DM 620432

the only church in town. In Numbers 15, 32-36, while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And Yahweh said to Moses, the man shall be put to death. all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones as Yahweh commanded Moses. You may be seated. That was the word of the Lord. Numbers 15. The most unpopular of the Ten Commandments is number 4. It's without a doubt in my mind.

I think we can always make arguments about different things like this, but ultimately, even within Christianity, that is the one that people don't adhere to. It's the one that people sometimes maybe obey in their heart or even accidentally, but they don't obey in their heart, they obey it outwardly. And when you argue about the Sabbath with people, when you debate, when you contend for the faith, this is the kind of section of scripture that somebody who I'll use strong language, reviles the Sabbath might bring up.

Because I'll give you my picture in my brain. When I first became a Christian and I was learning about the Sabbath and reading things about the Sabbath, I just pictured a little boy walking through his yard and he saw a couple of little sticks and he picked them up, probably about the size of a big match and God just struck him dead, basically. And that does sound absolutely absurd.

And when you twist Scripture in your mind to look like something that Scripture didn't mean, you run that risk that you will quickly be able to dismiss Scripture that in fact is for you today. I need you to stop doing that immediately. Do you understand me? This is the second time now that I've had to stop preaching to tell one of my children to stop something.

I'd like you to repent. So, when you read this passage, you can be easily confused, we'll say, by what is going on here if you don't read it in context and if you're not understanding some of the overarching truth of Scripture that has to occur. And so we've already established that the Sabbath abides. We've already established that God's law persists into the New Covenant, that the Ten Commandments represent His moral law.

And so today is not a day to prove from Numbers 15 that the Sabbath is persistent in the New Testament. If you don't believe that, then there's other sermons we've already preached on that, and that is in fact what our confession is clear about. In fact, of all the commandments of Scripture, it's only the first four that really get a big special mention in the worship section, in the confession, and it's really the fourth one that gets the biggest paragraphs as understood, it's not understood well.

So it may sound severe that a man was put to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. And I will agree that to some extent it is severe, but what I want you to see before we finish today is that what's more severe is that a man reviled God and His commandments. So first turn to Leviticus 23. As we go through the Sabbath teaching, I have in my mind at least three more sermons which will make five sermons on the Sabbath.

And as I, in my mind, have worked those out, I still wonder if it will be enough to say everything that I want to say. But I just encourage you to ask questions at the fellowship meal, to talk to brothers and sisters about it. And I guess if you insist, you can use the Internet. But you're going to get a mixed bag of things about stuff. That might be good for you to sharpen yourself.

In Leviticus 23, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of Yahweh that you shall proclaim as holy convocations. They are my appointed feasts. Now I don't know about you, but holy convocation are two words. Well, I know what the word holy means. convocation is not a word I use regularly it is not a word that I actually have used enough that as I went through this passage I had to get a dictionary and look it up and don't be ashamed that you have to do that if you read the Bible and never have to get a dictionary then you're probably just deceiving yourself into thinking you know more than you do so let's look at these holy convocations but before we do let's define it A convocation is basically a gathering.

It's a gathering of people together for a common purpose. In the dictionary, it says commonly with ecclesiastical meaning, or otherwise it's for a church service. So for example, we're in a holy convocation right now. We gather together as believers to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll see that here in the next verse, verse 3. six days work shall be done but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest a holy convocation He says you shall do no work It is a Sabbath to Yahweh in all your dwelling places Remember Exodus 20.

I'm going to turn there, but you all have it memorized by now, I'm sure. Exodus 20 says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is what I want you to listen for. in Exodus 20, I want you to listen for a command to gather with other saints to worship God. He says, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God.

On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. At no point in Exodus 20 do you see at least a clear explanation of a holy convocation.

You see, work six days, rest on the seventh, that's the pattern. You may also notice it doesn't say work on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then rest Saturday. It doesn't tell you which day is the seventh day. It tells you there's a pattern of working six days and resting on a seventh day, which I'll argue allows God to change the day at the time appointed by God from eternity past, which is what he did, which is why we have a Sunday Sabbath.

But back to Leviticus 23, a holy convocation. We are called here in Leviticus 23, the people of Israel were, and I will say that this is also something that we understand. as a teaching on the Sabbath day, we are called to gather. We are called to gather together in a holy convocation, in a gathering of the saints, in order to worship the Lord. It says, you shall do no work.

