It Didn't Come Back!

You confessed it again last night. The same thing you've confessed a hundred times. And not because you did it again. You confessed it again because some part of you still can't believe it actually left. So you go back out to the edge and you check. You rehearse it at two in the morning like a debt that might reappear in the statement. I want to show you the day, right at the center of the whole book, when God took the thing his people confessed and sent it so far away that they stood and watched it disappear over the horizon and never come back. Because if you understood what happened to that, you would stop walking out to the edge to look for yours. This is True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. I'm Sean. This is our daily walk through the whole story of God. If it's feeding you, I have a book called True Word Faith for Life. It's available at Trueword FaithforLife.com, up in the order. I'd love for you to buy it, maybe one for a friend. It'll bless you, it'll make you cry, it'll make you laugh, it'll teach you, and you won't even realize you're learning. There's links in the thing below. Look, before we go into this episode, which is a tough episode, I'll just tell you that right up front. Before we open it, here's a question for the chat and the comments. Is there something you confess to God more times than you can count? Not because you keep doing it, but because you can't believe it's gone. You don't have to give a bunch of details that would embarrass you. Um just put a yes, drop a yes in the comments. You're gonna want to see how many people are standing right at that same edge. Today is the center of the book. Everything in Leviticus has been climbing toward this chapter, and everything after it comes back down from here. This is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And look how it opens. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they offered before the Lord and died. The Dabinabi from earlier this week. God ties this chapter directly to that fire. Then he says to Aaron, Don't come into the holy place inside the veil whenever you want, or you'll die. That's the setup. Not once a day, not whenever the burden feels heavy, once a year. Now, notice what Aaron wears. He's the high priest. He has the breastplate with the twelve stones, a robe with bells and pomegranates, and a gold plate on his forehead, engraved holy to the Lord. It's the most magnificent garment in Israel. He takes it off. Verse 4. He puts on a holy linen coat, linen breeches, a linen sash, a linen turban, plain white, no gold, no color, no stones, the clothing of a servant. On the one day he goes furthest in, he goes in looking like nobody. He washes and he dresses like the lowest man in the room. Before he can carry anyone else's sin, he offers a bull for his own and for his house. The mediator has to be dealt with before he can mediate. Then the two goats. He takes two goats from the congregation, sets them at the door, and casts lots. One lot for the Lord. One lot for Azazel. Now, Azazel, that word is debated, and I'll be honest with you about it. Some read it as a compound meaning, the goat that goes away, which is where our word scapegoat comes from. Some read it as a place, a rugged, cut-off cliff. Some read it as the name of a wilderness entity. The text doesn't settle it, and I won't pretend that it does. So, here's what the text does settle. And this is where the ancient Near East makes the picture sharp. Elimination rituals were everywhere in the ancient world. The Hittites had them. Mesopotamia had them. You'd load evil onto an animal and drive it out. And the point was usually to appease or redirect a hostile spirit. You were paying something off. Israel's version has no payment in it at all. The lot is cast, so God chooses which goat goes where, not a diviner. Nothing is offered to Azazel. The goat is not a sacrifice, it is a delivery truck. And what it delivers is not tribute. It's Israel's iniquity going away. Watch the first goat. It's killed, and its blood goes where blood has never gone inside the veil. Aaron sprinkles it on, and before the keporet, the mercy seat, the lid of the ark, in a cloud of incense so thick he can't see clearly and doesn't die. He cleanses the holy place, the tent, and the altar, because Israel's sin doesn't only stain Israel, it stains the place where God agreed to live among them. Their uncleanness reached his house. Then the second goat. Aaron lays both hands on its head and confesses over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions, all their sins, all their hurts, habits, and hangups, putting them squarely on the head of the goat. Both hands, full weight, spoken out loud. And then a man appointed for the task leads the goat away into the wilderness, into a land not inhabited. The Hebrew for it is Iretzgezrah, Iretzgezra, a land cut off, a land of separation. The goat doesn't come back. Sit with that a second. Breathe that in. Because that's the pastoral center of this whole chapter. Israel watched it go. They stood there and they watched a living animal carrying everything they'd confessed walk away over the horizon until they couldn't see it anymore. And then it was gone, not stored, not filed, not held somewhere in case it was needed later, gone into a land cut off. And the day itself is a Sabbath of solemn rest. When you afflict your souls and do no work at all, it's the one required fast in the Torah. Because on the day of your sin, because on this day, your sin is carried away. There is nothing for you to do about it. You can't help. You can only watch and stop working. And two details before we move. First, the rabbinic tradition understood the two goats to be matched, alike in appearance and in value and age. Standing side by side at the door, two identical animals. The only thing separating their destinies is a lot drawn from an urn. Nothing about the goat determined which lot it drew. That was God's choice. Second, the man who leads it out, he isn't a priest. He is not a priest. He's a designated Israelite whose entire job that day is to walk. He takes the rope and he goes. And the nation watches, they watch him grow smaller and smaller and smaller until the horizon swallows him. And when he's done, he washes and he comes back into the camp. And the goat doesn't. Now, why once a year? Why the repetition? Because it never finished. Hebrews makes the argument better than I can. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament makes the argument far better than I can. The high priest went in every year with the blood that wasn't his own, and the fact that he had to keep going in was itself the proof that it wasn't done. In those sacrifices, there's a remembrance made of sins every year. The calendar itself was a witness that the problem was still open. And here's where that lands on you. Because a lot of us live like the problem is still open. We confess the same thing a hundred times, not because we keep doing it, but because we can't believe it left. We cannot believe that God forgave us of it. We can't believe that He lifted it up off of us. We go out to the edge of our own personal wilderness and we look for the sin goat. We want to keep checking, is it still gone? And I need you to hear the chapter. I need you to hear this. Aaron laid both hands on its head and named it all out loud. And then a man led it away, and it didn't come back. That wasn't because Israel was strong enough to forget it. It's because God sent it in a land cut off. Here's the step for you today, and it's specific. Name the one thing you keep walking out to the edge to check on, that one sin, that one hurt, habit, or hang-up. Name it. The thing you re-confess at two in the morning. You're laying in bed, you cannot sleep. It's wearing you down in today. The next time your mind starts down that road, go look for it. The next time, the next time it starts down that road to go look for that sin, that hurt habit or hang-up. Get that six words. I hope you write it down. If you have to write it down, write it down. Put it next to your bed. Say the six words out loud and stop. It is not coming back. God sent it in a land cutoff. You're not being humble by carrying it. You're reopening a case that He has closed. Practice closing it again today, out loud. The first time the thought comes. See, here's the thing. Here's what stops me every time I read this chapter. Literally every time I read it, it stops me. In my tracks, there were two goats, chosen from one congregation, at one door on one day, and the rabbis noted they were to be alike. Two goats, one offering two halves of a single picture, because no single animal could show both halves of what needed to happen. One had to die because atonement cost blood. One had to leave because guilt has to go somewhere. Yeshua is both goats. He died and he carried it away. And he did it in one body on one day. He was led outside the camp. The book of Hebrews says, suffering outside the gate, out where the goat went, into the land cut off. And he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That is the sound of a man in Its Getzrah. And David, who never saw a cross, still knew how far the goat went. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. And the book of Hebrews says the thing the whole yearly calendar was aching toward. Yeshua entered into, he entered in once, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption, once, not annually, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own. So here's your choice today. You can keep the thing. Whatever that thing is, you can keep it. You can keep managing it. You can keep it quiet, you can keep it closed, you can keep walking to the edge to make sure it's still there and let it get a little heavier every year. Or you can believe that it already went and that it was laid on one who carried out, who carried it out past where anyone would ever find it again. And let today be the day you stop looking toward the wilderness for it. God did not forgive you annually, He did it once, and He meant once. Once meant once. Dear Lord, thank you for a day when Israel got to stop working and simply watch it leave. We confess we've been walking out to the edge to look for the goat. We've rehearsed the things you've already carried off. We've confessed the same sin, the same hurt habit or hang up that you relieved us of so many times that the confessing became its own kind of unbelief. We nurtured our own guilt. Father, thank you that you chose both lots yourself. Thank you that you that that one died and that your son was both. One died and one went away, and your son was both. Jesus, Yeshua. Both in one body on one day, outside the gate. Father, teach us what once actually means. Give us the rest of this day, the strange rest of having nothing left to do about it. I pray this in the matchless name of your Son, Yeshua. Amen. Maybe you've never had anything carried away at all. Maybe you've just been managing it, keeping it quiet, keeping it close, and it's been getting heavy. Every year it gets heavier and heavier. Hear this. This is a day when it goes. Not because you finally got strong enough, but because someone laid down under all of it and then carried it out past where anyone could find it again. You don't have to keep it anymore. If you're ready to let go of your guilt and your burden and the weight, once and for all, pray this with me and mean it. Yeshua, I need you. I believe you died for me and you rose again. I surrender my life to you today. I ask that you forgive me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, lead me. I am yours. In your matchless name. Amen. If you prayed that today, tell somebody. Somebody in your life, tell them. It doesn't matter if they ridicule you, who cares? Look, you may tell somebody you think would never ridicule you, and they might. But tell them. You can tell me if you want. And then stop looking toward the wilderness. It isn't coming back. Find people who follow Yeshua, followers of the way, and let them help you leave it there. Let me help you leave it there. True WordFaithfulLife.com. Contact. I will help you. Two goats stood matched at one door on one day. One bled inside the veil. One walked away, carrying every word they'd confessed out loud, smaller and smaller against the far horizon, into the land cut off. And it didn't return. Stop walking to the edge looking for it. It isn't coming back. If this reached you today, send it to somebody who's still carrying something God already carried away. It might be the day they they finally set it down, and they are finally free. Receive this in the heavenly name, and in Lashon Hokadesh, which is the language of God. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace until we meet again. Shalom Bishem Yeshua.