Gooding, David: 1 - Overview

Welcome to our study this evening. This is the first of a series of three short studies of the Book of Numbers, if the Lord so will. I am ta- told that if we behave ourselves, we might get, uh, given the opportunity, uh, to take our studies further after, uh, necessary interludes of one kind and another. So let's begin our study, shall we, by reading an actual portion from the book of Numbers, chapter six. Numbers chapter six. And we shall begin to read at verse twenty two. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise you shall bless the children of Israel. You shall say unto them, The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. So shall they put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. And may the Spirit who inspired these words use our studies together tonight and in the coming weeks, that we too may feel and know and experience the blessing of God. Now, a few words to begin with about the chart that you see in front of you. Just in case you thought, but that's most unlikely, that I was able to write it so well, eh, I didn't write it at all. The credit is to be given to Mrs. William McLean of Larne, who took some rough notes of mine and transcribed them thus with beautiful lettering. Secondly, the material on the chart is aimed at, uh, bringing up some of the dominant themes of the Book of Numbers, as a way to get them onto our heads. I do not claim that this is a full account of all the most important things in the Book of Numbers. I do not even claim that the various sections I've I I that I have outlined would be agreed by all biblical students, and of course they've no need to agree with it anyway. This is just one attempt to get some of the dominant themes of the Book of Numbers. You know, I have lived in Belfast for forty seven years, and I have to confess to you, I have never sat down and tried to memorize the names of all the streets in Belfast. Haven't done so. And yet, in spite of that, I can more or less find my way around Belfast, you see. And I've done it, eh, do see, by getting hold of the major districts of Belfast. I know the difference between West Belfast and East Belfast, for some reason or other, uh, do you see? And I know where not to sing God Save the Queen, in what part of Belfast it wouldn't be appropriate, you see. And then I know that Carrickfergus is on the north side of the loch, whereas Bangor is on the south side, or more or less, do you see? I'm not even now sure exactly where Newton Abbey begins and ends, and where Glen Gormley does similar things, or where exactly White Abbey is, but it's up in that direction. And I know, you see, if you're wanting to get to, uh, uh, uh, uh, Carrickfergus, now wait a minute, you have to know that in advance by, you know, going through the city, otherwise you'll get mixed up in all the one-way systems and find yourself on the wrong side of the lock when alas it's too late, do you see? And why do I mention all that? Well, because getting to know the broad passages, the broad areas in Belfast, and more or less how they lie compared with one another, is one way of finding yourself about the city. And if we are to get a whole book like Numbers onto our heads, and God help us to get it onto our heads. Some of us know more about the rules of golf than we do about numbers, you know. Uh, one of the ways to do it is to map out some of the dominant themes in the Book of Numbers, and then to study how, if at all, they relate one towards the other. Uh, so now let us think why we should be interested in the Book of Numbers anyway. It is the fact you can get to heaven without knowing anything about the Book of Numbers. That is a fact, you know. I doubt very much whether the dying thief knew anything about numbers whatsoever. He was a kind of a terrorist bandit, but when he confessed his sin to the Lord at Calvary, the Lord assured him that that day he would be in paradise with the Lord. But if the Lord has saved us, and we honestly do believe that the whole Bible is inspired of God, then the implication of that belief is that we should take God's word seriously and try to understand it, for which purpose he has, has of course, given us his Holy Spirit. So why should we be interested in Numbers? Because it is the inspired word of God. Secondly, it is a very old book. It was written perhaps, or began to be written, some three thousand years ago. But it speaks directly to our hearts, does it not? For this simple reason. It is an account of the epic journey of a nation across a desert towards their Promised promised land. land. And all the things that happened to them on that epic journey across the desert. And that speaks to us immediately, because having been redeemed by Christ, by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as of a lamb, we too are on a journey, are we not? For that very chapter that reminds us we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ as of a lamb, that is of the Passover lamb, holds out before us the glorious hope. We have been begotten again by the resurrection of our Lord from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, unfading, reserved in heaven for