Good morning, let's open our
Bibles to Numbers chapter 35. I also want you to put a marker
in Deuteronomy 18, because we're going to kind of go back and
forth between these two passages of the same account of the cities
of refuge that Brandon read us in Joshua 20. If you'd like to follow along,
I'm gonna read a passage out of Isaiah 28, but the numbers
and Deuteronomy's where we're gonna stay, but I'll read you
a passage here that kinda supports what we're gonna say. Isaiah
28, verse 15. Because you have said, this is
the Lord God speaking, we have made a covenant with death, and
with hell are we in agreement. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, It shall not come unto us, for we have
made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. And the Lord says to them, down
in verse 18, and your covenant with death shall be disannulled,
or canceled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, then shall you be trodden down. From the
time that it goeth forth, it shall take you. For morning by
morning shall it pass over, and day by night, and it shall be
a vexation only to understand the report. For the bed is shorter
than a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower
than he can wrap himself in it." A false refuge is what that passage
was referring to. We've made our covenant with
death and made an agreement with hell that we're gonna hide in
this covenant, in this agreement, that when these things come through,
the overflowing scourge, but yet the Lord God says, you have
a refuge that can't hide you. You have a refuge that cannot
protect you. I've disannulled whatever agreement you've made,
and you'll be overtaken by it. You're laying in a bed that you
can't fit in, and you've got covers that you can't cover yourself
up with. You are exposed, is what it's painting a picture
of. So in Numbers 35, let's start
reading in verse nine. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
When you become over Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall
appoint unto you cities to be cities of refuge for you, that
the slayer may flee thither which killeth any person in unawares,
and they shall be unto you cities refuge from the avenger, that
the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation
in judgment. And of these cities which you
shall give, six cities have for refuge. And you shall give these
cities on this side of Jordan, And three cities you shall give
in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge. And
these six cities shall be a refuge both for the children of Israel,
and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them, and
that everyone that killeth any person unaware may flee thither."
And let's look at a few verses here in Deuteronomy 19, just
to set this up. In verse 4, and this is the case
of the slayer which shall flee thither, gives us a little more
information about the person who flees to this city of refuge.
Whoso killeth his neighbor ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past,
as when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbor to hew
wood, And his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the
tree, and the head slippeth from off the helve, and lighteth upon
his neighbor that he die. And he shall flee to one of those
cities and live. So what it's saying here is these
cities of refuge have been appointed. There were 48 cities given to
the Levites in the land that the Lord gave the children of
Israel. Six of those cities were appointed
as cities of refuge to where if you killed somebody on accident
that you didn't hate and that you didn't intend to kill, you
could flee to one of these cities. Because in that time, if you
were to kill someone, even accidentally, their family had the legal right
to pursue you. They would appoint someone out
of their family called the revenger of blood. and he would pursue
you and have the opportunity to kill you. And it was all legal
before the law. This was blood for blood, even
though it was an accident. But it says in verse 15 and numbers
35 that anyone who wanted to come could come in. Nobody's
left out. Didn't matter if you were Israelite
or not, you could come to this city and be offered protection.
Anyone who wanted to come. There was safety in the city.
