For a time I was committed to a Bible reading program and one day, the book for the day was Leviticus. I knew that it was full of details about the construction of the tabernacle, the guidelines regarding making sacrifices and the specifics about clothing of the priests. What could I ever learn for this modern age from a book of rules? One of my father’s words of wisdom was, “Make your words sweet, someday you may have to eat them.” After reading just a few chapters of Leviticus, I needed to pop a mint into my mouth to help get rid of the bitter taste of unkind words that I had thought about this book. It turned out that the revelations I received from it changed a paradigm in my life drastically..
The book starts out with a great attention-getter - sin and sacrifices. Great uplifting subject to start the day. I read very quickly from the
Amplified Bible until chapter 6:6.”And he shall bring to the priest, his trespass or guilt offering to the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock; valued by you to the amount of his trespass; 7 And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for anything of all that he may have done by which he has become guilty, 8 And the Lord said to Moses 9 Command Aaron and his sons saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: The burnt offering shall remain on the altar all night until morning; the fire shall be kept burning on the altar. 10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and put his linen breeches on his body, and take up the ashes of what the fire has consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and put them beside the altar. 11 And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place.”
I don’t know what happened, but in my imagination, I was there. I saw myself kneeling down at the pile of ashes, scooping up handsful of tiny particles that were clinging to every part of me. I was a mess. Then I heard gentle, non-condemning words in my heart. “You are trying to reconstruct the very sacrifice that was consumed for your sin. It isn’t there anymore.” You see, more times than I wish to admit, I have been plagued by things I have done in the past, blatant obvious sins and things done in total stupidity. Regrets of the past can haunt and destroy all hope for the future. What I have done was listen to the taunts of the one who wants to kill, steal, and destroy, leave the confines of the camp - a place of security, protection and safety, only to pursue the fathom dream of changing my past. How utterly futile and stupid is that?
For days, I couldn’t read any more. I wasn’t stuck at a pile of ashes, but bathed in the fact that my sin and regrets were consumed. I needed to start thinking differently. The basket of the past can be pretty heavy and I had been carrying it for years. It was a basket of things that no longer existed - they only existed in my mind. .
Ten more chapters of sin and sacrifice until I got to 16:21.
“ And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the Israelites, and all their transgressions, all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat (the sin bearer), and send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is timely (ready, fit). 22 The goat shall bear upon himself all their iniquities, carrying them to a land cut off (a land of forgetfulness and separation, not inhabited)! And the man leading it shall let the goat go in the wilderness.”
The picture and evidence of the forgiveness and removal of sin is far more complex for one animal to accomplish. One died and the other was sent away. Jesus’ death fulfilled both. John the Baptist quoted in John 1:29 ”There is the lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world.” And Psalm 103:12 states, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
What happened during the time of reading Leviticus was that God found a question in my heart that I wasn’t even asking and shot a laser beam of His amazing light into the darkness of secrecy and exposed lies that I was believing - lies that said Jesus had died for my sins, but there was still enough life in them to rear their ugly heads every now and then. The truth is that the ashes are proof of their destruction and the scapegoat has removed them, never to be seen again. Whenever anything raises its ugly head to persuade me to leave the camp of safety and protection, I can pull out handcuffs from my back pocket, place one of the cuffs around the neck of the perpetrator, drag it to the cross and place the other cuff around the trunk of the tree. 2 Corinthians 10:5 states, “We lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.”
What is your Leviticus?
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