General Session 3: Triumph through Precepts - Josiah Grauman
00:00:00.000 | If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Numbers chapter 20.
00:00:07.760 | It's such an honor and a privilege to stand before you men.
00:00:12.800 | We'll be looking at Numbers 20, 10 through 13.
00:00:20.600 | Moses was really a man with no equal.
00:00:23.480 | I mean, he was chosen from birth.
00:00:26.400 | He was raised in Egypt's palace.
00:00:28.280 | He was protected.
00:00:31.200 | He defied Pharaoh, the greatest man on the planet at that time.
00:00:34.720 | He worked amazing miracles, turning water to blood and then frogs and gnats and hail
00:00:40.160 | and darkness.
00:00:41.160 | He parts the Red Sea.
00:00:43.320 | He goes up on a mountain that the Israelites couldn't even touch and speaks to Yahweh face
00:00:48.000 | to face as a man does with his friend.
00:00:51.040 | When he comes down, his face is shining so brightly that the Israelites are terrified
00:00:55.440 | of him.
00:00:56.440 | He lives a really remarkable, amazing life.
00:00:59.720 | He's the first one to write a part of the Bible.
00:01:02.160 | He's a songwriter, too, and not just any song.
00:01:05.240 | Talk about writing one of the greatest hits.
00:01:07.680 | In the book of Revelation, John tells us that in heaven, those who conquered the beast were
00:01:11.080 | singing what?
00:01:12.080 | They were singing Moses' song.
00:01:16.000 | Despite all of Moses' greatness, the Bible says that Moses was the humblest man on the
00:01:22.120 | planet.
00:01:23.120 | He was an exemplary leader, a type of the one to come.
00:01:26.600 | He patiently bore the complaining, wicked Israelites time and time again.
00:01:33.800 | Just days after leading them out of Egypt, they were already blaming him.
00:01:38.960 | They were telling him, "I'd rather return and be a slave of Pharaoh than a servant of
00:01:42.640 | Yahweh."
00:01:43.640 | You remember that because of that rebellion, God condemned the Israelites.
00:01:48.560 | They would all die in the wilderness after 40 years of wandering, while another generation
00:01:53.200 | could be raised up.
00:01:55.240 | Can you imagine Moses, 40 years of complaint after complaint?
00:02:00.360 | At least twice, God said he had had enough, and he was going to wipe out the Israelites
00:02:04.360 | to start a new nation with Moses.
00:02:07.560 | Moses, as always, displays such humility that when he hears the offer, he falls on his face
00:02:13.840 | and intercedes for Israel, saving them from extinction.
00:02:18.920 | And then in Numbers 20, where we'll be this afternoon, the 40 years were now up.
00:02:22.960 | The last of the first generation has died off.
00:02:26.520 | Aaron and Miriam both die in this chapter, and it's now time to enter the promised land.
00:02:33.880 | And what do you suppose happens?
00:02:35.880 | Does this second generation of Israelites learn from the mistakes of their fathers?
00:02:40.120 | No, they begin to complain, just like their parents.
00:02:43.160 | "I'm thirsty.
00:02:44.160 | There's no water.
00:02:45.160 | I wish I died with my parents," they say.
00:02:48.520 | Everything seems as usual.
00:02:50.240 | God provides a promise.
00:02:52.120 | He will bring forth water from a rock.
00:02:54.960 | And though God had commanded Moses last time to strike the rock, this time he tells Moses
00:02:59.880 | to speak to the rock.
00:03:01.760 | However, Moses hits it twice.
00:03:05.920 | And you know the story, God judges Moses severely, without mercy, without partiality, and tells
00:03:13.560 | Moses that he must die and not enter into the promised land because he had rebelled.
00:03:19.240 | The same word used to describe Israel's rebellion.
00:03:23.800 | When Moses later on pleads for God to change his mind, God gets angry at him and tells
00:03:28.320 | him to be quiet, as recorded in Deuteronomy 3.
00:03:32.920 | I'm not sure if you remember the first time you heard that story.
00:03:35.800 | I don't.
00:03:37.680 | But I do remember the first time I read it to my children.
00:03:41.080 | And it's just shocking.
00:03:43.440 | It's really shocking.
00:03:45.000 | I mean, really, God?
00:03:46.920 | I mean, this is Moses.
00:03:49.080 | This is your friend.
00:03:50.080 | Have you forgotten all that he's done?
00:03:52.520 | And he's going to die just because he hit the rock, something he had did before?
00:03:56.600 | I mean, it seems a little bit strict, even mean.
00:04:01.440 | Most of us, though, we wouldn't say it out loud.
00:04:03.600 | Most of us feel this way, and that's because most of us do not comprehend the holiness
00:04:09.320 | of our God.
00:04:11.280 | And I would be also willing to surmise that if you think God should have showed Moses
00:04:15.040 | a little bit of partiality and favoritism, the root cause is that you think God should
00:04:19.600 | show you a little bit of favoritism as well.
00:04:21.920 | I mean, you're a pastor, right?
00:04:23.920 | You endure a lot of troubles, hardship.
00:04:28.280 | So this afternoon, I'd like to analyze this passage with you, what happened, why Moses
00:04:33.360 | responded the way that he did, and most importantly, why did God respond the way that he did?
00:04:39.360 | And I think it's going to provide a really vivid illustration of what we heard about
00:04:43.160 | this morning from Pastor MacArthur, that we triumph only through obedience.
00:04:48.800 | So we'll just divide the text into two reasons we triumph only through obedience to Yahweh's
00:04:54.840 | precepts.
00:04:55.840 | The reasons we triumph only through obedience.
00:04:59.000 | First of all, because God's mercy is blind, and second, because God's justice is blind.
00:05:06.240 | Blind mercy and blind justice.
00:05:09.520 | We're going to study just verses 10 through 13, but why don't we read starting in verse
00:05:13.640 | 1 so we can get the context.
00:05:15.920 | Numbers 20, verse 1, thus reads the word of the living God.
00:05:24.000 | Then the sons of Israel and the whole congregation came to the wilderness of Zin in the first
00:05:28.800 | month, and the people stayed at Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there.
00:05:35.440 | Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses
00:05:39.980 | and Aaron.
00:05:41.260 | The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we had breathed our last
00:05:45.960 | when our brothers breathed their last before Yahweh.
00:05:49.100 | Why then have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness for us and our
00:05:52.520 | beasts to die here, and why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this
00:05:56.880 | evil place?
00:05:57.880 | It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink."
00:06:05.480 | Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent
00:06:09.320 | of meeting and fell on their faces.
00:06:12.800 | Then the glory of Yahweh appeared to them, and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Take
00:06:17.720 | the rod, you and your brother Aaron, assemble the congregation, and speak to the rock before
00:06:23.640 | their eyes that it may yield its water.
00:06:26.920 | Thus you shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock, and let the congregation
00:06:33.320 | and their beasts drink."
00:06:35.620 | So Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, just as he had commanded him, and Moses and
00:06:41.880 | Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them, "Listen now, you rebels.
00:06:49.320 | Shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?"
