The Book of Numbers opens
with God speaking to Moses in the wilderness. And though
it does begin with a census in which God has Moses
count the number of men who would go into Canaan on the offensive,
Numbers is not about figures and digits. It’s about Israel in the wilderness
and their unwillingness to follow God and his commandments. The main place we see this
is when God sends Israel to travel to the Land of Promise,
to drive out the inhabitants, and live with his presence
in the place pledged to Abraham back in Genesis. So upon arrival
at the border of Canaan, God told Moses to send men to spy
out the land to which he was soon to take them. Here they were,
God’s chosen civilization, former slaves,
saved from Egypt’s domination, on the cusp of entering the promise
God had made to generation after generation. But something would soon change them. The spies returned
and reported that the inhabitants were too strong.
They were like giants. No matter who their God was,
Israel could never triumph. And so the people disobeyed.
They would not enter. They would not be compliant.
They would not trust God or follow his guidance. And so,
God promised a punishment. These people would not
receive the Land of Promise but would die outside it, in the wilderness. All those who witnessed God’s miraculous works,
and yet refused to trust him again and again, none of them would enter in
to this Promised Land. But Moses interceded,
and God heard his cry. So God made a distinction. The younger generation
would still enter the land, but everyone counted in the
older generation, would die. And what we find
in the rest of Numbers is that the older generation
earns this sentence. For what happened outside Canaan
was not a one time instance. Instead, Numbers shows us that
disobedience was the nature of their existence. In fact,
as we trace this people through the wilderness,
we see a pattern take shape. We start to notice a cycle. God gives a law or command.
Then the people rebel and disobey, so God brings a deathly punishment.
But through Moses, intercession is made. Then it all gets replayed. In order to regroup,
in order to regulate, God gives new commands
and re-emphasizes the old ones he gave. Only to see the people rebel again,
fall under punishment, and need to be saved. Whether it was when God gave a commandment about the high priest,
only to see a rebellion form when others sought to lead. So God sent a devastating plague, which was only stopped when
intercession was made. Or when God doubled down with new
commands about the priests and their roles, only to see the people rebel again against
the commands and authorities he had chose. So God sent fiery serpents
to kill those in this rebellion, which was also stopped, only when God
provided a way of intercession. This is the cycle in Numbers.
This is its constant procession. Commands, disobedience, punishment, and intercession. And when we see this cycle,
it’s easy to start asking questions. Why do they keep disobeying? Why don’t they learn their lesson? Why won’t they change? Why do they keep committing transgression
after transgression? It’s because
this is who we are as humans. This is the result of sin’s infection. And so, the punishment God promised
came for all of them. The entirety of the older generation,
no matter the intercession, heard God’s commandments,
chose instead to sin against him, and died in the wilderness. But the story of Numbers
is not just about Israel, it is about all of us.
So when we, like the younger generation,
look at all this disobedience and devastation, we need to see that we are in
the exact same situation. We all participate in sin’s cyclical operation. We all have disobeyed and face elimination.
We, therefore, will die outside God’s holy nation. Like Israel, we are stuck in this cycle. So what hope do we have to escape it? For even Moses eventually sinned.
Even he had his moment of rejection and denial. And since he could not intercede for himself,
he would not inherit the land or join the next generation in their survival. So if it wasn’t Moses, who would come and
make a way of escape from this cycle? Well,
the book of Numbers answers in an unexpected style.
God speaks through a pagan, named Balaam, and
prophetically explains the whole hope of the Bible. God would not punish his
people like they deserved. Instead, he would offer them a blessing when
all they had earned was a curse. Through Balaam, God pointed to
a king he would raise out of Israel, who would bring them into
the land promised to his people. And the king who would
perform this delivering miracle, is none other than Jesus,
the only one who could finally break sin’s cycle. He would do so by being sinless,
by not falling into its cycle. And so the Word of God became flesh and entered into our sinful mess.
But where we disobeyed, he practiced true obedience.
So that he could enter into the place of our punishment and be our true
intercessor, our new and better Moses. For only he was worthy, only he was meritorious. So when he voluntarily allowed our
punishment to fall on him, instead of dying under it,
he rose victorious! So now, Jesus is
the way out of the wilderness. He is the way into God’s presence. He obeyed where we couldn’t have,
died where we should have, so we might enter into the place
we never could have. So when the number of your sins
are so stacked against you, that you feel stuck in its
downward spiral, remember that Jesus is interceding
for you and working within you to once and for all
break sin’s cycle. Hey, we're Spoken Gospel!
Thank you so much for watching our video introducing the book of Numbers!
We are making videos introducing every single book of the Bible showing every book's main theme and how that book points us to Jesus and his gospel. This video was crowdfunded by a group of generous people, and now we are raising support for the next round of videos,
which will be the Gospels and Acts. Spoken Gospel is a non-profit dedicated to speaking the Gospel out of every corner of Scripture. Up next, we have Deuteronomy,
and that'll wrap up "The Torah." Look forward to that. So to check out more of our free resources,
we invite you to head over to SpokenGospel.com.