Now, who would this be important to? Kind of an obvious question,
but it would be important to someone who wanted to live and
to not be delivered the sentence of death. It would be important
to someone who is unable to defend themselves against the revenger
of blood. Because maybe if you could defend
yourself against the revenger of blood, you probably wouldn't
be that afraid, maybe. But if you couldn't defend yourself
and you wanted to live, this city of refuge sounds like a
pretty good place. Now it's important that we keep this in context
with everything. I'm gonna read you a little passage
here out of Luke 24 because all these pictures in the Old Testament
are given to point to Christ, whether we see it or not. In
Luke 24, when the Lord was walking along the road to Emmaus, there
were two men walking and talking about what had happened during
the crucifixion. And they were sad, and the Lord appeared unto
them, hadn't revealed himself yet, and just was talking to
them, said, you know, what are you talking about? And they said,
haven't you been in Jerusalem the past many days? And they
explained who Jesus of Nazareth was, and he died. And it said
that the Lord expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the
things concerning himself. There was no New Testament written
at this time. There was only the Old Testament,
which is what we're dealing with. And so when he says he expounded
all the scriptures, the things concerning himself, that includes
this. So this is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the cities
of refuge, a haven of safety, and a haven of rest. Now, every
person in here right now has a price on your head. You are
guilty before the law. You violated it in every thought
you've ever had, in everything you've ever done, in every word
that you've ever said. There's been nothing good that
you've done. Now, somebody might be thinking that, well, maybe
not that bad. I know I've done a lot of bad
things, but not everything? What's interesting here is there
are actually four nuns who testify against you in the scriptures. Now, you'd believe the word of
four nuns, wouldn't you? because they testify against
you in the scriptures. Would you like to see it? Turn
to Romans chapter three. I want to look at four nuns who testify against you. Start in verse 10. What's the
words of the first nun? There is none righteous, no not
one. The second none, verse 11, there
is none that understandeth. The third none, there is none
that seeketh after God. And in verse 12 at the end, the
fourth none says there is none that doeth good, no not one. The words of four nones who testify
against you. You have a price on your head.
There is none that doeth good, no not one. So every person in
here is guilty before the law. And the law is right in killing
you and will be clear in doing so. And that's why the body of
every person in here will eventually die. This is the sentence passed
out upon the law upon our mortal bodies. just as the revenger
of blood was right and clear in doing so in killing the person
who had killed their relative. Now, how important does that
city of refuge sound now? Because the revenger of blood
is the law, and it's after every one of us in this room. A one-room
house where a bed that I can lay my head on at night and not
have to wonder if somebody's gonna kick in the door and kill
me sounds pretty good to me right now. It's a place where I have
safety and it's a place where I don't have to worry about being
found out. I can hide. David says in Psalm 91, he says,
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. My
God in Him will I trust. He says also in Psalm 9, The
Lord will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in a time
of trouble. But what if you don't know if
you're in trouble? You don't know to flee to him as a refuge
if you don't know you're in trouble. See, he has to convict us by
showing us himself, and in seeing himself, we see our sin. Christ
is the only refuge the fugitive has, and we are the fugitives
from the law. Christ is the only refuge, and
I wanna show you three ways that he is our refuge. First is the
forgiveness of sins. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
one. In verse 14. It says, in whom, that's
Christ, we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. Christ is our refuge and then
if we're under the blood, the sin is covered, the sin is taken
away. Forgiveness of sins only is in
Christ and His accomplished work and His shed blood. So forgiveness
of sins first is our refuge. The second refuge we have is
in Christ there is no sin. Turn with me over to John chapter
eight. And you're familiar with this account. This is the Lord
when they had, the Pharisees had taken the woman, taken in
adultery in the very act I mean, she's caught, they've seen her
doing it. And they bring her before the
Lord and they say, the law says to do this, but what do you say?
So if we look in John 8 verse 7, so when they continued asking
him, he lifted up himself and he said unto them, he that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And
again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And when they
which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went
out one by one, beginning at the eldest into the last, and
Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
And when Jesus had lifted up himself, he saw no one but the
woman. Everybody had gone away. And
he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath
no man condemned thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." You see,
if she had had sin that he could see, he could have cast a stone
at her because he himself was without sin. But yet, she was
one of his people that he paid for her sins and he died for.
