Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

The Land and the Faith

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Land and the Faith

Genre:

Track: 27

Dictation Name: RR181P27

Location/Venue:

Year:

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under a shadow of the Almighty. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we thank thee that thou who art Lord of heaven and earth art our Lord also, our savior, our redeemed, our protector. Give us grace, day by day, to commit ourselves into thy keeping, to know thy sufficiency, to know they purposes for us are altogether righteous and good. We thank thee that we live, move, and have our being in thee, and that the wrath of man shall praise thee, for thou shalt make all things serve thee. Our God, we praise thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Numbers 15:1-21. Our subject: The Land and the Faith. The Land and the Faith. Numbers 15:1-21. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you, and will make an offering by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the Lord, of the herd or of the flock: then shall he that offereth his offering unto the Lord bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil. And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb. Or for a ram, thou shalt prepare for a meat offering two tenth deals of flour mingled with the third part of an hin of oil. And for a drink offering thou shalt offer the third part of an hin of wine, for a sweet savour unto the Lord. And when thou preparest a bullock for a burnt offering, or for a sacrifice in performing a vow, or peace offerings unto the Lord: then shall he bring with a bullock a meat offering of three tenth deals of flour mingled with half an hin of oil. And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. Thus shall it be done for one bullock, or for one ram, or for a lamb, or a kid. According to the number that ye shall prepare, so shall ye do to every one according to their number. All that are born of the country shall do these things after this manner, in offering an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. And if a stranger sojourn with you, or whosoever be among you in your generations, and will offer an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord; as ye do, so he shall do. One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance for ever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land whither I bring you, then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the Lord. Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall ye heave it. Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the Lord an heave offering in your generations.”

These laws give us an account of various offerings required of Israel. There are three sections to this chapter. First one begins with verse 1. Second, another, begins with verse 17. Third, a final one, begins with verse 37, beyond our present reading. These laws seem out of place in Numbers, because Leviticus has more to say on the laws of sacrifice. All these sections are similar, especially the first two, which both say emphatically, “Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations which I give unto you,” then there are certain things you must do. Certain rites and offerings are then required.

Now, God had just told Israel that they would die in the wilderness, all who are over twenty, and they would leave behind a host of unmarked, untended graves. Now He gives orders concerning certain offerings to be required on their arrival in Canaan.

Now, this is the reason why some people wonder about this passage. Why is it here? God has told them what they are required to do when they arrive in Canaan, and he’s just told them all over twenty are going to die in the wilderness. The importance of this cannot be overestimated in terms, both of Israel and us. God had cut off the hope of entering into the Promised Land, that all the mature Hebrews, they had no future personally as far as Canaan was concerned.

Their children and their grandchildren, however, would receive Canaan from God. Because the parents were all going to die in the wilderness, did not exempt them from being future-oriented. Their thinking could not be governed by their lifespan, but only by God’s promises. We are today governed, too often, only by our lifespan. As a result, our politics are governed by the moment. Early in the 1970’s, California State Bill Richardson told me that, except in rare instances, neither voters nor legislators were influenced by anything beyond ninety days in the past or the future. When I spoke to the state senators at his request, about thirty of them, on hard money, I found virtually all better informed on the economic catastrophe facing the United States than almost any group in the country, but their one concern was, “When will this happen.” On learning that it could be some years ahead, they relaxed. It was then of little concern to us. Here, God reminds a generation which will die outside of Canaan that it must think about life in Canaan, and of God’s requirements of their children when they got there. If we are not future-oriented, we are suicidal.

I’m reading, right now, a book, the second on the subject, on the sixties generation. Both were written by people who were members of it. The one I have just begun is titled, Do You Believe in Magic?, the Second Coming of the Sixties Generation, and, of course, the point is they have returned, and their present orientation is governing us. Their refusal to think about the relevance of the economic order, their insistence on an environmentalism that is dooming this country, and because they are in a position of increasing power, they find church, state, and industry bowing down to them to fulfill their will.

