WE BRING THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE – THREE TYPES OF SACRIFICES
2 Chronicles 29
There are certain sections of the Bible that are
difficult reading. When I was in the first grade and first began to
read, my mother thought that it would be a good idea for me to start
reading a chapter a day in the Bible. This was in the days before Dobson
was everywhere telling us how to rear our children. Now I was the
oldest child and my mother knew practicing reading was important and
that reading the Bible was important, so she combined the two and got me
started reading Genesis. I enjoyed Genesis and I enjoyed Exodus,
reading the stories exactly as they were first told by God rather than
in the pared down version that is usually given to children. But then I
got to Leviticus. The first five chapters were okay with descriptions of
the burnt offering and the meal offering and the peace offering and the
sin offering and the trespass offering but then I got to Leviticus 6
and the multitude of rules describing the sacrifices and the priests and
the laws concerning cleanliness and eventually just lost interest. It
was too great for my elementary school aged mind to handle.
How then can we in the short time we have today
understand all the detail of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and how
they might apply to us today? Simply said, there are three general
categories of sacrifices found in the Bible and all three of them are
found in their spiritual order in 2 Chronicles 29.
THE SIN OFFERING
The first type of sacrifice we find in this passage
is the sin offering (verses 20-24). We have already read how that
Hezekiah became king at the age of twenty-five. His father before him
was Ahaz. If you look in the previous chapter, we find an account of the
sins of Ahaz. This was a man who was described as continually
unfaithful (28:19) and in times of distress increasingly unfaithful
(28:22). He worshiped other gods and treated the temple of God as his
property. He gave some of the temple items to the king of Assyria in an
attempt to appease their king but it did not work. Then he turned to the
gods of Damascus, shutting the temple down, destroying some of the
temple items, and setting up gods all through Jerusalem for worship. His
son, Hezekiah though was a different sort of man. He immediately
determined to change the direction of his kingdom and commanded that the
temple be cleaned and prepared again for use and committed himself to a
renewal of the covenant between God and Israel. He recognized that
their problem was a sin problem and that they as a people needed
forgiveness of sin.
Of course, this is what we most often think about as
Christians when we think of a blood sacrifice and it is the primary
picture that we have of the sacrifice that Christ paid for us on the
cross. He died as the sacrifice for my sin. That is what we celebrated
today during the Lord’s Table. Christ paying the penalty for my sin.
That is what the word “atonement” means. Forgiveness of sin through a
sacrifice does not mean that God is ignoring the sin but that the
sacrifice is bearing that sin. That is the significance of the laying on
of hands on the animal. It was a symbolic transfer of the sins from the
people to the animal. We know that animal sacrifices could not take
care of all sin because it had to repeated over and over and over but
there came a day when the perfect Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was nailed
to the cross to bear our sins in His own body, to suffer the penalty for
sin once and for all.
That is what was necessary for us to be reconciled to
God. Sin is what separates us from God. That is the common trait of
each person born and that is why Jesus had to die and that is why
without faith in Jesus Christ alone there is no forgiveness of sin.
THE BURNT OFFERING (AN OFFERING OF CONSECRATION)
Hezekiah, however, did not stop with the sin offering
but then had a special burnt offering sacrificed (verses 27-31a). A
burnt offering was for the purpose of dedicating yourself or something
to God. Through it one says, “I am consecrating myself to God.” Now this
word “consecration” is an important word and we need to explain what it
means. The Hebrews had a unique phrase for this word, “filling the
hands”, i.e., making your hands complete. This is discipleship. This is
dedication. This is saying that God has all of my life. This is worship
in that I am submitting my life to His will and control. We find in this
passage that music accompanies worship but music is not worship.
Worship is a sacrifice of dedication and submission.
We find this concept in the New Testament also. Paul
begged the Romans to “…present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
To Timothy he wrote that when we pray we are to life
up holy hands, hands that are consecrated, hands that are made perfect
before God. In the sin offering I am putting my hands on Christ’s head
so that He can pay the penalty for my sin but with the burnt offering I
am lifting my hands to heaven and dedicating myself to Him and Him
alone.
CONDITIONS FOR CONSECRATION
Not just anybody however can give offer a burnt
sacrifice. Not everyone can dedicate themselves to God. You have to be
holy. You have to be clean. You have to be blameless.
Now what did it mean to be holy. Two things were
necessary to be holy. You had to have a relationship to God and you had
to live in such a way that showed your holiness. Look at Leviticus
22:31-33.
- 31 “Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the LORD.32 “You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you,
33 “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD.”
What happened is that God established a relationship
with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt and through bringing them
out of Egypt, He made them holy. He made them clean. He made them
blameless. He filled their hands. He completed their hands and He
expected them to live like the special people that they were. He
commanded them, “Be ye holy for I am holy.”
