Look Up

opportunity to meet in this strange way again. We thank you that you are no respecter of distance, Lord, that whether we are all physically together or whether we are spread across the face of the earth and across the San Fernando Valley, you're able to be with us wherever we are, and you're able to minister through your spirit. And we do pray that you would do that today, that you would touch our hearts. Lord, help us to understand the scriptures, help us to understand the implications of them. Lord, there are so many who have some kind of understanding of the Bible, and yet they don't understand the meaning. And Lord, I pray that you'd help me today to make the meaning clear, that we might understand what it is that you're saying to us through your word. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I'm going to speak to you from the Old Testament and from the New Testament, but I want to take a reading from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and the first 13 verses. So 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 1 through 13. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for the rank of that spiritual rock had followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did and in one day 23,000 fell. Nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents. Nor complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. And I want to take two verses from here today and the first is verse six. These things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. So the text obviously is comparing Israel with the church, comparing their journey through the wilderness to our journey through this world and he is saying that we need to learn from their example. What happened to them was for our instruction and he then picks up on a whole series of things that they messed up in, that they were wrong in. And there are two particular of these items that touch on what I want to share today. The first is that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Now the problem is that when we find that word lust invariably in our modern thinking, we think of sexuality and those kinds of things. But clearly the word lust does not, it's not just a physical lusting after someone of the opposite sex or even of the same sex but lusting after anything, whether they are material things or whether they are human or not. And so today we're going to look at that aspect of that and then also in verse 10 he says, nor complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. And you remember that was one of the hallmarks of Israel in the wilderness. They were always complaining. Everything was a problem for them. And so I'm going to begin in taking one of these and I'm not going to go through them in detail because I have a particular point I want to get to. And in trying to get to that point I'm going to take a bit of a circuitous route. I'm going to look at this institution that God gives them, how that this plays out in the Old Testament, plays out in the New Testament and then we're back to the Old Testament and we're going to pick up on the important spiritual lesson that he gives us. So Numbers chapter 15 is where I really want to begin. Numbers chapter 15 verse 37, again the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel, tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them and that you may not follow the holatory of your own heart and your own eye, to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined. And so verse 40, and you may, that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy for your God. So let's have a look again at verse 39. So you're to have a tassel on the corners of your garment. The Jews still do this today. If you see a reformed Jew or a conservative Jew, and we see them in Burbank and various other parts of the city of LA, you'll see that they wear generally a back suit and then underneath the suit there is the prayer shawl and attached to the prayer shawl on the four corners of the prayer shawl are these tassels. And we'll look a little bit more in the New Testament how that the style of those tassels evolved. But here the Lord gives them this instruction that they are to put these tassels or these ribbons on the edges of their garment and the purpose is that it may remind them. They are there to be as a reminder. Now remember God gives Israel all sorts of reminders. The Passover is a reminder of their deliverance out of Egypt. And so we have certain reminders in the church. The most important reminder of course is communion, the Lord's Supper or the Lord's Table. And of course the purpose of that is to remember Jesus. So God knows that we are short of memory. He knows that we easily get distracted and so that we need these things that remind us. The problem is that many times Israel kept the tradition without remembering what they were supposed to remember. These tassels are a little bit like when I was a when I was growing up and a young man. Those days everybody carried a handkerchief. So today nobody has them anymore. But those days men and women had handkerchiefs. Men's ones were big and women's ones were small and you always had a hanky or a handkerchief in your pocket. We didn't really use tissues or Kleenex so much those days. And if you had to remember something, if my wife told me to remember to buy bread on the way home or something like that, then sometimes you would take that hanky and make a knot in the corner so that when you pull the hanky out you were able to see, oh there's something I need to remember. Now the problem is if your memory is as bad as mine then sometimes you see the knot and you say, well I don't know what I was supposed to remember. I know I'm supposed to remember something but I don't know what it is. And that's the problem with Israel. Israel knew that it was there to remind them of