Well, once again, we continue our series in Exodus and our mini-series in the Book of the Covenant in chapters 21 through 23. Today we are going to read again. We're coming to part two of our message on violence. We will have a part three. I figured that out this week as I was thinking through how I would cover everything that I want us to cover from these verses, and we certainly won't cover everything that we could say about these verses. But we want to read that again, and that section is, the whole section on violence is in verses 12 through 36 of chapter 21. We're only going to read through verse 27. So I'll ask you as always to stand in honor of the reading of God's word. It's Exodus chapter 21, verses 12 through 27. And I'll ask you again, urge you as always to listen carefully, because this is the very word of God. Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, You shall take him from my altar that he may die. Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and the man does not die but takes to his bed, then if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, he who struck him shall be clear, only he shall pay for the loss of his time and shall have him thoroughly healed. When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him. And he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay, life for life, eye for eye. tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth." This is the word of the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Please be seated. As we have been talking about violence, we began talking about it last week, and I had to finish talking about the law in general. and how we interpret the law, why we interpret particularly the case laws or the civil laws or what I'm calling the situational laws of the Old Testament, which is what we find for the most part in the book of the covenant. We talked about several principles for interpreting that law and how we handle it and how we apply it in different senses, in different ways. So, not just the situational law, but how we apply moral law in one way, how we apply ceremonial law, or symbolic law, or what I'm calling existential law, in another way, and how we apply the situational laws, or the case laws, the civil laws, in still another way. Let me remind you that it is the Bible itself, and the way the Bible handles itself, particularly the way the New Testament applies the Law of Moses in various ways that we derive these principles. We're not just making them up in our heads. We're paying attention to the way the Bible handles itself, because Scripture is its own best interpreter. And with that in mind, I want to share with you an illustration that I use to come to grips with what God is doing in the Law, and particularly the Law of Moses, as it is the fullest and most coherent exposition of God's will, of his comprehensive will for people, given yes to a specific group of people in a specific time. So we have to make adjustments in the way that we interpret and apply some of those laws. Nevertheless, God is doing something and God is expounding for us his will in the Mosaic law. And this book of the covenant is a summary of that. So as we begin today, I want to share with you something that I think is a helpful way to think about this. And it comes from the definition of reformed preaching, or the reformed definition of preaching. If you read any books by Reformed pastors on preaching, one of the definitions that you'll come across of what preaching God's Word is, is the exposition, illustration, and application of God's Word. The exposition, illustration, and application of God's Word. So, a Reformed preacher according to thought throughout the years, is doing three things. I should be doing three things for you as I'm expounding God's Word. I should be making that Word clear what it means, expounding the basic principles that that Word is setting forth. That's exposition. And then secondly, an important and sometimes overlooked aspect of that is illustration. An illustration is where we take analogies, we make analogies to what we're saying in order to make what we're saying more clear. We take something in your experience or in the experience of the hearers and we say, now what I'm saying, this principle that I'm saying is like this. You're familiar with this. And so what I'm saying is like that in these ways. It's an analogy. And that's what we do when we illustrate the truth. We draw analogies between something with which you're familiar and something that is new in the exposition of God's truth. And then thirdly, we say, all right, we answer the question, well, so what? What does that principle of truth have to do with the nuts and bolts situations of your life? If you're in this situation or that situation, what are the implications of this truth for how you should respond to that situation and how you should live in the midst of that situation? How you should think, what you should say, and what you should do. And we call that the application of that truth. Now, what I would suggest, what I would assert, is that when we look at the Law of God, and particularly when we look at the Book of the Covenant, or if we look at all of the Law of God in the Pentateuch, or all of the Law of God really in the whole of God's Word, but particularly in the Mosaic Law, if we look at that as a coherent body of law, that God gives to His people. This is what God is doing. Because God is the best preacher. God is the best expositor of His truth. And when God does expound His truth, when He reveals His truth to His people, He does these three things. And what I would suggest is that these three ways, these three types of law, or these three aspects of the law, moral, ceremonial, or normative, existential, situational, whatever terms we want