Prepare
Opening Prayer
Thank God for the Holy Spirit and ask him to teach his Word, give understanding, and lead us to walk in his ways.
Read
Scripture Passage
Offerings with Restitution
14 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 15 “If a person commits a trespass, and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish from the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering. 16 And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.
17 “If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. 18 And he shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock, with your valuation, as a trespass offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him regarding his ignorance in which he erred and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him. 19 It is a trespass offering; he has certainly trespassed against the Lord.”
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 “If a person sins and commits a trespass against the Lord by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or about a pledge, or about a robbery, or if he has extorted from his neighbor, 3 or if he has found what was lost and lies concerning it, and swears falsely—in any one of these things that a man may do in which he sins: 4 then it shall be, because he has sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing which he has extorted, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he found, 5 or all that about which he has sworn falsely. He shall restore its full value, add one-fifth more to it, and give it to whomever it belongs, on the day of his trespass offering. 6 And he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord, a ram without blemish from the flock, with your valuation, as a trespass offering, to the priest. 7 So the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any one of these things that he may have done in which he trespasses.”
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Lev 5:14-6:7.
A — About
What Is This Passage About?
The trespass offering addressed both unintentional and intentional wrongdoing. The guilty person brought a sacrifice, restored what had been taken or damaged, and added one-fifth, showing that seeking God's forgiveness does not remove the duty to make matters right with the person harmed.
B — Best Verse
A Verse That Summarizes the Passage
Leviticus 6:4-5
Distilled from the devotional exposition; the speaker did not explicitly name a best verse.
The transcript contains no explicit Best Verse choice. These verses are distilled as the clearest summary because they require the guilty person to restore the loss, add one-fifth, and give it to the person wronged.
C — Called or Christ
C — Called to Do & Christ Connection
Own genuine guilt, seek forgiveness through Christ's completed sacrifice, and then act quickly to restore what you can and pursue reconciliation with the people your sin has harmed.
Devotional Study
Transcript of the devotion. Minor transcription errors may remain.
Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today.
We are at the trespass offering. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. The offerings of restitution, right? We might call it something like that. We are at Leviticus chapter five, the second half of that chapter. We'll have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll jump into God's Word. all the combines are outside and uh there's pumpkin spice in my coffee so take that however you want it let's pray father we thank you so much for your holy spirit and we pray that you would please help us to understand your word that you would teach us and that we would walk in your ways in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so we are at Exodus, or Exodus, Leviticus chapter 5 beginning at verse 14. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, by the way, all these are just things that God has told the people yet. They haven't done any of it. This is just God commanding. He's prescribing. Tabernacle's been pitched. Aaron's not even ordained yet.
If a person commits a trespass and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish of the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering.
And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy things. and shall add one-fifth to it, and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him." If a person sins and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. And he shall bring to the priests a ram without blemish from the flock with your valuation as a trespass offering."
So this is a trespass offering. It's meant to bring restitution between the two parties, but somebody has broken a commandment, a law, has violated a line that shouldn't have been crossed. So the priest shall make atonement for him regarding his ignorance in which he erred and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him. So this is, so far, sins of ignorance. It is a trespass offering.
He has certainly trespassed against the Lord. So if you trespass against the Lord unknowingly, this is really similar to the section before, but if you trespass unknowingly there is a ram that you can bring and a shekel that you can pay of restitution and things can be made right. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying if a person sins and commits a trespass against the Lord, okay so now we're still talking about trespasses. by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or about a pledge, or about a robbery, or if he has extorted from his neighbor, or if he has found what was lost and lies concerning it, and swears falsely. If any of these things that a man may do in which he sins..."
Now these don't seem very unintentional. Lying, extortion, robbery. Is there any hope? These are unintentional. These are intentional sins. Is there any hope? And any one of these things that man may do in which he sins, then it shall be because he has sinned and is guilty. Notice there is guilt.
That he shall restore what he has stolen. or the thing which he has extorted, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore its value, add one fifth more to it, and give it to whomever it belongs on the day of his trespass offering. And he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord, a ram without blemish from the flock, with your valuation as a trespass offering to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any one of these things that he may have done in which he trespasses." What is this about, right?
There are, as human beings, unintentional and intentional sins. There are things that we should not do that we ought not to have done, and there are things that we ought to have done and we don't do them. We have sins of commission and we have sins of omission. We do things because of our sinful nature that are sinful, and we don't even recognize it at times. And God makes a way right for that. And then again, you're sinful and I'm sinful, and whether we like it or not, we are guilty of trespassing against others.
So the question is, what do we do when that happens? In the Mosaic Law, there's a way for restoration. And I'm going to just say, right, there's a sacrifice and there's a payment. It's not just, oh God, please forgive me. You make the sacrifice and then it's all done. No, they actually have to go back and repay what they had stolen. And many people see this and they're like, oh man, this is not good. We shouldn't have to restore back and things like that. This is just Old Testament law coming down hard.
It's what Matthew, the tax collector, did when he came to Jesus. Jesus was a sacrifice for sin, but When the Holy Spirit changed his heart, Matthew went and he repaid everybody back what he had extorted from them. I think this is a Christian virtue, let him who steals steal no longer, but labor with his hands that he might give to those who are in need.
And I hope that we're the type of people who would be quick to restore, to repay, to try to make good. when we've sinned, because we accept that guilt and we go before God and we find forgiveness. So I don't know, maybe for you today what that looks like. Maybe you have sinned, maybe you have lied, maybe you've extorted, maybe you need to go to the Lord and find how to be right with God. But after you've been made right with God, I pray that you'll go turn and be made right with those whom you have offended.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the work of your Holy Spirit. We pray that you would please impress upon us the guilt of our sin. When we are guilty, Lord, we pray that we would own that. And that from that place of guilt then, Lord, we would find restoration. A right relationship with you and a right relationship with others that we would go and we would restore as much as we can what we have wronged. but that we would also know that the relationship between you and us has been made perfect because of Jesus Christ. Our sacrifice has been paid. Lord, we thank you for the work that you did in restoring the relationship with us and Jesus. Amen. Well, may God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.