Let me invite you all to find your seat.
Good morning once again to everybody.
As you find your seat, let me invite you all to open your
Bibles to the Book of Numbers. This morning we're going to be
in two chapters, Numbers 28 and 29.
We're being the entire chapters of of both 28 and 29.
Tyler, the sermon this morning. Is this a sacrifice better than
bulls and Rams will not be reading the text upfront this
morning because it is so long. And then we're doing 2 old
chapters because these chapters deal with offerings and all the
offerings that God commanded his people when they enter the
promised land. And so while it may seem a
little tedious, we will work our way through it section by
section. I won't be reading it, but I, I
trust that you can either read it you you have already read it,
or you will maybe read it afterward in your own time.
But let's open in a word of prayer and we will jump into the
sermon this morning. Father, as we break open your
word and we discuss it and examine it and, and try to apply
it to our lives, especially on a text that doesn't have a an
immediate direct application to us, that none of us have shown
up here with a bull or a ram or a lamb or a goat this morning.
Lord, we pray that you would help us to see that we've shown
up with, with our, our bodies, our lives, and you have called
us to present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and
acceptable to you. And so this morning, God, would
you help us to understand what that means, what are the
implications of that and how we make these sacrifices and how we
how do we present ourselves as living sacrifices and, and what,
what do we have to learn from the Old Testament sacrificial
system? God, help us to understand why
you gave these sacrifices, what you were trying to teach your
people, what you wanted them to learn, and what you want us
today, thousands of years later, to learn.
I pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.
What does warning information, airplane safety guides, movie
credits, terms and conditions, drug information sheets, and
credit card agreements all have in common?
They are things that almost nobody reads, either because we
don't think it matters or it's not applicable to our life.
There are sections of the Bible that fit in this category, and
the two chapters that we're looking at this morning are such
a section. We read these two chapters.
If you read them ahead of time or maybe if you read them later,
and you might think I'm not an Old Testament Jew, we don't
celebrate these feasts anymore. We're not building booths and
living in them or cleansing out all of the leaven in our house.
So what does this have to do with my life?
But this morning, I want us to, I want to exhort us as we look
at these eight different types of offerings and these different
feasts that are given in the text.
I want us to, I want to challenge us to see, can we
glean application from this? What, what does God want us to
think and feel and see and know and do from these eight
different offerings and feasts that we look at?
So that's my challenge to us this morning.
We're going to go through it. There are going to be 888
sections this morning because that's how the text is divided
up. We won't read it because it'll
take it'll take just take too much time.
But I will give you all the information that's contained
there in the text. So let's start looking at
Numbers 28. Our first section we're going to
look at is verses one through 8. Now you may have a title in your
Bible that says daily offerings, or maybe it's something along
those lines, daily offerings. And that's the first section
we're going to look at is the daily offerings.
Now I want to make a note that before we look at the daily
offerings, just as a side note in these two chapters, all of
these offerings are cumulative, so they build on top of each
other. So it's not as though when you
make a daily offering when it's the Sabbath, you don't make that
daily offering. You still make the daily
offering. You make the daily offering plus
the Sabbath. And when it's the Feast of
Booths, you don't just make the feast of Booths offering, you
make the daily offering, the Sabbath offering.
If it's the Sabbath and they're all, they all build on top of
each other. All right, So keep that in mind
as we go through it. God starts off giving a command.
If you see that in verse 2, command the people of Israel to
make offerings. Now this is a reminder to us
that offerings, while they can be voluntary, we often use the
word offering us being voluntary.
They can be, they often are, but they first and foremost are
primarily commanded. God commanded His people to make
these offerings. And I want to point out a word
that occurs 4 times in verse two.
Look at it in verse 2. It's the word my.
He says my offering my food. Twice He says my food, and then
He says my pleasing aroma. That's important.
Don't miss that word my. It reminds us that what we do in
worship is God's. It is God's worship.
It's so easy to think of it as this is my song that I am
leading. You know, you may have been a
church. I grew up in a church where
people would have solo solos. They would sing or play an
instrument or something, right? And often they would think of it
as this is my song that I am leading.
This is my money that I'm giving.
