The Passover Ritual

...and have these participatory ceremonies and rituals. And it seems the bigger the group, the more formalized and exacting those rituals are. As I say, I think on the television news we've seen more depictions of Roman Catholic rituals lately because of the Pope abdicating and the conclave that's about to begin to choose a new one. And that, in and of itself, is a very particular ceremony and a ritual that they go through. Now, because of this, in talking about false religions, I don't want to say that this formal organization is bad, or that rituals or ceremonies are always bad. There's something about a ritual that can be very impressive. And if it drives an idea or a concept into our minds, then it's very good. It's done its purpose. Especially when it might be an abstract concept that could be hard to understand. And I believe that's the reason God gave ancient Israel a very formal system of ritual sacrifice. And He's told them, this is how you worship me. Now, the rituals and ceremonies had to be done exactly the way they were commanded. And each little aspect of it tended to have a deep symbolic meaning. But that system's obsolete today. We don't follow that system. And there's a good reason for that, of course. And our method now within the true Church of God has a much more educational emphasis. We come together and meet, and someone gets up and speaks and explains principles. We read from God's Scripture, and we learn. Now, we do worship also, and we have other aspects of that worship that are more ceremonial.

And there are some of our ceremonies and rituals that we maintain that are very important and also rather precise. The most formal and ritualistic ceremony we do is that of the annual Passover. That's coming up soon. And if you think, if you weren't already in the Church and you observed that, you would say, boy, that's pretty strict and ritualistic. It's a ceremony limited only to those who are baptized members. So those who are not, you know, in another group we might say, initiated into the rites and mysteries. We don't use that language, but one has to be fully committed and be part of the body of Christ to participate. We gather and we read a set of specific Scriptures. We read the same ones each year. And we don't have very much commentary on them as we do on a Sabbath service. We all participate in the washing of another person's feet. And we do so mostly in silence, helping them remove their shoes and socks, then trade places and have that done to us. The audience sits and watches as a minister will uncover a plate of unleavened bread, ask a very formal prayer over it, and then begin to break it into small pieces while everyone watches in silence. And then, from the one central location, the bread is sent out and everybody takes a piece and eats it.

Then a similar procedure happens with plates holding small glasses of wine. A very formal prayer is said. It's passed around and everybody drinks in silence. That's ritual and ceremony. It's done a precise way. As I said to someone who didn't understand this, it could seem odd or intimidating. But we spend time teaching the meaning of the ceremony. Not only in this time of year leading up to it, but throughout the year we go over what this means, why we're doing this.

But one of the most important things that Passover demonstrates to us is that our worship of God is not without sacrifice. That's one of the points I wanted to make. We do have sacrifice as part of our worship. The ritual taking of bread and wine reminds us of the one real sacrifice for sin, and the one that matters the most. As we think about that, we think of sacrifice and its place in our worship, I want to consider some points about Christ's sacrifice, but also about some other sacrifices and offerings that we might not think about in that context.

The book of Hebrews devotes considerable space to comparing and contrasting the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. So we're going to go to Hebrews. As a matter of fact, let me double check. I believe Hebrews chapter 9 is where we'll read first. But it's interesting that... I've got a ladybug up here visiting me. Not anymore. Both Old and New Covenant include the concept that the penalty of sin is death. That's common to both. And that the cost of breaking God's law requires blood. Let's read in Hebrews 9 and verse 22.

It's a little different, like drink offerings and meal offerings that didn't necessarily include the killing of animals. But no matter how you look at it, those sacrifices did not actually take away sin. At least that's what we read in Hebrews 10. Cross the page for me, Hebrews 10 and verse 1.

It's interesting. It doesn't just say it doesn't do it. It says it's not possible for it to do it.

And we don't offer these animal sacrifices because Christ's sacrifice superseded them. And that's where... Well, let's go back to Hebrews 7 and read here. Rather than me expound on it, I'll wait and do that afterwards. Hebrews 7 and verse 22. By so much more, Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. As I said, this book spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting the two covenants. And verse 24 it says, To offer up sacrifices first for his own sin and then for the people.

For he did this once for all when he offered up himself. This is the sacrifice that we're commemorating each year when we participate in the Passover. Jesus Christ offered himself up once for all. And that phrase is found... I'm not going to turn there, but in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7, the Apostle Paul said, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Christ is that sacrifice. Let's turn to John 6 to read a little bit more about that.

