I had asked them earlier to sing,
and then I found out what they were singing, and that's certainly
one of my favorites, A Debtor to Mercy. And so we rejoice in
the very truth of that song, and as a blessing, thank y'all
for singing that. I want you to go back to the
book of Numbers and go back to the second chapter this evening. Now, I'll ultimately be going
to the book of Hebrews, the second chapter, where Joe read to us,
and I'll speak to you on the subject, Behold Our Captain. that one who is the captain of
our salvation is indeed the Lord Jesus. So we'll have this subject,
this is our subject to consider, Behold Our Captain. As you, those
of you who were here this morning, we spoke about God numbering,
God ordering to be numbered, all of the men of each of the
nations or each of the tribes of Israel. And those numbered
were the men 20 years of age and older, those who were able
to fight in the cause of Israel. And as God ordained where they
would be positioned, that is, the various tribes of Israel,
the very first one that He positions is the tribe of Judah. And so
we read this morning, and I should like to read again this evening,
here in the second chapter, verse 3, and on the east side, that
is, toward the rising of the sun, and that is only fitting
because our Lord Jesus is the Son of Righteousness, risen with
healing in His wings. On the east side, toward the
rising of the sun, shall they of the standard of the camp of
Judah pitch throughout their armies, and Nashon, The son of
Abinadab shall be captain. He'll be the captain of the children
of Israel. I'll speak about him just a little
bit, and that'll lead us into the subject of, behold, our captain. But before we do, let's ask the
Lord to bless. Oh, our good and gracious God,
once again we bow before you in utter dependence upon you. Lord, we need you of everything.
We need you for all everlasting gifts, for all spiritual blessings,
And we need you for all physical abilities and gifts that you
give us each day. We're all fully dependent upon
our God. And we're thankful that for your
children, every need is well supplied by the Lord Jesus. who is the captain of our salvation. And as we seek to get a little
better understanding of that one whom we are told to behold,
who is the captain of the Lord's host, the captain of the Lord's
people, Lord, may we be so taken up with Christ our Savior, That
we lose sight of things that so easily encumber us. Things that so easily distract
us. Lord, You know our frame. You know that we're just dust. There's nothing good about us
except that grace that You gave us in Christ Jesus. We confess
our faults, our sinfulness, our transgressions, our trespasses
against You. Lord, we confess all that we
are by nature is sin. But we're also thankful that
You have given us spiritual life. And the Lord Jesus Himself who
is with us and in us is our hope of glory. We have a good hope
through grace. And Father, we thank you. Let these next few moments that
we spend together in the book of God, may they be honoring
unto you. Guard the lips of this vessel
of clay who speaks, lest I say something that is misunderstood. Let me speak in such a way that
God is magnified, Christ is glorified, and that we receive good, clear
instructions. Again, forgive us of our sins
through the bloody sacrifice of your Son. And we're thankful
that all of our sins indeed are under that bloody death of Christ. And you have said that the sins
of Judah and of Israel shall not be remembered against us.
Oh, how we thank you for your saving grace and now enable us,
your children, to worship and to once again rejoice in this
one who is the captain of our salvation, that is Christ Jesus,
our Lord. In his name and for his sake
I pray, amen. We were introduced this morning
to this man, Nashon, who is the captain of the children of Judah. He is a picture of our Lord Jesus
who is the captain of our salvation. As you were exiting the building
this morning, I had a couple of people ask me what Nashon's
name means. It's an interesting meaning.
