so Numbers chapter 15. The book of Numbers depicts and
typifies the church of God in the wilderness. The church of
God in this world and also the grace of God that fulfills his
purpose, keeps his promise to bring his people to the promised
land. He is faithful in spite of their
disobedience in spite of their murmuring, in spite of their
fear. When we do not believe, scripture
says, to the child of God, when we do not believe, yet he abideth
faithful, he cannot deny himself. We are thankful for that truth.
God abides faithful. What he has promised, he will
do. He will do. There's no doubt
about that. It's throughout scripture. It's
set forth. Though under the old covenant,
those over the age of 20 were to die in the wilderness. Those
over 20 when they came out of Egypt were to die in the wilderness
and never lay eyes on the land of milk and honey. Yet the rest
would see the promised land because God is gracious and God is faithful
to His word. It's important to remember that
there was no difference between those who were over 20 years
old when they left Egypt and those who were under 20. There
is no account that any of the Israelites, according to age,
disobeyed God or murmured against God. They all did. They're all
sinners. They're all sinners. the turning
of many into carrion in the wilderness, while delivering the rest of
the promised land, simply sets forth God as who He is, as He
describes Himself in Isaiah 45, 21, and 22. Look unto Me, and
be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am a just God and
a Savior. A just God and a Savior. He's not a Savior if He's not
just. simple that it got to be just before he's a savior that
principle which was only fully realized in the death of jesus
christ was nonetheless pointed to and pictured and typified
throughout the old testament god is a just god and a savior
in the garden we have the sinful pair adam and eve who sinned
against god what did god do did he kill them they deserved death
no he killed beasts and covered them he shed blood to cover them
in the flood The world was destroyed except for eight people who were
floating on top of that flood in the ark. In Sodom and Gomorrah,
lot was spared. Lot was spared. And all represent
the elect of God dwelling in safety in Jesus Christ. God is
faithful. He is gracious and He is just. This is how God represents Himself
throughout His Word. This passage here that we just
read reveals the kindness as well as the justice of God. This kindness is revealed in
the sacrifices commanded concerning sins committed in ignorance by
the people. They were sins and therefore
worthy of death, but God graciously accepts the death of a substitute
in a lamb or a kid or a bullet. She had blood, a sin offering,
and a burnt offering that is a sweet-smelling savor unto God,
which is always attributed to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary. According to Ephesians 5, it
says that Jesus Christ offered Himself unto God, a sweet-smelling
savor. We know that represents the bath
that was put on the fire and a sweet smelling savor rose up
to heaven which represented the intercessory work of the Lord
Jesus Christ for us in the presence of God Almighty. God knows our
frame. We don't fool Him. God knows
our frame and He remembers that we are dust and that's exactly
what we are. And the death of Christ is provided
for our manifold weaknesses, our manifold frailties. though
our sins must for the most part be seen as willful, and they
are. They are willful sins. There is much that through ignorance
and omission we do against what we know to be right and good.