certain things but they had forgotten what it was there for. So let's go very quickly. I don't want to spend too much time on this. Here's one of the challenges with these Old Testament passages and that is that we can easily get hung up on the detail of the Old Testament and how that plays out in the rest of the Old Testament without understanding the lesson and the message in it for us. And so I could teach for an hour or probably two hours on these tassels and in fact the various Jewish writings, the Talmud has a massive section, chapters and chapters devoted to these tassels, what they're to look like and so on and so forth. And yet in the process they forget the real meaning of them and we don't want to get into that mistake. We don't want to get into a study of these Jewish traditions without understanding how they apply to us. But we find them a number of times in the Old Testament and also in the New Testament and I've just selected a few of the Old Testament and a few of the New Testament. The one we find is in 1st Samuel chapter 15 and verse 27. Now Samuel was the prophet and he had commanded or God had told him to command Saul to go against the Amalekites and to destroy the Amalekites. Saul didn't do what he was supposed to do. He comes back from the battle and Samuel confronts him and Saul is not able to repent. He doesn't confess his sin. He justifies what he had done and so Samuel then turns around to go from Saul, verse 27 of 1st Samuel 15, and Saul sees the edge of his robe and it tore. Now the word, the edge of his robe, and this is, here's the problem in studying these things in the English Bibles, is that the translators use different words at different times. But the Greek, the Hebrew word here for the edge of his robe, kanaf, is the same word that is used in Numbers. So he grabbed hold of the corner of his robe, the corner where the tassels were attached, and he tears the tassels off. And this was symbolic then that the, that which represented God in his life and his commitment to the law, because remember they were there to remind them to keep the law, that that was now invalidated. There was supposed to be four sets and now there was only three. And of course this was a very symbolic thing and we'll see that in a few moments. And so Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. In other words, the same way as you've torn the tassels off the edge of my robe, God has now taken the kingdom and torn the kingdom from you. Now a little while later then, Samuel, sorry Saul, is hunting David and he's pursuing David. David goes and he rests in a cave and it seems to have been a pretty big or deep cave and he and his men are there in the depths of the cave and Saul goes into the cave, it seems to relieve himself. And verse 4 of 1 Samuel 24 says, and then the men of David said to him, this is the day which the Lord has said to you, behold I will deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as it seems good to you. And David arose secretly, so Saul was sleeping, and David arose secretly and cut off a corner of Saul's robe. And we say, well, what's the big deal? Now I think that having said what I've already said, you can begin to understand the significance of what David is doing. In fact, what David had done was exactly what Saul had done to Samuel. Saul had torn the edge of the robe of Samuel, David cuts the edge of Saul's garment. And you can see the significance in the next verse, 1 Samuel 24 5. Now it happened afterward when David's heart troubled him because he had cut Saul's robe. So why was David troubled that he had cut the robe, if what he had done was not significant, if what he had done was not important. But clearly what David had done was a significant thing. And in fact, what David had done, probably unbeknown to him, is that he had confirmed exactly what Samuel had said to Saul, God is going to tear the kingdom from you, your authority is invalidated. Because his authority as a Jew and as the king was represented in his connection to the law, and his connection to the law was symbolized by these four tassels. And so you can see how that this flows through. Now when we get to the book of Ruth, we come to a very difficult and controversial passage. And in Ruth we find that she is a Moabite woman, she is not a Jew, she is a widow, she has connections to her mother-in-law, Naomi, who owns a certain piece of land. That piece of land is under a mortgage or a bond, and that land now needed to be redeemed and to be brought back into the family. The only way that could be brought back into the family is by a near kinsman marrying Naomi, but Naomi is not willing to be married. Ruth now decides that she is going to approach Boaz. Boaz is related to her previous husband, and he is a kinsman. He is the man whose responsibility is, and I don't want to get too much into this, but whose responsibility it is, in fact he's second in line, to redeem the property, to take the property and bring it back into the family line. And so she goes that night and he is harvesting, it's the time of the harvest, and he is there with his men, and obviously this is a very intense time when every effort is being made to bring the harvest in in time, and so they are sleeping at the threshing floor so that they can get up early in the next morning and continue the harvest and the threshing of the harvest. And so she goes where he is, and she lies down at his feet. Now I've heard preachers get all sorts of sexual stuff out of this, and that is absolute nonsense because that's not what was happening here. The only way you can get there is first of all if you have a problem in your own mind, and secondly if you don't understand the background to what was going on. So she lies at his feet and he realizes there's someone there, and he says, who are you? It's obviously dark, and she says, I'm