Numbers chapter 12 and verse
1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against
Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for
he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, hath the Lord
indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. Now the
man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the
face of the earth. And the Lord spake suddenly unto
Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto
the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And
the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the
door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both
came forth. And he said, Hear now my words. If there be a prophet among you,
I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will
speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who
is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to
mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches. And the similitude
of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore then, were ye not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against them, and he departed. And the cloud departed
from off the tabernacle, and behold, Miriam became leprous,
white as snow. And Aaron looked upon Miriam,
and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas,
my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us wherein we
have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be
as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed, when he cometh
out of his mother's womb.' And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying,
Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee. And the Lord said unto
Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she
not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the
camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.
And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days, and the
people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. And afterward
the people removed from Hazeroth and pitched in the wilderness
of Paran. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Now, unlike the book of Leviticus,
the book of Numbers contains a lot of incidents and historical
events. And with the blessing of the
Lord, I hope that we might look at a few of those in the coming
weeks. The Book of Numbers covers a
period of about 38 years during which the people wandered in
the wilderness and it takes its name from two numberings or dual
counting of the children of Israel. One counting was made of the
children of Israel at Sinai at this time and just after the
tabernacle was built and another counting was made towards the
end of the book in the plains of Moab before the crossing of
the Jordan by the people into the land of Canaan. So there
were two distinct countings of the people and that is what is
referred to as the numbering and gives this book its title. And I don't want to get too much
ahead of myself today and what we're going to talk about today.
But let me just tell you that at this point in the travels
of the children of Israel, remember, they've come out of Egypt. They've
gone across the Red Sea. They've moved through a variety
of places. They've come to Sinai. There
the Lord gave Moses the law. There he told him about the tabernacle. and we've thought a little bit
about a number of these things in recent weeks. And this was
a period of just over a year that it had taken all of this
time. And the children of Israel were
now only a few weeks away in their journeys from the land
of Canaan, the land to which they were going. Just a few weeks. But, Because of their disobedience,
because of their lack of faith, as we shall see in the coming
weeks, it would be another 38 years before they were able to
enter into the promised land. And today I want to tell you
about an incident that happened when Miriam and Aaron, that's
Mosey's sister and Mosey's brother, that was an older sister and
an older brother you'll remember because remember when Mosey's
was in the bull rushes? Miriam was the sister who looked
after him there when the princess of Egypt came down to bathe and
he was found there in the bulrushes. Well that's the same Miriam that
we're speaking about and of course Aaron was his older brother and
he had been with him during the time of the plagues in Egypt.
Miriam and Aaron became envious of Moses. And this is what we
find being spoken about in this chapter here today. They became envious of him and
they tried to undermine his authority. And we learn a lot about human
nature in this incident. And we also see a lovely type
of the Lord Jesus in the way in which Moses intercedes for
his sister and his brother, asking God to forgive their sin. So
having read the passage together, let me just shade out a few things,
if I may, explain a couple of things to you perhaps, and then
make a few applications at the end. The first thing we see here
is that Miriam and Aaron criticised Moses because he married an Ethiopian. Now, I don't want to spend too
much time on this because basically it was just a made-up reason. It was just a pretense. Moses
had been married to this woman for years and rather It is likely
that Miriam and Aaron were angry because they thought that this
woman whose name was Zipporah had too much influence over Moses
and they felt left out. Miriam was a prophetess. Aaron
was the high priest. These were both important roles
and positions that the family of Moses performed amongst the
children of Israel. But both wanted greater recognition. And Miriam and Aaron began to
criticize Moses. The Lord, we're told, heard them. and at once he silenced their
words. And when we read these early
verses in this chapter, there is a sense of rapidity, there
is a sense of speed, almost as if it were that before Miriam
and Aaron could become too much committed to this cause of criticising
Moses, the Lord dealt with it quickly. And here we learn something
interesting about Moses. We learn that he was a meek man. He was gentle. He was modest. He was even, perhaps we could
say, timid. And it seems as if the Lord,
knowing that Moses would not defend himself against his brother
and his sister, perhaps because they were his older brother and
sister even, the Lord rose up on behalf of his faithful servant. And this is something to remember. The Lord rises in defence of
his children. We don't have to worry too much
about always making sure we get our portion and we get our part,
because the Lord looks after his own. In the world, confidence
is king, and assertiveness is admired, and being bold and demanding
your rights very often gets you what you want. But the Lord highly
esteems meekness. And the Lord Jesus Christ, we're
told, was meek and lowly. Meekness characterised the lives
of perhaps the two greatest men who ever lived. and it's a blessed
quality, one that we ought to nurture, encourage and acknowledge
in one another. The Lord does. Now we read that
the Lord was angry with Miriam and Aaron. But do you notice
a difference here in the way in which the Lord deals with
these people? Last week we spoke about Nadab
and Abihu. I wonder if you remember what
we said about these two. They were Aaron's sons. And we
read that they were slain by God instantly because they offered
false worship to God. But here there is a difference.
