Cleanse First

Leviticus 9:7-14, 24

I was reading this morning about the consecration of the priests for the tabernacle, and these verses struck me. The priest was to make his sin offering before he could offer for the people. God’s design when setting up the temple was for the priest to first cleanse himself, and then he could make an offering for the sins of the people. Chapters 1-9 of the book of Leviticus detail the process for various sacrifices: burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings… and then time is spent outlining how the priests were to deal with offerings, and then the consecration of Aaron and his sons for service.

It’s a lot of mileage in the book! And if God spent so much time addressing how to make offerings and be holy and acceptable, then it must’ve been pretty important for the priests to follow those rules. We actually know it was, because in chapter ten there is a story about Nadab and Abihu (consecrated sons of Aaron by the way) who were struck dead because they offered strange fire to the Lord when he told them not to.

Going from entering the temple to being ready to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people was not a simple task. It was a lengthy and time-consuming process. And then when someone in the congregation sinned there was another process:

Leviticus 6:6-17
(6) And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: (7) And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein. (8) And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (9) Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. (10) And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. (11) And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. (12) And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings. (13) The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. (14) And this is the law of the meat offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the LORD, before the altar. (15) And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meat offering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even the memorial of it, unto the LORD. (16) And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it. (17) It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.

Does it exhaust you just looking at the sheer amount of words associated with atoning for ONE sin among the congregation?!? It does me! Imagine how much work it was to be a priest, with so many people as part of the congregation.

And you know, being holy is so important for us too. We have to make our hearts right with God before we can serve anyone else. 

And even though we only have to deal with our own sin, we should spend much time examining ourselves and our motives, and taking steps to cleanse our hearts before the Lord so we can be used to help others. We can’t rush through the consecration part in a hurry to ‘do ministry’.

Psalm 51 says it this way:
(9) Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
(10) Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
(11) Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
(12) Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
(13) Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

In order for us to be able to reach out to other people, we have to first have a clean heart and a right spirit within us. Only then can we teach transgressors God’s ways, and lead people to Christ. There’s a lot of people who see hypocrisy within the church, and much of it, I’m afraid, comes from people saying ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ We need to live and walk righteously before the Lord and people.

Verse 24 in Leviticus also stood out. “And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.”

It was the Lord who consumed the offering of the priest on the altar to ultimately rid the sins of the people, just as He is the one who has made the way of forgiveness for us! How grateful we ought to be for a God who would not only cleanse us, but use us for His glory.