I want to I was blessed to my heart today
when I was looking at it getting ready but let me start reading
in verse 41 and read down to the end of the
chapter number 1641 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,
that 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 the congregation.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, 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, put fire therein from off the altar, put on incense,
and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them.
For there is wrath gone out from the Lord, 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 fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides them that
died about the matter of Korah. And Aaron returned unto Moses,
unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the
plague was stayed. Our blessed Master, our gracious,
gracious Father, our great, loving, gracious, merciful, holy, righteous
God. Lord, we come into your presence and all of us come. We come together.
We come as one. We come as a body of believers,
a group of saints coming the appointed way, the way you made
for us to come to your blessed, blessed son. Oh Lord, we can
never get over what you did for us and what you did for us and
we can approach you. The high priest used to just
be able to once a year go into your presence, but he couldn't
go in there without blood. And now Lord, you allow people
like us flesh and blood men and women frail, dust, weak to come
into your presence and speak to you and you Lord hear us and
allow us oh God to stay in your presence because of Christ and
you're with us tonight because of Him and so Lord meet with
us tonight But of all we ask you to do, we ask you most of
all to bring glory to yourself and your son. And Father, we
pray for those that are sick. We pray for Brother Larry Matthews
and for Lola. We pray, Lord Jesus, for Bruce
and Joe. Pray for Shelby. Oh, God bless
Shelby. Pray for Bruce and Sandy. for Dede, her family. Lord Jesus you have a people
and it's a delight and it's an enjoyment to pray for them and
our brethren are standing tonight in the same place I am standing
before your people preaching your word looking to you because
indeed who is sufficient for these things we're just clay
pots, clay pots That's all we are. But oh, God bless you for
the treasure and the unspeakable gift, your Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. Amen. sweep over my soul sweep over
my soul sweet spirit sweep over my soul my joy You know, this is a real glorious
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ here in the verses that are read
to you. But what actually happened, when you get home and you got
time tomorrow, you read the 16th chapter of Numbers. And what starts out here is a
rebellion. Starts out as the authority of
Moses and Aaron were questioned by three men, Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram. And then 250 men of renown, princes. Let me read the first four verses,
the first three verses and you'll see. Now Korah, the son of Izar,
the son of Kohath, the son of Levi. And Dathan and Abiram,
the sons of Elab, and On the son of Pelath, sons of Reuben,
took men. And they rose up before Moses
with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty
princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered themselves
together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, You
take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then
lift up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. And
when Moses heard it, he fell on his face. So you see, these
men questioned their authority. Questioned, said, we're just
as good as you are. We can, you know, you take too
much on yourself. We're going to have to help you
with your burden. That's what they're saying. And
the next day, Moses said, all of y'all meet the next day. Told
all these 250 men, Korah, Dathan, Abram, and all their households,
you all meet tomorrow. about this time tomorrow. And
he says, and I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll meet with Aaron,
we'll meet with you all, and this matter will be settled once
and for all. And that's what happens in verse
16 through 18. Look what happens. Now, excuse
me. Look what happens here. He said
in verse 6, Verse 5. And he spake unto Corn and all
his company, saying, Even tomorrow the Lord will show who are his
and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto him, even
him whom he hath chosen he will cause to come near. So come tomorrow,
come tomorrow. And I tell you what, so here
they come. And when God would destroy the whole congregation,
the whole congregation, Instead he just got Korah, Dathan, Abiram
and their family and the 250 men. You know look what Moses
said here in verse 8. Moses said unto Korah, Here I
pray you, you sons of Levi. See these fellows are sons of
Levi. They minister at the tabernacle.
They're not priests, but they minister at the tabernacle. Seemeth
it but a small thing unto you, that 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
stand before the congregation, to minister unto them? And he
hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren, the sons
of Levi, with thee, and seek ye the priesthood also? That's
what he said. Are you looking to be in the
priesthood too? Listen to this for which cause both thou and
all thy companies are gathered together Against the Lord and
what is Aaron? What's Aaron ever done? What
is Aaron that you murmur against him? So they came out and God
said this he said I'll tell you what, you know What God's gonna
do if these men? die a common death like all men
do those turn 50 princes and Korah, Dathan and Abiram, Dothan
and Abiram, if they all die the natural death, the way men do,
he said then God didn't shame me. But if God does something
new, if he opens up the ground and opens up the earth and swallows
them, then you'll know. And sure enough, they're standing
there, bad-mouthing Moses and Aaron. Earth opened up. As old Barnard said, he sent
them to hell without giving them a chance to pack their suitcases.
