Laboeres' Podcast- Numbers

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We hope you can join us as we review the book of Numbers.

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Welcome to the Laborers Podcast. We are six seconds in, so I apologize for that dead air at the beginning.
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I think my computer is running slow tonight. Tonight we're going to do an overview of numbers, an overview with the laborers.
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We hope you will stick with us. Welcome to the Laborers Podcast, which is a part of the
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Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ.
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Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. If you're anything like us, you are probably worn out.
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Tyler has mentioned that he's been dealing with some sickness this week maybe, but I'm glad you're doing a little bit better so you can be with us tonight.
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How are you feeling? Much better. Much better? Good. Much better.
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And Jonathan? Tired like me? Just tired and in North Carolina it's been raining constantly for several days and so that makes you groggy as well.
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Absolutely. Cooked up in the house and rainy, dreary weather, so yeah, but a little bit tired.
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Yeah, yeah, you can do that, especially when it's day after day after day after day. Wow, so the comment line is open.
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We'd love to hear from you. At least tell us, hey, let us know if we can pray for you, ask questions, critiques.
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We're open to that too. Tonight we are going to do a little laborers overview of the book of Numbers and I learned recently,
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Tyler I think you learned recently as well, that God thinks numbers are important.
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We learned that from the Southern Baptist Convention. I got a little clip for us. God cares about numbers.
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He cares about numbers so much he's got a book called Numbers. Did you guys hear that?
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Yeah, yeah. See, my computer is skipping tonight.
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It's because I'm trying to upload another video. 80%. I'm almost there.
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See, I like the the cheesy pickup line, I was reading the book of Numbers and I realized I didn't have yours.
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About two seconds before you get pepper -sprayed. That's a good one.
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Matt Breeding is with us tonight on vacation, I think. Still on vacation.
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And Matt and Jeremy, two of our laborers, they met up together while Matt was vacationing where Jeremy lives.
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That's so exciting to see laborers that are able to come together throughout the year and meet up like that.
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That was amazing. So to me this is not a typical overview.
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I'm trying to make it a little bit different than what a typical overview of these books of the Bible would be. So I've pulled out some, hopefully
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I'll make some unique different type of questions as a different kind of overview.
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So my first one, looking at the book of Numbers, it seems as if we learned that God had them to do a census here and it was for military purposes.
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And I was thinking about, and I don't know what you guys think about this, but we count, we do numbers in the
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New Testament church and we call it membership. Do you see any kind of connection as you looked at Numbers, the book of Numbers, and God's purpose in this census and how
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God has done things throughout history, what he's done, what he's doing in the
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New Testament church, and where we come up with the idea of church membership and we have a role, we have numbers.
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Do you see any kind of connection there in the purpose of counting?
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And I was specifically here in Numbers, it was for more military purposes, grouping families together and all that.
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But what do you think about numbers as far as you counting people on our walls and in the
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New Testament church? Well I think before we can identify the correlation between church membership, if there is one, we do have to grapple with what was the role of numbers in the book of Numbers.
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As I said, it was military, it was family. We're talking about a time when they were coming out of Egypt, when they're coming out of, as it says, the house of slavery with an upright hand.
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And so they are being brought into, really into a new world, into a new way of looking at things, into a covenant relationship with God.
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They're going to the land that God has promised them. They're going out of Egypt to this something new, something beautiful, something good.
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And in Egypt, they didn't have this understanding of, necessarily, of where they came from. It's part of why we have the book of Genesis, is that Moses is relaying to them where they came from.
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And so when we notate that they are numbered by their tribe, not only is that a military connotation, but it's also giving them a sense of where they come from.
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It's giving them a sense of identity, that you are God's people, and your lineage can be traced back as such.
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I think before we get into the the church membership idea of carrying that over into Numbers, we've got to grapple with what was the role of counting the people of Israel?
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And what does that signify, that they are counted as such? That they are counted according to families, and camps, and tribes, that they're
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God's people? And can we count the New Testament Church in light of, we are
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God's people, and we can be traced back as such? I think there's a way we can do that, but the church isn't a business.
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And so I think there's some balance there. What do you think, Jonathan? Yeah, I think number one, all through the history of the
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Bible, someone was counting. You know, on the day of Pentecost, there was, was it 3 ,000?
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You know, Jesus and the fishes and the loaves, somebody was counting.
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And you know, so all along, like consistently counting was important.
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Numbers, numbers are important in the New Testament. Attendance is important in the New Testament. There's leveraging of demonstration of the miraculous work of God over masses.
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Or sometimes some of the significant numbers are small, where two or three are gathered in my name.
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You know what I mean? So it's like, like, but there's, there's specificity is the word
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I'm trying to come across there. It's, there's specifics that are very important. So I think one thing when it comes to relating to, to the book of Numbers, I think there is a strong consideration of first -gen
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Exodus, second -gen inheritors. Because you really have in the census of Numbers, you have, you have a first generation that is doomed to die in the wilderness and will not inherit the promised land.
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And then you've got a second gen that they're also counting them that do go to war and inherit the promised land.
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And so I think, I think it's, it is like Tyler said, a historical and generational thing.
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But I also think it's, it's a clear separation of, of the consequences of disobedience and yet God's faithfulness to the children of the promise.
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And, and I think that's, that's very crucial to look through that. Because then at the end of the book of Numbers, what we get is there's this census of that second gen is preparation for going into the land of kingdom.
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It's like a preparation. And so, but then I did think about this, and it doesn't mention this in there, but statistically, just sheer survival in a wilderness land of rationing food, rationing water, those kind of things, even the
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Lord was providing that, there was still, it was still statistically important to know how many you have and how many rations you have.
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And because the land in the wilderness obviously was next to impossible to cultivate, to have farming and to have those kind of things.
