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Welcome. I'm Cliff Hedges. This is Pastor Cliff's Notes. This is a podcast where we are studying the Bible. We're working our way through the book of Numbers. Today is episode 1628, and we're looking at Numbers chapter 15, verses 17 to 31. God had rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, brought them to Mount Sinai, spent some time there with them, he established his covenant with them, and adopted them as his people. And then he taught them how to live in this relationship with him. Then it was time to move from Sinai to the promised land. So he brought them to Kedish Barnea at the edge of the land of Canaan. Moses sent twelve scouts, one from each tribe, into the land to scout it out. They spent forty days going through the land, and then came back and reported to the people. They said, The land is plentiful, but there are giants in the land. The people rebelled, threatened to kill Moses and Aaron, appoint a new leader, go back to Egypt. Then God appeared and gave his judgment. The men who had been counted in the census of Numbers chapter one, who were going to be the army to take the promised land, they would not enter the promised land. They would die in the wilderness over the next forty years, and the next generation, those who are under twenty, would grow up over that twenty years, and then they would be the ones to take the promised land. Now God is back to looking ahead to the Israelites living in the land of Canaan. Last time he gave some instructions about sacrifices when they get to the promised land. And we're continuing in this looking ahead. So this brings us to Numbers 15, verse 17. The Lord instructed Moses, speak to the Israelites and tell them, After you enter the land where I am bringing you, you are to offer a contribution to the Lord when you eat from the food of the land. You're to offer a loaf from your first batch of dough as a contribution. Offer it just like a contribution from the threshing floor. Throughout your generations you are to give the Lord a contribution from the first batch of your dough. Okay, this is looking at first fruits. So just some of the wording here. Speaking to Moses, speak to the Israelites and tell him, After you enter the land where I'm bringing you. So he's still looking ahead. Yes, we just had some nastiness go on here, but God's plan is still in action. God's plan is still for the Israelites to go take the promised land. And so he addresses you after you enter the land that I am bringing you to. Who's he speaking to? Well, he's speaking directly to Moses here, but Moses is to speak to the whole community. But the you in who he's speaking to is all of Israel, but effectively he's speaking to the Israelites that are now 20 years old and under. They're going to be the ones to actually do this. And so it's got to be a little stab, I think, to the older ones who have been told, you're not going to the promised land, you're going to die in the wilderness. So he's still looking ahead toward the promised land. And he's speaking of a bountiful land, a plentiful land. You're to offer a contribution to the Lord when you eat from the food of the land. Yes, there will be food from the land. And like a contribution from the threshing floor. Learn about the idea of first fruits, that the first bits of the harvest were to be given to the Lord. He adds to that here. And when you take those first fruits, you're going to give some of the raw grain directly to the Lord. But then when you first time you make dough to make bread out of that first harvest, then you're to take set of it at some of it aside and make a cake, basically. And that will be given to the Lord as well. So just these reminders that all of this is from God. Everything you get is a gift from God, and it's keeping at the forefront of their minds that everything they have they owe to God. And so it's just bringing now some of the first harvest and some of the first actual baked goods are to be given to God. Verse 22. When you sin unintentionally and do not obey all these commands that the Lord spoke to Moses, all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses from the day the Lord issued the commands and onward through your generations, and if it was done unintentionally without the community's awareness, the entire community is to prepare one young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and drink offering according to the regulation, and one male goat as a sin offering. The priest will then make atonement for the entire Israelite community, so that they may be forgiven, for the sin was unintentional. They are to bring their offering, a food offering to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their unintentional sin. The entire Israelite community and the alien who resides among them will be forgiven, since it all happened to the people unintentionally. Well, this is just a review. This is what we saw back in Leviticus chapter four with the different offerings. One of those offerings was the sin offering. The idea there was an unintentional sin. And it had the high priest, special category for him, the community, category for them, one of the leaders, category for them, and just your regular person. And they were all different as to what you were supposed to bring for the offering. But the idea this is unintentional sin. And this paragraph, the entire community. So what would be going on here? Okay, they're doing something, and then they realize, you know, we have not been obedient to what God told us to do. And it's like somebody opens their eyes, whoa, wait a minute, we're not supposed to be doing that, or we're supposed to be doing this and haven't been doing