LBC Annual Bible Conference 2021 Session 4

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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I mean, what's a guy got to do to get a compliment around here?

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It's like pulling teeth to get you to say something nice about me. Turn in your

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Bibles to Numbers chapter 15 verses 32 to 41.

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Numbers chapter 15 verses 32 to 41. We're going to end in a little bit of a different spot.

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We've looked at some classic passages that encourage us in the

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Bible. And I wanted to end here.

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When I was a junior in college, this is a very long and painful story and I won't tell all of it.

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But at the tail end of a long and complicated story, my college invited a pro -homosexual person who claimed to be a

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Christian and argued that the Bible, it wasn't just permissive of homosexuality, but actually argued for it.

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So they're going to have him come speak at the college. And their desire was to have him have a debate, or to, their desire was to actually have a member of the

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Bible faculty debate him when he was done with his presentation. And there wasn't a member of the Bible faculty that would do it, and I said

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I would do it. And we come into this meeting and he had this thing where he went through kind of six passages in the

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Old and New Testament that were told teach against homosexuality, but really don't on his view.

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And he called them clobber passages. These are the passages that Christians always roll out to homosexuals to clobber them over the head and make them feel bad, make them feel like they're less than.

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That was my first introduction to the phrase clobber passages. I've used that word since then, but in different ways.

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So for me, a clobber passage is not that. For me, a clobber passage is when I'm reading the

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Bible and a passage clobbers me. I'm like, my God, has this ever happened to you?

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You've been reading the Bible, you're minding your own business, you're in the bowels of the book of Numbers, and wham, right in the face, you get clobbered by this text of Scripture.

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In Numbers chapter 15, verses 32 to 41, I was reading it a while back, and it was one of those clobber passages.

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I couldn't get it out of my mind. And in a conference where we're talking about the practical usefulness and value of the word of God, I thought this would be a helpful note to go out on, and what we'll talk about here over the next little bit are the results of my having been clobbered by this text of Scripture.

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So Numbers chapter 15, verses 32 to 41, this is what God says. Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the

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Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation, and they put him in custody, because it had not been declared what should be done to him.

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Then the Lord said to Moses, the man shall surely be put to death.

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All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

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So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the

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Lord had commanded Moses. The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the sons of Israel and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.

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It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them, and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy to your

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God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your

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God. I am the Lord your God, let's pray. Father, you're the

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Lord our God, and you speak. You want your people to listen to your word and not play the harlot with our own hearts.

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And so, would you help us to do that? Help us to learn more about what it means to be faithful, to listen to your word.

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Even now we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so here's the big question.

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You read this, and the question is, is God cruel? I mean, this seems a little bit like it, right?

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I mean, here's a guy picking up sticks, and he's executed for it.

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This, if you wanted to make an argument that God was cruel, that God is not a

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God of mercy and grace and love and to be followed and honored, this would be as good a passage in scripture as any you could find as, okay, so we got a dead guy, cuz he's picking up some wood.

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It seems cruel, seems cruel, in my view, for at least two reasons.

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First of all, the crime does seem small. Picking up a little bit of wood, picking up some sticks.

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Picking up sticks is not a big deal, that's what he's doing, right? While the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, verse 42, they found a man gathering wood on the

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Sabbath. He's picking up sticks. It's such a small, trivial activity. They even have this game called pick up sticks.

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You can have fun as a family playing pick up sticks. This guy's dead for picking up sticks. Seems cruel.

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He's doing the wrong thing on the wrong day, and that's actually troubling.

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You could say, well, it is the Sabbath day, but that sort of makes it just a little bit worse. If you're inclined to see the cruelty of God in here, having it happen on the

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Sabbath day sort of makes it a little bit worse. The Bible, no matter how you slice it, no matter what kind of Christian you are today, you probably don't think, probably don't think, that the

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Bible enforces the Sabbath regulations, at least the way it did back then. This is not at least a preoccupation with the

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Bible today as it was in the Old Testament. Most of us believe that something different is happening with the

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Sabbath commands in the New Covenant than were happening in the Old Covenant. And even if you hate everything

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I just said, no I don't. Even if you think, if you're picking up sticks on Saturday, if you think that's wrong today, well, at least, at least you probably don't think that in a world with 60 % divorce rates and child predators, you probably don't think that this is a capital crime, just seems like such a small deal.

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And then that gets to the other thing that makes us think that it's cruel is that the consequences seem real severe.

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All right, let's grant that he should not have been picking up sticks on the Sabbath.

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Okay, wrong thing, wrong time, I'll grant it. But verse 34, they put him into custody.

