Sermon #13
Leviticus Sermons
Title: “The
Fire Shall Ever Be Burning”
Text: Leviticus 6:8-13
Subject: The ire Upon the Altar
Date: Sunday Morning – July 22, 2001
Tape # W-52a
Reading: Isaiah 6:1-7
Introduction:
Fire is used throughout the Scriptures as an emblem
of God’s holiness and justice. It was so from the very beginning.
·
When
the Lord God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, he set “Cherubim
and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life”
(Gen. 3:24).
·
When
Abraham offered sacrifice to God, he carried fire with him to the altar of
sacrifice.
·
Nadab
and Abihu were killed by the hand of the Lord because they burned strange fire
on God’s altar.
·
God
poured out fire and brimstone from heaven upon Sodom.
·
Hell
is a place of horrible torment, a pit of everlasting, unquenchable fire.
·
When
God gave his law at Sinai, the mount was filled with fire.
·
Our
God is a consuming fire.
·
In
the camp of Israel, upon the altar of God, fire was burned continually. It is
written, “The
fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out."
[Leviticus
6:8-13] "And the LORD spake unto
Moses, saying, [9] Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the
law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the
burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar
shall be burning in it. [10] And the priest shall put on his linen
garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the
ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he
shall put them beside the altar. [11] And he shall put off his garments,
and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a
clean place. [12] And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it
shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and
lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of
the peace offerings. [13] The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar;
it shall never go out."
Do not
ever imagine that there are redundancies in the Word of God. Everything written
in the Book of Inspiration is written according to divine purpose. In the first
five chapters of Leviticus, the Lord gave Moses specific instructions about how
the burnt offering, the meat offering, the peace offering, the sin offering,
and the trespass offering were to be made. Here, in chapters 6 and 7, he gives
instructions again about those same offerings.
In the first five chapters, the instructions
were for the people who brought the offerings. In these two chapters the
instructions were give specifically to the priests, to Aaron and to his sons.
In the verses before us this morning, the primary thing before us is the fire
burning upon the altar. “The
fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out."
Proposition: The fire burning upon the
altar is an instructive picture of the holy justice of God which must be
satisfied.
The
message of our text is given to us in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.
[2
Corinthians 5:18-21] "And all
things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; [19] To wit, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
[20] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you
by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
[21] For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him."
Divisions: I want to call your
attention to five things in theses verses.
1. The Fire upon the Altar
2. The Priest’s Linen Garment
3. The Priest’s Other Garment
4. The Fuel for the Fire
5. The Perpetuity of the Fire
I. The
Fire upon the Altar
Verses 8-9 --
"And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Command Aaron and his
sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering,
because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire
of the altar shall be burning in it."
Here the Holy One of Israel speaks again
from the holy place, revealing the horror of his wrath against sin and the
perfection of his infinite justice which demands its punishment. God’s infinite
justice, burning against sin is displayed in the fire burning upon the altar of
the tabernacle.
This fire was never to be extinguished. In
these five verses, the Lord tells us three times that the fire was never to be
put out by man or allowed to burn out on its own. Why? Because “every one of
his righteous judgments endure forever” (Ps. 119:160). The fire burned all
through the night as an emblem of the sleeplessness of hell and the burning
wrath of God against all iniquity and of the ever watchful eye of divine
righteousness that watches over the earth.
In the pit of the damned they have no rest,
no respite, no relief from the wrath of God. And the holy eyes of the holy Lord
God ever behold the sons of men upon the earth. He whose eyes are a flaming
fire constantly watches over his creation, beholding the sons of men.
1.
In the Book of God, we read of the damned, that the smoke of their
torments ascends up forever.
The
fire and brimstone of hell produces a smoke ever rising up to God, the holy
angels, the redeemed in Glory and the Lamb upon his throne.
[Revelation 14:10-11] "The same shall drink of the wine of
the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his
indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence
of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: [11] And the smoke
of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor
night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of
his name."
[Revelation
14:18] "And another angel came out
from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him
that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the
clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe."