And so that's why He never cast a stone at her at all, even though
she was taken in the act. How can you and I, doing what
we do every day, everything we do is sin? It's obvious we're
doing it. Be without sin, the same way that she was. He had
paid for her sin so completely, not only the penalty of sin,
but also the presence of sin will be removed. We will be one
day without sin being in Him, because in Him is no sin. So Christ is our refuge and in
Him is the forgiveness of sin, in Him is no sin, and lastly,
turn to Colossians chapter 3, in Him is life. Colossians 3 and verse 2, he
says, set your affection on things above not on things on the earth,
for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ, our life, who
is, it's just something the translator said, when Christ, our life shall
appear, then you shall also appear with him in glory. Christ is
our life. He is the head, and we are the
body. The body can't live without the
head. If we are alive in Christ, birthed again by the new man,
we are part of his body. As he lives, he was raised from
the dead after he died in this world. He was raised from the
dead, we were too. We are alive in him, he is our
life. So Christ is our refuge from
sin, from the presence of sin, the power that it has over our
bodies to cause us to commit sin, and he is our life, we live
by him. Outside of Christ, so we go back
to our text, in Numbers 35, outside of our Christ is only the penalty
of sin. Just as being outside the city
of refuge, the revenger blood can come after you and kill you,
but inside the city, you are safe. Inside of Christ, we are
safe from the penalty of sin because he's taken it all away.
But outside, the penalty of sin is still present. Death can come
after you. Outside of Christ, you're still
guilty of your sins. Your sins are on you, and God
sees you in your sin outside of Christ. I don't wanna be outside
of Christ. I cannot have God see me in my
sins. I can't stand before him. And
outside of Christ, there's a law that will never be satisfied.
There is not one commandment that you've kept one time. We
stand before a law that will never be satisfied with anything
that we can do or say or think. All it does is condemn us over
and over and over. I do not want to be outside this
city. We want to be inside the city where there's safety and
where there's rest. Who was the city of refuge for
then? The city of refuge was for the guilty. The city of refuge
were for people who had killed someone. That's what it says
in verse 15 of our text. Well, who did Christ die for?
Because we're looking at how the city is a picture of Christ.
Who did Christ die for? Did he die for religious people?
Did he die for good people? No, it says he died for sinners. He died for the guilty. Jesus
Christ came in this world to save sinners, the people that
couldn't save themselves, the people that stand guilty and
whom the law says, I can take you out at any time and clear
in doing so. That's who Jesus Christ came to save were sinners.
So we know who the city was for. Well, is the city hard to get
to? Well, it tells us that these cities had to be centrally located. They couldn't be out in the far
corners that are really hard to get to. They had to be easy
to find, centrally located in the land, so that anybody who
wanted to get to could find it. So if you're seeking to find
this city, it's right there to find. The same is true with the
picture of Christ. The Lord is in His word. Creation
speaks and says that God is. Anyone he says in his word, and
we hold him to this promise, if we seek him, we'll find him,
if that's the desire of our hearts. And we're called upon to seek
him and to ask. So I read a little bit of the
history around this so I could understand better about these
cities of refuge. They were placed centrally in
the land and there were roads, major roads to them, not just
some little cow path that you didn't know where it was going.
There were big signs that said, refuge, big red letters, refuge,
and an arrow pointing towards a city so that if anybody had
accidentally killed somebody and was trying to get to one
of these cities, you'd know where to go. So refuge points that
way. Now, if you imagine this, if
you're the one fleeing, and you're saying, where's the city of refuge?
And somebody says, look, there's the sign right there. You go
to that city of refuge. Are you going to stop and debate
with that person as to whether or not the city offers the protection
that it advertises? Are you going to say, well, you
know, I know you say that the city of refuge, there's protection
in it, but there's got to be something more you've got to
do. There's got to be something else. I can't just go there that,
you know, he can come in and get me. And I just don't believe
that. Well, you might, but then the rear venture of blood is
going to catch you in the process because you didn't get into the
city and he's going to kill you. You've got to get into the city.