us. And life is a journey, since we got converted, on towards that inheritance. And that simple analogy between Israel's experience after they were redeemed and their journey across the desert towards their promised land, the simple analogy between that and our journey will raise a number of very big and practical points. So let's begin, shall we, by considering the nature of Israel's journey across that desert to their promised land. What was the nature of it? Well, if you like, you can say, well, it was a physical journey, geographical, if you like. You'll see when they left Egypt, well, all they had to do was to point their noses roughly north-northeast, start walking, and carry on walking. And if they carried on walking in a comparatively short time, they would reach their promised land. That was the nature of the journey, bit rough maybe across a desert, but that was it. It was a physical journey. Of course, it was chronological as well, because up it took up a certain amount of time. Though, had things gone well, they could have been there within a month or two, whereas things didn't go well, and they weren't there for over forty years. But it wasn't just a physical journey, was it? What Israel discovered was that as they went on that journey, it proved to be a journey into the discovery of God. A discovery of what God is really like. And sometimes that was enjoyable, and sometimes it was decidedly not so. We're told, you know, when they first came out of Egypt, and uh, God had done that stupendous miracle and parted the waters of the Red Sea, and they stood on the other side and saw Pharaoh's chariots drowned in the Red Sea, so there was no danger of their being recaptured. They thought that God was superb, you see. Marvelously superb. And as they got, uh, stood on there on the further banks of the Red Sea, they sang. Moses sang, Miriam sang, all the people sang, fit to burst their lungs they were. Uh, they thought God was wonderful. The Lord, the Lord is my salvation, they said. The horse and his rider have he thrown into the sea. They thought he was wonderful. A few weeks down the road, they ran out of water. And they promptly changed their mind about God. And they told him so, in no uncertain terms. They said, God, you'll have to do better for us than this. For if you don't, we won't go on believing in you. They tempted the Lord God, saying, is the Lord really among us? Funny that, isn't it? I've known Christians, I don't know if you have, but when they got converted, were full of joy and thought God was wonderful. And then things happened in life. And they're not so sure. Some of them have ceased to believe in God altogether. It was a journey then into the discovery of what God is really like. There were times of tremendous blessing. There were times of severe testing. And it was, you know, another journey as well. It had another dimension. It was a journey into the discovery of themselves. I think, you know, when they stood on the banks of the aforesaid Red Sea and sang their very hearts out in praise to God, I think they felt so good that if they only jumped up a bit higher, their head would go through heaven and be there already. And in fact, they talked at the end of that song that they sang, oh Lord, you're going to bring us in. Heaven seemed very near, do you see? And they felt very good. There came in the course of their journey sundry temptations. Now God doesn't tempt anybody with evil, but God sometimes allows us to come into temptations put in our way by the master tempter himself. And sometimes God lets us find out that we're not through and through the very nice people we thought we were. And that can be a shock to the system. But you see, how shall we advance in holiness? Unless God graciously allows us to discover false attitudes that we haven't even realized are there to start with. So that we can then repent of them and be delivered from them. It was a journey, therefore, not only physical, a journey that was a journey into the discovery of what God was really like, the God of their redemption, and a journey into the discovery of themselves. For that purpose, shall we notice where Numbers begins? I mean, that is the history. This begins after the giving of the law at Sinai. This wasn't the beginning of their journey. The journey began when they came out of Egypt, of course. Redeemed and delivered by the blood of the Passover lamb, and then delivered by the power of God. At the Red Sea. And as I earlier said, things seemed to be going well. When God allowed them to run out of water. And they, uh, as I say, turned around and tempted God, told God straight if he didn't do better than this. They were going to ditch him altogether. God, in his mercy, brought them to repentance over it, and they proceeded and came at length to Mount Sinai. And there they experienced what must have been an indescribably awesome experience. As the living God descended on Mount Sinai in flame and in tempest, till the very earth shook under the feet of its creator. And as Moses was never tired of reminding them, you didn't see any form, but you heard the voice. Standing at the foot of that mountain, they heard