Good morning, everyone. Carole, thank you. Nothing like a little bit of tea in the morning. So don't blame me for the caffeine fix up here, but I have been drinking a little bit of tea in here, but that's not what was behind all of that.
I think Mary must have been a Starbucks or something. All right, let's look to the Lord for a moment in prayer. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us together this morning. Thank you, we can approach the God of this universe as his children, for those of us who know him.
Thank you, this is all possible through our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Father, we come this morning, and we want to learn of him. We want to learn more of him, so that we may be more like him. And I pray that you would guide us.
I pray that you would guide as I speak this passage, that it would not be just words from me, Lord, but that your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts. That you would open up your word to our hearts and our minds and our eyes in a fresh way, that we may desire the things of God and walk with your Son, the Lord Jesus, amen. I'm gonna ask permission to just turn this a little bit so I can see it. There.
We're continuing on with our little series that started some time ago, back sometime last year, on the Master theme of the Bible. And today I know I made a mistake. It's not Exodus 12, it's actually Leviticus chapter 16. So that's what happens, I'm a great recycler, but I'm not a great editor when it comes to some of this stuff.
So I'm meant to change that to Leviticus chapter 16. So if you have your Bible, if you open it to Leviticus chapter 16 and we're gonna spend our time there, I'm not gonna read the whole passage, I'm just rather I'm going to read it as we go through it. We will go through the entire passage this morning. It's a long chapter of 34 verses.
Sometimes my dear friend and brother, Emey accuses me of being old brethren. I've taught him some good songs that John, you and I, and Bob and birth that we've grown up with and love them. And he has come to love them too. When I see the blood, I will pass over you things like that.
And he always says, ah, old brethren, we're going back to old brethren. So when you take a passage like Leviticus chapter 16 and you're gonna dig into it and kind of get into it and kind of get into some of this stuff, I'm going old brethren today. So I will make good on his accusations of me being old brethren. So Leviticus chapter 16, and this series based primarily on this book that I read through and I've kind of been reading through it again.
And each time I prepare a message, I go back and I Leviticus, yeah, I still wear it was. Each time I go back to it, I read through it and I glean a little more from it. It's called The Master theme of the Bible. It's out of print, it's by Jason Lobachter.
If you can get your hands on a copy of it, I would recommend you do. And as I say each time, don't ask me for mine, I'm not allowed to lend it. So it's pages are falling out. It actually fell on the floor, the glue all broken.
It went all over the place last time I was preparing. So it's a great little book. I've actually got it held together with a big paperclip now. So it's kind of one that I really enjoy.
So in this part, let's recap where we've been. First of all, this is how the theme of the Lamb of God is seen as kind of like a bloodline through the whole of scripture. It starts back in Genesis and it will end in Revelation, the whole of scripture is taken up points to the Lamb of God. And if you go back to Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, right after a man and his wife had sinned, a promise was made that a rescuer would come, one who would crush the head of the one who deceived Eve into the sin and this mess and now the coronavirus that we now find ourselves in.
So in Genesis chapter 3, 15, the first promise that someone was coming to rescue and deliver us. And then we looked further in Genesis chapter 4 when the sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, made offerings to God. If you remember that, Cain came with a vegetable tray and God said, not what I'm looking for. And Abel Cain and sacrificed an animal and God was pleased with that.
And he told Cain, and this is important. He told Cain, if you do well, I will be pleased with you. He gave him an opportunity to repent. Rather than do that, he chose to murder his brother.
And we've been in that mess ever since. And then in Genesis chapter 22, if you remember, God promised Abraham a son and in your seed, seed, single, all the earth, all the people of the earth will be blessed. And then God said, I'll take that son that you have, that promised one, I want to build an altar, a Mount Moriah and sacrifice that son. And on the way up to the mountain, the son said, dead, I see wood, I see fire, where's the lamb?
And Abraham says, God will provide himself a lamb. And just as Abraham was a boat, the slave, his son on the altar, as God had directed him, God said, stop, hold it. The substitutionary lamb is caught in a thicket over there. Sacrifice him in his place.