Outside the city is death. Outside of Christ is death. We
cannot wait for proof before because that's not a faith. It's
gonna be too late. If you have to wait for proof
before you come to Christ, it's gonna be too late. We are called
upon to come to Christ, not to weigh the options, not to debate,
not to look for evidence to see if it's gonna be so. It's not
a faith then. We are called upon to believe
and to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, thou shalt
be saved. Now either he'll hold to his
promise or he won't. I believe he will. And so we're
called upon to come to him. Now, adding to this, so we've
got this big road sign say refuge on major highways in the center
of the land. Now one time a year, remember
these were the cities given to the Levites. So the Levites were
the ones who had to come do this work. The Levites would have
to clear the way to the city of refuge. They had to clear
the road, so anything that was in the way, tree falling in the
road, chop down the tree, move it off the road. Rock slide coming
down the hill, block off the road that you can't get there,
start moving the rocks out of the way. The road was up, dig
it down. Road was dug in, fill it back
up. You gotta make the way plain.
So the way was to be clear and free of impediment to be able
to get to this city. This is a picture of the gospel.
and this is the calling of your pastor. Over in Deuteronomy chapter
19, in verse three, It says, thou shalt prepare thee
a way. And that's what this is speaking
of. Clearing the way, clearing the
road, removing all impediments, you clear the way to Christ.
This is what the pastor's calling us to do. Clear the way to Christ. If you have to stop to move the
trees, if you have to turn around and go back because there's a
rock slide in the road, the revenger of blood is gonna catch you and
he's gonna kill you and you're never gonna make it to the city.
The pastor's job is to clear the road to Christ. Anyone who
puts an impediment between you and coming to Christ is a liar,
and they're not leading you to the city of refuge. Their lies
will cost you your life if you're trying to have to get around
what their roadblocks are. You gotta do this before you
can come. You gotta do that, you're not ready yet. Nothing
stands in your way if you desire to flee to Christ for safety.
This is the calling of the pastors to show the way and to clear
the road to Christ. The road is clear. Baptism is
not gonna prevent you from coming to Christ. It's not gonna make
you able to come, but it's not gonna prevent you from coming
either. Now, I don't have a lot of confidence in a confession
of faith that doesn't have baptism. Why would you not wanna be associated
with your Lord? But baptism will not prevent
you, and it will not allow you to come the same. The road is
clear. Sin is not gonna prevent you
from coming to Christ. Sin in your life. You wanna try
to say, well, I wanna stop doing this before I get baptized and
before I come to Christ. I'm too unclean. You better come
to Christ. Sin is the one thing that he
can cleanse you from. You can't stop any sin that you're
doing. You're called upon to come. How about the mountain
of regret that your past, but you don't know what I've done?
I've done all these horrible things. The mountain of regrets
that you have of your past cannot prevent you from coming. The
Lord is gonna, we looked at this earlier, he's gonna make all
of that forgotten. There is nothing for you to stand
to shame for before God. He's not only gonna forgive you
for those sins, he's gonna forget them. There is no shame. You
are to come to Christ. The strength of your faith will
not prevent you from coming to Christ. It will never be the
reason that you can't come in. He knows our every weakness.
We're called upon to believe, not believe more. We're called
upon to ask and seek Him. He will, with the command, comes
the ability to do so. You're called upon to come. And
so let nothing stand in your way. And this is what our pastors
in our lives are called upon to do, is to show the way. Now,
what can prevent you? Because we talked about what
can't, but there are some things that can prevent you. Number
one, and this is the worst, waiting for another man to tell you that
it's okay for you to come. I want to read this because I
won't be able to quote it. In Psalm 1-1 this is exactly
what this is speaking of. First verse of the first psalm. nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor seateth in the seat of the scornful. The verse I'm speaking
of is, blessed is man that does not stand in the way of sinners.
This is speaking of sinners coming to Christ, standing in your way,
saying, well, you haven't stopped doing this or that, and you haven't
made this profession, you haven't been baptized, you haven't been
here long enough, you're not a member of this congregation,
there's all these things in the way. all these things that they
can look at. The worst thing is waiting to
come to Christ because somebody tells you you can't come, for
whatever the reason. What can prevent you? Waiting
until you stop some particular sin. You haven't stopped one
sin in your heart since you started it, whether it's outwardly or
not. God looks upon the heart. Outward's bad, but this is where
it comes from, from the heart. And we haven't stopped one sin
that we've ever committed. So waiting to come to Christ
who can cleanse me from those sins because I'm waiting to stop,
that's gonna prevent me from coming in because you're never
gonna stop. You're never gonna feel ready, you're never gonna
feel worthy enough, and you're never gonna feel clean enough.