clearly, distinctly, powerfully, heard the very voice of God speaking to them. And enunciating the ten words, the basis of his covenant. I am the Lord your God that brought you out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods but me. You shall not make a graven image or bow down to it, and so forth and so on. And the covenant was put to them, and they said, yes, all that the Lord has commanded we will do and be obedient. And so Moses went up the mountain, the covenant was sealed, and God invited Moses again to go up the mountain, where he would give Moses the specifications for building a tabernacle, where God might graciously come down and dwell among them. That was magnificent, wasn't it? A race of ex-slaves they were. Now not only redeemed, but among them the living God in the tabernacle they had been allowed to make for him. So Moses was gone up the mountain to get it. But when he was a little bit longer up the mountain than they had expected... Do you know what? They lost faith in Moses completely. They said, as for this Moses, we don't know, we don't know what's become of him, you know. And here we are sitting at the bottom of this mountain in a wilderness, and uh, and well, we ju- you can't sit there forever twizzling your thumbs, can you now? I mean, you've got to aim at something in life now. Surely you have. And as for this Moses, we don't know. Somebody said, ah yes, but he said he was coming back again. Oh yes, but that's what he said last Tuesday, and he isn't back yet. And so they compelled Aaron to make them a god to go before them. They surrendered their earrings. They're funny th- funny things to make gods out of, but they are. That's what they did, because in those days people carried their excess wealth, not in a bank deposit, there weren't any. They carried it on their persons, you see. And they stripped off their ornaments, worth a lot, a lot of money, and gave them to Aaron to make a god that would go before them on their desert way. You've got to have something to aim at in life, haven't you? And sometimes it can happen that people who started out towards their inheritance as redeemed people following the Lord got so embroiled in business that their money became their goal in life. Well, if God had destroyed them there and then, they couldn't have complained, could they? So soon after hearing the voice of God at Sinai. But in his mercy, and as a result of Moses' intercessions, God pardoned the nation and allowed them to continue on with the journey. But, ah, and now says God, before you move another inch, you see there's still Sinai here, before you move another inch, before you start going, which they do here, we better make some preparations and provisions for you, and lay down certain directions and certain commandments and rules, if you like, for you on the journey. And so the first, uh, ten chapters are preparation for the journey. They're not moving now. They're still stuck at Sinai. Nor will they be allowed to move until as God has laid down the provisions, the rules, the regulations, the directions, that if they would adhere to them, will keep them on their journey towards their inheritance. So let's briefly have a look at what some of those, um, provisions were. We shan't have time to begin even to ex- uh, study the detail of them, but let's try and get the book in our minds, shall we? What provisions would he make? Well, first of all, there was the numbering for the journey. Numbering, not just to find out how many there were. In the ancient world, numbering was a way of organizing the people. So you read of generals before a battle would number the, the troops. That is a way of organizing them into their various sections and so forth. So the people had to be numbered. And there were two lots of numbering. The first was the numbering of the tribes. The twelve tribes. And right from the word go, the point of the numbering is made clear. You are to number everybody from twenty years old in every one of the tribes that is ready to go to war. You say, but wait a minute, did they meet many enemies on the road? Why... why was it important that they should be numbered for war? When they got to the promised land, of course, there were battles enough. But were there many battles on- in the desert? Why were they numbered for war? But you know, there's more than one kind of war, isn't there? And God was making it very clear that their journey through the desert wouldn't be a sort of a comfortable Sunday afternoon stroll. They've got to go across the Sinai Desert and other similar deserts, you know. And even to this day, if you're living in that part of the world, you don't say to wifey of a Sunday afternoon, well, wifey, what about a nice little walk across the Sinai Desert just this afternoon? Don't bother about your shoes, come in your carpet slippers. You don't. If you're going to cross the Sinai Desert, you have to give your name into the authorities, who will try to make sure that you've got enough water to survive, and so that, uh, they know where you're meant to be going. If you don't arrive, they can send out a r- a rescue thing before the carrion crows and the vultures get you. Dangerous