you the the I invite your attention back
to Numbers chapter 6. I want you to hold your place there.
Turn with me for a moment to Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah. I want you to look at a couple
verses of Scripture. In Isaiah chapter 3, our Lord
gives the account of what happens when He strips the nations of
all things that are valuable to them. and what they will do
in turn. And it reads like reading the
newspaper, if you read it, of what's happening in most of the
nations of this world today. But our Lord said to Isaiah,
the prophet, in light of the fact that everything's coming
apart at the seams in the world, He says in verse 10, Say ye to
the righteous, that it shall be well with him."
Say that. Say that. In the midst of all
the troubles that are going on, in the midst of the depression,
the recession, the unemployment, the bad news in the newspapers,
the horrible political wrangling, the lack of trust on every hand,
the lack of common decency. Say this to the righteous. Say
this, it shall be well with thee. It's going to be alright. Say
that. Our Lord over and over in Scripture,
I just thought I'd look this up. And what really brought it
about, I was listening to two young people talk the other day.
They were talking to each other. One of them said, you know what
I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? The other said, you know
what I'm saying? And I thought, he's really saying
what you said. Do you understand what I'm saying?
You know what I'm saying? I want you to know what I'm saying
this morning. God, throughout Scripture, tells His preachers
to say something. To say this. Here He tells His
preacher to say. To say it. It's going to be alright. Now if God said to say it, you
can count on it. Whatever the situation that comes down the
pike, it's going to be alright. Because God said, say to them.
Say to the righteous, it shall be well with them. Then over
in Isaiah chapter 40, In Isaiah chapter 40, our Lord says, Comfort ye my people,
comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortably to
Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished.
We're not at war. As far as the child of God is,
we're in the millennial peace. Our swords have been beaten down
into plowshares. The lamb does lay down with the
lion as far as the child of God is concerned. Speak ye comfortably,
or speak to the heart of my people. Tell her that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received
double hand of the Lord for all her sins. Tell her that. Don't tell her if she does something
that she can't have that. Don't tell her that if she meets
certain conditions and follows certain rules and regulations,
that it's possible that she might attain to this state. Here's
what you tell her. The war is over. I've taken care
of her sin. I've punished her sin and made
her righteous. You tell her that. You tell her
that. Tell her that her iniquity is
pardoned. It's been put away. Tell her that. That's what it
is to preach the gospel, is to say that. It's not to offer up
some game whereby if you do your part,
God does His. That's not what the gospel is.
It's saying something. is saying an absolute fact. That's
why Paul in Galatians chapter 1 said, if a man preaches any
other gospel than that which I preach, let him be accursed.
God told me to say something, Paul said. To say it over and
over and over again. Look at verse 9 of this same
chapter. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, that preaches the
gospel, get thee up into the high mountain, O Jerusalem, that
bringeth good tidings. Lift up thy voice with strength,
lift it up, be not afraid. Say, Say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God. Say that. Say that. So in this portion of Scripture,
our Lord instructs Moses back in Numbers to speak to Aaron
and his sons, which represented in the Old Testament the priesthood
or the church. and commands Moses to tell them
what to say concerning him blessing the church. In fact, he says,
say this, and by saying this, you will bless God's people. You will bless God's people. So he tells Moses to say something
concerning his blessing. And we are told what to say.
We're not out here venturing around basically those of us
who know Christ, those of us who have pulpit ministries and
those who have general, telling folks about what God has done
for you. We have something to say. God has told us what to
say. And He's told us to say it. He's
told us to say it. How do we bless God's people?
By giving them money. How do we bless God's people?
By lifting up two fingers and doing a genuflection over their
bodies. Is that how we bless people? Now we get the story
of that one Pope who died and later they decided that he was
a heretic. This was many years later. He
was already buried. Been dead for a long time. Wasn't nothing
left but bones in the grave. But they decided that he was
a heretic. So they dug his bones up. And they put him on trial.
