Bible Survey - Numbers
Randy Peterman · Mar 2, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492641910754

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Last week we talked about Leviticus, and if Leviticus was a challenge to get through in about an hour, Numbers is 10 chapters longer, plus or minus a chapter. So there's a good chance that we may just have to not go over something, and we'll just run out of time. But we can talk about it more afterwards, or whatever else.

So I couldn't help myself but start with a pun for the title, Numbers for the Math Exodus. So Numbers actually continues on the story of Exodus. Numbers carries on with the journey of Israel after they left Egypt and God established the law in Leviticus, or parts of the law in Leviticus. We get to see Israel struggle with their context.

When we look at wrestling, we tell him he prayed for Norm as he's recovering from his surgery and dealing with that. Anytime you run into something that's a trial or a stumbling block, the first thing that at least I find myself doing, and maybe you come into this as well, you ask, why? Why is this happening? Why is this happening now? Why is it taking as long as it's taking? We started asking why questions because we really want to be able to put some sense of understanding. We want to know when it's going to end.

You know, we're like a kid in the car on a road trip. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Israel had to go to the bathroom over and over again as they went through their journey towards the promised land. We do see an extension of the law. The Lord continues to give more revelation about how the law is going to fit, clarifying things, adding things, and letting Israel know as a caravaning mobile society, as nomads, understand who he was through that as well.

The next section I have here is Christ in Numbers, but I want to actually close with that. I wanted to follow the same format as Leviticus, but we're going to actually come around and we're going to take a look at the outline first and then come back around. That should be a little bit better as far as order is concerned, but I wanted to follow the same format for the sake of printing comparison. We're going to skip applications for the believer as well, because I think that's relative to who Christ is in Numbers, and we should have context.

So Numbers starts out with a census of the warriors. God tells Moses, hey, count your fighting men. And any guesses as to why God would tell Moses to count the fighting men? I think it's obvious God doesn't know how to count. He needed Moses to do it, right? No, no, no. God knew exactly how many fighting men there were. But he tells Moses to number the men so that he can show the nation of Israel who they are.

They know who they are. And why is it significant that they know who they are in the context of the Exodus? It matters because they're going to think pretty awesomely and highly of themselves, and he needs to show them, you think you have numbers, but it's up to me.

You're going to go on this journey, it's up to me. I'm going to take you, you're going to go into battles, it's up to me. When they get into the Promised Land, in Joshua, we finally see that they sort of, kind of realize it's probably up to God. But even then, they're a bit slow, if we're honest. So we can see Reuben, Gad, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Naphtali, and all their tribes totaling 603,550 fighting men.

That's 20 year older males. That's a big number of guys. That's not talking about their children. That's not talking about their wives and daughters and grandmas and aunts and all that. So it's a pretty large number of people. It's still not everything. You can't account for just the volume of people to handle all situations.

Then the Lord says, okay, we're going to put the Levitical camp right in the center of the camp of Israel. And then he says, make a lot of space, and then put the other tribes around and camp in a circle. And he says, you're going to gather around four different banners. So you're going to gather around the banner of Judah, you're going to gather around the banner of Reuben, the banner and tribe of Ephraim, and the banner and tribe of Dan. So he has them circle around.

And he lets them know, you're going to defend the Ark of the Covenant in this this Levitical camp by surrounding it in this order. But then he makes sure that the Levites understand that they're separate and that they're not to fight. Can anyone think of any reasons why the Levites shouldn't be fighting? There's actually a number of them. Since this is the Book of Numbers, that's appropriate, right? Weren't they set apart? They were set apart to serve the Lord alone, right? So fighting was not a good strategy for that. You need to be serving the Lord. There needed to be a 24-hour fire on the altar.

Well, you need to have people manning that. And you've got an issue of uncleanness. When you touch a dead body, depending on how you touch them and what kind of dead body they are, you're at least unclean for a day. Well, you can't have the priests unable to serve because they've been handling dead bodies, ideally at least. So the priests were definitely set aside and that's an important detail there.