That's who he came to save, people that aren't worthy and that aren't
clean and that can't come. What can prevent you? Waiting
until you feel more ready. You're never gonna feel ready.
You're never gonna know enough. You're never gonna believe enough
to where it's okay to say, well, now I can come. We grow in faith
day by day because we come. We grow in faith in seeing those
promises that we looked at this morning being revealed and over
time in our lives. We grow in grace. And so these
things come, my faith now, today, is greater than when I first
started. Now, in terms of the way that I'm viewed before God,
I'm not any more holy from when I first was made clean and believed. But yet, in terms of my experience
in this life, I believe more today than I did then. Does that
make me more worthy to be baptized today? No, not at all. What can
prevent you? Not casting off your grave clothes.
Believing that something that you do or something that you
don't do enables you to come. If you see him, you will come
running, if you truly see him, and then you see who you are.
What was the first thing that blind Bartimaeus did when they
said, Bartimaeus, come up here, rise, be a good chair, the master
calls thee? First thing he did is he threw
off that coat. You cast off everything that
was your righteousness that you believed made you acceptable.
That is a picture of man's righteousness. The first thing he did when he
came to Christ was cast it off. We're to cast off those grave
clothes, not living in a life where we believe that somehow
we're more acceptable because of something we did or something
we didn't do. Cast off the grave clothes. It's only in him that
we find this safe refuge. we're to come to him. Now, in
this picture of the city here, it's not just that you got inside.
It all had to be legal too, because that's what it says about being
judged to the congregation. If you look at Numbers 35, and
we'll look at verse 24, so now you've come in, then the congregation
shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according
to these judgments. And the congregation shall deliver
the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the
congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither
he was fled. And he shall abide in it until
the death of the high priest, which is anointed with the holy
oil." So you were judged of the congregation once you came in.
They would hear your cause. Why are you here? Now, if you
were found not guilty, you could stay in that city protected.
The revenger of blood could not come in and get you. He had no
claims against you. All those who are found in Christ are declared
not guilty. Sin can't get you. The law can't
get you. Penalty can't get you. Death
can't get you. None of these things can get
you if you're in Christ. You're declared not guilty because
you were put there in eternal election before time ever began. That's the only way you were
there. Yet in the course of time, you're called upon to come. evidencing
the work that God did in you before the foundation of the
world. Now, to those who are found guilty, in Numbers 35 verse
31, it says, moreover, you shall take no satisfaction for the
life of a murderer, which is different than somebody who did
it on accident, which is guilty of death, but he shall be surely
put to death. This is given as a picture as
well. Now, what this tells us is there were some people who
were murderers, who also tried to get into these cities. They
knew that it was only for people who did it on accident, but yet
they were murderers. That's why they had to have the
congregation judge them. There are many who claim to be
in Christ. There are many, you go to any
place around here, how many people are gonna say, yeah, well, I'm
not in Christ? All these churches around here
are gonna claim they're in Christ, but yet they have no love for
him. It's only a means to avoid punishment for most people. They
say, yes, I'm sinning, I'm bad, I don't wanna go to hell, so
here's my fire escape from hell, I'm gonna run to Christ. And
so then they claim to be in Christ. That's not having a love for
the son, for his person, for his attributes, his character,
for his dying for me. That's no love for that, that's
just looking at him to save me because I don't wanna step into
hell. To avoid punishment, just as
these murderers who fled to this city, So they thought they might
get away with it, but in the end, God will judge. It's not
for you and I to look. Yes, we can see it's wrong. God's
the judge of that. God will sort that out just like
the judges of this congregation, those who claim to be in Christ
and art. He knows that that's in his eternal knowledge, and
he knows who he put into Christ before the foundation of the
world. So Christ is a refuge to those who are the not guilty,
but to the guilty that are in him falsely, they're cast out.