This is my sermon that I'm preaching.
This is my ministry in which I am serving or even at a bigger
scale. This is my church that I'm
leading. And yet we see right here, it is
God's. It all belongs to God.
Everything we do here this morning and every morning is
God's, not ours. God tells them they are to offer
a daily offering every day of the year.
Every single day. They are to offer 2 male lambs a
year old without blemish, one in the morning and one in the
evening. They were to do this every day
without fail. In addition to the lambs, they
are to offer a grain offering 1/10 of an EFA of fine flour
mixed with 1/4 of hen of beaten oil.
And along with the grain offering, they'd offer a drink
offering. So they would have the lamb, the
grain offering and the drink offering 1/4 of a hen of strong
drink for each lamb. Now I want to point out three
aspects of the daily offering. Number one, I want you to notice
in this text that God is pleased with their offerings.
Now where do I get that? Three times God describes the
offering as an aroma and three times He describes the aroma the
exact same way, a pleasing aroma.
God in his grace was pleased with their offerings.
And brother and sister, because of Jesus Christ and His death on
the cross, God is pleased with our offerings.
Here's why this is so important to understand, especially like
culturally, this is so important for us to understand because we
have many contacts where we legitimately strive to please
someone and the person is not pleased.
Sometimes a a child tries their very hardest in a ballet recital
or a piano recital or a basketball game or their grades
in school, and yet the parent is still not pleased.
Sometimes we give it our very best on our work project and our
boss is still not pleased. Sometimes in marriage, we may
strive to make dinner with all our effort.
Our spouse is still not pleased and we must not transfer this
experience, these experiences to God.
You see, God never looks at us singing or our preaching or our
evangelism or our discipleship and thinks, nice try, try better
next time. I've heard better.
What a great joy it is to know that because of Jesus Christ,
everything we do for the Lord is pleasing to the Lord, assuming
it's done with the right heart #2 Second thing I want to point
about this daily offerings. God required the Lamb to be
without blemish. These lambs, every one of them,
two a day, every day, 300 and well, it's like 54 days of the
year, 354 days of the year they are to be without blemish.
In fact, 15 times in these two chapters God reminds them that
they are to be without blemish, which means the Lamb had to be
perfect. In a sense, as perfect as a Lamb
could be. In Major League Baseball there
have been over 238,500 games. Baseball has been around for a
long time. They play 162 games a year,
238,500 games if you multiply that times 2 because there are
two pitchers per game, at the minimum 2 pitchers per game.
That's 477,477 thousand. For a pitcher to throw what is
known as a perfect game, he needs to have no hits, no walks,
no hit batsmen, no uncaught third strikes, no catchers
interference, no fielders, obstructions, no fielding
errors. In other words, a batter can
never reach base for any reason. There are 27 batters and that's
it, no more. Of those 477,000.
Do you know how many have been perfect games?
24 That's .005%. I was thinking about it like
what if that was the standard to play in college?
What if colleges said if you would like to pitch baseball in
college, you have to throw a perfect game in high school?
Think of the pressure, think of the hopelessness of like I'll
never play at the next level. And yet God says if you would
like to come to heaven, you must be perfect.
You have to have you have to throw a perfect life.
And yet we have no pressure. We have hope.
Why? Because Jesus lived a perfect
life and he makes us blemish free, His perfection of his
life. And he says, I make you blemish
free. You may enter the presence of
the father #3 Third thing I want to point out about the daily
offerings is that the burnt offering was offered daily
morning and evening, every day, daily morning and evening.
There was no, I'm sorry, I was busy.
I meant to do it, but I was really busy.
I got distracted, you know, I was got distracted.
I was on vacation. I just forgot I was really
tired. I had every intention to make
the evening one but I I went to bed early.
I was really tired. I'll catch up this weekend.
I'll make 7 offerings on the weekend.
I'll catch up. Did work that way?
God said these burnt offerings were to be made every single
day, without fail, twice a day, every day, morning and evening.