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I mean, God bless you, I've met some folks with a real libertarian streak around here the last couple of days.

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And you're putting somebody into custody, putting somebody, I was in my yard, on my property, picking up some sticks.

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You're gonna put me into custody? Are you for real? They put him into custody, and then he is ordered to be executed.

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Verse 35, he shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones.

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Verse 36, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones.

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Stoned him with stones, they stoned him with stones in front of everybody. Everybody had to pick up a rock and throw it at this guy till he was dead.

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That is a horrible way to die. It's a shameful way to die. I mean, the last thing this guy saw was the people he knew and lived next to shaming him and executing him.

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That's a pretty steep penalty. But the Bible says they didn't make this up.

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This is not mob violence. This is not society run amuck. This is a word directly from God.

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Moses takes the problem to God and God says, execute him. Bring out all the congregation, have them all pick up rocks, and keep throwing until he's dead.

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That's a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Seems cruel, but is it?

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Is it cruel? Well, the crime seems small, and the consequences seem severe.

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But I actually wanna respond to the charge of cruelty in two ways.

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First, even though our sensibilities might be gripped by the apparent cruelty of the whole thing, there's actually a tremendous amount of grace here in this account and in the context that surrounds it.

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Let's look at the grace. The consequences seem huge and the crime seems small, but don't blow by the grace that's all over the place here.

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God did, after all, graciously warn the people not to do this.

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He told them not to do it. That's grace. Have you ever thought about the grace of a warning? The grace of don't do that, you're gonna get in trouble.

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The grace of don't do that, you're gonna get hurt. It is a lack of care and regard to let people do something that will kill them without a warning.

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It is a mark of grace and care to warn people that the path you're on is going to lead to your destruction.

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And the commands in scripture very regularly serve as this kind of gracious warning.

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In Exodus chapter 20, verses 9 to 11, we get the commandment, remember the

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Sabbath day, to keep it holy. And then in verse 9, six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the

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Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner, who stays with you.

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For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that's in them, and rested on the seventh day.

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Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. In Exodus chapter 31, we get a little bit more in verses 12 to 17.

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The Lord spoke to Moses saying, but as for you speak to the sons of Israel saying, you shall surely observe my Sabbaths.

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For this is a sign between me and you and throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

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Therefore, you are to observe the Sabbath for it's holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death.

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For whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among the people. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there's a

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Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death.

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So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.

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It goes on to say, it is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever. For in six days the

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Lord made heaven and the earth, but on the seventh day he ceased from labor and was refreshed.

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If you flip over to chapter 35, verses 1 to 3, it says, then

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Moses assembled all the congregations of the sons of Israel and said to them, these are the things that the

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Lord commanded you to do. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a

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Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. Verse 3, you shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the

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Sabbath day. And you might be sitting there going, okay, he keeps reading verses about the

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Sabbath day, why are we doing that? We got the point. But apparently not, this guy didn't. Over and over and over again, it's like, don't do this, don't do this.

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If you do any work, you're gonna die. Don't do it. Anybody who does any work shall be put to death. Don't even pick up wood to kindle a fire on the

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Sabbath day. Don't do it or you will die. And this guy walked right out the tent and picked up wood to build a fire.

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There is repeated warnings about this, about the commandment, don't do it.

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Don't do any work. About the reason for the commandment. Let me tell you why you don't do this.

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I'm the Lord, I didn't even do any work on the Sabbath day. So don't you do any work on this. If I can make it without work on the

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Sabbath day, says the Lord, you can make it without work on the Sabbath day too. Don't do it. This is a covenant between you and the consequences.

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Three or four times we just read, you're gonna die. You shall surely die. Don't do this or you will surely die.

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There are repeated warnings about the commandment, about the reason for it, and about the consequences of it, and that is an act of grace.

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It's an act of grace to do it. And this man disregarded repeated statements about the command, repeated warnings, repeated explanations for it, and repeated statements about the consequences.

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And he went out and sinned with a high hand. He went out and did whatever he wanted to do.

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Even though God had warned him not to. So God graciously warned the people about the sin.

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God graciously provided a lesson to the entire congregation about the sin.

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Now listen, this is what happens after the guy sins. What happens after the guy sins, after he gets in trouble,

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God says to Moses, the man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

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So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the

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Lord had commanded him. They received a lesson, the congregation did, in how serious this was.

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They received a lesson in fleeing sin in their own life.

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Listen, on that chilly morning in the wilderness, or on that morning in the wilderness when it seemed like some nice, warm manna would be better than cold manna, this guy wasn't the only one.

