Numbers 15:1-36

Punishment for Sabbath-breaking

Num 15:30-36

This incident has been the occasion of a good deal of jeering. It has often been quoted as an instance of extreme and intolerable severity, and has been cited against those whose reading of the Scriptures leads them to propose to keep the Sabbath day. The mocker has found quite a little treasure here. The incident is altogether so monstrous. The appeal made to common sense and human feeling is so direct and so urgent that there can be no reply to it The poor man was gathering sticks on the Sabbath day, and he had to forfeit his life for the violation of the law! If he had been gathering anything else, the fancy of the reader would not have been so suddenly struck; some grand phrase would have helped him through the difficulty; but when it was known that the poor man was only gathering "sticks," it seemed to be out of all proportion that he should lose his life. Many an amateur commentator has so spoken. No wonder. Men are the victims of phrases. Had the man been found gathering golden wedges out of other people's caskets, there might have been some proportion between the theft and the penalty; but to be gathering "sticks" and to die for it, does shock the pious fancy of heathen taken this course. A man who had painted the most beautiful picture ever produced by the human fancy and the human hand, would not of course be severe with anyone who had punctured the picture with a needle all over; though he might be a little irritated with any man who set fire to his work of art. A noble-minded artist would have said, Take no heed: it is only the puncture of a needle; if the picture had been ripped up with a knife I should have been angry, but seeing that it was but the point of a needle, perhaps it is as well done as not done; no notice should be taken of this, and no penalty shall be inflicted. No engineer would for a moment have allowed any such sense of disproportion to occur in his plans; when he sends a locomotive whirling at lightning pace across the land, he will say to it, If a fly should alight upon the rails you will pause; if an elephant should be there, or some mighty bird of prey, do what you will; but if a fly should be on the rail, you will stop, and in a spirit of pity, if not in a spirit of respect, you will allow the little trespasser to resume its wing. But law is impartial terrific yet gracious. It does not work along one line only: it is a guarantee, as well as a penalty; it brings with it in one hand a crown of righteousness, as certainly as it brings in the other a sword of judgment. It is here that we get wrong: we will not grasp the idea of sovereignty, law, order, progress according to divinely-philosophical methods; we will clip, and niggle, and compromise, and patch the universe where we have injured it, and think no one will see the seams we have made. Had the text read, And a certain man was found in the wilderness openly blaspheming God, and he was stoned to death, we should have had some sense of rest and harmony in the mind: the balance would seem to be complete. But that is the very sophism that is ruining us. We do not see the reality of the case. We think of huge sins; there are none. We think of little sins; there are none. We live in a region of fancy; we picture possibilities of sin. We play at the great game of jurisprudence, setting this against that, weighing, measuring, balancing, and telling-off things in definite quantities and relations. It is the spot that is ruin; it is the one little thing that spoils the universe. God cannot drive on his mighty committed, so-called, "little sins," and have perpetrated small and almost nameless trespasses. The whole conception is wrong. We are not fallen because we have committed murder in the vulgar sense of the term. When a man commits murder, there may be some palliation for the crime; there may be a stronger defence for murder than for one evil word. It is easy to imagine how eloquence could warm up into a noble speech on behalf of the man who, carried away by a sudden gust of passion, had perpetrated some dreadful deed; but there is no eloquence that can expand itself for one moment and keep its own respect in defence of backbiting, whispering, evil-thinking and all the miserable pedantry of righteousness; on that side no advocate can be found: an advocate disdains the fee that would bribe his speech; it is mean, contemptible, indefensible. Yet we who reason so in ordinary affairs become quite amateur divinities in relation to the poor man who went out on the Sabbath day to gather a bundle of "sticks." We will look at the "sticks" and not at the Sabbath. We say, It was but a drop of blackness; but we forget that the robe on which it fell was a robe of ineffable purity. A drop here or there upon a garment already stained will count for nothing; but who could not see even one ink-blot on the white purity of the Jungfrau? Every eye would seem to be fastened upon it; no notice would be taken of it in the murky valley; but on that shining whiteness on that snowy purity it is an offence that cannot be forgiven; the man who wantonly flung that blot on such purity is a base man in his heart. Why not look at the reality of the case of every case of our own case and, instead of trying to reduce the enormity by dwelling upon the relative smallness of the offence, fix the imagination and the judgment and the conscience upon the thing violated? for only in that way can we establish the balance of righteousness and begin to understand the movement of God.

