This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.
Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Leviticus, chapter 24. Leviticus, chapter 24. And really, I really kind of love this chapter. And you go, well, why Leviticus? Well, because it's in the Bible, and we need to study it. And not only do we need to study it, there's some beautiful pictures in here. And one of the pictures that we get from Leviticus is this chapter. It's a chapter where there is a concentration on what Aaron's job is as far as the temple is concerned, what his responsibilities are. And remember, Aaron's the high priest. And remember that Aaron is a picture of, in many ways, Jesus being the great high priest. He's also a picture of us because we're a kingdom of priests. So some of the things that Aaron does, some of the things that God teaches Aaron shows Aaron are things that he is obviously showing us as believers that we should do, that we should be a part of. And then also, Aaron is a picture of Christ. And some of the functions that he has are functions that we can clearly see that Christ is doing. However, Jesus is not from the order of Aaron because he is from the tribe of Judah. And so he could not be priest in the order of Aaron, but he is in the order of Melchizedek. That being said, a priest is a priest, and understanding that priesthood has to do with your access to God, being able to go directly to God, deal with God, talk to God. That is what he does, and that is ultimately what we do. I was talking to our church Sunday after the worship service in our get to know you luncheon, and I was explaining to him that historically, we have. We have. Well, we're a church of a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different religious backgrounds. In fact, the pastors on staff and many of the ministers come from all kinds of varied backgrounds, from catholic, all the way to pentecostal, to baptist and mainline denominations, protestant denominations. And I said, now, one of the main things that we bring from our, many of us, from our baptist heritage, is that we believe in the priesthood of the believer. Meaning each member, each person is a priest, and each person has access to God. And each person relates to God, finds God, seeks God out on their own. They have a personal responsibility to walk with God on their own and in their own relationship. Now the church exists to help, to grow, to build, to organize, but each individual believer has their own responsibility. You don't get carried along by your pastor or your parents, or your grandparents or your spouse. You do not get carried along in your spiritual walk by someone else. Your spiritual walk is your spiritual walk. And your knowledge and understanding of who God is is your knowledge and understanding of who God is. And God makes determinations about who you are based off of how much you are going to trust him. And that nobody can make you trust God. You can't convert someone else. You're converted on your own. And what does that mean? Well, you turn from your own way to God's way on your own. And how do you do that? Well, the Holy Spirit comes in and draws you directly to God through the, through the word or the message of Jesus Christ, or the knowledge of Jesus Christ, or the good news of Jesus Christ, God. God does that. And so each person has their own responsibility. As priest, you have your own responsibility to learn, to exercise and walk in your own faith. And does that mean you're going to mess up? Sure. Does that mean you're not going to know everything? Well, I'm just going to tell you. Even when Jesus was on the earth, he did not know everything. And the reason he did not know everything is because he didn't know the end times. He, he was fulfilling righteousness by trusting his father. He says, I don't do my will, but I only do the will of my father, which I see him doing. I join him in his work. And so even Jesus as a man before his, before his resurrection, before his glorification and resurrection, God did not tell him everything. God revealed to him his will, and Jesus walked in it. And now, obviously, he knows all things. In fact, when the disciples asked him after he came back, when he would return, he says, not for you to know. But prior to that, he said, no man knows. No man, not even the son of man, knows that. So God had quite clearly revealed all things to Jesus as a man. Now, when he was in with the Father in heaven, he knew all things. But when he became a man, he was 100% man and 100% God. And so you had to learn to fulfill righteousness by walking with God. And that's an important understanding to have. That's an important principle to pick up and to carry with your life that you have to learn to walk with God. You have to learn to walk in his will and his way. And we do that as a priest. And so when we look at Aaron here, we're saying to, we're saying, okay, how, how is this me? Well, it says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying this verse one, command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light to make the lamps, lamps burn continually. Now notice that is a, that is, these are lampstands. They're not candles. And they burned the oil. And remember, fire is a picture of the Holy Spirit. And the, the pure oil is a picture of the power of the Holy Spirit. And in this, in