business. I don't want to be melancholy, lest you never come again. So, anyway, I better start citing the scripture. It's not me being rather excessively melancholy of a Thursday night. Paul talking to Timothy. Tim, old boy, he says, I've written these things that by them you might learn to fight a goodly battle. My dear brothers and sisters, the way home to glory can be marked with much joy and celebration and thanksgiving to God. Of course it can. There were marvelous times on the road, and sometimes at a oases like Kadesh Barnea, it was delightful. Never needed a hot water bottle at any one other time. But there's no disguising the fact that very often it was a fight. Just to keep going was a fight sometimes. And what is interesting about this is it was for war. So they're told how they are to camp, in what order they are to camp, and what order they are to march in. And then another big secret comes out. How are they to, uh, uh, camp? They were to camp on four sides of a square with the tabernacle in the middle of them, which was the dwelling place of God. And when they went on the road, they were to see to it that the ca- the tabernacle was in the middle. And if you know anything about ancient warfare, you know this, that an army would put at the very middle the thing that they counted most valuable. This they would fight to the death for. And here, they were to get ready to fight for the presence of God among them and for the fellowship with God. You say, now, Mr. Preacher, you are melancholy tonight, unusually so, and you've got it the wrong way round now. It isn't us who fight to protect the Lord. Of course it isn't. It's the Lord who fights to protect us. Oh, Jehovah Nissi, the Lord my banner. That is perfectly true. What could we do, veritable pygmies we are, unless the Lord fought for us? And yet, and yet, as we walk across our wilderness, and life gets very busy. Am I exaggerating things when I say that one of the things you'll have to fight for is to maintain the time for fellowship with God and for the worship and service of God? Life will get so hectic. It will be a fight. It can be a fight just to get the time to read Holy Scripture, can't it? And I say it as one who's had, I nearly said, the responsibilities of a bachelor life. For me, it's easy. But in a modern world, the husbands and wives both have to work, and long hours, and can never get away from the boss because they have these, I don't know what they are, portable something or other phones and, uh, um, raspberries, no, straws, not blackberries or something, you'll see. Can't know get away from the thing. I tell you straight now, you my younger colleagues in the Lord, you'll have to fight to maintain both the time and the energies for fellowship with God and maintain at the very heart of your life the realities of the presence of God and the worship and the service of God. Then there were the Levites. They had to be numbered. Do you see? So God chose the Levites, and what they had to do was this, that when the tabernacle, uh, had to move, it was a portable sh- uh, shrine, you see, a portable temple. So the Levites had to come and they had to take it down. And then there were the various pieces of furniture inside the ark, and the mercy seat, of course, and the lampstand and the table of showbread, and uh, the ark, uh, the altar of incense, and outside there was the laver, and there was the big altar, and all that they stood for. But now there was a practical job to do, for they were on a journey, do you see? So when it was time to go, uh, the priests went in and they, uh, put curtains and coverings over the holy pieces of furniture that none might see except the priests. They were exceedingly holy. But when that was done, the Levites were called in. And some had carts that they put the big, uh, uh, sides, you know, the frames of the tabernacle on them, and the heavy ingots of silver worked out on the bases of the pillars and things. It, they could put them on carts. They had carts. But the others had to carry the bits of furniture. The ark had poles in it at the side that had to be carried on people's shoulders. And the little incense altar. And the lampstand was put in the frame and had to be carried. And the table had, uh, poles through it, you see, and the big altar outside and so on. And I had to, uh, carry it on their shoulders. That's why they were numbered. That was their job. I think when they first did it, they thought it was marvelous. Fancy, do you know, I was allowed to do it. You fancy that? Ah, he carried the ark. Who did what, what did you carry? Oh, just a little incense holder. Well, that was good, but I was allowed to carry the ark, you know, marvelous. When you've taken the tabernacle down five thousand six hundred and seventy two times, and now you have to put it up for the five thousand six hundred and seventy third time, Gets a little bit monotonous, you know. Rather samey. You just imagine, one night they've been tra- trundling through the wilderness, and now it's getting late towards the evening, and they're stopped, and the cloud has descended on it, and uh, uh, the tabernacle is there, and they're putting the things