Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 19, 2023 | Numbers - Preparation for Promise

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March 19, 2023 | Numbers - Preparation for Promise · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, really glad that you could be with us this morning, and uh I love getting the service started with baby dedications and things like that.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just fantastic to see how the Lord is using every single generation to serve his kingdom.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we're excited for for Nora.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we are we are starting a new series in the book of Numbers, and uh I gotta tell you, I don't know that there's uh something that gets me more excited than trying to convince you that you should care about the book of Numbers.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um it really really juices me up because I love I love these kind of books.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we did um we did Leviticus last spring and had a good time there.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um talked a lot about skin diseases, sacrifices, wave offerings, and things like that.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, right, God uses all of those things uh for his good and for ours as well.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going through the book of Numbers, and uh this past year I read a book um along with the book of Numbers.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Over the Edge of the World, and it was about Ferdinand Magellan's uh circumnavigation across the globe.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 1519, uh he and about 270 people set out five ships.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: They were gonna try and find the Pacific route to the Spice Islands, and along the way, they um had a lot of trouble.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ferdinand died, first of all.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't even make it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there was mutiny, there was murder, there was stealing, there was uh a whole lot of storms, a lot of bad things happened.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um about three years later, one of the five ships sort of, you know, crawled into port, technically having made it all the way around the globe, um, but they only had about 30 of their 270 people that they had set out with.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that reminds me of the book of Numbers.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because the book of Numbers is about a group of people, the Israelites, who are going to set out with a lot of promise.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this morning we're gonna be looking at the first two chapters of that book.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: But along the way, along these 40 years in the desert, where they're gonna be walking, um, the Israelites are going to go through a lot of troubles, things they're gonna bring upon themselves.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when we get to the end of the book of Numbers, it's going to look a lot different than how we started out.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, but just to make sure that we're all kind of oriented to the right spot, okay, so Numbers is the fourth book of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, then Numbers, and then we Deuteronomy.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we go from the creation account to Exodus, right, which is where um God redeems his people, Israel, from slavery in Egypt, and then we get the Mosaic Law, the Ten Commandments.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have Leviticus, which is basically the holiness code, um, also presented at the base of Mount Sinai, which is where Moses got the Ten Commandments.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you have ever seen um, was it the history of the world, the old Mel Brooks movie, where Moses goes up to the mountain and he's like, I have brought to you the fifteen, and then he stumbles and drops a tablet and he's like, The Ten Commandments.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was Exodus, okay?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then Leviticus.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, then we have the book of Numbers, which is where we're at, and that is the 40-year journey from their redemption from Israel from Egypt into their they finish right at the base of the Promised Land, basically, right at the Jordan River.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then Deuteronomy is actually the last 40 days of Moses' life where he teaches the Israelites before they head into the Promised Land.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, that's where we're at.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the book of Numbers is called that, it has that name because of the Latin translation, and because there are two censuses in the book.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Two census, counting of people, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's one in chapter 1 and one in chapter 26.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the book gets its name that we have, but the Hebrew name for this book of the Bible is based off the first like sentence or clause that you would see in your Bible, and it's that in the wilderness.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it's translated.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew uh translation of this and how they would be reading it, this book would actually be called In the Wilderness.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because they were in the wilderness.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were in the wilderness for 40 years.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: We just spent five months in Corinth and Greece.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to spend uh four months in the wilderness with the Israelites.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they spent 40 years there.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to spend 40 years there.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that later on.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, this morning, we are going to be talking about chapters 1 and 2.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And chapters 1 and 2 begin with the census.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing though, last order of business.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get to that, because all of you, I can tell, you're like, when are we going to get to the census?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, last order of business, though.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Three reasons why you should really care about the book of Numbers.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: First, because God's story of love and redemption and fulfilling of promises that he brings to the nation of Israel is the same story that he is bringing to you and I today in the covenant of grace that we have through Jesus Christ.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same story, only we're not in the desert.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Second, it's one of the 66 books of the Bible, which means that it is profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, so that everyone may be equipped for all good works, as 2 Timothy says.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And third, because, and you know, this is also important, you don't know your New Testament until you know your Old Testament.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You might think you do, but all of the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament and the stories of the Old Testament.