I invite you to turn in God's Word to Numbers chapter 5. After having jumped a few chapters last Sunday morning, we'll now resume taking up our chronological look through the book of Numbers and this evening we'll be in Numbers chapter 5 looking at verses 11 through 31. And as you're turning there, I do want to say that some of what will be Found in this passage, some of what will come out in the sermon could be of a sensitive topic in nature, and so I will do my utmost to treat it with all sensitivity. But this is an important passage. It is in God's Word, and so it is profitable for you and for me for training in all righteousness. And so let us now pay attention to the reading of God's Holy Word. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel. If any man's wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected, though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her, since she was not taken in the act, and if the spirit of jealousy comes over him, and he is jealous of his wife, who has defiled herself, Or if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself, then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord. And the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it in the water. And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and unbind the hair of the woman's head, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray, though you were under your husband's authority, And if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has lain with you, then let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman, the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away. And the woman shall say, amen, amen. Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse. And the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain. And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand and shall wave the grain offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar. And the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial portion and burn it on the altar. And afterwards shall make the woman drink the water. And when he has made her drink the water then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children. This is the law in cases of jealousy. When a wife, though under her husband's authority, goes astray and defiles herself, or when the spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife, then he shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall carry out for her all this law. The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity. Let us pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We ask that Your Spirit would abide with us this evening as we look into Your Word, and that Your Spirit would work and act as You have promised that You would in Your Word. Lord, to help us to understand this very challenging and difficult passage, as well as to see its relevance for us today as we see Christ in this passage and as we also deal with issues facing us in our modern society today. Lord, we need your help. We need your spirit. And so we ask that you would come and send us aid, that we would receive your teaching like little children through Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. In the April 10th, 2021 issue of World Magazine, there was an article titled, Translation Abuse. which chronicled how abortion advocates were using a certain translation of the Bible to justify abortion, arguing, based on this particular Bible translation, that Numbers 527, which is part of the passage that we're looking at this evening, justifies abortion because they argue that in this section God is causing an abortion to happen. And so if God is causing it to happen, then it must be justified. Given the overturning of Roe versus Wade, given the plethora of conversation that happens around the topic of abortion, more and more as Christians, we need to be prepared to answer the world when they seek to use our own scriptures against us to justify their wicked and evil ways. It's a poor reflection when the world attempts to know more about our scriptures than we do. And I want us to see tonight what this passage is all about. And to sum it up, here is a picture of God acting as a just judge. God is acting as a just judge. And when we see this passage in that light, it will become very clear that the Bible does not condone or support abortion. Our first point comes from verses 11 through 15, where we see the accusation take place. Now, in modern investigations, allegations will prompt an inquiry. And an inquiry is tasked with going and trying to collect evidence, discover evidence to either support a guilty verdict or to support an innocent verdict. And with widespread surveillance technology that we have available to us today, it is more and more difficult to hide wrongdoing or to get away with it. Not impossible, but more difficult. But in ancient Israel, they didn't have CSI. They didn't have forensics. There were two things by which a person could be found guilty. You either catch the person in the act or you have multiple eyewitness testimony. No, they didn't check for DNA. They didn't have dust for collecting fingerprints. They didn't have any of that. You either had to be caught in the act or you had to have multiple eyewitnesses testify. And of course, sometimes you could find multiple eyewitnesses who would give a false testimony. You see that in example with Ahab and Naboth. So we come to a case here in Numbers 5 where a spirit of jealousy has come over a husband who suspects his wife of having an affair, but there's no way