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Introduction: Welcome to Expound our weekly worship and verse by verse study of the Bible.
Our goal is to expand your knowledge of the truth
of God as we explore the Word of God in
a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational.
Skip Heitzig: Numbers, chapters 8 and 9, God willing, before we take
the Lord's Supper together. The elements that are in your
seat we're going to take them at the end of
our service together before we go home. And to prepare
our hearts I want you to step back with me
to an ancient time, the Old Testament era when the
children of Israel are scattered beneath that great mountain Mount
Sinai. The tabernacle is erected. They're about to celebrate the
Passover together, which is where we get our cues from
the Lord's Supper or for the Lord's Supper, for the
communion service. We take it directly from
the Passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples taking
the elements. He said, "Do this in remembrance of me."
And he was celebrating that ancient celebration of the deliverance
from slavery, the deliverance from Egypt. And then he took
and he capitalized on that and applied that to what
he was about to do on the cross. And so
it is fitting that we are in this section of
Scripture as we take communion, as we take the Lord's
Supper. Chapter 8 and chapter 9 of Numbers are short in comparison to some
of the other chapters. So, it is possible we'll be able
to make it through before we take these elements.
Chapter 8 of Numbers is all about lamps and Levites;
chapter 9 is about the Passover and the Presence, to
make it memorable. Let me explain. Chapter 8, lamps and Levites,
seven lamps placed on one lampstand called the menorah brought
candlelight into the house of the Lord in the Holy
Place. Those lamps are set out in chapter 9, and
the instruction is given by the Lord to Moses, and
then given from Moses to Aaron and his sons to
do that. So the lamps are given then the Levites
are spoken about. They're commissioned to do the work of
ministry in the tabernacle. That's chapter 8. Chapter 9
is about the Passover and the Presence, that ancient meal
of deliverance, the Passover, followed by that beautiful cloud that
surrounded the place of worship in the desert, the cloud
and the pillar of fire that represented the presence of
God. That comprises chapter 9. We have---I have behind me,
you have in front of you on the piano a
menorah. And I put it out here because chapter 8
opens up with the lighting of lamps and the configuration of these
lamps in the Holy Place. So allow the menorah as well as the flame
of these candles to help take you back into the scene.
If you can, it always helps to try to crawl
into the scene and experience it, taste it, smell it,
hear it. So, tonight stand next to Moses as he
hears the instructions from the Lord, watch as Aaron hears
what Moses has to say to him and then goes
out to obey it. And then watch and hear the
rustling of the crowd as they come close around the
tabernacle so that the tribal representatives can lay their hands
on the Levites and pray for them as they are commissioned.
Now, as we begin chapter 8 and speak about the candlestick, the menorah---the menorah,
the instructions for it are given in several sections in
the Old Testament. But it was the
only light in the tabernacle, the only place where light
emanated from. It was of pure gold essentially, one solid
piece of gold having one single vertical shaft, and on each side
three branches. So, a total of seven lamps, that's the
menorah and sometimes people get it confused with the hanukkiah
which has nine, and people call that the menorah. A
menorah has seven and the seven was the lampstand that stood
in the Holy Place. The hanukkiah is
for the Festival of Hanukkah, because of eight days, plus
one extra candle as the lead candle, so that the lamps could be lit
off of that one, because of the celebration of the
Festival of Lights that is celebrated around this time of
the year. Later on a temple would be built, and in
the temple would also stand this huge menorah. The rabbis would call the
temple, get this, "the light of the world." The temple, they said, is
the light world. They thought it's the center of the
world and the temple is the light of the world
principally because a light that emanated from the Holy Place
in that menorah, that lampstand. Now, Jesus
Christ will come along and turn that rabbinical thinking on
its ear when he will say, "I am the light
of the world." If you were to go to Israel
today, you would discover a menorah in Jerusalem. We're going
to show you a couple pictures of it. They have
reconstructed it. There is a group in Israel called the
Temple Institute. It's a group that is sworn to the
rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. They have trained priests.
They have a Sanhedrin. They have made
the implements of the temple, including this gold menorah that
stands under guard, of course, because it's millions of dollars'
worth of pure gold in the old section of Jerusalem.
They got the idea, the measurements, the size, all from
four hundred pages of documents from ancient times that they have culled
through to get the right specifications. And they are looking
forward, as we are but for different reasons, the rebuilding
of the temple in Jerusalem. With that in mind we
now come to chapter 8, verse 1.
"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to Aaron,
and say to him, "When you arrange the lamps, the
seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand." '"
That is, the little casing of oil where there will
be a wick that will be trimmed, that will give
off light itself, will be to the anterior, the front
of that lampstand, so that all the ornate work will
be able to be seen by the priest as he goes in
and it will reflect on that huge golden structure."And Aaron
did so; he arranged the lamps to face toward the
front of the lampstand, as the Lord commanded Moses."
