Gooding, David: 3 - Loyalty and Breaches of Faith

Let us begin our study this evening by reading first from the book of Numbers, the book of Numbers chapter five. Book of Numbers chapter five, reading verse twenty nine and thirty. This is the law of jealousy. When a wife, being under her husband, goeth aside and is defiled. Or, when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he be jealous over his wife, then shall he set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Chapter twenty five of the same book. Chapter twenty five and verse one. And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. For they called the people unto the sacrifice of their gods, and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Verse ten. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and it shall be unto him and to his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. Chapter thirty one of this same book, and verses one and two. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites. Afterward, shalt thou be gathered... unto thy people. And then with those three passages from our book of Numbers, let's just read three other passages from the New Testament. The first of them found in one Corinthians and chapter ten. First Corinthians and chapter ten, Beginning in verse fourteen. Wherefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. You judge what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break. Is it not a communion of the body of Christ? Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh. Have not they which eat the sacrifices communion with the altar? What say I then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I would not that you should have communion with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. Or... do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And then a passage from second Corinthians chapter eleven. Second Corinthians chapter eleven and verse one. Would that you could bear with me in a little foolishness. Nay, indeed, bear with me. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. And finally, from the, for the moment, in this same epistle, Second Corinthians in chapter seven, Beginning at verse nine. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry unto repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly sort, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret. But the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this selfsame thing, that you were made sorry after a godly sort. What earnest care it wrought in you. Yes, what clearing of yourselves. Yes, what indignation. Yes, what fear. Yea, what longing. What zeal. What avenging. In everything you approved yourselves to be pure in the matter. God give us good understanding of his holy word. For the moment, we have ceased our reading, but it would be helpful if you could find Numbers five and be ready to keep your eye upon the page, or shall I say upon the pages, as we proceed. Now, last week, our study directed our thinking towards the blessings of God. And we were reminded how, in order to prepare Israel for their journey across the Sinai Peninsula, God instructed his priests how to bless his people. Not merely with empty words and formulae, but by the power of the Spirit of God, so to make Israel aware of the blessings of God, of the security that comes to us through the blessing of God, of the unbounded wealth and riches that there is for us in the sunshine of the face of God. That Israel, being full of a sense of God's blessing, should be strengthened in their journey, strengthened for when the trials and the tribulations came, when they were called upon to pass through the badlands on the way to their inheritance. And we saw how, when in the journey, powers human and powers superhuman tried their fell ability to prevent Israel entering into their inheritance. And the blessed second person of the Trinity himself came bodily to oppose them. Faithful to his people, he saw them through. Thinking about Israel's blessings presented us with an irresistible temptation. We didn't try to resist it, actually. It set us thinking about God's blessings of us. And if God had blessed Israel, how infinitely more he has blessed us, his people. Blessed be God, we read, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. And before we knew where we were, our imagination had carried us away, and we were seated with Christ in heavenly places. And from that angle, the old badlands that may stretch ahead didn't look quite so dark. Because though we have still to go through them, maybe, yet in a sense we saw the marvel of this thing, that God not merely will bless us, but has blessed us. He has blessed us even as he chose us, and in Christ we are already seated in those heavenly places, to which, in another sense, we journey, where at last, one day, we shall be bodily. Ah. And we went home, or at least I did, you went home very tired, but it's difficult sitting on seats a long while, it's very painful. Standing is much easier. If you want to stand tonight, well, you may. We went home exultant in the sense of God's blessing. Oh, what a tremendous thing it is to empower us through the desert journey. Tonight