Yes, the Book of Exodus leads us right up to Leviticus, by divine design I’m sure. Exodus, the Block of Scripture that takes Israel as a bunch of “aliens” living in Egypt (a “type” of the world) and transforms them (by the end of Exodus) into a people, a nation with a hunger for God!

And that’s where the Book of Leviticus serves a such vital function. Then teaching the people HOW to live in Communion with the Lord God, Who loves them so. How to maintain that glorious Fellowship!

Today a simple overview of Exodus, with a dramatic spiritual Lesson that arrangement teaches us.

The Exodus Composition (Holy-Spirit inspired, mind you) consists of 40 chapters. Chapters 1-15 deal with getting Israel out of Egypt! Then chapters 16-40 focus on Sinai, and a growing Relationship with God. (The very Prelude to Leviticus!)

But there is a “middle” Portion (small but serving as a “fulcrum, balance”) between these two halves … Exodus 15:1-21. Which is “Moses’ Song of the Sea.” (The first Song in the Bible, by the way!) Celebrating Redemption/Atonement by the blood of an innocent little lamb!

Wow!

Furthermore, these two parts of Exodus center on … (first) KNOWING GOD, then (second) WORSHIPPING GOD!

To express it a little differently … gaining KNOWLEDGE of God. Then enjoying COMMUNION with God!

That’s the Goal of Exodus … to know Him then to meet/live with Him!

They will get to “know His Person” through the Exodus Miracle.

Then they will get to “enjoy His Presence” through the Sinai Miracle.

Wow!

I do trust you will see how appropriate then Exodus really is!

The Exodus Experience (chapters 1-15) … through the waters!

The Sinai Experience (chapters 15-24) … to the Mountain (the very mount of God)!

Then the Tabernacle Experience (chapters 25-40) … life in/at God’s House! (In other words “Communion” with the Lord!)

Whereupon Leviticus then begins its Tome of further instructions about properly maintaining that sweet Unity/Harmony/Fellowship … God with His people/ the Jews with the Lord!

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

More tomorrow, the Lord willing.

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I never realized how “compact, organized” the Books of the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) really are! How they “link” so ingeniously to each other! How they develop one single overarching Plot!

With the Book of Leviticus sitting right in the middle of the Five! With its great Emphasis on “Fellowshipping” with God!

Today let me show you an “inclusio” regarding the beginning of Genesis and the ending of Exodus. It is thrilling, this very thought … this Holy Spirit inspired style of writing!

Genesis begins with the Garden of Eden. Where God apparently went down daily and “walked” with Adam and Eve for a while! (Genesis 3:8) A Garden specifically built for such Communion, God with man!

But, you know what subsequently happened in Genesis! Sin, sin, sin! Beginning with what is still called the “Fall” of man. Spiritual death passed upon us all!

Things don’t get a lot better in Exodus either, for a while. The Book begins with Israel in bondage in Egypt! Under the “control” of a Pharaoh, who knows not God!

But … and here’s the point of today’s Lesson … look how Exodus ends! With God having given instructions to Moses on building a structure called a “Tabernacle!” And the main purpose of that Holy Tent? The same as that of the Garden of Eden!

Communion with the Lord God Almighty!

Fellowship then, by the end of Exodus, has been restored! Mankind’s true purpose again having been realized! At God’s Initiative, I might add.

HE HUNGERS TO “WALK” WITH HIS PEOPLE!

Preacher Bagwell, what does this have to do with Leviticus? (I can hear someone asking.) And rightly so …

Leviticus takes up the Story where Exodus leaves off … detailed Instructions on HOW to maintain that Fellowship, Harmony, Interaction, Adoration, Worship between man and God!

“Inclusio” means that a Body of Literature (here the Genesis-Exodus Continuum) both begins and ends with the same Theme or Words or Idea! And, as I have tried to show you … that “inclusio” involves the God-man Nexus!

Jesus said it this way, when talking to a woman at a well near Sycar … “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: FOR THE FATHER SEEKETH SUCH TO WORSHIP HIM.” John 4:23, where “seeketh” (in Greek “zeteo”) means to strongly desire!”

That’s why Eden!

That’s why the Tabernacle!

That’s why Calvary!

That’s why Heaven!

“O come, let us adore Him!”

Our great God!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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As sure as Leviticus gives us instructions for drawing nearer to God (actually His desire to draw near to us) … so does Genesis gives us numerous examples of mankind drifting further and further away from God!

Because of sin!

The Bible’s first Book begins in Eden … a perfect environment, but soon civilization nearly comes to a total end … because of sin. With the Flood in Noah’s day! A pattern of departing from God’s Presence!

Again Genesis depicts man falling from Innocence (Eden) to chaos, rebellion … at the Tower of Babel!

Then yet again from perfection (the very Tree of Life) to the last few words in Genesis … “in a coffin in Egypt!” Genesis 50:26 (Life to death!)

So sad!

This too, I noticed late last night, even more of this heartbreaking “departure” motif!

Early in Genesis God meets man, often, in direct Communion. Especially Adam, Enoch (who “walked” with God, intimately so), Noah (who also “walked with God”) and Abraham!