00:06:53.280 | Then Moses raised high his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod, and water came
00:06:58.580 | forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.
00:07:03.320 | But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe me to treat me as holy
00:07:09.720 | in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the
00:07:13.800 | land which I have given them."
00:07:16.480 | Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh,
00:07:22.400 | and he proved himself holy among them.
00:07:26.040 | Let's pray.
00:07:28.720 | Father, we come to your word once more, desperately in need of you and your spirit to illumine
00:07:38.280 | our minds and help us to see the glories in your law.
00:07:45.680 | Help us, Father, to understand this text and to obey this text, for the glory of Christ
00:07:53.320 | we ask.
00:07:54.320 | Amen.
00:07:55.320 | Again, we'll study just verses 10 through 13, but let's dive a little bit more into
00:08:01.560 | the context, starting there in verse 1.
00:08:05.280 | Verse 1 speaks of the whole congregation, that's over 2 million people, because they
00:08:09.360 | number the soldiers, and there's more than 600,000 soldiers of fighting age, that's not
00:08:14.640 | including the Levites.
00:08:16.600 | And it says they came to Kadesh.
00:08:19.080 | Now Kadesh is at the very north end of the Sinai Desert, essentially at the border of
00:08:23.660 | the Promised Land.
00:08:25.080 | And it is the exact same place where they were when Moses sent out the 12 spies when
00:08:30.480 | they sinned against Yahweh.
00:08:32.120 | It was at Kadesh that the first generation of Israel was sentenced to 40 years of wandering,
00:08:38.080 | according to Numbers 13:26.
00:08:40.480 | So they disobeyed, and they've wandered around the desert for 40 years, and now they've come
00:08:44.920 | back to Kadesh, in the same spot, the first generation has died off, and now the children
00:08:50.840 | are back in the exact same spot as their parents.
00:08:54.020 | They are back at the edge of Edom, Numbers 20, 16 says, ready to enter the land.
00:09:00.960 | And we know for sure that the 40 years are up, because both Miriam and Aaron die in this
00:09:06.000 | chapter, and Numbers 33, 38 says that Aaron died in the 40th year of their wandering.
00:09:13.280 | And notice, the trial that God sends Moses' way is two-fold.
00:09:18.040 | The end of verse one, Miriam dies, and then verse two, there was no water.
00:09:24.240 | This is no coincidence.
00:09:26.560 | God is sovereign, who is it that gives life and takes away life?
00:09:30.600 | Yahweh, and who is it that was leading them with a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar
00:09:35.600 | of fire by night?
00:09:37.940 | Also Yahweh, and Yahweh decided to take the life of Miriam at the exact moment he decided
00:09:43.800 | to lead the people of Israel back into a place with no water.
00:09:47.640 | This had to have been a significant trial for Moses, Moses and his sister Miriam, right?
00:09:53.840 | I mean, he loved her.
00:09:56.000 | We don't know of another sister of Moses.
00:09:58.280 | This is probably the one who saved his life all those 80 years prior.
00:10:02.600 | She was also the one in Numbers 12 that was led astray by the people and was filled with
00:10:07.320 | envy of Moses.
00:10:09.760 | Moses was surely filled with all sorts of different emotions, oh, and there's no water.
00:10:17.600 | Sort of a big deal when you're dealing with two million people and all of their animals.
00:10:22.600 | Has this sort of thing ever happened to you in ministry, that in God's providence he sends
00:10:27.360 | a trial your way right at the worst possible moment?
00:10:31.360 | Well, worse from your perspective.
00:10:35.320 | We need to trust that God is in control, he knows what he's doing, and he's doing what's
00:10:40.240 | best for us in the best moment possible in order to help us to trust more in him.
00:10:46.720 | Well, how do the people respond to the trial?
00:10:51.280 | We of course know the story, but let's try to put ourselves in the sandals of this original
00:10:55.720 | audience.
00:10:57.080 | I think the original reader is supposed to be wondering, right, how is this second generation
00:11:02.800 | going to respond to the same trial their fathers faced?
00:11:07.520 | Have the desert wanderings fixed their complaining?
00:11:10.840 | Is this second generation of Israel going to get to enter into the promised land because
00:11:14.680 | they're better than their parents?
00:11:16.480 | Do they deserve to enter?
00:11:18.480 | Well, verse three, the people thus contended with Moses, and God of course, they quarreled,
00:11:26.440 | they contended, that's the root word we'll see later on, meribah.
00:11:31.960 | So this is a genuine insurrection, this is rebellion, and the trial's heating up for
00:11:37.720 | Moses, right?
00:11:38.720 | I mean, not having water for two million people is one thing, but dealing with an insurrection
00:11:42.640 | of two million thirsty people is a trial of a whole different kind.
00:11:48.440 | And notice what they're saying, notice what they're accusing him of, they're at the end
00:11:51.440 | of verse three.
00:11:52.440 | They say, "Oh, that we would have died with our parents' generation in the desert."
00:11:56.360 | In other words, why did you lead us in circles for 40 years just to kill us at the border
00:12:01.480 | of the promised land?
00:12:03.240 | We should have died at the beginning of these terrible 40 years with you rather than now.
00:12:08.760 | Verse five, "Why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place?"
00:12:14.280 | Notice end of verse five, "You promised us pomegranates and figs and grapes."
00:12:21.840 | And we laugh 'cause it's almost childish the way that they're responding, but this isn't
00:12:25.680 | a joke, and this is not some random list of fruits.
00:12:29.600 | Listen to Numbers 13, 23.
00:12:32.320 | This is 40 years earlier, the 12 spies were spying out the land, and to prove that it
00:12:37.520 | was a good land, what did they do?
00:12:40.080 | They brought back some fruit, says, "They came to the Valley of Eskol and from there
00:12:44.720 | cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between
00:12:50.520 | two men with some of the pomegranates and the figs," exact same three fruits the Israelites
00:12:56.720 | mentioned here in Numbers 20.
00:12:59.060 | So they're saying, "Moses, you tricked us.
00:13:01.920 | There is no promised land.
00:13:03.360 | There's no land filled with milk and honey.
00:13:05.480 | You lied to us."
00:13:08.200 | And that answers our question if this second generation is better than their parents.
00:13:13.320 | Did the desert wandering cure their unbelief?
00:13:16.640 | Did it cure their complaining?
00:13:18.560 | Not even close.
00:13:20.680 | These Israelites are complaining, rebellious unbelievers just like their parents.
00:13:25.320 | If they're getting into the promised land, it's gonna be utterly and completely by God's
00:13:29.480 | mercy.
00:13:30.480 | Well, how does Moses respond?
00:13:34.640 | Verse 26, Moses, so humble, so obedient, he falls on his face before God, God so gracious.
00:13:43.480 | Verse 7, gives a promise with simple and clear instructions on how to obtain that promise
00:13:49.960 | just like always.
00:13:52.080 | Notice verse 8, Moses, "Take the rod, the staff, assemble the people, speak to the rock
00:13:57.440 | and you'll get water."
00:13:58.720 | Nothing complicated.
00:14:00.680 | Moses didn't need to take notes.
