These are the generations of Aaron and Moses when the Lord spoke with Moses on Sinai. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priest, whom he consecrated to minister as priests. Nadab and Abihu had died before the Lord when they offered profane fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai. And they had no children, so Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests in the presence of Aaron, their father. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Bring the tribe of Levi near, and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may serve him. they shall attend to his needs and the needs of the whole congregation, before the tabernacle of meeting, to do the work of the tabernacle. Also they shall attend to all the furnishings of the tabernacle of meeting, and to the needs of the children of Israel, to do the work of the tabernacle. And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and his sons, they are given entirely to him from among the children of Israel. So you shall appoint Aaron and his sons they shall attend to their priesthood. But the outsider who comes near shall be put to death. ' Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Now behold, I myself have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the children of Israel. Therefore the Levites shall be mine, because all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to myself all the firstborn in Israel, both man and Father, we ask as we come to your Word that we would hear you, but most of all that you would hear Christ as he intercedes on our behalf, that we, O God, would come to know you, that we would see your Word, that we would see you as you reveal yourself, and that we would rest and trust in you, knowing that we are your precious possession, that which cannot be lost, and that even in all of your orderings of things and disposing of things. They're all done for the honor and glory of your name. We pray this in Jesus name. It's the same words we're going to find in chapters 3 and 4 of Numbers which are better translated to guard and to worship slash work. And we're going to see chapter 3 is going to largely deal with the priests and the Levites I mean, but after the garden, Adam, having been expelled, there was this expectation and hope, who will be the one to crush the serpent's head? Even the naming of Noah by his parents shows they were hoping, this one at last will give us rest. Well, he gave him an ark, and he delivered aid, but there was not that rest. And so we see this ongoing hope and desire for that, even today. The superhero action hero is a distorted hope for that covenant hero who will crush the serpent's head. And you can see all the ways that it meets out in that way. But we see that God did send great Adams, greater Adam. And so even here, Christ. And so, we need to see that the history of redemption from the garden to the empty tomb shows that God is working out his plan of giving pointers to but not mediators who can finish it. And even the book of Genesis, for example, is structured around um the phrase, these are the generations of. So, in chapter two verse four, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. In chapter um Four, you have these are the generations of. In chapter five, these are the generations of. Chapter six, these are the generations of. And we have, there are actually 10 in that book, but three of them are dealing with those not of the promised land. So Ishmael, for example. Esau, for example. But there are seven in there that do. We can see from Adam, Seth, Noah, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12th. Each of those are pointers on. The phrase begins at the beginning of X's to show that that pattern is continuing. It's the 11th genealogy, but it's the 8th in the train. Then here we have it in Numbers 3, the 12th, but the 9th in that train. You know the next one you're going to get? This is the book of the genealogy. with the son of Abraham. The tenth. So, but Aaron is an important one. This is the one who will organize and lead the people as a worshiping people as they go through the wilderness and set in train the the um the dynasty, if you will, of those priests who will follow in his train in the order of Aaron as they await for one who is truly God and truly man. Because each one is both a testimony of God's mercy and grace, and a witness to man's utter inability. So there is failure in each one, but not a failure in God. Not a changing, but a continuing faithfulness of God. So God from all eternity ordained that His people would dwell with Him forever. in a particular time in the wilderness. And so we see here, as we saw the last two weeks, we saw the ordering of the army on the outside. Now we're going to see the ordering of the priests on the inside, and then we'll look at the ordering of the Levites in between. That's next week and following. And that is the purpose to which God has ordained all His works, is that we would worship Him and we will worship Him as He 1 Aaron, 2 Levites, 3 the undying priest. In Exodus we are told that God is kind of set aloof. It's like, okay, we see how that works, but how do we live with that in our