He Stayed

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

works. So today today um we are having of course a special Yamapore commemoration service because Yamapour starts uh Sunday at sundown and um so of course today's message will be centered on the day of the day of atonement yum kapor and um I want to explain a little bit about today uh and why it was so important of course to the ancient Israelites uh as well um and I had two thoughts of how to approach the message today. I I had to make a decision. I had to approach it either we could have approached it something very light um that would be very good and have a lesson or whatnot.

Um or we could do a teaching and um uh I don't know who's someone can someone quiet it down who's ever talking in the back please? Thank you. Um or we could do a teaching um and then I could selfishly allow my passion for what the day is actually about to come out. And I chose the latter. So, it may be a bit denser than the other direction, but I hope that uh I hope it will be edifying because there's a lot of things that we believe about Yum Kapor and the Day of Atonement and what it's for um that really don't reach the depth of what the ancient Israelites and in the Torah had in mind for how the day functioned and more importantly why it functioned.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

And so, uh uh hopefully it will be a good message. Um, but before we jump into that, I kind of want to set the stage for an example I'll use later in the message, and that's to talk about a painting. And this specific painting, uh, wasn't a real painting. It was a painting from a story, a book. Uh, and, um, it was written in 1890 by Oscar Wild. And it's called the picture of Dorian Gray. Has anyone ever heard of that concept? Yeah. Neat story. Uh, and so the story kind of goes that there's a painter in London, um, and his name is Bessel Halward, and he paints a portrait of a young man named Dorian Gray.

And Dorian is just a gorgeous human being. You ever seen younger Tom Cruz? Just that's a nice looking man, you know? Uh, that's what was loved to paint him. So he he he painted him. Um, and he thought it was the greatest thing he'd ever painted because it was just a mirror reflection of this beautiful man, beautiful person. Um, at the peak of his life, right? And, uh, there's a scene where Dorian is, uh, inspecting, observing the finished painting of him. Um, and, uh, he realizes something. He realizes that the painting is always going to be this beautiful, but he's not, right? just that reality check of wow I'm going to look different in 10 years and the painting's not and uh and he says something that it really doesn't mean but he says man I would I would trade my soul if this could be the other way around you know if I could stay like this and the painting could take on the impact of aging and all the things right and Yeah, it's a neat wish.

And in the story, he gets it. Um, he doesn't really understand it at first. He ends up falling in love with a girl um named Civil and he treats her very cruy uh to the point where she um where she ends her own life. She takes her life. And uh that night he decides to go and check out the painting uh to observe it. And he notices something changed in the painting. His mouth looks a little crooked, cruel almost. He has a cruel type of expression in the painting. It's rather strange. You know, that's not how it was painted before. Uh but because of his actions and how he lived, the painting took on the result and was impacted by it.

So he does what you would do and he just kind of covers it up. It's kind of weird. Whatever. and he carries it upstairs and he puts it in an old room um so that he doesn't have to look at it and he locks the door and he just goes on with his life and for years uh decades even he does everything one human can um do to another human being. Um and um his face never changes. Beauty is still there. Uh, and every so often he would go upstairs and he would unlock the door and he would pull back the cover. Um, and he would see this painting that was looking more and more like a monster every time he looked at it.

uh every cruel thing that he had done, every lie that he had told, uh every person that he had uh ruined. It was there. Wasn't on his face, but it was being recorded. It was making an impact. It was going somewhere and doing something somewhere. And so, he would just cover it back up and go back downstairs. And near the end, uh, the painter comes to see him because he's worried about these rumors that he's hearing because people are starting to notice something's up. Um, and so Dorian of course takes the painter upstairs and he shows him and Bessil he he sees what his own painting has become and he's horrified by it and he confronts Dorian.

Uh, and Dorian picks up a knife and kills him. It's not a surprise at this point, right? Um, and at the very end of the book, he's alone in that room. Um, Dorian takes the same knife and he cracks and he just he slams it into the painting itself, understanding the monster that's there. And the servants downstairs, they hear this incredible scream. And when they finally get the door open, uh, they find a very old man on the floor, withered and ruined with a knife in his heart. And hanging on the wall above him, uh, is the portrait of Dorian Gray, perfect and beautiful like the day it was painted, right?