to prove his suspicions. There was no catching the person in the act, and there's no multiple eyewitness testimony. There's no way to prove his suspicions. So what is he to do? In the countries around the nation of Israel at this time, ancient Near Eastern countries, a jealous husband could simply place his wife's hand in a pot of boiling water. If her hand was not harmed, she was guilty of adultery and subsequently punished. If her hand was burned, she was innocent. This may remind you of the Salem witch trials. Where if a woman was suspected of being a witch, she was lowered underwater for a time. If she survived, she was a witch and burned. And if she drowned, well, at least that proves she wasn't a witch. Such practices are barbaric and unfair, and so I want us to see the difference between Israel's neighbors and the practice that the Lord instituted for his covenant people, and to show that Israel was to be unlike her neighbors. Look at verses 12 through 15. Speak to the people of Israel. If any man's wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually, it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, she's undetected, though she has defiled herself, there is no witness against her, since she was not taken in the act, If the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself, or if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife though she has not defiled herself, the man shall bring his wife to the priest." You see, the jealous husband is not free to make his wife undergo any ordeal that he wants her to go through. He can't establish his own law for her and say, okay, here's what you've got to do to prove you're innocent to me. He cannot try to take vengeance into his own hands in a circumstance where he's suspicious, but there is no evidence. He does not have absolute authority to do whatever he wants with his wife. Verse 14 indicates the spirit of jealousy may come over the husband, whether the wife has sinned or not. In either case, you have an accusation without evidence. And so the recourse for this man upon whom a spirit of jealousy has come is to bring his wife before the Lord to the Lord's representative and intercessor, the high priest, rather than acting on his own accord. This is an ecclesiastical process carried out in a court of the church rather than a husband taking personal vengeance. In a male-dominated society, it would be easy for men to make baseless accusations to achieve some sinful end, would it not? Perhaps they want to be free of their wife, perhaps they want to marry somebody else, and so they make baseless accusations, and then they're free and they can go do whatever they want. But this is not to be the case with Israel. This is an ecclesiastical court because adultery is ultimately a moral and spiritual issue. So the priest, as God's representative, presides over the case. Additionally, the man is to bring an offering, a grain offering, according to verse 15, a grain offering of jealousy. You can read about the grain offering, a normal grain offering in Leviticus chapter 2. It usually had oil and frankincense mixed in with it and the frankincense added a sweet smelling aroma to it and the oil reminded one of the joy and the refreshment that oil brought to those who were wandering in a desert. But those two ingredients are noticeably absent in this grain offering. There is no joy in suspecting one's spouse of adultery. and thinking that your mate could possibly have broken your marriage vows with someone else. There's no sweet smelling aroma here. It's a somber grain offering that is to be brought. A grain offering of jealousy with the intention of making known whether adultery has occurred or not. Nevertheless, it is costly to this man because he has to take from his grain. He has a take from grain that he could use to either feed his family, feed his livestock, or he could sell in the marketplace and make some money towards earning a living. It is costly for this man when a spirit of jealousy comes upon him. You didn't want to always go around having a spirit of jealousy. From this first point of the accusation, we can draw out a couple of applications. First, it's wise to give no appearance of evil whatsoever so that your spouse never has to suspect that you've been unfaithful. Many years ago, people made fun of the Mike Pence rule, or you may know it as the Billy Graham rule, where they purposed, they resolved to never eat alone with another woman who wasn't their wife. Certainly not necessary, it's not a scriptural rule that's binding upon our consciences, but there is some wisdom to that, to avoid the appearance of evil. They were intentionally avoiding putting themselves in a situation where other people could suspect, is something going on there? What's happening? That's not his wife. Additionally, we must guard ourselves against baseless thoughts or suspicious thoughts without any grounding against our spouse. As Paul tells us in that famous love passage of 1 Corinthians 13, love is not envious. Love is not provoked or irritable. It believes all things and hopes all things. So there's a two-way street here in a marriage. We must not put ourselves in circumstances that could give off a hint. of unfaithfulness. And that includes how we use social media and who we friend on social media. But we must also guard our thoughts and our hearts so as not to be led astray by suspicions that have no basis in reality. This brings us to our second point in verses 16 through 26, where we see the action that is based on the accusation, the action based on the