that it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing, the words that I have spoken are Spirit and life. And so we thank you, we embrace that the words that Jesus gives are life-giving, as Peter calls them, the words of eternal life. And so we pray that tonight they would be this for us, that you would teach us, all of us, and that we will then give you glory, that our hearts will be filled with gratitude for the benefit, the profitability that we receive through your inspired word. So we commit this to you in the name of Jesus, your son. Amen. So our text tonight is actually numbers 26 through 30, but it would be too much to read all of those chapters tonight. So I'm going to read the shorter ones for the sake of time. And because some of them are very repetitious. Chapter 26 is a census. So it goes through every tribe. And there's 12 of them. So that's a lot of repetition. And so by the end of it, it actually, you sense that you know it. It's one of those learn by repetitions. So at the end, you feel like you know the pattern. And then chapters 28 and 29 are offerings. And we'll talk about what's in there. Those are the offerings. And it's the instructions for the priests on what to offer in sacrifices at various festivals, beginning with just the daily sacrifices, but then Sabbath, and monthly sacrifices, and then the three yearly ones. But I'm going to read chapter 27. And then chapter 30, and they both deal with male-female dynamics in the context of the Law of Moses. And I find them to be quite interesting. And I think you will as well. So let me read chapter 27, and then I'll skip and read chapter 30. Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hefer, the son of Gilead, the son of Makar, the son of Manasseh. Of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph came near. So these daughters came near. And these are the names of his daughters, Malah, Noach, Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. They stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders, And all the congregation at the doorway of the tent of meeting sang, Our father died in the wilderness, yet he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah. But he died in his own sin, and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no sons? give us a possession among our father's brothers. So Moses brought their case before the Lord. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, the daughters of Zelophehad are right in their statements. You shall surely give them a hereditary possession among their father's brothers, and you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them. Further, You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. If his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his nearest relative in his own family. and he shall possess it. And it shall be a statutory ordinance to the sons of Israel, just as the Lord commanded Moses. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, go up to this mountain of Abarim and see the land which I have given to the sons of Israel. When you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother was. For in the wilderness of Zin, During the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against my command to treat me as holy before their eyes at the water. Remember when he struck the rock twice. These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zim. Then Moses spoke to the Lord saying, may the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation. who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep, which have no shepherd. So the Lord said to Moses, take Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him, and have him stand before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey him. Moreover, he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord. At his command they shall go out, and at his command they shall come in, both he and the sons of Israel with him, even all the congregation. Moses did just as the Lord commanded him, and he took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, literally commanded him, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses. And then chapter 30. Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel saying, this is the word which the Lord has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Also, if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by an obligation in her father's house, in her youth, and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her. However, if she should marry while under her vows, or the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day he hears it, then her vows shall stand and her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if on the day her husband hears of it, he forbids her, Then he shall annul her vow which she is under, and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, and the Lord will forgive her. But the vow of a widow, or of a divorced woman, everything by which she has bound herself shall stand against her. However, if she vowed in her husband's house, or bound herself by an obligation with an oath, and her husband heard it, but said nothing to her and did not forbid her, then all her vows shall stand, and every obligation by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband indeed annuls them on the day he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning the obligation of herself shall not stand. Her husband has annulled them, and the Lord will forgive her. Every vow and every binding oath to humble herself, her husband may confirm it or her husband may annul it. But if her husband indeed says nothing to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows and all her obligations which are on her. He has confirmed them because she said nothing to her on the day he heard them. If he indeed annuls them after he heard them, then he shall bear her guilt. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses, as between a man and his wife, and as between a father and his daughter, while she is in her youth in her father's house. OK. Alright, we're at the second part of the book. Well, really the third part. The first part was really smooth. We covered it in one night. Ten chapters. It was so orderly, so obedient, and all within one month. It was like one month at Sinai before they headed out. And it looked like everything was going to be smooth. And what we remembered, what we learned from that was outward order does not cure sin. So you can get a very orderly sons of Israel, get them all lined up in a row, and they're under great discipline, but that doesn't change the heart. Because as soon as chapter 11 begins, it's like rebellion, rebellion, rebellion, rebellion. And the middle of this book we have seen is just like chock full of rebellion. Even Moses And that's really one of the shocking ones. By the end of this, that middle part of the book, even Moses rebels against God and is forbidden from entering the land. Only two old men enter the land. Joshua, who's commissioned, as we read, and Caleb, the Judah, the leader from Judah. Only those two old men. So you imagine a whole country of middle-aged, people, middle-aged men, let's put it that way, because they were all numbered as warriors, that whole generation wiped out in the wilderness. So that brings up an interesting topic. And that is, I wonder what your generation will be like. You guys are just now coming into power in your 20s You get to that golden age called 30, and it's an interesting age to think Jesus completely was incognito his entire 20s. He was a technon, Mark 6 says, a builder. Imagine that, the Son of God who came to save the world was building during his entire decade of his 20s. So what an affirmation on just, you know, earthly works. You know, apparently it's okay for the Son of God incarnate to spend a bunch of time building. But once he got to age 30 a high priest I think was age 30 Joseph was age 30 when he I think became ruler in Egypt David would age 30 when he became King Jesus was age 30 when he you know started so I think in my mind it's like you got plenty of time in your 20s to try different things and to gain experiences, gain training, begin to understand what God's callings are for your life, and work them out. Because when you hit age 30, it's time to run. Time to gain authority and responsibility. So I wonder, you guys are still up and coming. I wonder what your generation will be like. I wonder what your generation will be like in the church. Because I'm not your generation. This is you guys. Because this is a new generation. Can you imagine Moses? He's 120. And he's got Caleb and Joshua who are 80. Aaron's dead. Miriam, his sister, both older siblings are dead. And he's looking at this younger crowd. And for the second time in the wilderness, 40 years, actually 38 and 1 half to be exact, Years after the first census, which is chapter 1 of Numbers, they're taking another census. Because they're about ready to go in and fight the Midianites. That was spoken in a previous chapter. And then fight the Canaanites. And so it's time to line up for war again. But it's a whole new crop. These are different guys. And we know from the book of Joshua, they actually obeyed. These guys obeyed. And then the generation after them didn't. The book of Judges tells us they already start straying. And by the end of Judges, just the second generation into the land, under Phinehas, after Eleazar, who's priest when they enter the land, in the next generation under Phinehas and the grandson of Moses, so you see the next generation, the grandson of Moses leads an entire tribe away into a false religion, the whole tribe of Dan, And then under Phinehas, an entire tribe defends a homosexual city that had become violent, the tribe of Benjamin. And a whole civil war breaks out. So you have this generation coming into the land, which so rebelled. In fact, Psalm 95 says, I loathe that generation. Can you imagine God saying that of a whole generation of people? I mean, I couldn't stomach them. They were disgusting to me. And we learned from the book of Amos, they were worshipping all sorts of gods out in the wilderness. Basically, they basically thumbed God and just departed, did what they wanted. And they were just hardened. They didn't know his ways, and they were hardened. And then this precious generation that entered the land obeyed, and then the next generation departed. So how many of you will be that generation? You know, you're going to be a different generation than say your parents, your grandparents, maybe in your family. You can be that. By grace, you can be that. There's no reason why you can't be a zealous, God-fearing, Christ-loving generation. You know what I mean? And isn't that, I mean, when you think about that, can you encourage each other in that way? Can you encourage each other, look each other in the eye and say, let's follow Jesus. Let's believe in Him. Let's not be an unbelieving generation. Let's believe in Him and follow Him and see what He does. Do you realize there was a generation in the 1800s that gathered in the 1880s in Massachusetts that said, let's finish the Great Commission in this generation. And there was 100 of them that took a vow that basically bound themselves to give their life to foreign missions. Let's be that generation that finishes the Great Commission. Those are college age people that were thinking like that. So what will you guys end up being? What institutions will you start? What good works will you foster? What evangelistic efforts? What missions? What churches will you plant? And support with your time and your money, your prayers. Isn't that exciting? It's all out there. I don't know what God will do for you, but right now, open yourself up to those things and drop lesser things. Because the lesser things, every generation gets into those things. you know and they all fade away it's vain look to that look to seek the kingdom first and what might you do that's my first charge and I don't know what that's gonna be hopefully I get to live you know you guys can tell me about it maybe I'll be you know 75 I don't know you know 20 years from now and you guys will be in your 40s you know and you're leaders in the church and doing things and you'll write and surprise me out of the blue you know say hey Remember me, Pastor Bob? And this and this and this has gone on in my life. To God be the glory. I don't know. I thought about that actually recently. I thought I should look up my youth pastor. You know, who is like probably 15 years older than me or something. You know, it's like, you know, look him up. You know, he'd probably be about in his 70s. You know, look him up and say, hey, just want to thank you for your service when I was a teenager. And you know, your encouragement to me. And just want you to know, this is what's going on in my life. How encouraging would that be? So that's my first challenge tonight. Because this is a new generation. OK. All right, there's two reasons actually why they did a census. One is for the war. But another is found at the end of the chapter. Look with me in Numbers chapter 26. Right after the grand total is given in verse 51, these are those who are numbered among the sons of Israel, 601,730. Okay, these are, again, fighting men. Mature, adult men. So there's probably two million people in the plains of Moab. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, among these, the land shall be divided for an inheritance, note this, according to the number of their names. To the larger group, you shall increase their inheritance. and to the smaller group you shall diminish their inheritance. Each shall be given their inheritance according to those who are numbered to them." This is proportional expectations or proportional giving. This is a principle found in the New Testament by Jesus, by Paul. Proportional giving means As Jesus says in Luke 12, to whom much has been given, much shall be required. And conversely, to whom not as much has been given, not as much shall be required. To him they will expect less. It doesn't matter if God gave you one talent, if God gave you two, a talent being a representation like of investment, or if God gave you five. Double whatever you have. Hey, now, let's be objective here in this, okay? In this room, some of you are outstandingly gifted in singing. I bet you know some people who can really, really sing well in this room, like right here in this room, okay? I'm not. And I'm having to record for little kids right now, because I'm doing some little ditties for them. And I stand before a microphone at like 9 AM in the morning, because my tutors are expecting something to be recorded. And I'm going, this is not hitting the exact note. You know? It's like some of us just aren't gifted like this. So I'm hoping that someday somebody comes along, finds some value with this and they can like, you know, take this and sweep this up and make this like pristine, you know, like record, you know, some of you are that way. Some of you are really, really good with relationships. It could be interpersonal one-on-one or it could be very social. Some of you are more like me, you know, of the relationally challenged. Okay? God's expecting, and with His grace, nothing's impossible with God, right? His power is perfected in weakness. So don't be surprised if He puts you in an awkward situation and you're gonna shine, He's gonna use you. But He's expecting a lot more of you who are very gifted. You follow me? He's like dumped on you. You know, all sorts of giftedness and relational abilities. You better be, you better have a wide circle. You show up into heaven with like two close friends. He's gonna be looking at you like, where's all that talent I gave you, right? You know, well I got, I got buddy one and buddy two. Like, you were gifted to have a big wide circle. And I don't know what your gifts may be. I mean, there are a lot of gifts in the church. Some of you have big hearts. You're a rescuer. You can't stand when people are hurting. You got to come in and do something. You got the gift of mercy. Well, devote yourselves to it. You follow me? Devote yourself to mercy. You know, some of you have the gift of administration or the gift of organizing. Like, you just make everything, you make a fine-tuned machine hum of an office. You know, just everything's in its place. It's 5S all over the place. A place for everything and everything is a place, right? I mean, do you follow what I'm saying? Can you do that? Proportional giving. Because if you are extremely gifted, whatever that may be, and you're just coasting, the Lord's going to be like, look at you, like, I mean, you only get one shot. You only get one life. So embrace it. Run with it. using to the glory of God, whatever that may be. So God gave a big plot of land to the big tribe, and a small plot of land to the small tribe. But they both got according to their size. So Jesus looks to the servant in the parable of the talents. The one who had one, where's the one back, right? Where's the two back? Where's the five back? The one that had the one buried it. And he brought it back in no investment gain. OK. That's pep talk number two. All right, so what's your generation gonna be as a group and then as individuals, what are your gift sets? Because there's proportionality here. He entrusts, he allots, really it's by lot, he allots more to those who are bigger, less to those who are less. That's the way he does all throughout the New Testament. Okay, and we can all do something. Okay. all right well let's get into the next one then let's get into this this second part about the daughters of the loaf I'm having a hard time with that name tonight turn to your neighbor and try that name out chapter 27 verse 1 How many of you think it's the loaf I had? Anybody else had another shot at it? OK. So the daughters of Z. All right? The daughters of Z. OK. They show up, and the inheritance would normally go to a son. And they have no son left. There's no son in the family. It's all daughters. How many of you grew up in a family of all daughters? Okay, there's actually several of you in it. Okay, family of all daughters. So imagine your family, the ancestral lands in your father's name, and now it's going to go to whom? Where? Our name of our father won't be continued, right? So it's like, how is this going to happen? Now it's interesting to read the commentary because it looks like the ladies are getting the short end of the stick. But it's interesting, in this society, the commentary said that the women, the daughters, would get from the father a dowry when they got married. And this is what it said, what it could be. The dowry could include clothes, jewelry, remember that clothes had to be handmade then, so jewelry, money, furniture, Land, even maidservants, could be given to a daughter. I think we could probably go to like when Rebecca sent off to marry Isaac and what was done there and different things. So I want you to know it's like just because the land is given to the sons, the daughters were expected to receive goods or other valuables as they brought into a marriage. And so that was what they were expected. But the problem here is that, just like in the Book of Ruth, the name is not going to be stuck with the land. And it goes out. That land is to be kept in the families and then kept in the tribes when they inherited it. It was to stay. And so this is going to be the snuffing out of a line in Israel. And so what's going to happen? What needs to be done? So what's the solution? What does it say? You find it? Okay, what verse is