we shall not rise to such heights. For tonight God calls us to consider very practical, down to earth things. Many of them sad and sorry. You will, of course, remember, please, that I didn't write numbers. And we shall go home, sober, and perhaps very thoughtful. But then, you see, it would have been highly unrealistic for God, wouldn't it, to have allowed his people to start out on the journey with false ideas of what it was going to be like. Therefore, we shall follow God tonight, as we have done before, by studying, first of all, some of those provisions that he made for his people. Then we shall consider part of their journey and the story of it. And see again the wisdom of God, as proved by Israel's experience on the journey, the wisdom of God in the preparation he made for them. And so, as I say, we come tonight with chapter five, and we begin God's command to Israel as he warns them about some of the things that can go wrong in the course of the journey. And it isn't so much that, uh, a wagon might break down. Well, of course, that was to be expected, wasn't it? Going across the old rocky, sandy desert in all the heat for all those years, I suspect a whole lot of wagons broke down from time to time. But you can foresee that kind of eventuality, can't you? And you can take a few spare wagon wheels with you and an odd bit of wood to put in when one of the spokes breaks. Huh? And if an old ox gets tired and ill and falls down on the job, well, then you can, by wise husbandry, see to it that there are a lot of young oxes coming along behind that can be put in a harness and take their turn at pulling the old wagons. Goodness me, it's not beyond man's wit, nor God's either, to foresee the practical difficulties and the things that could go wrong in a practical, mechanical way across the wilderness and make provision how to overcome them. But what do you do when the people of God themselves break down? That's another story, isn't it? And oh, how piteously unrealistic it would have been of God to let them start out on that journey, unaware of the possibility it is possible for God's own people to break down. And so God warns them of that fact, but in the kindness of his heart, he instructs them before they start of what they can do about it. What is to be done about it? What can be done about it? When the people of God themselves go wrong. If you will part- turn your eye down chapter five of Numbers, you will see with me two of the main considerations that lay in God's mind at this point. There would be two difficulties in the camp of Israel. One of them would be the ever-present danger of uncleanliness. Look at verse two where it talks about people that are unclean for one reason or another. And what is to be done if their uncleanness, according to verse three, defiles the camp? Similarly, from verse eleven onwards, God talks about the possibility that a woman married to a husband might fall into unfaithfulness and thereby be... defiled. And if we followed on into chapter six, amid the instructions for the Nazarite and his vow, God tells that Nav- Nazarite what he is to do and what he can do. If in the middle of his period of vow, suddenly something happens beyond his control and defiles the man. What he must do to put it right. There would be ever present danger of defilement. Secondly, would you notice verse 6? Speak unto the children of Israel, when a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit. Now this next phrase is important. To do a trespass against the Lord. Only the word that is here translated trespass means really to commit an act of unfaithfulness to the Lord. A breach of faith. An act of treachery, to commit some kind of infidelity. And the kind of trespass that is here envisaged, as we shall see in a moment, is when a man not only did something wrong, but when challenged about it, swore in the name of the Lord, and swore to a lie in the name of the Lord, in order to try and get himself out of trouble. An act of very serious treachery against the Lord, and a very solemn breach of face, breach of faith with his fellow Israelite. And then look what verses eleven and twelve are saying. Verse twelve in particular, speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, if a man's wife go aside, and here we come to the phrase again, and commit a trespass. There's your idea again of infidelity, a breach of faith, an act of treachery. You say, did that kind of thing happen amongst Israel? Were they that bad? My good brother, my sister, before our meditation is over, we shall have to examine our own hearts, can't we? And say, could I be guilty? If not of this particular sin, could I be guilty of disloyalty to the Lord? Of infidelity to God? To acting a lie. And should it happen, what would God do? These, I say, shall be solemn things, but we must face them. And first of all, therefore, those few verses, verses two, three, and four of chapter five, that deal with the question of uncleanness. And I hope you begin to see the importance and the seriousness of uncleanness. For you see, verse, um, two and three remind us there was a danger of defiling the camp. And the word reminds us of the situation. Do you see, the