We're going to take the Word of God and turn to Numbers chapter 16. Numbers and the chapter number 16, and we'll begin our reading at the verse number 41. Numbers chapter 16 and the verse number 41. But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord. And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation, and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation and the Lord speak on to Moses saying get you up from among this congregation that I may consume them as in a moment and they fell on their faces Moses said on to Aaron take a censer and put farther in from off the altar and put on incense and go quickly onto the congregation and make an atonement for them. For there is wrath gone out from the Lord, the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation and behold, the plague was begun among the people. And he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living and the plague was stayed. Now they that died in the plague were 14,700, beside them that died about the matter of Korah. And Aaron returned on to Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the plague was stayed. Amen, and may God bless the public reading of His precious Word. Let's just unite briefly for a word of prayer together. Let's seek the Lord together, and you pray in your home that the Lord will bless even as the Word of God is preached. Our Heavenly Father, we come around Thou Thy Word, ever thankful for this means of grace. the public preaching of the Word of God. Lord, how much we have taken for granted. We confess it as so. How our souls would delight to have a congregation here in the church building before us. Lord, such is not the case today. Lord, we pray that wherever people are found, that thy blessing will be upon the preaching of thy Word. Take away, O God, the Irregularity of the meeting, the strangeness of it. Lord, we pray that thou will give just help now in the declaration of thy word, and may thy blessing and thy presence abide with us. Lord, come and fill me with thy spirit, and may, O God, this word be a blessing today, for we offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious and worthy name. Amen and amen. I don't need to tell you that we are living in extraordinary times within our nation and within our world. However, these days are not to be seen as unique days, pandemics, pestilences, plagues have been part and parcel of world history since the day that Adam, man's representative in the Garden of Eden, plunged the human race into sin and its accompanying misery. I was doing a little bit of research for this message and I found that plagues and pandemics have ravaged humanity throughout its existence, often changing the course of human history. For example, around 430 BC, not long after a war between Athens and Sparta began, an epidemic ravaged the people of Athens that lasted for five years. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 100,000 people. One Greek historian wrote that people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts such as the throat or tongue becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and odorous breath. The Black Death between the years of 1346 and 1353 travelled from Asia to Europe leaving complete devastation in its wake. Some estimates suggest that the Black Plague wiped out over half of Europe's population during those years. Then we have the Great Plague of London occurring between the years of 1665 and 1666. By the time that the plague had ended, 100,000 people, including 15% of London's population, had been taken and death. The Bible, a book of history, records for us a number of plagues within its sacred pages, and we have read one such account today. Today I want us to consider this event in Israel's history and see what lessons we can learn from a saint's response to a plague. And that's what I have entitled my message this afternoon, A Saint's Response to a Plague. a plague. Now let me highlight and let me set the background to what we have before us from verse 41 onwards. Within this chapter God has already judged Korah, Dathan and Abimaram and 250 princes of the assembly of Israel for their rebellion against Moses and against Aaron. They had said that Aaron and Moses had taken to themselves too much within the congregation, and so they were rebelling against God's leadership. The earth had opened before the children of Israel, and all that pertained to the rebellion were swallowed up and consumed with fire. Now you would have thought that after seeing such judgment, after seeing God's consuming anger and wrath against sin, that the children of Israel would have repented of their sin and turned to the Lord again. However, the very next morning we find the congregation of the children of Israel doing what they did best, murmuring, complaining, and griping. In the verse number 41 we're told that they murmured against Moses and Aaron saying, ye have killed the people of the Lord. Murmuring against such God commissioned, God ordained and God anointed men resulted in God then sending a plague of judgment into the midst of the congregation by the end of which 14,700 Israelites lie dead on the desert sand. However in the midst of this pandemic, in the midst of this plague, in the midst of this spreading death, God found a man. God found a man in the person of Aaron the high priest who was willing to put his life at risk in order that he might stand between the dead and between the living. There are just two matters that I want to address you upon today with regard to all that Aaron did here in the midst of a plague and what we as the saints of God ought to be doing in such similar days