A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 15 (Part 2)

Numbers 15:32-36—32 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. 34 They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp." 36 So, as the LORD commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died. The seventh-day Sabbath was a token of that Old Covenant that God had made with the people of Israel (Exodus 31:16-17—16 “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath…17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever”). Picking up sticks was considered, by God, to be doing work. This man was doing work on the Sabbath, which God had forbade when He spoke the Ten Commandments to Moses (Exodus 20:10). He proceeded to pronounce the punishment for working on the Sabbath in Exodus 31:14-15—14 “You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death” and Moses spoke to the people the punishment in Exodus 35:2—“Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death”. So this man had heard that the Sabbath was a day of rest on which no work was to be done, lest the person die. Yet he still chose to violate that sign and sin against God, for which he paid the price with his life. When God gave the people manna in Exodus 16, Moses told the people quite plainly to not go out to gather on the seventh day. And what did some of them do? You guessed it. So why did God not call for their death, but did command that this man be put to death? Because the Law had not been given yet. Would He have been right and just in putting those people to death who gathered manna on the Sabbath? Yes. But He had not yet given the commandments about the Sabbath, so while He was angry with them, He did not destroy them. 

Let’s fast forward about 1500 years. Christ is walking through fields of grain with His disciples. Mark 2:23—Now it happened that He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. Did Jesus rebuke them? Did God command that they be stoned with stones? After all, they were (according to the Pharisees) doing work on the Sabbath. Mark 2:24—And the Pharisees said to Him, "Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" Well, they had a point. But their zeal was misplaced. The disciples were not performing work simply for the sake of performing work. They were hungry, and did as prescribed in Leviticus 19:10, and gleaning from the corners of the field. And Jesus, God in the flesh, was there with them. He rebuked the Pharisees by calling to mind what their favorite king, the ancestor of Christ Himself, had done in 1st Samuel 21:3-6, in eating the Bread of Presence, which was only for the priests, which David was not. Now, let me clear up a difficulty with this text in Mark. In Mark 2:25-26, Jesus says 25 “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: 26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread…?” Yet the text in 1st Samuel 21 says that Ahimelech was High Priest. “See? Ha! There’s a contradiction right there!” A contradiction which, if the text was altered by “corrupt copyists” as the skeptics like to say, could have been easily been altered. But it is no contradiction. For Jesus is not saying that Abiathar was High Priest at the time, only that this incident happened in the days of Abiathar. For shortly after this, his father Ahimelech was slain by Saul at the hands of Doeg (1st Samuel 22:18). So yes, David ate the showbread in the days of Abiathar (who was more closely associated with David than was Ahimelech), but Abiathar was not yet High Priest. 

So the question remains “what does the Sabbath mean today? Are we, as grafted-in descendants of Abraham, obliged to keep the seventh-day Sabbath?” The short answer is “no”. Which begs the likewise short question “why?” Because that Sabbath, which was the sign of the Old Covenant, has been done away with (as has circumcision) along with that Old Covenant. So which day do we consecrate as our day of rest? That would be what was called the “first day of the week” in the New Testament. We see this in the Book of Acts, where the disciples met on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7—Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread. They met together to break the bread which represented the body of Christ. They did this in remembrance of Him, to stir up the memory of the sacrifice of our Lord. It tells us in Colossians to not let any man hold over our heads that any day of the week is above another. Colossians 2:16-17—16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Paul says again in Romans the same thing. Romans 14:5-6—5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. Justin Martyr, in chapter LXVII of his First Apology, wrote that we should come together to remember our Lord on the first day of the week:

 

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given…

Ignatius in Chapter IX of his “Letter to the Magnesians”, said,

 

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master—how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.

[…]

The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, “He will come and save us.” Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for “he that does not work, let him not eat.” For say the [holy] oracles, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread.” But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. 