John 6 beginning in verse 51. So we read, without remission of sin, or without blood, there is no remission. John 6 and verse 51. Now this is after, of course, one of the times when Jesus Christ fed thousands of people from just a few loaves of bread and fish. And he found they were following them around because they wanted to get fed more. And he said, you're not even coming to see the miracles. It's sort of like saying, you're not even interested in the show, you want the food.

And he said, you need to desire something better, the bread from heaven. And so they were thinking, hey, we want to get another meal. So they're saying, give us this. And then he turns the tables and started speaking. We learned symbolically about something else, but they weren't sure. They didn't understand the symbolism. In verse 51, he says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

If anyone eats this bread, he'll live forever. And the bread that I'll give is my flesh, which I'll give for the life of the world. And the Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, like, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And I'm sure they're saying, is he crazy? He wants us to eat him? Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed. My blood is drink indeed. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. And as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.

Now that could sound awfully gruesome, but it also brings to mind, as I said, a very formal ritual ceremony where you think of the actual price of blood given by one person so that others could live. But of course, I wonder how the disciples felt. We know, it says as you continue in chapter 6 here, that many couldn't stand this, and they left and didn't follow him anymore. And Christ, I think he had second thoughts.

He even asked the twelve apostles, are you going to leave too? And I think they didn't know exactly where he was going with this, but Peter spoke for them. He said, well, where are we going to go? You have the words of life. And it was worth them sticking around. Later on in Christ's last night with them, he explained that this was a symbolism. Let's go to Matthew 26. Matthew 26, and we'll begin in verse 26.

So, 26-26. Now, they'd taken the traditional Passover meal, which included slaying a lamb, and of course, we now know that that lamb was a symbol of Jesus Christ. And the family had to eat that sacrifice. Interesting to note, I'm going to talk about sacrifices for sin in the Levitical ceremony later, and it's worth noting that the people didn't normally eat any of the sin sacrifice, but the Passover was one that was different. The whole family did eat. Anyways, they finished that, and then Christ introduced some new symbols, a new ceremony that we continue today.

It says, as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and we know that was unleavened bread, and He broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, take, eat. This is my body. So when they said, is it, we're going to, He wants us to eat Him, He meant eat this bread that symbolizes my body.

Then He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, and said, drink from it. All of you. This is my blood. Now, it wasn't actually blood, it was wine, but He said, this is symbolizing the blood that I said was drink indeed. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Remember, without bloodshed, there is no remission of sin. So, and for this reason, we no longer kill any blood sacrifices.

But we do have sacrifice as part of our worship. Jesus Christ was our Creator. He became a human being and lived a perfect life, never earning the death penalty. He never had to pay for His own sin. So He died in place of all human beings. As we read in Hebrews 27, that one sacrifice was good for all people for all time.

And that's why I'm saying, our worship, it would be incorrect to say that our worship does not include sacrifice, it does. It includes that sacrifice in particular. The sacrifice, and as Mr. Evans pointed out, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the heart and center of our religion. Everything else is built around that. It's just good for us that that was a permanent sacrifice. It doesn't have to be repeated. One time, once, was good for all time and for all people.

So when we take of that bread and wine, once in the year, which was as the command God gave, they're symbols of that sacrifice. They remind us of it very clearly. And of course, we're looking forward to that time, as we said, coming up very soon. I want to shift gears a little bit, though, and look in another direction. Because we don't always remember or think about the fact that there were other sacrifices and offerings as part of that Levitical system. And they were not for sin. So you might wonder, where do they fit in with all of this?

Well, sacrifice for sin was certainly the most important part of the sacrificial system. And if you read through especially Leviticus and Numbers and some other parts of the Pentateuch describe that, most of the spaces devoted to sin sacrifices. And there were different ones for if you sinned intentionally or unintentionally or in ignorance. And most of these sacrifices were burned up. The daily offering, morning and evening, was a burnt offering covering sin, and it was all burned up. You put it in and nobody ate any of it.

But let's go to Leviticus 7 and notice that there were some other types of sacrifices. Leviticus 7. I'm going to read a little bit of detail here. And it's not important that you notice all the detail, but I'll pull some things out that we need, that I do want us to make note of. Beginning in verse 11, this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer to the eternal. If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil.

Besides the cakes as his offering, he shall offer leavened bread. That sounds unusual. We know with all sin offerings only unleavened bread was used. But for this type of sacrifice, leavening could be used as a sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offering. He shall offer one cake from each sacrifice as a heave offering to the eternal. It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day it is offered. He shall not leave any of it till the morning.

