Year of Jubilee
April 10, 2022 • Connor Kraus • Leviticus
Law and Order
March 27, 2022 • Connor Kraus • Leviticus
Connor continues our Leviticus message series with a frank conversation about some sensitive topics from Leviticus 18 and 20 – incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality. The penalty for these sins was death. It’s easy for us to look back at the Old Testament times, contemplate the kinds of sins God’s people were committing, and say that those were life-or-death circumstances. But we still live with life-or-death circumstances. We deserve death but are given life when we acknowledge our sin and trust in Jesus Christ. We can’t look back at the Canaanites with superiority. Nor can we look to our peers who have committed “worse sins” than we have. We are all deserving of death. But because of Jesus, we can have a spirit of life beyond the grave.
Laws of Blood
March 20, 2022 • Connor Kraus • Leviticus
Our Leviticus series continues with a look at the blood laws of Leviticus (and the New Testament scriptures that showed that Jesus was the new law). In Leviticus, once again, God was taking what the Israelites were using for pagan practices (animal sacrifice) and turned it around for His glory. He outlined specific laws forbidding eating animals that still had their blood (life force) in them. And the blood of living things wasn’t to be touched. So centuries later, when Jesus told the crowd of 5000 that they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, it had to be confusing and even upsetting to his followers. We have the benefit of hindsight. We know that Jesus knew he would soon die for the entire world and our sins. That didn’t mean his followers had to consume his flesh and blood literally. To enjoy eternal life in Heaven, he meant we have to accept and take in his sacrifice for our sins. Jesus gave his life for us, and his blood makes us clean.