Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

Public Sacrifices

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Public Sacrifices

Genre:

Track: 52

Dictation Name: RR181AC52

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. A day in thy courts is better than a thousand, for the Lord God is a son and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that of thy grace and mercy, we have been made rich in Jesus Christ. We have the assurance that, in a world of uncertainty, we have the certainty of his grace, His government, and His providential care. Teach us therefore, so to walk, day by day, that we walk as victors, as men who are heirs of all creation, as a people with a glorious and eternal destiny. Our God, we praise thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 28:1-8. Our subject: Public Sacrifices. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire, for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season. And thou shalt say unto them, This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the Lord; two lambs of the first year without spot day by day, for a continual burnt offering. The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at even; and a tenth part of an ephah of flour for a meat offering, mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil. It is a continual burnt offering, which was ordained in mount Sinai for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord. And the drink offering thereof shall be the fourth part of an hin for the one lamb: in the holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offering. And the other lamb shalt thou offer at even: as the meat offering of the morning, and as the drink offering thereof, thou shalt offer it, a sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

In this chapter, the public offerings are cited, and also in chapter 29. In Numbers 28:1-8, which we just read, we have the required daily offering, verses 9-10, the sabbath offering, verses 11-15, the new moon or monthly offerings, in verses 16-25, the unleavened cakes offering, the week of first fruits festival, verses 26-31, then for the beginning of the civil year, verses 29:1-6. For the day of atonement, 29:1-11, and for the autumn feast of booths, 29:12-28.

Now, our first impression is one of being overwhelmed by the number of animals sacrificed. There is a reason for these sacrifices. First, cheap grace is a modern heresy. God requires much of us because He gives so much. He is our creator, He cares for us, He provides for our eternal destiny. All that we have comes from Him. We are therefore, required to give Him what He requires. As we’ve seen in Leviticus, the animals sacrificed had to be animals that cost man something. While deer and most fish are clean animals, they could not be offered up as sacrifices because they did not cost man something. The sacrifice had to involve a great deal of work on man’s part.

Second, many of the sacrificial animals provided for the support of God’s priests and Levites. We would say in modern terms that God’s clergy and clerisy must be amply provided for or there is no progress in His kingdom.

Third, in Leviticus, the requirement of the layman to give is stressed. In Numbers, the duty of the priest to sacrifice is the focus, and therefore, by implication, the duty to teach the necessity for the support of the Lord’s work.

Fourth, these morning and evening sacrifices were connected with morning and evening prayer in Psalms 50, 59, and 88, and especially Psalms 141:1-2, which read, “ Lord, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” The morning and evening prayer of many churches, Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal, have their origin in these sacrifices; one in the morning and another in the evening. These, of course, now, morning and evening prayer, are virtually gone.

Fifth, there is another very important aspect to these sacrifices. They are in terms of a religious calendar, in terms of God’s timing. Men in Antiquity had a statist calendar, and the French and Russian revolutions both attempted to create a new calendar. Now, we see a more subtle attempt to do the same thing, to alter and drop B.C. and A.D., to end dating in terms of Jesus Christ. B.C. is now B.C.E., Before the Christian Era, and a humanistic calendar is the goal. The very word “Christmas” is being dropped. City decorations read “Happy Holidays,” not “Merry Christmas.” The very word “Christmas” has become taboo. I protested against it here in Angel’s Camp, and I believe at the time I did, I was the only person who had ever done so.

Sixth, these sacrifices were not man-willed, but God-ordained. Man would be happy to forget God if He did not require regular worship, and tithes and offerings. God’s ordination puts man’s life on a schedule and under requirement. This is necessary for moral and spiritual health. The Christian year has receded, and the man-willed times and seasons now govern us. God calls these various sacrifices, “My offering.” They are His due and His property. The drink offering was poured at the foot of the altar. It is interesting that now the newest thing is a beginning of dating in terms of sports. Summer is the baseball season, fall is the football season, winter is the basketball season, spring as training season.

Well, then seventh, the reminder in chapters 28 and 29 of these necessary sacrifices follows the order for the soon forthcoming change in leadership. The generations come and go. Moses goes. Joshua comes, and then goes, but God remains, and none can alter His requirements save He alone. The departure of Moses from leadership in life made no difference in what God required. God’s promised land and blessings were only to be had on His terms; faithfulness. As Ronald B. Allen points out, “This was not the law of Moses, but the law of God, and none could assume that, with the death of Moses, anything changed.”

Eighth, God requires or calls attention to certain facts in these sacrifices. There is an appointed time for them, a rhythm of worship. There is also the concept of the acceptable gift, and the acceptable gift is what God requires. Then, there is the fact that God, not man must be pleased. Obedience, God says, is a sweet savour unto Me. What this meant, Keil & Delitzsch stated clearly: “In the daily burnt-offering the congregation of Israel, as a congregation of Jehovah, was to sanctify its life, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord its God; and on the Lord's feast-days it was to give expression to this sanctification in an intensified form.”

Then ninth, we need to give particular attention to a fact I’ve already cited. Namely, that God calls whatever is brought “my sacrifice.” Lang observed of these words: “My sacrifice, it belongs to the Lord already. We offer not our own, but what is His. We receive first and then give of what we have received. The offering and the power, and will to offer, the offer himself, all belong to God. God receives His own again, and with it the affection, the homage, and the devotion of the offerers. The showers that bless the earth bear back with Him its fragrance.”

