I invite you this time to take your Bibles and turn to the book of Numbers. Numbers chapters 5 and 6 are our scripture reading for this morning. It is a somewhat lengthy reading, so I encourage you to have your Bibles before you to follow along. This is God's Word. Once more, let us give our attention to its reading The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge, and anyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp in the midst of which I dwell. And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp, as the Lord said to Moses. So the people of Israel did. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel. When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the Lord, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed, and he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it, and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong. But if the man has no next of kin to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for wrong shall go to the Lord for the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement with which atonement is made for him. And every contribution, all the holy donations of the people of Israel, which they bring to the priest, shall be his. Each one shall keep his holy donations. Whatever anyone gives to the priest shall be his. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, if any man's wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected, though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her, since she was not taken in the act. And if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself, or if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife though she has not defiled herself, then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord. And the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water. And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and unbind the hair of the woman's head, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, If no man has lain with you, And if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you, then let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman, the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away. And the woman shall say, Amen, Amen. Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse. And the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain. And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand and shall wave the grain offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar. and the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial portion and burn it on the altar, and afterwards shall make the woman drink the water. And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thighs shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children. This is the law in cases of jealousy, when a wife, though under her husband's authority, goes astray and defiles herself. Or when the spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife, then he shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall carry out for her all this law. The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord. He shall be holy. He shall let the locks of his head grow long. All the days that he separates himself to the Lord, he shall not go near a dead body. Not even for his father or for his mother, for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean, because his separation to God is on his head. All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord. And if any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing. On the seventh day he shall shave it. On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the priest to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned by reason of the dead body. And he shall consecrate his head that same day and separate himself to the Lord for the days of his separation, and bring a male lamb a year old for a guilt offering. But the previous period shall be void, because his separation was defiled. And this is the law for the Nazarite. When the time of his separation has been completed, he shall be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and he shall bring his gift to the Lord, one male lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish as a sin offering, and one ram without blemish as a peace offering, and a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and their grain offering and their drink offerings, And the priest shall bring them before the Lord, and offer his sin offering and his burnt offering. And he shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord with a basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall offer also its grain offering and its drink offering. And the Nazarite shall shave his consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and shall take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire that is under the sacrifice of the peace offering. And the priest shall take the shoulder of the ram when it is boiled, and one unleavened loaf out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them on the hands of the Nazarite after he has shaved the hair of his consecration. And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. They are a holy portion for the priest, together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed. And after that the Nazarite may drink wine. This is the law of the Nazarite. But if he vows an offering to the Lord above his Nazarite vow, as he can afford, in exact accordance with the vow that he takes, then he shall do in addition to the law of the Nazarite. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we continue our study in our new series on the book of Numbers, the book that is rightly referred to in the Hebrew text as, In the Wilderness, we come this morning to these two chapters And I want us to spend some time considering what these two chapters have in common. And I said from the very beginning that this is a lengthy scripture reading, and certainly a verse-by-verse exposition of this text would take us far too long for today. But by God's grace, we will make it through simply an overview and think about what is going on here. What is God saying? What is God doing? And why is this so important? And then from there, how does it point us to Christ? What does it mean for us today? In some ways, there's parallels between us and Israel. We are in the wilderness. We are a covenant people of God. We make vows before the Lord, though, dare I say, no one here is a Nezerite. We have much in common with them, but there are some differences that we're going to need to think about. Well, last week we looked at the numbering and the ordering of the people, the way they would be set out in their camp, and the way they would move through the wilderness. Even this sort of what we might think of as mundane information is important and inspired by the Spirit and set down for us to consider and to see how it is, as we talked about last week, how it is that Judah, the tribe of the one that had preeminence, would lead them through the wilderness It was Judah that would be before the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, there before Aaron and his sons, and then Judah's camp. And how that pointed us to Christ as the One who leads us through the wilderness. We also talked last week a bit about the responsibilities of the Levites. All of these things will continue to come up as we work our way through this book together. And as you've noticed even from the very beginning here in the first six chapters, we've not yet got to that part about Israel that we know. We know that Israel rejects the Lord. We know that they come to the Promised Land, and they see the people, and they run the other direction. They refuse to trust that God will bring them in. Because we know that's coming, we might be tempted to sort of prejudge them here. But as I pointed out already, there was much obedience on the part of Israel. Everything the Lord has commanded them, they have done. And we see that reflected even in this passage this morning. So let's begin our study by looking first at the cleansing of the camp. And just so you know, the way I've grouped them together, these four sections and these four points, is that these are setting the people apart. Setting them apart from the nations. And at times, even setting some of the individual Israelites apart from the others, whether it's by way of cleansing the camp, as we'll see in a moment, or the Nazarites, as we'll come to in a few moments. But first we see this cleansing of the camp here in verses 1 through 10. And just to remind you why the camp would be cleansed, it's the dwelling of the Lord. It's the place where God Himself would commune with His people. And if it's a replica, as we've talked about, if the tabernacle is a replica of heaven, even of Eden, that is that garden in Genesis chapter 2, then we can hopefully begin to understand why God's presence would necessitate those who are unclean, those who are blatantly sinful being removed from the camp. After all, it wasn't long ago from this vantage, from this point in Numbers chapter 5, that Leviticus took place. And in Leviticus we read over and over again about the unclean and how they would defile the camp, and how God is holy and perfect. And even it came to the point where the high priest could only go into the presence of God, that is, into the Holy of Holies, once a year. And even then, with blood and with the smoke from the incense, as if to protect him, to guard him from God's sight. the camp is to be cleansed because God is holy and He calls His people to be holy. There's two ways that the camp is to be cleansed that we see here in verses 1 through 10. The first is from removing those who are unclean. They must be taken out of the camp. And again, we looked at this last summer when we looked at Leviticus. It was those who were leprous, those who had discharge, and all different kinds of those who had diseases. And remember, it was the responsibility of the priest to sort of give them an examination, to put them outside of the camp, to bring them back and to re-examine them so they could re-enter the camp. But here we are, they are getting ready to move out from the place where they have built the tabernacle. They're preparing their march, and they're going to actually move out in chapter 10, which, God willing, we'll look at next Lord's Day. But here we see that God is preparing them. They must put out of the camp everyone who is unclean. And then they also must put out of the camp, or I'm sorry, the other way that they would cleanse the camp is for those who would repent. That is, that those who had guilt and had sinned against the Lord by wronging one of their brothers or sisters in Israel. That is, we see here, speak to the people of Israel in verse 6, when a man or a woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the Lord, when that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed. and he shall make full restitution for his wrong." The text clearly states before us that wrongs committed against another person or that other person's property are sins against the Lord. The reason for that, beloved, is that Israel was called to be a covenant community. They were called to serve and care for one another. It wasn't about looking out for themselves and nobody else. No, if there was someone poor in the land, they had to take care of them. If there was someone among them who was needy, they had to give what was necessary. We looked at this a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the book of Ruth in our evening sermon series, and we saw how it is that Ruth, poor and destitute