Literally, his name, Nashon, means one who is an enchanter. One who is an enchanter. That
is, one who has the ability to fulfill his objective using supernatural
or magical means. That's a definition I found on
Google. You can find about anything on
Google, can't you? So that definition came from
Google. Our Lord Jesus is pictured by
this man, Nashon, because he always obtains his objective
using supernatural means, because he's God. He can't fail. And though generally we would
think of the word enchanted or enchanter in a negative connotation,
we can kind of turn that around for our Savior. And He brings
all of His objectives to pass. He can't fail. Whatever He has
set out to do, He will do because He is omnipotent. And because
He does have all power in heaven and in earth, He comes to sinners
in the omnipotence of His quickening grace. He came to this earth
in the omnipotence of His redeeming grace. Lo, He came to fulfill
an objective. And the only way one could obtain
this objective was by supernatural means. He suffered, bled, and
died for the sins of his people. He died to redeem us. None could
redeem us. None could purchase our redemption. None could relieve us of our
debt of iniquity except one who is altogether God. an altogether
man. Redemption was indeed the objective
of our Lord Jesus coming to this earth. And He supernaturally
brought that to pass. And then He comes to us individually
in supernatural grace. He sends forth the gospel of
redemption. The gospel of reconciliation. the gospel of established righteousness,
the gospel of our salvation, our deliverance from all of our
sins and from all of our enemies. And He obtains this objective
in bringing us to Himself by omnipotent grace. To use this word enchanted or
enchanter, I'll say this about the Savior, and I hope this is okay to say it
this way. He casts a spell over us. But
it's not an evil spell. It's a good spell. I tell you,
He's so omnipotent and He is so powerful. that in casting
this spell of grace and love over His people, He first of
all kills us, and then He makes us very much alive. In casting this spell over us,
He strips us of our filthy righteousness, and then He robes us in the righteousness. of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
comes to us and that work which He does within is nothing short
of miraculous. Miraculous. He draws us unto
Himself. And in casting this spell of
grace over us, He suddenly creates a disinterest in all works religion. And He creates an interest in
that salvation and religion that is all of grace. And suddenly
we become deaf to the messages we used to love. The messages
that we used to delight in, works, effort, law keeping. We're deaf
to that message now. That message has no fondness
to us, no pleasure to us anymore. What's happened? Our Lord has
achieved His objective in coming to us, and we only love the message
of grace. We only love the message of substitution
and satisfaction. We want to hear of no work except
the work of our Savior. We want no flesh to receive any
honor. We don't want to be bragged on
and we don't want to brag on anybody except our Lord Jesus
Christ. Things that once certainly charmed
us, He shows us they're useless. and that one who had no charm
to us before, all of a sudden we see him as being altogether
lovely, the fairest of 10,000 to our souls. He is indeed now the love of
our hearts, our captain. He brings us to see him only. and only to hear His voice. Once
we listen to other voices, but once He came to us and He cast
His spell of grace over us, we say, I don't want to hear any
voice anymore. I'll not listen to any other
voice except the voice of my Lord. When Moses and Elijah joined
our Savior as He took Peter, James, and John on the Mount
of Transfiguration. Peter said, this is a good place
to be. I think we ought to just build
three tabernacles. One for the Lord, one for Moses,
and one for Elijah. A voice came out of the cloud. It said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. And those three
disciples fell on their faces. And they were very much afraid.
And Jesus, the Scripture says in Matthew 17, He came and touched
them. He said, Arise. Get up. Don't be afraid. And when they lifted up their
eyes, they saw no man except Jesus only. This is the miracle
of His grace. He casts such a gracious spell
over us that the only one we see is Him. And you know, His
objective is to make us without blame and spotless before Him,
taking us home to glory. And in heaven, guess what? We'll see only Him. We'll have
only eyes for our Lord Jesus. Yes, He casts upon us the spell
of love and faith. Such is the magical, miraculous
gospel of the Lord. It gives us both blindness and
sight. He blinds us to all false saviors,
and He gives us sight only for Him. He does all of this to us
because that's His objective. That's what He set out to do.
As you well know, the angel from God said to Joseph, Thou shalt
call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Will he fulfill his objective? Oh yes, by supernatural power. He did save. He saved us by his
substitutionary sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. This man,
Nashon, he was an unusual man. Go back to Numbers chapter one. Let me show you this. And I actually
made mention of this this morning, but I didn't read the Scripture
here. Look at Numbers 1 verse 1. And the Lord 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, Take ye the
sum, 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 the poles." I want every name,
God said. I want you to take every name.
List every name. Write every name down. Every
male. And he tells the instructions
further in verse three, from 20 years old and upward, all
that are able to go forth to war in Israel, thou and Aaron
shall number them by their armies. And with you, there shall be
a man of every tribe, a representative from every tribe. every one head
of the house of his fathers. And these are the names of the
men that shall stand with you of the tribe of Reuben." Reuben's
the oldest. Eliezer, the son of Shedior. And then Simeon, Shilumel, the
son of Zerashitai. Of Judah, here's our friend. Here he is, Nashon, the son of
Amenadab. He was there. He was present
when Aaron and Moses counted all of the men, and when the
names were recorded, he represented all those of the tribe of Judah. When they were all written down,
he was there. Think of another counting. Think of another census. Think
of another occasion when names were registered in the book referred
to as the Lamb's Book of Life. We had a representative there. That's our Savior. He's always
represented the interests of His people. And in old eternity,
back when there was no one but God only, even as old as God
is, go all the way back to when there was nothing but God, our
Lord Jesus was there as our surety, as our Savior. And He was there
when all of the names that were given to Him in the covenant
of grace to be saved by His bloody sacrifice, He was there when
the names were written down, and the book is said to be the
Lamb's book of life. One by one, God chose a people. It wasn't a random choice. It wasn't, well, this one and
that one and this one over here. No, not like that. Not like that
at all. This was a choice of loving kindness. God has always loved His people.