your servant Ruth. She said, spread the corner of your garment over me since you are a guardian redeemer of our family. This is from the NIV, and it's interesting that the NIV in this case is the most literal, and the NIV is not normally recognized as a literal translation, and yet here it is more literal than any of the other translations because it's literally taking what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says, she says, spread the corner of your garment over me, the corner where the tassels are. So what is she saying? She's saying, I am a gentile woman, please bring me under the covenant, because the tassels represented the law and the covenants. And she is saying, bring me under the covenant, bring me under the law that I might be part of the people of God, and obviously she's asking him to marry her. And so she is saying to him, I want to come under the authority of the law. The King James, I think it says, and he said, who are you? And she answered, I'm Ruth your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing for you are a close relative. This is just ironic because the New King James is generally much more literal than the NIV is, and yet here it is not literal. What it has done is taken the meaning, and the meaning is pretty accurate. Take your maidservant under your wing. In other words, put me under your authority. So you can see where it comes in here. Now, if you go to the New Testament, you'll find that it appears in the New Testament a number of times also. The first, not necessarily the first, because this is Matthew 23, but in Matthew 23, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, and he says, but all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad, that is the straps that tied the shema and other texts to their arm, a little box to their arm and another box on their forehead, and so that's the phylacteries, which I'm not going to get into, but then you make it then broad. In other words, you make a show of your religion, and then he says you enlarge the borders of your garments. The same word, obviously here it is the Greek word, but when you go to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, you'll find this is the same word. So what are they doing? They're showing how religious they are by making the straps by which they tie the box on their arm broader, and they make their fringes longer. By this they are showing, look how religious I am. Now by this time, because of the rabbinic system, which wasn't part of the Old Testament, came in around about the time of the Babylonian captivity, and under the rabbinic system they had now begun to define what it means to have these fringes, and they defined all sorts of rules about them, and so they had eight, if I remember right, yes, by now, and of course the law doesn't, this is how man adds to the Word of God, how we add our own traditions. So they were to have eight threads, and there were to be five knots, and they had all sorts of meanings for the number eight and five, and why there were five knots and eight threads, of which one of the threads then would be a blue thread. And just to give you an idea as to how extreme, and you know the sad thing is that many Christians get into this Hebrew root stuff, and get into this kind of stuff, and it is not biblical, it is extra biblical, it's been added on later on. But what they then do is they calculate the number, remember in Hebrew, the Hebrew letters have a numeric value, and when you calculate the numeric value of the name for these tassels, the tzitzit, then you come to a number of 600, and then you add five and eight, and you come to 613, and the rabbi said that there were 613 commands in the Old Testament. Now that's absolute nonsense, and yet that's what they got themselves tied up in, and that's unfortunately what many Christians get into, all of these sort of numbers, and seeing numbers when they aren't there, and of course numbers are significant sometimes, and important sometimes, but they are not always. So they show their religiosity. So in the instructions in the Talmud, or the various specifications are there, the fabric, it was supposed to be pure cotton, the prayer shawl had to be cotton. The reason they have a prayer shawl is because if you have a different kind of garment that doesn't have four corners, then where do you attach the tassels? And so if you wear a modern suit like this, where do you attach the tassels? So you have to have a square prayer shawl so that you can attach the tassels to that. One of the things it didn't specify was how long they were to be. So it specified every other detail except how long, and so you would find some people who would make them extra long to show how religious they were, and in fact there was a rabbi, I've forgotten his name right now, in that time, who was known as, whatever his name was, the tzitziot, tzitziot is the plural, the tassels. So tassels became his nickname, his by name, and so here is where it appears in the New Testament. It appears a couple of other times in Matthew chapter 9, a familiar story. Suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood, 12 years, came from behind and touched the hem of his garment. If you go back to the Greek Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, same word. So she comes and she touches the tassels, because they believed they were superstitious and they believed there was power in the tassels. Obviously there was no power in the tassels, the power was in Jesus Christ. And you'll find that others also came, and Matthew chapter 20, if I remember correctly, there's also another reference to many came, that they might just touch the hem of his garment, the tassels, that they might be able to be healed. And that was a common practice at that time, in fact many would touch the tassels of a noted rabbi in the hope that