And that's what happened. He just opened up the earth and
down they went. Everything that perpanged to them. Everybody
that died. Those 250 men were left alone.
had those censors. Well, God come down in fire and
killed the 250 princes, men of renown. And then they took all
their censors and beat them down into plates and used them to
cover altars with. Used them to cover altars with.
And I tell you what, now they was against Moses, God's prophet.
and the leader. But here's the real rebellion
that was against it. They wanted to enter into the
priesthood. And the rebellion was not only against Moses, but
against God's appointed priest. God's appointed high priest,
Aaron. And that's why he said, why are you going against Aaron?
Aaron, you want to enter the priesthood? And I tell you what,
you know what this shows? rebellion against God's way of
redemption the only way in the world you know what Aaron did
he went in every day and offered sacrifice for Israel he went
in one day a year and offered a day of atonement offered sacrifice
went in there by himself he did all the work by himself and here
he was they said we don't like God's way of redemption we don't
like the blood we don't like the altars we don't like that
And I tell you this reveals through our Lord Jesus Christ and Aaron
represents our great high priest the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Now you think after all these people have seen the earth open
up and swallow three families, three families and their tents
and everything with them. You'd think that that'd get somebody's
attention. Then God comes down and enlightens
them. I don't know how he'd done it, but he killed 250 more of
those fellas because of their censures. These were mighty men
of heaven. Princes of renown, he says. Famous
men. God no respect to persons they
didn't do what he said but he just killed them you think my
word there's no way in the world these fellows will ever stand
up against Moses and Aaron again if you've seen people dying because
of that you say surely surely surely they'll never ever murmur
against Moses and Aaron but look in verse 41 but on the morrow God did all this. They got up
the next morning, after God done all this, they got up the next
day, all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and against Aaron. What do they say now? What have
you done? You killed the Lord's people. You would think that this would
have absolutely had a lasting effect on these people of Israel. But it didn't. The very next
day, the very next day, all the congregation got together and
started talking to Moses and about Aaron and murmured against
them. And all they said, you killed the Lord's people. They
didn't kill the Lord's people. God killed these people. God
did this, and I tell you what, you're talking about revealing
man's depravity, man's rebellion, man's hatred of God, hatred of
Christ, and here I don't care how many miracles a person can
see, I don't care how many signs that a person could want and
how many witnesses people can have. But until God regenerates
a man and puts a new heart in him and gives him the Spirit
of God in him, I don't care what happens, he'll never believe
anything. He can see a miracle. How many people saw Christ after
His resurrection and they still didn't believe Him? I'll tell
you, beloved, they watched Lazarus come out of the tomb. Nobody
got converted over that. People could go be standing in
a graveyard and somebody come up out of the grave, and if God
didn't give them a new heart, that would not do anything for
them. They shock them. They give them something to talk
about the rest of their life. They say, boy, you wouldn't believe
what happened to me. But I'll tell you one thing,
unless God Himself Changes a man's heart and regenerates him. I
don't get miracles won't do him any good Signs won't do him any
good witnesses won't do him any good. I Tell you it won't bring
a man to God Miracles don't do it. The only miracle will bring
a man to God's the miracle of a new birth The miracle of God
taking out the stony heart and put it in the heart of flesh
I And I tell you what, God's got to give regeneration and
revelation. And our Lord, I won't turn to
it, but our Lord Jesus Christ, He Himself gave Himself, gave
four witnesses. Four witnesses. He says, man,
you're witnessing about yourself. He said, if I witness of myself,
my testimony is not true. It's not right. But He said,
there's John, you sent unto John. John bore witness of me. John
the Baptist bore witness of me. And he said, and not only that,
but all the works that I do, they bear witness of me. And
then my father bears witness of me. And then the scriptures
bear witness of me. But you know what he said? You
will not come to me that you might have life. with all those
witnesses. They said, but you will not come
that you might have life. And I tell you what, you will
not come. So that's what I'm telling you.
