Leviticus Chapter 2

LEVITICUS CHAPTER 2

The study of Leviticus shows us all the requirements Israel had to go through to achieve forgiveness of sin. Jesus fulfilled all them for us as the sacrificial Lamb of God. We can learn from these sacrifices and offerings how to become more like Christ in our Christian walk.

Our prayer will be "Lord help us to die daily so that Your Son can live through us."

I am so excited about Chapter 2 that I can hardly wait to share it with you. It is amazing how something written by the hand of God thousands of years ago can speak so explicitly to our lives today.

Yet Paul tells us in 1Cor. 10:11, "These things happened unto them for example." They are examples for us to learn and grow by.

Jesus prayed in John 17, "Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth. As you have sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world."

In Chapter 1 we talked about the "Burnt Offering." It was to make payment for sins. It showed a person's devotion to God in the offering......we saw Jesus Christ and His devotion to His Father in the offering.

We too can show our devotion to our Lord as we offer up our lives as a living sacrifice, as we lay everything at the altar. Everything in our lives is exposed before Him as we search our hearts as the Psalmist did, saying, "Search me and try me, if there be any thing wicked in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Burning flesh was a sweet aroma to the Lord. Flesh is a word used to describe that "old sinful nature" that we are born with. When we truly offer up our lives as a living sacrifice, we will become "a sweet smelling savor" to the Lord, dying to that old sinful nature.

In Chapter 2 is another offering called the "Grain Offering." In this offering we see Jesus in His humanity. He was fully God and fully man. It represents His life here on earth, the trials and the sifting He went through.

As we read verses 1-3, we see again much detail, and as we noted before details are important to God. In our busy lives we tend to over look details, but to God details are important, especially in how we live our lives.

1. When someone brings a grain offering to the Lord, his offering is to be of fine flour. He is to pour oil on it, put incense on it 2. and take it to Aaron's sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour and the oil together with the incense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. 3. The rest of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, it is a most holy part of the offerings made to the Lord by fire.

I am sure you are thinking, "How in the world could all this apply to me?" Well we are going to see just how awesome God's Word is........He is speaking to us today just as He was speaking to Israel thousands of years ago.

The scripture tells us it had to be of fine flour. Just to look at flour you would think it is so fine, how could there possibly be any need for sifting. At least it appears that way.

Jesus told Peter, "Satan desires to sift you as wheat." Sometimes we think we are "fine" "we're okay".......no need for sifting, yet God sees things in our lives that we don't see. I am sure Peter thought he had it all together.

After all he was walking and talking with the Master every day. How could there be anything in his life that needed to be sifted? Peter thought he was "okay." But Jesus knew Peter had some things that needed to be sifted out of his life before he could be used. I am sure that Peter would have never ever imagined that He would deny the Lord. He thought he was "fine."

Sometimes because we go to church, participate in Bible Studies, sing in the choir, do all the things we think a good Christian should do, we are like Peter. We think how could there be anything in our lives that would call for us to be sifted. We think we are "fine," we think we are "okay."

Can you imagine the guilt Satan put Peter through? The pounding he received, he was crushed over what he had done. He was truly sifted. Yet God sees things in us that we don't see, things that keep others from seeing Jesus in our lives.

But then, after the sifting, remember what happened? Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. He preached and three thousand were saved in one day. Boy what a difference sifting and a little oil makes!

Now what did it say about the grain offering? Pour oil on the fine sifted flour. We know that oil represents the Holy Spirit, and incense represents the prayers of the saints. The Scripture says, "it is an offering made by fire," fire symbolizing purifying.

What does this say about the "fiery trials" in our own lives? Sometimes it is hard for us to understand why we have to go through some of the trials we have in our lives. We want to say "Lord, why is this happening to me?"

Yet when we submit ourselves unto the Lord in the midst of our fiery trials, praying and trusting Him, He will use it for our good and His glory.

When we say, "Lord I trust you, even though I don't understand," then our "trials," "our sifting" is anointed by the "Holy Spirit (oil)," and will be used for His glory.