problem wasn't how did you get one person or two across the Sinai Peninsula? That would have been comparatively easy. Hire the local helicopter, and where you'd have been there in no time. There wouldn't even have been time for anybody to fall out. The journey would be so quick, and you'd be there in no time. That wasn't the problem. The problem was, how did you get a camp full of thousands of people living not in comfortable homes like we do, but living in tents cheek by jowl. The traffic problems would have been enormous, wouldn't they? And imagining going out in the morning with your bucket of water, I don't know how far to go, and cooing up. Hmm. How did you get a camp full of hundreds of thousands of people across country like that, without their tempers getting frayed and all sorts of funny things going on among the people of God? And uncleanness. I suspect it terrified Moses night and day, don't you? Even if we start at it from the level of hygiene, you think of those thousands of people under a blazing hot sun and very often short of water. Anything less than the most scrupulous concern for cleanliness in that camp could have proved disastrous. What was more serious, it wasn't this just one fellow over here was always a bit a little bit careless about his toilets and a bit filthy and didn't wash behind his ears every morning. But you see, as he gets infected, and then he infects the whole camp, and an epidemic could have gone through like like grease lightning. There's a trouble when you move in a company of people, isn't it? In a camp, I nearly said in a church. It isn't always what you do yourself, you know, it's what the other chap does. And it wasn't simply a question of physical hygiene either, was it? Because you will see that God lays down certain things they would do to, had to do to those that were defiled by the dead, for instance. Not so much on the ground of hygiene, but notice verse three, that they defile not their camp in the midst whereof I dwell. For in the ancient laws about cleanliness and uncleanliness, we shall observe that there are a lot of things that God commanded Israel for the sake of their symbolism. There were rules and regulations upon what food they may and may not eat, and animals and birds and fish were classified. Some were clean, some were unclean. Our blessed Lord, when he came to earth, he, uh, abrogated those rules and regulations, didn't he? And you may remember how God, speaking out of heaven by means of the sheet full of unclean beasts and crawly things, taught Peter the lesson that the days of those ancient symbolisms of distinctions between clean foods and unclean foods were now over. For all the way along, they had only been symbols, many of them. Teaching Israel that in their appetites, in their food, they were to observe difference between clean and unclean. And that would remind them that they were meant to be the holy people of God, distinct from the unclean Gentile outside. That they were no longer to walk as unclean Gentiles walk. Now, in Old Testament days, of course, the symbolism is gone, the reality remains. God concerned with moral and spiritual cleanliness. Because uncleanliness cannot merely offend my fellow Israelite, my brother in the Lord. If it be true that the living God dwells among his people, then to permit uncleanliness in the camp is offensive to the Lord himself. It is at that level, surely tonight, that we shall want to apply this lesson to ourselves. Oh, how careful, my brothers, my sister, we ought to be, didn't we? To cite for a moment the words of Hebrews chapter twelve, for instance. Let there be no fornicator among you or profane person like Esau. Be careful, lest a root of bitterness can be theological. It could also be behavioral, couldn't it? But think of it, my brother, and ask yourself if it isn't a very vivid description of what, alas, has happened amongst God's people all too often. A root of bitterness springs up, here too, brethren, and something arises. And before you know where d- where you are, the whole thing is blown up, like a powerful fountain that you can't stop, like a noxious weed that grows and you think you'll get it out, but it it's spread its tentacles, and before you know where you are, the whole assembly is involved in the thing. And many be thereby defiled. I think as I stand here, of an assembly I know in some country, let it be nameless. Whereof, not so long ago, such a root of bitterness sprang up, the only thing that could be done in the end was for the trustees to come and put a padlock on the door and stop the believers attending the meetings. Well, my brother, my sister, does it happen? That assemblies can be going on happily, and then... some eruption. And it can't be confined to the one or the two that are, as you say, as we commonly say, causing the trouble. While it's all going on, you try and come and worship at the Lord's Supper, and there hangs a Paul, a kind of an unclean atmosphere over the congregation. Paul had to talk quite strongly, didn't he, about these things to the Corinthians. Don't you realize, he says, that your assembly at Corinth is a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells among you, as it was a solemn and glorious thing that God dwelt in the camp of Israel, and they had to be careful about this matter of uncleanness because God was there. So, says Paul, your assembly is a temple of God. The Holy Spirit of God dwells among you. Let me tell you, says Paul, that he who destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy. I wouldn't like to be a troublemaker, would you? In a church of God. What is to be done? Now, our ancient passage tells us that in extreme circumstances they had to put unclean people outside the camp. It would be improper of us to take ancient passages dealing with health laws and apply them to cure, to the government of the church. But it is the fact, isn't it? There are sins, blatant, that if we continue in them, the church would be under solemn responsibility to excommunicate us. Very, very solemn, isn't it? Then, my brothers and my sisters, here is the reality of what a church is. If the thrice holy God dwells among us. And preeminent in importance is the honor and dignity of the Lord. And from talking about that, uh, the Lord goes on to talk to Moses as to what is to happen when a man or a woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord and shall feel guilty. Now, if we compare these short verses, they seem to be a reference to the longer rules and regulations that are given in Leviticus chapter six, which chapter is talking about day-to-day life, and in particular in business life. It envisages, uh, somebody finding something that was lost and being covetous of it, he takes it, and uh, and when search is made and people are asked, have you, have you seen this lamb? Have you seen this bit of silver? I lost my, you know, like that woman did in Luke fifteen. I've lost a thing out of my tiara business, and I can't go to the parties because I've lost the piece. And Mrs. so-and-so has found it, but she isn't saying. No, she hasn't seen it anywhere. And what about this brother here, you see, Liz Hoffney, we'll call him, in the tent over here. And here come the old camels and dromedaries of the big spice routes called there coming through. They came through the desert. You mustn't imagine the desert to be just mere sand. There were some big trade routes crisscrossing it here and there, camels coming, the merchandise with all sorts of spices, and here goes Mrs. Eliada, oh, beautiful, you see, and her husband is looking at some things he could profitably buy. All these merchants, he has got the money. He says to so and so, let me, lend me a fiver, and he lends him a fiver. I promise you I'll give it back. When the time comes, he doesn't get it back. You can see what reactions, can't you? And you smile because it's also true to life, the kind of thing. You say, believers wouldn't do it, wouldn't they? Have you never known an assembly nearly brought to disaster by business quarrels among the men? God counted it not merely an offense between the odd Israelite and his fellow. To swear to a lie in business deals, to sign your income tax paper and not be declaring what you should declare, solemnly to sign to a lie. It's an offense against the Lord, says God. That's a breach of faith. That is an act of treachery. You say, do these things matter? My brothers, my sisters, as believers, we're like Israel, only we're on our road not to Palestine, but to heaven, going as a company of people, aren't we? Not just going as isolated individuals. Somehow or other, we have to learn to go together. I was in a church once that suffered this kind of thing. Oh, what an impediment it was to the whole church. What's to be done? Well, God tells them what to do. There must be restoration, of course, plus interest. There must be confession and seeking the forgiveness of God through the sacrifice of the atonement. And from those two things discussed briefly, we come to this much more prominent thing. What is to happen if a man, for some reason or other, comes to suspect the fidelity of his wife? Does it matter? You say, don't be stupid, man, of course it matters. It's one of life's most fundamental things. Yes, yes, it is in the, in the man and wife. Does it matter for the camp? Does it matter for the whole people of God? Well, of course it does. Trust an old bachelor to think up quite impossible ideas, wouldn't you anyway? Could you imagine Israel now setting forth? What a high adventure it all is. It will need everybody working together, you see. Presently, who knows, some Amalekite will come round the corner, and you'll have a battle on your hand, and the men will be required to go out and face the enemy, face desert self to protect wife and children. What about the man who's just discovered that his wife has been unfaithful to him? He's going to fight for her. Say, could it happen amongst God's people? Ah, yes. And in some countries it's happening now more than ever it did. Breach of faith, plus divorce. So now in some countries you can find ministers of the word of God up preaching in public and writing their books for the public, and they're now on their third wife. What a disaster. Marriage built by God as a reflection at the human level of the relationship between Christ and the church. And here are the