Brothers and sisters, we need the worship of God every single
day of our life, every day. Just as I eat every day, usually
two to three times a day, I need to spiritually eat day two to
three times a day, whether that is through prayer or His Word or
meditation. We need the worship of God every
day. Verses 9 to 10 deals with the
Sabbath offerings. The next section we're going to
look at in verses 9 to 10 is the Sabbath offerings.
Now on the Sabbath, which was Saturday for them, they were to
offer 2 male lambs a year old without blemish.
They were to offer a grain offering, 2/10 of a fine flour
mixed with oil and a drink offering.
Now this all of this is in addition to the burnt offering
that we just looked at. Now, what this reminds us of is
that the Sabbath for them was not just a day of rest where
people slept in longer and took an afternoon nap, right?
Now, maybe they did do that, but it wasn't just that.
It was a whole day, once a week set aside to worship God.
And they and they would recognize this by making these
additional offerings every week. Now I understand, you know, that
there are endless debates and conversations about the role of
the Sabbath, the New Testament Christian, right?
Like, are we to observe a Sabbath?
Are we not? If we do observe it, what are we
allowed to do? What are we not?
That debate is not going to get solved.
There's just not. And it's certainly not going to
get solved here this morning. So we can go back and forth all
day long about that. Here is one thing that is not up
for debate. The early church models for us
at the very least, that the way at the minimum, the way that we
observe the Sabbath, which is now Sunday, I believe, is by
gathering with the people of God to worship God.
At the minimum, the way that we observe the Sabbath today is to
gather with the people of God to worship God in the same way that
they're offering on the Sabbath was different, right?
It was more they still made the daily offering morning and
evening, and then they made the Sabbath offering after the
morning offering. It was more it was different.
Our worship of God is to be different on the Sabbath.
It should be more. Now I understand you might be
thinking, Matt, you're, you're preaching to the choir here.
Like literally you're preaching to the choir.
We're here. We made it.
You're telling us together we did.
We gathered we're here. What are you trying to get at?
That may not always be the case. I may not always be the case.
I have known many, many people who have faithfully attended
church every Week, 2, three times a week, every single week
for 10/20/30 years and then stopped attending for 10/20/30
years. I was talking to my boys the
other day about a book we're reading, a book together on
vocation and calling, and I was talking to them.
One of the the chapter was talking about church and being
committed to church and I was exhorting them.
This is so important for you parents.
I was exhorting them to make weekly corporate worship and
intrinsic conviction for them and not simply a borrow one from
mom and dad. As parents, we have such a
responsibility to make sure that our children are not borrowing
our convictions, but they are developing their own intrinsic
conviction of this. And I want to say the same to
you as your spiritual father because I don't the way our
church is like 5 years from now, about 1/5 of you won't be here.
That that's just how what how our church is.
And then another fifth of you won't be here.
You never outgrow your need to gather with the people of God to
worship God. Make this your intrinsic
conviction to once a week at the minimum, gather on the Sabbath
to worship God. Verses 11 to 15.
These are what's called the monthly off section we're going
to look at is the monthly offerings.
These are often referred to as the new moon sacrifices.
You may have seen that throughout the Bible of new what
the new moon, that's what this is, is the monthly offerings.
The new moon sacrifices once a month.
At the beginning of each month. They were to offer unique
offerings. So again, this is cumulative.
This is on top of everything else.
So if the new moon fell on the Sabbath, it would be daily
offering, Sabbath offering, and new moon offering.
They're all cumulative. They were to offer unique
offerings. 2 bulls, 1 ram, 7 male lambs A grain offering.
The grain offering would be commensurate with the size of
the animal. The bull would be 3/10, the ram
would be 2/10. The lamb would be 110th.
The drink offering would be commensurate as well.
The bull would be half a hint of wine, the ram would be 1/3 of a
hen, and the lamb would be 1/4 of a hen.
In addition to all of that, they were to offer a sin offering a
goat. 1 Male goat for a sin offering to the Lord.
Again, this is in addition to all the daily offerings, all the
Sabbath offerings. Now, here's the question that I
had about the monthly offering, right?
It's like, well, if you got daily offerings and you have
Sabbath offerings, why do you need monthly offerings, right?
What, what is the purpose of this monthly offering?
We'll have to back up for just a moment.
