THROUGH THE BIBLE - Numbers..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Let's read together God's Word in Numbers chapter 15. This is the Word of God.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land, you are to inhabit which I am giving you, and you offer to the Lord from the herd or from the flock a food offering, or a burnt offering, or a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, or as a free will offering, or at your appointed feast, to make a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Then he who brings his offering shall offer to the Lord a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of a fine flour, mixed with a quarter of a hing of oil. And you shall offer with a burnt offering, or for the sacrifice, a quarter of a hing of wine for the drink offering for each lamb. or for a ram, you shall offer for a grain offering two-tenths of an epa of fine flour mixed with a third of a hin of oil. And for the drink offering you shall offer a third of a hint of wine, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

And when you offer a bull as a burnt offering or sacrifice to fulfill a vow or for peace offerings to the Lord, then one shall offer with the bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah or fine flour, mixed with half a hint of oil. And you shall offer for the drink offering half a tin of wine, as a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Thus it shall be done for each bull or ram, or for each lamb or goat. As many as you offer, so shall you do with each one, as many as there are. Every native Israelite shall do these things in this way, in offering a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

And if a stranger is sojourning with you, or anyone is living permanently among you, and he wishes to offer a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord, he shall do as you do. For the assembly there shall be one statue for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statue forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you." The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land to which I bring you, and when you eat of the bread of the land, you shall present a contribution to the Lord.

Of the first of your dough you shall present a loaf of a contribution, like a contribution from the threshing floor, so shall you present it. some of the first of your dough you shall give to the Lord as a contribution throughout your generations. Verse 22. But if you sin unintentionally and do not observe all these commandments that the Lord has spoken to Moses, all that the Lord has commanded you by Moses from the day that the Lord gave commandment and onward throughout your generations. Then, if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, all the congregation shall offer one bull from the herd for a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the rule, and one male goat for a sin offering.

And the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the people of Israel, and they shall be forgiven, because it was a mistake, and they have brought their offering, a food offering to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their mistake. And all the congregation of the people of Israel shall be forgiven, and the stranger who sojourns among them, because the whole population was involved in the mistake. If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who makes a mistake when he sins unintentionally to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he's native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people, because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment.

That person shall be utterly cut off. His inequity shall be on him. While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody because it had not been made clear what should be done to him.

And the Lord said to Moses, The man shall be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses. Verse 37, The Lord said to Moses, Speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes which you are inclined to whore after.

So you shall remember and do all my commandment and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God. Amen. This is the glorious word of the Lord, beloved of Christ.

By God's grace, we continue with this journey through the Old Testament, starting from the book of Genesis and now moving through the Pentateuch. And now we're in Chapter 15 of the Book of Numbers, going through the narrative of the people of Israel. And as we progress and as we see the story of the people of Israel, there's many of the attributes of the Lord God of Israel that we can see. But the one that I want to point your attention to on your heart to here in Chapter 15, it is the glorious compassion off the Lord. The King David, by inspiration, by the Spirit, he was writing Psalm 145, in verse 8, he speaks of the compassion of the Lord.

King David says that the Lord God of Israel, that He is gracious, that He is a good and patient God, that He is slow to anger, and that His mercy is great. That is the Lord God of Israel, the only Lord God of the universe, the one that was patient with the people of Israel and the one that continues to be patient in the person of Jesus Christ for the church. This is our glorious God, who does not give to us according to what we deserve, but rather He gives us according to His compassion. And beloved of Christ, that's what we can see here in Numbers chapter 15. After the Lord God of Israel has come down to visit His people when they were in bondage in Egypt.

After the Lord God of Israel came down to give them a Redeemer, a Savior, if you want, in Moses. After the Lord God of Israel came down from heaven to give the people of Israel His law, His tabernacle, His Sabbath. After the Lord God of Israel came down to give them freedom from bondage, which symbolizes and represents the freedom that we have in Christ from sin and from the death that we were in bondage to. After that Lord God of Israel manifested all his works, all his deeds, all his compassion, all his love for the people, the people of Israel responded with disobedience, lack of trust, and in their heart, they wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted to return in their hearts to Egypt.

In their hearts, they despised this glorious God who manifested this compassion, this God of whom David spoke with these marvelous and glorious words. The people of Israel, in their hearts, prefer Egypt rather than this glorious God. And this God in His mercy responded, yes, with judgment upon these people by not allowing the older generation to make it into the promised land, as we saw in chapter 13 and 14. But yet in that judgment, we can see the compassion of the Lord, beloved of Christ, because this chapter that we have in front of us, opens with the statement of a promise that is going to be fulfilled. It says the Lord that when you make it into the land, which I have promised you, the people who have just received the judgment of God, the people who have just been promised that they are going to perish in the wilderness, the people who have received the judgment of God through Moses, that they will not make it to the promised land.

