This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.
Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter one. Numbers, chapter one. And this, this is one of the books of the Pentateuch. It's the fourth book of the five books that Moses wrote. It is a very important book, spiritually speaking, as far as what it kind of gives us a symbolism of. And it's important because it covers a important period in Israel's history that is mirrored by the christian life. And so when we study through this book, we're going to be studying an aspect of the christian life that I think is of great importance for believers to understand. And it's an in depth dive into it. And especially for those who are growing and who are interested in seeing other believers grow and are involved in that. Whether you're using your spiritual gifts in encouragement or you're using your spiritual gifts in, in giving people advice and understanding, whether you're using them in leadership or teaching or any of the spiritual gifts that might help someone along their way in their growth in the christian life book members and understanding how it operates is important. And that's because it is the chronicle of the wilderness experience. And you go, well, that was not a good experience, if I remember correctly. And you're not. It wasn't a good experience. And the reason it wasn't a good experience is because you're going to see, as we study through the book, God gave them an order to get ready and to go into the promised land, and they do everything but do what God said, and they come up with reasons why not to. Now you go, well, what does that have to do with the christian life? Well, the christian life is about, first of all, God's activity in giving us the new life, giving us eternal life, and then it's about us learning to walk in faith with him. And so naturally, the thing we've got to learn how to do is walk by faith. And the first thing we're supposed to do in the christian life is to be baptized. And that is a physical activity that reflects a spiritual truth or a spiritual walk by faith. And by doing that, you kind of begin with your body to act in faith toward God. It's kind of that take it off point of walking with God. Well, God would like for you to get to the place where you're filled with his holy spirit and walking in faith regularly. But as you know, a lot of believers spend a lot of time not figuring that out, not entering into God's best, his promised land, not being continually grown and mature. Then, you know, people who may have been christians for a long, long time and then, and then didn't, and then all of a sudden figured it out and began to wet by faith, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember when wept by faith? We're filled with the Holy Spirit. And then we're like a. A artesian well. We. The water or the. Or the power of the Holy Spirit flows out of us. We're a spring of God's power, God's love, God's compassion. And that pools out on the world around us. And so that's what the christian life's supposed to be about. But a lot of times, people spend a lot of years in their christian walk, not being who God wants them to be, not walking by faith, and they miss out on it. And the book of, the book of numbers reflects that truth. The book of numbers teaches us how that happens, what the consequences are, and how we can not do that with our own life. And so it's kind of one of those things that's just really, really important. And it says in verse one, it says, now, the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of meeting on the first day of the second month, in the second year that they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel by the families, by the father's houses, according to the numbers of names, every male individually from 20 years old, and above all who are able to go to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies, and with you there shall be a man from every tribe, each one the head of his father's house. So basically what they said was, I want you to go and number the fighting age men of the people of Israel from 20 up, and then pick someone to be the head of each tribe of Israel. Now you go. I don't really understand what's going on here. Well, what's going on here is God's going to show them a couple of things and he's going to prove to them a couple of things. A couple of things that are really important. First of all, the book of Leviticus only took place over about a month. The Book of numbers is going to take place over 40 years. But at the start of the Book of numbers, God is going to say to them a few things. He's going to prove to them a few things. And by the way, if you say, well, are you going to read the whole chapter this morning? And the answer is no, because I'm sure it'd be a lot of fun for you to listen to me mispronounce every name in here, although there's a few of them that I actually could pronounce. But, but many of them I would pronounce absolutely wrongly. And I'm sure there would be many games you could play while listening to me try to pronounce all these names. We're not going to do that. What we're going to do is we're going to talk about what they mean because it covers 30 years. But it does. They did not have to be in the wilderness for 40 years. They didn't have to be. Well, how do I know that? Well, first of all, I know that because when they number, the number of people that are in the, in, that are a fighting age and are able to go out and, and go to ruler, the number of people, number of men that they find the fighting age is 603,550. That's from all twelve tribes. If you go, well, which tribe had the most? Well, the largest tribe, it's always Judah. Judah had 74,600 men that were of fighting agents. Now, if you said, well, what's the smallest tribe? Manasseh? 