This is a true story. Had a trial. Of course, he couldn't
answer any of the questions because he was dead. But they put him
on trial anyway. And what they did in the final
end to show that he was a heretic, they cut off his two blessing
fingers. His fingers of blessing. They
cut them off and put him back in the grave. They said that's
a sign of a heretic. How do I bless God's people? Say this, he said, and you'll
bless God's people. Say this. And this blessing,
as all blessing, is not conditioned upon anything done by the church.
They are not told to say, if you do such and such, then God
will bless you. Now you think, if that is taken
out of the vocabulary of religion today, they'd have to fold up
a whole lot of places. Because everybody said, God helps
those who help themselves. That's not a blessing. If you'll
do this, God will do this for you. That's not a blessing. He
didn't say, say that. He said, say this. Say this. The believers, the preachers
of the gospel, the church, they report it, but they have nothing
to do with it. God has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ, and we're to recount that fact. All our
blessings are conditioned upon God being satisfied and contented
with His people. Tell them that. Thus all our
blessings are conditioned upon Christ and His work for us, all
of them, and we have them all. You're not lacking anything if
you're a child of God today. You may feel that you ain't much,
and you ain't much in yourself, but in God you don't lack anything.
In Christ you have all things. You are complete in Him, saith
the Scripture. And in Him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. What do you lack if you're complete?
You can't be more complete. Complete will not stand for a
superlative adjective to define it. You can't be more complete.
You either are complete or you're not complete. And the Scripture
declares you're complete. Say that. The next time somebody
says there's something left to do, say that! I'm complete in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And these words here in our text
are not presented as an offer or a proffer. This is a pronunciation,
a declaration of the blessing of God. And it's something wonderful
to say. And God says, say it. It is a
declaration of God graciously bestowing upon His church His
very presence. And they are told to say it.
And say it again. Moses, you tell Aaron. You tell
his sons. That's the church. Say this. Say this. And it will bless the
people. This is how I'm going to bless
my people. This blessing is a revelation of God's heart toward His people.
It is a blessing upon the people of God that is the subject of
the church. All the church, according to
Psalm 29, gives glory to God. That's what they do. That's what
they do. They speak of His glory. It is to the priest that the
Lord reveals this blessing and tells them to say it. This blessing is reported through
the Word, the spoken Word of the preached Word of God, our
Gospel. Our Lord instructed the priest
to say this to his people. Just say it. No wonder the world
thinks us foolish because we don't give people anything to
do. We don't require anything of them. We don't make them walk
down an aisle. We don't make them give. We don't make them
attend. We don't do any of those things.
We don't keep records of those stuff. The church doesn't even
bother with that sort of thing. Well, what do you do? We get
together and somebody stands up and says something. Something
that God has told him to say in the Word. The believer is
comforted and blessed with words. It is medicine for the sick so. It is what Spurgeon called a
heavenly cordial whereby we imbibe and become inebriated with the
glory and the wonder of Jesus Christ. Our Lord instructed us to say
We're not to lift a finger and touch the people or confer some
spiritual gift upon them. We just say words. We repeat
words. We say them over and over again.
We give a report. The believer is comforted and
blessed with words. Not just any words, but specific
words that relate to what God has done for us in Christ. The
Spirit of God takes the things of Christ and reveals them unto
the children of God. That's what He does. And it is
by that Spirit who knows the mind of God that dwells within
us that we might understand what God has freely given unto us. That's what we know. That's what
the gospel declares. And this blessing here in this
text is sevenfold. So this is a perfect, flawless
blessing. and must be so because it proceeds
from Him who is perfect, the perfect, flawless God. And the
language teaches us that this is a blessing reported in the
gospel because all things declared are found in the gospel of God's
grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this blessing And speaking
as a child of God, as one of you, I'm going to say this morning
that what I'm going to read to you is going to be a blessing
to you. I'm going to bless you with this.
Well, you can't bless me. Well, I can if I say it right.