midst and not die? Because that's been the problem since Exodus. It's like, we get close to that, we die, and we're supposed to live with that in the middle of us. I mean, it's, you know, the best analogy I can come up with, it's like living with a nuclear reactor in the middle of your city, and God is setting here in chapter three how Israel is to dwell with it when they are stationary. Chapter four, how they're to dwell with it when they're moving. If you read Leviticus, like I said, it's just this almost disembodied thing because yes, there are two narratives in there. One, Nadab and Abihu dies and the other one, the guy dies for blaspheming. So, you have two narratives and they're both But Leviticus works and will continue to work so long as there are no violations, though, of the moral law. violations of the moral law. That's why all violations of the moral law in Leviticus are send them outside the camp. It's his only solution is excise them from the camp. But so, so we got this dangerous situation. Now, how are we going to live here and not die? And that's what number is a setting before us. How to live in with the glory cloud in our midst and not die. as a way station for the people of God until the fullness of time when God's physical presence was there and yet we have not come to the times of reformation when the world has been regenerated. I mean, it's really interesting that the word for the new creation or the consummation of things in Greek is the same word for that need a human needs to have that second birth to be born again. So, creation needs a second birth but how can how can god physically dwell in the midst of Israel until that recreation but notice as we see here, life is the intent. I mean, yes, you know, we have those deaths that are happening but the point of the tabernacle, the but even in its midst, we have the death of Nadab and Abihu because they came unbidden before the face of God according to their own understandings. You know, everybody can spill their ink. What we know, they came with their own incense, their own incense censors and their own fire. When God had given incense, given incense censors, and given fire, they said, we're gonna have it on our own So they came according to their own sense, their own desires, and they died childless. But what does that do? Notice we've already been talking about, we have Reuben disgraced, Simeon Levi disgraced, Judah the fourth born is now in the place of the first born. and he will receive that in the person of Jesus Christ being born of him. And now we see Nadab the oldest, Abihu the second oldest, dead, childless, makes way for Eleazar and Phineas, who will be God's chosen ones to continue the office of high priest in the days to come. This is one of the only Moses held an office that was unique. Nobody else gets Moses's office after him. You know, there is a prophecy of one to come like unto Moses and Jesus but Moses does not, you know, his sons don't fill his office. Aaron is now the head of a line of priests and so god sees this as the reason to continue and God loved to choose the younger, but still he does not ignore the older. So as the anointed priest, Aaron will be the first in the run of priests. And right away, there's that issue of Nadab and Abihu, which we've dealt with. And so Eleazar and Ithamar would serve as priests alongside and under the authority of their father until Aaron's death, and then Eleazar, and then Ithamar, and on and on. Death, death, death. It remains the last enemy. There is no such thing as a natural death. There is none. Oh, death is natural. No, it's not. There is no such thing as a natural death. Death is the wages of sin. Without the sin of Adam, there would have been no death. Each human is born dead in their trespasses and sins. And as such, they have no plea with God. They have no ground to come into his presence unless until God made a provision in Christ Jesus for man to come to him So the priests are not some merely archaic relic of a bygone era. I mean part of the reason we kind of get Bored of this is like, you know, we might have some you know, some historical that's kind of neat descriptions of the amount of blood that would pour out of the temple at the Passover are enough to turn even those of you who don't get squeamish around blood. Um you know, I mean, where the kindred valley would become a river of blood, there were so many sacrifices. So many thousands of lambs and the blood had to go somewhere. And so, it's out of barbaric and That's because sin is archaic and barbaric, and it takes archaic and barbaric to expose that. These priests are not merely that are just archaic. They are God's solution to prevent his wrath breaking out against his people as they walk in his around him and he walks in their midst. They are the mercy of God and at the mercy that he might live with his people. And God's mercy is exceedingly abundant towards those who are his. And as we saw in our passage, the priests are mine, the Levites are mine, they're mine, mine, mine. At issue in misreadings of what God did at Sinai is the faulty notion that at Sinai, God introduced a covenant of works for Israel's salvation. No, He introduced, as