Old Testament in a Year: Numbers 1-6

Hey, listen, if you're new or relatively new to the refuge, we're doing something different for two years. We're preaching through the entire Bible in a two-year period, Old Testament only in 2026, New Testament only in 2027. And we also have a Bible reading plan that we're going through as a church so that we're reading the Bible cover to cover in a two-year period. And every quarter we put out a new reading plan. And today, the second quarter reading plan is available at the info desk or on the refuge app. And if you've not been going through the plan with us, jump in with us right now. It's not too late. Come on, start with us. We're really going after biblical illiteracy and reading the Bible together. It's been a powerful experience so far in the first quarter. So grab the reading plan for the second quarter as you leave today. Take your Bible or your device and open up to Numbers chapter one. So here we are at the end of March. We've made it through Genesis, Exodus, and thank God through Leviticus. Somebody say amen. And today we're going to be looking at Numbers chapters one through six. And as always, the notes are there on the refuge app. And I encourage you to take notes and to follow along. I think preparation is really important. Preparation for things that we're going to do in life. The United States military has a very systematic and very intense season and period and process of preparation that'll take civilians and turn them into combat ready men and women. It's a very structured, very repeatable process that actually includes several phases. Number one, some of you have heard of boot camp. That's the first phase. And boot camp is focused on physical fitness and how to follow orders, discipline, how to work together as a unit, how to handle basic equipment. And the goal is consistency under pressure. Second phase is skills training for a specific job. It might be navigation. It might be as a medic. It might be infantry or communication or weaponry or explosives or whatever the job is. Thirdly, it's going to be weapons training. And they want to teach you to be masterful with various weapons and also how to operate them while you're under great stress. Fourthly are field exercises. And with field exercises, there's going to be mock battles and limited sleep and food and nighttime operations and patrol formations. The fifth part of the process is mental development, mental challenging and discipline and training, building trust within the unit, learning to manage stress. And then the sixth phase is just ongoing training that helps you to get to the point that everything is reflex. It's just automatic. You don't even really have to think about it. My recommendation would be if you decided that

you were going to run a marathon, that you not just show up on the day of the race, get your bib and take off. But then you train for it. You got to be ready for it. You say, I don't know how to do that. Well, if you just type into chat GPT and say, I need a training plan to run a marathon, it's going to pull up a 16-week plan. It's going to give you day by day every run that you need to make, short runs, long runs. It's going to have an eating plan for you. It's going to have a recovery plan for you. It's going to have everything that you need to do in order to be prepared to run a marathon. And I would highly advise that you follow a plan like that in order to be prepared. When I was getting ready to bike across America over three years ago, I didn't just jump on the bike in California and take off. I actually trained for nine months. I rode over 2,000 miles in a nine-month period. I rode in every type of weather condition possible because I wanted to eliminate as much as possible the risk of failure so that I made it from the West coast to the East coast. Here in Numbers chapters one through six, we are seeing today God preparing his people for the promise. God's preparation for the children of Israel to move into the promised land. Numbers chapter one, we're going to read a few verses there. I'm going to ask you to stand to honor the Word of God as we begin to read in verse one. Numbers chapter one, beginning to read in verse one, and we find this, if you don't have your Bible or device, it's on the screen, it says this. A year after Israel's departure from Egypt, the Lord spoke to Moses in the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai. On the first day of the second month of that year, he said, from the whole community of Israel, record the names of all the warriors by their clans and families. Lists all the men 20 years old or older who were able to go to war. You and Aaron must register the troops and you'll be assisted by one family leader from each tribe. And we skip over to verse 44 and we find this.

These were the men registered by Moses and Aaron and the 12 leaders of Israel, all listed according to their ancestral descent. They were registered by families. All the men of Israel who were 20 years old or older and able to go to war. Verse 46, the total number was 603,550. Now, we read through that and that might be one of the sections in your Bible reading a few days ago that maybe you were really tempted to just kind of skip through. Maybe you're like, I don't really care about census and numbering people and I don't care about all that stuff. I wanna get to the good stuff. I wanna get to the stories. I wanna get to the more exciting things and you're gonna see in a moment, this was absolutely vital to God preparing the Israelites to move into the promised land. And let me tell you, for you and I today, God has a plan of preparation and that's what we're gonna talk about. Let's make some declarations before you're seated. Everybody together, everybody that's watching online, everybody that's watching on the Pando app, come on, let's declare this together. You ready? Go. I will hide this word in my heart

