We know that our Lord Jesus Christ is found pretty much on every
page of this book that we hold in our laps. I don't know how many of you
all remember the Where's Waldo books that were out years ago.
The little guy with the, I think it was red and white striped
sweater. He was on every page. You had to search for him pretty
hard. you could eventually find Him. And Christ our Lord is on
every page of this book. But searching for Him won't do
you any good unless the Spirit of God reveals Him to you on
these pages. Christ told the Jews, search
the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me. Now
you have to remember at that time, the only Scriptures they
had were the Old Testament. So Christ told them that you
will find Me throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. They write
of Me. They testify of Me, He said.
And I believe we have one of these places before us this morning
in our text. In this last verse that I read,
Leviticus 25-35, I think we have a picture of Christ
and what He does for His people. And I want to look at this line
by line and word by word. And if thy brother be waxen poor,
and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him.
Yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner, that he may live
with thee. This verse says, if thy brother
be waxen poor. Now, there's many places in the
scripture where our Lord acknowledged that his followers His disciples
were his brothers. Turn over to the book of Matthew
with me. Matthew chapter 12. We're looking at Christ and us being
his brother. Matthew chapter 12, starting
in verse 46, we read this. While he had talked to the people,
behold, his mother, And his brethren stood without desiring to speak
to him. Brethren is another word for brother. Then one said unto
him, behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring
to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto
them that told him, who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand
toward his disciples and said, behold, my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will
of my father, which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister
and mother. Now, here our Lord states that
those who are his brothers are those that do the will of his
father. And we know that by nature that
would eliminate the entire human race. Were it not for the imputed
righteousness on behalf of his loved ones. being in Christ,
being in Him, we at all times do the will of the Father. Because
His will, being God, is always in sync with His Father's will.
Perfect harmony. They are both God. Therefore,
their will is the same. And being adopted into the family
of God, we are the brothers of Christ, the fellow heirs with
Christ our Lord. So we see that we definitely
fit the qualification of being a brother. And this verse says,
if thy brother be waxen poor, now this word waxen is a word
that we don't use much these days. It has many meanings, but
one is that someone is pale, colorless, bloodless, and ghastly
looking like a corpse. What a perfect description of
us spiritually. Then the verse goes on to say,
if thy brother be waxen poor, Now here's a category that every
sinner fits into perfectly. Poor. David wrote extensively
in the Psalms about being poor and about being needy. Those
two things usually go hand in hand. If you're poor, it's going
to stand to reason that there will be some things that you
need that you simply can't afford. It may even include food. But
being poor definitely goes hand in hand with being needy. Many
of us sitting here have experienced those days where you needed something,
but you simply couldn't afford it. But David wrote much, I should
say, about being poor. Now remember, David, when he
wrote these things in the Psalms, was a king. So he definitely
was not referring to anything physically that he needed. Yet
time and again, he wrote of being poor. And when he wrote of that, he
was referring to being poor spiritually. Psalm 35, 19. All my bones shall
say, Lord, who is like unto thee, which delivers the poor from
him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from
him that spoileth him. David here is speaking of the
two mortal enemies of men souls, Satan and sin, both of which
are much too strong for any man or woman to oppose. and to conquer. Psalm 86, 1, Bow down thine ear,
O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. Psalm 40, 17, But
I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art
my help and my deliverer. Make no tearing, O my God. The
Lord does indeed think on His people. As this verse tells us,
He has thought on us from ages past, before there was ever such
a thing as time. But He doesn't just think on
us. Many times you hear the expression, when something goes wrong, you
have our thoughts and prayers. And that's good. But our Lord
does more than think on us. He actually gave Himself to be
our Deliverer, our Redeemer. And He is one who is quick to
hear the cry of those perishing under the load of sin. Psalm
70, verse 5. But I am poor and needy. Make
haste unto me, O God. Thou art my help and my deliverer,
O God. Make no tearing. David here says,
Lord, I need help. And I need it now. Make haste.