Obedience can only be tested by so-called little things. It is in relation to little things that a character stands or falls as to its wholeness and reality of good purpose. We are all prepared for state occasions. There is not a man in the world, surely, who has not some robe of respectability he can wear on festive days and notable anniversaries. That arrangement gives no indication of the real substance and tissue of the man's character. We are all prepared to be heroic; but a man cannot live in ostentatious heroism all his days. We are only too glad of an opportunity to play the hero; it is an hour's work, or a day's endurance, and its history will be written in large letters, and men will speak about it, and fame will come to us, we only long for the occasion and we will provide the man. It is quite easy to join in a great demonstrative procession to show on which side we are. Human nature does not altogether dislike processions; there is something in the human heart that inclines it towards display. To be part of a great host, marching to the blare of trumpet and the touch of drum, all to show on which side we are, is quite an easy piece cf display and is no test of obedience. Who is not ready to watch by the death-bed of the most loved one? The night will bring no weariness the day and the night shall be run into one common time, and no heed shall be taken of the exhaustion of the flesh; it will be a proud delight; the sacrifice will bring its own heaven with it. We long to show in some such crisis how loyal is our love. It is not so that life is measured by the Living One who is the Judge of all the earth; he does not look at state occasions, at heroic opportunities, at processional displays, at death-bed attendances; he looks at the little things of daily life. Where one man is called to be a hero on some great scale, ten thousand men are called to be courteous, gentle, patient; where one has the opportunity of being great on the battlefield of a death-bed, all have opportunity of being good in hopefulness, charity, forgiveness, and every grace that belongs to the Cross of Christ; where one has the opportunity of joining a great procession, ten thousand have the opportunity of assisting the aged, helping the blind, speaking a word for the speechless, and putting a donation into the hand of honest poverty. Let us realise the truth of the doctrine that we are not called upon to display our obedience upon a gigantic scale within the theatre of the universe and under the observation of angels, but to go out into the field and work with bent back and willing hands and glad hearts, doing life's simple duty under Heaven's inspiration and encouragement. The man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day might have been quite a great man on festival occasions when all Israel had to be dressed in its best; he might have been one of the foremost of the show. You discover what men are by their secret deeds, by what they do when they suppose nobody is looking, by what they are about when they are suddenly pounced upon. Give a man notice that his obedience is to be inquired into, and then how prepared he is! But the man is not what he is at that particular moment, but what he was a few moments before, and what he will be a few moments after. It is only by so-called little things minor moralities, punctuality, civilities, penny honesties, that we can understand what we are and estimate the quality of the character of others.

