SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 17
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. After 400 years exposed to a variety of Egyptian religious practices, the Israelites must now radically reform their own practices. Common to the religions of the day included regular sacrifices anywhere and everywhere to the multitudes of gods all around them, cultic sexual practices as well as blood drinking. The people are warned not to participate in these practices.
2. An interesting reference to offering sacrifices to goat idols. The root word ‘saiyr’ is related to the Greek and Roman Satyr (half man, half goat) which were associated with sexual immorality. The goat is still associated with Satanism and the demonic today. The people are warned against prostituting themselves with the goat idols.
3. Hmm, blood drinking. I would not think this was relevant today, but apparently it still is. Check this link out for tips on finding and drinking blood. Here we have God making it clear that they are not to participate in these demonic religious practices.
4. Blood is a symbol of both life and death. They do not find life by drinking blood or by indulging in sexual immorality, but by living in fellowship with God, symbolized by the fellowship offerings at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Jesus fulfills this, as the One through Whom we gain access to God by His death and resurrection.
5. Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, 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 will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.’ [John 6:53-56]
6. We can only find life in God, through Jesus. His death and resurrection restores us to fellowship with God. We do not literally eat and drink His flesh and blood, we symbolically take His whole life and death into us, and unite ourselves to Him, and therefore to God. This symbolizes complete identification with Jesus, total oneness.
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to cling to You, to be one with You, to find my life in You!
All the sacrifices were to be confined to one place – at the tabernacle. Although we are able to give our sacrifices of praise anywheres, it is still in oneness in Christ that we are able to praise God. And the meeting at His place is still important this day – for the people to come together to sing and praise and worship the Lord – bringing sacrifices of praise.
The life force of blood reminds me of Jesus who said that all those who participate in the eating of His body and the drinking of His blood will have true life. Our life force this day is Christ Jesus. To be alive this day, I must have Christ. As He said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. There is no life apart from Him, only death. Apart from Him I can do nothing. He is my All in all.
All that I am I owe to Thee,
Thy wisdom, Lord, has fashioned me;
I give my Maker thankful praise,
Whose wondrous works my soul amaze.
Ere into being I was brought,
Thine eye did see, and in Thy thought
My life in all its perfect plan
Was ordered ere my days began.