part of the covenant of grace, a means for Israel to dwell in the midst of the glory of God, reveal and not die. That is the definition of mercy. That is the definition of grace. So the stipulations, the requirements for Israel to remain in the land, to have the face of God in their midst, are mercy, mercy, mercy. name of the Lord will be saved. Abraham believed in the Lord and was credited to him as righteousness. Salvation is by grace through faith from first to last. But something different is happening here. One of my professors likened it to, what does God do in Genesis 15 and 17? He engages himself to wanderings to the honeymoon of the people of Israel. It's the honeymoon. A rocky honeymoon to be sure, but it is the honeymoon. So, God's working other things besides the salvation of his elect is what he does in all times. I mean, why does he allow some whale in the midst of the depths of the ocean to make it sound? for his glory, and ultimately for the glory of Christ and the good of his church. Now, what do we get out of it? I don't know how that works. I just know that that's biblically, why does he do all things? For his own glory. And so this idea that God is doing more than just working salvation, as if justification is all he's doing, should not shock us. Unfortunately, too many times we seek to reduce the workings of God to just that deliverance from sin, death, and hell. It's true, Jesus saves, he died for your sins, he delivers you from sin, death, and hell, but he's doing a lot more. And a triune God, including the Son, work untold multitudes of works for the glory of his name and the good of his people. So what's he doing with Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar and setting them out as these priests who are to work before him doing it for his own glory. He's doing it for the continuation of the seed. Um the promised heir would come and he's doing it for the honor and glory of his name amongst other things and so the priests are there to to keep that going. There needs to be a wall. There needs to be a fence to keep people out from that radioactive danger that is the face of god. Yes, you have the curtain between the holy place and the most holy place. Yes, you have the tabernacle itself, and you have the courtyard with its wide fence, but then you need the Levites. You need that ring of individuals, that ring of guards to keep out those who would press near and die. So as God turns the Levites, this chapter three and four, as I already said, Let's be clear, when I say they're protecting, they're not protecting God. You don't protect a lion. The lion protects itself. God doesn't need protection. He's protecting Israel from themselves that they break near under God and die. So if you think about these rings, they're facing out. The army, the 12 tribes, they're facing out to protect from there. The Levites are facing out to protect the 12 tribes from coming into the tabernacle. But the other side of this, they are not there to help with the worship. Now, without them, the worship doesn't transpire. worship helpers. They serve the priests so the priests can do the worship. But by way of looking at the head, as I already said, God will detail the nature of that service. So, that word guard, we can talk about next when we get to chapter four, the word, like I said, it can be worship, it can be work, and it's used both ways. When the glory cloud sets down, they need to set everything up. When the glory cloud picks up, they need to pack it up, and then they need to carry it along in the wilderness. That is working. Hurry and scurry. There is no rest for them. That service can be summarized in that, as I already said, the command given to Adam in the garden, and now you're seeing it spelled out. the particulars will occupy us in the future. I mean, for example, I still, I mentioned this the other night at the prayer meeting, I just get a chuckle when I look at the name of the clan leader on the south side of the tabernacle, El Zafon. Zafon is the word north. My god of the north is put on the south side. you know, even God's sense of humor. These details, you know, we can't get bogged down to them. That's why I love that passage in Hebrews where it's talking about, oh, the gold this, the gold that. But about this, we can't go into detail because it's not about, oh, there are 52 tent stakes here. That means there's 52 this or that. Some of you will remember, they used to have these things in the mall, I know even that's archaic, where you'd go and you had these pictures, and they had these weird patterns, and some people could stare at them and they would see hidden pictures within them. I could never get that. Or if you think of just a mosaic, if you look at the individual tiles in the mosaic, they're meaningless, they don't do anything, but you step back and you can see the big picture, and that's, more often we need to step back than we need to come and look at the left. And so, he's he's giving us this big picture though the details are not irrelevant. But think about just the structuring of what God has done from Exodus when they left Egypt till now. When they left Egypt, it was just this big blob. Yes, you