"What Deliverance Costs"

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. The air was crisp and cool as the seasons were turning from Winter to Spring. A young family walked their way into First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, Georgia. The parents of the family had been around churches a time or two, but for their son, this would be his first exposure to the Word of God. On his way to church, nerves settled into the young man who had an entrepreneurial heart. He asked, “Daddy, will we know anyone there?” His dad said, “I’m sure of it. You sell lemonade to so many folks around town out of your stand, that you’re bound to recognize a few folks.” The boy thought some more and asked, “Daddy, will there be lots of people?” “Well, son,” said the father...”I’m not sure how many people go to where we’re going, but lots of folks around this country go to church on Sunday mornings.”

That morning, the pastor of FBC Jonesboro preached from Leviticus 4 and after expounding on each of the circumstances where an offering of a bull for sin was necessary for the people of Israel, the young boy with the entrepreneurial spirit knew that God had spoken to him that morning.

“Well son, what did you take away from church today?” “Daddy, I heard about all them bulls that have to be slaughtered for every sin and I got to thinking about how you said lots of people go to church on Sunday. If we all have to do this, then there’s not gonna be that may cows around and I think God told me to make a chicken sandwich.”

That young man was S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-a. No, I only kid, but as I read this text this week picturing what the Lord speaks to Moses being put into practice, I began to imagine bulls 3,500 years ago holding up signs with Hebrew writing that said EAT-MOR-CHIKIN.

In our text before us, we can see very plainly that God has prescribed to his people a means to be forgiven for their sin. That is to say that in order to be delivered from sin, to be forgiven for sin, atonement for that sin is only accomplished through sacrifice.

Sin is a pollution that offends God

The subject of sin is not one that is entirely popular. I remember that when I was an upstart software engineer wanting to carve out a career working for IBM, I read a book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that was published in 1936 and written by a man named Dale Carnegie. That book has come to remembrance for me in recent weeks as I have reflected on the messages preached from this pulpit and no less today, as we launch into the subject of sin itself. None of this is exactly what I recall Mr. Carnegie writing about in his book, but nevertheless, even if you don’t count me as a friend who you’d eat supper with, I do love you enough to speak the truth of this text this morning.

And I want to start this morning by ensuring that we have a proper understanding of sin, because in some sense, you won’t have an appreciation for all these sacrifices in you don’t understand the gravity of sin. How do you define sin? I would venture to guess that if I passed out a sheet and asked you to anonymously leave your definition, the majority of us would say something like not keeping God’s rules or law. And that’s a start, but it doesn’t capture the whole picture. Allow me to define sin for you: sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what he requires in his law-resulting in our death and the disintegration of all creation. (The New City Catechism)

We will soon be reading as a church about a king of Israel named David who committed a horrendous sin and in his confession of that sin, he says something really important: Psalm 51:5 “5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And here are some things that I need you to understand about sin. First, sin is not just how you behave, but it is a matter of your nature. In other words, you have not sinned just because you did bad things, but it’s because you have evil inside of you. You sin because you are a sinner. I sin because I am a sinner.

So you and I, by our nature, have a really big problem. You can’t just try to change your behavior because you cannot change the condition of your own heart. By our own nature, we reject or ignore God in the world he created and rebel against him. What you need is to be rescued from yourself because you are your greatest problem. I told you I wasn’t going to make friends today.

Here’s something else to understand about sin: the commands that we are disobeying are not just ideas that float around on clouds, but they are commands that are real and they were given by the very real Person of God. My nature causes me to rebel against the authority of a person and because of that, sin is relational. King David in that great confession also said, speaking towards God, Psalm 51:4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight...” When you read from Exodus 20 and God’s giving of the Ten Commandments to Israel through Moses, you will recall that the first command deals with the worship of God because frankly, if you don’t keep that command, you don’t have a prayer of keeping the rest. If God is not in his appropriate place in your life, then nothing else in your life will be in its appropriate place. So, every sin is relational. It's not just breaking abstract law. It's breaking relationship with God, a relationship of submission and worship and love. It's loving something more than loving God, and walking away from what God has called each of us to.

And God is jealous for you and for me, so loving something more than loving God is not going to sit well with God. I was thinking about how offensive sin is to God and I was reminded of a reality show called Fear Factor. Have any of you seen it? Did anyone here compete on it? Fear Factor is a show that puts contestants in positions where they must overcome common fears, like the fear of heights or bugs or fire, in order to complete challenges. What really made Fear Factor popular was that they usually made contestants eat really unappetizing foods. And I’m saying “food”, loosely. The “food” on Fear Factor were things like live bugs such as grasshoppers or beetles. Worse than that, they made contestants eat scorpions or rat’s hair or cow’s blood. And of course, while that sounds like a disgusting proposition for us to eat ourselves, it was absolutely entertaining to watch others deal with repulsive food.

