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FELLOWSHIP
OF GOD SERIES
CITIES OF REFUGE
Now in the second session here we want to
look at how people backslide, why people backslide and how to preserve
ourselves so that we don’t backslide. How do the backsliding start and what we
can do to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Turn to Numbers chapter 35 the cities of
refuge. Verse 9-15 And the Lord said to
Moses, "Say to the people of
Six as we know is the number of sin. The
cities of refuge are meant to protect the one who accidentally has killed
another person. Suppose you were chopping wood but you were not diligent to
take care of your tool. The axe head is loose and the axe head strikes a
person's head and he dies. Let's say the person who was accidentally killed has
a brother. Then his brother will come after you. You think, "Where do I
go, where do I run?" God provided a city of refuge so that quickly, before
his brother comes, before his avenger comes, he runs to that city for refuge.
God provides a solution for this accidental death. You know why, if the avenger
succeeds and kills the killer, that dead killer's brother may go after that
avenger and you will have a never-ending story of bloodshed. In many places of
the world you find that continual hatred and war among tribes because of one
killing. Sometimes that enmity goes on for generations. So God provides a
solution to put a stop to that killing once and for all.
Now let us point to this fact here. The
city of refuge is not a place for the guilty. In a sense the one who
accidentally killed another is guilty. As sinners, everybody is guilty. But
there are different degrees in which people go against God. Those who directly oppose
God I don’t think there is much solution. Those who choose to go against God in
the book of Hebrews chapter 6 it say there is no repentance for them. Later on
in the book of Hebrews it says that those who trample the Blood of Jesus under
them there is no more room for them. So there is a group who is indeed guilty
beyond redemption but it is very small and don’t simply throw people into that
group because there are not many people in that group. And don’t use that
passage wrongly to condemn people.
The vast majority, if I can use these
words replacing the word ignorant with the word accidental, unknowingly, should
know better but didn’t know. When like chopping the wood and it falls and kill
somebody else. Do you know that every sin you sin doesn’t just hurt yourself.
It hurts somebody else. Nobody sins alone. Even if you think you are alone,
your sin may still affect your children and your loved ones. When we don’t walk
in God's perfect will somebody is being hurt. And the city of refuge will not
protect those who murder, those who kill deliberately. The city of refuge is
something God provided because of the imperfection of mankind.
Turn to Deut. 19:1-3 "When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord
your God gives you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in
their houses, you shall set apart three cities for you in the land which the
Lord your God gives you to possess. You shall prepare the roads and divide into
three parts the area of the land which the Lord your God gives you as a
possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.
Now here are more details in verse 3 God
says that you must make roads for them, so that these roads lead to the city of
refuge. In other words it's accessible for people to come to this city of
refuge.
Then it says in verse 4 and this is the
case of the manslayer who flee there that he may live whoever kills his
neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him in times past. Now it will
not protect someone who kills his or her neighbor intentionally.
Then in verse 6 Lest the avenger of
blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is
long, and wound him mortally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he
was not at enmity with his neighbor in time past. Therefore I command you, you
shall set apart three cities.
Why
did God make a city of refuge? Everything in the Old Testament is a shadow of
something in the new. The cities of refuge point to the believers the
Christians. And every one of us who live our life right with God becomes like a
city of refuge. A church in a sense and the fellowship becomes like a city of
refuge and it protects people from some consequences of their life but not all.
Let me point to some interesting types in the New Testament.
Lets look at II Cor. 5:18-21 All this is
from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry
of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of
reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through
us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He
made Him to be sin that knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.
In a sense we become ambassadors of God
when we come into Jesus. In a sense individually we all have now a ministry of
reconciliation. Then when we group together corporately there is a large
covering.
Lets turn to I Cor. 5 there is a man here
who is not living his life right.
I Cor. 5:1-5 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a
kid that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's
wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather mourn? Let him who has done
this be removed from among you. For though absent in body I am present in
spirit, and as if present I have already pronounced judgement in the name of
the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled,
and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver
this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
That is an interesting passage. Paul here
says that the person who is living among the must be separated, to use a strong
word excommunicated. We know that the power to excommunicate someone has been
abused and misused in church history. There are a lot of people who are
excommunicated by the bad guy. The bad guy sometimes excommunicates the good
guy, because the bad guy is on the chair. So every principle and every thing
that is right can be abused. Lets look at it in this context here.
Lets say everything is running in order.
The
Look at it in a different light. Behind this
thing is an understanding that there is protection in the church. You must see
the other side. What was happening is that there is an invisible protection
round this person who is not living right. Somehow by coming into their midst,
and being with them, he is protected and shielded from the onslaught of the
devil. Now see the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. Satan is very clever
to give temptations on credit terms, which most people think was free. And
after you have taken his goods you realize that he is now asking a heavy price
for it. You have tasted of sin and he is coming after you.