That's if it's a peace offering. But if it's an offering of a vow or a voluntary offering, it can be eaten the same day, and on the next day the remainder shall be eaten. But in any event, none of it gets eaten on the third day. Now that sounds like a whole bunch of, what are you talking about? One of the things I want to note is sin isn't mentioned here.

These are offerings that are not to atone for sin. They're coming to praise God and give him thanks or make peace offerings. As I said, that's an aspect of worshiping God within the old covenant system that we overlook somewhat because there's so much sin and so much need for sacrifice. But these sacrifices were means that God gave for people to praise him. He said, do this to praise me and to say, we're at peace and we love you, God, and we want to give thanks to you.

Give thanks and rejoice. It's interesting to note when it says, they shall be eaten at certain times, they were eaten. And not only by the priest, a small part was given to the priest, but the people making the offering then ate most of the food. The blood was poured out and certain parts of the animal were burned. And there's other chapters. If you're wanting to look into this, which I wouldn't think many of you were, but Leviticus 19 and 22 both also addressed these sacrifices.

But the idea that these sacrifices were for rejoicing and praising God shouldn't seem strange to us. We're accustomed to God's people rejoicing as part of our worship. We focus on praising God and on giving thanks all the time, and especially on the Sabbath day. We like to quote Isaiah 58, where we are instructed to call the Sabbath a delight. It's not a burden, it's not some onerous thing, it's a delight. And over and over again, the instructions for the Holy Day say that we're to rejoice before God. What's one of the best ways for people to come together and rejoice?

Often it's to have a meal together. That's why the word feast for us is largely synonymous with Holy Day. I thought this morning it popped into my head. My wife Sue mentioned sometimes when she was still teaching in the public schools, she'd explained to the students she was going to be gone for about a week and a half, going to the feast. And when she came back, they'd always ask, did you eat a whole lot? Because they thought, feast, you know, it must be, it's all eating.

Well, and of course it does involve a lot of eating, but more importantly, spiritual feeding, you know, where we partake of that. But we sometimes forget that those concepts didn't just start with the New Testament.

They were around before. God wanted to provide His people ways to rejoice and come together and be enriched and give thanks to Him and praise. I want to demonstrate that by looking at the story of a family in the Old Testament doing exactly that. It's a couple by the name of Elkanah and Hannah. We're going to go to 1 Samuel, Chapter 1. And you might, if you weren't thinking of who this was before, talking about going to 1 Samuel might remind you, this is a family, well, Hannah could not have children.

Now, it turned out her husband Elkanah had a second wife who did have children. And Hannah was very dis-rod over that. And so, you know, while they were there, she prayed fervently that God would give her a son.

And she said, if you give me a son, I'll devote him to your service. God heard that prayer and answered, and she gave birth to one she named Samuel. And then he came under the Nazarite vow and served God in the priesthood for all of his life and became a judge and a great ruler. But I don't want to focus just on God's answered prayer, but also I want to look at this aspect of why they were there and how they were worshipping God.

So let's pick it up in 1 Samuel. Now, the first verse, I mean, 1 Samuel, Chapter 1, first one has a lot of names that it's hard to pronounce, so I'm just going to focus on Elkanah was there.

And in verse 2, we see that he had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other, Panina. And Panina had children, but Hannah had no children. Now, this man, Elkanah, went up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were there. Now, I do wonder, it says he came up once a year to sacrifice.

I'm assuming it was at, well, he came up at the feast time. We know from the Scripture the men were supposed to come up three times a year. Now, there's not a lot of explanation. My theory is that either for some reason they weren't obeying the law fully, or perhaps two other times of the year Elkanah came by himself. But one of those seasons, each year, he brought his whole family. And in addition to the required sacrifices, they offered some other sacrifices.

Peace offerings, Thanksgiving offerings. And as we read in verse 4, whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Panina, his wife, to all her sons and daughters, and to Hannah he would give a double portion. For he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. So the family is there, and they're feasting. They're worshipping God in the way that he prescribed, but it included them having great portions of food, maybe things that they couldn't enjoy most times of the year.

And that should sound familiar to us as well. God has given us that system now with the Holy Days where he commands us to keep the second tithe, and then go to the feast. And we enjoy things that we don't normally have. At least I do. Get a nice steak. It's funny, some of the things that I enjoy that I don't get all the rest of the time. I love whoppers, and I don't eat them very often. So people think I'm weird, but I try to do that at the feast on occasion.