that? Okay, and then in verse 8 it gets broadened into a general command for the future. I'm impressed by how much God is flexible in his law. Like, oh, there's a case. This is something different. And so God hears it, commands Moses to do it, and he's flexible and he's reasonable. Do you remember earlier in the book when somebody was unclean and they couldn't eat the Passover on the 14th day of the first month? This is way back in the beginning of the book. God's solution was, well, let's set up a second month. They can eat it then. If I remember right, that was what, you know, they could get over their impurity, their uncleanness, and then they could eat it the next time. So that was, you know, like an allowance. I will not take a show of hands on this. How many of you grew up in households where a rule was a rule was a rule? And it was just the way it is. Like it or lump it, there is no flexibility and no variation on it. Now don't show of hands. No show of hands in this, okay? Because you would know what that feels like. It's like, but, but, but, but. No buts. It's just, this is the rule. That's the way it is. Okay? If we were honest with ourselves, how many of us might think that's what the law of Moses is? Just really inflexible. Like a rule was a rule was a rule. God made a law and that's it. Like you couldn't approach it. You couldn't, like can we just talk about this? I say, I use this language because I think in our household, I was that way. A rule was a rule was a rule when we were first raising our kids and And I can just hear almost my wife. In fact, I can look at her face right now. Can we just talk about this? It shows the personableness of this. This is not an abstract, bureaucratic system that was just set up. There's no lawgiver behind it. There's no personality behind this. This is a personal system. So I was like, can we just talk about this? Moses, can I have a word with God? What happens when there's no sun? And then God goes, oh, that's interesting. Tell you what, let's do this, and then lays out a precedent. I think, from what I understand, this is what those of you, maybe Brady can do. The English common law was more like this. laid out more by, you know, not by design, right? You know, the American Constitution was everybody gets in a closed room for months in some hot summer in Philadelphia, you know, after James Madison read, if you can believe it, 200 books. Jefferson sent over 200 books from Europe. And he just crammed them and showed up with a whole bunch of proposals. Which is, God be praised he did that. We should all thank God he did that. That was helpful. Somebody's got to do the legwork up front, you know, the spade work. You know, but that was up front by design. And then here's the big design. The Law of Moses was actually like starting out with principles, and then it built based on cases came along. What about this? What about this? You read Leviticus. Read Numbers. These things, they would change and modify, really more add to it as things develop. Follow? Quiz time. You have heard it said, you shall not murder. But I say to you what? Committed murder. If you say to him, I think I learned it as airhead in high school because that was our slang then. So I learned it as airhead. If you said to somebody, you airhead, I don't know what the Hebrew is or the Arabic, but call that a loose paraphrase. But you know, you airhead, whatever. Charlie Brown would have been blockhead, I guess it would have been back. So whatever it is, you know, like that put down, right? You're like, I don't know. Eventually, Jesus says you're guilty of hell. Now, how many of us are like, OK, I mean, That's like everybody. At some point we got so ticked off that we just let it rip, right? Jesus says, you murdered. Now if you go to the law of Moses, what you learn is that there are principles laid out like great commandment stuff, like you shall not murder, you shall not kill. There's principles laid out that then get, oh, here's a case. Oh, and in this case, this is what you should do. And then they get added. There's principle. No law. Somebody should, oh, I'm sorry. No, you cannot make laws to cover every single possible scenario. Right? You just can't do it. And we end up with thousands of pages now of laws, where before in our nation's history, they were short things. you know, things you could read and understand, they were principled, that then would be expected that wise people would know how to use it and understand how it operates and then could be interpreted with judges, right? Instead, like I told my students at Spring Branch Academy, the Michigan State Police sent me an email of all the laws that are in the state for schools. Within the last maybe five to ten years, they've made up laws. The state legislature, law, law, law, law, law, law, law, to cover this situation, this situation, this situation, this situation. You can't do it. It's like endless. If you try to cover every single thing. I'm told that every American, on average, commits three felonies a day. Like, if they wanted to, there's enough laws in the book that they could throw something at you. I was like, I think a constitutional lawyer wrote a blog about that, and then made it a little book, because he kind of got famous over that. It's like, there's laws for everything now. This is not the way God's law was. It's not that big. And so when Jesus comes along and says, Oh, you're treating it like a technical thing. Oh, there's a line here. Well, I've done this in my relationship. I haven't done this. It's like, you did it, but there's a line there. And you made these nice little lines. Well, here, can I share with you a principle? If you're angry, you've already murdered. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, if you look at a woman to lust at her, to desire, you've already committed adultery in your heart. Jesus' words, right? So it's like, Jesus didn't just treat them like just mere statements that then are just technical things and that's only what it says and refers to. They're actually deeper. They're principles, and they point to a whole cluster of things. You could break the Seventh or the Sixth Commandment in a variety of ways. Does that make sense? Turn with me just for an example of this. Turn with me to 1 Timothy, where in the New Testament, there's an example of this way of using the law. 1 Timothy, chapter 1. Verse 8, 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 8, but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, For murderers, now I hope you can start seeing the Ten Commandments here. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. And immoral men and homosexuals, you shall not commit adultery. And kidnappers, you shall not steal. And liars and perjurers, you shall not bear false witness. Now, you follow me? You see the echoes of that? and whatever else is contrary to healthy teaching according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted." Anything that's contrary to the gospel is wrong. That's what that ends with. But he gives some specifics where the law of God and the gospel line up. Remember, the gospel is not opposed to the moral law. The moral law, you know, love rejoices in the truth. Love takes no delight in unrighteousness. And so, what is right, and what is true, and what is loving, all line up. So, in this passage, this gives us an example of, like, Paul's use of the Ten Commandments. Kidnapping, lying, perjury, immoral men and homosexuals would be under the seventh commandment. I remember when I was washing windows in Louisville, Kentucky, I washed windows for a man that was gay. And he bought me Burger King. And we sat down at his table. And we were sharing a meal together. And he asked me, he looked across the table and said, what did Jesus say about being gay? If I had to rely on the bare word, I don't think he ever brings up the topic in bare word, like in the gospels, you follow me? I don't think it's ever there. But I know how he thinks about marriage. I know how he grounds his ethic. He grounds his ethic in the beginning. That's in the divorce laws. When they say, for what reason can a man divorce his wife? Jesus goes all the way back to the beginning and says, for this reason You know, in the beginning, He made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. He links Chapter 1, He made them male and female, and He put it right with Chapter 2, the summary of the whole creating of marriage in Chapter 2. The summary statement is, for this reason. Because of this historical event, a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So Jesus' ethic is built on a historical event, the way God created us, male and created us female, and then built marriage with one man and one woman, the two. Jesus says. It doesn't say that in Moses. Jesus stresses it, though, because it implies they, a man and his wife, they. He stresses and adds, it makes it explicit, the two shall become one flesh. And so we don't have to, you follow me in this? I don't have to have an explicit statement on X, Y, or Z if I understand the principles of how God thinks and his ways and then line up with that. Then I'm echoing the way Jesus taught the crowds. As he said, you know, you have heard it said, but I say to you. Okay, what questions or thoughts do you have about this way of doing ethics and principle-based ethics and law? Yeah, Katie? So, I just, it sounds like, That requires assuming, which is fine for a believer who already takes the word of God as their ultimate authority. But would a non-believer look to chapter 1 in Genesis and then just draw that conclusion? They're looking for something explicit, and they're not going to get it. Do you see what I'm saying? I think that works for us, but are you just giving it to us as believers? I'm giving it to you as believers. Because in the context of the authority of the written Word of God, but in the authority outside of that, like not authority but in a realm or arena outside of that, apart from this telling me, I don't know that creation is ex nihilo by the Word of God, it's by faith I understand that. I don't know that in the beginning God created woman from man. I wouldn't know that. by biology and examining these. That's a historical event. It's a unique event. So the Bible gives us more to ground our ethic than what would be given if you were just stuck out somewhere. What did you say to your friend? What did I say? Did you refer to him? I think I did. With Genesis? I think I did. Because he was asking what would Jesus say. It's been so long, I'd have to check my notes. I'd usually take notes on, like, conversations and different things. I mean, we're talking 19, about year 2000. That's 23 years ago. That would be a long time ago. But I remember the question more than I remember my own answer. Because I thought the question was typical. Like, that's a strong question that would be asked. Yep. okay yeah great so he's grady's asking how do i avoid a truth balloon a truth balloon is something that's true but not tied to the text we're in and at our church when we do training we try to avoid truth balloons you know the preacher that opens to a passage and all of a sudden You're talking about a topic that's not even there. And it might even be true, but it's floating around in midair. That's the kind of thing we want to avoid. So in this case, I'm drawing upon scripture, scripture, scripture that's principled. It's not like it's just not there. So I would go for Paul, I would go with Jesus, and then I would go where Paul confirms Jesus, because Paul did this. Not I, but the Lord, he would say. The Lord says. So Paul would confirm it. And then one other thing he would confirm. Paul would then go one step further. Usually he's Apostle of Jesus. So he's going to assert his authority as an Apostle. He's going to say, like 1 Timothy. And then he'll go to Jesus. And then he'll say, and the law also confirmed. Believers are not under the law. But it is a parallel authority. Follow me? So to confirm a truth, I bring in another witness, as the law also says. So Paul does that in 1 Corinthians more than once. I am not under Moses. I'm under Jesus. And so under the authority of Jesus, I say, Jesus, what do you think about marriage? I go to Matthew 19. I go to Mark chapter 10. I see exactly how Jesus grounds marriage. He grounds it in a historical event about how God designed this to be, which is different than, say, the commands of Moses in Deuteronomy and such. I'm not under Moses, I'm under the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Covenant. Is that helpful? So, okay. Alright, so, This then tells us that the law is much bigger than just things that are explicitly said. You look for the ground, like the principles and the kind of the architecture of it. It's down there and then you can use that to then stress this and that specifics. That's part of wisdom. If you go to the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs actually says wisdom comes from God's mouth. I wouldn't mind if that was nicely carved into a new building on Hillsdale's