Hebrews chapter 9. This will serve as an introduction
to This passage from 1 Samuel 6,
verse 1 of Hebrews 9. Then verily, the first covenant
had also ordinances of a divine service and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made,
the first wherein was the candlestick and the table and the showbread,
which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the
tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all. which had the
golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about
with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's
rod that budded in the tables of the covenant, and over it
was the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot
now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus
ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God. But into the second went the
high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered
for himself and for the errors of the people. Now we're going
to come back to that at the end of this lesson, but I want you
to think about this statement, not without blood. Let's pray together. Lord, we come into your presence
in the name of thy blessed son. And Lord, we ask in his name
that you would be pleased to condescend to bless us for Christ's
sake. and to speak in power from your
word for Christ's sake. And enable us to hear your gospel
for Christ's sake. And Lord, forgive us of our sins
for Christ's sake and deliver us from our sins for Christ's
sake. May his name be exalted and be
with all your people wherever they meet together. Oh Lord,
grant us a word from you for thy son's sake. In his name we
pray, amen. 1 Samuel chapter 6. And the ark of the Lord, that
ark we just read about, the ark of the Lord was in the country
of the Philistines for seven months. And as we know from last
week, seven months wreaking havoc and destruction wherever it was
brought. Their own priest said in verse
six of first Samuel chapter six, wherefore then do you harden
your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts
when he had wrought wonderfully among them? Did they not let
the people go and they departed? He's saying you haven't let him
go because you've hardened your hearts and that's what's wrong
with you. They were familiar with what had taken place in
Israel. Now let's go to verse two. And the Philistines called for
the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the
ark of the Lord? Tell us wherewith we shall send
it to his place. They wanted to send it back to
Israel because of all the things that had taken place. Verse 3,
And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel,
Send it not empty, but in any wise return him a trespass offering. Then you shall be healed, and
it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from
you." Now, they knew something about the God of Israel, and
I think this is interesting. They said to their priests, what
do we do to send it back? Is there anything we should do?
And he said, well, here's what you need to do. You need to send
a trespass offering. Now, this is what I would call
natural religion. Everybody, deep down, knows that
God is. Everybody does. An atheist is
someone who does not want there to be a God. Everybody knows,
deep down, that God is. And everybody has a sense of
God's justice. He's going to punish sin. He's going to reward the righteous.
He's going to punish the wicked. And something needs to be done
about our sins, so they send a trespass offering. Send him
a trespass offering. Everybody knows that God's justice
must be satisfied. It's just natural religion. This
is not saving religion, but it's what people believe naturally.
He needs a trespass offering. Verse four, their natural religion
continues. Then said they, What shall the
trespass offering which we shall return to him? What are we seeing?
And they answered him, five golden emeralds, or hemorrhoids, and
five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the
Philistines, for one plague was on you all and on your lords. Wherefore, you shall make images
of your emeralds and images of your mice that mar the land,
and you shall give glory unto the God of Israel. Peradventure,
he will lighten his hand off of you from off your gods and
off your land." Now, five golden mice and five golden emeralds,
what the land was being destroyed with. We're not given this bit
of information in chapter five, but evidently he'd also sent
a bunch of mice marring the land. Can you imagine how horrible
that would have been? Everybody had hemorrhoids. Everybody had
mice in their homes marring the land. Much people had died because
the ark was there. So we're sending him back this
trespass offering. He says in verse 5, wherefore
you shall make your images of your emirates and images of your
mice that mar the land, and you shall give glory unto the God
of Israel. Peradventure he will lighten
his hand from off you and from off your gods and from off your
lands. Wherefore do you then harden your hearts as the Egyptians
and Pharaoh hardened their hearts when he had wonderfully wrought
wonderfully among them. Did they not let the people go
and they departed? You've been hardening your hearts to let
it stay here for seven months. You should have let it go a long
time ago. Now, I think this is very interesting. God says to
Pharaoh, I've hardened your heart. Here, these people are said to
harden their own heart. Now, all God has to do to harden
my heart is to leave me alone, and I will harden my heart. Can you believe that about your
heart? All God has to do is leave you alone. That's all he's got
to do to harden your heart, just leave you alone, and your heart
will harden against the Lord. And the priest of the Philistine
says, why have you hardened your hearts? That's why they hadn't
let the ark go back to Israel. Now in verse 7, Now therefore
make a new cart and take two milk kind, cows that had calves
and they were milking them and feeding them, mothers who would
be concerned about their calves and they wouldn't want to take
off. That's the significance of this milk kind. on which there
hath come no yoke, they've never experienced a yoke, and tie the
kind to the cart, put the yoke on them, and bring their calves
home from them, and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon
the cart, and put the jewels of gold which you returned him
for a trespassing, trespass offering in a coffer by the side thereof,
and send it that it may go away, and see if it goeth up by the
way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done this great
evil. But if not, we'll know that it's
not his hand that smote us, but it was chance. Bad luck. That's
what we're going to try to find out. Was this bad luck or did
he do it? Now think of the scenario here.