Quite simple, God said it, let's do it. "Now this
workmanship of the lampstand was hammered gold; from its shaft
to its flowers it was hammered work. According to the
pattern which the Lord had shown Moses, and so he
made the lampstand. And the Lord spoke," verse 5, "to Moses,
saying." Now, beginning at verse 5 we have a ceremony, a
ceremony to take a certain tribe, the tribe of Levi,
and they will do the work of ministry in the
tabernacle. This is their commissioning service. This is their ordination
service. There's some notable features. Principally the
children of Israel gather around, sacrifices are made on behalf
of the Levites, they are sprinkled to cleanse them, and
people lay their hand on them. "The Lord spoke the
Moses, saying; 'Take the Levites from among the children of
Israel and cleanse them ceremonially. Thus you shall do to
them to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purification on them, and
let them shave all their body, and let them wash
their clothes, and so make themselves clean.' "There is a
New Testament Scripture that is a corollary, I believe, to
this ceremony we're reading about. Can you
guess what that Scripture is? It's Romans, chapter 12. Now listen
to it: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you might
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God." The imagery in Paul's mind seems to be
the imagery of these Levites as they present their bodies
for the work in the tabernacle. Verse 8, "'Then
let them take a young bull with its grain offering of
fine flour mixed with oil, and you shall take another
bull as a sin offering. And you shall bring the Levites
before the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall gather together
the whole congregation of the children of Israel.' "So, so
far the flow of the chapter is the menorah is
lit, there's a certain way to do it. The sons
of Aaron were to do it trimming the lamps in
the evening right at twilight. Right when the sun goes
down over the horizon, there's that warm glow in the
atmosphere, that's twilight. When the sun goes
down, the lamps were to be lit, and they would
remain lit all the way till the next morning. There
is an interesting passage of Scripture in Frist Samuel, chapter 3.
It's the calling of the prophet Samuel. Remember that, when
he was just a little boy and the Lord spoke and said,
"Samuel, Samuel"? And little Samuel said, "Here I am." It's
interesting because it says this: "In those days the word
of the Lord was rare and there was no widespread
revelation." Then it says the priest Eli went to lay
down in his place and before the light went out
in the tabernacle the Lord spoke to Samuel and called
him into ministry. So, from looking at that
literally, before the sun rose, it was early in the
morning, late at night. It was the darkest part of
the night just before the dawn would come up over
the horizon. Very early in the morning before the sun
rose, the lamp was about to go out, the menorah
was about to go out in the tabernacle that the
Lord spoke and called this young boy into ministry. That's what
the text means. However, most commentators in reading that, because
it sort of follows off of this lighting of the lamps,
will say that there's a symbolic meaning to it.
In the darkest part of the night the Lord was
about to reveal his plan through a young boy named Samuel.
In the darkest period of their history when there was
no widespread revelation, when God wasn't speaking anymore and it
was dark, not only was it dark physically, it was
dark spiritually, the Lord unveiled a new plan. Now that
is a principle, we even talked about it on Christmas
Eve and the week before, if you remember, when we
played off the theme of darkness and light. "The people
who sat in darkness," Isaiah said of the Galileans, "have seen a great light;
and on those people a great light has dawned."
That is God's method. And I'm so glad for it
that no matter how dark it gets God still has
a plan. I'm banking on that in the days we
live in. During the Roman occupation of the land when
the Greco-Roman world was dark and people were tired of polytheism and
moral relativism, and the secularism of the age didn't satisfy,
it was dark and the people were sitting in the
darkness of the Galilee of the Gentiles, and God has
a plan to send the light of the world, Jesus
Christ, to shine. The menorah is also a beautiful picture
of the church, because, as I mentioned, the only light
in the entire tabernacle structure was the menorah.
So God's house was lit with something that symbolized his
presence, his truth. And I think that's a picture of
the church. If there's one place where the light of
God's truth should never be obscured, it's here, it's in
his house. We should always shine without apology. The truth
of God's Word, as David said in Psalm 119, "Thy word is a
lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
So Aaron obeyed, then all of the Levites gathered for
this ordination ceremony. But watch this, watch the people and
what their role is in it. Verse 9," 'You shall
bring the Levites before the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall gather
the whole congregation of the children of Israel. And so
you shall bring the Levites before the Lord, and the
children of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites;
and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord, like
a wave offering from the children of Israel, that they
may perform the work of the Lord. Then the Levites shall lay
their hands on the heads of the young bulls, and
you shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as
a burnt offering to the Lord, to make atonement for
the Levites.' " So follow the order
here. The Levites were to take the place---do you remember
of what? The firstborn, very good, the firstborn male, all
of them in that land. And we saw that the
number of the people, the number of the priests, the
number of the men in the tribe of Levi was
very close, almost identical with just a few hundred off,
to the firstborn males in the whole nation of Israel.
They were to take the place. So in walking forward and
laying hands on the Levites, it was a gesture of
identification. "You are taking the place of our firstborn sons.