It's a neat story, wild story. U, but here's the thing about Dorian. Um, and this is why I wanted to kind of set this as the on-ramp he was not innocent. Um, really ever in his life like he not for a single day. Um, every single thing that he chose to do, the damage that he chose to inflict on others uh, accumulated and it went somewhere. It went somewhere. It impacted something. It went upstairs to the locker room on the painting. Just because the damage was real doesn't mean that you could see it on him. And we're going to come back to of course this in a few minutes. Um and my hope is that uh by the end I can tie it all together to something again edifying.

Uh hopefully. But we'll jump in about the day of atonement now. Um because it's in Leviticus 23. It's one of the feast days. It's the biggest feast day uh I would say as far as the weight of it. Um, and uh it's of course it's in Leviticus 23 starting in verse 27. Thank you. The 10th day of the seventh month is the day of atonement. You are to hold a sacred assembly and practice self-denial. That's what the Lord says. You are to present a food offering to the Lord on this particular day. you are not to do any work for it is the day of atonement to make atonement for yourself before the Lord your God.

So that's what we have. Um this holy day the Israelites are commanded that they're supposed to have a sacred assembly. So everybody shows up. They're supposed to practice some form of self-denial which is where the tradition of fasting comes from. No food, no water from sundown to sundown. Uh no work at all. It's pretty serious parameters on that. Um because in other verses if you choose to work on this day as an ancient Israelite um you get exiled from the community. You get cut off from the people. Uh and then the reason for all of it is in uh verse 28 where it says um it is the day of atonement and it is the day of atonement and you shall make atonement for yourselves before the Lord your God.

The Day Hangs on One Word

So the whole day hangs on this one word, atonement. Um, and I think I want to kind of dive into that a little bit because when we hear atonement, uh, we typically think that it means to like resolve or cover up. Uh, for the longest time, we thought it came, uh, from a root that meant to cover up. And so for a long time, people had this idea that on the day of atonement, God sees your sins and the whole purpose of the day of the atonement is that he'll get a big blanket or a tarp and he'll just kind of cover it up, right? Um which leads to other theological extensions from that.

Um and um the actual word uh kipper yam kipore um comes from a root that means to cleanse, to purge, uh to wipe away. Um to wipe away, it's a it's a it's a detergent word. Like what happens when soap hits a stain? Clean it completely out. And the reason why I want to explore that is because if the day of atonement, also known as the day of purging or the day of purggation or the day of scrubbing, wiping, if that's what the day is about, then what gets cleansed? What gets scrubbed? What gets purged? What is being purged? And most of us think that, okay, well, the day of atonement is about my sins and the effects of my sins.

So obviously I'm going to be the one that's scrubbed down and I'm going to be the one that's clean. Um and that's if you don't remember anything else from today, the day of the atonement really is not focused on you directly. Um it's actually focused on scrubbing something else and cleaning something else entirely. Um, it's about scrubbing and cleaning God's house up because of the effects of your sins and your iniquities and your transgressions. And as we go through a few verses here, you'll discover that um there's this whole chapter in Leviticus chapter 16 that details the entire day. Unlike Yom Terua that gives us like make some noise, right?

It's very specific. And the whole idea in ancient Israel is that whenever you sin, whenever you choose to do the things that Dorian chose to do, you may not see the impact it it makes on you, but the idea is that it makes an impact on the house of God. It makes an impact on the place that God's presence dwells. It's as if every time you choose to sin or intentionally transgress, it's as if someone brings some filth into God's throne room and just kind of slaps it at his feet. And the whole idea is that Yomkapor is the day that God gave instructions how to ritually, symbolically, however you want to frame it, clean his house up so that he can stay because he wants to stay.

Right? very ancient concept and it was also shared by Israeli the Israelites and Israel's neighbors but uh in very different ways and so Leviticus 16 is where we're going to start and if we could is someone doing slides thank you Leviticus 16 starting in verse one it says the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of his two um after the death of the two of Aaron's sons when they approached the presence of the Lord and died the Lord said to Moses Moes, tell your brother Aaron that he may not come whenever he wants into the holy place behind the curtain in front of the mercy seat of the ark or else he will die because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.

So Leviticus 16, the whole chapter is dedicated to Yamapor. Um, and it starts out with um, essentially reminding uh, everyone that Aaron's sons, two priests, Naab and Ahu, uh, were killed when they tried to walk into the house of God with fire that he never asked for, which is a whole different message. And they died on the spot uh, back in chapter 10. And and God brings it up here on purpose. He says, "Tell your brother, remember your sons. Do not come in here whenever you want to. It's my house. Want some privacy, right? I mean, don't you can't just can't just barge in. Um, there's one day, one day you'll be allowed to come in here.