Hurry. Hurry. Psalm 109, verse 31 says,
For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor to save him
from him that condemneth his soul. He raises up the poor out
of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill. But this
is all good news, being poor and needy, because there is only
one class of people to whom our Lord was sent, David tells us
over and over in the Psalms. In order to qualify for grace
and mercy from the Lord, you must be poor and needy. But there are many people who
don't see themselves as poor and needy. They see themselves
as having sufficient righteousness to please God. They need no help
from God because they have this thing of pleasing God down to
a science. In their mind, when it comes
to righteousness that is required, their eyes bug out with fatness.
They have everything required to be pleasing to God. They have
this thing down to a science. They're like that rich young
ruler that came to the Lord asking what he needed to do to inherit
eternal life. And the Lord told him the things
that were required. And he said, all these things
have I kept from my youth up. I can check all these boxes.
Is there anything else I need to do? And the Lord told him,
yes, there's one more thing. Sell everything you have and
become poor and needy. And he said he went away sad
because he had many possessions. He was not poor and needy, or
so he thought. But sadly, he did not, at that
time, believe what Paul would one day write to Timothy, how
there is only one exclusive class of people to whom Christ is sent. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ came into the world to
save sinners, sinners who are poor and needy, who are beyond
destitute when it comes to anything that they can offer to a holy
and righteous God. Now when the Spirit begins a
work of grace in the heart of a sinner, the sequence of what
happens we find in 1 Samuel. Turn over there with me. When
God begins a work of mercy in the heart of a sinner, Hannah's
prayer lays out what takes place. 1 Samuel 2. I'll give you a minute
to find it. This is the sequence, starting
in verse 6 of 1 Samuel chapter 2. This is how the Lord deals
with a sinner. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave
and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh
rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up. He raises up the poor out of
the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them
among princes and to make them inherit the thrones of glory
for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he has set
the world upon them. Before the Lord ever makes you
alive, he kills you. Before he ever brings you up,
he not only brings you down to the dust, he puts you spiritually
in a grave. Before he makes rich, he makes
sure that you know you're poor. Before he lifts up, he brings
low. Before he sets you among princes,
he puts you face down in the dunghill. But that's not where he leaves
you. As our God begins to show mercy to one of his chosen, he
strips them of anything that they have, that they think they
have, that would be acceptable to him. He makes you see that
you are completely destitute, poor. And even though it's an unpleasant
journey that leads to salvation, it is a necessary one. Our God
must show us that we are completely helpless. and hopeless in and
of ourselves before He shows us where our hope is deliverance
is to be found in the God-man, Christ Jesus. Now let me say
this, if your experience of coming to Christ was one of easy believism, if you were not convinced that
you were as sure of hell as if you were already there, if there
was no terror in your soul, of God's judgment, I would encourage
you to take a hard look at what you say is your experience of
salvation. Because a road that leads to
the feet of Christ is one of being stripped to the bone spiritually. It's distressing, it's depressing,
but it's in a journey that must be made in order to bring us
to Christ. We go from having an attitude
of that stupid song that used to be out Me and Jesus have a
good thing going to realizing that we have nothing. We become
as Peter. When he walked on the water but
began to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. He didn't look to the other disciples.
He looked to the only one that he knew was able to save him. Lord, he said, save me. And such is the experience of
those who have been shown their dire condition, their poverty
before a holy God. Then and only then will we cry
out to the only one who we are shown can save us, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, save me. Our attitude becomes one as that
leper who came to the Lord and said, Lord, if thou wilt, thou
can make me clean. You're my only hope of not perishing.