We are laying our hands on you and identifying with
you in this regard." Not only that,
but the laying on of hands was sort of like
a transfer of obligation: "We are now transferring to you
the obligation of performing the service of the Lord on
our behalf. We identify with you and we transfer onto you the obligation
to do the work of the tabernacle for all of
us that are firstborn who belong to the Lord, because
he redeemed in the tenth plague all the firstborn in
Egypt. We transfer that unto you." Then the Levites laid
their hands on an animal transferring to them the guilt,
their guilt as well as the guilt and obligation of
the children of Israel. So ministry is
transferred symbolically, and guilt is transferred symbolically onto the animals
who were killed and their blood was shed. Now, we've
seen it before, but it's a beautiful picture of Jesus
Christ who performed two functions: he was the Great High
Priest and he was the lamb itself, "the Lamb of
God which takes away the sins of the world." But
also I think we have a beautiful model of ministry
here. Those in the ministry were brought before the congregation, recognized
as being in the ministry, and through the laying on of hands released
to the ministry. We do very much
the same when we bring an intern pastor on and something is
being called into full-time ministry. There is an accountability. We
pray for them publicly when they're licensed. Then when they're ordained, we do the same thing, so you know who
they are, and we can pray for them, and they
can be released into ministry. And even as the Levites
were set free from normal occupation, their full-time occupation taken
care of by the rest of the children of Israel
was for full-time ministry, even so those on our staff,
our pastoral staff especially, have been freed from worldly obligation
to be able to pray for you, minister to you, counsel,
whatever you might need. And as you
lean on the pastors, know that the pastors must be
leaning on the Lord and trusting the Lord, and not
going about it in any kind of a cavalier manner,
but a very holy stand-in for those who are trusting in
the Lord. Verse 13, "'you shall stand the Levites before
Aaron and his sons, and then offer them like a
wave offering to the Lord. You shall separate the Levites
from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall
be Mine. After that the Levites shall go in to
service the tabernacle of meeting. And so you shall cleanse
them and offer them, like a wave offering." " 'For
they are wholly given to me from among the children
of Israel; I have taken them for myself instead of
all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the
children of Israel.' "So just keep that in mind that
the firstborn of the land rightfully belonged to God because
God was the one that saved them, saved their lives through the tenth plague
by placing the blood, that's Passover, on the lintels and doorposts.
The death angel passed over them and the firstborn among
the children of Israel were protected while the firstborn among
the Egyptians were killed. So God is
saying, "They're mine. I saved them, they're mine. But let's
set apart the tribe of Levi to do the work
instead of them. You lay your hands on them, you
identify, you release them, and we'll call it a deal,"
for lack of a better term. Verse 18, "'I have
taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the
children of Israel. I have given the Levites as a
gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children
of Israel, to do the work for the children of
Israel in the tabernacle of meeting, and to make atonement
for the children of Israel, that there be no plague
among the children of Israel when the children of Israel
come near the sanctuary.'" "Thus Moses and
Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel
did to the Levites; according to all that the Lord
commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the children of Israel
did to them. And the Levites purified themselves and washed
their clothes; and then Aaron presented like a wave offering
before the Lord, and Aaron made atonement for them to
cleanse them." Now, when it says "like a wave offering," it doesn't mean he took
anybody and waved before the Lord. Like, "Whoo! You're on a ride."
It was like a wave offering. He was offering them
up to do the work of the Lord to be
wholly consumed with the business of God.
"After that the Levites went in to do their work
in the tabernacle of meeting before Aaron and his sons; as
the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did
to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'This
is what pertains to the Levites.' "Now watch this, "'from twenty-five
years old and above one may enter to perform the
service in the work of the tabernacle of meeting.' "Minimum
age twenty-five, hold that thought. Verse 25, "'and at the
age of fifty years they must cease performing this work,
and shall work no more.' "Mandatory retirement at age fifty.
If you are an FBI agent, the mandatory retirement age is age fifty-seven. If you're a Levitical priest,
the mandatory retirement was age fifty. Maybe it just took
that much out of them. "'They may minister with their
brethren in the tabernacle of meeting, to attend to needs,' "
so they can assist, " 'but they themselves shall do
no work. Thus you shall do to the Levites regarding
their duties.' "What's the minimum age here? Twenty-five. We have
a seeming---underline that in your mind---seeming discrepancy in the Scripture.
If you can remember back, it's been a while, when
we were in chapter 4 the minimum age was given
as age thirty there; here's it's twenty-five.
It says you begin at age thirty, here it says twenty-five,
and so somebody reading this might say, "We have a
contradiction." No, it's a seeming contradiction. And I'm going to tell you why
it is not a contradiction, but it's easy to manage. First of all, there
is ample rabbinic literature that has as a source that
there would be a mandatory five-year apprenticeship before releasing them
into the ministry, five years. So it is possible that they began at age twenty-five,
they were apprenticed for five years, and then they were
released at age thirty to serve twenty years till they
were fifty, and then mandatory retirement. There's
a better explanation that sort of brings all that in
one piece. In chapter 4 it was age thirty where
you would start to carry the tabernacle through the wilderness.
That's when you could put it on your shoulders and bear it
as part of the team, the different tribes, the different
families. Here it is not the carrying of it, it's
simply working in it. So, it could be then that they
began working in it at age twenty-five, assisting those who
had specific jobs of carrying different implements and infrastructure. But
only when they were age thirty could they bear it
on their shoulders and carry it, after a five-year apprenticeship.