they would get healing, or they would get some kind of blessing, or some kind of favor from God. The last one I want to look at before we get into the real meaning of the text, and that is in John chapter 19 and verse 25. This is the crucifixion, and they said among themselves, the soldiers, let us not tear it but cast lots for it. Whose it shall be that the scripture might be fulfilled, which said, they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. And so this is a little bit more hidden, but the part of the garment, the garment that they were casting lots for, was the garment to which the tassels were attached. And God had miraculously provided that the garment would not be divided. Now not only does this fulfill the prophecy of the Old Testament that says that they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots, not only does this fulfill the Old Testament scripture, but in fact it restores in a sense what happened to Saul in the tearing of the garment. Jesus' garment stays intact. All four corners are there. They're symbolizing that he had adhered to the whole of the law, that he had kept all of the commandments, unlike Saul who had not kept the commandments and therefore the tassels are torn from him. Alright, so that's an overview, but I want us to get back to the real purpose for which God gives us this lesson and I'm going to go to Psalm 78 to begin with. Now God brings Israel into the wilderness and he is taking them through the wilderness to get them to the promised land. How long he was intending to have them in the wilderness is not clear, but it was going to be a year at the most. And Israel, when he brings them to the land, they refuse to go in because they had not learned to trust God. I'm not going to get into that in more detail now. But in the process he has to provide for them and he provides for them manna. Now there are most modern scholars will tell you that the manna is just something that naturally occurs in the wilderness, in the desert. They say it's a secretion of an animal or of a bug and this would happen at night and they would go and they pick up the stuff and eat it. Well, I don't accept that because the book of Psalms says men ate angels food. He sent them food to the fool. And in the context of Psalm 78, he's talking about the manna in the wilderness. So God gave them the food that angels eat. Now do angels eat? Apparently so. And he gives them angels food. And of course this is not a natural occurrence in the wilderness because you remember that it would be there for six days and not on the seventh day. If it was just something that was common, well it would would have to be there every day. If you took a double portion on any other day, it would go rotten. You couldn't keep it for this next day. But if you took a double portion on the sixth day, it would last to the seventh day. Clearly this is not a natural occurrence. This is God's supernatural provision for them. So God is providing for them angels food. Supernatural stuff. And this of course is amazing food because it contains everything that they needed to sustain life. In that one little crumbly thing was all of the vitamins or in American vitamins, all of the protein, all of the roughage, all of everything that they needed in order to survive. It was all in there. And in fact the most amazing thing is, and maybe this is just a little bit of a speculation on my part, but it was also the perfect weight control food. Because the scripture says that during that whole 40 years in the wilderness their clothing didn't wear out. So 40 years later they're wearing the same clothes that they began with. So not only does the clothes not wear out, but the clothes are still obviously the same size that they were 40 years ago. Now that's just a foolish speculation, but anyhow. So God provides for them miraculously. Psalm 105 says the people asked and he brought quail and he satisfied them with a bread of heaven. So God provides for them angels food and bread of heaven. God's supernatural provision. They didn't have to work for it. They didn't have to plant and sow and reap. They didn't have to herd animals. They didn't have to do anything. All they had to do is go out every morning and collect what God had provided for them. And it was miraculous in many ways. If they had collected a little it would be enough. If they collected too much it would still be enough. And so he provides for them. The problem is, and this is where we get to back to Corinthians, the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving. So the children of Israel also wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat? Now Numbers 11 is an interesting passage because there are two incidents that are closely related here. The first three verses and then the next few verses from verse 4 onwards. But in this instance what he is talking about is they're complaining about the manna, as we're going to see in the next verse. But I just want to deal with verse 4 before we move on. Notice where the problem began. It began with the mixed multitude. Now those who are part of our church here will have heard me speak about the mixed multitude many times. These were people who were intermarried with the Egyptians. Remember when they came out of Egypt? Many of them had, not many, but some had intermarried with Egyptians. But there were also Egyptians who had attached themselves to Israel. And they were pure Egyptian husband and wife and children. But they had seen the miracles. They had seen God deal with Israel. And they had attached themselves to Israel and become part of Israel. They were called the mixed multitude because they were not part of any of the twelve tribes. And so when they would march, or as they would journey, each of the tribes would march in a particular order. The Ark of the Covenant right in the front and then