believers on their way through the wilderness home to glory. Do you know what I- their hope is? There's going to be a heaven presently. Oh, what a heaven it's going to be. How are you sure of it, you say? How can I be absolutely sure of salvation? Ah, our friend, I tell you how. Because Christ loves the church. He gave himself for her and has pledged his unbreakable faithfulness to that church. There'll never be a divorce, will there? And in that fact that there will never be a divorce, we find that security in his love that spells heaven. How would you like to enter heaven, my good brother? And go about the walls and mark the ramparts of the heavenly Jerusalem and see this great city that God has prepared for them that love him. And then the niggling thought come into your heart, yes, yes, but I don't know. I might be up here a thousand years or a million, and then Christ go tired of me, and he might, uh, ditch me. Or if it were possible, the very pleasures of heaven would turn into tortures, wouldn't they? And here we are, God's people. Marriage between Christian man and Christian woman, meant to be a reflection of the love of Christ for the church and the love of the church for Christ. And then, oh, how cruel a thing sin can be, isn't it? That faithfulness is shattered by the man or the woman. What a blow to suffer on the road towards heaven. What a scandal for the church itself to have to endure. What's to be done about it? God tells Moses here what provision now he is to provide, and a very elaborate provision it is. You may wonder at first sight about the proportions of Holy Scripture. Why does God devote such a long, long thing to this? You might also wonder why on earth a bachelor should be interested in it anyway. Well, I wish some more qualified elder would be standing here instead of me. But then, but then. And you'll see... men can be horribly unreasonable, can't they? And selfish. There's a man who gets it into his head that his wife has not been faithful, and she's been the most faithful woman under the sun. She's not guilty of any infidelity. He gets it into his head she is. You know what men can be. But you see, now life becomes difficult, doesn't it? Because at this level, this is a relationship that depends on utter and complete trust in somebody's else, loyalty. And in a thousand and one situations, there's nothing, there's no set of tricks, closed circuit television or anything else that you can set up to check upon the other person's loyalty, and it would be a pretty poor job if you had to do it, wouldn't it? If you couldn't trust. And you know, I say to myself, well, yes, let's learn these lessons because God gives them about, uh, what happens between man and wife, but have they no message even, even for us? As the people of God. You, you allow me in fellowship in your church. Don't you think you're taking a big risk, my brother? Here am I, here, there, and all around the globe, and you know what I'm doing when I'm in Paris? How do you know what I'm doing, filling up my income tax? Preaching delightful sermons about the glories of the Lord. But the boys in the income tax office who know me would have a slightly different story, and it reflects on the assembly. How shall we trust each other? This was the big issue at stake. So for a while, let's concentrate on this woman whose fidelity is in doubt. We'll come to the men presently. We'll concentrate on this woman for the, for the moment. Guilty or not guilty, when the man becomes jealous, as he would be rightly jealous if his wife were guilty. Then he is to bring her to the priest and give her some flour for a sin offering. And we're told that the priest shall bring her before the Lord. Then there begins a most elaborate ceremony. Her hair is loosed and it hangs down. She has the sin offering in her hand. Standing there in the presence of God, she is to watch while the priest takes some of the dust of the floor of the dwelling place of God. That's very holy ground, isn't it? And he gets some holy water out of the laver, and he mixes the dust in, some of the dust in with this water. And as they stand there solemnly in the presence of God, the priest administers to the woman an oath, a kind of a curse, which to simplify it runs this: Now, if I have been guilty, may God's judgment rest on me. The priest pronounces the judgment that shall come, and the woman is required to say amen, Lord, amen. If I have been guilty, I accept the consequence. The priest writes the curse on a piece of paper in a book. When the woman says amen, he gets a sponge and he sponges it off and it goes into the water. Solemnly in the presence of God, she's called upon to drink that water. If she's been guilty, then God's discipline follows. If she's not guilty, she comes through unscathed. You must not think that this is magic mumbo jumbo. It's called the water that causes the curse and the bitterness. Actually, of course, it was not just the water, was it? It was God who was controlling things. But this vivid symbolism reminded that good woman and everybody else what was at stake. This was the way that the husband's confidence could be restored. You see that good woman standing there in all