Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 19. I'm gonna read the first 13 verses. Deuteronomy chapter 19. And the
title of this lesson is Christ, God's Provided Refuge. Christ, God's Provided Refuge. When the Lord thy God hath cut
off the nations whose land the Lord thy God giveth thee, and
thou succeedest them and dwellest in their cities and in their
houses. Notice how God used them to build
cities and houses for his people. They didn't realize they were
doing that. Everything in this world's for us. All things are
yours in Christ. Thou shalt separate three cities
for thee in the midst of thy land, which the Lord thy God
giveth thee to possess it. Thou shalt prepare thee a way
and divide the coast of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth
thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither. And this is the case of the slayer.
which shall flee thither that he may live. Whoso killeth his
neighbor ignorantly, whom he hateth 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 the hell over the wood, and lighteth
upon his neighbor that he die, He shall flee unto one of these
cities and live, lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer
while his heart is hot and overtakes him, because the way is long,
and slay him, whereas he was not worthy of death inasmuch
as he hated him not in time past." Which is interesting. I mean,
I never thought this until I was reading it. Our Lord said, His
brother has committed murder already in his heart. And here
he's saying motive's everything. Motive is everything. Here the
man didn't hate his brother. It was an accident as far as
the man was concerned. Wherefore, I command thee, saying,
thou shalt separate three cities for thee, and if the Lord thy
God enlarge thy coast, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers,
and give thee all the land which he promised to thee and to thy
fathers, if thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them,
which I command thee this day, to love the Lord thy God, and
to walk ever in his ways, then shalt thou add three cities more
for thee beside these three. that innocent blood be not shed
in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance,
and so blood be upon thee. But if any man hate his neighbor,
and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite
him mortally that he die, and flees into one of these cities,
then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and
deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood that he
may die. Thine eye shall not pity him,
but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel,
that it may go well with thee. Our Father, bless your word this
morning. Give us understanding. Let us
see Christ in these scriptures. Enable me to bring out the Lord
Jesus Christ here in your word, to rightly divide the word of
truth. Let thy presence be among us this morning and grant us
a spirit of worship. Help us to give unto you this
morning all the praise and glory and honor that's due unto your
name. Father, it's in Jesus Christ's name we pray, and amen. Now this
is, as I said, Christ, God's provided refuge. What beautiful pictures we have
in the Old Testament. Without Christ, the Old Testament
is a mystery. I tell you what, without Christ,
you would think harsh of God. of all those, all those destructions
and all those things that he did, all those punishments of
sin, you would, without understanding of Christ, you wouldn't see this,
would you? When God gave these cities, for
the most part, Israel, Israel didn't see these cities as pictures
of Christ at that time. But here we see it, we see Christ
in these cities. Now God is not without law. God
is a God of law. But God is also a God of mercy.
He delights to show mercy. And here God has given us an
example of mercy. He provided a refuge. God has
provided a refuge for the manslayer. Now the law, listen, the law
dealt, it dealt with criminals. You know, it says over in Exodus
21, and it's speaking about an ox, if it gourds a man or someone
and it dies, you know, then that man, it depends, if the ox was
not known to have done that before, they were to pay, the ox was
to be killed. But now, if that ox had been
known to do that, and it gourded a man to death, the ox would
be put to death and the man would be put to death. If he knew that
about that ox and that ox killed a man, he was to be put to death
as well as that ox. And that's over in Exodus 21,
24 is where we get eye for eye, tooth for tooth. That is the
law. You don't want to deal with the
law. God's law is strict. God's law is life for life, eye
for eye, tooth for tooth. You don't want to deal with that
part. And God dealt with that. He gave that law for those who
were guilty. Guilty of murder. You notice,
and listen, all the types can only go so far. They can only
go so far. Because here, the cities of refuge
protected the innocent. Christ, our city of refuge, protects
the guilty. We're guilty, aren't we? We're
guilty of sin, we're guilty of murder. Everyone in here, you
ever hated anybody without a cause? You ever really just, you know,
we think, well, not, not, I haven't really hated him. Well, God's
the judge of what hate is more than we are. Despise someone
without a cause. God said that's murder. Look
upon a woman to lust after her or a woman to look upon a man
to lust after him. That's adultery. That's adultery. We are guilty of that. And we
are just as guilty of that only by the power of God, the grace
of God that he has constrained us and not let us do that. As I heard Paul Mahan say not
too long ago, your Bathsheba just hasn't come along. That's
the only reason you haven't fallen. God's withheld it. But God here
is a God of law and the punishment always fit the crime. You know,
hell, think about it. And many, many, many people believe
that hell is too harsh. Well, if you could see it from
God's point of view, you wouldn't think that. You wouldn't think
that. You see, our minds are so small.