this instance, in the way it's being used, the oil is being burned. The power of the Holy Spirit is being burned by the Holy Spirit to provide revelation. It is being used to reveal God's perfect and pleasing and divine plan, God's perfect and pleasing and divine son, so that we might know Jesus. And by knowing Jesus, we might know the Father. In fact, Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So obviously we want to have the like of the Holy Spirit to reveal to us who Jesus is and how he, how he lived and how he, how he lives at the right hand of the Father today. That we might take on his character and his likeness and that we might, well, we might know that. And we might walk in that light continually. And notice that's how the verse, the verse ends. It's this oil, this pure oil, this pure power of God by the Holy Spirit is to, is to burn continually and light the way for our lives. And wow, that's a, that's a pretty powerful, that's a pretty powerful story. It's a pretty powerful illustration of how God works. Now notice outside the veil of testimony in the tabernacle of meetings. So it's right outside the holy of holies. You've got the, the veil, the curtain that the, that closes off the inner courts from the holy of holies. And that's where Aaron's supposed to minister and he says he's supposed to be. That's his place of main ministry is right there. He's responsible for that. And we are too. We're supposed to remain there. We're supposed to be in that light regularly, all the time, walking with God as much as possible, walk in the light as he is in the light. And Aaron shall be in charge of it from evening till morning. Meaning? Meaning during the daytime there may be others there, but Aaron's supposed to be there all the time and he's even in charge of it at night. That didn't mean that Aaron had the night shift. That meant that Aaron was in charge of it. He's, that's his responsibility. His responsibility was to take care of this and he's going to take care of the showbread also. But we're talking about that tomorrow. He's supposed to take care to make sure that his lamp are full or the lamp is full in this occasion. He's supposed to make sure the lamp is full and being filled with the Holy Spirit. That the New Testament teaches us that we're to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit and burning the oil of the power of God in the presence of God all the time. He says he's supposed to be there and he's supposed to be doing it regularly and all the time. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. What he's saying is as long as there's human beings walking on the earth, that's the statute, that's the rule, that's how we do it. And it's true, it's true when the temple existed, and it's true now that the temple is our bodies and our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. It is true today. And so we're supposed to fill ourselves with the power of the Holy Spirit, be continually filled walking with God and the light of God. And by the way, you're a lampstand also. But the light of God shining out and revealing our will, our way to him, he says he shall be in charge of the lamps of pure gold on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord. Continually notice he brings in pure gold there. Why? Because this is a royal, this is a royal function. Gold is a picture of a picture of the royalty of God, the regalness of God. And so this is one of those special functions we have as co heirs with Christ. We're co heirs with the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And so you come from a kingly line. You come from a line that was created by Jesus himself and conquering death and conquering the grave. And so you're, you're in his, you're in his, his family, you're in his, his intimate circle. And so you ought to, well, you oughta, you ought to walk in that. And it's going to be, it's going to be from generation to generation. It's a continual thing, doesn't go away and it doesn't end. And oftentimes believers think you can just leave church or leave this place or leave that place and you leave God. Problem is, you can't, because you're a temple of the Holy Spirit and you can't leave him. He's with you all the time. And so walking in that and living that out in your life, well, it's an important task. You know, you've gotta, you've gotta walk in. It's something you've gotta, you gotta do. And so when we're studying through this, what a powerful, what a powerful illustration of something that was begun in the wilderness and has become very intimate and personal for each and every believer, including you. And so if you have that gift, if you, if you have that ability, if the door has been open for you to walk in that, well, I mean, we would be foolish and very misguided not to. I pray that you will. I expect that you will. Each and every day, more and more, each and every day, walking in that light in greater and greater knowledge and greater and greater understanding. Each day feeling the power of the Holy Spirit at work around you, sensing his will and his way, him showing us, teaching us, guiding us, the Holy Spirit being our paraclete, our teacher, our guide, guiding us through life and ultimately knowing him and doing his will, I pray that that'll be the case for you. I pray that you'll seek it out and you'll know it.