Make sense? So they were trained at
age twenty-five, they served in the tabernacle at age twenty-five, but at age
thirty they could then carry it. I see here a
beautiful picture of what a Christian is to be. When
I look at the Levites, I see a beautiful picture of
Christian people. Like the Levites we are redeemed, we are cleansed,
we are set apart for service, and we have not
an earthly inheritance, but a heavenly inheritance. That was the
tribe of Levi. They were redeemed. They were cleansed. You
saw the sacrifices here. They were set apart for special
work, the Lord's work. They had no earthly inheritance, no
tribal allotment, only certain cities, Levitical cities, but they had
no tribal land allotment. Theirs was a
heavenly inheritance, not an earthly inheritance. So it is of
every single believer. We have been redeemed. We have been cleansed. God
sets us apart to do his work. And our hope isn't on the earth, our hope isn't
in the political structure of the earth. We don't give
up all hope if our political party doesn't win the
election. We're not putting all our eggs in this earthly
basket. We, like Abraham, "look for a city that has
foundations, whose builder and maker is God." And so the Levites are a beautiful
picture of you and I, the Christian going through this
world. I've thought a lot about this
age restriction and I've come to this. I find it
interesting that God demanded from age thirty to age fifty,
which is---you know their youth is gone out of the
way by age thirty. You can sort of know who
you are; you should. You should just sort of be
prepared for what you're going to do. You know where
you're going, and obviously they knew this calling. But age
thirty to fifty is the prime of life, and God is
saying, "I want the best years of your life." The principle
is God wants the very best from us.
Not just, "Ah, that's good enough. It's for God." "Honey, we're not using
those old clothes and that old piano anymore, give it
to the church." Give God your best. Not just your
best stuff, not just the first 10 percent of your
income, but your very best energy, the prime of your
life, the very best years of your life. That's one lesson.
The other thing it shows me is how concerned God
is for those that serve him. God loves with a
special kind of concern and care those who serve him. So, he doesn't want
them to be overburdened. He wants to use the best years of their life, but he
doesn't want to bring them so they're frazzled. He'll use
them for his purpose and glory, and then at age
fifty you just transition. You're not done serving him, but
you serve him in a different way. Now, I am
comforted by the fact that this is an Old Testament, not a
New Testament directive. If I'm reading my Bible correctly, Paul
didn't quit at age fifty, neither did Peter. As they
survived they served the Lord and they influenced people. But
the older we get, we serve in a different capacity.
And those in the ministry who get older need to
be training the younger generation, and more and more stepping
aside and transitioning a whole other generation in place where
they can as the older generation encourage them, train them,
give them some godly wisdom and restraint and constraint, but
then continue to serve. Never be afraid of serving the
Lord. Never be afraid of absolutely, totally, 100 percent abandoning
yourself to the will and the work of the Lord. He'll
take care of you. He's very generous. He doesn't want to overburden you. And
every now and then when I see a servant of the
Lord saying, "Oh, ministry, it's so hard. I'm, like, overburdened.
I can't sleep," I'm like, "Dude, you are, like, carrying
the wrong burden." Jesus said, "My yolk is easy, my
burden is light." And if you're just, like, crushed all
the time, then come and see me, I can tell
you how to have a little fun in ministry. And
I think it ought to be fun. And we on
the staff, we have a lot of it, otherwise it would drive us nuts.
If you are serving the Lord and you are breaking
your back doing it, and you think that fatigue is
next to godliness, you are carrying the wrong burden.
Even the priest---God instructed that the very clothing that the priests wear be
made out of linen. Ever worn linen, linen pants, linen shirt? It's just
so airy and so soft. It's comfortable. You know, some
of the fashions today, some of the jeans are like---okay, you think they
look cool, but try wearing them all day. They're, like, just---they're fatiguing just to wear.
I find it interesting that when God had an outfit
for the clergymen, it was comfortable. God is more interested
in inspiration, not perspiration. That's why their garments weren't made out of wool, but linen.
And so the Lord commanded, and so they did.
Now in chapter 9 we come to the Passover. And
here's what's cool about chapter 9: chapter 9 has an
interface to it, and that is chapter 12 of Exodus.
Chapter 12 of Exodus is the Passover. One year later
is this chapter. One year elapses and a year later
God instructs his people to celebrate the Passover. It's the
first anniversary of their redemption. God had already instructed them
to keep the Passover, now he repeats himself and says,
"Now is the time to keep it, because that one year
anniversary is coming up." If you don't already know, you show
know that Passover to a Jewish person is the very hinge of his or her existence.