If God does a miracle for a man, I mean regenerates him. Here
these folks had just seen 250 people killed and a whole bunch
of men and women and children go to, the earth opened up and
gets them. And the next morning, the next
morning, they get up and still upset with Moses and Aaron. You
think, man, that's a fool. Well, that's exactly what they
were. And look what God says now. Down in verse 45, the wrath
of God rose against this people. And he told Moses, he said, get
you up from among this congregation because I'm going to consume
them as in a moment. I'm going to wipe this whole
bunch of people out. What did they do? Instead of
getting out of the way, letting God go ahead and consume them
all, what did he do? They fell on their faces. They
began to pray. They began to intercede for these
people. And oh my, what in the world
is going to happen then? What's going to happen? Look
what Moses tells Aaron to do. Verse 45. Moses said unto Aaron,
take a censer. Get your censer. Put fire in
that censer off the altar. Go back in the altar and get
that fire off of that where that sacrifice is offered. Get that
fire off that altar. And then put incense on that
fire. And they'll go quickly into the congregation and make
an atonement, get a sacrifice, get a blood atonement, get a
sacrifice. For the wrath is gone out from
the Lord and the plague has begun. Well, Aaron had just done just
as Moses commanded, ran into the midst of the congregation.
The plague was begun among the people. 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 besides them that died after
the matter of Korah. Oh my! Now I tell you what, this
is one of the best Old Testament pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ,
our Great High Priest, Jesus our Savior. And let's consider
Him, consider Him as a type of our Lord, of our blessed Master,
our Lord Jesus. First of all, Aaron loved these
sinful people. He loved them. He loved them. These people certainly didn't
love Aaron. They didn't love Aaron. You know,
that whole plot against him to strip him of his office and take
the priesthood unto themselves. That's what they were trying
to do. And I tell you, that's the attitude of Adam's fallen
race. That's what they've always been
against. They want to strip Christ of
His office, want to strip Christ of His power, and take it unto
themselves. In the Garden of Eden, what was
Adam and Eve done in the Garden of Eden? They rebelled against
God. Said, we'll not have this man,
God, to reign over us. We won't do it. Satan come along
and said listen you gods you don't need God you're God yourself
You don't need your own will you don't need his will you got
your own. You don't need his glory. You got your own And I
tell you now get the Tower of Babel. Oh The whole bunch got
together Oh Nimrod the whole bunch of them got together. So
let's build us a tower all the way to heaven We'll reach the
heaven itself They started up building that tower. Everybody
spoke the same language at that time. Everybody understood everybody
on the whole earth. But you know why they called
it the Tower of Babel? Because God confounded them and changed
every one of them's language. And all they was was babbling
to one another. They are going to reach heaven
by building a tower. You're talking about how foolish
man is, how wicked man is. Going to build him a tower all
the way to heaven. And then, beloved, at the cross, at the
cross, our Lord Jesus Christ, the cry against him that you
and I, even ourselves, has made is, there was a time, we said,
we'll not have this man to reign over us. We just won't have this
man to reign over us. Our Lord Jesus said this, they
hated me without a cause. They hated me without a cause.
And men, including us, apart from God's blessed grace, would
rob him of his preeminence. God made him to be preeminent
in all things. Preeminent in salvation. But
wait a minute. We got a free will. We can save
ourselves. Huh? That God made him to be
a righteousness. But we don't need his righteousness.
We got our own. Huh? We don't need his power. Our
power is greater than his. We don't need his work. Our work
is sufficient. We'll just add his tithes and
make us just a little better. And I'll tell you our goodness,
oh my, how good a people we are. We don't need His grace and they
want to rob Him of His glory and rob Him of His preeminence.