And then in chapter 5, as we move on here, we see that there are further rules about purity for Israel, rules about defilement from leprosy, reminders of the restitution. If you get caught lying and you owe somebody, you don't owe them 100%, you owe them 120%. You've got to give them an extra bonus amount back because you've been found in your lies. But the good news is they didn't stone you, so hey, it's a good trade-off, right?

Then we get into the vow of the Nazarite, and while it's only one bullet point in the outline, I want to take just a moment to explore that. The vow of the Nazarite was for a man or woman in Israel to set themselves aside to just serve the Lord. They're not Levites, okay? They're from the other tribes, and they are setting themselves aside.

So they wouldn't cut their hair, They had a very strict diet, and they wouldn't consume alcohol. Now, because I found this interesting, I'm going to share it with you. They weren't allowed to drink wine, but they also weren't allowed to eat grapes. Does anybody have any ideas why? And they weren't supposed to have bread with yeast in it. Any idea why they couldn't eat grapes also?

Well, yeast actually gathers and grows on the outside surface of the grapes. It's just a place where it naturally will sit. And so the Lord knew that. We didn't find out as human beings about yeast until the late 1800s. So God knew that. So He says, hey, also stay away from the grapes. So the Nazarites were regular Jews that were not Levites that had set themselves aside to just serve the Lord for a time.

There are rules about if they touched a dead body, then you know, you got to re-purify yourself. Were they appointed or did they come from a certain line? They just self-decided, I'm going to do this. It seemed like it was just this, someone the Lord had convicted for no other reason to just, they were taking the time to just serve the Lord and set themselves aside. So that would have to be at the point of maturity that they could make. Yeah, so you'd be an adult, but it would be for a time.

It wasn't for your whole life. It was just a season where you just said, you know what, I'm going to do this thing. It wasn't a lifetime commitment? It wasn't necessarily a lifetime commitment. There was a time when they might choose to end it. But it was more, the way I kind of think about it, and this is totally extra biblical, so please understand this guy, I think of it as kind of like the monks only, but it's a temporary monkhood. I'm going to just set myself aside, I'm going to go do this thing, but it's for a season.

But they didn't have any particular... I mean, were they in a teach at that time? They were just dedicating themselves to the Lord. It's kind of unspecific as to what they were going to do. But it was a thing that the Lord accounted for and outlined. It's an interesting detail there.

So the Nazarites had to stay away from yeast. The rest of Israel would stay away from yeast in certain feasts, right? We've got to make sure that we have no yeast in our house at different feasts. The Nazarites were doing this at a different time. So we have the Nazarites.

Then God tells Moses to tell Aaron to bless Israel. So let's open our Bibles to Numbers 6. 22 through 27. And there it's written, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. And the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. So they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them. And thus, the Irish blessing was born. No, it was the Jewish blessing, right? The Jewish blessing was born.

In this case, God tells Moses to tell Aaron to speak this. Why does Moses tell Aaron to speak this? Do you remember this from Exodus? Moses is a stutterer. Moses is not a public speaker guy. He does eventually do it in various contexts, but in this case, the Lord says, tell Aaron to do this. So then in chapter 7, the Lord told Moses, OK, we've set up the tabernacle.

And they consecrate the tabernacle again. And there's more offerings. And the offerings happen one each day. And each tribe brings offerings that are offered one day after the next. And so they get through all the tribes and offer up the different offerings from the tribes.

And then the Lord Moses enters the tent of meeting and the Lord speaks to Moses and his voice was from right above the Ark of the Covenant, it says, which is kind of cool. Funny thing is that we already know Moses was talking to God and God was talking to Moses, so I'm not sure if that was unique, like sometimes God was more like not. right between the two angels of the Ark of the Covenant, but either way, you get that little description there in the text, in chapter 7, verse 89. Then in chapter 8, after consecrating the tabernacle, they consecrate the priests, and they set them aside for the Lord's service, and then immediately after that, they observe the Passover. Now, this isn't the Passover, the original one, this is the next Passover. So the original Passover was of course with the Exodus they had to eat the lamb and smear the blood all around their lentils. Lentils? What is it? The mantles and the pieces around their door.