But as Genesis progresses (or digresses) fewer and fewer direct Meetings between God and man occur. Later on God merely speaks by dreams and visions, a far cry from Face to Face Fellowship!

Again, the wages of sin!

Still … God hungers for communion with His creation, particularly mankind!

Genesis … man defeating God’s purpose, thwarting God’s longing for “togetherness.” Man ever widening the distance between himself and the great God of all!

Next, on our way to Leviticus, we will encounter the Book of Exodus. Where, surprisingly, man begins to draw back closer to God! Due to God’s Initiative, of course.

I’ll begin to explain this concept more fully tomorrow morning, the dear Lord willing.

Meanwhile … live close to God today!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

One more quick little glimpse. Too brief for a whole Lesson maybe.

When Abraham decided to live closer and closer to God, his Wife Sarah was “barren,” her womb “dried, dead.”

When Lot decided to move further away from God (and righteous Abraham) he close the “well watered” plains of a place called Sodom!

See the difference, “dry” as opposed to “wet?”

But in time, “in the long run” my Dad would have said … God dried up the lush plains of Sodom. (That’s an understatement!) The fire of judgment fell on that wicked place.

And … Sarah’s dried, barren womb was given new vigor, no longer “dead!” Moist with new life, little Isaac was on the way!

God “reversed” these two situations entirely! Based on what? FELLOWSHIP (OR LOVE) FOR HIM, TO HIM! WANTING TO LIVE NEAR HIS PRESENCE! BEING “IN LOVE” WITH OUR CREATOR/REDEEMER!

Wow!

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I have been writing for some time Lessons dealing with the Book of Genesis and its “preparation” for a study of the Book of Leviticus.

In sum, all this focuses on two “directions” mankind may travel. Either “toward” God … or “away” from God! Basically “west” or “east.”

For example, when Cain murdered his brother … “And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the EAST of Eden.” Genesis 4:16 … Cain moved EAST, away from God!

But when God called Abraham … he moved from “Ur of the Chaldees” to the Land of Canaan (a westward trajectory). Journeying toward the Holy Land, toward God’s Abode! Where the Tabernacle and Temple would some day reside.

East or West, that is the question!

Now let me show you a good “Text” to illustrate this concept. (Recall now, the whole theme of Leviticus is “living in harmony with God,” God’s amazing Desire being to enjoy the sweet company of His creation.)

The Bible Account of Lot and Abraham.

They must part ways!

Genesis 13:7 … “And there was a STRIFE between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle.”

Genesis 13:8-9 … “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole LAND before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

Genesis 13:10-11 … LOT CLEARLY CHOOSES TO MOVE EAST, AWAY FROM THE HOLY LAND … “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even AS (like) the garden of the LORD, like the land of EGYPT, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed EAST: and they separated themselves the one from the other.”

Now Genesis 13:12 … “Abram dwelled in the land of CANAAN (THE HOLY LAND), and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward SODOM (far away from God).

Wow!

The whole Bible, folks!

Loving God or rejecting Him!

West or East!

Let me close with this verse today … “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” James 4:8

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

The original “expulsion” from God’s Presence … after Eve and Adam had sinned … “So God drove out the man; and he placed at the EAST of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Genesis 3:24

Expelled eastward.

And consequently, to go to the Gate of Eden, to the Presence of those Cherubim one had to walk WEST! And that may have been the very spot (the Gate of Eden) where Adam came to worship God every day of his long life! Those Cherubim may have been a prototype of the coming “Mercy Seat” where much blood would be shed for the atonement of sin!

Wow!

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I this morning have seen a parallel in the Book of Genesis, chapters 1-11. In the Bible Accounts of Creation through the Tower of Babel.

The “deep” (chaos) permeated the Creation Story, initially anyway. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the DEEP. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the WATERS.” Genesis 1:1-2

Then soon, the “waters” of chaos appear again. At the Flood in the day of Noah! “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the FOUNTAINS of the great DEEP broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the RAIN was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:11-12

Notice (remember) these two “water” episodes!

Next … with the world created, and the “depths” tamed, God focuses on a man named ADAM, creates him.

And similarly, as the flood waters so profusely deluged the whole earth, God focused on a man named NOAH!

Two men, now!

And finally … after Adam (and Eve and their son Cain) sinned … we read of a city being built. A clearly wicked city, founded by a murderer … “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a CITY, and called the name of the CITY, after the NAME of his son, Enoch.” Genesis 4:18

If not Eden, then a city without God’s blessing!

But, still in parallel, after the Flood … after mankind again sinned and sinned and sinned … another (wicked) city was built, Babylon! “And they said, Go to, let us build us a CITY and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a NAME, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the CITY and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the CITY. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:4-9

Wow!

So, Genesis 1-11 gives us two (tragic) trajectories!

First: Water (chaos) … then godly Adam … then after sin entered, a (wicked) City!

Second: Water (lots of it, a Flood) … then godly Noah … then, after even MORE sin … a (wicked) City!

See the plot?

Man has progressively distanced himself from God!

Separation!

And this (ever worsening) separation (because of sin) … makes the Book of Leviticus (God longing to enter into fellowship with His creation) … all the more necessary!

God, a God of Grace and Love and yes, a desire to commune with His Own!

Hallelujah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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