accusation. The woman is set before the Lord in the presence of the priest and the tabernacle. Some water in a cup is made holy by being mixed with dust from the tabernacle. But dust also represents shame and humility. When God pronounces a curse upon the serpent after the fall in Genesis 3, he says, you shall eat dust all of your life. The water with the dust of the tabernacle represents shame, which was very important in this society of honor and shame, but it also represented God's presence with the priest, but also the dust is from the tabernacle. The woman's hair is loosened either to signify remorse or to signify potential uncleanliness. In either way, the woman is presented as a humble servant before the Lord. She is in the dock. She is on trial before the Lord God himself. Then the suspected wife is made to take an oath of self-imprecation. She's called to take a curse upon herself. If she is guilty, she's calling down God's judgment upon herself that is rightly due for sin. Look at verses 19 through 22. Priest shall make her take an oath saying if no man has lain with you, if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray, Though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband is laying with you, then let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman, the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people. When the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell, may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away. If the woman is innocent, she has nothing to fear from the water that brings the curse. At the end of the day, a woman who is suspected of adultery in a case where there is no evidence, the innocent woman only ends up drinking some bitter water. That's it. No burned hands, no potential drowning, nothing life-threatening. It's completely safe for her And there's nothing to fear, unlike during the Salem witch trials, unlike the neighbors that were around Israel, where a man could just do whatever he wanted to test his wife. So a woman who knew she was innocent would have no problem saying, amen, amen, that we see at the end of verse 22. She's not being forced to do this with a gun to her head. She gives her assent to this whole ritual process. And I want us to see in this section that here we have a picture of the work of Jesus Christ. What? Where do you get that? Hear me out. If the woman was guilty, she drank the curse and took the curse into herself. Christ, who is innocent, who should be free of the curse, became a curse for you and for me. He drank the cup of God's wrath, the cup that you and I were supposed to drink. Christ drank it in our place, though He was innocent. His bride, the church, was stained and guilty. We had broken the law. We had committed spiritual adultery. broken faith with our God. And so the bridegroom, the husband himself, took the curse upon himself, though he had committed no sin and broken no law. He drank that cup so we would not have to drink it ourselves. And because of Christ's perfect life and death on our behalf, we, like the woman who is innocent, We who are now declared innocent in God's courtroom, we have nothing to fear. We don't have to fear the curse of the law. We don't have to fear God as judge because he has adopted us into his family. He's made us his children and we approach him not as a judge, but we approach him as our heavenly father. Here we see a picture of Christ's work on our behalf in drinking and taking on the curse in our place. Now, after saying the oath, the priest writes the words of the oath, the words of this potential curse in ink on parchment, and he rinses that ink off into the holy water, so to speak. The woman is to drink the water which has the dust of the temple with it, as well as the ink of the oath. This is a symbolic action, showing that the words of the oath and the self-curse are being transferred into the water, and she's taking it upon herself. Drinking the bitter water recalls the bitter water that Israel could not drink at Marah, which was the place of bitterness in Exodus chapter 15. In Exodus, in that passage, God showed Israel that it was a test. If they obeyed him, they would not suffer the curses that came upon Egypt. And there is a parallel here. If the woman has obeyed God, if she has not committed adultery, he will turn the bitterness into sweetness. She will be free from the accusation and she will have children. Look at verse 28. If the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, she shall be free and shall conceive children. This was the greatest thing that a woman in this day and age could hope for, is to have children. To increase the holy seed of God. The final part of this ritual found in verses 25 and 26 is the offering of the grain offering that was brought to the altar to the Lord himself. The priest waves it before the Lord, indicating that this offering is dedicated to Yahweh. A portion is burned to the Lord. The rest is given to the priests. It is theirs to eat now. But in this whole strange, weird ritual that you were maybe not even aware of was in Scripture before tonight, this whole affair begins and ends with Yahweh. It's all about God. It's all about calling upon God to act as witness when there is no human evidence. Ian Duguid puts it this way, quote, It was an act of faith on the part of the woman and the community, placing judgment in the hands of God, who sees the unseen, rather than placing judgment in the hands of man." So here we see that even secret sins, sins committed in darkness, are known to God and He will bring them