In reading through the beginning of Leviticus, you find an interesting set of sacrifices. They’re interesting for a number of different reasons:
For starters, can you imagine bringing a sacrifice in where you had to kill the animal you brought because you sinned? The ceremonies surrounding the beginning of the sacrifices had blood all through it. It was placed on the priests, it was placed on the alter, and it was poured out at the base of the alter. This wasn’t just any ‘ole lamb from the flock either, it was the best.
Then there’s all the different rules about how to offer, what to offer, what sex of what to offer, who participated in the offering, and what you were offering for: peace, sin, wave, heave, etc… If Moses had Microsoft Word, there would no doubt have been a handy table to index all these things, instead we have it in prose.
What struck me most in reading through was the fact that there were sacrifices there for sins that a person committed in ignorance. Whether it was because no person could remember to keep all the law, or that we all sin no matter if we know it or not, there was a sacrifice for it.
That begs the question, how are we doing at confessing the sins we don’t even know we do to God? How are we at responding to sin that is exposed by the Holy Spirit. God does not have an ex post facto provision on sin. Whether you committed it and knew it was wrong or not, it’s the same thing.
If you need, take time today to thank God for His forgiveness, and thank Him that He forgives even the sin you are not aware that you’ve committed!
MIn, don’t know if you’ve read the quote I put up last Sunday on one of John MacArthur’s sermon’s, but it touches on what a blessing forgiving our sins is. I for one do marvel at such an act by a loving God and am so thankful for the work of Christ on the cross. 🙂