to use. He is doing these three things. What is the moral law? What is the law that is normative for all of life, but the setting forth of the broad principles that we are to take into account as we live life? That's what God is doing. He's saying, this is the truth. Life is sacred. You are to respect life. Therefore, you shall not murder. That's always true in every situation for everyone. That is a general principle. But then God gives us illustrations of the truth. Sorry. Just a second. illustrations of the truth as well. How does he do that? By way of analogy, just like we said. He gives us symbols in the ceremonial law that symbolically represent truth to us. How does that apply to us? It illustrates those principles for us in ways that we can see. So Israel was to wear robes with tassels of blue woven into the corners of their robes. Why? Why? We've talked about this before. Because those tassels of blue recalled the garb of the high priest who represented the people, but the blueness of it represented the heavenly character of God's people. That they were to be associated with a heavenly lifestyle because God dwells in heaven and God is associated with heaven. their life was to be characterized by a holiness that spoke of heaven to everyone around them and so on and so forth with all of the various ceremonial laws. The reason they were called to observe food laws is because those laws symbolically represented certain associations either with the serpent and the description of the serpent in Genesis 3 or with a separation from the serpent and from the ground that the Lord had cursed and so on and so forth in terms of all of the ceremonial laws. Those ceremonial laws presented symbolically what the identity of God's people was to be, what was to characterize them. And it illustrated symbolically the principles of truth that were set forth in the moral law or the normative law. So God gave this whole set of illustrations that were part of the life of Israel and constantly reminded the people When they saw these things, when they lived life in this way, when they observed these ceremonial laws, they reminded them of the principles. They were illustrations. And then God also gave application. Now, the reason it's important for us to see this is let me remind you of what happens when I apply God's Word. Now I should be giving application to you, not just telling you, here's what God says, but here's what it means for your life. Here's the significance for your life. That's what we say we apply scripture. In preaching, maybe when we're talking about preaching as opposed to teaching, there's even an emphasis on the application of God's law. But think about what happens when I do that. You have, most of you, if you've got a bulletin, you have a sheet on which you're taking notes. And on the back of that sheet, very purposefully, there is a section entitled, Points of Application. Now, you could write down points that I give during my sermon, but what am I doing when I'm applying scripture? Is it possible for me to take the truth of God's word and, with respect to every situation that you face in life, show you what it means for that situation? Is that possible? I hope you're doing this in your hearts. It's not possible. I can't do that. So at best, what am I doing when I give an application? I'm giving examples of application. I'm showing how that principle applies in a sample specific situation in your life so that you, though, can do the same thing. The reason you have that section in your notes is so that as you're doing your own personal study, your own personal devotions, at least part of that is devoted to the time that we spend together in the Word, not reading something new necessarily, at least some of the time, but going back over what we do on Sundays in going through the word, and then thinking through, now, I remember the pastor said this about the application of that, but I'm not necessarily in that situation, but I am in this or the other situation. Now, what did the pastor do when he applied that truth to this situation? What was the process that he used to get from here, the general truth, to here, the specific life situation? Now, what about the situations of my life? How can I use that same method to get to where I live and what I'm struggling with and what I'm dealing with right now and the situations I'm facing? That's where you do your own personal application. And that same dynamic is true when we come to God's law. When we look at these civil laws, They don't cover every possible situation. Every conceivable situation in life is not listed here. So what is the purpose of these laws? It is that we look at the process by which Moses gets from the Ten Commandments, or the Two Great Commandments, or other moral law, and how he gets to what that means in examples of specific situations in life. You see, that's how the law works. And so as we're going through these situations, these case laws, that's what we ought to be doing. We ought to first think, what's the principle behind this? What's the moral law, the normative law that's behind this case law? And then, how is that analogous to situations in my life? I'm not gonna face the exact same situations that the Israelites faced, but how do I take that law and this example and then use the same process to think about my own life and the situations of my life? And so, do you see the genius of what God has done in the law? He is the best expositor. He is the best preacher. and he preaches by giving us exposition of the truth, illustration of that truth, and application of the truth. Now with that in mind, we then need to remind ourselves of what we briefly touched on last week. And we need to begin again to answer the question, how should God's laws about violence