in a Hebrew couplet is that these two things are to be considered the same thing, that for the Spirit of the Lord to be upon him was for him to be anointed.

[14:22] And so the Holy Spirit made his presence known upon the tabernacle, all the furniture and all the things. The Holy Spirit made his presence known upon the priest of God to anoint him so that he could do the work that he was called to do.

[14:37] This is the call of the priest. God taking and making sure that everybody knows this person is the one that I have called. This is the one that I have clothed. This is the one that you have to go through and no one else.

[14:50] That's what they should have grasped. And so we ask the question then, well, then why don't we still have priests today? Why don't we have human priests who then take up this role between us and God?

[15:01] And I want to read to you from Hebrews 5. Hebrews 5, verse 1 through 6. It says this, For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin.

[15:18] And he can deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he's obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for the people. And no one takes this honor to himself.

[15:30] Now think about that. No one takes this honor to himself, but only when called by God just as Aaron was. So the New Testament is telling us Aaron was called to this priesthood.

[15:41] That's what we're saying. Verse 5. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said, You are my son.

[15:52] Today I have begotten you. That's Psalm 110. And he says also in another place, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. See, the reason we don't have human priests anymore is because the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood, has passed away because every one of them were nothing more than men.

[16:14] And now Christ comes, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he and Melchizedek are the only two priests of the Melchizedek line. No one else.

[16:26] There's not another human being who ever has or ever will be of the Melchizedek in line. And that's because Christ, Christ is the one who now is the eternal high priest for us.

[16:38] He is the one who we go through. It is by him. He goes before the Lord and he carries our name to the Lord. He is the only one through whom we can get to God.

[16:48] That's what Jesus says, right? He says, No one can come to the Father except by me. That he is the way, the truth, and the life. I had a friend of mine years ago who preached a sermon called the Narrow-Minded God.

[17:02] Because God himself says that there is no other way to get to him except through Jesus Christ. You can't sacrifice enough. You can't go to church enough. You can't follow some other religious idea.

[17:14] You can't follow some other philosophical idea. There is one and only one way and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Which means then that you as a Christian, you as a Christian, when you sin, when you do things that you know you ought not to do, there's no other way for you to deal with that sin than to go through Jesus Christ.

[17:37] You see, I think we have this mistaken notion that, you know, once I get saved because he died for me, now I've got to live for him. And we think of that in such a way as that we're on our own, in our own strength, in our own power, and we've got to keep from doing bad things.

[17:53] And if we do bad things, then we're going to have to pay for those bad things because he's already done that once. And the truth of the matter is is that when he died on the cross for our sin, whatever age you are right now until the day that you die, all of it is already paid for.

[18:13] Already paid for. So you as a Christian, your job is to come to Christ in your sin.

[18:24] When you know you've done something you shouldn't do, you go to him and you ask for forgiveness and he will forgive you because he's already paid the price for that sin.

[18:37] But if you're not a Christian, then one of the things that you need to understand is that you are still in your sin. And if you stay in that place, if you stay saying, listen, I don't want anything to do with Jesus, I don't want to do anything with all of that, then one day you will stand and answer for your sin.

[18:55] And I'm telling you that today that course can change because you can trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and he will be the one to stand before God for you.

[19:08] He's the only one. The priest is called. Let's look secondly then as the priest is cleansed.

[19:21] Priest is cleansed. Verses 14 through 21. Again, let's just take a look at this real quick. Beginning in verse 14, it says, Then he brought the bull of the sin offering and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin offering and he killed it.

[19:36] And Moses took the blood with his finger, he put it on the horns of the altar around it and purified the altar and poured out the blood at the base of the altar and consecrated it to make atonement for it.

[19:49] And he took all the fat that was on the entrails and the long lobe of the liver and the two kidneys with their fat and Moses burned them on the altar. But the bull and its skin and its flesh and its dung he burned up with fire outside the camp as the Lord commanded Moses.

[20:05] Then he presented the ram of the burnt offering and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram and he killed it and Moses threw the blood against the side of the altar. He cut the ram into pieces and Moses burned the head of the pieces and the fat and he washed the entrails and the legs with water and Moses burned the whole ram on the altar.

