Leviticus 3, 7:11-21 (19:5-8), 7:28-36, 17:1-7, Lev. 4 (Num. 15:22-28), 5:1-13, 6:24-30, Num. 15:29-31
Ryan: I guess it has been building up inside me for several days, but what just hit me today is the sheer volume of blood involved in the worship of God. I think if we had a time machine and were able to go back and visit the Tabernacle (especially just before the first Temple was built, since it would have been in use for a long time by that point), I believe we would be utterly disgusted by the amount of blood everywhere. They sprinkled blood on the altar, on the horns of the altar, on the altar of incense, before the curtain, behind the curtain, on the mercy seat, poured all the excess down the base of the altar, and as we learned just two days ago, sprinkled it on the Tent of Meeting itself (Lev. 16:15-17). I won’t embed the video below, but if you’ve never seed a video of a livestock slaughterhouse, you might just Google it to get that experience. Think about how many bulls, rams, lambs, doves, etc. that were sacrificed for various reasons by the Israelites, a group of around 1.5 million people. If you extrapolate that number to the world’s population today (over 6 billion), you can see why God knew that this original plan of sacrifices and offerings was not sustainable. Thank you, Lord, for sending Your Son to the earth to be our sacrifice as well as our High Priest. “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11-12).
Samantha: It didn’t occur to me until reading Leviticus 5 today that even if we sin and don’t realize it we’re still guilty of that sin. At first that didn’t seem quite fair, since you didn’t know it was a sin and now you’re in trouble for it, but ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse. Ryan pointed out to me that even in the laws of the United States we practice something called ignorantia juris non excusat, or “ignorance of the law does not excuse.” If you think about it, if ignorance were allowed as an excuse then you could have criminals claiming ignorance to avoid punishment. This also assumes that the laws are clearly documented. In the Israelite’s case, the laws were painstakingly recorded in several places, and then new laws were added later on by the people to help them avoid breaking God’s original laws. The same is true for us today; there are sins that we are warned to avoid, and it is right there in the top selling book in history–the Holy Bible. But thanks be to God that we don’t have to go sacrifice every time we mess up now! Jesus’ blood already covers those who are saved. Speaking of Jesus’ blood (and in light of our reading today about the sequence of each sacrifice), here’s an amazing connection to ponder: “The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood” (Hebrews 13:11-12).
I wonder how much contribution we would get if lots of it got burnt up at the end of the service. Well, OK, we would get lots of checks
Seriously, it is a great privilege to be able to use our contribution.
[...] Samantha: Many people read about poor Uzzah and are angry with God and don’t understand why he was struck dead–after all, he was only trying to help. After studying about the tabernacle, the ark, and how holy God is, it should make perfect sense why Uzzah received the punishment he did. God was very specific on how the ark was to be transported; rings were constructed so that acacia wood poles could be used to carry it (Exodus 25:10-15). David and the Levites simply did not inquire of the Lord to learn the proper way to move the ark–they just did what they thought was best, regardless of the instructions. David took a shortcut by placing it on a cart instead of having Levites carry it. Uzzah’s death caused David to go back to the word of the Lord and read the instructions before finally moving the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 15). Today we have the benefit of having God’s word written down and easily accessible, and yet we (individually and collectively) still take shortcuts and try to obey and worship God our own way, regardless of the instructions. God may not strike us down like he did Uzzah, but we need to be on our guard because ignorance of the law is not an excuse. [...]