Untitled Sermon (29)

A Church Coming Out Of A Pandemic

Numebers 1:1-16

For the first three months after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites kept on the move through the wilderness. If they entertained the notion that their troubles were over, this was soon dispelled by the onrush of trial and tribulation. They faced ‘trial by water’ at Mara, ‘trial by food’ in the wilderness of Sin and ‘trial by enemies’ at Rephidim. Every time, their trust in the Lord faltered and, every time, the Lord in his grace still provided for them: the springs of Elim and the miracle of the manna gave them food and drink; the water from the rock answered that inner enemy, their querulous unbelief, and the uplifted arms of faithful Moses gave them victory in battle over their external enemy, the Amalekites (Exod. 15:22–17:16).

They then camped in the wilderness of Sinai and for most of the year remained in the shadow of Horeb, ‘the mountain of God,’ as God prepared them for the march to the promised land. Exodus 19–40 records how they were given the Ten Commandments and the laws regulating their society: the regulations for the worship of God and the plans for the building of the house of worship, the tabernacle. We read of how, in spite of all that God had revealed of himself to them and all that he had done for them, they rebelled and turned to the idol-worship of a golden calf. God punished them, but then renewed his covenant with them. They were again given the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, the laws of the book of Leviticus were set out for them and they were commanded to build the tabernacle. Thus prepared, they would be ready to renew their journey to Canaan.

The book of Numbers takes up where Exodus leaves off, and tells of the arrangements for the journey, of the journey itself and of the arrival of the people of God at the threshold of the land of promise. The people had to be well organized for their odyssey, and, as a first step, a census was taken of the fighting potential of the nation.

God’s people (1:1–16)

The Lord told Moses to count the people, ‘by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one’ (1:2). But why this laborious process? What was God’s interest in having such a census taken?

First of all, God was asserting his sovereign dominion over his people. Most modern nations conduct a census about every ten years. What does this signify? Surely it says, at its most basic level, that you who are counted are under the jurisdiction of your national government. Sovereignty is the basis of census-taking and is its primary message for the people so numbered. God said to Israel, ‘I am your God and you are my people.’ Lordship and ownership belonged to him. He spoke; he commanded; he willed—and they were marshalled according to his decree!

Secondly, God was declaring his love for Israel as his particular people. As the Shepherd of Israel, he counts off the sheep (Ps. 80:1). He leads, guides, protects and saves his sheep (Ps. 23). Hence the naming of the heads of the tribes. The Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim. 2:19). It is a picture of the love which moves the Lord to enter, one by one, the names of those who are recorded in the book of life (Phil. 4:3). God’s love is personal and particular. He knows his elect with saving love, but he declares to the reprobate lost on the Day of Judgement, ‘I never knew you’ (Matt. 7:23).

Thirdly, God was reminding them of his covenant promise, made so long before, that Israel would be a great nation (Gen. 12:2; 22:17; 32:12). Jacob had taken a family of seventy people into Egypt four centuries earlier and now they were a nation of perhaps 2,000,000! God had been faithful and that promised greater things for the future as they looked to the journey to the promised land. The census had a future reference. It organized the people for blessings yet to come! The lesson remains for the church today, for we who were ‘not a people’ are now, in Jesus Christ, ‘the people of God’ (1 Peter 2:9–10).

Fighting saints (1:17–46)

The second section records the results of the census. One by one, the fighting strength of each of the twelve tribes is recorded, making a grand total of 603,550. Again, we ask, ‘What does this mean?’

Most obviously, it indicates that Israel was going to have to fight for the promised land. The Amorites could not be expected to keel over or run up the white flag. God’s covenant promise would involve warfare, with all that implied in terms of blood, toil, tears and sweat. Behind that temporal reality for Israel, however, stands the more profound reality that God’s people, in Old and New Testaments alike, are called to a spiritual warfare, of which the physical wars of Israel were just a shadow and an emblem. The New Testament church, as the ‘holy nation’ of 1 Peter 2:9, is involved in a mighty contest of arms, even though ‘the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world’ (2 Cor. 10:4). The church’s calling is to be a body of believers, going forth in living personal faith in Christ their Saviour, to serve his kingdom in the world. Matthew Henry stresses the necessity of personal commitment: ‘The church being militant, those only are [her] true members [who] have enlisted themselves soldiers of Jesus Christ: for our life, our Christian life, is a warfare.’ We are to ‘put on the … armour of God’ (Eph. 6:13). We are to ‘fight the good fight of faith’ (1 Tim. 6:12). We are to be fighting saints in God’s war! Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, but it is certainly in it, and Christians are in the thick of the battle!