to light. It's not impossible that God himself has caused the spirit of jealousy to come upon the man. Though there's no physical earthly evidence, there is still God's evidence because he sees what happens. He is all-knowing and he is everywhere. He sees our thoughts that we have each and every moment. Nothing is hidden from him. All is laid bare before him. He is not only the judge, but He is the only truly perfect eyewitness. Even if sin goes unpunished in this life, there is a day coming when God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus, Romans 2, verse 16. This leads us to our final point, the after effect. Verses 27 through 29, the after effect. And here's where I want to focus on the strangeness of the outcome if the woman is guilty. And it's here that we find some people trying to justify abortion from scripture. The after effect of this whole ritual is first given up in verse 21. The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away. The NIV, which was updated in 2011, translates it this way. Her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry. In other words, the NIV assumes that a child has been conceived from this adulterous affair. And the NIV assumes that because a child is the result of this affair, the Lord is going to kill the child of this adulterous affair through this ritual. And abortion advocates have latched onto this verse to say that the Lord is carrying out an abortion, and look, if the Lord can do it, the thinking goes, their logic goes, so can we. If it's okay for God, it's okay for us. But nothing in this text says that the woman is with child. That's an assumption that the translators of the 2011 NIV made. As Vern Poitras puts it this way, quote, the water's effect is supernatural because it varies depending on whether the woman is guilty or innocent, not on whether she is pregnant, end quote. Now the difficulty arises here because the Hebrew is very obscure and rare. The ESV, which I preach out of, has translated it as literally as possible, and it leaves it up to you and to me to figure out, what in the world does this mean? That the womb will swell and the thigh will fall away. It's a very difficult passage. The word for thigh only occurs here in all of the Old Testaments. This is very dangerous to build one's ethical practice and moral principles. It's dangerous to build one's theology upon a very obscure passage that's difficult to understand. Solid principles of understanding God's Word is that what is clear should interpret what's unclear in Scripture. It's hard to know exactly what this curse is talking about because we're so far removed from this time period and this culture, but it seems to me that that barrenness, not being able to have children, is what is going to happen to the woman in this ritual whom God declares and shows to be guilty. Look at verse 28, if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, she shall be free and shall conceive children. Therefore, by good and necessary consequence, it seems that the guilty woman is the opposite of that. She is unclean, she is not free, she is guilty, and she will be unable to conceive children. The curse makes her barren because of her guilt, because of her adultery. And think about how damaging this would have been to an Israelite woman at this time. We have stories of barrenness peppered throughout the Old Testament, do we not? Sarah, Abraham's Rebecca, Isaac's wife, Rachel, Jacob's wife, the mother of Samson and Judges 13. We think about Hannah and Samuel, who longed to have a child, who's being made fun of and provoked by Elkanah's other wife because she's unable to have children. To the point, she just wants to have a child. I will give him to you, I will dedicate him to your service, Lord, if you will just open my womb. The adulterous woman's curse was that she would be barren and not able to produce offspring of iniquity. And this would bring shame and reproach upon her for all time. The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people. She would lose out on the possibility of having a male child to carry on the family name and lineage and to continue the inheritance in the promised land. She would miss out on the Abrahamic promise of being part of adding to the innumerable seed promised to Abraham. And all of this was God's supernatural doing. But let's just suppose for a moment that the NIV translation is correct and that the woman is pregnant from her adultery and that God is killing a child that has resulted from this affair. Let's suppose that for a moment. Just because God does something does not mean that you and I have the right to do the same thing. I'll say that again, this is a very important principle. Just because God is able to do something does not mean that we are able to do the exact same thing. God calls us not to take vengeance into our own hands. Why? Because vengeance belongs to Him. Deuteronomy 32 quoted in Romans chapter 12. God calls us not to make images of Himself or any of His creation to worship in the Second Commandment, but God can perfectly image Himself and did perfectly image Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. God took the child that resulted from David and Bathsheba's adultery after the child was born, but that doesn't mean that we can kill children after they are born. What kind of logic is that? All of this is because life and death belongs to God. It doesn't belong to you and me, friends. God says in Deuteronomy 32, 39, See now that I, even I am he, there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. As Verne