[20:23] It was a burnt offering with a pleasing aroma, a food offering for the Lord as the Lord had commanded. So you'll remember when we talked about sin offering we said the thing you need to think about is the word purification.

[20:37] Sin offering is purification. A burnt offering is reconciliation. So here's what's interesting because most of the time what would happen is that you would always offer a burnt offering first then a grain offering and then a sin offering.

[20:50] But in this case they're offering the sin offering the purification first. Now why is that? Why would they need to offer the purification first?

[21:01] Well one of the things we're going to see down the line is we're going to see that Aaron and his sons had to stay at the tabernacle at the door of the tabernacle for seven days.

[21:11] They had to live there and be there for seven days. And because they are sinners they're going to defile the place. So one of the things that we're going to learn when we get into the section on clean and the unclean laws is that you have unclean, clean, and holy.

[21:32] And just because you're unclean does not mean you have sinned. But if you've sinned you will be unclean. Did you follow me there?

[21:44] Because there's all kinds of ways that you can become unclean. If you're walking along and the person walking next to you were to suddenly pass away and you caught their corpse as they fell to the ground it would make you unclean.

[21:58] But that does not mean that you have sinned. So just because somebody's unclean doesn't mean that they have sinned. But if they have sinned they are unclean.

[22:08] And the reason this is important is because from unclean to clean to holy when certain things touch other things they begin to be something different.

[22:19] So a holy thing can make a clean thing holy by the holy thing touching it. Now I'm saying that because here's Aaron and his sons. It's not that they have literally sinned but because of the object lesson that God wants his people to understand that we cannot come to him by our own volition.

[22:39] We can't come to him by our own goodness. We can't come to him by our own morality. There's something wrong with us fundamentally. Everything we touch is tainted and unclean.

[22:51] So in order to get started every day before they can even bring the burnt offering they got to cleanse the place because Aaron and his sons have been there. You see this is similar to when Jesus is talking in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6.

[23:13] and he starts talking about prayer and he says don't be like the hypocrites that when they go to pray they love to be seen by people.

[23:29] I want you to think about that. One of the most intimate things that we can do with God is to pray and we as humans can bring into that intimate moment defilement even while we're doing it.

[23:52] And so that's the lesson that God is teaching them with Aaron that it needs to be cleansed and then they offer the ram for the burnt offering because his sins need to be atoned for.

[24:03] And why is this? Look at Hebrews chapter 5 verse 3. We read this a while ago but let me just point it out. Because of this he's obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.

[24:17] So the priest has to be cleansed. Now that raises an important question. Because we don't need human priests anymore because we have Christ. Does that mean that Jesus Christ had to be cleansed?

[24:35] Nope. He said but wait a minute that doesn't follow the pattern. I know. It's messy. You're just going to have to handle it. I want you to see something in Hebrews chapter 7.

[24:46] Hebrews chapter 7 verse 26 for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest holy innocent unstained separated from sinners exalted above the heavens.

[25:01] He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily first for his own sins and then for those of the people since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

[25:17] Now just pause there. Now how does that work? You say wait a minute. He didn't have to be cleansed. Why does he offer up once for all for himself? Because what Paul says. Paul says that he who knew no sin became sin for us.

[25:32] That when Christ was hanging upon the cross our sin was imputed to him. Our sin was given to him. It was his head that our hands pressed down upon and confessed and transferred our sin to him.

[25:47] He took our place. So there he is upon the cross dying for the sin that's been imputed to him for us. And that is the cleansing both for him and for us.

[26:00] Not because of his own sins because he has no sin. Verse 28 says for the law appoints men and their weakness as high priest but the word of the oath which came later than the law appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

[26:17] You see this is what we need if you and I as Christians if we're sinning we need to know that we can come to Christ and he can deal with our sin. I don't know about you but have you ever been okay now I just all of a sudden realized that probably not.

[26:36] I'm afraid of the water. Okay let me just put that out there. And I years ago I was being taught how to swim I was thrown into the deep into the pool and they had to drag me back out because all I could do was just drink.