People will always be more willing and ready to punish than to obey: "all the congregation... stoned him with stones." The congregation was glad of the opportunity: anything for a new sensation; anything for a change from the intolerable monotony of the wilderness. Stoning a man made a little bubble on the quiet river of the day's sluggish life; moreover, it looked well to be stoning somebody else; there is a kind of indirect respectability about it. What a heroic people! You would not judge from this verse what a history we have read through up to the time of its being written in the record. These are not the people who mourned, and murmured, and complained, and rebelled against Moses and fought against Heaven, and turned away from righteousness and forgat the Living God? They are unanimous in stoning the Sabbath-breaker; they would have been equally as unanimous in stoning Moses. A word has no sense when it comes to decision and distinctions of this kind. We are all, perhaps, more ready to punish than to obey; when we condemn the action of another, we seem to add to our own piety in public estimation. Herein we do not live in the Mosaic day. Is there no stoning under the Christian dispensation? Yes. By what rule is that stoning determined? A very easy one and most equitable. Christ laid it down, and Christ is our one Law-giver the true Moses of the Church. We bring a man to him, saying, Lord, we found this man gathering sticks on the Lord's day, what is to be done to him? Stone him. How? "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." And beginning at the eldest, right away down to the youngest, they all slink out and leave the sabbath-breaker to face the Founder of the day. That is the right law of stoning may it never be changed! Jesus, Son of God, thou wast never so dear to human hearts, conscious of their guilt and burning with shame, as when thou didst say to the pious hypocrites of thy time, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone"; thou art Saviour; these words will keep thy crown above all other crowns, long as the ages of time shall breathe, or the larger ages of eternity roll on in infinite duration. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." There must be punishment, but let us take care how it is administered. If there be no stone-throwing until pure hands begin, no stones will be thrown. We are speaking now within the boundaries of the Church, within the sanctities of the holy place, not of political and municipal life, but of that inner and spiritual existence and relation explained in the person and priesthood of the Son of God.

We must not delude ourselves with the notion that there are sins which are of no consequence. We say that the man in question may be guilty of telling a lie, but he was never guilty of committing a murder. What is the difference? There is none. You say, He may be a little unforgiving, but he never murdered anyone; therefore we invite him to dinner, we travel with him on the road, we recognise him in public, we cheer him when he rises to address a Christian assembly on Christian topics. We say, Such and such a man may be a little censorious in speech, but he was never known to be drunk. What is the difference? There is more said in the Bible against pride than is said against drunkenness; there is more said in the Bible against censorious-ness than is said against unchastity. We are wrong. We are back among the beggarly elements; we have not come into the sanctuary in which we see spiritual doctrine, spiritual judgment, heart-work; and until we enter that holy place and read the smallest print of the divine record, do not let us suppose we can rival the kingdom of God or annotate with our pointless comments the wisdom of Heaven. The kingdom of heaven is within. Piety is not abstinence from vulgar crime: it is consecration to spiritual purpose and perpetual aspiration after spiritual ideals. Whoso hateth his brother without a cause is guilty of murder. He who has told a lie will break the Sabbath. He who has broken God's Sabbath understanding that term in its amplest meaning and intention has violated to the measure of his power the purity and sanctity of Heaven. The law is one; the universe is one; God is one. He that offendeth in the least offendeth in all. But we cannot have new works till we become new workers, and we cannot become new workers except by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. Said the Son of God, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again."

Note

The Seventh Day in every week was "set apart" as a day in which no work was to be done; the seventh year was "set apart" as a year in which no seed was to be sown; and at the end of seven times seven years, there was a great festival during which the whole land was to rest, and when debts were to be cancelled, alienated estates to return to their owners, and slaves to be set free.

Consecrated Men, consecrated Property, consecrated Space, consecrated Time, declared that God still claimed the world as his own, and that in all the provinces of human life he insisted on being recognised as Lord of all.

The separation of the Sabbath from the common uses of other days was an essential part of a vast and complicated system for the assertion and maintenance of certain great spiritual ideas. I do not wonder at the severity of the penalty attached to the crime of Sabbath-breaking. The high-priest himself was forbidden, under the penalty of death, to enter the Holy of Holies on any other than the Day of Atonement. To violate the sanctity of that mysterious chamber was a profanation of the Space which God claimed as his own; to violate the Sabbath was a profanation of the Time which God claimed as his own. The defence of the sanctity of the Sabbath was exceptionally necessary in the early times of Jewish history. Before synagogues were built and public worship was celebrated in every part of the country, the vast majority of the people, but for the institution of the Sabbath, would have been seldom reminded of God, except when they went up to Jerusalem to keep the great feasts. The weekly rest from their common labour was a constantly recurring appeal to them to remember the God of their fathers.

Dr. Dale's Ten Commandments.