Our understanding is so limited that we can't see on that same
level that God sees on. We can't see sin. We cannot see
sin as God sees sin. Now, he gives us a measure of
understanding. When the Lord saves us, when
the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we have some real understanding
of sin, but not like God does. Not like God does. Has a real
conviction of sin ever caused you to fall on the ground and
sweat great drops of blood? It hasn't, has it? No, nobody
in here. Nobody in here has sweat great drops of blood over the
fact of their sinfulness and what they are. When Christ was
made to be sin, he sweat great drops of blood. He understood
to the very nth degree what that meant and what that was. And
he took God's wrath for our sins I tell you, the more I read of
him and study him, the more astounded I am of the grace of God in Christ
to me, a wretch like me. But hell, listen, hell is not
too hard. Everyone there is getting exactly
what they deserve and not one stripe more. Not one stripe more,
just what they deserve. There are different degrees of
punishment taught in the scriptures concerning those who perish.
He said it'll be more tolerable in the day of judgment for the
Sodomites, Sodom and Gomorrah, than for those where his mighty
works, Capernaum, where his mighty works were done. He said it's
more tolerable for them, not that they'll escape judgment,
But the judgment on those who have been given more light will
be far greater than on those who have less light. Those who sit under the gospel
here, and if you're never brought to faith, I'm telling you the
truth, judgment will be far greater on you than it will be on somebody
that's never heard the gospel, preached like you've heard it.
That's sobering, isn't it? That's sobering. But here, the
punishment always fit the crime. But what about here, what about
those who accidentally kill somebody? What we call accidental. Unintentional,
put it that way, that's a better word. Unintentional. Unintentionally kill someone. Someone runs a stop sign. He's
not inebriated, you know, he's not under the influence of anything.
He just, you ever run a stop sign? I've ran stop signs. I've ran red lights. I mean,
just zoned out. Zoned out. Vicki's been with
me before. She said, there's a stop sign. I said, well, you're on
the hospital side. That's what I heard Tommy say. It's unintentional. And God has
provided for that. God in mercy has provided for
that. And so much though that when they expanded, and when
they expanded, he said, you expand the cities of refuge. Don't make
it difficult for them to get to the city of refuge. Don't
make it us in our preaching or not to make it difficult for
sinners to come to Christ. And we have to be careful with
that. We have to be careful with in the way we handle right doctrine.
We do preach God's election. I do preach it. And it's the
Bible. God chose a people. But I also say, whosoever will,
let him come. That's Bible. You know who will? Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. I don't feel like I have to explain
that every time because the scriptures don't explain that every time.
The Lord said, whosoever will. Whosoever's thirsty, let him
drink. Come to the waters of life. Come, door's wide open. But I know, I know that it's
God who gave me a thirst. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. They shall be filled. God gave
me a thirst one day. God's given some of you a thirst
and a hunger after righteousness. He is. And to be right with God. But this death is unintentional.
So God provided these cities of refuge. And he instructed
Israel to build these cities, to provide these cities for the
one who accidentally or incidentally killed someone. God provided
that. God did. And the manslayer, he
could go to these cities and he'd be safe until his case was
heard. Now, if he's guilty, He was turned
over to the law. He was turned over to the Avenger
of Blood. And they would take care of him.