Throughout the Scripture it's what all of the Jewish people look back to. It
was the hinge upon which the door swung open of
freedom to them. No longer were their estranged, they were
now God's people. No longer were they slaves, they were
now free to serve the Lord completely. And the Passover marked
for them the very beginning of their year. They reckon
time according to their redemption. God said, "This day, this
month shall be the beginning of months to you." In
fact, let me just read it to you in chapter 12
of Exodus. "The Lord spoke to Moses
and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 'this
month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first
month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying; "On the tenth
of the month every man shall take for himself a lamb,
according to the house of his father, a lamb for
a household. And if the household is too small for
the lamb, let him take his neighbor next to his
house according to number of the persons; according to each
man's need you shall make your count for the lamb." "'"Your lamb shall
be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it
from the sheep of the goats. You shall keep it
till the fourteen day of the same month," ' " or the
fourteenth day of the month Abib, Abib. Later the name
was changed to Nisan just like the car. The month
of Nisan, the calendar changed, everything changes. "Now you will
celebrate on the fourteenth day of this new month, called
the first month of the year, your redemption. You will
celebrate it." Do you remember the history of the Passover?
Here's a thumbnail sketch: seventy people, descendants of Jacob, left Canaan and
came to Egypt. In that place under
the protection of Pharaoh they grew, they multiplied, they flourished. They grew
to a couple million, maybe up to 3 million people.
But eventually a pharaoh arose who didn't know who Joseph
was and he enslaved them all. And for four centuries they remained
under oppression and slavery, and they cried out to God
for help, and God sent them Moses. And Moses, this middle-aged stutterer,
became a spokesperson before the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And God wanted
to get the attention of the Egyptians. They
didn't listen to Moses' speech, but they would listen to
ten plagues. And God got their attention by plague after plague
until the very last plague, the tenth plague is when a lamb
was slain and the blood was put on the lintels,
that doorjamb on the top, that weight-bearing doorjamb on a
house, blood on there and on the doorposts. Like the
form of a cross the blood was splattered, and the
angel of death would pass over those homes. Now, God
had already instructed, as I mentioned, that they were to
keep the Passover. It's been a year.
God comes again to Moses with a special announcement: "It's
time for you to keep the Passover now on the
one-year anniversary." I have a question for you: Why did
God have to remind them to do it a second
time? Was it because they were disobedient to God? Some
commentators believe that's to be true. I don't think so.
I don't think they were willing disobedient. Here's my take
on it: they were just preoccupied. Life started preoccupying them.
They're preparing to march across the wilderness, and dads and
moms are thinking about their children and the march and
the long days. "And what about grandma?" and "Is she going
to make it?" And life is just getting busy, and
when life gets busy, people tend to be preoccupied with
those things and they begin to marginalize spiritual things. It
still happens. Life get busy, kids have soccer, kids have
school, we've got this meeting, I have that interest, the game
is on Sunday. And so pretty soon people say, "Well, I'll just
skip church this week. I'll skip reading my Bible. Life
is becoming just overwhelming to me. I'm preoccupied with real
life." And so they begin to marginalize spiritual things.
That's why we need reminders. That's why we need sermons.
That's why it's valuable to read books and listen to
radio programs and to be inspired by God's truth, because
we tend, that's our tendency, to be preoccupied with life.
And God has to remind us, "You have been redeemed,
and I am to be number one in your life." And
so God comes the second time and commands them to
keep the Passover. "Now the Lord spoke to Moses in
the Wilderness of Sinai," chapter 9, verse 1, "in the
first month second year after they came up out of
the land of Egypt, saying: 'Let the children of Israel keep
the Passover at its appointed time." " 'On the fourteenth day
of this month, at twilight,' " the going down of
the sun, that soft glow after the sun goes over the horizon when
evening turns to night, " 'you shall keep it at its appointed
time. According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall
keep it.' So Moses told the children of Israel that
they should keep the Passover. And they kept the Passover."
There's no disobedience. There's not recalcitrant attitudes or aberrant behavior.
They did it. "At twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai;
according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the
children of Israel did." The keeping of
the Passover from this time, this moment onward is going
to take upon itself a very strict, organized system, so
that every year to this day the feast, as Passover is called, some
of you know it, the Seder Feast. Ever heard of
the term the Seder, "We're going to have the Passover
Seder"? The word Seder means order, because there was on
order of service. Certain things happen at certain times. There's
four glasses of wine. The kids are involved, and the
kids ask the question: "What makes this night different from
all other nights?" And the Seder or
order has the answers. "On all other nights we eat matzah or
bread with leaven in it; on this night we only eat matzah, unleavened bread.
On all other nights we eat vegetables; on this night
we eat bitter herbs. On all other nights we don't dip
our vegetables into salt water; on this night we dip
twice in salt water. On all other nights we sit
up when we eat; on this night we recline." There's
the order of service. And to make it fun so
the kids would look forward to the Passover Seder, it wasn't
some boring church service, the kids got to look for leaven.
It was a little ceremony called the Bedikat Chametz, say
that ten times, "the search for leaven." And the kids
would find the leaven and they'd rid the house of it. It's a
beautiful order of service. It's that Passover upon which the
communion service is built. Jesus Christ died on Passover. He
is "the Lamb of God which takes away the sin
of the world." The imagery is beautiful. So, in one
sense for us it is commemorative, Passover is, and in
another sense predictive, it's prophetic. It commemorated being released as
slaves as Egypt. It predicted Jesus Christ who would come
and be the Lamb for the sins of the world.