00:14:03.840 | It's amazing how we complicate God's Word, isn't it?
00:14:10.600 | God's Word is simple, it's accessible.
00:14:13.600 | Moses says in Deuteronomy 30, "The Word is very near to you."
00:14:18.600 | He gives us clear precepts, speak to the rock, preach the Word.
00:14:24.120 | And we say, "Well, in our generation, we kind of need to contextualize it a little bit.
00:14:30.520 | No one is gonna listen if we just preach Christ, if we just preach the Word."
00:14:34.920 | No, Yahweh's precepts are clear.
00:14:37.400 | We need to do just what He says exactly how He says to do it.
00:14:41.480 | So how does Moses respond?
00:14:43.880 | Verse 9, he obeys just like always.
00:14:46.320 | He took the rod, notice at the end of verse 9, just as Yahweh had commanded him.
00:14:51.840 | Verse 10, Moses, "Gather the people also as God had commanded."
00:14:54.880 | And that brings us to our first point, blind mercy, blind mercy.
00:15:02.360 | Now once again, I think if we put ourselves into the sandals of the original audience,
00:15:06.920 | the stage is set, everything is ready for Moses to pick up his rod, obey God, and save
00:15:14.800 | the day once more to work another one of Yahweh's wonders.
00:15:18.720 | I mean, it's been 40 years of miracle after miracle after miracle, right?
00:15:23.440 | It's not just the plagues and the Red Sea crossing.
00:15:26.500 | Also during the 40 years in the desert, their sandals didn't wear out.
00:15:30.320 | They got manna out of thin air, they ate quail, water out of a rock.
00:15:35.840 | Miracle after miracle, they certainly expected it by now.
00:15:39.700 | So Moses stands before them, but then shockingly, halfway through verse 10, it says that Moses
00:15:46.760 | and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them.
00:15:53.280 | And at that word them, it's the first time Moses rebelled in the Pentateuch.
00:15:58.900 | God told him to speak to the rock, and he speaks to the people instead.
00:16:04.260 | And he compounds the problem, there's various layers of sin here.
00:16:08.120 | He says, "Listen now, you rebels," which is true, but God did not command this.
00:16:15.720 | Moses then adds, "Shall we bring forth water from this rock?"
00:16:20.320 | And finally, verse 11, he strikes the rock twice.
00:16:25.460 | How can Moses do this?
00:16:27.320 | Well, I certainly can't judge his heart, but we can imagine, right?
00:16:32.320 | Moses had put up with a lot, 40 years of childish complaining, 40 years of constant unbelief.
00:16:40.760 | And this is the new generation, these are the ones that are going to enter into the
00:16:44.720 | promised land.
00:16:45.720 | Speculating a little bit, Moses seems to be thinking, they just don't get it.
00:16:51.240 | They just don't learn.
00:16:52.760 | And the current program, the current method of just giving them what they need, when they
00:16:57.480 | want it, is just not yielding results.
00:17:01.280 | And if we just give them mercy, as Yahweh is suggesting, and they get the water they're
00:17:05.760 | asking for too easily, they're just not going to learn.
00:17:10.300 | What they need is a fiery rebuke to get them to understand how terrible their complaining
00:17:14.940 | is.
00:17:16.660 | And by rebuking them, Moses, in that moment, did not believe God.
00:17:23.380 | He thought he knew a better way, a better way to transform the people.
00:17:29.180 | He lacked faith in the sufficiency of God's word.
00:17:32.820 | Men, how often do we do this today?
00:17:36.860 | How often are we tempted to follow this same man-centered, pragmatic logic?
00:17:42.600 | God says, "I'm holy.
00:17:44.300 | Call sinners to repentance."
00:17:46.660 | And we think, "Hmm, I don't think anyone's going to repent if we say it like that.
00:17:55.780 | No one is going to want to believe in a God like that with a message like that.
00:17:59.700 | Let's tell them about His love and about His compassion."
00:18:03.780 | This prideful unbelief to think we know a better way than God.
00:18:09.460 | And before we dare think that we're above that, if Moses was susceptible to this sin,
00:18:17.600 | we certainly are too.
00:18:20.820 | Now we know that Moses' sin is unbelief because we'll get there in a second, but the first
00:18:24.660 | thing God says to Moses in verse 12 is, "You did not believe me."
00:18:30.180 | So to obey your own way is unbelief.
00:18:35.220 | It's to deny God and deny the sufficiency of His word.
00:18:40.980 | Obedience to God's precepts, obedience to God's word is all that matters.
00:18:46.300 | And kind of an interesting theological note that we see here too is that God does not
00:18:51.520 | have to explain all His reasons why He tells us to do the things He tells us to do in the
00:18:56.060 | way that He tells us.
00:18:57.860 | I wonder, did Moses know that the rock that followed them from which they drank was Christ?
00:19:07.220 | First Corinthians 10.4.
00:19:08.220 | I don't know.
00:19:09.220 | I mean, Exodus 17.6 says that Horeb, Jesus, was standing on the rock that Moses struck.
00:19:14.200 | Maybe, possibly, but I doubt it.
00:19:15.900 | I doubt Moses would have consciously struck the rock twice if he'd known what it represented.
00:19:21.780 | But isn't that just the point?
00:19:23.780 | We don't know and we don't need to know and God doesn't need to tell us.
00:19:28.340 | We like Moses don't know all the why.
00:19:32.260 | We like Job aren't privy to the celestial conversations that precede our pain.
00:19:38.740 | Because running the universe is above our pay grade and we wouldn't understand it even
00:19:42.860 | if He explained it to us.
00:19:45.580 | So if we have His commands, if we have His precepts, we have enough.
00:19:50.540 | Ours is to obey.
00:19:52.740 | And if we disobey, even a little bit, it is a serious crime against our holy creator.
00:19:59.460 | It may not sound much to you to speak to the people or to hit a rock, but Moses, by screaming
00:20:09.900 | out, "Here now you rebels," he makes himself a rebel.
00:20:14.740 | That word rebel is applied to every single person in this text.
00:20:18.860 | You can jump down to verse 24, Numbers 20.24.
00:20:22.180 | God says to Moses about Aaron, "You," and the you is plural in Hebrew, "You and Aaron
00:20:29.540 | rebelled against my command."
00:20:34.180 | Everyone in this chapter is a rebel.
00:20:36.300 | Everyone in this chapter commits the sin of unbelief.
00:20:39.520 | But now notice the point, you can't miss this.
00:20:42.460 | Look at verse 11, "Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice."
00:20:50.140 | And then what?
00:20:51.940 | So Yahweh did not give them any water.
00:20:55.580 | So Yahweh judged them like He did their fathers and sentenced them all to death, because that's
00:20:59.840 | what they deserve.
00:21:01.380 | No, it's quite the opposite.
00:21:04.580 | Moses sins, he strikes the rock and it says, "And water came out abundantly and the congregation
00:21:11.820 | and their beasts drank."
00:21:13.580 | It's not a little water, abundant water enough for 2 million people and all their livestock.
00:21:19.220 | How unexpected, how merciful is Yahweh, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding
00:21:25.620 | in loving kindness and truth.
