ClearPath Scripture
Discussions about scripture as we read the Bible together, following the ClearPath Church reading plan.
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ClearPath Scripture
Camping Around The Presence (Numbers 2-4)
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Gabe & Zane talk about the beginning of the Book of Numbers!
Tempo: 120.0
SPEAKER_00Hello everybody. Hello, Gabriel.
SPEAKER_02Hello, Mr. Zane.
SPEAKER_00We are. We have just started reading a new book, and we are going to be talking about the book of Numbers together.
SPEAKER_02The Bible. That's the new book.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes. We have been reading the book of the Bible. It's brand new, new edition, just came out. So uh we're gonna be reading today a few verses from Numbers chapter two, three, and four. And I told Gabe that I was just going to kind of shotgun read a few verses to you guys that are not necessarily uh all connected in order, but they are all aligned on somewhat of a theme. And so I think today that to some degree we'll be talking about God's direction and holiness and what these things look like in our lives. So I'm gonna read here, starting in Numbers 2, verse 1. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, the Israelites are to camp around the tent of meeting some distance from it, each of them under their standard and holding the banners of their family. And down to verse 34. So the Israelites did everything the Lord commanded Moses. That is the way they encamped under their standards, and that is the way they set out, each of them with their clan and family. Now on to Numbers chapter 3. This we need the context here that God has called Aaron and his sons to be his priests. And so it says, Nadab and Abihu, however, died before the Lord when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the desert of Sinai. They had no sons. So Elieazar and Ithamar, Aaron's other sons, served as priests during the lifetime of their father Aaron. And verse 10, God says, Appoint Aaron and his sons to serve as priests. Anyone else who approaches the sanctuary is to be put to death. Numbers chapter 4, verse 5 gives them instruction for whenever they're supposed to move their camp. When the camp is to move, Aaron and his sons are to go in and take down the shielding curtain and put it over the Ark of the Covenant Law. Then they are to cover the curtain with a durable leather, spread a cloth of solid blue over that, and put the poles in place. And it keeps giving instructions after that. It tell it goes through all the different items that are to be made holy in this tabernacle, that it gives instructions for how Aaron and his sons are supposed to cover them properly so that no one else can even see them or touch them whenever they move. So hopefully that gives you guys a little context for these few chapters. I'm gonna pray for just one second and then Gabe and I are just gonna talk about whatever we feel like the Lord highlights. So, God, will you please teach us even um and especially in a book like this that sometimes people have trouble understanding the significance to their lives? God, will you please give us wisdom and guidance? And will you give us the help of your spirit who leads us into all truth so that we may find life in this book of numbers and that we may encounter you personally through the wisdom of this book in Jesus' name? Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, Gabe, that's uh uh connected and also slightly disconnected scriptures there. Do you have any initial thoughts from those?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's interesting, even as you finish praying, um, like two things immediately came to mind. And when you said, Lord, teach us, I thought, man, isn't God so gracious to come and enter in with his people here and not just like be there, but give them very specific instructions. We're talking about a very ancient people who were gonna be influenced by a lot of cultures and coming out just being delivered out of slavery, yeah, having no idea how to live. He's not just like, hey, I got a promise for you, go figure it out, which sometimes we, you know, we feel like that's God's main tactic. You know, we like to like just trust him and go figure it out. But he actually gives them really specific things. And I and I just I've never thought about it. It's actually his kindness and his grace to kind of lay out what feels to us pretty rigid and it and is does become ritual, but very important ritual for them. And it's it's God's teaching them a thing, and it's honestly God preparing them, he's preparing them for promise. Like by giving him them rules and regulations, he's actually saying, I'm gonna give you a reason to have to obey these. Like he's not gonna give them to them if they're not gonna be brought into a place of using them. These aren't arbitrary, right? So he's actually giving them responsibility for a thing, he's going to lead them into promise. And that's why he's giving them these things. And it really just is his kindness.
SPEAKER_00And the and the first command that we re-re-read here that he gives them is the way that they're supposed to encamp, like the way they're supposed to set up their dwelling places, since they're currently in more of a temporary dwelling place as they go from place to place. Even still, he wants them to be so specific that they would all encamp. It's interesting that they encamp in their families.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, I think that we we believe that God cares about families and works in families and that there's something specific to that. But even more so, that they are aligned to all camp around this tabernacle, the place where God's presence is gonna dwell. There's obviously just something symbolically important to that.
SPEAKER_02Certainly saying that, you know, what what this nation of people will be known for is this God being the very center of their experience. And in fact, you know, I mean, when you read, you we find that neighboring nations came to know about this cloud and pillar of fire that they were led by. So, like he's saying, You're gonna be known by my presence, even in a visibly way, but a visible way, but it began with him centering all that they did with his presence. In fact, I was reading in a commentary this morning and I didn't know this, but 30 days before this is actually when they consecrated the most holy place and God descended and entered it. 30 days before these instructions. Like in my mind, it's kind of like all right, they were used to this, and now let's do this new thing. It was all fresh for them.