her desolation and her hair now let down and unkempt, undone before God, so to speak. Sad if she has committed unfaithfulness, even more sad and embarrassed if she hasn't. Perhaps with a sense of wrong going through her heart. It almost feel you'd like to join the woman, wouldn't you, and say, my dear, yes, if you've been guilty, oh, but where should I have been but for the grace of God? Who am I to boast my loyalty to God? In a thousand and one other kind of things, not your particular act, but... Shall we not go and stand by her side, my brother? What if the Lord this night searched out my hidden sins, and his judgment and discipline fell upon me for? And yet, and yet, and yet, isn't it what you expect of me as your fellow believer so that you can trust me? That this is indeed what I am prepared to do. And not when called and challenged because some doubt has been raised about my character, but quietly in my home and constantly and from time to time to come and stand before the Lord. And as I come and know the naughtiness of my own heart, ah, I, I, I thank God for what that verse twenty six says. What the woman had to do first, before anything else was done, she had to offer her sin offering. A sin offering that brought sin to remembrance, says scripture. Verse fifteen, a meal offering a memorial bringing iniquity to remembrance. The woman had to offer that before the Lord. What does it mean? You say to me, but now, Mr. Preacher, careful on now, because I've read it in the New Testament that because Christ died for me at Calvary, his sacrifice has put away all my sins, and God has assured me that my sins and iniquities he will never remember against me anymore. You say, what are you talking about now? This can't apply to me. A sacrifice that brings my sins to remembrance. No, no, no, you say, with me as a Christian, oh, thank God. God has said their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. You say, how do you reconcile that, my good man? Well, it could be a difficulty, couldn't it? But isn't it straightforward? Yes, of course, you and I stand before God. Any day of the week. We come before the Lord at the Lord's Supper, don't we? We rejoice in the great sacrifice of Christ. And God as judge will not remember our sin anymore. There is no condemnation. There is no penalty, is there? Oh, the glory of it. Weak, failing, undone. And yet the first thing is, as I stand on holy ground in the presence of God, the sacrifice of Christ, so to speak, in my hand, and God assures me there is therefore now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Marvelous. Tomorrow morning, if the Lord spares us and you're sitting watching the symbols of the bread and the wine. Your sin, you say, not remembered anymore. And yet, you'll be a very strange Christian if, as you look upon those symbols, it doesn't do precisely that. It reminds you of your sin, won't it? Oh, pray God, we shall never forget it. No judgment, no condemnation, but whenever I come and I think about that sacrifice of Christ, then Scripture says, remind yourself of this. Why was he there? As the bearer of sin. Who broke his body? Who shed his blood? It was my sin that did it. And I am reminded of my sin. What should that lead me to do? Oh, says Paul, what that should lead you to do is to judge yourself, my fellow Christian, to judge yourself. Responsibly in the presence of God, to examine your heart and where you find things wrong, to judge yourself. And if you will judge yourself, you will not be judged. Ah, yes. But what about my naughty heart, you know, that can deceive me, and I'm living in the wrong, and yet I'm a little bit brazen about it, or I haven't perceived it, and you can see it's wrong, but I'm making all sorts of excuses for myself and saying it's okay, and it doesn't really matter, and you can see it matters a lot. How will you trust me? Must I not be prepared to say in my circumstance, like that woman in hers, and now, Lord, I am indeed sorry that my sin murdered your son, and I have tried to judge myself. Lord, if there are things that I don't say, then Lord, correct me. I'm prepared for you to discipline me. Mustn't I say that? Oh, my brother. If I were prepared seriously to take myself before God as a member of a church of God, I should not, on the one hand, become weak in my faith or assurance. Yes, I may have assurance of eternity. God will never bring them, my sins up against me legally. That should not lead me to careless living and irresponsibility and saying sin doesn't matter because there's no condemnation. Because it will matter. If I live carelessly, the holy apostle tells me, if I live carelessly and I do not judge myself, then the Lord will judge me. For if I continue in unjudged sin, continue in that sin that murdered Jesus Christ, God's son, then am I guilty of the very body and blood of Christ. That mustn't be allowed to happen, may it? Let me therefore examine myself. Let me too stand on the holy ground. Oh, what dust is this? By God's grace, I've been brought into the very holiest of all. My brother, my sister, as you stand on that holy ground, pick up the dust beneath your feet. It's veritable gold dust. Standing in the immediate