The text deals with offerings of lambs, rams, and bulls, and accompanying cereal offerings of flour, of oil, and drink offerings. These, we are told, are free will offerings, and they represent aspects of their daily life and sustenance. What we offer to God must represent what is basic to our lives. The idea that worship is unrelated to daily life and is something apart from it is alien to biblical faith and is a perversion of it. A man who can work for a corporation or a newspaper for many years without anyone knowing him to be a believe, is not truly a believer. Faith is expressed not by mere words, but by the substance of our lives. There is a gradation in the offerings. There must be a proportion. Therefore, a man offering a ram, a medium sized offering, must give proportionately more flour and oil, and wine than one who gave a lamb. Whereas he who gave a bullock had to give the most flour, oil, and wine. In other words, the gifts, while freewill offerings, could not be given falsely. That is, bringing up a large animal but stinting at what was less prominently displayed.

These are fellowship, or peace, offerings, food offerings rather than burnt offerings. At the moment, God’s wrath is against an entire generation, but they are told that their children can anticipate peace with God.

When we look again at the key text, we see the key phrase, “When ye come into the land.” All of creation is the work of God, every sphere of life is under law. Not only is man under God’s law, but so too is His creation. The relationship of law to the land is spelled out again and again, especially in Deuteronomy 28. We live off of God’s earth, and the first requirement of us is to obey His law and to use the earth’s bounty to praise Him. The environmentalists reverse the order to require praise of the earth by man, and their law is the value of natural life, per se, totally apart from God and man, and not a productive natural life, not of food crops, but of trees and of grass. The people had, in effect, turned their hearts and minds away from the Promised Land, but now they are told that this cannot be done without judgment.

In verses 17 through 21, with respect to the heave offerings, the first of the newly threshed grain was to be used. Unlike the fine flour specified earlier, this was to be freshly ground meal, still somewhat coarse. In other words, it was to be truly the firstfruit, given as soon as possible as a reminder of God’s priority. If any of you have ever eaten home ground grain, freshly baked into bread, coarse wheat or coarse flour, it has a particularly good taste and as firstfruits, it certainly was honoring to God.

One scholar, Ronald B. Allen, compares this cake or bread, made of the first grain, to the once common framed first dollar bill earned that one would see in places of business. This was to be the first kneading of bread. It belonged to the priesthood when offered.

Verses 13 through 16 are especially important because it states clearly therein the law, one law and one manner or regulation shall be for you, and for the stranger “that sojourneth with you.” There cannot be another or a lesser law for foreigners living among them. They cannot be members of the covenant apart from the covenant law. The terms of the faith are set by God, not by man. The only ground for differentiation among peoples had to be the Lord and His law, not race nor nationality.

Three terms are used in verses 15-16 in the Authorized Version. First, ordinance; second, law; and third, manner or regulation. Walter Riggins renders the meaning of these in modern English as first, law; second ordinance; and third, statute. The first is the Hebrew Torah, God’s revelation to His people. This tells God’s people what God’s covenant law and purpose are. The second, ordinance, means an authoritative ruling or justice. It has reference to vindication, to a final ruling or decision. The third word, statute, has as its root meaning, “to engrave.” So, it means a fixed principle or rule. God’s law is the law for all peoples, because God is the creator for all. These verses tell us that the law determines who truly is a covenant believer, so that foreigners could be covenant members when Hebrews were not. The ground is shifted emphatically from blood to faithfulness.

Likewise, because there is one law for all, there is one grace for all. No subordinate status can be given to Hebrews who become covenant believers. This, at once, takes us back to our starting point. These laws were given to Israel even though they were condemned to die in the wilderness, to make them future-oriented for their children’s sake. The future they would not see would, all the same, come, although most of them were Abraham’s seed perhaps. The promises of God rested and always rest on His covenant law and grace rather than on blood. God has one law and one grace for all men and nations, and if we think otherwise, we sin. God’s plan and promise do not rest on men nor on nations. When Israel failed it was set aside, even as some churches and peoples have been since then, and will be in the future.