SPEAKER_00Man, that had to, that had to be quite amazing. And I've noticed in scripture, not that I want to jump all throughout the Old Testament, but I've noticed that this is kind of the struggle for the Israelites, is that they'll get into disobedience with God, they'll stop centering their life around his ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then of course they'll get conquered, they'll move into exile, and then they'll come back and they'll even, you know, get the temple already again. And then there are moments that I've noticed in scripture where they are waiting for God's presence to come back.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's really interesting is that God says, Hey, I want to be with you. It seems evident that God's always wanting to be with his people, that his presence would actually be there. But he does require a certain amount of holiness and you know, to be set apart to him, to follow his ways and to do things in the ways that he asks, in order for us to get to encounter his presence and experience the fullness of that.
SPEAKER_02That's so that's good. And there's I think there's no question that like this is a warning. Of course, there are some strong warnings here to these Israelite people, this this you know, nascent nation, as you will. And it's still a warning for us about the holiness of God. Like we are not to treat the holiness of God as just a casual, I mean, he's our it's it's wild, isn't it, that he's our friend who sits closer than our brother, yet he's the righteous king of the cosmos at the same time.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And that those live together, you know, in his character and nature is kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_00I think because I grew up in a more of a you know, Pentecostal, charismatic kind of environment, that I was really taught to have a close relationship with God and I was really taught to know him. And I grew up, I'm really grateful that I grew up with that. I don't know to what degree that I grew up having any fear of God. And I think as I've become older in time and as I've dealt with, you know, everything from different mistakes that I've made throughout life to needing God's wisdom to make good decisions in life. And um, you know, as being a pastor, having to share the word of God and hopefully, you know, explain it, divide it rightly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I there have been many times in my life that I've just felt this real fear of God. Man, I want to honor God, I want to do this right. And I think that sometimes we get real casual because we get to know God in a personal way, which is such a privilege. And that is the that is the privilege that Jesus provided for us once we get to the story of the cross. But I think that there are times when we lose this fear of God. And I think that these stories here, like when we have two of Aaron's sons that don't follow God's commands correctly as priests, and they die because of it, they they make this uh they make the fire the wrong way. And I I assume that was intentional, or at least it was at least very casual and uh you know disrespectful, if not intentional. I don't know exactly if they took a shortcut or what they did. But then also as you move in there into Numbers 4, I was I was so struck by God's commands to Aaron and his sons of how they're supposed to wrap this blue cloth on everything, how they're supposed to wrap everything with durable leather. I think that that statement is funny. Everything it just keeps saying durable leather. So I don't know what durable leather is, but because historians don't quote historians don't quite know what the substance was.
SPEAKER_02Some say goat skin, but it was actually popular to use dolphin skin. Wow. And so that's why like my old my old 1982 NIV translates it as um uh what is it, like sea sea cows, the hides of sea cows. So basically, if you don't have a hide of sea cow uh at your house sitting over your Bible, then you don't have a real Bible cover.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's true. I feel like we've been serving communion wrongly for years because we don't have any dolphin hide to to present it.
SPEAKER_02But it is amazing though, the specificity that God is giving them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's so specific. And and you know, it basically just says if anyone else looks up, even looks upon these items wrongly or touches them, you're gonna die.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that is some high stakes.
SPEAKER_02And I think it's important that we know that God is teaching something about himself more than he's teaching something about the way we handle objects. Yes. Even the way we handle objects is designed for them, at least in these in these rituals and these incredibly important sacrifices that was largely the working of their salvation at the time. It's still pointing to the character and nature of God. God is saying, This is how you deal with me, and this is how I deal with you. Yes. Which also looks like covenant faithfulness. That's what he's that's what's going to be happening, is God continues to keep his covenant and they continue to disobey and fall away from it.
SPEAKER_00That's true. Yeah, I mean, we definitely are gonna see that he's the relentless one. And it's not like it's not like that he is leading them to slavery with all these rules, he's leading them out of slavery, he's teaching them how to live in blessing, yeah, yeah. He's teaching them how to receive the good things that he has for them, but it's definitely with a sense of holiness. And I really I personally battle this all the time. I think because we have a pretty casual church culture, and a lot of modern modern church cultures are pretty casual.
SPEAKER_02I think casual society, even very casual society, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, most of us we don't even dress up the same way that people used to for church when I was a kid and things like that.
SPEAKER_02We should bring fedors back to church.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I I I will hold you to wearing one every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02Done.
SPEAKER_00So I just think that because we have such a casual society and a casual approach to things, that we can just live lives that are much less consecrated to God. And we get into this thing where we are fitting God into our lives instead of encamping around his presence and doing everything that we do centered around his presence with such care and with such intentionality. You know, I think that people, including myself, have become a lot less intentional in some ways about how they do things. We get really caught up in life. There are so many distractions available to us, so much comfort, so much entertainment, so many endless options of what we can do with our time and our attention that I think we can just become very casual and very careless, and we've lost the sense of intentionality about our obedience and the uh being set aside for worship. And all these things take so much intentionality and they take so much time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's what I was thinking. How much time all these things take to follow God correctly. I don't know. I just find that to be a challenge.
