If you would, turn to Numbers
16. My text this morning is mainly
going to be verses 41 through 50. Let's read those to start. Number 16, verse 41. But on the
morrow, all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and against Aaron, saying, ye have killed the people
of the Lord. And it came to pass when the
congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, they
looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation and behold,
the cloud covered it. And the glory of the Lord appeared.
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of congregation.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among
this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment.
And they fell upon their faces. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take
a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on
incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an
atonement for them. For there is wrath gone out from
the Lord, and the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded,
and ran into the midst of the congregation. And behold, the
plague was begun among the people, and he put on incense and made
an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead
and the living, and the plague was stayed. Now they that died
in the plague were 14,700, beside them that died about the
matter of Korah. And Aaron returned unto Moses
under the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the
plague was stayed." We need to know a little bit
about this story from the beginning of the chapter. In verses 1, these men had, here
they were in verse 41, rising up against Moses and Aaron, God's
chosen. Verses 1 said, Now Korah the son of Issachar,
the son of Kohath, and the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abram,
the sons of Eliab, and on, the son of Poliath, sons of Reuben,
they took men and they rose up before Moses with certain of
the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, they were famous
in the congregation, they were men of renown, and they gathered
themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto
them, ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are
holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. Korah and these other men were
bringing their righteousness. They thought they were holy.
They rose up against God's man. Is that not what we've done,
man has done ever since the fall in the garden? They rose up against
God. We'll not have him reign over
us. These men were chosen by God. Moses didn't ask for this. Moses actually said in Exodus
3, in 3 verse 11, he said, and Moses
said unto God, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and
that I should bring forth the children out of Israel, out of
Egypt? And he said, certainly I will
be with thee and this shall be a token that I have sent thee.
When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall
serve God upon this mountain." Not man, serve God. And in chapter
4, verse 10, Moses said, "'Unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not
eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy
servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of a slow tongue.'"
Moses didn't want this. Moses didn't ask to be God's
servant. But God kept reassuring him,
and God said, and the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's
mouth? Who maketh the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the
blind, have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will
be with thy mouth, and will teach thee what thou shalt say. Our
Lord said, They shall all be taught of me. But Moses didn't
want this. But Moses, again in verse four,
He interceded for the people. He fell upon his face when he
heard this, because he didn't ask to be their leader. But here
they was against God. But he spake to Korah, and he
told them to all show themselves the next day. Show themselves
to bring their censures, to bring their fire, their righteousness,
and stand before the Lord the next day. He told them to stand
before the Lord. He pleaded with the people. He
pleaded with them. He said, He said, Seemeth it
but a, in verse nine, Seemeth it but a small thing unto you
that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of
Israel to bring you near to himself to do the service of the tabernacle
of the Lord and to stand before the congregation to minister
unto them. This was not a small thing. They weren't the high
priest. There's only one high priest. In Christ's time, they had perverted
even that and had two or three high priests. But there was only
one high priest appointed by God. The Lord Jesus Christ was
God's high priest. He represented. Every one of
these high priests represented God. He chose them for that purpose,
to be a picture of Christ. But these men, they didn't listen.
They went on through. Moses stood against 250 men here. Elijah in 1 Kings 18, he stood
against 450 false prophets of Baal. The difference between
Moses and the difference between Elijah was that God was on their
side. God was on their side. God sent
the fire from heaven and destroyed the altars. When Elijah had those,
he used Elijah's prayer. It was all representing Christ.
Moses, he even called out in verses 12 through 14, he called
Dathan and Nabirim to come to him and have a talk. They wouldn't
even come to his face. All they could do was whine because
they thought they had it better in Egypt. They forgot that they
were complaining and the Lord sent them a deliverer to bring
them out. They had forgotten this. But Moses again told the congregation,
he said, bring these men. You come and you stand before
the Lord the next day. And they did. These men came. And in verses 28, Moses said
unto him, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to
do all these works, for I have not done them of mine own mind.
Moses told him, This is not of me, this is of God. This is of
God. If these men die in the common
death of all men, if they just die of old age, die of some known
disease, then the Lord hath not sent me. That's what he's saying
there. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her
mouth and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them,
and they go down quick into the pit, then ye shall understand
that these men have provoked the Lord." That's what we do.
We're sinners. We provoke the Lord. But He,
in His mercy and His grace, chose to separate some from the rest
of the world. That's what he had done with
these people. He had chosen them out of all the nations to be
his people. And they rejected him. They had
rejected him. They did not look to the God
that saved them. In verse 31 it said, And it came
to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words,
that the ground gave asunder that was under them, and the
earth opened up her mouth and swallowed them up. and their
houses, and all the men that obtained under Korah and all
their goods, they and all that obtained under them, they went
down alive into the pit. And the earth closed upon them,
and they perished from among the congregation. The Lord opened
the earth and swallowed these men up. All the people saw it. They were even in fear of it. Moses had told them before to
get away from these men. because the Lord was going to
do something. And now it says, in all Israel, in verse 34, that
were round about them, fled at the cry of them. For they said,
lest the earth swallow us up also. They had a fear for a short
time. The Lord had Moses speak to Eliezer. He gathered up all those censers
from Korah and the other men, and made a memorial to show the
people and to remind them of what the Lord had just done to
these men that provoked God, that had provoked God. And now, here we come to our
text. The next day, on the morrow,
on the next day, these men, here they are. Thus and again,
they're ready to kill Moses and Aaron because they claimed that
they killed the people of the Lord. The Lord did this. The
Lord opened the earth up. The Lord swallowed these men
up alive. Nothing to do with Moses and
Aaron. They were just witnesses. But these people, they quickly
forgot. And they rose up. That's what
I read in Psalm 106. In verse 13, that's what it said. They soon forget his works. They
waited not for his counsel. We need to wait upon the Lord.