with her mother-in-law Naomi, came back to the land. And what does Boaz do? He instructs his men to leave sheaves on the ground so that she can glean them. She can pick them up and beat them out so that there would be wheat, they would have food in their home. Israel wasn't meant to be some kind of a community that had no care for one another. No, they were to have care. And especially if they sinned against one another, they had to seek forgiveness. In this case, it has in mind here that something was either stolen or destroyed. Some kind of wrong took place that was physical and that could have restitution. And the idea was you had to go through with it. As we think about this, One of the questions that comes to my mind is, would Israel do this? As I've said, we know where Israel goes. We know their disobedience. We know that phrase that's repeated over and over again through the Old Testament, they are a stiff-necked people. But look, Look at verse 4. And the people of Israel did so, this is with regard to those who run clean, and put them outside the camp, as the Lord said to Moses, so the people of Israel did. These opening chapters are astonishing as we see Israel's obedience. They're starting out well. They are hearing the word of the Lord. And so we see first, the first way in which the people are set apart is through cleansing the camp. But then it goes on to sort of protect, what I've titled, protecting the genealogy. Now, as I read this, surely you thought, wow, this is a really unusual passage. And I found lots and lots of commentators, and especially Christian pastors, who sort of gloss over this and skip it. But the more that I read it and reflected on it, I think it's such a beautiful picture of the Gospel, and we'll come to that. But we have to include it. Because the genealogy is extremely important. Read through the Old Testament. We've read through many books together, haven't we? And we get to that part where most people usually, it's what I like to call the game of chutes and ladders in reading the Bible. You get to a genealogy and you just go down to the bottom. What are you going to do with all those names anyway? But those genealogies are important. They're all through Genesis. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles. I bet you can't wait until I preach that. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are all genealogies. Genealogies are crucial. Why? They're crucial because this is the covenant people of God and the promise was that the seed of the woman would defeat the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3 and verse 15. The genealogy is crucial And we know this because we come and see it in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3. It's crucial because it's mapping for us the line to the Messiah. The Old Testament saints knew they were waiting for someone. They knew they were waiting for a Savior. And so I believe that this passage fits under that protection of the genealogy. Think about it this way. When Abram went away into Egypt, and his wife goes with him, Sarai or Sarah, depending on which... I think both times it might have been Sarai. One Sarai, one Sarah. Anyway, same woman, just different episodes in Abraham's life. But what happens when he becomes frightful? He gives his wife to another man. He gives his wife to the king of Egypt. And in one case, it was close that he was going to sleep with Sarah, and God struck his house, not Abraham's, the Egyptian king, struck his house with disease, shut up all the wombs in his house, that is his servants, his wives, his concubines, every single one, and revealed to him in a dream that he had sinned by taking Abraham's wife. God cares about this line, this seed of the woman, His covenant people, even to the point that He would have destroyed that other nation had He laid a hand on Sarah. You see, I think that's what's going on here, beloved, is this care for the genealogy, the need to protect the people. It might sound odd to us, but I think it sounds odd to us because we live now and we don't live back then, and I'll explain that in just a moment. But why would God command this? Just a couple of thoughts before, alongside of, I should say, the genealogy. The first is because we see in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24 that marriage is serious to God. Marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. Even here in the Old Testament, God cares about this marital faithfulness that His people would have. A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Now I know what you're probably thinking, maybe you're thinking, maybe it'll come up later. What about all those instances of polygamy in the Old Testament? What about those instances of broken homes in the Old Testament? And the reality is that those are examples of what sin does. As Jesus said in Matthew, it was not so from the beginning. That is that Moses said to issue a certificate of divorce. It was not so in the beginning. God cares about marriage. Indeed, as John Calvin comments on this, he says, by this right, he's talking about this one, God proclaims Himself the guardian and avenger of marriage faithfulness. Marital faithfulness. Hebrews 13 and verse 4 goes on to say, Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous. So that's the first thing to say. The second is, I think very clearly this is protection for the wife. This is protection for the wife. And maybe you hear me say that and you say, wait a minute, the wife is the one going through this ordeal. The husband has this hunch, maybe my wife has cheated on me. And so he's going to take her to the priest, and he's going to hand her over for this, what sounds like just a horrific ordeal. But understand this, that in all the cultures around Israel, that would not happen. The wife would oftentimes