If you will, you can save me from your wrath. You've shown
me that I am indeed worthy of condemnation, but Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean. As the words of that song, nothing
in my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling. Lord, I'm
going to stay right here in the dust at your feet. Until you
grant me an assurance, until you speak those words that every
lost sinner needs to hear, I will be thou clean. Neither do I condemn
thee. Go and sin no more. And in our
verse here in our text, it says, if thy brother be waxen poor
and fallen in decay with thee. Now, one meaning of this word
decay is to fall into ruin, to decline from a sound and prosperous
position to rot, which is a perfect description of what happened
to us and our father Adam. We most definitely fell into
ruin from a prosperous condition. Now, this word of decay, this
word decay, I should say, is found only one place in all of
the King James Bible, this verse here in Leviticus that we read. But the description of that decay
is found in many, many other places, just using different
words throughout God's Scriptures. And this verse says, If thy brother
be fallen in decay with thee, thou shalt relieve him. Now,
I thought about this, and I thought if this is speaking of spiritual
decay, which it is, it can't possibly apply to Christ falling
in decay with us. We know that He is, was, and
always shall be the Holy God, the spotless Lamb of God. Except for three hours of His eternal existence when
He wasn't. Those three hours when He hung
between heaven and earth on a Roman cross. when he was made to be
sin, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. This is when he fell in decay
with us, with his brothers. This is when he became, when
he was made to be what we are by nature, sin. And then this verse in our text
here in Leviticus instructs the Jewish nation that if thy brother
be fallen in decay with thee, thou shalt relieve him. This word relieve has many meanings,
but there are four which I feel apply to the child of God. I
want to look at each one for just a minute. The first meaning
of the word relieve, to free one from a burden, to give aid
or help. Now when He died in our stead,
our Lord freed us from the most massive burden that any sinner
can bear, the burden of sin. Once the Spirit of God awakens
us to our guilt that we have before a holy God because of
sin, the burden becomes a crushing weight that will drag us down to hell
if God doesn't help us. But after we've dwelt a while
in that condition, for some it may be hours, for some it may
be years. The Spirit shows us that the
price required as a consequence of our sin has long since been
paid in full by our blessed Redeemer, our blessed Passover Lamb. This
is how our God gives aid. Fear not, I am with thee, nor
be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will still give the aid. The second meaning of relief
to set free from an obligation. Now, an obligation is a legal
requirement that compels one to follow a particular course
of action. And as it pertains to spiritual
matters, this particular course of action is this. Thou shall
keep all my commandments to do them. That is a command from
our God. We are under an obligation to
keep the law perfectly. And yet we know we cannot do
that. We come forth from the womb speaking lies. James told
us that if we offend in one point, we're guilty of the whole law
as if we had broken every single commandment found in God's law.
So we see there's no way that we can fulfill the obligation
that we have to be perfect before a holy God. And we're made to
see that we need a source outside of ourselves to free us from
that obligation. So we relish the promise that
Abraham told Isaac. Son, God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering, that mighty eternal Passover
lamb who's able to free us from our obligation of perfect obedience
to the law of God. And he did that. when he offered
himself once to God, and God delivered him up for us all. When he cried out, it is finished,
he forever fulfilled any obligations that his people had toward God's
holy law. We now have an unencumbered pathway
to approach the God of this universe and to address him as Abba Father.
The third meaning of relief, to free one from oppression by
judicial interposition to free from an unjust and cruel exercise
of power and authority, which is what our Lord did for us when
He freed us from the oppressive power of sin. His death was a
legal transfer of our guilt onto Him. When He died, we died. It says, the soul that sinneth
it shall die. And we know this to be true when
our sin was placed on Christ. He died in our stead by a legal
transfer. Our sin was made his and his
righteousness became ours. And the fourth meaning of relief
to take the place of to be a substitute for. Now, this is the ultimate
expression of giving one relief to take all of the chastisement
that was due because of their crimes to stand in their place
and received their punishment. What does Isaiah tell us? But
he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and by his stripes, we are healed. He was numbered
with the transgressors, and he bare the sins of many and made
intercession for the transgressors. The Scriptures tell us that our
Lord relieves the poor and needy. For the oppression of the poor,
for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord.
I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. Now,
earlier, we looked at how the Lord saves the poor and needy.
He accomplishes it one way, which is described in 2 Corinthians
8-9, for ye know The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor to this end, that
ye through his poverty might be rich. Our Lord Jesus Christ
was sent to relieve only one class of people. Turn over with
me to the book of Luke. The book of Luke, chapter 4.
Our Lord, as I said, was sent to only one class of people. He quotes this verse from Isaiah,
these verses, and describes who it is that He is sent to relieve. Luke, chapter 4, verse 18. The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of the
sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Now, lost sinner,
I would ask you, do you fit this description? Are you poor? Are you brokenhearted? Are you
held captive by sin? Are you blind? Are you bruised?