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And so, so even when the Sabbath was being observed and there was a portion,
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God told them, you know, when the, when the quail and the manna would come to collect up enough for the next day and those kind of stuff.
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Well, how much did they know to collect? How much did they know to, to do that? Well, there had to be a number, there had to be even down to the family units to make sure each family was fed, each family was taken care of and so on and so forth.
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When you're thinking about this massive group of people, um, that's getting water from a central location and getting, you know, you can't all show up at one time.
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So, so, so it, to me it demonstrates as well, um, a God of order, you know, it's, it's, it's order and, and, and God is not disordered.
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He is ordered and he is walking through that. And, and numbers really is, if you think about it with no technology, with no, no electronic polls, no paper by say to fill out this form and mail it back in, those kinds of things.
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It really is a phenomenon of, of the work of God and the intelligence of an ancient people to be able to have very accurate numbers, you know, to have those senses and the amount of work and labor, um, that we don't know the exact methodology per se, um, according to scripture.
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Historically, we can dig up some stuff of, of what's thought of, but, you know, it's, uh, you talk about standing in line for a long time and people writing stuff down by hand and...
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And the Hebrew alphabet doesn't really have numbers in it. Correct. Yep. So it's, it's pretty wild when you think about, uh, how the
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Lord worked to organize. Um, but again, when, when I think about, um, going to your question of church membership, that, that was my best parallel that I could think of was, was the generational people that, that there was, there was a generation that was under the curse that wandered in the wilderness and would die in the wilderness.
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But there was a redeemed generation that would receive the promised, the promise of the promised land.
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And, um, you know, and that's who we are grafted into. We're not called to walk in the wilderness, but we've received a promise through the covenant of Christ to inherit a promised land, you know, and, and that's, that's exciting when
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I think about that. And so church members ought to be of that second generation of not, not children of disobedience, but of obedience, uh, walking according to the promise.
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And, uh, so therefore we're counting those that profess and bear fruit of Christian faithfulness, you know, and they're, and they are important to be identified as members of the church, like capital
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C, and then of course, participating members in the local church, you know, and I'm doing it learning from them.
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Yeah. Oh, I was supposed to say, we're, we're doing that this week. We've got a, we've got a church vote
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Sunday and you know, we literally printed off our census of the church role and it's going to be a ballot vote on, uh, on the potential buying some property.
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And so, um, so literally the people that are on that list, that census roll, their families, they're the ones that are eligible to actually vote and it legally be counted toward the purchase of the potential purchase of this property.
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So, uh, so it, it just brings order and it brings identification of commitment overall.
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So I think that's a, those are excellent points. Um, you know, thinking about order there and talking about looking back on them and which generation we should be and, and how the new
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Testament says we should look at them as examples of what, what not to do. And, and further reflecting on what you guys were talking about, um, you know,
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Jonathan, as you were talking about the numbers, um, I also thought about conversation that we had and I think about some, some one 15, um,
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God is in the heaven, God is up in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. And then that particular verse that we were discussing
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Hebrews chapter two, verse four, where at the end of it, it says, um, he does things according to his will, which there are plenty of other verses that say that, but he does things according to his will.
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So the numbers, the numbers for us are important, but it's not, it's not that it's in each circumstance, it's not the big numbers.
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God uses different kinds of numbers in different circumstances. So like here in this book, um, when you get to, is it
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King Balak seeking after Balaam to curse
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Israel? Cause, cause Balak, King Balak is like, uh, there's too many of them and I need some,
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I need some help. But then you have, um, the other circumstance where they're, they're lapping up water and, and God is decreasing their numbers to, to show his power and his glory.
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And then you have the, the circumstance where they're standing up on the hill, looking down at the camp and there's, there's, you know, fewer of them, but then when the enemy's looking up, they see a great horde because God has, you know, placed his angels there.
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So in different circumstances, he uses numbers differently to, to show his glory.
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Um, and Tyler, just reflecting on what you said, um, you were talking about showing value to people,
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I think. And it made me think about the ditch that, that some people want to fall into where we're,
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Jesus died on the cross because we're, we're valuable. No, we don't want to fall into that ditch, but we also want to recognize that, uh, and both of you kind of touched on this, that, that God has kept numbers, kept a census, kept a record of his people because he values his creation.
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He puts the value on it. He values his creation. And so that's kind of where I put the tie in.
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I mean, there's, unless maybe I dig a little bit further and, uh, a general, maybe tie into here and the new
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Testament and membership is the fact that God, God values his creation. He values his people.
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He values his church. And, and in that value, we know who the widows are.
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We know who the orphans are. We know who to take care of. And, and like you said, when you're organizing a military, you want to know what numbers you have, what groups, um, how many is in each group and, um, who, who you need to protect and take care of.
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So that's kind of where I drew a connection between here and there and God's value on taking care of his people.
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Um, so one of the thing I'd add to that real quick is, is, has God not always had a census to like, is
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God not before the foundations of the earth been writing names, you know, or written name in, you know, and the book of life and the lambs book of life and those kinds of things.
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And so, so this is not just a earthly matter. It's a heavenly matter that's manifested in the earth.
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You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's still overarching a God of order as a census, a listing, uh, of God's people, you know, and I think it's making it digestible.
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I'm sure it's not written in heaven exactly the way we would think it's written, but, but I'm just saying, you know,
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I mean, uh, there's the, the, the Bible specifically speaks of books that will be open and, and in judgment and those kinds of things, you know?
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So, um, so, you know, this is, this is, this is design will in the, in demonstrating the attributes of God, I guess is what
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I'm saying that to me, that makes it interesting. Cause a lot of people take the Pentateuch, those first five books and say, man, this is really boring.
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The law and these numbers and these kinds of things, but it's very important to the attributes of God and who he is too.
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Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was going to add something to that.
