Number 16. I want to read the
first three verses to us. This is sort of a continuation
through the book of Numbers that you and I have been studying
on. Last week we looked at Caleb.
This is somewhat of a continuation of that. But let's look here
at Numbers chapter 16 and begin in verse 1. Now Korah, the son of Ashar,
the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram,
the sons of Eliab and On, the sons of Pila, sons of Reuben,
took men, and they rose up before Moses with certain of the children
of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly famous in the congregation,
men of renown. And they gathered themselves
together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye
take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord." Now,
this chapter gives account of a man by the name of Korah, and
he was of the tribe, it tells us here in verse 1, of Levi.
That's the tribe of the priest. And these other two men, Dathan
and Abiram, They were the tribe of Reuben. He was the firstborn.
And they took 250 men with them and their intent was to overthrow
Moses and Aaron and set themselves in their position. Moses, of
course, was the leader of this people. Aaron was the high priest. These men were tempted to take
their positions from them. Now, I'm not concerned this evening
with this ever happening here. I'm not concerned with anybody
trying to rise up and become the pastor instead of myself
and dethrone me. If we've learned anything about
ourselves and our worship, I would be happy to sit down and listen
if somebody else was called of God to be the pastor of this
assembly. I'd happily do that. And I know that you brethren
who teach here would happily sit down and let somebody else
take your place. So we're not after each other's
position, are we? We don't have that problem here,
and we thank God for it. But we want to study this passage
tonight because this has happened before. And it happens now. It happens in the church. There
are these takeovers of churches and men rising up to put themselves
in different positions. It's happened in the past. So
we want to study this tonight to see what has happened and
what can happen when men raise up and try to put themselves
in a position that God has not called them to. I want you to
take your Bibles and hold Numbers chapter 16, but I want you to
look over in Acts chapter 20. The Apostle Paul was very, very
concerned that this very thing would happen when he was dead,
when he was gone. He had watched over closely the
churches of the Lord. He kept them in order. But he
knew when he left that there would be certain men who raised
up and would try to gain the preeminence, just like these men did. the
church of Corinth, all these churches, not of Corinth, but
Ephius. He called the elders together to say goodbye to them,
and they met him. And here in Acts chapter 20 and
verse 25, look at this. Here is his last word to the
men, these pastors of these churches. And now, behold, verse 25, I
know that you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of
God shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record
this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have
not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take
heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God which
he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that
after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not
sparing the flock. Now look in verse 30. Also of
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to
draw away disciples after themselves. Now that's happened a lot of
times. Men rising up, exalting themselves, speaking perverse
things, some of them even heresy, and they do it to make disciples
to themselves. There have been a lot of churches
that have fallen because you take one or two men that have
got in the church, got in the place of authority, and brought
in heresy, and down went the congregation. Brother Laurie
is going to begin a study in 2 Peter chapter 2 about this. when he teaches next time on
false prophets. There was false prophets among
the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. So that is what we want to look
at this evening. And the reason I have chosen Numbers chapter
16, other than we have just come to this chapter, but it shows
us some principles. Some principle ways that men
used to accomplish this end. I want you to turn back over
here and look at this again in Numbers chapter 16. I want to
show you three or four things, mainly here in verse 3. Well,
let's begin in verse 2. This is something that's very
important. First of all, who are these men? They're going
to overthrow Moses. They're going to overthrow Aaron.
But who are these men? That would be good to first of
all consider who they are in verse 2. Look in verse 2. They
rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, two
hundred and fifty, look at this, they were princes of the assembly,
famous in the congregation, men of renown. Now, it's not usually
a nobody, somebody that has no influence. He has no mental abilities. no spiritual abilities, it's
unusual for somebody like that to rise up and do any great harm. It's usually somebody that has
a reputation. It's usually somebody that has
some abilities that he can win people. He can woo people. He
can impress people. That's the kind of people the
devil usually uses. He'll use a nobody, but if he
can find somebody that has some influence, that is, of some renown
and has some respect. That's the person he'll use.