And then the last time we looked at a lamb who is slain for a family. So in Exodus, the lamb was taken, this is at the Passover. The lamb was taken, the lamb was brought up by the family for 10 days, and then slain, and the blood was applied to the doorposts and the lintel of the house, and the angel of death that was going to pass over all the land, killing all the firstborn, would pass over that home. And so we see a lamb, the requirement that the lamb was slain.
Today we'll look at a lamb for a tome, now I say lamb, but really it's a goat in this. And it's kind of interchangeable in some places that there are two goats that are given to represent one lamb. It's kind of different that we're going to be talking about goats, but they are in the same essence put in a picture of a lamb. So the two of them represent the one.
There are not, there's never two lambs, that's the interesting thing. There's only one lamb, always. But in this case, there are two goats that represent one lamb. And Backster in his book does a pretty good job of describing why that picture is given here.
So I'm not going to get into that, because then I'd be really old brethren. I'd be old Scottish brethren at that point in time, so that would not be good. So first we have a lamb that is slain, a lamb for an individual, a lamb for a family, and now we're coming to a lamb for a nation. So you see it developing as you go along.
I have a question. Have you ever longed for forgiveness? Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have just longed for forgiveness from someone? I know I have made the mistake before of not forgiving someone.
And it was devastating to me when it came to a point where the person later died and I left that account open. But I also have found myself before, pretty much in tears, when I asked somebody, and I apologize, I said, will you forgive me? And they looked at me and said, are you done? There's the door, see you later.
And I remember, it crushed me, it was very, very difficult. There was something in us that desires to be forgiven when we've done wrong. There was something in us that desires that we can be forgiven of our wrongs. That's what sin will do.
It weighs us down, it's heavy. I know when I came to Christ, if nothing else, I felt I'm not 100 pounds lighter, I'm a million pounds lighter. Like this burden has been taken off of me because it's been forgiven. You see, what we're gonna look at today is called the Day of Atonement.
You see, Jesus knew that our greatest need was forgiveness. Somebody mentioned this morning if you did a study of Jesus' words on the cross or even on the way to the cross. But the very first thing he said when he went to the cross and was nailed there, anybody helped me, tell me. Father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing.
Father forgive them. He knew the greatest need of the people gathered around. Even the ones that whipped him, spit on him, put the thorns on his head, mocked him, laughed at him, nailed him to a cross and dropped it in a socket. He knew their greatest need was not to be struck down by a holy God.
Their greatest need was to be forgiven other since. And that's why he stayed there. That's why he stayed on that cross. That's in Luke chapter 23, 34.
Our greatest need is forgiveness. So this Day of Atonement that we will look at today is a kind of a once a year forgiveness that happened in Israel. So the Day of Atonement is called Yom Kippur. Some say Yom Kippur, but it's not Kippur, it's Kippur.
It's the word. Two words, Yom. So when you read in Genesis about, and there was day and night, the first day, the word there is Yom, it's just the Hebrew word for day. And Kippur means cover, to cover.
So it's a day of covering. It's a time in the Old Testament when sins were covered, but they were not removed. You see Hebrews chapter 10 verse four says, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Oh, there it is right there, I put the verse up.
In those sacrifices, there was a reminder of sin every year. Just a reminder every year of my sin as I watched a lamb or a goat or a bull, whatever it might have been, being slain. Every time I saw that happen, it reminded me of my sin, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. You see, the Old Testament ritual in Yom Kippur and Day of Atonement is kind of like a credit card.
That's why I put those pictures up there. I'm not trying to hack into G-Rayman's accounts. Somehow I've just given both of those wallet. But so a credit card.
Now I have a credit card. And I like to collect points on my credit card. So I use it a lot to collect points. Checked out the balance yesterday and they were gone.
But anyway, the thing with a credit card is, for instance, Ultramar comes, fills my tank, leaves me a slip. I pay that bill while my credit card. Is the bill paid? No.
No, I still owe that $400 somewhere. It's on my credit card statement with that comes a month later. So it's not done. But I also have, and it looks just like that.
I don't even with my name and my numbers on it, a debit card. So if I were to take my debit card and go to Starbucks and get a coffee and say, here's my debit card. Is that bill paid? Yes.
Because what's in my account goes on the debit card. And it's paid. It's paid in full because the money is in my account to do it. You see, in the Old Testament, when you head your sins just kind of covered over, it was like a credit card.