And that's a reminder of what? In Jewish history. Sparing the firstborn. So that's a pretty substantial reminder there. And then there's a realization that they have some folks who are unclean in Israel because of touching dead bodies or they're aliens or not Jewish by nature. And so the Lord actually makes special appropriations for those folks so that they can understand how they should participate in the Passover. As a nation, the Passover was really, really important to the Jews, or the Israelites, and so this would be upsetting.

Hey, we're going to do this thing, and we can't do it. So the Lord makes some provisions there. And then the Lord sets us out with this cloud of fire that covers the tent of meeting, or hovers over it. It's smoke by day and fire by night. That to me is really awesome. Just that description is like, yeah, that's pretty cool. And the Lord says, OK, when I lift up the cloud, you're going to march.

You're going to pick up camp, and we're going to go somewhere. And then when I set the cloud down, you're going to set the camp up right there. And again, he's already outlined how they should camp. And so they're going to build the camp and move out. Now, towards the very end, the second to last chapter, Moses actually outlines all the places that they camped, the numbers. It doesn't tell us those in sequence through the text, it just tells us in that second to last chapter.

So we get this Passover, the cloud of fire, and then the Lord provisions silver trumpets. And there's two silver trumpets, and they're to blow on them certain ways at certain times to signify certain things. So we have a certain horn signal that says, everybody gather together, God's got something to say. They've got a signal that says, get ready, it's war time. And so there's different ways that the trumpets are blown, and everybody needs a lesson on the very simple trumpet Morse code so they know what it means. And then after this lesson with the trumpets, the cloud is removed from the tent, it moves up, and the camp is broken, and the children of Israel prepare to move out.

And they prepare to move out for a long time. They're going to move after this at this point in time again, and again, and again. And they're going to move to different places. And they're going to have different battles. And the Lord's going to take them almost to the promised land. And they're going to disobey. And then he's going to take them and wipe them out. And then their kids get to come around and have a second shot at it. So we have the cloud is there. And then right in chapter 11, as is a Jewish tradition, the people grumble. The people grumble, and the Lord sends quail.

They said, we haven't had meat to eat. And the Lord says, oh, you want meat? And he says, you're going to hate meat. And it breaks my heart to think that anybody would hate meat. I'm a big fan of meat. But apparently, after you've seen feet and feet of stacked dead quail, it changes your whole attitude about meat.

So unfortunately, at this point in time, When Israel grumbles, God always does something to teach them a lesson. He's like, how about a lesson in this? How about not grumbling? So the people grumble. God brings quail. I'm sorry, the quail is later. Totally blew that. The Lord sends a plague as punishment for the grumbling. He sends a quail, and then he sends a plague. Oh, you want quail? And then here's a little plague, a little bonus. Maybe not the whining next time, right? But because Aaron and Miriam are not so observant, they complain next.

They say, Hey, God speaks through us too. And then Moses, being a class act, says, Okay, Lord, what do you want to do? And because it says it says right in there, humble was more or Moses was more humble than any other man on the earth. That's a really cool thing to describe.

I know that in my own arrogance, I don't even come close to qualifying in humility. And here's Moses, who later on we're going to see has a few mistakes he made, and he's already murdered people, and he's already been cast out from... I mean, Moses is not a great guy, so he gets how screwed up he is. He says, okay Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord calls Moses, Miriam, and Aaron to the tent of meeting. And he says, I have picked Moses. I've chosen Moses. I speak to him mouth to mouth.

You guys only get to see me secondarily. You get to interface with me, and you see the pillar, and that's as much as you get to see. And just to make things extra clear, Miriam suddenly has leprosy head to toe. He would have all of my attention at that point in time, right? You know, you would hope.

And so Moses is reaffirmed as leader. And after a week's time of Miriam being sent out as a leper, the Lord heals her of the leprosy and brings her back into the camp. And then they get to moving again. So then after this, the Lord tells Moses to select some spies and send them into Canaan. So, how many of you have heard the story in Sunday school growing up, right? You've heard about the spies. So what happens with the spies then, since you've heard the story growing up? What do the spies do?

What do they bring back? They bring back a Chevy Impala, of course, right? They're like, sweet, they have awesome cars. we should import these things. No, they bring back in showing that there's a land flowing with milk and honey, but then they get chicken, right?

