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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Who Lit Your Fire?

I praise God to be with you again on this, His Holy Sabbath day.

When so much of the world is remembering the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, it was a good time for us to reflect on our own faith and on each of our own salvation.

These holiday weekends and holidays that come up where even CNN has specials on the life of Jesus, are good times to share with those around us who may not know Christ.

And so we want to be ready soldiers in the army of God for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus.

Leviticus chapter 9 starting at verse 15.

Leviticus chapter 9 starting at verse 15 and I will read in your hearing through verse 24 Leviticus 9 starting at verse 15 the scripture says and he brought the people's offering and took the goat which was the sin offering for the people and slew it and offered it for sin as the first.

And he brought the burnt offering and offered it according to the manner.

And he brought the meat offering and took a handful thereof and burnt it upon the altar beside the burnt sacrifice of the mourning.

He slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings which was for the people and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood which he sprinkled upon the altar round about.

The fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump and that which covereth the inwards and the kidneys and the call above the liver.

They put the fat upon the breasts and he burnt the fat upon the altar.

The breasts and the right shoulder Aaron waved for a wave offering before the Lord as Moses commanded.

And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them.

He came down from offering of the sin offering and the burnt offering and peace offerings.

And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation and came out and blessed the people.

And the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people.

And there came a fire out from before the Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat which when all the people saw they shouted and fell on their faces.

Chapter 10 1 says and Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein, and put incense therein, thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.

And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord.

A message this Sabbath is entitled, Who Lit Your Fire?

Father God, we thank you for bringing us together on this, your holy Sabbath day.

Lord, even this week as it is flanked by Good Friday and Easter Sunday as it is called they are called, Lord we realize that we are still commanded to keep this day holy.

Father God, let the words that are spoken not be mine.

Let Lord, the thoughts that are brought forth not be mine.

Would we ask Father God that out of the throne room of grace would a message be delivered to your people this day.

The book of Leviticus is a book that we are instructed in the spirit of prophecy that we should study well, for it is an instruction in how to praise God.

The book of Leviticus takes place basically over about a month.

The tabernacle, the sanctuary is completed at the end of the previous book and so God begins to exercise the procedures that will take place.

And hence the book of Leviticus is written as a book to codify and use these examples so that all along Israel would have these examples to follow as they serve God.

When you read the verses that I just gave, the earlier verses in chapter 9 are specifically for the priests, Aaron and his sons, and the offerings and the preparation that they should make before they go before the people of God, how they should sacrifice and deal with their sin first before coming before God's people.

Verse 15 through 24 deal with how they then take the gift that God has given them as priests to take to God's people and how it should be done and really in it in the symbolism of it is a lot of why God did what he did in the sanctuary.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has only 1 truly unique doctrine and That is the doctrine of the sanctuary.

To not understand that doctrine causes you to be impotent in your ability to understand present truth and I think as importantly understand grace and mercy and understand how serious God takes in each of the animals sacrificed all have symbolic meaning I don't have time but the goats the lambs the bulls are all chosen for a reason all clean animals of course but goats are stubborn and so they are representing sin because stubbornness is sin and so the goat is offered as a sin offering the lamb is innocent and follows wherever it goes and is also offered to to not only take away sin but offered off often as a as a peace offering and a thank offering and a bull has its role and in each animal has its significance but as God goes through and they do interesting things like wave offerings and and and and all of the different things that God shows, he's trying to make strong point to the people of Israel.

1 of them is that sin is detested by God.

When you would go into the sanctuary on a day like this and all of these animals would be slaughtered, understand that blood would be flowing through this holy place.

You would have to look where you were stepping not to step into the blood and pieces of the fat of these animals would splatter all over the sanctuary like some of you have done to your poor cadavers in the labs of this school.

You know, not everybody's gonna be a surgeon when they get to medical school or they're preparing to be physical therapists.

Some of the people doing the cutting on the cadavers aren't so good and stuff just starts flying all over the place.