Remember Satan never give anything free.
Don’t be deceived. He will ask for a price and the price is heavy which is paid
by your blood. Anything that you take from the devil he will come and collect
the wages and the payment for it. And you somehow are able to go into a place
where Christians are. And while inside this place where lets say everyone is
living right with God. Jesus said, "Where 2 or 3 are gathered together in
my name there am I in the midst of them." Satan doesn't like to visit such
a place. So he stays away from that place. He hangs outside looking for
loopholes.
And of course the church is not just a
place; the church is the people. And when we live our life right with God, the
presence of God goes with us. And we are protected to a certain extend. The
cities of refuge are Christians and we all are cities of refuge. And wherever
we go if we walk in our life right with God there is shield of protection
around us. You have to believe that you have the shield of protection around
you. Remember the Armour of God and all those things protect you and are able
to quench every dart of the enemy. If your shield of faith is up nothing
touches you. Eph. 6 says that every fiery dart is quenched or removed by the
shield of faith. So wherever you go you are protected.
And so this guy is living in sin and the
devil is seeking to destroy all the time. Somehow he managed to always stay
close to one of those Christians. Now normally I would be fine. But this guy is
not repentant. And Paul understands all these things. And he says you should
stop protecting this person from the judgement that is due on his life. He may
encourage others to do the same thing. It is something that displeases God.
Either this person repents or you cannot take him into your fellowship. And so
Paul says deliver him off, surrender him. What they did was to come together
and in agreement and Paul invoked the power of God. I know a lot of people who
would love to do this thing but their motives are wrong.
Here it says in I Cor.5: 4 In the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ when you are gathered together along with my spirit
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words there has to be an
anointing. This power to deliver someone to Satan is not something you do by
your emotions or just because you are upset. There has to be an anointing of
God. It has to be something ordained of God. And there has to be unity done in
the name of Jesus. And what they did was to cut off the protection of the city
of refuge that they were offering to this person. The moment this takes place
Satan will go after this guy. He will have the just consequences of what he has
and that he may realize his mistakes. Later on you read the same person
repented.
Let me find a small secular illustration
to this. Lets say there is someone who lives off Christian love and is always
getting into debt. The creditors are coming after him. He runs to you and say
please help me. Then you help him. And he is debt free again. So you go again
to another moneylender. Then he got into another debt. Then he comes again to
you. And you help him again. Then he goes to another moneylender. Who paid the
judgement for him? You. That is hard earned money. Somebody worked, somebody
earned and somebody paid. You never earn, you never work hard, somebody is
working double hard just for you. Now if this goes on as a life style you
become a moocher. I have experienced one that came many years back. This person
is very experienced. This person came and borrowed 100 dollars. He paid that
amount back. He then borrowed 3 hundred dollars and then paid back that amount.
Finally he borrowed one thousand dollars and ran off and disappeared.
What is happening here? By Christians not
standing up to their principles, they are propagating a life style and a sin
that could have been easily removed. When the Christians stand up to the
principles this person would have to pay the price for his sin. For the first
time this person is made to work to repay his debt. And he may be renewed and
changed. Let say a person is in sin and is somehow is not dealt with and is
condoned. It may spread and before long everyone begin to accept the sin and
that person is not facing that kind of judgement he should. Not that we all
judge. None of us can play the judge or should play the judge. But what happens
is that we should have no part in some things that are not of God. And that is
the story of the cities of refuge that God has provided in this area.
Why
do good things happen to bad people and why do bad things happen to good
people? The answer is based on the cities of refuge. The bad people are sometimes blessed because
of the good people with them. Lets say sometimes a company is not operating
according to righteous principles but there are Christians inside there. The
Christians are the salt of the earth. God may bless that company not because of
that proprietor but because the others that are involved there are living right
for God.
Good things can happen to bad people because
somehow the bad people are living under the good people. Good people somehow
are holding the whole thing together. God is actually blessing the bad people
because the salt of the earth in their midst is the preserving them from decay.
Think about a person like Nebuchadnezzar who is a very wicked fellow. But God
blessed him because of the Jews. Think about the
The reverse is also true. Why do bad
things happen to good people? This is not the only reason. There are many other
reasons. But one of the reasons is because the good people associate with the
bad. Paul in I Cor. 5 advised the church to deal with the sinner very quickly
or otherwise the whole church will be infested with that kind of immorality. If
they don’t deal with it then the entire church may be affected. Now it looks
very hard it looks very cruel but it is required in order to preserve the
holiness of the church.
Ps. 1:1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked; nor
stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. Do you know there are some places where
you are not to sit and stand? There are some places you are not to walk in.
Your blessings are depends also on your walk. You have no compromise with
people or situation, which displease God. Sometimes God can protect you from a
situation. Sometimes God protect you through a situation. Jesus can still a
storm when you sail across it. Sometimes Jesus protects you through the shipwreck
like the apostle Paul. But whatever it is you are protected. Sometimes as a
city of refuge you could withstand different things.
