Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 20, 2022 | Leviticus - Laws of Blood

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March 20, 2022 | Leviticus - Laws of Blood · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see everyone.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: So fantastic that uh entire clan.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like if we put you guys against the rest of the everybody else in this room, it still might be a fair fight.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks everyone for coming.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're so excited to see you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um sort of in the theme of uh babies.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I've got an announcement.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um Hannah and I are pregnant.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we're really excited.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I bought my jean shorts and new balance shoes, so I think I'm I'm basically there.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um just wanted everyone to know.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, if you're new with us this morning, you know that uh we've been going through the book of Leviticus.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Leviticus is I think to be honest with you, I think it has fascinated me far more than I expected it to, as I've had the privilege of being able to dig into this book.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And just about every single week there's been a topic where I go, I can't believe I'm about to talk about this.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this week is no different because we have got a very interesting topic.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there are certain things in the Bible, before I give away the full lead, the certain things in the Bible that are like an iceberg, where you see a little bit above the water, you you sort of can see a portion of it, and then you realize when you dig deeper that it's far larger than you ever imagined.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about this morning, and our topic is blood.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about blood and a lot of blood.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned at the very first week of Leviticus that we were going to talk about blood so much it would make the Red Cross blush.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's today, all right?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also in the very small level that I ever try to coordinate what I'm doing, I did wear a red polo today.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we're talking about blood.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been with us through Leviticus, you know that's been a topic that we've discussed a lot, whether it's the sacrifices or it's the um the things that make people clean and unclean.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a theme throughout the Bible.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of blood.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when we look at blood, though, we typically just, I don't know, see it as that thing that courses through our veins.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But God has a much deeper sort of identity that He associates with blood.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when we get to Leviticus 17, which is where we're at this morning, we see that God has some very specific rules about blood.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how the Israelites are supposed to interact with that blood.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get to those four rules, we kind of need to understand just once and for all what the how God feels about this.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Leviticus 17, verses 10 through 12, anyone from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who reside among them who eats any blood, I will turn against that person who eats blood and cut him off from his people.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have appointed it to you to make atonement on the altar for your lives, since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore I say to the Israelites, none of you, and no alien who resides among you, may eat blood.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first of all, aliens here, not the green kind with big eyes, these are basically immigrants who have come into the Israelite community, and they are Israelites by culture and by practice, by religion.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so anybody who was worshiping God, they were under this law, and it's so severe that anybody in this case who eats blood, though there are other restrictions, God will turn against them and cut them off from his people.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, next week we'll talk about cutting off and sort of what that means and how severe of a judgment that truly is.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, this is the idea here.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And before we move on, there's two really important lessons we have to get from this passage that are going to actually inform the rest of our time together this morning.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The first lesson is that is included here for the life of a creature is in the blood.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about blood that God sees as symbolizing the life of a creature.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about it today, sort of in our knowledge of, you know, medical practice, we might say it's the heartbeat that defines life or brain activity or something like that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in God's eyes, and I don't want to just push it into the Old Testament world, it seems even today, God's eyes, blood is the thing that characterizes life.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of it sort of like his mechanism there that he is using for the second point, which is that the lifeblood is the thing that makes atonement.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we've talked about atonement before.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, when we mean atonement, we say making right the wrong, the judgment of sin deserves death, and so that death is paid with life, and that life is characterized by blood, if you can kind of see the process that's flowing there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, lifeblood is a word that is used here.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using the CSB translation, I typically do, but lifeblood is kind of a confusing word.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than blood.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: What is it talking about?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the King James Version or the ESV, they would say the life of the flesh.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The um the NIV version would say the life of a creature.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is it talking about more than blood?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, kind of.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a, frankly, a more wooden but accurate translation of that part of that passage.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to atone for your lives, for it is the blood which atones for the life.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these three words are all the same in Hebrew, Nefesh, which means soul or life.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's most often translated soul.