Two milking cows that had never had a yoke on them. Put a yoke
on them, hook them up to the cart, and see which direction
they go. If they go back to Israel, you'll know the Lord did this.
If they don't, and it was impossible, humanly speaking, for two milking
cows to all of a sudden leave their children and go back to
Israel. They'd never been there before.
They'd never had to yoke on, never pulled a cart. But if they go
back to Israel, you know it wasn't bad luck. It was the Lord who's
done this. So let's go on reading, verse
10. And the men did so. And they took two milk kine and
tied them into the cart and shut up their calves at home. And
they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart and the coffer
with the mice of gold and the images of their emeralds. And
the kine took the straight way. And the kind took the straight
way to the way of Beshemesh, and went all along the highway,
lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right or to
the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them unto
the border of Beshemeth. They came right, they did a beeline
to Israel. And they of Beshemeth were reaping
their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes
and saw the ark, and they rejoiced to see it. It was back. They
were so happy. Everything's going to be good now. And the cart
came unto the field of Joshua a Beshamite, and stood there
where there was a great stone. And they claimed the wood of
the cart, and offered the kind of burnt offering unto the Lord.
And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord, and the coffer
that was with it, where the jewels of gold were, and put them on
the great stone. And the men of Beshemoth offered
burnt offerings and sacrifices the same day unto the Lord. They
were so happy, the ark was returned. Verse 16, And the five lords
of the Philistines had seen it. They evidently watched to see
what was going to take place, and they returned to Ekron the
same day. And these are the golden emeralds which the Philistines
returned for a trespass offering unto the Lord, for Ashdod, one
for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron. And
the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities
of the Philistines, belonging to the five lords, both of the
fence cities and of country villages, even under the great stone of
Abel, where they set down the ark of the Lord, which stone
remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beshemite."
Now, the ark is back. Now, this is what I want us to
consider, verse 19. And these are Israelites now. And he, the Lord, smoked the
men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the
Lord. Even he smote of the people 50,000
and threescore and 10 men. He killed 50,070 men. And the people lamented because
the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
And the men of Bethshemesh said, who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God? And to whom shall he go up from
us? And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kerjath,
Jerom, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of
the Lord. Come ye down and fetch it up to you. Now, they don't
want it. Now, what happened? Why did the Lord smite over 50,000
people for simply looking into the ark? Now, in the scriptures,
every time you had a special judgment that took place supernaturally
like this, where just the regular course of death didn't take place,
but something horrible happened. It was always, without any exceptions
to this rule, it was always for a religious sin. I want to bring to your memory
some of these special judgments that came down from God like
this. Do you remember the sons of Korah?