in place, do you see? And somebody shouts, uh, bring in the altar, the big altar. Oh, where's it? Where's the altar? No, don't know. Wasn't it your turn to take care of the altar? No, it wasn't my turn, it was their turn. Here, where is the altar? Oh. Oh, we were having a game of football, and I- I- and we got so interested, and we- we ha- we thought that somebody else was carrying the altar. And you mean to say you've left it behind? Well, that's imagination run riot, isn't it? But you know, those pieces of furniture in the- in the tabernacle, they were only symbols, but they were symbols of very important things. The big altar standing for atonement and forgiveness through the blood of the sacrifice, and the labor for regeneration and the work of the Holy Spirit. Beautiful, lovely, spiritual truths they were symbols of. Fancy Levites leaving them behind. Tell me, is there anybody in your assembly that carries the truth of the Lord's second coming? Because actually, the truths are in the Bible, you know. But the truth of justification by faith was in the Bible for centuries, almost completely forgotten. Nobody understood it, nobody personally carried it, until God raised up a chap like Luther and discovered it. Truths, ladies and gentlemen, do not carry themselves. Truths have to be carried by people, and if we're going to carry the basic doctrine of atonement, it stands to reason we should not carry it unless, first of all, we have understood it and ourselves have been forgiven, saved, and now could explain to the non-Christian what the doctrine of atonement is about. Sometimes it happens that folks are saved, but then not really taught thoroughly, and you produce a third generation that doesn't really know the basic doctrines of the faith. They have, so to speak, been left behind. They're in the word, of course, but they're not being carried by people on two legs. That is important, therefore. And I, I, I, I, I, I have dwelt on that at some length, just to show that these, uh, provisions were not only practical for the Israelites, they are pointing to exceedingly practical lessons for us. And how you persuaded the Levites to take on this onerous job, that we shall have to consider on another occasion, can't we? What right had God to call on them? Well, you'll find God explaining the right he had to call on them if we read the details of the text. But you see, um, look at that one there, this one. This is all about the hygiene of the camp. They had to keep the camp clean. And of course, there were very practical reasons for that, weren't there? If you have got a, a, a few thousand people living in tents going across a desert where water is scarce. If you weren't absolutely rigorous on insisting on personal and public cleanliness and hygiene, you'd lose most of the folks by a plague. The Roman army, you know, was very efficient. They lost more men because of the desperate lack of hygiene in the camps than they did in the ba- in the battles. That's going to talk to us, isn't it, about keeping the camp clean in all sorts of areas, but look at that one there. Man and wife, you see, and they're living hundreds of tents, cheek by jowl. Very easy for mix-ups to occur, what ho? And a man becomes jealous. God instituted a system that would clear the wife if she were innocent, because some men can be unreasonable, you know. I tell you, that's a secret. Uh, do you see, some men can be utterly unreasonable, not to talk of husbands. Eh, do you see? But it would be a sad thing, wouldn't it, that people that have been redeemed out of Egypt, happily married, stood together hand in hand at the Red Sea, and ended up. Oh, don't say it couldn't happen to believers. Keeping the camp clean. You can see why that is, and I'm just going to mention practical things now. Aha. The Aaronic blessing. I put it down as a single section. Very few folks will believe that. Never mind, I'm not saying this is, uh, my chart is inspired. This is only a go to isolate some of the main themes. You may not think it a main theme. But at this point, God says to Aaron, now you shall assemble the people from time to time, and you shall bless them in the name of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Delightful prayer. Why have it? Well... they won't get far in the wilderness before his satanic majesty will get at them. And the one fundamental thing that Satan will do with them and with us, if he can, is to undermine our faith in the love and grace and mercy of God. And if Satan can break it and make us feel aggrieved against God, he won a very big battle in the face of the trials that are going to come. Oh, prepare the people, says God, Aaron, do prepare the people and constantly prepare them. Put my name on them. The Lord bless you and keep you. The first thing they would need going through a waste, howling wilderness was to be kept. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. That's a delightful idea. I'm glad the Bible is written in simple terms that appeals to my simple heart, you know. And you're allowed to have imaginations. God doesn't have a face like we have, but he has a face in Cre- Jesus Christ. Yes. But to look up in the face of God and see the face of God shine. I've known it to happen, you know, that mum has had a birthday, uh, as you see, and dad has got the little girlie, uh, four, got into her head it's mum's birthday, you see. And he's had to give her the money to to do it, of course. Uh, and she buys, she's taken down time, buys mum a present for her birthday. It's got to be a big secret, do you see? Comes the moment, you see, when four-year-old is going to present this present to mum. It's all done up in ribbons, do you see? And she's going to present it to mum, you see. Mm. Probably a vase out of Marks and Spencer's or something, never mind. It's a, you see, the thing to look at is not mum's face, but the girl's face. God, how she's enjoying this. When's the last time we looked up into the face of God? And saw God's face shining with the indescribable grace that he has brought us in salvation through his son, and the wealth of it grips our hearts. It's good preparation for the journey. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. That, of course, goes back to the old system amongst the ancients. If you went to some big man, you'll see, and asked a request of him, uh, he might say no. And in the ancient world, he just lifted his face a- a- away from you, or put it down and wouldn't look at you. And the technique was that if you went with a big request to somebody like that, you see, and were afraid he might turn his face from you, got hold of him by the beard, so he couldn't lift his face up. Had to look you in the eye. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you. It's hard going, isn't it, when people say they pray, and I don't know, I, my prayers these days, they just seem to go no further than the ceiling. And this is, it is as though God isn't hearing them. That can be a disor- disorientating thing in the wilderness journey, if we get the pres- impression that God just isn't listening to us. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you so that you have the sense that he's listening, even if his answer is no, not yet, or not at all. Yes. My colleague John Lennox, we were at a meeting of Me- uh, Merterville Trust together. He had just been to visit his niece, a young woman of about thirty, has an incurable cancer and knows it. I think of the parents in that situation and of the girl herself. All the great need would be the sense that the Lord is listening, even if he says no to their request for healing. Well, that will give us peace. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace and put my name upon them. Yes. Well, this is, of course, uh, the dedication of the altar, and then the Levites who were offered as a wave offering to God and yielded their bodies a living sacrifice, to borrow a phrase from somewhere else. You see? And finally, there were the regulations for the journey. How would they get guidance for the journey? And one of the major things, the passage for the journey, the guidance for the journey begins with the regulations for Passover, where God insists, now get it into their heads, they must keep the Passover. They'll keep it in the first month, but if they can't for any reason, if they can't keep the Passover in the first month because they're sick or they're, or they're on the journey, then keep it. They must, they'll have to keep it in the second month, that's all. They must keep the Passover. Why is that? And what's that got to do with the journey? Well, you see, the Passover is the story of how they came out of Egypt. And why they came out of Egypt, they might even be tempted to go back, might they not? So, says God, you tell them they must keep the Passover. How are all these, therefore, how is the journey related to all that? I just want to skim through what follows, with the merest indication of how these sections are related to the other ones. So look at this. There came a rebellion. Oh, what about that? Well, they got to the promised land. They got to the edge of the promised land, sent the spies in to reconnoiter it, and ten out of the twelve said it was a rotten old country anyway, and there were too many giants, and they refused to go in. And the people made a hullabaloo, and they may talked about making a captain and going back to Egypt. Incredible, isn't it? No wonder, says God, you keep the Passover. They forgot why they came out of it. They said, we remember the cucumbers, oh, and we remember the garlic and the onions, weren't they beautiful? They didn't say we remember the slave camps and what it was to feel the lash of a, of a Egyptian taskmaster on your back. They didn't say that. They remembered the cucumbers. Fancy that, uh, Josie. Passover. It's not for nothing, you know, that the Lord, at the last Passover he attended, instituted the Lord's Supper. Lest we forget why we came out of our Egypt and at what cost we came out of our Egypt. Yeah? So, yes, they are related. What about this one? This one here. Rebellion of Korah against Moses and Aaron, and Korah was a Levite. Just look at that. Do you see? The dedication of the Levites and the offering of, uh, dedication of the lamp and the offering of the Levites as a living sacrifice to God. Pity that