simply be killed. Or the Code of Hammurabi, if you're familiar with this other ancient Near Eastern society, probably not a reason why you should be, but anyway, there's another code that has some similarities to the Ten Commandments, but it talks about this very kind of situation. It says that the finger is pointed at a wife because of another man, but she has not been caught while lying with the other man. So, same situation, suspicion, finger being pointed, she shall throw herself into the river for the sake of her husband. She's to drown herself. This is the Code of Hammurabi. And a number of other instances are given from that same time period about what's going on. No, I think that this is very clearly protection for the wife, that she is not to be given over to the husband's jealousies or fears without being able to bring an appeal, or especially without appearing before the Lord. And that's where we need to be very clear here that this is not some kind of Some kind of Salem witch trial. This is before God's presence in the tabernacle. We cannot dismiss the supernatural presence of God here. And everything about what this ordeal is talking about is pointing in this direction. Again, Calvin comments, if anyone should think that his wife has had connection with another man, he cannot otherwise be relieved from the anxiety which oppresses him. If that's the case, let him appeal to God for that judgment which is beyond the reach of man. Okay. And as I've already said, this is the third reason would be keeping the genealogy for the coming Messiah. What's going on in this procedure? If a husband is suspicious that his wife has been unfaithful, then he must bring her before the Lord. He must bring her to the priest. And then the priest would pronounce a curse over a jar of water and make the woman drink it. And if she is guilty, what happens is she becomes infertile. That's the language of the womb or the stomach. The swelling in the thigh falling away. The language of the thigh falling away. That's oftentimes a euphemism to have a reference to in Scripture, in the Hebrew especially, to reproductive parts. And so the idea is that she would become barren because of her unfaithfulness. And so there's three parts to this sort of ordeal. The first is the priest places the woman so that she is standing before the Lord, that is in front of the tent of meeting. And I think this location underscores the weightiness of the ceremony. It's done directly in the presence of God. Secondly, the priest prepares a drink. He puts sacred water in an earthen vessel. This water would have been the water used most likely to purify the sanctuary itself. And then he adds to the water dust from the floor of the sanctuary. That's an odd addition, isn't it? Dust from the floor of the sanctuary. Why this dust? Why add it to this water? Now some connect this with dust and ashes of repentance. I don't think that's the case. Others think the dust is coming from the tabernacle floor. It's kind of holy dust. And maybe in that sense, they're thinking there might be some superstition involved. But I think the best option is the linguistic connection between this and Genesis 3.14. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. See, I think this dust has to do with the curse. It has to do with sin. And so this dust would be added to this drink. And the final part of the passage, where the woman's hair is sort of let loose, and I think the idea of that is kind of a mourning or lamentation. An oath is taken, and then again a kind of an odd thing where the oath is written and then it's put into the water itself. sort of maybe just like, I don't know, in our day we'd write with a pencil, maybe erase it, but I'm not sure exactly what's going on in that situation. But remember the words that are used here a number of times. The priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. This water of bitterness is repeated and it's not a pleasant experience then. After all, there is a breakdown in marriage. There is a breakdown in the home. This is being brought before the priest. It is public. And so surely it's not pleasant on a number of levels. If the woman is not guilty, then nothing happens. Nothing happens. The woman, verse 28, if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children. And we cannot forget, we must not forget here, the presence of God in this ordeal. This is not leaving it up to chance or any other such nonsense that so many commentators come up with. But if guilty, if guilty, the bitter water becomes a curse. The curse comes upon the woman, it passes, it makes the swelling, it makes the thigh fall away. All of it takes place here. And yet, as at least one commentator pointed out, There's even a grace in this judgment. The penalty for adultery under the Old Testament law was death. And so this person who wasn't caught in the act of adultery, but was shown by God to have committed it, simply is barren. I shouldn't say simply. That would be a terrible curse. But that's the point. People of Israel are to be holy. They are to be separate. Even the genealogy is to be protected. Remember in Ezra and Nehemiah, when the people go and intermarry with other nations, they tear out their hair. They cannot believe that even after the exile, the people have been unfaithful to the Lord. They are to be separate. What about this Nazarite vow? How does this fit into this topic then, of being separate from God? We'll move a little quicker now to make sure we can cover this all, but the Nazarite was an unusual kind of vow. There are many vows in the Old Testament spoken of, and oftentimes vows are just kind of talked about in general. If you make a vow before the Lord, you know, you must be sure to bring what you have vowed. If you were in the middle of trouble, and you said, Oh Lord, if you will