All through the night the fire burned upon
the altar. It could be seen by all the camp of Israel. The wise, believing
father might well have taken his children to their tent’s door before going to
bed and, pointing to the fire, he may well have said, “Children, do you see
that fire? Do you smell that smoke? Except you find refuge in the Lamb of God,
so shall the fire of God’s wrath consume you forever.”
2.
But, blessed be God, that fire represented something far greater than
God’s holy and just wrath; it represented the way of escape.
Can
you see the victim burned upon the altar, the lamb consumed by the fire, whose
life feeds the flames? That is Christ
dying under the horrid wrath of God in the place of sinners who deserve to die.
His suffering and death, upon which God the Father had his holy eye from
eternity, was held forth in the camp of Israel perpetually in the fire burning
upon the altar. There the love and justice of God met together in perfect unison,
righteousness and peace perpetually kissed each other. Mercy and truth embraced
each other. Beholding the fire on the altar, the believing Israelite could
sleep peacefully through the night knowing that God in Christ is both a just
God and a Savior!
II.
The
Priest’s Linen Garment
Verse 10 -- "And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his
linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the
fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them
beside the altar."
The priest’s linen garment with his linen
britches, portrayed purity (Rev. 19:8).
[Revelation
19:8] "And to her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints."
In
this suit of purity the priest was a type and emblem of Christ our Redeemer in
his perfect purity (divine and human) coming to perform the work of atonement
as our Substitute.
In this suit of pure, white linen, the
priest was to take the ashes of the burnt sacrifice off the altar and lay them
for a while beside the altar so that all Israel might see that the flame of
justice had not spared the sacrifice.
There, the ashes lying beside the altar
declared, “Justice has found its object. The lightening of God’s holy wrath has
struck the lightening rod. It shall not strike again!”
III.
The Priest’s Other Garment
Verse 11 -- "And he shall put off his garments, and put on other
garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place."
Coming out of the sanctuary, the priest has
put aside his linen garment and is wearing another garment. He takes off the
garment that had been ceremonially polluted by sin, and puts on another holy,
priestly garment to carry the ashes of the sacrifice away unto a clean place.
(The Valley of Ashes [Jer. 31:40] which was used for this purpose, is thought
by many to have been the very place where our Lord Jesus Christ died for us –
Calvary).
This much is certain: Our great Savior, who
bore our sin in his own body on the tree, wears another garment now. That body
that was made to be sin for us has now been made glorious. He has cast off and
cast away our sins. He has carried his blood into a clean place, having by the
merit of his blood obtained eternal redemption for us!
IV.
The Fuel For The Fire
Verse 12 -- "And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it
shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and
lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of
the peace offerings."
We have already seen that the fire was
never to be allowed to go out. If that were so, there must be a constant supply
of fuel for it. Wood was constantly kept on the altar and the fat of the peace
offering with the wood kept the fire burning continually.
It was the fat of the peace offering that fueled the fire. Justice fell upon Christ
our Peace Offering. He bore the heat of God’s fierce wrath for us. He endured
the fire of hell as our Substitute. By his death under the vengeance of God’s
holy wrath, he obtained our peace.
V.
The Perpetuity of The Fire
Verse 13 -- "The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall
never go out."
Throughout
this instructive passage, we are constantly reminded that the fire of God’s
wrath has no end. Three times our Lord Jesus declared (no doubt referring to
this passage) that in hell the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched. The
eternal justice of God will never cease to find fuel for the fire of his wrath
in hell. It is written, “The wrath of God abideth!” Let every sinner
tremble. The wrath of God is infinite! Hell is forever! But I cannot send you
home with that.
I close my
message by reminding you that God has himself put out the fire. The Lord Jesus
Christ has forever satisfied the wrath of God. He is that One Sacrifice which,
when consumed by the fire of God’s holy justice has consumed the fire. The holy
Lord God shall never cease to find complete satisfaction for his holy justice
in his darling Son.
[Hebrews
13:10-12] "We have an altar,
whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. [11] For
the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the
high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. [12] Wherefore Jesus
also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without
the gate."
[Hebrews
13:20-21] "Now the God of peace,
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the
sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, [21] Make you
perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever
and ever. Amen."