We're going to Numbers chapter
35, and we're going to read from verse 9. And the Lord speak unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
When ye become over Jordan into the land of Canaan, Then ye shall
appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the slayer
may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares, or killeth
any person by error. And they shall be unto you cities
for refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer die not, until
he stand before the congregation in judgment. And of these cities
which ye shall give, six cities shall ye have for refuge. Ye shall give three cities on
this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give on the land of
Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge. These six cities shall
be a refuge both for the children of Israel and for the stranger
and for the sojourner among them, that every one that killeth any
person unawares may flee thither. And just on to verse 26. quickly. But if the slayer shall at any
time come without the border of the city of his refuge, whether
he was fled, and the revenger of blood find him without the
borders of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of blood kill
the slayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. because he should have
remained in the city of his refuge until the death of the high priest.
But after that the death of the high priest, the slayer shall
return into the land of his possession. So these things shall be for
a statute of judgment unto you throughout your generations in
all your dwellings. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word, this reading concerning the cities
of refuge. Now, we're moving forward some
chapters in the book of Numbers from the chapters concerning
Balaam to a portion that speaks of six nominated cities that
were set apart and called by God cities of refuge. And the children of Israel were
now on the borders of the promised land. Soon they would enter into
Canaan and begin the process of possessing the land. The thing
is, there were going to be yet many battles to fight and many
challenges to face before they fully possessed that land. And here we see that the Lord
instructs Moses to establish six cities in Canaan when the
children of Israel are fully entered and possess the land. And this was very forward looking. And I think there's a reason
for this. Here was Moses and the children
of Israel still on the borders of Canaan. Still with much to
do in order to enter and possess the land of Canaan. But here
is the Lord telling them what they shall do and where they
will have their cities when they go into the land. So this is
very reassuring and encouraging. It's as though the Lord is saying
to them that although they will have many battles, nevertheless
they will be victorious. and he would have Moses and the
people already planning for peace. It's as though the Lord is saying,
don't let the people become preoccupied with the challenge that is before
them. Tell them to look forward to
the victory that they will have. We might say that a different
way today. We might say, the climb up the
hill might be hard, but the view from the top will be worth it. It was a way of encouraging the
people. Because in all of our lives,
we will have hardships, battles to fight, problems to overcome,
even although we are believers. But the Lord has promised to
be with us through all the hard times. And this is something
that we can lay hold upon. In Christ, our victory is assured
and there is peace beyond that will be worth all the trouble
that we face. We are called to trust the Lord
and whether we are older or whether we are younger, it is our privilege
to trust the Lord for all the challenges that we face. Now
these six cities were Levite cities, and this is interesting
because when Israel possessed the promised land, all the tribes
were given a portion of the land to be their own, except the tribe
of Levi. because the tribe of Levi had
been dedicated to the service of the Lord, and they were the
Lord's ministers who would serve in the temple. And because they
would be dedicated to the service of the Lord amongst the people,
They would be given cities by the other tribes, in fact they
would be given 48 cities in all, and these cities would be distributed
throughout the promised land so that there would be this religious
service throughout the land and the Levites would serve before
the Lord. Here Moses is telling the children
of Israel, God tells Moses and Moses tells the children of Israel
that six of these cities were to be set apart as cities of
refuge. These were cities called Golan,
Ramath, Bossor, they were on the east side of the river Jordan
and Kadesh, Shechem and Hebron on the west side. Now Here's a picture. Because we can see here how the
land of Canaan, that's the sort of green and yellow and grey,
or the green and grey there, stretches up from the bottom
to the top. And these red dots show where
roughly those cities were. I have seen another map where
that bottom right bazaar was slightly displaced so I guess
there's some question about the exact location of some of these
cities. But here we can see how these
cities were distributed. And the idea was that they would
be easily reachable from any part of the country. So that's
why the distribution is the way that it is. And in fact, if you
look closely at that map, you can see that some of the names
of the tribes are also shown there. You can see in the bottom
right, there's Edom and Moab. That was the country's that Balaam
had been speaking on behalf of, trying to curse the Israelites,
but then when they moved into the country, which they had not
yet done at this time, these were the areas that they would
have. So that's just a little picture
to give some indication of where these cities might be. And we can see from this that
these cities were places where the person could flee who had
accidentally killed someone. So the distribution of the cities
was to allow anyone who had accidentally killed someone to flee there
from any part of the country. Indeed, we're told that the accessibility
of these cities was very important and that, elsewhere we're told,
I think it's in the book of Joshua, that the leaders of the cities
must inspect the roads, the approach roads to the cities, and make
sure that the ways Those approach roads were always clear all year
round so that there wasn't to be any slowing up of anyone who
was running for their life and trying to escape from the avenger