Secondly, there is a quiet indication in the numbers listed that God fulfils promises and rewards faithfulness. The relative strengths of the tribes—and their positions in the camp (Num. 2)—were not mere accidents.

Judah, with 74,600 men, was the largest and most powerful tribe (1:26–27). On his deathbed, Jacob had told Judah, ‘Your brothers will praise you,’ and

‘The sceptre will not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

until he comes to whom it belongs

and the obedience of the nations is his’

(Gen. 49:8, 10).

This clearly indicated that Judah would be the foremost of the tribes. And this indeed was the case throughout Israel’s history, from the Sinai census to the Davidic monarchy. And it did not stop there. This is a Messianic prophecy. The sceptre ultimately belongs to Christ and the destiny of Judah culminates in the mediatorial kingship of Jesus Christ. ‘For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah’ (Heb. 7:14).

Ephraim and Manasseh (1:32–35) were sons of Joseph and together almost as large as Judah. That they were counted equal with their uncles, Reuben and Simeon (Gen. 48:5), marked the fact that their father had been blessed with a double portion—‘Joseph’ was two tribes, not just one. Joseph was ‘a fruitful vine’ (Gen. 49:22), and this is reflected in the census.

These relative numbers are only a little more than hints. They are, nevertheless, encouragements to move us to seek the blessing of God in living faithfulness to his Word. James Philip points out that there is also a warning: ‘The tribes that stemmed from men who sinned grievously seldom raised up any great figures, or men of renown.’ Caleb and David came from Judah, Gideon and Samuel from Ephraim, Gideon from Manasseh and Paul the apostle from Benjamin. ‘No man lives unto himself,’ adds Philip. ‘We are making our future now, and, it may be, the future of our families also.’

Thirdly, there is, in these numbers, an implicit promise of supernatural sustaining grace. The Israelites knew very well that Sinai was no granary, capable of sustaining them through a journey of any length. They did not know, at this point, that it would end up being a forty-year journey. What they did know was that the logistics of even a direct path to Canaan were problematic, to say the least. The grumblings at Marah and Rephidim, and the miraculous provision of the manna and the quail, had already told them that the Lord alone could provide their needs (Exod. 15:22–17:7). Therefore, sums up John Calvin, ‘The intention of the Spirit is to represent to our eyes the incredible power of God in a conspicuous and signal miracle.’ In other words, the passage of Israel from Egypt to Canaan is one stupendous miracle, of which the numbers involved are the clearest testimony. The various schemes adopted by some commentators to explain away the large numbers—‘603,550’ men (1:46) implies about 2,000,000 people—all basically arise, even by their own argumentation, from the assumption that Sinai could never support such a population. This assumption may be correct, but the conclusion that the numbers had to be much smaller is thoroughly rationalistic and misses the whole point, which is that God miraculously sustained Israel through her epic odyssey! Whether Israel was the 2,000,000 implied by the text, or the 100,000 or so suggested by those who try to amend the text, Sinai, even in its ancient, less desertified state, could not have supported them anyway. But God did! God was determined to go with his people and show them a victory over seemingly impossible obstacles and hazards!

Given all God’s promises of sustaining grace, why did the Israelites complain so much in the desert? One reason is surely that the desert experience meant that they had to trust God every day. They had no alternative whatsoever, and this rankled. The truth is that none of us wants to have to trust God all day and every day. We want to know there is money in the bank and food in the cupboard. We want a paid-off mortgage and a paid-up pension fund. We like security we can see and touch. We like trusting in our own efforts and in our own things. Take these away and we become scared and embittered. In Sinai, Israelites woke every morning knowing for sure that if they could not trust God, they would go to bed hungry. The manna was indeed as dependable as the Lord who sent it, but every scrap that the Israelites ate reminded them that they had to trust the Lord, wholly, exclusively, for absolutely everything, every single day. That did not sit well with proud hearts and carnal minds.

Keddie, G. J. (1992). According to Promise: The Message of the Book of Numbers (pp. 13–17). Darlington, England: Evangelical Press.