Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / June 8, 2026 - Numbers 19 & Psalm 119:49-56

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June 8, 2026 - Numbers 19 & Psalm 119:49-56 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bybreading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, Lee Pastor of Compass South Valley.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Monday, June 8th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers 19.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come, and you shall give it to Eliezar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Eliezer the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood towards the front of the tent of meeting seven times.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung shall be burned.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire, burning the heifer.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the priest shall be unclean until evening.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is a sin offering.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day, and on the seventh day, and so be clean.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day, and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that person shall be cut off from Israel, because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: His uncleanness is still on him.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the law when someone dies in a tent.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days, and every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword, or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave shall be unclean seven days.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent and all on all the furnishings, and on the persons who were there, and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse himself, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it shall be a statute forever for them.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and any one who touches it shall be unclean until evening.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 49 through 56.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your statutes have been my songs, in the house of my sojourning.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This blessing has fallen to me that I have kept your precepts.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the first thing that I want to point out with Numbers 19 is again just what I'm calling a uh a gospel shadow here in the book of Numbers.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that we need to keep an eye out on when we read through the Old Testament.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you even think about what we've been talking about in Hebrews, the author of Hebrews uses this phrase, the good news came to them in reference to Israel.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, good news is another just phrase, another way of saying the gospel, uh, good news about who God is, his character, and his saving power.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there are snapshots, gospel shadows, gospel glimpses of good news all throughout the old testament that we need to have an eye out for.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Numbers 19 is one of those gospel shadows.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a lot of interesting things going on.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's a red heifer that is being selected, literally a reddish cow that is to be without defect, in which there's no blemish, it says, and on which a yoke has never come.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So a yoke, if you're not familiar, was a working contraption that they would put on two different, either oxen or cattle, so that they could plow together and increase the plowing strength, if you will, uh, in a particular direction.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that was uh what a yoke was.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a red heifer that has never had a yoke on it, that's without defect, and which it shall give really to Eliezer the priest.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, Aaron is the great high priest, or I should say the high priest, Jesus is the great high priest, but Aaron is the high priest, and his son Eliezer is a priest along with Ithamar.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so Eliezer is given this responsibility of killing the heifer and then taking the blood from the heifer and sprinkling it towards the entrance of the tent of meeting seven times.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's so fascinating is what happens after that.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is this water that is made, this purification water from the ashes of the burnt offering of the heifer that get then get stored outside the camp that have an ongoing purpose in the life of Israel.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that purpose was for purification.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it lists different things that make someone impure, touching a dead body, uh, whether they are in a tent or they stumble upon a dead body in a field from someone who died naturally or by the sword.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this ongoing need for purification.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how is all of this a gospel of shadow?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're going to get to this later on in Hebrews, but Hebrews 9 connects what we're seeing here under the Mosaic law, the red heifer, the purification water, uh, the need for just continual purification, even the whole idea of being sprinkled on the third day and the seventh day.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: The author of Hebrews connects that to Jesus.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus is referred to in Hebrews as one who suffered outside the camp.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, where was it that the red heifer was burned?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Outside the camp, in the presence of the priest, and then the blood of the red heifer was sprinkled on the tent of meeting, and then of course the ashes of the red heifer were mixed with water for this uh cleansing, this purification.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now in Hebrews 9, 13 and 14, this is where the author of Hebrews picks up on this.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: For if the blood of goats and bulls, we can say the red heifer, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctified for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serving the living God?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a gospel glimpse here, just like the red heifer is taken outside the camp and ultimately loses its life, and the blood of the red heifer becomes something that cleanses and is even the ashes, the sacrifice of the remnants of the sacrifice, you could say, have an ongoing effect, an ongoing purifying effect.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how does that connect to Christ?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, Christ was sacrificed outside the camp.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Hebrew says.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: His sacrifice wasn't just something that only had ramifications or ongoing effects then, uh, it has ongoing effects now.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, his sacrifice, his blood is still being appropriated, if we want to use that word, for people who are now being purified, who are being sanctified.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's Hebrews 9.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: How much more will the blood of Christ, if a red heifer sanctifies the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit of God offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a picture in Numbers 19 of what ultimately Jesus would accomplish and Jesus would provide through his blood.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: The blood that he himself even says, we just celebrated communion yesterday at church.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is the covenant that is in my blood.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he sheds his blood so that we can be purified.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: We can have a conscience.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It says, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And even think about how that connects to Hebrews 4, where we rest from our works because we are now in Christ.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we talked about on Sunday.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: What works are we resting from?