A House in the Middle of the Camp

And even on that day, if you do it wrong, you're going to die. Uh, because I'm in here. I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat. And and so I want to kind of describe the house for you so you get the idea. The tabernacle um because it is what it is. It's a house of God. um the tabernacle. It's a tent that they put up in the middle of the wilderness to invite the presence of God into. And um everything about it kind of represents this approach to God and his holiness. And so you come in through a gate of the courtyard and it has a fence around it.

And then you'll find the uh brazen altar where offerings are burned outside. Um and then you proceed inside the tent itself and there's a large room, call it a living room. Uh the holy place is what it's called. And in this room there's a manora. It's essentially uh designed to look like a fake tree with lights on it, which is kind of neat. Uh and there's a table with the bread of the presence on it. Uh and there's a second altar that is strictly for burning incense. And then beyond this altar, there is a veil. It's a it's a threshold into a smaller room called the holiest of holies. Uh and it's decorated cherubam, angelic beings, and everything.

And inside this last room, this central room, this most set aart room in this house is the ark of the covenant. And of course, its lid is known as the mercy seat where two angelic beams of hammered gold sit on top and spread their ring their wings over it. And God tells Moses that um it's there above the mercy seat that his presence is where he's at. Um it's like the throne where his centralized presence sits. And when they finished building this house of God, uh this happens in Exodus 40 in verse 34. And it says my slide guy go. The batteries have died on the remote here. It's okay.

Exodus 40:34 through 35. It says, 'The cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the Oh yeah, thank you. Go Lori solutions. Good. When they finished the house of the Lord, the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So what this building is is it's not a church. It's not a place that you just come and meditate on God. No, it's it's it was seen as the house of God in the ancient world. Um like the place that God literally moved into.

In other words, the cloud came down from the mountain, right, from the heavens and moved into this house. And Moses couldn't even get in the door. And from that day on, the creator of the universe is living in this tent in the middle of the camp with an entire nation around him on every side. That's what Nadab and Ahu walked into. And that's the room Aaron Aaron was about to go into once a year on the 10th day of the seventh month on the day of Um, and so on this day, here's what happens with Aaron. Aaron is about to prepare himself to do this thing that his sons didn't do right and died.

And so he's told he has to bathe. He has to take off all of his high priestly garments, all of the gold, all of the stuff, uh, the breastplate, the ifad, and he has to put on white linen. Um, the most important man in Israel walks into the most set aart room in the entire world, and he's dressed like an ordinary priest. And he brings several offerings. He has to bring a bull for his own sins and his families uh, and as well as the leaders. uh and he brings two goats from the community and he casts dice. He casts lots between the two goats because each goat is going to have a different job.

One goat is going to be randomly selected to be allotted for God. Uh that one's going to die and the other goat is going to be uh allotted to go out into the wilderness into exile. This goat will be cut off from the people and we'll get to him. Uh but before he goes into the veil, he has to do something very specific. And it's in Leviticus chapter 16 uh starting in verse 12. And what he has to do, he says, "Then he is to take a fire pan full of blazing coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and bring them before the curtain.

He's to put the incense on the fire before the Lord so that the cloud of incense covers the mercy seat that is over the testimony or else he will die." So the first thing that Aaron has to do before he enters into the house of God is he has to fill it with smoke first. Why? So that the cloud covers the mercy seat or else he'll die. He has to make some type of separation. And then comes the blood. Because you can't have Leviticus uh without the blood. And so he takes the bull's blood behind the veil into the smoke and with his finger he sprinkles it on the mercy seat and then seven times in front and then he backs out and then he kills the goat that was dedicated to God and he brings that blood in and he does the same thing and um mercy seat seven times and then he comes out into the holy place and he puts blood on the altar of incense that's there.

Um, and then he goes out to the courtyard, uh, to the brazen altar and he puts the blood on the horns there and then he sprinkles it seven times with his finger. Um, and verse 19 tells you why. It says to cleanse it. We have to clean it uh, and to set apart uh, the Israelites impurities and transgressions and sins that have impacted the temple. And so when you go home and read Leviticus 19, maybe tomorrow be a good day or Monday. Um, whenever you see the blood, I want you to think of it as a type of conduit that is a detergent that is removing some way, somehow removing the impact of Israel's sins from God's presence.

