Restitution

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word. Well, you have to know. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through the books of Genesis. No. No, we did the last year. Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews.
Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and get into God's Word. Milk tea. Father, we thank you so much that we have a blessing of having your word in a language we can read and understand. We pray that you please help us. Help us, Lord, to know what it says, know what it means, know what it meant to the Israelites, and also that your Spirit would give us wisdom in knowing how it should apply to our lives now. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Alright, so we're at Numbers chapter 5. Numbers chapter 5 and we're beginning at verse 5 and we'll read through verse 10. Okay, you want to read verse 5, Dan? Go ahead. Nathan, you want to pick up at verse 6? Speak to the children of Israel. When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit in unfaithfulness against the Lord, and that person is guilty, then he shall confess the sin which he has committed. He shall make resolution. Nope. Restitution. for his trespass in full, plus one-fifth of it, and give it to the one who has He who one he has wronged, but if the man has no relative to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for the wrong must go to the Lord for the priest, in addition to the Lamb of the atonement with which atonement is made for him. I'm going to let Debra read 9 and 10. Oh, you weren't following along. No, he was reading Kenneth.
Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel which they brought to their priest shall be his. And every man's holy things shall be his. Whatever a man gives the priest shall be his. Alright, so who's telling Moses to teach the people this?
God is, right? So God is giving this commandment. And he says if anybody finds themselves in their sinning, what are they supposed to do? There's two things they're supposed to do. Well, the first thing is verse 7. It's unfaithfulness against the Lord and that person is guilty, then he shall, verse 7, what's it say? You can read this too, Dan. What does he say in verse 7?
He shall what? Confess the sin. Confess the sin, right? The first step towards being made right is... Then he shall confess the sin. So when they were caught in a sin, what were they supposed to do? Confess. Confess it, right? Or if the Holy Spirit had convicted them. But that's not all, right? It's just saying, oh, I'm sorry. I did this wrong thing. That's scary enough. But what are you supposed to do after that?
Pay them. Well, pay them, but it may not be, like, what if it was they stole their ox, or they took their cart, or they borrowed an axe and never brought it back? They'd give them that and one-fifth of it? Yeah, so 20%, one-fifth, that's right. So if they took the ox, they'd give back the ox with Ox chops? Ox chops. They would probably give them some money, right? For one-fifth of what an ox would be worth.
Right? So the point is that... I thought it was meat. The point is that there was a punitive aspect, right? But there was also a restorative. So they had to pay restitution. And once there was the atonement ram sacrifice, it means you pay back what you've done wrong.
Let's say you find somebody's credit card. You find somebody's wallet laying on the road and you take their credit card and you steal from them. You take that credit card, you commit identity fraud and you use their credit card and you buy a thousand dollars worth of stuff. What should you have to do? You paid $1,050 back. Well, $1,200 back, right? So restitution. The point is, you make restitution. Why do you think the Lord didn't just make them pay the full amount back? Because she says time 7.
Well yeah, but I think that this is almost like an inconvenience fee, right? Did the person have to go cancel their credit card? Yeah. Did they have to suffer without their things? Yeah, and so this is essentially paying it even for their suffering, or for their loss, or for their inconvenience. It also makes the other person think it's not just a load. Like, oh I can take $100 from this person, but if I pay it back, so what? Yeah, no, right?
Well, how do we know that that's not how it was treated? Because what did they have to do on top of all of this? Give one-fifth. Well, give one-fifth, but... Like interest. Well, yeah, but notice what also it said. They had to take what to the Lord? Sacrifice. They had to take the sacrifice, that's right. But what if the person didn't have any relatives? What if they had died? Did that mean they were scot-free? Nope.
You have to find a relative. And if there's no relative, they give it to the Lord and give it to the priest. That's right. That's right. So it would go to the Lord's work. What if you didn't do anything and you returned it and gave them a little bit of the money even though you didn't take it or use anything? Well, I don't understand. If you didn't take it, then you wouldn't have stolen it or you wouldn't have sinned. I know but you pay them a little bit of money because they wanted to buy something. Well that's a whole different scenario. So that's a whole different case. So the point of this is right there's restitution. So between people there's restitution.
Now can you always make restitution when you commit a wrong against somebody? No. If you commit adultery against somebody can you pay restitution? Nope. If you speak words of hatred towards someone, could you make restitution? Nope. What if you murder someone, can you make restitution? No. Well, the Lord says in those cases, right, there's no restitution to be made. So my question is, how do we make restitution for our sins to God? We can't. We can't? So how are we made right with God if we sinned against Him?
Jesus was our Lord. That's right, Jesus was our restoration, right? Jesus paid the redemption price so we could be restored. So we see even here that God cares very deeply about justice and God cares very deeply about how we treat each other, but God has also made a way. And even though He's the one who is wronged, He restored us by giving His own Son even while we were yet sinners.
What do you guys think? Pretty good news? You think that means that you can show grace and mercy to other people too? Yeah, because that's the grace and mercy God showed us. Okay, let's go ahead and pray guys. Father, we thank you so much that you are a God who holds the scales and balance. You weigh right and wrong. You are righteous and just in all your ways, pure in all your being. You hate deceit and treachery.
And Father, we thank you that you have given us your Son. that even though we have sinned against you, you have restored us to a right relationship through His blood. Father, please let us be those types of people who would also uphold justice and what is right. But Lord, we pray that we would also be those types of people who would be quick to forgive, who would be willing to accept restitution. And maybe we might even have to recognize how much we've been restored and be reconciled because the restitution is in the blood of Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.