One commentator writes this. The new moon was affirmed by two
witnesses who began watching. For at the end of each month,
once sighted in the sky, the new moon was announced in Jerusalem
with a long trumpet blast, and an official message was sent out
by a signal fire. The entire Hebrew calendar
depended on these declarations, for without them no one would
know when a new month begun, had begun.
They used the moon to keep time right?
We all know this, this is important.
You ever had time just bleed together, right?
People ask you like, you know, when did you do this?
And you're like, I was last week and your wife's like one last
week. It was last year.
You're like, right, Right. You ever had time just kind of
bleed together in your mind? Like your days bleed together,
your weeks bleed together, your months bleed.
It's really bad if your years bleed together, right?
You just kind of lose sense of all time.
The new moon was a way to pause and celebrate a new beginning.
It was one day once a month where it was a time for the
Israelites to pause and celebrate a new beginning, and
they would make offerings to celebrate this.
Brothers and sisters, let me exhort you to be intentional to
build new beginnings into your spiritual walk.
Build new beginnings. You see, all of us in Christ
have put our hand to the plow and have not looked back.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
You put your hand to the plow and you're not looking back.
But that doesn't mean we keep plowing the same field over and
over again. God will give us new fields to
plow. You say, what does that look
like? Well, a new beginning might be
an area of your life where you say, I'm not going back there.
I've been engaged in this sin for the past five years of my
life, the past 10 years of my life, and today it stops and I'm
not going back. Or it might be a commitment to
start doing something. Here's why there's some like
because sometimes you think it's too late, right?
Like you wake up one day and your kids are 7, five and two.
You've not done worship and you're like, it's too late.
It's not. It's not too late to start.
Start today. Be intentional to build new
beginnings in your life. It's never too late.
Verses 1625. These are the the Bible.
My Bible calls it Passover offerings.
I don't know why it does that because it's really not the
Passover offerings. These are actually the Feast of
Unleavened bread offerings. If you notice, the Passover is
only mentioned in verse 16, but the the section is really about
the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So I feel like they should
change that label there. This is the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. It started with Passover.
That's why they mention it here. The Passover was celebrated on
the the first month, on the 14th day, so the 14th day of the
first month of the year. But then on the 15th day of the
month began the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
And what they would do is they would go through their house and
they would remove all leaven in their house.
Anything that would be used to leavened bread, they would
remove this and for seven days they would eat unleavened bread,
right? This was a sacrifice, right?
If you've ever eaten unleavened bread, it doesn't taste as good,
right? The leaven not only helps it at
the area, but it also like adds flavour to it doesn't taste as
good. And so they would eat this
unleavened bread for seven days on the first day of that month,
on the first day of that, that, that, that week, and on the 7th
day of that week, the text says they were to do no ordinary
work. Now, when you read that word
ordinary, read it as occupational.
So like the Sabbath they were allowed and the Sabbath they
were not to work at all, do anything but ordinary means
occupational work. So they could still like do
chores and whatnot, but they weren't trading commerce.
They were to see from their normal jobs.
They would offer a burnt offering.
Instructions for this offering are the exact same as the new
moon offering, so I won't look at it.
They're the same exact thing as the new moon offering.
Now, what was the point of this? Why did God command them once a
year for a whole week to remove all leaven and to eat unleavened
bread? What was the point of it other
than, you know, remembering the Exodus and so forth?
That that's true, but what? Why did God have them do that in
the Exodus? What was the point of this?
I think this is the answer. God was teaching His people what
it means to be holy. Now the apostle Paul picks up on
this in the New Testament. God was teaching his people to
cleanse out the leaven in their lives.
How interesting that God would teach this lesson through
something so small as leaven. You've ever seen leaven?
It's very small. How interesting that God would
teach them this massive lesson through something so small.
You see, the ship captain may worry about the iceberg, but a
great ship can also be sunk by a tiny leak.
A lightning strike is not needed for a wildfire for a great
started by a small spark. Engineering mistakes need not
happen in calculus, for an entire bridge can collapse by a
miscalculation and arithmetic. And although it actually is
rocket science, an entire rocket can explode from a very small
crack. You see, it is not often the
so-called egregious sins that ruin a person, but it is the
little leaven that leavens the whole lump.