Numbers 15:37-41—37 Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 38 "Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. 39 And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, 40 and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God. 41 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God." The tassels (צׅיצׅת, tzitzith) on the borders (פָנָף, kanaph) were to be made on the four corners of their garments. These were to remind the people of the commandments that God had given them that they may be set apart from their neighboring nations and be seen as holy to God. By the time Jesus came, however, those who wanted to appear more righteous that others had forgotten that principle, and made their tzitzith (κράσπεδον, kraspedon in the Greek) larger and larger so they might appear more righteous to the people. Matthew 23:5—“But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders [κράσπεδον, kraspedon or פָנָף, kanaph] of their garments.” They did not want to be seen as simply holy, they wanted to appear to be super-holy. It wasn’t that they wanted to look at their tassels, rather they wanted others to see their tassels and be impressed. 

Here is a neat little note about the borders of the garments. In Hebrew, the word “borders” (פָנָף, kanaph) can also mean “wings”. The woman with an issue of blood in Matthew 9:20, Mark 5:25 and Luke 8:43 though within herself, “If only I could touch His garment, I will be made well”. And in Matthew 9:20 we see that she did indeed touch the hem, or border, of His garment. Why is all of this so significant? In Malachi 4:2, the prophet says But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. Malachi was not talking about wings like a bird. He was talking about the פָנָף (kanaph) of the garment of the Sun of Righteousness, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ. So she was really thinking, “This is the Sun of Righteousness foretold by the prophet Malachi. And in the borders (“wings”) of His garment there is healing! If I could only touch it, I will be healed of this dread condition that no physician could help me with, but this Jesus, the Great Physician, can heal me completely!” Let us all reach out to touch, not only the hem of Christ’s garment, but Christ Himself. He is our Lord and Savior, our God in the flesh, who tabernacled with man for 33 years, and who shed His blood as the sign of the New Covenant. Let us not look to a certain day of the week as our Sabbath rest, but rather to our true Sabbath rest, who has taken our burdens upon Himself and has given us His burden yoke, which are easy and are light. 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 15 (Part 1)

Numbers 15:1-13—1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you have come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving to you, 3 and you make an offering by fire to the LORD, a burnt offering or a sacrifice, to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering or in your appointed feasts, to make a sweet aroma to the LORD, from the herd or the flock, 4 then he who presents his offering to the LORD shall bring a grain offering of one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-fourth of a hin of oil; 5 and one-fourth of a hin of wine as a drink offering you shall prepare with the burnt offering or the sacrifice, for each lamb. 6 Or for a ram you shall prepare as a grain offering two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-third of a hin of oil; 7 and as a drink offering you shall offer one-third of a hin of wine as a sweet aroma to the LORD. 8 And when you prepare a young bull as a burnt offering, or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, or as a peace offering to the LORD, 9 then shall be offered with the young bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a hin of oil; 10 and you shall bring as the drink offering half a hin of wine as an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD. 11 Thus it shall be done for each young bull, for each ram, or for each lamb or young goat. 12 According to the number that you prepare, so you shall do with everyone according to their number. 13 All who are native-born shall do these things in this manner, in presenting an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD.'" 

Here, God is retelling the requirements for sacrifices that were to be prepared when they came into the Promised Land. Let’s define some of the measures which are stated that we do not use today.

·         The ephah. An ephah was a dry measure, used to measure out flour or wheat or barley or similar things. It is equal to about 22 liters of liquid measure, or about 3/5 of a bushel dry measure. (One tenth of an ephah would be the omer, about 2 liters or 2 quarts.)

·         The hin. About 4 liters or one gallon. So a fourth of a hin of oil would be about a quart. 

With these measurements in mind, we can figure out the various measures described in the text. So first, when we see 4 then he who presents his offering to the LORD shall bring a grain offering of one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-fourth of a hin of oil; 5 and one-fourth of a hin of wine as a drink offering, he is to bring about 2 liters of flour with a quart of oil for the grain offering, with a quart of wine for a drink offering if they were bringing a sheep (or kid of the goats) or livestock. 6 Or for a ram you shall prepare as a grain offering two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-third of a hin of oil; 7 and as a drink offering you shall offer one-third of a hin of wine they were to mingle 4 quarts of flour with about 1-1/2 quarts of oil for the grain offering with about 1-1/2 quarts of wine for the drink offering. 8 And when you prepare a young bull (a calf) as a burnt offering, or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, or as a peace offering to the LORD, 9 then shall be offered with the young bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a hin of oil; 10 and you shall bring as the drink offering half a hin of wine, they were to bring 6 quarts of flour with 2 liters of oil for the grain offering, with 2 liters of wine for the drink offering. 

