FBC Daily Devotional – June 1, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Tuesday to you. I trust your holiday was a good one yesterday.

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You were able to get some rest, maybe, some refreshment, did something to get some recreation in, just to rejuvenate a little bit, but also to take some time to reflect upon the whole purpose of the holiday, not just for our own personal enjoyment, but the time for reflection, thinking about the thinking about sacrifices made for our freedom, for our protection, and so forth.

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So I hope you had a good day yesterday. Well, today we're reading in the book of Numbers, chapter 26, and if you're reading in the

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Bible reading plan, I'm guessing, I'm not accusing you of anything, but I'm guessing that you probably kind of skimmed through this chapter a little bit.

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I mean, oftentimes, like if you're reading in the epistles, you'll read very carefully, you know, every word of every verse, most likely, or at least pay careful attention to the phrases, and so forth, but Numbers 26, not so much, because after all, it's just a census.

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You know, it's the 12 tribes, and how big the tribes are, you know, what's the population of each tribe, and it's a repetition of a census, actually.

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Back in chapter 1, the people, they took a census of the different tribes then, and now another census.

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Why? Why? Well, let's remember what's happened in the book of Numbers since chapter 1. Chapter 1, the census is taken, shortly after the people come out of the land of Egypt, out of bondage, and so there's a census taken.

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Just see how many people there are, and I went back, and just did the math on this, and in chapter 1, there were a total of six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men who were able to go to war.

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So there's people old enough to do battle, and so that's a pretty sizable crowd, especially when you consider, add in the women and children that weren't part of that census.

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So, but then, in the meantime, what's happened? Well, it's been not quite 40 years, but close to it, and a whole generation of Israelites have perished in the wilderness, and you remember why?

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Because back in chapter 14, I think it is, that they refused to go into the land of promise when they were right on the doorstep, and they wouldn't go in and take it, didn't believe the

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Lord. The Lord said, okay, well, this generation is going to die, everybody 20 years old and upward.

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So here we are, near the end of that wilderness journey, about to go into the promised land again, and let's do another census.

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Let's see what the population is now. So if you do it this way, if you compare chapter 1 with chapter 26, it's really kind of interesting, because this whole generation that's perished has almost been replaced completely.

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Remember, chapter 1, there were 603 ,550 men capable of going to war.

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In chapter 26, 601 ,730. So there's only been a net loss of about 1 ,800 individuals.

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But what's interesting in this census is not the total numbers, but the the changes that have taken place within the tribes.

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So, for example, the, let's see, what is it, the third largest tribe in chapter 1 was the tribe of Simeon.

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There were 59 ,300 Simeonites in chapter 1, but now there's only 22 ,200.

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They lost 37 ,000 in their in their census over that generation.

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That's huge, and you wonder why. Perhaps because, if you'll recall,

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Simeon, along with his brother Levi, was one of the two sons of Jacob that slaughtered the the

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Shechemites back in that incident in the book of Genesis, and it, you know,

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Jacob was not happy with that, and he actually addressed that problem when he was blessing his different sons.

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And so now this tribe, Simeon, that was one of the largest, is now the smallest tribe in the nation.

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But another significant change is in the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.

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Now remember, these are the two sons of Joseph, and Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, Joseph was, he did not get a tribal territory himself.

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Jacob said, your two sons are going to get each their own inheritance. So in essence,

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Joseph got a much larger piece of the pie, if you will, as the sons of Jacob.

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But anyway, Manasseh and Ephraim, and here's what's, here's why I'm pointing this out, because remember when

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Joseph brought Manasseh and Ephraim to see Jacob before Jacob died, and he blessed

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Joseph's sons, and Manasseh was the firstborn,

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Ephraim was the secondborn, and Jacob consciously put his hand of blessing, his hand of primary blessing, on Ephraim, the younger, rather than on Manasseh, the elder.

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And Joseph tried to, tried to change that, tried to say, dad, wait a minute, you got your hands mixed up here, you gotta, you gotta put your hand of blessing on the elder son, not the younger son.

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Jacob said, nope, nope, nope, I know what I'm doing. And Jacob had some historical precedent there, because remember

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Jacob and Esau, Jacob was the younger, Esau the elder. Anyway, so Jacob puts the greater blessing on Ephraim, rather than on Manasseh.

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And when they came out of Egypt, it seemed like, well, that, that makes good sense, because when they came out of Egypt, Ephraim, the tribe of Ephraim, was 40 ,500 men strong, and Manasseh was 32 ,200 men strong.

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So, yeah, Ephraim is the stronger, Ephraim is the greater, the more blessed. Ah, but now, 40 years later, things have changed dramatically.

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Manasseh has gained 20 ,000 men, while Ephraim has lost 8 ,000 men.

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Why is that significant? Well, because if you're remembering the, the promised blessing that was placed upon Ephraim, that Ephraim would be the, though he's the younger, he would be the greater, and he would be the one looked up to, and so forth, even by his, by his older brother

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Manasseh, the descendants of Manasseh. That, is that really going to be true?

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Doesn't this, doesn't the census show us that maybe this promised blessing isn't going to come to pass?

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Well, this is often the way God works, isn't it? He, he surprises us. He takes the least things of this world and makes them the greatest, the last things, and makes them the first.

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And, and, and what's also interesting in our reading is that if you go on to the reading in Psalm 60, one of the statements in Psalm 60 is that, where the

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Lord says in verse 7, Ephraim is my helmet, Judah is my scepter.

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Ephraim is my helmet, not Manasseh, but Ephraim is my helmet. Well, and then if you continue fast -forward in your history of Israel, you know that eventually the nation of Israel is going to split, and you've got

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Judah, the kingdom of Judah, and the kingdom of Israel, the rest, you know, ten tribes that make up the kingdom of Israel, and the kingdom of Israel is often called

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Ephraim, for short. So, yeah, the Lord knew what he was doing, and even though the census might indicate, oh,

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Ephraim's never going to amount to that much. He's what, like the second smallest tribe of the twelve now.

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Ah, Lord knows what he's doing. He's got it all planned. He's got it all worked out.

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What he prophesies, it'll come to pass. Count on it. And we do,

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Father, thank you, that we can count on, that what you prophesy, what you promise, will indeed come to pass.

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And even this, even something as mundane as a genealogy or a census can indicate to us the truthfulness of that very thing.

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Thank you for it. And we pray your blessing on the remainder of this day, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right, indeed. Have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I trust the Lord will bless you.