They thought they could do the work of a priest. They weren't
priests. They thought they could offer up incense. They weren't
priests. And they made accusations against Moses. They said, he
takes too much on himself. He thinks he's holier than we
are. He's power mad. He thinks he's got some kind
of special position. And God opened up the ground
and sent them to hell, 250 of them. What about Nadab and Abihu? You remember the story about
them in Leviticus chapter 10? All they did, their lot was to
offer up incense, and all they did was use strange fire. They,
I guess, felt it inconvenient to go to the altar to get the
fire, because the only fire that was acceptable was fire from
off the altar of God. And they said, well, we can use
any old fire. So they lit the incense with fire that didn't
come from the altar, that didn't come from the sacrifice. They
thought we can present this incense without the sacrifice. And fire
came down from heaven and devoured them and killed both of them. They bypassed the Lord Jesus
Christ. They thought our incense could
be accepted apart from the sacrifice of Christ. What about Miriam
and Aaron when they criticized Moses and they say, he thinks
the Lord only speaks through him, which Moses didn't think
that in any way. As a matter of fact, he was the
one who said, I would do God that all the Lord's people were prophets.
He didn't think that, but that's what they accused him of. And
you know what the Lord did? They said, we can offer, we're
prophets too. And the Lord turned Miriam into
a leper. Remember the spies in Numbers
chapter 14, who said regarding the land, it's what God said
it was, but we can't take it. They're too many and too strong
for us. They're too strong. We can't, even with God's help,
we're not going to take this land. And they died of a plague
before the Lord immediately. What about Achan? He kept that
Babylonian garment. That's what it's called, the
garment of Babylon, human righteousness. He kept that and God let Israel
be destroyed. David numbers the people. Remember
that in 2 Samuel 24, when David took upon himself to number the
people and make a census. And God killed 70,000 people
as a result of him doing that. Now what was wrong with him doing
that? I mean, the Bible lists numbers in other places. Well,
the scripture says, anytime you have a census, make sure that
every person is represented by the atonement money. He was numbering
people without reference to the atonement of Christ. He was making
them God's people without the blood of Christ, without the
work of Christ. What about Uzziah, that great
mighty king? He decides, I don't need a priest
to offer incense. The priest warned him when he
walks in the temple. They said, don't do this, Uzziah. This appertaineth
not to thee to offer up incense and prayers without a priest.
He said, no, I'm going to do it. And as soon as he lit the
incense, leprosy covered him, and he had to run out of the
temple. What about Ezra? The ark of God
is on a cart. It hits a rut in the road. It
tilts off. He lifts out his hand to just
steady it, to keep it from falling off the cart. God kills him,
right like that, for touching the ark. Once again, he wasn't
allowed to touch it. Only the priests were. And it
was to be carried with staves. The priests weren't even to touch
it. It was to be carried. It had rings on it. They put
staves through it and move it along. But as soon as he presumed
to touch it, God killed him. I think of Belshazzar, that Babylonian
king. He's having a party. He's having
a good time. They're drinking and having fun
and all kinds of stuff like that. And all of a sudden, he gets
an idea. Let's take the vessels of Jehovah and let's drink our
wine out of them. Now, the Lord was just leaving
him alone when he was doing all this stuff. He'll deal with him
one day in Judgment Day. He was just leaving him alone. But when
he's presumptuous enough to take the vessels of Jehovah and said,
let's drink our wine out of this, All of a sudden that hand appears
and there's writing on the wall. Thou art weighed in the balances
and found wanting. Ananias and Sapphira sell a piece
of land for a certain price. And through deception, they said,
well, we're giving all of what we sold to the Lord. They didn't
have to give any of it. The Lord wouldn't require that.
They didn't have to give 5%, 10%. But they said, we're giving all of
it. But they were lying. They didn't really do it. They
withheld. And God killed them instantly. I think of Herod making
that oration. The people said, it's a God speaking
to us, not a man. And he didn't give God glory.
He didn't say, you're all wrong. No, he didn't give God glory.