Very ritualistic, huh? This is an ancient document and this was an understanding of how they understood how God worked. Um, and it represented something that was very real, even if it was metaphysical at its core. And then the priest did something else with this goat that was still alive. Uh the one that's been standing out in the courtyard this whole time horrified watching everything happen. And uh in Leviticus 16 16:21-22 it says, "Aaron will then lay both of his hands on the head of the living goat and confess over it all the Israelites iniquities and rebellious acts and all their transgressions and all of their sins. He is to put them on the goat's head and send it away in the wilderness by the man appointed for the task.

The goat will carry all of their iniquities into a desolate place and the man will release it there. So with both hands out loud, the priest begins to confess all of it. Iniquities, rebellious acts, sins, trans, every category the Torah has for all of the different labels for all the different types of sins and bad things you could possibly do. Accidental sins, intentional sins, and everything in between. And then a man whose only job for that day walks the goat out of the gate, takes it out of the camp and into the wilderness to um a place in the Hebrew it calls uh the land of the where the cut off go the exile cutting off and he lets it go there and then the promise comes in verse 30 in Leviticus 16:30 it says atonement will be made for you on this day to cleanse you and you will be clean from all of your sins before the Lord.

Where Did the Blood Go?

That's Yamapore. That was a lot, right? How we doing? A lot of details. So now I want to go back through it. Um because I want to revisit the whole concept that I hope you leave with today is If atonement means to purge and wipe clean, what got wiped? Where did the blood go? The blood went on the mercy seat. It went in front of the mercy seat. It went on the altar of incense. Went the brazen altar seven times. Where did it go? It never got put on anyone else. didn't get put on the people. Didn't get put on the people. Every single place the blood goes on purpose is a piece of God's house.

It's the furniture. It's the furnishings. It's the altars. Mainly, the high priest is scrubbing down the furniture in God's house and all the altars. He's cleaning it. And here's where it gets neat. uh because in Leviticus 16:16 it actually tells you uh what the whole reason for Yamapore is about. It says he will make atonement for the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites impurities and rebellious acts. He will do the same for the tent of meeting that remains among them because it is surrounded by their impurities. He makes atonement for the most holy place for the room. for the room. This isn't as much about forgiveness as it is repairing the damage that our choices do and impact.

Forgiveness is it's a part of it. Oh my goodness. But not here. This is about acknowledging that you know what, something was done and we got to clean it up. When I was a kid, um, I used to dust with Pledge and we'd have this coffee table in the living room and I'd get all dusty and my job to spray it with Pledge and I'd wipe it down and then when my mom wasn't looking, I'd run and I'd slide on my belly across. It was a lot of fun and it was a horrible thought of the priest doing the same thing here. But but that's what the pro priest thought he was doing and knew he was doing.

He was cleaning up. Um that's why it's translated as purge. He is cleaning the building of God, the house of God from all of the sins of the people. Um and forgive doesn't really show up in the chapter at all. It shows up in other places, but not here. So back to the painting. Because um one of the uh one of the best commentaries I think on Leviticus is from a Jewish scholar um named Jacob Jacob Mgrim and he literally calls the whole day of Yom Kapor the priestly picture of Dorian Gray. I totally stole the example admit it but that's that's that's what that's the idea. Um and and he says it uh he says it in a way that is beautiful.

To sin may not blotch the faith the face of the sinner, but it is certain to blotch the face of the sanctuary. And unless quickly expuned, God's presence will depart. That's what Leviticus is trying to tell us about our year. We um we may not have looked different a few months ago and uh we may not look different today um per Dorian but the things that we have done the things that we have said the intentions that we wanted for other people just because they don't show up on our face doesn't mean that they go somewhere. They don't have some impact. They don't carry weight. They don't cause damage. And in the Torah, this was this is a real thing.

It was piling up. It goes somewhere. That's what Leviticus tells us. It was in the house. It was in the house of God. It was on the walls of the place where God lives. It was on the mercy seat. It was all over the walls of God's son of God's throne room. the damage was real despite it not being on you. And so the next question is um what's the big deal if we can be honest? What's what's this really trying to teach us? What's the big deal about having a dirty building? And the big deal is where the story goes with it. Um because you know, you get a mop, it's not a big deal.