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I mean, there were definitely some Israelites sitting in their tent going, what do you think, honey? Just a few sticks and build a fire, what do you think?

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There are people who were tempted. Well, when the congregation has to pick up stones to stone the guy that did, they stop being tempted right then.

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I mean, this is a reminder to the congregation. God is, this is actually less about shame for the man and more about a gracious reminder for the congregation.

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Don't do this or you're gonna be on the other side of these rocks. It's not worth it to sin against the

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Lord. It's also a powerful lesson to the entire congregation about helping others fight sin.

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Again, this is less about shame and more about the congregation taking responsibility for them not taking care.

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And accountability and responsibility for their brother. Listen, there are people looking out their tent going, is that Daryl over there?

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What is he doing? I thought we were supposed to be inside today. Is he picking up a stick?

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Look at that. I didn't think we were supposed to do that. I hope nobody sees him do that. Honey, maybe you should,

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I'm not gonna tell, that's his life. That's his business. I'm not, I'm not getting involved in what Daryl's doing. Daryl wants to pick up a stick, he can pick up a stick.

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And then Daryl got in trouble. And then the guy talking about Daryl had to go pick up a rock and be part of the punishment.

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This is a powerful lesson that we're responsible for one another when we are a member of the people of God.

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And anybody who looked out their tent or stood there and watched Daryl commit high treason against the

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King of Heaven and Earth realized that they've got to be involved in helping one another. So this is a gracious lesson for the congregation involved in the punishment after this man sinned.

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And also God graciously provides the congregation with a practical way to remember the command.

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There's all these commands, don't do it. Here's why it's important not to do it. And here's what's gonna happen if you do.

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The guy blew past all that, and so God shows up after that and is gracious again.

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And he says, speak to the sons of Israel, tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations.

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And that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the

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Lord. Not the ones you think are big, not the ones you think are small. Not the ones you think are insignificant or significant, but all the commandments of the

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Lord. God already decided which ones are the big ones and which ones are the important ones, and those are the commandments he gave.

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All of them are important. You remember all the commandments of the Lord so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot.

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So God condescends again, God extends mercy and grace again. He's like, all right, make a garment.

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Let's make something you can touch and feel. Something you can rub with your fingers and feel on your back and know that I gotta obey the commands of God and not the desires of my own heart.

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God takes another step of grace. He gets intensely practical. He makes a garment with colors and you're supposed to wear it through the generations.

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And there would be people who would be able to tell their kids, let me tell you why we started making these garments. Because there was a guy who thought it wasn't a very big deal to follow the commands of the

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Lord. And every time we touch this tassel, we're supposed to remember that when you disobey the

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Lord, that's a big deal, whether you understand the commandment or not. All that is in an effort to remember the commandments so that you can avoid the fate of this man.

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So that you can avoid the fate of this command, of this man.

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Psalm 119, verse 11, it says, your word I've treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

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And every single one of us who encounters the story of this man in Numbers, chapter 15, knows the preciousness of that word.

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I need to treasure your word in my heart. This man didn't, and he sinned against the Lord, and his life was over because of it.

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It's an act of grace to tell the story. Everything about the

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Bible, everything about this passage, is a picture of a gracious God trying to stop this man and to stop us from avoiding the fate that this man met.

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We actually, we look at this extension of divine grace and see divine cruelty because we don't understand the preciousness of the word of God.

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The word of God came, don't do it. And he thought he had a better idea. The word of God came and said, put him to death.

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And we are tempted to think we've got a better idea, but we better be careful because we're guilty in our heart of the same thing this guy did.

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We're going down the wrong path. It's not cruelty, it's grace. This gets to two rules for life that we gotta remember.

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So I said I wanna respond to this thought that it's cruel with two big ideas. And the first big one is what we first read as cruelty, because we wanna be able to do whatever we wanna do, is actually grace.

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And the second response is to remember that there are two rules of life that are always true.

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You can't change them, you didn't create them, so you can't change them. It doesn't matter if you like them because your opinion was not solicited when the rules were made.

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These are two rules of life that never, ever change. They've always been in place, and they always will be in place, and they help us make sense of this account if we're tempted to think it's cruel.

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And the first rule is the Lord is God and not us. The Lord is

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God and not us. Two realities here, the

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Lord is God, he is the king. There is a king, it is the

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Lord, and that gets to the second reality, we are not him. The Lord's God, first reality, you're not him.

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This is a problem with this man in Numbers chapter 15.

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It's a problem with this man because the Lord told him not to pick up sticks, and he disagreed.