The only safe place was in the city. Now I want you to see if
you can see some of the spiritual application here. Safety in the
city was not just knowing the city existed. Because there were
plenty of people knew, well there's the city refuge, how safe are
you? There are plenty of people in
this world who know that God is. They know he exists. They
know that he has a son that died on the cross. They know the facts.
but they're not in the city. They didn't come to the city.
Just because you know the city exists doesn't mean you're safe. Just because you know where it
can be found. Maybe your whole family goes
to a church where the truth is preached, but apart from you,
yourself, coming to Christ, that's being in the city. So just knowing
where it is or where it can be found is no safety in that. Safety
was not knowing all about the city. You see, consider this. You can know, many of you maybe
read biographies. You know all about someone from
that biography. But you know what? You don't
really know that person. I found this out when we had, at my work,
we had Ken Griffey Jr. come to our headquarters. We
did something, I worked for Nikon, and they did a photography thing
with him. So I tried to read up on him
a little bit, what I knew about him, I guess, before I came in
because we were going to meet him and do a photo op. In my experience, I thought I
knew Ken Griffey Jr. I read all about him. I knew
all the facts about him. And so when I came up to meet
him and was talking to him for a few minutes, I told him, you
know, I really liked watching him, you know, when he was at
Cincinnati and, you know, lived in Lexington, close to there.
And he looked at me and he said, I hated Cincinnati. He said,
the best thing that happened to me was getting out of that
city. Turned out I didn't know him at all. I thought I knew
him, but I didn't at all. I knew all these things about
him. This is the difference between knowing about Christ and knowing
Christ. Just because anybody that reads
this can logically and analytically look at the facts, that doesn't
mean I know him. Knowing someone is having a personal
relationship with me. He died for me. He saved me. He cleansed me of my sins. He's
my Lord. He's my Savior. He's my friend. He communes with me. You don't
know someone you don't speak to. In prayer and in through
the preaching of the gospel, I commune with him. This is someone
I know. And so the difference between
knowing somebody and knowing about them is safety in and of
itself. So we must know him. So safety
is not just knowing about the city. Safety is not knowing someone
inside the city. I think before the Lord had turned
me, I took some sort of comfort in the fact that there were many
members of my family, extended family, that were saved. Somehow
that probably gave me a little bit of a leg up on somebody else.
And that gave me nothing. I don't know why I thought that.
But I knew that my family members were saved, so therefore somehow
that might mean I'd get saved. You're either in the city or
you're out of the city. So even if you knew somebody
inside the city refuge, didn't you offer, or your whole family
was there, you had no more means of protection than anybody who
didn't know anybody in the city at all. And lastly, safety was
not standing at the gate of the city. You could even see the
inside. Now, there are many who sit here
week after week Here, the gospel preached unto you, but yet never
come to Christ. This is the one who stands at
the gate of the city, and the revenger of blood can thrust
you through in the back and kill you right at the gate. You never
came in. You're called upon to come to
Christ right now. The preaching of the gospel,
there's the gate of the city. But if you don't go in, there's
no safety even standing at the gate of that city. Safety is
in the city. Now, what might happen if you
came outside this city? This is addressed as well. Let's
look at verse 26 in Numbers 35. But if the slayer shall at any
time come without the border of the city of his refuge, whither
he fled, and the revenger of blood find him outside the borders
of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of blood kill the
slayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. Why? Verse 28, because
he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the
death of the high priest. But after the death of the high
priest, the slayer shall return to the land of his possession. If you went into the city and
you came out, you're as good as dead. They'd kill you as soon
as you came out. All they'd have to do is find
out you're outside that city wall because you should have remained
in the city. Now, anyone who wanted to come could come, but
anyone who would desire to leave, and then think about this as
far as you're coming to Christ. The gospel's open. Anyone who
desires to come unto Christ can come, and you're called upon
to do so. But if you come to Christ, and you desire to leave,
you ought to be found out by the revenger of blood. You ought
to have sentence passed against you because you have no love
for the son. This is the same people that
come saying, I'm of Christ, I'm in Christ, and they have no love
for his son. They don't know him. They're
using it as an escape for means of punishment only, and there's
