{"id":4306,"date":"2022-10-12T02:35:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T07:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4306"},"modified":"2022-10-12T02:35:05","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T07:35:05","slug":"devotional-on-numbers-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-numbers-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-eR1efk9vTHU\/XUnopn3aANI\/AAAAAAAA-Gc\/_iCd_gplzlMOqQAQ0TmF1C1ebmrhDD_HgCKgBGAs\/s1600\/P6199507.JPG\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Mt Rainier National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThere\u2019s sin and then there\u2019s Sin with a capital \u201cS\u201d<br \/>\nNumbers 15: The person&#8230;who sins defiantly, deliberately blaspheming God, must be cut off from his people.<br \/>\nThis chapter of the book of Numbers returns to the subject of the resolution of sin.  Sometimes, we\u2019re told, people blunder into sin and don\u2019t even know they\u2019ve done wrong.  In fact, the whole nation can mess up like that.  Once the failure\u2019s realized, they\u2019re to confess it and then take steps to repair the crack in their relationship with God.  As we\u2019ve seen before that involves the death of a scarified animal and the application of its innocent blood.  However, the Law clearly distinguishes between sins of error and intentional sin.  Animal sacrifices offer no hope to someone who \u201cdeliberately despised God\u2019s word\u201d and \u201cviolated God\u2019s command.\u201d  Such a person is no longer numbered among God\u2019s people.  This passage goes on to give an example of such intentional failure.  In this case, the penalty is death.  It\u2019s easy to see that the Old Testament Law distinguishes between mistakes and intentional failure.  Both are called \u201csin\u201d but one is a hundred times more serious than the other.  Sin with a lower case \u201cs\u201d receives an automatic portion of grace as one realizes the failure and moves to make things right.  Sin with a capital \u201cS\u201d brings death.  Now, having said all that, I\u2019m glad the story doesn\u2019t end here.  Due to the fact that human beings are sinners by nature we\u2019re all guilty of death dealing sin.  We should all be taken out of the camp and executed for our intentional spiritual failure.  Thankfully, in Jesus Christ there\u2019s hope even here.  Because of Jesus, Paul writes, we\u2019re \u201cnot under law but under grace.\u201d  He also says, \u201cWhere sin increased, grace increased all the more.\u201d  What a wonderful difference the Son of God makes, dealing not only with sin but also with Sin with a capitol \u201cS.\u201d<br \/>\nTake Away: We\u2019re recipients of grace and its grace that we need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s sin and then there\u2019s Sin with a capital \u201cS\u201d Numbers 15: The person&#8230;who sins defiantly, deliberately blaspheming God, must be cut off from his people. This chapter of the book of Numbers returns to the subject of the resolution of sin. Sometimes, we\u2019re told, people blunder into sin and don\u2019t even know they\u2019ve done [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522,7],"tags":[145,894,939,996],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13965,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306\/revisions\/13965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}