The book of Numbers chapter 1.
And I'd like to read the first two verses of that book. We've
spent some time there in verse 1. And today I would like to
spend a little more time in that verse 1 and review a little bit
of what we found there in that verse. Because what we find in
verse 1 of the book of Numbers chapter 1 is going to reflect
so much on our understanding of the rest of the book. I had
someone tell me one time, unless you understand the city of Corinth
and the great crime and all the stuff that was going on there,
you can't understand the book of Corinthians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians. And I had to say, I don't believe
that. That city of Corinth is just like the Dalles, or Portland,
or Dufur, or any other place. It was made up of sinners. and
there were a few sinners saved by grace and that's why the Apostle
Paul was there. Well we find here in the book
of Numbers that even though it's in the Old Testament Moses spoke
of Christ here in the Old Testament and he uses the name so often
in this book of Jehovah and we have identified that as we look
in this book that there are capitals when we look at it is capital
L-O-R-D. All are capitals. And that is
a significant point to us, to remember that this one that spoke
unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai is Jehovah, the one
who spoke the world into existence, the one who spoke, in fact, in
the very beginning. And let us just look at this.
Numbers chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. And the Lord, or Jehovah,
spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of
the congregation, on the first day of the second month and the
second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt saying,
they come of all the congregation of the children of Israel. after
their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number
of their names, every male by their poles." Now we're going
to stop there because we won't get into that verse very much,
but we notice here that this message was sent to Israel, to
the congregation of Israel, to the children of Israel. This
message was specifically toward them. God had dealt with them
even through their father Abraham. And Abraham received the message
of the gospel. And the gospel was preached unto
Abraham just as well as it has been preached today unto us.
And we find that Abraham was given the promise of God that
you're going to have a family. And that family is going to be
larger than all of the sands of the sea and stars of heaven.
Now, metaphorically speaking, that was a great family that
started out very small, but their time in Egypt was specifically
identified by the Lord, and they would be there for 400 years,
and they would be servants in Egypt for 400 years, but God
would not forget them. Just as we find in the fall of
man God knew every one of Adam's children that would ever be born
and the problem that they would face by nature by be born of
the line of Adam they would be sinners by nature and sinners
by practice and sinners by but forgot one of his own he always
was identifying with them and Even those that have not even
been born if there be such he knows them just as well as he
knew the children of Israel here or farther back, Noah, Abraham,
back to Adam. So we have great comfort that
even though we may have been in prison for years in religion
or sin, God has known his people from the very beginning and he
has promised to come and visit them with the gospel, and he's
on doing that right now. Well, we notice here in the book
of Numbers there in that first verse that the Lord spoke unto
him, and we find that this word is Jehovah, and this is the glorious
name of the one that said, I am that I am. I wish I could explain
that. I wish I could explain the eternality
of God. I wish I could explain the sovereignty
of God. I wish I could just lap the hold
of that for a moment and understand it to its fullness. But I am
so limited as a human being, even though redeemed by the blood
of Christ, I am so limited by my very nature that I am unable,
at this time at least, to grasp those things. But they are truth
nonetheless. There is an eternality about
God. He has been from eternity and
he will go to eternity. This is the I am that I am. This
name implies every perfection. The divine nature of God in every
perfection. There is such a perfection about
God that is unable for this creature of the dust to understand or
to comprehend. Yet we declare it, we hold it
up, that he is in perfect righteousness. If the Lord, as some have begun
to preach, actually became a sinner on the cross, it would be much
better if the type was a broken lamb, or a halt lamb, or a diseased
lamb, than instead of what was required in the Old Testament,
a lamb without blemish and without spot. God has identified his
son in those types and shadows and pictures and many of them
will be shared with us here in the book of Numbers, but he did
not have. There was not the possibility
of having sin in his nature, but he had our sins imputed to
him and that's what we glory in. This Jehovah, his absolute
eternality, immensity, sovereignty, omnipotency, all of the characteristics
and attributes that we find in the scriptures, that is this
one Jehovah. Then we find that this Jehovah
that was declared to be the I am, I have existed, I am not dependent
upon anything. On the back of your bulletin,
I put a little article there by Charles Spurgeon about in
the beginning, God was alone. I would encourage you to read
that sometime. It really blessed my heart just to think about
as that man wrote and declared, before there was anything, there
was God. I'll never forget that story
that was relayed to me about a preacher traveling down in
the South and saw a whole host of people around a church building.