It is a Sabbath to Yahweh in all your dwelling places. So we have to, at some point, we have to define what it means to work. We have to define what it means to do no work. We'll talk a little bit about that. If we get back to Numbers 15. But there's another holy convocation here called the Passover in my ESV Bible.

Verse 4. These are the appointed feasts of Yahweh, the holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. So now we have more holy days. In the first month, on the 14th day of the month, at twilight, is the Lord's Passover, for Yahweh's Passover. This is the celebration of the deliverance from Egypt. They are to remember this.

And on the 15th day of the same month, so two weeks later, is the feast of unleavened bread to Yahweh. He says, for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. This gets a little bit interesting right here. I don't want to read too much into it for you, but he says, on the first day, you shall have a holy convocation. you shall not do any ordinary work the first day of this seven day period of the feast of unleavened bread so it's interesting that he's doing a first day thing here in the Old Testament remember the Old Testament contains types and shadows of all the things that were to come especially the Lord Jesus Christ he says but you shall present a food offering to Yahweh for seven days on the seventh day is a holy convocation you shall not do any ordinary work So whether that seventh day and whether the first of the month and the 14th, whether those days landed on the Sabbath or not, these were holy days when they were to gather in a holy convocation and worship the Lord and avoid their worldly recreations and their worldly pursuits and especially their work.

And I'm just going to give you a little hint for the end here. When the guy was out gathering sticks, he wasn't just walking along and he saw a couple of sticks and picked them up. This was a guy who did not gather his firewood that he needed to keep his house warm the day before, or whatever he was going to do with it, to cook on it. There's some argument whether they were even cooking on the Sabbath.

And so this wasn't just some guy picking up a few little sticks. This was a guy who was working in a way that he was told not to. The Feast of Firstfruits, verse 9. And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest okay so they grow their harvest and the very first thing that comes from the harvest was called the firstfruits it was a type of Christ who is the firstfruits of among many brethren but in this case the whole point I just want to get to is they were to bring it as their sacrifice it was their way of letting the Lord know we know that you're the provider and you will continue to provide these first fruits are the evidence to us of that.

And they were not to eat those things. They donated them to the Lord. It says, and he shall wave the sheep, this is the priest, before Yahweh so that you may be accepted. And now listen. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. well the Sabbath in this case is the Sabbath day Saturday so on the first day of the week Sunday the priest was making the first fruit offering to the Lord interesting he says on the day when you wave the sheaf you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to Yahweh and a grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah, a fine flour, mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine a fourth of a hen And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day until you have brought the offering of your God as a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings The Feast of Weeks.

Next, you shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath. Well, what's the day after the Sabbath? That's Sunday. It would have been moderately meaningless at the time of the Israelites that the day after the Sabbath would be the day that their Messiah would resurrect from the dead. They would not have quite understood that, I don't think. But we can understand that, and we can see how God was drawing pictures with all these days after the Sabbath things here.

But again, he says, You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to Yahweh. You shall bring from your dwelling place two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven as firstfruits to the Lord. When you say firstfruits, just remember Jesus.

He's the firstfruit. And you shall present, that's Romans 8 if you're wondering, and you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to Yahweh with their grain offering and their drink offerings, A food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Now let me just clarify something for you, if you haven't figured this out yet.

All of these days that are a day of solemn rest, in some cases it's called a day of affliction, which essentially just meant fasting. These days that people were commanded not to work or do any labor whatsoever, they're literally slaughtering these gigantic animals those days, the priests are. And so there is, inherent in this, the idea of religious work somehow being exempted from some of this Sabbath law.

So for example, I am working right now. And I heard a pastor teaching on the Sabbath recently say, I'm not working right now. I worked all week to prepare. And it's like, well, I don't know how you do it then, brother, because this is work. I'm tired when I'm done with this. Just standing can get hard.

It's a hard floor. but I don't believe I'm breaking the Sabbath and I certainly hope you don't think so because we're going to have a real different church service if everyone thought that so it's embedded in here, we can see these truths 21 and you shall make a proclamation on the same day you shall hold a holy convocation they have all these gatherings They're gathering to worship on these days of rest. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.