We've always been His people. We've always been in Christ Jesus. We only say, we mention things
like God choosing the people and setting the people aside.
We have to sort of put it in some kind of chronological order
because we can't understand anything that is eternal. That's why we
can't wrap our minds around God. He had no beginning and He had
no end. He will have no end. And our
salvation had no beginning. It's always been. And it will
have no end. How long have we been His children?
Forever. There was no beginning. And there
will never be an end. We've always been His loved ones. We've always been His people. And I'll tell you, our Lord Jesus
who was there when the names were written down in the land's
book of life, He'll be there on the other end of eternity.
For He will make certain that everyone given to Him in the
covenant of grace will be there the recipients of that redemption
and salvation that He bought with His own blood. In fact,
He bought the people. He bought them. We fell into
sin and Adam, but we had the captain of our salvation. He
came to our rescue. In fact, His death is said to
be from the foundation of the world. He's the Lamb who was
slain. Way back yonder before we sinned,
before we fell in Adam, He was already the Lamb of God. Lamb
of God appointed to be our Savior. And in the end, everyone bought
by His blood, going to be in glory with Him. That's His objective. And He will accomplish His objective. by His own authority, by His
own power. Well, we learned this morning
that the entire nation of Israel, when they were on the move, this
man Nashon, he led them. He's the one out front. And this
is our Savior. He leads the way. We used to sing a song. My Lord
knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to do is... What's
the rest? Follow. Well, let me tell you
something. We will follow. We will follow. And the reason we will follow
Him, because He has the authority over us. He causes us to follow
Him. He's the captain of our salvation. And here's Nashon and he starts
off and he's got the banner of Judah. There's the lion of the
tribe of Judah on the flag, on the banner, on the ensign. And
he starts off and there Israel follows. The whole nation. And when Nashon stops, they all
stop. He's a pretty important fellow,
isn't he? Yes, he was. In fact, look with me at Numbers
chapter seven. Look at Numbers chapter seven. Now, we know each of the tribes
of Israel had a representative, they had a chief captain, and
here they are at the dedication of the tabernacle. Everything
is finished now. All the furniture's made, all
the curtains and all the coverings and everything. It's all finished.
And now they're at the dedication of the tabernacle. And there was an offering to
be received for the dedication of the brazen altar. Such a very important piece of
furniture of the tabernacle because that's the place of sacrifice.
That's the place of death. That's the place where justice
gets its satisfaction. Sin. What does it deserve? What
does God demand for sin? Death. So the very first piece
of furniture. And this is the very basis of
their worship. Well, this is the very basis
of our worship. Substitution and satisfaction. There was no going any further. You're not going to go to the
brazen labor apart from a sacrifice dying in your stead. And we're
not going to make any progress toward God, toward knowing Him,
unless we come to Him by way of a blood sacrifice. The just dying for the unjust
to bring us to God. That's the way Peter expressed
it in 1 Peter chapter 3. So here they're bringing offerings
for the dedication of the brazen altar. That's a place of death. That's a place of blood shedding. That's a place of judgment. And
all each of these 12 representatives of the 12 tribes all had to bring
offerings. Who do you think brought the
first offering? our dear friend, Nashon. Look
at number seven, verse 12. And he that offered his offering
the first day was Nashon, the son of Abinadab of the tribe
of Judah. Well, what was his offering?
One silver charger, The weight thereof was 130 shekels, one
silver bold of 70 shekels after the shekel of the sanctuary.
Both of them were full of fine flour mingled with oil for a
meat offering, one spoon of 10 shekels of gold full of incense,
one young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a
burnt offering, one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and
for a sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five he
goats, five lambs of the first year. This was the offering of
Nashon, the son of Abinadab." Here's his offerings to the Lord. And now think of the offerings
of our Savior. He brought the gold of his deity. He brought the fine, fine flower
of his perfect humanity. He brought the silver of redemption. He brought the incense of his
own prayers, his own worship. But He doesn't bring the blood
of an animal. He brings His own blood. It's
His own bloody sacrifice that He offered to God. Turn to Hebrews
chapter 10. We'll get back over in the New
Testament now. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. Nashon brought the blood of,
he brought oxen and rams and he goats and lambs, but those
things couldn't atone. It says here in Hebrews chapter
10, are you there? Look at verse four. It's not possible that the blood
of bulls and of goats should take away sins. All those sacrifices
that those men brought and many other men brought all the way
through the Old Testament, Why, they couldn't satisfy God's justice. If they had satisfied God's justice
and given peace to the consciences of the people, there wouldn't
be any more offering for sin. God wasn't satisfied. God had
no delight in those sacrifices. He had no ultimate satisfaction. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Himself
came. And He came to do what those
sacrifices, what those offerings only pictured. They only portrayed
the sacrifice of the Savior. But He came and put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. Look down at verse 11, Hebrews
10. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the very same sacrifices which
can never take away sin. But this man, this God-man, this
captain of our salvation, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down. on the right hand of God from
His fourth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool.