God smote him with worms and he died instantly. Now, I'm giving
all these examples of these special judgments of God when he didn't
just let nature take its course the way we're going to die, but
he did something special to kill these people. And every time
it had something to do with a religious sin. Now, those Israelites knew
that the ark was not to be touched. They knew that. God gave special
instructions as to how it was to be transported. It had rings
and the priest would put staves through it and they would carry
it. He was only to be in that place behind the veil. And the
only one who had anything to do with that ark was the high
priest who came in once. And what did he offer? Blood. He wouldn't dare come without
blood. I don't know how many times I've
read these disasters that happen to people in the scriptures,
and I thought, that seems so harsh. I mean, just open up the
ark and look in and he kills 50,000 people? What about those
kids? I think none of those kids that
were making fun of Elisha. Go forth, thou ballhead. He called
forty bears came and slew him. I mean, all these different,
and I think it almost seems harsh and barbaric. Well, that just
shows what a hard heart I have with regard to sin. You see,
sin is such an evil. that I am never to come into
God's presence apart from an understanding that the only way
He can accept me is through the blood of His dear Son. They bypassed the blood. Now, there's only one reason
why God will have anything to do with me by way of favor and
grace, and there's only one reason why He'll have anything to do
with you by way of favor and grace. It's because of the precious
blood of His dear Son. These people came into the ark
to satisfy their curiosity, not with fear and reverence and trembling,
looking only to the blood of Christ. That's the only way they
could be accepted. They came presumptuously. and God killed
50,000 people. What they did was demonstrate
their lack of fear and their lack of reverence. Now here's
what happened in verse 20, after this, and the men of Bethshemesh
said, here was their response after they saw 50,000 people
killed, who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And to whom shall he go up from
us? Now, what a question. Who is
able to stand before this holy Lord God? I mean, you see what
happens when you come presumptuously. Who can stand before this holy
Lord God? Well, turn with me to Psalm 24.
That question is asked. Psalm 24. I can remember reading some of
these Messianic Psalms before I understood the gospel, and
they absolutely frightened me to death. And this is one of
them. When I would read this and I didn't understand what
it was referring to, it would scare me to death. Verse 3. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy
place? They're asking the same question
that the Beshamites did at that time. Who can stand before this
holy Lord God? And look at the answer. He that
hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul
unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, He shall receive the blessing
from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Now, who can stand before this holy Lord God? Only one person. Somebody who has clean hands.
Somebody that's never, ever, not even once sworn deceitfully. Someone who's never done anything
wrong. Someone who has a pure heart.
Well, who's that? What describes one person? The
Lord Jesus Christ. And I repeat, it describes only
one person. The Lord Jesus Christ and those
in Him. They're all one. Now those are
the people who stand before this thrice holy God. And the only, if you're like
me, you have looked at these things in the Old Testament and
thought, that seems so severe. Well, when we think things like
that, it's because we're not realizing what a great evil sin
really is, and how holy God really is, and how unapproachable He
is apart from the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God will not
speak to, nor will He be spoken to apart from the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So that's why this took place. Now remember how that priest
came in? Not without blood. And I hope that's impressed on
our hearts to where we realize the only way at all times we
come into the presence of God is through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now turn with me to Hebrews chapter
12. Hebrews chapter 12. Verse 25. See that you refuse not him that
speaketh, for if they escape not who received him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven. whose voice then shook the earth,
this is talking about the giving of the law, but now he hath promised
saying yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also
heaven. And this word yet once more signifying the removing
of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that
those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Now what can't be shaken? If
the Lord took you and shook you real good, What would last? What would stand? I know the answer to that question,
only what He did. Nothing that's made, only that
which is eternal, that which He did. Wherefore, verse 28,
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have
grace. And my marginal reading says,
let us hold fast to grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. Now, the only way I can serve
God acceptably with reverence, a true reverence for his name
and a fear of his name, godly fear, the only way I can do that
is by grace. Oh, I love the grace of God,
the saving grace of God, the justifying, the electing, the
redeeming, the regenerating the calling, the keeping, the preserving
grace of God. Let us hold to grace. I don't ever want to lose my
sense, and the Israelites did. I don't ever want to lose my
sense of the need of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
only way I can come into God's presence is through the blood
of Christ. And I don't want to be like these
Israelites who thought they could come without blood, without a
priest, without a representative. May the Lord deliver us from
that. Now, I demonstrate the true fear
of God only by holding on to this truth. The way that priest came, not
without blood. The only way I come into his
presence is through the blood. the precious and all-sufficient
Lamb of God.