We need not commit adultery. Satan will settle for an
emotional affair. He need not commit sexual
immorality. He will settle for fooling
around. We need not bow down to bail.
Satan will settle for idolatry of money.
We need not get outwardly angry. Satan will settle for
unforgiveness in the heart. Brothers and sisters, a little
leaven leavens the whole lump. Cleanse out the leaven in your
life, verses 26 to 31. The next section is the Feast of
Weeks. This, this, this the first
festival, the first feast was the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The second is the Feast of Weeks.
It essentially is one day. It's called the Feast of Weeks,
but it's only one day. It was actually one day.
It was 50 days after Passover, often called Pentecost.
Pentecost you get, you get the 50, right?
Pentecost, this is the feast that's being celebrated in Acts
chapter one, right? When we think of Pentecost, we
think of Acts 1 and 2. But Pentecost actually started
in the Old Testament. It was 50 days after Passover.
That's what they're celebrating in Acts one and two.
It marked the end of the grain harvest and the beginning of the
period when the first fruits could be offered to God.
So when this grain harvest ended, they could now begin to
offer their first fruits to God. The offerings are the exact same
as the New moon and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and they're
also going to do no occupational work on that day.
All right. Now, what was the purpose of
this? What was the purpose of the
Feast of Weeks? It was an opportunity to present
their first fruits to God as a way to express praise for His
provision. They would offer their first
fruits to God to say, God, we want to praise you for your
provision of for us. Now how appropriate it is that
God would give us the greatest gift in the history of the world
on Passover, His Son, and then fifty days later at Pentecost,
He would also give us a gift of equal magnitude and His Spirit,
Passover and Pentecost, Jesus and the Spirit, He gave us these
two gifts. On these two feasts, we joyfully
give to God our first fruits, our very best, because God gave
us his very best. I told this illustration a few
months back, and it bears repeating.
Suppose one of my son's years from now comes home one day and
says that he's found a godly woman that he loves and wants to
marry. I would be happy, I would be
excited. And he asked me, he says, Dad,
can you and mom take care of the rehearsal dinner?
And I was like, of course, Of course.
So I go home and I tell Lauren. Lauren, our son came to us and
and said that he wants us to take care of the rehearsal
dinner. Can we do that?
She's like, yeah, I'm like, OK, great.
Don't we have a bunch of leftover spaghetti from the
retreat? They don't have like, a lot of
it. So we ran out of dining hall and
we serve our guests leftover spaghetti.
That would be shameful, right? Some of y'all are thinking, I
don't see a problem with that. That would be shameful, right?
Whether it is my tithe, whether it is my time, whether it is my
talents. I don't want to give God my
leftovers. I want to give him my first
fruits. I want to give him my very best.
Chapter 29 verses one through 6. The next feast is the Feast of
Trumpets or what's called the Feast of Trumpets.
This was to be celebrated on the first day of the 7th month on
during this Feast of Trumpets, they were to do no occupational
work. The offerings are the exact same
as the New moon and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast
of Weeks. Exact same.
There's one exception there to offer one bowl instead of two.
That's The only exception. On this particular day of the
Feast of Trumpets, they were to blow the trumpets.
They would sound the trumpets. Now what was the purpose of
this? Why would they do this?
Well, the Day of Atonement that we're going to look at in just a
minute. Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, is
the most important day of the year.
Atonement was on the 10th day of this month, 10th day.
And so this sounding of trumpets was a call to the nation to
prepare themselves for Yom Kippur.
That's what it was. When they would hear the
trumpets, they would know I need to begin preparing myself for
Yom Kippur. It was a call for them to
reflect on their past sin in preparation for the Day of
Atonement. You could say that the Feast of
Trumpets functioned as a so-called wake up call.
I think that's what it was. I think that's what it was
intended to do. It was to wake them up and to
remind them clean up, prepare your hearts for the Day of
Atonement in the summertime, which is what it is now.
Obviously the only way for us to cool our house is to open all
the windows at night and put fans in them and let in all the
cool air. It's nice if you get box stands,
you put them in the window. It actually works better than
air conditioning in a lot of ways.