each of the twelve tribes behind them. And then right at the very back would be the mixed multitude. When they would camp, they would camp in a particular order. The tabernacle would be erected in the middle, and then three tribes on each of the four sides. But the mixed multitude, they would camp right on the outside. Just a rabble who would just camp all over the show. And that's where the trouble began. The problem today in the church is that's where the trouble still begins. Because in every church there is the mixed multitude. There are those who are not true Christians. They are half Christian and half not Christian. Some of them are not even Christian at all, but they've attached themselves to the church. And oftentimes the problems begin there. Be it that as it may, here's where the problem begins. And notice they yielded. Now the book of Corinthians says, they lusted. They yielded to intense craving. Just a different word for lusting. And so the children of Israel also wept again. So the problem began in one area, and it spread right through the congregation. Same problem happens today. Trouble begins in one part of the congregation, and they begin to stir other people up, and eventually you have a division, and you have a lot of trouble. So they said, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. I'm going to come back to this verse. Verse 6. But now our whole being is dried up. There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes. Our whole being is dried up. We're dying out here. This stuff is no good. This was angels' food, bread of heaven. It was God's supernatural, miraculous provision for them. And they rejected that. And what they wanted was what was back in Egypt. And of course they'd forgotten the taskmasters, and the slavery, and all of those things. They just remembered the good things. And of course this is real. There's a sense in which Egypt is a picture of the world, and people get saved, they come out of the world, and yet somehow there's often a longing for the things of the world, for whatever the world has to offer. This is a very, very dangerous thing. The reason why it is dangerous is because it is rejecting God's provision. God's provision for them was the manna. The manna was a picture of Jesus Christ. Jesus is all we need. We don't need Jesus plus else. He is our salvation. He is our righteousness. He is a grace to us. He gives us, He pours His loving to our hearts. Everything that we need, we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet the problem is that there are so many Christians in churches today who are saying, we're sick and tired of the gospel. We're sick and tired of hearing the teaching of the Word of God. We're tired of hearing it's just about Jesus. And we've been speaking for a couple of weeks now, on keep your eyes on Jesus. We want some other stuff. We want some entertainment. We want some miracles around here. And in the process what we do is we're rejecting God's provision for us. I've been in a discussion with someone in a different church over the last couple of days. This person made the following statement, and I want to check that and make sure that I get it right. She said it is so much more than the gospel. She's talking about miracles. It is so much more than the gospel. What she is saying is that the gospel is nothing. There are more important things than the gospel, like miracles, like an exciting service with all sorts of things happening, people falling over and all sorts of stuff happening. That's more important than the gospel. That's exactly what these people were saying. We've had enough of them and we need something different. We need something else. And just by the way, I believe in miracles. But miracles can never be compared to our salvation. Miracles take a word from God, just like that, and God can perform a miracle. But our salvation cost Jesus to die on the cross of Calvary. You can never compare miracles to our salvation. There is no greater miracle than someone who was once blind spiritually but now can see. There's no greater miracle than the transformation that happens when the gospel takes a sinner and changes him or her into a saint. There's no greater miracle when we're able to say the old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. There is nothing in the world that can compare with the power of the gospel that is able to change us. And yet there are people, and there are many people in churches today, who are saying we're tired of the gospel. We're tired of the Bible teaching. We want something more exciting. Now here's what they wanted. We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt. Where did the fish come from? Well it came from the River Nile. Everything revolved around the Nile. Remember the Nile comes down from almost southern Africa, way past central Africa in the south, and flows all the way north through Egypt. The cucumbers. The cucumbers grow on the ground. They grow on vines on the ground. The melons also grow on vines on the ground. The leeks, they grow in the ground. The onions, they grow in the ground. The garlics grow in the ground. So what they are remembering is earthly things. Things that grow on the ground. Things that are earthly and worldly. Those are the things they're getting. Now what are they wanting? What are they getting? They're angels' food and bread from heaven. And they say no, we don't want the heavenly stuff. We want the earthly stuff. What a statement. And yet there are many Christians who are in the same position today. And they're saying we're tired of the heavenly stuff. Give us some more entertainment. Give us some more of this or some more of that and some more of the worldly things. Some of the things that we want is material possessions instead of spiritual riches. There's a whole false gospel built around that whole idea of