Yet these people received from the same mouth of Moses the statement that comes from the Lord, that when you come, it says in verse 2, when you come into the land, you are to inhabit. And not only once the Lord confirms the promise, but twice in this chapter, because in verse 18, we are told again that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, when you come into the land to which I will bring you, The compassion of the Lord, beloved of Christ. that in his judgment there is still mercy and compassion. And great is his mercy. He is slow to anger, yet he is great in compassion and in loving kindness.

This is the Lord God Almighty, who should have, in human terms, sent these people back to Egypt or leave them alone in the wilderness or to remove from them the promise of the promised land. This compassionate God decides not to send them back to Egypt where they desire to be, not to leave them alone in the wilderness, but to remain with them and also to keep and to sustain the promise that there was a land that was going to be inherited and effectively received by the people of Israel. Great is the compassion of the Lord God of Israel that was manifested in the wilderness by keeping this promise. But greater, greater is the compassion of God in his son, Jesus Christ, that where we were sinners, he died for us to redeem us from the death that we deserve. And even if sometimes we desire in our hearts to be taken by the world and to return to Egypt, the Lord remains faithful and merciful and kind.

that He's the one that started the work in us and is going to bring it to completion so that in Christ the promise remains effective. And He can say that He indeed will bring us to the promised land. But beloved of Christ, the compassion of the Lord, it is one side of the attributes of our trying God. It would be wrong of us to only see the compassion of the Lord by not seeing who God is entirely, because the purpose of the chapter that is placed here is for something very important, to show us that the compassion of the Lord is always done according to the righteous standard of His justice. This chapter 15 of Numbers is placed in the midst of a narrative, beloved of Christ, of one after another disobedience to the Lord.

And the mind of the person will naturally think that the judgment of God is deserved by the people of Israel. And that is true. But the Lord is showing His compassion in that He is going to give the promise, as I have already said. But the Lord is also very concerned for us to understand, beloved of Christ, That the compassion of God, that the mercy of God, that the loving kindness of God, it is always rooted. and operates within the framework of His righteousness.

We are not to conceive, we are not to understand, we are to never think of the compassion, the forgiveness, the mercy, the abundant love and kindness of God apart from the righteous justice of God. You see, if God removes himself from his righteous standard, then everything that he does will be unrighteous. But he's God and he's perfect, and therefore he's righteous. So his compassion, his forgiveness, his mercy, everything that he does for his people is always within the framework of the righteousness of his justice. And if one person does not see this in our God, Then we are in much danger of not seeing the complexity, or better, the integrity and the fullness of the character of God.

Not the complexity, never put that word in your mind, but rather the fullness of the character of God. Beloved of Christ, forgiveness is not achievable apart from fulfilling the righteous standard of the justice of God. Mercy is not possible apart from the righteous standard of God. Loving kindness is not possible outside of the righteous standard of the justice of God. And this is what we see here in chapter 15, the glorious marriage of the love, the mercy, the loving kindness of God with His righteous standard, the God that gives the promise to the people that He is going to bring them to the promised land, thus so within the framework of His righteous justice.

So we have here, beloved of Christ, a portrayal of the justice and the law of God as it is given to the people of Israel as the instrument by which the promise of the promised land is kept by the Lord to His people. And I want to point you to a few things that we can learn from chapter 15 to see how the compassion of the Lord works with the righteous standard of the justice of God, namely, as it is presented to us in the law of God. I want you to meditate and I want us to meditate in that glorious marriage of the mercy, the loving kindness, the compassion of the Lord, as it is always manifested within the framework of righteousness, because God is righteous and God is just. And that righteousness of God and that justice of God has been manifested in his law, beloved of Christ. Keep your minds with me, because there is a few things that I want to show from this chapter that is very important for us to consider when we think about the righteousness of God as it is portrayed in his justice and in his law.

The first thing that I want you to see here is that the righteousness of God in his law and in his justice is always applied not only to the individual, but also to the covenant people of God. And that is that God or that every one of us has an identity before God, both individually and second covenantally or in a community sense. Put your eyes in verse two and pay careful attention to the words that are said to us. Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, these are the people who have just received the judgment that they are not going to make it to the land. When you come into the land, you are to inhabit, which I'm going to give you, and you offered to the Lord from the earth, and he continued with the sacrifices.