But here’s the point, as repulsive as eating rat’s hair may seem, our sin is even more repulsive to God. It is unpleasant and offensive in his sight. And because sin is our nature, here is the simple truth for you and I to accept - we cannot change our nature ourselves nor can we atone for our sin alone.

That’s really bad news. We’re helpless. But God, being rich in mercy, has extended his strong arm to help where we are helpless.

The sin offering is a remedy for sin

The first place that the Lord helps us where we are helpless is on the matter of atonement for sin. Before we delve into atoning for sin, I want to be certain that we grasp the effect that sin has upon every human being.

Remembering that sin is our nature, not just a behavior that needs correcting, the severest consequence for sin is death itself. The Word of God says elsewhere, Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death.” This not only refers to physical death, but it also refers to separation from God, Isaiah 59:2 “2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” This, loved ones, is the foremost consequence for man’s nature of rebellion against God: separation.

Yet many want to believe that God is so “loving” that He will overlook our “little faults,” “lapses” and “indiscretions.” Little white lies, cheating on the tax return, taking that pen when no one is looking, or secretly viewing pornography—these are venial offenses, not worthy of death, right? The problem is, sin is sin, big or small. Though God loves us, His holiness is such that He cannot live with evil. The prophet Habakkuk describes God this way: Habakkuk 1:13 “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.” God does not ignore our sin. On the contrary, Numbers 32:23 “you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.” Even those secret sins we hide in the recesses of our hearts will one day be brought to light: Hebrews 4:13 “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Every sin of man is seen by God and every sin of man must be atoned for. Think of it like this, as God is just to execute his wrath upon sin, atonement satisfies the wrath of God. What we see overviewed before us in the text I have read just a few minutes ago from is God’s prescription for a sin offering, or if you like, a purification offering. It is the most important sacrifice in all that is commanded by God. In the Jewish life, God gives to Israel commands for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the fellowship offering, the guilt offering in addition to this sin offering.

And the rendering “sin offering” is appropriate here in this chapter, which as we saw, repeatedly refers to sin and sinning. This offering cleansed the unintentional or inadvertent offenses of persons to accomplish two things: the first was to remove their impurities from the presence of God in the sanctuary and the second was to receive the forgiveness of their sin.

The sin offering purified the tabernacle - Israel’s place of worship - from Israel’s impurities. Wherever the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled is what the blood would cleanse from impurity. Thus the sacrifice for the high priest cleansed the holy tabernacle with its incense altar. The sacrifice for the community also cleansed the tabernacle and the incense altar because the priests, who operated as Israel’s representatives before holy God, could go into the holy place. The sacrifice for individual leaders or common folk among the nation of Israel only went as far as the horns of the altar because that was as far as any non-priest could go.

Here’s a way to boil this down to a principle: the blood of the sacrifice went as far as the particular person or group could go. So because an everyday Israelite could only go to the horns of the altar, the tabernacle was only decontaminated up to that point. A priest could go further, for example, and seek purification deeper within. As the tabernacle was decontaminated from sin, the sin offering allowed God to forgive those who trespassed against him.

What was God teaching Israel with this offering, you may ask? What is he teaching us with it? The sin offering taught Israel about the holiness of God. God’s holiness is incompatible with the impurity of sin. God’s holiness cannot tolerate sin. For God to remain in Israel’s midst, human rebellion against him needed to be purged through the sin offering.

I hope to make this concept clear in this way… Whether you have had surgery yourself or you consider yourself sufficiently trained to be helpful in an operating room because you have spent countless hours watching medical dramas on TV, you know that the operating room is a sterile environment. No contamination, no defilement can be tolerated.

1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Holiness

“A surgeon who selects a scalpel in the operating room rejects a scalpel with a minute spot of defilement on it as readily as one that was severely defiled, because even the smallest spot means the scalpel is defiled and cannot be used in surgery. The degree of defilement is inconsequential. The fact of defilement is what matters to the surgeon. A thing is sterile or defiled, clean or unclean. A person is holy or unholy. God is not concerned with degrees, only with the absolute” (J. D. Pentecost, Design for Living [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977], p. 57).

To enter into the presence of God, we cannot be defiled. We must be made clean. His holiness demands this.

Jesus is the perfect and eternal remedy for sin

“OK, Pastor Dan. I have a sin nature and I need to be made clean, otherwise I am separated from God. Do I need to start bringing bulls to church?”