know, people knew, oh, I'm from Levi, I'm from Judah, but they weren't necessarily can't marching according to that order. There was big chaotic mess And then we go to Exodus 33 where we see that Moses had a tent of meeting outside, so outside the camp, and so it's there. And then we have the tabernacle built. So now we have the tabernacle, we have the center. Well, what do we do now? Well, we tell you how to work at Leviticus, but now we're saying, okay, And now we need the Levites camp in a particular order around it when it's set. And we're getting those details that God, who is not a God of chaos, but a God of order, he's ordering the people of Israel by their tribes and clans even, according to their word. And so, as God is arranging the people of God around about him, he is pleased to first arrange the Adar camp, his army ready to go forth to war. Now to protect that army, God employs the Levites. There is a need for both, both the protection from the outside and the protection of Israel from the inside. Such distinctions can be hard for those reared in every member of ministry where everything just kind of just happens and it just goes on, whereas God is a God of order. The other side of it is that we have the spectator church where you have the expert up front and everybody else just is a spectator. Both are ditches, both are faulty. As Paul has been laying out in Ephesians and he talks about in First Corinthians, the whole body needs the whole body doing its part of the work. There are those who think there is no distinction to be made in the labors of special officer, spares and labors of those who hold the general office of believer. but by the very name, office, it demonstrates a trust from a superior to an inferior. So, no guy from Judah could just go in there and offer a sacrifice because God had, it wasn't that Aaron was somehow more pleasing to God than Nashem, the clan leader of Judah. It's that God had a particular office that he had and trusted them. It is a trust given by a superior to an inferior to engage in a particular task. And so, you know, you can think about it in this sense, that at the election time, when people appoint or elect a mayor, they are entrusting somebody who is inferior to do all those things. Now I know the way it operates is not quite so rosy, but that is the design of an office, and that's the intent of it. And so the priests are entrusted by God with this office. The Levites are going to be entrusted with that office, just as Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, Asher, Gad, and take out the tabernacle. There's no tabernacle, there's no need for the arm. You need everything for it to work. And they had to do their work in the way that the superior God had instructed. And Nadab and Abihu shows what happens when they fail to carefully and scrupulously keep their office. But they also had to do their work so that the tabernacle would be presented I mean, the Levites had to do it so that the tabernacle would be ready for them, or so that when they got to the new place, the tabernacle would be set up. The division of labor was divinely instituted, yet it was a divinely instituted labor that would never be finished. For example, there are no chairs. The one thing that is not there is a chair. Why is there no chair? vessels. So, the bowls in which the um blood was was um put when they slaughtered the animals had pointed bottoms. So, they couldn't even set them down. There's there's there's just this idea that once you're doing it, you gotta gotta do it. You gotta finish the work. You gotta keep going. The labor never stopped. There was Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priest always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance, the Holy Spirit indicating this way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation. Those fleshly ordinances were sufficient and efficient for preventing the wrath of God breaking out against the people of God. But they could not cleanse the conscience. But they constantly had to do it. Because literally, you give your sacrifice, you're walking back to your tent, and you step on a bug, you have to go back for cleansing. So, as a kid, we, you know, remember the song about the good Samaritan and they passed by on the other side. Um and you know, and we we we snootily look at the the Levites and priests who pass on the other side forgetting just what I'm not saying they were justified but we don't put into our own minds what they were thinking about the amount of work it would be for them if this man died because if he to cause this problem, and so when you start to see the rationalization process at work, you can understand, not that you sympathize, but it was a onerous system, because God is a God of complete and total holiness. So the fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation were divinely instituted and pleasing to God, They were used lawfully at that time for the purpose of maintaining his dwelling in their midst, but they are not to be revisited because Aaron held his service for a season, then Eleazar, then Phineas, then Phineas' son, on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. have this