no love for the son because you ought to have remained inside
the city. This is what this is teaching,
the Passover. Consider that, remember? Where
was safety? Inside the house with the blood
over the door. Let's say you started out in
there. If you came outside the house with the blood over the
door, you were dead because you should have remained inside the
house. The only safety is in the house with the blood over
the door. Being in Christ, this is the
only place that we have any safety. What is being in Christ? I wrote
down seven things here. First, it's faith. I'll give you the scripture,
we're not going to turn to it just for time's sake. Acts 24, 24. Faith is in Christ
as the strength of my faith, but He's also the object of my
faith. So I have faith in him to save me from my sins without
any contribution from me. I have faith that he'll give
me the ability to believe. He's the strength in my faith
and he's the object of my faith. That's being in Christ. Being
in Christ is our life. I'm gonna turn to this one. This
is in Romans chapter eight. In verse two. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and
death. Life is in Christ Jesus. If I'm
going to live, he's going to have to quicken me with the spirit
of life. Because otherwise, I have the
law of sin and death in me. That's what spirit I have in
me. That's what I was born with, what my earthly father gave me.
but if I'm to be born in him, he's gonna have to give me the
spirit of life. So being in Christ is having
faith in him, it's life in him, and in verse 39 of the same chapter,
it says, this is where the love of God abounds, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. So if you're
in Christ Jesus, This is where the love of God abounds. It is
very difficult for me, being in a body of flesh, in a body
of sin, to consider that God loves me. And in my flesh, He
doesn't, because I'm a sinner. But in Christ, in the person
of my Redeemer, united to His body, I am in His Son. and he can look at me in love
and not look at me in what my sin is and everything that I'm
guilty for. God can love me in Christ Jesus. It's also the truth in Romans
9.1. Paul says, I say the truth in Christ, and why not? The truth
is in Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. The truth of the gospel, the
truth of who you are before God as a sinner, the truth of He
is the only way and has the only righteousness that we have. This
is the truth of the gospel that convicts men of sin and convicts
men of His holiness. What is being in Christ? It's
being made holy. If you turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter one and verse two, under the church of God which is at
Corinth and to them in Jesus Christ called to be saints. I'm sorry, to them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. Sanctified means being
set apart for holy purposes, being made holy. So if you're
in Christ, you are made holy. This is the new birth that the
Holy Spirit gives us, births us unto the ability to not sin. And the desire of the hatred
of the old man who is only sin. We hate the old man. We hate
what he does. We hate how he convicts us. We
hate how he stands against everything that the new man loves. We have
a war going on inside of us. And one day that war will be
let down when the old man's vanquished. But here it says, to them that
are sanctified in Christ Jesus, if you're in Christ, you are
made holy, free from the presence, the power, and the penalty of
sin. being made holy. Now, who put you there? 1 Corinthians
1.30. But of him, who's that? Of God
the Father, are you in Christ Jesus? So if you're in Christ,
how did you get there? Was it something you did? Did
you decide to believe and you got there? No. It tells us right
here, but of Him are you in Christ Jesus. The Father put you there
in eternal election before this world ever was. That's the only
way He could look at you and not see you as a sinner, was
to put you there before you had the opportunity to sin. He put
us into Christ Jesus. So if you believe, the only reason
you do is because on the grounds of free grace and election. And so this is something that
we rejoice in. Election is the best news we've
ever heard because otherwise we wouldn't be in Christ. You
wouldn't believe, you wouldn't have the ears to hear, you would
never even come to hear the gospel. So this is the best news we've
heard, to be in Christ. He put us there. And lastly,
2 Timothy 2.10, faith, life, love of God, truth,
being made holy, God put us there in eternal election, and last,
therefore, 2 Timothy 2.10, therefore I endure all things for the elect's
sake that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ
Jesus with eternal glory. What's being in Christ? It is
salvation itself. This is salvation, being in His
Son, being one with Him, being able to commune with Him, having
the love of God abound where I am, being in the truth. Salvation
itself is not just being free from the penalty of sin. Salvation
is being in His Son. That will be heaven for us. It's
not gonna be luring anything else. We'll have relationships,
we'll know one another, but we're gonna look to his son. That will
be all of our glory, that he would save me as a trophy of
his grace. Salvation is being in Christ.