As you go in there would not only be blood and fat and body parts laid aside till they could grab it and move it again, but it was a gory and difficult scene to hear the animals bleat as if pleading for mercy, crying and shouting as they were put to slaughter.

The Lamb of course was unique in that many times the lambs wouldn't say anything, dumb as they were led to be slaughtered.

God wanted us as he wanted Israel to know that the wages of sin is death.

All throughout the scripture when someone sins something dies.

In the Garden of Eden they tried to cover their sin by making aprons of plant material.

He has slaughtered animals and made them coats, which an apron only covers from the waist down, a coat covers from the neck down, and made them coats out of the skins of animals.

When the prodigal son returns home, his father quickly says, go and kill what?

The wages of sin is death, and the Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is what?

You see, you can't fully understand Good Friday unless you understand these texts in the Old Testament.

If you don't understand that Jesus's death was a bloody, brutal death, a painful, calculated death.

He agonized over dying this way and that anyone who watched it should have watched it in horror, not shouting crucify him, crucify him.

These passages help us to understand that God all along understood that his own son would 1 day be the animal figuratively speaking that would be put on the altar to be sacrificed.

And it would only be his blood flowing that would wash away the sins of men.

God also shows here that God is a God of order in the book of Leviticus.

He does not simply accept whatever is brought before him.

Things must be brought to him in the right way at the right time as he has specified.

You cannot simply take what you want and bring it to God.

He just doesn't accept whatever you have to offer.

Cain learned that lesson, or maybe he never did really learn that lesson, but that was the lesson Cain was supposed to learn.

But as you get to the bottom of these verses, it really gets good at around verse 22 of chapter 9 of the book of Leviticus.

The scripture says, And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them and came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and peace offerings and Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation and came out and blessed the people.

And the Bible says here something critical.

It says, and the glory of the Lord appeared.

When his people were unified, when they had followed his instruction precisely, when the priests and God were in accord, God's presence was made tangible before the people.

Here, as they offer these things, he appears before his people.

So powerful it is that in verse 24 the Bible says, and there came a fire out from before the Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering, the fat which were all which when all the people saw they shouted and fell on their faces.

I wish I could have been there to see that.

I would have liked to be a part of the shouting and the falling.

There was great power in what happened here.

God didn't just show up, but by bringing fire into the equation he showed his approval for what happened.

Let me submit to you that every time in the Bible God's people are on 1 accord in worshiping him he makes himself evident through his spirit which is often made tangible in the form of fire.

When Solomon is dedicating the temple, the splendor, and the glory of the building he made that God instructed him to made and gave him the provisions to make that David could not make because of the blood that was on David's hands.

When Solomon completed and they were dedicating the temple, the scripture says that fire came down just like this and burnt up the offering.

In the New Testament at the time of Pentecost, the scripture says the church was on what?

They were in unity, and when they were in unity, the same way the scripture uses the same symbolism, except in the New Testament it flips so that now the fire is made into the allegorical piece and the Spirit of God is made tangible so that like a cloven hoofs of fire that it falls on their tongues they begin to speak and everyone is able to understand.

Fire again comes down, The Spirit of God falls on his people and they are able to preach and 3, 000 are baptized into the family of God.

When God's people are on 1 accord, God shows up.

Maybe this is why 1 of the great instructions that Jesus gives the church is he says, by this men will know that you are my disciples because you have what?

I submit to you that 1 of the marks of God's true church is how church members treat each other.

We often skip that piece of the equation.

Jesus says this is a direct result, the fruit of your unity, the fruit of your love 1 for another, is that this will make it known that you are my disciples.

It is a sign of your not being my disciples if you cannot love your brothers and sisters who also call on the name of the Lord.

Fire comes down, things are burned up, the people lay prostrate.

They have reached the zenith, the height of worship.

How can it get any better than what God has already done?

There's really nowhere to take it up, but what I'm learning is that when God gives man a great benefit as he gives here, Often men want to one-up God.

Chapter 10, the sad story of the 2 sons of Aaron are told in verse 1, and Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein, put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not." Never told them to do this.

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Who Lit Your Fire?

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