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Um, it may come back to me, looking at, looking at my next question,
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I wanted to kind of, to re rethink that next question and impose it like this, because I was reflecting on when they camped, when they were, when they were going through the wilderness and of course they disobeyed and they were doing circles because of their disobedience and they wandered for 40 years when they camped, they set up camp a certain way.
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There was a design to their camp. God had, um, they, they had been ordered into their family groups and their family groups, whatever family group you were in, you were, um, you camped on a certain, um, cardinal direction, uh, from the center of the camp.
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And then the, the Levites were around the inner circle of the camp. And then in the very middle was, was the presence of God, the tabernacle, the
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Ark of the covenant. That's, God was in the middle. He was in the center. And, um,
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I think I was reading somewhere that it was the, the, the Levites, of course, they didn't, they weren't permitted to, um, be in the battle to fight.
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They were serving the tabernacle, serving the Lord in that way. But I was reading somewhere that they were to, to keep the people out from the tabernacle, keep away from God's presence.
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But another key point that I saw in looking at this was that it was the fact that God was in the center.
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All the people were on the outside. They had certain areas based on their family group.
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But the thing about it was when, when they left, when, when, when God's presence, the cloud, when, when it left, they got up and left and the, the
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Ark led them, God led them. But when they camped, God was in the center.
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And I, I just saw that as a, as a picture, um, a beautiful picture of their mindset or what their mindset was supposed to be.
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And, and our mindset in the church, that when we, when we gather together, when we lead in a local congregation, or when we work together, even like this, um, that's how we should camp with, with God in the center.
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Um, so how can we do that? How can we reflect, you know, I know the
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New Testament says, and I think it was first Corinthians and Hebrews that we're to look at them as examples of what not to do, but also how
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God wanted them to be. And when they did get it right, like here, God was at the center. So how can we translate that over into the, our local church?
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How can we, how can we camp? How can we, um, what do you call it when we send people out?
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Um, when we do that, we're, we're keeping God at the center and then we're, we're, we're encouraging them to follow the
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Lord when they leave. How can we do that in our local church? I'll take a quick stab at it while Tyler's thinking.
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Um, I think in Western culture church, and, and I'm not spending a lot of time outside of that kind of church.
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So, so that's the reason I'll quantify it to that. Um, and especially the way churches are set up today.
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Um, this is not an indictment. It's a, it, it would be a warning, um, especially congregationalism, uh, in our, in our modern times.
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Um, it, it's not that all congregationalism is bad. What I'm saying is though, it lends itself to be a man centered church and, and the appeasement of people versus a group of people seeking the will of God.
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And, and so, so it is very clear through the Exodus and, and through the land of Canaan and, and even tonight later, we'll talk about, you know, a guy named
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Balaam. I mean, it's very clear that God is in charge.
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God is completely in charge. He is the one that's completely in directive of this.
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Even among a grumbling, sinful people, God is a hundred percent in charge and he's constantly bringing correction to that.
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And so, so I think a God centeredness, a Christ centeredness, a gospel centeredness, a biblical centeredness,
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I think we have to reflect on who's in charge of our local churches. So if you're asking, how do we keep
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God at the center of things? It's, it's really a question of whose church is this? Even the local church, who does this belong to and who's in charge?
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So we have a lot of pastors with large personalities. And so then the pastor becomes the center of the church or, or like I said, in congregational votes and those kinds of things or deacons or elders or whoever, it's very simple for those people to become the voice in the center of the church.
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And it's about what they want and about how to keep people happy and how to keep people appeased and those kinds of things.
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But the cool thing about how God designed this was there was an untouchable place where people did not dare go.
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And that is because God was holy and in charge and, and holy
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H -O -L -Y and W -H -O -L -Y, like completely holy and completely in charge.
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And no one dared question him. And those that did paid severe consequences. And so, um, and we see that through the wilderness wanderings and, and ultimately those that were not obedient to him and lacked faith paid severe consequences.
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They died in the wilderness. And so, so I think in, to help keep God in center,
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I think it's a simple question. Who, who, who does this church belong to? Um, and if we get that right, that it belongs to God and it belongs to Christ and we are stewards of what belongs to him, then it makes sense.
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Then why don't we ask him what we should be doing in our local church, you know, and then let him going back to the conversation that the laborers had a while here a few weeks ago, how does
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God speak? Let God speak and then be obedient because it all belongs completely to him.
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So, um, so I think that's what's missing in a lot of New Testament churches today is we're looking very pragmatic at things.
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We're looking at, um, according to our reasoning, according to human logic and according to the appeasement of people versus what does
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God want? And then let's do something about that. Let's go for it, you know, so it's pretty simple, but a lot of times it's a big shift.
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Just, just my thoughts on, on listening to what you just said. So you and I've had conversations on, on dead churches or churches that need revitalization and, and there with Israel, something that you mentioned was the fact that they, they had a physical
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Holy of Holies, they had a physical ark. And if they, if they touched the ark, then they, they were expired.
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They were no more. Um, and they couldn't touch the mountain or they would die. They, that they had a physical place like that.
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But if you were talking about in, in our context, our spiritual
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Holy of Holies, this is just how I'm seeing what you said. We, we have a spiritual Holy of Holies to where if we, if we enter in and touch that, then we've got, we're facing a dead church.
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And that spiritual Holy of Holies, what I was hearing you say was, this is, this is God's church, his way.
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And when we step in and try to touch that and then try to do it our way, um, then, then we're facing a dead church instead of an alive church.
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100 % man. That's, that's illustrated perfectly. It's a, it's a Romans nine. Is it 20?
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Um, who are you old man to speak back to God? I like, I don't love the NIV version, but I like the translation in that one is a, who are you old man to talk back to God?
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Like, how dare you? So if we, if, if we ought to fear our parents to the point that we don't talk back to our parents, how dare we speak back to God, you know?
