Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / June 4, 2026 - Numbers 16 & Psalm 119:25-32

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June 4, 2026 - Numbers 16 & Psalm 119:25-32 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word letting the way.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Today is Thursday, June 4th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a quick summary of Numbers 16.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Number 16 details Korah's rebellion.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a group of people from Korah and the surrounding even family and clans that are angry with Aaron and Moses, and they make that known and they rebel ultimately against the Lord, against Moses and Aaron, and God dramatically opens up the ground and swallows them.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it literally says in the text that they go down to Sheol alive.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so they are punished for their wickedness and their rebellion.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And even broader Israel, even beyond those who were swallowed up in the ground, are grumbling against Moses and against Aaron.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And God brings a plague.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there were 14,700 people who died in the affair of Korah, it says, and there were also those who were struck down with a plague.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of things going on, lots of judgment that we see here because God's people are rejecting him.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: They are rebelling against him.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: They are showcasing their sin and their disobedience.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we see in Numbers 16.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Give me life according to your word.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I told of my ways you answered me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Teach me your statutes, make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: My soul melts away for sorrow.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Strengthen me according to your word.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Put false ways far from me, and graciously teach me your law.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have chosen the way of faithfulness.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I set your rules before me.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I cling to your testimonies, O Lord.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let me not be put to shame.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Number sixteen, Tyler, is a wild ride.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: We see sin, wickedness, rebellion, Korah really leading the charge.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the rebellion of Korah, really, or Korah's rebellion.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh ultimately, why did they do it?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it says really in verses kind of two and three, verse three, really, of number 16.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: They they Korah speaking, you have gone too far, Moses and Aaron.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So essentially they're saying, Who do you think you are?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're not our leaders.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: We did not elect you.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: They they wanted a democracy, but but God they wanted more effect.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: They they wanted uh maybe a vote.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: They maybe they wanted the position of power, uh, but but they're trying to collapse God's intended structure and intended order.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then it even says, Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's so interesting is the language there, exalt yourselves.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now we've been reading Exodus, Leviticus, and of course now Numbers, and we know the details of who it was that quote unquote exalted Moses and Aaron, going all the way back to Egypt.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Moses sort of kicking and screaming was like, God, I don't want to do this.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not me, I don't want to do this.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so God elected Aaron to kind of be his mouthpiece, to be his companion.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, God was the one that chose them, that enlisted them, that put them in the positions that they were in, much to specifically Moses' uh his just complaining and his uh his discomfort.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: His discomfort.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that language is is fascinating.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you can kind of hear the jealousy, yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can hear uh the the envy in this, the pride, of course.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you think you are, Moses and Aaron?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you have quote unquote special access to the Lord?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you get to go into the different parts of the the holy of holies that we can't?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you get to stand at the face of the holy place and speak to the Lord when the cloud, uh which is the presence of the Lord, is is there?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and literally Korah is saying, You have gone too far.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you have uh elected yourselves, you know, everyone is the same, we're all the same, there's no differences, there's no structure.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it says, Everyone in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And even later on it says that why have you made yourself a prince over us?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what's interesting is the response that Moses and Aaron have uh really kind of gets to the heart.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be priests.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: They they want they they they perceive the priesthood as maybe some sort of special status or some sort of special uh yeah, I don't know, you could say class of people.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, and you and would you seek priesthood also?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is verse uh 11.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so there's this sense of that they want something that God has not given them.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And really what they're rebelling against, again, it's not Moses and Aaron, of course, it is uh in in terms of what who they're accusing and who they're pointing their fingers at, but who was it that instituted this structure?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Who was it that that put this uh system, if we can call it that, into place where there's the tribe of of Levi and the priest, and not even not everyone in the tribe of Levi, by the way, was a priest, uh, just the those who were of the line and lineage of Aaron.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there was even a subsection of a subsection of Israel.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you had the tribe of Levi, uh, who, of course, Aaron is a part of.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just those who were the sons of Aaron who were the priests, and then the Levites, they had their place in as well in the service of the tabernacle.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but God set that up.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: That this was God's intention, and of course, he makes that very clear, even in Numbers.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's been multiple references already of Egypt and uh the Levites being compared to the firstborn uh that God sets aside for himself.