Jesus knows, just as He knew about Peter, that there are some things that need to come out before He can use us in the capacity that He desires. Remember what He told Peter, "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat,. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back you will strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22:31) Boy did he ever strengthen the brethren......look what happened at Pentecost!



Yes, when we come through our trials , we can strengthen others that God places in our path.

Rick Warren put it so well when he said, "Life is a series of problems (trials). Either you are in one now, you are just coming out of one, or you are getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is "God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making you happy." We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is "to grow in character and Christ likeness."

That is what this study is all about, "becoming more like Jesus" so the world can see Him. His life was a living sacrifice. He too, was sifted. He went through a sifting in the wilderness before His actual ministry began.

He was sifted in the wilderness for forty days, when He was tempted to turn the stones into bread to satisfy His own hunger. He was tempted in every way in His life here on earth. His life had many trials, but He passed every test.

The Father would say, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Will He be able to say of you and of me, "well done thy good and faithful servant"?



In verses 4 through 10, we are told the grain offering had to be made without yeast mixed with oil. Yeast in the scriptures represents sin and oil represents the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had the Holy Spirit, and in Him there was no sin. When we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, He can help keep us from sin.

In verses 11 through 13, we find that not only was the offering to be without sin, but also there was to be no honey in the offering.

Honey is a sweetener that breaks down when the temperature goes up. That is why there was to be no honey.

How does that apply to us? We can pretend to show love and be a sweet person, but if it is not real love produced by the fruit of the Spirit, it will break down under the pressure of the fiery trials in our lives.

We can be sweet, loving people by our own power, but only the Holy Spirit can produce in us the real fruit that will last in times of trial. Haven't we all at one time or another tried to be sweet, nice, loving people in our own power, only to see it fail in the midst of a trial? Only the power of the Holy Spirit can make us into that sweet, loving person we desire to be.

Salt was another ingredient that was to be with the meal offering. "Col. 4:6, "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you might know how you ought to answer every man."

Believers are called "the salt of the earth." Salt makes you thirsty. Our lives should make others thirsty for God.

Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth , but if salt loses it's flavor, how shall it be made seasoned? It is then good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." Matt 5:13

I wonder if this is not the problem we are having today, if maybe as believers we have lost our saltiness. Why are we not seeing more people coming to the altar, more people accepting God's salvation? Could it be that we have lost our "flavor"?

The Bible says "taste and see that the Lord is good." When others "taste Him" through our lives, does it make them thirst and hunger for more?

Verses 14 through 15 speaks of crushed heads of new grain mixed with oil and baked. This was typical food for the average person, even a poor person could afford this offering. In other words there was no excuse for not making this offering......anyone could make it.

We can all give to the Lord an offering made by fire, when we submit to Him, trusting Him through our fiery trials, letting the purifying process take place.

Then we will be "an aroma pleasing to the Lord."

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

All of the sacrifices we see in Lev. should make us so thankful for what Jesus did for us. He fulfilled all of it on the cross.

Not only should it make us more thankful, but also more conscious of our sin. Some of the little things that we do, that sometimes we just shrug off, such as bad attitudes, judgement of our fellow man, pride, gossip, jealousy. I don't know about you but I am speaking for myself, I am guilty. I can look back and see that I have committed all these sins and not really thought a lot about it. I just dismissed it as being human. Yes, I realize His grace covers me, but that makes me want to all the more be a living sacrifice for Him.

We wonder why the world is in the shape it's in ....why so much darkness? It is because we the Church are "the light of the world," and we have let our light diminish.

After 911, most of the people who came into the churches, left and didn't stay. It was because they didn't see Jesus. He wasn't there. He said "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me" We are the only way the world can see Jesus .....in the way we live our lives and show Him to the world.

I believe God is doing something through the study of Lev. and other studies similar that I see going on in other churches and groups. When you see God doing the same thing simultaneously, you can bet He is up to something. To those who are listening, He is calling them to a deeper walk with Him.

He is cleaning us up ......"washing us with the water of His Word, so that He may present us (the Church) to Himself as a radiant Church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Eph. 5:26

Yes, He is coming back for a Bride that is totally in love with Him!!!