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Set up six cities as refugees

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[Numbers 35:10-11]

"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, select some towns to be your cities of refuge, to which a person

who has killed someone accidentally may flee.

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The people of Israel who came out of Egypt with the grace of God came to the plains of Moab by the guidance of Moses. There, God told Moses two important things.

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The first was about the land that the 11 tribes of Israel would receive when they entered the land of Canaan. When God entered Canaan, he allowed all the tribes except the Levites to have a land(possession) where they could live.

But he gave no land to the Levites who served God.

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Because the service of God, the duty of the tribe of Levi,

is a great blessing that is incomparable to receiving the land.

Instead, each of the tribes who received the land had to give 48 towns for the Levites to live on.

And God told Moses to let them have grasslands around the city.

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Then God said, "Six of them are refugees.<Nm 35:13>"

God told the Levites to use six of the 48 cities as refugees.

Why did God choose six refugees?

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It is intended to protect people who have killed people accidentally,

not intentionally.

The Bible contains a strict law on the murderer.

If someone committed a murder with bad intentions using iron weapons, stones, and trees, how would he be punished?

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Such a murderer must be put to death. God has made a murderer

who deliberately took the life of another person to pay for it by death.

According to God's law, the closest relative of the person killed was able to punish him by killing the murderer.

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Sometimes, however, someone accidentally kills a person.

For example, this is the case.

If a man accidentally took a heavy stone and dropped the stone by mistake,

and an accident occurred that the person was killed by the stone.

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This person had no intention to kill anyone at all.

And he did not hate the dead man.

But he certainly became a murderer who killed a person.

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In this way, a close relative of the dead according to the law may consider this man to be a murderer and kill him.

In such a case, the murderer would have to flee to 'refuge' to defend his life.

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When he arrives at the city of refuge, he can tell his situation to the elders.

The elders of the refugees who had heard of the matter had to send the man into the city to protect him, and even though the retributor followed him, he could not give him away.

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A murderer who escapes with refuge afterwards is adjudged as to whether his murder is a mistake.

Thus, if he was determined to have killed a person by mistake,

he could continue living in the city of refuge.

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He also had to live only in the refugees in order to be protected from the refugees.

If the person who accidentally killed a person went out of the city for any reason, the safety of life could not be guaranteed.

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But if a high priest died at the time, then all the sins of those who escaped with refuge were forgiven. For those who have been pardoned because of the death of the high priest, the revenge can no longer be redeemed.

The death of the high priest became a grace to forgive sin without condition.

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The 'refuge' in today's Word shows Jesus who is the Savior.

Just as a murderer can save his life by avoiding it as an escape, there is nothing but a way to escape to Jesus, the ‘refuge’, the way in which we become sinners and gain eternal life.

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Jesus, the true high priest, also completely forgave our filthy sin by dying on the cross!

It is the refuge that God has given us, and everyone who believes in Jesus, the High Priest, has eternal life!

We want to be all our friends who will always remember the grace of our Savior,

God who sent Jesus to us, and live a life that pleases God.

(This is the sample conclusion provided by CTM. Please feel free to change the conclusion to best suit the listeners of your sermon.)