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And, but a lot of our churches have said, we know God said this, but, and as soon as you put a bud in there, now you've diminished the authority, the absolute sovereign authority of God.
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And there's, there's just no room for that. So, so I'm thankful for, for illustrations like this, the numbers where no one dare approach and, and you line up or face consequences.
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Yeah. But that's great. What you said is well, you know,
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Pastor Jonathan, there's a, there's a deep humility in, in this conversation too, from both the, the members perspective and the, the elders perspective, because sometimes
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Bible interpretation and, and perspective is hard. And so we have members that have a different interpretation or different perspective and think maybe we should go in a different direction.
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And it takes genuine and spirit empowered humility to submit to your elders.
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And then from the elders perspective, we want to get it right.
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And sometimes it's difficult to understand. And so it takes a spirit empowered humility from the elder side to say, okay, this is where we believe
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God is speaking from his word. This is his holy of holies, and this is how he wants to do it.
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And we need to lead in this direction. And that's humbling.
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Yeah. Because, you know, being, knowing that you're going to be held accountable for those decisions and what you're teaching, um, it is powerful and it's humbling.
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Absolutely. Amen. Do you have any thoughts on that, Tyler? I don't think
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I can top any of what just came out of YouTube. Thank you to hit the nail on the head there with the, uh, the, the imagery in the camp.
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I like, I like to, the, the role of the Levites are very important to, you know, when we're, we're talking about those as, as protectors, but what were they protecting from?
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That's, what's really important. They weren't protecting people from sin.
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They, they were that buffer between the wrath of God and the people, you know?
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So, um, so that's, that's very important also to point out, um, that as elders, leaders, keepers of the temple, keepers of the faith, protectors of the flock.
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Um, you know, there, there, there is, and, and, and we see that directly with Moses as the people were disobedient and God said, you know,
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I'm, I'm going to destroy this people and come on, Moses, man, you'll make a new people, you know, and, and, and we see
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Moses intercede and intervene. It's, it's a Christology in a, in a way, you know, that there's that, that intercession and those kinds of things.
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So, you know, so that's important to, to evaluate that and, and, uh, to see that.
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But, um, a lot of times the elders of the modern day church are, are that buffer pleading with people, pleading with people, the will of God, as God has revealed to the leadership of the church, the pastors of the church, the, the, those that are ordained for that position, they're pleading with people, um, that you can't force people.
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And that's, and that's the hard part. You know, I mean, a lot of times leadership wants to force them. So, but, but we're, we're pleading with people not to, not to face the judgment of God, but rather enter into the blessings of God, line up with, with the will of God.
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And there's blessing comes with that. So, um, so not all churches are that way that are congregational.
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So I hope no one that hears this would think that all congregation led churches that don't have elders are incapable of it because there are very sincere groups that, um, that do seek the
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Lord and hear from him. And so I'm not saying that pastors or elders are the only ones that can hear from the
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Lord. And I know you're not saying that either, Robert, there's a mutual accountability from brother to brother, sister to sister, you know, and all those things.
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Um, but, but again, it still goes back to, um, in discipleship,
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I ask these questions a lot. We, we read a passage of scripture and we ask two questions. Number one, what is
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God saying? What is God saying in this text? And then as a result of understanding the text, now, what is
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God saying to you? And then number two, what are you going to do about it? And, and that's, but who's the leader of that conversation?
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It's, it's God. God's the center of that. And his word is the center of that. And so I think that's very important.
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So either you have a man centered church or a God centered church and there's, and there's no man can serve two masters.
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And so, um, well, and that's where we can learn from Israel as well, because I mean, that's, that's why they were stranded in the wilderness for 40 years.
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Some of the, they, they went back to being man centered. They were, they looked at their circumstance, look at their condition.
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Uh, we had it better here. Why did you lead us out here just to die? And they were looking at their circumstances, looking at other self and their wisdom.
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They say melt, melted down for a golden calf to worship. I mean, and, and we can, we can do those things.
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We, and tempted to do those things as well. When we don't, we don't think God is moving in the right direction or we're moving too slow or whatever the case may be.
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We're tempted to do that. So you mentioned Christology.
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Let's, let's jump on down to that, that next section to where we're looking at Christ. So Moses, Moses was their, their leader leaving
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Egypt. And that's where, um, you know, that's where the book begins. He was, he was
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God's prophet and God's law giver. So, so how does, how does Moses in this role that we see him in, how does he point to Christ?
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Won't you jump in Tyler? Well, we start off with Moses.
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Honestly, we start off with Moses as a shepherd in the desert. I think we can honestly start back there with tracing the lineage.
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I'm not the, the, the patterns with Moses and how they point us to Christ that Moses went into the wilderness.
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Um, he was a shepherd and he was called out of the wilderness, um, to deliver his people.
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And he does, and he does so, and he delivers his people out of Egypt into, um, the place of blessing, or at least that was the intent.
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But just like Moses was rejected, Christ was rejected by the
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Jews. So from there,
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I'm, I'm sorry, my, my brain just went blank. When you were talking about his rejection, um,
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I was thinking about how Moses was even, at one point, rejected by his brother and sister.
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Um, and so that, that parallel, I'm thinking about Christ and, um, being, being rejected by his, his closest friends.
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Um, everybody walked away. But even just to go back to what you were saying earlier about Moses as an interceder for, um, the people of Israel, that, that buffer between, uh, the wrath of God and the people.
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I'm working through the book of Job right now on, uh, bread of the word. And one of the recurring themes in Job is that I have no mediator.
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I have no intercessor. He felt like he needed someone to stand in the gap, both between him and his friends and between him and God.
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And so I find that dynamic interesting with Moses as interceder in that it points us to Christ who interceded on our behalf, who offered himself freely in our place.
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And that's, I believe, typified by Moses speaking to God on our behalf.
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Before we move forward into these examples, um, let me, let me ask you this and get your thoughts on this.