00:21:28.500 | And this, my friends, is why pragmatic obedience, obedience our own way, is always sinful.
00:21:35.320 | Because God's mercy is blind.
00:21:37.700 | God does not bless on account of your performance.
00:21:41.620 | God's grace is not bound to your obedience.
00:21:45.580 | Pragmatism says if it works, God must be blessing it.
00:21:48.580 | The pragmatist there in Kadesh would have yelled out, "Moses, hit it again, it's working.
00:21:54.980 | Water's coming out."
00:21:55.980 | Completely ignorant as to how angry Yahweh was at their rebellion, and that God gave
00:22:04.100 | them mercy, not because they deserved it, not because of their obedience, but solely
00:22:09.420 | and exclusively based on His overflowing and gracious faithfulness.
00:22:14.860 | He was fulfilling His promise to their forefather.
00:22:18.900 | So here's the principle.
00:22:19.900 | God is God.
00:22:21.300 | He makes the rules.
00:22:22.300 | He says, "I will have mercy on those I will have mercy," period, end of discussion.
00:22:27.820 | He doesn't explain to us what His criteria are or how He decides who and when to bless.
00:22:34.780 | We see this illustrated in the doctrine of election.
00:22:38.260 | Why does God elect one cadaver and not another one?
00:22:43.900 | You think because you're saved and your neighbor's not that you were a better cadaver than your
00:22:47.380 | neighbor?
00:22:48.380 | That there was something He saw in you?
00:22:50.740 | No, the only explanation we get is Ephesians 1, that He blesses us and elected us according
00:22:56.860 | to the good pleasure of His will, end of story, end of explanation.
00:23:02.500 | But again, that means that we can never judge an action based on whether God blesses it
00:23:06.740 | or not, because God blesses us in spite of our rebellion to magnify the glory of His
00:23:11.780 | grace because He's so amazing.
00:23:14.580 | So we can only ever judge an action based on its conformity to the Word of God.
00:23:19.740 | It's the only way to judge an action.
00:23:22.700 | And this is why obedience to the Word of God is essential.
00:23:26.860 | If you say, "Wow, God is really prospering that church because the pastor is preaching
00:23:31.620 | fiery political messages," or, "God is really blessing that church because the pastor's
00:23:36.300 | so loving," well, then you're missing the point, because God's mercy is blind.
00:23:41.860 | He does not dispense His grace based upon our performance.
00:23:46.700 | Grace according to Romans 11 is never earned.
00:23:49.780 | If something is earned by definition, it's not grace.
00:23:53.540 | Now, to be clear, God will discipline you because of your disobedience.
00:23:59.740 | Those things can be related.
00:24:01.920 | And certainly, we enjoy God's blessing most when we obey Him.
00:24:05.960 | But just like we cannot draw a one-to-one link between suffering and a particular sin,
00:24:12.340 | "Oh, he must have been a terrible sinner or maybe his parents because he was born blind,"
00:24:17.220 | Jesus in John 9 says, "No," well, in the same way, we cannot draw a one-to-one link between
00:24:23.620 | a particular act of obedience and God's blessing, saying, "Every time God blesses someone, it
00:24:29.340 | blesses you because of what they've done."
00:24:32.260 | No, because God's mercy is blind, He blesses us out of the abundance of His grace.
00:24:38.940 | So again, we must only judge an action based upon how closely it came to obeying God's
00:24:44.540 | word.
00:24:46.220 | So let us learn this lesson that Moses learned the hard way.
00:24:50.740 | It doesn't matter what the command is.
00:24:53.380 | The only thing that matters is to obey.
00:24:55.680 | It doesn't matter if it sounds like it's going to work or not.
00:24:58.780 | It doesn't matter if it sounds illogical or ludicrous.
00:25:02.780 | We need to obey.
00:25:03.780 | I mean, just put yourself in Moses' sandals and speak to the rock and water's going to
00:25:09.220 | come out.
00:25:10.220 | Does that make any human logical sense?
00:25:12.780 | No.
00:25:13.780 | It sounds absurd, but it doesn't matter.
00:25:16.300 | It doesn't matter.
00:25:17.300 | It doesn't matter if you prosper doing something or if you get maligned.
00:25:20.820 | The results simply do not matter.
00:25:23.020 | It's all irrelevant because God does not dispense His mercy based on our efforts but upon His
00:25:28.300 | perfect character and plan.
00:25:30.460 | The only thing that matters is obeying His word exactly as it's written.
00:25:35.860 | Exactly.
00:25:36.860 | You know, Moses got close.
00:25:40.360 | Close doesn't count.
00:25:42.140 | God demands exact obedience.
00:25:45.260 | God does not say, "Listen, Moses, I mean, I know Israel provoked you.
00:25:49.060 | I know they goaded you, and you got pretty close, so I'll go easy on you."
00:25:53.900 | No.
00:25:54.900 | God expected Moses to obey perfectly.
00:25:57.460 | In fact, He expected more of Moses because Moses was His friend.
00:26:01.560 | God wanted Moses to obey motivated out of His love for His God.
00:26:06.180 | Right?
00:26:07.180 | "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
00:26:09.420 | That's what God wants from all of us.
00:26:12.180 | We would love Him and obey Him.
00:26:16.000 | We are God's heralds.
00:26:18.020 | We have the tremendous privilege of studying God's word for a living.
00:26:21.860 | What a mercy.
00:26:23.340 | What a grace.
00:26:25.140 | He expects us to be abounding in love for Him, obeying Him joyfully.
00:26:30.820 | There's no excuses for disobedience.
00:26:33.820 | If God says, "Speak to the rock," we speak.
00:26:36.500 | If God says, "Preach the word," we preach.
00:26:38.300 | If God says, "Pray without ceasing," we pray.
00:26:41.140 | There is no lasting triumph outside of obedience to the truth of God's word.
00:26:46.680 | Now, obviously for Israel, water was just a common grace, a mercy, a temporary mercy.
00:26:54.960 | Most of the Israelites were unbelievers, right?
00:26:57.080 | It was a temporary mercy for them to receive water.
00:27:00.840 | But even for us today as believers, the same principle applies, right?
00:27:04.800 | That God gives us His grace and loving kindness not based on our performance, but solely and
00:27:10.700 | exclusively based on Christ and His righteousness.
00:27:14.480 | We'll speak more of that at the end, but for now, let's just marvel and worship our God
00:27:19.400 | who gives His mercy to rebels like us who don't deserve it.
00:27:23.720 | His mercy is blind.
00:27:25.640 | He graciously blesses all of us even when we disobey, like the parable of the laborers.
00:27:30.880 | They all worked a different amount of hours, but God blesses them blindly with a full wage,
00:27:39.320 | not based on their performance.
00:27:43.120 | That leads us to point two, blind justice, blind justice.
00:27:48.660 | Notice there in verse 12, "But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe
00:27:56.320 | Me to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring
00:28:01.960 | this assembly into the land which I have given them.
00:28:05.060 | You did not believe Me.'"
00:28:06.920 | It's a strong rebuke.