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He didn't care that the Lord told him not to pick up sticks on the Sabbath day. He thought if he wanted to pick up sticks on the

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Sabbath day, that was his right to do it if he wanted to, and who cares what the Lord thinks? If I wanna pick up a stick,

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I pick up a stick, except God said don't do it. He messed up that first rule, the

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Lord is God, not you. You don't get to have it your way. You don't get to make up the rules.

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We do this in our house, my house, my rules, right? You ever have your kid come to you and tell you that they do it different at the

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Sanders house than they do at the Lamberts house? I'm going, I don't care. The Lamberts aren't Sanders. Lamberts do things differently than Sanders do.

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Well, but I like it better over there. All right, well, ask the Sanders if they wanna pay for your medical insurance. If they'll pay your medical bills, let's talk, and they're racking up with one of our kids.

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The Lord told him not to pick up sticks, and he disagreed. He wanted a different set of rules, and it doesn't matter. No one, no, no, him, no one gave him the offer or the right to choose whether he got to make the rules, and nobody gives that to you and me either.

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It's just the way it is. In verses 39 to 41, the word of God says, it'll be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the

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Lord so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes.

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He's getting to the very heart and soul of the temptation of what it means to be a human being.

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I wanna follow my own heart, my own soul, and my own eyes. I don't wanna hear somebody else telling me what to do.

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I wanna do it my way. Verse 40 says, so that you may remember to do all of my commandments and be holy to your

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God. Verse 41, I'm the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the

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Lord, your God. Listen, you don't have to be a Hebrew scholar to understand that God's concern here is that you understand that he is the

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Lord, your God. I'm the Lord, your God. It's like he's shaking, like, I am the

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Lord, your God. What are you doing? What are you thinking? You don't even get to pick up a stick without permission.

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I'm the Holy One of Israel, and who do you think you are?

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It's not your world. It's not your rules. Nobody asked you.

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Psalm 100 verse 3, know that the Lord himself is

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God. It is he who made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

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Every single soul in hell never learns that lesson. It's me, it's my world, it's my heart, it's my eyes, it's my desires.

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God, who cares? Well, you'll care soon enough. Rejecting the

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Lord as God and exalting yourself as God didn't work for this man.

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It's never worked for anybody else, and it never will. That's the first rule.

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The Lord is God and not us. The second rule is all sin earns a death sentence. The prophet

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Ezekiel says the soul that sins shall die. The soul that sins shall die.

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There's no coda on the end of that verse. The apostle Paul says the wages of sin is death.

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If you wanna sin, you're gonna get paid for it. You're going to die. When you wind up in hell as an unrepentant sinner, you will have earned your spot there the good old fashioned way.

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It's what you get. It's the desserts, it's the payout of sin. We see cruelty in this text because that inextricable rule of life, that the wages of sin is death, that all sin earns a death sentence.

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We want reality to be something other than what it is, and it will never be. We sinned, he sinned,

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I've sinned, and you've sinned following our own heart instead of the command of God. And now we want the consequences to be something different than what they are.

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Well, big surprise, it never works out that way. Once you make the decision to sin, once you make the decision to do that, you lose the right to determine any of the consequences.

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Don't you see this all over the place? Don't you see it just time after time after time? Everybody thinks they can sin and do what they want and they'll control it and manage it.

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And as soon as you start to do it, you realize the consequences of sin quickly explode beyond what you think you can control.

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It's not cruelty on God's part that that's true. It's insanity on our part.

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We are insane, sinfully crazy that we think it should be different than that, that we think it ever would be different than that.

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The man in this text violated those two inalterable rules that day in the wilderness, and we do it every day.

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This is the reason we think it's cruel, cuz we're doing the same thing, and we wanna be treated differently than he was.

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We don't pick up sticks on the Sabbath. Actually, we probably do. But again, we're dealing in a different situation with the

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Sabbath now. We do the same kind of thing. You hear this all the time, a little bit of lust, it's not a big deal.

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Everybody looks, don't they? Doesn't everybody look? I don't think God minds if we look. I've heard that,

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I'm just quoting people I've heard. I don't think it's a big deal what I imagine. Look but don't touch, no big deal.

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A little bit of lust, no big deal. Just pick up a few sticks, nobody will care. Gossip, gossip with your mouth, gossip with yours, it's no big deal.

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Let me tell you this thing here real quick. I mean, cut me some slack, okay? Let me listen real quick, cut me some slack, all right,

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I wanna hear. It's no big deal, just talk, just a little text message, just a little

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Facebook post, worry, it's not a big deal.

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I had a church member one time tell me, I think God understands when we worry just a little bit.