problem of the the priest dies. So, he can't give continual and the other problem is the priest has to give sacrifices for himself as well. And so, we have Aaron. Then, we have the Levites doing all these things. Given, the Levites given to Aaron for the purpose of conducting their office. but one of the reasons their labors were insufficient. Now, Nadab and Abihu died before Jehovah. Now, you cannot continue as a priest dead. It just doesn't work, because God is a God of the living. Now you're like, well, duh, dead people don't do stuff. But it shows us the problem when you have a priest who can die. Human priests are required to offer sacrifices on behalf of themselves and to do it continually. And you need continual sacrifices under the old administration. Because the blood of goats and bulls cannot cleanse the conscience. They can wash the body, but they can't cleanse the conscience. And once Nate, Evan, Abby, who were dead, their intercession, though gone, is necessary. And so Eliezer and Isamar come. Each in turn would die. Their son would take their place. You can add to this list others such as Eli, Ahimelech, Abiathar, Zadar, Buzi, on and on and on and on. Dead, dead, dead. They all shared in death and thus were prevented from continuing in office. Now, Christ died, but death could not hold him. The living one became dead, and behold, he is alive forevermore. Remember, sin is the wages of death. Why was Christ able to die? Because on the cross, he bore all the sins of all the elect. But once all the sins of all the elect, perfect satisfaction has been made for them, death has no hold. Death has no claim. And so he cannot die again. He cannot be prevented from office. Aaron and his multitude of descendants who served before the altar, the Levites who discharged their offices outside, The first priest in history to sit down. Yes, I know Eli's sitting on a chair when he falls and breaks his neck. It's because he wasn't doing his work. He'd gotten too fat and blind. And he left it to Hockney and Phineas. entered into. God, who at various times in various ways spoken times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world, who, being the brightness of his glory, expressed imprint of his image, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sin, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Better than the angels, better than Moses, better than Aaron, better than Melchizedek, sat down, done, no more work. Christ made that once for all sacrifice and brought an end to sin. and brought it in to sacrifice. In a shorter catechism, how does Christ execute the office of a priest? Christ executes the office of a priest and is once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, but once, what else is he doing? He's making continual intercession. So what's Jesus doing sitting up there? He's praying for you. and he is her. So, unlike, as I mentioned earlier, the second temple where you would have rivers of blood flowing out because you need continual sacrifices and you have thousands upon thousands just being poured out from the altar. He made one sacrifice. sins are done. The blood of goats and bulls cleanse the body but the shed blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the conscience. So, while there is a tendency to skip over the particulars about the priests and Levites because the whole sense scene of blood seems barbaric and archaic as I already said, yes, it is but every one of your sins is archaic and are barbaric and point of fact, where the gospel Every culture throughout the world, apart from Christ, has some form of sacrificial rituals. Animals, human, other. Christ comes, sacrifices. Stop. Because they're obsolete. Yet Christ, once for all, sacrifices and makes that eternal redemption. So why bother? And since Jesus Christ cannot die, he is able to save to the uttermost all those who come to him. So as you consider the organizing of the hosts of Israel from the outside in, army, Levites, priests, see the impossibility of doing anything in your own strength. You can't do it. They couldn't do it. They were given the best chance. This is okay. original sin. So, that what you have there is, okay, if it's possible here, you can do it. Oh, but we can't do anything about your moral failures. One moral failure and you are kicked out. The early church Many people like to go back to the early living in a church where they taught that you were allowed one sin after baptism doesn't seem like high on my list of a place I wanted to be going to church because that's what they taught is you were allowed one sin after baptism. So, people would put off their baptism to their deathbeds. Oops, I recovered. Oh, man. I mean, think of the that's, you know, the tyranny of of falsehood. No. I mean, Christ says to the uttermost all your sins. The the the placement of of the things here of the tribes, the clans. These aren't a matter of of nature of logic. These are according to the wisdom of god. I want I want Judah here. I want um the Gershonites here. I want the Levites ordered this way. I want Aaron here. That is by god's good pleasure. He's showing us that there is a way that seems right to man in this destruction. It