presence, in the holiest of all. Oh, I must say, mustn't I, Lord, if there is defilement in my life, if I have been disloyal, then God forgive me. And I'm prepared, Lord, amen, amen. If you need to discipline me. Lord, amen. Yes. And if all of us were thus careful before God, you could trust me, couldn't you? And I could trust you. I don't know, I need to get my short circuit television and watch your every move. You've learned to stand in the presence of Almighty God. Pass, if you will, in the instructions from that dear woman there standing with her hair down. To chapter six that brings before us another man or another woman, likewise with the hair going long, and then Nazarites. Surely there is a certain fittingness in the sequence of Holy Scripture, for if in chapter five the case is brought before us, a possibility of somebody whose loyalty to husband and therefore to God has been less than it should be. Here in chapter six are a man or a woman brought before us, their loyalty to God is altogether exceptional, beyond what you even might expect. Well, in chapter six we have the rules and regulations, that if anyone was prepared to be a Nazarite and to devote themselves particularly and especially to the Lord, then here are the rules and regulations. They have to let the hair grow. They were to abstain from wine or anything made of the vine. They were, uh, to abstain from touching the dead, and thus they were to devote themselves utterly and entirely and completely to the Lord. If a relative died near them, they were not to mourn for them. They were to be utterly devoted to the Lord. They might do it for a temporary period. They weren't necessarily required to do it for the whole of life. But God reckoned that there would be some amongst his people that were prepared for such extreme devotion to the Lord, that they would be prepared to give up the legitimate joys of daily life for the sake of the Lord. Such Such men. men were Samson, though he went wrong, didn't he? And perhaps Samuel and John the Baptist. Men honored of God and honored of his people. Leaders of revival amongst God's people. Men of extreme loyalty and devotion to the Lord. And you know, my brother and sister, getting across the wilderness of life and getting through the journey that leads to heaven, I don't know if it will be altogether possible without some men and some women being prepared to show God sometimes exceptional devotion. These Nazarites were required to give up. Not, of course, bad things. They shouldn't have been enjoying bad things anyway, should they? It ain't much to give up bad things for the sake of the Lord. You shouldn't have them anyway. They were asked to forego legitimate things, legitimate pleasures, for sake of devotion to the Lord. Will there not be periods in my life, your life, when you're prepared to do the same? You see, it's a difficulty sometimes to ha- keep the balance, isn't there? We want that our spiritual life shall minister to our joy, of course we do. And after tonight, we shall say I can't go for Clock Fern for a week or two because instead of enthusing me with joy, that sent me home depressed. I don't want to go to meetings like that. I want to go to a meeting to enjoy myself. And when I've gone from the meeting, I want to go home and put on a few records, and I shall enjoy myself there again. And tomorrow I shall enjoy myself. I'm not going to put up with anything where I don't enjoy myself. Oh, good for you. And if you'll be, if you are a believer, you'll be in heaven one day, and you'll enjoy yourself there immensely. I tell you that so that you can enjoy yourself, there are others around you who have been prepared to deny themselves all sorts of legitimate pleasures. The elders in your church, they could enjoy themselves too, of a Thursday night or a Friday night. They're down on their knees praying for you. And there's that good woman. She could be enjoying herself with the toes up by the fire. And she's off to hospital, visiting somebody. I don't do it for the fun of it, you know. And life is slipping them by. And it will never come again, but for the Lord's sake and for our sake, and for his people's sake. They're prepared to forego. And here's the woman, who's seven children. Needs a husband, doesn't he? But he's out preaching the gospel somewhere. And year after year, the sacrifice is made of legitimate joy. Does that sound to you a grim kind of a thing? Well, you know, God is heard talking through Amos the prophet, and he says like this. Do you know I delivered you out of Egypt, and I brought you across the wilderness, and I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your children for Nazarites. I thought it would be a marvelous career, said God. Goodness me, I had my mind on Samson and Samuel and a few people like that, and Jeremiah and John the Baptist, and I thought, goodness me, now, uh, there's Mrs. Smith over there. I'll take her son. Of course she'll think that's marvelous. To see her son raised up like a venerable John the Baptist. Wow, she'll think that's glorious. What an honor God has placed upon me. My son chosen to be a John the Baptist, to be devoted to the Lord like this. Missionary to Timbuktu