[26:50] and years ago my wife and I we went out on the lake with our her sisters and brother-in-laws and big boat and lots of you know pulling people on the tubes and all this kind of stuff and then parked in the middle of the lake and everybody get out and swim and I'm just thinking to myself y'all crazy crazy.

[27:12] So what all you got to do is just tread water and I don't know if you know this but it doesn't matter how much you tread tread water if your legs are made of lead. And we're out there in the middle of this and I am starting to sink and I cannot help myself and unfortunately my wife was next to me and I began to hold on to her and she says you're dragging me under you gotta let me go.

[27:41] In that moment what I needed was the boat. I didn't need her and I didn't need a life vest I needed somebody on the boat who could grab me and pull me in.

[27:52] And I just want you to think about that image because if you are drowning you don't need somebody in the water with you to help you. If you're drowning you need somebody who's standing on the rock to pull you in.

[28:06] You understand that's why he is the solid rock. We can go to him with our sin because he knows what it's like to be us yet he has never sinned. Look at Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15 says for we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weakness but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

[28:26] He is the solid rock and as a Christian I can go to him when I sin and know that he can deal with it without anything bad happening. If I bring my sin to you confess my sin to you one of the things that can happen is that that can tempt you towards sin.

[28:44] That can tempt you towards sin of doing the same thing or tempt you towards sin of judgment. But if I bring my sin to him as our high priest he knows what it's like to be tempted to take the shortcut.

[29:01] He knows what it's like to bow to pressures of the world. He knows what it's like to be tempted to reject God's care for you. He understands. He knows. He sympathizes. So Christians we need to spend time confessing our sin to the Lord.

[29:22] We need to take that time to go to him and say Lord please forgive me of my sin. That is the whole reason you have this verse 1 John chapter 1 verse 9 that if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[29:38] unrighteousness you as a Christian ought to be spending time because Christ is your high priest going to him and saying Lord this is what I've done and be specific. This is where I have sinned.

[29:51] Lord please forgive me. And here's the thing because he's standing on that solid rock because he is the rock himself because he will not be dragged down. You need to understand that when you confess your sin to him it is over.

[30:05] The only person who will ever think about it again is you. And you need to let it go. Not only is the priest called and cleansed but the priest is consecrated.

[30:20] Verse 22 through 36. Verse 22 says that he presented the other ram. The ram of ordination.

[30:31] And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. And he killed it. And Moses took some of the blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.

[30:46] Then he presented Aaron's sons and Moses put some of the blood on the lobe of lobes of their right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet.

[30:56] And Moses threw the blood against the side of the altars. Then he took the fat and the fat tail and all the fat that was on the entrails and the long lobe of the liver and the two kidneys with their fat and their right thigh and out of the basket of unleavened bread that was before the Lord.

[31:12] He took one unleavened loaf and one loaf of bread with oil and one wafer and placed them on the pieces of the fat and on the right thigh. And he put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of the sons and waved them as a wave offering before the Lord.

[31:26] So their hands are full and they're waving this before the Lord saying this is yours Lord kind of thing, right? Verse, I lost my place. 28. Then Moses, then Moses took them from their hands and burned them on the altar with the burnt offering.

[31:42] This was an ordination offering with a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord. And Moses took the breast and waved it for a wave offering before the Lord. And it was Moses' portion of the ram of ordination as the Lord commanded Moses.

[31:55] Let me pause and just say, the priest gets to be rewarded from the work he does. So Moses is getting his reward for doing this work. Verse 30.

[32:08] Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and of the blood that was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments and also on his sons and his sons' garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and his sons' garments with him.

[32:20] And Moses said to Aaron and his sons, boil the flesh at the entrance of the tent of meeting and there eat it and the bread that is in the basket of ordination offerings. As I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it.

[32:31] And what remains of the flesh and the bread you shall burn up with fire. And you shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days until the days of your ordination are completed. And for it will take seven days to ordain you.

[32:46] As has been done today, the Lord has commanded to be done to make atonement for you. At the entrance of the tent of meeting you shall remain day and night for seven days, performing what the Lord has charged so that you do not die.