Or last year I had one of the best Reuben sandwiches I've ever had at Cracker Barrel. So it doesn't have to be steak or anything that elaborate, and I'm losing track of where I was going in the story. Well, I want to go down to verse 9 to also show what happens in this setting where everyone is worshiping God. Hannah arose after they'd finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, and Eli the priest was sitting by the seat of the doorpost of the tabernacle, and she was in bitterness of soul.

Remember, she's still upset that she can't have children, and she came and prayed to the eternal while she was weeping in anguish. I don't want to focus on the weeping in anguish, but on the fact that she felt that she could come to God at this time in a way that maybe she didn't feel before.

Because they were there worshiping God in the manner that he'd prescribed according to the sacrificial system, and all of them were there together, and she probably felt close to God, able to talk to Him in a more open way than usual. I know I felt that way at the feast days. Sometimes it's all there. You're surrounded by people filled with God's Spirit, and although you pray to God every other day, sometimes you feel like you've got a closer connection.

I'm speculating a little bit on what it says here, but we do know God heard that prayer, and she did have a son.

So, as I said, this whole concept shouldn't sound odd to us.

And with that in mind, it shouldn't seem strange to us, then, that some very special elements of the sacrificial system continue in our new covenant worship of God.

The meaning of sacrifices was important enough that we can find them in the New Testament some Biblical references to what are called spiritual sacrifices. Spiritual sacrifices. Now, you might wonder, what do you mean by that?

Well, let's read a scripture that uses the term. Let's go to 1 Peter, chapter 2.

1 Peter 2, and we'll begin in verse 5.

Now, we're going to pick up partway here. I'll note that Peter is making a progression of describing Christians as part of a spiritual temple, which he does, saying, we have the Holy Spirit within us.

So, with God's Spirit in us, we're a temple of God, both as individuals, but then also especially as a church of God.

So, with that in mind, let's read verse 5.

And I'm in the wrong Peter. First Peter. First Peter 2 and verse 5.

Now, you might say, what does he mean by that? Well, we're pretty sure that he's not saying that we are actual stones, even though he's making that analogy.

But, since we have the Holy Spirit in us, we are part of a spiritual temple.

Well, the spiritual sacrifices, I think, is a similar thing. We're not killing animals in a spiritual way.

And, of course, there aren't spiritual animals that we can kill for sacrifice.

But we do make offerings to God that he considers as sacrifice.

Now, these could not be sacrifices in any way comparable to sin offerings.

And I want to make that clear. There's only one offering for sin. Jesus Christ was that sacrifice. And that's why I wanted to spend that time early on covering that. And hopefully we're all clear on that. But, I also noted, there were other types of sacrifices in the Old Covenant that were not related to sin.

So what can we see in the Scripture that the New Testament might call spiritual sacrifices? That we, as Christians, whose sin is covered by the blood of Christ, can do? Well, let's go back to Hebrews 13.

We'll take note of some of those. Hebrews 13 and verse 15.

Therefore, by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Now, when it says fruit of our lips, that could sound kind of strange. Not that there's something coming out of our lips, but it's figurative poetic language. It means the words we use, the things we say.

And I think by extension we could say the things we think. But we can say words of praise to our God. We can say words of thanks to our God. And that should sound familiar.

We were reading about peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings. Our praise and thanks most often can come to God from the words we speak, just a normal speech, from the heart. And that can be in the form of prayer. It can be a very formal prayer, but it can also be talking to him. It might be even more special when they come in the form of song. When we praise God and thank him in song, it's very inspirational.

It's very special. I think that's why we use the term special music. It's evident, by the way, God made us so that we can be moved and stirred by the beauty of music. That he probably is moved and stirred by the beauty of music. When we hear something special happens inside us, when people say thanks to us, or when people say nice things to us, they compliment us or they notice something, they encourage us, I think we're that way because God made us in his image and likeness.

So I think God considers us something special to him when he hears those words of thanks and compliments. Well, he doesn't need encouraged, but he might want us to encourage him that we're trying to be like he is. That must be encouraging to him. But is this really sacrifice? I wrote that in my notes because my skeptical mind says, that's not a sacrifice.