as the plague of COVID-19. The pestilence of this coronavirus strain is sweeping through our nation and through our own country at present. The first thing that Aaron did in days of plague, he firstly resorted to God. He firstly resorted to God. The appearing of God's glory in the form of a cloud upon the tabernacle indicated to Moses and to Aaron that God had come down to dwell among them as a people again. It is most likely that the visible representation of God's presence, this cloud, had lifted and dispersed at the rebellion of these individuals. But now the glory has returned, the cloud has come back again, and favor is being shown to these servants of the Lord. On seeing the returning glory, we're told in the verse number 43 that Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation. That detail informs us that although there was a great need among the people, because verse 46 Moses declares that wrath had gone out from the Lord and the plague had begun, and yet though there was a great need among the people, though there needed to be some kind of intervention on behalf of these people, yet despite there being a great need among them, the first need, the primary need, was for Aaron and Moses to go to God. That was the greatest need, for God's servants to go to God. For these men who knew God, who loved God, men who were men of prayer, men who were men of faith, their first need, the primary need, was to go to God, to resort to God. Before going to the people, there had to be first a going. to God. It is not that Aaron, as it were, runs quickly into the midst of the congregation before ever meeting with God, before ever resorting to God, before ever receiving counsel at the mouth of God. No, he doesn't do that. First and foremost, he recognizes, I must get to God. I must get to God. What a lesson for us in these days, brethren and Yes, the plague, the pestilence of COVID-19 has begun among us. In the province, there's no doubt about that. But I want to remind you that a greater plague has infected our fellow countrymen and women since the dawn of human history. It is the plague of sin. And what devastating results that plague has brought, results far greater Yes, and results far more reaching than COVID-19. Because whilst COVID-19 has the potential of bringing the body into a state of death, the plague of sin will destroy both body and soul in hell. And so before we go to face those inflict it with sin's plague. We need to do what Moses and Aaron do here in Numbers chapter 16. We need to take ourselves off to God in prayer. We need to resort to God in these days. We need to, as it were, rededicate our lives onto God. We need to seek God again. We need to cry to God. We need to seek His mercy, seek His pardon for our sins. Oh, brethren and sisters, before going out and reaching the world, after this has come to pass, and we will go again to evangelize, these are days when we are to resort to God. That's the primary thing that we ought to be doing. We ought to be seeking God in these days. Now I want you to notice two things that took place when God's servants resorted here to the tabernacle of the congregation. In the first place, there was separation. Separation. Moses and Aaron took here a separatist position. They take themselves to a place outside the camp when the plague had broke forth inside the camp. These men wanted no part in the rebellion of the people and so they separate themselves onto God. They come out of the camp to a place outside the gate. They take up the separatist position. I tell you that if we want to be useful for God in these times, then the church of Jesus Christ needs to rediscover the separatist position. There needs to be a rediscovery of the separatist position. Not for the sake of being different, but because that's the position that Jesus Christ took. I read there in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 12 and 13, Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. And so in these days, it is the responsibility of every servant of God to call his people, his congregation, the people of God, wherever they be found in this world, to again adopt the separatist position. Separate it on to the gospel. Separate it from the world. Separate it on to Christ. I tell you the world has come into the church of Jesus Christ and we are suffering and we are experiencing divine displeasure. And so we ought to take the separatist position. What part has the child of God with the politics of this world? What part is the child of God with the pleasures of this world? What part is the child of God with the passing? fashion of this world. What part has the child of God with the poisoned ecumenicalism of the world? The child of God has no part. And it's about time that God's people started to live lives of separation as our forefathers did. Ecclesiastical separation, coming out from among them and being separate. Separate from those who are involved in ecumenicalism, involved in their friendliness with the Church of Rome, it is a time to separate onto the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, ecclesiastical separation, yes, but also personal separation. Mixing worldly methodology. with the sanctity of biblical worship has been the blight of our country. It's the blight of our country. One person said the church did its most for the world when it was most unlike the world. And today, if ever there was a day We need a church purified and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. We need a church cleansed from all of its worldliness in order to meet the need of this hour. This is a day when all playing in church ends. The plague has