And he said, this must be a place that I want to go hear what's
going on. And he couldn't get in because there's only standing
room only. And people were outside the windows. And there was a
preacher in there simply saying, where was God before he created
the heavens and the earth? Where was God before he created
man? Where was he before he created
all the critters and all the things that we read about in
Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2? And this old preacher
just bellowed out, in his glory. That's where he was, in his glory. He didn't need us, but by his
grace, he created the heavens and the earth. By his grace,
he had purpose to deliver a whole host of folks out of the prison
of this world, out of the prison of sin, and out of the prison
of religion, and deliver them to himself, spotless and without
blemish, in eternity, like to worship him in this life. What
glory that is. We find that this God, this Jehovah,
spoke. Well, we read there in the book
of Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, that when he spoke, things happened.
Nothing was withheld from his voice. How people would share
with me today that when God speaks, he's not able to do anything
unless we consent to it. My friends, if that was the truth,
if that was what actually happened and God couldn't do anything
without our consent, He would have nobody in heaven. There
would be no church. There would be no saved ones
because our will is just as broken as the rest of us when it comes
to sin. And so when He spoke and said,
Let there be light. There was no resistance to that
whatsoever and light was created for our knowledge to understand
before there was a sun, moon, and stars. So this is God's declaration
about how he saves his people from their sins. He's the one
that declares that there's going to be light in this dark soul.
He's the one that declares that there will be growth and all
the rest of the things that we find out about. We find that
God said, let us make man in our image. And that's why we're
here. God created man out of the dust
of the earth and nostrils, the breath of man became a living
soul. That's what God does. And that's
the only way that we will ever be saved is if God is pleased
to breathe upon us the spirit of holiness, the word of God,
that God creates in us the new birth. blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection for on such the second death
hath no power that first resurrection is when he raises us from our
spiritual death and gives us the new birth, a birth from above
that we had nothing to do with. Ask yourself. Ask others that
come up and say, I don't believe that. Just ask them, how much
did you have to do with your physical birth? And then to say
that God is going to require less with our spiritual birth
than we did with our physical birth? God's spiritual birth
is from God, and that is the only way we will ever know him. We find that it was God that
said and commanded to man, you are not to eat of one tree in
the Garden of Eden. Well, we know that man rose up
against God and says, I'm just as wise as God is, and what I
do won't hurt anything. And yet he knew fully that when
he did that, his entire family would be destroyed in the fall.
And then as we heard read this morning in the book chapter that
he, the Lord Jehovah, upholdeth all things by the word of his
power. How are we kept? After he saves
us, after he gives us the new birth, how in the world are we
kept so prone to wander? Lord, I feel it. So prone to
leave the God I love. How are we kept by the power
of his word? God has said, I will deliver
them from the problem that they're in. I will deliver them from
sin, and I will never leave them nor forsake them. They will always
be with me. That's the only way. We are kept
by the power of his word. The Lord's speaking to Moses,
and we found that Moses is a man just like you and I are. You
know, in fact, he could trace his lineage back to Adam much
quicker than we could, not near as many generations. But I know
this, even though I can go back a few generations in my family,
that the ultimate end of every family is Adam. And the ultimate problem that
we face is Adam's fall and his sin being imputed to us. Even
though we did not sin after the similitude of Adam, it was imputed
to us. And then we practice sin enough
to send to a devil's hell. We find that Moses was a specific
person in the mind of God that he had already purposed to deliver
from destruction as an infant. The decree went out to destroy
all the male children, and this one was protected. Now, how many
others? It doesn't tell us. But this
one person was protected. This Moses, a infant, three months
old, placed in the Nile River, was protected by Almighty God.
