Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20120902.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Numbers: Lessons From Spiritual Casualties And Conquerors
Part LI: Aligning With God's Program For Light Amid The Darkness
(Numbers 35:1-8 et al.)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    (1) It is obvious that spiritual darkness afflicts the world, for even people IN the world realize this, a fact we can illustrate from two letters to the editor that appeared in two papers on August 27, 2012:

    (a) Kathleen Wiedman-Butler of Wichita, Kansas in the nationwide paper, USA TODAY, p. 8A, a political liberal, asserted: "It only gets scary when folks [like Rep. Todd Akin (R)] . . . pass laws that affect all of us based on misconception rather than fact."

    (b) Then, politically conservative Carolyn R. Falk of Middlebury, Connecticut, in the local Republican-American, p. 6A, noted in her letter: "Where we are going, we don't know . . ."

    (2) Yet, spiritual darkness afflicts many Christians: research by Gallup, Barna, and Hunter show "of those who claim the evangelical label . . . 77 percent believe that human beings are basically good and that good people go to heaven regardless of their relationship to Christ . . ." (Gary L. W. Johnson, "Does Theology Still Matter?" in John H. Armstrong, gen. ed., The Coming Evangelical Crisis, 1996, p. 61)

    (3) The darkness even afflicts some Christian leaders: R. Albert Mohler, Jr. wrote how "twentieth-century" evangelical leaders tried to "engage the larger world of thought and culture and to confront those worlds with the gospel" only to see "the theological unity that once marked the movement" had "given way to a theological pluralism [compromise] that was precisely what many of the founders of modern evangelicalism had rejected in mainline Protestantism." (Mohler, "Evangelical': What's in a Name?", p. 33 in Armstrong, Ibid.)

    Some leaders now adopt Andy Crouch's book, Culture Making (2009) that holds it is good to "engage" the world, but not to critique or to compromise with it, but to create a new culture in "creative" ways!

    However, 1 John 2:15-17 and John 15:18-22 claim God and the world are contrasting entities, so much so that a believer is not to love the world, nor is he to be offended if it rejects him! Paul in Galatians 6:14 KJV wrote that "the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It can thus only be spiritual blindness that presumes a believer can "engage" the world in a productive mutual dialogue!



    So, we ask, "In view of the darkness in the world that afflicts even many Christians and their leaders, are we at Nepaug Church doing what God wants to do about it?!"

    Need: "As spiritual darkness affects the world and many Christians and their leaders, are we ministering how God wants us to minister?!"