We need to wait upon the Lord. The Lord is in control of all
things. He does as he wills. And in this text here, this shows
that the world is out here saying God loves everybody. But this
text shows that these people, they offended the justice of
God. They erred in their works. And the wrath of God came upon
them. And we're going to see, Lord willing, in this text, we're
going to see that one man stood between the dead and the living. and stayed the plague. He didn't
save everyone there. He saved the ones that were chosen
to be saved. He had chosen some not to have
that plague upon them. And they had to have a mediator.
They had to have a high priest. They had to have someone that
loved them. That's what we're going to see,
hopefully. But 42 through 43, so the glory of the Lord appeared to Moses, and Moses
and Aaron went to the tabernacle. This cloud that had been with
the people appeared. It was their God. It was their
protection. But they didn't care about that.
They were dead. They didn't see it. And we were told, they told The
Lord told Moses and Aaron to get up from them, get away from
them. He was going to consume them all. But Moses sent Aaron
to get a censer and put fire from off the altar and put on
incense and go quickly under the congregation and make an
atonement for them. For there is wrath gone out from
the Lord. The plague had begun. The Lord
had sent a plague to kill these people. There was nothing these men could
do to stop it. It was going to take someone
to intervene. That's the same as in the garden.
Adam sinned. All of his race have sinned against
the Lord, have provoked the Lord. And it will take someone to stand
between us and God to save us. That's the only way. Aaron did
exactly what Moses said. I've heard a few men tell me,
and listening to them speaking on this, they said Aaron was
about 100 years old at this time. And Aaron ran into the midst
of the congregation. He didn't waste any time. He
ran into the midst of the congregation. And he stood, in verse 48, between
the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed. One man
with an atonement stood between the dead and the living. And they that died were about
14,700 plus the 250 of Coral. To put
that in perspective, I looked up the census for Franklin County.
As of 2024, they figured there was between 55,000 and 56,000. 14,700 people is about a fourth
of that count. About a fourth of the population.
I don't know whether that puts it in perspective or not, but
that's the Lord sent a plague that killed
quite a few that day. I want to look at Aaron. This is going to be the bulk
of the message. I want to look at Aaron as a few types of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Aaron was a lover of the congregation. That's the reason he did this.
Aaron was a high priest to these people. Aaron was a mediator
between God and this plague. And Aaron brought an atonement. It's the only way to be just
with a holy God, is to have an atonement. But first, Aaron is
a lover. Here these people, again, had
risen up against Aaron. For three days now, Aaron's been
under fire. But Aaron loved these people.
When Moses told him to go get that censer, that's what he did.
He ran. He got the atonement to come
and stand between the people. Stand in the midst of the congregation.
Isaiah 53, verse 3 says, he is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and
we esteemed him not. That was Christ. He was despised. He was rejected. From the beginning, all these
men have always rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. They've sinned
against other men, but they've sinned against God. God, that's
where we've sinned. That's where we need someone
like Aaron to represent us, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ must stand in our stead, in our stead. We're
told in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have everlasting life. Our God loved us and the people
that he chose, that he had given to Christ, loved us to the point
he sent his own son down here to live a perfect life that we
couldn't. To take our place between God
and our sin. To take our sin upon himself.
and put it away. Cover it with His blood. Christ
had to make the atonement. Christ had to be our atonement. I'm getting old and my memory
fails me if I don't write these verses down. Look at John, 1
John 4.10 with me. If I don't write them down, I
can't seem to remember them anymore. And I don't want to misquote
it. First John 14 says, herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. This is not that we loved God. God loved us first. God loved
us first. He sent his son to be a propitiation
for our sins. He chose us before the foundation
of the world. He put his claim and his mark
on us before the foundation of the world. And in his appointed
time, he revealed himself to us, stopped us in our ways, just
like he did the Apostle Paul. As Saul of Tarsus, he was going
about his business. Rejecting God, acting like these
men in this passage, the Lord let him go so far, but God stayed
him, stopped him. That's Aaron, the lover. Christ is the lover of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ loved his
people enough to give his life for him, to stand in our stead
between this plague, and a holy God. Aaron is a high priest. God chose
Aaron. Men do not choose to become high
priests. Men do not choose to become preachers,
teachers, or anything else. God chooses. God does the choosing. God gives the words and puts
it in their hearts. They shall all be taught of God. And Aaron, as a high priest,
it was his job that the Lord had given him to offer sacrifices
for sins for himself and for the people yearly. That's what
he did. He went into the second part
of the temple once a year, but he had to offer for himself too.