it. And they now realize they've got to make a correction because they didn't realize they were in violation of God's word. So the key here is unintentional. Didn't know it, but now they do know it. Well, there is mercy. There's a way to make it right, and this sin offering is that mercy. God says, when you realize you have been in error, then first you got to make it right and do what God told you to do, but you go and make this sin offering. And it's for the entire community. So the whole community is involved in this. Everybody gets together, repents. The leaders of the community put their hands on the bowl, confess the sin, the bowl is slaughtered and burnt, and the people can experience forgiveness with God. Now, verse 27, it shifts to that just a regular person. Because remember, we also had a category for if it was the high priest or one of the tribal leaders, now it's just a regular person. Verse 27: if one person sins unintentionally, he's to present a year old female goat as a sin offering. The priest will then make atonement before the Lord on behalf of the person who acts in error, sinning unintentionally, and when he makes atonement for him, he will be forgiven. You're to have the same law for the person who acts in error, whether he is an Israelite or an alien who resides among you. So whether it's the entire community or just a person, there is this opportunity for forgiveness. And this is dealing with unintentional sin, where you did something, did it wrong, where you had your first fruits, you harvested and set it aside there. This will be my first fruits gift to the Lord. Then you went into the house to get some, come back, and the goat ate the first fruits. Uh-oh. Now sinned. The first fruits cannot be given to the Lord. Well, you'll get some more, bring that, but you still have unintentionally sinned. You've not followed the rules that God has given you. And so, but there's mercy. God says, okay, there's mercy. Repent. You bring an offering, you confess your sin, and you then go forward and make it right. See mercy from God here. Then verse 30, we shift to the other extreme. Verse 30. But the person who acts defiantly, whether native or resident alien, blasphemes the Lord. Okay, this is talking about defiant sin. Translations say sinning with a high hand. That actually more closely is the literal translation, sin with a high hand. The idea of a high hand is a raised fist, or fist raised in defiance. I will not submit to God's rules. I'm sinning and I know I'm sinning and I'm deliberately sinning. And the Lord here says, that person is blasphemy. Continuing in verse 30, that person is to be cut off from his people. He will certainly be cut off because he's despised the Lord's word and broken his command. His guilt remains on him. That is, there is no atonement for this sin. So it's two extremes to sin here. One is the unintentional sin. I didn't really know I was sinning, to the defiant sin. Yeah, I'm sinning. Heard a lot of people say something about, you know, being told you really shouldn't be doing that. I said, Well, I know I'm not supposed to do it, but I'm going to go ahead and do it. God's in the forgiving business. He's just going to have to forgive me. That's a dangerous attitude to take. It's high hand. This is uh raising my fist in defiance against God. Say, well, wait a minute. This occurs here just after we had the absolute rebellion of God's people about going into the promised land. Was that not sinning with a high hand? I think it was. But here we also see the mercy of God, but nothing's guaranteed here. You can't just say, well, God's just going to have to forgive me. The ten negative spies, they're dead now. Older generation, they will die soon. They will die in the wilderness. Some not for many years, but others are going to die pretty soon. There's going to be several instances very very soon here where people are being struck dead. How much related is it to the rebellion here at Kaddish Barnia? We're not told. Point here is we can't just assume that God will forgive me, even if I sin with a high hand. Now there's a lot of sins in the middle there. They're not unintentional, they're not high hand sins. And there are ways, there are sacrifices, there are things to be done to make it better. But the point here is remember sin is the issue. Sin will always be a problem. And for unintentional sin, yes, there is a way. The point here for us, what is it? We don't have to bring a young lamb to slaughter at the tabernacle. There is prayer, there is forgiveness, Holy Spirit guiding us through it. But sin is still an issue. People will sin, but for the defiant sin, there is no sacrifice because they were basically saying, God, you are not our God anymore. But even here, some of them just got caught up in it. They didn't really know what they were doing. Message for us is don't try and game the system to determine, well, this will be God's response to my sin. You don't know what God's response to your sin is going to be. An interesting thought, this process we're in here right here with the flow through Numbers, is there in Numbers 14 when God said, Go and take the land, had they actually done it, we would actually be in Joshua chapter 1 right now. The fact that they rebelled and refused to obey God's command. Well, now we're in Numbers chapter 15, and we've got the rest of Numbers, then all of Deuteronomy before we ever get to Joshua chapter 1. So this is all now when we see in still looking ahead to Caden, still looking ahead to follow God's plan, but with the added knowledge of it didn't really have to be this way had the people followed God. Thanks for joining me. Join me again next time as we continue working through numbers.