It brings in just massive amounts of cold air at the night
time. What?
Yeah, that's what I'm telling myself.
Nick. Nick looks like I'm telling
myself this. OK.
It does work. Well now, because of all the
fans, it's quite loud in our house.
My wife does not like loud alarms.
Her alarm on her phone is. She's chosen the most gentle,
soothing, soft, quiet alarm that you could choose.
The other day we were waking up early to go work out and I had
woken up much earlier and I was downstairs and I was, you know,
I don't, doing all kinds of stuff.
And I came upstairs expecting to find her awake when it's time
for us to leave for the gym. I come upstairs, I'm surely
she's awake, she's putting on her shoes, she's still snoozing
in the bed. And I'm like, why didn't you set
your alarm? So her phone to be like, why
didn't she set her alarm? I pick up her phone.
I noticed, oh, she did set her alarm.
It's actually been going off for the past 3 minutes.
It's currently going off, but you can't hear it because the
fans are going off. And her alarm is like, you know,
see, sometimes we can't hear God's voice.
We can't hear God's wake up call because of all the fans in our
life. We got too many fans going on
and we can't hear God's voice. Brothers and sisters, we don't
want God's wake up call to be a harp or a flute or chimes.
We want it to be a trumpet. A loud, obnoxious trumpet that
wakes us up. We want the Word of God to like
a trumpet in our life, waking us from our spiritual slumber.
We want brothers and sisters in the gathering of the church to
function like a trumpet in your life.
Don't be a harp to each other. Be a trumpet.
And let me encourage you. I understand.
You hear that trumpet. What's the temptation?
Snooze. Please stop.
Please stop being a loud sound in my ear.
Don't hit snooze on your brothers and sisters and
especially on God. Don't snooze God out of your
life. It's loud for a reason.
Verses 7 to 11, this is the offerings for the Day of
Atonement. This is Yom Kippur.
This is the most important day of the year.
This hands down the most important day of the year for
Israel. On this day, they were to take
three actions. Number one, they are to afflict
yourselves. Like what?
Afflict yourselves like what does that mean?
Other translations have humble yourselves or deny yourselves.
Most scholars take this to mean to fast from food.
I think that's what they were doing.
They would fast from food on this day.
That's what that means, I believe.
Do no work at all. So not just occupational work,
but all work was deceased. So just like the Sabbath, no
work on the Day of Atonement and #3 they are to make offerings.
The offerings are the exact same as the Feast of Trumpets.
Now, what was the purpose of Yom Kippur?
God said in Leviticus 1630 For on this day shall atonement be
made for you, to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the
Lord from all your sins on this day and only this day.
One day a year the high priest would enter the holy of Holies,
and he would make atonement for all the people for all their
sins. Now you remember, well then why
did they need this? I mean, why do they need this
day of all these other sacrifices are being made?
If they're making a daily offering, a Sabbath offering, a
monthly offering, the feast, they're doing all these other
things, why do why do they need Yom Kippur?
Why do they need this? Writes this.
The underlying reason for the day was that the other offerings
for sin could not provide for unknown or secret sins.
Because of such sins, the sanctuary, the land, and the
nation remained ritually unclean.
The Day of Atonement was instituted by God for the
complete atonement of all sin. On this day, God would atone for
all the things that were secret. Secret to others, even maybe
secret to yourself that you're not even aware that you had done
this or thought this or said this.
I've called this day the Day of Atonement, the Good Friday of
the Old Testament. Yom Kippur is a type type.
It points us to the true Day of Atonement, the death of Jesus
Christ. The author of Hebrews writes,
When Christ appeared as a high priest through the greater and
more perfect tent, 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.
Hebrews, 911 to 12. You see, in the Old Testament
they had to make these offerings every day, every week, every
month, every year. We make none of them.
We make none of them because Jesus's blood is sufficient.
It is sufficient. You imagine standing before a
judge. Our clothes are stained.