It's further predictive of his coming again. "When you eat
the Lord's Supper," Paul said, "you show the Lord's death
until he comes." So it has a component even of
us anticipating the second coming of Jesus Christ, has all
those elements, and it takes its cues off of the
Passover. "Now, there were certain men," verse 6, "who were defiled
by a human corpse," that is, they touched a dead
body, "so that they could not keep the Passover on
that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day." Now
you might ask, "Well, why would they do that?" Well, you know, there's
sometimes you can't avoid that. If Aunt Sally falls dead
next to you, you know, watching camel races, you prop her up and realize she's dead, you're defiled. You
didn't plan for that to happen, it just happened. Somebody,
some group was defiled by touching a corpse. In verse 7,
"Those men said to him, 'We became defiled by a
human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering
of the Lord as its appointed time among the children
of Israel?' And Moses said to them, 'Stand still, that
I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.' "
I love this. In other words, Moses is saying, "You know,
I don't know the answer to your question, but I'll go
find out." I like it when a person doesn't know
the answer and doesn't try to bluff. One of the
most spiritual answers is "I don't know." I use that a lot.
People will ask me the weirdest, wildest, craziest questions, many
that I've never thought through, and I'll go, "No clue." Now,
I don't always have the benefit of saying, "Well, just
a minute. Okay, well, the Lord just spoke to me
and...." Of course, there are some people that say that,
but this actually happened. He needed to
hear from the Lord because this was an extenuating circumstance.
So here's the Lord's wisdom: "The Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, saying: "If anyone
of you or your posterity [your kids or grandkids] is
unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey,
he may still keep the Lord's Passover." '" But watch
this, "'"On the fourteen day of the second month," ' "
thirty days after everybody else takes it, " ' "at
twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened
bread and bitter herbs," ' " just like the rest did
a month prior. "'"They shall leave none
of it till morning, nor break one of its bones.
According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall
keep it. But the man who is clean and not
on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that
same person shall be cut off from among his people,
because he did not bring the offering of the Lord
at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
If a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the
Lord's Passover, he must do according to the rite of
the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have
one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of
the land." ' " Go back and
notice in verse 12, "They shall leave none of it till
morning, nor break one of its bones." This Scripture is
referred to in the gospel of John, chapter 19. Jesus
is crucified. John who is one of the disciples of
Jesus Christ who was also an eyewitness to the crucifixion
at the cross, he writes the story, tells about it.
Listen to what he says: "Therefore, because it was the
Preparation Day, that the body should not remain on the
cross on the Sabbath (for the Sabbath was a high day),
the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken,
that they might be taken away. "Then
the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and of the other who was crucified with him. But
when he came to Jesus and saw that he was
already dead, they did not break his legs." It was
common if you wanted to end the death. Crucifixion could
last for a couple days. You died by asphyxiation, but
sometimes it would just linger on hour after hour. And
after a couple of days the victim is still alive. So
to just sort of put him out of his misery
you break the legs, the lungs collapse, you can't lift
the body up any longer, and they die pretty quickly.
But they didn't break Jesus' legs. "But one of the
soldiers pierced his side with a spear," verse 34. I'm
reading to you of John, chapter 19. "And immediately blood
and water came out. And he who has seen," that is
John, "has testified, and his testimony is true; and he
knows that he is telling the truth, so that you
may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture
should be fulfilled, 'Not one of his bones shall be broken.'
And again another Scripture that says, 'They shall look on him whom
they have pierced.' " The Jews requested that Jesus' legs
be broken, and here's why: the Jews, the Jewish leaders
of Jesus' day want to so discredit Jesus and showing
him by his mutilated state that he is accursed by God hanging on
a tree, rejected and abandoned by God because of this horrible death,
that he couldn't possibly be their Messiah. That's what they're
trying to show. That's why they request, "Let the legs
be broken." So they broke one's legs, the other, but
Jesus they thought he was already dead. They put a
sword or a spear in his side, now came blood
and water. John says, "I was there.
I saw this. And this just didn't happen haphazardly, this
happened because it was anticipated by the prophets. Jesus' death,
John is saying, was under the control of God. He died at
precisely the right moment. He was not a victim, he
was the victor. He was calling all the shots. This
was predicted by the prophets. Jesus' death has been predicted
by Jesus. In fact, when Jesus died the Bible says
he dismissed his own Spirit, right? And then he bowed his
head, "It's finished," and he gave up his Spirit, he released his
Spirit back to the Father. John is
saying, "I'm connecting all of the dots. The Scripture, anticipated
by the prophets, is coming true right before my eyes,
and I'm telling you this that you might believe." Back
in the 1960s, 1965 to be precise, when I was
just a wee little lad, there was a very popular
book put out by Hugh Schonfield called The Passover Plot.
