The LORD Made a Way for You
Last week, Pastor Joe Rigney addressed the tension that we’ve been seeing unfold so far as we’ve moved through the book of Genesis, into Exodus, and now, Leviticus. It’s a tension created by the fact there is a Holy, living God in this world, and that Holy, living God aims to take up residence with us — a sinful people.
In today’s text, Leviticus 8, 9, and 10, that tension will come to a head at the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting.
This tension is not new when it comes to the Tent of Meeting. In fact, the Tent of Meeting is perhaps the place where the tension has been most apparent. Remember, the Tent of Meeting was where the
“The LORD used to speak to Moses, face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11)
What nearness to the Lord, right?
But note Exodus 33:7,
“Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp”
The Lord separated from the people.
In Exodus 40, this Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting will get moved, will get set up in the midst of all the people, in the very center of the camp. What nearness to the Lord, right?
But note: God instructs that a 7-and-a-half-foot tall fence be put all around it so as to keep the common people from entering in. The Lord separated from the people.
In Exodus 40, The Tabernacle of the Tent finally gets completed, and as soon as it does a cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD filled it. The glory of the Holy God in their midst! What nearness to the Lord, right?
But note Exodus 40:35,
“Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it…”
The Lord separated from the people.
The separation has remained from that point in Exodus 40 all the way until now. By now, the prescriptions for the sacrificial system have been given - that was Leviticus 1-7. All the tools, materials – the altar, the basin, the utensils, the garments - have been prepared. But none of it has gone into motion. No one has yet to draw near to the Lord. All is at a standstill. The smoke of the Holy God of glory hangs in the air, surrounded at a distance by the entire nation Israel. Until now. Things go into motion now.
Here’s some handles for the chapters we’re about to look at:
Chapter 8: Moses Prepares the Priests
Chapter 9: The Priests Act on Behalf of the People
Chapter 10: The People Mourn the sins of the Priests
Chapter 8: Moses Prepares the Priests
Chapter 8 the Lord speaks to man. He calls Moses to get Aaron, his sons, garments, oil, animals, bread, and assemble all the congregation at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
And this really is “Moses calls the people to the edge of God’s presence” part 2.
Part 1: God in the cloud of glory on Sinai. Part 2: God in the cloud of glory at the Tabernacle.
Part 1: Moses calls the people to the foot of the mountain. Part 2: Moses calls the people to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
Part 1: Moses brings Aaron up with him into the mountain. Part 2: Moses will bring Aaron with him into the Tent of Meeting.
What’s stunning is that here, in part 2, everything seems to go remarkably well.
Chapter 8 reads:
Verse 4, Moses brought the people forward “as the Lord commanded”
Verse 9, 13, He clothed both Aaron and his sons in their priestly garments “as the Lord commanded”
Verse 17, He sacrificed the bull of the purification offering “as the Lord commanded”
Verse 21, He burnt the ram of the ascension offering “as the Lord commanded”
Verse 29, 36, He presents the ram for the ordination offering “as the Lord commanded”
Seven times over we see the refrain “as the Lord commanded.” Moses is preparing the priests, making atonement for them through the various offerings, and he’s doing it all “as the Lord commanded.”
What comes next? Well, this procession of offerings to atone for the priests is going to continue on for seven days — each day purifying the altar, and sacrificing a bull as a sin offering for the priests. See the bar for holiness is set high for the priests because they will be the ones who will go further in to the presence of God than anyone else. The further into God’s presence you go, the more holy you must be — the greater the covering you must possess.
So it goes on for seven days, and then we come to the eighth day. This is the day we move from the focus on Moses with the Priests to the Priests acting on behalf of the People.
Chapter 9: The Priests with and for the People
Chapter 9 begins, with Moses to Aaron,
“Take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord” And say to the people of Israel, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old without blemish, for a burnt offering, and an ox and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.’”
The tension is coming to a head - Holy God, sinful people, and today, the Lord says, today the two will meet, and they’re going to meet through the mediation of the priest Aaron.
Now keep in mind, Aaron, the priest, is a sinner. Yes, he’s Moses’ brother. Yes, he’s from the Tribe of Levi. Yes, he’s been the spokesman for God through the Exodus, he’s now the High Priest for God at the Tent in Leviticus, but make no mistake, Aaron is a sinner. As a sinner, he cannot approach the Holy God on behalf of the people unless he first makes a sacrifice for his specific sins.