Your sins were covered over. But you start right back again. And it's there. And it's there.
And they're still there. They're not gone. They're there. They've just been covered over.
But you see, when Jesus died for us, He used the debit card. He put it in our account to pay it off. It's gone. And we're free.
The bill has been totally paid by Jesus' blood. The blood of a bull, the blood of a goat, the blood of a sheep, would only act as a credit card and cover it over for a time. And then you're right back at it. You have to come back a year later.
And at home for your sins again. But Jesus paid with the debit card once for all. And the bill was paid. And it's wiped out, put it in the shredder, and gone away.
That's the difference. You see, this feast that they're having, Yom Kippur. It was practiced once a year. It's an anticipation of the Lamb of God who was coming to take away the sins of the world, not to cover the sins of the world, but to take them completely away.
Jesus Christ did what the law could never do with rituals. He removes the stain of sin from individuals who believe on him. He takes it away. These aren't my three points, but there are three preparations.
I only have one point, actually, today. It's called the day of atonement. But there are three preparations that we'll see here. Preparation of the priests, the preparation of the place, the temple, and the preparation of the people from 20 to 34.
So let's start reading here in verses one to two. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of his two sons, Aaron, when they offered profane fire before the Lord and died. And the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron, your brother, not to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the earth. Unless he died, for I will appear in a cloud above the mercy seat.
You see, Aaron's sons had, I don't want to get into this too much, because I look at Aaron, I think, man, the great men of the Bible of books have been written about. And I don't know of any books written about Aaron. Probably there is, and I just haven't seen them. But I think of a man like Aaron, here, his two sons were killed because they offended the Lord with strange profane fire.
And Aaron still carries on as a priest. What would that take? That would be a difficult thing to see the Lord strike your two sons dead in a moment because of their actions. And yet you have a desire to carry on and serve God.
What a man to admire, what a man to look and wonder what was in Aaron that caused him to continue to go on. So anyway, at this point in time, an offering, a bull offering was made for Aaron. This is in verses three through six. A bull offering made for Aaron and his family, first of all, before he can come into the presence of the Lord.
So here we have the preparation of the priest. Aaron is a priest and he's going to come in, but he can't just walk right in. We sing boldly, I approach, you could not boldly approach. Back then, you could not boldly approach.
You had to be prepared. He had to have his sin removed and an offering be made for him before he could approach God. So let's carry on. We're looking for seven.
In verse seven, it says, he shall take two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. The scapegoat is called Azaleel, I believe is the word. It's that's used in some versions, Azaleel.
So the scapegoat. So we have here, there are two goats. He cast these, Azazel, that's what it is, Azazel. Sorry.
Azazel is, it says one for the Lord, one for Azazel. And your version might say that. So he kind of has these poli dice, I guess. And he throws these dice and it decides which goat is going where?
One goat is for the Lord, is marked for the Lord. The other one for a scapegoat. Azazel is translated as scapegoat. And Azazel is also a place in the wilderness, kind of a precipice in the entrance to the desert.
And that goat was going to go and bear this people sins away into the wilderness. And we'll talk about that a little further. So let's look at verses 9 and 10. Verses 9 and 10.
And Aaron shall bring the goat, which the Lord's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. That goat will be put to death. That will be offered as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make a tome upon it and let it go as a scapegoat into the wilderness.
So it's interesting because tradition says that as this goat went out into the wilderness, and that's a kind of a picture of the spot where it would go into the wilderness. And as that goat was taken and sent out into the wilderness, tradition says that there were people stationed all along because you couldn't see from back at the temple what was going on. So the guy would release the goat, and he would run into the wilderness, and he'd watch, and he'd watch. And he'd watch.
No, the wilderness is a big, flat place. So it would be a long, long time. And the goat would go and he'd see him way off in the distance. And then all of a sudden he's out of sight.
And he turned and he'd say, he's gone. He's out of sight. Our sins are gone. And the next guy would turn to the next guy goes, he's gone.
Let them know. All the way back. And then it would be a big celebration back at the temple, because they all understood this goat is gone, and with him are sins of gone with him. Very interesting how this was set up.
And there was no celebration at Yom Kippur. But at this point in time, there was rejoicing that the sins were gone with this goat. Let's look in the next few verses, verses 11 to 14. And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself and make a ton for himself, and for his house and shall kill the bull as a sin offering, which is for himself.