may seem like That's because you've read the end. It's kind of like when you try to, you know, you've read the end of a book and you're ready to say, of course, that's the way it works. The problem is that you live where nothing grows but crosses, cares, and griefs. And so the idea that you can fathom in your own mind what are the pleasures of God, apart from what he has told you, So, you know, what what is heaven going to be like? Everything good untainted by sin. What's that look like? I don't know because I don't know anything untainted by sin. There's nothing you know that has not been tainted and so we must constantly go back to the word of god to seek his way. That doesn't mean we need to to to structure the church chairs a wrong reading of what's going on here. This is how the people of God in 1400 BC were structured for the purpose of that time frame of going forth from Mount Sinai to the promised land. Because once they get to the promised land, they're not structured this way anymore. This is a temporary command. And so as we see that, we must see that God does not change what his people do. Knowing and trusting that God who ordered the camp of Israel is the God who gave up his only begotten son for you. It's the same God who makes his decrees in accordance with the truth and sets up his rule in this world by his good pleasure. What he says is more real than what you see, think, or feel. And that's the problem is that too many people think, well, I think this, I'm like, well, that's nice, I think that. And the two of them together, plus, you know, was it $7 to get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks? You know, it's like, it doesn't amount to much, but what, you know, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So as you come back, and you think about passages like this and you see what it was for god in his mercy to dwell in the midst of his people, people who are sinful, people who are unclean, people who are going to die. We see his mercy and we give thanks that we have Christ who has finished his work who sat down and so we don't go to create a A colony ordered this way, we look and see the progress of redemption, and we see we have something far better. We don't have, you know, as it were, an uncontained nuclear reactor at the middle of the camp. We have the spirit of God dwelling in our hearts. And that spirit is far more durable. I mean, that's the thing is, this is setting up a very fragile and impermanent You know, you contract uncleanness under the system. The tabernacle simultaneously contracts more uncleanness. So, it kind of pops up in two places. Doesn't matter where you are, you are defiling the tabernacle. That's why you have the Day of Atonement once a year to try to keep it in check. Over time, By the time you get to Ezekiel, it's gotten to the point where no amount of blood of bulls and goats can cleanse it. But yet, you have Jesus Christ. No amount of sin can drive out. So, in the old system, uncleanness was radioactive and contagious. holiness was inert. Haggai has a whole whole chapter where he's talking about if you have um you know, a clean loaf in your tunic. Um you know, what happens? Well, it's what happens if you have an unclean one? Well, you become unclean. We have to feel a holy thing in your well, it's holy but you're not. So, holiness is inert. She was required under the Mosaic Law to dwell outside the camp, and when anybody saw her, she had to shout out, unclean, unclean, unclean, so they would not come touch her and become defiled. She sneaks in. holiness is contagious. and cleanses her. These are separate categories. They don't connect and yet because he is so holy and so pure, he cleanses her by the mere touch. So, this idea that some people have, oh, just think if we get the third temple wouldn't be that cool. It's an abomination. It's an archaic anachronism to go back. It's an abomination It's done, it's finished. God doesn't go backwards in time. Yes, he's not bound in time, but he does work forward in time. And we don't go back, we go forward. We're going to a city whose maker and builder is God. It's a cube. Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Holy of Holies in the Temple, the place where God dwells. So, why is there no temple? Because the whole creation is now a temple with God dwelling in its midst and you are dwelling together. So, yes, we look at this and we see forward and we look at this and we give thanks to God for his order, but we don't go back. It's kind of like if you ever go back to your hometown that you've been away from for several years. Even driving past my parents' old house after they'd only been gone a few years, I was like, whoa. And we don't go back. That's one of the peculiarities of Christianity. It's the one religion that does not have a let's go back to the Let's go to the city where Maker and Builder is God. Let's pray. O Father, we thank you that you have given us Jesus Christ, that we have a priest who cannot die, a priest who cannot die again, who has died and is raised again because he has lived an imperishable life, because he is life and he is the living one. His grace, that we might see His face and be like Him.