And they give a false report and they say, oh, they're going to kill us. They're scary. The Nephilim are there, you know, the giants. And how does God feel about this whole experience with the false report? He's not pleased. So it's about this time here when the people grumble again and they get all freaked out. Even though Joshua and Caleb had given a proper report, God says, I'm going to wipe out everyone who's 20 and older that is of fighting age, and we're going to do this again.

So they get to go out as a nation, and they get to go back out into the wilderness and do that again. But not before Israel realizes, hey, maybe that wasn't a good idea. So what do they do then? Well, they decide, now we'll go fight. We'll go fight the Canaanites. We've changed our minds. We get it now. And they go to fight. And the Canaanites kick their butt. And they continue to kick their butt for a really long distance and chase them. And so Israel gets to learn, hey, maybe we should listen to God. But God says, you know, I'm going to have to unfortunately wipe out this generation and bring another generation around.

In chapter 15, the Lord reiterates the offerings and the Sabbath and the tassels and tells them about how they're to dress. Again, what's the purpose of the law? What would the offerings, what would the Sabbath and what would the tassels do for Israel compared to the Gentiles? It sets them apart, it separates them.

And then, because we haven't had enough people thinking that God hasn't got it quite figured out, the family of Korah comes with various families inside of Israel and says, you know, we're pretty awesome too, just like Aaron. And the Lord says, you're wrong. And so he parts the earth and swallows up their families and sends fire down and burns up all of the other families that weren't part of the family of Korah that were trying to revolt with him. By now, surely you would expect that Israel has figured out we shouldn't do that. But they haven't yet, so we'll keep going.

Just to make sure that all of the families in Israel now really, really, really, really get it, God tells Moses to have every family of the 12 tribes bring a rod in or a walking staff from one of their family members and bring one in for Aaron and put them before the Ark of the Covenant, and leave them there. And I will pick who I want to be the priests. Just in case all of the ceremony we've been through before didn't catch their attention, right? And so Moses goes in, and sure enough Aaron's rod, and he had them write their names on the rod so that nobody would go, hey that was my rod, I don't know who it is. No, you've got names on it, it's marked. And there's Aaron's rod. It's budded. There's a chute on it. And so the people, of course, now they're not going to grumble anymore, right? So God says this is a sign for the rebels. This is what we're doing.

So the Lord reminds Aaron again of the priestly duties that he's got. And the thing that also the Lord reminds Aaron is, I have given you these grumbly people that are the Levites to you to serve with you. Part of me would like to rabbit trail on leadership lessons and things like that that could be there, but it's really not in the text, so it would be extra biblical. But one of the things that you hope that Aaron figured out by now is that he probably had some responsibilities to be living in a godly fashion before the people, so that it might possibly not be as grumbly.

Now, at this point in time, God wants to wipe out all of Israel after this revolt again. And so Aaron actually, Moses sends Aaron and says, burn incense before the altar, before the Lord. And it calms the Lord down, it says. And then, that's when the rod situation happens with it. But I think it's interesting, the Lord was so angry, he's like, let's wipe out Israel, we'll start over.

In the middle of the desert, let's just reset this thing. So after the rods and the reminders of the priestly duties, a red heifer is offered up outside of the camp and ceremonies for cleansing the people of Israel who have dealt with all the dead bodies and the things from the fire take place and that's all squared away. And then we hit the unfortunate single verse, but it's recorded that Miriam dies. The Lord takes Miriam, and she's buried. And then because it's Israel again, the people grumble.

We don't have enough water, and they're complaining and whining, and then so Moses goes to the Lord, and the Lord says, I will provide water. And of course, everybody's heard this story in Sunday school, I hope, or at least most everyone has. But Moses is told to strike the rock, and then water will come from it. But what does Moses do?

He's like John MacArthur, it's Jesus plus, right? Jesus plus Lordship Salvation, right? But no, he says, I'm going to strike the rock and I'm going to talk to it. Here's Moses, Mr. Stutter, I don't want to talk in front of people. And he's like, I'm going to strike the rock and talk to people. So not the sharpest guy sometimes, right?