regulate our lives? Now last week we began to see that they should help us to comprehend sin. And what we're doing here is we're giving an overview With some notice of how these principles are applied in the way that laws are given in this passage, why certain laws occur here, we see these principles in understanding what violence is all about and why do we have violence. And so we want to go, I think we covered the first two last week, so I'm going to remind you of those and then we'll go on and cover the others very quickly. So first we need to say that all violence is directed against God ultimately because men hate God. Sinners hate God. All those who hate me love death. God is life. Those who hate him love death. And this is what sinners are. It's crazy. It's a form of insanity. But that's the truth. And so because sinners hate God, they then this flows out into their hatred of various fears of society. So first they hate Christians. Jesus said that. If the people hate me, if the world hates me, it's going to hate you. Why? Because you most closely resemble God. Christians most closely resemble God. Why? Because in Christians God is, according to Paul in Colossians 2 and Ephesians 4, He is conforming us to the image of Christ. He is conforming us to God's image, and that image is perfectly displayed in Christ. He is renewing His image in us in knowledge and righteousness and true holiness. That's what He's doing. And so, because that's true of Christians, sinful man is going to hate Christians. I think you see that throughout history and you see it increasingly as our society divorces itself more from God, we see more and more hostility toward Christians and Christianity. But then sinful man hates himself. Why? Because he is created in the image of God. So there is a self-hatred that comes into play. More on that in just a little bit. And then Christians are sinful men. Sinful men hate each other. because they look at each other and they see the image of God. And then finally they hate the creation because the creation itself is the revelation of the glory of God. And so sinful men abuse the creation. There is, and I won't say any more about this right now, but there is a biblical environmentalism. It's not what the environmental movement that you hear about is all about for the most part, but there is a biblical concern for God's creation because we are stewards. Sinful man hates the creation, is not very receptive to the idea of being a steward of the creation because he's in rebellion against God and because the creation reveals God's glory. But then we also see that sinful man pursues deity. Like Satan, sinful man wants to take the place of God. Sinful man wants dominion. and he wants an absolute dominion. He wants a dominion on his terms, not the dominion that God gave him on God's terms, under God, for God, as an expression of God's rule and God's dominion. No, we want an absolute dominion in place of God. That's part of the nature of sin. And so there is, as men try to do this, they can't get that dominion. They want to impose their fantasies on the world, fantasies that are in contrast to what God says is how the world works. And so we have all kinds of confusion about genders and all kinds of other things where men say, I don't care what the truth is, in a way that is stark. It's really surprising today. One of the things that we see is man's rebellion against the obvious way that God has created the world to work. The fact that he has created male and female. These aren't social constructs. These aren't things we came up with. They're rooted in the biology that God came up with. But sinful man wants to impose his fantasies on the world as an expression of his desire apart from God, as we read in Psalm 2. Let us cast off their fetters, sinful man said. Let us break their bonds apart. We're gonna go our own way. We're gonna rule ourselves. We're going to, like the people who were constructing the Tower of Babel, we're going to make a name for ourselves. we're going to define ourselves. And so, because the creation itself rebels against this false dominion. And godly people or wise people rebel against this. Sinful man is frustrated because he wants to impose this on everyone else. And so sinful dominion we saw follows a progression. Dominion begins with speech in the Bible. And so men's speech then reflects the frustration. If they don't have a sufficient vocabulary to be precise and exercise godly dominion, they resort to swearing. And then as an expression of violence against God, they resort to blasphemy. And then The dominion of speech gives way to trying to achieve dominion through physical violence. And so then there is physical violence in fighting, and then ultimately this progresses to killing and murder. And the root of it is this pursuit of deity. But then look at point C on your outline. In a sinful world, vengeance is unavoidable. Why? Because sin must be dealt with. God's justice demands that sin be dealt with. Now, This will be dealt with, sometimes God deals with it directly, sometimes God, and in most of the case, since the flood, God delegates the punishment of sin to his designated representatives in civil government. What's interesting is that civil government is populated by sinners as well. And so what we see is that the state will go one way or the other. Either it will justly punish those whom God says deserve punishment on His terms, or it will seek to to punish Christians or those who follow God. It will express its violence against them in a kind of totalitarian assertion of power. We see this throughout history. And I would argue that we see it in political struggles today, not just in our country, but throughout the world. The important thing to understand is that there is no neutrality. Either a