Leviticus tells us, and it tells us right before chapter 16, um, and it says this in chapter 15:31, it says, "You must keep the Israelites from their uncleanliness so that they do not die by defiling my tabernacle that is among them." My tabernacle that is among them. That's the reason for all this. Because at this part in the story, God is no longer up in heaven, per se. He's not way up on the mountain like he was. Uh he's he's not somewhere at a safe distance where people can stop short at the bottom and be like, "You know what, Moses? You head up there instead of us. He's in the middle of them."

And the mess that they're making lands all around his presence. And if it lands hard enough, they die. They die. And 16:16 says it again. Um, right. The tent of meeting that remains among them. The Hebrew word there for among them is shaken or hashaken. Um, and it's it's where we get the root for the Mishkan, the tabernacle. It's the place where God dwells among them. That was the whole point of God wanting a tabernacle so he could dwell with his Build me a house so that I can be in the middle of you. And now that I'm in the middle of you, the middle of you is a little filthy.

And that's the whole tension of Leviticus. He wants his house cleaned. That's Yam Kapor. So God, what does he do to fix the problem of having his presence defiled because of his choice to want to be with his people? Well, he could destroy the population and everyone who's defiling it. That's pretty simple. It's probably what I would do, but that's why I'm not God. Um, right. He could I don't know. Um, yeah, he could leave. He could pack up the glory and go back to heaven, leave his people behind, or he could have his house cleaned. And what we learn about God is two out of three of those options end the relationship.

Cleaning is the only option if God really wants to stay among his broken And this is where I want to go back to the incense because another thing that points out and I always like to think like feel try to get in the mind of the story and like what what is it like like where is God when all of this cleaning is going on with this house? Did he leave and step out? Right. In the past, we've had people come clean our house. Have you ever had someone clean come clean your house? Do you sit there in the living room and stare at them? You could. Attention arises out of nowhere.

It's awkward. It's weird. Get out. The room got so dirty that he needed it cleaned. And God says, "You know what? I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay." That's why Aaron comes and fills the room with smoke so that the cloud of incense covers the mercy seat. No one will die. Why would he die? Because God is in there. Verse two, that's what verse two says. I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat. The smoke isn't for an empty room. The smoke is because the presence is already in the room and a man is about to walk in with a bowl of blood. and after the cleaning happens, there's still work to do because cleaning the house only handles half the problem.

We have removed the transgressions, the metaphysical imprints of the transgressions against God from the house. So now they have to go somewhere. We have to put them somewhere. We have to get them out of here. Right? So Aaron takes the living goat with both hands and he speaks aloud every single thing that he just removed from the house with the blood and it gets hauled out of the camp. Sins go out. They're purged from God's sight. And Israel gets to stay with their God. and atonement will be made for you on this day and cleanse you. I think the point I really want to highlight um and maybe I'm not finding the words, but today's not the day that God decided your sin like didn't count or anything.

It's the day that God chose to stay in his house that you've been making a mess of all year long so that he could keep living with you. The whole day is about mercy. The whole day is about mercy. What grace? What grace? And so centuries later, ancient Israel is doing this practice um understanding that uh that if they don't do it, then it shows a complete contempt of God and God will leave as would you. If people continue sinning, continue transgressing, they're not doing anything to even acknowledge it. Why would you stay? And centuries later, Solomon builds a more permanent version of this tent, house of God in Jerusalem.

Ezekiel Watches the Glory Leave

It's the temple. Uh and then centuries after that, we know that Babylon conquers Judah and they first take some of their best uh scholars and prophets and everyone. They take them back to Babylon. Um and one of them is named Ezekiel, right? And while Ezekiel's sitting in Babylon, um, he has this vision where he goes back home and he's he's seeing what's going on at home. You know, uh, the temple is still standing at that point in Jerusalem and and he's walking through it room by room and um, and in this vision he's being shown what's going on in his house and what he sees is that point of no return.

These sins and iniquity, the actions and intentions in the hearts of the people no longer care about God. Um, we went through the prophet series and and that was the whole thing about the prophets is people were proclaiming that God was their God and they were using their religion so that they could justify them treating people badly. Something that really has not changed even in Christianity today and we know it. It's far too easy to think that we have the mercy of God, we have the forgiveness of God, and so we can go treat everyone else like they shouldn't deserve it and still feel acceptable before God. And that's not how it works.