[32:58] For so I have been commanded. And Aaron and his sons did all the things that the Lord commanded by Moses. Now I'm going to tell you, it's hard to read. I told you again and again that Leviticus is hard to read because of the repetition, right?

[33:11] You get that repetition. It's saying the same thing and over and over again. But if you can clear your mind and just hang on to it, you can kind of see what's going on here. So in the beginning he brought a bull and two rams.

[33:24] The bull for the sin offering, purification. The ram for the burnt offering and now he has a ram for the ordination offering. And as they killed this ram, he takes the blood, puts it on the right ear, on the right thumb, and on the big toe, the right big toe of Aaron and his sons.

[33:42] Then he takes the rest of the blood, throws it on the altar like a burnt offering. And then they take apart the animal, they burn it, and they have things that they need to do with eating it and giving some to Moses and waving it before the Lord, which is this idea, this belongs to the Lord.

[34:01] And then they take the oil and blood and anoint Aaron and his sons again. So this is kind of strange for us because we don't do these kinds of things.

[34:13] And so the best thing that I could think of is to try to give you somewhat of an illustration so you could understand sort of what's going on here. This is consecration. In other words, consecration is to set something aside for a special purpose, for special uses.

[34:30] And the best thing I could think of was a wedding dress. A wedding dress is not meant to be worn for everyday use. You buy a wedding dress and it's for one thing. It's for your wedding.

[34:43] Can you imagine putting on your wedding dress and being in the kitchen and cooking in it? That's out of place. It's not right. It's been set apart for a particular purpose.

[34:54] So the same with Aaron and his sons as they are consecrated to this priesthood, God is doing this thing with their right ear, their right thumb, and their right toe as a way to say they're set apart.

[35:07] Now why? Why the right ear? Why the right thumb? Why the right toe? Well, because it's emblematic. It's a symbol. It's an illustration.

[35:19] It's anointing and taking and cleansing their right ear, cleansing their hand, cleansing their foot, because he will hear from God. He will need to hear from God and he will need to teach the people God's ways.

[35:38] He will use his hands to do the work of doing the sacrifices and he will use his feet to go in and out of the holy and the holiest of holies, right? So it's about his work.

[35:51] Now why just the lobe? Why not just cover him in blood? Because God's not gross. That's why. Actually, there's another reason.

[36:03] Do you remember in the Gospels, Jesus, the night that he was going to be betrayed, he goes around and he washes the feet of his disciples. He comes to Peter and Peter says, oh, no, no, no, no, Lord.

[36:14] You're not going to wash me. Not going to wash my feet. I'm not going to let you stoop that low. And then Jesus says this. He says, if I don't wash you, then you have no part in me.

[36:25] And then Peter says, okay, well, let's take a bath. Right? And Jesus, I mean, if I were Jesus, I'd be rolling my eyes at Peter because Peter, sometimes you just got to wonder. Jesus says, if you're clean, you only have to wash your feet.

[36:42] And you're all clean except one of you thinking about Judas, right? The whole point was this, that washing the feet, you got to think about it this way, that if we have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, we still live in this world.

[36:56] And because we're in this world and we travel in this world and we live in this world, there's still dirt that gets on us, but not fully, just the feet because we're traveling through this world. So he's just washing the feet as a symbol of you belong to me.

[37:11] So when you come back to the Old Testament, what you see is that the blood on the right earlobe, on the right thumb, on the right big toe is just saying, listen, the Levitical priests belong to me.

[37:24] Their ears, their hands, their feet, they're doing this for me. I've cleansed it so that they can do this. And let me just say this in passing. Jensington Franklin is the one who made this claim that at the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, that his right ear and his right thumb and his right foot had blood on it.

[37:47] So he was anointed by God for something special. So beloved, if that is true, then the thing that he's been anointed to is the Levitical priesthood and nothing more.

[37:59] So we just, you just need to be careful when people out there say crazy things like that, because if he's going to be a Levitical priest, then we've got big problems.

[38:11] It was not an anointing of him. It was some crazy person who shot him. And then you have blood everywhere. This was not, not an ordaining by God.