These were meant to show that they were still God’s people. God was not through with the people of Israel, He would still accept their sacrifices and they would still be His, even though they would not enter the Promised Land. Just as it is today. As Paul says in Romans 11:1—I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! Some today say that God is through with Israel, that because they crucified His Messiah, that God has cast them off. How absurd! God made a covenant with Abraham, and reminded the people of Israel that it was an everlasting covenant, and said through the prophet, in Jeremiah 31:35-37—35 Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is His name): 36 " If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever." 37 Thus says the LORD: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,” says the LORD. One may say “But what of the New Covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31, and again in Hebrews 8:13? Doesn’t this mean that God has done away with them?” What they are really saying is that God lied when He spoke the words of Jeremiah 31:35-37. Rather, He established a New Covenant, just as He said He would. A new and better covenant. One in which the people no longer had to appear with the blood of bulls and goats, but one where God appeared with the blood of His Son, that no longer were His laws written on stone tablets, but in the minds and on the hearts of the people (Jeremiah 31:33). 

“But look at Israel today. They do not follow Christ. In fact, they despise anyone who speaks and preaches in His name!” Do not confuse the physical nation of Israel with the people of Israel. If the New Covenant was with a physical nation, then why did He allow the Romans to destroy the temple in Jerusalem? Why did Jesus say "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here" (John 18:36). And now His kingdom does not reside in one earthly place, but He has set His name on those who put their faith in Christ. And in all actuality, the New Covenant is an improvement on the Old Covenant. But why a New Covenant? One reason for this New Covenant is that the people of Israel, who at one time said “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1^st Samuel 8:5), later said “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). They had thrown off God as their king (1^st Samuel 8:7), and had bound themselves under an earthly king. This was the natural end of their desire for a king besides God. And it necessitated a New Covenant, since they had broken the Old Covenant time and time again. They thought that they could sin and chase Baal and Ashtaroth, then bring a sacrifice for their sins, and this would please God. But what does Hosea say? Hosea 6:6—“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” Hosea 8:13-14—13 “For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the LORD does not accept them…14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker.” 

And yes, the physical nation of Israel has forgotten the Lord who spilled His blood at Calvary. But that does not mean that God is done with them. Has God cast away His people? Certainly not! Paul was  Hebrew, and in the New Testament, he still calls them God’s people. Why? Because He is not through with them. Otherwise, why did he say in Romans 11:4-5—4 But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Why would God remember the people who broke covenant with Him? Why would He continue with a people who have sinned against Him and shed the blood of bulls and goats to try to please Him? Why would He not just cast them all aside and take to Himself a new people? Because there are some of the descendants of Abraham who do embrace Christ, who do see Him as their Messiah, no matter what their family says. In other words, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 

And that is the message God is conveying in our text in Numbers 15. There were those among the half-million or so people who did not complain, who kept God as the center of their worship, and who did not complain and murmur and grumble. Speaking to Moses, He said “I have pardoned, according to your word” (Numbers 14:20). But because these were included in the crowd of people, they were prohibited from entering Canaan. Except for Caleb the son of Jephuneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. (Numbers 14:30). The people said that their children would be prey in the wilderness (Numbers 14:3), when in fact they would be the ones to see the good land that God had promised. God is not one to forget His promises, like the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to bring His people into a good land. 