state or a person will be in subjection to God, paying attention to His law, paying attention to what He says about how justice is administered, or the state or an individual will be in rebellion against that. There's no neutrality toward God's law. We will orient ourselves toward one or the other, but vengeance is inevitable in a sinful world. And then look at D. Because sinful man knows that he is guilty, He seeks to, because guilt is inevitable, and because there must be justice, there must be some kind of payment for that guilt, There are only a couple of ways. If a man will not accept God's remedy for guilt, sinful man then tries a couple of different mechanisms to pay for that guilt. Either he will seek to punish himself And we see that in the masochistic tendencies of different people in society, of sinful people, cutting yourself, or in seemingly inexplicable ways, giving oneself over to self-destructive addictions. But we see mankind trying to punish, or a person trying to punish himself rather than accepting God's punishment. Now I've often pointed out, this is the difference between a man like Saul, who when God forsakes him or God brings his judgment upon him for his rebellion, how does he respond? He commits suicide. That's contrasted with David, who also sinned, and you could argue that he sinned in even more serious ways than Saul did, and yet David's response is to hope in the mercy of God, which he receives in salvation. Sinful man thus either resorts to the remedy that God has provided, or he seeks to punish himself instead. This is the difference between Judas and Peter. Both betrayed Christ. One committed suicide, the other was restored through the mercy of Christ. Or sinful man, rather than punishing himself, finds a scapegoat. And he wants to punish that scapegoat. And so we see that there is then Well, we talked about ungodly slavery and chattel slavery. This is what was behind chattel slavery. I impose violence on others to subjugate them, and I treat them as subhuman and they're scapegoats. This was what was behind Hitler's rhetoric about the Jews. It's what is behind, make no mistake, it's what is behind the rhetoric behind critical race theory today, where white people, whiteness is the root of all evil. And all evils in society come from that whiteness. That may sound self-serving since I'm white, but that's where it comes from. It is finding a scapegoat and then trying to punish that scapegoat for sin. And we've dealt with sin if we've done that, but we really haven't dealt with sin. You see? And it's why in this passage we see, the passage before us that we read today, there is reference again to slavery and how we treat slavery and the regulation of violence with respect to that institution. Then look at point E. Mankind wants to attain dominion. we already mentioned this earlier, wants to attain dominion, but there is a basic irresponsibility in man. You see this in the fall, don't we? We see that God had given Adam a charge to guard and to keep the garden. But while his wife is talking to an interloper, who is the serpent, who is seeking to tempt her to disobey God, and Adam is there the whole time, he doesn't do anything. He doesn't say anything. He is utterly silent. And so, he abdicates his responsibility for headship and guarding and keeping the garden, guarding it against those who would destroy what they could do and what they were doing and God's program for them. And so, the characteristic sin of men, even in marriage, is irresponsibility. We don't want to take the responsibility for dominion. And so, because we don't want to take the responsibility, what form does that responsibility take? It takes the form of work. In order to have dominion, in order to acquire property over which we have dominion, in order to responsibly to exercise that dominion over what God gives us through work, Rather than work, we seek to obtain, civil man seeks to obtain dominion through other means, through war, or through man stealing, kidnapping. This is why slavery is so evil. Why it's addressed here again in verse 20 of our passage. So, but you notice that there is an ambivalence in man. There's an ambivalence that comes from a relationship expressed particularly in the relationship of people to the state. We don't like the authority of the state, but because we're responsible, we want the state to take care of us and do everything for us. And so there's this, well, which is it? Is the state going to have complete power over us, or are we going to exercise dominion freely with the state prohibiting evil that prevents us from freely exercising dominion. Then if there is of course a hatred of authority. Why? Because God expresses His dominion, exercises His dominion, His rule, through authority structures. And so you'll notice that in the passage that we read, there is a case that deals with a man striking his father or mother. or rebelling against his father or mother. This is an expression of violence against God-instituted authority. The foundational authority being the family and parents. But let me just close this point with this. That the only thing, this is a bleak, dark picture. Violence comes from the sin of man. It comes from the root of the sin of man, fundamentally against God. And so what's the hope? Is our only approach just to enact enough laws to keep violence from happening? You know, I used to laugh when people said, well, you can't legislate morality. Well, what does that mean? There's a sense in which that's true and there's a sense in which it's not true. The sense in which it's not true is in this, that all law is legislative morality. Think about it. All law expresses what we think as a society is right or wrong. We're going to say this is illegal. Why? Because it's wrong. It's a statement of morality. That's what law is. Unless you're an anarchist and you don't want any law at all, you have to say you're for legislative morality. But what a lot of people meant when they said you can't legislate morality, what they meant was you can't achieve a moral society through law. Because law doesn't change the hearts of people. Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't have law. Of course we should have law. It restrains evil, but it doesn't fundamentally change evil. Law cannot do that. Paul talks about that. in Romans chapter 6 through 8. It is the gospel that changes people's hearts. It is the gospel that is the answer to violence. And with that in mind, I want to close this point. I want to read this passage to you. And it's a passage that might be a little bit obscure. It's meaning might be obscure. We read it last week as part of our law. From Zechariah chapter 1. I want you to notice the promise that is in this passage. Zechariah chapter 1 verses 18 through 21. Now listen, it's very interesting. And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns And I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these? And he said to me, these are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen. And I said, what are these coming to do? He said, these are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one raised his head, and these have come to terrify them. to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it. Now let me say, this is one reason why I'm a post-millennialist. Because I believe that the prophecies of the Bible teach this, that ultimately the godly dominion, symbolized here in the craftsmen here that Zacharias saw, are ultimately going to prevail against the horns of power that have oppressed God's people and have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem, have scattered God's people, have worked against godly dominion, those forces are ultimately going to be overcome by those who, because of the gospel and the transformation of their hearts that comes through the gospel, begin to exercise godly dominion, who begin to subdue the earth, as God called us to do, in a godly way. who are craftsmen. I believe that's what Zechariah is promising here and that happens through the gospel. It is only the gospel that transforms people's hearts. It is only union with Christ by faith that transforms people's hearts and that can adequately deal with violence and the violence in sinful men's hearts. So let's move on very quickly to point two. We won't get all the way through this, obviously. I wasn't planning to. But I want us to see a couple of things very quickly, and we'll begin to deal a little bit more explicitly with the text as we deal with these things. Point two is this. What do these laws, God's laws about violence. How do they regulate our lives? Well, they should help us to appreciate salvation. Now, you remember that we talked about how when we're coming to the laws of God, like when we come to the stories, there are three ways that we can view them. And these three different approaches to the laws help us to glean everything there is there. And so one of those approaches is the approach of looking at them as pictures. And you remember that what we meant by pictures was when an artist draws a picture, he may be representing something, but it is not a photograph. It's the artist's representation of whatever it is that he's drawing that emphasizes certain things, communicates certain things from the artist's perspective. And so when we look at the laws, this is the literary perspective. We pay attention to, all right, this as a work of literature. Moses wrote it. To whom was he writing? What was he trying to deal with? What were the situations that he was dealing with? Who were the people? What were their circumstances? And how does the way that he crafted this narrative, the way he drew the picture, what does that teach us about what he was trying to do, about the truths that he was trying to communicate? Well, when we look at these laws, these particular laws, the laws against violence as pictures, we remember that they were addressed to Israel either when they were in Egypt and were being called out of Egypt to the promised land or when they're on the way to the promised land. Now, let's ask ourselves, what does that say? What's God saying through these laws? Well, what are they going to do when they get to the promised land? What is God going to call them to do? We've seen people who are very offended because the Israelites are going to invade the land and they're called to wipe out all the people. They're called to exterminate the people in the land. How could that happen? That horrifies us. How could God call them to do such a thing? But let me say, these laws help to understand the rationale of God behind what he's doing as he's calling them out of bondage and he's giving them an inheritance of land. Part of what we see here, if we look at particularly, let's see, Verse 13, or verses 12 and 13. He shall be put to death. Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, that is, if he didn't do it intentionally, if he didn't intend to murder, but God let him fall into his hand as a matter of God's providence, then I will appoint to you a place to which he may flee. This is what is developed more fully in, for instance, Numbers 35, and other places in Deuteronomy, the provision of the city of refuge, and the provision of the kinsman redeemer, or the goel, the avenger of blood. some biblical theology here. We have to look at, think about the whole Bible. When Cain killed Abel, the first murderer, what did God say? The blood of your brother, what did God say to Cain? He said, the blood of your brother that you have spilled cries out to me from the ground for vengeance. Part of what this points us back to, and part of the biblical theology of this, is that there is a connection in the Bible between human beings and the land. And God has meant for that to be a connection. Because how was man created? Man was created from what? The dust of the ground. When the life of a man is taken, a life of a human being, a man or a woman is taken, the land cries out, the innocent blood is spilled on the land and the land cries out for vengeance, it cries out for justice. And the law tells us there's only one way that justice, that blood and the crying out for vengeance can be satisfied and that is through the shedding of the blood of the one who shed the blood. And so We think about this as the background to this law. We think, okay, so there is a justice that is cried out in a certain land. Innocent blood defiles the land. Innocent blood defiles the land. And so if that's the case, then what that means is that What Canaanites were doing had defiled the land of Canaan. What do we know about Canaanite society? We know that a common practice of Canaanites and Canaanite religion was to offer their children to their gods in the fire. I won't go through the gruesome details of this. I've described it before from the pulpit. But they would shed the blood of their own children offering them to these pagan gods who we know, Paul tells us, were actually demons. And what does God say about that? It says that this innocent blood that was shed on the land defiled the land in such a way that it cried out for vengeance. and it cried out for vengeance on the inhabitants of the land. And so when Israel is said, when God says, I'm going to give you this land, but part of your having the land is you're inflicting my vengeance on these people of the land who have shed this blood. And the only way that blood, that defilement of the land, the only way the land can become clean is if that bloodshed is cleansed and atoned by the shedding of the blood of the people who have shed it. And so when Israel comes into the land, they're not doing something in order to conquer for their own benefit. God is saying, you are my designated representatives to execute my vengeance on these people. And furthermore, the land is cursed and I am against these people because of that bloodshed. And so as you go into the land, you should go in with confidence knowing this land is defiled. You are cleansing the land by doing what I've called you to do. Israel needed to know that. Israel needed to know that they weren't to do this for some selfish reason or for some acquisition of power, they were to do this as an expression of God's justice. And that God was with them as they did this. That was absolutely important for Israel to understand. But then, let's look at the text as a window. Now what do we say if we look at the text as a window, what do we do? We look at it as looking at history, looking at reports of what happened. And often that history is redemptive history. What is God doing in redemptive history? How does this reveal salvation, the salvation that God is eventually going to provide? Well, the key is again in verse 13, if he didn't lie and wait for him. So there is a provision in the law that if it's accidental, if it's manslaughter, if it's not intended, there is a way to escape the judgment and the vengeance that is due. Notice here a couple of things. That the law teaches us that even when someone accidentally kills another person, there is guilt associated with that. Now you can't build a case just from this. There is some later in the larger passage about negligence. You can't build a case for negligence, laws against negligent homicide, just from this passage. But it does support that notion. Because it says, look, if you accidentally kill someone, there is some degree, at least, that you're guilty because you didn't make adequate preparations, adequate provision to preserve life, not to take life. You didn't take every possible consideration into consideration. And so a person died, and that's serious, and there's guilt. I want you also to notice that there is in these words, the words of the text, there's a hint that speaks of a principle in the law in general and of the covenant in general. You notice he says, if he did not lie and wait for him. In other words, it is not an intentional taking of life. And in the law of Moses, what we notice is that there are a couple of different kinds of sin There is a sin that amounts to sin with, the text says, sin with a high hand. It amounts to covenant rebellion. I am with my eyes wide open saying, I will not submit to you, God. And again and again, the law prescribes in Israel, the death penalty for that law. But then there is sin and all you have to do is read the first few chapters of Leviticus. There are sacrifices for sin, right? That atone for sin. And that's part of the Mosaic law, right? And what does that say? The Mosaic law is not just about just obey the law and you'll be okay and don't obey the law and you've had it. It's about there's a provision of God for forgiveness and mercy for sin through the provision of a substitute. And if you read the first few chapters of Leviticus, what do you find when it's talking about the different kinds of sacrifices? The language is this. When a priest or in another instance when a person or when someone in the community or a person who represents a leader or has different kinds of people in different situations, it says when they sin unintentionally and do what is forbidden in any of the Lord's commands, what is that? They sin unintentionally. There's a sin that's not covenant rebellion. It's just part of what we do because we're still sinners. And God's law recognizes that. And there are these two fundamental kinds of sin. And when someone sins