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I think God's okay with a little bit of worry. I think God knows that means we care. Except in Matthew chapter six,

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Jesus says, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. The apostle Paul says in Philippians chapter four, be anxious for a few things, no, be anxious for nothing.

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I think God's okay when we worry. Skimping on your taxes, it's my money anyway.

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Grumbling, hate this pastor, not this one,

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I'm the one they hate. Just a little bit of grumbling, except the

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Bible says, do all things without grumbling and complaining. We treasure these little sins in our heart all the time.

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Just like the man in Numbers 15, picking up sticks on the Sabbath day. We think it's cruel, not because God's cruel, but because we're just as guilty as homemade sin.

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We want the rules different for him, because we want the rules different for us.

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The spirit of the man in the wilderness picking up sticks is the spirit that resides in our hearts too, and we deserve to die.

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The soul that sins shall die, the wages of sin is death. Listen, do you think there weren't people ready to make signs in the wilderness, in the ancient world, no more deaths by stoning.

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Get on the right side of history. We gotta pick up sticks and start fires or we're gonna die.

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Organization of the United Brotherhood of Men Who Pick Up Sticks on the Sabbath. What's going on with these crazed, lunatic, fringe fundamentalists who think we ought to kill people for picking up sticks?

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Listen, if you don't think they weren't talking about it in their tents, you don't understand the human spirit. It was true then, it's true now.

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And the problem is, I don't like what the word of God says. I wanna do what

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I wanna do. I believe I am God, not him. We deserve to die.

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But what we need to do, if we're gonna avoid death, is not question the way life works.

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We can't undo these two rules. The Lord's God, not us. That's not gonna change. All sin deserves a death sentence.

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It's not going to change. So you can grumble and complain about it all you want, and you'll do that forever, and ever, and ever, and ever in miserable pain.

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What we need is not to grumble and complain about the way life works. What we need is mercy.

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Because in, and through, and over, around, and under those two rules for life is a

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God of mercy. He never changes the rules, but his mercy reshapes our experience of those rules.

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And his mercy comes to us chiefly in Jesus Christ.

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In John chapter 19, verses 16 to 18, the

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Bible says, so he then handed him over to them to be crucified. They took Jesus, therefore, and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha.

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There they crucified him with him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in their place.

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Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the

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Jews. You know what that says? It says that Numbers 15 isn't the last time in biblical history that a man was executed for picking up wood.

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The next time a man is executed for picking up wood, it's Jesus Christ, the King of Jews, the

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King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. And he does it on his own will, in obedience to the

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Father. And when he picks up wood, he doesn't do it so that he can have just any old thing he wants.

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He does it for us. He does it to pay the penalty for all of the times in our hearts when we do little things that we think are no big deal, but the wages of sin is death, and that's true, except Jesus is the one who receives the payment instead of us.

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And what we have to do is we have to stop demanding that it be different. We have to stop fighting to sit on the throne of God and heaven, and we have to realize that the

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Lord is God and not us. The wages of sin is death, and that is true in all cases.

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But when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus Christ, we can trust that he picked up wood for us, that he paid our penalty.

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And we'll know the infinite God of grace, infinitely and forever. Not because our sins are no big deal.

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Even the small ones are of eternal significance, because Jesus pays for all of them. Let's pray.

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Father, we need the help of Jesus Christ, and we don't need to grumble and complain. We need to be thankful that your rules are your rules.

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You are the King of heaven and earth. But instead of giving us what we all deserve, which is a summary execution, you lay the punishment and the guilt of our sin onto Jesus Christ, who takes up wood on our behalf.

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I pray that you'd give us the gift of faith to believe in who he is and what he's done. I pray that you would show us our sin, and when we see it, we don't have to run from it, we don't have to complain.

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We can be thankful for your mercy, the mercy of Jesus that covers all of our sin in his blood.

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We pray in his name. So ends our annual

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Bible conference. I want to thank Keith for his faithful ministry of the word of God. And I hope that the

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Lord used him in your life to challenge you, and not just to leave here saying, ah, what a great preacher.

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Rather, what a great God. What a marvelous word.

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So let's stand, and we'll be dismissed in prayer. Shall we? Father, you've used your servant to minister your word to us, to serve it to us, and we thank you for that.

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Now, Father, our deepest desire is that we would not, as the

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Lord accused the people of Israel, through the prophet that they went about saying, wow, we've heard someone great today.

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Rather, that we would say, we've heard the word of God, and we need to obey. Help us by your grace and because of your grace to think greatly of your word and to seek to order our lives, all of our lives, by that word.

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Thank you again for your faithfulness to us and giving us your voice. And we pray this in the name of Jesus.