SPEAKER_02You know, if we point everything you just said, even to the New Testament, to imagine the the way, the way we care for ourselves in our own lives, as now we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And that this, the great high priest, you know, has made his dwelling in us, both individually and of course as the his corporate body, yeah, the church. But but are we willing to give the same sort of care to the way we host and encamp our lives around his presence as the place where he now abides, that they did here in the book of Numbers? And what does that look like? And I don't mean in this in the sense of strict, you know, ritualistic uh stifling religion. I'm meaning genuine, genuine reverent care, stewardship, um, holy fear of this great God that he's chosen to dwell in us. And there's this, I think, this this tension and conflict that we see, like, you know, even in Hebrews, we have this thing that they we don't no longer come to this temple and mountain that's shaking with fire and fear. We come to Mount Zion. And then we back it up. And Jesus, the one who's now the great high priest, who went into the holy place by the way of his own blood, not the blood of bulls and goats, we can we can come boldly before the throne of grace because we know that we'll receive him when we come. And so, like the fact that there's this place of fear and reverence, and yet there's a place where it's also removed, but not given us a sense of like flippant casuality. Like how those how do those things live together is interesting.
SPEAKER_00It is. It's I find it to be a quite a challenge. And you know, I know that you mentioned your your commentary there that you had read out of. I think it's really smart for people to use commentaries and and uh study Bibles at some points, especially in some of the books like this that have so much symbolism, and it can be difficult. My study Bible uh, you know, it started making the comparison, of course, of these curtains, because it keeps talking about how they're supposed to handle the curtains. And these curtains are supposed to the curtains separate a more common space from a more holy space, right? And so I think that you know, these are the same curtains that we see, the same idea that we see torn whenever Jesus is crucified. And the that the significance of it being torn top to bottom, these are huge curtains.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, there's that's not, I think the significance of that, right, is that no man can do that. Top to bottom is like God Himself ripped this curtain. And so it's such a privilege, actually, that we can look at this and understand the way that it worked. Because what we can understand is that God has allowed the holy place to come to where we are. Just as Jesus entered our world and came into our chaos and our pain and all these things, God has ripped the curtain and that we are not in physical danger when we enter the holy place. But in fact, the holy place has come to the commonplace. And at any moment we can encounter God in this holy place. And so I think that we just need to acknowledge this as such a great privilege of the idea that we get to enter the holy place at any moment, any time, and God makes us the holy place.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, He does, He dwells in us, not even just among us, but He dwells in us. There's no doubt that this, you know, there is the story is pointing to Christ, and the archetype is, you know, and that's not even just like using it in a loose sense, like in the very direct sense, and even in the multiple, you know, uh biblical resources that I scrolled, like there's a pretty clear consensus, and like I mentioned, Hebrews, of course, explicitly states it, but this here is forming a way that then Jesus Himself will eventually show that he is the best version of it, he's the better way. Yes, and so we read in this and we go, oh my goodness. And we go, oh, but Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Yes. This reading the Old Testament like this makes me abundantly grateful for the closeness and proximity that I have to Jesus, to his spirit, to God our Father. Just that access. So God thank you. We thank you, Lord. Gabe, do you want to pray us out?
SPEAKER_02I'd love to. Jesus, thank you that you are the great high priest, and that you made a way for us through your own blood. You you rent the curtain, you tore it, you divided the wall that separated us from you, a perfectly holy God, and that we do not have to fear anymore approaching your presence or your throne with the sort with the same sort of fear of death that these Israelites did in the book of Numbers. But Lord, may we come with the same reverence and awe and holy fear, recognizing your greatness and your grandeur and your power and your splendor and your majesty. Lord, may we may we live in that tension of you being the close friend who we can casually talk with, but you also being the great holy God of the universe, who we bow before and surrender our lives to. We lay down our crowns. We thank you that you've made a way for us to come to you. I pray that as a family of your people, as we walk through this book of numbers, you would reveal yourself to us, that we wouldn't just see censuses and numbers. And in fact, the Hebrew translation of this is wilderness. This is a story of the wilderness. May we see how even in the own places of our wilderness and our lives, you are always preparing us for promise. And you're always leading us not into bare ritual and regulation, but to your character and your nature. So in all of this, God, show us who you are, and may we be formed to the image of Jesus. Lord, I pray your blessing over every person listening to this. Lord, may they have a hunger for your word to eat this book in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. And I'm just I'm praying for everyone listening to this. I'm praying that right now that God will just really stir holiness in you, that you'll feel a compulsion to lay yourself bare before the Holy Spirit and and um in confession and repentance. Yeah, and that God will grant you a great depth of his spirit. Alright. Love you all. Thanks for joining us for a little more scripture. Let's keep digging into this book of numbers. Nobody get discouraged about it. Dig into it and see what you can find. Don't wait on us to tell you, but but go study and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you. Alright? Love you, Gib.
SPEAKER_02Love you, Zane.
SPEAKER_00Love you all. Bye.