Flee for Refuge | Sunday, August 23, 2020

Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun, that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live: Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. (Deuteronomy 4:41-43)

Hidden in just seventy-one words is a picture of how far God will go to provide mercy to the guilty—and where we must flee to find it.

Coming to an Ancient Text Expecting Relevance

This morning we continue our study in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, considering the statutes and judgments of God that were the basis for His relationship with the nation of Israel 3,400 years ago. The book of Exodus describes how God redeemed and rescued Israel from 400 years of bondage in Egypt. This story is familiar in Western culture—from Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments to The Prince of Egypt to Christian Bale's Exodus: Gods and Kings—because we still live in a Judeo-Christian culture.

But most conceptualizations of the stories of the Pentateuch have been largely mythologized in our day. Most people you interact with have a limited knowledge of the Old Testament, and what they do know they regard as archaic myths telling us little more than what worldviews were like two and a half millennia ago. For the Christian, these are histories recorded for a purpose. We believe they are given by inspiration of God, intended to teach us about Him—how and what He does, why He does it, and how we ought to interact with Him.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

For those connected with Cross Connection for any length of time, you know I reference this passage often. It helps us understand why Christians for twenty centuries have held such a high regard for the Bible. We believe Scripture is inspired, infallible, and inerrant in the original autographs. It is an audacious claim, but it has been the orthodox view since the very beginning of the church—and these words from Paul were penned within four decades of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

I bring this up because it can be challenging to find relevance in a passage like the one before us. But because of 2 Timothy 3, I come to a passage like this presupposing its relevance and application. I come with the anticipation and expectation that God has something here for me to learn about Him, how He works, and what He expects. I hope you will do the same when you open the Bible—at the very least praying that God would open your eyes to behold wonderful things from His law. I'm convinced Deuteronomy 4 holds some of those wonderful things.

A Reminder of Mercy in the Midst of the Law

We began several weeks ago talking about the law of God in Deuteronomy. I've entitled this series Statutes and Judgments because that is what this section contains. As Israel prepared to enter the promised land, Moses, the great lawgiver, stood before the people to remind them of the stipulations of their covenant relationship, so it would be fresh in their minds how they were to live before God in His land.

This is the same thing my wife and I do with our kids virtually every time we go to someone's home. Right before we arrive, we get their attention in the car and say, "Remember our expectations," and then go through four or five things we expect of them.

Here is something I appreciate about God. As He rehearses His statutes, He says, "Here are my expectations; you are my people, and this is how my people behave." But in the midst of those expectations, He pauses to remind them of His mercy. We saw this in verse 31:

For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

God is gracious. The ultimate purpose of God's law is not our moral perfection; its ultimate purpose is to show us God's perfection and our inadequacy—and it is really good at that. God's law is a reflection of His nature; it reveals His purity and highlights our imperfection. So in the midst of revealing His perfection through His law, He reminds us of His mercy. That is what we have in verses 41 through 43.

God Goes to Great Lengths to Provide Mercy to the Guilty

I believe this passage teaches us, among other things, that God goes to great lengths to provide mercy to the guilty. Why? Because it is His very nature. It is what God leads with when He introduces Himself in Exodus 34:6:

The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

He does not overlook sin or acquit the guilty, but He is by default merciful. When we get into chapter 5, we will consider the Ten Commandments—the second time Moses rehearsed them before all Israel, which is why the book is called Deuteronomy, literally "second law." The first time was forty years prior, in Exodus 20.

To make sense of these verses, remember that the sixth commandment is "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17). I don't think any rightly minded individual would disagree that murder is wrong, and its wrongness is evidenced by the strict sentence given to murderers:

He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:12)

Whatever your personal opinions about capital punishment, the Old Testament sentence for murder was clearly death. But that is not the whole story. Moses had more to say:

However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee. But if a man acts with premeditation against his neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you shall take him from My altar, that he may die.

The Provision of the Cities of Refuge

Moses provides further clarity in Numbers 35:

When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall appoint cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person accidentally may flee there... You shall appoint three cities on this side of the Jordan, and three cities you shall appoint in the land of Canaan, which will be cities of refuge.

Essentially, God provides mercy for the one guilty of unintended killing—what we would call manslaughter. In ancient times, if you killed someone you could expect to be killed for it, and it was customary in the ancient Near East for a near-of-kin family member, called the avenger of blood, to carry out that killing. It sounds like a comic-book character, but because God is merciful He made provision for the one who killed another without premeditation.