campus somewhere. That would be wonderful. Wisdom comes from the mouth of God, that apart from the Bible you can't actually get wisdom. For in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God. But God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. So wisdom comes from Revelation. And we need it. So as we go to Revelation, we see what God has done, how he's designed it to be. Okay, you get that point. Alright? So now, in the next chapter there's a lot of sacrifices. I'm just going to tick them off really carefully. There are burnt offerings. sin offerings, guilt offerings, and peace offerings. A burnt offering is entirely consumed on the flame. Can you imagine the whole bowl burnt completely on the altar? And if I can remember, the altar at the temple I think it's like 15 feet wide by 15 feet wide. It's like huge. It's bigger than the tabernacle. When you get to the temple, you don't have one lamp stand. You've got seven. The temple is ratcheted up another scale of magnitude. It's a mammoth altar. So when you see those animals sacrificed, you can imagine the flames. Imagine the kind of holocaust, they call it. Because in Hebrew, it's hola, hola. It's a burnt offering going up. Something to that. So you got burnt offering entirely burned. The sin offering is burned outside the camp. Not on the altar. And so it's killed in the holy place and the blood is taken in to the holy part and is smeared on the holy furniture. Or sprinkled it says in some translations. Smeared or sprinkled. on the holy furniture because it has made the presence of man has dirtied the presence of God and so in order for man to still dwell with God the blood has to be shown and it cleanses because the blood is the taking of a life Leviticus 17 11 says that the soul is in the blood the life is in the blood and so that is why it is home The value of the life violently taken is what makes up for the sin committed. Atonement. It's either going to be the death of the one who did it or the death of a substitute. There's no other option. And so the animal sacrifice system was the death of a substitute. You would lay your hands on the animal pronounce the sins over the animal and the throat would be slit and that blood would be taken then into the holy place or in a guilt offering it would be poured at the base of the altar. Okay? So it's very graphic of a picture and it really makes it pop. The whole meaning of atonement, of being a payment or a ransom in exchange for my ability to be in the presence of God. And then the guilt offering then was done to certain stealings, certain thefts, where you cheated, you lied, you defrauded somebody, and then you had to like pay it back, add a fifth, and then bring this guilt offering into the sanctuary. And then the peace offering was once all that was done, now you're on good terms with God, having been justified by faith, justified by His blood, we have peace with Him. So now we have peace with God and we can enjoy a meal. Like the table, representing the holy meal that we have of communion with God. Now that peace has been made on the basis of His blood. And so a peace offering then was an opportunity to have fellowship in the presence of God and the worshiper actually ate that. The burnt offering nobody ate. Sin offering, some of it by the priest. The guilt offering, I believe, some of it by the priest, and the peace offering, some of it by the priest, and some of it by the worshiper himself. Because now relationship has been restored with God. In 1995 and 96, I was 26 years old. I had just learned Hebrew at seminary, and I read an entire commentary on Leviticus. And it was one of the most revolutionary, soul-edifying exercises I ever did in my 20s. It made the atonement of Jesus come just pop out, like I could see it. Do you realize there is, number is 35, we'll get to it, there is no atonement, no sacrifice that can be made for murder. The only thing that atones for the sin of murder is the death of the murderer. It's the only thing that makes up for it under the law of Moses. You can't bring an animal. They brought an animal in a reparation or a guilt offering when money was stolen. What happens when you steal somebody's life? Oh, here's a bull. That would be like an insult. Can you imagine if somebody shot your 10-year-old and then said, here, Would $10,000 cover it? I mean, you'd just be enraged, wouldn't you? You have no idea how much the pain, the value. This is priceless, right? I mean, God says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man he shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man. The value of a human life, because it's in the image of God, where can you find? a payment, a ransom, that make up for such a taking. No sin, no sacrifice, right? So the only ones that were allowed was like chapter four of Leviticus, when somebody unintentionally sinned, they didn't even know what they were doing. You could bring in a ram. If the whole congregation unintentionally sinned, a lot more sin, you could bring in a bull. If somebody stole some goods, you could bring in a goat, a guilt offering, because it's money. But when you get up to like one life taken, no animal offering, where's the murder? What are you going to do when you have then not just one sin, but all your sins? And not just your sins, but all the sins of the world? Where are you gonna find one life so valuable that if you take that one life, it covers for not just one of your sins, but all of them, and not just your sins, but the sins of the whole world, and not just the whole world now, but all generations. Where will you find a life so valuable that it covers all that sin? Only when God dies. When God dies, We have found a life that can make up for the sin of the world. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's an amazing statement, the sin of the world. Our culture has no idea what to do with generational sins, no idea what to do with past sins. How many lives can we hang up? What did we do? War crimes? Generational punishments? What did we do? We lost our Christian heritage. We have no idea of the one who died to take away the sin of the world. On the basis of Christ, we can actually have atonement, where we don't have to minimize sins. Oh, it's no big deal. We'll just forget about it. This actually Francis Schaeffer was dead on on this. A lot of our psychological difficulties are due to the fact that we don't want to face a guilty conscience. We don't want to be honest with ourselves. I have just committed a real, horrible, moral failure. And I can't live with myself. And so we try to go to somebody that will explain it away. Give us reasons. Oh, you were trained, you were raised this way, so you're actually a victim. You're not a victimizer. You're actually not guilty. You follow me? We have psychological hoops, Freudian to the max, back in the mid-20th century, to come up and explain away all this guilt. When it's real, true guilt. Like you knew what you were doing, it was truly wrong, people were genuinely hurt, and you can't make up for it. Nothing you say, nothing you do, can ever make up for what you did. In fact, some of your sins have been committed against people who are dead now. You can't even talk to them. to try and get restored in that reconciled relationship. What do you do as a human being when you're faced with this kind of record on your conscience? You go to the cross and you turn to Jesus and you say, Jesus, you died for real sins and I have real sins. Not for fake sins. Not just for feeling guilty, no, for true objective guilt, even of things I don't even know yet, but we'll find out later as somebody says, you really hurt me, or God says, do you realize you ignored me through your entire teen years? You were so fixated on what people thought about you. How insulting that you regarded what people thought about you as more important than what I thought about you. Our sin is huge. But Francis Schaeffer was right. A Christian can throw open the shades, let the light come in, and be totally honest with oneself. Say, it's exactly right. I am a true sinner. And that's why it took God dying for me to make up for it. That's good news. Now I can approach the presence of God and not ask him to minimize his glory. Would you just make yourself out to be small, that sinning against you isn't a big deal so I could get into heaven? Nope. I can go, magnify your glory. Show that the law is inflexible and that I broke it to the max. But then show that you're also a God who is gracious and would not withhold your own son so that even I, who deserve to die, could be led in. That's amazing that this can, my conscience, I can be truthful and honest and walk into heaven knowing it's truly atoned for. The book of Hebrews says that the blood of Jesus perfects the conscience. It completes it. It gives it a sense of wholeness, that everything I did wrong has been now covered. It has been paid. It's all been rectified. I'm OK with God. I have peace with him. This book has hints of this. Go with me to that last chapter, that chapter 30. I was struck by this chapter. First of all, it goes through three cases. It goes through the young woman. I like that it stresses while she's in her father's house. This is a good word, because some of you are single ladies who have left your father's house. You are not under obligation to obey your dad. I think that's for children. And I think this chapter stresses it. When you get to the end of that, where it says, the last thing it says, while she is in her youth in her father's house. And it stressed youth earlier, back in, earlier in the chapter, in verse three and four, I think it was, back in, it's mentioned it again. So this is a good word for you, because I've done counseling on this, where it's like, I wish I had a word at the moment to be able to stress. What do you do with a 25, 28-year-old woman? Does she still have to obey her dad? It's like, she's on her own. She's before God. None of us should be on our own completely. We have a family. Who did Jesus say is his family? Turn to his disciples, right? Whoever does the will of the Father is my mother, my brother, my sister. We have family. We're not independent of family. We have a family of God. So it goes through the young woman. It goes through, first of all, the man. The man is stuck. Sorry, guys. You're stuck. You make a vow. A vow is this, God if you get me out of this, I will never do this again. That's a vow. God if you get me out of this, I'll give this to you. That's a vow. Usually when we get in a real pinch, we start making promises like this, almost like a gut reaction. Okay, that's why it says later, it's like a rash statement. Okay, it's the Martin Luther, help Saint Anne, I'll become a monk. You know, if you can just get me out of this lightning storm. You know, that was a vow and Luther kept it. He became a monk. And so what's interesting is, apparently, I don't know if he was completely out of his father's authority or not, because maybe his father could have trumped it. Old Hans Luther would have loved to trump it. I don't know if he could have or not. But, so you sons, You men, you're stuck. You make a vow. You take an oath. You got to keep it. But you young ladies, while you're in your father's house, your dad, if he had heard of it, first time he heard of it, he could have forbid you from doing it. And you'd be off the hook. You'd be forgiven. And then if you get engaged. And your fiance hears about it. First time he hears about it, he has his choice right then. You can go, no, no. No, no. You can't do that. That gets you off the hook. You're no longer obliged to fulfill that vow and follow through with it. That's what this law is saying. It's laying out this case. And then it goes to a divorced or a widowed woman who has been married. She's on her own. She makes vows. She's stuck with them. You gotta keep it. But if she's married and her husband hears about it, then the first time he hears about it, he has that option, and he can then annul it. Say, nope. Nullified. Not obliged. But if he lets it go, after having first heard about it, and then voids it, Look how the language is written in verse 15. But if he indeed annuls them after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt. Substitution is everywhere in the Bible. Some people like to say that substitutionary atonement, that Christ died in our place, Christ died instead of us. It's like, that's not biblical. That's not what the atonement, the cross, was about. They have other ways of explaining it. Like the cross is meant to influence us by its display of love. That's Peter Abelard. That's a fact. It is true. It's not the heart of it. Or like the cross is the example of dying to oneself. That's C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. And admittedly, he just says, this is my theory. He never claimed to be a theologian. At the heart of the cross, according to Paul, is the good news that Christ died for our sins. That as Isaiah says, that God laid on him the iniquity of us all. This phrase, this husband, who having heard about