As some have noted, the sacrifice the Lord prescribes for him is unique. These last seven days the sacrifice for the sins of the priest has been a bull. But the sacrifice God prescribes for Aaron seems designed to intentionally connect back to a former time in Aaron’s life. The Lord says through Moses to Aaron, “Take [not a bull, but] a bull calf and offer it as a sacrifice for your sin.” The calf, Aaron, must die. The calf can no longer live on in your life Aaron. You must kill the calf. And he does.
Aaron offers his sin offering of the bull calf and receives cleansing from the Lord. Then he offers his burnt offering of a ram and so ascends, like the smoke from the altar, to the Lord.
Cleansed and consecrated, he offers the sin offering, then the burnt offering, then the peace offering on behalf of the people. Again, the order there matters.
The peace offering is the fellowship meal between God and man. It is the ultimate goal of this whole thing. But no one gets admitted to that meal with sin and death on their hands.
The burnt or ascension offering is where man dedicates their whole self to God, but no can dedicate themselves to God with sin and death on their hands.
See if there is no purification for sin, then there is no ascending to the Lord, and if there is not ascending to the Lord, there is no feast with the LORD. Cleanses comes first, then consecration – whole surrender to the Lord, then peace offering, where man sits down to table with God.
Aaron goes to work:
He kills the goat of the sin offering for the people and sprinkles some of the blood on the altar.
He kills the calf and a lamb for the burnt offering of the people, burns it all up on the altar.
He offers the ox and the ram for the peace offering for the people – burning some on the altar, retaining some for the fellowship meal.
Like the ordination of the priests in chapter 8, everything about the Priest’s actions on behalf of the people goes remarkably well. Five times over we hear either as the Lord, or as Moses, commanded.
But the true test will be whether or not the Lord appears. Remember, the Lord gave these instructions for the sacrifices, and put them into motion because, he said,
“today I will appear to you.”
But will he?
Aaron completes his work on the altar, lifts up his hands toward the people and blesses them, and then comes down from the altar (Leviticus 9:22).
Now, I want you to just put yourself there, in that crowd, for a moment. I mean really go there, the smell of blood and smoke in the air, the sight of a fire blazing on the altar, your shoulder to shoulder in this sea of people looking on at what’s about to happen. Aaron comes down from the altar, you see he and Moses turn, and together, begin their approach the tent of meeting with the aim to go in it. In an instant, a fresh flood of memories come rushing into your mind.
Memories of giving orders to Aaron, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Memories of the golden rings, the weight of them in your hands, the sound of them clanking together as they piled onto the mound of golden jewelry before Aaron.
The declaration, “These (this golden image of a calf) are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
You remember rising early the next day to bring burnt offerings and peace offerings to this image. You remember indulging in a meal and riot of sin.
You remember all that just as Moses and Aaron disappear into the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They are representing you in this moment. Aaron, your representative, he’s got the names of all twelve tribes inscribed upon his garments. He’s in a very real sense carrying you into the Tent with him. You watch them go in on behalf of you and all the people…and they don’t die.
They come out again, and they do so with blessing from the Lord to you. Next thing you know, the glory of the LORD appeared. He had said, “today I will appear before you”, and now he has. Fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when you and all the people saw it, you shouted and fell upon your faces. The burnt offering was gone – all of it, every part of it, rising upward unto the Lord in smoke. The fat from the peace offering, the fellowship meal between he and you, the Lord has consumed his portion of it.
And there, a man of dust, face down in the dust, you think, “The Lord made a way for me.” The Lord made a way for me. I am a sinner, I have rebelled against my God, I dwell in the realm of sin and death, and yet, the Lord made a way for me. The breach between he and I has been repaired. The union between he and I has been restored. The Lord made a way for me!
CHRISTIAN
Friends, the LORD has made a way for you and me – sinners in a land of death. The copy and shadow of the Tent and priesthood of Aaron had given way to Jesus, who tells us,
“I am the way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
To those of you who have received Jesus, received him as your Great High Priest, the mediator of a better covenant, the one whose laid his very self for you upon the altar.