Then he shall take a sensor full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord, and with his hands full of sweet incense beat and fine bring it inside the veil. And he shall put incense on the fire before the Lord, to the cloud of incense, make cover the mercy seat that is on the testimony lest he die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side. And before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
Now the mercy seat is quite interesting. The mercy seat was found on the Ark of the Covenant. I guess you can kind of see that. This is the Ark of the Covenant right here.
The mercy seat is this kind of slab covering on the top. The two angels, the two cherubim, would sit with their wings over and they would look down upon this slab that was on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Now does anybody remember what was inside the Ark of the Covenant? What was that?
Tablets, yes, the law. Manah, right. And if you missed that, shame on you because it's right there on the picture. I just realized behind me.
So here are these angels, these two cherub, cherubim. And they're over this mercy seat like this, or this cover of the Ark of the Covenant. And they're looking down on it. And underneath that cover is the law.
The very law that condemns us. The very law that every person in Israel broke. The very law that was condemning every single one of them as a sinner. In fact, it's more of a judgment seat when you look at it that way, isn't it?
They're looking down over this tablet and underneath is everything points to everything vile about the human condition. Now shall not kill. Now shall have no other gods before me. Now shall not commit adultery.
Now shall so on and so on. It's all there. And here's these two angels, golden angels. And they're looking down and they're looking on this covering.
And underneath it is the very law that man had broken. But something different happened. You see, when he came in with blood and sprinkled blood on that mercy seat, as the priest did seven times, he became the mercy seat. It went from a seat of judgment to a seat of mercy because now those angels are looking down through the blood of atonement.
The law has no more impact because it's covered now with the blood of the sacrifice. You see, back to give you some background here when the children of Israel were in the wilderness. And it says that Moses would meet with the Lord face to face as a man would meet with his friend. What kind of relationship with that have been?
To be able to just chat with God, to speak with him. And I'm getting really mixed up in where my slides are, okay. So Moses said at one point in time, all right, God, since we chat like this, let me see your glory. God said, you can't.
If you saw that, you would no longer live. You would die immediately. So Moses, God said, all right, I'll tell you what, I'll take you up to a mountain, put you in the cleft of a rock. I'll cover you there with my hand and I'll pass by.
And you can see the kind of afterglow of when I go by. He spoke to Moses kind of through this fog. So it's kind of like that in the holy of holies. The holy of holies was kind of a dark place where a cloud sat down where God was, his presence was in the holy of holies.
And you just didn't come busting in. You just rip the curtain open and walk in and say, hey, God, I'm here to talk. That didn't happen. You'd be struck dead.
In fact, the priest in case he made that kind of a mistake, they say they had a rope tied around his ankle because you couldn't go in and pull him out because the presence of God was there. If all of a sudden the bellstopper hanging on the bottom of his garment, uh oh, he's not moving, something's wrong, pull the rope and they pull his body out. You see, that's the way people went to the presence of God at that time. But then things changed.
When the blood was offered on the mercy seat, God was now able to forgive those sins at that point in time. So the blood's applied to the mercy seat and the term for this that we see in the New Testament is propreciation. It means atoning sacrifice. Or if I really boil it down to really something simple, it means satisfaction.
It means satisfaction from God's point of view. So here is an atoning sacrifice is made. The priest comes in, he offers the sacrifice. The blood is sprinkled and it's sprinkled seven times.
I read something this week. This makes me very old rather than when I say this now, you may be cause I got into all kinds of stuff that were types and pictures and so on. But it's interesting. It says he sprinkled the blood seven times.
Okay, that's pretty cool. Seven, perfect number. From what I understand of biblical numerology. How many wounds did the Lord Jesus have?
How many wounds did he bleed from? Well, he had a crown of thorns on his head. That's one. He had a Roman whip that tore his back.
That's two. He had two spikes, one through each hand. That's three and four. His two feet, there's five and six.
And then a spear in his side. Blood flowed from seven directions in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's this priest coming in. I know it's a picture.
I know it's just a type, okay? But I don't want to get hung up on it. But I thought it was really cool when I read this. He comes in and he sprinkles the blood seven times on this mercy seat.