Brag about their power, brag about their will, brag about
their free will, brag about their choice, brag about their righteousness,
brag about their church going, brag about their baptism. Brag, brag, brag, brag. Christ
gets down, down, down, down, down in their eyes. But Aaron loved these people.
He loved these people. And he loved these people, but
they had no love for him. No more than we had any love
for our Savior. And Aaron loved these people.
And listen, with no regard for his own life, and his own safety,
you know what he did? He rushed right among all them
people. Rushed right out among them. And the wrath of God was
coming down on them. But he rushed right among all
them people. And you know what he did? He
identified with them. Got right in the middle of them,
identified with them. And our Lord Jesus Christ, oh,
He loved us. Oh, how He loved us. Oh, He loved us with an everlasting
love. We know He loved us because God
sent Him. We know He loved us because He
told us we did. We know He loved us because He
gave Himself for us. Loved me and gave Himself for
me. And I tell you, how do we know He loved us? He came to
this earth. Took upon Him flesh. Why did He do that? Why did He
do that? So He could identify with us. Identify with us. And then He come up under the
law. With that law that condemned us, that law that found us guilty,
that law that we offended God with. And not only did He become
a man, but He took upon Himself the form of a servant. Oh, He so identified with us. And just like Aaron loved these people,
they didn't love Him. Christ loved us and we didn't
love Him. But you know what He said? Here
in His love, not that we love God, but that He first loved
us. Here in His love, that God sent,
sent His only begotten Son that through Him He would be the propitiation,
the mercy seat, the atonement, the sacrifice for our sins, for
our sins. So oh my, He run right in among
of them people. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He
come among us. He come among us. And the second thing about Aaron
is the type of our Lord Jesus. He acted as God's high priest.
Now listen to what I'm going to tell you. Aaron didn't rush
before God empty handed. Oh no, he didn't just run in
the presence of God and say, plead for mercy and a prayer
for compassion and a prayer for pity on them. No, no. The people
had sinned. Sinned greatly. And the wrath
of God come down on them. And God can't lift His wrath
off of a man until there's first a sin offering. He can't take
his wrath off of a man. There's got to be a sin off of
him. There has to be a sacrifice. There has to be an atonement.
Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins.
Huh? And Aaron brought that censer
of incense. And he made that atonement. Run
in there and shed that blood and come back out with that that
censored and run among the people and already offered atonement
for them. And he acted as a high priest, God's high priest. And
our Lord, oh our Lord, our Savior, as our high priest, He has to
have something to offer Himself. Well, what was it? Huh? As our
high priest, He has to have an offering Himself. A high priest
has to have an offering. He has to have something to offer.
Moses said to Aaron, get your censer, get an atonement, get
an offering. Our Lord Jesus Christ, you know
what his tabernacle was? His body. You know what his sacrifice
was? Himself. I can't get over this
idea of Christ sacrificed Himself. How many times do you find in
the scripture Himself, Himself, Himself? Oh my! And you know what His
atonement was? You know what His sin offering
was? You know what the offering was?
It was His own blood. His own blood. That was His atonement. He took and entered heaven itself
with his own blood. I'll tell you something Aaron
didn't do when he rung among these people. He didn't plead their works.
He didn't say, boy these are good folks, they've done some
good works, they've done some good deeds. And he didn't promise,
I'll tell you something else he did. He didn't promise that
they'd do better in the future. That's what folks, that's what
people want to do. I'm going to start, I'm going
to start now and I'm going to do better in the future. Okay,
if you start right today and you never sinned again, what
are you going to do about them sins that you had up to that
time? Huh? And that's why you have to have,
you know, he didn't plead that they were going to do better.
That's something that I learned years and years and years and
years ago. Don't make no promises to yourself
or anybody else except for things in this life. Don't make no promises
to God. Don't make no promises to yourself
that you're going to be better at this or better at that or
something else better at. I'm going to pray more. I'm going
to read more. I'm going to do this. You know all you do is
setting yourself up to throw yourself on the mercy of Christ
where you ought to always stay anyway. Right? How many times you say, boy I'm
going to start praying more. Next day you don't even pray
at all. You ever done that? Ever went
a whole day? I'm going to read the Bible. Next day you get up
and Don't even pick it up. That's us. That's why we don't
make no promises. That's why Aaron said, I can't
talk about their works. I can't talk about their deeds.
Promise that they're going to do better. You know what he did?
He held up that blood sacrifice. There's atonement. Held it up. That's atonement in one, the
censure in the other. Blood and prayers. Blood and
a sweet smelling savor. Going up to God. Huh? And I tell
you, our Lord Jesus does not plead anything about us. He ain't got nothing He can say
good about us. In fact, we ain't got nothing
to say good about ourselves before God. That's why He says that
we have no confidence in the flesh. When we talk about confidence,
we're talking about for God. I've got confidence in everybody
in this building. I've got confidence in you. As
a person. And the things you do, and the
love you show, and the generosity you have, I have confidence in
all of you. But when it comes before God,
I don't have a confidence in you, me, or nobody else but Christ.
Ain't that right? He doesn't plead our works, but
He pleads what He did. What He did. And then let me
show you this. Last thing about Aaron. Aaron
served as the mediator. You know, here's all these people,
14,500, was it 14,700, besides Cora and all the matter of Cora.
These people were dropping like flies, dropping like dust. You
know what Iron Don, he stepped between them and he began to
plead God's mercy for them. And it says there, you know,
when the plague was made, And look what it says in verse 48.
And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague
was stayed. Oh, what did he do? He walked
between them people, the dead over here and the living over
there. And he stood between them. And he said, Death, judgment,
wrath, if you, if you are ever going to If you're ever going
to come, death and judgment, you've got to march over me,
my atonement. You've got to smite God's high
priest. And ignore God's atonement if
you want to destroy me. And destroy God's people. Destroy
the Lord's people. Death and judgment, you've got
to stop right here. Or else you've got to go over the atonement
that I gave. You've got to smite the high priest. to stop me from
them people being saved. And I tell you what, God's wrath
and judgment has a claim on all of us. Oh, it had a claim on
us. God drew out his sword, the sword
of justice, and he drew it out. And oh my, God says, I've got
a smite, I've got a smite. You know what our Lord Jesus
Christ said? You got to walk over me. Justice,
you got to walk over me. Death, you got to walk over me.
Wrath, you got to walk over me. Judgment, you got to walk over
me. And ignore my blood to get to
any of my sheep. So there ain't nobody going to
get to our sheep. Even Satan himself, he can't
get through the blood. The only people knows anything
about the blood the people's had the blood applied, huh? Let me tell you in closing let
me say this Aaron and his atonement Aaron and his sacrifice was the
only hope The people had only hope they had and he not got
in there without atonement God would just kept slaying and slaying
and slaying And here's something, you know God has a people of
vessels of wrath already fitted for destruction. How many people
in this world today is fitted for destruction? Sodom and Gomorrah
was fitted for destruction. The people before the flood was
fitted for destruction. And there's these people, there's
these people on this earth that God said you're vessels of wrath
and I fitted you for destruction. You know why He don't automatically
send destruction on them? because he's long-suffering.
But when his long-suffering is through, that vessel of wrath
is going to be destroyed. Just like Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, and those 250 princes of famous renown. When God sets
out after a man, if they don't have Christ, if he don't have
that blood, if he don't have the atonement, if he don't have
Christ as his only hope, If he don't have Christ as his only
Savior, if he don't have Christ as his only plea before God,
and by he by himself purged our sins. And I tell you everything
about God's got to stop at the foot of Christ for all whom Christ
died. Huh? Death ain't coming, he's
not coming. Life is coming. This body is going to die but
life is coming. Huh? Oh my, there's therefore now
no condemnation that there in Christ. And I tell you God's
judgment stopped with him. God's justice stopped with him. God's wrath stopped with him. The only hope Aaron went in there
by himself. And our Lord Jesus Christ went
in there by himself and obtained eternal redemption for us. Oh,
what a blessed high priest we have. What a blessed high priest
we have, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is made to me, all
I need, all I need. He alone is all my plea, He is
all I need. righteousness and power, holiness
forevermore, my redemption full and sure, He is all I need.