It sold millions. Here's the premise of the book: Jesus
staged his own death and resurrection. He knew he had gotten
in trouble, but he was planning this all along. And
that when he was hanging on the cross, says Schonfield,
he had one of his followers give him water to
drink laced with a very potent drug that would render
him unconscious. The plan was then he
would be taken off the cross, presumed dead. Joseph of Arimathea,
one of his other conspirators, would place him in his
tomb, nurse him back to health, move the stone out,
and voilĂ ! Stage a resurrection. The problem came, says Schonfield,
when that soldier with a spear lanced Jesus' side and
killed him. So the plot backfired on Jesus. It was
The Passover Plot. Again, it was a wild and crazy made-up
story. It was so popular as every weird story of
Jesus is---The Passover Plot. I disagree with Schonfield's story, but
I do agree with his premise. The
crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a plot. It was not
an earthly plot staged by a would-be messiah with conspirators;
it was a heavenly plot. Jesus Christ is called "the
Lamb slain before the foundations of the world." It was
a plot hatched in heaven, meted out, and staged on
the earth for all to see. And John writing about
it says, "I get that now. This was predicted by
the prophets." God's plot to send his Son to die
at the precise moment and be raised from the dead
is indeed a Passover plot, but it included a real
resurrection. "Not one of his bones shall be broken." Enough said. I wanted to tie that
in before we take the Lord's Supper. Okay, we're going to finish up
the chapter and then we're going to pray and take
these elements. The lamps have been lit, the Passover has
been celebrated, and now it's time to resume the journey through
the wilderness. Question: How is God going to lead them?
How is God going to direct them? You have a
few million people out there, it's going to be sort of
hard to blow a whistle, one guy waving his hand saying,
"Hey, all two million people, can you see me over
here?" It would be very difficult to manage that; would it not? So how are they going to
move? Well, GPS, God's Positioning System. And it's described in
verse 15. "Now on the day that
the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent
of the Testimony; from evening until morning it was above
the tabernacle like the appearance of fire. And so it
was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the
appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud was
taken up from above the tabernacle, after that the children
of Israel would journey; and in the place where the cloud settled, there
the children of Israel would pitch their tents." We are
not quite sure if the cloud by day and the
pillar of fire by night was just only over the
tabernacle structure or possibly centering on the tabernacle but covering
the entire camp. We're just not told.
I believe, I lean more on the second than the
first, because the cloud would provide a beautiful covering from
the intense heat and sunlight that is out in the exposed
Sinai Peninsula. And it can get quite cold even in
the desert at night in the wintertime. It just snowed
in Cairo record snow all throughout the Sinai Desert. It
gets cold. So having a pillar of fire centering and
spreading over the camp would provide light at night, like
sleeping out in a parking lot with lights, and a
nice level of heat in the wintertime. Beautiful to think
of it that way. When the cloud
was taken up, they left; when the cloud stopped, they stopped.
Verse 18, "At the command of the Lord the children of Israel would
journey, at the command of the Lord they would camp;
as long as the cloud stayed above the tabernacle they remained. Even when
the cloud continued long, many days above the tabernacle, the
children of Israel kept the charge of the Lord and did not
journey." I can only imagine how exciting it must have
been if you're camped in one place one day to
look up and see that cloud just beginning to move.
Right? Because you know, "We're packing up.
We don't know where we're going, we don't know how
long we're going to march, but God is on the
move and we're going to follow. We're about to go on
an adventure." Now, let me just tell you that the
Christian life is a lot like that. God doesn't always
tell you how or where or how long, but he
moves you. And I will say, when you abandon yourself
wholly to the will of God, it is the most
exciting adventure. Just to see what unfolds during the day and
the week and the month and the year, where God
is taking you, it's just like, wow! Awesome!
And you might get a little bored: "Boy, I've been sitting
around his camp for a long time, but, boy, how
exciting when that thing begins to move." Something else, if
they moved and they camped according to the movement of
the cloud and the pillar of fire---right? That's true. That's
premise 'A', and that's true. That's what it says. But
we also know that much of their journey was fraught
with difficulties, attacks from armies, very, very hard, harsh difficult
situations. It must mean since God is the one starting
and stopping the journey that God appointed and knew about
all the difficult things that were going to go in
the lives of his people. Right? But
God was still directing even though times got tough. Correct?
So why do we think, "It's a hard time, God
must not be in it"? Really? Maybe he led you
in that on purpose. "Why would he do that?" Because
he loves you and he doesn't want you to stay a kid
any longer. He wants you to grow up a little
bit and trust him in the most difficult situations. And
so all the difficulties that happen in the wilderness were
not accidental, they were providential, purposeful. God was directing them
and they had that assurance because they're following that cloud
and that pillar. "So it was"---verse 20, and we'll finish it out. "And
when the cloud was upon the tabernacle a few days:
according to the command of the Lord they would remain encamped, according to
the command of the Lord they would journey." That would be
sort of a bummer to put down roots for like
three days and then say, "Uh, it's moving again. Couldn't we just, like, kept moving
and then camped a month?" Those are just my thoughts.