it, let it go, and then commanded his wife later on, no, you can't fulfill this. She vowed before God. She took an oath. As God lives, I will do this or that. I mean, this is major. He's breaking her oath by forbidding her. She's off the hook. The guilt is not on her. The guilt is on him. This is really interesting language. The guilt is on him. Do you hear that kind of atonement language? Who's God gonna punish? Can you hear almost like our Father in heaven coming along and saying, no. No, you've come up with your own program of feeling good about yourself, haven't you? You've gotten a disciplined program that you're going to be disciplined. You're going to control now the lust of the flesh. You're going to be a disciplined individual. You're going to control your mouth. You're not going to swear anymore, nor lie, nor get angry anymore. You're going to be a disciplined, upstanding individual, and make up for those sins, and put them in your past, and be a different man, a different woman, and feel good about yourself. And God comes along and says, I forbid it. Break it. Comes up to Martin Luther and says, break that vow, which he ended up doing. He quit being a monk, got married, had six kids. Well, that was done before God. Where does the guilt go? If a husband comes along and marries this woman called the church, and forbids her to do all her self-righteousness, all her self-made programs of performance, and piety, and pedigree, and how good my background is, my family heritage, how good my performance is. And this husband comes along and says, I forbid it. Break it all. Stop it. And let the guilt be on me. I'm going to die for you. It is so interesting. We have sacrifices where life is violently taken and the blood is treated as a price. Peter calls it more precious than gold or silver. It pays and substitutes and swaps out. We have a hand in Moses that lays it on a Joshua. And now Joshua is the substitute for Moses. And the authority of Moses is now laid on him. just like it says right after that that where the Levites are said earlier in this book in chapter 8 that the firstborn who were redeemed by the Passover lamb so they didn't die they belong to me but I'm going to swap out the Levites and so now have them put their hands on the Levites and we'll Number the Levites and number the firstborn and they didn't line up So we pay the difference with shekels with silver and we do a an economic swap Substitution is all over this book Laying on of hands is exactly what was done on sacrifices. So instead of me dying as the worshiper, I lay my hands on that goat, that ram, that bull, pronounce my sin over it, and the bull, his life is taken and brought into the holy place so I am set free and can now worship in the presence of a holy God, unscathed. How interesting. That a husband can break a vow and the guilt can be on him. Break the vow of his wife and the guilt is on him. That a husband, that a substitute lamb, can be brought into the holy place and that life taken. That the identity of the worshiper and that sacrifice is through the laying on of hands. Where now, just like Joshua takes over for Moses, Jesus take over for me. Be my sacrifice. Be my lamb. Be my substitute. Bear my guilt. Let me worship in the Father. Set free from guilt. This is Christianity, guys. This is exactly what it is. This is the heart of the gospel, according to Paul. that you hold to. You will be saved if you hold to it. First Corinthians chapter 15, 1 and 2. What I gave to you of first importance when I was first among you, He told those Corinthians, by which you are saved if you hold fast to it. That Christ died for our sins according to the Old Testament, the Scriptures. That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and seen confirmed in his death by burial, confirmed in his resurrection by seeing. But our faith is based on the Old Testament scriptures, the law and the prophets, and the things I've told you tonight. These are fulfilled in Christ. And I knew a Hillsdale College senior that almost left the faith, but Isaiah 53 held him fast, that he was pierced through for our transgressions, our rebellious acts, that he was crushed for our twisted behavior, that the chastening for our peace fell upon him, and by his whippings we are healed. He was whipped. He was crushed. He was pierced. Why? All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us turned to his own way. But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Please, young adults, don't give up the gospel. getting it minimized and slurred and slandered as if it's some Sunday school story that you were told as a kid, but now you get to grow up into real ethics and real morality and real religion. This is the real religion. The statistics in one year. A priest would offer, according to numbers, 113 bulls, 33 rams, 1,086 lambs, over a ton of flour and a thousand bottles of oil and wine in one year. And there was over a thousand years of the Law of Moses in place. Do you think a Jew had any clue when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? I think that metaphor was firmly established in their culture. God be praised. And the book of Revelation calls Jesus lamb more than anything else, I think. He's the lamb like 40-some times or something in that book. That's his identity. So don't lose Jesus. And praise God for our husband, who loved us in that way. And so let me pray tonight. And if you want to talk to me, I'd be happy to talk. Anything I can do to help. Father in heaven, Lord, we just thank you for Jesus tonight. And I just pray that you grant these young adults to see clearly the revelation of the righteousness of God that was manifested by the law and the prophets. It's apart from law. It's not a system of do's and don'ts that gets us right with you. It's through faith because it's something you did in Christ on our behalf. You made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It's a huge exchange. Thank you that we can have our hands laid on Him. Thank you that we can confess our sins over Him. Thank you that you took His blood not ours, and on our behalf, thank you that we have peace now with you and we can enjoy your presence and enjoy the prospect of being with you, even now enjoying your Holy Spirit. So I pray, Lord, that you'll grant this generation and these young adults to live for this message and this Jesus and hold fast to him. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. May the Lord use you. for his glory, whatever that may be in your calling, amen. All right. One more week.