that kind of sin, what do they have? They have a provision for atonement through the sacrificial system. Now I want to say that this law of the avenger of blood and the city of refuge, what this is is a picture of this provision of God for salvation for people who are sinners, who are guilty, but not of covenant rebellion, not of high-handed rebellion against God, but of the sin that so easily besets all of us. We need to see the structure of the covenant as making provision for this. There's a difference between saying, I will not repent. I will not submit to God. And you know what we do if we're a faithful church in cases like that? We come to that person and we say, repent. You need to repent. If you don't repent, you're ultimately going to be excommunicated. You're going to be handed over to death. You're going to be declared no longer a member of the covenant community. You're going to be cut off in covenant terms. And it's for high-handed rebellion because there's a refusal to repent. But listen, and we'll have more to say on this. I ask those who are serving at the table to come forward now. if there is, if the sin is not rebellion, and if there is repentance, then what do we have? We have the provision of a city of refuge. We have the provision for forgiveness. Now there's a lot more to say in terms of the symbolism behind this. And we'll get into it first thing next week. But for now, It's enough for us to say, what do we do here? What is it that we do when we celebrate the Lord's Supper? I've said it before, but I want you to take to heart these words. This ceremony, there was a ceremony when someone committed manslaughter. It's spelled out elsewhere, not here. There's just a cursory reference to it here. in our passage today. It's spelled out, for instance, in Numbers 35. There's a trial that's involved, and the Goel, or the Avenger of Blood, we'll have much more to say about that, who is a type of Christ He has to avenge the blood unless that person is found not guilty, that it really is manslaughter. It's not with the high hand. It's not covenant rebellion. It is something that was unintentionally done. There's guilt, but the person didn't mean to do it. So now there's a city of refuge to which he can flee. And when does he get out of the city of refuge? He has to stay in the city of refuge. That's a penalty. And that's hard because, as we'll see, that's linked to the fact that he has an inheritance in the land. He can't farm his land anymore. He can't exercise dominion over the inheritance that God has given him, the allotment that God has given him. He's got to stay in that city of refuge until what? Until the death of the high priest. Where's the death of the high priest for us? is in the death of our great high priest, Jesus Christ. And that death of that high priest allows us now the freedom to go back into the land and exercise dominion in God's name, godly dominion. And so what we see here is the death of the high priest. This is a ceremony. that we do. They had ceremonies that cleansed the land in the Old Testament. But when Jesus died, He fundamentally cleansed the land. He removed the defilement from the land. So that all we have to do now is deal with particular defilements in our individual cases. And so when we celebrate this ceremony, what are we doing? This is a ceremony that as a means of grace removes our defilement again. Why? Because this is the divinely ordained way that God has given us in the church to express our faith in Christ. We see the death of the high priest displayed for us and we take that death to ourselves and we say by eating and drinking, His death is my death. His death atoned for my sin. His death has paid for my sin, and I am free. And this is dispensed where? In the house of refuge, in the church. And so now I'm free. So as you come and you eat, you know there's multi-level symbolism in the Lord's Supper. This is profound and great symbolism. you come today remember your great high priest has died for you in your place and now what does that mean you're free you're free let's pray Heavenly Father thank you thank you for Jesus Christ our great high priest Thank you, Father, for the fact that you do not wink at sin. You cannot wink at sin. You don't say, oh, well, it's okay. I'll just forget that, because if you did that, you would not be a God who is worthy of worship. But Father, you are worthy of worship, because you have not only satisfied your justice, but you expressed your mercy to us in Jesus Christ. So now, Father, as we eat and drink, as we eat this bread and drink this wine, Father, would you, by your Spirit, impress upon us the reality of our salvation, the reality of what you have done for us, the reality that although you cannot wink at sin, You poured out the full cup of wrath on Jesus who drank it to the dregs for us. Impress on us what that means. And Father, as you do so, motivate us and empower us to serve Him and to rule over your creation for Him and for you. Do this for us in Jesus' name. Amen. All God's blessings are received through faith. If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you haven't truly submitted to Him, if you haven't repented and you're not willing to repent of your sins, then do not come and eat at this table or you will eat and drink judgment to yourself. If you are a believer, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. On the night which Jesus was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, after supper he took the cup and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. And he said, All of you drink of it. And so now I invite you to the Lord's table. to come and partake not only of bread and wine, but of Him. He offers Himself to you. So now feed on Him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.