Through ignorance and omission. Behold the mercy of God and rejoice
in his mercy. For those sins the sacrifice
is made. The sacrifice is made. also for
those who send presumptuously the justice of god is revealed
without mercy verses thirty thirty-one it says and while the children
of israel when they will excuse me but the soul that all uh... that
do it all presumptuously whether he be born in a land or a stranger
of the same repose as the Lord and that soul shall be cut off
from among his people because he has despised the word of the
Lord and broken his commandment and his soul shall utterly be
cut off and iniquity shall be upon him and the example given
of that the biblical actual illustration is that a man who picks up his
sticks on the Sabbath day is going to be stoned to death by
the whole congregation of Israel, he said, to despise the Word
of God, the breaking of the commandment of God. And the punishment for
such sin is that the soul of such shall utterly be cut off
and without mercy, as revealed in the fact that his iniquity
would remain on him. You're in bad shape if your iniquity
is still on you. You're in bad shape. better hope
and pray your iniquity was laid on Jesus Christ two thousand
years ago on Calvary's tree. It's important to notice that
in the matter of sins of ignorance, God refers to them as erring,
how kind, how merciful the language of God. Often we find that the
sins of God's people, the sins of God's elect, those whom God
has chosen from the foundation of the world, He calls them things
like erring and disease and sickness and frailty and those things
do not garner wrath, do they? They don't garner our anger when
somebody's sick. We don't get mad at them. We
feel for them. We pity them. We have sympathy
for them and that's why God uses that language to describe the
sins of his elect. Though they are worthy of death. They are worthy of death. He
calls them Aaron. because I'm not observing the
commandments, and no specific error is mentioned, however,
in these sins of ignorance. However, the sacrifice is offered
and the atonement made is very specific. All sin is paid for
in exactly the same way. The only way, that's by the sin
offering of a substitution, by offering made to God by the High
Priest. In the matter of the sin of presumption,
there is no offering. There is no offering for sin,
and there is no punishment, and the punishment is death. But
also note that this sin is not named as to what it is, or if
there are a number of sins that fall into this category. Only
what this sin reveals is declared. It's a sin of presumption. A
sin of presumption. David said, keep me back from
presumptuous sins. Keep me back from presumptuous
sins. When Peter was talking about the same thing, it's 2
Peter 2 and verse 10, he said, but chiefly them that walk after
the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government, presumptuous
are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. This presumption ultimately has
to do with the attitude of someone toward government or toward authority. It is basically an opposition
to authority and government, therefore it's an opposition
to Christ who has all authority over all
flesh and upon whose shoulder the government rests. That was
the promise made in Isaiah chapter 9 in verse 6. and he is the one
who has been given all authority in heaven and earth to give eternal
life to as many as God has given him. So if you oppose authority,
and our Lord, that's a dwindled down policy here. If you read
the word of God in Romans chapter 13, you'll find that these people
that run our government, these people that are our police officers,
these people that are the magistrates and the judges, they are ordained
of God. And there'll never be a problem
to you if you're a law-abiding citizen. It'll only be a problem
if you break the law, but God has ordained them. He says you
go against them, you go against me. you go against me. And he doesn't say whether it's
a good magistrate or a bad magistrate. Because when Peter wrote about
that, he was under the government of Nero, who was just about as
bad a guy as you could get. But he says pray for it. Obey
it. Obey them that have rule over you. So this sin is seen
as this sin of presumption is an opposition to government. To presume to know better than
God, because God is the governor of all things, to know more than
Christ is an offense of capital consequence. We ourselves who
may have some derived authority as parents or as leaders or as
bosses, even as grown-ups, we bristle when we see someone presuming
to take part in what is not theirs to do so. It bothers us. Or to show disrespect for authority
to the ancients. Those things are mentioned in
scripture for a reason. And our Lord said things are
winding up. God has lifted his hand from the nation. And one
of the things is when children disregard or disrespect the ancients,
the ancients. And that's going on big time
today. Ask some of the teachers that have to deal with youngins
today. Ask some of them. Think then of what wrath is due
to those who presume, and it's a presumption, to know better
than God knows. and prove it by reproaching God,
despising his word and breaking his commandments on purpose,
as if to say, we will not have this God to reign over us. This
becomes of paramount importance by the description of the height
of presumption revealed in verse 32. And while the children of
Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered
sticks on a Sabbath day. Well, what's the big deal about
that? Gathered sticks? Maybe he wanted to make a fire.
Why did he gather sticks? But he did it on the Sabbath
day. Now we have the benefit of the whole Word, the whole
Word of God. We know that the penalty of such
things is death, and we know why. However, these at this time
were not aware of what penalty God had ascribed for picking
up sticks on the Sabbath. They knew that there was an infraction
committed because of all the Sabbaths that are written in
the Word of God, and at feasts there was a prohibition. a distinct
prohibition in all eight sabbaths that are listed in Leviticus
and that is there shall be no servile work done on the sabbath
on the sabbath and we know that Christ is our sabbath our sabbath
and the rest which is what the word sabbath means The rest that
we enter into is not our rest because we've not done anything.