When you reap the harvest, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after the harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. That's an interesting thing that God built into the system for poor people. what you see here is on the Sabbath day the day of rest it wasn't hey here's a day for you to sit around and do nothing in fact idleness according to almost any kind of Puritan reading that you would read idleness would also be sin on the Sabbath it's not about doing nothing it's about ceasing from your normal pursuits in life and recognizing that God has asked you for one day out of seven to dedicate solely to Him.

And you owe Him seven. He asked you for one. It's like you owe somebody $7,000 and they said, well, just give me $1,000. But we are to be actually laboring for the Lord. And I think there is an element in there of rest for our bodies as well. I think that one of the things I've noticed in years of being on the Internet is whenever I read of a pastor who experiences burnout, I never see a pastor who I see had regularly practiced the Sabbath.

I understand it could happen to anyone. But I'll tell you what, one day a week of rest is God's prescription for us. and so far in my life it suffices. So maybe God knows more about what he's doing than we do. Again, the Feast of Trumpets. And Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the people of Israel saying in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blasts of trumpets, a holy convocation.

Again, they gather together and worship. You shall not do any ordinary work and you shall present a food offering to Yahweh. I was trying to study this out. I don't want to exegete Leviticus 23. But the Feast of Trumpets, I don't know about... I couldn't find anybody who said that.

I just thought of Jericho. That's what I thought of when they made the walls come down. So anyway, if I was blowing trumpets back then, I might have not known it was Jericho when Leviticus was written. But afterwards, it certainly would have... I would have seen that as something that was a type of that. Now we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

And Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. So here you've got the first day and the tenth day. There's no chance they're both Sabbaths. So somehow or other you could have a Thursday in there or a Tuesday. There's all these different days that they're called to rest. These are the days in Colossians 16 that the author of Colossians says not to judge anybody in food or drink or in the new moons or Sabbaths.

This is what he was talking about. Not the fourth commandment weekly Sabbath. He says, it shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to Yahweh. You're going to fast and you're going to give food to God. Can you imagine what that was like Being hungry and then you get the smells You supposed to send this pleasing aroma to God The people smelled it too It should have been a reminder to them of many gifts of God He says, you shall not do any work on that very day.

This is a non-stop theme. And that's part of what I just want to communicate is, he says you shall not do these things. And we ask the question, like, well, can I do this? Can I fix a doorknob? Is that a working necessity? I think we want to start with the attitude of, I want to obey it.

And yes, I do think we can ask the questions and try to figure it out. We'll see that in Numbers 15. But it's a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before Yahweh your God. Verse 29. For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. That is pretty strict. you shall not do any work, it's a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.

So some of these types, the day of atonement, the type of Christ. When Jesus comes, when the anti-type comes, you don't need the shadow anymore. He says, it shall be to you a Sabbath, a ceasing, a rest, a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves on the ninth day of the month, beginning at evening, from evening to evening, you shall keep your Sabbath.

So that's one of the questions that I think we have when we talk about the Sabbath. What was it, midnight to midnight? Can I do nine to nine? Like, you know, I think if we recognize that God demands a day and we decide, okay, I want to do this, I want to obey the Sabbath. A logical question I think that a conscientious Christian could have is, well, when does it start and when does it end?

I mean, if legitimately I'm going to stop doing my labor, I'm going to stop doing worldly recreations, I'm going to try to have a different and holy life, and I think, okay, 24 hours makes sense. It's 24-hour days. When does it start and when does it end? This is one of the biggest clues I think we have. not only that but Genesis 1 when it describes days it describes days and there was evening and there was morning the first day and so here in verse 32 when he says on the ninth day of the month beginning at evening from evening to evening you shall keep your Sabbath referring to verse 27 the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement if you're trying to figure out when to start Sabbathing I think the best biblical evidence that we have right now is that it starts the night before.

Now does that mean 6pm? Does it mean when the sun goes down? What if you're in New York and it goes down a little earlier than it goes down here? I don't want to get into the details of that. I think that with each person and each family, you kind of have to figure that out and purpose it. I think if we had church services earlier in the morning, I think a lot of us would do well to start our Sabbath a little earlier on Saturday night.