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So this is God's structure, this is God's system.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is, if you want to use this word, this is God's hierarchy.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: We we even in America were uncomfortable with that kind of word.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that's what God does.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: He places these certain people in these certain positions, and the Korah and the Korites and the those who were following uh in this rebellion, they wanted nothing of it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so they rebelled against God.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I have so many parallels in my mind, Tyler, to our culture today.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I just let's if we started with the church as an example.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: How often do we hear um this sort of thing said to pastors, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you think you are?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you have gone too far.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone in the church is the same, we're all holy, and of course, we are the same at the foot of the cross in terms of dignity and being made in the image of God.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that there is no intrinsic value that pastors hold.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, there is there is a uh there's an order of things that God Himself has instituted, and people get really upset by that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: People don't like the ideas of leaders, and of course, in our in our context, leaders uh represent moral failure, unfortunately, more often uh than not.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we see this sort of parallel where people are like, I don't want to have anything to do with pastors, pastors have no spiritual authority, that really pastors aren't even biblical.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You hear all that kind of stuff.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's just one example.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the family structure, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: What do we hear about in the family?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, husbands are the head of the household.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, who do they think they are?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we wanna we want to have equality, we want to have uh according to our terms, how we define equality.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me decide how how to live my life.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is more of a suggestion.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's ways that people kind of pick a carte what they want to submit to in the scriptures in in what passages they're like, eh, but that was for that context.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was that's outdated now.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, we submit to the word of God in full.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: From the very beginning, yeah, and even you tell you you tell just a plain biblical truth that wives are to submit to their husbands, and you're gonna get you have gone too far.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Why then do you exalt yourselves, husbands, above the assembly of the Lord?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't like God's institutions, we don't like his design, uh, often in our flesh.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: We don't like the order that he has created, both in the home, in the church, in society.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we buck against authority of really every kind, and we see that reality played out here in such a dramatic way where God institutes the priesthood, he institutes Moses and Aaron, he places them.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's this whole ordination ceremony.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very clearly spelled out in Leviticus.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they didn't just elect themselves, they didn't just, you know, have a backroom meeting where they said, Who wants to be a leader?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they just pointed to themselves and said, I guess we'll do it.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: This was something that God did.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so Korah and those who were following him, they didn't want anything to do with it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Their jealousy, their envy, uh, their lack of submission ultimately to the Lord led to them rebelling against God and ultimately cost them their lives.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what an important warning, what an important reminder for us that even though sometimes the way that God has structured things might offend our modern sensibilities, they nevertheless need to be submitted to, submitted to, and obeyed.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: We we should look at Korah and say, that's us in our flesh.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to do what God has said, we don't want to submit to God's design, we don't like God's order, and we we need to recognize that in our flesh, in our sin, when we are given over to those things, uh, it can lead to a rebellion and a rejection of God's very word.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's serious.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is a serious warning.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, I'm not saying that the ground is gonna open and swallow you up, swallow you up, but nevertheless, this is a serious thing that we need to recognize that we're not far from Korah in our in our modern context, that there are plenty of things.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty uh of what God has designed and instituted in creation and in the world and how families operate that we just don't like in our flesh.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: We need to check ourselves by God's word today and to heed the warning of Korah, that we don't point our fingers at God, we don't point our fingers at the way that He has designed things and try to subvert what He has created and intended.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's an important warning for us here in Numbers 16 that we need to heed today.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as uh I look over to the psalm, PJ, I I see um an unintended, ironic pun in the in the opening verse.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um the psalmist says, My soul clings to the dust.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I mean, essentially, that's what the people who were swallowed up by the ground, they were literally consumed by the ground.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in some other translations, this first verse says, uh, my soul is cleaved to the dust.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we see the psalmist crying out for the Lord to provide life.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh outside of the Lord and his provision of our soul's eternal life, there is only death.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is only death.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is a binary uh world that we live in.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's either life or death spiritually.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's no in-between.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the the heart of the psalmist is is looking at uh his relationship with the Lord, even in verse, uh the second verse 26, the confession to the Lord uh that he is making, I told you of my ways, uh, and you answered.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Teach me your statutes.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this this Psalm 119 is so rich and focuses so so intently on the commandments of the Lord.