that I might not sin against God. This word is life to my body and health to my bones. I will be a doer of the word and I'm confident of this that he who has begun a good work in me in Jesus' name. Do you believe it? Say amen. Amen. You can be seated. Listen, the book of Leviticus, and we've talked about this, was primarily about civil, moral, and ceremonial laws for the Israelites. Now the people are transitioning from their stay at Mount Sinai to the promised land. We're gonna see that the book of Numbers is primarily about three things that we're gonna look at today. Here they are. Order, purity, and preparation. Order, purity, and preparation. In Numbers chapters one through six, we see God taking this massive group of freed slaves and transforming them into this highly organized and trained military force. Now the first thing that we see there is this thing of order. Chapters one through four deal mainly with the order of things.

And chapters one through four are a reminder to you and I, and this is important, it's a reminder to us that God is a God of order, not of confusion. He's a God of order, not of confusion. Now listen, what we find in Scripture is God giving order to just about everything that pertains to our lives. God gives clear instructions. He gives clear order to everything that we could ever wonder about. Now listen to me, he does that, not because he's a control freak, and he does that not because he's some dictator, but he does that because he wants you and I to experience the abundant life of Christ. There's an order to that. And God lays it all out for us because he's the kind of father who wants us to experience maximum potential of life, everything that would be in our best interest. Now I wanna remind you as well that the devil specializes in chaos. Amen. The enemy's goal is constantly to disrupt and destroy the order of God. As it relates to marriage, the enemy wants to destroy. the order of God. As it relates to sexuality,

the enemy wants to destroy the order of God because God's order is this, that sex belongs in the boundaries and the confines of the beautiful covenant of marriage. That's God's order. And again, it's not because God's trying to ruin your life. It's not because God doesn't want you to experience the beauty of sexuality. It's because God knows that that's best experienced in the confines of the covenant of marriage. But the enemy comes along and he says, ah, that doesn't matter. You can have sex outside of marriage. It's okay to enjoy that anytime you want. And people, many, have done that and they've discovered that it's just not exactly what God intended for it to be. The enemy is also always trying to disrupt and destroy the order of God as it relates to the identity of two genders. Why do you think we've seen over the last five or 10 years so much confusion amongst children and young people as it relates to this concept of there being two genders? Because the enemy is intent in breeding chaos instead of the order of God. The enemy wants to destroy and disrupt the order of God as it relates to the capital C church. He wants to destroy the concept and the order of God as it relates to what God intended for the church to be and to become.

That's why we have churches now that are ordaining homosexuals to be pastors and priests because the enemy wants to disrupt what God said into order. That's why we have churches now that are rewriting scripture. That's why we have churches now that are sanctioning same-sex marriages. That's why we have churches now that are condoning abortion. Amen. Preach, pastor, preach. I'm trying, I'm going to. Whether people like it or not, I'm gonna preach the word of God. Because the bottom line, the bottom line is the enemy specializes in chaos. He wants to take the order of God. That's meant for you and I to experience the abundance of life in Christ. And the enemy wants to rob you of that by destroying everything that God said into order. So in chapter one of Numbers, God instructs Moses and Aaron to take a census. It's a number of the people that are ages 20 to 50. 603,550 that are eligible for battle. The Levites are excluded from that because God wanted them to focus on the care of the temple. Chapter two of Numbers deals with the order that the tribes are to be arranged around the tabernacle. And again, as you're reading that,

you might think this has nothing to do with me. Like I don't really care where the tribe of Judah's located. I don't really care if the tribe of Gad is on the north, the south, the east, or the west, but the order of God is that he had three tribes on the north, three on the east, three on the south, three on the west, and it all mattered. And he had the Levites in the very center. Right in the center as a reminder to you and I that God should be at the center of everything that we do. He should be at the center of your business, should be at the center of every relationship, should be at the center of your finances. He should be at the center of every single thing. Chapters three and four deal with the role of the Levites, specifically the care of the tabernacle, its furniture, the curtains, the poles, the articles for worship, and the transportation of who carried what, and it mattered. God cares about order. In the New Testament, we find the apostle Paul writing letters to the Corinthian church and Paul reminding them about the order of God. Why? Because the Corinthians had become very careless about certain things, about sacred things. The Corinthians. had become careless and casual about sexual sin. The Corinthians had become careless about the gifts of the Holy Spirit,