Brothers and sisters, I ask, do you know where you get to live? See all the Israelites who were gathered before the Tent that day, all of them who were not priests — yes, they received God’s covering for them that day — but then they went home. They didn’t stay at the tent. They didn’t stay by the cloud. They didn’t get to dwell within the holy place.
But brothers and sisters, do you know where you get to live? The Bible tells us that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. That by the blood of Jesus we have confidence to enter the holy places (Hebrews 10:19). That our very bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) — flesh and blood Tent of meetings with God.
Brothers and sisters do you know where you live?
There is no cherubim with flaming sword standing between you and him.
There is no cleft of the rock for you to have to hide behind while his glory passes by.
There is no covering of a curtain separating you from him.
God has made the better way for you, a way through faith in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, a way into the into the true tent where you get to dwell before the face of God.
That’s where you get to live, Christian. That’s where you get to spend your life, before the face of the Holy God!
Should you go home tonight to an empty room, feel so alone, so forgotten, so left out – remember you live before the face of God. Should you go home tonight and get frustrated by something at your work, something at your school, something with your family, and want to take all that anger and poison out on your spouse, or your kids, or your roommates – remember you live before the face of God. Should you go home tonight and feel tempted to turn on that show, put on that movie, click to that website, and indulge in godless passions – remember you live before the face of God. Should you go home and want to ignore your parents, disobey them, show them they aren’t the boss of you anymore – remember you live before the face of God.
See, sin and death is for outside the camp, but when you go home tonight, you’re not going outside the camp. Jesus stays with you wherever you go. The Holy Spirit dwells within you. The Father rejoices over you. You, Christian, do you know where you get to live? You live before the very face of God. You get to spend your whole life there. And there is no better place for you to be. Stay there, and leave your sin outside the camp to die and burn
NON-CHRISTIAN
For those of you have not received Christ. Those of you who have not repented of your sins and put your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. You, as of this moment, have no covering before the Holy God. The Holy God is coming. You will meet him. You may meet him here should Jesus return. You may meet him at death should Jesus tarry. Either way, the Holy God is coming, and you will meet him, and right now you have no covering before him. None.
And I want to show you what that looks like when it goes before the face of God.
Chapter 10: The People and the Sins of the Priests
Chapter 10 begins,
“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.”
The glorious refrain of “as the Lord commanded” seven times over in chapter 8, five times over in Chapter 9, ends here. Here we encounter man bringing to God something he had not commanded.
What exactly were they doing wrong here?
Was it the kind of incense? Exodus 30:9 warns “You shall not offer unauthorized incense” upon the altar. Was the source of the fire the problem? Perhaps it was common fire rather than fire from the holy Altar as Leviticus 16 prescribes. Was it that they were not content to enter only into the Holy place, but desired to go all the way into the Most Holy place? The argument for that one, I think, is very strong.
It may have been all three; it may have been none of those three, at the end of the day all we know for sure is Nadab and Abihu, two priests, two guardians of the house of the Lord, standing in the courtyard of the LORD, failed to obey the LORD and opted for their own way instead. These Adam-like figures, in the Eden-like land, following the seven days of their ordination, disobeyed, on the day they disobeyed, they died.
Verse 2,
“Fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.”
See, the LORD wasn’t just messing around. He wasn’t just playing hard to get. He wasn’t just toying with his people and putting all sorts of unnecessary prescriptions between he and them. The LORD told them that his holiness is a danger to those who approach him without the proper covering. And the proper covering could only come through the way the Lord had made. Moses and Aaron went the way the LORD prescribed, and they were not disappointed. The Lord was true to his word and welcomed them, provided a blessing for them to give to the people. Nadab and Abihu went their own way, and so incurred his judgment.
And those are the two options. Enter through the way the LORD has opened, and receive blessing. Enter through a way of your own making, and receive judgment.
Maybe you, my non-believing friend, are kind to others, you do good to them, you are moral, you love your family, you treat others the way you’d like to be treated – those things will earn you the stamp of approval in the eyes of man, but not God. Don’t be fooled, take note from the bodies of Nadab and Abihu. If you attempt to enter by a way of your own design, you will not make it.
But listen, hear me, the Lord has made a way for you. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the one mediator between God and men. And he says,
“Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37).
He says, to all who are willing to hear,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Do you hear him knocking? Receive him, receive the covering only he can provide. Receive entrance into the presence of God with blessing.
Let’s Pray.