What He Demands He Supplied!

The book of Leviticus  offers the reader a proverbial blood bath.  The mention of blood tops out at 66 times in Leviticus (once for every book of the Bible?).

 While reading it aloud to my youngest son yesterday we couldn't help but become a little animated as we recited the repetitive nature of the text:

... and Aaron's sons shall throw its blood against the sides of the alter.

There is a whole lot of pouring, throwing, sprinkling, dipping and wiping of blood.  We couldn't help but imagine these priests, dressed in their ornate and beautifully bedazzled robes in service to God, covered in blood.

We wondered if the stench outside of the Tabernacle was great and if there were flies all around the priests as they performed all these sacrifices.

What a sight that must have been!  All for the sins of the people to be atoned for!  Their sin was ever before them, day in and day out.  There was no escaping the stench and the sight of death that signified the product of their sin.

Within Leviticus we find the people of God continually offering sacrifices for the their sin with no hope of end in sight.  They went through the specifications that the Lord established through Moses so that they could be in right standing with Him.

However, what we don't often think about is the bountiful provision of these sacrifices to a people who were  in the desert.

In order for the son's of Aaron to perform these offerings to the Lord day in and day out they would have had to have an enormous amount of resources otherwise they would have been  separated from God by their sin.

In the book of Leviticus we see a faithful God who provides what He requires!  This is a picture of  His faithful love toward us through the 'once and for all' sacrifice of the perfect spotless lamb Jesus Christ.

What relief the death of Christ has brought to a broken and sinful humanity, who so often is not even aware of their sin.

We no longer have to wallow in the stench of our sin day in and day out.  We can boldly come to the throne of God by means of our great High Priest Jesus, who make intercession for His people.

Jesus obtained eternal redemption for us by his own blood as He entered into the Holy of holies once and for all!

The sacrifice that Jesus made frees us from our dead works!  No longer do we have to stand offering sacrifice after sacrifice in order to pay for our sins!

Hebrews 9:11-14

But when Christ appears as a high priest of the good things 

that have come, then through the greater and 

more perfect tent (not made by hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places,

 not by means of the blood of goats and calves 

but by means of his own blood, 

thus securing an eternal redemption.  

For if the blood of goats and bulls, 

and the sprinkling of defiled persons 
with the ashes of a heifer, 
sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 

how much more will the blood of Christ, 

who through the eternal  Spirit offered himself 

without blemish to God, purify our conscience 

from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9:22-26

... Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.  

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.  

For Christ has entered, 

not into holy places made with hands, 

which are copies of the true things, 

but into heaven itself, 
now to appear in the presence of God 

on our behalf.  
Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, 

as the high priest enters the holy places 

every year with blood not his own, 

for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly 

since the foundation of the world.  

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Praise Be To God!  What He demands He supplied!