…could be if everyone who touched a dead body, or every woman who had a menstrual period would come up once a month and offer an offering. There was another method of taking care of it so that all of these things would be accumulated then up to the Day of Atonement. And the Day of Atonement then covered everything. Do you think that everyone that sinned offered a sacrifice? What if you lived in Dan, way north. You couldn’t get to the temple but once a year. What do you do then? Well that’s why they had all the ritual ceremony for the cleansing of people that would come in to observe the festivals. How was it handled otherwise? There were two ways it was handled.

Number one: you would pray toward the temple at the morning and the evening sacrifice. And that could be then imputed to the individual temporarily until they could get to the temple to offer a sacrifice, however long that may be. And we will see that’s why the Day of Atonement was handled in such a way.

Ok, we’ll see that in just a minute, but before we cover that let’s go to the book of Numbers. Numbers 35 - a very important part here, ok. Just to make a point, and then we’ll go back to Leviticus 7 because we want to cover something else here. This has to do with the laws of murder. Now, yes let’s pick it up here in verse 29. Read all of chapter 35 by the way. It would become so laborious to read the whole thing if I did it now, so if you want to do it go ahead and turn off the tape and just read it so you can come down here. This was about manslaughter and murder, and so forth, and the cities of refuge.

“So these things shall be for a statute of judgment unto you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to [be put to death] die.” Sounds a little like some things that are supposed to be active in the laws of America today, right? You can’t put anyone to death by just the one witness. You have to have two. “Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer,…” What does that mean - no satisfaction? That means that he cannot pay a fine and get away with it. That means that he cannot offer an offering at the temple and get away with it. It says, “…Ye shall take no satisfaction of the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest” (Nu. 35:29-32). Once a person fled there of manslaughter, or whatever accidental death, then he had to stay there until the death of the high priest.

Now notice verse 33. “So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land:…” And I think we can understand why there are so many problems with the weather today. Because the blood of all the murders going on is defiling the land and it isn’t being taken care of by the death penalty, ok. “…And the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” Very clear. A sin unto death required a death of the individual, and God would not allow any other satisfaction.

Ok, let’s come back to Leviticus 6. We went through Leviticus 5 about the trespass offering. Now let’s come to Leviticus 6. It talks about trespass offering here again. There were several categories of trespass offerings for different things. Leviticus 6:1, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, an sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering” (Lev. 6:1-5). So now with the second trespass offering it’s a little more serious, isn’t it? There’s deliberation behind what he did. There has to be remuneration giving back with a 20% penalty.

So then it says, “And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein” (vs. 6-7). So here’s a whole category of trespass offerings.

Now let’s come to chapter 7. Here is another trespass offering. And this has to do between you and God. “Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy. In the place where they kill,…” and so forth, and it says everything that was to be done there. Let me find my place. Chapter 7 is not the place I wanted. It has to do with how the priests were to divvy out everything that was there, and their aspect of it. Let’s see if I can find the place. The last part of chapter 5. This is one category I missed out on when we were going through it.

Ok, this trespass offering is between you and God. Leviticus 5:14, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering: and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing,…” What are the holy things between the individual and God? What are the holy things? Those are the tithes. Those were the firstfruits. All of those things. And it says, “…and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him” (Lev. 5:14-16).

Now that becomes very important to understand that there are different degrees, and there were sins that just involved not taking care of the things that God had said you should take care of in the way that it should be taken care of, which then covers tithing, firstfruits. Covers the law concerning the cattle or the flocks, or whatever it may be. And there had to be an atonement for that. So the sum of all of this is to this point: that under the Old Covenant there were sacrifices to be offered to make an atonement. The first category was an atonement which was a voluntary burnt offering because you are at-one with God, having nothing to do with sin. All of the others had to do with varying degrees of sin. Moral sin, which were breaking of the Ten Commandments lesser than the death penalty required. And physical sins such as touching a dead body, unclean animal, childbirth, etc. Now you can read the detailed account of these as you go through after you come to Leviticus 10. Then we find about clean and unclean meats in Leviticus 11, and so forth. So all of these are in varying degrees. That does not make all sins under the Old Covenant only physical sins of physical uncleanness. We will see a little later that we had to have a situation where that God was concerned about the heart. We’ll cover that in just a minute here.

Now let’s go to 1 Kings 8, and this becomes important. What is the key thing on forgiveness? What is the key thing concerning forgiveness? There has to be repentance, ok. There had to be repentance. Oh, before we get there, I was going to cover the other thing. That is, the ashes of the red heifer. Let’s cover that right now. The ashes of the red heifer was the other way which uncleanness was taken care of. And you just go through and read, there are certain things where that a person would be unclean until evening, and they would bathe and be unclean until evening, then they would be clean. They didn’t have to offer an offering at that particular time. Let’s cover the ashes of a red heifer.

Ok, let’s cover this with the red heifer and what was to be done there. Numbers 19. “And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke: and ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:…” So this was not even slain at the temple. It’s outside, outside the temple, ok. “…And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times:…” That is, up toward it. “…And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn. And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer” (Nu. 19:1-6). There were certain things that these symbolized in it, which we won’t get bogged down into at this time.

Now, “Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even. And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even. And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin” (vs. 7-9). Now what they would do then is this: they would send some of this down to the different synagogues, and what they would do, they would take the ashes (that would be at the temple and at the synagogue), and they would mix it in water and then sprinkle on the person, on the third and on the seventh day of their uncleanness. Then they would be clean. That’s the other way that God handled the purification of uncleanness until they could get up and make a sacrifice. So you can go through and read all about that. It becomes very laborious, and these are parts of the Bible that we don’t read very often because we want to get all the spiritual meat, and all the spiritual things and be inspired. This, I will have to say, because it is of the Old Covenant and it is very regimented, becomes very uninspiring to read and study and go through, but since the question was brought up we need to cover it thoroughly so we can understand exactly what’s going on.