material possessions rather than spiritual riches. Physical health and healing rather than spiritual health. Earthly kingdoms. Nations becoming the kingdom of God rather than the eternal kingdom. Physical churches and denominations instead of the true eternal Catholic body of Christ. Approval of men rather than the approval of God. The fear of men rather than the fear of the Lord. Wanting whatever it is the world has. And this is not just something that Christians in a pew struggle with. This is something that pastors struggle with. And as I observe so many pastors who are chasing earthly things, chasing numbers, chasing a name, chasing publicity, because they've lost sight of the heavenly. They've lost sight of the great thing that God is doing. Now what is God doing for Israel? If we go to Deuteronomy chapter 11 verse 9, he tells us, 9 through 12, that you may prolong your days, and I'm just dumping in the middle, but you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. And of course we know the land, one of the names for the land is the land of milk and honey. Where does the milk come from? Well if you're part of our church you'll know by now. Milk doesn't come from a bottle in the store. The milk comes from the cow. It comes from above in a sense. Where does the honey come from? Well today we have the hives on the ground, but those days the bees would make their nests in the trees and they would harvest the honey from there. So he's taking them to a land, not where there are cucumbers and leeks and garlics and onions, earthly things, but a land where the provision comes from above. Then verse 10, for the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot as a vegetable garden. Now we know how Egypt worked, the river would flood its banks, the Nile would flood its banks and they would use that to water the fields. And so the water came from below in a sense, it came from the river. And obviously they would make a little furrow in the dirt for the water to run along and to be able to water the plants. But where they're going, he says, the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven. Egypt doesn't get rain, it only gets the river. The promised land has rain from above. And so he is contrasting Egypt to where they're going to. And he's saying you want those earthly things. You know other things that Israel is known for is for grapes. Grapes grow in vines above. And olives and pomegranates, they grow in trees above. They are not ground-bound things. So what does this have to do with the tassels? Well it's very practical. You see because here were these people just walking through the wilderness, and they're really looking for earthly things. And I'm spiritualizing it a little bit now, but they're looking for the gleeks and the garlics and the cucumbers and the onions. And God says no, put a little ribbon on your garments. And the ribbon is to be blue. Blue is obviously the color of heaven. So that when you look down, you may be reminded to look up. When you're looking for the stuff of Egypt, that you may be reminded to look to the promised land, to what God has for you. And so this is a very important institution for them. It's very simple, it's very practical, and yet it is vitally important. You can see then why it becomes such a problem when they tie it to all sorts of other things that it didn't intend to mean. And so he wants us to remember. Why does he give us the communion? Because he wants us to get out of our here and now, and to think back on what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, but also to think forward what he's going to do when he comes again. Because remember, he ties the communion to his second coming as well. And so he's trying to get us out of the here and now, and our obsession with just living our lives now, to remembering the cross and remembering heaven. And so that's a blue ribbon for us. And this is obviously a theme that, and I haven't chosen a theme that's just evolved every week as I've gone along, but that really is heavy on my heart as we find ourselves again in this COVID-19 crisis. And people are watching the news and watching for signs of some improvement, and wondering what's life going to be, and chasing off to this and that and the other thing, when in fact God has given us a wonderful opportunity to fix our eyes on heaven, and to get our heads out of the sand as it were, and to get our heads into heaven, and to focus on the things of God. And I'm going to go to a few more scriptures in Hebrews chapter 11, and I'm going to look very, very quickly at Abraham and Moses. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 13. These all died, this is speaking about Abraham primarily, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. Abraham lived for a hundred years in tents. He could have built himself a city, could have built himself a house, but he says, no I'm a stranger, because I'm looking for that city which God has promised me. A city that has a builder, and whose maker is God, and that has foundations. But I want you to see, having seen them afar off, Abraham sees 6,000 years almost in the future. Abraham lived 2,000 years before Christ, in fact 5,000 years. 