We no doubt have a number of people here who have
believed God, who have trusted His Son, Jesus Christ as Savior but have
gone back on the commitments that they have made to God. They have
accepted the sacrifice that Christ made for them on the cross of Calvary
but they need to make again that sacrifice of commitment that God
demands from them. That is the emphasis of Hezekiah. They were already
God’s people but they had forsaken Him and forsaken His ways and
forsaken His temple and Hezekiah determined that it was a time to
recommitment themselves to the covenant that God had made to them under
Moses. The sin offering is sufficient for forgiveness of sins, the cross
of Christ is sufficient enough to bring you to heaven but Christ
demands commitment with that faith.
THE PEACE OFFERING (A SACRIFICE OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING)
The third category of sacrifices that follows the sin
offering and the burnt offering is the peace offering (verses 29-36).
These offerings are those of praise and thanksgiving. Hebrews 13 calls
this type of offering the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips in
thanksgiving to God. This sacrifice was not for forgiveness of sin,
neither was it was a sacrifice of commitment to God, but rather a
sacrifice that signified a close relationship with God that is going
well. Now it is possible to have a close relationship and it not be
healthy or it being one sided but a true relationship with God is a
relationship in which things are going well.
This third type of sacrifice is best exhibited
through a song that we used to sing. “Everything’s all right in my
Father’s house. In my Father’s house. In my Father’s house. Everything’s
all right in my Father’s house. There is joy, joy, joy!” This is the
sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
IT’S KINDA LIKE GETTIN’ MARRIED!
It’s relationship to the other types of sacrifices is
the same as that of the wedding anniversary to the marriage contract
and to ceremony. The contract, the piece of paper that you sign is like
the death of Christ for our sins and our acceptance by faith of that
sacrifice. The wedding ceremony and other times of public and private
commitment that you make to your spouse are like the offering of
consecration. It is a time where you are taking ownership of your part
in the relationship. The sacrifice of praise, though is like the
anniversary date. The party that you throw for your spouse after five,
ten, or twenty years of marriage. All of these are important to a strong
relationship but they are different from each other in purpose.
In the same way, God will not accept your commitment
until your sin problem is taken care of, there is not true thanksgiving
if you are not holy before God both in relationship and in life. One of
the prophets, Amos, in the fourth chapter of the book (Amos 4:1-13, page
618 in the pew Bible) that bears his name writes about those who
offered thanksgiving offerings that God found unacceptable. Rather than
read all the verses, let us look at just a few.
2 The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days shall come upon you When He will take you away with fishhooks, And your posterity with fishhooks.
3 You will go out through broken walls, Each one straight ahead of her, And you will be cast into Harmon,” Says the LORD.
4 “Come to Bethel and transgress, At Gilgal multiply transgression; Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days. {Or years (compare #De 14:28)}
5 Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, Proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; For this you love, You children of Israel!” Says the Lord GOD.
6 ¶ “Also I gave you cleanness of
teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; Yet you
have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.
12 “Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
These people were offering the proper sacrifices but
they had strayed from their relationship to God. They were celebrating
Thanksgiving but they were living in a way that was displeasing to God.
God says, your sacrifices of thanksgiving are unacceptable. Prepare to
meet your God!
Now we use that phrase sometimes to talk about death
and that is partially in view here but the fuller view is prepare to
meet your judge. God is going to judge you. If you do not have that holy
relationship that He provided for you through Jesus Christ or you have
that relationship and are not committed to that relationship, you will
be judged. If you do have that holy relationship with God through Jesus
Christ’s death on the cross for your sin and you live committed to that
relationship, then your praise and your thanksgiving will be pleasing
and acceptable to God.
No doubt it is due to our evil human nature that
we forget God and break our commitments to Him who has helped us the
most and instead of committing ourselves to Him, we focus on ourselves.
According to thecatholicpriest.com,
“The post office official in charge of the Dead Letter Box in
Washington, DC, reported that he had received hundreds of thousands of
letters addressed to “Santa Claus” asking him to bring many things, but
after Christmas, only one letter came to the box thanking Santa Claus
for bringing the toys.” Obviously, that one letter came from someone who
really believed, who was really committed to Santa Claus.
THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE IS NOT A SMALL THING.
There is a sense that all of these sacrifices are
given from a willing heart but what makes the sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving so great and wonderful is that it can only be given
willingly. The highest obedience is the obedience that is given at
suggestion and not at command.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Spurgeon
“knew a youth who had wished to be baptized, but his friends kept him
back. When he fell ill, he fretted because he had not confessed his Lord
according to the Scripture. “But Isaac,” said his mother, “you know
baptism will not save you.” “No, mother,” he replied, “of course it will
not, for I am saved. But when I see Jesus in heaven I should not like
Him to say, ‘Isaac, it was a very little thing I asked of you; did you
not love Me enough to do it?’ ”
Concentrating on being thankful to God may seem like a
little thing. Praising Christ in word and deed may not seem
significant. What makes it significant is because it is an indication
that “everything’s alright in my Father’s house.”