Gooding, David: 6 - Second Rebellion - Part 2

And so we come to what perhaps is the more important part of our study this evening. We have dealt with the somber facts of the second major rebellion instigated by Korah, a Levite. We have seen some of the characteristics of that rebellion, listened to the warning of the New Testament that we are to expect such rebellions in Christendom in our own day, with the responsibility, therefore, to strive earnestly for the faith, once for all committed to the saints, because our very salvation depends on that faith, the faith, the doctrine of the Christian gospel. But now we come to God's provision. And we are to think of the provision God had made for the Levites, that had they adhered to it, might well have prevented that rebellion altogether. And therefore, we come to a practical lesson for ourselves. And I'm going to ask you to come back in your thought to the very first part of the book and to chapter three, where we are told for of God's claim on the Levites for their service. Their service, as the poem reminded us at the beginning of our session this evening, was indeed laborious. They had to carry the vessels of the tabernacle. They had to carry the frames, the sockets, the curtains, the screens, and all the ropes that went with it. That was an arduous service. Perhaps it was exciting when they first began to be allowed to assemble the tabernacle where the very presence of God dwelled. But when they had done it five thousand times, put it up and taken it down five thousand and one times and required to do it again, it could become a very laborious exercise, perhaps even a little boring. What should keep them at it? What got right had God to expect such devoted labor from them? And in chapter three, we're given the secret, the ground of God's claim over them. This is chapter three, verse forty four. The Lord spake to Moses, saying, take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle, and the Levites shall be mine. I am the Lord. The reason behind that is as follows. On Passover night, when the destroying angel passed through the land of Egypt, that destroying angel destroyed the firstborn in every family of the Egyptians. And the firstborn in Israel's families would likewise have been destroyed, had it not been for the blood of the Passover lamb that was sprinkled on the lintel and the side post of the door. And when God saw the blood, he stretched himself over it, that is over the door, like a mother, a bird would stretch her wings over her little chicks to stop the hawk coming at them. I will pass over them, I will stretch myself over them, that the destroying angel shall not be able to penetrate and execute the firstborn of Israel. So as soon as the Passover was over, this now is chapter thirteen of the book of Exodus, God came and said to Israel, now because of this, I claim the firstborn as my own. Every firstborn that opens the womb you shall dedicate to me. They are mine in a special sense. The logic? Suppose some firstborn said, but I don't agree with this, this is not fair. Then the immediate logic was, all right, but if it hadn't been for the blood of the Passover lamb, you wouldn't have a life to lead, would you? You would have been slaughtered. Because of the redemption that I provided, you have a life to lead, and I count it, I bought it, you see, and you are mine. And it became an institution in Israel, therefore, in remembrance of the Passover, that all the firstborn belong to God. Then when it came to the journey, then the rule was changed, and now says God, I shall take the Levites instead of the firstborn. So all the firstborn in the other tribes were numbered to see how many there were, and all the Levites were numbered, you'll see, and the two numbers put together, there were more of the firstborn than there were of the Levites. And perhaps you would have said, well, don't mind about them, God, I mean, what's a few hundred? No, says God. No, they must pay the ransom money then. So what number was over of the firstborn, they had to be redeemed by the payment of the ransom money. The claim of the Levites then, as you will see from the historical logic, is that they were God's property. They were God's servants, bought by redemption. They were mine. They were not their own. And Korah rebelled against it. But it has a voice to us, isn't it? Isn't there a chapter somewhere? Now, where on earth is that in the Bible? Now, let's do some hurried thinking. Um, isn't there a verse that goes a little bit something like this somewhere? And you are not your own. You're b- you've got it. You're bought with a price. Therefore what? And you're bought. Where is that? Pardon? 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6. Glad you pointed it in, because everybody else knew it off by hand, but they just remember. You di- you didn't know? Well, I didn't remember. Ah, you see. Ladies and gentlemen, it ought to be at your fingertips. Such an important verse that is going to control our lives ought to be at our very fingertips. What would you say of a doctor who's called to see a person that's collapsed and his heart is bad, and and he says to himself, oh, ah no, well, there's something I think somewhere in the book about this, heart attacks. Half a minute, I'll go and look it up. Well, I hope he would. But what use is that? He's a qualified doctor, he or she needs to have it at their very fingertips, what you do. We need to have this verse at our fingertips, don't we? It's going to govern life. We are not our own. We are bought with a price through the redempting, redeeming blood of our Passover lamb. And to take something that isn't yours and use it on yourself, there's a word that describes that in English, and it's not a nice word. What did you say it was? Theft. It would help me, wouldn't it? If I could see that I'm not my own, because I have been bought with a precious blood of Christ, and I'm expected to glorify God in my body. Yes, but come now, if you would, to this section here, and secondly, the second half of it, where we read of a ceremony that took place before the newly made altar. You see, directly after it was dedicated, for it was a newly