careless about communion, careless about how they treated one another. So the Apostle Paul writes to them, calling them back to the order of God. And we find in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 33, these words, for God is not a God of disorder, but of peace, as in all the meetings of God's holy people. And then he goes on to say in verse 40, these words, but be sure that everything is done properly and in order. And I believe we're living in a time where God is calling the church back to order, just like the Apostle Paul did, where maybe we've become careless or casual about certain things, and I think we're seeing God saying, no, no, no, there's an order to the way that we should be doing things, and it matters, it matters. Here's the second thing. We see in Numbers chapters one through six, this focus on purity, as all the preparation for moving into the promised land. And here's what we read in Numbers chapter five, verses one through four, it says this. The Lord said to Moses, command the Israelites to send away from the camp anybody who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Send away male and female alike,

send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp where I dwell among them. The Israelites did so, they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses. Now for a moment, as you read Numbers chapter five there, it feels like we have gone back into Leviticus. And that's not the case, but it's an emphasis on God saying it's so important that his people be a pure people, that they not defile the camp. Because a part of the Israelites being able to apprehend the promise of God was two things. Number one, that they would purify themselves corporately. Like as a nation, as a people, they had to be pure. And secondly, they had to purify themselves individually. And both were important. Listen to me, today the church will only be as pure as its members. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is returning one day soon. But listen to me, he's coming back for a pure, spotless bride. I think most of you would agree that we are seeing a purifying of his bride, maybe like we've never seen before. Like especially over the last couple of years, right? We've seen these notable leaders in the body of Christ, especially here in America, that many of us have looked up to, many of us have learned from, many of us have followed them. And over the last two years, it feels like one after another after another after another, almost every single week

that somebody's being exposed for mishandling money, somebody's being exposed for sexual immorality, somebody's being exposed for the way they've treated other people, it's just one after another. And there's a part of me as a pastor that is saddened and disheartened by the number of people that are being exposed, it's heartbreaking. But then there's a part of me that says, Lord, let it be. Like judgment begins in the house of God and we've gotta be a pure bride, we've gotta be a spotless bride, because when God said, you shall be holy as I, the Lord your God, am holy, he was saying that to the church, the capital C church, but he was also saying that to you and I as an individual. He was requiring that of us. And as God purifies his bride, it ought to give us great hope that there's a coming move of God that I believe is gonna be unprecedented, but it also should instill in every one of us a fear of God. Beware, if we think that we stand, lest we be the next one to fall. Let me tell you, there's not an arrogant bone in my body. Even though I've been doing this over four decades, that would say, you know, that's not gonna happen to me. No, I think more than ever, I realize my dependence on God,

my dependence on him to keep me and to protect me. I know my weaknesses more than any of you. And I need the hand of God on my life because I find myself praying more than I ever have before God. I just want to finish well. I want to finish well. I don't want to bring reproach on your kingdom, God. I think that should be all of our response. God, I fear you. Lord, I want to live a holy life before you. And chapters five and six are all about purity. They're all about that. Chapter six talks about some of the Israelites taking a vow that's called a Nazarite vow. Some of you have heard of that and probably the most notable person that we know of in scripture that took a Nazarite vow was this guy by the name of Samson. And we can read about that in Judges chapter 13 about his life. And it was significant. Here's what it says beginning in verse one again, the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Philistines who oppressed them for 40 years. Now let me just pause right there and say this. Some of you might read that and think, God, you're a mean God. Like why would you turn them over to their enemy?