And that makes the Lord mad. And so what's the consequence for Moses? He doesn't get to go in the land. He's served for decades. He's going to serve for decades more. And he's not going to get to go into the Promised Land. That would have been a bummer. This is an interesting political intrigue, this next section in chapter 20 here. The King of Edom resists. The king of Edom was sent a message, and Moses says, hey, Israel just wants to pass right through your land. You've got a highway. We want to go right through it. We're not going to mess with you. Now, they know how big their army is. They're over 600,000 fighting men. They could have just gone in, probably, technically, if we're just talking man to man, and probably just dealt with whatever they needed to deal with, except for that God had other plans.

So they go and they send a message, and the king of Edom says, no, please don't pass through my land. So they have to go around. And of course, as any driver can tell you, going around takes longer, and nobody wants to do that, but they do it anyways. And after, or before they're able to go around, the Lord says to Moses, take Aaron up to the top of this mountain, I'm going to take him home. So they go to the top of this mountain, And the Lord takes Aaron home.

He dies right there. And the people mourn. And after they're done mourning, well, then some Israelites get captured. So they didn't grumble yet, so that's good, the bonus, but they get captured. And then the Lord does something that He's been trying to tell Israel all along. He says, I've got you. So He says, only send a thousand people from every tribe, a thousand warriors from every tribe, and go retrieve them. And it's a routing. They get back everybody that was taken captive. And God says, see, I'm going to do this. But, this being Israel, the people grumble again. That's what you do, right? It's been 15 minutes, let's grumble again.

So we're going to get to actually one of the most important passages in Numbers, as far as the New Testament is concerned. And after the people grumble, the Lord sends fiery biting serpents that are poisonous. And they bite them. And of course, the people are a little peeved. You know, hey, that wasn't fun. And so the Lord tells Moses to make a bronze serpent, and that he should lift it up.

And anyone who's been bitten by the serpents will be healed. and live. And we're going to go into that later on in the class, why that's so significant, but it is also significant that Israel still hasn't figured out that grumbling is probably not the best strategy with God, but they're slow, right?

The people repent. And then in chapter 21, it continues on with the journey as the people continue to move on. They sing a song. God provides a well, and they sing a song. And then they reach the Amorite people, and the Amorite people actually come to fight them. And the Lord gives them the Amorites. And for a while, they actually live in the Amorite towns. They just, they've got it.

And then, and this should have been its own heading, apologies for the indentation there, but the story of Balaam and God's blessing of Israel takes place here in this section in chapter 22 through 24. The Lord sends this Balaam guy into a situation where he is not an Israelite, is he? He's not a Jew. And when he speaks curses, people get cursed, and when he speaks blessings, people get blessed, apparently. And so, Balak, the king of one of the areas they were going through, says, I don't want them taking, they've wiped out the Amorites, I don't want them taking us out.

But God tells Balaam, you will only bless Israel. And this is, of course, where we get the talking donkey, which is, again, another Bible story that you probably would have heard in Sunday school. So it's a pretty big deal there. But then, sadly, in chapter 25, it says literally, the Israelites play the harlot with Moab.

The Israelites, though they've been given rules for separating themselves and setting themselves unto God, they decide that the Moabite women are pretty hot. and they're wearing haute couture, and they look really good, and that's a pretty good deal, let's go see what they're like.

And so, again, this time they weren't grumbling, they just totally blatantly walked away from what the Lord had said, and so the Lord decided that he would send a plague. And 24,000 Israelites died from the plague. And there was one particular guy who brought a Midianite woman out in front of the whole camp, in front of Moses and the leadership and said, this is my new woman and I am blatantly ignoring what God has said. the Lord sends this plague and wipes them out, and then the Lord sends his army and they slay the Midianites. But not until the 2400 or 24000 people die from the plague before having joined themselves. Also, in 25 verses 4-5, the Lord tells Moses, hey, if any of the people inside of Israel have married themselves to any of the Moabite women, have them slain. And Moses sends this command down to the leaders of the different tribes, and they have the men slain. It's that simple. They actually obey. There's not grumbling, and they actually get it done, which is amazing. I got those out of order there, sorry.

But then God says, it's time for another census. And they've lost, through the generation of people, they've lost about 2,000 fighting men total, or 1,500. But there's about the same amount of people. But God says the head count is slightly different. So he redistributes the promised land at that point in time.