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, evil works as a broader category.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another phrase in Hebrews 9.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It says, dead works, things that are worthless, things that, like my silly illustration about wingstop, that do not satisfy, that don't produce anything meaningful, that leave you kind of wanting more and ultimately end in destruction rather than completion.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a gospel glimmer, a gospel shadow in Numbers 19.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to be on the lookout for that because there are so many things that God does in the Old Testament that sort of point forward and find their fulfillment in Christ.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Numbers 19 is just a great example of that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we continue studying Psalm 119, let me just pause and say, I hope you're enjoying this.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hope, I hope just the slow sort of pace, section by section.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we're following the way that it's broken down.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's an acrostic, it's uh patterned after the Hebrew alphabet.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there's going to be 22 sections.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you really are slowing down and meditating on what it is that we're seeing here.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, just eight verses typically a day in Psalm 119.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope you're really mulling over, chewing on the meats of this beautiful, incredible psalm.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's been encouraging to me and it's been encouraging to Tyler.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that we've talked about a few times already in the office.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But in Psalm 119, I mean, the question that came to my mind from this short section was, what gives you life?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I mean by that, of course, is that Christ gives us life and he gives us rest, he gives us eternal life.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean in that sense.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just mean kind of when you ask someone a question and you see the light in their eyes, you see their excitement, their tone shifts, their body language, something that they're really thrilled by, something that they really love.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: What gives you life?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because here in Psalm 119, it says in verse 50, this is my comfort and my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even just that sense of being thrilled by the promise of God, being excited, being uh brought alive, even animated in the way that uh you uh sort of are pining after the things of the Lord, thirsting after God.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a uh a person.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's debate on who exactly wrote Psalm 119.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some say David, some say other individuals, but here in verse 50, this is my comfort in my affliction that your promise gives me life.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even the even the context for which that is said, in my affliction, there is comfort because of the promise that gives me life.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what a beautiful thing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many things to even kind of press in into our own hearts.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where where are you finding comfort in the midst of your affliction?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Could you say sincerely, if you think about your life recently and maybe some of the things that have ached your heart, some of the things that have really weighed on you?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Could you say with sincerity, along with the psalmist here, that your comfort in the midst of your affliction was that God's promises give you life?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's something that I think we need to ask God in prayer, Lord, give us that kind of perspective, give us that level of comfort, that level of confidence in your promises, even in the midst of our affliction.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of details some of it in verse 51 the insolent utterly deride me.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I do not turn away from your law.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Even verse 53, hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake your law.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I ask again, what gives you life?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because the psalmist here, in the midst of affliction, he finds great life in the promise that gives life.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so often in the Old Testament, that's the way that it's phrased, that's the way that it's framed, that the very promises of God be are like sustenance or like food that sustain the people of God.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that I desire for myself, that's something I desire for our church, that we could say with sincerity, along with the psalmists, in the midst of our afflictions, we find great comfort in the promises of God.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a rich thing to meditate on and even just to evaluate what gives me life, what brings me comfort?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are we reaching instinctively for something else first in the midst of our affliction before God?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think this is a good course correction if that is the case.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Even in verse 54, your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to this: the blessings have fallen to me that I have kept your precepts.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your statutes have been my songs.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: This makes me think of uh Paul and Silas in prison just singing to the Lord.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope and my prayer for Compass Bible Church South Valley is that we could say this In the midst of our affliction, we find comfort in the promises of God, that his statutes, his commandments, that the very words of God, of course, recorded for us in the Word of God, the Bible, are our songs in the house of our sojourning.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're called.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're called sojourners.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're being led into the new promised land.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're on the outskirts.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: At times, we might be like the ten spies who think that there are giants on the other side.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna get there?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, He will be faithful and he will lead us home.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's Psalm 23.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's our destination.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We need to trust that even I'm thinking about Hebrews 4 again, where it says that if Joshua had given them rest, Joshua led them into a physical rest in the physical land of Canaan.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But that was just merely to point forward to the ultimate rest that we have and can receive right now, today, it says in Hebrews 4, and that we await in the future, where we can fully and finally experience the ultimate rest in Christ, where the things of this world no longer are plagued with the corruption of sin.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I know how we long for that day.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, we are called sojourners.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have a sense of being fortified in our faith, in our sojourning.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So may that be true for us as individuals.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not, let's go to the Lord and ask, God, please make this true.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Make this true in my heart.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Fix this reality in my soul so that I can cling to you in the midst of our affliction.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church, South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.