made altar in the tabernacle, then there came this ceremony when Aaron was to take the Levites and offer them up as a wave offering before God. That is, they weren't actually put on the altar and burned up, but they were stood beside the altar, and on the behalf of the nation, they were now offered to God in a public ceremony as being not their own, but offered to God for his service. Uh, yeah. There's a verse in the Bible, many verses that tell us that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice. Isn't there a verse somewhere that says that we should offer our bodies as... how does that go? Romans Romans R- Romans twelve? Yes, yes. Ah, but cite it, my boy. Just show the congregation that you know what it says, my boy. Come on. It's gone. It's gone, you see. There you are. Now what's the use of that? What does it say? Yeah. Yes. That doesn't necessarily, in spite of what some people say about the Greek, doesn't mean that you do it once and for all. It means it's a decis- decisive act that I consciously take. When I've become aware that I have wandered, then let me do it again, decisively, to offer my body a living sacrifice to the Lord. For the task that he has appointed for me. Ah, if Korah had remembered it. It wasn't a question of pleasing himself. It's a question of his being offered as a sacrifice to God, to do what God had appointed for him, that you might know what is that acceptable and perfect will of God. I must ask my heart if I'm still behaving in that attitude. I ask you, the Levites, being offered to God as a sacrifice, were offered to do a specific task. If you'd have asked a Levite, what is your task that you do for the Lord? He could have told you. Okay, the candlestick, or I'm in charge of the oxen that pull the carts that have the, you know, the heavy stuff on it. I see. Are you committed to a work of the Lord? If I ask you, what is, have you a work that you feel committed to, called to, you're committed to it, not haphazardly? Or are you sort of just floating around the place, otherwise unattached? The claims of redemption are such, aren't they? That whatever the task God calls us to, and there are many members in the body of Christ, and each has a different gift and function. But are surely to find out from God what the Lord would have us do, the work or works, and a sense of commitment to it, having been offered as a living sacrifice to the Lord. If old age may speak, beware of just wandering through spiritual life, otherwise unattached, without any specific work to which you are committed. They were offered here, and God explains it to the high priest, they are my gift to you. And I think of it with my childlike mind, of the Father saying to Christ, see that bunch down in Atzley Street? Yes, Father, yes. Well, they're, they're yours. I give them to you. For your work. Mm-hmm. What was to motivate them? Before they were offered as a sacrifice, the altar was dedicated, and we're told that the dedication that the chiefs of the tribes came to make an offering, to express their value of that altar. And they brought their expensive gifts, and they all brought them alike, and God records every one of those gifts in identical terms, but they are all spelled out, not and the rest offered in the same way. They're all spelled out in detail, their value that they attach to what that altar represented. And you who are princes, let me remind you. I listen to you. I have a right to, haven't I? For instance, at the Lord's Supper or at a prayer meeting, as you bring your gifts to the Lord, to tell him what his sacrifice means to you. Do you know, that's an enormous help to me. I say, look at him. So we're eighteen now, poor old boy. But what has sustained him through life? And why has he been so regular and committed to the Lord's work? Here's his secret. What the cross of Christ and the sacrifice of Christ means to him. We all sing it sometimes, don't we? When I survey that wondrous cross on which the King of Glory died. Were the whole home of nature mine, that for an offering far too small, love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all. Worship, you know, is a very practical thing. It reminds us of the worth of him who died for us at Calvary, draws out our hearts, responds to him, concentrates our thought on him, and it has the reflex action, if he did so much for me, what shall I not do for him? Ah, if Korah had known anything about it, and it wasn't merely a job for him, perhaps he wouldn't have rebelled. Yes. And what about Aaron? When we come to that chapter, where we have seen how Aaron put on when the people murmured and a plague broke out among them. Moses told Aaron to take his censer and stand among the people, uh, and to make atonement for their sins. And that he did. So many of them survived. And we earlier quoted the verse from one John chapter two, these things I write to you that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. Without him, we shouldn't last five minutes, should we? All our mistakes, our shortcomings, our broken promises, our substandard work, our irresponsibilities. But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, and we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, for if he weren't, we might suffer much more under the discipline of God than we already do. And then there was this, um, sacrifice, famous sacrifice called the red heifer, Josie, that had to be offered for the people. But to make sure that the, uh, people recognized Aaron as the high priest, God told Moses to tell the leaders of the tribes, each one was to bring his staff of office, his scepter, so to speak. And they laid them up before God in the tabernacle overnight. And when they came in the morning, the scepters, the rods of the other tribes were just plain rods as they were before. But Aaron's rod was alive, if you please. It brought forth buds and blossoms and, uh, and, and, and, uh, almonds. The thing was as though it were alive, as you'll see. Thus did God testify that Aaron was the great high priest. And our Lord's qualifications as high priest? Not only did he learn what it cost to obey when he was here on earth, but he lives now by the power of an indissoluble