But beloved of Christ, God is speaking to a people that He has just spoken to, telling them that they are not going to make it to the promised land. Yet in this verse, in verse 2 of chapter 15, we have the same God speaking through Moses to the same people that when they come to that promised land. How are we going to understand the judgment of God that has come upon the older generation that has said that they will not make it to the promised land? Yet the Lord is speaking here to the people of Israel that they will make it to the promised land. Beloved of Christ, this is because the identity of Israel is both individual and covenantal.

Yes, there's an older generation that are going to receive the righteous judgment of God because of the disobedience. But there's also a younger generation, the ones that have not doubted and the ones that kept the promise that they are going to make it to the land. And when these people that are not going to perish in the wilderness, make it into the land, that will be the Lord God of Israel, keeping his promise for Israel. That is what the Lord God of Israel did in Exodus chapter 32. Let me destroy these people.

You remember when they sinned against the Lord, the Lord says to Moses, let me destroy these people because they have profaned and gone against my name and I will make of you a great nation. If the Lord keeps unto himself a remnant of only one person, and through that person he keeps the promise that he had given to the collective, then he is still just and faithful in that his promise has been fulfilled. So that's why we can say that God is the Savior, that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Because even by saving a remnant from the world, indeed, God and Jesus is the Savior of the world. If at the same time, People will spend eternity in hell.

Why? Because they will perish in the wilderness. Why? Because the justice of the law and the righteousness of God, it is both seen individually and covenantally. But not only that, beloved of Christ, in this chapter, we can see here that the standard of righteousness of the justice of God is the same for all.

There is no distinction of persons. There is no distinction of character. And you can see that in verse 16. when the law that is given to Israel applies equally to the person that is in Israel and also to the sojourner. So you have in verse 16, one law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.

Once a person enters under a relationship with God, then that person has no distinction in the righteous, just eyes of the Lord. Both the Sojourner and the Israelites were under the law of the Lord. And that shows, beloved of Christ, the glorious standard of righteousness of God. The third thing that I want to point you from this chapter is, beloved of Christ, that this standard of justice is always according to the law of God. And it sounds a little bit silly to say, but in this day is very important to say that justice only exists within the standard of righteousness of God.

God is the only one that decides that which is righteous and that which is unrighteous. It is God the one that decides that which is just and that which is unjust. And it is God the one that gives unto men for them to decide that which is just and that which is unjust according to His standard. Man, in and of himself, is utterly unable to come to a conclusion of righteousness or unrighteousness. It is only the God of the universe, the one that makes that decision.

And that decision for the people of Israel is clearly observed in His law. As the law was given to Israel, the standard of righteousness was given to the people of Israel. So he says to the people of Israel, when you get into the land that I'm going to promise you, the remnant who was going to receive the promise, you are going to offer the sacrifices that I have already given you in the Leviticus code, when the Leviticus law, you're going to keep that in the promised land because the standard of forgiveness and the standard of justice and the standard of righteousness and the standards of religious ceremonies, it is only according to what God utters from His mouth. Believe that in your heart, and hold to that the rest of your days, and you will endure until the end. Keep that in your heart, store that in your mind, that the one that says what it is, is only God, and you will be found to be a faithful servant.

The moment that you doubt that the standard of righteousness comes from the word of God, then your soul is in danger. Beloved of Christ, it is the law of God, the word of God, the one that always, perfectly, constantly, unstoppably, and without mistake decides that which is righteous and that which is not righteous. And that standard, my following point, beloved of Christ, that standard is always just. And if you may see that as something that we already know, always keep that in your heart, that whatever God decides is always just, that whatever God says and does is always perfect, is always righteous and is always just. And therefore, we are to never question what God says, because he decides the righteous and he decides upon the unrighteous.

And that can clearly seem Beloved of Christ. in the distinction that the Lord makes between unintentional and intentional sins, as they are given to us from verse 22 to verse 31. The Lord God of Israel makes clear distinction between unintentional sins and intentional sins. And for those unintentional sins, he has given ways to provide forgiveness. So it says that through the sacrifices given to you in the book of Leviticus, Every person in the congregation, or even the congregation as a whole, will always obtain forgiveness.

So you have the word forgiven a couple of times, two or three times in that passage of the scripture. And then in Leviticus chapter 5 and 6, you will have that word forgiven multiple times. But the Bible says, if the person in Israel that sinned against the Lord did not do it unintentionally, but rather he did it with a high hand, that is, knowing what he was doing, that person will be cut off from among the people. And that is what you have in verse 30, that those who sin with an intention in their hearts, that those who knowingly, in their hearts, those who understand the commandments and the laws of the Lord, and those who understand the judgment of God upon disobedience, intentionally engage in disobedience, those are to be cut off from among the people. Why?