It is God's rest. It's a memorial to God's rest
to enter into the rest that He has made for us. However, only
one holy convocation in the Book of Letters declared death. as
a result of doing the work on the Sabbath day or picking up
a stick on the Sabbath day. That was on the day of atonement.
It's Leviticus chapter 23, verses 26 through 29. On that day, on
the day of atonement, when the high priest went in to the holy
of holies with the blood of the lamb, sprinkling himself and
the altar and the curtains and everything in there, He went
in there wearing the names of the children of Israel on His
breastplate and on the ouches on His garment, representing
those people, not the rest of the world, those people before
God. And on that day, don't do anything. And we know that day points to
the day of the Lord Jesus Christ when He went into the Holy of
Holies, not made with hand, offering His own blood and obtained eternal
redemption for His people. This Sabbath, this Sabbath, not
being the Day of Atonement, therefore no assigned penalty was for picking
up the sticks. Now on the Day of Atonement it
was clear, but evidently this was another one of the eight
Sabbaths, or was the Sabbath day, which was Saturday, and
there was no assigned punishment for picking up sticks on this
day. on this particular Sabbath. So
these men put the man in ward or in custody until they heard
from God what the penalty was to be. So he's in jail for a
little bit. The penalty that God gives is
death. Verse 35 and verse 36, the Lord
said unto Moses, the man shall surely be put to death. Be put
to death. all the congregation shall stone
him with stones without the camp and the congregation brought
him without the camp and stoned him with stones and he died as
the Lord commanded Moses. Remember, these are all true
things that happened, but they alluded to or meant something
else. They talked about something else. And what is being talked about
here is the Sabbath rest that Christ obtained when He finished
the work of salvation for His people. And it's saying to us
to enter into that rest, you best not pick up a stick. You
best not do anything. Because this is the rest that
God has made. This is the rest. This also teaches
us that the work, when you're commanded to rest in the finished
work, is the heart and nature and revelation of what presumption
is. To think, to do, to act in a manner that even suggests that
you have something to do with the salvation of your eternal
soul. To even think that. It's presumptuous. It's picking up a stick on the
Sabbath. That's what it's doing. It's
adding your work to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a sin of presumption and it will end in death. Eternal death and
separation from God. It is no anomaly that God, after
setting forth the penalty of presumptuous sin, immediately
reveals the penalty for picking up a stick on the day of rest. or entering to the rest the proper
punishment for despising the day of atonement the proper punishment
for despising the work of Christ if a person even one who confesses
and professes to believe the Lord Jesus Christ dares to insert
himself into the accomplishment of salvation it's presumptuous
sin and it's worthy of death. It's worthy of death. Finally,
the Lord gives the children a way to remind themselves to obey
the commandments. says in verse 37, the Lord spake to Moses saying,
speak unto the children of Israel and bid them that they make themselves
fringes in the borders of the garments throughout their generations.
They put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue. It
shall be for you a fringe that you may look upon it and remember
all the commandments of the Lord and do them that you may seek
not your own heart and your own eyes after which you used to
go a whoring, that you may remember and do all the commandments and
be holy unto your God I am the Lord your God which brought you
out of the land of Egypt to be your God I am the Lord your God
so our Lord gives the people a way to remember his commandments
now this was under the old covenant and the old covenant had to do
with seeing Sight. The new covenant doesn't have
to do with seeing anything. It has to do with believing what
God has said. We walk by faith and not by sight. But what does this represent?