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be somebody who understands what God is saying in the New Testament, you need to be somebody who understands the stories of the Old Testament.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, the census.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after Israel's departure from the land of Egypt.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Take a census of the entire Israelite community by their clans and their ancestral families, counting the names of every male one by one.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: You and Aaron are to register those who are twenty years old or more by their f military divisions, everyone who can serve in Israel's army.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: A man from each tribe is to be with you, each one the head of his ancestral family.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing is the first sentence The Lord spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you might recall back in Exodus, right, we get got the instructions for how to build the tabernacle.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is the place where the Lord's presence dwells.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be really important for us in the book of Numbers.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But that is where Moses speaks with the Lord.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that I don't know, I feel like people, when we look at the Old Testament, sometimes we feel like God is this very far-off being when he's relating to his people.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, God is has very, very personal relationships with the leaders of Israel.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Moses, he speaks to frequently, like one-to-one.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the wonderful things about Moses.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It says he's one of the few people who are able to see God in that way.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses has an extremely personal relationship with God.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: That personal relationship is going to be very painful later on in Numbers when Moses is unable to enter into the promised land.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: But right now we just see it as Moses receiving instructions from the Lord on what he's supposed to do.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And these instructions are coming at the base of Mount Sinai.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we've come out of Egypt, we've crossed the Red Sea, and now we've come to Mount Sinai, okay?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Mount Sinai is where a lot of things happen.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's where the book of Exodus and Leviticus happen, or a large part of Exodus.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're about to like decamp.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to start the journey that will take up most of the book.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And here at the base of Mount Sinai, the Lord says, okay, there's a couple sort of housekeeping things that we need to do before we pick up and start moving, and because we have quite a long ways to go walking to get to the promised land.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those things that he tells them they need to do is they need to count the men who would be serving in the military.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing about Israel.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have a military.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're like 11 months.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: They've been here, they've been removed from Egypt for a little over a year.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: They've been at Sinai for 11 months, but for 400 years, they have been making bricks as slaves in Egypt.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is no military force in Israel.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you see them counting people who would be a part of the military, it's like who would be the right age to serve in the military?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's 20 on up.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the individuals who are being counted.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they're being counted because they are about to meet a lot of hostility as they go through the desert.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: They are a small but fledgling nation that is exorbitantly wealthy because they took some of the gold from Egypt before they left.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: They have a lot of herd animals and things like that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And basically they are easy pickings for any one of the nations that are around who hears that this huge group of people is moving through the desert.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so God is going to be protecting them, and they need to learn what it is like to have war so that when they go to the promised land, they can enter into it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that is why this census ultimately happens.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: The sad thing, though, about the census, and like I said, there's just a lot of things that we'll get to later.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But every single person in this census that is counted, and every single person who is at Mount Sinai when they counted, except for two people, are dead by the end of the book of Numbers because of their sin.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: This census that you see in chapter one is a list of everybody who did not make it into the Promised Land because of their sin.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to recognize that later on.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the census happens.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you're following along in your Bible, you'd see that I'm for the sake of time, we're not going to read the census.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You should, but we're not going to do it right now.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are the men Moses and Aaron registered with the assistance of the twelve leaders of Israel.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each represented his ancestral family.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So all the Israelites, 20 years old or more, everyone who could serve in Israel's army were registered by their ancestral families.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: All those registered numbered 603,550.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I skipped over reading the part about the ancestors.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing about the census.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: You should really care about it.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: You should care about it because there are a lot of boring numbers in your life that you really care about.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I recognize that it is not the most exciting thing to read, but it has a lot of value.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're interested in saber metrics for baseball.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you watch the US Treasury market.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are somebody who wants to know everything about YouTube analytics, whatever it is, there are probably some boring numbers in your life that carry a lot of value and meaning.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the case here.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to love reading the censuses.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to make it a part of your daily devotionals every day.