Before I was called as pastor of this church, I was preaching one Sunday morning not far from here at Yancey Baptist Church. It’s such a beautiful little church. My family arrived early before worship and walked into the sanctuary that was empty and I discovered a dead bird right in front of the Lord’s Supper table. I knew they had some issues with sealing things well in the building and the bird probably got in and couldn’t figure out how to get out, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that it died right in the front of the church. So I picked it up and carried it out back and along the way I was met by one of the deacons who asked if everything was OK. I said, “Brother Gary, I was of the understanding that this was a New Testament church, not subject to the Old Covenant?” He said, “Well, yes sir, we are.” So I showed him the bird in my hand, told him where I found it, and asked, “Then why are the folks here offering sacrifices?” We both had a real good laugh of it.

As you have been reading in Exodus, will read in Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, God is delivering his holy Law to the people and we know this as the Old Covenant. As you might guess, if there is an Old Covenant, then there is a New Covenant, and that is the covenant that has been struck by the perfect and eternal sacrifice in the death of Jesus Christ.

While the Old Covenant was still in effect, God began to offer expectation of the New to come. Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah 31:34 “34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.””

I want to point out to you the function of the word “for” in the verse. It teaches that those who know the Lord do so because their sins are forgiven. This is the foundation of our knowledge of the Lord - the forgiveness of our sins. That’s why the author of the book of Hebrews emphasizes our New Testament forgiveness, because the writer acknowledges that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant never truly brought forgiveness of sins but merely pointed to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

So someone asks, “Why couldn’t the Old Covenant sacrifices achieve true forgiveness?” They had to be repeated over and over and over again. Can you imagine the herd of cattle you’d need to atone for your sin? And in the beauty of the gospel, Christ has offered a definitive and final sacrifice forever. The Old Covenant sacrifices could never offer that because you were clean, until you sinned again. Because of Jesus, those who are in Christ, having trusted upon him unto salvation, are cleansed forever. He never needs to sacrifice himself again because his blood is perfect and pure and able to atone for all our sin, past, present, and future.

Another asks, “Why weren’t the Old Covenant animal sacrifices sufficient?” Here’s why: animals are unwilling victims and ultimately, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins, but what they did do is point to a perfect and effective and final and definitive sacrifice. Jesus was not an unwilling sacrifice on the order of an animal, no, rather he willingly and gladly gave himself because he loved the Father in Heaven and he loves us. So then Christ lovingly gave his life for us as a sacrifice for our sins, fully human and fully Divine so he could take our place as a human being and he could atone for our sins as the Divine Son of God.

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott No Reconciliation without Atonement

“Do let us take the holiness of God centrally and seriously, not as an attitude isolated and magnified, but as God’s very essence and nature, changeless and inexorable. The holiness of God is a deeper revelation in the cross than his love; for it is what gives his love divine value. And it is meaningless without judgment. The one thing he could not do was simply to wipe the slate and write off the loss. He must either inflict punishment or assume it. And he chose the latter course, as honouring the law while saving the guilty. He took his own judgment” (pp. 205–6).

SOURCE: P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (Hodder and Stoughton, 1909).

Therefore, complete and final forgiveness of sins is available through him. Who can wash away our sins? Who can clear our consciences? Jesus! Precious, Jesus!

A final person asks, “How else is Christ’s sacrifice different from an Old Covenant animal sacrifice?” Simply put, animals who were sacrificed remained dead. But Christ lives on forever. He sacrificed himself and he triumphed over death and he is risen from the dead. He intercedes for us on the basis of his blood. This is the point that the writer to the Hebrews is making in Hebrews 10, just following what Pastor Carlos read for us:

Hebrews 10:19-22 - Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Because we have true and definitive forgiveness of sins, we can draw near to God.

Conclusion

In the sanctuary this morning there are four lamps that shine on whoever stands in this pulpit. When someone in the booth turns the switch for those lamps on, there is immediate light. There is power in the wire that is to me-ward, that is available to me.

The organ is quiet at this moment, but there is power in the wire that is organ-ward and organist-ward and when Sister Kirby pushes a switch, there is music for our hymns. We sing together when she and the other instrumentalists play by power that is generated elsewhere, far removed from this place.

If we come as poor sinners we can have all the power of Heaven for salvation, and best of all, you will not get any electric bill at the end of the month. Salvation is without money and without price. Every sin must be atoned for by sacrifice, and it is the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation to extend to each of us who are helpless and prepared to surrender.

“Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I, Whereby Thy grace to claim; I’ll wash my garments white, In the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.”

Are you struggling today with the guilt of your sin? Do you feel defiled and unclean? Well, you are. Our only cleansing comes from what these sacrifices point to - the death of Jesus Christ. His blood washes away our sins. His resurrection tells us so.