00:28:09.400 | The verb there in Hebrew to believe is to trust in His faithfulness, to trust that God
00:28:15.600 | is true and trustworthy.
00:28:17.000 | It's the same word we see in Genesis 15, 6, that Abraham believed God and it was credit
00:28:21.680 | to Him as righteousness.
00:28:24.040 | The point is that in this moment, Moses, who is a believer, was acting like an unbeliever,
00:28:31.040 | someone who did not believe God enough to obey Him.
00:28:35.240 | God was illustrating here that unbelief is the sin that keeps us from entering the promised
00:28:40.840 | land.
00:28:42.320 | You remember in Hebrews 3 when the author of Hebrews is exhorting us to enter into God's
00:28:47.160 | rest and not harden our hearts like the Israelites did.
00:28:51.200 | He reminds us of why the Israelites were not able to enter God's rest.
00:28:54.880 | He says in Hebrews 3, 19, "We see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief."
00:29:03.680 | Unbelief then is that unpardonable sin that if one persists in it will shut heaven's doors
00:29:08.600 | to them.
00:29:10.040 | Any other sin, God will forgive, but if someone refuses to believe, if they refuse to believe
00:29:16.120 | in Christ, there is no other Savior, there is no other hope.
00:29:19.960 | You say, "Well, how do we tell if someone is a believer like Moses who fell into a momentary
00:29:26.720 | lapse of unbelief or if they're unbelievers like most of the Israelites destined for judgment?"
00:29:33.280 | Well, because like we heard this morning, everyone who is justified is also being sanctified.
00:29:39.280 | And Numbers 20 also illustrates this beautifully because it shows that unbelief always manifests
00:29:45.120 | itself in disobedience.
00:29:48.160 | Unbelief isn't some ethereal concept that's divided from our physical world.
00:29:53.120 | No, God says, "You didn't believe me enough to obey."
00:29:58.240 | Faith and unbelief always show their fruits for all to see.
00:30:01.640 | Faith works.
00:30:03.480 | Unbelief also works.
00:30:05.560 | John, the apostle John, fighting this sort of Gnostic dualism says, "Let no one deceive
00:30:13.800 | you.
00:30:14.800 | The one who does righteousness is righteous."
00:30:17.760 | You say you're justified, well, then you're going to walk justly, you're going to walk
00:30:22.660 | in righteousness.
00:30:24.760 | So the believer, when he temporarily falls into unbelief and manifests that unbelief
00:30:30.280 | in disobedience, will necessarily then confess his sin, repent of his unbelief, and come
00:30:36.880 | back to trust out of love for his savior.
00:30:40.280 | Whereas the unbeliever lives in constant unbelief manifested by the fact that they walk in constant
00:30:44.600 | darkness and sin.
00:30:48.080 | Now notice specifically in verse 12 that God says, "You did not believe me enough to treat
00:30:53.060 | me as holy in the sight of Israel."
00:30:57.080 | For the holiness of God refers to his separateness.
00:31:01.160 | God is holy.
00:31:02.160 | That means that he is different than us.
00:31:03.600 | He's full of glory and grandeur and majesty.
00:31:06.740 | His perfections are magnificent.
00:31:09.880 | He's so distinct.
00:31:12.080 | And the primary way that he points out that he's different than us is that he is morally
00:31:16.200 | righteous and we are sinners, which is an amazing reality.
00:31:23.640 | If I were God, and it's a good thing I'm not.
00:31:27.040 | But if I were God, and I wanted to let Josiah Gromin know how different I was than him, I'd
00:31:32.680 | probably start by saying, "I'm eternal, and your life is just a passing breath.
00:31:38.760 | I'm omnipresent, and you're limited to this little speck of space in my universe.
00:31:44.360 | I'm self-sufficient.
00:31:45.520 | I need nothing and no one to survive, and you can't even live for five minutes without
00:31:50.320 | the oxygen I lend to you.
00:31:52.320 | I'm omnipotent, and you can barely get out of bed in the morning."
00:31:57.040 | Right?
00:31:58.040 | The list could go on and on and on, but it's interesting that normally in the Bible, those
00:32:03.640 | are not the things God points out that separate him from us, because those differences pale
00:32:09.480 | in God's mind in comparison to the biggest difference of all, and that is that Josiah,
00:32:14.080 | you disobey.
00:32:16.280 | You sin, and I am pure.
00:32:19.920 | And God highlights this aspect of his holiness so much that holiness essentially comes to
00:32:25.200 | mean purity.
00:32:26.700 | Be holy as I am holy.
00:32:28.320 | And we don't think, "Okay, I need to be eternal and self-sufficient."
00:32:32.280 | We understand it means that we need to stop sinning and be holy as God is.
00:32:38.440 | But we can't, even though that reality is true, we can't forget the original meaning
00:32:43.120 | of the word holiness.
00:32:45.760 | And holiness means that God is different than us, he's separate from us, that he's glorious
00:32:51.120 | in all his perfections.
00:32:53.360 | And I do think here when God says, "Moses, your disobedience did not show off my holiness,"
00:32:59.560 | that the main point that Moses, the main point is that Moses' disobedience did not display
00:33:05.600 | all of God's majesty, all of his separateness.
00:33:10.240 | And here's the point then, God's word, God's precepts perfectly display all of God's holiness,
00:33:17.960 | all of his glory, all of his majesty, all of his splendor.
00:33:21.520 | And when we tinker with God's word, even in the slightest detail, we necessarily tarnish
00:33:29.560 | the glory that he reveals in his word.
00:33:33.880 | We tarnish his glory in the eyes of those around us.
00:33:38.400 | Obeying God's word always diminishes the perfection of the revelation of God's glory.
00:33:44.600 | When Moses did not obey God's word exactly as it was prescribed, he made God look common.
00:33:51.240 | He made God look like us and not an awesome God to be feared.
00:33:55.840 | When Moses did this, he was like a foolish child painting with his finger over a Rembrandt
00:34:02.400 | thinking that he's making it better.
00:34:04.680 | You can't make God's word better.
00:34:07.080 | It's perfect just as it is.
00:34:08.840 | God's word cannot be improved, it is sufficient.
00:34:12.200 | Well, just a couple of observations here on how Moses did not treat God as holy.
00:34:19.280 | First, remember Moses' choice of words.
00:34:23.200 | He says, "Here now you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?"
00:34:30.520 | Now some people say that the only thing sinful here was striking the rock instead of speaking
00:34:34.400 | to it because God did say in Numbers 28, "Moses, you shall bring forth water for them."
00:34:40.320 | So it's not like they're saying something incorrect.
00:34:42.800 | But we do actually know that Moses' words were sinful here because God sentences Moses
00:34:49.600 | and Aaron to death because of their rebellion and only Moses strikes the rock.
00:34:55.300 | In fact, we know their words are sinful also because in Psalm 106, 33, it says, "Because
00:35:00.920 | Israel provoked Moses, he spoke rashly with his lips."
00:35:06.160 | And if we compare the way that Moses is speaking here to the way he speaks in doing other miracles,
00:35:11.420 | I think we see a contrast.