Now, let’s go to 1 Kings 8 and let’s see then where there were sins. And we will see what these sins were, that there had to be repentance. And this is the prayer of Solomon when he dedicated the temple. Now let’s pick it up here in verse 22. This becomes a very long chapter. We’re going to cover a good part of it. But it becomes very important.

“And Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven: and he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, Who keepest covenant and mercy with Thy servants that walk before Thee with all their heart:…” (I Kings. 8:22-23). Now he talks about how He kept all the promises with his father David, verses 24-25.

And let’s come down here to verse 28. “Yet have Thou respect unto the prayer of Thy servant, and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to [listen] hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which Thy servant prayeth before Thee today: that Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which Thou hast said, My name shall be there: that Thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall make toward this place. And hearken Thou to the supplication of Thy servant, and of Thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place: and when Thou hearest, forgive” (vs. 28-30). Now that’s quite a statement, isn’t it? It’s not that a sacrifice would be offered every single time everyone did some little thing. It would be when they would pray toward Jerusalem that God would hear and forgive.

Notice, “If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before Thine altar in this house: then hear Thou in heaven, and do, and judge Thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way upon his head; and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness. When Thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against Thee, and shall turn again to Thee, and confess Thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto Thee in this house [or, toward this house]: then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which Thou gavest unto their fathers. When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against Thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess Thy name, and turn from their sin, when Thou afflictest them: then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy servants, and of Thy people Israel, that Thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon Thy land, which Thou hast given to Thy people for an inheritance” (vs. 31-36).

And, “If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller [or that is any kind of crawling, creeping thing]; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be; what prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all Thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart,…” (vs. 37-38). So it’s a very broad prayer, isn’t it? The reason I’m going through this is to show that God looked to the heart and for the forgiveness to the people if they would pray toward the temple, ok? And in every case it was that God would forgive. So there was forgiveness under the Old Covenant to the temple, but they would have to repent first.

Now, since this is a very detailed tape, I’m going to go ahead and end it here so we won’t get all bogged down in so many different things coming and going with this, because this gets very detailed and tedious, and it’s hard to have any attention span with it at all. So we’ll finish it next time, and we’ll answer the question about fasting. It’s a long way around to get there but you have to understand this before we do get there so we will know exactly what we are covering when we get to it.

Let’s cover just a couple of other things concerning forgiveness and not imputing sin before we sign off. Let’s go to Psalm 32:1. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered [that is, atoned, kippured]. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Psa. 32:1-2). So it talks about, that is a blessed state to be in.

Psalm 86:5. And of course not only was that at that point there, but that was also a prophecy. A prophecy for us today. We find that in Romans 7. It talks about repentance. It talks about forgiveness. Verse 1, “Bow down Thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O Thou my God, save Thy servant that trusteth in Thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto Thee daily. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant: for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee” (Psa. 86:1-5). It ties right in with 1 Kings 8 where they would call upon God and ask forgiveness. He would forgive them.

Now let’s go to Psalm 51. And this is the prayer of repentance that David gave after his sin with Bathsheba. And of course, of course then, that was a moral sin, wasn’t it? Yes, it was. It was really a sin which should have required David’s life, correct? But yet he was able to repent of it, right? Right. Psalm 51:1, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” Now notice, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity,…” (Psa. 51:1-2). When people sinned and touched something unclean, what did they have to do? Bathe, right? Here he’s saying “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”, because all sin makes you unclean. Whether it’s spiritually or physically, it makes you unclean.

Notice what kind of uncleanness that this was that he had. We could say in the vernacular, this was uncleanness of a brain. Have you ever heard something like dirty jokes? You could just as well say unclean jokes, right? Have you ever heard such a thing as a dirty mind? That’s what it’s talking about here, see. “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,…” Now why would he say against God only had he sinned? Did he not sin against Bathsheba, and Bathsheba against him? Yes. Did he not sin against Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband by killing him? Yes. But who made the laws that said what sin is? God did. That’s why he says “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” All the aspects of the vile human nature came crushing in on David, and he understood that sin came from within. “…And in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop,…” That’s referring to the ashes of a red heifer, because they would take and dip hyssop in the water and the ashes and sprinkle the unclean. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (vs. 2-7). Ok, was this not a prayer of atonement for his sin? Yes. Absolutely.

Then he comes right down here and says, verse 10, “Create in me a [what?] clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,…” (vs. 10-14). What does that mean? When you committed murder, did he premeditate this and plan it? Sure did. That is bloodguiltiness and should have required his life, because as we read, when you kill a man the only thing that will cleanse the land from that murder is the blood of the one who was the murderer. Otherwise there would be bloodguiltiness in the land.

“Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness. O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise. For Thou desirest not sacrifice;…” See, sacrifice was not the end in itself. “…Else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (vs. 14-17). So God required repentance first before any sacrifice was acceptable to God. That’s why when they laid their hands on the head of the animal, which was for the sacrifice, they confessed their sins. Now this will help us understand, when we come to the Day of Atonement, even more.

Now let’s finish the last two verses and then we’ll go ahead and end here. “Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar” (vs. 18-19). So it gets back to the whole same thing - God wants a clean heart. And we’re going to see that the Day of Atonement, next time, fits right in there so very much with that. And why then, we should fast on the Day of Atonement, even today. So we’ll end it right here.