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So if somebody is listening and maybe they're not familiar with, um, a
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Bible conversation, church conversations, um, the books of the
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Bible, this type of conversation, maybe an atheist, whatever the case may be. And we're looking at how
36:10
Moses or how these different things in the old Testament parallel or compared to Jesus on the surface, it looks like we're just doing a parallel and we're saying, what a coincidence, how ironic, but it's not that.
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So can you speak to what, what it is that makes it so significant that we look at these parallels that Moses points to Jesus?
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I was listening to something on this actually today. Um, so what we're honestly looking at is we're looking at a unified story.
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We're looking at one divinely given story by one divine author. And so this story from Genesis to Revelation is one author that he's just tying this, this one strand and all, all these different stories, they kind of intersect because they're all unite on that one strand.
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And if I took this, took a sweater and started pulling a, at one strand, I can unravel a whole sweater.
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It's like that, that it's all interwoven together. These are patterns. This is the, the general architecture of the story that God is writing.
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He starts this in the old Testament with Moses and Joshua, Abraham, et cetera, et cetera.
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That's while they're still human characters that did exist and had, they were their own people.
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There are elements of their behavior. There are patterns and things that they endured that point us to a bigger picture and that bigger picture being
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Christ on the cross. And so we're not, we're not just finding coincidences, but these are patterns that exist because God has written them that way.
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Um, it says in Luke 24 that Jesus started from the law of the prophets and the
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Psalms and taught his disciples all things from those scriptures concerning himself. Because the, the key to unlock all of those things is
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Christ. Yeah, absolutely.
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And I'm flipping to Hebrews as quickly as I can because it just made me think about the passage, one of the passages that, um,
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Dan and I on the Truth and Love podcast, we're, we're going through Hebrews and Hebrews chapter two, for it was fitting for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering.
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Um, for both he who sanctifies those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he is not ashamed to call us brethren.
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So it was fitting for him to come down so that he could call us brethren, um, that he could suffer.
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Um, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same that through death, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
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For surely he does not give help to angels, but he gives help to the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had been, he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sons of, um, the people.
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For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
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So it's, it is a parallel and it is a pointing, it's a type and shadow pointing to Jesus, but in that pointing and in that comparison, in that parallel,
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Jesus suffers this in similar ways as Moses, which my next one was, you know,
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Moses was rejected by not just his people, his brother and sister, he was rejected by the the
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Levite priests, the religious leaders. And what do we see in Jesus' life? He was rejected by the religious leaders, the
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Sadducees, the scribes, the Pharisees. And so Jesus came down as our brother and suffered so that he could be a merciful and loving high priest, knowing and going through what we go through.
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So what a loving and merciful Savior is he, that he would do that for us. Number four says there was a remnant that believed in God.
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So do you see that parallel? Yeah, absolutely.
41:08
Yeah, I love it. It encourages me a lot of times when you you read about Paul and the early apostles and maybe get exasperated, frustrated or ready to roll out.
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And even the prophet Elisha, you know, later in the prophets of Baal, or Elijah, sorry,
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Elijah and the prophets of Baal, you know, God says, I've always got a remnant. I got
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I got people that you don't know of. He told Paul, they can't stay because I have many more people to come in this city.
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You know what I mean? There's there's like there's that remnant that God has always ordained to keep unto himself.
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And so no matter how bleak or how much complaining we see in the book of Numbers, you know, because because multiple times through the book of Numbers also, it's not it's not warm, fuzzy type stuff.
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They're complaining in the midst of this. And it's it's listed there on multiple occasions and chapters.
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And even after, you know, even after. They see miraculous things and even after they get rebuked for it, and then we go all the way to Numbers 21 and they they renew their complaining again, you know,
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I mean, they just start over again. And it's so it's a discontent people. So.
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That's something that's important in the parallels, though, the remnant, I think there was always a remnant of people that are faithful to the mission of God, and we see that going even back to the structure of the
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Levites, Moses and those that were turning their hearts toward God and toward the things of God, there was always a remnant of people still to have their their heart in the right place, even though there was a mass of complainers, a mass of selfish people, you know, so.
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But it's important. Well, praise praise the Lord for the remnant.
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Praise the Lord that he opened our eyes and that we, you know, it's it's nothing of us that brought us into the remnant to his fold, to his kingdom.
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It's nothing of us to, you know, praise the Lord for that in our lives. And you were talking about the the bleak and the gloomy that the devastating and all the all the negative things that we see in numbers, but also on the flip side.
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You know, all that's all that's right. But what we see on the flip side is God. God keeps his promises.
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That's right. He kept his temporal promises in numbers.
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But just as we're looking at these, what they should have been saying, what Jesus told them, if you knew the scriptures, what they should have been saying is that this is pointing forward.
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This is pointing to the Messiah to come, who's going to be the brother for us, the Messiah for us.
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So praise the Lord that he kept his promises. This is I want to skip down to the next section.
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This is kind of a. A poke towards us who are partial preterists and us who are not partial preterists,
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I thought it'd be more interesting with some of the other ones here as well, but but it's something to consider.
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Is there a parallel in this? Do you think that the 40 years in the wilderness are a parallel with the 40 years between 30
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A .D. and 70 A .D.? The partial preterist is going to consider, you know, that 40 years is the 40 years.
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That's described as a generation of 24, this generation will not pass away until all these things have been accomplished.
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And so is there is there a parallel in this 40 and 40 maybe?
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So would 70 A .D. be our promised land? Absolutely.
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We're in the new Jerusalem. I'm saying is that the Jordan River and is that the is that the promised land?
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And you know, and that's and that's what I'm saying. I mean, there's I contemplated it. I didn't have a long, a good answer for it.
