Don’t Worship Like the World - Leviticus 1-3

 Don’t Worship Like the World

Leviticus 2:11 (ESV)

11 “No grain offering that you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the LORD.

These three chapters of Leviticus tell us about the ancient sacrifices.  The various types of sacrifices were intended to give the visual way to approach God, eventually through Christ.  Christ would be the ultimate way we come to worship God. But, the nation of Israel was instructed on a variety of ways, all showings that:

1. Sacrifice was necessary to approach God. 

2. Pure sacrifice is necessary to approach God. 

3. The right sacrifice in the right way would bring a “pleasing aroma” to God. 

In these first three chapters we are told about sacrifices uses bulls, sheep, goats, birds, grain and fruit.   The nation could bring a variety of sacrifices to God.  In the above passage, however, the nation was told two elements that were not allowed in the sacrifice.  They were not to have a sacrifice that included leaven or honey.  Leaven, in the Bible, is always a picture of sin.   As it swells the bread, leaven is a picture of pride swelling the heart of mankind.   Honey was in abundance in the Promise Land.  But, honey was not allowed to be part of the sacrifice.   Most scholars believe the reason for these two items to be left out of sacrifice is that these two were very much part of the Gentile sacrifices of the day.  It should be noted that the Gentiles HAD sacrifices.  Remember, from the earliest days of Cain and Abel, God had given mankind the way to approach Him: Through sacrifice.   The issue here is not that mankind did not know how to worship God, it was that mankind did not worship God from the heart in obedience.   We are not to worship God the way the Gentiles do.   We are to worship the way God wants in the Spirit of Christ guiding us.