Revering the Word
Numbers 35 The importance of two witnesses and a powerful story of resurrection.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in numbers 35 and a couple of things that are taking place in this chapter are the following. One, God is telling Moses to make sure that they give cities to the Levites so that when they enter the Promised Land the Levites will have what's due them. That's the first part, but then it gets into cities of refuge. We're living in a time of not as great of organization as what we have today with courthouses and judges and everything else. These people are living in tents out in the desert, but they're about to enter the Promised Land. And God is trying to establish justice in the community. He does not want the Israelites to commit murder against one another or anyone who's so journey among them. He takes murder very seriously and in fact if someone is murdered it actually puts a stain on the whole community and God desires that they would have a very just nation. And he does a couple of things in regards to murder one. If someone murders someone and if you you'd say intentionally or they go to harm someone and as a result that person is killed. It was life for life. The person who killed them was to be killed and really the closest family member to the one who was killed was supposed to kill the one who killed them. Now what this would do is dramatically decrease murder amongst Israel because if you murdered someone you're going to lose your own life and God did not want them to commit murder against one another. However in the course of life things happen and people do get hurt and people do die. And sometimes it could be like someone would say oh well you committed murder but maybe it was an accident along the way. You know they're doing a lot of outdoor things and setting up tents and tearing down tents and setting up the tabernacle and tearing down the tabernacle or going out through the journey of life to maybe find animals to eat or to get wood for the fire and there's axes and whatever else is involved. Well anyway someone dies. If someone said oh well they committed murder God set up a city of refuge and the Levites had the cities of refuge. But what that meant was someone was able to if they were if someone said hey they committed murder they were able to go to a city of refuge and they'd be safe there. So the manslayer meaning the next of kin who of the one who is murdered couldn't touch them because they would go to a city of refuge until there was a time where it could be determined whether they actually murdered someone or not. And that way that person wouldn't have to be killed so it was it was a way of making sure that if someone's charged with murder it would be just they wouldn't be unjustly charged and then have a place to go to be safe until their case could be heard. And then it says in verse 30 if anyone kills a person the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover you shall not take ransom for the life of the murderer who is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death so if someone is guilty of murder they shall be put to death but it needs to be based upon more than one witness. And God had a fair way he had a just way of not only preventing murder but also preventing someone from false accusation. He is a very just God and isn't it interesting that needed to be on the basis of two or more witnesses. So you couldn't just charge someone with murder with no evidence there had to be strong evidence and you know we have a justice system today sometimes it's not used as well as it should be but many times it is and you know we try to have justice and make sure that someone is not falsely accused in the way that we do things today and I would say we got a lot of what we do from the Bible. You know the Bible knew what to do first and how to handle these things and you know many laws really come from what God had ordained first. I think there's something interesting in this regard. Some of you might remember O.J. Simpson and his murder case and I do believe that he did kill Nicole Brown Simpson and the man's name was maybe John Goldman. And it was O.J. Simpson's ex-wife who he murdered and you might recall that he fled the scene and you know there's a scene of him going down the highway with a Bronco and there's helicopters chasing him and things like that. Well in the end you know it was a massive trial and he ended up getting acquitted of the murder and you know you might remember the gloves he said the gloves didn't fit and you know we don't need to take in that whole case. But basically one of the reasons he got off and you could say it was because of judges or he had a lot of money to fight the case and a lot of different things like that. However, there were no witnesses. There was no one who actually saw O.J. kill his wife. Now we don't have the same exact ex-wife. We don't have the same exact laws that God established here. We don't always have to have two witnesses so there can be just you know evidence that makes it beyond a reasonable doubt. But if there would have been a witness if there would have been someone who said yes I saw O.J. kill his wife he would have been guilty right now what they would have tried to do though is defame that witness and say oh you can't trust that witness. But what if two witnesses what if two different people saw him kill his ex-wife he really he would have been guilty as charged right there's no way he would have got away with it if two people said yes I physically saw him do it. Imagine if 12 people saw him do it or imagine if 500 people saw him kill his wife there's no way he would have gotten off. And I think there's an interesting point to be made. Did you know that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior he went up on that cross and he died and then he came back to life again. And he showed himself to his apostles and he showed himself to the people around the road to Emmaus and he showed himself to Mary and he came back again and again and Peter Psalm and John Psalm and in fact it has stated that more than 500 people saw Jesus in a resurrected form after he died. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so strong it's beyond a reasonable doubt it's not just one witness it's not just two witnesses there's 500 witnesses to his resurrection even more incredible than that all his apostles were martyred for living for Jesus and living for promoting his gospel after his death and resurrection and we have written testimony of their martyrdom we have records that show that they died for their faith guess what we have no records of. Absolutely no records of any apostle saying oh you know what it wasn't true oh I made it up no we didn't actually see Jesus died even though they were killed for it. Now why would they die for a lie if they knew they were lying and now they're going to be killed for following Jesus if they knew they were lying I believe they'd say hey you know what I didn't do it but they could not deny what they saw with their own eyes and they were eyewitness is to the death in a resurrection of Jesus Christ they touched the holes in his hands and the holes in his feet they saw the hallmark in his side Jesus rose from the dead the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt it had more than two witnesses and you can trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior because he beat death and he was he went ahead he rose he went ahead to prepare us a place in heaven and those who have trusted in Jesus will also one day rise to eternal life in him. He was grateful that we have a just God and he showed his justice here in Numbers 35 but he also showed his justice and that a sacrifice was required for sin. In order to be forgiven there needed to be a sacrifice but God made his own sacrifice and he did it of his only begotten son Jesus Christ God was just he took out his justice he took out his wrath on his son so that the wrath that was due us in sin could be atoned for through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who takes the way of the sins of the world that's that way God was just and a justifier he was just God followed his own rules and through following his own rules and sacrificing his son as the Lamb of God he justified he made right he made us righteous before him because the sin that was separating us from God got placed on his son and hallelujah there's eyewitnesses to it all you can believe it I do hallelujah you can trust it Jesus rose from the dead y'all there's more than two witnesses God bless you all