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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Now if you unintentionally fail to keep any of these commands the Lord gave Moses, any of the Lord's commands to you through him, from the day the Lord gave them and continuing through the generations to come, and if this is done unintentionally without the community being aware of it, then the whole community is to offer a young bull for a burnt offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord, along with its prescribed grain offering and drink offering, and a male goat for a sin offering. The priest is to make atonement for the whole Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, for it was not intentional and they have brought to the Lord for their wrong an offering made by fire and a sin offering. The whole Israelite community and the aliens living among them will be forgiven, because all the people were involved in the unintentional wrong."
"But if just one person sins unintentionally, he must bring a year-old female goat for a sin offering. The priest is to make atonement before the Lord for the one who erred by sinning unintentionally, and when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven. One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he is a native-born Israelite or an alien."
"But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien blasphemes the Lord, that person must be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the Lord's Word and broken His commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him."
Numbers 15:22-31
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
From the time of delivering Israel from the hands of Pharaoh and Egypt up to this point where the Israelites were turned away from Canaan as a punishment to roam the desert for 40 years, God had given His people commands, lots of them as passed on His expectations for holy and righteous living. Certainly at the forefront of God’s concern was the matter of sin and in our scripture passage today, we see where it takes center stage with God addressing two forms: unintentional and defiant. Look again at His words here:
“Now if you unintentionally fail to keep any of these commands the Lord gave Moses, any of the Lord's commands to you through him, from the day the Lord gave them and continuing through the generations to come, and if this is done unintentionally without the community being aware of it, then the whole community is to offer a young bull for a burnt offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord, along with its prescribed grain offering and drink offering, and a male goat for a sin offering. The priest is to make atonement for the whole Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, for it was not intentional and they have brought to the Lord for their wrong an offering made by fire and a sin offering. The whole Israelite community and the aliens living among them will be forgiven, because all the people were involved in the unintentional wrong."
"But if just one person sins unintentionally, he must bring a year-old female goat for a sin offering. The priest is to make atonement before the Lord for the one who erred by sinning unintentionally, and when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven. One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he is a native-born Israelite or an alien."
"But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien blasphemes the Lord, that person must be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the Lord's Word and broken His commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him." Numbers 15:22-31
First, we see the Lord addressing unintentional sin for there were instances when someone would violate God’s commands but not intend to. For example, let’s say that a person was unclean and another person would come into contact with them. This would be a violation of God’s command but the person would have sinned unintentionally, not knowing the person they made contact with was unclean. In these instances on unintentional sin, whether collectively as a community or individually, we see in our scriptures that atonement could be made.
If the community had unintentionally sinned, they were to "offer a young bull for a burnt offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord, along with its prescribed grain offering and drink offering, and a male goat for a sin offering" after which the priest was to “make atonement for the whole Israelite community leading to their forgiveness."
If an individual had unintentionally sinned, they were to "bring a year-old female goat for a sin offering" after which the priest was to make "atonement before the Lord for the one who erred by sinning unintentionally". When atonement was made, the unintentional sinner would be forgiven.
Why is covering this important?
Because as we look at these verses dealing with unintentional sin, we are reminded that God is a God of mercy and grace. He is also a God of perfect judgment and justice as we see how He would deal with anyone who sinned defiantly, anyone who willfully and willingly disobey Him and His commands.
For through His own words, we find God saying that "anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien blasphemes the Lord, that person must be cut off from his people because he has despised the Lord's word and broken his commands". In this case, the cut-off and defiant sinner would find his guilt remaining on him.
Now, I don’t know about you but this Word of God makes me very unsettled.
For who hasn’t sinned defiantly, despising God’s word and breaking His commands?
And just in case we might think that God isn’t serious about this matter of defiance, remember we just saw Israel punished for this very thing as God denied an entire generation the privilege to enter the land He had promised to give them. Indeed, God shows that He is a God of judgment and wrath, especially against anyone who chooses to reject and disrespect Him and His commands.
My prayer today is that we will take these words of scripture to heart and eradicate any defiant attitude that might exist within us regarding sin. For I’m afraid that today most people have adopted a very cavalier approach to sinning, feeling that because Jesus bore their sins on the cross, they are somehow automatically excused from sinfulness. The Apostle Paul speaks to this in his letter to the Roman believers. Here’s what he had to say:
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?’
“By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”
“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.”
“For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.”
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." Romans 6:1-14
Friends, Jesus took our sins with Him to the cross and bore the penalty for us and because of what He did, because of His willingness to die in our place so that we might be saved, we cannot allow sin to be our master because remember this: no one can serve two masters. Jesus said as much Himself in His famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:24a).
If you find yourself committing defiant sin today, it’s time to repent and return to your true Master, Jesus, the One who God has placed in authority over all things in Heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He is waiting for you to return to Him, motivated to never again go back to the defiant sinner that you were.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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