Korah didn't remember it, wasn't it? Yeah. Cora was a Levite. It was he who led a whole array of people in rebellion against the apostle and high priest of their confession. Wow. Huh. And what should we say of this? It was the responsib- is Aaron, the responsibility of Aaron to bless the people in the name of God. He was given the chance to do it at the rock in Numbers twenty as God told them to take Aaron's rod, symbol of his priesthood, and with the symbol of his priesthood in his hand, he and Moses were to speak to the rock, a prayer of intercession, and God would make the water come out. Instead of doing that, with the rod in their hand, Moses lost his temper and belabored the rock and denounced the Israelites as rebels. Whereas at that moment, they weren't rebels. It was Moses that was rebelling and misrepresenting God, who was wanting to be merciful to the people and supply their need. They utterly misrepresented God to the people, for which Moses never was allowed to go lead them into the Promised Land, you know. Well, you say that ruined, that ruined the blessing, didn't it? If a high priest who was meant to bless them had so messed it up, well, they weren't blessed well. Like this they were. Look at this curious character here, Balaam of all people on earth, who set out to curse them. In spite of all his intentions to curse Israel and persuading God to curse Israel, he couldn't manage it, and he had to tell Balak, the king of Moab, I, I can't, sorry sir, I, I would like your money, but I can't do it, for God has given commandment to bless, and I can't re- I can't reverse it. For God is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should repent. Has he not said it, and shall he not make it good? For God is determined to bless his people and bless them, he had them blessed, even if he had to bypass Moses and Aaron and get an old rotten old prophet like Balaam to bless. He'd have them blessed anyway. Interesting, isn't it? Hm. What's all this thing about here, about the trial of jealousy between a man and his wife? Do you know what happened after that spectacular blessing of God through Balaam the prophet. Israel turned aside and joined himself to the old pagan god Baal Peor and committed fornication and adultery with the women of Moabite and entered into their religious rites. And God was Jealous. jealous. And the New Testament reminds us that that is true still. Talking to the Corinthians, Paul says, you better not go into an idol temple and the cafe there and eat the flesh of bulls and goats that have just been offered on the altar and brought to your table by the priest. You better not do it. For that is to partake in idolatry. Well, do it if you feel you must, but do remember this: don't you provoke the Lord to jealousy, for he is stronger than we are. And if we provoke the Lord to jealousy, he will deal with us. And our blessed redeemer will not stand by and see our love and affection taken from him and squandered on unlawful objects. God is jealous, but a true kind of jealousy. Oh, yes. And then there's a r- regulation of the vows. I seem to remember there is a vow up there, but it's too late for me to, um, talk about it now. This final thing Moses thought was a rebellion. It turned out not to be a rebellion. Mercifully. But by this time, the generation that refused to go in, and God said that by toe you won't go in, and you'll die in the wilderness. By round about here, do you see, that generation has died off, and the people that this applies to are the new generation, and they are going into the land. Do you see? These are some of the experiences that they would be brought through to prepare them for their actual going into the land. Well, that's a rough and ready account of numbers, isn't it? I hope it hasn't put you off, but there's something in the book, and it looks to be deliberately written. And the preparations, when we understand them, will be evidently both practical, and we shall see why they are necessary, and we shall be able to relate them to what happened and how well or otherwise the people took advantage of the preparations, and how they were blessed thereby, and how when they disregarded the preparations, they brought themselves into suffering, if not disaster. But I must stop now in case I provoke another rebellion in Apsley Street in the year uh two thousand and seven. Shall we just pray? Lord, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee, Lord, it carries the ring of truth. We bless thee for its self-evident practical implications, but we bless thee for it expresses thy kindliness, thy covenant love. And we pray tonight, Lord, in the middle of our journey, some of us nearer its end. We pray that by thy grace, our blessed high priest in glory may speak the words of blessing to our hearts and make them real, that we might find grace and help in the pathway ahead. Fill our hearts with a sense of thy wealth and the rejoicing in thyself and in thy salvation. Help us to walk circumspectly and to come through our trials to thy glory, for the sake of our blessed Lord Jesus. Bless us now and our fellowship and food together, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.