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you should recognize the importance of it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll try and draw out a little bit of the importance here in a second.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're playing along at home, you might notice that as they were counting the individuals, okay, there's one tribe that gets left out, the Levites.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Levites were not registered with them by their ancestral tribe.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord had told Moses, Do not register or take a census of the tribe of Levi with the other Israelites.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, all its furnishings and everything in it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are to transport the tabernacle and all its articles, take care of it, and camp around it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever it is to stop at a campsite, the Levites are to set it up.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Any unauthorized person who comes near it is to be put to death.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so actually next week we'll talk more about the Levites, but for right now, you might see that it says the Levites are called the firstborn.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're not really the firstborn.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: That would be Reuben, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because we go, we're gonna talk a lot about tribes in the book of Numbers as well as just in the Old Testament.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what that's referencing is the patriarchs of Israel back in Genesis.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jacob kind of got this alternate name, which was Israel, and Jacob slash Israel had 12 sons.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: The firstborn of them was Reuben, and this would also include one of his sons was Joseph, right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like Technicolor Dreamcoat guy.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that one.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, those the tribes that you're reading about here are those sons of Israel, sons of Jacob, as they've gone down through the generations and have now populated, right, this group of people.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you read through the census, Reuben's listed first, because he was the firstborn back then.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Levi, though, was not the firstborn.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was Reuben.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: What this is talking about is, and long story short, that God has asked that the firstborn of everything be dedicated to him.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: This was something that happened back in Leviticus, right, when it comes to the animals.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: But also this was something that happened back in Egypt, when the final plague was the killing of the firstborn of those Egyptians who had hardened their hearts, and those who had put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost were passed over, the first Passover, and they were spared.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: God said, I basically redeemed your firstborn children, and they belong to me, but so that every family doesn't have to give up their firstborn child and dedicate them to taking care of the tabernacle.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We're just going to take a whole tribe, one of the twelve tribes, and they are going to be the ones who do this job.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Levites.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're sort of exchanged for the firstborn children of all Israel.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what the Levites do.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: You might notice, though, though, their job.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They are to guard the tabernacle.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, guard it?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there is a small danger that the ark that is within could be taken.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: That actually happens later on by the Philistines and Samuel, 1 Samuel.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: But really, they are guarding the tabernacle from the Israelites.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a really great argument to be made that Israel does not understand yet what it looks like to live right next to a holy God.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, they frequently encounter death because they are sinful and they are entering into God's holy presence.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, those two things don't mix.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the Levites are really there to protect Israel from themselves.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: More on that next week.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: But as we go on, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is the beginning of chapter two.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites are to camp under their respective banners, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Their ancestral families, besides the flags.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: They are to camp around the tent of meeting at a distance from it.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So everything that Israel is being instructed to do is coming directly from God.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing here that is a hunch, that is a best guess, that is Moses just going, you know what would make sense?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every single thing that they are doing is God talking to Moses and sometimes by extension Aaron or the other priests or judges, and they are carrying out God's word.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that God has done, now that he has counted everybody in the military, is he is going to start arranging each one of these tribes around this central point of the tabernacle.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be how they camp because they move around the desert.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be how they camp.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they get up and start traveling, basically that one, that system of centering around the tabernacle just gets strung out into a line where the tabernacle is still in the middle.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, everything about their life when they were going through the wilderness was centered on the fact that God was at the middle of their camp.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about God is at the center of their camp.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not only his holy presence, but because all the twelve tribes are arrayed around this tabernacle, okay, they are constantly reminded as they're camping of where they must look to.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to that later on.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there's one interesting thing, though, about how they're camped.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll see this in verse 3.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It begins talking about the tribe of Judah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll notice that this is different from the census because the census was based on the age of the sons of Israel.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the census does this really interesting, or excuse me, the the arrangement of the camps does this interesting thing, and they take the fourth son, Judah, and boop, boop, boop, he comes to the top of the list.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's the first one mentioned.