00:35:13.680 | For example, in Exodus 14, verse 13, when God is about to part the Red Sea, this is
00:35:20.200 | what Moses said to the people of Israel, "Do not fear.
00:35:25.000 | Stand by and see the salvation of Yahweh, which He will accomplish for you today."
00:35:31.560 | Sounds pretty different than, "Shall we bring forth water from this rock?"
00:35:36.120 | There's no "we" in Yahweh's salvation.
00:35:39.320 | There's no "me and Yahweh make a really good team."
00:35:42.000 | No, Isaiah 48, 11, "For my own sake, for my own sake I do it.
00:35:49.120 | My glory I will not give to another."
00:35:52.560 | God shares His glory with no one.
00:35:55.760 | And you know, a lot of Christians wrestle with this, that we go through trials and hardships
00:36:01.440 | and God takes all the glory.
00:36:05.640 | God doesn't share.
00:36:06.640 | God's going to get all the glory and I just have to suffer.
00:36:11.880 | But that's not the case for the Christian.
00:36:15.000 | The Bible explains to us that the glory of God is completely linked to our eternal good
00:36:21.840 | because the more He shines forth His glory and the more we see that worth, we become
00:36:27.680 | more like Him.
00:36:28.680 | That's what 2 Corinthians 3, 18 says, that we're transformed into His glory as we behold
00:36:34.920 | it.
00:36:35.920 | That's the goal for us to reflect His glory as His image bearers.
00:36:40.480 | And that's where Moses failed because when he sinned, he was trying to diminish the glory
00:36:47.560 | of God whether intentionally or not.
00:36:54.400 | Moses sinned because he did not shine forth God's holiness in that moment.
00:36:58.760 | Moses inserted himself.
00:37:01.120 | By adding to the Word of God, he was not displaying all of God's holiness.
00:37:06.640 | Every time we disobey, we show too much of ourselves and not enough of God's holiness.
00:37:13.120 | And God takes this very seriously.
00:37:16.920 | Moses' unbelief made God look common, made Him look human.
00:37:21.440 | Moses' anger made Yahweh look like Moses and God says, "No, I'm not like you."
00:37:28.040 | Psalm 50, 21, "You thought I was just like you so I will reprove you."
00:37:34.160 | Idolatry is fashioning Yahweh after our imagination.
00:37:37.840 | Can't do that.
00:37:39.320 | God's not like us.
00:37:41.920 | Think about it this way.
00:37:43.440 | Who among us, if we were in charge of this situation, who among us would show mercy to
00:37:49.360 | complaining Israel and then judge our friend Moses?
00:37:53.160 | Would we do that?
00:37:55.540 | Would you do that?
00:37:56.540 | I think none of us would.
00:37:59.080 | But the God revealed here is worthy of the most glory just for who He is.
00:38:04.680 | He shows just how utterly unique He is, completely perfect.
00:38:09.560 | He reveals His perfect glory in the story and He is a God whose mercy is blind and whose
00:38:14.080 | justice is also blind.
00:38:16.440 | And it's best that way.
00:38:18.280 | It's best for God's justice to be blind.
00:38:20.560 | Hold on to that thought.
00:38:21.560 | We're going to come back to it in a few minutes.
00:38:23.440 | But I want to just finish up the text here in verse 13.
00:38:27.040 | It says, "Those were the waters of Meribah because the sons of Israel contended with
00:38:32.640 | Yahweh and He proved Himself holy among them."
00:38:36.400 | Moses did not show God's holiness to the people.
00:38:39.640 | So God judges Moses and shows Himself to be even more clearly anything but common.
00:38:46.400 | He tells His friend, "You shall not bring the people into the land."
00:38:49.880 | I mean, Moses rebels one time in this whole book and God judges Him blindly, severely,
00:38:55.360 | without partiality.
00:38:56.720 | That's very unhuman-like, very different than us.
00:39:00.560 | None of us would judge like this.
00:39:04.280 | The verb there in Hebrew is "reflexive."
00:39:06.620 | He proved Himself holy.
00:39:09.640 | And that's kind of the summary of the whole passage.
00:39:12.560 | They did not display God's holiness, so God does it Himself in spite of them.
00:39:18.120 | Moses refused to show God's holiness by showing mercy to complaining Israel.
00:39:24.360 | So God does it anyway, right?
00:39:28.200 | Because our disobedience is not going to thwart God's plan.
00:39:34.440 | Moses' disobedience does not mean that God's going to get less glory, not on your life.
00:39:40.240 | When Moses did not show God's holiness, God proved just how holy He truly is by showing
00:39:45.000 | mercy to Israel and judging His friend Moses.
00:39:48.800 | That makes God very different than us.
00:39:51.600 | We judge everything based on favoritism.
00:39:54.840 | God judges us without consideration of who we are, and that's seen so clearly here with
00:39:59.640 | Moses.
00:40:00.640 | I mean, Moses was God's friend.
00:40:03.520 | Moses was as an important of a man as there could be in God's plan, as dear as a man as
00:40:08.920 | could be in God's heart.
00:40:12.280 | Remember how God speaks of Moses in Numbers 12?
00:40:15.480 | Miriam and Aaron grumble against Him, and God gets angry and He says, "Hear now my words.
00:40:22.560 | Is there a prophet among you?
00:40:24.800 | I, Yahweh, shall make myself known to him in a vision.
00:40:27.780 | I shall speak with him in a dream.
00:40:30.320 | Not so with my servant Moses.
00:40:33.160 | He is faithful in all my household.
00:40:35.360 | With him I speak mouth to mouth, indeed clearly and not in riddles.
00:40:39.080 | And he beholds the form of Yahweh.
00:40:41.680 | Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?"
00:40:47.080 | So the anger of Yahweh burned against them.
00:40:50.880 | God loved Moses so much that He got angry when someone spoke against Him.
00:40:54.920 | Right?
00:40:55.920 | Numerous times God defends Moses.
00:40:57.520 | I mean, He eats up Corp and His rebellion with the earth.
00:41:00.640 | He gives Miriam leprosy.
00:41:04.120 | But then when Moses himself sins, Moses receives the same blind justice as everyone else.
00:41:11.520 | Sin is sin, and God is just, holy, and jealous for His glory, and this is the God we worship,
00:41:18.960 | an absolutely impartial judge.
00:41:21.920 | And remember, if God judged His friend Moses impartially, we should certainly expect the
00:41:28.600 | same.
00:41:29.600 | In fact, as James 3 says, we who are teachers will receive a greater judgment.
00:41:34.880 | That's compounded upon the fact that Hebrews 10, 29 says that we will face an even greater
00:41:39.440 | punishment in the new covenant if we reject Christ after beholding the glory of the cross.
00:41:46.560 | God says to the one who tramples His son, "Leave him to Me.
00:41:50.240 | Vengeance is Mine.
00:41:51.240 | I will repay."
00:41:52.240 | It's a horrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
00:41:58.800 | So to whom much is given, much will be required.
00:42:02.680 | And as pastors, this ought to instill great fear in us, to obey God in everything, to
00:42:08.920 | always strive to be doers of the Word, not just preachers of it.