Because we start church so late, I think some of us can do something like watch the Buckeyes on Saturday and then take the Sunday Sabbath. I don't know how it all works for sure, okay? I don't have the answer to every detailed question about the Sabbath. but I can only tell you how I've read that other people have spoken about it. I read what the Bible says, and then I can tell you what I've experienced.

So, then you have the Feast of Booths. Again, it's a solemn assembly. It's a holy convocation. And in verse 37, the author says, These are the appointed feasts of Yahweh, which you shall proclaim at times of holy convocation, for presenting to Yahweh food offerings, burnt offerings, and green offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings each on its proper day.

So ultimately, there's 52 or 53 days a year, depending on how the calendar falls, that are Sabbaths. Sunday Sabbaths for us, Saturday Sabbaths in the time of the Jews. And then there was all these other days throughout the year that Jews were to observe a holy day. In the Roman Catholic Church, their holy days, they call them holy days of obligation. and it's really a pattern by the Jews.

The Roman Catholic Church is just, hey, we're trying to redo Judaism with some new stuff, alright? So, a lot of the stuff they do, you can trace back to some Old Testament things that were going on. So, back to Numbers 15, and let's take a look at what is going on there. So the first thing I want to establish, and I think one of the easiest things to teach about the Sabbath, before I start Numbers 15, is that the Sabbath, being Sunday and since the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is in fact a day of holy convocation.

Of all the things we can argue about that you can or can't do on the Sabbath in the United States in 2021, the one that we cannot argue about is you must participate in a holy convocation. You are to, for lack of better phrases, go to church. You are to find a place to go to church if you cannot go to the church that you have covenanted with that you will attend and observe the Sabbath with. and if you go out of town and you find a bad church like I've done a couple times the lesson learned is I should have done some more work before that day to prepare myself for that day so that I might observe that day to the Lord more properly I'm going to say something that I'm going to hopefully repeat once in a while.

I say it at home once in a while. Most of the time you break the Sabbath. I'm going to speak to everyone here who is speaking to me. Most of the time you break the Sabbath, you broke it a few days before. I'm going to say it again. most of the time that you break the Sabbath, that you do not keep the Sabbath holy, that you do your ordinary work, or you do something that you should not be doing on the Sabbath, most of the time, and I hope this is true actually, most of the time it was because a few days before you didn't have a mindset on working six days and resting on the seventh, and you did not prepare yourself for that day.

The reason I said I hope this is the case is because if the problem you have is that you simply disobey the Sabbath and revile it because you don't care, now you're getting into picking up sticks like this guy territory. So what I hope is that once in a while when you wake up on Sunday and you realize your clothes aren't clean, so you've got to run a quick load through the wash, what I hope is that you realize, okay, next week I want to take better care to be prepared. Because your preparation for the Sabbath is part of your daily worship to God. you owe God all seven days putting in the effort so that you can actually rest on the Sabbath is part of your worship for the Sabbath Numbers 15 is a long chapter it's why I had Jason read it because I wanted you to have some context of what it says and I didn't want to read the whole thing because I'd get to like verse 3 and I'd start talking and I wouldn't tell you my point.

But Numbers 15, the Lord is speaking to Moses. And he tells him about these burnt offerings and sacrifices that they're to do at the beginning. But in verse 22, we have one of the most interesting phrases, I think. He says, but if you sin unintentionally or by mistake and do not observe all these commandments that Yahweh has spoken to Moses. So first of all, if you've ever seen some of these prosperity preacher types and megachurch pastors, they call all sins mistakes.

And people say, sins aren't mistakes. They say, well, you know, it looks like some sins are mistakes. So how do you sin unintentionally and how does that apply here? Keep reading. All that Yahweh has commanded you by Moses, if you do not observe all of them, from the day that Yahweh gave commandment and onward through your generations. He says, then if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, all the congregation shall offer one bowl from the herd for a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma to Yahweh with its grain offering and its drink offering according to the rule.

Verse 27, if one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female go-to-year-old for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement before Yahweh for the person who makes a mistake. when he sins unintentionally to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. He says you shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally. The one law is for him who is native or a stranger, meaning that it applied to both.

One law. When you unintentionally sin, so first of all, I'm going to say that this happens far less than we all like to think it happens to us, okay? Most of you are not walking down the street with holiness on your mind and you just stumble into a little puddle of sin. That's not how most of the patterns of our lives are. I'm speaking also of myself. Usually when we sin, even if it feels like it was unintentional and circumstantial, we did things to set it up.