Then it comes about that one of the daughters or families realizes that they are no longer tied by male lineage to Israel. And so the Lord actually says that this is right. This is just for this family to be part of the inheritance. So he explicitly states that daughters will receive an inheritance and the family will not be cut off. And that would obviously be an important thing. Culturally, it was predominantly male inheritance as far as we know about world history. So this was a very explicit statement of something that was outside of the norm at the time. So then the Lord tells Moses, he gets to look at the promised land from a distance. He gets to go up on a mountain.

He says, I'm going to do this, and then you're going to die. But before that death happens, we still have ten more chapters. So Moses asks for a leader to replace him, and the Lord chooses Joshua, and they commission Joshua. And then in chapter 28 through all the way through 2940, various elements of the law are reiterated to Israel by God through Moses. And then in 31 through 16, we see vows about marriage.

And this is really kind of fascinating. There's all kinds of articulations of, if you agree to this, would you agree to this? And then this other thing happens. Here's how you deal with this in different contexts. But there's all kinds of laws about the commitment of marriage that's there.

And then the Lord tells Moses, we need to revenge the Midianites. And again, he sends a thousand from each tribe to destroy the Midianites, and they bring back the women as captives. The Lord had said to wipe all the Midianites out, and they said, but we found they have women. Great! Wrong! And so the Lord has the males and females of the Midianites that are brought back slain, except for the Midianite women who were virgins still.

But there's a massive chastising and the men have to go outside of the camp that were involved with that because they're unclean and they have to actually go participate in all the ceremonial laws because they didn't just obey. And then chapter 31, 25-54, the spoils are divided. And then Reuben and Gad see how awesome this land is that they've just wiped out the people from, and they say, you know, the promised land?

You promised it, but we don't want it. I don't get that. It's like, God has a plan. We haven't figured it out yet. So they go and they negotiate with Moses, and they say, hey, we promise to go into the promised land with our family as Israelites, but we want to keep our land over here. So... I don't know.

It's pretty goofy to me, but there they go. They decide they're not going to take that. And the Lord doesn't seem to intervene there and say, no, you will go into the promised land. They just have to promise that they will go in and fight for all the land until all of the Canaanites are pushed out. Now, did that all happen? Of course not.

Otherwise, we'd be in a different situation, I'm sure, politically in the Middle East. So then in chapter 33, verses 53-56, the Lord reminds Israel to completely drive out or kill the Canaanites. If they stick around, kill them. If they run away, make sure they're all the way out of the territory that I've given. But they don't, obviously, down the road, fulfill that. Then in 34, 1 through 1 through chapter 35, 8, the land is divided by tribe and family even more explicitly than it was before. And then in 35, 9 through 34 is actually another really important passage. The Lord outlines the cities of refuge.

If you accidentally murdered somebody, and pardon me, I want to make a joke about like anybody would say, that was an accident, right? But if you accidentally murdered somebody, Capital punishment had been instituted in Genesis. Remember Noah was told there will be capital punishment if you kill someone, the proper judgment will be that you will be killed too. If an animal kills someone, kill the animal.

So capital punishment was instituted in Genesis 9. The Lord actually says if there is a reasonable moral exception, this person was not intentionally murdering somebody, they can go to a city of refuge. And the city of refuge was not allowed to take bride money to send them back out.

You are to be a city of refuge. You will take those people. You will accept them. They will be safe there. And then the last chapter, the Lord reiterates the family's inheritance through the women, that they will not be cut off to Israel. And they will be able to inherit their land in the Promised Land. So that is the book of Numbers in summary, full as it is. There's a lot there. So now we're going to come back around and take a look at some of the other elements.

So Christ in Numbers, I want to point something out before we dig in Christ in Numbers. There is one thing, which sadly I actually didn't get on the handout, where Christ shows up as the angel of the Lord and Christ is in Numbers as the angel of the Lord.

But some of these other references that we're going to talk about are called typology, where we see something that is kind of a foreshadowing or a symbol of the redemption or savior-like qualities of Christ. But typology as a general practice in theology is something we want to be hesitant of because it's a bit extracted and not directly revealed. And anytime you have extractive theology, you can get into heretical theology, or creatively, this is what I think it means, theology.