So in Deuteronomy 4:41-43, Moses makes good on this provision, establishing three of the six cities of refuge on the east side of the Jordan. The six cities—three on each side—were spaced so that they were effectively a day's journey from anywhere in the land. Deuteronomy 19 gives an example: imagine you are cutting down a tree with an axe, and the axe head slips off the handle and strikes your neighbor so that he dies. It wasn't intentional, but he's dead, and under the law you're dead too—unless you flee to the city of refuge.

Once there, a trial would be held before the elders. If it was determined to be manslaughter, the manslayer would remain alive in the city. But he had to stay; if he left, he could be killed. There was refuge and mercy only in the city. He would remain there until the death of the high priest of Israel, after which he was free to return home in peace.

They shall be for your refuge from the avenger of blood... and he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city. (Joshua 20)

Each of these six cities was established and maintained by the priestly tribe, the Levites, who were provided for by the tithes—really the taxes—of Israel. These cities were funded from the national treasury, and the roads and signs leading to them were to be well kept. God expected great care and expense to provide refuge and mercy. Why? Because God goes to great lengths to provide mercy to the guilty.

A "Waste" That Points to Calvary

Here is what I find fascinating. In all my study of Scripture, I can find no record of a city of refuge actually being used. I'm not saying they never were—I'm sure they were. Capital punishment could only be levied on the testimony of two or more witnesses, so a person involved in a death with only one witness would have been safe only in a city of refuge. But it was rare enough that it is never recorded in the Bible.

If you lived in ancient Israel, you probably didn't think much about the cities of refuge—and when you did, you may have thought, "What a waste of energy, money, time, and prime real estate for a bunch of criminals." Whether you lived three thousand years ago or today, you might be forgiven for thinking, "Irrelevant; this doesn't apply to me." And you would almost be right—until the day you stand gazing into the open eyes of a lifeless body at your feet, the race of your heart telling you that something awful has happened and that somehow you are to blame. Suddenly you remember the words of Moses: "Appoint for yourselves cities of refuge." And one little word begins to repeat in your head: run.

Two thousand years ago, an innocent man was brutally beaten and killed on a hilltop outside Jerusalem, a hill called Calvary, and He died because of your sin and mine. We are to blame. We all want to be the superhero, the avenger of blood, but the reality is we are the manslayers. We have blood on our hands—His blood on our hands. Unintentional though it may have been, we are guilty. And the One who died because of our sin has a near-of-kin avenger of blood: a Father who has every right to avenge the blood of His Son.

Flee to Christ for Refuge

So what can you and I do? There is only one answer, found in the only place the word "refuge" is used in the New Testament:

We... have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6)

Our only hope and only refuge as guilty sinners is to flee to Christ for shelter from the avenger of blood. For there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The Father demands justice for the death of His Son, but gives mercy to all who are in Him. Don't wait another moment. In Christ alone is refuge and mercy; He is our High Priest forever.

When we come to a passage that seems irrelevant, we need to understand Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 10—that all these things happened to Israel as examples for us, written for our learning, for us who live in these last days. These cities of refuge were written down to teach us something. Even though we can find no place in the Old Testament where they were used, they point to the refuge available to us in Jesus Christ.

So as we close, I encourage you not to read over these seventy-one words in a matter of seconds. Pause and pray, asking God what He wants to teach you about His nature and character. God goes to great lengths to provide mercy to the guilty, and you and I are guilty—guilty of the death of Jesus Christ by our sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive His righteousness. Apart from the refuge we find by putting our trust and faith in Him, we are open season for the avenger of blood. Flee to Him for refuge today.

Closing Prayer

Father, I pray that You would take these words from this passage of Scripture and cause them to go deep into our hearts. I'm sure some watching this morning don't attend church and would never walk into a church building, but they have no problem clicking on a link a friend texted them. God, I pray that You would speak, and that by Your Spirit You would soften the heart of one who has been running away from You, that they would turn and flee to find refuge in You.

We thank You that You have gone to great lengths to provide mercy for the guilty—not just in commanding Moses, Joshua, and Israel to construct the cities of refuge 3,400 years ago, but in going even further by sending Your Son, that we could find refuge in Him. Draw people to Yourself, to trust in You and find refuge in You; for even though You demand justice for the death of Your Son, You give mercy to those who put their trust and faith in Him. We thank You for that today, in Jesus' name. Amen.