If so, you fit into the only group of people to whom Christ
was sent to save. Then this verse continues, speaking
of the brother that shall be relieved. It says, Yea, though
he be a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with thee. Stranger
is one who is unknown or one with whom one is not acquainted. Let's look over at Ephesians.
Familiar verses, Ephesians chapter 2. Speaking of God's people being
once upon a time strangers. Ephesians chapter 2 will begin
in verse 11. Wherefore, remember that ye,
being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that
at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world. What a dire, dire
condition. But now in Christ Jesus ye, who
sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man,
so making peace. and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby,
and came and preached peace to you which were far off and to
them which were nigh. For through him, we both have
access to the Father, unto the Spirit, by one Spirit unto the
Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens. with the saints
of God and of the household of God. Paul here explains that there
was once a time when we were all strangers, not strangers
to the Savior. No, he thought upon us from eternity. He loved us before the foundation
of the world. But before we came to know the
Lord in saving faith, we were by nature. We had nothing to
look forward to but his wrath. We were, as the scriptures say,
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. It doesn't say
we were the children of wrath. It says we were by nature the
children of wrath. But we just read that how we
are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints of the household of God. And what do people that share
a household do? They live together. as the last
six words of our text here in Leviticus say, that He may live
with thee. These last six words contain
a most blessed promise. After all that we've already
looked at, how that our Lord has been so gracious and merciful
to us, it is to bring us to this one end. That end is that we
may live with Him eternally, forever. and a bliss that cannot
be imagined by the human mind because we have nothing with
which to compare it. People sometimes use a term to
describe an extremely enjoyable experience. They say it was heaven
on earth. And I know what they mean when
they say such a thing. They're not trying to be blasphemous.
They simply mean that whatever they're referring to was so wonderful
that it almost transcended the most delightful experience that
could be imagined. And in a contrary manner, people
sometimes use the term, it was hell on earth. Hell on earth to describe an
unimaginably horrible experience that plunged men and women into
a suffering that can scarcely be put into words. But again,
were we ever to see into the pit of the dam, we would forever
cease to use such a term. Because we would be aware that
it is grossly inappropriate to describe even the worst suffering
that any human being has ever experienced. What our pastor
used to tell us, anything this side of hell is mercy. And that
sounds like an odd statement, to say that the German concentration
camps were mercy, to say that the unimaginable horrors experienced
in the torture chambers of old were mercy. Yet, it is true. First, because those things were
temporary, where hell is eternal. And second, because as horrifying
as the things were that were suffered in those places, it
pales in comparison to what the damned in hell experience. There is only one instance, one instance in all of human
history where the term hell on earth would be appropriate to
describe the suffering of any human being. It was a three-hour period around
33 A.D. on a hill outside Jerusalem called
Golgotha, where one called Jesus of Nazareth
hung suspended on a Roman cross between a wretched, sinful human
race and a holy, righteous, almighty God. Those three hours were the
only time that hell ever came to earth. Every lost person who ever dies
does not experience the torments of the damned until they leave
this world. But this one called Jesus of
Nazareth truly was the only one who ever experienced hell on
earth. As a wrath of a furious God was poured out upon him without
a single drop of mercy. A suffering that can only be
imagined by the damned in hell because they are right now enduring
it. It occurred to me one day that
the Savior and the damned in hell have something in common. As hard as that is to imagine,
the Savior and the damned in hell have something in common. They both know firsthand what
it is to suffer under the wrath of an angry God. So I would encourage you, dear
Saint, to never diminish the sufferings of our Savior by using
the term hell on earth to ever describe anything except that
which our loving Savior endured. So the end result of all that
our Savior has done for us is this, that we may live with him
forever as described in the last words of this verse here in Leviticus,
singing his praises with pitch perfect voices, beholding the
face who loved us more than we can ever imagine. which resulted
in him giving himself for us. And if thy brother be waxen poor,
which we were, and fallen in decay with thee, which we had,
then shalt thou relieve him, which he did. Yea, though he
be a stranger or a sojourner, which we were, that he may live
with thee, which we shall. That old saying, all's well that
ends well, certainly applies here. We have a future awaiting
us that can scarcely be imagined. And I don't know about you, but
I can't wait to get there.