Numbers 15:14-16—“‘14 And if a stranger dwells with you, or whoever is among you throughout your generations, and would present an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD, just as you do, so shall he do. 15 One ordinance shall be for you of the assembly and for the stranger who dwells with you, an ordinance forever throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD. 16 One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger who dwells with you.’” To show that those who came up out of Egypt with the people of Israel were not to be counted any differently, and to show that all His people are equal in His sight, He made it known to the people here (as He did in Exodus 12:49) that those who were circumcised in their flesh and were counted as the people of God were to follow the same commands as those who were born descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These were what were called previously the “mixed multitude”, who were of unknown origin but were not of Israelite stock. In other words, they were Gentiles by birth. 

Today, how are those who are Gentiles by birth brought into the Kingdom of God? The same way as the one who is a Jew by birth. By the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:11-14—11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Do not think that Jews are saved one way and Gentiles another way. For One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger who dwells with you. There is only one way we will live in the presence of our Lord who bought us, whether we be Jew or Gentile. That is through the blood of Jesus, whose blood bought all whom God purposed to come into His Kingdom, no matter what their tribe, tongue, nation, or kindred. All who are His are one, and all who believe are counted as descendants of Abraham. Galatians 3:28-29—28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Do you doubt that? Put that doubt away, for John the Baptist even said the same thing in Matthew 3:9—“Do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” 

“So how is it that those who are Gentiles by birth should be counted as Abraham’s seed?” I’m glad you asked. Even though you didn’t. But you should have. Paul, the Hebrew of Hebrews tells us in Romans 11:24-25—24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. The wild olive tree is the Gentiles, while the cultivated olive tree—the one which God chose and groomed for millennia—are the natural seed of Abraham. And by Christ we of the wild olive tree have been grafted in to the olive tree which God chose and groomed and fertilized from the time of Abraham. And if anyone thinks they are better than the Jews of God’s olive tree, let them think again. Romans 11:20-21—20 Do not be haughty, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. As I have said before, and will most likely say again, let us never think better of ourselves than we ought. God did not spare those who were natural descendants of Abraham, for they sinned in slaying the Lord of Glory. Do you think we are any different? Are our sins better than theirs? No, our sins are not better than theirs. All sin is sin. Do not think that God will spare anyone who, although they did not crucify Christ, still hates that name and persecutes those who call on it. 

Numbers 15:17-31 is a reiteration of the sacrifices for the sins committed in ignorance which were covered in Leviticus 4:14-21, you can read more about them HERE.

 

Part 2 next week

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen. 

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 14 (Part 2)

There are the eternal consequences of not believing God and rejecting Him. What were the temporal consequences for the people of Israel? “They certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.” The people were led by the hand out of bondage. God showed them signs that He was with them and was doing great things for them. He gave them signs and wonders to show them that He is God and should be trusted and worshipped as God. Yet what did the people do? They complained. They murmured. They grumbled. They were not happy with the lot that God had cast for them, so they cried out that they wanted to go back to the taskmasters. So God said, “Fine. Those who have not trusted Me, those who have complained about being brought out from under the whips, those who want their old life as slaves, they shall not see what I have promised and will die before they see the Promised Land.” This is a foreshadowing of what will happen, eternally, to those who reject Christ. He came to Earth, clothed in human form, lived a perfect, spotless life, performed many miracles, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, died on the Cross and was raised from the dead, and was seen by over 500 witnesses. Yet many still do not believe. They reject Him, they mock Him, scoff at Him. They would rather live in their lost state than to bow the knee to the One who died for them. 

They don’t believe the words of Holy Writ, that the words testify of the God who became flesh to take away their sins. They would rather remain a slave to sin. See, in this life, every single person ever born is a slave. You are either a slave to Satan and sin, or you are a slave to Christ and righteousness. Romans 6:16—Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? This is one of those places where Paul quotes Jesus, although not verbatim. Jesus Himself says that while we are still in our sinful state, we are slaves to sin. John 8:34, 36—34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin…36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Paul says almost the exact same thing in Romans 6:17-18—17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Before we knew Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were slaves of Satan. We carried on however we liked, we ran around, cussed, swore, maybe drank or did drugs. Peter speaks of these things in 1st Peter 4:3—For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. But then the Holy Spirit gets ahold of someone, changes them on the inside, makes them love the things of God and hate the things of the flesh. We learn that the things we used to do when we were slaves of sin were displeasing to God. And we begin to embrace the things that please God. We are, as Paul wrote, a “new creation” (2nd Corinthians 5:17). We look back at our former self and think “why did I do those things?” Our goal now is not to please our flesh or to please others, but to please God. 