God's ways are not mine; that's a good thing. "So
it was, when the cloud remained only from evening until morning: when
the cloud was taken up in the morning, that they
would journey; whether by day or by night." Remember
they have a flashlight. "Wherever the cloud was taken up,
they would journey. Whether it was two days, a month, or a
year the cloud remained above the tabernacle, the children of
Israel would remain encamped and not journey; but when it
was taken up, they would journey. At the command of the Lord they remained encamped,
at the command of the Lord they journeyed; and they kept
the charge of the Lord, at the command of the
Lord by the hand of Moses." This cloud and this pillar of fire is the presence
of the Lord, visible presence to them of the Lord. It was a
reminder of God being with us and directing us. The
formal name given to it is, some of you know,
the Shekinah, or the Hebrew word is really Shekhinah/Schechinah, which
literally means residence. Now if you know Hebrew, you will
not find it in the Hebrew Bible. It is not
a word ever found in the Old Testament. The word
comes to us from the Aramaic writings called the Targums. The Targums
were Aramaic commentaries on the Scripture for those who would
be in the Babylonian captivity and never learn to speak
Hebrew. They spoke Aramaic, which became the language of Jesus
in the New Testament. So this term
"the residence" became translated into Hebrew the Shekinah, or the residence, or the
presence of God. Here's the point of it all: God
is in the center of the nation. God redeems his
people and wants to be in the center of their
life, and that is the Christian life. God redeems us
for what purpose? That he could be in the center
of our lives, that all of our lives would revolve
around his will. And in a nutshell, what we see here is
a picture of what it is to follow Christ. So
the Passover, protected by blood, redeemed by blood, and we
celebrate that. You have the elements in front
of you, underneath you, next to you in a convenient peel-top
apparatus. It's funny, we're in a catch-22 here at Calvary.
When we first started using this we got complaints that it
wasn't "holy" enough, I guess, like the big chrome hub
caps that we have when we pass them out to
you. But then last time when we had formal communion
we got complaints that that wasn't convenient enough and could
we just do pop-tops. So, I guess people will be
people whether they're in the wilderness complaining or they're in
modern society complaining. But we're not here
to complain, we're here to celebrate. And, you know, it
really is a celebration. One of my assistant pastors one
time was out buying grape juice, a large quantity of
it for communion, and in the line in front of
him was a gal with a couple six-packs of beer. And
she looked back and saw the enormous amount of grape
juice and she turned to him and she smiled and
she said, "Having a party, huh?" [laughter] She didn't know the
half of it. We are having a party. God's people
are happy people. Free people are happy people.
Psalm 32 said, "Oh how happy is the man whose
transgressions have been forgiven, whose sin is covered," so we
are celebrating. And I'm going to have a couple of
my assistants come up; they know who they are. They're
going to come up and they're going to pray for
the elements. So, peel the top off and get down
to the bread. Pastor Nathan Heitzig: "For all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." That's
bad news. But we are "justified freely by grace through
the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." That's good news. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
for your body which was broken for our sins. And as
we take this we're reminded that just as through one
man sin entered the world, through another grace abounds. And,
Lord, you are our grace, you are our redemption. Because
you died, we can live. Because your body was broken
and bruised, ours can one day be perfect in your
presence. And so, Lord, we thank you for the greatest
sacrifice that could ever be made and the life that it brings, in your
name we pray, amen. Let's take the bread. Pastor Neil Ortiz:
I shared with the men of our men's ministry just
recently on the heels of sharing communion with you all
last time that if we're all going to have drinking
buddies, my friend, this is the right kind of drinking buddy to have.
And so with that would you please allow me to lead
all of us in prayer for the juice.
Father, thank you so much that this truly is a
celebration, God. And so, Lord, as we come before you,
we do have contrition, we do have, Lord, a sense
of how sacred this is in the humility that it brings. But
we do so with a smile on our face that
we are most privileged to be able to partake of
this cup in remembrance of how you bled out for
us. You gave your life that we might live, and
for that, God, we rejoice, we thank you, and we
do it, Lord, with a big smile and great joy.
Thank you. Pastor Brian Nixon: Do you know
how blessed we are truly to commune with the Creator
of the universe, to open up his Word and hear
from him, to sit with brothers and sisters in a
free country. Are we not blessed? And not only that,
we have a marvelous Bible teacher to lead us through
Scripture, this journey through the Bible. [applause] Yup. So if
there's one thing we should be tonight is thankful. So
I get the privilege of thanking the Lord, concluding us
in prayer before we stand and sing our final song.
But let's pause and reflect on what the Lord has
done on our behalf. Father, we thank
you for this time for this opportunity to gather as
your people as brothers and sisters around your Word, around
communion. And we pray now, Lord, that you would fill us
with your Holy Spirit that you would use us and equipped
us for every good work that every step we take
our eyes would be fixed on you, our heart would
be knit with yours, and that you would lead us
according to your purposes. So we sit as thankful people giving you all
glory, declaring that your name is holy, and that you
are righteous, and you are so good to us.
So, Father, have your way this day, this evening in
us and through us. And may you be glorified through
this campus at Calvary of Albuquerque, through every individual, through
every family unit, through our communities in our neighborhood, through
this city and this state, Lord. May you reign. And
so, Father, be with us now as we just sing
this final song. And for those who don't know you, Lord, may this be
the night, may they come forward to receive prayer, to
receive you as Lord and Savior. And so, Father, we
just say we love you. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.