But there are other times when God said
have no part. You remember in the book of Revelation the Lord said come out my
people. So there is a time when nothing else protects. The city of refuge is in
relationship to God. Now when something displeases God there is no protection.
That is why in the wrath of the Lamb in the book of Revelation the sinners
called on the mountain to cover them. Nothing can cover them; even the mountain
could not help. Here God is saying that there are some situations where His
wrath is at work. God is not obligated to protect the person who ignored His
warnings to flee certain places.
Sometimes God can protect a city. Now Abraham
was stretching his faith as much as he can to protect the city. Here are two
opposing areas. If Abraham had come down to asking whether if there be one
righteous person
However there is a line you do not cross. There
are certain things that the city of refuge cannot go beyond. Even Abraham
cannot go beyond. There were no more 10 righteous persons found and the whole
cities of
Why
and how do some people move into the direction of backsliding?
Let me point to reason No.1 Most people
don’t become enemies of God immediately. But the first prime reason that you have
to answer in your life is who you fellowship with. We have to choose the kind
and type of fellowship correctly. Even Jesus has different degrees of
fellowship with different people. You have the multitudes. You have His
disciples. You have His 12 apostles. You have His 3 apostles. And all of us
would have fellowship with the whole body of Christ. And some contact with the
world because of your responsibilities in this life and because you are
evangelizing the world. But we need to understand the quality and the quantity
of our fellowship. It depends very much on how we measure the scale of who we
fellowship with. If you feel at home among those of the lowest kind no matter
how spiritual you are you will be pulled down.
Paul in the book of Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of
those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine
which you have been taught; avoid them. Notice the word. He says avoid
them. And there are many other passages like that where Paul even said don’t
even eat lunch with them. And John the apostle even warns not even to greet
some of them. Now of course I know some people abuse this thing and they do it
to every Tom, Dick and Harry, which is not correct. I always wonder how many
Christians really treasure good fellowship. If I meet with a person who is very
spiritual, I would really have a heart to heart fellowship with him. But with
people that I sense are sometimes in the spirit and sometimes in the flesh, I
would put my guard up. The thing about many people is that they don’t have many
guards. The city has no walls. They don’t know how to put up different quality
and quantity of the fellowship. And as a result every foul kind of creatures
can just come in. There is no protection at all in their life. But the thing
that we need to watch most is No. 1 the fellowship.
Do you know why the apostle Paul became an
enemy of God? He hung around the wrong folks. His favorite folks were the
Pharisees. From whom did he get the letters? Do you think that it is easy to
get a letter of commendation from the Pharisees? No, you have to be close to
someone in authority. If you read the life of Paul you will realize that he was
a Sanhedrin member. For example not every Tom, Dick and Harry here can probably
go to a Governor and get a personal recommendation. And from there he got his
letters and persecuted those Christians. He was hanging around the wrong folks.
A good intelligent man like him can be thrown the other way. And there are many
people who are good, intelligent, and smart, on the average they would not have
done something. Because they keep hanging around the wrong folks and the wrong
people, not knowing how to differentiate between good and bad quality
fellowship, their minds are first affected and become unrenewed. Wrong
thoughts, ideas and philosophy begin to draw you away. Your mind begins to be
affected. Fellowship brings about emotional bonding. When you are emotionally
bonded to people you tend to favor their views.
One top salesman wrote a book about
achieving a million dollars sales. He says one of the things he cultivates was
emotional bonding. This is not a principle for us to adopt since it is just a
worldly principle. So when he goes to a family he would be nice to the
children. But his motives are not just to be nice to them, but also to form an
emotional bonding with that family. His reasoning is that if a customer has to
choose between 2 salesmen he could buy from, he tends to buy from the one he
knows. So he used these methods to his advantage. Emotional bonding takes place
and that is No. 1.
No. 2 is mental consent. By not speaking
out for our beliefs we become overwhelmed by the unbelief. That would be the
mental consent being affected.
The third is attitudes, which is very dangerous.
You pick up and you catch something, which are not taught. The mental consent
develops through conversation. Emotional bonding arises after a time span in
relationships. But the third attitude is something invisible that you just
catch at the sub-conscious level. There are some things that are caught rather
than taught. What happens if you are in the company of people with jeering
attitudes? Even though you are someone who is very careful before long you
adopt their jeering attitudes.
And the worse is step four. Your character
becomes defiled and affected. You become like them. Then the next area you
began to do like what they do. You can trace it in the life of Paul. You can
trace it in the life of king Saul.
The positive is also true. By having it
the right way, the right fellowship, you get into the right type of vision, the
right type of beliefs. And you began to get the right attitudes towards
different things. And you began to have a character like those people who are
holy. And you began to do the right thing. Positive or negative it also works
the same way.
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