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So that's why I was just asking more questions. And I'm not asking that manipulatively. I really am like from a partial preterist point of view, you know, you know, explain what explain the significance of 70
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A .D., how that would parallel with the Jordan River, how that would parallel into a promised land.
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Like because I think if it does represent that, then you've got to take the illustration further out to to then what does it represent?
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And is all of the Old Testament and all the journey of the Israelites a parallel with where we're currently at?
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Makes sense. Gotcha. Gotcha. That would be something to, you know, put some outside and work out and look and see.
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I know definitely there are some, you know, things that we could talk about.
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We do know that most people would agree unless unless you are a pre millennial, pre tribulation rapturous, you have to keep changing your definition of generation, because, you know, at first it was when
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Israel becomes a nation again. Well, there's 40 years, 1988, then the rapture is going to happen.
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So their definition of generation has to change. But typically,
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I would say that that most people have agreed that it's 40 40 years.
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And so a partial preterist would say Matthew 24. He's saying this generation generation is 40 years.
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You have this transitional period between the old covenant age ending and Jesus is warning them over and over in the
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Gospels. You know, my father sent to you warning. He sent to you prophets, messengers, and you killed the prophet.
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Now you're going to kill his son. And so judgment is here. Woe to you.
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Woe to you. Woe to you. And so this just transition between 30 and 70
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AD, which the climax is 70 AD, where God does send these armies in and destroy
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Jerusalem and the temple. You know, there's around there's 40 years there.
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So there's that parallel and possibility that Matthew 24 generation is this 40 year span between 30 and 70
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AD. Now, the parallels that you know, we're talking about or trying to pull out, we don't want to isogy.
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We don't want to say, unless we can do that, you know, one to one comparison and see if they match up.
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But I just found it interesting that at least the number, the number itself matched up.
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I found that interesting. And I didn't know if you guys had seen any parallels. Did you?
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Did you say anything, Tyler? Or is it going to take some more study on that?
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I think it might, but I had come across something several years ago about the pattern of 40 years often being associated with life change.
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Whether it's the 40 years in the wilderness, or it's the 40 days and 40 nights of rain prior to the flood in Genesis 9.
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That there's a theme in the Old Testament, it would seem, of, as you could say, life change associated with 40 days, 40 years, 40 fill -in -the -blank.
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That God does extraordinary things in people in 40s.
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I've heard that. Okay. Well, it's something I definitely want to look into and see if I can see anything.
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Not putting stuff in, but I want to hear what God has to say, whether it's there or not.
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Well, when we're speaking of numbers, I just did a quick search. And obviously, the number 40 is used, according to this article, over 150 times.
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Of those times, the word 40 days and 40 nights are found 24 times. And each time they denote a significance for God and his people.
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So there's obviously 40 years is important. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness.
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So the number 40 alone, whether it's years or days or nights or whatever, the number 40 is very significant all throughout
50:04
Scripture. So I think just the study on the number 40 would be interesting in of itself.
50:10
Absolutely. I never caught this, but this article points out that it was like in Jonah chapter 3, the
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Lord's message that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days unless they repent. So I think there's probably multiple parallels throughout
50:29
Scripture that you could make in reference. And then just take a guess on how long it was after the resurrection that Jesus opened the word to his disciples.
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40 days? 40 days. There's definitely a precedence. That's what
50:47
I'm saying. So there's 40 days after the resurrection that Jesus opened the word to his disciples.
50:54
There's that old sermon from D .L. Moody that Moses spent 40 years on his own in the wilderness.
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He spent 40 years leading the Israelites out of Egypt. And he spent 40 years in the wilderness again.
51:10
That's right. Well, and then there's definitely the... we're looking at parallels with Israel and Moses in the wilderness.
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There's the parallel with that and Jesus's early ministry and his temptations.
51:28
So you have that parallel. So good stuff. Good stuff to look into. Here's a good one for you,
51:37
Pastor Jonathan. I thought about you when I thought about this question. We want to jump on over to Balaam.
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Balaam was the one who had the donkey to talk to him. And so I pose this question to you,
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Pastor Jonathan. Are we cessationists when it comes to God using donkeys?
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I would say God can do whatever he wants to do. If he wants to do that then
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I'd say that he can. The story of Balaam is a very interesting story for sure in the
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King James. That's not exactly PG anymore. That's right. Exactly right. Not anymore. So before I ask you, you guys can think about this.
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What lessons can we learn from that story of Balaam and his donkey seeing the the angel of the
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Lord and not going further and Balaam taking it taking his frustrations out on the donkey and then the donkey speaks.
52:53
What lessons can we learn from Balaam and his donkey? I did bring up when Pastor Jonathan and I were having our conversation just now about partial preterism and I made the comment, oh we are the new heavens and the new earth.
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We're the new Jerusalem. From my understanding as partial preterists on the post mill leaning side, we would say that we are that spiritually and that we believe that there's going to be a future consummation where there will be a physical new heavens and new earth.
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But when it speaks of, I mean we are the new Jerusalem. Scripture even talks about we are his body, we're his temple.
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His presence is on the inside of us as his temple. That is individually and also believe corporately.
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So spiritually speaking as partial preterists leaning post mill, that's why
53:55
I would say that if you're wondering why I said that earlier. So what do you guys think about Balaam and his donkey?
54:01
What lessons can we learn from that from a New Testament believer's perspective? Well I'm reminded of Martin Luther that in a particular debate with a well -known theologian in his day concerning the the
54:19
Catholic doctrine. He said, I'm gonna clean him up a little bit, but Luther said something to the effect of he wasn't concerned with the opinions of certain theologians because God won't spoke through the mouth of a donkey.
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And with that I would point to 1st Corinthians chapter 1 with God has taken the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
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I think there's something tremendous about the imagery of thus saith the
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Lord essentially coming out of the mouth of a of a dumb animal as we would call it. And that in a sense that is tantamount to just how
55:01
God works sometimes. That he takes the unimpressive, the simple, the unexpected, the unimpressive, and he speaks through it in a way only he could.