What does it represent? We have this ribbon, in a sense,
in our hearts. In Jeremiah 31, 33, when he promised
this new covenant, where he would write his laws in the minds and
hearts of his people, and that laws means the word of God. word
of god is often referred to from genesis to revelation as the
law it's all encompassing he said i'll write the laws in their
hearts and in their minds and i will remember their sins no
more so the child of god has this book in his heart now he
might not know all the book he might not have read all the book
he might have just started reading the book but it's already in
his heart what does that mean? that means when the book is read
his heart does not respond by rejecting what he's heard his
heart responds by saying yes that's the truth that's it, how
does he know it's the truth? because he has it already in
his heart remember many years ago later her husband came to
church here after she had been her husband had been going to
every Baptist church on the reservation trying to find something nothing
seemed to satisfy him they were sitting right over there on the
third row Now I preached that morning on the election of God's
grace and the lady actually slapped her husband's leg. That's it. How did she know? How did she know that was it?
She knew it was already in her heart, written in her heart.
But before that, in the covenant of works, the old covenant, the
covenant from Sinai, It had to do with seeing things. Had to
do with seeing things. So God, under that old covenant,
everything had to do with sight. The Lord tells his people to
sew a blue ribbon on the bottom of the garment. The ribbon was
a plaited cord that went through loops at the bottom of the garment
and could actually draw the garment tight around the bottom. They were there for a specific
purpose. He said, when they look at this, they'll know to keep
my commandments. When we look at this, specific
purpose to show that the commandments of God also, because of the use
of the blue cloth, that the commandments of God were from heaven, not
from men. That it came from God and not
from men. They were to keep the Word of God. in their heart and
in their mind. And they did that by wearing
these blue ribbons that they would ever see and be reminded
that their walk, their work, and their raiment was about God
and about eternity, not about themselves. That's why the Lord
said, do that. These women's ribbons would remind
them that they were a separated people, wholly unto God. separated into God who delivered
them out of Egypt which he reminds his people of throughout the
Old Testament remember I'm the one who delivered you out of
Egypt remember that this was a kindness that the Lord did
show this ribbon on the bottom of your garments so when people
look at you they'll see that person knows he's supposed to
obey God that person knows the commandments of God that person
knows the commandments of God come from heaven and they would
see this This is kindness. Kindness. But as all things,
and listen very carefully, as all things that men can see,
they ultimately become the only thing that men want to see. Think about that. What do people
focus on in religion today? things that can be seen. Crosses
on hills, crosses hanging around necks, crosses dangling from
ears, pictures of Wild Bill Hickok that called Jesus Christ, all
those things. Those things. Steeples on top
of churches, obelisks in the middle of courtyards that are
supposed to represent God. These things are seen and when
people see them they think you know, there's a holiness here. There's something tangible I
can lay hold of. I actually told a lady one time,
she was wearing a cross around her neck. She actually asked
me what I thought about her. It was a crucifix, and a crucifix
is a little different than a cross. A cross is just a cross. A crucifix
got the image of a man hanging on that cross. She asked me what
I thought about it. And I said, you know, you could
just wear an electric chair around your neck electric chair or gas chamber
if you figure out how to make one out of metal because that's
what the cross was it was an implement of capital punishment
it was a torture thing a torture thing but people put confidence
in it because they can see it I was watching a business commentator
the other day and she always wears the cross around her neck,
dangling from her neck. Why? Because people see that
and they think something. They come to an opinion about
the person who wears the cross. That's important to people. So
if you can see it, no matter what it is, ultimately it will become the
only thing you see if you don't have Christ. It will become what
you focus on. that's what happened that's what
happened when our lord appeared on the earth years later to start
his 33 years here on earth before he was crucified by the time
we reach the days of our lord on this earth this kind reminder
this blue ribbon that people were still sewing on their garments
had become a means of self-righteous display the pharisees especially
used it to make people know that they were the real Christians,
that they were the real believers in God. They were much better
than others. How did they do that? They sewed
bigger ribbons on their arms. Our Lord said that. They sewed
bigger ribbons. The Pharisees had adopted this
reminder as a reminder of just how well they did in the law-keeping
business. in Matthew chapter 23 and verse
5 our Lord said but all their works all their works they do
to be seen of men they do their works to be seen of men so what
they did in private wasn't anything like what they did in public
in public they'd stand up at the cracker barrel and call everybody
to prayer because they didn't want everybody to know they were
Christian That's what they'd do. Everything they did, they
did so men would see them. Why would you do it so men can
see you? Why would you do it? The only
reason is so it can be remembered and recorded. So people will
know that you're different from somebody else. But you are no
different from anybody else. The best man on earth is worthy
of eternal hell. The best woman on earth is worthy
of eternal hell. Now I'm talking the very best.