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that when you and I think of soul, kind of in our modern context, we think sort of of this immaterial being that, you know, will, part of us that will last beyond our physical body.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really what this is talking about.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same word that's used when God says that he in Genesis breathed life into all of creation.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or later on in the Bible, when it says, love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your soul, there's it's the same word that every part of it is sort of defining the being.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the blood is represented the life and all that that life constitutes.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And like for instance, in the CSB, they go back and forth in the translation, they would say, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, so on and so forth, to atone for your soul.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like how it flips back and forth between the two words because they're the same.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it confuses this idea that there's this transaction that's going on.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's kind of fascinating about this is on a granular level, on a very detailed level, this is the mechanism that God is using to atone for the sins of the world.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, it is the blood of animals, and later on it becomes the blood of Christ.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is the blood which atones and God uses to pay the debt for life.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if we can sort of take these things and understand the maybe the momentum or the energy that is behind this concept of blood, then when we get to Leviticus 17, we see all of the different rules that God has about blood.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you might look at them and be confused by them if we didn't understand that blood means more than just that red stuff in our body.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there are four rules about blood, which I'll kind of walk through real briefly here.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first is that they were to bring all the blood to the altar.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: The second is the one we just looked at, which is they couldn't eat the blood.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have the verses off to the right.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: The third is that they were to pour out the blood, and the fourth's, the fourth was that they weren't to touch the blood.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at the beginning of chapter 17, there's this really interesting um kind of situation going on, sad situation as well, where the Israelites, not that far removed from the golden calf incident, are already worshiping another god.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this one isn't led by the priests, but they are out in the desert outside of the community, and they are sacrificing animals to a goat demon.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: This actually is something that Paul picks up later on, um, but that's sort of beside the point.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, they have found an idol, they have created an idol.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We know behind that idol was actually some kind of demonic force that they were sacrificing to.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But why is it in Leviticus 17?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because what God is really upset about is that they are using the blood that's supposed to be part of his sacrifices for something else.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually the main point here.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is why it's brought up.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's already bad enough that they're worshiping something else, but then they are doing what God has said, has sort of made this sacred rite, this sacred ritual, and thrown it onto this false thing.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this idea behind bringing all the blood is that any time an animal is sacrificed, the blood of the sacrifice is supposed to be brought to the tabernacle and later to the temple.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because blood is deserving of respect and reverence.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: We can kind of get this idea.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my family, we have got a set of china that we use every single Christmas Eve for dinner.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh this was my great-grandma's, and if you stack up all the plates next to each other, all the words to 'twas the night before Christmas are sort of uh splayed out.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we eat it on Christmas, we eat from the bowls and the dishes on Christmas Eve, then we hand wash it, and then we pack it back away.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not eating any from this stuff any other time of the year, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like to eat chili on the couch with kind of dishes.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: They go into a storage room because they're special.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if we did use them for some other reason, then it would make it common or the word the Bible likes to use, profane.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Profane just means to take it away from its holy sort of point.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the dishes my family uses aren't holy, but there was a component of blood in the sacrifices that was divinely inspired, and the fact that God says it was specific and supposed to be used for something else.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so taking it and shedding it outside the camp, outside of where God said it was supposed to be, that was destroying its purpose.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: The second rule was that they weren't to eat the blood.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you think about this, okay, this is not like vampire sort of stuff, okay?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't, they're not in coffins and afraid of garlic.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: This, though, is anytime.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me take a step back.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Have to understand at a foundational level, all the Israelites, they've still got manna every single day, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So all of their food needs, all their sustenance is provided for.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But on top of that, they like meat.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so anytime they were to eat this meat, though, they had to stay away from the blood.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was important for long story short, because other nations around them sometimes would consume this stuff.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the Israelites were supposed to once more respect the blood.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But like other things in Leviticus that we've looked at already, this didn't come around right now.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a part of God's plan, part of his sort of divine design, if you will, since the very beginning.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 9, verses 3 through 4, God's talking to Noah.