Audio Teaching

Notes

Salvation and Sanctification

As we come to the end of our study of Leviticus, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of instruction in these twenty-seven chapters. It’s important to remember that Exodus, not Leviticus, is the picture of our salvation. We are not saved by works; we are saved by the hand of God. Exodus shows us our salvation, and Leviticus instructs us on how to walk with God and grow in sanctification.

John 17:17 CSB “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.”

John 1:1 and 14 CSB “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

We cannot separate the written Word from the person of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One (Ac. 10:38 – what Jesus did on the earth, the Word, BY FAITH does for us now). [See Mk. 11:-23-25; Jn. 14:14; 16:23-24].

A Quick Look at the Reason for Curses  

*When we step out of the Word, we invite curses. When Israel was punished for being outside of God’s commands, curses came – but the promises of Blessing, including the land of Israel, still stood.

• We see levels of punishment for disobedience in Lev. 26:14, 17, 18, 23, and 27.
  • If we look at the Kehot Chumash, we see why things are getting worse: God is trying to bring about repentance.
  • v. 18 – If, during these punishments, you do not listen to Me and repent, I will add another seven punishments for your above-listed seven sins that you continue to commit:
  • v. 23 –  If, in your continued stubbornness, you will not be corrected by these punishments enough to return to Me, and you therefore continue to walk with Me—i.e., perform My commandments—irregularly,
  • The punishment came because they were not consistent in their walk with God.
• Deut. 30:19-20 CSB
• God is a blesser! All punishment had a purpose, and that purpose was to bring Israel back into the promise!
• Unrolling the Scroll states that curses are detailed to deter Israel from breaking the Commandments.
• Prov. 10:22 AMPC

Blessed Through Giving

A Jewish teaching on financial planning:

“Here is how to make an honest living, with confidence and minimal worry: Determine how much you need to provide for your family’s needs. Get into a business that can make that sum of money. Put your best foot forward and do whatever needs to be done. And stop there. Invest yourself, but don’t enslave yourself. Do your job, but don’t become your job. No anxiety, no fretting, no sleepless nights. More will get you less.” – Derech Mitzvosecha, Tiglachat Metzorah; Hayom Yom, 16 Adar II and 5 Tammuz.

• How does more get you less? Prov. 11:24 CSB “One person gives freely, yet gains more; another withholds what is right, only to become poor.”
• This is how you can work for what you need and still have plenty left to give – 2 Cor. 9:6-10 AMPC.

Walking in The Blessing

“The final section of the Book of Leviticus opens as God promises the Jewish people that if they follow His rules, they will be rewarded with material wealth and well-being.”… “Rules” (chukim) are those commandments for which no reason is given, and indeed which make no logical sense. This category of commandments contrasts with the other two broad categories of commandments: “laws” (mishpatim) – which human reason can understand and would even dictate on its own, and “testimonies” (eidyot) – ceremonial institutions that human reason would not necessarily dictate but can understand and appreciate. It is specifically by observing the Torah’s chukim that we express our total submission to God’s will, our readiness to follow His directives even when doing so flies in the face of logic and reason.” – Kehot Chumash, Bechukotai Introduction

Lev. 26:1-5 CSB

Lev. 26:3-5 Kehot Chumash “God continued to instruct Moses what to convey in His name to the people: “If you make sure to advance in the knowledge of My rules by studying the Torah assiduously, i.e., beyond the minimal requirement, and you make sure to study the Torah with the intent to safeguard your proper performance of My commandments, and then indeed perform them properly, 4 I will reciprocate by granting you material beneficence that exceeds the limitations of nature: I will give you the rains in a manner most favorable to your benefit and convenience: They will fall in their time—i.e., the time I have designated for them exclusively—nighttime, when people are not outdoors working the land. This way, you will be able to work the land by day unhindered by rain. Moreover, I will further limit the rainfall to the time most convenient for you—the Sabbath night, when no one is usually about. Miraculously, the land will yield its full produce from the rain that falls during this short weekly period. Also, miraculously, the naturally barren tree of the field will give forth its fruit. 5 There will be so much grain that threshing will occupy you until the grape harvest, and harvesting the grapes will occupy you until the time for sowing the fields again for grain. But you will not need this overabundance for yourselves, since your food will be so miraculously satiating that you will be able to eat just a small amount of your food to satiate yourselves. You will live in security in your land, i.e., without fear of drought.”

v. 4 Commentary: “When we achieve true oneness with the Torah—as described above with regard to our dedication to God’s “rules”—our entire being is affected, even the physical aspects of our lives. In order to indicate that this is indeed the case, the results of such oneness must therefore also be physical. Hence, the material rewards spoken of here are not only an incentive to keep the Torah but the true indication that the Torah has permeated our lives so much that our observance produces tangible results.

Our sages teach us that these verses, besides describing the material rewards that God promises us in the present order, also refer to the even more miraculous material bounty that will characterize the messianic future. We are told that in the messianic era, plants will yield their produce on the same day they are planted; entire trees will be edible, not only their fruit; even non-fruit-bearing trees will bear fruit;3 the earth will produce delicacies and silk clothing; wheat stalks will tower like palm trees; and grains of wheat will grow as large as two kidneys of a large ox.4Based on the explanation just given of the nature of the contextual meaning of these verses—as referring to the material rewards promised us in the present order—we can understand these messianic prophecies as not only serving as incentives but as physical expressions of the extent to which Divine consciousness has permeated our being.”

How Christians Connect with The Blessing

• Gen. 12:1-3; 22:17-18 CSB
• Js. 2:8 CSB
• The law of love contains the entire Torah and all the Prophets.
• Matt. 22:36-40 CSB
• Love has no fear of becoming legalistic.
• The one who has seen me has seen the Father – Jn. 14:9 CSB
• Isa. 56 – The foreigner who joins himself to the Lord and keeps the Sabbaths (plural, includes the Feasts [Lev. 23]) will be blessed.
• Those who align with the Jews kept Purim (Esther 9:27).
• We celebrate Passover because Jesus is our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7-8; Lk. 22:14-20 [vv. 16, 18]).
• The Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost because He is our teacher (Jn. 14-15; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27).
• In Zech. 14 and Isa. 66, we see that we will celebrate Tabernacles in the millennium. (Isa. 66 also mentions the monthly New Moon celebration and Shabbat).
• Noah separated the animals via clean and unclean (Gen. 7:1-3; 8:20-22) before the law was “given.” The law, the instruction of God, has always existed, even before the written form. It was known by Adam and his sons and Noah and his sons. In its written form, we now have the instruction and the promise of Blessing without any doubt. Consider this: Eve was deceived, and Adam stayed quiet – they sinned without it written down. We have it written for us: how much more should we avoid sin, especially being filled with the Holy Spirit? May we be like David in Psalm 119, delight in the Scriptures, and receive The Blessing.