And we see the providence of God protecting this one. The
very family that had decreed that all the male children be
destroyed is the family that protected him from destruction.
God in his providence, how wonderful it is when we're given a little
bit of review to see how God has watched over us all our life
and find out it was his protection, his providence, his sovereignty
that has put us where we are. Turn with me if you would to
the book of Hebrews. We read this some time ago, but I would
like to read it again. because it shares a great deal
about this man that the Jehovah is going to speak to here in
the book of Numbers. Throughout the book of Numbers,
Jehovah speaks to Moses. Now, Moses is a very special
person. Moses has been identified as
a child of God. Moses is redeemed by the blood
of the Lamb. Moses is one that he would give faith to. Now,
I heard that lesson this morning. I'm so pleased, so thankful to
be here to hear that lesson from the book of Luke. And he read
that passage of scripture and says, if you have faith as a
grain of mustard seed, you know what? We don't even have that.
We don't have that much. You know it tells us if it's
as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as it is
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now not just riches
with gold or silver but self-righteous riches. You know how easy it
is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? It's impossible. We don't have to talk about a
door in the walls of Jerusalem to say if a camel got down and
groveled and was unloaded, he could wiggle his way through.
That's not what it's talking about. You ladies and gentlemen
that have used a needle, you're looking at the illustration through
the eye of a sewing needle. It says, you can't get a camel
hair through there. But we find that with God, all
things are possible. With man, nothing is possible.
So we don't even have the faith as a grain of mustard seed. If
we had that, we could move a mountain. We can't do that. Where does
our faith come from? It has to be supplied. I don't
have a milk cow. Guess where I get my milk? I
go down to the store. I don't have an orange tree.
Where do I get my oranges? I have to go down to the store. Where do I get my bananas? I
don't have a banana tree. I have to go down to the grocery
store. And where do I get my faith? From God Almighty. Sometimes I think it's weak faith,
but it's God's faith. He looks at it as a anchor that
will hold within the veil, secure. It's not just a little bitty
rope on it. It is an immense rope of faith. that God grants to every one
of his children. And by that faith, we respond
to him who is faithful. In the book of Hebrews chapter
11, we read these words about Moses. Moses had his problems,
just like you and I do. But Moses is identified as a
child of God. Moses had to be born again, just
like we do. Moses had to have repentance
towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, just like
the requirements of the New Testament. How do we repent towards God?
We find that the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, he says, that
peradventure, God would grant repentance to the Gentiles. Peradventure,
God would grant repentance today. Without that, we don't have repentance.
Now, repentance is to grovel over our sins. I had someone
tell me one time that he knew I wasn't saved because I'd never
repented of my sins. My response to that is, I don't
have time. God had to take care of that on the cross in time,
because I sin every second. If we spent all of our time on
our knees repenting of our sins, we wouldn't be here. But that repentance is a change
of mind towards God, and that change of mind only comes when
we have the new creation in Christ Jesus. Well, we'll get here to
Hebrews 11, verse 23. It tells us here, let us hold
fast the profession of our faith. Wrong verse, chapter. Chapter
11, verse 23, it says, by faith, Moses, when he was born, was
hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper
child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By
faith, Moses, when he come of years, refused to be called son
of Pharaoh's daughter. Somewhere between verse 23 and
verse 24, the Lord had done something for Moses. because he has faith. He is trusting God for all his
salvation. He has total reliance upon the
blood and righteousness of Christ. Even though it had not been offered
on the cross, looking at, as we look back, we could see that
there was someone coming. He knew him as the Messiah. He
knew that this one was going to come and he was going to give
his life a ransom for many. That had been revealed to him
because he has faith, by faith Moses. He was, When it comes
to worldly possessions, he had it all. He was Pharaoh's son. He had all riches. He could have
inherited the throne, or part of it, at least. And yet it tells
us here, by faith, Moses, when he'd come of years, refused to
be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, the Messiah. the one he knew about, the one
that someone had brought to him a message about, esteeming the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt,
for he had respect upon the recompense of reward, and by faith he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as
seeing him who is invisible. Now this is the same Moses that
is standing before the Lord and the Lord is speaking to him.