life. For those priests under Aaron, they only lasted a few years, and then they died, and they died, and they died, and they died. This man has a high priesthood that is eternal, and he never dies. Therefore, risen from the dead, seated at the right hand of God, God has proclaimed him a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And because he never dies, listen to it, he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. If by accident or any other way, the Israelites touched a dead bone or came near a dead body and were thus defiled, so that they could not serve God towards his tabernacle, then a sacrifice was offered. It's a complicated thing, and we haven't time to, to consider it. It's a difficult one anyway, the most difficult of all the sacrifices, but it cleansed people from defilement by death so that they may carry on serving the living God. For death is repulsive to God, and actions that have the clamor of death about them, actions that, if they led on, would lead to eternal death. They are an offense to Almighty God, and we live in a defiling world, don't we? Well, how about us then? Let me read you the assurance of scripture given us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and, uh, chapter nine. For if the blood is Hebrews nine thirteen— if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanliness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. You see the opposition between the dead works and the living God? And dead works defile you and would impede your service to the living God. But there is a provision. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal, never dying Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead work to serve. Poor as we are, and often failing, there's no reason that our service to God should be impeded. I remember some decades ago, in an assembly where I was, do you see? I forgive the old man and his, uh, reminiscences. I would forecast the future, but I haven't lived that yet. Uh, do you see? And all I've done is live the past. And there was a good lady, a young lady, a beautiful young lady. Mm, I was the best man at her wedding, anyway, but then that's beside the point. Eh, do you see, they needed her in the Sunday school. Mm. And it was given to me to ask if the dear lady would serve in the Sunday school, do you see? And she said no. Why not? She was not good enough, she said. Didn't feel good enough. Oh. Uh, with a certain amount of wickedness, I said, but you're good enough to be at the Lord's Supper? Well, she was regularly. I said, so, but you're not good enough to be a Sunday school teacher. You mean morally not good enough? It wasn't that she couldn't teach children. No, she didn't feel good enough. Well, if you waited till you were good enough, you'd wait forever, wouldn't you? We are all stained from time to time. It is by the superb grace and sacrifice of Christ that we sinners, saved by grace, can come and confess our sins, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us. What for? To serve the living God. There's no excuse for not shouldering our duties. We've been redeemed. Have we not offered ourselves a living sacrifice? Are we not under the commands of our great high priest? We are his servants. Does he not live to intercede for us? And his blood cleanses us that we might carry on serving. We've no excuse for not being committed to his service. One final thing. When the fire of God's judgment on the two hundred and fifty men that had falsely offered incense before God, when the fire that consumed them had burned, Moses told them to take the censers of those men made of copper, beat them out, and put them on the altar. So that in future generations, whenever you came to that altar, you couldn't help remembering the rebellion. So it is in Hebrews chapter twelve that God makes mention again, alludes to the rebellion of Korah. Consider him that endured such contradiction or gainsaying, same word as in Jude, that endured such rebellion of sinners against himself. You say, how will that help me to remember when I come to remember the Lord, do you see, and his sacrifice for me, to remember that he suffered the contradiction, rebellion of sinners. How will that help me? Well, it would help those folks, for they were Jews, you see. And since they had trusted Christ, their Jewish friends, many of them, had disowned them and sent them to Coventry, separated them off, and some persecuted them. Where should they find the grace to be loyal to Christ? They could come to his cross and remember that when he died for them, he had to endure the rebellion of sinners against himself. That cost him his life's blood, and we haven't got that far yet. You have not yet resisted unto blood, have you? But whatever you may suffer for Christ, let it be your comfort to come constantly and contemplate the cross of Christ and remember what he suffered from those religious folks that rebelled against him and put him to the cross. So let's pray that God will show us the meaning of our study and its implications. Our Father, we thank thee now for thy word. Help us, we pray, to understand it. Help us to be warned by its warnings, that we may walk through this world with our wa- eyes wide open against the dangers within the church of people that deny thee faith. But at the same time, Father, we pray that thou will use thy word. Thou hast redeemed us. We're not our own. Help us to live consistently with it. Thou has bought us with a price. Help us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, that we may be committed to the work that thou dost lay upon us to do. Help us to see what a glorious and wonderful privilege it is thus to serve thee. For thine intercessions, blessed Lord, on our behalf, even this very day, we thank thee for the assurance that thou wilt never cease to intercede. Thou wilt save us to the uttermost. Lord, help us then to contemplate what thou hast suffered, that our little sacrifices for thee may disappear in proportion, and that we have been so amazed at thy sacrifice for us, that we may constantly redouble our efforts to be pleasing to thee. Part us in thy peace, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.