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: He is also the biggest tribe, family.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what it says.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Judah's military divisions will camp on the east side toward the sunrise under the banner.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: The leader of the descendants of Judah is Nashon, son of Amenadab.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: His military division numbers 74,600.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: The tribe of Issachar will camp next to it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's another son.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is another tribe.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: The leader of the Issacharites is uh Nathanael, son of Zuar.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: His military division numbers 54,400.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: The tribe of Zebulon, that's a third, will be next.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: The leader of the Zebulanites is Eliab, son of Helon.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: His military division numbers 57,400.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: The total number in their military divisions who belong to Judah's encampment is 186,400.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: They will move out first.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we're top down, we're looking at the camp.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Generally speaking, they are moving in a northeastern direction from Egypt to the Promised Land.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that they are on the east side has way more significance if we can think about the other things that are going on in the Bible where the East takes priority.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we have, let's talk about the Garden of Eden, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve leave it, they have to head out the doors on the east side, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: They go east of Eden.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because the gateway into the Garden of Eden, that is now guarded by the angel with the flaming sword.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, um, is on the east side.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have the tabernacle, right?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And later the temple, things which are supposed to be representative of the Garden of Eden.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they're covered in fruits and vegetables and stuff, and all the like gold work is pomegranates, because it's supposed to be the garden or representative of that where God dwells.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the doors are on the east side.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so now here we have in the camp the east is the priority spot.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: They are the ones that go out first.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Judah is the one that is sort of contained, and even though two other tribes are with them, it is Judah that is said to be leading the charge.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is important.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: We go back to Genesis and we see that Judah has a primary spot in the future history of Israel.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a prophecy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Back when we go back to, I mean, so it's like Father Abraham had many sons, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac, Jacob.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: When Jacob is on his deathbed and he is, he puts his hand on all of his twelve sons and basically gives a prophecy for their life.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: When he gets to Judah, this is what he says.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Judah, your brothers will praise you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your hand will be on the necks of your enemies, your father's sons will bow down to you.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Judah is a young lion.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: My son, you return from the kill.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: He crouches, he lies down like a lion or lioness.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who dares to rouse him?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: The scepter will not depart from Judah, or the staff from between his feet, until he whose right it is comes, and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And all of Judah's brothers go, What?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's not the firstborn.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't make any sense.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Should be Reuben's right, that some kind of ruler is going to come out of Judah, and the staff is never going to depart, the scepter is never going to leave his hand.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: There will always be a ruler coming out.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, so this was a prophecy.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it ends up bearing truth, right?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers, and who do we have down here?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: King David.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: King David comes from the tribe of Judah.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous King David, the one who truly conquered the promised land, the one, a man after God's own heart, the greatest leader in Israel's history, the greatest king, certainly, the one who united his people.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Great King David comes from Judah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's more.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: You keep going here, and it's not just King David, but we're in the book of Matthew, and we come to Jesus, the Messiah, comes from the tribe of Judah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: God Himself, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of Man, Emmanuel, God with us, our Savior, comes from the tribe of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of Judah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can take all this information.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm saying it's so important that you know your Old Testament to kind of know your new, as well as is this is in the book of Matthew in the gospel, and where they're talking about the Messiah, and you're starting out with, hey, it's not a census, but it's a genealogy, and you're like, who cares?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is why you should care.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because what Matthew is trying to show to the people of Israel is he's like, hey, don't you see that this guy that we're calling the Savior, the Messiah, the one who has come, he is the fulfillment of the prophecy way back in Genesis.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who is going to come, and the scepter will never leave his feet, because he is the full, the righteous, the perfect king over all of his people.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see what was going on now back in the book of Numbers, though the Israelites would have been like, who?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know Jesus.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even know King David.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: They are probably thinking, when Judah gets placed on the east side, they are probably thinking, well, it's a fulfillment of prophecy.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody great is going to come out of the tribe of Judah.