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I think it's really cool to see the link that there's a lot of parallels that we can make here as well to go along with what
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I was just saying. Not just in addition to, not to one -up it, in addition to that the link that God will go to speak, but the link that God will go to to keep us from destruction.
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Because you know, Balaam was running headlong into destruction, but God went to tremendous lengths to not only reveal the wrath in front of him to the donkey, but then even have the donkey turn and speak to him.
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And you know, and so without calling Jesus a donkey, there's a there's a very strong parallel of the representation of Christ who has spoken to us.
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The Lord, you know, we've been reading from there and studying out that Hebrews 2 passage behind the scenes, you know, among us.
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But like the word came from the Lord to his disciples and in the early apostles and the early disciples there.
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And the Lord spoke those things about the warning of destruction and the hope of salvation and keeping people that are his and keeping them safe.
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And got that parallel with the Levites not going in. So there's a whole picture there, the link that God goes to to keep his people from destruction.
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So that's one major parallel that I see in that. The other parallel that I see is we're the
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Balaams of the world and that we're we are headed stubbornly and headlong into destruction, into our own destruction.
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And as a matter of fact, we will fight tooth and nail and beat everything that we possibly can to go into that destruction.
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So it elevates in my mind to the sovereignty of God, even the election of God, and the work of God that in our rebellion he still does miraculous things to keep us from falling headlong into that.
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So you brought up continualism, cessationism. None of us disagree on the fact that God still does miracles.
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And the greatest miracle is anyone that becomes a regenerate father of Christ is a miraculous work.
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It's just a miraculous thing of God to take a heart of stone and by the power of the resurrection of Jesus give us a heart of flesh that lives and believes and turns from sin and repents and follows him.
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So that's the second point that I would make. Then the third point that I would make, it's an incredible thing to know that God's plans will not be thwarted by the stupidity of man.
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That God would use a donkey and then God would even use Balaam. So it's interesting when you think about Balaam.
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In Numbers 22 18, he tells Balak the king, I can go no further and do nothing more than what my
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Lord God has commanded me. So he's making this confession, this profession, that God is his
58:34
Lord, that he is a man of God. So sort of in the midst of this, you would think
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Balaam potentially is God's chosen and he was chosen of God, used by God in that.
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But then when you go to the New Testament illustrations of Balaam, he's not so popular of a guy and he's very much recognized as a false prophet.
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So there's a tension there. So it's pretty neat that the
59:07
Lord uses Balaam as his mouthpiece regardless. I guess that's my whole point, that Balaam could speak nothing less or nothing more than what
59:17
God had put in his mouth to say. And so again, Balaam is a demonstration of the sovereignty of God.
59:27
It's just the point, it's my third point, that God's plans are not dependent on the goodness or the evil of man, that God's plans will prevail.
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And that's great news for us. That's really a lot of hope because we know the goodness of God's plans for his children.
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And so no matter what the world we're facing, no matter what we're dealing with, no matter what it looks like, we can take great comfort that even
59:51
God uses wicked people to accomplish his plans. And so we can be at peace even when things look very damn,
01:00:01
God's at work. So that's the three big things from Balaam. Well, what you were saying sounded a lot like Jesus where he told us, he said,
01:00:12
I only do and only say what I see and hear from the Father. That's right.
01:00:17
You know, I don't go any further or any less. It's only what I see and hear from him. Tyler, you know you have a
01:00:26
Baptist pastor on your hand. When he can come up with three points on the fly.
01:00:32
That's right, brother. And he and he did it well.
01:00:41
Just some other things that I was reflecting on what you were saying was that the scripture tells us that God has written his law on our hearts and that the
01:00:54
Holy Spirit has come to, what's the word
01:01:01
I'm looking for? Convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. And yet the natural man acts so much like what how you were describing
01:01:10
Balaam is that the wrath is the glory.
01:01:15
God reveals himself in his glory, but also his wrath is in front of us. Just like you were talking about with the donkey trying to keep him from destruction.
01:01:25
But the wrath of God is in front of us. If we were, if we yield to that conviction, to yield to understanding that law that we've sinned against the
01:01:34
Holy God, that God's wrath is right in front of us. That's right.
01:01:39
But we, but just as Balaam beat his donkey, think about how gospel messengers are treated by people who are in the flesh, the natural man.
01:01:53
That's right. We, Christians are killed. They're persecuted.
01:01:58
They're insulted. They're beat down emotionally. All persecution is not the same, but we still go through.
01:02:07
I mean, it hurts when we try to live it and we try to be gospel messengers. And yet even people who profess to be
01:02:15
Christians and go to church occasionally, you try to live it out. And yet they don't act like it when they're out in the world.
01:02:25
And when you try to live it or try to share it, you're insulted.
01:02:30
And that hurts emotionally. And that's when it presses down on you and it's discouraging.
01:02:37
And there's nothing shameful about seeking the Lord for strength when that's around you because you want to live out your faith.
01:02:48
You want to share your faith despite what's pressing in around you.
01:02:56
So with that being said, let's talk about the gospel or continue to talk about the gospel.
01:03:04
And Pastor Jonathan, I know you love to talk about the gospel. And if you want to use that last part there, you can or you don't have to, where we're talking about Joshua being a parallel pointing to Jesus or foreshadowing
01:03:19
Jesus. You can use that or you don't have to. But I'd love for you to share the gospel with us.
01:03:26
And Tyler, when he finishes, if you'll pray for us. Yeah, absolutely.
01:03:32
Well, you've already heard a lot of the gospel and a lot of times we overlook the fact that the gospel has to start with the reality.
01:03:45
And the reality of Balaam and the reality of the people of Israel, children of Israel, their reality is they were a sinful people.