or somewhere. Work for Bally Lumford. God thought it was a glorious. He says, God, I raised them up to be Nazarites, and you, you gave them wine to drink. You said you can't put old heads on young shoulders, you know. You can't expect young folks to sacrifice for the Lord. You can't. Well, that's no good then, is it? So God will have to do without his Nazarites. Oh, my dear young folk, let a grizzly old age pensioner talk to you straight. Go in for all the joys of God you can get, all the superb joys that God can give you. But in the course of getting his people across the wilderness home to heaven, don't be surprised if there come periods in your life when he will say, now look here, for my sake and my people's sake, I would like you to surrender some of life's legitimate joys and pleasures to show special devotion to me. Loyalty to the Lord. And you'll see it is well, isn't it, surely? We don't merely dwell upon the negative side of trying to avoid disloyalty. Either we seek from time to time to go over to the other side and show our special loyalty to the Lord. You say there's solemn lessons in the preparation? They are indeed. Not without cause, was it? For if God had to warn the dear ladies of what could happen if their husbands came to doubt their loyalty, their husbands could become jealous. Oh, see what happened when they got on the journey. They had just been through that spiritual high when Balaam and Barak had tried to curse them in the name of God, and God himself had personally come and stood in the way of Balaam and Balaam's ass and defied the evil spirits in the heavenly places to curse his people, and persisted in blessing his people and showing himself faithful to them. When Israel fell. And coming to Moab, they went and joined themselves to another Lord, Baal, which means Lord, Baal Peor, and went after a strange God, and committed not merely literal but spiritual fornication. And what happened? God was exceedingly jealous. Had a right to be, hadn't he? Oh, how he had loved Israel. And bought them when they were slaves in the brick kilns of Egypt. And as he expresses himself through his prophet, he said, I went after Israel in the wilderness, you know, like a young man goes out down a country lane to court a girlie and finds her and wins and woos and wins her. I went after Israel in the wilderness and I courted her. I wanted her love for myself. I wanted her love for me and for no other God. Blessed with all spiritual blessing. They proved unfaithful to the Lord, were joined to another God. And God was jealous. Could it happen to us? I close tonight just reminding you of two verses that we read. We shall have to reserve consideration of them for next week. Just let's remind ourselves as we close. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, my brethren, now look here. You cannot play fast and loose. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Well, you can, I mean, physically you can, but if you do it, remember. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he is? Well, let's ponder as we go how he feels. My brother, my sister, God Almighty sent his son to die for us, to woo our hearts and have our undivided affection. Pray, consider how he feels. When we leave him to love the world or get involved in idolatry, then we provoke him to jealousy. Says Paul again to those Corinthians, I've es- I- I've espoused you as a chaste virgin to Christ, and oh, how jealous I am of you. Let Satan take your undivided loyalty to Christ and turn it aside to other things. My dear young folks, will you allow me to talk to you straight? The Lord that died for you, he wants your love. I'm not talking about sentiment, he wants your love. And that's the kind of Lord he is. He won't put up with half measures. He wants that love one hundred percent and entire, that you love him with all your heart and your mind and your physical. He wants it. And he wants your intellectual power, your brain power. He wants you to think loyally to him. And he who died to get it is thinking of a whole life long before you now of love from your heart. Should the world come or anybody else, and steal that love from him, Jesus Christ our Lord gets jealous. Ah. What'll happen, you say, if the Lord gets jealous? Well, we shall have to think about that next time. Let's finish by remembering this. Soon the journey will end, and we'll be summoned to meet the Lord. How should we stand, my brother? How will you meet him, my sister. Knowing he knows everything about the journey. What a lovely thing it would be, wouldn't it, if we could say, Lord, forgive me that I wandered and my heart strayed, but Lord, I did try, and you know I can only say like Peter, but you know, Lord, I meant to. Oh Lord, you know I loved you, and I meant to love you. And I tried to stand loyally for you in intellect, in heart, and in body. What should happen if I had to be summoned home? In the middle of some disloyal behavior to meet the Lord who died for me. That's solemn, isn't it? Let's trust the Lord that his word is good. He means it for our benefit. Even his severe and sober exhortations are meant at last to increase our joy, both here and eternally. Shall we pray?