Dedicating the Levites

Well, good morning, 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, tea, nothing. I don't know what you're having. Nothing. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together.
And this year, 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. You're going to do that all year, aren't you? Judges is after numbers or after Deuteronomy. Well, let's go ahead and have something to drink. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, you are so generous to us. We thank you for giving us your Word. And Father, we pray that as we read your Word now that you would please help us to understand it. Lord, we pray that you would apply these sayings to our hearts. That you would be our teacher. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Alright, so we're at Numbers chapter 8. Numbers chapter 8, beginning at verse 5. And Daniel, I'm going to let you read verse 5 and 6. You're going to read verse 5 and 6. Okay, so you'll read from here to here. Nathan, you can read 7 through 12. Debra, you can do 13 through 19, and I'll read 20 to the end. So we just skip chapter 8? No, we read chapter 8, 1 and 4 last time. Remember how they arranged the lamps? Oh, yeah. OK. So you go ahead and read 5 and 16 again.
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, take the lamp. Levites from among the children of Israel and cleanse them now ceremonially. Can you pick it up from here? Thus you shall do to them, to cleanse them. Make a water of purification on them, and let them shave all their body, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean. Then let them take a young roll with its grain on it, a fine flour, mixed with oil, and you shall take another young boy as a synagogue.
You shall bring the Levites before the tabernacle meeting, and you shall gather together the whole congregation, the children of Israel. So you shall bring the Levites before the wall. And the children of Israel shall say, their hands on the Levites, and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord a wave offering from the children of Israel that the Levites shall lay their hands on Israel, that they may perform the work of the Lord. Then the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the young bulls, and he shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to the Lord. to make a children for the Levites. And you shall stand the Levites before Aaron and his sons, then offer them like a wave offering to the Lord. Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. After that, the Levites shall go into service and to service the tabernacle of meaning. So you shall cleanse them and offer them like a wave offering.
For they are wholly given to me, Eve. For they are wholly given to me from among the children of Israel. I have taken them for myself instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the children of Israel. For all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast. On the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them to myself.
I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the children of Israel, and I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel to do the work for the children of Israel in the tabernacle of meeting and to make atonement for the children of Israel. that there be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near the sanctuary. Lots of children of Israel there.
What is a wave offering? A wave offering is where they're waving it before the Lord. So how would they do that with the Levites? Because they say like offer them as you wave off. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they're picking up the Levites and waving them. Hey, I'm the strongest man in Israel.
Thus Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel did to the Levites according to all that the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites. So the children of Israel did to them. And the Levites purified themselves and washed their clothes. Then Aaron presented them like a wave offering before the Lord. Like a wave offering. And Aaron made atonement for them to cleanse them.
After that the Levites went in to do their work in the tabernacle of meeting before Aaron and his sons, as the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites. So they did to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This is what pertains to the Levites.
From twenty-five years old and above, one may enter to perform service in the work of the tabernacle of meeting, and at the age of fifty they must cease performing this work, and shall work no more. They may minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of meeting to attend to needs, but they themselves shall do no work. Thus you shall do to the Levites regarding their duties.
Alright, so what do you think this whole section was about? Levites. Okay, what about the Levites? Things you have to do before you become a Levite. Well, if you want to do like show them the temple. So if a Levite was going to serve in the temple, if he was 25 to 50 years old, they had to be dedicated and set apart for that work.
You guys remember what happened when Mr. Turner was ordained? Do you remember what the elders did? They laid hands on them. Yeah, they laid hands on them. This is somewhat similar. They set them apart for that work. So people came around the Levites, they put their hands on them. But before the Levites could even jump on them. Now when the Levites, before they could do their work, something else had to happen. Do you guys remember what that was?
Nope. There had to be a sacrifice. Terrible. No. Were they sinless? No. Were they perfect? No. No, even here, this is a picture that they weren't perfect, they weren't sinless, they needed to have even sacrificed themselves before they could go work in the tabernacle.
And the amazing thing is, God told them all to do this, what happened? How did they sacrifice themselves? Well, they didn't sacrifice themselves, they sacrificed for themselves. But they are animals. Sacrificed themselves? Meaning they had to sacrifice for themselves.
Sorry, I wasn't clear about that. So, the amazing thing in my mind is, as the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them. Is it just given that we're going to follow God's commandments? Nope. So this was a blessing, right? They listened and they did it. Alright, well, what do you think? Anything about this? seem to stand out about how it might apply to us? Or how it applied to Jesus? That Jesus was our offering and we don't need to sacrifice sin offerings and more offerings. Good, good. Yeah, so Jesus is our sin offering, right? He's our guilt offering. He redeemed us, so we don't need any more sin offerings. Good, good.
Anything else you guys think would tie to the New Covenant or to Jesus? Or how this calls us to live in our lives? That we should try to be good, and if we're not, we just gotta repent. Okay, so we gotta try to be good, but if we don't, we gotta repent. Well, I'm not sure where you got that in this passage, but you're right about that. Right, but will we ever be perfect? No. Will we ever be done repenting?
No. Not in this life. No. But up heaven. And heaven is different, right? In heaven we'll be glorified, freed from the body. So we can't sin. We will, as Augustine said, non passe non peccate, not possible to sin. Sorry, non passe peccate, not possible to sin. I can't.
Your soul is not material, so it doesn't see it in the same way. It's like, I should not be able to see the Lord? Well, you'll be able to see the Lord, but remember, the Lord hath not a body like man. And so, we don't know what that's like, right? But that's a good question. So do they have, like, name tags? I don't know if they have name tags in heaven.
Okay, let's go ahead and pray. God, we thank you so much that you have called us to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, That we have one high priest, Jesus Christ, we have one sacrifice, the Lamb who was slain, but you have called us each to minister in your tabernacle. Lord, to be members of your church, to fulfill our roles that you have given us as members of the invisible church. Lord, we pray that as we live our lives, we pray that we would work well for your glory, knowing that our King in heaven is our High Priest. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes in Jesus Christ, and we'll see you next time. You guys wanna say bye? 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 in 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.