Caleb understood this. Numbers 14:24—“But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.” Just as there are few that find the narrow way today, there were even fewer of the people of Israel who saw the Promised Land. Why? Was he better and more intelligent than the others? No. He had a different spirit. What spirit was that? The Holy Spirit. It made of him a different man, just as it makes believers today different people. Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon on this text entitled “The Believer a New Creature”, said:

 

“The affections being changed, the whole man is on the way towards a great and radical renewal, for now the emotions find another ruler. The passions, once rabid as vultures at the sight of the carrion of sin, now turn with loathing from iniquity and are only stirred by holy principles. The convert grows vehement against evil, as vehement as he once was against the right. Now he longs and pines after communion with God as once he longed and pined after sin! The affections, like a rudder, have changed the direction of the emotions and meanwhile the will, that most stubborn thing of all, that iron sinew, is led in a blessed captivity, wearing silken fetters. The heart wills to do what God wills. Yes, it wills to be perfect, for to will is present with us though how to perform all that we would we find not.” 

But once we know the truth, we must be careful that we do not use our newfound position in Christ as a way to mock non-believers for their ignorance of God and Christ. In the same sermon, he said “A man may be changed from one sin to another—from reckless profanity to mocking formality—from daring sin to hypocritical pretension to virtue. But such a change is as very far from being saving and not at all like the work which is called a new creation.” When we see our salvation as something we did by reciting a prayer and going to church, we run the risk of looking down our noses at those who used to live just as we did. We can be like the Pharisee in Luke 8:11-12, when we should be more like the Publican in Luke 18:13. We should see our salvation as something that God wrought in us, that He, for whatever reason (I do not know, God knows, to quote Paul) He saw fit to place in us a new heart, to write His laws upon that new heart, and to make a new creation out of us. And although God turned away these people from the Promised Land for rejecting Him ten times, how often are we to forgive a brother who sins against us? Seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:22). In fact, I dare say God has forgiven each one of us seventy times seven times just this morning alone! 

Caleb understood who God is when those around him did not. And this is what spurred him on through the desert—across the blistering sands, in days of hunger and thirst, when everything in him may have been longing for bread and water, for melons and leeks and garlic and cucumbers. But he did not allow his flesh to be overcome by these longings. His eyes were on the promise God set out before him. Millennia later, Jesus would speak about not desiring to go back to the slavery of sin, and to keep moving forward to what God has in store for us. Luke 9:62—“No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” He gave us a warning in another place about the consequences of forgetting the goodness of God in rescuing us from unrighteousness and instead looking back to the things that He rescued us from. Luke 17:32—“Remember Lot’s wife”. Let us never look back fondly of our days as slaves of Satan, but always remember we are slaves of God. Let us not be as the unbelievers, but, in lifting them up to God, let us look kindly upon them, praying for their salvation, and looking forward to the reward God has in store for us. 

Numbers 14:25, 40-45—25 “Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley; tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea”…40 And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, "Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised, for we have sinned!" 41 And Moses said, "Now why do you transgress the command of the LORD? For this will not succeed. 42 Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the LORD is not among you. 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you." 44 But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah. (In verses 25-39, God restates the fate of those who rejected Him and complained against Him.) 

Here we see an example of what can happen to a new believer, when they think they can make up for their past sins by performing actions which are not sanctioned by God, and can ultimately lead to disastrous ends. Instead of going in the way the Holy Spirit leads, and just trusting in Christ for their salvation, thinking that God’s grace isn’t enough and they have to do something to “earn” their salvation, the person decides they know better and they plunge headlong into some endeavor that can, potentially, lead them away from God. Likewise, the people in Numbers were instructed by God to go by way of the Red Sea. He had a particular way He wanted them to go, because of their disobedience. He did not order them (and did not want them) fighting the Amalekites and Canaanites in the valley; He wanted them to just go their way by the Red Sea. Why? Perhaps as a reminder of the sea He parted and brought them through on dry land. 

