Violating the Sabbath

Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions is where every weekday morning you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word. Oh, you want some of my coffee? Yes. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Hebrews. Don't drink all my coffee, man. What are you doing? You little coffee thief. He's like hot chocolate. Well, why don't we have some coffee? It's decaf.
We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. All right. Lord, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word and we pray that you would please help us. We need you to lead us, Lord. We need you to teach us and we need you to apply it to our lives. In Jesus's name. Amen.
Okay. That is from Tennessee. Tennessee is down in the South. A couple, maybe like a thousand miles away from here, 600 miles away, something like that. Okay. Here we go, Dan. So we're going to go to Numbers chapter five. open up in your Bible right Genesis 6 Leviticus numbers no numbers chapter 15 sorry number 15 and we're gonna read 32 through 36 yep okay go ahead all right Wild?
That's a hard one. Wilderness. Sabbath? Gathering. That's a hard one. Brought. Aaron, Moses and Aaron. Hard one. Congregation. Under. Guard. Nope. Explained. could be done to him. Right, so what happened? They were like, well, we can't just judge him and kill him. We have to bring him up to the big tree. Right, yeah, so they're in the wilderness and the guy is gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.
And so they bring him to Moses. Then the Lord said to Moses, the man must surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. So as the Lord commanded Moses, the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.
All right, so what did the Lord say? He's like, you should put that. Yeah. Well, hold on here. It's a Sabbath. And they find a guy. He's picking up sticks on the Sabbath, he's gathering sticks to light a fire on the Sabbath. And they find him and they bring him to all the congregation and to Moses and Aaron. And what does Moses do? Yes, God, and what does the Lord say?
Doesn't that seem a little bit harsh? God doesn't seem kind of mean or strict. God told everybody you shall not do work on the Sabbath. Yeah, you shall not do any work on the Sabbath day. He made it completely clear. He did make it clear in Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter, I think it's chapter four, right? That's a fourth commandment. For basically all of Israel. Yeah, they knew it. Right. And so there's over a million people. Right. There's over a million people in Israel. And how many people are outside picking up sticks to create a fire on the Sabbath? One. So just before this, right, there's there's a passage just before this. We started at verse thirty two.
But at verse 30, the Lord says, but the person who does anything presumptuously sins against God and they just don't care whether he is native born or a stranger. That one brings reproach on the Lord and he shall be cut off from among his people because one know why? Because he despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be completely cut off, his guilt shall be upon him. So, the Lord basically told Moses, and he told the Israels, and they brought him exactly where the Lord commanded Moses, and they stoned him to death.
Yeah. Why would they do that? Because they were like. God doesn't make it like. And the Lord doesn't make it like that, they shouldn't have done any work on the Sabbath. And he wants everybody to know. Right. Right. So he didn't once. But this guy was essentially saying, I don't care that God created the world. I don't care that God is our covenant king. I don't care about his law. I don't care about his will. I don't care about him. I just want to do what I want.
And so what does the Lord do? He is like, you're not like that. That's right. So he cuts him off, doesn't he? He's like, You could have enjoyed this life and worshipped me. That's right. You could have enjoyed the life and worshipped him. But you will have a struggle. That's right. That's right. And so what do you think that teaches you and me about? That.
Don't be a sinner. Don't be a sinner, but I am a sinner, Daniel. I know, but we can try not. Because most of the sins God washed with The sins God washed away God can't wash away all sins So, why didn't he wash away this man's sin Did this man love the Lord what's the difference between this man and you and me I Yeah, he showed it with his works didn't he that he did not love God Yeah, he's just gonna gather sticks light them on fire right and so So yeah, he loved the s'mores more than he loved God.
He loved the world more than he loved the creator of the world. Let's leave that alone. Right. So the difference between him and us is right. We may sin and we may be bozos like, oh, man, I did it again. What in the world? I didn't want to do that sin. And yet I did it again. Yeah. That man was like, oh, you do. That's presumptuous. And he's not even sorry. He's not sorry at all. He has no contrition. Like, oh, I did it again. Yeah.
So what do you think this shows you about how you should treat sin? All right, this is what Jesus talks about, right? Does Jesus come to save us from our sin? Does Jesus come to redeem us from the curse of the law? Does Jesus come and offer us mercy? And then and then does he say, OK, just go on, keep on sinning? What does he say? Well, not try to be better. He uses a very specific word. Ready? Repent.
He's like, if you do something wrong, just We gotta confess our sins because who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins? Well, who is it? Who is faithful and who is just or righteous to forgive us all of our sins? Jesus! Right, so can we confess our sin? Well, yeah, but the elders can't forgive you of your sin. Who's the only person who can forgive you of your sin and cleanse you? Jesus, right? So we don't have to act like we're not sinners, but can we live our life just walking in sin? We better not, right? We don't want to raise our hands and say, God, I don't care about you. I don't care about your law. I don't care about anything you say. I'm going to sin. That's what this guy did.
That's supposed to be how we walk in our lives No, we love him, right? So we want to follow our King Do you think we can do that by a spirit? I Think we can I Think we can walk in Jesus's ways because his light has shined into our hearts Oh Yeah, right, so one day you were cleaning the garage on a Sabbath and we said, don't do that, bud. And then I just went inside.
Right, so yeah, so there's this is one of the reasons why mommy and daddy believe we have a Christian Sabbath the Lord's Day And so we try to keep the Lord's Day Okay, well hey, are we ready to pray? Okay, let's pray God We pray that you would teach us to walk in the light as you are in the light that we would put away the deeds of darkness We pray that when we sin, we would know that we have an advocate with you our Father in heaven. I And Father, we pray that we would not walk in presumptuous ways, that we would not sin with our hands raised in defiance against you, but that we would follow you after our King, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Bye! Bye! See you later. Bye!
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural Southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.