How precious it is when Jehovah speaks to his people, when he
would condescend if he's ever shown you one passage, one thought
out of this, it is because he intended for you to know it.
We're talking in our study this morning about You know, it doesn't
matter the definition of words. The word definitions doesn't
matter. Now, after we're born again, we delight in the definition
of words. But before we're saved, definition
of words will not convince us of one thing. Definition of words
like predestination, election, those words, the definitions
of those will not move us one bit. No more than all of the
signs that God gave to Egypt move them one iota. It isn't
in the definition of words. It is the spirit of God that
moves us. It's the spirit of God that reveals
to us. It is the spirit of God that
opens up to us. It is God that reveals to us
Christ Jesus the Lord and gives us faith. So it isn't the definition
of words, it isn't a specific passage of scripture that has
hallowedness about it more than another place. How God has moved
in time to reveal his son by simply preaching the book of
numbers. Because that's what Paul and
the rest of the disciples had was the books from Genesis to
Malachi. And people say, you can't preach
Christ from those books. And yet Jesus did, Paul did,
referred back to the Old Testament because that's what they had. And here in the book of Numbers,
we find that the Lord spoke to a man who had fallen in Adam,
who had visited by his salvation through the preaching of the
gospel. And he spoke to him in a place that God always finds
his people. Now, unless God speaks in heaven,
to an angel or to another member of the Godhead, he's going to
be speaking in a wilderness. When he speaks in this world,
he's speaking in a wilderness. In heaven, when he speaks, the
angels all bow. In heaven, when he speaks, an
angel will go to this place as he is directed without question.
I don't understand. Maybe I did it when I was a kid,
and I don't know if I remember my kids ever doing this, but
kids today do. Everything you say, what is their
response? Why? Have you heard that? Why? Well, when an angel is spoken
to by Almighty God, he never asks why, he goes. Those angels
that came down and sung at the birth of the Lord Jesus, they
went in great joy to see this sign. Do you suppose that God
is going to have less authority on his creation than he does
in heaven? Of course not. When he speaks
here, he will shiver our timbers. He will acquaint himself with
us if that is his intention. Now the gospel goes out, we know,
whether it's through sermon audio, Zoom, or here personally, the
gospel goes out in many places across this land and around the
world, goes out. We don't know the results of
it, but there is a sense that the word of God preached goes
out and falls on deaf ears. That's the general call. We are
commanded by the word of God to preach the gospel to every
creature. But we also find in scripture that those that God
gave to his son, and his son went to the cross and died for,
that that gospel, maybe not the first time they hear it, or the
second time they hear it, or the third time, or the fourth
time, or the tenth time they hear it, but one day is an appointed
day that they're gonna hear his word. He is going to unstop their
ears. He is going to unstop their eyes. He's going to unstop them. And
He is going to command them to hear the Word of God. And guess
what? It's the greatest word that ever
heard. That word means the work is over. Because He accomplished all the
work. We rest in Him. No longer is
religion viable. But Christ is. No longer are
we trying to work up our own faith because it's already been
given to us. No longer do we have to worry
about what the Bible is about. Revelation chapter 1 and verse
1 shares is what the entire Bible is about. The revelation of Jesus
Christ. That's what the Bible is about.