You've got to go kill an animal. Well, let's be more specific. If you take the very basic definition of sacrifice, it means giving up something that you'd rather have for yourself. Well, if someone was sacrificing an animal, they were doing that. They were taking something, animals especially at that time, thousands of years ago, were the primary unit of wealth. And you took a significant one of your possessions and just turned it over and said, burn this up for God.

You were giving up something that was special to you and you would have rather had it yourself. And you couldn't just take someone else's animal and sacrifice it because it wasn't really a sacrifice then. Well, when we give thanks, we're giving up something that we'd probably rather have for ourselves. We're giving up the credit for something. We're saying, I didn't do this, you did. And often we're saying, I couldn't do this, but thank you that you did it. So we're giving that up.

When we give praise to God, at that moment we're focusing our thoughts and our energy on Him. We're giving that to Him rather than ourselves. And face it, human beings like to focus our energy and thoughts on ourselves.

And I'm as guilty as anyone. I could sit and think about myself all day. And it doesn't necessarily accomplish anything good, but when we praise God, we stop thinking about ourselves and we focus on Him.

We're giving Him something we'd rather have for ourselves. So that is, in essence, making a sacrifice. And I'll mention, when we do either or both of those in the form of song, then we're additionally giving up that creative energy to perform and sing to Him. And that's why I was saying, when we have those who have those gifts do it in services, it means a lot. And it's something we can all participate in and rejoice in. And that's one of the reasons I also wanted to mention, as we read about Elkanah and Hannah, making a sacrifice that was part of worship to God, and yet they got to eat the steak.

You know, these spiritual sacrifices don't have to be something that only benefits God. We enjoy it also. When we praise and thank God, we can enjoy it. If we're singing a beautiful song, which, of course, I emphasize special music, but part of our service here is we all join together in singing, and it's worshiping God. It's giving something to Him. But, boy, we like it too. At least I do.

As I said, one of the things I like about song leading, it's my favorite assignment in church services, and I don't get to do it very often. I was talking to Mr. Call as we were driving over about the feast coming up in Cincinnati, and it occurred to me. This might be my one chance to lead songs at the feast, because I get to decide who does it. So I might just assign myself that for a day or two. At any rate, what I want to say about that is, giving something to God there that we also enjoy is what you might call a win-win situation.

But it's still, the Bible calls it a spiritual sacrifice. As a matter of fact, I left off in Hebrews 13, I read verse 15, but there's more in verse 16. Looking there, it says, Now, and we could also say those are part of just living a Christian life if we're doing it properly.

It's interesting. Spiritual sacrifice is primarily to God, but we do good to other people, and we share, usually, with other people. But all those other people belong to God, so we're giving it to God, but also giving it to other people. And it fits well with the concept that's explained in Romans 12, if we want to go there and read. If you were thinking about this, when I said, what's a spiritual sacrifice, many of you probably thought of this first off, and you know, I had to get here eventually. Romans 12, verse 1, the Apostle Paul says, That could also be translated rational service. Devote your bodies as a living sacrifice. That's important because we've already noted that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was the last one that had to involve dying. He gave His blood once for all time. So no sacrifice we could ever give need involve blood, at least certainly not for sin.

But when we use our lives, which have been saved by Christ's sacrifice, and service to God or to others, then that's a sacrifice. As we just read, when we do good and share, it's a sacrifice with which God is well pleased. So another way to look at this is, you know, since we all deserve to die for our sins, but Christ paid that penalty for us, He's bought and paid for our lives. And if He directs us to do something with those lives, then that's our reasonable service. I came across something when I was preparing for substitute teaching at ABC. I found something, and I'm not sure which minister it was, but it was someone back in college who said this quote. He said, Time is the substance that our lives are made of. I thought, that sounded, maybe I'm easy to impress, but that sounded profound. Time is the substance that our lives are made of. So when we give our time to others, either in service or in just being there with them, that's making a sacrifice of our lives, a living sacrifice, as it says here. And I want to make the point, that's actually what God has all along wanted from us.

Even when the old sacrificial system was in place, God was looking forward to these types of sacrifices. Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 33, and we'll see there a prophecy of the millennium. So it's a prophecy of a future time, but it does show what God has always had in mind, and we're going to see a phrase come up that we read earlier.

It's a Jeremiah 33 and verse 11.

I think that cold this last week is with my throat a little dry. Luckily, I'm well provided for up here.