But Ezekiel is walking through the temple and uh he sees an idol at the gate of the courtyard of God's house. This text calls it a statue that provokes jealousy toward God. There are 70 of the nation's elders in a hidden room burning incense to carved images on the walls, saying to each other, "The world, the Lord doesn't see us. It's fine. We're good." There are women at the north gate weeping for a Babylonian deity named Tamuz. And in the inner court of God's temple during this time between the porch and the altar, 25 men have their backs turned to the temple of God. They're facing east and they're bowing down to the sun.

And that's when God turns to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 8:6 and he says, "Son of man, do you see what they're doing here? more detestable things that the house of Israel is committing so that I must depart from my sanctuary. You will see even more detestable acts. So that I now what? Depart from my The house has passed cleaning. It's made a mess. It doesn't it's not it's unrecognizable on a spiritual sense. There's no yom kapor for this at this. There's no way you can clean it. And then Ezekiel watches God depart. Chapter 10, the glory of God moves off the threshold of the temple. He stops. He continues moving to the east gate.

And then chapter 11, it rises up out of the middle of the city and it goes to a mountain. Back to a mountain. Couldn't dwell with them anymore. He left through the east gate. The same one that wouldn't budge his throne on Yum Kapoor, who stayed through centuries of his people making his house a filthy place, but having it wiped down every fall, right? He finally got up. That's the pinnacle of the story. He finally gets up and he walks out. And it wasn't Babylon. Babylon just shows up. He shows up after this, right? Big thing. It wasn't Babylon. And it was the detestable acts of his people. They have successfully come to a place with their hearts that they have driven God out of his own house.

And this is of course what starts the exile. Right? And then the Babylonian exile ends and all of the Judeans in Babylon or Persia now return home and they choose to uh rebuild the temple. They're going to they're going to get it back up and running. They're going to plug it back in, get all the lights going again, fireworks, Ezra 6, and um they have it all set up best they can. So, they dedicate it and they're waiting for the cloud to come down just like it did the first time. And they're waiting for the fire to come down from heaven and ignite all the offerings and all this stuff.

And nothing happens. Nothing happens. They have a dedication. Um, they have some bulls and rams and lambs, but there's no cloud. There's no glory that fills the house again. it's just a building at this point. Now, Ezekiel, his visions, he had seen more than just God leaving. Thank goodness. Later in his visions, um, a different vision, he sees a promise being fulfilled that his glory is going to come back. and it's going to come back through the same eastern gate and it's going to fill the house. Uh, and he hears God say that this is the place of my throne and this is where I will dwell among the Israelites forever.

That was the promise. But for centuries that rebuilt temple just stayed there with no one home and all of the prophets, the last of them just told them to keep on waiting. Haggi says, "The glory of the second house is going to be greater than the first. It's coming. God keeps his promises." Malachi says, "The Lord your the Lord you're looking for is going to suddenly come to his temple. Watch out." And then we turn the page in our Bibles at the end of Malachi and there's no there's two blank pages there. There's big blank page, right? That's the end of the Old Testament. Um in a timeline that's about 400 years of silence where the prophets don't say anything.

The Word Pitched His Tent

The temple remains empty. Uh, it gets prettied up a couple times. It gets expanded. Herob made it look amazing, by the way. But it was still empty. Awkward. Wasn't even an ark in it. Babylon took it away. It's just an empty room. It's kind of awkward. And then we come to a man who lived in the first century and his name was John. And in the gospel according to John in chapter 1 verse 15 14 it says this. It says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory. The glory of the one and only son from the father full of grace and truth. Look at that.

Oh yeah. He came to hang out with he came to visit us. He he spent time dwelled among us. Dwelled. The Greek word there is the word Mishkan. It's tent. It's tent. Uh tent. Uh when the Old Testament got translated to Greek, um the word that they used for Mishkan, dwelling place. Takes the noun version of that word and turns it into a verb. He's tinting with us. The word became flesh and tinted with us, pitched the Mishkan among us. It's the same image that happened in Exodus when God came down from the mountain and dwelt among his people and we saw his glory. John is trying to tell us that the glory came back.

That's his whole thing. John's whole layout for his version of the gospel and why it doesn't quite look like the le rest is because he takes liberties because he wants to show you a bigger picture. He wants to teach you about new creation which is why he starts with in the beginning but he's not talking about Genesis 1. He's talking about Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the future kingdom of God making an impact of and rising again in a way that will be victorious and undefeable. It will be the climax of the rescue mission of God rescuing humanity back to him. Uh it's why John ends with uh Yeshua blowing the spirit on his disciples just like God gave the spirit the breath of life to Adam.