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they just think, hey, they're the largest.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so they should be the ones leading our military encampment.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, because we know and God has revealed it to us, we can look back at these stories and say, wow, God, you were showing something, even just the seeds of truth that now have bloomed into this amazing flower that we can look at and say, God had placed the tribe of Christ at the front of Israel.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as they were going through all of the desert and all of the wilderness, as they camped and as they got up and they headed out, they were always being led by Judah.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're always being led by the camp of Christ.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Final verse, and the final verse we'll look at this morning is in chapter 2, verse 34.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites did everything the Lord commanded Moses.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: They camped by their banners in this way and moved out the same way, each man by his clan and by his ancestral family.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of things that go on in the book of Numbers where Israel is not going to listen to God.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just need to take this great moment as it stands and just be thankful that for at least a couple chapters, Israel says, you know what?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He is my God and we are his people, and we're going to listen to what he says.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, that's wonderful.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you would keep doing that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they don't, and lots of bad things happen.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, at the end of chapter two, that is what is happening.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are, they have uh agreed, basically made this covenant with God at the base of Mount Sinai.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: They have said, You are our God, we are our people, or rather, God said that to them, and he said, If you follow me, I will be your God and you will be my people.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yet what we see throughout the book of Numbers is they say, No thanks, a lot of times, to God.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: They get frustrated with him, they grow bitter, they complain, they rebel against him, they turn against their own, they try and overthrow Moses, they try and return back to Egypt to go into slavery once again because they think it's better than the promise that God is preparing them for.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, God is faithful to his covenant people, and he says, I will be with you.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that, I want to reflect on two things this morning that we've learned.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Two facts and two questions that relate to chapters one and two of Numbers and the census and the camping arrangements.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first fact is that God dwelled at the center of the Israelite camp.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my question is, is God at the center of your camp?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've already said this, but everything about Israel going through the desert would have been focused on the fact that God was at the middle of everything that they were doing.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were with us last spring and we talked about the book of Leviticus, and you learned about all of the different rites and rituals and purity things they had to do, everything about their life was something that reminded them of God's goodness and his holiness and the perfection that he is and he asked of his people, yet they continually failed to carry out.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: God is righteous and he chose.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lose this.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that God is a God that is, you know, could be unknowable, could be at the furthest part of your imagination, could be a God who is distant, and yet he is near and present, and says, Dear Israel, I am going to walk amongst you.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to go through the desert with you.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: My presence will be at your side.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is huge.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is amazing that the God of the universe says, I want to walk with you, my sinful creation, even though you constantly reject me.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, This is how we're going to make it work.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing that was going on throughout the wilderness is that Israel, over those 40 years, was developing into a nation that could finally inherit the promise that God had given to them.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are going to be some sad things that go along the way, but if we can take sort of this bird's eye view of what was happening, God was building that nation up.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not only geographically were they literally walking to the promised land, which they needed to do, but physically they were becoming a nation by engaging in these wars as they were traveling.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then when they entered into the Promised Land, they would actually be able to fight.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: But also they were a nation that was growing spiritually.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: People who for 400 years, I mean, they had to basically recommit themselves to God when they were at Mount Sinai.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: They had not had that strong of a faith while they had been slaves, but God said, I made a promise that I was going to rescue you and I'm going to do it.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all of these things relate directly to us, though, because there is a very, very easy connection to be made that we are also walking through the wilderness of this life.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: That God has promised to us a future of hope and of blessing, where there's no more crying and no more tears, and we see it as an eternity with him in heaven.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we are walking through this hard world, and it takes a lot of energy, and it is very difficult and painful to make that journey.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the question you have to ask yourselves is during this journey that I'm on, where I'm heading towards the promises that God is preparing me for, during this journey, is God going to be at the center of my camp?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to put him there?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or, like so many of us, are we just going to be like, yeah, he's over the ridge, he's picking up the tail end.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: God is, yeah, he's with me, but mostly I reach out to him just when I need a lot of help.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or, like Israel, are you placing him at the center of your camp?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, Israel shouldn't even get the credit.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: God said, You need to place me at the center of your camp.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, you're going to be in Dutch.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important for us to think about this.