But if he's innocent, they couldn't touch him. Listen, they couldn't
touch him, and it says over Joshua 26, until the high priest died, or
the Avenger of Blood died, or the high priest died. This is
beautiful. He couldn't leave that place and be safe until
the high priest died. Our high priest has died. The
Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's tree. Our high priest has died.
We can go free. The avenger of blood, the law,
cannot touch me now. It can't touch me. You know,
God's law is very real. It's very real. And we ought
to be a thousand times more fearful of God's law than any law that
man has made. Because, you know, I can run
a stop sign and get a ticket. But I tell you what, you break
one of God's law and you don't have a city of refuge, you don't
have Christ as your refuge, you're gonna perish. There's a big difference. God's law has eternal consequences
to it, running a stop sign doesn't. Even stealing doesn't have eternal
consequences to it, but I tell you what, breaking God's law
does. If you don't have a high priest,
you don't have blood, you're in trouble. in trouble. But if the manslayer, listen,
if the manslayer left that city before the high priest died or
the Avenger of Blood, if he left the city, if a few years had
gone by and he thought, well, they, you know, they forgot about
this. I mean, surely, surely they're
not, you know, and he leaves. Even if he did this incidentally,
the Avenger of Blood could kill him. He could kill him and not
break the law because he was told to stay in that city of
refuge. Christ is our refuge all the
way to the end. You leave the gospel, you're in trouble. If
you leave the gospel, you're going to perish. I thought once
saved, always saved. God's children won't leave the
gospel. They will not leave the gospel. They won't do it. God
won't let them. God won't let them. The Holy
Spirit with whom they are sealed will not let them leave the gospel. He's not going to do it. But
if they was to leave the city, they would be killed. But here, the word refuge in
Hebrew means it's a place of hope, it's a place of safe habitation. A man shall be a hiding place,
Isaiah said, from the covert and from the wind, from the storm.
A man shall be a hiding place from God. You know, God has provided
this. He's provided for us in Christ,
our refuge. And I was thinking about this
before coming out. God has provided us a refuge from himself. He's
the one I'm, he's the one I'm in trouble with. And yet God
has provided a refuge for me, a sinner like me, from himself. I need a refuge from God. Our
God is what? A consuming fire. Outside of
Christ, our refuge, God is a consuming fire. He's not a God of mercy.
He's not a God of love. He's only a God of love and grace
and mercy in that refuge, Christ. That's the only place where you're
gonna find mercy, grace, safety in Christ. Outside of him, you're
not gonna have it. You're not gonna have it. I want you to look over in Deuteronomy
33. Just turn over a few pages to
show you that God is our refuge and Christ is God. In Deuteronomy
33, Let me see what that is. 33. Look in verse 27. The eternal God is thy refuge. And underneath are the everlasting
arms And he shall thrust out all the enemies from before thee,
and shall say, destroy them. But the eternal God is our refuge.
And Christ, Jesus Christ, is that eternal God. He is it. Now let's look at these cities
here briefly. First of all, they were provided
and appointed of God. Jesus Christ. before the foundation
of the world was appointed of God to be our refuge. Not only
was he appointed to be our refuge, but he put us in that refuge.
He put us in him. He chose us in our refuge. He chose our refuge and then
chose us in our refuge and put us in our refuge. How protected
are we? How protected, how safe, how
safe are we in Christ? God appointed his son to be our
surety, to stand for us, to be responsible for us. One of the
great comforts that I have is this. Jesus Christ, God Almighty,
is responsible for me. He's responsible to bring me
home. He's responsible to bring Benjamin home. I'm his Benjamin,
and he's responsible to bring me home. Isn't that comforting?
I couldn't find my way there. First of all, I wouldn't even
go there. You wouldn't go there. You know, if the Lord didn't,
if he did not give us a new nature, that which is born of the spirit
of spirit, if he didn't give us a new nature, you know how miserable
you'd be in heaven? You couldn't fulfill the lust
of your flesh. A drunk couldn't be drunk no more. I mean, you
just couldn't fulfill the lust of your flesh and you know how
miserable that'd be? He gives us a nature that's conducive
to that place where we're going. Spiritual, spiritual kingdom.