begun. Death, the tidal wave of death may sweep into our nation and thousands may be taken out into God's eternity. These are not days for playing church child of God. These are days when we need to take the separatist position. We need to be purified. A church purified by the Holy Ghost. Can I say that that purifying begins with me? And it begins with you, child of God. Personal separation from sin in the world will lead, I believe, then to corporative separation And so in these solemn and in these sobering days, let me encourage self-examination to be taking place in all of our lives. Yes, it's all well and good bringing comforting messages, and I believe the child of God and the minister and the pastor, he needs to do that. But these are days when there needs to be the cry going out to the church of Jesus Christ to return. Return. Thou hast forsaken thy God." A day when there needs to be a separation again. A day whenever you, as an individual Christian, come before God and honestly ask Him, am I living a separatist life? Or has the spirit of this age taken over my heart and life? Oh, that these days there would be a fresh separation from the world's sinful principles, the world's sinful spirit, the world's sinful customs, and the world's sinful practices. And so, in resorting to God, there was separation. But in Aaron and Moses' separation or resorting to God, there was a second thing that took place when they resorted to the tabernacle of the congregation, and that was supplication. Separation and supplication. Note the position taken up by these men when God commanded them in verse 45, to get you up from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment. Note the position that they take up. It tells us, and they fell upon their faces. Now this position that Moses and Aaron had taken up here was a position that they had adopted several times before. In Numbers chapter 14, in the verse number five, if you want to, At turn there we read these words, "...and Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel." Again, this is set in the context of the children of Israel murmuring against Moses and against Aaron. And so they're complaining, and what does Moses and Aaron do? They take the matter to God in prayer. Notice in the chapter there, chapter 16, and the verse number 22, this position, and they fell upon their faces and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with the congregation? Here we have these individuals, Moses and Aaron, and again, they're before their faces, and what are they doing? They're praying, they're seeking God, and they're getting answers to their prayers. Verse 23, and the Lord speak unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, saying, get you up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abimram, and so it goes on, but here are men, who have taken up this position. And now, in the verse 45, we find them again before their face, before the face of God. We find them, notice what it says, and they fell upon their faces. That position is a position of humility. Here are men, and they're humbling themselves before God, and they're praying. that God would show them mercy in the midst of wrath. Brother, sister, prayer is the answer, the only answer to all that is befalling us. And therefore the officers of Presbytery have made this afternoon a time when we as a denomination would adopt the position that Moses and Aaron took up, that we would be before God on our faces, humbling ourselves and praying. Let me read a little off the statement that they issued on Monday past the 23rd of March. As moderator, deputy moderator and clerk of the General Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, we recognize in the light of Scripture that Almighty God, in His displeasure with us for our willful transgression of His holy law, has, by means of the coronavirus pandemic, sovereignly and solemnly sent forth a call to our hearts to seek Him. Therefore, we hereby issue a plea that the Lord's people in our free Presbyterian churches give themselves to special prayer to repent before Him of our sins against Him, to plead for His mercy in these present days of national and international crisis, to cry to Him to graciously give revival to His church and a spiritual awakening among the lost, and that He would mercifully reverse this pandemic. And so what we, and what they have suggested is between 2 and 4 p.m. today in our homes and with our families, we give ourselves to special prayer. Let me ask you, will you take this call to prayer to heart? These are days when prayer ought to be ascending from hearts ascending from hearts of those who know who to pray to, because we're not praying to Mary, and we're not praying to the angels, and we're not praying to the dead saints. We're not praying to some dead idol or false god, but we're praying to the living God, the God of all flesh. It is Him that we're seeking. Not only do we know who to pray to, but thank God we know how to pray. For the Spirit helpeth our infirmities. And I say that it's all well and good having Facebook posts and online daily devotionals and such of their place. I'm not decrying it. And I know that many are being blessed by such things, but can I say we ought to be giving ourselves to prayer? To prayer. 