Numbers chapter 6. If you've been following the
bulletins the last couple of weeks, I've been writing or having my
thoughts on Numbers 6 verses 22 forward. A lot of the churches,
the pastor does the benediction and he reads this. I know the
Lutheran Church, Methodist Church, we did it. But I started looking at Philpott. He's got some wonderful
things to say. And so I thought, well, for the
next couple of weeks, we'll look at each individual one of these
blessings that the Lord has given each of us in Christ. So, let's start reading in Numbers
6 and verse 22. We'll just read to the end of
the chapter. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto
Aaron and unto his son, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the
children of Israel, and say unto them, The Lord bless thee, and
keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine
upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. the Lord lift up His countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I will bless them." So that's, we're
going to look at the Lord bless thee, and the Lord willing next
Sunday keep thee, and so on and so forth. But perhaps the key
to the whole The blessings part is found, which we know this
to be true not only in these verses, but in all of Scripture,
is found in Ephesians 1 and verse 3 where he says, Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places In Christ. That's the foundation of every
blessing that we have. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Christ. In Christ. Hang on to that thought. We'll come back to that. But
I want us to look again as just a note. Verse 24, 25, and 26. He says, the Lord blessed thee.
Verse 25. the Lord make His face to shine
upon thee. And verse 26, the Lord lift up
His countenance. Now, I think by faith we can
see the Trinity or the Godhead here. This is a three-fold wonder
and all the benefits that the believer possesses in Emmanuel.
Listen to what Henry Law says about this. And basically, any
person I read, any commentator and I read, he says, but if there
be the special mercy in the singular address, is there not threefold
mercy in the triple voice? With tender love, Jehovah is
named three times. Blessings are multiplied again,
again, and again. Faith quickly grasps the significance. Three glorious persons form the
glorious Godhead. Doubtless, they are one in undivided
essence, one in coequal majesty, one in the singleness of unchangeable
decree, one in the boundlessness of love, one in the exercise
of might, and one in the accomplishment of plan. One deity is three in
office. But the whole heart of the triune
Jehovah yearns over the redeemed. They all concur to save. They all combine to help. They
all unite to bless. Surely the threefold blessing
sounds this truth. Heed, heed again the heaven-sent
form, the Lord. Jehovah the Father, bless you
and keep you. Again, the Lord, Jehovah the
Son, make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
And again, the Lord, Jehovah the Holy Spirit, lift up His
countenance upon you and give you peace. That, I went down
a rabbit hole. I saw that and I'm like, oh,
I want to get to the Lord, bless me. And then I went, well, look
at those. And I went down a rabbit hole. Anyway, I was blessed by
that. But now let us get back to the
subject at hand, which is verse 24, the Lord bless thee, the
Lord bless thee. And I want to stop the grapes
for what's found in this first phrase and extract the best wine
and to be blessed of God. is like no other, is like no
other. People talk about blessings, and I see it on, you know, lots
of this many times, license plates, and all these merchants and the
store helpers, they have a blessed day, have a blessed day. Well,
they, I don't know what they mean. They mean, you know, everything
goes forward and nothing goes wrong, you know. That's not what
he's talking about. But as the Lord blessed thee,
as I stated in the intro, all blessings flow from God through
Christ Jesus our Lord. It's got to be funneled through
Him. Now, this phrase, the Lord blessed thee, is not a petition
from God. It's not a request or even a
plea. but a high supreme sovereign
declaration. Moses tell Aaron and his sons,
you say this to the people. You don't ask them with their
permission. You don't ask them to put forth
their puny free will and accept it or reject it. No, this is
a supreme, sovereign declaration of what God will do and is doing
on behalf of His dear people. He said to the children of Israel,
which is a type of the elect, it's the church, it's the remnant,
it's the chosen, tell these people, Because no one else on earth
is blessed. They may have things. The Lord sends the rain on the
just and the unjust. They may have a goodly house. They may have cars that don't
have trouble. They may have all those things. But those are physical
things and they are going to perish with the using. These
spiritual blessings are all in Christ. Turn with me to Acts
chapter 3. Acts chapter 3 and verse 26,
the last verse in the chapter. Acts 3 verse 26, Unto you first
God, having raised up His Son, Jesus, sent Him, who? Christ, to bless you. How? In turning away every one of
you from His iniquities or from His sins. That's what it means
to be truly blessed of God. And the only thing I can come
up with when somebody says, bless you, and I haven't said it in
a long time and it sounds smart-alecky, I said, I am. I am. God has graced me. I don't know
if that's the right answer or not. I just say thank you and
move on. But this is what the blessing,
having raised up His Son, sent Him specifically to bless you
in turning from your sin. That's why we want the best for
our children. We want the best education, we
want the best things that money can provide, but all that, it
pales. We want them to understand and
believe Christ through His gospel. This, this, because if this is
had, if this is permitted, if this is done, if we truly are
blessed, all else All else is secondary and it doesn't matter. So that's what we're concerned
with. Him to bless you. He is active in this thing, a
blessing of salvation, redemption, regeneration. We are passive. We are passive. This blessing, Christ said, well,
turn with me to Luke, back to the last chapter of Luke, chapter
24. This blessing, Christ said, as it were, the last words when
He was on earth, the very last thing He said, look at this,
to His people, to His people. Luke chapter 50, and Christ led
them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and
blessed them. And it came to pass, while he
blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. Now that's, this is the word
of God. You just read this. But now I
followed another rabbit hole. So, you know, pardon me. What happens when the Lord blesses
a people? Stay here in Luke and let's see.