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as we parallel in uh the book of Numbers, there's a there's a lot of a lot of uh complementary chapters that we're gonna see here where we see the word of God and the leadership of God and the authority of God disregarded.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then in contrast, the psalmist looking to the word of God and saying, uh, I need to run in the way of your commandments.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I need to only stay in this lane that you've put me in.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and that is such an encouragement to me this morning.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that I uh I've kind of started doing as we work through Psalm 119 section by section.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now just remember that this is basically modeled after the Hebrew um alphabet.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be 22 sections, it's highly organized, uh, and that's it's an acrostic.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, it's it's it's just a beautiful piece of literature.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing that I've been trying to do is actually just pull out all of the imperatives or like the requests that are given specifically.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So in this one, it give me life, right?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Teach me your statutes, make me understand, strengthen me, put false ways far away.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh teach me your law just over and over and over again.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that basically that's a prayer list for us today.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Lord, give me life.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, teach me your statutes, help me to understand your precepts, help me to even meditate on your wondrous works.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: God, strengthen me.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am so weak, I am fragile.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Without the spirit of God and the grace of God, we are Korah, we are rebels, we are shaking our fists at God's precepts, his commands, his designs, his order, and we need help.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: God help help help us to put false ways far from us, because in our flesh, if we're not walking by the spirit, we cling to that which is ungodly and unholy.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so we need help.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: We need help from the Lord.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we we should ask him, as it says there in verse 29, graciously teach me your law.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what a great, just even practice as you read through Psalm 119.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you just to take out those requests.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of, if you've got a margin in your Bible, pull them out in the margin and kind of just have that be your prayer list for the day.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And even as we looked at yesterday, uh the one of the first requests is open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um these are rich prayer requests, these are biblical, of course, scriptural prayer requests.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And these are things that God delights to answer.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think what a great way for us to kind of fuel our prayer life specifically through Psalm 119, which is taking these very requests uh that the psalmist is bringing to the Lord and connecting to his words, his commandments, his precepts.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: He has so many different words, his law, and bringing those before the Lord and asking that he would do the same thing for us that the psalmist was asking him to do for him.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I love uh verse 27.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm imagining a kiddo on the playground in elementary school being told by another peer to do something, and with arms crossed, they say, Make me.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Make me.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in this sense, we see in this verse, we see we see a a humble, uh reverent, a a desperate and dependent man saying, Make me understand, because I don't.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Make me, help me, show me, make me understand the way of your precepts.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this next, this, this next line.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I will meditate on your wondrous works.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I made a T chart in the margin.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in in this verse, I I I wrote down the person that is is meditating, is, is intentionally choosing to fix their mind on on God's provision, the things that God has done in his word in the past for his people and in our own lives.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's a great encouragement for me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I look down to the conclusion of this passage, uh in 32, verse 32, it says, I will run.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when at the bottom you might have a uh a number or a letter next to heart.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in my Bible, it says, uh for heart it says, or for you set my heart free.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm thinking of uh birds or different different fast animals that just go with enthusiasm and energy.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we see the clear path before us, there's freedom, there's liberty to obey God and bring him glory and do it with with vigor and with zeal and with great enthusiasm.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a a joy that we can look and see that there is a freedom and a call, that there is great work to do, and there is a great task ahead of us, and and God commands it and he approves of it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's so great to see God's word and and to step and follow in obedience in in those commands.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as you were saying that I was just reminded of the beginning of our study of Hebrews 3, where we've been talking about true rest and uh Hebrews 3 1 says, Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then that word consider again means to kind of fix your mind, fix your thoughts and your heart on Jesus.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And what better way to do that than what Psalm 119 is saying?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: When um we are to just ask the Lord, make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate, I will fix my mind on your wondrous works.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Open my eyes, and I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And as we fix our mind, as we fix our hearts and our eyes on Jesus, we'll find uh that our obedience increases, our um submission to God's design and order that he intends um increases because again, that that's not a natural thing for many of us.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Our flesh resists God's order, his his systems, his you know, hierarchies again, if we're gonna use that word, in the ways that he has ordered certain things.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we need God's help.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: We need God's spirit, we need to fix our minds and meditate on God's wondrous works.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we want our um our prayer life to be shaped and strengthened by what we're seeing and reading here in Psalm 119.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: God, give us life, teach us your statues, make us understand, strengthen us, put false ways far from us, teach us to understand your precepts and your law.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: God, would you would you help us to fix our minds and our eyes on Christ and the author, the founder, and the perfecter of our faith?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.