2 Chronicles 7 verse 14, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. May God, in answer to prayer, show us mercy and spare us and our people from what we justly deserve. Having firstly resorted to God, the second thing that Aaron did that we as saints of God ought to do in days of plague was that he ran to the need. He resorted to God, and then he ran to the need. having spent time before God in prayer Moses gives Aaron clear concise instructions as what he ought to do look at the verse 46 to the verse 48 and Moses said unto Aaron take a censer and put farther in from off the altar and and put on incense and go quickly on to the congregation and make an atonement for them for there is wrath gone out from the Lord the plague has begun and Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation and behold the plague was begun among the people and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people and he stood between the dead and the living and the plague was stayed. I want you to notice a number of things in relation to Aaron running to the need. You see what Aaron did When he ran to the knee this day, it was firstly discerning. It was discerning. Aaron knew that death was spreading throughout the congregation. He was aware that something had to be done. He discerned very quickly that a people around him were perishing. They were perishing. How quickly we forget that basic fact as Christians. The people that we live with, the people that we school with, the people that we work with, The people who live next door to us, across the street from us, down the lane from us, are perishing. They're perishing. They're perishing in their sin. I believe that this pandemic of COVID-19 has brought that very fact to the forefront of our minds. Scientists and politicians are warning us that thousands could be taken in death by this unseen enemy. The call to every Christian in these days is to be discerning, to awake to the reality that we live among a people who are perishing in their sin and who need to hear the gospel. The plague of sin has begun. And so, Christian, let me ask you, Are you being bold in your witnessing for Jesus Christ in these days to those who are perishing? Are you speaking to loved ones, to friends, to work colleagues, to neighbors about their need of Christ and the peace that He alone can give in days of trouble and storm? George Bernard Shaw was certainly no theologian, but he said this, the worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. Brother, sister, are you indifferent to the lost, to the perishing today? Leonard Ravenhill wrote the following challenging lines. Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned? Perishing. they were dying, and Aaron discerned it. I wonder if you're not a Christian today, are you aware that you're perishing? Sinner, are you aware that you are perishing in your sin? Are you acquainted with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, who said there in Luke chapter 13 verse 3, that except you repent, ye shall all likewise perishing. Sinner, are you discerning enough to know that you are unconverted today? Are you discerning enough to know that you have never been reconciled to God? Are you discerning to know that if death should come in these days, that you're unprepared, you're not saved, you have no saving interest in Jesus Christ, and that you would be lost, and lost forever in hell? Sinner, are you discerning enough to know that? If so, Let me encourage you to fly to Christ. Come to the Savior. Call upon him for salvation. Repent of your sin. Believe the gospel and he will save you. He will save you now. Oh, to be discerning enough to know that you're not right with God. What Aaron did, it was discerning, but secondly, it was daring. It was daring. Self-preservation was not in the mind of this 100-year-old man. a plague had already begun and yet knowing that Aaron now makes a daring dash into the place of danger and death in order to see the plague stayed notice the position that he takes up he takes up his position in the midst verse 47 verse 48 in the midst of the congregation notice where he takes his position he takes a position between the dead and the living. Here's a man who loved not his life unto the death. A man willing to risk, to risk his own life in order to see the plague stayed. His actions remind me of the actions of George Wishart during the plague that broke out in Dundee in the 16th century. In 1544, George Wishart was forbidden by law from preaching in Dundee in Scotland. Four days after that pronouncement was made, we're told that a terrible plague broke out in the town and within 24 hours many had died. When he heard this, Wishart immediately returned to Dundee and preached publicly in the East Gate to the healthy that were inside and to the sick who were outside. And this was the text that he preached. He sent his word and healed them. Wishart continued preaching to them with hundreds turning to Christ and in visiting the sick and dying until the plague came to an end in the city of Dundee. Here was a man who ran to the need, a man who was daring. Please do not pick me up wrong in what I am saying. We are not to flout the direction of government in these days and be silly with those that we come into contact with. We are to stay at home. We are to keep safe. That's the message that we all need to heed. But brethren and sisters, we can be daring in other ways in our witnessing for Christ in these days. And we need to be daring, bold for Christ. Ministers and pastors need to be daring in their denunciation of sin both within and without the church of Jesus Christ. Believers need to be daring in their witnessing to loved ones and friends that Christ is the only answer for sin. Brethren and sisters, if this isn't a day to speak to your loved ones about Christ, when will the day be? When will the day be? When death could come, and take them into God's eternity, when will it ever be right, if not in this day? The church needs to be daring in the spreading