The reading will come in a moment
or two. We'll just have a few introductory
comments, first of all, before we have our reading. But our
reading, when it comes, will be Numbers chapter 17. So you
can be turning to that now if you like. Let me just, as it
were, set the scene for our reading, if I may. The children of Israel,
if you remember, had refused to enter into the land of Canaan. They were fearful of the peoples
who lived there. And in doing so, they were disobedient
to the word of God. they rejected the advice of Caleb
and Joshua who told them that the land was good and fertile
and pleasant and that the Lord would give them strength and
that the people were afraid of them and that they had no need
to fear going in and possessing the land. But of course the children
of Israel listened, hearkened to the ten other spies and they
convinced them that this was not the right course and in unbelief
and faithlessness they turned against Moses and they turned
against God's word. There was a little battle took
place between some of the fiery children of Israel who wanted
to change their mind and go into the land and some of the peoples
of the land came and fought against them and beat the children of
Israel and the people en masse turned their back towards Canaan. and headed once again into the
wilderness. And we learned previously that
they would spend 40 years in the wilderness. I often say 40
years. In fact, they had already spent
a couple of years coming from Egypt to the border of Canaan. They would spend another 38 years
wandering in the wilderness. and it was 40 years in total. But if I say around 40 years
in the wilderness, then I mean that 38 years following their
turning back from Canaan. So close they were of entering
into the promised land. But God brought a curse upon
them and he said that they would all die because of their wickedness. All those who were 20 years of
age and older would die in the wilderness save for Caleb and
Joshua who had been the spies who brought a good report. So
that unhappiness and anger characterised and filled the hearts and the
minds of these people now. and how bleak their lives must
have seemed back into the wilderness, now no longer with that hope
of entering the promised land that had motivated them in their
journey thus far. and obviously impossible to go
back to Egypt as some had thought they might try to do. They had
seen the land of Canaan from afar. They had seen all its fruitfulness,
its prosperity. They were, as it were, within
touching distance of it. But they could not, without faith,
possess it. And now they must wander in the
wilderness until they all died. May God grant us faith to enter
into life with Christ. Because spiritually speaking,
all else is simply wandering in the wilderness world that
we are in until we die. Now this hard-hearted attitude
of the children of Israel The Bible calls it stiff-necked. It's as if they wouldn't turn
their head. They were obstinate and self-willed,
the people. They had neither respect for
God nor for God's representatives, Moses and Aaron. They wouldn't
pay attention when God spoke, not even to bow to his authority
and bend their shoulders to his yoke. this rebellious people,
this rebellious attitude showed itself again as the people challenged
Moses and especially Aaron with respect to God's choice of Aaron
as the high priest and a man called Korah led a revolt and
in chapter 16, we're going to read chapter 17, but in chapter
16, we read how God, as a result of Korah's revolt, slew around
15,000 people of the children of Israel
with plague, with fire, and even with what appears to have been
an earthquake where the ground opened up and swallowed whole
families. We're told that they fell alive
down into the pit. So what a sad and fearful time
this must have been because of the disobedience of the children
of Israel. And then in chapter 17, the chapter
we're going to read together, we find the Lord dealing with
the people in a quite different way. And we can only marvel how
when, as it were, the rod of God's wrath and punishment had
been inflicted with the slaying of 15,000 of the children of
Israel, how he now changes that and another rod, a more wonderful
picture where God is delicate and gentle. is used to guide
the people. So here is a contrast in the
way in which the Lord is dealing with the people. And God instructed
Moses to collect a rod or a stick from all the families of the
tribes of the people. And likely this was just an ordinary
dry walking stick. God had used such sticks before,
I don't know whether you'll remember, but at the time when the children
of Israel were leaving Egypt, at the time before the plagues,
Aaron's rod, when he went in to speak to Pharaoh, Aaron's
rod became a serpent and the rod of Aaron ate and swallowed
up the snakes of Janus and Jambres who were the conjurers or the
magicians of Pharaoh's court. But now Moses calls for every
tribe of the children of Israel to bring a rod and to place the
name of the tribe or the name of their leader on that rod. And all the sticks are placed
before the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat in the tabernacle
where God dwells. And the purpose of God telling
Moses to do that was that he would then determine and give
witness by his actions upon these sticks as to which tribe and
which family would be the high priest to him. So we're going
to read chapter 17. So if you have your Bibles there,
chapter 17 of the book of Numbers says this. And the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and take
of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers.
Of all their princes, according to the house of their fathers
twelve rods, write thou every man's name upon his rod. And thou shalt write Aaron's
name upon the rod of Levi, for one rod shall be for the head
of the house of their fathers. And thou shalt lay them up in
the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony where I
will meet with you. And it shall come to pass that
the man's rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom, and I will make
to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby
they murmur against you. And Moses spake unto the children
of Israel, and every one of their princes gave him a rod apiece,
for each prince one, according to their father's houses, even
twelve rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods. And Moses
laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness.