If I say what God says. Bless the people with these words,
he said. These blessings are a word of
extreme encouragement. At the time this was spoken,
the church was in the wilderness, in the world, and was continually
the brunt of the hatred of all nations around them. And trials
and tribulations are the order of the day for the child of God,
the way of life for everyone who names the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it's not only given, Paul
said, it's not only given unto you to believe, it's also given
unto you to suffer for His namesake. That's a given also. And if you
are a believer facing the cruelty of this world, the weakness of
the flesh, the onslaught of the old man, this is what God tells
His servants to say to you. Ah, pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
Quit that. Start this. Pray more. Read more. Get right. No. Tell you what God's done. I'll say that. If you're His,
You'll be blessed. If you're His, you'll be blessed. Because that's how it's done.
That's how you're blessed. By saying something. By saying
words. This is what the Lord tells us
to tell each other in times of trouble. Religion would have
us tell about rules and regulations of church covenants, of ecclesiastical
adherence. But our Lord said, say. What
shall we say? Say this. Say this. This blessing is not conditioned
upon our feeling, whether good or bad, our intellect, whether
great or small, our station, whether stable or unstable. No,
the Lord has said to the priests, Say this to My people, and thereby
bless them. Bless them. Oh, we pray to God
to increase our faith to believe it, to lay hold of it and rest
in it. This is ours by grace. Hours
by title, hours by relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. These
are not things to be sought for. They are not things to be admonished.
I'm not admonishing you to be blessed. How do you do that? I'm not admonishing you to do
anything. I'm saying something that if you're a child of God
this morning, it will bless you. And I mean, I ain't saying it's
going to make you run the back of the pews and act like a fool,
but in your heart you'll be blessed because God said, say this, bless
my people this way. These are things possessed by
every believer and we're just to remind them of it. There's
never a time when this is not so. We may forget, God doesn't. In fact, the remembrance of this
is always sweet and full of encouragement. But not one morsel of it is contingent
upon my remembering it. Say this, and bless my people. I am embarrassed and ashamed
by how often I fail to recall the mercies of God, but my embarrassment
and shame does not change the fact that His mercies are new
for me every morning, whether I am ashamed or not.
Whether I remember or not, they are there. Well, you know, if you'd quit
doing this, God bless you. No, He won't. No, He won't. That's not how
God blesses. God blesses freely. That means
you don't have anything to do with it. I know this, that since
the blessing is spoken, I expect I'll be more apt to remember
it as I avail myself to the preaching of the gospel. I know that's
probably true. So listen, believer. Listen. Because I'm going to
say something. I'm going to say something. This is what I'm saying. The
Lord bless thee. What it says. Say this. The Lord
bless thee. Now you find any contingency
in this verse whatsoever and I'll give you a ten dollar bill.
Find any contingency. There is none. any mitigating
circumstance. There is none. This is what I
say to you this morning. The Lord bless you. The Lord
bless you. That's what the Scripture says.
Say this, the Lord, and the word blessed asserts that the Lord
does that which is good for you, gives you that which you cannot
by nature deserve or obtain. Blessings are things of grace.
This word means an intentional and an intensive and a deliberate
act of God. The Lord bless thee. The word
bless is here in the imperfect tense, which means that it is
a continual process. God has intentionally blessed
us and will continue to do so. In Jeremiah 32, verse 40, our
Lord promises, I will not turn away from them to do them good.
I'm not going to turn away from them to do them good. I won't
turn away from them at all. And while I'm turned toward them,
which is always, I'm always going to be doing good to them. This
is my glory. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee. I will make my goodness to pass
before thee. I will be gracious unto whom
I will be gracious, and I will have mercy unto whom I will have
mercy. The Lord bless thee. He has. Secondly, the Lord keep thee. When you hear people quote this
from the pulpit or on TV or something, they say, may the Lord bless
you. No, no, no. No. It doesn't say that in Scripture. It doesn't say to say that. I know it sounds good and gives
people some kind of, well, maybe I'll be blessed. No. You either
are or you ain't. You ain't going to be. You either
are or you ain't. The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. Years ago I had a book by an
author named Francis Havergale. It was entitled, Kept for the
Master's Use. I never did read the book, I don't think, but
I liked the title. I bought it for the title. And
it was also a pretty little book and I had it down on a pretty
little stand and had some glasses on top of it so it looked cool.