For by one offering, He did what all those thousands and thousands
and thousands of animals dying on the altar in the Old Testament,
what they could never do. This one man, He perfected. He perfected forever. Everybody
who's set apart in the covenant of grace for God's salvation. Wherefore, verse 15, the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord. I'll put my laws in their hearts
and their minds will I write them. And their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more. That's what the captain
of our salvation did. Why, He put them away. So that
our God, who is omniscient, who knows everything, who sees everything,
nothing escapes His attention. God says, your sins and iniquities,
I will remember no more. Bless God for that. No more remember
them. We remember them and we mourn
over them. And sometimes things that are
real quite hideous that we've done or thought, even though
we know they're forgiven, we still remember them, but God
doesn't. And I tell you, we would do well
to remember they're forgiven. Don't get down in the dumps about
yourself. Oh, there's nothing to you, I
know that. There's nothing to me either.
But aren't we permitted to rejoice in Christ Jesus and His glorious
sacrifice for our sin? Let's rise above, rise above
wallowing in the mire. Oh, I'm such a sinner. Yeah,
you are, but you're a child of God, aren't you? Can you rejoice
in it? You're forgiven, aren't you?
Well, yes I am. Well, why don't you rejoice in
that? Can't you have any happiness
in that? If there's anybody in this whole
world that has a right to be happy and joyful and delighted
in the things of God, it's God's forgiven people who have made
the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's something to rejoice
in now. You all just kind of flowed right
out of here tonight. Everything's fine. Everything's
fine between you and God. Oh, you say, well, I got troubles.
Well, who doesn't have troubles? Rise above that. Who sends the
troubles? Well, God does. They don't come
to you by accident. They come to you on purpose to
remind you Hey, you're so frail, but your God is so powerful.
And look what He's done for you. Go back to Hebrews 2. Look at
Hebrews 2. Look at verses 9 and 10. Let
me show you the captain of our salvation. The one who leads
the way. He leads all of true Judah. Look at verse 9, chapter 2 of
Hebrews. But we see Jesus. I can't comprehend
how all things are put under Him. I can't comprehend how all
things are working together for the good of God's people. There
are a lot of things I don't understand. A lot of things I can't grasp. And you can't either. But I see Jesus by faith. I tell you, our salvation started
with a look. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth. Our salvation goes on by looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. That's
the way we live. And it will all come to a glorious,
climactic point when we shall see Him. face to face. We see Jesus. We see Jesus as
the successful Savior. We see Jesus, look at it, who
was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. We see Him crowned with glory
and honor. We see Him made lower than the
angels. Now, that doesn't mean that He
gave up His deity. It doesn't mean that at all.
It means that He took our flesh, our humanity, into union with
His deity. And He was made lower than the
angels. Why was He made lower than the
angels? For the suffering of death. This
is all about His death. And now we see Him crowned with
glory and honor. Why is He crowned with glory
and honor? Because He did the work the Father
sent Him to do. He saved His people. He's been
exalted. For you see, He, by the grace
of God, He tasted death for every man. Literally for every one
of those the Father gave Him. He tasted death. He put the cup
of God's vengeance and God's justice to his lips and he drank
all of the judgment, all of the damnation dry. Why does it say
tasted? Because he wouldn't have to drink
very long. It took him about three hours to drink that cup. You take a world full of sinners,
all of Adam's race, Had we all suffered forever in hell, couldn't
exhaust the justice of God. Couldn't even put away one sin.
But our Lord Jesus, all He had to do was taste death. He tasted
it for three hours. And then He said, it's finished. And verse 10 says, for it became
Him, is very becoming to Him. No work of God was ever more
becoming to God than the work of redemption. For whom are all
things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory. That's His objective. See? That's His objective. And it's
all to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Well, what kind of captain is
he? He's a captain who's got all
power and authority. That's the captain to follow.