deliver me from this, then I will bring to you the firstborn, or the firstfruits, or the whatever, I will bring it to you and present it before you. Then that's a vow. And when God does deliver, then the Israelite would be bound to bring that vow before the Lord, to bring what they have promised. But the Nazirite hasn't so much promised something, the Nazirite has promised themselves, I will enter into service. It's kind of shrouded in mystery because there's not a lot of knowledge as to what the Nazirites would do. they would just be dedicated to God through not cutting their hair, not touching anything that had to do with grape. They couldn't eat or drink anything that came from the grapevine. You might wonder why that is. I don't know that I have a solid answer, but it seemed perhaps we could think about it this way. Scripture does say that God gave wine to make the heart of man merry, and there's a sense in which this This Nazarite vow one enters into is a kind of awareness of sin as they let their hair grow long. That's one of the signs of mourning or repentance in the Old Testament. They would let their hair grow long and they would not even take to their lips anything that was joyous in that kind of way. That is the grape, whether it's wine or anything else that comes from the vine. Perhaps that's what's going on there. And then they also wouldn't touch a dead body. They couldn't touch, not whether it was their parents or their siblings. Now, I get it. We're sitting here going, who wants to touch a dead body anyway? But this is long before you would have somebody pass away, and you would call the coroner, and they would come and take the body away, and everything would be taken care of, and you would never actually touch the dead body. No, you would care for your parents. You would care for your siblings. You would wrap their bodies. You would lay them in the graves. All of those things would be placed upon the family members But the Nazarite could not do it. And you see there's even a provision given there that if the Nazarite is just kind of going along and somebody just dies and falls right on them, then they've touched the dead body and they have to go through the process. So even that. But again, the idea here I think is this vow of separating oneself to the Lord. And serving God, and again, as I said, we don't know exactly what's going on. There's a couple of Nazarites in Scripture. The first one is Samson, of course, who was the judge, and his mother was told, and it's quite possible his mother was also under the Nazarite vow. Then there's Samuel, whose mother was given certain instructions that were along the same lines as a Nazarite vow. And then, of course, there's John the Baptist. who came neither eating nor drinking. And so he seems to fulfill another kind of purpose in Scripture. Well, those are the Nazarites. If you have questions about Nazarites, be sure to let me know. But it's a fascinating vow that they would make. It's part of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. And surely we can at least say the Nazarites that are given in Scripture were of great importance to redemptive history. Well, that's the third way in which the people are being set apart in these chapters. The fourth way here is this blessing. Perhaps the children thought when they heard me read these words that service was ending a little bit early since I end the service with these words each and every week. But this is the Aaronic blessing in verses 22 to 27 where Moses is told to tell Aaron, you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. And he goes on. What is the purpose of a blessing? We can think about the purpose of this blessing, but I want to think first about the purpose of blessing in general. After all, this might be kind of something that we would call Christian-speak. Well, you know, we would pray that God would bless somebody. We would pray that we would be blessed, that God would bless us, and so on and so forth. What do we mean when we say that? Well, first of all, to bless the Lord, because we hear that all the time in the Psalms, right? I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Now, I think that verse there in Psalm 34 and verse 1 helps us understand what it means to bless the Lord. We are praising God. But surely when... God blesses us, He is not praising us. That is not the same thing. And so we have to understand that we're using the term in a different way. We bless the Lord. We praise Him. He is worthy. He is holy. Indeed, He is the One above whom all others, He must be blessed. But then we also bless one another, whether we pray for one another, whether we care for one another. That's what we mean when we say that we would bless somebody. When somebody brings you a meal for dinner and you thank God for such a blessing as that, it's that they have served you, they have provided something for you, they have cared for you. And this I think is, The term is clearly used this way, although interestingly enough, in the New Testament, the term to bless others is actually used in the context of persecution. Bless those who persecute you. Bless, and do not curse them. I don't think it's wrong though to still speak about how we bless one another, how God uses us indeed to bless one another. But those are very different than what's going on here. You see, when God blesses us, it is declarative. His favor is upon us. That is what it means for God to bless us. It speaks of His favor, His care, His presence with His people. God blesses us in an authoritative, declarative way. And here Aaron is being instructed to put the name of God on the people in this blessing. Raised hands as though he's laying his hands on each and every person to give a blessing. That's the purpose of the blessing. How about the parts of the blessing that we see here? We get this bless you and keep you. The truth is the abundance of all the good things that come to us are from God's favor. He is their only source. Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Indeed, He is the One who blesses us. He is the One who keeps us. He is the Defender of our lives, of our faith, of the Church. He is its only Defender, and it is under His care, under His guardianship. As we sang in Psalm 146, Put not your trust in princes, in a Son of Man in whom there is no salvation. When His breath departs, He returns to the earth. On that very day, His plans perish. Blessed is He whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, His God." You see, God blesses us. He keeps us. He cares for us. This language here, make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us. This shining face, it's literally a smiling face. A pledge of God's good favor Perhaps some of us here may feel as though at times God is frowning upon us. But beloved, in Christ, in Christ, God smiles upon His people. Israel was to know that even as they marched through the wilderness, as miserable as it surely would have been, that God's favor rested with them. And God smiled upon them. And then this last part, lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace. This is what we would call, I think, a consummate expression of God's grace and kindness. The countenance, it's His face again. But I think in taking notice, in a kind of way of taking notice. Perhaps we can think of this as a constant care. A constant care and constant affection from the Lord and the peace that He gives. This peace that is spoken of here, it's the Hebrew word shalom. And to be quite honest, the term peace doesn't really get at what is meant by this. We think of peace, we just think of sort of a cessation of war. Maybe we think about our relationship with God. There's peace between us and God. And so, we and God are no longer at enmity with one another, because we are in Christ. But it's so much more than that. It speaks not just of a cessation of war or hostility or tension, but it speaks of completeness, of unity, of well-being, of health, of security, of wholeness. It's a kind of peace. It really is a heavenly peace. See, that's what God speaks upon His people. And then in verse 27 it closes, So shall they put My name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. Well, just as we come to our end then, this is God separating His people. But what does it mean for us? How does this work? What are we supposed to take from this? Beloved, I think that as we turn to the New Testament, we see so many echoes of these two chapters here before us. Think about Christ and His life. He came to care for God's people. Indeed, He came so that they would be able to be in the people of God. That is, those who were unclean when they came and they touched Christ. Remember, they were made clean. But the last thing that Jesus did on earth before He left, was He raised His hands to bless His disciples. He blessed them and He parted from them as He was carried up into heaven. Luke chapter 24, verses 50-53, it says this, Then He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands, He blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing God. Beloved, this blessing that Aaron is told to put upon the people of God, Christ puts His blessing upon His disciples. Indeed, He puts His blessing upon all of His people. And what authority does He have to bless them? Aaron was the one who was set apart to be the High Priest. But as Hebrews reminds us, Christ Himself is set apart to be not just a High Priest, but to be the final High Priest. His blessing is that much greater He is the One who has redeemed His people. He is the Husband who came to seek His Bride. But how does He seek His Bride? What does our Savior do? Think of the contrast with what we learned this morning in Numbers 5. If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness, she had to drink the bitter waters. And if guilty, the curse would come upon her. But here's the thing, Christ knew His bride was unfaithful. Beloved, He knew that we were sinful. He knew that we weren't just full of some sin, but all sin. And in fact, that's why He came. But when He came, He didn't give the cup to His bride. He didn't give the cup of bitterness, the cup of God's wrath to you and to me, but rather He took it upon His own lips, and He drank it to the fullest, and the curse fell upon Him. Sin, death, and the torments of Satan, and all of hell itself came upon Him. He took it all, and He suffered in the place of His unfaithful bride, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church, His bride to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Beloved, this is what our Savior has secured for us. He is the Husband who has come to seek and save the lost. He is the one who comes to save His bride by taking the curse upon Himself. And because of this great reality, we are able to be in the presence of God. For beloved, we can't be in God's presence if we're unclean. Numbers chapter 5, it's not as though we turn to the New Testament and God says, hey, all that stuff, I didn't really care about all that anyway. No. Those who are unclean, those who are sinful, can still not be in the presence of God in and of themselves. But in Christ, our faithful husband who has secured us by becoming a curse for us, ushers us into the presence of God. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And beloved, as we come to partake of the supper each and every week, and this week as well, we're reminded of what our Savior has done As we take the cup to our lips, as we eat the bread, we are reminded that His body was broken, His blood was poured out for our sake, that He who knew no sin was made to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Let's pray.