But it had a nice title. Kept for the Master's Use. I found early on in my believing
career that I could not keep myself. I found that early on. I found that every effort to
do so was fraught with failure and embarrassment. I still find
that true today. But let me tell you something.
I'm going to bless you now. The Lord keep thee. The Lord
keep thee. And He will. Not going to lose
any whom He has sent to save. He's going to pray for those
God has given him. He's going to keep them. Christ
said, I've kept those that thou hast given to me. 1 Peter 1,
verses 3-5 speaks of God being kept by God until the day of
salvation. This is your blessing. Shores,
now, this moment, the Lord keep thee. Not only that, the Lord
make His face to shine upon thee. This specifically refers to the
blessings of God's continual presence with His people. He'll
never leave you nor forsake you. Read Psalm 139, verses 7 through
18. David says, wherever I go, He's
there. Never suffer His children to beg bread. This also has to
do with a continual enlightenment for the word shine. That is,
the Lord make His face to shine upon thee. And that alludes to
the dawn when the sun breaks forth. And this is the language
of the Word of God. We have a more sure word of prophecy, which
is like the day star springing up in our heart, Peter said.
This is the language of the Word of God. It is the effect of the
Word of God on the hearts of the people. In our greatest hour
of darkness, The Word of God breaks the horizon
like the sun. And God's face shines upon His
people. Shines upon it. "...The entrance
of Thy Word giveth light," David said in Psalm 119, "...and giveth
understanding to the simple." This also clearly declares the
Lord Jesus Christ in His Gospel, in whose face the glory of God
shines. God who called the light out
of darkness, who created the light out of darkness, has created
in us that light of Christ that shines in the face, the glory
of God shining in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
something else. I'm going to say it now. The
Lord be gracious unto thee. The blessing of God is that His
people receive abundantly from Him what they could never deserve.
They have no merit, yet God gives unto them favor upon favor, grace
upon grace. In salvation, from pole to pole,
it is grace and grace alone. And if you're a child of God,
you're blessed with grace. By grace, you're saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works
listed in any mentioned post. Scripture says you're established
by grace. which flows freely from the God
of all grace. The shoutings of Zerubbabel in
the completing of the temple with grace, grace unto it. Grace,
grace unto it. Fifthly, the Lord lift his countenance
upon thee. This is the sweet blessing and
one which would dispel most of the myths of religion that God
is holding the law as a threat over his children or that God's
presence strikes a slavish fear in the hearts of his people?
That's simply not so. The blessing is this, God's countenance. He's lifted up his countenance
upon you. God has done that. A lifted countenance. What does
that mean? It means a smiling face. That's what it means. Not any great theological principle
here. A smiling face. A smiling face. How precious this is in the failing
and faltering believer. The blessing of God is that he
has a smile, and it's upon you. He smiles upon you. Look at the
description that Paul gives to young Timothy. He said, we preach
the gospel of the blessed God, and that word means happy. The
gospel of the happy God. The word blessed means happy.
Paul said, I think myself happy. What does he mean? I'm blessed.
I'm blessed. We preach the glorious gospel
of the happy God, the God that is contented with his people.
Would to God his children would believe that, that we would believe
that. God is contented with his people
because of what Christ has done for them. He's contented with
His people. He's happy. He's happy with Himself. He's happy with His Son. And
He's happy with those whom Christ has saved. He's happy with them. He's caused His countenance to
be lifted upon them. Remember, this is not a conditional
blessing, but an intentional, intensive, and continual blessing. He ever smiles upon His people.
Well, what about when I sin? When? You always sin. If His smile was conditioned
upon you not sinning, you'd never get the smile. In fact, since
we always sin, this smile must be about something other than
our sin. It must be about our standing
with Him in Jesus Christ. You think if you do something
bad, God's going to get you? Most people think that. They
think he's waiting around the corner to thump you when you
do something wrong. That's not true. Dave, if you're
his, he's smiling upon you right now. And ten minutes from now, it'll
still be the same. And a year from now, the day you die, it'll
still be the same. When you see God, it ain't going to be a terror.
You're going to see a smile on his face. Now, I don't know what
that fully means, but I tell you what, it sounds really good.