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: As I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: However, you must not eat meat with its lifeblood in it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even back then, this is part of Noah's covenant with God.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: God says, You are my people, I am your God.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the first rules is that, hey, you've got this creation, this new creation, and as you go and enjoy it, know that there are certain restrictions.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't eat the blood.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: The third rule is that they were to pour out the blood.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: This one, um, you can think of, if any of you have ever hunted before and you need to uh field dress an animal, um, that if they were outside of the camp, this is not a sacrificial animal, not a bull, not a goat, not a sheep, not that kind of stuff, but just another animal out there that was clean and they were allowed to eat.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: If they killed it and they were going to eat it, they had to pour out its blood on the ground and then actually cover the blood with dirt.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of this really beautiful um dust-to-dust sort of language that's going on there.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um the fact that the exposed blood cried out to God is also something that we've has happened before in the Bible.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you think of Genesis 4 with Cain and Abel, the first murder, um, where Cain kills his brother Abel, it says that his blood cried out to God.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So they were to pour out the blood.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is also where this idea has developed into today the Jewish custom of kosher food, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: How they're supposed to handle meat so that all the blood is drained out of it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's uh kind of neat about this is we have a cool example where God actually amended part of his law for a different set of circumstances later on.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Israelites eventually weren't going to be able to go to a place where they could have access to the tabernacle all the time, because in the promised land they would be more spread out.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Deuteronomy 12, verses 20 through 25, it's when the Lord your God enlarges your territory in the promised land.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name, a tabernacle or later the temple, is too far from you, you may slaughter any of your herd or flock he has given you, as I've commanded you, and you may eat it within your city gates whenever you want.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But don't eat the blood, since the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do not eat blood poured on the ground like water.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, do not eat it, so that you and your children after you will prosper, because you will be doing what is right in the Lord's sight.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Old Testament, following God's covenantal laws, led to blessing.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so a part of following this would be a blessing for the family.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now the final law in Leviticus 17 here is that they weren't to touch the blood, perhaps the most apparent law to detail sort of the reverence that they were supposed to have.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: If they came upon an animal who had uh been mauled or had died naturally, I mean everything is covered here, had been mauled or died naturally, they uh could eat the animal if they wanted to.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they if they touched it, they had to wash themselves.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another example in Leviticus of something where uh it's allowed, but it still makes you unclean, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It can even be good.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: God said you can have it for food, but you have to wash yourself afterwards.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't personally feel like I would be somebody who was scavenging for meat and eating roadkill.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like most of their descendants live in West Virginia today.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they do.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is the 2019 Pocahontas County Chamber of Commerce Roadkill cook-off.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: To cook in this, you the the meat you're cooking, you had to have found it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I need to get this right.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the uh Pendleton Community Bank Buckbusters, and the name of their recipe was Fender Fried Fawn Smothered in Vulture Vomit.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um they made the podium, third place, and um I'm actually kind of been I'm waiting to see what goes on.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: 2020, 2021, Pocahontas County Chamber of Commerce Roadkill Cook Off was canceled.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: 2022, they're coming back hoping to do better.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they did win the People's Choice Award, so I feel like that's relevant here.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think what's really fun about um this just this law that God has here is it shows how every corner of the Israelites' lives was touched by God's commands.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so much so that coming upon a mauled animal, whether or not you could eat that, is part of God's sort of provision for them.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says you can have that, and also here's how to do that so we can have maintain a strong relationship.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's great.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: But as we sort of move off of Leviticus 17, though, I want you to keep in mind as we move to the New Testament, how, or rather, these two uh two laws, two um points that we drew out of the chapter.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that life is symbolized by blood, and second, that it is God's sacred method for atonement.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: These two things are really going to inform the passage we're about to look at.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, I want to also sort of put you in a mindset, though, of an Israelite who has lived with these kinds of laws for hundreds of years.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: See, the stuff that we're talking about in Leviticus, hundreds and hundreds of years have passed before the New Testament comes along.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Over a thousand years.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of this language here has developed their culture so much so that every single person, if you remember when we looked back at unclean food and how Peter was like, Lord, I have never eaten something that was unclean.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those who were following Jesus held to these laws as faithful Jews.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so this condemnation of eating blood and aversion to touching it and being so careful around it and a reverence for it was a part of their culture.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we turn to John 6, keep that in mind.