And we don't want that, obviously. We want clearly revealed things. So while we take a look at this, we'll recognize that there are some representative concepts, but with the exception of the serpent, they're not necessarily literally alluded to in the New Testament.

So, but one of the ways that we see, you know, a similar parallel, we'll put it that way, is the pillar of smoke and fire by night, which was the presence of the Lord to be followed. In John 8, 12, and I'm going to turn there. In John 8, 12, then Jesus again spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.

Christ was the one that the disciples needed to follow, and he's the one whom we follow, right? The cool thing is that unlike the pillar of fire that is going to an unknown place, do we know where we're going? I mean, they sort of knew they were going to Canaan, but obviously the Lord wasn't following the map that Moses was like, straight line here to here, as the crow flies. And God said, no, we're going to do this roundabout trip. But when we follow Christ, we follow him knowing that the end result of that will be our full bodily confirmation to His image in the rapture that's coming.

His Spirit leads us and guides us. Then the other one is the rod that budded. The rod that budded was given as God's having chosen Aaron's family as spiritual leaders of Israel. It set Aaron aside as a priest. But we know who our high priest is. If we look at Hebrews 4, 14-16, it tells us of the character of our priest. If you'll turn there with me, we'll take a look at that. Hebrews 4 14 through 16 it says therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need so the priests in numbers There was infighting.

The priests in numbers had to be cleansed. They had to go through their ceremonies and their offerings and their washings to be able to go and do the things that they were to do to cleanse and offer and give thanks to the Lord as representatives of us before God. But Christ is not that kind of priest. But the one that I think is absolutely the most important of this list is the servant.

So let's turn to John 3. John 3.16, you know, that's that one Bible verse that I've heard a few Christians quote. Maybe you have too, right?

John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe. That one. But let's go back to verse 14. Christ is talking to Nicodemus. He says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

Now, how many people were saved by the serpent? We don't have a head count, so we don't know. But who was not saved by the serpent? Those who didn't believe. Those who weren't bitten were not saved, and those who didn't look upon it and believe. So the serpent was held up, but if you weren't bitten, you didn't need it. And if you were bitten, but you failed to go look at it, then you may have died.

But it was held up before all. It was there offered to all that would believe. When Christ died on the cross and was held up there in a similar fashion, He was offered, His sacrifice was given for all. But not all believe. and not everyone chooses to follow the Gospel message. That is a very direct parallel between those two, and it's one of those places where this is absolutely not typology. This is not a guess. Christ is drawing a direct parallel on purpose for the illustration and to teach Nicodemus.

And the last one I've got on the list here is the city of refuge. So the city of refuge is obviously an important principle of redemption and salvation in the case of the Jews who had unfortunately been involved with involuntary manslaughter. Murder is one of the worst sins. Right? You can do all kinds of other things and it's terrible and it's naughty, but murder is viewed as definitely one of the worst sins. And the Lord made a provision for that.

How many times do you run into people who reject the gospel who say, I've been too bad. Forgot to love me or forgive me. And I've heard that on occasion from various people who choose to not believe Christianity. And in large part, that's a big problem because they don't understand grace, they don't understand who Christ is. Now that's an opportunity for what, as believers, what do we do at that point in time, if the Spirit is directing your conversation. It's an opportunity to correctly state what grace is. Here's grace. This is grace.

It's unlimited, unmerited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross, not what we bring to the table. We can't be good enough. Nobody's good enough for salvation. They believe. It's the only act that the human body is capable of doing that satisfies what God needs from us. Just believe. We don't bring anything else to the table. So the City of Refuge is this principle of grace that is sufficient to cover even murder. And Christ's penalty on the cross paid for that without any question.

So let's talk about application for the believer. There are several principles that I think come out of this text. One of them is the principle of sanctification and repetition. In my own life, I've discovered this to be a pattern, and in talking with other believers, they've definitely observed the same thing. I want to start by asking, where does spiritual growth come from in the life of the believer? From the Holy Spirit?