Jeremiah 33, 11. The voice of joy, and this is breaking into a common prophecy, but it's talking about during the millennium, the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride, and the voice of those who will say, Praise the Lord of hosts, for the eternal is good, His mercy endures forever, and of those who will bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the eternal. For I'll cause the captives to return to the land, to return as the first, says the eternal. So here he talks about, again, the sacrifice of praise. That's something that God is well pleased with.

Likewise, doing good has always been a spiritual sacrifice. Let's look back to Psalm 4, Psalm 4 and verse 5. Just a brief verse, but I think it's important. It says, Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the eternal. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness. Now, the part of me that likes to parse words and say, What does it really mean semantically? Well, is this saying that being righteous is making a spiritual sacrifice? Or is it saying when you offer the animal sacrifice according to the Old Testament, that that was being righteous?

Maybe it was saying both in this context. There's another Psalm that I think definitely means one and not the other. If you'll go to Psalm 51, Psalm 51, which we know was David's poetic lament and repentance that he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba when he realized that sin and very fervently repented and asked God for forgiveness. Now, we want to realize and remember that David had the Holy Spirit.

So he was in a position to understand the idea of spiritual sacrifice and what it was that God wanted. And that's why I want to read this starting in verse 16. It says, You do not desire sacrifice, and that means animal sacrifice, else I would give it, nor do you do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. That's something that God considers as either a spiritual sacrifice or we could say more important than sacrifice.

We could say repentance and humility, that broken and contrite heart. And this does open the way to say, is there something more important than sacrifice to God? I think that one might be easy. But it's interesting, those without God's Spirit for years have read this book and misunderstood a lot. They've looked at the Old Testament and some have said, oh, that was a vengeful, harsh God and needed Jesus to come along and teach the way of love.

He only wanted bloodletting to worship Him. But if we look in the Old Testament, we'll see that's not the case. God always wanted something different. Let's go back to 1 Samuel, chapter 15. Of course, we talked about Samuel's parents earlier. Now let's look at an important thing that he said. It's a brief scripture, so it's important I'll just mention the context. This is when God, through Samuel, had given King Saul directions to go and attack the Amalekites. The Amalekites had been marked for destruction to move them out of the way of the Israelites, and God said, kill them all.

And this, of course, God could do that knowing He would bring them up in the resurrection. So God wasn't condemning them forever, but take them out of the way now, and He said, kill all the animals. Don't take any plunder from this. This isn't about you guys getting rich. But King Saul thought better. He said, well, let's save He and the people with Him. Let's save the best of the animals, and we can offer sacrifice. That'll make God happy. We see in 1 Samuel 15 and verse 22 that it didn't.

Samuel had to reprimand Him. Samuel said, has the eternal as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the eternal? That's a rhetorical question, and then the answer is obvious. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. To heed than the fat of rams. So listening to God is better than any sacrifice and obeying Him. That's what God wants. We can see something similar if we go to Proverbs chapter 21. Proverbs 21 and verse 3.

Samuel wasn't the only one that realized this, and we know Solomon was the wisest man ever, aside from Jesus Christ, I would say. Proverbs 21.3, he wrote this, to do righteousness and justice as more acceptable to the eternal than sacrifice. He wasn't after the bloodletting. He wanted people to do righteousness and justice.

Let's read one more in Hosea chapter 6. It's moving towards the front of the book. Hosea 6 and verse 6. Let's see, what's it? Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea. Here, God speaking in the first person says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burn offerings. Now, we talked about the offerings are important, and spiritual sacrifices are important, but there's something God wants more. He wants mercy more than that. He wants the knowledge of God. And God always preferred, well, let me put it this way, God always preferred the spiritual sacrifices to the physical, and He always preferred for people to do good.

He wanted people to become like Him, so that repentance and forgiveness wouldn't be so necessary. Or, I guess, if once we're forgiven, if we became like God, we wouldn't need forgiveness again.

The reason that the physical blood sacrifice even existed was because as human beings, without the Holy Spirit, people can't grasp what it is that God wants. You have to have the Holy Spirit to get it, and certainly you have to have the Holy Spirit to do what God wants from the heart. And what does He want? Jesus boiled it down to two main things. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might, and love your neighbor as yourself. It seems like I've been coming back to that again and again, but maybe because it's so important. Now, we understand that it was always God's plan to bring us to that. Even when He was instituting the animal sacrifices, His plan was for the greater thing to come. We can see a prophecy of that in Psalm 40. Psalm, yeah, number 40. We'll go back to Psalms one more time. Psalm 40, beginning in verse 6. We'll read this and then move up to see it, a New Testament parallel. Psalm 40 in verse 6 says, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. My ears you have opened. Burn offering and sin offering you did not require. Then I said, Behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it's written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart.