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says, Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was Jesus just trying to offend them?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Was he just trying to get their attention?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Was he trying to be some sort of radical teacher?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a huge crowd following him when this happens.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the day after the feeding of the five thousand, and the five thousand was just counting the men in the audience, and so there are thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children who are following him here.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, even if they don't see him as their savior, he is the best rabbi they've ever encountered.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: He knows the law front and back.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: He is a teacher of the Mosaic Law.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so for their teacher, who definitely understands the commands that they have been given, to tell his followers to drink his blood, I mean, imagine sort of the mindset shift that would have to go on there.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they tell him, his disciples go up to him and say, Teacher, this is hard to accept.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, many walk away.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: he didn't start here.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was him going full speed.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, he started a while earlier.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of John chapter 6, we see that there is this huge crowd that's following him.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is this huge crowd that is there specifically because they want him to perform more miracles and do all this cool stuff, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we just had thousands of people get fed with some baskets of fishes and loaves, and and so we want to see more of this.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he says to them, he says, Truly I tell you, you're not here except to see more miracles.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're not here to accept what I've come to give.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Well, teacher, what is it that you've come to give us?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I have got bread.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping in mind, right, the fact that they just had this bread, the the bread of the feeding.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have got bread that will never go bad, and that will sustain you forever.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, teacher, tell us about this bread.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know that recipe.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Give us, help us understand how we can get this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, tell us what we have to do.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You must believe in the one that God has sent.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, how will we know that it is the one that God has sent?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because, teacher, I don't know if you remember, but back in the, well, they didn't call it the Old Testament.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Back with the Israelites and with Moses, our ancestors, they got manna on the ground.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: They got bread, and it sustained them day after day.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was a sign from God of his faithfulness every morning.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so they say, Well, teacher, what will be the sign that we'll provide now that God has sent this one that we're supposed to believe in?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Okay, it did not really match my expectations for what you're about to say.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, they go and Jesus actually tells them to be quiet because they just start arguing with him.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Listen, for this is the will of my father.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He lays all of his cards out on the table.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What you want is only going to last for a few days.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What you're seeking, more miracles, you're following because you want food or you want to be healed for something, I get it's a need, but it's not going to ultimately satisfy you.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to satisfy you for an eternity, that's for sure.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have something that will.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it is if you believe in me, and the one that the Father has sent in his will, that everyone who trusts in me will have eternal life.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will raise him up on the last day.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: What do the crowds do?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They argue with Jesus.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: They say, We want more bread.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: We want more of that other stuff.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the miracles?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when he kicks into high gear.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is no cannibal, okay?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: What we've actually got here is Jesus saying to them, The bread you want is me.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that you want that is going to give you hope and to sustain you, that's me.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what's so tragic about this is that Jesus is revealing his true purpose.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to partake in this macabre feast of flesh and blood, he would have to die.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's no situation that we see in the Bible where blood is shed and something has not died.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so for Jesus to tell them that they're to drink his blood, he is telling them already that he is going to die for them.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what do they do?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: They leave.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: They reject him.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It says after this that many of his disciples, not the twelve apostles, but those who were following him, many of his disciples left him.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: They said, This is too hard for us.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can't accept this.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, sacrificing his life for the entire world, revealing to them the promise that he was about to fulfill, was rejected.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what happens today with us, too.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is this idea of a bloody savior is something that is an obstacle to people.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like the idea because it seems weird, or for whatever reason in our culture, we don't like the idea that the one we worship was one who died, one who died for us, one who shed his blood.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you something, unless we have a bloody Savior, we don't have a savior.