Prayer

Almighty God, when thou dost hide thyself from us the time is long and weary even to intolerableness; when thou dost light up the horizon with the spring time then all things are beautiful and full of joy, and the whole earth is a beautiful sanctuary. We love thee to be near us; when thou art near we are safe; when thou art near we are without timidity or distress of any kind. We say, The Lord hath called us up, therefore will we be safe, though the enemy press upon us with a heavy hand and threaten us with deadly frowning. Our confidence is in God, not only in his almightiness, but in his eternal, immeasurable affection for us; his great heart, his perpetual love the love that died that we might live. We will count upon God; he shall be the centre of our calculation. When we think of the future, we will think of the great future, eternity; and not of the little fretful future, to-morrow full of vexation and noise and angry tumult. We bless thee that we have the foresight that sees eternity, whilst our eyes are holden that they may not see to-morrow. Thou dost give long sight to thy Church. Thou wilt not permit us to pry into the next day, but thou hast given us revelations concerning the next world. This is thy wonderful way. Thou dost move by vast lines. Thou wouldest draw us forward by a wondrously-comprehensive education We bless thee for the largeness of the wisdom by which we are governed, as well as for the depth of the love by which we are saved and redeemed for ever. Thou dost look upon us; thou dost watch us body, soul, and spirit; no part of us is exposed to the divine neglect; thou dost see our hand, our foot, our heart; thou lookest into us altogether, and if there is any evil way in us thou art troubled by its wicked presence. Do thou give us to feel this, and to say, morning, noon and night, Thou God seest me not lookest upon me only, but seest me in every thought, feeling, motive, purpose, in the whole interior mystery of our being. Thus our life will be spent in heaven's light, and all our days shall be numbered and shall be regarded from on high. All the way is thine. Such a varied way it is: sometimes all sward, green and soft and velvet-like, with hedges on either side, rich with blossom, musical with song; and sometimes it is all gates, and stiles, and difficult places: the roads are many, and large, and rough, and the way altogether is without hospitality or comfort; still it is part of the long mileage part of the way ending in the brightest land. May we accept all the road, even through the churchyard, and through the desert, and across the river, and up the steep hill, and believe that the way is all regulated and determined for us by the wisdom of the infinite Father. We bless thee if we have any hope in this direction, for it is natural to us to be frivolous, superficial, living in the present moment, and if we can extract a laugh from heart are we; but if thy kingdom has touched us with its glory and ennobled us by its sublimity so that now and again even we have larger thoughts, nobler purposes, wider outlooks, behold, we thank thee for this increase of life; and now we understand in part what Jesus Christ meant when he said, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly like wave upon wave of life, a great river of life, pure as crystal, beginning in God's throne, and winding its wondrous way back to its own origin. We would be wise sometimes we think so at least; we would live the noble life, free from all canker, care, and distress; we would dwell in God; we would say in the time of thirst, The river of God is full of water, and in the time of famine, The wheatfields of heaven are never exhausted. Thus living in the upper liberties in the very heavens of the divine presence we would do to-day's work with a clear head, a loving heart, and a willing hand, and count all life a sacrifice that it may become a joy. Thou hast brought thy people together from varied homes into one house. This is a hint of the great meeting, the eternal fellowship: men shall be brought from all lands, and with all accents shall sing one song. We hope in this: we would not have this sacred forecast overclouded; it makes time easy; and labour light, and suffering but a momentary pang. We give ourselves, our houses, our businesses all into thine hands. We want to succeed, we are determined to succeed, we are ashamed of failure, and we will resolve again and again to make life a solid success; but when we have made this resolution, if our idea of success be wrong, we are willing that it should be foregone, and that we should die without house, or friend, or helper, if it be better for our soul's health that our body should thus decay. We will put ourselves into the Father's hand, without wish, or will, or thought, or desire, that we cannot subordinate to his purposes: we will utter our little prayer, and then leave God to give what answer he may. But to one prayer thou wilt return the answer which we need. God be merciful unto us sinners; wash us in the atoning blood of Christ; speak out of the mystery of eternity to this guilty time, and say to every soul, Son, daughter, thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee. Amen.