It's right here. And it came to pass, verse 51,
while He blessed them, He departed from them and carried them up
into heaven. Look at verse 52. People say they're blessed. They're
talking about their things, their stuff. And they worshipped Him. If you're
blessed of God, you're going to worship Him. Secondly, and
return to Jerusalem with great joy. You're going to have great
joy. In the world, you have tribulation. In the world, you have sorrow.
You want to understand what great joy is? It's the joy of knowing
Christ. It's the joy of worshiping Him.
Thirdly, and we're continually in the temple. Sounds like they
gather together to worship. Sounds like they gather together.
When the doors were open, they were there. And fourthly, and
praising and blessing God. Praising. There's praise. So
we see the results of God blessing his people in his son, worship,
joy, gathering together, and praise. Now we know from Genesis
and many other places, Genesis 32, where Jacob says, I don't
deserve the least of your mercies. We know we don't deserve these
blessings. by ourselves. We do not deserve them. We know
we are totally unworthy to receive such honor and love from our
tender Father. We truly acknowledge all good
gifts, whether they're temporal or spiritual, come from above.
James chapter 1. All riches of His grace He opens
in His bounty and benefits house to usward. There's nothing stayed. There's nothing stayed. The Son,
as it were, He purchased these blessings for us. He is, as a
picture of Joseph, open the storehouses and let the corn of His tender
mercies flow freely, Genesis 40. And such blessings to us
are unimaginable to those who are heavy laden with sin. But
whether we feel it or not, There it is in Numbers chapter 6, the
Lord bless thee. It's not if you feel it, it's
not if you want it or can reject it, the Lord bless thee. It's
a declaration and it is. Well, Christ not only has He
blessed us, but He is taking all things against us out of
the way that we may freely come to Him for life and enjoy these
blessings. We call them religious baggage. We have so many of those things.
He's taken all these things away. He's taken them out. Look at
this. This is what I almost preached
on and I went down a rabbit hole and this is the message you got.
Zephaniah chapter 3. Zephaniah chapter 3 and verse 17. Zephaniah 3 and verse
17. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He will save He will rejoice
over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over
thee with singing." Now, in the middle of that verse, it says,
He will rest in His love. Now look at the margin. The margin
is that word rest is silent. So this is how it could be. This
is how it is in the expanded interpretation. He will rest
in His love. He will be silent because of
His love. He will be silent because of
His love. What does that mean? Listen to Mr. Octavius Winslow,
he's going to say it better than I can. Divine wrath that's against
us is silent because love has hushed it. Divine justice is
silent because love has satisfied it. Sin is silent because love
has condemned it. Satan is silent because love
has vanquished him. God's love has silenced every
voice against us but his own. I thought that in itself could
have been a message, but I, like I said, well I can work this
in to this message here because It is a blessing. It is a blessing
indeed to us. So back to our text. The Lord
bless thee. Now the next thing I saw was
the Lord bless thee. And Joe and I, I talked to Joe and
we talked about this. We were talking about different
things. Thee. Me. The Lord bless me. as an individual person. We read
this text, and if you're born anew, you can say, He blesses
me. But what about your spouse who
believes in the Lord Jesus Christ? He blesses them. And He blesses
them. And He blesses them. The person sitting next to you
can say the same thing. He's blessed me. And He blesses
all His elect bride throughout all time and all ages. He blesses
us with His rich, free, supreme grace. Yes, you and me. The most wicked and ungodly persons
to walk on this earth. And we know that, and it's not
offensive because our hearts through the Holy Spirit tells
us it's so. Which agrees with Romans chapter
5, verse 6-8. Can we ever overdraw these blessings from God's bank
account? Joan, that's what we were talking
about. Throughout all time, every petition, every prayer, Jackie
prays this, and I pray something different. Because I have needs,
and my family, and then Nathan, he hears everybody. He's omnipresent. This is God we're talking about.
The Lord. The Lord bless thee. We can't overdraw. Is His treasury
so puny or under supply that the creature can ever exhaust
its abundance? No. Or to say it biblically,
is His hand shortened that it cannot save? Isaiah 59. Thirdly, so therefore, open your
hands wide. The Bible in Psalms, I believe,
says open your mouth wide. It's like a little chick. Open
it and it just keeps getting fed. Open the hand wide and take
all the sin. The Lord bless thee. Me. We need to be blessed, really,
before we can be a blessing spiritually to anyone else. Jehovah, the
Lord bless thee, the self-existent One, the eternal pre-existent
One. How large is this? Nothing un-given
does it leave. The cup runs over, you can't
put one more drop in. There is no vacancy here, full
to the brim, the Lord bless thee. He speaks and it's done. He wills and it must be so. Remember it is who it is who
sits upon the throne of universal rule. God Almighty, the Lord
bless thee. When does He bless? When does
He bless? Now and forever. Throughout all time which is
and shall be. When we come out are when we
go in, when we're sick or when we're healthy, day or night,
in the cool of the morning or the last of the evening, when
our days come to an end. They don't really come to an
end. The Lord bless thee. Where does the Lord bless His
people? In every place. Home, work, play, in the closet
or in public, here or abroad, the Lord bless thee. You see,
we put parameters on stuff. God is finite. We are infinite. How? How does the Lord bless us? Well,
by ministering unto us for our good and for His glory. That's how He does it. By giving
faith or grace to help in time of need. Thirdly, by steadfastly
looking unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins.
That's how we're blessed. So I close. If you're blessed
of God, through Christ, you're truly blessed indeed. So I encourage
all of us to come to Him. There is no blessing in any other. No real spiritual saving blessing
in any. So come to Him while it is called
today. Bruce, would you close this please? that the blessings of you are
spiritual blessings.