No Excuse
Leviticus 5
Have you ever been in trouble because you hung out with the wrong people. I remember I was in trouble because a group of guys did something in my neighborhood that was not good. I personally did not do anything but because I was with them and I did not stand up to what they did, I was punished. The same consequences happen when you are older. If you are in a car with people who do some type of crime and even if you did not participate in that crime, you would still be held responsible. You would have to pay the price for the crime.
Israel had consequences for sin. If you witnessed some sin take place by someone but did not speak about it, the guilt and iniquity would be passed on to you. Everyone needed to keep each other accountable.
In this chapter we see about different types of sin which needed a sacrifice to cover it up. The no no’s were touching an unclean animal or unclean person, not holding another accountable, and taking an oath. This resulted a need to offer a sacrifice for compensating his sin. There was no excuse to offer a sacrifice to cover ones sins. If someone could not afford a lamb then they needed to supply two turtle doves or two pigeons. If someone could not afford that, they would bring in some flour, without oil and frankincense. Anyone could make restitution for their sin.
No Excuse Today
I am so glad when there are no strings attached to certain purchases that I make. I may buy a car, but with that there comes all these other attachments that either I need to purchase or should purchase at an extra cost. It seems with most major purchases there are some hidden incentive. Because of the hidden incentives, I make excuses on why I do not need that thing. Here with even Israel and the sacrifice thing was that there were no hidden schemes. A person sinned and they needed to make it right. It was plane and simple.
I like the fact even more that I do not have to offer up a sheep to have forgiveness of my wrongdoing. With salvation in Jesus Christ, there are no strings attached. There is no hidden agenda. It is as it says in Hebrews 9:26, “But as it is he appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Jesus did it once and it was good enough. I am thankful that what he did covers my past, present, and future sins.
We also need to hold other people accountable. Israel needed to make a stand against sin and we should too. We need to not just point each others problems, we need to help them get of the problem. It is easy to point out sin in others but we are not willing to work with them to get past it. Galatians 6:2 tells us that we need to carry each other’s burdens. May we be burdened by the sin of others and be challenged to share Christ love with each other.God Bless