Doesn’t He do that sometimes? When we are foolish and rebellious against Him, doesn’t He bring to our mind something great He has done for us, just so we can remember who He is? He doesn’t want us to fight a battle, He just wants us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). But the people didn’t do that. They had battled the Amalekites before (Exodus 17), and they beat the Amalekites. Surely they can beat them again! Just one problem. In that battle, they had Moses and Joshua to go with them. And, most importantly, they had God fighting for them. This time, they did not. Neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp. This time they were on their own. And what happens to the people when they fight a battle alone, without God on their side? They get throttled. Just like anyone trying to fight a spiritual battle without God is going to get throttled. Why? Well, just as the Amalekites and Canaanites were experienced in battle and the people of Israel were not, Satan is experienced in spiritual battles, having lived for thousands of years and being of a stronger spirit than any human being who does not have the Holy Spirit going into that battle. Besides, Satan has an entire band of demons he can call and they will fight battles for him. How often do new believers—and mature believers sometimes—think they can beat Satan through their sheer willpower or smarts? They think Satan gives up more easily than he actually does. And things go about as well as expected. “Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the LORD is not among you.” 

 Luke 11:24-26—24 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' 25 And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first." Why does the person fall? Often they forget to ask God’s help. Often, the reason can be summed up in one word: pride. Proverbs 16:18—Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Paul warns us to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought. 1st Corinthians 10:12—Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And perhaps a lack of repentance. A lack of humility. A lack of the fundamental understanding of who God is, which they had displayed before them ten times that we know of. But they were determined they were gonna show God that they knew better, that they could defeat their enemies all by themselves, that they didn’t need God fighting for them, because they were enough. The truth is, they were not enough. We are not enough. Those we call “mighty men of God” are, as Paul Washer says, “only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God”. In the words of the Old Testament scholars Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch—

 

But instead of bending penitentially under the judgment of God, they resolved to atone for their error, by preparing the next morning to go to the top of the mountain and press forward into Canaan. And they would not even suffer themselves to be dissuaded from their enterprise by the entreaties of Moses, who denounced it as a transgression of the word of God which could not succeed, and predicted their overthrow before their enemies, but went presumptuously up without the ark of the covenant and without Moses, who did not depart out of the midst of the camp, and were smitten by the Amalekites and Canaanites, who drove them back as far as Hormah. Whereas at first they had refused to enter upon the conflict with the Canaanites, through their unbelief in the might of the promise of God, now, through unbelief in the severity of the judgment of God, they resolved to engage in this conflict by their own power, and without the help of God, and to cancel the old sin of unbelieving despair through the new sin of presumptuous self-confidence—an attempt which could never succeed, but was sure to plunge deeper and deeper into misery. 

Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp. Perhaps this is the reason the Israelites thought it would be a good idea to bring out the Ark of the Covenant when the Philistines were defeating them in battle in 1st Samuel 4:3-5—3 And when the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies." 4 So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from there the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5 And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook. They thought of the Ark of the Covenant as a sort of good luck charm that would help them turn the tide and defeat the Philistines. But what they did not take into account was that Eli, who had judged Israel forty years (1st Samuel 4:18), had never corrected his sons from the evil they were perpetrating in taking away God’s portion from the sacrifices of the people. This was near the end of the period of the Judges, when every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). Eli was one of those, and allowed evil to continue, unlike those such as Gideon and Ehud and Othneil, who led the people to repentance and favor with God. Which is why the wife of Phinehas, son of Eli, said when the Ark was captured and her husband and his brother killed, that "The glory has departed from Israel!" (1st Samuel 4:21). Let us never see God as one who will simply grant our wishes, which would make us sovereign over Him, but rather let us follow the lead of YHVH and do what is right in HIS eyes, that we do not fall into the hands of the evil one. 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.