2,000 years before Christ, from Christ to now is 2,000 years, so that's already 4,000 years. If Jesus comes tomorrow, there's another thousand years of the millennium before heaven happens, before the New Jerusalem. He sees the New Jerusalem, so he sees 5,000 years in the future. Most of us can't even see to the end of this crisis. Most of us can't even see through to August, and yet here's Abraham, and he's looking 5,000 years in the future, and he says I'm not going to settle for anything now. I want what God has for me in the future. But having seen them afar off, we're assured of them, and embrace them. Can you see the difference between Abraham and Israel? Israel is embracing the things of the world, chasing the things of the world, and Abraham says, no there's something far greater, and I'm going to embrace that. I'm going to tie, and remember we spoke about this a few weeks ago, I'm going to put my anchor in heaven. That's where I'm going to tie my fortunes to. That's where I'm going to put my hope on. They were assured of them. They embraced them, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims. For those who say such things declare plainly they seek a homeland. And truly if they'd called to mind the country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. And then I want to look in verse 24 of Hebrews 11 at Moses. By faith Moses when he had come out of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. So Moses is raised as a prince in Pharaoh's house. He's living in palaces. He has the best tutors in the world. He has according to Acts chapter 7 the best education that you could have bought at that time. He's surrounded by the power, and the majesty, and the splendor, and the science, and the art, and the technology, and all of the stuff that Egypt represents. And then it says in verse 25, he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. And remember that Moses' struggle really is not sin in the sense of adultery, or drunkenness, or any of those kinds of things. The sin here is just doing what he wants to do as opposed to the will of God. And he says, I'm going to turn my back on these things. I'm going to become a slave together with Israel. And of course it's a picture of Jesus of course, but it's also a lesson to us. So he chooses rather to suffer affliction of the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. Now just think of what it's saying here. He esteemed the reproach of Christ. What is the reproach of Christ? It's the cross. Can't be anything else. There is nothing up to the cross that speaks of a reproach on Jesus. There's nothing after the cross that speaks about a reproach. Only the cross is the reproach. And so there is Moses looking thousands of years in the future and he sees the cross. Quite an amazing thing. He doesn't have the New Testament. He doesn't have the benefit of hindsight that we have. He looks into the future and he sees the cross and he says, that's what I want, rather than what Egypt has to offer. Can you see the difference between Moses and the people of Israel? And then the key in that word is, in verse 40, he looked to the reward. He looked at the end of the conversation. I want to remind you, let's look at the end of the conversation. And then the verse that I've quoted, and again, as I say, I haven't done this on purpose, but it's just come up every week for the last several weeks, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. But we need to get our eyes in the right place. Let's get our eyes off the world. Let's get our eyes off the problems of the world, off the attractions of the world, off what the world is able to offer, whether it is in the sense of worldly things or even whether they are spiritual things, but they are worldly in nature. And let's get them on the Lord Jesus. And then the final scripture I want to share with you this morning is Luke chapter 21, verse 28, in the context of the time in which we're living. Now when these things begin to happen, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws nigh. Jesus is coming. And so don't look down. Don't look for solutions in this world. Don't look for satisfaction in this world. Don't look for justice in this world. It's never going to happen. Look up, because Jesus is coming. We need, and I wish that, and I wouldn't do that because I know that we would turn that into an idol, but I wish that we could put little ribbons on the ends of our garments to remind us to be looking up. Every time maybe we should have a blue thing next to the television. Every time we look at all the problems in the world that we may be reminded to look up, because our redemption is drawing near. When we look at all the stuff that we're dealing with, the frustrations of being hemmed in and not being able to go where we want to go, and all of these things, let's look up, because Jesus is coming again. Let's fix our eyes on him, the author and the finisher of our faith. Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you, Lord, that there is a plan and there is a scheme flowing right through the Word of God. Lord, I pray that you'd help us not to be like the children of Israel who were lusting after earthly things, complaining about your provision. But Lord, that we may understand that even in the midst of the crisis and in the midst of the challenges that we find in modern life, we have enough in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is everything that we need. Lord, I pray that you'd help us never to become disgruntled with him, never to become dissatisfied in complaining. But Lord, that we may just enjoy your wonderful provision in your Word and in your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to put this into practice. It's easy, Lord, for us to listen to a message like this and to come to a conclusion. That's what we need to do. And yet the moment that we face the next challenge in our life, Lord, we seem to forget and we just long for some kind of earthly solution and earthly answer. But Lord, I pray that you'd have a blue ribbon somehow in our minds, that whenever we see these things, whenever we're obsessed with the stuff of the world, whenever we're drawn to the things of the world, help us, Lord, to be looking up, because Jesus is coming and he's coming soon. We ask that you'd help us. Go with each one, Lord, as we go on with our daily living in our homes and wherever we are. I pray, Lord, that your Word would continue to teach us and draw us until Jesus comes. We ask this in his name. Amen.