of blood. Let me explain that a little
bit. You'll remember that the Lord
had given command in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not
kill. And if anyone did kill another
person, there was a right for the family of the person killed
to take revenge on the killer for the death of their family
member. And that person who could take
revenge was called the Avenger of Blood. However, If the death
was not intentional... or it was not committed through
hatred, then God set up a procedure by which the slayer could run
to one of these cities of refuge and there gain safety and security
from the avenger of blood until his case could be heard. No harm
would come to the person while they remained within the boundary
of the city of refuge. and there the person would be
tried in a court or before the congregation and either convicted
of a crime in which case he would be sentenced to death if the
judges thought that no indeed this had been a premeditated
attack then he would be sentenced to death or else declared not
guilty. And in that case, the person
was free to stay in the city of refuge under the protection
of the city leaders without fear of revenge for any unforeseen
or accidental death that had taken place. Nevertheless, if
the person that had been declared innocent ever left the city,
then he would be abandoning the sanctuary that the city provided. So that they must stay in the
city, in fact they had to stay in the city, we're told at the
end of that chapter, until the death of the high priest. when
they could go back to their homes and they could go back to their
land and possessions. But apart from that, they had
to stay in the city all the time or else they would be vulnerable
to the avenger of death, the family of the person who had
been killed. And once again, in this provision,
in this provision of cities of refuge by God, we can see a type
or a picture of the Lord Jesus. The psalmist tells us the Lord
is our refuge. And in Psalm 9, verse 9, we're
told the Lord also will be our refuge for the oppressed, a refuge
in times of trouble. And now we're always in trouble
in one way or another and we're often oppressed and the psalmist
tells us the Lord will be a refuge for us. And in Psalm 91 verse
2, the psalmist goes on and says, I will say of the Lord, he is
my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. I wonder if the Lord is your
refuge. Maybe you say, I don't need to
run for refuge. I've never killed anyone. Well,
maybe that's so. But don't you know you're killing
yourself? The Bible teaches that we are
murdering our own souls by our evil works and the sins that
we commit. The Bible tells us that we are
all sinners by nature and by the things that we do our sin
brings on us guilt condemnation and ultimately it will bring
us to death and separation from God. We need to be forgiven by
God. We need to have our sins washed
away in the blood of Christ. We need to be made pure, clean
and declared innocent. And for this reason, we all need
Christ as our refuge. The avenger of blood is like
God's holy law. Or maybe I should have said God's
holy law is like the avenger of blood. It requires justice
and it demands judgment. God's law is chasing us. for the sin that we've committed
and we need to flee for refuge to Christ. These cities, these
six cities were places where people gathered for help and
if you feel your guilt and you know you are a sinner, you can
flee to Christ for righteousness and peace and pardon and rest. and he will give you everlasting
life. It is the work of God the Holy
Spirit to gather in God's people by the preaching of the gospel
through conviction of sin. God appointed these cities of
refuge and God has appointed the Lord Jesus Christ as the
only way of salvation for sinners. So I've said that the Lord Jesus
Christ is like a picture of these cities. They being the type,
he being the anti-type. or the fulfilment, the reality
that they point to. But there are some ways, and
I think it's important that we mention this, there are some
ways in which the type is not so suitable, or should I say
again that the anti-type, the real thing, the Lord Jesus, is
better than the picture. There were six cities but the
Lord Jesus Christ is one unique way of salvation. People will
tell you that there are lots of ways to be happy in life and
I'm sure there are but happiness can be short-lived. and true
happiness and true peace, what the Bible calls spiritual peace
and elsewhere calls strong consolation, only comes through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. And again, the Lord Jesus Christ
is better than these cities of refuge because those who went
to the cities of refuge believed that they were innocent of murder. And they went to find safety
from the avenger. But Christ is for guilty sinners. Forgiveness is needed only by
those whom God's law has examined and found guilty. If you don't
believe that you're a sinner, why would you come to Christ?
Why would you go to Christ for forgiveness if you didn't think
that you really were a sinner? So awareness of sin is a spiritual
work. A sense of guilt is part of the
steps or stages on the pathway to grace. The Lord Jesus Christ
says, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, who
are aware of a need, and I will give you rest. Again, Christ
is better than the type because if the slayer was found innocent
of hatred and premeditated murder, he'd still had to stay in the
city until he died or until the high priest died. But in the
Lord Jesus Christ, those who are forgiven are free men and
women and boys and girls. The Bible says we are free indeed
from all condemnation and we have the perfect liberty of the
sons and daughters of God. And let me just say this lastly,
that these cities of refuge provided a place of security, but only
in this world and only in this life. Those who flee to Christ
for refuge are saved for time and for eternity with a never-lasting
salvation. The writer to the Hebrews says,
we have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay
hold upon the hope set before us. That's Hebrews chapter six
and verse 18. The hope set before us is the
hope of eternal life and joy and happiness and glory with
God in heaven. In fleeing for refuge to the
Lord Jesus Christ, men and women, boys and girls will have personal
joy. They will have comfort in trouble.
They will have peace with God. They will know their sins forgiven,
even when the way is tough. May the Lord give us such strong
consolation as we flee to Him. Amen.