Okay, so they made a mistake, God. Where's your compassion for your people? You're gonna hand them over to the Midianites for 40 years or to the Philistines, you're gonna just turn them over to the enemy. Let me tell you something about the covering and the protection of God. And what we see in the history of the Israelites is this constant up and down where they were sold out to God, devoted to God, living for Him. And then you read a few chapters later and they're back into idolatry. They're back into sexual immorality and it's this constant up and down thing with them that we read in scripture. Let me tell you about the blessing and the covering of God. It's like an umbrella that God puts over our lives. And as long as we're walking in fellowship and in relationship and in obedience to His word, we're under the canopy of the protection and the blessings of God. But the moment we decide to go our own way, the moment we decide to rebel, the moment we decide we're gonna do what we wanna do, it's not that God takes His covering out from over us, it's that we move out from under His covering. And when you do that, you open yourself up to the attack of the enemy. It's not because God's mean.

It's not because God took His covering away from you. It's because in our own sinful way, we've moved ourselves out from under His covering and His protection. And that's exactly what the Israelites did. They moved out from under, they made the choice. And God allowed them then to suffer the consequences of their rebellion. Y'all still with me? Verse two, in those days, a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. And his wife was unable to become pregnant and they had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and said, even though you've been unable to have children, you'll soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. And so be careful. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. You'll become pregnant, give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazarite from birth. He'll begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines. So here's where we're introduced to this thing called a Nazarite vow. It's a vow that was voluntary. It's a vow that could be temporary or lifelong. And it was a vow that was open to men or to women. But it represented two things.

Number one, it represented consecration. Secondly, it represented dedication to God. I'm set apart, I'm dedicated to the Lord. And it evolved three primary restrictions according to scripture. Number one, that there was an abstaining from alcohol or grape products. Number two, you were never to cut your hair as long as you were on the Nazarite vow, if it was temporary or if it was lifelong. And number three, that you would not touch a dead body. You would not have contact with dead bodies, whether they were animals or people. It was a way for ordinary people to set themselves apart for intense spiritual focus. And the question is, does God require that of us? Does he require of us that we take a Nazarite vow? And the answer is no, but it wouldn't be a bad thing. Like, it's okay if you decided for a season, I'm gonna take a Nazarite vow. giving up alcohol, I'm not gonna cut my hair, and I will not touch dead things. But the importance is not the type of vow that you take, the importance is that the outcome is consecration and dedication. Now we have things that we do here at the refuge corporately. We have this thing called Selah every January since we began, 21 days that we fast and pray as a way of saying, God, we're set apart for you,

we're consecrated, we're dedicated for you. We do summer Selah one week where we say, God, we're set apart for you. But the focus is more on consecration and dedication than it is on the type of vow that we take. God just wants us to be a set apart and dedicated for his purposes, for his purposes. And the bottom line is this, God requires purity from his people. He requires purity from you as an individual and he requires purity in the church. And we're seeing more than ever, God exposing and revealing things in the church because he will not turn his head away from immorality. He will not turn his face away from rebellion. God will not put up with some of the things that we've allowed to defile his bride. Over and over, God's not gonna put up with it. And he's saying, I am requiring my bride to be holy and to be pure. He's not just requiring it of a church so that you can say, well, it doesn't really pertain to me, but boy, the church better get its act together. No, you are the church. And the requirement is on you and I that we be a holy people as individuals and as a church body. The Lord desires that of us, but more than that, he requires that of us. Here's the last thing that we see,

it's the preparation of the Israelites and it's the preparation that God takes us through so that we can apprehend the promise of God, so that we can live the abundant life and we see God preparing his church in the last days. It's all a part of this whole thing of God exposing stuff. It's preparation for what's coming. It's this whole thing of God preparing his church so that we can stand against demonic forces, so that we can go from people who were freed from a life of sin, we can turn into these people who will stand as warriors in the last days and take on the cultural and demonic spirits that are trying to rewrite scripture and trying to oppose the order of God. God brings order and purity to us and he seals his people in Numbers chapter six with these words, beginning in verse 22. It says this, the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, verse 24, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. And so they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them. It's the oldest and most profound liturgical text

in the world. It's known as the Aaronic blessing. And God says after people go through this thing of order, of doing things the way I've instructed, after people have gone through this process of being purified, he said, I'm gonna seal them as my people. As I prepare them to move into the promised land, I'm sealing them with this Aaron, here's what you're to say over them, the Lord bless you and keep you. And when you declare that over them, have the people lift their right hand to receive the blessing of God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift his countenance towards you, delight in you and give you his peace. That word bless applies to material and spiritual blessings. Aaron is saying, may you be people who are spiritually blessed and materially blessed. He says, may the Lord keep you. That word keep in the Hebrew is shamar. It literally means God putting this hedge, this like divine dome over his people that will protect. them from the enemy, protect them from the attacks. It's like God's going to keep you. He's going to watch over you. He says, may the Lord make His face to shine upon you. The face in the Near East meant to have a king's face looking at you in a way