We read in verse 9, the anger of the Lord was kindled against
them, that's Miriam and Aaron, and he departed. We're not told
that anger or that fire came out from the Lord and slew them
as it did with Nadab and Abihu, but rather the Lord departed. And here we see a difference. Here it seems that rather than
slaying because of this sin and wickedness, the Lord remonstrates
and the Lord educates Miriam and Aaron. Miriam and Aaron were
of God's elect people and their sin was noticed by God and it
was disciplined and it was dealt with in the Lord Jesus Christ. While the sin of the reprobate
people, those who are not of the covenant of God, those who
are not of the family of God, leads to their death and destruction. The Lord pointed out that Moses
held an honoured place before God because he acted faithfully
in all the tasks that God had given him, especially with respect
perhaps to the tabernacle and all that had been done. And in
this we see a lovely type again of the Lord Jesus because the
Lord Jesus faithfully fulfilled all that he was required to do
by his Father for the salvation of his people. The Lord Jesus
Christ did everything that his Father required of him. He had come to do his father's
will and he fulfilled that will perfectly. And the Lord honoured
Moses by speaking with him as a friend, face to face, allowing
Moses to see the glory of God and no doubt this reference that
we see here to the fact that the Lord spoke to him apparently,
that means that the Lord made an appearance and spoke to him
face to face, and that he saw the similitude of the Lord. He
had looked upon the rear garment of the Lord and he had been blessed
with a manifestation that few ever had. This was the Lord Jesus
Christ visiting Moses in what we call a pre-incarnation appearance. That is, the Lord appeared to
these Old Testament saints before he came as a baby in the manger
at the time of his birth, just as he had visited Abraham and
as he had visited Jacob and others. Back to our story though, we
find here that the Lord was angry with the attitude and with the
actions of Miriam and Aaron and he punished Miriam with leprosy. She seems in the way in which
this chapter unfolds to have been the instigator of this rebellion. She's named first and It is her
that the Lord acts against with this punishment. Although it
is clear that though Aaron was not smitten with the leprosy,
nevertheless he was affected. He was the high priest, remember,
and it was his job to examine and then to expel anyone who
was leprous from the camp, and that included Miriam. She must
now become as one dead to her family. And it seems as if the
speed and the power of this punishment caused Aaron to confess his sin
and ask Moses to help his sister. and it shows to us just how helpless
we all are as men and women and boys and girls before God's anger. We need grace from God. We need mercy and forgiveness
in Jesus Christ because that is our only hope of deliverance. May the Lord never be angry with
us as he was with Nadab and Abihu. May he rather educate us and
may he remonstrate with us even in our sin that we might discover
and learn his mercy and forgiveness. I just want to make two quick
applications and then we'll be done today. Two things that we
see with regard to Moses here that point us to the Lord Jesus. What a gracious, meek and honourable
man Moses was. And yet how much more is our
Lord Jesus Christ? In this quality of meekness,
Moses was a type of the Saviour and he pointed to Him. You'll
remember, we've spoken about this before, Moses was an early
witness to the coming Messiah. And in Deuteronomy 18, we read,
the Lord thy God, Moses is speaking to the children of Israel just
before his own death. And he says, the Lord thy God
will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren. But what does he say? Like unto
me. Like unto me. Moses was a meek,
and lowly man, and the Lord Jesus Christ was meek and lowly. Moses
says you will hear him, unto him ye shall hearken. And then in the book of Isaiah
and also in the book of Matthew, it is said of the Lord Jesus,
Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my
soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him
and he shall show truth to the Gentiles. He shall not strive,
listen, he shall not strive nor cry, Neither shall any man hear
his voice in the streets. A bruised reach shall he not
break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth
judgment unto victory, and his name shall the Gentiles trust. These were pictures of the meekness
and the gentleness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ's meekness
is a beautiful example of his gentleness and his approachability. We should never be afraid to
go to the Lord Jesus with any problem, any sin, any trial,
any complaint. He will receive us sympathetically. The lowly in heart are those
whom Jesus is not ashamed to call his brethren. So let us
take the meekness and the gentleness of the Lord Jesus Christ as an
indication of his approachability and let us go to him. And then
Moses reveals another picture or type of our blessed saviour. Because Moses became an intercessor
for Miriam. We've spoken about this word
intercession before. It means that you go on behalf
of someone else and you represent them before God. And that's what Moses did for
Miriam. In verse 13 of chapter 12, we
are told, Moses cried unto the Lord saying, Heal her now, O
God, I beseech thee. Moses! had been mistreated by
his sister and brother. Miriam and Aaron had been cruel
to Moses when they should have been helpful to him. They should
have helped this man under all the strain and stress and opposition
that he endured from the stiff-necked people. Stiff-necked, there's
a good description. That means people who are difficult
to deal with. They're stiff-necked. And the
children of Israel were called by God as stiff-necked people,
hard to deal with, always rebelling, always doing things their own
way. And Moses was constantly beset with trouble because of
these stiff-necked people. And Miriam and Aaron ought to
have been helping him and supporting him and praying for him. and
looking after his needs as much as they could. Instead, they
aggravated his burden and they contributed to his loneliness
in this position of leadership by murmuring against him and
threatening his position and his authority. And yet this dear man, out of
love for his brother and sister, went to the Lord and pleaded
for Miriam's healing. And that's a beautiful picture
of our Lord Jesus. On the cross, when the Lord Jesus
Christ was being crucified, he said, literally, As they were hammering nails
into his hands and piercing his side with a spear, the Lord said,
forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. Some of those
who crucified the Lord were his elect people, his spiritual children,
family, friends and members of his glorious body, the church,
though as yet they were unconverted and they did not know it. but
Christ prayed for their forgiveness, and his Father heard and granted
his request. But it's more than that even,
because Christ intercedes for all his people, upon the merits
of his precious blood, saying as it were, every time we sin,
Father, forgive them. I have paid their debt, I have
carried their sin, I have earned their pardon. And for Christ's
sake, our Father hears and grants the Lord Jesus Christ's prayer.
The lepers say that Miriam got was a terrible disease in its
time. And leprosy is often likened
to sin in the Bible. Sin is a consuming, destroying
disease of the heart, soul, mind and body. And we're sinners,
you and me. We are sinners by nature and
by practice. and we need to be healed from
the leprosy of sin. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness that you need. Hebrews chapter 7 and verse
25 says, He is able also to save them to the uttermost. That includes
you and me. that come unto God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make intercession for them. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us today. Amen.