  1. The world is in spiritual darkness, and God's illumination today is only though written Scripture, Psalm 119:105; 2 Timothy 3:15-4:2.
  2. Thus, as God uses Church leaders today (Ephesians 4:11-12), He directed the men of Levi to lead Israel in worship and to teach her written Scripture (Deuteronomy 33:8a, 10a) that she might counter darkness in herself and be His light on the earth, Isaiah 2:1-3.
  3. Just HOW God's servants, be they today's Church leaders or the men of Levi, are/were to be EFFECTIVE in this effort is revealed in God's directives for the men of Levi in Numbers 35:1-8 et al.:
    1. God's servants must always labor in the Scriptures, Numbers 35:1-5:
      1. In Numbers 35:1-5, the Lord told Moses to have Israel set aside cities for the tribe of Levi with their accompanying "pasturelands" (ESV) to meet the housing and livestock needs of the tribe.
      2. However, they were not given land to farm or ranch, for they would live off of the tithes of the other tribes, Num. 18:20-24. The Levites were in turn to tithe of their tithe income for the priests, so no man in Levi was to farm or to ranch, Numbers 18:25-29.
      3. Thus, in contrast to the men of the other tribes who labored all day 6 days a week year-round to farm or ranch, the men of Levi were to labor all day 6 days a week year-round in Scripture to learn and teach it well to Israel's people, Mal. 2:7; 1 Tim. 5:17.
      4. [Pastors now must labor in Scripture, being preoccupied with it, to teach it well to God's people, Acts 6:1-4; 1 Timothy 4:13-16.]
    2. God's servants must example God's righteousness, Numbers 35:6:
      1. God had Moses direct that six of the Levites' cities be cities of refuge for those who had accidentally slain others to use as refuge from the slain partys' avenging next of kin, Numbers 35:6.
      2. This was a unusual edict in view of ancient Near Eastern culture:
        1. Many ancient Near Eastern pagans had long set up "specified shrines" where "criminals could seek safety, and could not be apprehended for their crimes," Z. P. E. B. , v. One, p. 869.
        2. However, Israel's cities of refuge were NOT meant to shield the guilty, but to administer justice: if a man accidentally slew another, he could flee there and be safe until a trial proved he was innocent, but if guilty, he would be slain, Numbers 35:30.
        3. Thus, the men of the tribe of Levi who ruled the cities of refuge were to example God's righteousness to the rest of the nation.
      3. [Church leaders are to example God's righteousness, 1 Peter 5:3.]
    3. God's servants must labor locally, thus, applicationally, Num. 35:7-8:
      1. The 12 tribes were to donate to the tribe of Levi 48 cities, the large tribes supplying more and the small tribes providing fewer cities.
      2. This plan so evenly dispersed the Levites throughout the nation that any Hebrew would be no more than 10 miles from a city of Levites, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Joshua 21:2.
      3. As a result, the people in the 12 tribes identified so closely with the Levites in their territories that they called them by their own tribal names, Jud . 17:7; 1 Sam. 1:1; Ibid., Z. P. E. B., v. Three, p. 913.
      4. The Levites then knew the local people so well they could apply Scripture effectively to their lives! [God today uses local church leaders (1 Tim. 1:3; 3:15) to teach His people applicationally!]
    4. In union with a local work, God's servants must minister long-term, getting to know the people even better for their good, Lev. 25:32-34:
      1. A Levite could sell his house, but in the Year of Jubilee every 50th year, its ownership had to revert back to that Levite, Lev. 25:32-33.
      2. If he sold his house, he could buy it back at any time, but his city pasture land allotment could never be sold, Leviticus 25:32, 34.
      3. Thus, a Levite was assigned to a city for life! For this reason, Samuel, a Levite, though dedicated by his mother to serve God for life in the tabernacle, was born, lived in and buried in Ramah, his Levite city in the tribe of Ephraim, 1 Sam. 1:1, 19; 7:15-17; 25:1.
      4. Serving locally thus long-term made for even greater effectiveness as the Levites got to know the people well over the long-term!
      5. [Paul had Timothy stay in his pastorate at Ephesus, 1 Tim. 1:3-4.]
Application: May we (1) trust in Christ for salvation, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we (a) rely on the Holy Spirit for discernment (John 14:26), (b) using Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-17) as our final source for truth. (c) Yet, may we ALSO use God's provision of reputable, local, long-term, Scripture-occupied messengers for discipling, 2 Timothy 3:14. (d) Then we can live as God's lights in the world.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 (1) In keeping with our sermon lesson, we cite words by the late Dr. John G. Mitchell of the Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon. His article, "The vanishing art of expository preaching" appeared almost 35 years ago in the November, 1977 issue of Moody Monthly, pp. 41-43 (as follows):

"The Lord's sheep are hungry for food . . . From my radio broadcast, I receive stacks of letters. They tell me, If it were not for your program, I do not know where I would be fed the Word of God.' That's tragic . . . The neglected gift in the gospel ministry today is the gift of expository preaching and teaching . . . Expository teaching is expounding the Word of God -- exposing it to the minds and hearts and lives of God's people. It is preaching the truth in the light of the context. It's giving the content of what's in the passage . . .

"But the man [of God] needs time. His people need to insist that he take the time to study and to pray . . . When I was just starting out in the ministry, I asked Dr. G. Campbell Morgan his method of Bible study. And he informed me that he would read a book through forty or fifty times before he even started to study. In other words, he saturated his mind with the text . . .

"A pastor needs to know the needs of the people of God. How he needs to understand their tests, their heartaches, their disappointments, their sorrows . . ."

(2) We seek to practice such a ministry, and that is why I believe God has raised up men in our body to develop a Church web site to address spiritual darkness in the world. However, that is not the only effort of outreach that occurs, for I hear weekly of "outreach" efforts our people are making locally and regionally! When I was hospitalized in 1990 due to injuries I sustained in a car accident, I was visited by a pastor I had not yet met who told me the impact people in our Church had made on his congregation for its spiritual good!

God's plan today, in view of the darkness that engulfs the world, besides the Holy Spirit's teaching ministry directly to the believer from Scripture, involves His USE of Bible expositors, men who devote their lives to learn, to example, and long-term, locally to teach applicationally God's written Word! When God's people are spiritually fed, they reflect this truth unto a dark world!

May we continue this ministry until we meet the Lord!