Day of Atonement

Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee?
We'll pray and we'll jump into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to get to come to your word. We need your spirit now, Lord, to teach us. So please, Father, help us to understand this passage. Let it be applied to our hearts and to our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we are at Leviticus chapter 23. Leviticus chapter 23, and we are at verses 26 through 32. Okay, Leviticus chapter 23, beginning at verse 26.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation to you. You shall afflict your souls and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. and you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the day of atonement, to make atonement for you before Jehovah your God. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people, and any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall do no manner of work. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings. It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls. On the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your Sabbath."
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? Well, we've already looked at this Day of Atonement before, right? This was in Leviticus chapter 16. We had a much longer passage there. But in Leviticus 16, it gave us all these same things.
This is on the 10th day of that month. This is the month of Tishri. And September, late September, October kind of time frame. This year it was September 23rd and 4th. and lunar type days and stuff like that. And so it changes, right, depending on the year with the lunar calendar. The point is, though, this is probably the most holy day.
This is Yom Kippur. This is the day of atonement. This is the one time a year that the high priest wouldn't just go into the holy place where the altar of incense was and where the showbread and the lamps were, but would actually go through the veil, the inner veil, and would actually go into the Holy of Holies. where the Ark of the Covenant was, and so this was entering into the actual throne room of their Covenant King, and he was to bring this sacrifice. And here, most of this is actually on the prescription of the day, not the sacrifice itself. So what are the rest of the people supposed to be doing? Well, on that day, they are to afflict their souls.
This is this preparation. It's a holy day, the whole day, not even normal, ordinary work. The whole day set apart or remembering and thinking about and observing the sacrament of the atonement. This was them going to actually be made right with God. Their sins would be expiated. They would actually have atonement for their sins. And so this was a day that they were to afflict themselves. Afflicting themselves not meaning like literally beat themselves up. We're not talking about self-flagellation and things like that here. This is what I'm convinced of is we're not going to eat. We're going to fast the whole day. It actually talks about this here.
But we're also going to make sure that we're examining our own hearts, looking for our own sins. They're recognizing we are the ones who are sinful, but God is righteous and holy, and He has provided a way for us to be right with Him. This is the Israelite way in the Old Testament, that this was not... This is one of the things that bothers me about some people's systems of theology. There was grace baked into the system here.
God did not have to forgive them of their sins, but yet here he provides them a way that every year they're able to know we have been made right with God. But if they don't take that seriously, they're to be separated from the people. If you don't take this seriously, that God is a covenant king who marks iniquity and sin, then You must not actually believe the same God that we're believing in. So in a theocratic society that they're living in, that means, you know, they shouldn't be allowed in the congregation. So it's different, I think, in a sense today in our society, that's different.
What's the best verse to summarize this? Well, in my Bible, you know, I have verse 27, also the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall be the day of atonement. I also have underlined, you shall afflict your souls. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from the people. This is verses 29 and 30. And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall do no manner of work and you shall afflict your souls. That's all the stuff I have underlined there. But what's this calling us to do today now?
Well, historically in the denomination I'm a part of, you go further back, there was a preparatory service for the Lord's Supper, right? We believe that Jesus has fulfilled all these things. in our Reformed theology, Jesus is taken that Day of Atonement, and we don't celebrate that Day of Atonement, but we do celebrate the covenant made in Jesus' blood, and we know that He is our Paschal Lamb. We know that He is our Day of Atonement sacrifice. So the Day of Atonement happened the day Jesus died on the cross, and so as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do so in remembrance of Him, proclaiming His death until he comes again.
And so in our denomination, go back into the Scottish period, there was periods of what were, you know, one guy has called them, you know, well, I don't need to go into all that, but the point being is that they would have communion seasons. They didn't do communion all the time. Often it was only once a year. And it was especially that you would have preaching on Friday, fasting on Saturday, preaching on Sunday morning, Lord's Supper and preaching again on Sunday and then preaching on Monday morning. And there was a whole season of this where people would examine their lives.
And if you didn't come to the preparatory services, you were treating the Lord's Supper lightly. They wouldn't give you a coin, a token to come to communion. Now, I'm not saying that was a, you know, absolute practice or anything like that. We don't do that in our denomination largely anymore. But the point was to point back to this.
Do we come to the Lord's table without examining our hearts? Are we so, you know, just used to the gospel that we don't think about the weightiness of our sin? And so when you come to the Lord's table, I think this isn't self-deprecation, this isn't being spiritually abusive, this is saying we need to be honest about who we are. And as we remember the Lord's death every time we come, remembering with joy the sacrifice, but also the reason for that sacrifice, our own sins, and that we're those people who are quick to confess our sins. We're able to afflict our souls in a godly way.
Remember that our covenant king sacrificed his life for us. So let me encourage you next time you come to the Lord's Supper, maybe you should fast on a Friday or a Friday or Saturday. Maybe you should spend a period of time thinking in your life about the ways in which your king has saved you from specific sins. So this is just, I can't say this is gospel law, but I can say, I think it might be a helpful practice.
Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for our sacrifice, our paschal lamb, Jesus Christ, whom you sent because you love the world. Lord, we thank you that you have not only taken away our sins, but you have called us friends. You have adopted us as your children. You're truly a gracious and generous God. Be generous, God. We pray now that you would please care for us this day in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may the joy of Jesus Christ and the assurance that comes by the Holy Spirit of knowing that the gospel is yours give you peace today. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.