Heaven is a spiritual place. And it's for those who have been
born of the spirit. He's our surety and he's our
high priest who intercedes for us. He's our righteousness. He's
our righteousness, he's our redeemer, he's our savior. I have a, we
have a savior. We have a savior. We have a Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the cities of refuge
were to be located so that one could flee to them easily, easily. He didn't make it, God didn't
make it to where, You better be a marathon runner if you're
gonna make it there before you get caught. Listen, Jesus Christ
is preached here every Thursday, every Sunday, every Thursday,
every Sunday. God has made the city of refuge
so accessible, so accessible. And you know this, you know that
they were able to make and to keep that way clear without obstacles
in the way? That's my responsibility, standing
here preaching, is to remove the obstacles. It's not for me
to put things in the way, but to take them out of the way,
to remove all excuses. I like one of the things that
that businessman I used to run a business for, run his company
for, one of them, One of the sayings he made, it's always
stuck with me, and I've said it different times, I've said
it to my grandkids, remove all excuses to fail. Remove all excuses to fail. And
one of my responsibilities, the first is to glorify Christ, and
to remove all excuses. You have no excuse. Nobody in
this room, nobody that's listening to me has any excuse not to come
to Christ. There's no excuse. God has said
come. He has said come. And then the manslayer was to
flee. Whenever he just killed someone,
not aiming to, He wasn't to linger. He was not to linger. He was
not to go home and say, you know what I did? So and so is dead. The head flew off the handle
of the ax and it hit him in the head and he's dead. He's running
around the house trying to get things fixed up before he left.
No, you leave that spot. He was to leave that spot right
where it happened and get to the city of refuge. He can send
word home, but he's to get to the city. Now's the day of salvation. Now's the accepted time. Not
tomorrow. Nobody said you had tomorrow.
Nobody said I had tomorrow. I heard a poem here not too long
ago. I was reading it. I can't remember who wrote it. If tomorrow never comes, one day tomorrow will not come. We always think we've got tomorrow,
don't we? Everybody here, you don't, if
you really knew right now, if you knew this is the last day,
I guarantee you this day would be different. Your thoughts of
this day would be different. What you're doing this day would
be different. You'd probably gather with your family. You
wouldn't be going out and doing something else. You'd gather
with your family. It's the last time. And one day, tomorrow won't
come and this will be the last time we gather with the family
here. We'll be gathered with them there if we believe. If
we believe not, we won't be gathered with them there. We won't be. Now, the manslayer was to hurry
up and to get to the city of refuge. And then the manslayer, listen,
he's got to go into that city. He's not going to say, ooh, I
can see the city from here. But don't stop. Listen, don't
stop and rest on your way to the city of refuge. That's not
salvation. Salvation is not being in the
presence of Christ. It's being in Christ. It's being
in Christ, not in his presence. You know how many people were
in his presence when he walked on this earth? Thousands, thousands
were in his presence and thousands perished, but none perished who
were in him. None. You've got to enter into
that city of refuge. Those who are in Christ are saved. Those who are out of Christ,
I don't care if they're standing beside of him, will perish. You recognize people hanging
on that ark? There's people who hang on a profession. They hang
on a profession. I have no doubt there was people
hanging on that ark, but eventually the flood took them away. You
remember, was it Joab that hung on to the horns of the altar?
He ran in there and hung on to the horns of the altar, thinking
that was gonna save him. Hanging on to a profession's
not gonna save anybody. It's in Christ that saves. In
Christ. And then this manslayer, he had
to remain in the city, as I already have told you. Paul said, if
you continue in the faith, grounded and settled in the Lord Jesus
Christ, there in Colossians chapter one, verses 21 through 23. Those
who leave, Paul said, we're not of them who leave, draw back,
but we are of them who believe unto the saving of the soul. And you know, a believer can
fall, but they never quit believing. When David fell into that awful
sin, he never quit believing. He never denied the gospel. Brethren,
listen, there's a real difference in denying the gospel and falling
into sin. You can fall into sin. You can
fall into terrible sin. But if you say, that's not the
truth, I don't believe that no more. You ain't coming back. You're not coming back. That's
to crucify the Lord afresh. You can't renew that person again
to repentance. And that doesn't mean to mourning,
that means to changing up his mind. He's not gonna change his
mind once he's turned his back on the gospel for another gospel.