01:03:56
They were a sinful people that were complaining against God. They were a people that were choosing a path that was headed toward destruction.
01:04:08
And people that choose that path and walk in that path and never repent from that, they will die in the wilderness.
01:04:21
They will face eternal consequences. There's a modern day parallel that we would call that hell.
01:04:28
That is the eternal wilderness. It's not just 40 years. There is eternal consequences under the wrath of God for those that do not trust the work of God.
01:04:43
But there is Joshua that came to the children of Israel and a man that was obedient to God.
01:04:51
And Joshua did what the
01:04:56
Old Testament, the Exodus law, could not do, the first generation.
01:05:03
He crossed over the Jordan River, which was the uncrossable boundary.
01:05:12
Joshua led the children of Israel across that boundary into promised land.
01:05:20
And where we have that parallel is, and there's multiple places that Joshua would parallel, but this is the one that just immediately comes to my mind.
01:05:29
Jesus came to a people that were wandering in the wilderness.
01:05:36
We were wandering in the wilderness. And we have an uncrossable boundary that is called sin, that we have sinned against a holy
01:05:47
God. We have broken His law. And the Apostle Paul writes very plainly, if we've broken one, we are guilty of it all.
01:05:55
And therefore, we are bound by the law of God to wander into the wilderness to eternal death unless we have a leader, a savior, a redeemer that would part the way, where there is no way, would make a way.
01:06:17
And so, the story goes that the Ark of the Covenant enters into the waters of the
01:06:23
Jordan, which is the presence of God. It's where the sacrifices were made there in the tabernacle.
01:06:30
And as the Ark of the Covenant, the presence of God under Joshua's leadership, enters into the
01:06:35
Jordan River where there was no way, now the waters part. And they entered into the covenant of God, which was the promise of God, into His land, into His promise.
01:06:48
And so now, that was what Joshua did for that second generation of the children of Israel. What God has done for us is
01:06:56
Christ came. There was an impassable river, impassable, uninhabitable land that was impossible for us to go into.
01:07:07
But Christ came, and by His death, He parted the waters. And now, through Christ, we get to pass over from death, from the wilderness, into life, which is the promised land.
01:07:22
Now, how do we do that? It's by following Jesus. I still believe that the children of Israel had to make a decision to follow
01:07:31
Joshua. And they were given direction.
01:07:37
They were given instruction. They were given organization. But then they were obedient to line up with the will of God and follow
01:07:45
Joshua into that promised land. And God says in His Word in the
01:07:50
New Testament that God demands that every man repent. That repentance means turning from self, and turning from sin, and turning from my way, and turning from believing that I'm good enough, and turning from running headlong into destruction as Balaam was, and listening to the words of Christ.
01:08:11
All who are weary, come unto me. All who are thirsty, come unto me.
01:08:16
All you who are hungry, come unto me, and I will give you rest. I am the bread of life.
01:08:22
I am the living water. Drink of me, and you'll never thirst again. Eat of me, you'll never hunger again.
01:08:29
Enter into my land with me to the land of milk and honey, which is the terminology of the
01:08:36
Old Testament. And so by Christ, where we were wandering in the wilderness,
01:08:41
He parted the waters of the Jordan by His death on the cross and His resurrection, that all who believe on Him, follow
01:08:49
Him, will have everlasting life, which is our promised land. It's everlasting life with Christ, where Christ is.
01:08:58
That is our hope of eternal glory. And so tonight, if you hear this and you're wandering in a wilderness,
01:09:05
I don't want to be hyper in parallel or metaphor, but if you're wandering in a wilderness and wondering what hope you have, how can you have peace in the midst of stormy weather?
01:09:17
How can you have peace in the midst of chaos of life? Believe on Christ.
01:09:23
It doesn't mean that problems just go away. Matter of fact, if you read the rest of the story of the children of Israel, they had a lot of battles.
01:09:31
Even on the promised land side, they had a lot of ups and downs. They had a lot of loss. They had a lot of craziness and chaos.
01:09:38
But the difference was that the Lord was with them and they were receiving His promise. So in your chaos, in your wilderness,
01:09:46
Christ will redeem you. He will deliver you. He will give you peace. And such a peace is that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
01:09:54
He will see you through to His promise, which is eternal life with Him. And so tonight,
01:10:00
I hope that you would get up out of your wilderness, believe on Christ, walk with Him in His promised covenant that He's given us to have life eternal with Him.
01:10:09
Believe on Him tonight and He will save you. So I hope we'll do that. Let's pray.
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Father God, we are grateful for having the opportunity to gather and discuss
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Your Word, to dive in a book that sometimes we don't know what to do with and trust that You will reveal all things to us because You have given us all things necessary for life and practice, for godliness.
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You are the one that calls us out of the wilderness into the promised land. And we are the ones that, like Balaam, were on the road to destruction.
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And we've been reminded of how gracious You were to call us off that road, out of that wilderness.
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And You have called us into Your marvelous light. You have made us a holy priesthood, a chosen people, a people for Your possession.
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Lord, enable us to walk in that, not in a sense that we are boastful, that we are
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Your people, that we are amazed that we are Your people. We are grateful that we are
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Your people, that we stand where we do not deserve to stand, and that You are pleased to cause us to stand there anyway.
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God, make us mindful of that. Amen. Amen. Amen. Jonathan, as you were comparing
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Joshua and looking at the parallel between him and Jesus and calling him a leader,
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I couldn't help but think about the passage that I'm going to be preaching in about two weeks. In Matthew chapter 23, verse 10, do not be called leaders, for one is your leader, and that is
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Christ. Amen. Amen. That was beautiful. Thank you guys for watching the Labors Podcast.
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We hope you will join us next time. Thank you for joining the
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Laborers Podcast. Remember, Jesus is King. Live in the victory of Christ.
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Speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ. Be sure to tune in next time for the