32,200. But as you go through, there's all 30, 30, 50, 60, and then even the old Judah, that says 70,000 men that are fighting age, which means there's 600,000 men who are able to go and fight the war. Now, if you think about the number of men that is, that is actually larger than the United States standing Army today, as far as numbers are concerned. It's, it not, I'm talking about military fighting force. The United States army. It's larger than that right now. And now that doesn't include air force, the Marine Corps, the Navy. But, but it's, it's a larger number than the actual army of the United States. Now, we don't have the tanks. They didn't have the tanks or the weaponry that we have, but that's a large number. And for that day and age, that was a huge amount of people, a great amount of people to go to battle with. So it's not like they, they were not mature and strong enough as a nation to actually enter into the promised land. They were plenty strong as a nation to enter into the promised land. And the whole reason God wanted them to be numbered is, first of all, God wants you to understand that he, he, he's watching you. He's figuring these things out for you. He's struggling along with you as you struggle. He's trying to get you. Now, God's not struggling, but he's rattling with you, trying to get you to become who you should be. And he allowed his people to become a great nation. That was his promise. That was Adam's idea, that there would be a light to the Gentiles there in the land of promise that he had promised them. And so he landed them to, to have the good things that God, that he desired for them. And he ran them entering the promised land immediately. He wanted them to be that light at that moment. And he proved to them, you have the power to do it. You're able to. And for many young believers, that's something that they don't really figure out, that they really have the power to be great. Now, a lot of times what will happen is a young believer will be on fire and they'll go out there and, and start serving God, and they'll run into problems, and that causes them to pull back and to stop doing what God has told them to do. Well, you're going to have problems because battles have problems. I mean, the reason they numbered all the men that could have says is because you're going to go to ru, you're going to go to battle, and you got to learn how to do that. You got to learn how to struggle through what God has for you to go to Ruah and go to battle against the. Well, the gates of hell, which are trying to hold us back from God's best. It's trying the, the enemy is trying to hold us back. And in fact, that's really what the enemy is about doing for believers. The enemy's not about destroying you. They know we can't destroy you. The enemy's about holding you back from becoming who you should be in Christ Jesus. And so God tells them to number the people. Now he holds back the Levites. He doesn't number them because they're not to go to row. The Levites were to be set aside for a relationship with him, though, to be the conduits of his relationship with them. It is the fulfillment of the promise of God. God trying to get them to head in and do what they should do. Now, God had given this promise to him hundreds of years before and which tells us that God's promises remain even when those who were, who received the promises no man really live. His promises are true and he has made his people a great nation. When he gave Abraham that promise, there were just twelve children that, that were Israel. You have Abraham and then you have Isaac and then Ishmael with him, and then Jacob, and then, I mean Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob and, well, it is Isaac and Ishmael and then Jacob and Esau. And then from Jacob you have twelve tribes. So three generations later, you finally get the twelve children of Israel. And then it's 500 years after that, and now there's 600,000 men of fighting age. 500 years later, they're a great nation. It's the fulfillment of the promise of God. So many times we think that God has forgotten his promises to us. So many times we think that God doesn't remember anymore who we are and where we're at. But I want you to hear me. The Bible says the promises of God are yes, and amen. You have all the promises available to you, but you got to wrap in them and you got to act upon them. And really, the book of numbers is in many ways a tragedy. It's a tragedy because God's people could have been experiencing his best and learned because they refused to hear God and do what he asked, hearing believe him and walk it out. They refuse to do that. And as they refuse to do that, they experience a lot of problems. And we're going to see those problems, how they develop. And you're going to recognize those problems in many people that, you know, maybe, maybe in many ways in your own life, you're going to recognize the problems that they face when we're not walking in the promises of God, when we're not filled with his holy spirit, when we're not becoming the men and women that God has desired us to be. And so I pray, as we begin this journey through the book of numbers, I pray that you would begin to recognize the things in your life that are keeping you from God's best, keeping you out of the promised land, and that you would begin to set those things aside and take up the things that will make you God's best that will provide you his kingdom, the very best that he desires for you. I'm excited about it. I hope you wear it too.
As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.