that represented His favor and His attention. It was the opposite of God hiding His face, which referred to judgment. He said, may the Lord make His face to shine upon you. May He lift up His countenance. That literally means looking somebody in the eye, paying full attention. It was a picture of God taking your face in His hands, looking you right in the eye of God saying, you have my attention. You have my affection. I'm looking right at you. It suggested intimacy in this personal relationship. And He said, may His peace be upon you. That word peace in the Hebrew is shalom, but it means way more than just peace. It means way more than just the absence of conflict. That word translates better, everything that you need for the journey. May His shalom be upon you. And it literally means completeness and wholeness and health and harmony. In other words, Aaron is saying over the people, may you have everything you need for the journey. May there be this hedge of protection over you. And may you be whole. May you be complete. May you be in full health and harmony with each other. God sealed His people with that, preparing them. And then we see in Joshua chapter three, moments before, some 72 hours before they would literally cross the Jordan River and they would move into the promised land. And we see again here in Joshua chapter three, order. We see purity, consecration. And then we see God sealing His promise with His people, Joshua chapter three, verse one. Early the next morning, Joshua and all the Israelites left Acacia Grove and arrived in at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped before crossing. Three days later, the Israelite officers went through the camp, giving these instructions to the people. Here's the order. When you see the Levitical priest carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord, your God, move out from your positions and follow them. Since you've never traveled this way before, they will guide you. Stay about a half mile behind them, keeping a clear distance between you and the ark. Make sure you don't come any closer. That's all about order. You're going to move into the promise now, but there's a way we have to do this. And then notice what he says in verse five. And then Joshua told the people, here it is, purify yourselves. For tomorrow, tomorrow, the Lord will do great wonders among you. I believe we're living in a very unique time in the timeline of the church. I believe we're living in a very unique season in terms of the unfolding of eschatological events, and of the end times, and of the return of Jesus. And I believe that we're living in an interesting

time as it relates to the fulfillment of Joel chapter two. And let me tell you what I'm hanging on to. I'm still believing that there's going to be an outpouring of the spirit of God and a revival that's coming to the earth, unlike anything that we've ever seen before. And there are times and days that it's hard to believe that because things have gotten so bad. But I just believe we are on the banks of the Jordan River. I believe we're moments and days away from seeing the ushering in of a great revival of God. But here's what I believe as well, not everybody is going to be a part of it. I don't even know that every church is going to be a part of it. I believe God's calling us to order. I believe God's saying there's a coming revival that's going to precede the return of Jesus. But I believe God's saying you better get things in order, church. You better purify yourself if you want to be a part of this, because it's not automatic that we're going to all be a part of it. Oh, listen, I don't know about everybody else, but I so desire that the refuge be in a place that we're going to help usher in this great revival in the end times. Oh, I want us to be a pure people. I want us to be a people that are set apart. I want us to be a people who are positioned and postured so that we can say, King of Glory, just like they did on Palm Sunday, but for a different reason. Come on in, King Jesus. I want the refuge to be saying, King of Glory, come on in. Come on in, bring your revival. Bring a move of your spirit unlike anything that we've ever seen. But I believe it requires us to have things in order. It requires us to be purified. I believe it requires that we be prepared, that we be ready. So bow your heads and close your eyes, would you? Lord, I just pray in this moment.

I just ask, oh God, that we would respond to you. We would hear in this moment, right now, what the spirit of the Lord is saying to us. I pray that all pride would be destroyed right now. All shame would be destroyed right now. And I pray, God, if there are things that are out of order in our lives, we would respond to you saying, oh God, we want things to be in order. God, if there's things that you're putting your finger on related to purity in our lives, we would be the kind of people who just humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God and say, purify us, Lord. Prepare us for the return of Christ. Prepare us for the revival that's coming. Help us, oh God, today to respond to you. In the name of Jesus, I pray.