We're in so much debt that we can't even pay the parking fee
of the courthouse. We are guilty of a long, long
rap sheet of crimes. And our smell is offensive to
the courtroom. And the judge says one word and
our stains are removed. Our debt is paid, our guilt is
forgiven and is washed clean. You see, our great High Priest
Jesus Christ entered the true Holy of Holies, and he shed His
blood, and he made atonement for every single sin we have ever
committed. Or He is a sacrifice far better
than bulls and Rams. Last section, it's a long one.
It's the Feast of Booths. This is the last and most
significant feast that that we're going to look at the Feast
of Booths on the 15th day of the 7th month.
So this is 14 days after the Feast of Trumpets and five days
after Yom Kippur. They were to do no occupational
work. They were to keep this feast for
seven days. The offerings for this feast are
a lot. For the first seven days, each
day, every day, for seven days in a row, they're to offer two
Rams, 14 male lambs and 1 male goat.
On the first day they are to offer in addition 13 bulls, the
second day 12 bulls, the third day 11 bulls and on and on.
On the 8th day, they're to offer one bull, 1 Ram, 7 milligrams
and one goat and the same as all the other feast.
Now, if you count all of that up, and I don't know how people
count because when I was counting I got like I got a #1
commentator got a different number, another coming to get a
different number. And I'm like, man, I guess like
we didn't all of us, you know, Pastor, we the major in math.
I guess because I don't this is the number I got.
You count all this up one bulls. This is just for the piece of
booths, 71 bulls, 15 Rams, 105 male lambs and eight goats.
That's a lot over one week. Now, what was the purpose of
this? What was the purpose of the
Feast of Booths? God says in Leviticus 2340 to
43. You shall take on the first day
the fruit of the splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and bows
of leafy trees and willows of the brook.
You shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days, and
you shall dwell in booths for seven days.
All native Israelites shall dwell in booths that your
generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in
booths. When I brought them out of the
land of Egypt, they would literally take leaves, like big,
huge palm leaves and they would build a little booth and they
would live in it for a whole week.
You imagine if, if, if we were required to live in like a man
made tent for a whole week, like imagine as a church, we'd have,
I think Laura might be happy. But like imagine if we had
mandatory camping once a week or like every year like that, Like
I require, if you're going to be a member of this church, you're
going camping every year for once a week, right?
Why did they do this? Why did God have them do this?
Why did God require them to dwell in these booths?
What were they supposed to learn by this?
They were supposed to learn what the Israelites were were
supposed to learn in the wilderness and didn't.
They were supposed to learn the same thing that Moses did learn
and wrote about in the very first verse of Psalm 90?
Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all
generations. Our dwelling place is not our
homes, it is the Lord. Our food is not fish and
cucumbers and melons and leeks, it is the Lord.
Our water does not come from the fresh springs, it is from the
Lord. Our provision is not manna and
quail from heaven, but the Lord God is our dwelling place.
He is our home. As we close, I want to remind
all of you that they have not yet conquered the promised land.
When God gives all these offerings, they they haven't
even started conquering the promised land yet.
God says in verse 39, these you shall offer to the Lord at your
appointed feasts. Now here's the question I have.
Where are they going to get all these animals?
I was thinking like, how many is this?
If you count up all these animals and these two chapters,
Again, the math did not match any of the commentators I had,
but neither did they match each other, so I don't know who's
correct. Here's the math I came up with.
1051 male lambs every year, 101 bulls every year, 31 Rams every
year, and 24 goats every year. That is not to mention more than
one ton of flour and 1000 bottles of oil and wine.
And this is not even all the sacrifices.
This is just two chapters worth. Where are they going to get that
many animals, oil, flour and wine?
God, God is going to give it to them.
If God required this much every year from them, it means that
God would be faithful to provide them this much every year and
more. You see, I know many of you are
on a season of uncertainty. Many of you are in a season
right now where you know what the future holds.
You would love to know what the future holds.
If you could have a crystal ball, man, that would be a gift.
You're in a season of uncertainty.
So with Israelites, so with Israelites.
But just as the Israelites can look at this blood stained altar
and be reminded every day that God is faithful to provide for
us, we too look at a blood stained cross and are reminded
God is faithful to provide for us.
He will provide for you. Let's pray.