I like it when people smile. I'd much rather see them smile
than frown. Now, right now, He smiles upon you. He's lifted
up His countenance upon you. You have found grace in His eyes.
You are righteous in His sight. Your sins and nickers He will
remember no more. He smiles upon you. But what
do I have to do to get it? You got it! That's what I'm told
to say to you. You got it! The Lord lift His
countenance up upon you. Also, the Lord give thee peace.
give thee peace. In a world gone mad, this is
a precious blessing. This peace is that which passes
understanding and knowledge, though it is wholly based on
understanding and knowledge. The believer knows that his Lord
holds the reins of this universe firmly in His hands. The believer
knows that no weapon borne against him shall ever prosper. The believer
knows that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them they are called according to His purpose. His soul shall
be in perfect peace whose mind is state only. Scripture says,
The sweetest knowledge is that Christ has made peace with God
for the believer by removing all and every obstacle to peace
with God. He has made peace by the blood
of His cross. He has satisfied justice, consumed the wrath of
God for the believer, and all that is left from God for the
elect is peace. Christ said, My peace I give
you. Not as the world gives. My peace. True peace. Eternal
peace. And I wish I had some of that.
You got it all. According to this, you got it. You say, well, I don't realize
it. Well, whose fault is that? It
ain't God's fault. Because He said, I bless you.
I bless you. I keep you. I cause my face to
shine upon you. I cause my countenance to be
lifted up upon you. I do that. I bless you. I'm gracious
to you. It's not conditioned upon anything
but that God says He does it. Christ has met all the requirements.
And finally, they shall put my name upon the children of Israel.
And I will bless them. I will bless them. I don't only
bless them, I'll continue to continue to bless them. The name
of God is upon you. It's upon you. What does that
mean? It means He's signed His name to the artistry of making
you a vessel of honor and mercy out of that lump of Adamic clay
from which you were taken. You're His trophy. You sit upon
God's mantle as a trophy of His grace. as a mark and a display
of His artistry in taking a useless, sinful piece of clay and turning
it into a vessel of honor and glory. He's put His name upon
you because you're His. It's the day of love, He said
in Ezekiel 16, and thou becamest mine. Thou becamest mine. He's brought you with a price,
and that price is the redemptive blood of His Son. He's put His
name on you because you're His child. We're a son of God and
a daughter of God. So we bear His name. He's put
His name on you because He's married you. That's what He said
in Isaiah 62. You're no longer going to be
called desolate. You're not going to be... You're going to be married. You're going to be married. Jeremiah
23, verse 6, Christ's name is the Lord our
righteousness. The bride's name is the Lord our righteousness.
That's Jeremiah 33, verse 19. He's put His name on you because
He, as the perfectly holy God, identifies with you. Now think
about that for a moment. He identifies with you. God, whose eyes are too pure
to behold evil, before whom the sun, moon, and stars are not
pure in His sight. God, the Immaculate, Perfect,
Holy God identifies with you, Crow. He
said, I'm not ashamed to call Him my brother. That's what God
says about you, Crow. I'm not ashamed to call Him my
brother. Isn't that something? Not ashamed to call you His brother.
Look over Revelation 22 just for a moment. And I'll wind this thing up. We'll read verses 1 through 5.
Pay special attention to verse 4. He showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of
it, on either side of the river, there was a tree of life, which
bared twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit of every
month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of
the nations. There shall be no more curse,
but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and His
servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face and His
name, and His name shall be in their foreheads." They're stamped. There shall be no night there,
no need of candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God
giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and forever. His name's upon you. His name's
upon you. Here's what our Lord told Moses. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise This
is the way. On this wise ye shall bless,
not making a blessing available. It doesn't say that. On this
way ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
so I say to you, children of true Israel, the Lord bless thee. and keep thee. The Lord make
his face 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." I will bless them. You liking anything? You missing
out on anything? Some people got this and other
people don't. Do real Christians have it and just sort of Christians
don't have it? Does strong believers have it and weak believers not
have it? God has blessed you. Flat out. Everybody is the same. Say that
when you get the opportunity. Just say it. Father, bless this
strong understanding, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.