We looked last week at those men, those spies that went to
spy out the land of Canaan, those ten that brought back an evil
report. Brother Wayne was talking about this. You may have noticed
those men were rulers. And the reason the children of
Israel believed them for the most part, believed their evil
report, was because of who they were. They were somebody, they
were rulers. And these men here rose up and
they had such influence in the congregation, they gathered the
congregation against Aaron and against Moses. And it's because
they were men of renown. Now, let me use Shannon, Brother
Shannon, since he's not here tonight, we can talk about him.
But you know, if Shannon, he's just a young convert, he don't
know very much. If he tried to take over and
put himself in a position, it wouldn't work, would it? Nobody
wouldn't listen to him. Why? Well, he's just a young
convert. He don't have a reputation. He's
not able to impress people. But these men were, you see.
And that's the kind of people that usually do great harm within
the professing church. It's these educated men. It's
these men of renown that can impress people. So that's who
they were. That's who they were. We're not so much concerned about
a bunch of nobodies, uneducated, common people like ourselves.
But we have to watch the somebodies, don't we? We have to watch the
Grahams, don't we? We have to watch the Olsteins.
Why? Because they're educated people.
You see them on TV. They write books and books and
books. They're famous. That's the men
that have some authority within the congregations, within the
profession church. Okay, that's the first thing.
Who they were. The method they take. Now this is very important.
This is the method they have to take. And here in verse 3
we find that. They gathered themselves together
against Moses and against Aaron. And they said unto them, now
look at this. Here's their method they're going
to use to overthrow Moses and overthrow Aaron. You take too
much upon you. You take too much authority. You've taken to yourself too
much authority. You're trying to tell us what
to think. You're trying to tell us what
to believe. You're trying to tell us when to go and when not
to go. You're exercising too much authority
over us. But you know Moses was just doing
what God told him to do. I want you to look at verse 28
of this chapter. Look what he said in verse 28
of chapter 16. Here is what Moses said. And Moses said, Hereby
ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works,
for I have not done them of my own mind. It wasn't Moses doing
this out of his own head. He didn't go to deliver the children
of Israel because he thought they shouldn't be delivered.
He didn't do these miracles by his own power and his own merit. The Lord sent him to do this. He was an inspired man, wasn't
he? He was the prophet of the Lord. And look in verse 15. Look here what he said about
himself. He never took advantage of these people. And Moses was
very wrought and said unto the Lord, Respect not thou their
offering. I have not taken one ask from
them, neither have I hurt one of them." Then why were they
trying to undermine His authority? Why were they saying, you've
taken too much authority unto yourself? Because if they're
going to exalt themselves, If they're going to put themselves
in a position that God had not called them to, if they were
going to propagate a lie, what's the first thing they had to do?
They had to undermine Moses' authority. And they even had
to expel the authority. So they said, Moses, you're taking
too much authority to yourself. Had he? If Moses didn't take
the authority, Who would? Somebody has to have absolute
authority, don't they? Somebody's got to rule. If they
don't, who will? The devil will. Is there absolute
authority? Does anybody have absolute authority? Well, don't look here. It ain't
no sense you looking out there. But is there such a thing as
absolute authority? If there's not, then you and
I are in trouble, aren't we? If there's not absolute authority,
then go ahead and let the wise, go ahead and let the mighty of
this world, go ahead and let the rich and famous, go ahead
and let the philosophers and the educated rule over us if
there's no final authority. Expel the authority. Diminish
the authority. And that's what these men were
trying to do. Look here in verses 8 and verse
10. Here was their end in doing this. Look in verse 8. This was
their end. And Moses said unto Korah, Here
I pray you, ye sons of Levi, Seemeth it but a small thing
unto you, That the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation
of Israel to bring you near to Himself and to do the service
of the tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the congregation
to minister unto them? That's a big calling, isn't it?
And He hath brought thee near to Him and all your brethren,
the sons of Levi with thee, and seek you the priesthood also? Is that what you're doing? You're
seeking the priesthood? There was but one lineage of
priests, and that was from Aaron. Aaron's family. These Levites
were just heifers. Now they were seeking the priesthood.