You didn't do the things that you know prepare you so that you'll be ready for that moment of temptation. But there are times in our Christian life when we simply don't have the knowledge that we need to even know what sin is in some areas. I think the Sabbath is a wonderful example of that. I think the Lord put a Sabbath teaching in the middle of this unintentional sin section, and I think it's instructive to us.

When I got saved, I didn't have any concept of what God's law was. I know it was written on my heart, but I had seared my conscience to the point where there was almost nothing I wouldn't have done. And when I got saved, the fourth commandment wasn't something that was on my heart. And then I went to churches that taught me, hey, it's gone, you don't have to do that.

And I spent years not following the fourth commandment. and I do believe that to some extent God understands these types of, we'll say, unintentional sins where had I known and once I started to learn the Sabbath teaching, I am trying to repent. But I think that there are times in the Christian life where we're just not sure that something was wrong. Somebody comes to you with a teaching and they sound scriptural and they start explaining something to you and then all of a sudden you find out you're involved in something that you realize later, I wish I hadn't gotten involved in that at all.

I think that's a different kind of sin than, well, the person who does anything with a high hand. Verse 30. Numbers 15.30. The person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is a native or sojourner, reviles Yahweh, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. That just saying somebody who comes before God knows what he doing is wrong and does it anyway That the distinction that God is teaching us in Numbers 15 in this section That there are a difference between unintentional sins and the ones where we say, I know it's wrong, I'm going to do it anyway, and we presume that God will forgive us. or that God won't notice or whatever we happen to presume.

Presumption is a horrible sin. And so, if you are a Christian and you have gone to Starbucks on Sunday, which I have done on the way to church even, and you find out later, and we'll get into this exact teaching more, but you find out later, yeah, I probably shouldn't have employed a male servant or female servant on that day, but I did. I went and I employed somebody on that day of the Sabbath.

There is some, to some extent, where it was unintentional on my part, I know. And I'm sure for other people it was too. That's one of the dangers of coming to a church where you're going to learn things. You're going to be held accountable for the things that you're taught. So now, in verse 31 to 36. Because he has despised the word of Yahweh and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be on him.

This sounds like, okay, if somebody murders, he's going to be cut off. There's lots of bad sins that we all agree with deserve the death penalty. Some of us think people deserve the death penalty just when they make us mad. That's part of the problem with anger. It's in our minds and hearts. Sometimes we're executing the death penalty on others.

So now, the Sabbath breaker executed. While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, in the context of unintentional sins and sinning with a high hand and reviling God, it says they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And the implication here is not some guy was just walking around, he saw a stick, was afraid his neighbor might fall on it and hurt himself and picked it up to move it out of the way.

The implication is that this guy decided that I'm going to do what I want on the Sabbath day and I'm not going to do what I was just told not to do. And one of the reasons why we think this is that there is almost no immediate consequence to breaking the Sabbath. You want to cheat on your spouse? You're going to find out real quick that it's bad. You just beat irritable with your spouse.

You're going to find out real quick there's immediate penalty for sinning against people in these ways, for stealing. There's penalties throughout our society unless you're a government person. It's okay to laugh. That was tongue-in-cheek. If you lie, there's consequences. Again, unless you're a politician.

If you murder someone, unless they're a little child in the womb, you're getting in big trouble. And in fact, if you're a mommy and you have a baby in your belly, you can not murder them anytime you want. You have to go pay someone else to do it. They're not even pro-choice. They're pro-money, okay? But anyway, that's a different hobby horse of mine.

So the point is, when you break the Sabbath, there's almost, the lightning doesn't strike. I can't count how many Sabbaths I've broken. Thousands. Thousands. I never woke up Monday and felt some kind of consequence to it like I did with hangovers and stuff from just being drunk there's some things that come with immediate consequences and so we think those are the big bad sins and those are the ones we have to avoid because you know what they affect me and how I feel and how my life is going and so those are the priorities for me and they might get me in trouble with society so I don't want to do it but what God is teaching us here is that when we break His commands even if we don't see the purpose of it even if we don't understand it even if we think that we know better or we don't see the logic behind why He's told us to do what we're doing that we are actually reviling Him and the proper consequence of that is to be cut off from God's people to willfully sin against God in the book of Hebrews it says you're probably not a Christian if you're doing that this is why one of the reasons when we go to people and we talk to people about their sin one of the things we try to say sometimes to people we try to give them that out to say maybe you didn't know this was what was happening or you didn't understand but so they found this guy and those who found him gathering steps brought him to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation, and they put him in custody because it had not been made clear what should be done to him.

