This Week in Deeper

As we jump into today’s reading in Numbers 15-21, there is a ton of material to cover. Don’t forget that this is all happening while the nation of Israel is in the wilderness of Sinai, waiting to go into the promised land

Some very significant things happen as it pertains to the peoples entrance into the promised land, including the update that Moses, the Israelites spiritual leader and biblical hall of famer, wouldn’t be permitted to lead the people into the land.

It's crazy that the children of Israel would find themselves in this position, just over a year removed from the greatest event in their life-time, the first passover. God has done so much for these people and yet they still have no faith that their God can overcome enemy armies, fortified cities and the dreaded descendants of Anak. 

It sounds so silly, but we still do the same thing today. God is mighty, God is strong, and God is able. If we'll just follow His voice through the unknown. God will provide.

'May the Lord bless you

and protect you.

May the Lord smile on you

and be gracious to you.

May the Lord show you his favor

and give you his peace.’

The book of Numbers is known in the Hebrew Old Testament as “Bedmidbar” which means “in the desert”. We get the name “Numbers” because of the the two censuses that are recorded in the book. Most of the book however describes Israels experience in the desert.

Basically this book is a sequel to the book of Exodus, and at this point the people have spent about a year camped at Mount Sinai, it was during this year that God establishes His covenant which we studied last week in depth in the book of Leviticus.

Todays reading is God preparing the generation which is called the Exodus generation because this was the generation that came out of Egypt, to go and take the promised land. The census was to document all the Israelite men who were eligible to go to war.

Todays reading starts out with a promise from God, that if Israel would follow Gods plans then they as a people would remain under God’s blessing. God would protect the Israelites from wild animals and foreign armies. He would make sure that the Israelites could count on a rain season. Which let me tell you, if you are a farmer or you live off of the land, as the Israelites did, this is a major blessing. I can’t tell you how many times I prayed with farmers in central Arkansas for rain!

Lastly and most importantly, God said in 26:11-12 “I will live among you, and I will not despise you. 12 I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

How great is it to live in the blessings and company of God.

But if the Israelites were to deviate from God’s plans then they would walk away from His blessing, and God would curse them.

There would be illness, famine and defeat, droughts and bad harvests.

Wild animals will be a nuisance,

Foreign armies would invade and have success and ultimately, God would remove them from the land.

God desired total commitment to Him and to avoid idols of all kinds.

Israelites had what was called the year of Jubilee every 49 years. During this year people would return to their ancestors home land and would grow no crops. God would provide enough yield for the upcoming year of Jubilee.

The purpose of this year was to make sure that people relied on God instead of gaining great power from earthly possessions. It also made sure that those who had been successful didn’t build large amounts of wealth at the expense of the less fortunate.

Today's reading might cross over into PG-13 area, but you’ll find out that the Bible is much more like an action movie than the cartoon felt board characters that have made up much of our Christian education over the years.

There’s a lot of things that we as Christians can take away from todays reading. It’s still important for us today to be set apart. Like we talked about in greater detail yesterday, the sacrifice for sin wasn’t just the price of your lifestyle, it was only accepted by God, if the sacrifice was given in genuine remorse.

The same applies to the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

On a personal note, I spent a lot of my time as a youth living in fear that I wasn’t saved because I was worried that I didn’t have enough remorse for the sin in my life, I didn’t have the understanding of God that I do today (and that’s always growing)

The problem that we face is that in parts of the US and around the world, its culturally unacceptable not to be a “Christian” yet culturally unacceptable to actually walk out your faith in a way that is pleasing to God, we see this play out on almost every country station on the FM band.

God’s people should be set apart, and I’m not saying that you need to be some kind of weirdo,

Christians should be people who takes God’s principles seriously. They should be people who seek to follow all the commandments of God, They should always consider the teachings of Christ

This podcast exists because there is a major problem of biblical illiteracy in the church today. Too many people are cultural Christians, and not enough people are versed in their word. This has to change if the church is ever going to be effective going forward.

It’s hard for Christians today to truly understand the life of an Old Testament believer. The things that we are reading here are just so foreign.

You could almost equate it to a very affluent person not understanding the life of a peasant. Jesus Christ has just simply made our lives so much easier.

In yesterdays podcast we talked about how Jesus took the place of the sacrificial lamb, therefore instead of shedding the blood of animals, we can claim the sacrifice of Jesus’ body on the cross as our sacrifice for sin.

Jesus became the blood sacrifice, so that we could be made right in the sight of God.

But as we read this passage today, we see that not only did the Old Testament believer need a sin offering to approach God, they also needed the service of the priest. This priest would act as the mediator between that individual and God. These priest were ministry leaders who came from the tribe of Levi

The priest would be appointed to lead worship rituals and help men and women approach God, so that they could worship Him and receive forgiveness from God.

The priest would bring people near to God and would offer sacrifices to God.

Today, you and I live under the new covenant. In this covenant, Jesus has replaced the high priest,

Jesus is the mediator between us and God. In doing this, Jesus has given us permanent access to the Father.

I know that when we read this today in our culture, it can seem cruel, it can seem like God doesn’t care about the sanctity of the life that He created and placed in these animals. I love animals, and I don’t want to see an animal needlessly killed, much less be in any amount of pain.

I have a dog named holly and as far as I’m concerned she’s part of our family.

So I get the unfortunate reality that we must face a lot of death and bloodshed because of animal sacrifice.

But when we look at what is happening in perspective, what the blood sacrifice was and what it was in place of. This isn’t a happy ceremony, this is a very deep and emotional event that should enact a change in the hearts of the Israelites.