Look down here in verse 12 and verse 13. Here's what the sons
of Simon were seeking. Verse 12, And Moses called Dathan
and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and said, We, and he called them,
and they said, we will not come up. Is it a small thing that
thou hast brought us out of the land that floweth with milk and
honey? What? Floweth with milk and honey? They were slaves down there weren't
they? Floweth with milk and honey. To kill us in the wilderness
except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us. See what they
were seeking? Corrie, the sons of Levi, was
seeking the priesthood. The sons of Reuben were seeking
the authority that Moses had, the civil authority. But to gain
their ends, they first had to diminish Moses' authority. They did the same thing to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Hold number 16 and look with
me over in the New Testament. Look with me over in Luke chapter
20. Look in Luke chapter 20. This is where we get into this
whole business of absolute authority. There's got to be absolute authority.
If there's not absolute authority, then let us do what's right in
our own eyes. Let us live by opinions, personal
convictions, traditions, the commandments of men, if there's
no absolute authority. But there is absolute authority.
And you know what the world has been trying to do. The devil's
behind it all. He's been trying to tell this
world, this religious world, there is no such thing as absolute. You've got these gray areas.
We just don't really know. You know, so we have to seek
and come up with the best opinions that we can find. We don't have
any absolute truths. But we do, don't we? We do. They asked the Lord Jesus the
same thing basically they were asking Moses and Aaron. But look
here in chapter 20 of Luke and look in verse 1. It came to pass,
verse 1, that on one of those days as he, the Lord Jesus Christ,
was teaching in the temple and he preached the gospel, the chief
priest, now look here who they are. These are nobodies. These
are somebody. These are the chief priest and
the scribes and the elders of the people. And they spake unto
him, Tell us, by what authority thou doest these things, and
who is he that gave thee this authority? And he answered and
said unto them, I will ask you one thing, and you answer me.
The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men? And they reasoned
with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will
say, Why didn't you believe him then? They knew he was smart, didn't
they? They'd done had some discussions
and debates with him. They said, we'd better be careful.
And if we say of men, then all the people will stone us. For
they were persuaded that John was a prophet. And the answer
that we cannot tell from whence John's baptism was. And he said,
neither tell I you, but what authority I do these things.
In verse 9, he began, And he began to speak unto them in this
parable, A certain man planted a vineyard, and led it out to
husbandmen, and went into a foreign country for a long time. And
at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that he would
give him of the fruit of the vineyard. But the husbandmen
beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant,
and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him
away empty. And the Lord sent another servant,
the third, and they wounded him also and cast him out. Then said
the Lord of the vineyards, What shall I do? I will send my beloved
son. It may be they will reverence
him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him,
they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir. Come
and let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." We
want the kingdom for ourselves. We want the power for ourselves.
We want the authority. We want the glory for ourselves. Let us kill Him. And that is
what we can have. That was their end. So they cast
Him out of the vineyard and killed Him. What therefore shall the
Lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy
these husbandmen and give the vineyard to others. And when
they heard it, they said, God forbid. And He beheld them and
said, What is this? Then that is written, the stone
which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of
the corner. Whosoever shall fall upon that
stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder." Where do you get your authority? Why
did they ask such a thing? They just wanted to overthrow
him. But to do that, they were going to have to diminish him.
They were going to have to out-argue Him. And when they did that,
then what could they do? They'd take it for themselves.
They'd take the ministry to themselves, the kingdom and glory for themselves.
Where did the Lord Jesus Christ get His authority? Where did He get it? That's a
good question, ain't it? I mean, He wasn't offended with
them asking that question because He answers that question. Listen
to this. In John chapter 8, verse 28,
listen to this. Then said Jesus unto them, When you have lifted
up the Son of Man, then shall you know that I am He, and that
I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, even
so I speak these things." Why did he say what he said? The
Father taught him. The Father taught him. Listen
to John chapter 10 verse 14. Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwells in
me, he does the work." He did all kinds of miracles. Where
did he get his authority for doing it? The Father was working
in him. Listen to John 8.42. Jesus said
unto them, If God were your Father, you would love Me. For I proceeded
and came forth from God, neither came I of Myself, but He sent
Me." Where did His authority come from? He got His authority
from God, His Father. And I tell you this, it was absolute
authority. He never did a thing that was
wrong, contrary to the will of God. He never said a word, never
had a thought. It was contrary to the will and
authority of God. He did everything with the authority
of heaven behind Him. Absolute authority. But to overtake
His ministry, you see, to defeat Him, they had to strip Him, deny
Him, diminish, dispel His authority. But listen to what He says. Here's
His prayer in John 17 too. He is praying to the Father,
and here is what He said, a very familiar scripture to us. Father,
the hour is come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son may also glorify
Thee, as Thou hast given Him power, authority over all flesh,
that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given
Him. Power. over all flesh. I know we'll forget that lesson
you taught on that one time. He's got power over the birds
of the air. He sent ravens to feed Elijah. He's got power over the fish
of the sea. He prepared a whale to swallow up Jonah. He's got
power over all human flesh. When He said power over all flesh,
He doesn't mean just over these members. He's got the power over
the heart, over the affections, over the intellect, over the
will. And when it comes time for Him to call and give life
to one of His little children, one of His elect people, one
of His sheep, He says, I have power to do that. I have that
kind of power. I have that kind of authority.