The most kind, the most generous, the most philanthropic. There's
no difference between any man and Charles Manson. There's no
difference between any woman and a harlot on 42nd Street in
New York City. There's no difference. But if
you can see something you'll fix your heart and mind upon
it. And so the Pharisees, they broadened their ribbons. They made their ribbons bigger
than anybody else's ribbons so people would say, man, these
must really be holy people. I've heard people talk like that.
He's really a holy man. Why? Because he carries his Bible
like this. Or he wears his clothes a certain
way. Or he walks kind of downcast. He's humble. He must be humble.
These things people see and they attribute honor and they attribute
righteousness to it, but it's self-righteousness which is against
God altogether. Those Pharisees had widened their
ribbons to show, whereas some keep the law, they did it better
and they did it bigger. And the size of their ribbon
was to them proof that their holiness and sanctification and
their love for the law was better than somebody else's. That's
why you see some people wear little teeny diminutive crosses.
And I remember one time a preacher come to a church where I was
preaching. He wore a cross about this big on a silver chain. It was a gold chain. Big thing. I made him mad. I told him, I
said, well, I see you got your Mr. T starter kit. He didn't
like that at all. can anybody really know that
you're a child of God by anything they see in you? Think about it. Anything they
see about you? Well, they see you come to church.
Millions come to church who never have an interest in Jesus Christ.
Our Lord said to those who said, didn't we prophesy in thy name?
Didn't we do wonders in thy name? Didn't we cast out devils in
thy name? He said, I never knew you. Well, they read your Bible. Yeah, people read the Bible.
Bert Reynolds read it. Bert Reynolds said he read it
to find a loophole. Try to find a loophole. Look, think about your life.
Your day-to-day life. Is there anything about you that
proves that you're a child of God? No. Do I know you're a child of God?
No. Do you know I'm a child of God? No. you know if you are
and I know if I am wearing something showing something
as evidence of salvation proves that you probably don't know
anything about Christ that's simple that's simple no principle of the old covenant
can stand the test of faith If it can be seen, it will consummate
in self-righteousness always. It will always consummate in self-righteousness. The believer walks by faith.
What does that mean? Just that. Our Lord said, only
believe. He didn't say, only believe.
He said, only believe. Only believe. Nothing else but
faith. Believe what the Lord Jesus Christ
has said. Believe His Word. Faith believes
what has been spoken. It is subjective. It's not objective. Now, it has an object, Jesus
Christ, but it's subjective. What it knows about Jesus Christ
is not by physical, visual, sensual experience. It's by what God
has said, and that alone. The believer walks by faith and
not by sight, and the believer wholly disowns and disallows
and disavows anything that the world considers to be evidence
of salvation. the only time the word evidence
is used in scripture one time in jeremiah was talking about
courtly matters the other time in the new testament the only
time the word evidence is used in reference to salvation and
is the word faith hebrews chapter eleven verse one faith is the
evidence of what? things not seen the substance
of things hoped for or expected both those things can't see yet
it's the only time evidence is used in scripture that's faith
here's the key if you believe this book if you believe what
God has said about his son if you believe his son for your
salvation alone You won't be picking up a stick. You won't
be saying, I'm gonna enter into, you'll be saying, I'll enter
into that God's rest and I'll not do anything else. In the
matter of salvation, in the matter of salvation, God's elect are
a bunch of do-nothings. They are do-nothings. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. You believe God. If you do, you're
alright. Everything's going to be okay.
Father, bless us to our understanding, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.
Alright.