God must be our priority. “Of the first of your dough you shall give unto the Lord an heave offering in your generations.” This means giving and serving God, not when we feel we have enough time or money left so we can do so, but with our firstfruits. The large number of professing believers in the United States today represent in the main persons to whom God is not the priority, but an afterthought.

A newly published book authored by two men who went from coast to coast to make the most thorough survey yet made, of what Americans think about, what their priorities are, and what they believe, turned up some startling facts. One was that, although 90% profess to believe in God and to profess Christianity in some sense of another, only 13% of all Americans believe in all the Ten Commandments. In other words, they pick and choose in the Bible what they claim to believe, even though they may say they believe it from cover to cover. He also found that the actual rate of crime, checking on unreported crime, is six hundred times what statistics say it is.

Our faith is a land-based faith and person-based. Man was created and placed by God in a garden to learn there how to work and to exercise dominion under God. To reduce the faith to only spiritual concerns is to try to turn biblical faith into some other kind of religion. The mystery religions of the Roman Empire were popular because they offered escape from a notoriously corrupt world. Those who spiritualize the Bible, as many have done from Gregory of Nisa to Scofield simply create thereby an alien faith which invokes Christ while dishonoring Him. The promise of God is “When ye come into the land.” His curse was captivity in their land later to alien peoples, and finally, the Babylonian captivity, separation from their land. The spiritualized religion of too many churches represented impotence and anti-Christianity. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee that thy will shall be done, and we pray that thou wilt use us to this purpose. We pray that thy judgment may separate the wheat from the chaff, and make us again a righteous nation. We pray that the proclamation of thy word may go forth unto all men and nations, and that we may be again a future-oriented people in terms of thy word and spirit. Grant us this in Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Did it mention which of the commandments were the most unpopular?

[Rushdoony] No, it just said that everybody had their own idea as to what was right and wrong. They did not, well, it was a smorgasbord approach. They would define what had to be obeyed, so it varied in terms of their particular taste and circumstance. So, it showed a generation whose basic premise is “me first.” Their whole methodology was that it’s not sufficient to take a handful of people that somebody has said will determine valid statistics, which mean that you can check as few as four hundred and generalize in terms of the whole United States. They felt they had to go across the country from state to state, and make a very, very thorough survey, and what came through loud and clear was that people no longer feel the courts are worth anything and so a good deal of crime goes unreported, because it adds up to nothing to report a crime. Yes?

[Audience] Could you define or explain the word heave, as in heave offering?

[Rushdoony] Yes. A heave offering and a wave offering really are basically the same with minor variations. You presented it, well, the priest did, before the altar and would wave it up and down and cross-wise. In a sense, make the sign of the cross. So it was waved before God and then given to the priest or used by the believer in a communion service with his family. Yes?

[Audience] What would determine the firstfruits of a man’s wages?

[Rushdoony] It’s the money off the top.

[Audience] When I got laid off from one job, and then got hired to another job, my first paycheck, {?} determine my firstfruit?

[Rushdoony] It would be the tithe off of that. In other words, the firstfruits meant that the first group of, bundle of ripe grain you offered to God. The first grapes, the first peaches, the first apples. Yes, and that’s why the tithe is what comes off the top, the top ten percent, or the first tenth, not the last.

[Audience] Giving that acknowledges the sovereignty of God.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and his priority, and today “me first” is the priority. So we have a generation that feels that they can believe in God, but God who is the one who provides the smorgasbord. So you go to the buffet and you help yourself to what you want, or you ask for what you want, because you are the Lord.

[Audience] In actuality, we come last.

[Rushdoony] Yes. With God we become “they last.” Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, grant that as day by day we go about our daily tasks, we never forget thy promises in Christ, that this world and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. Make us mindful of our responsibility to the future, to our children’s children in thee and for thy namesake. 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.

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