Now, if you're going to get Him off of His throne, you're going
to have to some way or another diminished his authority. I want
to see anybody try. Here's what the father said to
him. He said, You're my son. Today have I begotten thee. And
then he said right in the same verse, he said this, I have set
my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Rule thou in the midst
of thine enemy. You'll find that in Psalms chapter
2. And Peter got a hold of that and said he's went up into heaven.
He's been received there, and he's seated on the right hand
of God. Angels, authorities, and powers
are made subject unto him. Now, there is one in whom resides
all authority. And the reason I'm saying that,
he has left us this book. And this is his Word. He's exalted
this book over His very name and over His glory. This is His
name. This is His glory. And this is
infallible. It's His Word from Genesis through
Revelation. And when the church gives us
chapter and gives us verse and says, Thus saith the Lord, she
has the authority of heaven behind her. And no men or devils can
diminish this authority. If they can, we're in trouble.
If there's not absolute authority, then poor peons like us are in
trouble. But here's our authority, and
it cannot be diminished. It's the Word. Now, where did Catholicism get
itself in trouble? You know where Catholicism got
itself in trouble way back yonder when it first started? It said there's no such thing
as absolute authority in the Word of God. They said, oh, it
has authority. We're not going to deny its authority.
But it's not the sole authority. We have our traditions. We have
the commandments of men. And these are established also. And when the Pope speaks, there
are times that he speaks and writes infallibly. And then what
did they do? They disrupt the Word of God.
They drop the Bible. And they forbid you to have one.
They burn them. If you want to know what it means
to know God, if you want to know what salvation is, come to us
and we'll tell you. And that's where they got themselves
in trouble. But how did they get that authority? How did they
set themselves up in the place of Jesus Christ? They diminished
the authority of God's Word. You've got too much authority.
You take too much authority to yourself. Oh, do we? Oh, do we? No, we don't, brothers and sisters.
Not when we stand upon the Word of God. We have all authority,
don't we? We have all authority. We do
have, we do have infallible, infallible authority in God's
blessed Word. Now, look back here again at
Numbers, our text. That's the first thing, diminish
their authority. And look here in verse 3. This is sort of strange, and
you and I go through this, the churches went through this very
thing for hundreds and thousands of years, this very thing. Here
in verse 3, look at it again. Right in the middle of this,
they came to Moses and Aaron and said, you take too much authority
upon yourself. And look here now in verse 7.
This is very strange. Here's what Moses said to them.
You put fire in your censers. and put incense in them before
the Lord tomorrow, and it shall be that the man whom the Lord
doth choose, he shall be holy." And look what Moses told them.
You take too much upon you. There's been this fuss going
on for years, hasn't there? This debate. The religious world
especially looks at us Bible-thumpers, they call us, and say, you fellas
say this has got too much authority. You're taking too much upon you.
You're telling us there's just one way to God. You're telling
us you must be born again. You're telling us all these dogmatic
truths. You're taking too much authority
upon you. And what do we say in turn? We look at them and
we say, you're taking too much upon yourselves. You're taking
too much authority to yourselves. You're trusting in your silly
notions. You're trusting in your personal convictions. and your
traditions of men while old Aunt Sadie or Uncle Tom lived? And we've had this battle going
on now for thousands of years. And the world hates us and says,
you've taken too much upon you. And we look at the world and
say, no, you're the ones that's doing that. We've got the authority
of God behind us. What have you got? Paul said,
the world is crucified unto me. He said, I look upon the world,
and it's just like a crucified criminal. I look at them and
say, you fellows are criminals. You're criminals against God.