This was saying that the elaborate, ritualistic ceremonies and blood sacrifices were not what God wanted from mankind. They were symbols of something much greater to come. They were symbols. What God really wants is for mankind to love God's way and for people to become like God. And that's clearly explained if we go back to Hebrews 10, near where we started. Hebrews 10, and we'll begin in verse 8. I wanted to show this parallel. The author here, we believe is Paul, quotes Psalm 40, what we just read, and then add some explanation. Actually, a lot of the explanation that I just said, but I wanted to show you, it's not just me making it up.

Hebrews 10 and verse 8, here quoting from Psalm 40, it says, Previously saying, Sacrifice and offering, burn offerings, and offerings for sin you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them. And there is a parenthetical statement, which are offered according to the law. So those things are all part of the old covenant.

And he quotes, then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. That ends the quote, and he explains, he takes away the first, that he may establish the second. That the animal sacrifices and all that were taken away because they're superseded by Christ's sacrifice, His one true sacrifice, and that allows us to have the Spirit of God, His essence, so that we can truly do God's will. And that was God's plan from the beginning. He always planned to replace those sacrifice with God's sacrifice. Those animal sacrifices with the true sacrifice of the Son of God.

That's why in Revelation 13, 8, it calls Jesus Christ the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. Even before He created this world and put man on it, the plan was in place. That's why the one who eternally was the Word, who was God and who was with God, became flesh and lived a sinless life on this earth.

He did that so that He could be the one perfect sacrifice for sin. But we now understand that we shouldn't stop with having the penalty for our sins paid. God's goal was to accomplish that so that we could then go on to something greater, with His Spirit in us, to develop the righteous character, to become like Him. So we have our sins forgiven, and then we develop the character of God within us. And that's what is better than sacrifice. We can see this summarized in the discussion that Jesus had with a lawyer when the lawyer asked Him, What's the great commandment of the law?

I want to go to the account of this in Mark 12. I like the way it's worded there. Mark 12, beginning in verse 32. Now, I'm not going to pick up with the lawyer asking the question. We know what happened. He said, What's the greatest commandment? And Jesus gave him the answer. He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might. The second commandment is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. And then we see the lawyer put that together with the idea of the sacrificial system and made an interesting pronouncement. So we pick up in verse 32.

The scribe said to him, Well said, teacher, you've spoken the truth, which is interesting. He's talking to God in the flesh. He said, Oh, you've told the truth. Of course, he didn't know that he was God in the flesh. He was going to learn.

But you've spoken the truth. There is one God and no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart and all the understanding and all the soul and with all the strength. And to love one's neighbor as oneself as more than all the whole burnt offering and sacrifices.

He saw that. It's better to obey than to sacrifice. Better to develop the character of God. We need to have our sins forgiven, but then what's better than just being forgiven is to go on and become like God. That's better than sacrificing. You know what Jesus Christ said? He looked at Him and said, You are not far from the kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ basically said, You're on the right track. That is exactly right. That's why we know what He said was correct. So in that sense, we see it comes down to that principle. That's why I keep going back to those two basic laws. The basis for all the law and the basis for the spiritual sacrifice is love.

God's goal for us, the reason He sent His Son to pay for our sins, is so that we could become like Him. So that we could love as God loves, when we have God's law on our hearts. That's when we don't need the ritualistic ceremonies to satisfy our need to worship. The way we conduct our lives will be a continual worship of God. It will be part of that spiritual sacrifice. But we're still flesh and blood human beings. And with that in mind, we do have to call on and claim that sacrifice from Jesus Christ. Luckily, it's still once as good for all time, and we're under that grace. God imputes Christ's righteousness to us. But as human beings, we also, you know, we still have some ceremony. And that helps us understand these abstract points. It helps us to understand, of course, the ceremony of the Passover. We keep that to remind ourselves of exactly how great Christ's sacrifice was.

And with that, we can dispense with the animal sacrifice that we don't need anymore.

Understanding that permanent sacrifice, then we can go on and also offer up spiritual sacrifices to God every day. We can praise God. We can give Him our thanks. We can serve our fellow man. And then we can go on beyond that to do what's even better than sacrifice. We can develop the very character of God. And let's all be working on doing that.

Thank you.