And then the Lord said, the man should be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. Do you remember like two, three weeks ago, Leviticus 24? Do you remember? Blasphemy, it's almost word for word. Leviticus 24, it's the same story.

An Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed. Leviticus 24, 11 now. They brought him to Moses. The 12, they put him in custody till the will of Yahweh should be clear. The Lord spoke to Moses, bring him out of the camp. And then in this case, he says, let all who heard him lay their hands on his head.

And he says, let all the congregation stone him. It's the same exact story. A guy utters God's name uselessly. as a curse word. And in the other case, the guy's out, forgot to get his sticks the other day, forgot to get firewood on the day before And now he out saying I going to do it today It doesn sound that serious to us but it serious to God Do you realize what the worst sin in the history of the world was, at least in one perspective?

The eating of a piece of fruit. the eating of a piece of fruit by Adam and Eve is what brought the curse on us all Adam didn't murder anybody they picked up a piece of fruit that was among a bunch of trees that they had access to and this one was one of the ones they didn't they took something that wasn't theirs, they stole they didn't trust God what would logic say? Logic would say, well, if the other fruits are just fruits, this tree is just fruit, we'll just eat it. It really can't be that different.

But God's ways aren't our ways. And our job is to trust Him even when we don't understand the why. I still don't understand all the whys of the Sabbath. I can give you a few. A lot of things I can tell you are just, here's how it's benefited me. That's not exactly a glowing endorsement of, hey, you should obey it because of the authority of God who commanded it. because you know what you should obey the Sabbath even if it's hard even if you don't see the benefit even if you don't realize it because of the authority of the one who gave it and praise be to God he's so gracious when we obey his law it's actually good for us and it makes perfect sense because he's perfect and thus his law is perfect and he's the giver of life and he's the giver of good gifts so if you want to obey his commandment not to cheat on your spouse you're going to have a better marriage than if you did.

You want to obey His commandment not to steal from people? You're going to get along with your neighbors a little better than if you did. Obeying God's law has the practical effect of God delights in your ways and other people for the most part are going to like you too. But when it comes to the Sabbath some people aren't going to like you. we live in a society right now where whether or not to show up at church on Sunday is actually something Christians are arguing about I don't care what you think about the the COVID thing today there were churches from the very beginning that never stopped meeting because they knew that the obligation to obey God on the Sabbath was a far higher priority than anything that people were trying to communicate about not meeting.

That even if it could be proved that COVID was actually deadly and all the things, it's not. Our obligation was still to come to church. Particularly when we were well. When you were sick, you had a biblical obligation to try to keep away from people whether it was COVID or something else if it was contagious. And so to kind of wrap it up they put this guy in custody because they didn't know what to do.

The Ten Commandments didn't say stone him. When the Ten Commandments came out and said you shall not murder they already knew what it said in Genesis that if any man sheds another man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. They already had the death penalty from Genesis 9. They didn't know what to do with someone that willfully reviled the Lord. And in this case, I believe he despised the word of Yahweh, verse 31.

He did this with a high hand, and that's why he received the death penalty. He was cut off from his people. And I think that there's going to be times that you will not be sure what to do on the Sabbath. And I think that you try to pray and have your heart in the right place and be prepared for it, and you will make a decision. And I think that if you unintentionally sin, God's very gracious about that.

If you end up doing something on the Sabbath that maybe you shouldn't, but you thought, well, maybe I should, I don't think God's angry with you, okay? but the seriousness of the offense is often seen by the punishment you stole $10 from me I tell you to give $10 back when God says to put someone to death for breaking the Sabbath that is an unequivocally clear statement of the seriousness of it that God means it. The man shall be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

And all the congregation brought him outside the camp. Just like in Leviticus 24. And stoned him to death with stones. Turn to Hebrews 13. I'm not going to stone anybody in here. And just like when we see sticks and we think of little sticks, he's not talking about the little rocks that you drive up someone's driveway.