You're condemned criminals. And the world is crucified to
me, and I'm crucified to the world. They look at me and say,
you're a disturber of our peace. We wish you'd just get out of
this world. We'd kill you if we could. So that's what's happening
between the world and the church. There's a warfare going on here.
We've got the authority. No, we've got the authority.
No, we've got it. No, we've got it. Well, I tell
you, the end is going to tell us about this. There's coming
a day, it's going to tell. God will make manifest who had
the truth and who was standing on the truth of God. The end's
coming. We'll know then. We don't have
to get too disturbed about it, do we? We don't have to get all
upset and shake our fists at them and start getting mad at
them. God will show. God will show. So there's the authority. Something
else right quickly, back in our text, chapter three. There's
two things, two methods here that they used. The one was diminish
the authority, expel the authority. Boy, you do that, we're in trouble.
We've got no authority. But the second thing here is
found also here in verse three. Look at that. This was the second
method that we're going to use. It's right in the middle of verse
three. You take too much upon you, sin, all the congregation
are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore,
then, lift up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord."
Here's another mess that these false prophets use. They tell
people what they want to hear. And, boy, nobody Nobody in the
history of this world has loved to be told that they're holy
as much as these children of Israel did. Man, they loved you
telling that. They thought, boy, don't come
near me because I'm holier than you are. And if you looked at
them praying on the street corner, and you walked up to them and
said, man, you're the most holy person I've ever seen in my life.
God is really impressed with you. Man, they'd just eat that
up. They'd eat that up. And that's what these fellows
said here. The congregation is holy. Every one of them. Just a few minutes later, God's
going to kill 14,700 of them. The pit's going to open up and
swallow a whole bunch of them. Don't tell God they're holy.
You may tell them that, but God has another opinion of these
people, doesn't He? If you tell people, you find
out what people want to hear, and boy, you want to get on their
good side, just tell them, and you'll keep them on their good
side. But if you just open the Bible up, if we want to help
people, open the Bible up and preach what's in here without
trying to feed people's pet peeves and pet doctrines and pet phrases,
if anything is going to help them that way, I'm not concerned
with impressing you folks. If I impress you guys, am I going
to get too big a reputation by impressing you folks? I don't
think so, do you? Ain't no sin for me to try and
do that. I will go ahead and tell you
the truth, haven't I? We're sinful. We are sin-sick,
fallen people. We need a Savior the worst way
in the world. At our best state, we're altogether
vanity. There's no sense of sugarcoating
it or whitewashing it or anything else. We need God's Word plainly
and truly. All right. Last thing. The last thing. Here in verse 4. What should
be our attitude? Look at Moses' attitude when
they set themselves against him, to overthrow him. You know what the Bible says
about Moses? That he was the meekest man in the world. He was the most humble man in
the world. Some of you remember how he resisted
going to deliver the children of Israel. Because he was such
a humble and meek man. Lord, please send somebody else. And look what he did when they
tried to overthrow him. What would you have done if these
fellows tried to overthrow you? He'd have made me mad, wouldn't
you? I'd have got mad. You fellows trying to take my
position? After all, it's God that put me here. But look what
this man did in verse 4. And when Moses heard it, he fell
upon his face. That's all he ever did for these
people was pray for them. Never took a dime from them.
Never stole anything. Never mistreated any of them.
This was the most humble and meek man and he was always making
intercessions for these people. You know, brothers and sisters,
as you and I face the battle with this world and stand up
for the authority of God's Word, let's do it with this attitude.
Let's be humble about it. It behooves us to abase ourselves,
doesn't it? The authority doesn't rest with
us. The success doesn't rest with
us. It rests with our God. So it
behooves us to be humble before the Lord, and even humble before
this world, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. Be like this man. But here's
something else he said in verse 5. Well, look at this. He was
a meek man, and he fell on his face and made intercession for
these people. But look what he said in verse 5. And he spake
unto Korah and to his company, saying, Even tomorrow the Lord
will show who are His. I don't have to defend myself.