This word is God's word about his son who came to die for his
people on the cross. And our job is to tell everybody
about somebody who can save anybody, the Lord Jesus. Hebrews there
tells us about that wonderful person Moses. Now he did a lot
of wrong things. God spoke to him and he didn't
listen. And he didn't enter the promised
land, not because he wasn't a believer, But because he was a type of
the law and God was not going to have the law enter into the
church. The church is led by Joshua who
is a picture of Christ the Savior. The law has nothing to do with
us after the cross. But Christ, the Savior, has a
great deal to do with us. He is our life, and our liberty,
and our pursuit of happiness is found in Him and in Him alone. We find that He spoke to him
in the wilderness, and there's no greater passage of scripture
that shares with us what that wilderness is like than we find
in the book of Ephesians, chapter 2. Would you join me there for
just a moment? Spoke to him in the wilderness, terrible place. this wilderness. We think it's
bright and sunny and everything's going our way most of the time,
some of the time, and yet we read here in the book of Ephesians
as the Apostle Paul wrote to a group of people that dearly
loved the Lord. He wrote to them about why God
saves, chapter 1. And in chapter 2 he shares with
us who he saves. In chapter 2 and verse 12 it
says that at that time Ye were without Christ. Before he saves
us, we're without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise. Now
notice this, having no hope and without God in the world. Now that's a wilderness. And
that's where God finds us, in a wilderness. We can't make ourselves
better. We can't prepare ourselves. There
is a song that has been used because it just fits people's
theology, but the truth of that song is, just as I am. Can't take a cleanup policy because
we can't clean up. Can't wash ourselves. We can't
do anything for ourselves. But God gives us a new birth
and we cry out for mercy, Lord, God, Jehovah, be merciful to
me, a sinner. This wilderness is where the
God-man was born. This is the place. Now Jehovah
met with Moses in the wilderness, but he met at a specific place,
and would you turn back with me to the book of Numbers, chapter
one. There was a very special place that God met with Israel,
and we notice that he met with the children of Israel. I don't
find any word here. There's a whole bunch of people
that God wrote about that are not here. He said, there's a
whole bunch of people over there in the land I'm going to give
you, but I have no representation for them. They're called the
Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and the Gergesites,
and the rest of the sites over there. There's no representation
for them. They were represented in Adam,
but they were not represented in Christ. Who did he represent?
He tells us right here in the book of Numbers chapter 1 verse
2. Numbers chapter 1 verse 2, and
this is brought out through the book of Numbers many, many times,
just like it was in the book of Exodus or in the book of John,
Matthew, Luke, Mark, the rest of the New Testament. This is
the name of them. Take ye the sum, verse 2, Numbers
chapter 1, Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children
of Israel. Now that's the ones he knows. The Gergesites and the Hivites
and the Perizzites and the Jebusites, he has no familiarity like he
does with these. These are his children, the children
of Israel. These, now not all these folks
were saved. The church I grew up in, They
backslid, but they were saved. No. The Bible tells us so plainly
in the book of Hebrews that a whole host of them did not enter the
land because of unbelief. And Paul goes on to say, not
all Israel is of Israel. And not all the children of Abraham
are the children of God. In fact, he delineates so carefully
in the book of Malachi and in the book of Romans Jacob's have
I loved. Esau, didn't he love Esau? Because
he did not give them righteousness. How come God loves his people
today? How come he loves his chosen
ones? Because he's given them righteousness. Christ Jesus the Lord is their
righteousness. And he can love them like he
loves his own son. But those without righteousness,
there is no love for them. They are yet in their undoneness,
and he has no love for them whatsoever. Now all that he chose in Christ
before the foundation of the world, even though they act like
Esau's, have been identified by the Lord to be his Jacob's.