[38:23] Because we don't have these priests any longer. Right? We don't have Levitical priests any longer. We don't need a human between us and God the Father, because God the Father has anointed and consecrated his own son to be our high priest.

[38:41] Jesus is our high priest. Jesus is the one who goes between us and the Father. That's why at his baptism, the spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father said, this is my beloved son, and whom I am well pleased.

[38:57] This is why on the Mount of Transfiguration, as Peter, James, and John saw the glory of the Son, the Father spoke and said, this is my beloved son, my chosen one.

[39:07] Listen to him. He has been chosen for a special purpose, and that purpose is to save us. Look at John 6, verse 38. Jesus says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

[39:22] And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he's given me, all the people that he's given me, that I lose none of them, but raise them up on the last day.

[39:33] Verse 40, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day.

[39:45] We don't have physical human priests anymore, because Christ is our high priest. He's the one that we go through to get to the Father. He's the one who knows what it's like to be sinners like us, yet he's without sin.

[40:01] He's the one that we can run to. And Christian, let me just say this. It ought to make you sing for joy. It ought to make you sing for joy.

[40:13] To know that there's no other name under heaven given by God by which we can be saved should cause us to sing to him. To know that he's the solid rock who is there to save us, even when we're belly down, lungs full of the water of sin.

[40:29] He's the one who can save us. And it ought to make us sing to know that he has saved me and he is my only hope ought to make us sing. And that's what Peter says.

[40:41] 1 Peter 1, verse 6, In this you rejoice. In this you rejoice. And if you look at what he said before this, he's covering all of this ground.

[40:53] All that Christ has done for us ought to be the thing that causes us to rejoice, even though now for a little while we're grieved by various trials. It's a true thing that trials come and that there's tons of trials that we will encounter.

[41:09] Some of you, you're facing trials today. Your hope in the middle of that is not that the trial ends, but your hope in the middle of that is that Christ understands and that Christ has paid the price for you and that Christ is your way to the Father.

[41:28] But Christian, this also ought to make us fight against our sin. We ought to fight against our sin because the office of priesthood was so costly. He gave his only life for us that should make us want to get rid of our sin.

[41:46] That's why he says in verse 16 of Hebrews, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

[41:57] What is that time of need? Time of need of our sin, our temptation to sin, our desire to give up and say, I just can't do this. Because of what Christ has done, we can run boldly to the throne of grace and say, Father, I need you.

[42:16] I need you. And finally, it ought to give us great courage to face the Lord. It ought to give us great courage to face the Lord.

[42:26] Lord, I can't tell you the number of times that I got in trouble and I did not want to go home to face my dad. My dad told me, if I ever got in trouble at school, whatever punishment I got at school, I would get double when I got home.

[42:45] Some of you say, oh man, yeah. And some of you say, amen. I was afraid of my dad because of that. I just want you to understand the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triune God, the glorious, unspeakable glory and splendor and radiance and holiness and righteousness of who God is.

[43:11] Well, on one hand, would make us fear because it's almost as like getting close to the sun and melting in His presence. We can come to Him with boldness.

[43:23] We can have the boldness to approach Him, to come to Him. And there's this old hymn that I think sums up kind of what I'm saying here. It's a hymn that was redone back in the early 2000s.

[43:36] But listen to these words. The hymn goes this way. It says, Come boldly to the throne of grace, you wretched sinners, come and lay your load at Jesus' feet and plead what He has done.

[43:49] How can I come? Some soul may say. I'm lame and I cannot walk. My guilt and sin have stopped my mouth.

[43:59] I sigh but dare not talk. Come boldly to the throne of grace, though lost and blind and lame. Jehovah is the sinner's friend and ever was the same.

[44:14] He makes the dead to hear His voice. He makes the blind to see. The sinner lost, He came to say, to set the prisoner free. Come boldly to the throne of grace, for Jesus fills the throne.

[44:28] And those that He kills, He makes alive because He hears the sigh and the groan. Poor bankrupt souls who feel and know the hell of sin within, come boldly to the throne of grace because the Lord will take you in.

[44:50] He will take you in. Let's pray. Thank you.