Latest / (Un) Common thoughts of Christ / How Does God See It? Sin, Holiness, and Restoration (Numbers 19) B.Prost, D.Rule

Transcript

How Does God See It? Sin, Holiness, and Restoration (Numbers 19) B.Prost, D.Rule · (Un) Common thoughts of Christ

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The following podcast has been adapted from a reading meeting at the Aberdeen Bible Conference in twenty nineteen on the practical application of Numbers nineteen.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We often find New Testament principles illustrated for us in the Old Testament.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering if the brethren would consider our taking up Numbers nineteen.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a chapter that brings before us restoration after defilement and failure.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would suggest there is a very real message in it for our souls today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: We know, of course, that self-judgment is a necessary thing in each one of our lives, and all of us can go to the Lord, hopefully, as soon as possible after we sin and get right with him.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But here it anticipates, if we could say it, a more serious situation where the defilement was such that others needed to be involved in applying that water of purification.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see here, I believe, the responsibility of others, and we can apply it to the local assembly and to pastors who have the gift from the Lord for that, to be the ones to be a help in restoring one who has sinned.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe it can be very profitable for us in going through it and seeing how the various types apply to the time in which you and I are living.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the Word of God recognizes, doesn't it, that sometimes that was necessary.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't avoid it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: A man touching a grave or touching a dead body or whatever it might be, even a bone, something that perhaps had been aged for years.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, wherever the defilement came from, it was there.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It had to be recognized before God, and purification applied, didn't it?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: All fellowship with God to be on the standard of his own nature and character.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: God can't have any fellowship with us on any standard which is less than what he is himself, holiness and in love as well.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, the matter of restoring has to be done in a manner which is consistent with the character of God, but here it has to do with maintaining the relationship into which God has brought us as his children, applying it to us as believers, and it has to be maintained on the very nature of what God's own holiness and character is.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to see that because the world in which we live constantly is adjusting its what it expects for fellowship among people downward to accommodate man wanting to have his own will and nature and character.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so governments constantly give up the practice of maintaining righteousness and truth to accommodate man's will to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it and have everybody else accept him on those terms.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in very direct and important contrast to that, we lose everything really in our fellowship with God if we attempt to deal with sin on any other foundation than his own holiness and his character of maintaining his love with righteousness and holiness.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so immediately here the red heifer is brought in because the work of the Lord Jesus not only is important for atonement, but it is also has aspects to it that are important for maintaining the relationship between ourselves and God.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Self-judgment is absolutely necessary, isn't it, if we are going, as Don has said, to have fellowship with the Lord in our Christian walk.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I constantly must be judging evil thoughts that keep coming to my mind.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I haven't sinned in the strict sense of the word, as Don was mentioning a moment ago, when we walk through this world and we have to live and move in this world, we're constantly rubbing shoulders with those who are adjusting their standards of right and wrong and adjusting their ideas of morality, which is the same thing, right and wrong, and then pretending that instead of there being absolutes of right and wrong, everything's relative and times have changed and so on.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we get our feet dirty, even if there isn't what we might call over sin.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I just suggest to my own heart and to all of us, we need to take that to heart in our daily lives.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the holiness of the Lord must be maintained, as Don said.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't consider a fellowship with him on any standard other than his own standard of holiness.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do we reach it in our personal walk?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think any of us would want to stand up and say we do.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: But God never holds out any other standard short of his beloved son.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the red heifer is mentioned here, no spot, no blemish, and so on.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then it shows us how God not only brings us into a position where we are without spot before him because of the blood of Christ, but how he maintains us in that fellowship in our Christian pathway through this world.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if I get to the point where I do something such as is named in 1 Corinthians 5, I've had to run a lot of red lights to get there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm not capable of it, but I believe the Lord would keep us.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if I fail to judge thoughts, then thoughts translate into actions.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If I fail to judge sinful actions that perhaps are not so serious, then one by one they'll get more serious until I do something that needs assembly intervention.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just make that remark.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important to recognize that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not how do I see it?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not how do you see it, but we have to say, how does God see it?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not whether it's good or bad or a little bit bad or something like that in our eyes, but rather God has established in his word the differences.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about differences of things as to their seriousness, seriousness, and so on.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the desire of the heart should be how does God see this?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: How does he view this?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what does it mean in his sight?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Man, as we know, measures sin by comparison with his fellow man and by its effect on his fellow man.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And man measures sin by himself.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians tells us that those who compare themselves with themselves are not wise.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to rec to recognize that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to restoration, it's important that sin be repented of, not in the sight of man so much, although that enters into it, but in the sight of God.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then takes up the matter of the people who do it, and then the individual himself.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as Don pointed out, that's why this chapter is not in Leviticus.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: In Leviticus, the thought is approach to God, whereas Numbers is the wilderness book, isn't it?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It brings us through the wilderness.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the wilderness is the place where the temptations occur, where the sin occurs, where the difficulties and problems come in, and where it's necessary to have that water of purification applied.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's in a wilderness book where you get the instruction as to purification along the way to restore to communion.