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: As we begin the book of Numbers and see what God is doing, when he says, Moses, put me in the middle, you should look at your life as well and say, God, am I putting you at the middle of my life?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I have a family, God, are we putting you at the middle of our life?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: What about our life needs to shift and change so that Jesus Christ and God is at the middle?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: But not only at the middle, but at the front.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Judah, the tribe of Christ, led Israel through the desert.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You'd say, God is at the center of my life.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I do revolves around him.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: He is the greatest priority.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: My kids would be able to say, my mom and dad say that God is the greatest priority in their life, and they act like it too.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to remember that this wilderness journey is not an easy one.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are going to be many trials and travails that Israel has to go through.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And along the way, God says, whenever they camp and whenever they move, and however long they move, and whenever they do it, and in whatever circumstances, Judah is the one that leads the way.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: The tribe of Christ is the one that is going to lead this nation through.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as you are going through the desert, too, there is a definite need for you to place Jesus Christ at the front of your life.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And basically what that means is you say, I'm going to follow after him.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is not, our relationship with Christ is not a peer-to-peer relationship.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is not one where we go, hey Jesus, what do you think about this?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think about this.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our relationship with Jesus Christ, as much as he wants a personal relationship with you, because he is a personal God, Jesus Christ, though, is the one we are to follow.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are in submission to him.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It means saying, God, your ways are best, not mine.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to get through the desert.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to make my way through.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I don't really like to wander very much.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I would like to not wander and feel aimlessly lost, Lord, I dedicate myself to you, that you are going to be the one who leads me.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there's one final detail there, though, that's very, very important.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Book of Numbers, spoiler alert, okay.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Book of Numbers, when we get to the end, they're not actually going to get into the Promised Land.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: The census that we, well, that you read in preparation for this morning and that we skipped over.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: The census is a list of people who don't enter into the promised land because they did not follow after God.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very, very important that you understand that unless Jesus Christ is the one that you have called upon to be your Savior, unless He is the one that is leading your life, when it comes time for us, not even numbers now, for us to get to the gates, to the basically the Jordan River, and to cross over into heaven.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: When it is time for us and our, you know, this mortal coil has finished and God has called us, he says, You are done.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: When we get to those gates, you do not enter into the promised land unless Jesus is the one who is leading your life.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is only through Christ that you are forgiven for all of the sins that you have committed in the desert.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is one thing that the Israelites in numbers did not have.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: They were held to account for their sins.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, only two of them from this first list made it in, Joshua and Caleb.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not even Moses makes it.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it is very important as we go ahead that you say, God is going to be at the center of my life.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is going to revolve around him.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to be the hub of my wheel and not a spoke.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And also Jesus Christ is going to be the one that I follow through this wilderness, because without him I have no hope of entering into the promised land.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the promise that God had given to his people, is the promise that he was fulfilling in their life.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was preparing them to enter into the literal promised land, he was working all of these things out.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a privilege for us to be able to study numbers and to see them.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your goodness and your mercy as we walk through the wilderness, Lord, and as we see ourselves struggling and filled with pain and confusion and oftentimes misery because this world is not our home, Lord.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are thankful, God, that you can be at the center of it all.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: That when we go out and when we come back, Lord, you are the one that we set our eyes upon.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, that everything about our lives can be something that relates back to you.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we also thank you so much for the gift of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross and his resurrection that shows us, Lord, that there is a promised land, that there is a place of hope, there is a place where we have a future, God, with you.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we ask that you would help us to submit ourselves to the King whose scepter never leaves his feet.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is the one we want to worship and follow all the days of our life.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Father, it is one is a hard relationship for us to follow because we like being in control.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we do not enjoy wandering through the wilderness, and we know that you are the one that has the path.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Father, please help us with all these things.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: By the power of your Spirit, to trust in the Son for salvation, so that, God, we might be with you and with all the other believers in that promised land when our journey through the wilderness is finished.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you guys, as we're going through the book of Numbers, to be reading the book of Numbers.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to prepare for next week's message, you can go ahead and read chapters three and four.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to talk about the Levites.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.