There's nothing impossible with him. He told His disciples, all
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Now you go out
and preach the gospel. I'll make it effectual to whom
I will. Don't you worry about that. I
can't save anybody. I can't make the word effectual
to anybody. What do you mean by effectual,
preacher? Gets the job done? I can't get the job done. But He can and He does. Because
he's got all power. That's his reward for his sufferings
and death. But what kind of captain is he?
He's the one who determines our journey through the wilderness. He's the captain. I see him going
forward, holding the banner. The Lion of the tribe of Judah.
And I follow him. And I follow Him where He leads
me by His grace, because by His providence, all things are under
His direction. I find that He leads me in some
very unusual places. Do you find that too? Of course
you do. Why am I in this position? Now
the captain deemed it necessary for you to be in that position.
That's the reason he led you there. He's the one who determines our
journey. The steps of a righteous man, a good man, are ordered
of the Lord. And I'll tell you something,
his word, here's the third thing, his word, his law to all of his
followers. His gospel. My sheep hear My
voice. What is His voice? The gospel
of grace. That's His voice. And His Word,
that's our law. That's our truth. There is no
truth except His truth, for He is the truth. And I'll tell you, He not only
shows us the way, but He leads us in the right way. He leads
us in the way. And then He provides, He's a
captain who provides everything we need for the journey. You know, He sent His disciples
out and said, now don't take anything with you. Don't take
anything with you. Don't fill your saddlebags full
of sandwiches and whatnot. Don't take anything with you."
And when they got back, he said, did you ever lack for anything?
I told you not to take anything with you. Did you lack for anything?
And they said, no. And that's the way it is with
us. Have you ever really lacked for anything? Well, what do you need? Forgiveness?
Do you lack for that? No, you have forgiveness. Righteousness? Do you lack for that? No, He's
my righteousness. What about an inheritance? Do
you lack for that? He's promised you an inheritance,
incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in
heaven for you. He provides for our journey And
I'll tell you something else about this captain. He bears
the responsibility for our safety. He bears all the responsibility.
Well, you got so many enemies out there, you have no idea the
opposition that's against you. I'm talking about unseen enemies.
I'm talking about the demons of hell. I'm talking about Satan. These enemies. but the captain
of our salvation, he holds them in check. Yeah, he does. Because he's responsible for
our salvation. He said in his high priestly
prayer, of those that thou gavest me, I've lost not a one of them. Not a one of them. He never will. You see, if he were to lose me,
let's say, Let's say, finally, at the end, I failed. And he
lost me. Well, yeah, I'd lose my soul,
but he'd lose his honor. That can't ever happen. Because
all the responsibility for the safety and salvation of his followers
falls upon the broad shoulders of the captain of our salvation. And one of these days, He's going
to bring us to our desired haven. He takes us one by one. When Brother Russell was over
here the other day, he and I were talking. I said, sure would be
wonderful if the Lord just called us all home together at once.
He said, yeah. But He doesn't do that. He will,
at some point, all of the children of God who are in this world
will all make a great exodus all at once, but up until then,
we'll go one by one, but He'll still bring us to our desired
haven. That's where we want to be, with
Him. And I'll tell you what kind of
captain He is. He can't fail. He can't fail. Failure! What is that? Some general
or somebody? Failure is not an option! Well,
it's not an option with the Captain of our salvation. That'll never
happen. Isaiah 42 says that. He shall
not fail. He can't fail because He's God
Almighty. Behold our Captain. God give
us grace to trust Him more fully. What a glorious captain He is.
He was there when it all began. He'll be there when it all ends. When we enter into eternity.
And we will learn more then about what He's been doing. Watching
over us all through our journey. never took his eye off of us,
not for a second. That's the kind of captain he
is. Lord, bless thou the word that has gone forth this evening. We ask you to encourage our hearts
in the captain of our salvation. And in saving us, he was made
perfect. He redeemed us. He made us righteous. Indeed, he saved his people from
our sins. Lord, we bless you for the grace
that you gave us in Christ, even before the world began. And as
we leave this evening, may we go away rejoicing. May we not get caught up in trivial
things, things of unimportance. Let us go away thinking about
our Captain, rejoicing in Him, and looking forward to the day
when we shall see Him face to face, and then we shall be like
Him. So teach us more of the Lord
Jesus. Should there be one here or watching
that knows not our great Savior, oh, may this magnificent Redeemer powerfully draw them unto Himself
and cast the spell of grace upon them. Oh, and when He does that,
we're never the same. We're new creatures in Christ
Jesus. Thank you, Lord. We honor you
and we bless your name for Jesus' sake. Amen.