Now, back to our text in Numbers 35. So we know anyone could flee
to this city for refuge. And to stay, it all had to be
legal. The congregation had to say that you were legal to be
here and you had protection. So there's no falsehood, no fakers
that are dwelling inside who really didn't belong. Now, until
the death of the high priest. When the high priest died, the
slayer, it says, was free to return to his family and to the
land of his possession. Now what is this used to picture?
Read verse 33, chapter 35. So you shall not pollute the
land where you are. For blood, it defileth the land. And the land cannot be cleansed
of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that
shed it. The sins that you've committed,
you deserve to die for, blood for blood. This is used to picture
substitution. Who is our high priest? You see,
when he died, when the high priest died, you're free to go out.
the thing that you did, the shedding of blood, that was covered and
put away by the blood, the death of the high priest. Our eternal
high priest, Christ Jesus, when he died, he died because of sin. And in him is no sin, so it had
to have been my sins that I committed. That's why he was dying, because
those sins were made his. He was made to be sin. And because
he died, I can walk free. Every believer whose sins were
on Christ, you can walk free. You're able to return to the
land of your possession because the high priest died. And if
he died for your sins, all of your shame, all of your guilt,
all the claims against you, everything that you couldn't even step outside
the door for, you'd be killed. That's all gone away. Your sins
have been forgiven, forgotten, and they're gone. You are now
free from the law of sin and death. The law doesn't apply
to you. The law is not made for a righteous man. You don't have
to live by the law anymore because it's already been fulfilled in
Christ Jesus, our Savior. So by His death, He satisfied
the law. He satisfied His Father. So I
don't have to worry about being before God the Father because
I'm in Him. How does He stand before the
Father? He's accepted. He can approach. He can ask for
anything. So can I. And to all those who
are in Christ, you can approach and ask. We can pray our father,
our father, not the father, our father. He's our father if we're
in Christ. We are heirs. So we can call
upon him and call upon him because of his son. Now, most important
here, what is my only evidence that he died for my sins? Because
if he died, I'm forgiven. I'm free for the law of sin and
death. What's the only evidence we have here? Did you stay in
the city? Did you wait there, hoping, believing
that this is all you had? The only way I'm gonna live,
did I stay in the city? If I went back out, it really
didn't mean anything to me. It was just a stopping point
along the way. Were all my eggs in this bastion. This morning
we talked about commit thy way unto the Lord. This is everything
to me. I'm staying here. I've got nothing
else. I've got nobody to protect me. And until the high priest
dies, I'm staying in here because this is all I've got. Did you
stay in the city? His evidence is whether he died
for your sins or not. Did you wait there believing?
Salvation is in Christ. He is all in all unto them that
see him as everything. And here we see him as Christ,
our refuge. I'll let you go this morning.
Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our heavenly father, how amazed
we are that we can even call thee our father. We're so thankful
for the great sacrifice, the gift unspeakable of the death
of thy son. Oh Lord, how grateful we are
that we can run unto him, for refuge and know that the overflowing
scourge will pass us by because we're in him. Lord, keep us in
him. Lord, if you don't, we'll flee
away. Lord, we pray that you'd Save our children. We pray that
you'd cause many people to come to know thy name and to see thy
face. And Lord, we pray that you'd cause your word to go forth
powerfully, and we thank you for our day and pray that you
bring us again tonight. It's in Christ's name we pray,
amen.