We're talking about stones that only somewhat strong men would have been able to lift to throw on top of people and crush their skull and kill them with. The worst part would have been a moderately slow death. but part of the issue with stoning is that stoning required a group of people from the congregation to participate it wasn't it wasn't just like an electric chair where one guy you know flip the switch or an injection or stoning required a congregation to come together to say we going to purge the evil from among us And they all took responsibility for playing a part of that And they all knew they were doing the will of God when they did it. And there's a lesson for the church here.

Because in the New Testament, I'm not going to tell you to stone a Sabbath breaker. I know Elijah's got some friends that will. That's my little theonomy dig. Not good friends, Lauren, don't worry. They're not good friends of his, but acquaintances he has. But we don't believe that in 2021, if you see somebody outside cutting their grass, you're supposed to go over and stone them with stones necessarily, okay?

There's an argument whether the civil magistrate should enforce the Sabbath, and I don't think it would be a bad idea. I think our country functioned better when we had Sabbath laws. They called them blue laws. But in Hebrews 13, we're reminded that Jesus Christ suffered outside the camp. Look at verse 12. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Jesus suffered the death penalty for Sabbath breakers. I talked about this last week. He was 33 years old. I should have done the math in between. Something like 1,500, 1,600 Sabbaths that Jesus kept perfectly. I'll give you a little spoiler for your life.

You won't keep one of them perfectly, okay? And the day you thought you kept one perfectly, you just committed pride on the Sabbath and sinned against God, okay? But Jesus Christ died the death that Sabbath breakers deserve. If you spent your whole life doing all the other commandments perfectly, Jesus Christ had to suffer outside the camp and suffer the death penalty so that you could be forgiven for your reviling of God by taking the one day in seven that he has commanded that you do something different than your worldly pursuits and your work.

And Jesus suffered for that. God, you can turn back to Numbers 15. God is sovereign. And if God tells you not to work on the Sabbath, part of what you are going to learn on that day is that God can take care of all your concerns and worries. That all the things that were bothering you, let's just say you do a Saturday night at 9 thing. All the things that bothered you Saturday night at 9, all the work emails you have to catch up on, all the things you have to do around the house, all the homeschool prep all the things that go on in our life that we're thinking about that if you put them down at 9 o'clock Saturday and you don't think about them again until 9 o'clock Sunday first of all they're still going to be there but God will take care of you as you honor his Sabbath so after the stoning of the guy in the Sabbath we read scripture in context and we see something interesting and it's interesting because I just mentioned that the Sabbath laws were called blue laws.

The Lord said to Moses in 37 and 38 now, speak to the people of Israel. Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And they're like, okay, well, why? And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember the commandments of Yahweh to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes which you are inclined to whore after.

So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God. God tells the people of Israel, hey, just give yourself a little visual reminder of my commandments. So when you see this blue tassel, why do I have a blue tassel hanging? Oh yeah. Okay, God's commandments. Maybe in your case, you need a blue tassel to remind you of the Sabbath law.

And it doesn't have to be a blue tassel. I think whatever you need to do to be reminded of God's law, that you may keep it. You know, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out. Whatever you need to do to help yourself remember God's commands that you may keep them, do it. and remember this, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God I am Yahweh your God he ends the section on that it's a good chapter break here, the next chapter is a whole new, a whole transition I think it flows nicely but it's a good chapter break I am Yahweh your God I am Jesus your Lord who brought you out of the land of sin Jesus saved you from your sin He saved you from slavery so today do what you need to do so that you may show that you are no longer a slave to your sin and to your lust that you are tempted to whore after but rather that you would obey his commands Father in heaven your Sabbath is a holy delight it is a joy and we are inclined to depart from it.

We are inclined to revile it. We desire sovereignty and you have it. And we in our flesh love any way that we can violate you and your law, particularly when we do not see the immediate consequence. And then we flatter ourselves into thinking that that is not a real law of God. So help us Father to by faith love the fourth commandment. To by faith study your scripture to find out how to obey this serious command of God that we may reap the benefits of it in this life as well as the joy and peace that comes through holiness and in striving to be like our elder brother Jesus.

In whose name I pray. Amen.