It's renewed humanity through Yeshua. Um and here here John is trying to re-examine or re use the blueprint of the Exodus story and God coming to dwell among us. the greater Exodus. U see Matthew has Yeshua walking into the temple later in his ministry. Where does John put it? Chapter 2. We're going to start Yeshua's ministry out with him walking into the temple um or sorry, with him going in there and and and making this focal point um because he wants to draw your attention to that the house has come to be rebuilt. Right? All right. So, in chapter 2, standing in the temple courts, they ask Yeshua for a sign.

And what does Yeshua say? He says, "Destroy this temple and I'll raise it up in three days." And and they're they're confused because they think, "This thing took a long time to rebuild. You're not going to be able to rebuild this big building in the house of God in three days." Uh, and John adds that he was speaking about what? His body. He was speaking about the temple of his body. The house of God has become a body. Now, the one who dwells in the midst of their impurities is now a man walking around Galilee, touching lepers, eating with tax collectors, and the mess doesn't drive him out. He, in fact, he goes looking for it.

It's his whole ministry. It's contagious holiness. It's the inversion of, oh, we know unclean things can make holy things unclean. And Yeshua says, no, it's the opposite. Yes. Yes. Holy things can make unclean things holy and set apart. That's the whole inversion. Religious people in the first century did not like it because their whole infrastructure of status was built on the opposite. House is a body now. And then they do to the body, this new house, they do to the body what uh their ancestors did to the house in Jerusalem. and when he's on the cross, um, listen to what they yell at him in Matthew. It's Matthew 27. Yeah.

He Stayed on the Cross

You who would destroy the temple, remember they're throwing it back in his face. You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself if you are the son of man, come down from the cross. They're throwing his whole temple line back at him. If you are the son of God, come on down. And the chief priests are right there with him. The men whose job it was to clean the house were right there with him. Let him come down from the cross and then we'll believe him. And he didn't. He didn't. The one who would not budge from his throne while a man wiped blood all over his altars all around him would not come down from the cross while his own blood ran down it.

He stayed in the holiest of holies and the smoke with the blood. He stayed on the cross with the whole world telling him to leave and just get off the cross. Come on down. He stayed. And then three days later, the house that they destroyed is standing. And the writer of Hebrews, the pastor here that's writing this letter, um he examines all this and he he can't help but to say this is all about Yom Kapoor. This is all about Leviticus 16. In Hebrews chapter 9 11-12 it says but Christ has appeared as the high priest of the good things that have come in the greater and more perfect tabernacle not with hands that is not of this creation.

The next slide he entered the most holy place once for all time not by blood of goats and bulls but by his own blood having obtained eternal redemption. a high priest, the most holy place, but not with the blood that you would associate with Yam Kapour, the bullet of bulls and goats, but his own blood once for all time. Aaron as the high priest went into the holy place once a year with a big bowl of blood so that God could stay. Yeshua went in once with his own so that you could stay. That's the the impact of what Hebrews is is portraying here. And that's and that's the whole message of who God is and his character in the story of the Bible just wrapped up in one feast day.

What Do You Do with a God Like That?

And I think it's beautiful that God wants to dwell with his people. People keep making that impossible at times and God finds a way. Anyway, um he came back and this time he didn't come back to a house uh that could get dirty. He came back as one of us and he let us do our worst to them to him and then he stayed anyway. So what do you do with a god like that on a day like this? And there's there's two things you can do. Um I guess there's usually probably two groups I want to speak to today. Um, I want to talk to the person that has things in their life, this is the sappy altter call, pre-alter call thing, right?

You know it's coming. Um, but we need to acknowledge it. the person that has things in their life that um they know they need to get rid of, they know that is causing real damage somewhere even though no one can see it on their face. Um and this can be a variety of things, right? The easy ones are addictions, right? Lust and greed and all of that. But then there's also just being unkind and not merciful and unforgiving and just being a jerk. All are against the character of God. hate all are against the character of God. Arrogance. And I want to remind you that although this is speaking about a very ancient culture and how the Torah was written to them so they could understand how they impact the presence of God, I believe the mechanism is still in place today.

When you choose to have those intentions towards other people, when you choose to treat people with cruelty, when you choose to um hold on to sin in your life, it still makes an impact. It still does damage. And I think I'm speaking to you today when you know that it does when you feel it inside of you. We know what that's like. We've cried out for forgiveness, right? We know what that weight is like. It's still causing damage. And today's the day when uh today's the day when you have the opportunity to acknowledge it just like the Torah has a blueprint for. Acknowledge that it does damage. Acknowledge that it shouldn't be here anymore.