Tenth, there is a very important aspect of these sacrifices, which I mentioned briefly at the beginning. They are public offerings, for all the people. In the modern era, Christianity ahs been steadily reduced and restricted to the personal sphere, and removed from the public domain. This view was first proposed within the church by the Sandamanians, and it was immediately dealt with when it arose first in Scotland, then in England, and then here, in New England, as a heresy, and the essence of Sandamanianism was that the state was not under God. Only the church was, but scripture is clear. The state and every other sphere of live has an equal duty to be under God. What was once regarded as a heresy is now an accepted belief, and I doubt whether there are any Sandamanian churches left. Their ideas have been taken over by all the churches, with devastating consequences, because it reduces Christianity from a universal or catholic faith to a cult, the concerns of which are limited to a narrow sphere, the inner life of man.

Then eleventh, we must recognize that, for the Bible, there is no worship without sacrifice. Christians are seriously in error if they believe that Christ’s atoning sacrifices abolishes this fact. There are no more sacrifices of atonement, but Paul, in Romans 12:1 makes clear how much more we must now sacrifice. He says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Notice the words he uses. “I beseech you,” I beg you to recognize this fact, and it is grounded in the mercies of God, that we make ourselves a sacrifice unto God, and this because of all He has done beginning with our creation and our regeneration is our reasonable service. Well, this stress is common to the Old Testament, as in Psalm 51:16-17, and it is underscored in the New. Our lives belong to God, and we are to present ourselves to Him continually as a living sacrifice, as His property.

Twelfth, the necessity of public sacrifice and worship is a fact that there is a disturbed and damaged relationship between God and man. Sacrifice and worship have a restorative purpose. We acknowledge our readiness to go astray, we confess our sins and shortcoming, and we work to understand God’s work and word, His purposes, better than before.

Now the necessity of these offerings rests on the fact of covenant. Although God’s covenant of law with man is a covenant of grace, because He is so far greater than all His creation, it is also a covenant of law, because all covenants are law treaties. The fact that God, in His grace, gives us His law, makes us His people, and protects us in His mercy, and it makes it all the more mandatory that we respond with gratitude and obedience. Our giving is a response to His covenantal blessings and care. The offertory response written by Bishop W. Walsham How in 1864 sums it up beautifully. “We give thee but thine own, whatever the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.”

Public sacrifices are here required so that the covenant people may recognize the need for continual gratitude and thanksgiving, and the necessity for obedience. Let us pray.

Our Father, give us grace that, mindful of thy mercies, we may present our bodies as a living sacrifice, that our lives may be lived in faithfulness to thee. We thank thee for thy mercies. We thank thee that, in a troubled world, there is a perfect plan that undergirds all things. Teach us, therefore, day by day, to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thy keeping. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Like you said, they did spend, they spent a lot of time on the sacrifices that they gave the Lord. They, you know, spotless, the whole bit, but what about the turtledoves, the pigeon, which were given? Was that because of the people that were poor?

[Rushdoony] Yes, but those were reared, you see. In other words, this was something that was not caught, but reared. Yes?

[Audience] The B.C.E., I saw it referred to as Before Common Era.

[Rushdoony] Yes, you’re right. That’s the correct interpretation.

[Audience] And it’s been adopted even by Notre Dame and other groups, and I think it’s part of the general destruction of history.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is emphatically aimed on that. It has been a part of pressure, and groups like the Notre Dame University press have submitted to it, and others increasingly are doing so. So, it is a part of a consistent effort, just as with Christmas decorations, the word “Christmas” is abolished. So, too, in dating, this is increasingly the factor. It is interesting that one of our recent presidents, Gerald Ford, was for all his years in congress, a paid lobbyist as well, for a group to alter the calendar totally, and a book was published about that some years ago, about the time he first took office as president.

[Audience] What was it that he altered to?

[Rushdoony] It was to be altered in terms of a business calendar, making the months come out more even, and so that a man would not be paid unevenly, say, a full month’s pay for twenty-eight days in February and thirty-one days in another month. It was totally in terms of a calendar that would have a business efficiency, and the Christian element would be eliminated. Yes?

[Audience] Would you mind reading Exodus 32:9-14?

[Rushdoony] “And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” Now, this is something that we meet with again and again; God’s anger and condemnation of Israel, from the time He delivers them to the time they enter the promised land, and Moses stands as an intercessor between them. What God makes clear in all of this is that Israel is the chosen people not because they are good, but because He is good, that it is entirely of His grace, that they deserved death at His hand, and they despised His mercy again and again. This finally led to the Babylonian captivity, and when they only went back to it when the captivity ended, then it led to the destruction of Jerusalem, and their destruction as a nation. So, it is a witness to the fact of God’s patience and what it tells us is that God saves them as He does all, out of His sovereign grace. Now, the word “repent” gives some people problems, but the meaning in Hebrew there is somewhat different from our word. So, in English we don’t have anything quite equivalent to the fact that God threatened to do it, to bring home their evil and His mercy, and then withdrew His threat.

[Audience] I resent the fact that Moses would tell God to repent. I resent the fact that the Lord repented of the evil. The evil? He does no evil. I’m only a layman. I have to read it and read it and take it literally, you know. I can’t, you know, I study . . .{?}

[Rushdoony] The evil that he cites is that God’s name would be reproached. Not that God was doing evil, but God would be evil spoken of by the Egyptians and the others. Any other questions or comments? If not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy long suffering and patience. We thank thee also for the times of judgment. We pray that, as we move into the days of judgment in our time, we may look unto thee, obey thee, and be faithful unto thee that, by thy grace, we may see not the great shaking around us, but that which is unshakable thy power, thy mercy, and thy grace. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape