When God gave His commandments to the people of Israel he meant business. These were the laws of the land and whomsoever disobeyed them because of sin also had to sacrifice a young bullock as a sin offering. The people had no way of being forgiven on their own merits and needed an offering like this in order to find forgiveness from God. Speaking of a portion of what happened, it is written, “and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering.” (Leviticus 4:1-3) “And the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.” (Leviticus 4:26) There was no getting around this, for nothing was perfect enough to be sacrificed to end these burnt offerings once and for all. Only God was perfect enough to take away our sins.
Thankfully, Jesus came willingly into the world as a Lamb to the slaughter. He knew that ultimately evil people would try to find fault in him and then crucify him. And so he went as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world through this one sacrifice. Paul wrote, “nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” (Hebrews 9:25-28) We are the receiving end of what Jesus did on the cross. I am speaking of every person who is a true believer in Jesus in this life and those who have already passed away. Praise God that Jesus did come to take away our sins. We have no more need to offer up burnt offerings but a sincere heart to believe in and follow Him. Amen.
Let us pray:
Oh Lord, I pray that people will understand what it means to sacrifice their lives to follow You instead of the things of this world. Without You in our lives, so many things that are evil look very appealing to the flesh. And when we aren’t seeking Your hand, we are instead seeking what the enemy desires for us instead. This is so true for the majority of people in this world. So few of them are truly for You. I wish I could say that they are for You, but You can tell by what takes up their time each day that they are against You. I am afraid that too many people have already died and are now suffering in hell because they only had faith in You in words alone, and were only bystanders. This is very sad to think about, especially when I know that many of my family and relatives are in this camp. Lord, I want to reach them, but the majority have blocked me on Facebook and think I am a Jesus freak and need mental help. If they just knew that You have sent me to be a messenger in this darkened world, then would they listen. Lord, bring to pass more messengers in every city and nation of this world. I believe in You. I love You, God. Amen.