00:42:13.080 | Because God's judgment is blind to who we are.
00:42:15.320 | We don't get a pass for being pastors, far from it.
00:42:19.320 | Furthermore, it's also blind in considering what we've done, what we can do.
00:42:25.480 | I mean, think of Numbers 20, right?
00:42:28.680 | If there's anyone who had built up just a little bit of credit with God, it would have
00:42:32.480 | been Moses.
00:42:34.600 | You know, the way that the world thinks about God and His justice, the idea that if I do
00:42:38.640 | a bunch of good things, then I have the opportunity to slip up every now and then, and my good
00:42:43.520 | at the end will outweigh my bad because I'm not a murderer.
00:42:48.040 | And we obviously know this is erroneous, and we would never say it, but it does creep into
00:42:52.800 | our thinking.
00:42:53.800 | And I think Moses thought so too.
00:42:56.240 | In fact, later on, like I mentioned, Deuteronomy 3, Moses tries to change God's mind.
00:43:03.560 | He says, "And I pleaded with Yahweh at that time, 'Please let me go over and see the good
00:43:07.520 | land beyond the Jordan.'
00:43:09.680 | But Yahweh was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me.
00:43:13.340 | And Yahweh said to me, 'Enough from you.
00:43:15.540 | Do not speak to me of this matter again.'"
00:43:17.320 | You see, God's justice is blind.
00:43:21.120 | It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done or what you do afterward.
00:43:25.240 | The consequences of sin are irrevocable.
00:43:27.440 | And I think as pastors, we're particularly vulnerable to this type of error in our thinking
00:43:33.640 | because we do so much good.
00:43:36.960 | So we begin to think that God needs us.
00:43:41.660 | Or we reason, "I'll sin and then I'll ask forgiveness and the blood of Christ will cleanse
00:43:45.640 | me perfectly."
00:43:46.640 | Well, first of all, be careful because that's exactly the sort of rationale that has led
00:43:51.760 | to the apostasy of many who thought they were washed in Christ's blood when in fact they
00:43:56.760 | were not.
00:43:57.760 | But secondly, also, remember that the cross has cleared us from the eternal consequences
00:44:03.920 | of our sin but it does not remove the temporal consequences we face on this earth.
00:44:09.960 | And Moses also illustrates this fact.
00:44:12.480 | Moses will not face eternal condemnation for this rebellion but he certainly lost reward
00:44:18.120 | and suffered pain here on earth.
00:44:21.520 | Paul says in Galatians 6, "Do not be deceived.
00:44:25.320 | God is not mocked.
00:44:27.880 | For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap."
00:44:32.600 | If you think you can sin and not receive consequences, you think you can mock God and you are wrong.
00:44:39.800 | It's impossible.
00:44:41.280 | God always wins.
00:44:42.320 | That's the point of the last phrase.
00:44:44.600 | Israel contended with Yahweh.
00:44:46.720 | Israel tried to fight Yahweh and who do you think is going to win that battle?
00:44:51.880 | Israel contended with Yahweh and he proved himself holy among them.
00:44:57.840 | They didn't show Yahweh to be holy so he did it himself.
00:45:03.600 | Yahweh wanted to announce to the world that he is the great I am, that he can make a promise
00:45:07.960 | to Abraham and then fulfill it hundreds of years later.
00:45:11.440 | Yahweh wanted mercy.
00:45:13.280 | Moses wanted severity.
00:45:14.780 | So what happened?
00:45:16.420 | God wins.
00:45:17.640 | He was merciful to Israel and severe only with Moses.
00:45:21.560 | The people received their water abundantly.
00:45:23.840 | God's plan was accomplished.
00:45:26.240 | God will not allow anyone to interfere with his plan.
00:45:30.560 | Yahweh proved himself holy.
00:45:33.800 | In Hebrew, the verb there, kadosh, is in the nifal stem to show his holiness.
00:45:41.320 | The verb occurs less than a dozen times in the entire Bible and just four times in the
00:45:45.760 | Torah.
00:45:46.760 | So we can trace these uses together.
00:45:48.400 | It's the word we see in Exodus 29 where God says that at the burnt altar where blood sacrifices
00:45:55.600 | are made, I will meet there with the sons of Israel and it shall be shown as holy by
00:46:01.120 | my glory, which is why later in Leviticus 10 when Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire
00:46:08.440 | instead of a fire, Yahweh started on that bronze altar, Yahweh kills Nadab and Abihu.
00:46:14.840 | And interestingly, in Leviticus 10 when Moses is having to explain to Aaron because Aaron's
00:46:20.320 | having a hard time with the fact that his two sons just died, Moses tells Aaron, "Remember,
00:46:26.520 | remember Yahweh told us by those who come near me, I will be shown to be holy and before
00:46:33.880 | all the people, I will be glorified."
00:46:37.760 | Moses tells Aaron, "Look, God's ministers have an incredible task to show forth God's
00:46:43.200 | holiness in the ministry of his truth."
00:46:47.080 | This can only be done when the preacher himself obeys that truth and Moses forgot his own
00:46:53.120 | warning.
00:46:54.120 | Moses inserted himself.
00:46:57.280 | God says, "My ministers will be held to a higher standard to demonstrate my holiness
00:47:03.480 | to my people, to get out of the way and let the people see my glory and my holiness."
00:47:10.320 | And we like Moses forget this as well.
00:47:14.760 | The preacher, not one of us is immune to this.
00:47:18.280 | We finish the sermon and someone compliments the message and we thank them and we forget
00:47:23.480 | to say, "Praise the Lord, it's all of him."
00:47:26.680 | We forget our place, that our entire ministry is a mercy of God, 2 Corinthians 4, so we
00:47:33.160 | must fade away that his holiness might shine.
00:47:37.000 | We forget the words of the greatest man ever born of a woman, "He must increase."
00:47:43.480 | And in order for that to happen, "I must, I must decrease."
00:47:47.760 | So it doesn't matter if someone slanders your preaching or said you did a terrible job,
00:47:55.600 | why do you care about your own glory, your own honor?
00:47:58.440 | You have one job, one job, for the holiness of Christ to shine through your ministry.
00:48:07.360 | The thing is like we see here in Numbers 20, at the end of the day, Christ will be glorified
00:48:11.760 | with or without you, right?
00:48:14.720 | Your disobedience is not going to thwart his plan.
00:48:17.760 | Sometimes I envision God's holiness like a freight train speeding down the track and
00:48:23.400 | you can hop on and enjoy the ride or be run over, but there's no stopping it.
00:48:28.760 | There's no changing its direction.
00:48:30.320 | Yahweh will prove himself to be holy, period.
00:48:34.040 | And he will do it through your obedience or if you oppose him by placing your corpse under
00:48:39.360 | the feet of the one who sits at his right hand, but he will not be stopped, he's omnipotent.
00:48:46.840 | So you can obey and get a front row seat to watch Yahweh work his wonders or you can disobey
00:48:53.280 | and miss out because the father loves his son too much to let his perfections be dimmed.
00:49:00.440 | And the son loves his father too much to not shine forth the full glory of his holiness.