And it came to pass that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle
of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi
was buddied and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and
yielded almonds. And Moses brought out all the
rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel. And
they looked, and took every man his rod. And the Lord said unto
Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony to be kept
for a token against the rebels. And thou shalt quite take away
their murmurings from me that they die not. And Moses did so
as the Lord commanded him, so did he. And the children of Israel
speak unto Moses saying, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh anything near
unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die. Shall we be consumed
with dying? Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading. I want to leave two lessons from
the passage before us today. The children of Israel, and especially
it would appear the Levites, were envious of Aaron and his
high priesthood. And this man Korah was a Levite
and so it was from amongst the Levites that this rebellion had
first begun. But all the children of Israel
joined in their opposition to Moses and Aaron and ultimately
to God himself. And the Levites thought that
it would be a good idea if lots of high priests were chosen or
if anyone could intercede. for the people and minister for
the people before God. Why should it just be Aaron that
had this privilege? Why should it just be Aaron that
had all these beautiful clothes and was able to enter with this
prominence into the presence of God? But this was not God's way of
doing things. And as we thought about when
Aaron was given this role of high priest, the picture or the
typology that was vested in that. We remind ourselves that Aaron
was a type or a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's
choice of a single, nominated and set apart high priest from
amongst the people was a picture that only the Lord Jesus Christ
could fulfil. He alone could serve all of mankind
as representative and mediator before God. And this is why Aaron
was chosen as the high priest because it would be a picture
of the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why
we preach today, continuing that theme, the uniqueness of Christ. There is only one way of salvation. People want to be like these
Levites or the children of Israel and say, well, let there be lots
of ways of approaching God. Let there be many religions by
which people can go to God. Let there be many methods by
which people can please God. But the Lord says, no, I will
not be approached by sinful men and women. Only one worthy to
stand in my presence will be acceptable. and only the Lord
Jesus Christ is suited to God's holiness and to our need. It isn't a matter of our best
goodness or our best efforts, our sincere intentions or even
our personal faith. that propitiates God's anger
against sin. It is Christ's blood alone that
is acceptable to God and Christ's sacrifice alone that pleases
God. Paul, the apostle in the New
Testament says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, for there is one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And Aaron
was a type and picture of the uniqueness and the acceptability
of Jesus Christ alone. And that, of course, is why the
Lord Jesus Christ could say, I am the way, the truth and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. So this is one lesson that we
can take from this little passage, that there was a uniqueness in
the role of high priest bestowed upon Aaron at God's choice, because
it was a picture of God choosing the Lord Jesus Christ to be that
unique way of approaching him. Christ is the door, Christ is
the way, Christ is the only one by whom men and women, boys and
girls, young people are able to come to a knowledge of the
truth. The second little lesson that
I want to leave with you from this passage is that this rod
that buddied, Aaron's rod that buddied, is a symbol of the grace
and mercy of God towards us. It is a powerful picture. All the other sticks were dry
and dead, but Aaron's rod was alive and fruitful. And this is pretty, this is pretty
amazing. Just think about this for a moment.
It didn't just have buds on it. Here was a stick that had been
chopped down, but still it was flowering. It didn't just have
buds, it had blossom as well. Now, we become used to seeing
in the springtime that the buds come on the branches of trees
and bushes. And then a little while into
the spring, as it gets nearer to summertime, the buds open
out and they leaf and the blossoms come as well. That's the normal
pattern. And then at the end of the summer,
After it has benefited from the warmth and the light, there is
a fruit comes from the flowers and that's where the harvest
is taken. The fruitfulness, whatever it
might be on a particular tree. This rod had buds and blossom
and fruit all together and it appeared in one night. The whole
life cycle of fruitfulness was seen in one stick all at once. So that verse 8 says, behold,
there's that little behold again, it's drawing attention to it.
It says, behold, the rod of Aaron I'm sorry, behold the rod of
Aaron, for the house of Levi was budded and brought forth
buds and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds. The miracle
of Aaron's rod that budded shows us that there is miraculous life
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that all came from just an
ordinary stick that was one of the twelve that were gathered.
If we had had the opportunity to look at the Lord Jesus Christ,
he appeared just like any other man. We really couldn't have
told him apart from any other man. There was nothing in looking
at the Lord to say that he was special in any way. In fact,
Isaiah tells us that there was no beauty in him that we should
desire him. He was not strong like Samson. He was not tall like Saul. He wasn't handsome like David. No one looked at Jesus of Nazareth
and thought that he would make a good king or that he would
make a good messiah or a saviour. But God chose Jesus as both Christ
and King. He chose him as the saviour saying
in Isaiah 42, Christ was just a dry stick from a dry ground. but he brought forth life to
all who trust in him. As God chose Christ, so God's
people also choose Christ. How do you know if you're one
of God's people? Because you choose Christ, you
trust Christ, you believe in him. You trust your life and
your well-being and your soul and your eternal destiny upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. You find complete hope of salvation
in Him. Because you understand that in
the Lord Jesus Christ there is the bud of life and hope. There is the sweet perfume of
blossom and there is the fruit of the peace of God. that encourages our hearts and
our souls. Because of the bud, because of
the blossom, because of the fruit that is always present, we know
that the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ are available to
us, not just in springtime or summertime or harvest time. but
all the year round because it buds and blossoms and fruits
all at once according to the needs of his people at any particular
moment in any particular situation. And one final thought about this. Did you notice that each family
or tribe put their name on their own rod? That was so that no
one could say of Aaron's rod, that's my rod. The ownership
of each rod was evident because the family name was clearly marked
upon it. And here's a lovely thought from
that. Did you know that the Lord Jesus Christ puts his name on
each of his people. He tells us that in the book
of Revelation. He says, I will write upon him
a new name so that Satan can never say you are mine and no
one can ever say we don't belong to Christ if Christ has marked
his name upon us. And the Lord says of each of
his people, I will write upon him my new name. So what happened to Aaron's rod
that buddied? Well, it was kept in the Ark
of the Covenant as a perpetual reminder of God's choice of Christ
as the one true high priest of his people and as the only way
of salvation. And that rod that buddied reminded
the people of all the blessings of spiritual life that come from
God's chosen mediator. And it carried upon it the name
perpetually of a sinner saved by grace. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us. Amen.