He's not coming back. And those who entered into the
city of refuge, the avenger of blood had to stop right there.
The avenger of blood had to stop right there. Isn't this beautiful?
This is beautiful. I hope I've been able to make
it clear enough, but this is beautiful. The law stops at Christ. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. The law can demand
no more of me than Christ gave it. It can't. It stops at Christ. It wasn't Aaron who ran into
the midst of the crowd, into the midst there, and with the
atonement and that incense, and death stopped right there at
his feet. No more people died. No one died. The avenger blood
is not going to come into that city of refuge and drag me out.
The law is not going to drag me out of Christ. It's satisfied. It's on my side. It's on my side. And that manslayer, as I said,
had to remain in that city until the high priest died. Now listen, and I'm gonna close. Every type, every type eventually
breaks down. It eventually breaks down. You
take the atonement, the lambs are slain in atonement. They
couldn't put away blood. It was typifying Christ, the
Lamb of God, whose blood puts away sin. But the blood of those
animals never put away one sin. It didn't do it. In these cities,
there were six of them. There's not six Christ. We don't
have six saviors, we have one. We have one. All these six represented
this one. And then these cities, they protected
from physical death. The Lord protects us from spiritual
death. And these cities, they required a physical exertion
to get to them. You had to physically run to
the cities. I think it was a Barner or an
ADMU said, don't you move a hair or muscle, but you come to Christ
from where you are. It's the heart. It's the heart. It's not a physical move. It's
not coming down to a front like so many of these so-called churches
do. It's dragging you down to the
aisle, to the mourner's bench, and that's not it. That's not
coming to Christ. Coming to Jesus Christ is coming
to him from the heart. Now, the way you confess Christ
is baptism. If you want to confess Christ,
Ask me. I'll baptize you. But I'm not
going to ask you to come down here in front and accept Jesus
as your personal savior. I'm just a messenger. And my
job, my responsibility is to glorify Christ, tell you the
truth, and get out of the way. That's it. Get out of the way. And these cities, listen, these
cities were for those who had accidentally killed someone.
Christ is for the guilty. He's for the guilty. He's for
the guilty. Now, real quickly, turn over
to Joshua chapter 20. The same story is told over there. Joshua chapter 20. Now, in verse
7 and 8, I want to read you these things. And they appointed, I'll
wait till I hear the paper stop. And they appointed Kadesh in
Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and
Kirjath Arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah. These
are the six cities. And on the other side, Jordan,
by Jericho, eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon
the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth and Gilead
out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan and Bashan out of the tribe
of Manasseh. Listen. Kadesh means holy. Christ is holy. Thou art the
holy one of Israel. Shechem means shoulder. The government
shall be upon his shoulder. When he found the lost sheep,
what did he do? He put it on his shoulder and
carried it home. You know, we're not walking home.
The Lord's carrying us home. He's carrying the sheep home. It means fellowship. Over in
1 John, he said, we have fellowship with the Father and with his
Son, Jesus Christ. Bezer means fortification, defense. God is our defense. He's our
defense. Ramoth, highly exalted. There's
no other name given under heaven whereby you must be saved. The
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in Philippians, he said,
he had been highly exalted. God has highly exalted his name.
Golan means captive. Captive. Were you and I not captives? You know what it says? He led
the captive captivity. He set the captives free. Isn't
that beautiful? All these names had such a meaning.
When God gives a name, God gives a name according to a meaning. Not just because it sounds cute.
It has a real meaning to it. God's provided refuge. If you haven't fled to him, I'd
say do so now. I'd say do so now. All right.