And all will come unto me. When the Lord said, the word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. What a glorious day for this
earth. All the time prior to that, he
had visited with people. He had visited with Noah. He
had visited with Abel. He had visited. He came down
and visited with Abraham. A form that they saw. He came
down and visited with Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham's
nephew lives over there. And Abraham said, will you save
it if there's this many? And will you save it if there's
this many? And will you save it if there's this many? And finally,
those angels took care of their business, but God took care of
his people. came and dwelt among us." What
a miracle that is that God, Jehovah God, would come to this earth. This one, this mediator, this
tabernacle is far greater than the tabernacle found over there
in the book of Numbers. It was a man-made tabernacle
but this tabernacle is not made of men. This tabernacle the Lord
Jesus Christ This has dignity. This has worth. Christ is the
antitype and the sum and the substance of that tabernacle
that they build in the Old Testament. Everything about it shared with
us something about the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord Jesus Christ
is the one that it spoke of. He has all of the characteristics
and attributes that are given to Almighty God declared to come
in the flesh and to lay down his life for his people. No man
can come unto him but the father draw him. So we have the parasites
are not invited. Did you know that this wedding
feast of the lamb is by invitation only? We have one illustration
in the Bible about a man that's in a picture of it without a
wedding garment. A man came in without a wedding
garment. The dishonorable thing about that man is, in those days,
you know, I'll rent you a wedding gown or a visitor's gown. You
know what? They were provided at the door.
And this man came in and said, I don't need that. I'm fine in
myself. And the man who was in charge says, take him and throw
him out. Because this is by invitation
only. Those people that were there
in the book of Numbers were there by invitation only. God had brought
them out of the promised land, brought them out of prison, and
was headed them for the promised land, but it was by invitation
only. There was no room for the Hivites,
the Perizzites, or the Jebusites. This is the congregation of Israel
gathering at the tabernacle, and that is the church gathering
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. by invitation only, not
by a closing invitation of a song, but by the invitation of God
Almighty when he said, I know they won't come. I've invited
them and they won't come by nature, so let's fix it, compel them
to come in. Now, they don't know. They don't
know the results of it until they're brought in and when they're
brought in they say, thank you Lord, I'd have never come here
on my own. I was satisfied, I was, but I
am thankful to be here and I'm thankful that you compel me to
come in. You brought me in just like you
did that guy over there in the Old Testament that David sought
after, said, go fetch that man and bring him in. So we have
this wonderful news of fetching grace. The tabernacle of the
human nature of Christ was the dwelling place of Jehovah, and
that's where we meet. Turn with me to two verses in
the book of Colossians, if you would. Colossians chapter 2,
verse 9 and 10. This is where the church beats,
it's the tabernacle of the congregation of the children of Israel. The
tabernacle, we don't meet in a, I really like our building. Right over there, there's a thermostat. I checked it this morning, and
if it gets too hot in here, we can cool it off. And if it gets
too cold in here, we can warm it up. I like it. It's a fine place, but this isn't
the church. It's just something God granted
to us that we can meet in a little more comfort. You know the church
was gathering there for a while? We were assembled together at
the feet of Jesus on Zoom. We couldn't even get into our
own homes to visit with, but this, Here, look at Colossians
chapter two, verse nine. It says, for in him dwelleth
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In him, Jehovah dwells. In this one person, he tabernacled
among us, and in him Jehovah dwells, the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. Now notice in verse 10, and ye
are complete in him. I delight in that. which is the head of all principality
and power. In him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him. He is the
true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Over there,
they pitched that tabernacle. This one is taken care of by
God. He was promised. He came. in a very special way,
like no one else. Now, Sarah had a son when she's
90 years old. Zacharias and his wife had a
son when they were old. But they were just born the normal
way. A miracle took place, but touched
with sin. And in Him dwelleth Jehovah. And we are complete in Him. And
we take the promise, as those children of Israel were called
to gather around that tabernacle in the Old Testament, tabernacle
of meeting, tabernacle of the congregation of Israel, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. When the call went out,
a trumpet was sounded. When a call went out, how many
of the children of Israel gathered at that tabernacle? Everyone,
when the call goes out. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. What a promise. We gather at
the tabernacle, the Lord Jesus Christ. The church bows before
him, for he is altogether lovely in all of our salvation. There
is nothing wanting. We are complete in him. Brother Mike.