The Lord Jesus Christ didn't have to offer sins for himself.
He offered once and sat down. Turn with me to Hebrews 9 9 verse 11 but Christ being come
and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle and not made with hands that is to say not
of this building Everything on this earth is wood, hay, and
stubble. The Lord has given an ability for men to build it,
but it is just wood, hay, and stubble. Christ is the perfect
tabernacle. Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. All that the
Father gave him, he obtained eternal redemption for. That
was the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 22, it says, and almost
all things are by the law purged with blood. And without shedding
of blood, there is no remission. If Christ had not died, if he
had not shed his blood for us, we would have no remission of
our sins. There would be no remittance.
We would have no way that we as a sinner come
to a holy God. It's only by the blood of Christ. Christ as the high priest, he pleads his righteousness. and works. It's not us. It's
not our, and that's what we plead. We plead Christ's righteousness
and his works. We do not plead our own righteousness
and works. If we do, if we have anything
that we stand on, we don't know the Lord. And then number three, Aaron
is a mediator. Aaron represents the Lord Jesus
Christ as our mediator there. Aaron stood, said he stood between
the living and the dead. That had to be a sight for him
because he knew these people. But he stood there to stay the
plague, standing between God and man. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
because of his sacrifice and his atonement to God, he is our
mediator. He stands between us and a holy
God and says, no, you can't come any further. The plague was stayed
here. The plague of sin is stayed. The Lord Jesus Christ stands
there as our mediator and says, no, you cannot come any further. This is as far as it goes. And the living are protected.
The living are protected. He is our mediator. First Timothy
2, 5 says, for there is one God. and one mediator between God
and man, and that's the man, Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus
Christ, he comes to this earth. He paid our sin debt. He lived
a perfect life. He went to the cross and bare
our sins. Without being a sinner, he bare
our sins. And when God sees him, the holy
God, The justice of God sees the Lord
Jesus Christ. He sees the blood and all that
are covered with his blood. That's all he sees. He sees no
sins. We're still sinners and we're
going to be until the day we die. This life. So we're laid down to rest. And then Christ as an atonement. Aaron, he didn't come empty handed.
He had to go to the temple. He had to get the proper fire.
He had to get from the sacrifice that had been there, the fire.
There was one fire that God had designated to be used. He went
and put that in a censer with incense. He had made an atonement
for the people. That's what our Lord Jesus Christ
did. He made an atonement for his people. He came and stood. He shed his blood to cover our
sins. Christ is the atonement for us,
like Aaron was the atonement for these. He had brought the
atonement for these people. The Lord God's wrath could not
pass that atonement. It had to stay. And that's how the plague was
stayed. And these men continued on. Romans 5. If you would turn with
me there. And stay close because I'm going
to wrap up with another part of Romans. Romans 5.11. I'm sorry, starting verse 10.
For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life. And not only so, but we also,
joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have
now received the atonement. This atonement, we have received
it. It was bestowed upon us. had
nothing to do with us. While we were yet sinners, the
Lord looked down and had favor on us. While we were yet sinners. Before the foundation of the
world, the Lamb was slain. Christ, 4,000 years into this
world, hung on a cross. because God had purposed it at
the beginning. It was as good as done. And these
men before Christ came and stood on this earth were saved in Christ. They had an atonement before
the atonement appeared to the men. Christ is their atonement. Christ loved his own. He became
a high priest to them. He is their mediator, interceding
on their behalf. and with his own blood made an
atonement for them. That's what our Lord did. Let's read Romans 8 to close. I heard a man recently read part
of this that was a false prophet. and applied it to everybody that
was in the crowd. Not knowing the scriptures and
reading in Romans 1, that this is to all the beloved
of God called to be saints. This is who this is written to.
This is written to the saints. Maybe the Lord's pricked somebody's
heart this morning. Maybe they've seen their sin
and need a Savior. This is what he says starting
in verse 28. I'm going to read 28 through 34 in closing. And
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. For
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. And He conformed
them to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified." I haven't said anything yet about what man needs
to do for God. This is all what God's doing
for man and for his people. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Still has nothing to do with
me. It's if God be for us. We need nothing more powerful
than God standing for us. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, made that atonement for us. How
shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Again, God did it all. It's all. Christ is all in it
all. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. The Lord Jesus Christ stands
between the living and the dead, making an atonement, just like
Aaron stood between the living and dead and stayed the plague
at that time, was a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ doing
the same between a holy God and the sinful nature of a man. It's
the only way that we can be saved. It's for the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's who we need to look to. Look to Christ. Trust in Christ. Come to Christ. Seek ye the Lord
first, and all these things shall be added. These people, they
had already seen one day of people being swallowed up. They didn't
believe God. And God put 14,700 of them down
again. Man in his feeble little mind,
we need a God. We need a Savior. We need someone
to atone for our sins for us. We can't make that. Thank y'all.