That's a good answer. I'm looking for one thing in particular. Uh oh, since Brian's rung the bell, I'm worried we'll run out of time. Spiritual growth happens when we understand what is already true of us in Christ. Spiritual growth doesn't happen when we do spiritual push-ups. Spiritual growth doesn't happen when we go to church enough times. I read the Bible enough times to get all the gold stars on the fridge, right?

It's when we realize what is true of us in Christ, because of what Christ did on our behalf, and what became true of us upon believing. But the thing is that sometimes the Lord brings us to these truths, He brings us to these principles, and we go, that's neat, and turn around and walk the other direction. And He goes, awesome!

We're going to come back to that! And sometimes He lets us wander around the desert for another 40 years. And he says, OK, let's try that again. And he brings us back to principle. And we go, oh, I get it this time. And so sometimes in our walk with the Lord, there's a pattern where he will bring us back to things for our growth that we foolishly, and in our childhood attitude, rejected.

Just like Israel, wandering through the desert. Oh, OK, well, we're going to reset that and go again. Hope you like sand. So that's a principle that is shown to us in numbers that we can still see in the life of those who believe. Next on the list here is not all are called to certain jobs within the body.

When we look at the way the Levites or the Levitical priesthood behaved, there was infighting, right? There was all this discussion of, hey, I'm good enough. I know about Aaron, but our family's rad. And they probably didn't use the word rad, I'm guessing. If we take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we find that Paul is talking about spiritual gifts here, and it's really important that that same principle is observed here.

So if we look at 1 Corinthians 12.4, which I am turning to as efficiently as I am able. I don't have those speed tabs in my Bible where I can find things super fast. I have to go by instinct of how many pages I need to turn. So 1 Corinthians 12, verse 4, he says, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And as he goes through the chapter, he says, Are all, and he lists off different members of the body, he says, No. Or the rhetorical No is there, and some translations add it for us in certain places. But the idea is that God may call you to be something that is not what I am. Which means I can't be jealous of you, and you shouldn't be jealous of me. because that's not where the Lord has called us to.

There's been times when I was younger, when I really, really wanted to be important in the church. I thought, then people will like me. And so I looked for ways to force myself into certain situations, because I thought that would be awesome. Then I get, I will get to be important. And that didn't work out very well. Usually that backfires on me.

But the truth of the matter is that who we are in Christ and where he's got us right now and he's growing us is part of his plan and his work in the body. That means that I don't ever get to look at anybody or anyone else in the body in a negative way because the Lord's using them where they are. And it means that they don't hopefully get to look at me in a negative way because I'm where the Lord has me doing what it is that I'm called to do. And he doesn't have to send down fire and leprosy and all kinds of other things to get our attention, hopefully, right? So we have this principle here with different people in the body having different gifts. And then the last thing I've got on the list here is something that kind of stood out to me as we were looking at Miriam and Aaron as they were taken away.

The Lord said, it's time. He knows the number of our days. As my family has been wrestling with the situation with my grandpa, we keep thinking, this is not himself. He's not mentally himself. Why does he have more numbers in his days? It's really hard to watch. I don't like seeing my grandpa suffering or the family suffering around him because of his suffering. But the Lord knows the number of His days. The Lord knows exactly what He needs. And He knows what we need. You know what you need?

You need trials with your grandpa who's crazy. Awesome. Bring the trials, Lord. I guess you know what I need. I don't get it. I don't love it. But you have a plan. So, the Lord knows the number of our days and He has a purpose. And, somehow and miraculously, it just ended right before the bell. Any other thoughts, questions, things you wish I had said, things you wish I hadn't said? Good job. Alright, well if everybody is going to be quiet and not correct me on anything, I'm going to go ahead and pray and we'll close.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the truth of your word. Thank you that the book of Numbers is given to us and that you had Moses write it down and articulate for us the details of what went on. Thank you that We can't look at Israel and their wandering and their grumbling and their situation arrogantly, thinking, not us, not me. We never do that. I would never do that.

But instead, we can see ourselves in their failures and see your grace and your provision through those things and your justice and your holiness. And Lord, I just ask that you would, throughout the week, remind us of these things. And even more than that, Lord, we pray for your return. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.