Our Lord Jesus was pierced through in some way or another in seven different places on his body that his blood flowed for you and I. So this blood splattered slab flanked by two angels. And that reminds me when I go to the book of Matthew and the women come in and they find the tomb of Jesus. The door is open.
The stones rolled away and they come in and it's empty. And what do they see? Two angels, where are they? They're sitting on the slab, the soaked slab in the tomb where Jesus Christ had lain before and he's gone.
It's almost like that's a mercy seat, a picture, isn't it? Here's this slab soaked in the blood of the Savior and an angel on each end looking down saying, he's not here, he's risen. Why seek the living among the dead? Our mercy seats.
In fact, Jesus Christ is our mercy seat. The word, if you look up the word for mercy seat, Greek, it's Halayastron and it means mercy seat. If you read this passage in Leviticus, chapter 16, in the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament, that is the word that is used here. And it's a word that describes our Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm gonna carry on here. Verse 15 and 16. Then he should kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, bring us blood inside the veil, do with that blood what he did with the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. So he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions for all their sin.
And so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness. So two goats, one is killed and it's a reminder. It's significant. The wages of sin is death.
One goat dies, why? Because of sin, because of their sin. Sin brings death. The wages of sin is death from in six verse 23.
It signifies that blood must be shed in order for forgiveness. There is no other way without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. And it reminds them as they see this goat, put the death of the gravity of their sin. And then one goat is set free.
It's a reminder of life. If we confess our sins, it says, in 1 John chapter 1 verse 9, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. The two goats, one offered in death for sin, one to carry our sins away. Let's continue to read.
Verse 17, there shall be no man in the tabernacle of meeting when he goes in to make atonement in the holy place until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself, for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel. And he should go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar and all around. Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it and consecrate it from uncleanness of the children of Israel. When he has made an end of a toning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, he shall bring the live goat, Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and he shall send it away in the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.
The goat shall bear on itself all the iniquities of all to an uninhabited land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. So here's this one man, the priest, the high priest, all by himself, puts his hand on the live goat, confesses the sins of all the children of Israel. I don't know what he said or how he said it or whatever it did, I'm sure that must have taken a long time. If you brought a goat in here and wanted to confess my sins on its head, well get ready, because you got a long, long time to do that.
And he confessed, I'm sure he packaged them somehow because he didn't stay there forever because you would have to, but he pronounced all the sins on this goat and he sent it as far away as it could go and it's completely out of sight. Do you know what that reminds me of when I hear that? Psalm 103. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.
He has removed our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west. Now I've done this illustration before just in case you've forgotten how it works. West is that way, right? That west?
Yeah, okay. So let's assume that in west, east, that's north, okay. So, right? Or north, north, yeah.
So I'm gonna walk north. I'm gonna walk north and I'm gonna keep going north. Do I meet south at some point? Yes, where?
At the north pole. Thank you, Stephen, teacher. So when you get to the north pole, everything from there, all directions are what? South.
And then you keep walking and you walk south. And then what happens when you get to the south pole? Where do you go? North.
All right. So I decide I'm going to go east. That way, sort of. So when I start going east and I keep walking and walking and walking, where do I go?
Okay. So when do I start going west? Right, I never do. So you see, I'm glad David didn't write as far as the north is from the south.
So far as you removed our sins from me. Because every time I came to the south pole, I would be in bondage again. Because I'd meet up with my sins one more time. But you see, because they've been removed as far as the east is from the west, I will never meet up with them again.
They're behind me. I keep going. They're always going to be behind me. They will always be in the west.
West is sinful. It's a picture of sin. So that's where they are. And I keep walking east.
I will never, ever, ever catch up with them. They will always be west of me. But if it was north and south, every time I went around, I'm gonna meet up with my sin again. I'm so happy that that that that verse is as far as the east is from the west.
They've been doing awful lot of stuff to write something like that. He was inspired by God. The earth is round, just so you know. And then you read in Jeremiah, you read this verse about this new covenant.
Jeremiah predicts this new covenant that's coming. So I put the verses up there. But this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel. After those days says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God and they will be my people. They shall be my people. No more shall each, shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know the Lord. John, are you looking forward that day?