Acknowledge that listen, if I want to grow closer to God and I want to stay closer to God, I need to get these things out if I'm going to fully embrace the kingdom manifesto. And Yamapour is the most appropriate day to get that out and to make the declaration, you know what? I'm going to stop doing damage. I'm going to stop causing a mess. I'm going to actually trust God and I'm going to trust the strength of God to renew me, to mold me in the likeness of Yeshua. The second are the people that are the people that uh think that they're so certain that they've crossed the line. Are the people that know they have things in their life and know they've made decisions and know they've made really bad decisions.

Maybe not once, maybe not twice, maybe more times than you can imagine. Maybe you've done things in your life that you can never say out loud because they're so horrible and they carry the weight of grief and regret and pain and you think that you've crossed the line so far that God hasn't stayed and won't stay. I have an awakening for you. You cannot out sin the God that came down to declare, "I'm going to sit in the mess as long as possible. I'm going to sit with the people as long as possible. I'm going to go to the places where the mess is for as long as possible. And I'm not going to leave.

I'm not going to get down off the cross. I'm going to stay for as long as I need to so that you understand there's nothing in your past. There's nothing you can do that would make an immovable God move anymore. That's what this day is supposed to remind us of. And we need to start by recognizing the character of our God, but also to make the decision that we're going to move on. We're going to move closer. We're going to recognize who our God is because the promise still stands in Leviticus 16:30. What's 16:30 say? It says, "Attonement will be made for you on this day to cleanse you and you will be clean from all of your sins before the Lord."

If the sins are cleaned up and gone, then they're cleaned up and gone. If God can't see them any longer, then why would he see them on you? We sometimes get trapped in the fact that these are very old stories. We don't have temples and blood and animals. Um, but we have the workflow. We have the mechanisms and all of that is in there to teach us something about God, not about rituals. And so I would want to remind you today that Yamapour Yamapour is a special day in God's calendar. Does that mean it's the only day of the year to repent or to acknowledge the greatness of God's love and allow it into your life?

No. But it sure is an appropriate day to start making decisions. Whether that's coming back to God because you realize that God's still there and has never left or coming back to God knowing that you're going to turn and you're going to put things away and you're going to make a decision to step forward instead of remaining where you've been staying. And so with that said, I would ask you to stand as we conclude with worship today. During this time of worship, I encourage you to sing, you can meditate, you can pray, you can reflect on what the day is and what we're commemorating today. Um, you can also make a choice if you're one of those people today.

And so, you can also make a choice to say that today is going to be different. I'm going to acknowledge things I haven't acknowledged in a while, and I'm going to start moving forward in a new direction, a fresh direction, a clean direction. no matter how imperfect that may be. And so if you need prayer today, uh for any reason, guys, we have prayer partners on another side of the stage, just step out. Step out and you have someone that can petition alongside you and go before the father with you. And we also have an altar here. It's symbolic. It's a stage. Um but the symbolism just represents your decision.

And what it's for is it's for making a decision that you're going to leave something here today. Maybe it's a sin that you've held on to in your life. Maybe it's regret. Maybe it's unforgiveness. It's a big one. There are some people we don't think deserve to be forgiven. And that's tough. But here's the thing. You don't need to carry that weight anymore because the weight becomes a distraction. And that's the real issue. And so if you've been carrying something around today, no matter what it was, you can step out and you can come down and you can symbolically place that on the altar and you can stand up and walk away leaving that be behind declaring to God and yourself that you're taking steps forward.

This will not be another day of atonement that just comes once a year and you get hungry and you say a prayer. This will be a day of atonement that transformation takes place. God is in the business of transforming things. A rebirth. Alina Mo, our father and our king. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together to learn about your Torah, to learn about the details of the day of purggation, but also learn about your character in the story. learn about that even if people try to push you out, you're going to come back stronger in a way that they can't do it again. And that we would know that and we would feel that and we would recognize that in the person of Yeshua.

Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit would do the job that you says it does, empowers us, but that it would also remind us where we're at and where we need to go. that we would have wisdom on the things in our life we need to shift and change so that we could grow closer and stay with you as you stay with us. We thank you, Father, for the opportunity to once again humbly come before you and recognize your character. In the name of Yeshua, our King and Messiah, we pray. Amen.