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's his blood that had his life, and the life that he gave was represented by that blood.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you remember our second part of Leviticus 17, it is Jesus' blood that God used for the atonement.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that Jesus died for the whole world, that he gave his life as a ransom for many, it is because he had to shed his blood.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have to have a bloody Savior.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: We keep this in mind when we take the Lord's table in communion.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that actually won't happen here for two weeks.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not doing it today.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if you recall, if you've ever been with us when we take communion, I always read from 1 Corinthians, and I love the way that that passage finishes saying that until Jesus returns, we take these elements as a reminder of his promises.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: That what we are doing when Jesus said, you know, this is my body broken for you, and then later on, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins, that we keep these things in mind.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot divorce the idea of our sins being forgiven from the idea that Jesus had to bleed for us.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's uncomfortable.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me uncomfortable.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if you think where Jesus was here, fully, if they had not understood yet, fully bridging the gap between, you know, John 6, where he's talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and showing the disciples, he's like, This is not, this is not actually eating my flesh, this is wine, this is not actually my blood.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you must accept that my blood is what is saving you, and you must believe that my blood is saving you, and that it's changing the world.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is what it means by taking this into your body and ingesting it.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is not actually that you are partaking in my body and blood, but rather that you are proclaiming it until I come again, and that you do not have it as an external idea, but you have taken salvation upon yourselves.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: My blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: The disciples and many others would end up witnessing that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: As that night he's arrested and beaten, and then especially the following day, as he is tortured, has a crown of thorns placed upon his head, causing blood to stream down his face, and is ultimately nailed to a cross.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: A bloody affair.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So here is our lesson for this morning, as we've talked so much about blood, but as we also see the significance behind the blood of Christ and what it means for us.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: The blood of Christ was poured out for many, but is accepted individually.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: See, there are many people that are follow- say they follow Jesus now, but are like the crowd that was with him at John 6.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: They see God as a genie, not as their savior.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: They say, you know, God, I'm following God because I want peace.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want freedom.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want hope.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want sort of get out of jail free card.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that my life will be easier if I've sort of bought into something like this.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: But they have not taken the step of saying that I believe in a bloody savior.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I have not taken that step because I don't like the idea that the Bible says that I am washed by his blood, and that is what makes me clean.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a second.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for those who have rejected Christ, they've said, I do not accept his blood.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do not believe he died on the cross for my sins.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am not washed by that.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Know that the atonement, the forgiveness of sins, then is withheld.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the mechanism that God has chosen.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, in blood is life, in Christ's life, the blood came out, and that blood was for you, every single person, so that they could accept it freely.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But this is also an individual decision.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is something you have to make, a choice you have to decide.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you grew up in a household where they talked about Jesus, not just because you've gone to church for a long time, but because you've said, I believe in Jesus, I accept him as my bloody Savior, I know that I'm washed clean by his blood.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we have to do.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if we are able to do that, then this entire idea of blood, of the significance of it, it becomes all the more beautiful.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because we see as we look back from the beginning of the Bible all the way into the end, that God was telling his people this grand story about a Savior that was coming that was going to save the world.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so my prayer today, as we're about to bow our heads, is just that you would consider, first of all, if you have made this decision, but then also if you have, if you have trusted in Jesus, that we wouldn't shy away from this idea, but we would look at the blood of Jesus as the expression of him saying, I give my life for you.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: God, I am thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I am thankful that it washes us and it cleanses us of all of our sins, of all the mistakes that we have made, the forgiveness that we do not deserve, Lord, atonement for our sins.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: God, we have been rebels in your kingdom, and yet you died on a cross so that we could be saved.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that as we look at parts of the Bible that are bloody, especially Leviticus, that we would be reminded of how you feel about life.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, all life, but also what you are willing to give up so that you could have a renewed relationship with us.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you for this.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, before you go, uh just a quick sort of PSA, if you will.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're talking about Leviticus 18.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And particularly if you're a parent, you might want to read that chapter first and use wisdom to decide kind of what that looks like for your family.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about Leviticus 18 next week.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week, everybody.