You don't have to get down to tell people to tell people, know the Lord. Warren, when everybody knows the Lord. Spring garden road, you walk down and everybody knows the Lord. You imagine?
No, not today. But it says, know the Lord and they will know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. I read a verse this morning from Micah where it says they've been cast into the depths of the sea.
Jesus Christ is our sin offering. He was the goat that was slain for our sins. Like that goat that was slain for the sins. Jesus Christ is our scapegoat.
He has taken our sins out of sight. He has removed them and taken them away. You know there's that song that we, we, but other people sing about Santa Christmas time. He makes a list and he checks it twice and tries to find out who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town. You know what's interesting? When Jesus forgives you of your sins, he doesn't keep a list. He doesn't check it twice.
He wipes the whole list out. He destroys it. He shreds it. Colossians chapter two verses 13 and 14.
It says, and you being dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirement that was against us, which was contrary to us. He has taken it out of the way, having it nailed to his cross. Those things that list, that naughty list, is gone. Never to rise again.
He has taken it away with the blood of his cross. We're in the homestretch here. Then Aaron shall come into the tabernacle meeting. He shall take off the linen garments, which he's put on, went into the holy place, and she'll leave them there.
And he shall wash his body with water in the holy place and put on his garments. And the priest who was anointed and consecrated to minister as a priest in his father's place shall make a tonement. Did I go to the right place? Yeah, okay.
The priest shall make a tonement and put on linen clothes and the holy garments. And he shall make a tonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make a tonement for the tabernacle meeting and for the altar, and he shall make a tonement for priests, for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. Then this shall be an everlasting statute for you and make a tonement for the children of Israel and all their sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses.
There are two festivals, and they're close together. One is Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. And then about 10 days later is the day of atonement. And in between are supposed to be days of repentance.
Now, having grown up in Cape Breton, my best friend was Jewish. I spent a lot of time at their home. I went to a lot of their stuff that they did. And the one time of the year that I found was a drag, I really liked going to, if I went to Shabbat, had sat us dinner with them.
I always enjoyed that. It was great because it was a good meal. It was a good book. And then if you went to E Passover, that was an amazing time all evening long.
It just took and there was little games and there was all kinds of stuff that went on and so on. And even Rosh Hashanah was kind of fun. It was a New Year celebration and so on. And then Hanukai, there was meals, there was little gifts.
It was all kinds of stuff like that. But the one thing that I found was a real drag was Yom Kippur. They weren't allowed to drive the car. They weren't allowed to do any work.
They weren't allowed to have any fun. Nothing. I'm thinking, this is a holiday? Are you kidding me?
It doesn't seem like a holiday man, you're just bummed out. It's a drag. But you see, it's a day that they reflect on their sins. It's a day that they reflect on their need for repentance.
It's a day that they reflect on, I need to have my sins taken care of. And you see, when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, that stopped. They have not sacrificed a goat and sent a goat into the wilderness since 70 AD when that stopped. And here they are thinking, what can wash away my sin, just like we sang this morning?
What can make me whole again? And without accepting the blood of Jesus Christ, the answer is, you're a luck. There's nothing. You can't do that yourself.
You see, the scriptures say in Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 22, and again, this was written by an unknown author to Jewish people. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And if you don't accept the blood of Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter whether you're Jewish, whether you're Catholic, whether you're Presbyterian, whether you're atheist, whether you're whatever. If you don't accept that the blood has been shed to atone for your sins, get used to your sins.
They're not going anywhere. You're stuck, and you will be judged for those sins. And that's why it's such a solemn time. You come around and it's solemn.
And so, Judaism really took two turns. You had Paul proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus is the one who was the atoning sacrifice. And you know what?
It only happened once for all. We had a young Kippur on that mountain in Calvary. One day, one young Kippur, the last one. That's the last one you need.
But then there was this other rabbi at the time. His name is Johann Ben Zekie. And he told the people, okay, yeah, I saw the temple come down. I saw it being destroyed.
This is way back. And I saw that. So what you need to do, you know, good works. Good works are just as good as a sacrifice of atonement.
So you spend those 10 days between the New Year and Rosh Hashanah, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. You spend those 10 days doing benevolent works. And God will be satisfied. I'm sorry, but the Bible does not say that.
