Things You Need to Know... from Numbers

You’re driving along and there’s an accident on the other side of the freeway but it’s your side of the highway that’s all slowed down. What’s the problem?

What’s the difference between a rubber neck and a stiff neck?

We know we shouldn’t but we have to look… but what if we get in an accident because we were watching the accident?

BEGINNING with events approximately one year after the Exodus from Egypt, Numbers is the book of divine discipline, showing the painful consequences of wrong choices by God’s chosen people. Because of the nation’s unbelief, what should have been an eleven-day journey becomes a forty-year ordeal. The lesson from history is clear: obedience is the path to blessing in any generation.

James 2:8–23 ESV

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

An overview of the Torah...

Grace gives genuine faith. The Law test the genuineness of your faith.

Romans - the law is good

Psalm 119:165 ESV

Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.

Psalm 19:7 ESV

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

Matthew 5:17 ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

James 2:10 ESV

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Preparation 1-12 The Nation counted and camped 1-4 The Nation cleansed for worship 5-8 The Nation commences the journey 9-12

Punishment 13-25 Rebellion and Death in the Wilderness 13-16 The Rod, Red Cow and Rebellion 17-20 The Bronze Snake and Corrupt Prophet 21-25

Promise 26-36 Recounting and Reviewing 26-30 The last days of a great leader 31-33 Laws of the Land of Promise 34-36

(1) The Lord knows who you are. (1-12)

Matthew 10:30–32 ESV

30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,

(2) You are on a journey (9-12)

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

(3) Temptation, Rebellion and Rejection are part of the journey (13-25)

Punishment 13-25 Rebellion and Death in the Wilderness 13-16 The Rod, Red Cow and Rebellion 17-20 The Bronze Snake and Corrupt Prophet 21-25

The 12 spies, the rejection, the punishment 13

Rebellion against the leadership of Moses 14:4 let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt

The Bronze Snake Num 21:4-9

(4) There is grace and intercession in the midst of rebellion and rejection

14:13 Moses intercedes

Numbers 14:20–21 ESV

20 Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,

The Lord spares

Numbers 14:28–38 ESV

28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.” 36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— 37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. 38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

Numbers 32:11 ESV

11 ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me,

John 3:14–15 ESV

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

John 3:14–15 ESV

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.