I don't have to provoke myself. God is well able to defend His
own self. Tomorrow, the Lord will show. Boy, if we have a mind like that,
we don't have to fight, do we? We don't have to get upset. We'll
leave it to the Lord. The Lord will tell. The Lord
will tell who are His, and He'll say who is holy. And will cause
Him to come near unto Him, even Him whom He hath chosen will
He cause to come near unto Him. Boy, He did, didn't He? If you're
not familiar with this chapter, well, the next day, verse 19,
Korah, 250 princes, all of them came together, and the sons of
Reuben. And look what happened here in
verse 29. If these men die the common death
of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men,
then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing,
and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all
that appertains unto them, and they go down alive unto the pit,
then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.
And it came to pass, as he made an end of speaking all these
words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them,
and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their
houses, and all the men that appertained, unto Korah and all
his goods. They and all that appertained
to them went down alive unto the pit, and the earth closed
upon them, and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round
about them fled at the cry of them, for they said, Lest the
earth swallow us up also. And there came a fire from the
Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered and
sang." I don't have to defend myself,
I don't have to promote myself. If I'm speaking the truth and
the Bible is the Word of God, then He'll defend it Himself. And I can rest there, can't you? He's in control. Now, let me show you how corrupt
flesh is. Let me show you how incurable
flesh is. Here was this congregation. Here
is what Moses said about these men going to die. They were there
when the earth began to open up and all of these men went
down alive into the pit. They fled at their screams. You
can get a picture. You can imagine the scene that
happened. Now, when you think, after seeing
something like this, that this would call for the greatest of
humility and faith and obedience on their part, But I want you
to know what happened in verse 41. Look at this. But on the
morrow, not next month, not next week, but on the morrow, all
the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses
and against Aaron, saying, You have killed the people of the
Lord. You could have made intercessions for them. You could have stopped
God from doing this, but you didn't. You saw a bunch of rascals.
The next day this happened. I'm telling you what, folks,
give up on flesh. It's a rebel. It's full of unbelief. It'll never be any more than
what it is right now. Absolutely sinful. The best you
can do with it is just keep it beat down. Not let it have control. Crucify it. That's the best thing
you can do with it. Look in verse 42. It came
to pass when the congregation was gathered together against
Moses and against Aaron. that they looked towards the
tabernacle of the congregation. And behold, the cloud, God's
glory, covered it. And the glory of the Lord appeared.
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Get you up from among this congregation,
that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell upon their faces.
And aren't you glad that God's not like we are? But if God would
have been like us, He would have killed us long, long ago. None
of us would have lived or died with any hope. None of us would
have died saved at all. God is not only a God of justice,
but you know something? He's a God of mercy. He's a redeeming
God. He's a God of goodness and love. And that's what we're going to
see right quickly in verse 46. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take
a censer. and put fire therein from off
the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation,
and make an atonement for them. For there is wrath going out
from the Lord. The plague is begun." And Aaron
took as Moses commanded him, and here's this old man, a hundred
years old, and he runs into the midst of the congregation, and
behold, the plague had begun among the people, and He put
on incense and made atonement for the people, and He stood
between the dead and the living, and the plague was saved." Now,
that's a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ, isn't it? You hear
this old man, he grabs this century, puts the sweet incense on it,
and he runs and he swings that, and the sweet incense is going
up through the air to heaven. And what happens? The plague
comes right there to him, and it stops. And on his left hand
is heaps upon heaps upon heaps of consumed people, dead by the
plague. But on his right hand, there
is the living. And the only thing that stayed
the plague and kept it from going through him to the living was
that sweet incense, that sweet odor. He was the priest. And
brothers and sisters, the only thing that stopped the plague
The wrath of God from our souls was the sweet offering, the precious
blood, the sufferings and death of the dear and blessed Son of
God. And the only reason you're living
today is because He stopped the plague from reaching your souls. And look just over here. Look
outside. Look at your neighbors. Look
at your family. Look at your loved ones. Look
at the dead people. And look at yourself who are
living. And what's the difference? Who stands between you and hell?
Who stands between you and the wrath of God? What is it? Is it some merit that you have?
Is it some decision that you've made? Is it some prayer that
you've prayed? Who stands between you and everlasting
death? Jesus Christ. the dear and blessed
Lamb of God. And you and I deserve to die
just like these people. We're not one whit better than
the other. But Jesus Christ stands between God's wrath and us. And for God's wrath to get to
you, dear child of God, it's got to come through Him. It will
never happen because He already bore it. He already bore it. God bless you.