00:49:06.240 | And the spirit loves the son too much to not transform us perfectly into the exact imprint
00:49:11.840 | of the son so that all of God's communicable attributes might be seen in all his creation.
00:49:17.880 | And that is our joy and our crown, that Christ be glorified so that we can be transformed
00:49:24.840 | into his image.
00:49:26.840 | Well, in conclusion, brothers, I think we've seen like so many doctrines that when understood
00:49:34.480 | correctly, the fact that God's mercy and justice are blind should bring us great fear when
00:49:41.840 | we disobey and great peace and joy when we believe and obey.
00:49:48.640 | On the one hand, God's blind justice should cause a great fear to overcome you when you
00:49:53.280 | disobey in unbelief.
00:49:56.000 | Because if you think that you're gonna get to heaven when you die because, well, I'm
00:49:59.520 | a pastor, I preach the Bible, I evangelize, I mean, I've helped a lot of people.
00:50:04.840 | I have good theology, I know the truth.
00:50:08.040 | I mean, I don't love Christ like I used to, I'm addicted to a couple of sins, but I think
00:50:12.840 | God's gonna overlook them given all the other things I've done.
00:50:17.480 | Know this, God's justice is completely blind.
00:50:20.520 | He hates sin and is a just judge and he will judge every human being without partiality,
00:50:26.000 | without favoritism, every single sinner will receive judgment for all eternity in the fires
00:50:31.480 | of hell.
00:50:32.480 | You say, but God is also merciful, he'll show me mercy, not like that.
00:50:38.640 | God gives justice to everyone.
00:50:40.240 | His mercy, he showed to us in sending his son.
00:50:43.400 | That's how you receive mercy, in his son.
00:50:46.600 | If you don't love the son, it's all justice.
00:50:50.240 | Without Christ, there's no mercy.
00:50:52.360 | No one will escape, 'cause every human being is a sinner deserving of hell.
00:50:57.120 | We desperately need Christ, Christ is our only hope.
00:51:01.480 | And that's one of the greatest lessons this passage demonstrates for us, that even Moses,
00:51:07.800 | the great and powerful and amazing Moses, even he cannot bring God's people into the
00:51:13.400 | promised land.
00:51:14.560 | So we see this passage is not about Moses, it's not to reveal Moses to us, it's to reveal
00:51:20.440 | to us that we need a better Moses.
00:51:22.920 | We need a perfect Moses, one who never speaks rashly, one who never stops trusting God.
00:51:28.540 | We need our perfect prophet, priest, and king, we need Jesus Christ.
00:51:33.560 | And here's the good news, if you believe in this greater Moses, in Jesus, the eternal
00:51:39.220 | son of God, the creator of the world, who became flesh, who came to earth, lived the
00:51:45.360 | perfect life that we can't live, who died the death we deserve, and was raised on the
00:51:49.760 | third day for our salvation, if you believe in that Christ, you will receive not blind
00:51:55.600 | justice, but blind mercy.
00:51:58.180 | And that is the best possible news, because it doesn't matter what you've done.
00:52:02.680 | If you're a criminal, dying on a cross, it doesn't matter who you are, if you're the
00:52:06.920 | most worthless Gentile on the planet, it doesn't matter if you're an adulterer, or trans, or
00:52:12.160 | a slave trader, or a self-righteous pastor.
00:52:15.520 | If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you would cry out to God to save you from the merits
00:52:21.000 | of Christ, God promises to impartially overwhelm you with his mercy, only according to the
00:52:27.840 | perfect life of Jesus Christ.
00:52:30.400 | You see, we need to see these two truths, that God's justice is blind, and God's mercy
00:52:35.820 | is blind.
00:52:36.820 | We need to see it's best this way, because the gospel is guaranteed by these two facts.
00:52:43.380 | It's necessary to observe in Numbers 20, as hard as it is to accept, that God has the
00:52:48.840 | ability to judge blindly, objectively, and without partiality, because that's the only
00:52:56.040 | way the gospel works.
00:52:58.440 | When God took his beloved and perfect Son, and imputed our sins in his account, and then
00:53:05.420 | God without partiality to his Son, poured out his wrath upon Christ for my sin.
00:53:12.920 | He's a blind judge.
00:53:14.360 | Praise his holy name.
00:53:16.000 | A judge, any less impartial, could not have done that to his own Son.
00:53:22.200 | In Hebrew, being impartial literally means not seeing someone's face, judging them without
00:53:27.740 | knowing who they are.
00:53:31.060 | God judged Christ for my disobedience impartially, without ever looking at Christ's face, as
00:53:38.120 | it were.
00:53:39.120 | I thank the Lord for God's blind justice, as it results in my justification.
00:53:45.280 | But point two, we also need to see that God's mercy is blind.
00:53:49.040 | We saw that when God blessed rebellious Israel.
00:53:52.560 | And that is the best possible news, that God can look at me, a filthy, wicked sinner, and
00:53:59.880 | yet amazingly show me mercy, solely on the basis of Christ's righteousness in my account.
00:54:06.900 | If God were a respecter of persons, if he considered who we are, if I had to stand before
00:54:13.440 | a lesser judge, a lesser judge would see Christ's imputed righteousness in my account, but then
00:54:20.740 | look up and say, "Wait a second, I know that face, Josiah Grauman, right?
00:54:29.000 | I remember you.
00:54:30.520 | I remember what you've done.
00:54:32.280 | I remember what you said to me that night.
00:54:34.800 | I remember how you defiled my temple, how you grieved my spirit.
00:54:39.360 | I remember what you did to my son.
00:54:41.880 | You're going to burn."
00:54:42.880 | Not Yahweh, he is holy, he's different than us, his mercy is blind.
00:54:51.160 | He lavishes his love upon us solely and exclusively, based on the loveliness of his son, blind
00:54:57.960 | to the filthiness of our faces.
00:55:00.680 | What a judge, who takes rebellious sinners like us, and by his blind justice and mercy
00:55:06.440 | declares us righteous, adopts us into his family, changes us in the image of his son,
00:55:11.600 | and then brings us home to rejoice over us.
00:55:14.160 | What a wonder, what a motivation to love him and obey him.
00:55:20.560 | What a motivation to do what he asks us to do, to show off his holiness in the world,
00:55:26.520 | reflecting it in our obedience to the truth.
00:55:29.600 | Let's pray.
00:55:33.640 | Father, we thank you for your word, because in it we see all your glory shining in the
00:55:43.120 | face of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:55:47.840 | We thank you for him.
00:55:53.600 | Thank you for the salvation that you have wrought in Christ.
00:55:58.760 | We beg you that you would help us to see more of Jesus Christ every day, to see more of
00:56:05.160 | his glory, see more of his worth, more of his holiness, and that we would reflect his
00:56:12.280 | holiness to the world in the way that we obey you.
00:56:16.080 | Thank you for your spirit that you've left with us, who transforms us and helps us.
00:56:23.080 | We love you and we thank you in Christ's name, amen.
00:56:25.520 | Amen.
00:56:26.520 | Amen.
00:56:27.520 | Amen.
00:56:27.520 | (audience applauding)