Because the law of the Lord is just, and He gives to each one according to what they deserve. And He provides a way of forgiveness under the old covenant grace. The grace of the gospel was preached to the people of Israel through the ceremonial loss so that they will come to offer sacrifices and be partakers of a forgiveness upon their trust being put on the Lord. As the Psalmist will say in Psalm chapter 4, the law of the Lord is always just. But not only that, beloved of Christ, the law and the righteousness of God is always applicable.

God is not like men who speaks and does something different, but God being just and righteous, what he says, He does. And what He says that He will judge, He will effectively judge. And that is what we have in the example, practical example, given to us there in verse 32, in the narrative of a man who, after the unintentional and intentional sins had been spoken, then the author Moses gives us clearly the example of how that law is applied. Because a person knowing that the Sabbath was to be kept holy for the people of Israel, comes to break the Sabbath. And the people of Israel, not knowing how to execute the judgments of the Lord, they come to Moses to ask him what to do or to the Lord what to do.

And the Lord says, stone him. The law of the Lord is always effectively applied. Beloved of Christ, that should make us tremble because that which the Lord has said that He is going to do, He will effectively do. And when the Lord says that He despises sin and He despises wickedness and unrighteousness, He is not careless. He is not idle with those words.

He means the words that he speaks, and he is going to come and fulfill everything that he says. When he writes in the New Testament, or he gives in the New Testament, that each one of us is going to be judged for every single idle word that comes out of our mouth, or every single sinful or unrighteous thought that we have in our minds and our hearts. He means that. And we are to take the words of the Lord, not only as true, not only as righteous, but as they are going to effectively take place. And the last thing that I want to point you to, beloved of Christ, is that the commandments of the Lord and the justice of God is to be remembered.

The wicked heart of men, in self-deception and in love to self, naturally tends to make of him or herself the standard of righteousness, so that very soon we tend to see unto ourselves as the standard of goodness and perfection and not to God. So there is a need, even in the soul that has been saved, to remind you of the commandments and the statutes of the Lord. That is the main concern of the Lord throughout the Old Testament. Tell your children about my works. Tell your children about my deeds.

Tell your children about my judgments and my statutes. Tell your children about the things that I've done. Tell your children and your people about what the Lord God of Israel has accomplished, has said, and has promised. Because there is an urgent need for the heart of men to be reminded of the words of God constantly. So in an external manifestation to the people of Israel, tassels to their clothing were instructed and they were supposed to put tassels on their garments.

It says in verse 39 that they will remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. Not that you may, but that you are inclined to prostitute, to whore after. Be reminded of the words of the Lord that point us to His character. Yes, as a God who is compassionate, but also as a God who is just, as the God who gives to everyone according to their deeds. And if we are going to live in reverence in this pilgrimage, We are to live understanding that He is, yes, compassionate, beloved of Christ, but that He is also just.

And praise God, beloved of Christ, because all of these attributes and all of these characteristics of the righteousness of God, as it was given to the people of Israel in the law, are clearly portrayed and evidenced and manifested in the glorious person of Jesus Christ. Beloved of Christ, because righteousness is both individual and covenantal in Christ. You see, you are saved because of the accomplishment of Christ upon the cross, and the church is saved because of the accomplishment of Christ upon the church, not by virtue of a legal union, but rather by virtue of a relational union with Christ. that the Lord ceases, yes, individually in Christ, but the Lord ceases covenantally in the person of Jesus Christ. It is Christ Jesus, the one who came to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the Lord, so that we will not receive the stone of the punishment of our sins, but He received it upon the cross, receiving all the wrath of God, that the righteousness, not of the law, but the righteousness of God will be imputed unto us."

And he said that again. the righteousness not of the law, but rather the righteousness of God, as Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 1, because not even the righteousness of the law was able to make a person accessible unto the divine and holy presence of God. So the one that loved us from eternity past imputed us His righteousness, and His righteousness happens to be not the righteousness of Moses, but the righteousness of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. And by virtue of this glorious imputation, beloved of Christ, we can be reminded of the righteous justice of God, not by looking to the law, but by looking to Christ Himself, who is the fulfillment of it, and the righteousness of God Himself. So that by beholding the beauty of Christ, we are not to be reminded with clothing and things that we put on our body, but rather we can see the Logos, the Word of God, and His beauty, and all His accomplishments.

And we can be certain that by doing so, we can continue to go to the promised land that has been given to us only because of the merits of Jesus Christ. So when we see Jesus Christ, we see in Him the compassion of God, yet the righteous standard of His justice. And when you see that holy reconciliation of those two things that can never be reconciled in man, then the only word that can be uttered from my heart is, praise be to God who saved a sinner like me. Amen.