Poythress puts it, quote, God has a right to take life whenever he wants, and of course he does, end quote. But that does not mean that we can take a life whenever we want. We are not God. Whatever our God does is right, it is perfect, it is good. It is an expression of His holy character, of who He is. But we are not perfect. We are not good. We are tainted by sin. We are fallen. We are finite creatures. We cannot do the things that God does. Remember, God is causing this curse to happen because of sin. So even if the woman is pregnant, What are the wages of sin? Death. The wages of sin is death. Death is God's verdict upon sin, whether it's in thought or deed. So even if Miss Carey gets at the sense of what is going on here, and I don't think it is, but even if it does get at the sense, it does not by any stretch of the imagination justify the vile, wicked, heinous practice of abortion. of killing a child in the womb. And I would say to you that to justify abortion, to try to twist scripture to justify abortion is vile. I would go so far as to call it blasphemy, friends. A violation of taking God's name, taking His holy word in vain. I believe it is barrenness that is the curse, as God's just verdict when adultery has occurred, but there's no human evidence to prove it. In the end, with a lack of physical evidence, God, the truthful judge, ends up revealing to his people the truth of the situation. God, who knows and sees all things, reveals either the guilt or the innocence of the woman, and if guilty, she suffers the consequences for her sin. If innocent, she suffers no consequences. This whole section may seem barbaric and cruel to our modern ears. Feminists, of course, blast it as an example of abusive patriarchy. However, this ritual ends up being God's means to protect the woman from false accusations. It also protects the camp of God's people when adultery in secret has occurred, which defiles not only those involved, but if left unchecked, would defile the whole camp. And if the whole camp is defiled, how can they enter into the tabernacle to bring their sacrifices to God and to worship Him? How can God continue to dwell in the midst of these people if there is uncleanliness throughout the camp? He can't. So God brings these things to light. In this entire scene, what we see here, friends, is a little mini picture of Judgment Day. This entire section is about God as a perfectly just judge. For one who is innocent, their innocence is upheld and vindicated in the sight of the people. For the one who is guilty, their guilt is upheld and made known in the sight of the people. And the same thing is going to happen at the end of time. The great white throne judgment in the book of Revelation chapter 20. All people, you and me, will stand before God as judge. Books will be opened. Our deeds will be exposed. The works of the wicked will be exposed and made manifest. Even if the wicked seem to get away with it while here on earth. And they do seem to get away with it, do they not? Murder, bribery, theft, adultery, abortion. they will ultimately not get away with it. And their evil deeds, even the ones committed in the dark, where there is no human evidence to prosecute, to bring forth justice, their deeds will be brought to light, their evil deeds will accuse them, and before God, they will be declared guilty and thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. That is a just judgment. That is God pouring out His holy wrath upon the wicked for their sins against Him. Fully deserving. But for you and me, friends, we tonight who find ourselves in Christ Jesus, we will be openly vindicated before the watching world. We will be declared that we were in the right. that what we proclaimed was true, that those who refused to listen to the gospel proclamation were in the wrong and should have listened and should have repented of their sins and turned to Christ by faith. Christ will be our shield and our refuge on that day against the wrath of God, because he stood in our place and he drank that curse upon himself. Our innocence will be maintained because the innocence of Christ has been imputed to us. His perfect righteousness has been credited to our accounts. That debt of sin, that IOU has been washed in the blood of Christ. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But in Christ, we have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, according to 2 Corinthians 5 10. And nobody will be able to accuse God of injustice because he is perfectly just. He is a true eyewitness, and he executes perfect justice. And his justice on our behalf, on all that God's elect, has been satisfied in Christ, who drank the cup to the very last drop. Nothing is left for you and me, friends, to fear. Amen and amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the work of Christ on our behalf. We thank you that even in such strange passages of Scripture that we can see Christ, that we can see your holy character, your just character revealed to us. even see the good news, the promise of the forgiveness of sins, the declaration of innocence. Lord, help us to remember what you have done on our behalf. Give us new resolve. To defend your word against those who would seek to twist it, just like their father, the devil. Lord, help us to be faithful witnesses Lord, help us never to try to hide our sins or to sin intentionally in darkness, because you know all and you see all. Your eyes are ever upon us, O Lord. May we always walk with that in the forefront of our minds. Through Christ, our Lord and Savior, we pray. Amen.