It says that those good works, any righteousness of my own, is like a filthy rag. I had to clean something up the other day. And I looked and I grabbed a cloth. It was in my shop and I thought, that's useless, chuck it in the garbage.
That's what God does to our righteousnesses. The stuff that we think is good. God looks like I can't clean anything up with this. It's stained with sin.
The problem is, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. You cannot work your way to heaven. No matter how good those works are, no matter how kind you are. I know a lot of people who are very kind and do a lot of good things.
But sadly, if they have not had their sins atone for, they will go to hell. The scriptures are very, very clear. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10, Jesus is the one who was sacrificed once for all. Rosh Hashanah, I'm sorry, Yom Kippur, I can't make all this mixed up.
Yom Kippur happened one final time on Mount Calvary, where two things happened there. A sacrifice that satisfied God was made on that cross by a sinless, spotless Lamb of God. And the second thing that happened was that same one took our sins away and bore them away, never to return again. And God is satisfied with that.
He was both the sacrificial goat and the scapegoat. He has carried our sins away and he has paid the price that was necessary. And you can be free. It says at the very end of this, that this will afflict your souls.
You shall afflict your souls and do no work at all, which is completely opposite to what this rabbi teaches. Afflicting your souls, fasting, morning for their sin, preparing for the festival, a solemn time. And you take a one of the world as coins that I got up there. You see, in, it's a pretty neat thing that I've come across.
But in, and I remember a little bit from my own roots, but in the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, they used to have what they call communion tokens. Now you didn't have to bring in a communion token this morning when you came here. But in the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, this is where they started, that in a week ahead of communion, in the week leading up to communion, you would visit with the elders, you would meet with them and you would talk and you would perhaps confess your sins and perhaps you did that privately, I don't know, but there would be a time of prayer, there would be a time of getting yourself prepared for the communion that was coming up. So, and when you did that, you got a token.
In fact, that little square one, rectangular shaped one, is Sydney Mines Presbyterian Church. That's here. So we carried on over here when the Scots came over from Scotland. Now, when I first came to the Lord, I attended the Presbyterian Church.
That's where I went for about three or two and a half years. And I remember that starting, like the Wednesday before, communion was gonna be on Sunday, they had what they called the preparation service, where you would come in and you would reflect and you would think and you would clear your account with God, so to say, you would confess your sin, you would get your heart prepared before you came to communion. And you see, the scriptures tell us, let each man examine himself before we come to communion. Be prepared, Franky McDonald, the weatherman from Capetrot and be prepared.
Be prepared when you come. Read the scriptures beforehand, meditate, think of what the Lord would have you think on when you're here. It's a solemn time. And the people were told to be prepared to come, to meet with the Lord.
I jumped ahead of myself, so, okay, finally. So what about you? So here we are, okay, I just told you a story of something that happened, I don't know, roughly what? 4,500 years ago?
It's 2021, North Republic, with Nova Scotia. What about me? What's this got to do with me? The first question I have to ask, are you still trying to atone for your own sin?
Are you still trying to work your way to heaven? You see, are you hoping to work your way to heaven and find salvation? Part of that whole rabbi thing that he said was, you know, you do your good deeds and God will look at those and look at your bad deeds and, you know what? If the good ones are better, then it'll weigh up that's more fictitious than Santa Claus.
It really is, it's a made up story, it won't work. It's just dead air, it's fake news. You cannot work your way to heaven, the payment has been made, the blood has been shed on the cross, the debit card has been applied to your account. Never to come up again, Jesus Christ is both a mercy seat and the scapegoat on your behalf.
And by believing in him and trusting nothing else, nothing else, you can be free and forgiven of all of your sin for eternity. Father, thank you, this morning. To become here, we can rejoice in our sins forgiven. Father, we thank you for such a powerful illustration.
In this Old Testament temple, thank you, you have provided a Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. You have taken our sins, you have put them behind your back, you've cast them into the sea of your forgetfulness, into the depths of the sea. Never to come up again. Lord, if there's some soul here who has never come to that realization, who has never accepted Jesus Christ as the only way and they're still trying to work their way to heaven, Father, and press on them, I pray, it will not work, there is only one way.
And that's through the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid with his own blood to take away our sins on the mercy seat of Calvary. Thank you for sending your Son. Thank you for such a great salvation.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.