of the gospel by whatever legitimate and proper means is at her disposal at this stage. These are days when we need to be daring for Christ. May God make us such individuals, what Aaron did. Thirdly, it was decisive. This is our final point. My time's away. Notice with me what happened to the plague when Aaron ran to meet the need. Verse 48, it tells us, and he stood between the dead and the living, underlying then the latter part of the verse, and the plague was stayed. Verse 50, notice again, and Aaron returned to Moses onto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the plague was stayed. What halted the plague? What stayed the plague? Well, the verses 46 and verse 47 gives us the answer. Moses said, take a censer, put fire thereon, put on incense, go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them. And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation. And behold, the plague was begun among the people, and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. Underline those words. made an atonement for the people. Wrath has gone out from God. because of sin amongst this congregation. The only way that that wrath can be turned away is by means of an atonement. A propitiatory sacrifice has to be offered to turn away wrath. There needs to be the expiation, the turning away of God's anger and God's wrath, and that can only be done when the blood is shed, when the atonement is made. He takes the atonement. He offers to God by way of incense. That incense becomes a sweet savor unto God. God accepts it. His wrath as he pees, the plague has stayed. And so I want you to notice that it is not Aaron that stops the plague, but rather it is the atonement. The atonement stayed the plague. What a beautiful picture we have here of the cross. What a beautiful picture we have of one greater than Aaron, the high priest. The Lord Jesus Christ, the great high priest. What he does for sinners in the gospel. The plague of sin has contaminated us all. All have sinned, all under sin. These are God's pronouncements concerning the human race. These are God's pronouncements concerning you if you're not saved, watching in today. All under sin, all having sinned. There is not a man on earth that sinneth not. And because of that sin, wrath, wrath is coming to us all. However, thank God, there is a way. whereby that wrath can be turned away, and it is through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Christ has made an atonement for sin, and he is willing to stand between you and God's wrath. Thank God he can and will turn away Jehovah's wrath, wrath that fell upon him 2,000 years ago at the cross. Oh, that you, the sinner today, would believe on Him, that you would trust your soul to Him, because then your sins, which are many, would be forgiven, the plague would be stayed, God's wrath would no longer go out to meet you, go out against you, and that you would be saved from eternal death. I know that death is very much before our minds in these days. The thought of being taken away from our family, and her friends and her community is terrifying for some, but there's another death that ought to be even more terrifying to you, more terrifying to think of than your physical death, and that is your eternal death, when body and soul are separated from God eternally in hell. The only way to escape that death is by having a saving interest in the atoning work of Christ, in the redeeming work of Christ. Folks, we are living in uncertain days. The projections as to the number of deaths that will result from this virus are terrifying. Society, once giddy and carefree, has been sobered by recent events in this world. Eternal matters, once pushed to the back of people's minds, are very much to the fore. Let us, who possess a peace that passeth all understanding, let us take this window of opportunity to spread the gospel and to share the gospel with those who have no peace. Let's bring them to the cross. Let's bring them to the place where sin was atoned for. And let's encourage our loved ones and friends to trust in Christ alone for salvation. May God be pleased to stay the plague of sin and the plague of COVID-19 in our nation. And may there be a great turning on to the Lord Jesus Christ by both saint and sinner. May God be pleased to bless His word to our hearts for Christ's sake. Amen. Let's unite briefly in a word of prayer together. Let's pray. Our loving Father, we come before Thee in our Savior's precious name. And Lord, we recognize that the plague has begun among us. And we cry, O God, that thou wilt show mercy, and thou wilt preserve, O God, our neighbors, our loved ones, our friends, our family members. Think of the great plague of sin, destroying many a home, many a family, many a life. Oh, may there be a turning from that sin. May there be a turning to the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah. What a Savior. We pray, O God, that thou wilt speak to hearts, and may there be a turning on to Christ. Lord, answer prayer. Bless, O God, us now as we, apart one from another, bring us again to log in tonight to the service at six o'clock. to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And may our hearts be thrilled even as we listen to thy word again. Answer prayer and be with us. We offer prayer in and through our Savior's precious name. Amen. If you do seek spiritual help in these days or counsel, let me encourage you to either message us via Facebook Messenger or to write to us via email, portlandownfpcall, one word, at hotmeal.co.uk, or telephone the Church Mass at 02825 821 765. May the Lord bless you, and God willing, we'll meet again tonight at 6 p.m. Bye.